PullMyHair (7 page)

As she ran, she picked up speed, pushing herself to the
limit, unconsciously trying her damnedest to outrun the ugly ghosts from her
past.

“That went well, don’t you think?” Greg held the revolving
door open for Renita, as they left the courthouse. They both put on sunglasses
as the bright afternoon sun shone brightly on their faces. It was spring and
although the sun was out, there was still the smallest nip in the air to
signify that the time for shorts and t-shirts was still a bit of a way off.

“I was quite surprised at the ease with which opposing
council agreed with most of our selections,” Renita agreed, referring to the
jury selection process for their upcoming trial. She pulled the light jacket
she wore over her navy blue suit closer around her body to ward off the chill
from the spring day.

“Yes, so was I. I thought for sure that we’d be there the
whole day. It’s just past noon,” he said after a quick glance down at his
watch. As they continued to walk, Greg glanced down at his paralegal and hid a
smile.

Renita was so formal in her speech and dress. She was the
ultimate professional from the top of her close-cropped curly hair, to the
soles of her dark blue, pumps. He knew they were Prada’s because Liza owned at
least
a dozen pair of the designer’s shoes. If nothing else he’d learned of his
wife’s utter fascination and love of designer footwear after seven years of
marriage.

It was too bad that he’d recently realized he was lacking
more vital information. Information that was much more important than her
obsession with shoes.

He thought of how little he’d actually known about his
wife’s life. Any real knowledge that he had of who she was before they were
married began at the age of eighteen. She shared brief information about
anything before that time. He was clueless about what her life had been like,
truly.

That was until a week ago, before he’d received the strange
call from Liza’s mother. Within moments of his surprise to hear from his wife’s
estranged mother, he’d been left stunned after she’d asked him for money before
preceding to go into details about how hard it had been to raise Liza single
and alone, and how nice it was that Liza didn’t have to worry about working and
trying to raise a child all alone.

“You’re right, it is lunchtime. I know of a really nice
lunch counter just a few blocks south of Hub. Would you like to go?” she asked.
Hub Street ran throughout the entire large city.

Greg glanced once again at his watch and debated calling
Liza. She’d asked him that morning if they could have lunch, and at the time he
hadn’t thought that he’d have the time. It had been almost a relief to tell her
no.

“That sounds good, Renita. I’ll need to call Liza first.
Let’s go.” he said and they walked briskly to his vehicle parked in the front
of the courthouse. After he helped her inside the passenger side, he jogged to
the driver’s side and folded his long frame inside.

He placed a call to Liza and caught her on her cell phone.
She was in the process of dressing and he could tell she was ticked when he
said he couldn’t make lunch. He felt a small tinge of guilt, but brushed it
away.

As Greg maneuvered through the congested downtown streets on
the way to the cafeteria, he put the call out his mind, as he and Renita
strategized about the jury make-up and which ones they felt would be more
sympathetic to their client. Renita, as usual, had helped to select the most
sympathetic females. She had a knack for discerning which potential female jury
members were more inclined to be sympathetic.

“The prenup clearly states that if Mr. Grimes is able to
prove his wife has cheated on him, than all financial arrangements are null and
void,” Renita said as they entered the bright cafeteria.

“Yes, but we have to prove that first. So far, our detective
hasn’t come up with anything to prove she’s been anything else but chaste and
true to her husband,” Greg agreed as he removed her coat and they both eased
into the red leather booth.

The café was decorated in a retro fifties style, complete
with roller skating waitresses. Okay, so that was a bit over the top, Greg
thought, but Renita swore the food was great.

Yes,
Greg thought again to himself,
a bit over the
top
. He then turned his attention back to the case.

“The damnedest thing, is that I
know
Melissa Grimes
has been cheating. I don’t understand how the detective is missing it.”

He didn’t bother to excuse his language or try and clean it
up. Renita was used to his manner of speech and despite her outward appearance
of being strait laced; he’d once overheard her use language to some guy on the
phone that made
him
blush. He’d kept that information to himself when
he’d heard her cursing and quietly left the room without her knowing he’d been
there.

“No doubt, she is. Maybe it’s time to look for another
agency. You haven’t been satisfied with this new agency anyway. Not since
Gaynor…Mr. Holt left,” she reminded him. Greg glanced up sharply at her when he
noted the slight emphasis she placed on the former agency employee’s name
before she corrected herself and referred to him by his last name.

