Abide with Me (11 page)

After he settled the case, Raymond had done the unthinkable. He began an affair with his client. It was a passionate and powerful relationship. Just the sound of Basil’s voice took Raymond back to a humid summer night when they made love in a swimming pool. Raymond hated to admit to himself how many times he thought of that night. Even though it had been over five years ago, Raymond could still remember their first kiss, and the way the kiss made him feel. Like he had a fever covering his entire body. The heat would break when Raymond thought about the night he spent amid Basil’s clothes, trapped in his closet while he made love to a female friend.

When Ray and Basil’s relationship ended, the two maintained a strange connection. Both knowing how to push the other’s buttons, and doing it whenever there was an opening. But today, Raymond decided to handle Basil with kid gloves. He knew it wouldn’t be beyond
Basil to call the agents back and say, “I forgot to tell you we fucked. Often!”

“When you asked the FBI agent if he knew who he was talking to, what did he say?” Raymond asked.

“Aw, he just laughed. So why is the FBI calling me about you?”

Raymond shared his big news and how the FBI was checking into past cases and former clients. Raymond was not surprised Basil’s case had attracted the FBI’s attention. Raymond’s “alternative lifestyle” would undoubtedly cause the bureau to dig up quite a few people from his past.

“Man, that’s deep. My buddy is going to be a judge. Ain’t that some shit,” Basil said.

“We’ll see. So how are you? The last time we talked you were having some problems,” Raymond said.

“Everything’s on the down low. Still doing the football commentating gig. How’s your little brother?”

“He’s doing great! I think he might start this year,” Raymond said proudly.

“Cool. Maybe the next time I’m in Chicago I’ll look him up. Maybe I can give him a few pointers,” Basil laughed. Raymond ignored the last comment. He didn’t want to even think about what kind of pointers Basil might be talking about.

“So are you still dating the young lady in Chicago? I think her name was Yolanda,” Raymond said. From their last conversation, Raymond felt he already knew the answer.

“Naw,” Basil said quickly. Exactly what Raymond was thinking.

“So who you dating?”

“Nobody. How’s yo’ boy?”

“You mean my partner, Trent?”

“Whatever.”

“He’s cool.”

“So when you heading to New York, so we can hang?” Basil quizzed.

“No time soon. I’m busy trying to wrap up all my cases and get ready for the confirmation process,” Raymond said.

“Maybe I’ll see you at a Northwestern game. I know we’re covering a few of ’em.”

“Maybe. So, Basil, it’s been nice talking to you.”

“Same here,” Basil said.

Both men hung up thinking about their passionate escapades. Basil thinking if he could just get Raymond alone for one more night. Raymond thinking if you touched the stove more than once, soon you’d get burned.

Taking a meal break from rehearsal, Nicole and Yancey were teasing each other over who should take the last cheese-drenched potato skin when an attractive, plump, neatly dressed woman approached their table.

“Nicole Springer, I don’t believe it,” the gingerbread-colored woman with reddish-chestnut hair said. Her thick brown eyebrows and eyelashes gave her face strong definition.

“Della Price? How are you doing?” Nicole asked.

“I’m doing just fine, darling, just fine. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. I heard you’d gotten married and moved to Atlanta, or was it Arkansas,” Della said.

“I did get married, but my husband and I recently moved back here,” Nicole said.

Della opened her arms and said with a big smile, “Well, do I get a hug or something?”

Nicole stood up and gave Della a hug, then turned to face Yancey and said, “This is my friend Yancey.”

“Yancey, what a wonderful name. Nice to meet you,” Della said flatly as she extended her hand. Yancey noticed a sparkling diamond ring the size of a smoked almond.

“So what are you doing these days, Nicole?” Della asked.

“I’m getting ready for the national tour of
Dreamgirls
.”

“
Dreamgirls
? Honey, are they still doing that show? And aren’t we a little too old to be playing teenagers?” Della asked with a feigned sympathetic smile.

“The director and producers don’t seem to think so,” Nicole snapped back as she took her seat.

Yancey started looking for the waitress. When the waitress saw Yancey waving her hand in the air, she came over and asked what she needed.

“Can you move these plates and bring us two cups of coffee? And please don’t take all day. We’re in a rush,” Yancey said with a great deal of disdain. “She is so slow,” Yancey said after the waitress scurried to get the coffee.

Nicole looked at Yancey, wondering why she was being so rude toward the waitress, and then turned back to Della. “So are you still in the business?”

“That fake shit? No way,” Della said. For the next five minutes Della stood hovering over Nicole and Yancey’s table telling Nicole about her wonderful life while completely ignoring Yancey. It was like a Shakespearean monologue with a little “drama mama” thrown in for good measure. “My husband, Mike, is an import-export dealer. He made a lot of money with the market and now he has his own company. We do a lot of business in London and South Africa. You know, there is a lot of business over there with all the changes. It’s such a beautiful country. Have you ever been? We even had dinner with Nelson Mandela, it was just so grand. Mostly, though, we just spend a
lot of time traveling all over the world. Right now we’re redoing a place on Fifth Avenue, so I’m spending a lot of time with my designer when I’m not in Sag Harbor, where we also have a house,” Della said triumphantly.

