Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (22 page)

SEVENTEEN

They sat in a back booth at Starbucks as they waited for Shay’s attorney to show up, with Shay on one side, Simone and Jules on the other.  They sipped lattes and small talked, although there was so much that needed to be said.

       “So how’s life in Atlanta, Simone?” Shay asked.

       Simone smiled.  “Pretty good.”

       “Really?  Any good looking guys I need to know about?”

       “Good looking guys?” Jules asked, surprised.  “A good looking guy is why you’re in the mess you’re in now. No you didn’t ask about no men.”

       “Like you can talk,” Shay said and Simone interrupted before they got going.

       “I like Atlanta,” Simone said.  “My beauty salon is pretty much taking care of itself, thanks to my able manager, and I’m just grateful to God to have something to keep me busy.”

       “I was surprised you came back,” Jules said, “to be honest with you.”

       “Had to,” Simone said.  “Shay called.”

       “That’s right,” Shay said, grinning.

       “Whatever,” Jules said to Shay. And then she looked at Simone.  “How long you think you can hang around here?”

       “As long as it takes,” Shay replied for Simone.  “This my life we’re talking about.  I know she ain’t gonna just up and leave me like this.”

       Jules shook her head.  “I’m talking to Simone,” she said, so tired of Shay and her selfish ways that she didn’t know what to do. 

       “I don’t know yet,” Simone said, “but not very long I wouldn’t think.  I have an able manager who pretty much runs the salon, as I said, but I don’t want her to start getting any ideas.”

       Jules laughed.  “I know that’s right.”

       “I know that’s stupid,” Shay said.  “Why would she get any ideas?  You own it.  She just working there.”

       “Spoken like a true person who’s never owned a thing,” Jules said.

       “What’s that supposed to mean?” Shay replied.

       “It means human nature is something else, that’s what it means.”

       Shay looked at Jules with pure hatred in her eyes.  “Human nature, huh? You mean like the fact that you’re still with Jeremy Druce after eighteen years and still believe he’s gonna marry you?”

       “Shay!” Simone said, knowing that the subject of Jeremy was always a very sore point for Jules.

       “It’s all right,” Jules said.  “I’m used to her now.”  Then she looked at Shay.  “At least I got a man,” she said.

       “I got a man, too.”

       “Yeah, one that’s sitting in some jail cell trying to put the blame on you.”

       “I got plenty men,” Shay continued as if Jules had never responded.  “Plenty, all right?  You might have your little company, you might have your little college degree, but that don’t make you better than me.  In fact, it’s just the opposite because you know and I know that if it wasn’t for all those little suggestions I’ve been giving you, all those marketing schemes you present to your clients as if you thought them up, you’d go out of business tomorrow.”

       “In your dreams,” Jules said incredulously.  “We barely talk, Shay, and when we do it’s always about you asking me to get you out of one jam or another one. Girl, please.  You’re so unstable you couldn’t keep an ant in business.”

       “Yeah, whatever, Jules.”

       “Okay, ladies,” Simone said, accustomed to refereeing her hair stylists, too, “let’s not get into the tit-for-tat.”

       “I’m just sayin’,” Shay said.  “She need to sweep around her own out-house before she come sweeping around mine.”

       “How poetic,” Jules said.

       “Where is this attorney?” Simone asked, not in the least interested in their bickering.  “Who is he, anyway?  Is he really good?”

       “He’s one of the best,” Jules said.  “His name is Ethan Graham and they call him Bulldog Graham around here.  He’s excellent.  He ain’t the problem.  Shay’s the problem.”

       “I am not!”

       “Yes, you are,” Jules said firmly.  “All you have to do is tell the state attorney that you had nothing to do with any drug buys and drug drops and all that craziness Mookie’s trying to pin on you.  Then they’ll drop the charges and that’ll be the end of it.  They couldn’t care less about getting you.  It’s Mookie and his operation they want.”

       “And I’ll have to testify against him, won’t I?”

       “Of course you will, Shay, what you think this is?”

       “Then I’m not interested,” Shay said.  “I’m no snitch, okay?  Everybody knows that Shay-Shay don’t roll like that, okay?”

       “When
Shay-Shay
gets life in prison, maybe even death row if they uncover some nasty little murders in that drug operation of Mookie’s, and
Shay-Shay’s
rolling for real, then I want to see how proud you are then.  I want to see how great you hold up that tough girl reputation of yours then.”

       “Whatever,” Shay said with a lot less vitriol, and Simone, understanding sore spots better than most, decided to change the subject.

       “I’ve been offered outrageous sums of money if I sell my shop,” she said, and this got both of her sisters’ attention.

       “Really?” Jules said. 

       “Oh, yeah.  I’m getting offers all the time.  My place is prime real estate in Atlanta, they tell me, and the big boys want it bad.”

       “And you aren’t interested?”

       “Not really, no,” Simone said slowly, a little surprised that Jules would ask that.