The firm had utilized the services of the Tyson Detective
Agency for years, with no complaints from anyone, as the agency had a solid
reputation for procuring the information the lawyers needed to help strengthen
the case they were working. Greg had dealt only with Gaynor or his brother
Jayden, until the men had broken away from the agency to found their own firm.
He’d not been as pleased with his newest detective’s results so far.

As he glanced over at his assistant’s beautiful, but placid
features, he thought he saw something flash in her eyes as she spoke Gaynor’s
name. “Have you heard from him since he left the firm?” he felt compelled to
ask and silently confirmed what he thought he saw. There was something there.

“Why would I have spoken with Mr. Holt?” she asked without
any change in her low voice.

The waitress skated over, tottering on her skates and almost
landed the platter in Greg’s lap before he helped her regain her balance.
“Whoa! Here, let me take that,” he offered, removing the drinks from the
platter before he helped the woman place the plates on the table.

The waitress’ cheeks, already red from the exertion of
skating, turned even redder as she thanked him before she left the two of them
to eat their lunch.

“No reason. You had more contact with him than I did. I
thought perhaps you’d heard from him,” he explained, picking up the thread of
the conversation before the waitress delivered their lunch.

She took a delicate bite of the veggie sandwich and chewed
thoughtfully, before carefully swallowing. Greg took a healthy bite of his
corned beef, waiting for her to speak. As he waited, he glanced at her lunch
and as usual, wondered how she stomached eating nothing but vegetables and tofu
as she was a practicing vegetarian. She took a small sip of her tea before
answering.

“No. I haven’t heard from Mr. Holt,” was all she said, but
Greg knew she wasn’t telling the truth. Obviously, she didn’t want him to know
something and the flush that ran underneath her bronze cheeks gave witness to
her embarrassment. He left it alone. It was none of his business anyway.

“But, if the firm is in agreement, I could contact him if
you were interested in procuring his services for this case.”

“That shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll let the partners know and
then I can alert Grimes. If we have to go with another detective, he has to
agree to foot the bill.”

“That will be fine, Greg. As soon as you let me know, I’ll
contact Mr. Holt.”

They finished eating their lunch in companionable silence
sprinkled with occasional conversation. When they’d finished eating, Greg
signaled the roller skating waitress over to bring him the bill. After signing
the slip, he glanced at his watch.

“I’m going to try and leave the office earlier this evening,
hopefully, around six or so. I can do a lot of the paperwork at home. I’ll
contact the partners when we get back to the office and give them a heads-up
and then you can contact the Holt brothers about securing their services. Feel
free to go home, Renita, anytime after that. We have an early day again
tomorrow. I’m sure anything you have can wait until then. You’ve been working
long hours as I have. Take the evening off. I need to get home to Liza as soon
as I can.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll hang around, I have
some paperwork to organize. And if you need me, you know where to find me,” she
said as she sipped her cola. “May I ask you a personal question, Greg?” she
asked, and surprised, Greg quickly glanced up at her face.

“Of course, Renita. Shoot,” he said.

“Are you and Mrs. Colburn having problems?” she asked,
taking her eyes off him, suddenly caught up in picking at what appeared to be
imaginary lint from her dark blue jacket.

For a minute, Greg was tempted to deny any problems he and
Liza were having. He’d never discussed his wife or his marriage with Renita. He
had several friends who he’d had since college, but he’d always tended to keep
to himself and had never felt comfortable discussing his marriage with any of
them.

“Why do you ask? What concern is that of yours?” he asked
her bluntly.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me to ask. It’s none of my
business,” she said and rose as though to leave the table.

Greg reached a hand out to forestall her standing. She
glanced from her hand to his and a dark flush, once again, stained her cheeks.
The look she threw him was unsettling and he slowly removed his hand from hers.
“Please, sit down.”

She hesitated, as though unsure. Greg didn’t know what was
happening, but he felt as though something else was going on other than the
obvious. There were undercurrents occurring that hadn’t been there minutes
before.

Renita slowly sat back down in the bench and looked at him
with an expectant expression settling across her face.

“I’m a little touchy about the subject of marriage, if you
want to know the truth. Renita, you didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve known each
other long enough for me to know that,” he apologized.