“Sounds like everything is going great for you,” Nicole said as she looked at Yancey and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, it is. I’ll have to invite you and your husband to one of our parties. Last summer when we gave our housewarming at our place in Sag Harbor, everybody who was anybody was there. Barbara Smith, you know she owns B. Smith, her husband, Dan, Russell Simmons, Puffy Combs, and Ed Bradley. People are still talking about it.”

“Sounds like it was a fabulous party,” Nicole said.

“What, no Veronica Webb?” Yancey asked, her voice full of sarcasm. Della ignored her question.

“So, Nicole, what does your husband do? You didn’t marry one of those fine chorus boys, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. My husband, Jared, is a vice-president at Morgan Stanley. He just got a promotion and we still have a home in Atlanta.”

“Isn’t that nice? So, Yancey, what do you do?” Della asked as she finally turned her head in Yancey’s direction.

“Is knowing what I do important to the continuation of your happy life?” Yancey asked.

“Excuse me?” Della said, her voice expressing complete surprise at the tone of Yancey’s question.

“You heard me, Miss, or should I say, Mrs. Ghetto Fabulous, or whatever your name is. You’ve been standing up here running your mouth, completely ignoring me, and now you want to know what I do? I don’t think so,” Yancey said as she took a sip of coffee. Nicole was looking at Yancey with a shocked expression, but she wanted to stand and applaud her and sing out, “Brava, diva.”

Della looked at Nicole and then back at Yancey and then, in a huff, turned and left the restaurant without so much as a “good-bye.”

“Yancey, girl, you are too tough,” Nicole laughed.

“Who does that bitch think she is? She made me want to pull up on her.”

Nicole drank some coffee and then told Yancey how she and Della used to compete for roles on Broadway and national commercials.

“She competed with you? That dumpy-looking bitch? Look like somebody broke the seal on the biscuit can. And what was that she was wearing? Did she walk into a hotel lobby, look at the rug, and say, ‘Make me a dress out of that’?” Yancey laughed.

Nicole smiled and said, “She has gained a lot of weight. But life and those biscuits must be good. I just don’t know how you could tell right off she was bad news. I mean, you picked up on that right away. It usually takes me a little more time,” Nicole said.

“Honey, I can see trouble coming, even when it’s disguised as a high-society wannabe,” Yancey said. She thought it didn’t make sense for Nicole to be as old as she was and still naïve when it came to bad seeds.

“Della was very talented. I mean sistah could sing and act her butt off, but she was always stirring up a mess. She’s one of those girls who could best be described as an ‘I’m tired of talking about me, why don’t you talk about me’ kinda girl,” Nicole said. “A lot of people used to call her Evilene behind her back, ’cause she’d smile in your face one minute and stab you in the back the next. Rumor has it that she was understudying a role in
Ain’t Misbehavin’
, and one night she put the star’s dress in the toilet right before curtain. Everywhere Della showed up, trouble followed,” Nicole added.

“If she did that to me, I would
still
be beating her down. I guess most of us have some evil bitch in our past. Mine was this child named Nisey Mitchell. Her father and mother were both attorneys and thought they were hot shit. Nisey and I were in dance class and pageants together ever since we were about eight years old. Always the only two black girls. But she was so two-faced, and she had about as
much talent as an ant. But in a small town that doesn’t stop you. I got her ass good in the end, though,” Yancey said proudly.

“What happened?”

“She wanted to be a cheerleader so bad, but couldn’t even do a cartwheel. But we had this rule at our school that since most of the football team was black, then there had to be at least one black cheerleader. Everybody wanted me to try out, but Nisey pleaded with me to try out for drill team. She even offered to pay for my uniform and drill team camp. So during her junior year it looked like Nisey was going to live her dream by default ’cause she was the only black girl trying out for the cheerleading squad. But then, even though I had promised her I had no interest in being a cheerleader, I showed up at tryouts,” Yancey said.

“Did you make it?” Nicole asked.

“Of course I made it,” Yancey said with a laugh. She and Nicole slapped palms in a midlevel high five.

“So she never got to be a cheerleader?” Nicole asked, suddenly wishing she hadn’t given Yancey that high five. She felt like black women needed to stick together, but reasoned that Yancey was still young.

“Not really. She was selected as an alternate, but when I quit right before the season started, they wouldn’t let her on the squad because she didn’t know all that stupid stuff they do. Like I said, I had no interest in that shit. I was trying to concentrate on my dancing, not shaking some pom-poms.”

“It’s sad to see black women treat each other so badly, but I guess in this business we’ve all got a Della or a Nisey in our past,” Nicole said mournfully. She was thinking of some of the evil young ladies she had met during her pageant days.

“Yeah, girl, but that’s where they need to stay. In our past,” Yancey said as she picked up the check.

Basil was feeling talkative and launched into a long narrative moments after taking a seat in the leather chair.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not this is helping. You know, I still haven’t confronted my father or my uncle about what happened and to tell the truth I don’t think about it until I come into this office. When I do think about it, I keep hoping you’ll have some kinda magic pill that would make everything all right, but we both know that ain’t gonna happen. It’s not like I’m some crazy gonna-shoot-somebody-or-myself mofo. I should just maybe say the shit happened, it’s over, move on.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I mean, what’s the point? I’m still attracted to dumb-ass women and knucklehead mofos. You ain’t been holding back on me, Doc, have you? You don’t have some kinda magic pill that’s going to stop these desires I have, do you?”

“You know that’s not possible, but let me play the devil’s advocate here for a moment. If there was such a pill, would you take it?”