What a Fool Believes (13 page)

Read What a Fool Believes Online

Authors: Carmen Green

BOOK: What a Fool Believes
8.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“What's the penalty for assault and battery?” she asked, eating one french fry at a time, as if they were an expensive delicacy.
Byron choked on his and coughed, beating a yellow light. “Are you trying to get me fired? I gave you a break today with your boss. All I'm asking is for a few days to help you, and you want to know the penalty for A and B? Prison, dammit! Locked up for the longest possible sentence, if I have anything to do with it. Are we clear?”
She stared at him openmouthed. “No need to get hostile. Make a right, third building on the right,” she snapped back.
Byron slammed on the brakes in front of the town house, got out, and started getting Tia's boxes out of the trunk. She finally made her way around back, her bags of food clutched to her chest.
“Put your coat on,” Byron ordered, his breath fanning out in a cloud.
“I'm going inside in just a second.”
“Tia,” he growled, his head starting to hurt even more. “I went all the way back to work to get that coat. Put it on.”
“Fine.” She slid the coat on without further argument.
“Which place?” he asked.
“Up the stairs, the door on the left.”
“Is she home?” Byron wondered. There appeared to be no movement inside.
“I guess. I told you she's recovering from her breakup and doing renovations.”
“Good grief,” he muttered, garnering a look from Tia.
“What's your problem?”
“You, your friends, and your luck. Scariest thing I've ever seen.”
“Not our fault. We loved lousy men.”
He knew that, but acknowledging it would make him feel sorry for her, as he'd done for LaPrincess, and then she'd go back to Manuel.
“Or,” he said aloud, just to needle her, “you're all crazy. You've been driving me crazy since the day I met you.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Tough.” Tia rang the bell, waited, then laid into it.
“Don't you think that's being a little obnoxious?”
She didn't answer and, for five minutes straight, punched the bell until it sounded like a screeching cat. Byron shifted the boxes and yanked her hand. “Come on. I know a women's shelter that'll take you for one night.”
She folded her arms across her body, her posture saying she meant to have her way.
“I'm not going to a shelter! I'd go home with you before I'd go there. You wouldn't like that, would you?”
Byron was aware of all that he'd gone through for Tia. Even though this was his night off, and he was currently on his personal time, he was aware of every hellacious moment they'd spent together. But then he remembered when they'd been eye to eye, his body to hers, and he'd felt real wanting for her.
Even now, Tia was oblivious to his thoughts. Her going home with him was the just the beginning of what she could do for him.
Her gaze challenged him.
“You have no idea what I'd like, Tia. If I were you, I'd keep ringing that bell.”
The depth of truth in his words caused her eyebrows to arch in that incredibly sexy way that was classically Tia. All he could think about was running his lips over hers and kissing every inch of her body.
If only he could put the boxes down and show her what was on his mind.
He could see her retreating by the twist to her mouth and the way she rolled her eyes. “I don't want to be the test dummy for your stun gun.” Tia spun around and rapped on the door. “Megan! Open this door! I think she's coming,” Tia said to Byron, although she didn't turn around again.
To his surprise, the inside lights flipped on, and a woman snatched back the curtain. “Go away. I don't want company.”
“Meg, I need a place to stay.”
“Go to Rachel's. I can't have company right now.”
“What are you? On a personal time-out? I need you,” Tia yelled through the door.
“No.”
The curtain fell back in place, and Bryon turned to go down the stairs. Tia ... at his house ... Everyone in hell was about to get a glass of ice water, apparently.
Tia smacked the door with her palm. “Megan Patricia Lewis, I've been your best friend since college. I've nursed you through the breakup of forty-six boyfriends, your two-day lesbian phase, and your religious conversions, all six of them! I loaned you money for having that mole removed from your nipple and for your Brazilian wax, which you didn't even tell me about, or else I wouldn't have been caught by surprise by Mr. ‘cut it all off !' Now if you can't do me this one favor, the one and only time that I've ever asked you for anything, then you're just a lousy, selfish, crazy piece of crap for a friend!”
Byron just shook his head and tried not to absorb the insanity. He also vowed to go to church on Sunday.
They didn't hear a sound from inside.
Fed up, he pounded the door with his fist.
