Naughtier than Nice (22 page)

In a kind tone, Livvy said, “Sleep downstairs with her.”

“You want me with her while you shut me out of our bed?”

“That's what I want tonight, Tony.”

He made a fist, like he wanted to strike the wall a dozen times. “What are we doing here, Livvy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still need me in your life? Should I have moved on back when . . . when it happened?”

She stood motionless, whispered, “I need both of you.”

“For how long?”

“Until I don't need both of you anymore.”

“I don't understand this.”

“You shouldn't try, Tony. But if you can't handle it, if I come back home one day and you're not here, if you've decided to go spend time in London, I will understand.”

“The wine is talking for you.”

“Maybe.”

“Look, get some rest.”

“I don't want to go, but I have to get up early.”

“I'll wake you in a few hours.”

“I doubt if I will sleep tonight. Enjoy yourself.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

He went to Livvy, pulled her to him to kiss, but she put the palms of her hands on his chest, refused to let him.

He retreated from their master bedroom, a stranger in his own world, in his own home.

Olivia stayed in the window, her gaze fixed toward faded memories in Manhattan Beach.

She whispered, “He's gone. Carpe is dead. The force is gone. Yet the course of the river is still reversed.”

Their upstairs Roomba whirred, bumped into her leg, then easily moved on with its life. Soon she heard the doctors downstairs, first laughing, having fun, then there was silence, followed by sounds of passion. Livvy closed her bedroom door, then sat in an oversize chair with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring at her Blahniks, her only remaining gift from her deceased lover, her eyes on her precious heels while toying with her anklet. She focused on the anklet, turning the symbol around and around in one direction, and then became the force that caused it to switch its course. She did that over and over.

If my gun had been in my hand I would've shot that intruder on the spot. When I stepped inside my crib, I saw the silhouette and almost jumped out of my thong as I fumbled to get my gun, then bumbled and dropped the damn thing. I picked it up as fast as I could and was ready to scream and pull the trigger.

It looked like Franklin Carruthers was inside of my home.

But it wasn't Franklin. I lowered the gun and took my finger off the trigger.

Tommie was chilling at my informal dining room table, dressed like a bum, in a zone, writing frantically by the light from her cellular. She had scared me and had no idea how much.

Two red roses and a half-empty bottle of blue Gatorade were on the table in front of her.

She jumped to her feet, took off her baseball cap, yanked away her Dr. Dre headphones, and fell into fight-or-flight mode when the front door closed hard. Eyes wide and enlarged by fear, she was a Margaret Keane painting come to life. Her mouth dropped open.

Then my eyes widened and my mouth dropped open.

I had rushed out and left the thick binder notebook with all of the logs of harassment from Franklin and the foul e-mails from his lunatic wife on the dining room table. Those were supposed to stay hidden. I freaked out, was ready to become defensive and embarrassed because Tommie's body language told me something was wrong. She turned off her phone, put her writings away in a hurry.

I turned the lights on low, then cleared my throat and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Want to tell me what's going on, or has every McBroom gone crazy tonight?”

I exhaled and inhaled a few times. She was here like she had already found out about my being stalked, about the lunatic mentioning Mo, and had thrown on the first thing in reach and stormed over.

I asked, “Is Livvy here with you?”

“Livvy and Tony are in bed eating Chinese food.”

I hurried to the bay window, waved, and Driver pulled away, windshield wipers on high. I was glad Driver hadn't come in for that drink. Would've made a fool of myself. But I had been a worse fool.

Tommie put her headphones on the table by the two roses. “Frankie? What's going on?”

I snapped, “I just walked in the friggin' door. Give me a moment. Let me take a breath.”

Tommie said, “Frankie, where are you coming from?”

“Don't start a question-asking party, unless you plan on answering a lot of questions.”

I went to the dining area. Her face looked fatter, swollen, skin reddened.

I asked, “Why do you have that nasty bag on top of my table?”

“You scared me when you came in the front door like that.”

“Your car isn't out front in my driveway.”

“It was raining, so I parked in the garage.”

“Isn't your hoopty leaking oil?”

“I put cardboard under the engine.”