“Is it anything that you can talk about?” she ventured to
ask.

“It’s a long story. Much longer and complicated than even I
knew until recently.” He confessed. He knew his answer was ambiguous at best,
but his confusion and anger over the situation was still too raw for him to
hide.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Renita assured him.

Greg was silent as he thought about the complicated
situation with his wife. He and Renita had never spoken about personal matters,
but he needed to talk with someone. Maybe as a female, she’d be able to shed
light on the subject. God only knew, he was confused as hell.

“A week ago my wife’s mother called me.”

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on.

“It wouldn’t be so strange an occurrence, I guess, had I’d
ever spoken to her before. But, I’ve never seen her, much less spoken on the
phone with her.”

“Did she want anything in particular?” she asked.

“Aside from the fact that she was asking to borrow several
thousand dollars?” he asked and laughed humorously. “Not much, except to tell
me things about my wife that I had no idea of. Things that Liza
should
have disclosed to me a long time ago. I feel as though I don’t really know who
my wife truly is,” he said grimly.

Liza allowed the warm, gentle spray from the shower to
cascade over her body. She raised her arms, her small breasts lifting high as
she ran her fingers over her hair, smoothing the short, wet strands away from
her forehead.

Since she’d cut her hair, she’d experienced a liberation she
never had before. Although she wasn’t quite ready to go
au natural
as
her friend Karina had done, not ready to give up the ease and manageability the
relaxer gave her, she liked not spending hours combing, detangling, deep
conditioning, blow drying, hot iron…the whole styling madness she went through
once a week at her favorite salon.

Although, according to Karina, being natural, sans chemicals
of any type wasn’t difficult at all. Liza was honest enough to admit that she
had a ways to go before she was prepared to entertain the thought of allowing
her natural kink free rein.

Life was a process, a journey. At least that’s what Karina’s
Big Momma used to always say, Liza thought with a melancholy smile as she
thought of Karina’s grandmother. She really missed Big Momma, although she
wasn’t her grandmother, Liza had always felt connected to the older woman.
She’d always welcomed Liza, helping her to feel as though she were apart of the
family.

Liza leisurely finished washing her body and stepped out of
the glassed-in shower and wrapped her naked body in the overlarge plush towel.
She grabbed the matching hand towel and gently dried her hair before wrapping
it, turban-style around her head. Just as she folded the corner of the towel
inside, she heard her cell phone ring and rushed over to answer it.

“Hello.”

“Hi, sweetheart, it’s me.” Greg said in his deep voice.

The sound of his voice had her heart racing. After seven
years he still had the same effect on her. She glanced at the clock and
realized it was lunchtime. With a smile on her face, she held the small
receiver between her ear and shoulder as she whipped off the towel and sat on
the bed, lotion bottle in hand.

“Look baby, I’m sorry. But I’m not going to be able to meet
you for lunch. I still have work to do and can’t see my way out of it for the
next few hours.” She felt the smile fall off her face at his words.

Damn it. She should have known better than to get all
excited. No doubt he and Renita would have a cozy little lunch together in his
office as they worked side by side.

She couldn’t stand Renita’s placid acting ass. Always so
damn calm and bland looking. Work be damned, Liza
knew
the woman wanted
her husband. She was two seconds away from saying something
really
ugly,
but held herself in check at the last minute.

“I understand, Greg. Maybe another time,” she said instead,
taking the high road. It wasn’t Renita’s fault anyway. It was just easier to
place the blame anywhere but where it truly lay. Liza wasn’t quite sure where
that was at the present time.

“I’m going to get home early. Would you like to go out to
dinner?” he asked and Liza brightened.

She agreed, her spirits lifted, although there was
something
in his voice that she didn’t like or understand. It was the same
something
that had been there for the last week whenever they talked.

Before they hung up the phone, they agreed on a time and
place. Liza was happy when he suggested they meet at Rigby’s as they had a
dance floor and live band several nights a week. It had been a long time since
she and Greg had gone out dancing. It lightened her heart, eased the burden
she’d had in it since their parting earlier in the morning.

Liza placed her cell phone back on the beside table before
picking the bottle of lotion back up to begin to anoint her arms slowly, her
thoughts, as they had been over the last few weeks, centered not only on her
marriage, but on her past. Maybe it was time she faced her past as Karina was
constantly telling her she needed to do. She didn’t realize the impact not
sharing her life history before the age of eighteen was having on her marriage.

