Family of Lies (5 page)

I
HAD BECOME A DAMN GOOD LIAR.
I
HAD HAD SO MUCH PRACTICE
over the years that I could tell more believable lies than most people. My husband told just as many lies as I did. The difference was, I knew when he was lying. When I walked into the kitchen a few seconds ago, he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“Baby, what’s the matter?” I asked, wrapping my arm around his waist. His body felt so tense I thought he was having another heart attack. He’d had several since our marriage. No matter how many times Dr. Cortez told him to stop putting himself in stressful situations, like working so much, he rarely took his advice. “Did something happen in one of the stores while we were in Clear Lake?”

“No . . . nothing is the matter,” he stammered, sweating bullets. The light shirt he wore was so wet with sweat it looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower. He had a newspaper in his hand. He folded it and gave me a fake smile. “I think I drank a little too much wine this weekend.”

“In that case, I won’t offer you a drink now.” I looked at my watch. “It’s later than I thought anyway. How about a nice long hot bath, and after you finish I’ll give you a massage.”

“Okay, baby. Uh, I think I’ll do just that,” he blubbered. “I’ll go take my bath right now.”

I waited a few minutes before I tiptoed upstairs to make sure Kenneth was taking his bath. Our bathroom door was shut and I could hear the water running in the bathtub. I eased back downstairs to take care of some urgent personal business.

We had several telephone lines throughout the main house. There was a separate line in the servant’s quarters behind the mansion where our stout, middle-aged Salvadorian housekeeper/cook Delia Suarez and homely husband, Costa, our chauffeur and maintenance man, lived. The phone on the wall in the kitchen had a number of its own. I had had it installed for Delia to use while she was in the kitchen cooking since that was where she spent most of her time during the day. But another reason was so I could use it and not have to worry about Kenneth or anybody else in the house listening in on my private conversations on one of the extensions. I quickly dialed a number that I had memorized.

“Happy New Year, Tony. I tried to reach you the other day,” I whispered into the mouthpiece as soon as he answered. I kept my eye on the door leading into the living room area and the door leading to our backyard. Living in a huge mansion, it was difficult to tell where any of the other residents were from one minute to the next.

“Happy New Year to you, too, Vera. I got the message you left telling me you were going to be out of town with your husband. So, did you enjoy your weekend in the wine country?” Tony asked in his deep baritone voice.

“Like a toothache!” I snapped. “Don’t try to be funny.”

“I’m sorry, sugar. Are you still coming to see me tomorrow like you promised? I’m sure you could use a good workout . . .”

“Oh shit! Don’t you talk shit like that to me! Not tonight!”

“Why not? I do it all the time,” Tony whined.

“Because I don’t know when I can see you again. Kenneth’s not feeling well, so I don’t know if he’s going into the office tomorrow.”

“Damn! What’s wrong with him this time?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s not feeling or looking well, so I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get away for a few hours these next few days.”

“Well, when do you think I’ll be able to see you again? I’m stretched out on my bed right now with my dick in my hand and this sucker is as hard as Chinese arithmetic.”

I swooned just thinking about Tony lying on his bed naked with a hard-on. I had to fan my face and press my thighs together to control myself. I could feel the love juice pooling in the crotch of my panties. “I’ll let you know as soon as possible. After what this old dinosaur put me through this weekend, I really need to see
you
. I’d like to celebrate the new millennium in style—uh,
doggie
style.” Just the thought of Tony humping me from behind almost made me pass out. And it was no wonder. I was a desperate woman because I didn’t get the sex I deserved at home. Making love with Kenneth when he was sober was bad enough. But making love to him after he’d had a few drinks was torture. No matter what I had done for him in our cabin, he still had not performed well or finished in a timely manner. Last night after he’d fumbled around inside and on top of me with a dick as limp as a wet noodle for one hour and thirty minutes (I knew because I had looked over his shoulder at my watch several times), I screamed. He was such a clueless oaf he had thought that I was screaming in ecstasy. And I’d let him think that. I was horrified when he said, “Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to fuck you all night . . .” And he almost did. He didn’t roll off me until 4:00 a.m.

