Snapped (17 page)

As her mind drifted to her sister, she leaned in close to Baron so that he could hear her over the music. “Didn’t you say Frankie was going to the Knicks game tonight?” she asked. “I thought he was close to Tremaine, too.”

Baron nodded toward the crowd. “Here he comes. He wouldn’t miss this.”

Misa looked up and saw Frankie coming through the crowd, and she smiled at her approaching brother-in-law. Her smile faded when she noticed that Gillian was right behind him. Everyone at their table erupted in loud greetings and handshakes as Frankie arrived. Misa smiled again, although
she couldn’t help wondering if Camille knew that her husband was out with Gillian while she was at home alone again.

Frankie scanned the table and was surprised to see Misa sitting beside Baron. He smiled and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “I thought you were working late,” he said, remembering the excuse that Camille had given him for Shane being at their house yet again.

“I thought you were at a basketball game,” she countered, looking at Gillian, who was resplendent in a black halter top, jeans, and a pair of Louboutin ankle booties. Gillian’s well-toned arms were on display as she peeled out of her beautiful white fox fur jacket, revealing iced-out diamond bangles on her wrists. Her hair was pulled up into a neat bun on top of her head, and her baby hair lined her delicate face. With Gillian’s makeup so flawless and her earlobes glistening with diamond-and-platinum hoops, Misa suddenly felt like the spotlight had shifted off of her.

“We just came from the game,” Frankie explained. “The Knicks lost. What else is new?”

Gillian glanced at Misa and smiled weakly. She had seen Camille’s sister around before, but she wondered what the hell she was doing here tonight, when Camille was nowhere in sight. Frankie cleared his throat and leaned over to whisper to Baron.

“What’s Misa doing here?”

Baron frowned slightly. “I been kicking it with shorty, that’s all. So I invited her.”

Frankie looked at Baron. “That’s wifey now?” he asked, surprised.

Baron laughed. “Nah, son. I’m just hitting that.”

Frankie laughed, too, although he was still uneasy about
Misa being there. It felt strange to have his sister-in-law present, even though he really had nothing to hide. He couldn’t help wondering if Camille was using her sister to spy on him.

Common took to the stage and the crowd went crazy. As he performed one hit after another, their whole table rapped and sang along and everyone was having fun. Misa thought Common was sexy as hell, and she wasn’t the only one.

“Damn! He’s so beautiful,” Gillian said, smiling.

Misa had to laugh in agreement. “He sure is!”

Frankie, Baron, and the rest of the males at the table groaned in protest. “He ain’t all that.”

“Y’all wouldn’t even look twice at him if he wasn’t famous,” Tremaine said.

Gillian shook her head, smiling. “Don’t hate, guys. He’s handsome. End of story.”

“Exactly,” Misa agreed.

Gillian slapped Misa five and Baron looked at Misa like she was crazy.

“You think he looks better than me?” he asked, grinning.

Misa laughed. “No, baby. He definitely don’t look better than you.”

Gillian put her finger in her mouth as if she was making herself throw up. Frankie laughed and so did everybody else. Gillian looked at Baron. “Misa is only saying what you want to hear.” She looked at Misa and winked. “Smart move, girl. My brother loves to have his ego stroked.”

Baron tossed a napkin at his sister playfully and said, “I prefer having something else stroked, but my ego will do for now.”

The men laughed while Gillian, Misa, and the other young ladies at the table made disapproving faces and shook their heads. “You’re so nasty,” Gillian teased. She looked at Misa. “You’re too classy to waste your time with him.”

Misa smiled at the compliment, and shrugged. “I’m only keeping him around until I get backstage to meet Common.”

Gillian burst out laughing and Baron did, too. “Damn,” he said, shaking his head at Misa. “That’s cold.”

Misa was having a good time, and she softened a little toward Gillian. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, after all. As the show went on, she watched Frankie whisper in Gillian’s ear from time to time, and vice versa. They sat closely together and laughed at their own private jokes. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought they were a couple. Still, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The way they acted around each other tonight was no different than the way she’d seen them act on countless other occasions when Camille was present. She figured maybe she was just being territorial on behalf of Camille.