At least, not cognitively.

But on a subconscious level, she knew that Greg deserved to
know everything about her. The good and bad.

It wasn’t as though she was a part of a traveling pack of
bank robbers for heaven’s sake. She had nothing to be ashamed of, she had no
culpability in the way she had been raised, she’d only been a child. Yet, she’d
always felt a strange responsibility for the life that she and her mother had
lived. As though, had it not been for her, her mother wouldn’t have been on
welfare.

Or a functioning alcoholic.

With a heavy sigh, she was rising from the bed when her cell
phone rang again. She quickly lifted it, pressing the talk button and stemmed
her disappointment when Catherine, one of her friends from the club chirped a
hello at her.

Catherine called to invite Liza to a late lunch with a few
of the other members of their set and Liza forced a cheery note into her voice
as she agreed to meet the women at the social club, before pressing
end
on
her receiver.

She walked to the bathroom and absentmindedly studied the
array of cosmetics that lined her vanity before she popped open the case to her
powder-to-cream foundation and carefully smoothed it over her face. As she
smoothed the makeup on, she studied her face in the large, gold- framed mirror.

Her birthday was just around the corner. She’d be
thirty-three years old. She moved her head this way and that way, looking for
any signs of premature aging. She was happy she’d inherited her mother’s
genetic make-up in that department. Not a sign of a wrinkle to be found
anywhere on her smooth, deep brown skin.

At least, she thought she inherited it from her mother.
She’d never met her father, and besides the description her mother gave,
wouldn’t know the man if he were standing buck-naked in front of her waving a
neon flag. She shoved the thought of her unknown sperm donor to the recesses of
her mind. As she usually did whenever thoughts of him would surface.

She had the beginnings of a headache and opened the medicine
cabinet to withdraw her prescription pain reliever. She’d been increasingly
suffering from headaches and had been forced to seek medical attention as
ibuprofen no longer did the trick in providing her relief. She poured a small
paper cup of water and swallowed the small pills before she returned the bottle
to the cabinet.

She smoothed on a light dusting of blush to her high
cheekbones and darkened her eyelashes before she outlined her full lips and
applied a coral-colored lipstick. When she finished applying her makeup, she
titled her head to the side and made a small moue with her lips and winked,
laughing to herself. She left the bathroom and went to her walk-in closet, in
search of the
right
outfit to wear to lunch.

The group of ladies she was meeting were all members of the
same club that she and Greg joined several years ago. They were all nice
enough, if a tad on the catty side. Liza had learned quickly that the women
were nice on the outside, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, as Karina’s Big
Momma would say, but they could be total bitches at times.

Liza had seen for herself how they’d turned on one of their
own when the Ellis’ lost a great majority of their money because Marcus Ellis
hadn’t had the foresight to diversify his portfolio. When the semi-crash
happened, they’d been left with nothing.

Valerie Ellis had turned to her friends for support, but
they’d turned away from her as though her financial problems were some disease
they could catch. Liza had been empathetic to the woman and once offered to buy
lunch, just to be nice.

Wrong answer.

Valerie Ellis had all but cursed her out in her very precise
English, saying that she could “afford to buy her own damn lunch”. In fact, she
insisted on buying the lunch for every damn body at the table. She and Marcus
had only experienced a minor setback. It was by no means the end of the world
for them. They were just fine financially.

Within a few weeks, no one was really surprised when Valerie
decided to go to a secluded spa, not saying exactly where this spa was located,
and neither was anyone surprised when within days of her departure the large
moving trucks appeared outside the Ellis’ home.

What the incident had taught Liza was twofold. The women in
this community were too proud to accept what they saw as a “handout” and her
extension of friendship was neither wanted nor appreciated. It also taught her
to keep her well-meaning intentions to herself.

Back in her neighborhood in North Stanton, neighbors always
helped neighbors in time of need. It was automatic and nothing out of the
ordinary. God only knew she and her mother had received their fare share of
“help” over the years.

She selected and dressed in a cream-colored cashmere
sweater, cocoa brown full legged slacks, and low-heeled, brown, Prada mules.
She quickly dumped the contents of one purse into the matching brown purse and
left the room. After setting the alarm on the house, she went through the
adjoining door that led to the garage and opened her car door.

