The Glamorous Life 2: All That Glitters Isn't Gold Read online

  Her first thought was to get her son and take him out the back door, but she thought again. The home invader may not have come alone, his partner could be watching the back door. All she knew at that very moment was that she had to act quickly. She gently shook her son. “Junior, Junior,” she quietly said to him in a whisper. No soon as he opened his eyes up, she put her finger up to his lips, motioning him to be quiet, by zipping his lips.

  “Daddy’s”— he tried to utter, but she shushed him before he could get it out and by the look on her face, he knew better than to say anything. She continued to try to analyze the situation. She could hear the intruder in her son’s room, searching for what she had no idea.

  “Listen, be very quiet. There are some bad guys in the other room, and I think they may be here to hurt us. So I will need you to be very quiet and we’re going to activate our superpowers, okay.”

  Junior nodded.

  More footsteps; there were two of them. When she heard them headed down the hall to the guest bedroom, she knew that after they left the guest quarters then they would be coming to her bedroom. That’s when she grabbed her son’s hand and made a quick but quiet run for the basement.

  Now what? She thought about hiding behind the hot-water tank when she heard the door open. “The basement,” one of the men said. She picked up Junior in her arms and quickly scurried across the floor. Luckily, the basement was filled with junk, so that they could not see her as she shoved her son down the crawl space and then proceeded to squeeze herself into the small space behind him.

  “Come out wherever you are,” the man called out. “There’s no way out.”

  She heard the footsteps coming down the stairs before she saw them. Seconds after, through the louvers of the small door on the crawl space, the black Nike boots appeared and started searching the basement. When there was no sign of them, he was pissed. “Where the fuck this bitch at, man?” The owner of the Nike boots got frustrated and kicked the box of Christmas decorations that Calliope had been meaning to put up on the shelf, almost startling Junior. Calliope quickly put her hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t let out a peep. “Hang in there, baby. We’re going to be okay.”

  She just continued to watch, hoping and praying that the intruders wouldn’t find them.

  “You got them?” Another voice called down from the top of the steps.

  “Naw”—the one wearing the Nike boots sucked his teeth—“they ain’t here.” He sounded disappointed.

  “Where the fuck could they have gone?” Deep-voice demanded to know from upstairs.

  “I saw her when she turned out the light in the bedroom.” He shook his head feeling like he had failed at his task. “They gotta be in this house some damn where.”

  “Well, we looked, they ain’t here.” Nike boots headed up the stairs and when he got halfway to the top, he stopped and said, “We’ll just have to go with plan B then.”

  Calliope exhaled a deep heavy breath when she heard the basement door shut. She removed her hands off of Junior’s mouth but not before telling him to keep quiet, then, “Not a word, baby.”

  Who were they? she thought. And what the hell was plan B?

  Obviously, plan A wasn’t to steal her valuables. For a second she tried to think what she should do. How long should they stay put. She waited a few minutes before she slowly, cautiously removed the door to the space they had cramped into and scooted out. “Stay here,” she told her son.

  “No, Mommy. Don’t leave me.” He was scared and shaking.

  “I need to make sure that the bad guys are gone, so that they don’t hurt us.”

  “I can protect us,” he said, pointing to the superhero on his pajamas.

  “I know, baby.” She kissed him on the forehead. “But stay here for now.”

  Once she was out of the tight crawl space, she could hear them doing a second tour around the upstairs.

  She tipped to the top of the basement steps to evaluate the situation better. The door to the basement was ajar. Good. The latch had been broken for a while, and she’d been meaning to get it fixed.

  “Oh! My! God!” she said to herself in shock.

  At the top of the steps, she could smell the strong, distinct odor of gas.

  Her heart dropped. Plan B was to set the house on fire.

  She motioned with her hands for Junior to come over.