“I really need to see you, baby. If old dude don’t go to work tomorrow, can’t you tell him you’re going shopping or something?”

“Hmmm. I guess I could swing by Neiman Marcus and grab a few items so it would look like I went shopping. The only thing is, if he is too sick to go to work tomorrow, he’ll want me to wait on him hand and foot.”

“Well, if you can make it here to see me, cool. You don’t have to go out of your way for me . . .”

“Now don’t you pout again!” After all of the affairs I’d had with young men—most of them young enough to be my sons—I should have been used to pouting by now, but I wasn’t. “Baby, you know I’ll do my best.”

“I hope so,” he replied, still pouting.

“You know I’ll make it up to you if I don’t make it over to see you tomorrow. And I’ll do my best to make it the next day or so. I’ll bring you something real nice whenever I do come.”

“Okay, baby. You are so sweet to me. And you know I ain’t choosy, so anything from Neiman Marcus or Bloomingdale’s will do.”

I
LOCKED THE BATHROOM DOOR IN OUR BEDROOM IN CASE
V
ERA DECIDED
to enter before I had finished reading the newspaper article about Lois’s death. Sitting on the commode, I read about the fatal accident that had claimed the lives of Lois and her husband. I got so overwhelmed with emotion I began to cry and let out choking moans like an old woman. Even though I had never intended to leave Vera for Lois, I had really cared about that girl. I would have continued the affair indefinitely (or until Vera caught me) had Lois not run off.

I stared at the photograph of her and her daughter enjoying last year’s Fourth of July in Disneyland. My heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to leap clean out of my chest. I stopped crying and moaning, but I had to take a whole lot of deep breaths to keep from passing out.

I was practically convinced that Lois’s daughter was mine, but I needed to know for sure so I could do the right thing. And there was no way I could do that and not let Vera know. I desperately wanted to be a father, and it was not a role that I wanted to fulfill behind closed doors.

Despite the fact that the girl, whose name was Sarah, looked like she belonged to me, that could have been a coincidence. I had met strangers who looked more like me than some of my blood relatives. Cash already knew about my affair with Lois, and even though he was Vera’s cousin, I didn’t have to worry about him blabbing to her before I told her. He knew better than to betray me. He had too much to lose. To please Vera, I had hired that sucker seventeen years ago—even though he had only a high school education and a spoonful of experience—to manage the customer service department in my main store. With his lazy, ignorant ass, he wouldn’t have been able to find another job on the planet paying him what I paid him for doing practically nothing. When he complained about his “boring-ass job,” he took a break and joined the Marines about ten years ago. After eighteen months fighting in the Gulf War, he couldn’t wait to get back to the “boring-ass job” in my store. He was so humble he would have mopped floors if I had asked him to. But because I liked Cash and wanted to keep him happy, I not only gave him his old job back, but I also hired his wife, Collette, a woman he’d met when he lived in L.A. She had attempted to establish a show business career like Cash. But Hollywood had had no interest in her either. She worked as a cashier in my main store now.

I almost tumbled off the commode when somebody knocked on the door. “Yes,” I yelled right away.

“Baby, are you all right in there?” Vera asked. “With all that moaning and groaning you’re doing, you must be
really
constipated this time. There’s a fresh bottle of Maalox in the medicine cabinet. And some Ex-lax.”

“Uh, I’m fine. I’m feeling much better, too, so you don’t have to worry about that massage,” I said. I needed a massage to ease some of the tension in my neck, back, and almost every other part of my body. But I didn’t want to face Vera until I had composed myself. And the way I was feeling, I predicted it would be the next morning before I was able to breathe normally again.

“Can I get you something?”

“Uh, some warm milk if you don’t mind. But you don’t have to do it now. Give me about fifteen more minutes. I think I’ll just lie here in this tub of warm water for a while.”

“Okay, honey.”