When Common was done with his performance, the crowd lingered as they danced to the music the deejay was spinning. Gillian felt like getting her two-step on, so she took Frankie by the hand and led him to the dance floor. He didn’t protest, following behind her as they made their way through the crowd.

Misa noticed, and kept an eye on them as they danced. She tried to recall the last time she’d seen Frankie dance with Camille. In fact, she wondered if her sister even knew that Frankie was here with Gillian tonight. She excused herself from the table and stepped outside. She waited until her BlackBerry got a good signal and then dialed Camille’s phone number.

“Hello?” Camille asked, sounding as if she were asleep despite the fact that it was only eleven thirty on a Thursday night.

“Camille, wake up,” Misa urged. “I’m at this party with Baron and Frankie’s here—with Gillian.”

Camille’s eyes widened, and she propped herself up on her elbow in her bed. “What party?” she asked.

“Tremaine’s birthday party,” Misa explained. “We’re at B.B. King’s in Manhattan. Frankie and Gillian came here after the game, and I just wanted to know if you knew they were here together.”

Camille tried not to sound upset that she knew nothing about Tremaine’s birthday party. “Well, he didn’t mention a party. But I don’t need to know Frankie’s every movement,” she said nonchalantly. “He probably forgot about the party until after the game and so he stopped by afterward. It’s no big deal.”

Misa felt that her sister was as blind as a bat. “So you knew he was with Gillian?” she asked, for clarification.

“Yeah,” Camille lied. “They’re just friends, Misa. Don’t start acting like Toya.”

Misa sucked her teeth. “Whatever. I’m just trying to look out for you, like any real sister would.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Camille said. “I’m going back to sleep.” She hung up the phone, leaving Misa to question why she had even bothered.

She went back inside and found Baron on the dance floor with some Latina. She strolled over boldly and interrupted, tapping the unknown woman on the shoulder. “Thanks for keeping him company,” she said. “I’ll take it from here.” Then she stood between the two of them and fell right into step.

He laughed as the Spanish woman stormed off, talking shit. “You got a lotta nerve, baby girl.”

“I sure do.” She turned and grinded her ample ass against his crotch as the music pulsated around them. She could feel him rise to attention and smiled. Spotting Frankie and Gillian across the dance floor, dancing close and smiling at each other, she shook her head. If Camille didn’t care that her husband was slipping through her fingers, neither did she.

After her sister’s phone call Camille got out of bed. Trying to sleep was pointless. She went downstairs and poured herself a glass of Grey Goose and cranberry juice. Moonlight peeked through the bay window above her kitchen sink, and she stood there in the glow of it, a thousand thoughts swarming in her head.

Frankie was at Tremaine’s birthday party—a party he had conveniently neglected to mention to her—with Gillian. Jealousy blanketed Camille. She took a long sip of her drink and closed her eyes as she swallowed. She asked herself how the hell she’d gone from a sought-after model to a desperate housewife sitting home with nothing to keep her company but a fully stocked bar. Shaking her head, she took her drink into the living room and opened up a large trunk in the corner. Pulling out two leather-bound photo albums, she sat down on the sofa and opened them up. A magazine clipping fluttered to the floor and Camille picked it up. She smiled, recalling her glory days in the fashion industry. That had been the happiest time of her life.

Camille had struggled with low self-esteem early in her
career as she watched thinner, lighter girls get jobs she felt that she was perfect for. Back when she was in high school, Camille had been proud of her beautiful brown skin. She and Toya were the most sought-after girls in their school, and neither of them was light. It wasn’t until she entered the fashion industry that her complexion became an issue. It gave her a bit of a complex. But when she met the man she would eventually marry, Camille’s poor self-image became a thing of the past. Frankie had wooed her with an intensity that swept her off her feet. As fine as he was, and with all the clout he had in the streets, it seemed that he only had eyes for Camille.

Looking down at the photo in her hand, she smiled again. It was part of an ad campaign she’d done for Gap back in the nineties. Camille sat back, sipping her cocktail as she flipped through the album and remembered the love she shared with Frankie in those days. He would accompany her to photo shoots and watch from the wings as she pivoted and posed. He seemed almost in awe of her, admiring her every move. From time to time, he would buy the clothes she modeled. He knew her size in everything from apparel to shoes in those days and would surprise her with beautiful things all the time. Camille had been told that she was pretty. But Frankie made her feel sexier, more beautiful, and more interesting to him than any of the other women he knew.