  Through the cracked door she could see her purse on the counter next to the back door that led to the garage. She was about to make a run for it when she heard the front door of the house slam and that’s when she saw flames. Minutes later she smelled the smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s always fire. She grabbed Junior’s little hand and raced for the bar chair where her purse sat and then ran for the garage door. The key to the car was in her purse. She shoved the key in the ignition, while saying, “Buckle up, baby,” and trying to help him with her free hand.

  “Lord have mercy,” she said out loud, as she hit the garage door opener that rested on top of the sun visor. “Hold on, baby,” she said to Junior. Before the door was fully ajar, she took a deep breath, put her foot on the accelerator, and backed the Mercedes SUV out of the garage, barely missing the top of the door. In reverse she pulled out of the small driveway like the devil himself was after her, not giving a damn who or what was in her path.

  From on top of the hill up the street Calliope watched her house go up in flames. She tried calling Junior’s father, to tell him of the bizarre chain of events that had happened in the wee hours of the night, but the call kept going to voice mail. She must have called him a hundred times and there wasn’t any answer.

  For the life of her she didn’t understand why he hadn’t called and wasn’t answering any of her calls. He should’ve known she would have never called him so many times unless something was very wrong, and it was.

  With her phone, she snapped pictures of her house, as the roaring fire engines began to speed to the scene, sirens blaring. She sent the pictures to him and that didn’t even make him return the call.

  She left her baby’s daddy message after message. No return call. What was she to do? They didn’t have anywhere to go. She didn’t have a support system. After all, she had relocated to Virginia when she was pregnant and had been there with him since. The more she called and got the voice mail the angrier she got. She’d never blown up his phone before, so he should’ve known that something was wrong. The more he didn’t respond, the madder she got.

  “This shit is fucking ridiculous,” she yelled into the phone. “I’ve called you a million times and still no answer. You can’t be serious right now?

  “Listen, we moved here for you and you know we don’t have nobody else. And if we never needed you before we need you now. Where the fuck are you? We’re homeless and you’re nowhere to be found.” Then, she had a lightbulb moment. “You know what motherfucker? I know where to find your ass.”

  She put the Mercedes in gear and started driving.

  “Mommy, where we going?”

  “To your daddy.”

  33

  The forty-five was pointed toward the front of Nya’s head. There was no doubt that fear gripped every muscle of her young, seven-year-old body, while tears cascaded from her innocent, doe-like eyes.

  “Puh-lease…” she begged and pleaded with the man holding her at gunpoint. “Please don’t hurt me. I didn’t do anything. Please,” she wailed in tears.

  The iron-beast-looking man before Nya’s eyes, waving the pistol, was enormously huge. Easily towering over the average full-grown man, juxtaposed to Nya he looked like a nefarious giant from a dark fairly tale. Unmoved by Nya’s crying and pleads, the ogre casually glanced at his plastic Timex. “Time’s up,” he said to himself in a matter-of-fact tone. He’d waited too long as it was. Then, with as much emotion as a person changing the channel from a rerun of a tired, played-out sitcom, he squeezed the trigger twice.

  “Nooooooo!”

  The blood-curdling scream startled Ruby awake. �
��What’s wrong, Bambi?”

  Still asleep, Bambi’s breathing was labored, sucking air like she was in the last leg of the Boston Marathon. Ruby grabbed a hold of her arm, shaking her. “Wake up, girl. Wake up!”

  Bambi yanked her eyes open. Her body was drenched with perspiration. Her head swiveled from side to side trying to take in her surroundings like a video camera on a tripod.

  She and Ruby had dozed off on the couch, she remembered. So it all had been a dream—Nya getting shot.

  “Oh, my goodness!” She looked her over and saw she was drenched. “Girl, you sweating like a pig at the slaughterhouse,” Ruby said, trying to lighten the mood. But regardless of how hard Ruby tried to carry the weight and be the strong one, Bambi knew that she was just as worried. It showed in her face, this the first time that Ruby didn’t and couldn’t put on her poker face. Emotions of sadness, despair, and hurt were written all over her face.