“Hey! Tia was in jail all last night,” Byron barked.
“And if you don't let her stay here, I'm going to take her back to jail and lock her up.”
The curtain didn't move as Tia stood at the door, shivering.
Byron lowered the boxes to get his handcuffs. He wasn't taking any chances. “Come on. We're going back.”
“She's my friend,” Tia replied confidently, trying to see through the curtained glass. “Just give her a minute.”
Byron counted to sixty. Obviously, not that good a friend. He reached for Tia's delicate wrist.
The door creaked open. “Is that true?”
Tia launched herself inside the door. “Yes. It's just for a couple days. Bless you, Megan.”
Tia flipped on lights as she walked inside, Megan trailing, dousing them. Byron retrieved the boxes and unloaded them inside the foyer, went back for the duvet, and stopped inside the living room. He stared at the walls and wondered if this was his worst nightmare come true. Tia flipped on the overhead living room light.
The pictures on the wall confirmed it. This was the tenth floor of hell.
“Oh! Crap!” Tia exclaimed, and dropped her bags of dinner, as she stared at the life-size drawing of a man on the wall, his private parts obliterated by the real hammer still wedged into the drywall. Pink insulation poked out of the crotch area, tufts on the floor.
Megan used the heel of her hand to massage her temple. “I haven't been myself lately.”
Byron eased his hand up toward his gun as he looked at all the depictions of the woman's former lover. In each one, he was castrated in some form or another.
“Want some water?” Megan offered, shuffling off to the kitchen without waiting for their answer.
“Feels like I'm in a horror museum,” Tia whispered to Byron as she took off her coat.
For once they were on the same side.
“I didn't know they had museums for the criminally insane.”
“She's just venting. A lot. This is hardly criminal. A few drawings.”
“Fourteen. Definitely insane.”
“Here's your water.” Megan handed them drinking glasses full of red and brown paint. “I think I'm thirsty.” She shuffled off again, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.
Byron shook his head, his gaze never leaving Tia's.
“Thanks for the ride,” she told him, now that the level of insanity in the room had dimmed.
He laughed. Spontaneous and hard. “You're kidding, right? You can't stay here. She gave us paint for water and went to the bathroom to get herself a drink. She's a total whack job.”
Tia looked around like she understood the madness. “That is a little off, but, whatever. Think of it this way. She's not hurting anyone. And she didn't say anything about hearing voices. I'm staying. I'll be fine here.”
Byron allowed Tia to put her hand on his back and walk him to the front door. She took his cup of paint and set it in the corner on the floor.
“Admit that she's crazy, and I might let you stay.”
Her mouth turned down in a smirk. “Megan is going to be fine. I can handle her.”
“Why would I believe that?
You
can't handle
you
. You still have Ms. Wilkes's dandruff under your fingernails.”
Tia's lips folded into her mouth, and before he knew it, they were chuckling. She smiled, and it reminded him of the dawning of a new day. Despite everything they'd been through, he wanted to kiss her again. To pull her against him, wrap her in his arms, and taste her breath. Hadn't she mentioned something about a Brazilian wax? He wouldn't be able to get that off his mind, even if he had a rocket launcher.
Tia leaned into him, and he touched her arms to hold her off, but his hands defied his brain and let her come closer, until their mouths hovered a whisper apart. Time slipped.
Then he saw the tip of her tongue. The last cord of resistance dissolved, and he let his tongue greet hers. All the feelings he'd suppressed beneath duty and responsibility roared to the surface, and he let lust and desire flow through his body.
They were finally on the same page, in an alignment he understood. He really wanted to take her home. Byron lifted her closer to him, pressing the air from between them. Dressed, he couldn't get any closer.
“Excuse me,” Megan said, blasting light on them.
Byron's eyes struggled to assimilate to his surroundings. He bolted away from Tia, sanity rushing to his brain while all his stored sexual energy pooled between his legs.
“What are you looking for?” Tia asked Megan, rubbing her hands over her mussed hair. Her lips looked so delicious. Byron had to look away before he made a fool of himself.
Megan looked confused. “I forgot. Good night.” She went to her bedroom, closed the door, and burst out crying. Her heartbreaking sobs had the same effect as if she'd tossed ice on a candle.