I went toward her and picked up her pages and a novel she had on the table, a worn one by Beale Streets, shoved it all inside her gym bag. I didn't ask, just rubbed the top of her head, then saw the notebook I was concerned with hadn't been opened. Or if it had
been opened, it had been closed and put back in the exact spot I had left it in when I walked out with Driver. I was about to show those messages to him when he picked me up, then had changed my mind.

I asked, “Why didn't you check the small bedroom? You know where I sleep most nights. I'm not seeing anybody new and I haven't dated for a while. That empty bed would've told you I wasn't home.”

“But you told me you were home, Frankie. Why would I think you had left when you told me you were in bed? I saw the small bed empty, and assumed you were in the big bedroom doing Jell-O tricks, and I didn't need to see more shit that will rearrange my brain any more than it's been rearranged already.”

“You will never let me live that down. It was Jell-O. Get over it.”

“There are things a woman should never see her sister doing with Jell-O.”

“That's why people should call before they pop up at someone's home.”

“Look, I don't want to argue.”

“What were you doing?”

“Was trying to sit here and write a letter.”

I wiped rain from Driver's damaged Italian suit coat, draped it across the back of a dining room chair, kicked my trainers off, let them rest on the tile floor, did all that before I put my gun and purse on the dining table, let the gun stay alert on top of that notebook. I yawned my way back to Tommie, took a deep breath, and put my arms around her. She twisted her lips, and the tears eased down her cheeks.

She asked, “Why do you have your gun with you?”

“This is LA. Everybody has a gun with them; most people have two.”

“What's going on, Frankie?”

“What's the issue that has you here in the middle of the night?”

“Why aren't you in bed like you told me you were?”

“Let's focus on you, Tommie.”

“I can't do anything right. Went by Livvy's first. Walked in and they were in the middle of the middle, so that's why I was scared to go to your big bedroom; didn't want to be pissed off and traumatized three times in one night. This has got to be the worst night of my friggin' life. I mean, the worst night.”

“You walked in on Livvy and Tony?”

“I walked in on them big-time. They're nasty.”

“What did you see?”

“Must be in the air. Everything is out of alignment.”

I said, “You're tired and sound like you're delirious.”

“And in a mood. Actually I'm in so many moods. They're all spinning like the Wheel of Fortune. I need the wheel in my mind to stop going around and around and settle on one emotion.”

I took her hand, led her to the big purple sofa, and pulled a yellow blanket over us.

She said, “Daddy and Momma made this relationship crap look so damn easy.”

“Yeah. They did. I think they did a good job of hiding the rough parts from us.”

“Where are you coming from this time of the morning, Frankie?”

I took a breath and exhaled. “I had a meeting with Franklin Carruthers.”

“Frankie . . . no . . .
no
. Tell me you're not sleeping with that loser.”

“I wanted him to look me in my eyes and tell me he had nothing to do with what happened to my car, to the window at my business. I had to look in his face to see if he was the one doing all of this crap.”

“How did it go?”

“I gave Franklin his ring back.”

“Two things a woman never gives back: shoes, lingerie, and the ring.”

“Three things.”

“Okay, three things. But that list needs to be amended to include a bunch more stuff.”

“Now he has no reason whatsoever to contact me.”

“That ring was the ring of all rings, Frankie. Superheroes don't have rings that nice.”

“I returned his ring and gave him a few harsh words. I've had enough of him and his wife.”

“What does that mean? What did his wife do?”

I almost told her all about Franklin and the stalking, needed to purge and confess. I would tell them all after it was over. No point in having everyone stressed.

Blue called her over and over, his ringtone Erykah Badu's “Love of My Life.” Tommie didn't answer. Each time he called, Tommie cursed and shook her head. That wasn't like her. She used to turn cartwheels and do somersaults whenever he called. But her phone rang again and it wasn't Blue's ringtone. Tommie jumped up and took that call, went to the far reaches of the house, smiling, laughing, flirting. She was talking to a random guy. She had become a big ball of sunshine as soon as he called.

Tommie had left her gym bag in the dining room, so I just happened to go in that direction, then happened to peek inside to see what she was writing so intently when I had come home, hoping that she hadn't cracked open my notebook and seen the love letters from Franklin and the threats from his wife.