Camille had lost herself in him. She realized that now. As she turned the pages of the photo album, she felt as though she were leafing through the archives of her life, catching glimpses of her former self. There she was, smiling, long-legged, radiant, posing in one amazing picture after another. It occurred to her that she hadn’t smiled that hard in a long time.

She flipped to a picture of Frankie holding her in his arms
on the beach in Saint-Tropez. In the photo, Camille wore a tiny white string bikini and not an ounce of excess body fat was visible. She felt disgusted with herself now as she glanced down at her stomach lapping over her panties and her flabby upper arms glowing in the moonlight. She swigged the rest of her drink and went to pour herself another.

Camille returned to the living room with the entire bottle of vodka. She sat back down and refreshed her drink, then picked up the second photo album. Opening it to the first page, she stopped suddenly and her eyes instantly blurred with tears.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

She gazed down at a picture of her and Frankie on their wedding day. The two of them were beaming with joy, the sun setting in the distance. Frankie stood behind his wife, his hand placed affectionately on her belly. Camille remembered the very moment that photograph was taken. It was the end of their romantic wedding day and Misa had asked for one last shot of the newlyweds. When Frankie had held her that way, cradling her small waist delicately in his large hand, Camille found herself imagining the day when their child would be growing in her belly. She imagined Frankie’s strong embrace protecting both of them just this way. But that hadn’t happened. Frankie didn’t want any children, and Camille felt abandoned in a relationship that had fizzled into a boring routine in a big, lonely house.

She wiped the tears that fell from her eyes. This was not how she hoped her life would turn out, and she couldn’t seem to do anything to change it. When she paid more attention to Frankie than ever, he seemed to feel smothered by the attention. When she gave him space and stopped complaining, she sat home alone and drank until she passed out
while Frankie danced the night away with Gillian. She had always felt special because she was the woman Frankie loved, the one he gave the keys to his kingdom. That role had made her the envy of many women and a role model for others. But she was starting to wonder how long it would be before her horse-drawn carriage turned into a pumpkin. Her intuition was nagging at her, telling her that she was in danger of being replaced. That just couldn’t happen. Camille was too accustomed to the finer things in life to surrender it all to someone else. Frankie couldn’t leave her. If her marriage failed, not only would she be terribly hurt, she would be embarrassed. Camille wasn’t having that.

She went back to the trunk and pulled out boxes of old photos. She went back to the couch and sat there for several hours sifting through one memory after another. In the last box, she sighed when she saw a picture of Frankie, Gillian, and Baron taken at Great Adventure. The sepia-colored photo featured the trio dressed as Wild West outlaws, guns and all. As Camille gazed at the picture, the smirk on Gillian’s face irked her. She noticed that one of the straps on the thin, pale top Gillian wore had fallen provocatively, revealing her bare shoulder. Frankie and Baron flanked her, both of them looking ready to do anything it took to protect her. Camille tossed the picture across the room and guzzled the rest of her drink before staggering down the long hallway toward the staircase. She was tipsy, and she tripped a little as she made her way up to her bedroom.

Tumbling onto her bed, Camille sighed deeply. She looked at the clock, and saw that it was after four o’clock in the morning. Frankie still wasn’t home. As she drifted to sleep, she couldn’t shake the image of Gillian’s smirking face staring back at her from that sepia print, while Frankie stood by her side.

Octavia rushed out of school on a Wednesday afternoon. Since this was one of her grandfather’s dialysis days, she was supposed to be heading to her dance class. But today she was going to do her own thing. For once, she was determined to break a rule after a lifetime of following them to the letter.

Octavia had always been well behaved to the point of being downright predictable. Because she was the only child, her mother lavished her with things and expected her to work hard in return. Good grades, a clean room, respect, and obedience were all that Dominique asked of her. Octavia had no problem with any of that. She loved her mother and was grateful for all the wonderful things and opportunities she’d been given. But lately she was beginning to think that, in a lot of ways, her mother was a hypocrite.