  After a few seconds Bambi regained control of her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. “I just had a nightmare,” she said to Ruby, who was wishing that this was all only a dream. But the realness of the matter was, it wasn’t. So all she could do was pray that it was no more than that and wished like hell that that wasn’t mother’s intuition kicking in or a sign of the worst to come. She wasn’t overly superstitious, well a little, but she still knew that nightmares, like regular dreams, were sometimes mere premonitions of the future.

  Ruby needed air herself, so she went into the kitchen. She took a few minutes to try to meditate to focus hard on trying not to let her mind run wild and think of all the things they could be doing to her sweet little princess. Nya was like the daughter she never had. She loved that little girl as if she were her own, but she wasn’t. She was Bambi’s child that no one thought she would ever be able to have, and Bambi loved her with all her heart. At that moment, she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had to be strong for Bambi. She headed back into the room and handed Bambi a glass of water.

  “Drink this,” she told Bambi.

  So caught up in her own cogitation Bambi hadn’t noticed when Ruby had gotten up from the couch.

  “Thanks, Rue.” She took a full, much needed, thirsty sip and it did the trick. The Cîroc she’d drunk the night before must have left her dehydrated, more than she realized. After another swallow from the water glass, she checked her phone for messages. No one had called. Not the police. Not Lynx. No one. Not knowing what else to do, she said, “I think I’m going to go to my bedroom and check e-mails. If nothing else, to give me something to do before I go plum crazy.”

  Anything to help keep it together, Ruby thought.

  Ruby wasn’t very computer literate. Her main choice of communication were the telephone, land line—her preference—and snail mail. She was old school like that, felt like someone was always listening and watching. So she preferred to stick with what she knew. But she encouraged her friend to do whatever was needed to relax, even if only momentarily. “You go do that. I’ll tidy up in the kitchen, while you swim the Web.”

  Normally Bambi would’ve corrected Ruby (“surf the Web,” not “swim”), but her mind was so frayed tonight that the unorthodox phraseology swam by unnoticed.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later the doorbell chimed.

  “I’ll get it,” Ruby yelled out to Bambi, wondering who it could be so early in the wee hours of the morning. But nevertheless, she wiped her hands dry on a dish towel, moved about the kitchen to the tall, top, mahogany cabinet, and got the stepstool, stood on it, and opened the mahogany cabinet door. She moved a couple of big mixing bowls around until she found what she needed. Got the .45 caliber out of it, tucked it in the pocket of her card-boarded starched-creased Lee jeans, and headed to the door. As she got a step closer, she hoped it wasn’t one of the kidnappers trying to bring static to the house, but if it was, she was definitely prepared to bust a cap in their ass if she had to.

  Ruby cut the porch light on, trying to get a glimpse at who it was, totally oblivious to what was about to be revealed.

  Disengaging the dead bolt, Ruby swung open the door to two sets of eyes staring at her. Eyes or faces she’d never seen before. One pair were perfectly spaced on the face of a twenty-something-year-old butterfly with smooth cinnamon skin and straight white teeth; the other pair were owned by a little caterpillar of the cutest little boy. Ruby couldn’t put her finger on it at that moment, but there was something about the little caterpillar that looked very familiar to her. She decided that whatever it was about him, she wasn’t going to let it drive her crazy. She had bigger things on her mind.

  Offering a warm smile, which was something she rarely did for strangers, Ruby said, “May I help you?”

  But seeing the little mannish snaggle-toothed boy standing there in his little Superman pj’s shed a little light on the situation.

  “We looking for my daddy,” the caterpillar blurted out in a squeaky voice.

  There was no denying the child was adorable, but Ruby had no answers for the boy’s request. Hell, wasn’t we all, she wanted to say. She knew she hadn’t seen hers in God knows when.

  Before she could say so, the butterfly took over. “Excuse me, Junior, let grown people talk, please, sir,” she said, and giving him a look to shush him then let her eyes meet Ruby’s. “My apologies, he’s just a little excited and sleepy at the same time not to mention been through more than any little boy or adult for that matter should have to deal with in one night or life, period.”