Tia looked up at Byron, a thousand words rushing to her eyes even before she opened her mouth.
He braced himself for rejection, although he knew he should have been the one to go there first.
“I don't regret that kiss,” Tia said, “so, don't think I'm going to take it back.”
How had she known he was going to say they should have been smarter and not let their emotions get the best of them?
Logic dictated he be reasonable, except his penis was like a lightning rod for her. If he took back everything, he'd sound like Fred. And Byron was no punk.
Besides, regret wasn't anywhere close to how he was feeling. “I'm not taking it back.” He caressed her jaw, wishing he had more time to explore her. But she and her friend were fragile. Too fragile. In the light of day, this would look differently. “In fact, that's the last thing on my mind.”
“Good.”
“Promise me you're not going to leave here,” Byron said, trying to create some emotional distance, or else he wouldn't leave Tia, tonight or any time soon.
“Promise.”
“You two aren't going on a secret mission of seek and destroy?”
“That's ridiculous. I don't even know where Dante is.”
Byron was impressed and went three for three. “Promise you're going to forget the past and look ahead.”
She shrugged tentatively. “Promise, with a caveat.”
He was on the porch as she stood in the doorway. Cold air brushed past him and scattered goose bumps across her arms, but she didn't seem to notice. “He tried to destroy me. Break me down, humiliate me, and strip me of my self-esteem and all that I've worked for. I have to get him. It's the principle. One good time—don't worry, nothing fatal—then I'll move on. Thanks for everything, Officer Rivers. I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon. Good night.”
For the second time that night, a door closed in his face, and Byron stood there, knowing the other shoe he'd been waiting to drop was firmly wedged up his butt.
Chapter Sixteen
All of Tia's senses sprang to life as her eyes peeled open to off-key singing, the thin odor of oil-based paint and pancakes. Her gut did a bump and roll, peeved at the combination of stomach acid and the two bottles of Pinot Grigio she and Megan had consumed last night.
Right now she just felt like the empty bottle that gaped at her from the floor. Sapped of its usefulness and discarded.
She blotted out Megan's singing, turning on the air mattress, when her hip hit wood. It seemed the bed had deflated some during the night. Pity shot through her nose to her eyes, making them water.
Not only was she single and homeless, but she had a big butt, too. A dry sob tore from her throat, and a putrid cloud of bad breath filled the air around her face.
Tia scrunched up her nose.
What had her life come to? What had she done wrong in a past life to deserve this?
She pushed to her hands and knees, her ears ringing. She eyed her swinging boobs beneath her pajama top and wondered if she and the girls would ever be happy again.
When
was
the last time she'd been happy?
Things with Dante hadn't been great for a long time, Tia admitted to herself. She'd been holding out, hoping they'd return to the way they'd been accustomed to. To their various friends and associates, their relationship had been the one others aspired to achieve.
They'd been the young, urban professionals, driving cute, fast cars, club-hopping through Midtown, with their place close enough to Atlanta that all they had to do was look out the window and gaze at the skyline, with the dawning sun.
They'd had it all. It seemed.
But Tia knew of the scars and the breaks in the double-paned glass of their false life. Yet she'd stayed, hoping things would get better. Waiting for her life to mirror the fairy tale she'd created.
The truth was, she'd wanted it to work. She didn't believe in abandoning relationships.
She'd learned that from her mother. Her father gambled like he had the money of a sheik, but had Millicent Amberson left him? No. Every night, as her father slept, her mother did everything short of an exorcism, all to no avail. Lately, she'd joined the “if you can't beat 'em” school of thought.
Tia recognized that road as the one she'd lived on for over a year. She'd tried to wait out Dante's run of bad luck and irresponsibility and to be there when he turned back into the man she'd fallen in love with.
She pushed off her hands and stood, wrapping herself in an old summer dress, which would have to make do as a robe. This was her road now. This dead-end street. Humiliation seized her throat, anger drying the stale saliva on her tongue. She had to retaliate, if Dante ever turned up. On principle. Just as she'd told Byron last night.
Thinking of their kiss, she peered out the window, expecting to see his squad car, but the lot was full of civilian vehicles waiting to be driven to work. She thought of her towed car but didn't have the energy to get angry. The truth was she couldn't afford gas or parking right now, so taking the bus was the cheaper option.