I waited a full minute before I looked at the newspaper article again. The funeral was scheduled to take place tomorrow and I had to go. I didn’t care if I was too sick to get out of bed; this was one funeral I didn’t want to miss.

I finally did get in the bathtub. After I had wallowed in the warm soapy water for about ten minutes, I stumbled out. I hid the newspaper under my robe. Right after I entered the bedroom, Vera came in with a large glass of warm milk.

“Baby, you don’t look well at all,” she said. “I’ve never seen your hands shake so hard.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. I drank some of my milk and gave her a big smile. “Now let’s get to bed and get some sleep.”

I slept for less than two hours that night. And when I woke up around nine the next morning, Vera’s side of the bed was empty. I felt like I’d been run over by a train. There was no way I was going to be able to go to a funeral anytime soon, unless it was my own. The way I was feeling, that was a strong possibility.

As soon as Vera returned, I told her, “I think I’ll stay home today.” She had already applied her makeup and put on a beige pantsuit. As usual, she looked like a film star. I was surprised that she looked so disappointed by what I’d just told her. “But you don’t have to babysit me,” I told her. I had dressed and was sitting on the side of the bed. “I don’t know why I bothered to put on my clothes. I may not leave this bed at all today.”

“Hmmm. Well, I hope you don’t mind if I go out for a little while. I’d like to make a run to Neiman Marcus and Macy’s to pick up a few things. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours,” she told me, sitting down next to me on the bed. She put her arm around my shoulder and held me close. “I’ll be thinking about you every minute while I’m gone.” Then she kissed my cheek and massaged my balls.

My dick was as limp as a wet dishrag. I was such a mess even Vera couldn’t excite me right now. And I didn’t want her to keep trying, wasting her time and making me feel even worse.

“Then you go right ahead, honey. Delia will be here and I can always call Cash or Collette if I need anything before you get back.”

“Oh, by the way,” she said, rising. “Did you see last Friday’s newspaper?”

“Huh?”

“Remember that girl named Lois who used to work for you about fifteen, sixteen years ago?”

I gave Vera a thoughtful look. “Lois who?”

“Lois Cooper! She was your secretary! The one who left so abruptly without giving notice or an explanation as to why she was quitting.”

“Lois…Cooper…let me see—oh yeah! That was a long time ago and I vaguely remember her. Wasn’t she kind of homely?”

“No, she was kind of pretty. Anyway, she and her husband died in a car crash last Thursday evening.”

I had hidden the newspaper under my robe and placed both on the nightstand. I glanced to the side and saw that the robe and the newspaper were no longer there.

“I just glanced at the newspaper last night,” I said. “I’ll read the piece later after I read the sports section. Lois Cooper. Hmmm. I hope that poor woman didn’t suffer in that crash.”

“I hope she didn’t either. Oh well.” Vera yawned and looked at her watch. One day I planned to tell her just how much it irritated me for her to do that so often. She even did it sometimes when we were making love!

“Can I get you something before I leave?” she asked.

“I’m fine, sugar. You go on and do what you need to do and don’t worry about me. I’m going back to bed,” I said, already removing my clothes.

Vera kissed me on the forehead and patted my back and then she practically skipped out of the room. I was glad she was in such a good mood and I hoped she stayed that way. I loved my wife. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me. She was the first woman who really made me feel like a man. Before I met her, I had been with so many women I lost count. I knew they were using me, but I didn’t care. I felt that I was using them just as much. And once they found out I had inherited the business from my daddy and was making money like it was going out of style, they tried to use me even more. It seemed like the more money I made, the more trouble I had with women trying to take it.

My money had not impressed Vera when I met her at a software conference in Houston some twenty-eight years ago. I had realized that right away when I offered to help her pay her rent after a friend she had loaned money to didn’t pay her back that month. “I have never taken money from a man before in my life. Besides, I couldn’t pay you back. But don’t worry about me. I’ll get out of this mess somehow,” she told me. The fact that she didn’t want my money made me want her even more.