  “Join the damn club,” Ruby said in a dry tone. And then thought that it was after three in the morning. They both should’ve been somewhere asleep.

  “My name is Calliope,” the butterfly said.

  Ruby gave her a second once-over leaning in the doorway, wondering, what the hell this woman want? Shit she must wanna use the phone, car broke down and she need to call her husband or something. Thought I was the only one in this day and time who didn’t have a cell phone.

  The girl had the skin tone of a fashion model, eyes of an angel, and a voice that sounded like a musical instrument. The butterfly, or whatever name she went by, seemed like she could be harmless, but Ruby was an OG. She knew better, that most of the time these were the types that always ended up being a big stack of trouble.

  “Ahem.” Ruby cleared her throat before stealing a peek down the hall, toward Bambi’s bedroom. Though she didn’t feel that they were in any way connected to the kidnappers or that they came to bring any harm, for some odd reason she still had a bad feeling about these two.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ruby said, and then tried to think of the girl’s name but it couldn’t come to her for the life of her.

  “Calliope,” the butterfly said, filling in the empty space.

  “But exactly what is it that you want?” Ruby finished. If this chick needed more than to use the telephone, God help her. Her timing was bad, this wasn’t the time or the place for us to be helping no strangers.

  “I’m looking for my baby’s daddy,” Calliope bluntly said.

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, honey,” Ruby said sarcastically. “Shit it’s a whole lot of people looking for him, and honey, I truly don’t recommend you going door to door in this neighborhood. Chile, these white folks around here will have you locked up for trespassing.”

  Ruby wasn’t trying to be funny at the least. She thought she was giving the poor woman with her bastard child by her side some truly good advice, under the circumstances of the turmoil going on under their roof. The point of the butterfly’s visit and the words that she was trying to convey had gone totally over Ruby’s head. Ruby never suspected that Lynx was cheating or carrying on relations with other women. She had always thought of Lynx as an overall great guy and he always took care of home. He was a wonderful husband who loved and respected Bambi. He always gave Bambi all the desires of her heart, love, support for her business, jewels, furs, cars, big house, vacation, and his time. And when it surfaced that she couldn’t have any childr
en, Lynx went and made a way for them to adopt Nya as a newborn. The second Nya arrived into their life he was an excellent father and good husband. He was an overall great guy in her book even though Ruby wasn’t too trusting when it came to anybody, especially not men.

  Ruby’s ex Uno had taken her to hell and back. In the eighties she had it going on. Nice house in a middle-class neighborhood, BMW in her driveway, good job with benefits that she could get all the overtime she wanted, the latest designer fashions, and a man who was getting a lot of money but loved her. The two were genuinely happy. They were living high off the hog, until one day the police showed up wanting her to turn state’s evidence on Uno and his drug empire. When she refused to, they threw her in jail and gave her the same charges that they gave her man.

  Since she wasn’t directly involved in any illegal activities whatsoever and had the best lawyer money could buy, she was certain that the charges would eventually go away and she’d be able to go back to living her life. That was very realistic until Uno realized that he’d be getting an asshole full of time. Before the dust settled he had helped himself to a get-out-of-jail-free card, and told on everybody he knew anything on and when that wasn’t enough he immediately put everything on Ruby, resulting in her giving ten years of her life to the State of Virginia.

  After giving ten years of her life away, she had time to reflect on every lowlife man and she’d seen her share of scoundrels in her day and could spot one a mile away, but for some reason she would have never suspected this type of thing from Lynx.

  She’d always known one if she’d crossed paths with one and with all her heart and soul, Lynx wasn’t one, but, hey, everyone had one time to be wrong.

  It was indeed three in the morning and it may have been the wrong time. But Calliope knew good and well that she was at the right place. She had driven past the house at least a thousand times before and had seen more than hundreds of pictures of Bambi, and had done her research in and out about everything about her baby’s father’s life and his wife. She knew this wasn’t the wife but the wife’s right hand. Though she had played it out a million times before in her head, she never thought that it would happen like this.