Tia wouldn't go so far as to thank ugly Ida Wilkes, but she had eliminated one decision for Tia to make every day. Now Tia would add that gas and parking money to the pot she was saving for an attorney.
She searched for Byron's car again but was disappointed.
She was just feeling sorry for herself, and maybe the sad woman inside of her sought his attention because it was better than none at all. Tia understood these feelings. She knew she'd get stronger, and that eventually, Byron would be part of her past, as Dante was.
Instead of her mood improving, her heart sank a little further. Tia watched as a lady scampered down the stairs of her town home and raced for the bus stop. The bus pulled away, reminding Tia that she needed to get ready for work.
Energized, she hurried into the living room for her bags and stopped short.
Megan was on the six-foot-high scaffolding, completing the
k
after f-u-c in lime green. She'd already drawn ugly depictions of Sonny below, while singing a bad rendition of Kelly Price's “Heartbreak Hotel.” “Now I see that you've been doin' wrong, played me all along... .”
“Hey,” Tia said tentatively.
“Hey. And made a fool of me,” Megan sang, staring at Tia, then slopping the brush onto the wall.
Tia covered her hair with a sheet of newspaper. “Um, Sweetie, the workmen are coming in this morning. You're not really helping them.”
“I know.” Megan stabbed a period after the
k
.
“Just working out a little aggression?”
“Yep. Just a little,” Megan said in a tiny voice. “You did some nice work in the other room.”
Tia's rank mouth soured a bit more. She passed her bag on the floor, went into the living room, and couldn't contain her laughter. “We're crazy,” she exclaimed.
She'd drawn a picture of the last time she'd seen Dante. Bad Jheri curl, too small suit, a five o'clock shadow that was just nasty, and yellow teeth. He looked like Shenaynay on crack.
Shaking her head, Tia grabbed her bag. “I hope they tear this wall down first.”
“They are. That's why I painted it. The evidence will be gone by next Friday.”
Megan had gotten down, and Tia patted her shoulder. “I'm glad to hear your voice returning to normal. I've got to get to work before I have no job to go back to.”
“Want me to call in a bomb scare? That'll buy you some time.”
Tia blinked, a little scared. “Dang, Megan, step away from the detonator switch. People aren't fond of desperate women doing stupid things if they're not a size two and on TV. You'd better get ready for work, too. Aren't you on days now?”
“I got put on leave.”
Megan walked into the other room, humming the chorus.
“When did that happen?”
“The day after I was at the airport. Apparently, Clayton County is concerned I might not be stable. Want me to pick up some male voodoo dolls later? We can drink wine, play with the Ouija board, and have fun.”
The phone book balanced the lamp from the living room. Tia sat on the floor and leafed through it.
“Sorry. No time for witchcraft, but you can call my cousin Leroy. I've got to get an attorney to get my house back.”
“It's a woman, right?” Megan said. “I can scare her out of there. Women are wimps.”
While Tia entertained the thought, the last image of Ms. Wilkes holding her hair in her hand, a murderous look on her face, had convinced Tia to stay with her current plan. “Thanks, Sweetie, but I need to do this legally.”
“... Heartbreak Hotel,” Megan sang. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Tia glanced at the clock and scribbled several names of attorneys on the back of her Macy's bill. Grimacing at where she knew the balance hovered, she made a good list and put the phone book back under the lamp.
Dialing one that promised twenty-four-hour service, she waited. “Cavitt and Savage. This is Rusty Cavitt.”
Tia's eyebrow itched. The man sounded like he'd sucked on one too many nails.
“Hello. What is your retainer fee?” she asked.
“What's the problem?”
“I was granted my condo in a legal settlement against my boyfriend, who I lived with, but before the court date, he rented the condo. I own it. Judge Dunn granted it to me.”
“So how'd he rent it?”
Tia sighed, not wanting to relive the whole thing. “Before we got the order from the judge, he was living there and rented it. Then I got into a fight with Ms. Wilkes, the tenant, and the police were there ... It's complicated. I just need to know how much you cost.”