I had returned to San Francisco the day after I’d met Vera. But I spent a couple of weekends each month in Houston so I could see her and visit some of the relatives I’d left behind. I had always wanted to live in California, so I moved the business to Frisco shortly after my mama and daddy both passed a month apart. But when I fell in love with Vera, I decided that I had to return my business to Houston or get her to move to California. She was a hard nut to crack, but I was determined to win her over—and I didn’t care how much it cost me.

No matter how hard I tried to give Vera money, she refused to take it. Finally, when I was about to give up, she not only let me bring her rent up to date, but she also allowed me to pay it for the next two months. I didn’t mind. I had more money than I knew what to do with anyway. I helped out my relatives from time to time, lending them money I knew they’d never pay back. Each year I donated thousands of dollars to various charities, I supported and paid for the college education of several children in third world countries and in the States, and I gave very generously to the black universities and colleges throughout the country.

Vera quickly became so important to me that I wanted to give her everything she needed, too, and I encouraged her to help me spend my money. Despite my generosity, she remained humble and reluctant. I wined and dined her in the most expensive restaurants in the country, but she preferred rib joints and chicken shacks. Four months after I’d met her, I talked her into quitting her dead-end temp job. She moved to San Francisco to be with me a week after she quit her job. She couldn’t believe a black man lived in a mansion in San Francisco’s exclusive Pacific Heights district. But that didn’t impress Vera. That’s just how humble she was.

Despite my obvious wealth, Vera continued to shop in discount stores and she still preferred to dine in rib joints and chicken shacks at the time. However, her frugality did not last long. Once she met some of my friends at the country club and realized what a position of privilege she was in now, she changed her tune and all hell broke loose! She began to spend money like it was going out of style. Within a month after I married her, she was spending more on one dress than all her other dresses put together. She went hog-wild in all the high-end stores, and she used my money to make herself over, starting with breast implants and a butt lift. But she was more than a vain, extravagant trophy wife; she was my savior.

Until Vera entered my life, I had not really lived or loved. I had always felt empty and lonely. Most of my family had passed, and I was afraid that if I didn’t produce an heir, my family would become extinct.

As much as I wanted to find out if I was a daddy now, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Vera.

Just thinking about my predicament gave me the strength I needed to prop myself up in bed and call Cash.

“You may be right about Lois’s daughter being mine,” I told him, clutching the bedside telephone in my hand so hard my fingers got numb.

“Uh-huh. What about Vera?”

“She saw the newspaper. I don’t think she remembers meeting my niece, or she would have noticed the resemblance between her and Lois’s daughter. The funeral is today.”

“Are you going to attend it?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try. I need to see the girl up close before I say or do anything. And I want her to see me.”

“Why do you want her to see you?” Cash paused. “Do you think her mama told her about you, showed her a picture of you or something?”

“Lois could have done that. I never heard from her after she called in and resigned that Monday morning, so I have no way of knowing whether she did or not. And I’ve never even met Lois’s mama.”

“I feel for you, bro. I don’t think you should deal with this by yourself. If you want me to go to the funeral with you, I will. You might need a backup.”

“Why would I need a backup?”

“For one thing, you don’t know what Lois told her mama as to why she quit such a good job. She might have even told her you took advantage of her.”

“I didn’t take advantage of any damn body!” I hollered. “Lois was of age. She knew what she was doing!”

“True. But like I just said, you don’t know what she told her mama. She might have even told her you raped her. And another thing: if you do go to that funeral, I’m sure people will be wondering who you are and why you’re there.”

“You’re right. Okay. Let’s assume Lois didn’t tell her mama about her having an affair with me. If I go to the funeral and somebody asks me who I am, I’ll tell them the truth. And as Lois’s former boss, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for me to attend her funeral. Last year I attended my bookkeeper’s daddy’s funeral. And the year before that I attended the funerals of two of my folks in sales.”

“Yeah. If you change your mind and want me to go with you, just let me know by the end of today. And you know how Collette is. She’ll be asking all kinds of questions and I’ll have to tell her something eventually. If the child is yours, we might need to do some damage control in advance before you tell Vera, my brother.”