She eased into the leathered seats of her low-slung Mercedes
and reversed out of the garage, carefully maneuvering out of the circular
driveway as she automatically turned on the high-powered car stereo and the car
filled with the hard-pounding smooth rhythmic beat of her favorite NuSoul band.

“Take me away from here, far away from here…” she sang along
with the female lead vocalist as she drove to the club, unconsciously gripping
the steering wheel tightly as she sang.

When she arrived at the club, she drove to the front entry
and allowed the valet to open her car door for her. She deposited the keys into
his white-gloved hands and walked to the entry and smiled thanks when the
attendant opened the door for her.

She removed her sunglasses, depositing them into their case
and tucked them inside her purse, and automatically cast an admiring gaze
around the interior of the club.

The interior was decorated in rich earth tones of red and
gold, with classic artwork adorning the walls. As she walked toward the double
doors that would take her inside the luncheon area, the heels of her mules sunk
into the plush deep red carpet.

She felt many eyes on her, as she walked with studied
confidence toward the table of waving women. Her peripheral vision caught one
onlooker eyeballing her and saw the woman’s face relax into a smile when she
noticed the table of women welcoming her.

Whatever.

Liza plastered a smile on her face as she walked up to the
table and sat down.

“Sorry I’m late, what did I miss?” she said and smiled
before picking up and glancing over the menu.

“Not much. Leslie was telling us about the Goodman’s. Did
you hear about them?” Michelle asked.

Michelle was one of the bitchier of the women in the group.
She seemed to take a secret delight in the painful episodes in the lives of
their friends than anyone else. Liza stole a quick glance over the woman,
taking her in, in one quick once-over.

Her long blond hair was fluffed and teased within an inch of
its life, landing at the top of her shoulders. She peered behind her small,
lightly tinted glasses with an ugly gleam of delight in her aqua-colored,
close-set eyes as she began to gossip about the latest news and how Elaine
Goodman caught her husband red-handed having sex with the nanny.

“And what makes it so bad, is that they planned on taking a
cruise next week and leaving the children at home! How in the world will she
find someone else on short notice?” she asked, ending the tale. Her cheeks
hollowed from the long drink she took from the straw in her tea.

All of that damn gossiping made a woman mighty thirsty.

And what the hell was wrong with this woman that she thought
the worst thing about the situation was a lack of childcare.

“You think that’s the worst of it? The fact that she
may
have to cancel her cruise reservation? Not that she caught her husband screwing
the nanny?” Liza tried her
best
to leave it alone. Tried her
damnedest.

But hell, sometimes, she had to call it like it was.

She’d have Greg’s nuts on a silver platter; straight-up
served Hungarian meatball style around a bed of crisp green lettuce, if she’d
been the one to bust him fucking the nanny.

“Of course not, Liza.” Michelle trained her beady stare in
Liza’s direction, and Liza caught the flash of irritation before the woman
could mask it. “I was simply making an observation,” she finished with a
small…tight…smile.

“And so was I,” Liza volleyed back and raised one eyebrow at
the woman. Just barely. Just barely she refrained from giving Michelle her real
opinions.

Sometimes the country club life was harder for her to
navigate than her life in North Stanton had been.

“So, Liza, did you and Greg go and check out that musical
showing in Austin, yet?”

Liza turned her gaze away from Michelle and smiled at
Luanne. Lu was the newest member in the group and Liza had taken an instant
liking to the small Asian woman. She and her husband Mac met when Mac was
stationed in Korea during his short tenure with the military.

When they’d moved back to Stanton, Mac had bought one of the
newer houses on the row, having admired the area from the time he’d been a
child on the outside looking in. Like Liza, Luanne’s husband Mac had grown up
in North Stanton. North Stanton had no respect of person. It was an
equal-opportunity poverty-stricken community. White, black, brown…all were
welcomed.

Mac had proudly brought his new wife home ignoring the
polite stares and settled into his new home with his wife, content to stay in
his own world.

Luanne, on the other hand, was not content to stay at home
puttering in the garden. She was vivacious, funny and sweet. And once the
others met her and had gotten to know her, her natural vivacious, sometimes
outrageous personality, had won them all over.