       “And why not?” Shay asked.  “You all alone in Atlanta, with nothing going for you from what I can see.  You should sell that little salon of yours while the going’s hot and come to Miami, where you belong.”

       “I doubt if I belong here, Shay,” Simone said.

       “Well it ain’t like you belong in Atlanta.  What you got there?  Other than that salon?”

       “I’ve got a nice apartment.  I’ve got a nice cat.  I’ve got a wonderful church and community that fully embraces me.  I’ve got a lot there, Shay.”

       “But do you have blood there?  Are your sisters there?  Your family?  That’s the point, Simone.  You need to be here with us.  With me and Jules.  We need you.”

       Shay said this so heartfelt that even Jules looked uncomfortable.  Simone, however, looked alarmed.  She stared at both of her sisters.  They were joking.  They had to be!  She couldn’t come back here.  They had to know that.  And that was why she decided to laugh it off.

       “Yeah, right,” she said.  “Y’all need me, all right.”

       “We do,” Shay said earnestly.  “Don’t we, J?”

       Simone looked at Jules.  Surely she wouldn’t play along with this foolishness.  She didn’t need Simone.  She never really did.  But Jules stared at her latte, took a sip, and then looked at Simone.  “It would be nice,” she said. 

       Simone could hardly believe it.  “What would be nice?”

       “If you consider selling up and moving back to Miami.  It would be nice.”

       Simone was dumbstruck.  Did they not forget why she left in the first place?  How desperately unstable she had become?  But before she could voice that disbelief, before she could express in no uncertain terms what she thought about the “niceness” of their request, Shay’s attorney finally showed up and took a seat directly across from her. 

       Ethan Graham was a man in a hurry.  Simone could see that right off.  He didn’t waste time on small talk, he didn’t pretend that he was in the least interested in their well-being.  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, pulling papers out of his briefcase, “but I was held up in court.  Now, Miss Serita, have you thought about what we discussed?”

       “Excuse me, Ethan,” Jules said, always offended by ill-manners, “I don’t think you’ve met our sister.”

       It was then that Ethan so much as looked Simone’s way.  And when he did, and saw the beauty of her grass-green eyes, the smoothness of her toned brown skin, the elegance of her long hair now in well-parted, neat braids down her back, he seemed transfixed.  “Hello,” he said.  “I’m sorry. I’m Ethan Graham.”

       He extended his hand and Simone shook it.  “I’m Simone Rivers,” she said.  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Graham.”

       “Ethan, please.”

       “Ethan.”

       “So what’s the verdict, Ethan?” Jules asked him.  “Is there any way around Shay’s lack of cooperation?”

       “You’re not from around here?”  Ethan asked, still staring at Simone.

       “No,” Simone said, suddenly uncomfortable with his undisguised interest.

       “Of course not.  I would have remembered you if you were.  Where’re you from?”

       “Atlanta.”

       “Atlanta?  No sweat?  I got my first job in Atlanta, in the public defender’s office.”

       “Good for you.  Good seasoning I’d bet.”

       “Excellent seasoning.  Where in Atlanta?”

       “Ethan,” Jules said.  “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is about Shay, in case you’ve forgotten.”

       Ethan flushed, which made Simone smile.  First appearances could be so deceiving.  When she first saw the man, she would have never guessed that he could be embarrassed by anything.  “Yes,” he said to Jules, “you’re right.  As usual.”  He said this with a winning smile and then finally, if not reluctantly, removed his gaze from Simone.

       Simone, however, kept her eye on him.  He was very good looking, for one thing, with a very prominent air about him that made folks pay attention.  He wasn’t very tall, just around five-ten, she suspected, and he was almost thin as a rail, but there was something strong about him, something real.  His dark brown skin, his low-cut hair, his big, gorgeous brown eyes, his full, beautiful lips.  He looked no-nonsense and behaved, for the most part, no-nonsense, but for some odd reason that simple quality immediately endeared him to her.   He was a man with more than sex on the brain, she could tell, even when he was all but gawking at her.  She’d had her share of men staring at her, trying to get next to her, laying all kinds of lines on her, but she wouldn’t place Ethan Graham in that category at all.   He seemed above all of that, a man who admired a woman’s looks without getting all nasty with it.  And the fact that he could pay her attention, without it disgusting her the way it usually did, didn’t hurt her estimation of him, either.  Then she shrugged it all off.  It didn’t matter, anyway.

       “Have you thought about what we discussed, Serita?” he said just as his cell phone began ringing.  He reached for it, checked out the caller ID, and then held up one hand as he answered.  While he talked on his cell, Jules and Shay looked at Simone and were smiling.  Jules even mouthed the words,
he likes you
, with over-exaggerated lip movement.  Simone rolled her eyes, which made her sisters laugh.

       “Sorry about that,” Ethan said when he flipped shut his cell.  “Now where were we?”

       “You like Simone, don’t you?”  Shay said and Jules looked at her in horror.

       “Shay!” she said, astounded.  Simone, however, could only smile, especially when Ethan looked as if he’d just been busted.