Rusty snorted. “I'm only guessing where this will go, so conservatively, seventy-five hundred dollars.”
“You're kidding.”
“Now you listen up,” he said real friendly. “There's two things I never joke about. God and money.”
“Do you take a payment—”
“Little sister, before you go on, let me tell you somethin'. I do my business like in the old days. Cash on the barrel. If you want me as your legal counsel, I cost seventy-five hundred dollars. If you don't have that retainer, we can part friends now and hang up.”
“Thank you,” she said belatedly and took his advice.
Two additional calls resulted in chuckles, accompanied by the same fee or higher. Discouraged, Tia opened the phone book and got more names, staying away from the attorneys with ads. She flipped back a few pages, hoping the farther back in the book, the cheaper.
Her logic wasn't fail-safe, and she could feel her heart sinking with every no.
Finally, she got up, kicking aside the fast-food containers from last night, and dragged her bag with her.
“Meg, I'm going to shower. Are you sure you don't want to stop that and maybe talk to somebody?”
A fist-sized circle emerged as Megan stroked white paint over Sonny's crotch in the latest depiction of him. “That's a little like the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? If you want to stay here, don't judge me, and I won't throw you out. Agreed?”
Megan never once turned from her painting, but the low-grade undercurrent of anger resonated all the way to the bathroom. “Okay,” Tia said.
“When you get home, we can finish the one of Dante. Maybe add fire to his hair. It
is
combustible. Wouldn't that be fun to see in person?”
A gurgle erupted in Tia's throat. “Yeah. No, definitely not.”
Would the three-day hold down at Grady's mental hospital apply here? “I have to think about a part-time job. The attorney is going to be expensive,” Tia added.
Megan made gray tears on Sonny's face, with a thin brush, then neatened them with her pinky finger. Tia watched her facial features and how they softened as she caressed the paint into position. She still loved him. Enough to hate him.
“Part-time job? You can hardly keep up with the job you have now. Sell those purses. You have so many, you won't miss a few.”
Tia regarded the beloved box of bags that sat discarded in the crowded hallway. Had there been enough room in her temporary bedroom, in the midst of Megan's forgotten drum set, the AB Scissor, and the sewing machine, Tia would have slept with her purses. Besides losing the man she'd been committed to, she'd lost her lifestyle. With nothing to hold on to but the bags as reminders of better days, Tia felt a lonely panic climb her body.
“I can't,” she said, knowing the whisper in her voice magnified her weakness.
She needed Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and her coveted Charles David, which she bought off a wild-eyed woman last New Year's Eve at the Hilton for fifty dollars. Her bags were handpicked. And worth thousands.
Tia stroked the handle of her Marc Jacobs, then settled on the Baby Phat green vinyl tote, pushing through the box for her Gucci and Coach bags.
“I can't sell them. Hey, they're not all here.”
“She must have kept some. Probably didn't know the ones she kept weren't the most valuable. People sure are stupid.”
Anger flamed in Tia's stomach as weariness surrounded her. “I'm so tired of fighting for everything.”
“You can't give up. We can just go over there and get them back.”
“I can't right now. I have to focus on getting my place back. Besides, Byron wasn't kidding about taking me back to jail.” Tia unwrapped two Tums and chewed. “Jail just isn't my thing. I'm going to shower, then get out of here.”
“Suit yourself.” Megan started singing “Heartbreak Hotel” in an off-key soprano.
Tia hurried into the bathroom, taking two additional bags with her.
Sell them?
Megan was high on paint fumes.
Resolve strengthened Tia. She'd find another job today. If she just opened up her mind and put good thoughts into the universe, good things would happen. She did a modified meditation as she hopped into the shower.
When she was finally dressed and headed out the door, she could feel the good vibes all the way to the bus stop.
Her head high, Tia knew her life was about to change. Not even the sight of Byron's patrol car trailing the bus to her job could dampen her spirits.

Other books

Ghosts & Gallows by Paul Adams
The Color of Death by Elizabeth Lowell
Ready to Wed by J. L. Berg
Highway Robbery by Franklin W. Dixon
In Flight by R. K. Lilley
Red Iron Nights by Glen Cook
UnBound by Neal Shusterman
Fortunes Obsession by Jerome Reyer
The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman