Family of Lies (11 page)

Two years later . . .

M
Y LIFE KEPT GETTING BETTER AND BETTER.
I
HAD EVEN MORE TO BE
thankful for. My daughter and I had an even better relationship now. I was still in reasonably good health, and my business was booming. We couldn’t count the money fast enough.

But there was at least one thorn in my side.

Things were somewhat strained between Vera and me. Some days when she didn’t know I was looking out of the corner of my eye, I caught her glaring at me like she wanted to coldcock me. One night after we had gone to bed, I woke up a few hours later and caught her sitting up in bed looking at me with so much contempt in her eyes I was too afraid to say anything. That was a scary moment for me. Vera didn’t say anything to me about it, but I didn’t go back to sleep that night. To my dismay, she spent the next few nights in one of the other bedrooms.

Even though Vera said she’d forgiven me for having an affair and fathering a child with another woman, I still had some doubts. For one thing, she had not yet accepted my daughter to my satisfaction.

“I do care about Sarah, and I know that someday she and I will be close, but I need a little more time,” Vera told me in an apologetic tone of voice. She sounded sincere enough, but things were still not the way I thought they should be by now.

Sarah had been away at school for almost two years. And so far Vera had not gone to Iowa with me to visit her—and I’d made the trip eight times. She had come up with one excuse after another as to why she couldn’t accompany me. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center last year, Vera came up with the excuse that she was now afraid to get on a plane. When Sarah came home for spring break this year in April, which was just a month ago, Vera suddenly decided to go to Houston to visit the sisters she claimed she couldn’t stand. I knew how much she despised her sisters, so her preferring their company over my child’s made me sad. It also made me angry, but I didn’t let Vera know that. I was still trying to make up for my most serious indiscretion. And, I was proud to say, I had not cheated on Vera since we found out about Sarah.

“Sarah asks about you all the time. The least you can do is send her a card or a letter every now and then. She will be coming home for good next year, and you’re going to have to live with her,” I told Vera.

“All right. I’ll go with you the next time you visit her.”

That same day, I made arrangements to visit Sarah the next day. And Vera went with me. From the way she carried on, you would have thought that she and Sarah were best friends. When Sarah came home for good the following year in June, Vera welcomed her with open arms. At least that was what it looked like to me.

“I’m glad your wife finally stopped treating me like a stepchild,” Sarah confided in me during a moment when she and I were alone.

I chuckled. “But, honey, you are a stepchild to her.”

She chuckled too. “I know. But you know what I mean.”

“Baby, just be nice to her and I am sure she’ll be nice to you.” I gave Sarah a firm hug.

I couldn’t believe how sweet Vera was to Sarah now that she was home for good. Each day Vera seemed sweeter than the day before. Several times a week, she took Sarah shopping at the best stores, lunch at the best restaurants, and she even took her to the theater. As far as I was concerned, I had the best of both worlds now.

As good as things were, there was still a thing or two going on in my house that didn’t sit too well with me. Vera’s spending habits had gotten out of control. I stumbled upon dozens of large shopping bags filled with expensive items with the price tags still attached. Not only was her bedroom’s large walk-in closet full of these shopping bags, but she had also filled up the closets in two of the other bedrooms, two closets downstairs, and even the laundry room. She purchased a brand-new Ferrari that she drove for only two months. She traded it in on a different one just because she wanted one in a color that would match most of her outfits. She had had so much cosmetic surgery done on her face and body she looked and felt like a mannequin. I came home from one of my business trips last week and she had gotten rid of all the furniture in the house and replaced it with more expensive items. Every time I attempted to scold Vera about her spending, she reminded me about how I had “hurt” her by having an affair with Sarah’s mother and that spending money pacified her. For that reason, it was easier for my peace of mind to let her do whatever she wanted to do.

Things went on like this for the next
four
years.

There was nothing I wanted more than to see my wife accept my daughter completely. I knew Vera was really trying, so I couldn’t say anything or even make any suggestions as to what they could do to improve their relationship. But just knowing that they did go out and do certain things together was a step in the right direction. However, there were flaws in that endeavor too. One of Vera’s complaints was that Sarah got bored on the six- to eight-hour trips to the malls and the boutiques. What was even worse was that when Sarah did want to go shopping, she
still
went to the same discount stores that she’d shopped in before she came to live with me.

“Kenneth, you need to talk to your child,” Vera said to me after their latest Saturday shopping spree.

“My child? You told me you were going to treat her like she was your child,” I chided.

“
Our
child,” she said with a smile and rapidly rolling eyeballs. “I have bought our child clothes from the best stores in town. She prefers outfits she picks up in discount stores.”

“Well, as long as what she wears is clean and has a pleasant smell, what’s the problem?”

“Kenneth, what’s wrong with you? I’m trying to teach the girl—our child—to have some class. What will our friends think?”

“They can think whatever they want to think. As long as Sarah’s not wearing something that’s offensive, why should they care?”

“You’re missing the point, baby. We have an image to maintain. We can’t do that if our only child is running around dressing like a bag lady. She wore some mammy-made polyester dress, with vinyl shoes, to Wilma Finch’s daughter’s wedding last Saturday. I was so horrified and embarrassed when she walked into that church! I knew I should have made her ride in the same limo with me,” Vera told me.

I laughed.

“It’s not funny, Kenneth.”

“And it’s not that serious. We can’t expect Sarah to change overnight,” I insisted.

“Overnight? She’s been with us for
seven
years now!”

“Overnight, seven years, whatever. The bottom line is, we have to let the child be who she is.”

“The child is no longer a child. She’s a twenty-two-year-old woman. She should be more refined by now. And what about her friends?”

“So? What about her friends?”

“What if one of them tries to do something crazy to her? Her friends are the kind of people who like to take advantage of people like her.”

“I don’t know what you mean by all that, but Sarah is not stupid or blind. She’s got enough sense to know when and if somebody is trying to take advantage of her.”

“When Sarah’s hoochie-coochie girlfriends go out with her, who do you think is paying for everything? She is! And I’ve seen her hand money to a couple of those moochers more than once!”

“What’s wrong with her being generous to her friends? So many of them have so little. I’m sure they appreciate anything they can get from Sarah.”

“You’re damn right they appreciate it! Who wouldn’t? And you don’t have a problem with that? You don’t think they’re taking her kindness and generosity for weakness? As crazy as people are these days, you need to be more concerned about what some of them will do to Sarah if they get desperate enough. She could be kidnapped and held for ransom!”

“Look, I don’t like where this conversation is going, Vera!” I exclaimed, holding my hand up in the air. I rarely showed my anger to Vera, but she was pushing her luck. “I could say the same thing about you and your cousin and his wife.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“Cash and Collette hang around with some pretty shady people. Are you just as worried about somebody kidnapping them?”

“That’s different.”

“No, that’s not different. Let’s not worry about Sarah unless she gives us something to worry about.”

The conversation was over as far as I was concerned. Vera realized that when I turned and walked out of the room, even though she was still talking.

T
HIS THING WITH
S
ARAH WAS REALLY BOTHERING ME, AND
I
HAD TO
do something about it. Most of the people I knew went to bars to drown their sorrows. I either went shopping or to the spa, or I paid a visit to one of my sexy young male friends. Some days I did all of the above—including a visit to one of my favorite bars. Well, this time I was only interested in some young male flesh.

I didn’t mind being generous when it came to my lovers; therefore, they didn’t mind doing whatever I wanted them to do. And I always made it clear from day one with each one where he stood with me, so I’d never had any “fatal attraction” experiences like another married woman I knew.

Shirley Biddle and I had similar backgrounds, except she was white. She had married Kenneth’s tax attorney six months after I married Kenneth and we’d been casual friends ever since. We’d even swapped a few lovers. Last year she had attempted to “unload” her twenty-three-year-old Jamaican gardener off on me because he had become possessive and had even begun to stalk her. The last thing I needed was a stalker, so Shirley accused him of stealing from her and made such a fuss he got deported. Anyway, I had already decided to “give” her my latest lover, Andre Gaudeux, as a Christmas gift this year. He was as meek as a lamb, so he wouldn’t cause her any problems. Since I was always looking for new thrills, I had become bored with this boy and was going to “fire” him before the end of the year. Until then, I planned to keep him on my payroll....

Andre didn’t answer his door when I rang the bell and that pissed me off. Unlike Tony, whom I’d discarded two years ago after he had stopped working out and his belly got bigger than his dick, Andre was the cream of the crop. He was nineteen and very hungry. Hungry enough to do anything I told him to. I liked men who had nothing to offer but themselves. Andre had been working as a cabana boy when I met him on the beach in St. Thomas last summer. Kenneth had taken me down there for our anniversary. While he was floating around on a fishing boat, I was getting my groove back in a very big way. Andre lived in a shack with his blind grandmother and his nine siblings and a goat tied to a tree in the backyard. Other than an amazing body and handsome face, he had nothing but a few cheap shirts, two pairs of pants, one pair of sandals, and a post card with the map of America on it that he carried in his back pocket like it was a rosary. He was just what I needed at the time. I literally scrubbed the ash off his body in my hotel Jacuzzi. I took him to the same tailor that the island politicians went to and had several new outfits made for him, all within a two-week period. And to make sure he wouldn’t run off with his new wardrobe and his pocket full of my money, I booked him on a first-class flight to the States, a day before Kenneth and I returned home. He stayed at the Mark Hopkins in a deluxe suite until I found him a place he liked.

I really
needed
to see my boy today. I returned to my car, disappointed and horny as hell. Right after I got in and put the key in the ignition, Andre trotted up and tapped on my window.

“Haylo, bay-bee,” he greeted in his cute Caribbean accent. He grinned and then patted his bulging crotch. “I got hard as soon as I saw your car.”

“Where the hell were you?” I demanded. “You’re not supposed to go anywhere without leaving me a voice mail to let me know.”

“I only went for a ten-minute jog,” he muttered, looking down at his feet. “You told me earlier you had plans for today, remember?”

“Yeah, well, my plans changed.” I had planned to go out to dinner with Kenneth and that child of his. But she’d balked about going to a French restaurant in Sausalito and insisted on going to some rib joint in Oakland! That’s what had started the latest argument between Kenneth and me.

I glanced at my watch and opened my car door. “I don’t have a lot of time,” I said as Andre gently took my hand and helped me back out. My knees buckled and I fell against him. “Damn these heels!” I mock complained, holding on to Andre’s arm to keep from falling to the ground. Despite all of the surgeons who worked on my body, there was nothing any of them could do about my arthritis, and it seemed to get a little worse each year. I was still in fairly good shape for a fifty-seven-year-old woman. And until I got too old to get around on my own, I planned to enjoy every single minute while I still could. “I just need a good hard ten- or fifteen-minute fuck to loosen me up a bit. I hope you’re in the mood for it.”

Andre nodded and steered me into his apartment.

There were times when he was a little too docile for his own good. One thing I could say about my former boy Tony and the ones in between him and Andre was that they had a little more backbone than Andre. This boy was so submissive I had no idea what
he
liked in bed after all this time. It was always about me. But from the way he grunted and groaned and humped me all over his bed, I was convinced that he was having as good a time as I was.

We didn’t waste any time. Andre took me into his bedroom and closed the blinds. By the time he walked over to the bed where I was, I was already on my back. He stretched out next to me. “You seem tense,” he said as he unbuttoned my blouse. At least he was assertive enough to undress me once in a while.

“Honey, I am tense!” I hollered as I wrapped my fingers around his balls and began to grind myself against him.

“I will relieve you, m’dear.”

“Relieve me my ass,” I snickered. “If that’s all I needed, I would have given myself an enema. I want you to fuck me.”

When I got back home, I was feeling so good, Sarah could have walked in front of me naked and it wouldn’t have bothered me.