She had written a string of nonsensical phrases, like esoteric poetry gibberish at spoken word.

I fucking hate him. / The night as dark as my thoughts. / Wanted to scream, rant.

Desired a true friend. / Wanted you to console me. / Tears fall like hot rain.

You answered door nude. / Eloquent silence, kisses. / Then echoed passion.

You slid deep inside. / I tell you this now is yours. / No longer felt Blue.

Tommie snapped,
“What the hell are you doing, Frankie?”

I jumped, turned around, saw Tommie standing there, body wet, towel around her.

I said, “Was about to bring you your gym bag so you can hurry and get ready, and your papers somehow accidentally fell out and I just picked them up and was putting them back inside of your bag.”

She marched to the table and snatched her papers from my hand, shoved them back in her bag, then cursed and pushed me. I grunted and pushed her back. She pushed me again. I pushed her.

I asked, “What is that?”

She yelled, “Nosy-ass bitch. Can't nobody stand a nosy-ass bitch. Livvy is sneaky and freaky and your ass is nosy and nasty. Both of y'all need Jesus the way Fat Joe needs Jenny Craig.”

“Why are you so defensive? What's going on?”

“Why do you have a book of love letters from Franklin? What's up with that?”

That paused me. “You went through my binder?”

“I was looking for paper to write my thoughts on, saw the notebook, opened it, and
accidentally
found a lot of love letters, and they're all disgusting, like you were reading all of it this afternoon, reminiscing about Jell-O and God knows what else, got hot and bothered, then went to see him.”

“I went to give him his ring back. He has something that belongs to me as well.”

“I'm not stupid, Frankie. You lied and said you were in bed
hours ago and come in wearing straight-up booty-call clothes. You'd better not ever see that asshole again, or I will kick his ass.”

I yelled, “And don't leave your Gatorade and those cheap 7-Eleven roses on my damn table.”

She stormed back to the edge of the dining room. “What are you screaming about, Frankie?”

“Get your mess. Leave your house messy, but don't come to mine and make it a pigpen.”

“You know I don't like red roses. They are cliché and for losers. Sent only in apology. That's not my Gatorade. Frankie, you know I don't drink that sugar water, so quit playing with my head.”

She marched down the hallway, pissed, agitated, cursing me out with every step.

I stared at the roses, at the Gatorade, heart racing. Then once again I had that old feeling of dread, of being violated, and I looked at my home in a different way. Again things had been moved. Art that had been on the wall in the living room was now in the dining room. The dish drain was upside down and had been moved to the opposite side of the sink. Drawers had been opened and not closed all the way.

This couldn't be happening again, not here, not in my new home.

I went to the kitchen. A bar of soap had been put in the microwave and cooked until it made a soufflé. I went to the foyer. Red ink had been added to the water in all of my fresh-cut flowers.

Tommie didn't do that. Tommie would never do that.

She had no reason to destroy my sanity.

Since the first round of stalking, so I would know I hadn't lost my mind, I had taken photos of my home, of how things had been placed. I broke out my cellular, looked at the photos. Things had been moved, only the change wasn't as drastic as before. Some items only by six or seven inches, but many small things had been moved. In my office, cups of pens had simply been turned around. I went to
every door, checked to make sure all were locked. I double-checked the alarm system. I went into the garage. I had done this as an exercise every night. I picked up my gun, jogged from room to room. In the master bedroom, I turned on the eighty-inch television, switched to security mode, and rewound the feed on the DVR. There was very little traffic up here on the hill after dark, but it looked like the same car passed by my house four times in six minutes. There were dozens of houses on this strip of Olympiad, so that car could've been passing anyone's house over and over. The car never slowed down in the view of my cameras, so I wrote that off as someone lost, or just cruising and looking for a place to have sex on the side of the road. Nothing else suspicious had happened since I had met with Driver.

I exhaled. Had going through my head Franklin drinking blue Gatorade countless times.

Flowers didn't magically appear in a house, not even if you watered the carpet with Perrier.

The fax machine rang and I jumped.

I went to see what came through in the thick of the night.

It was the image of a smiley face. Its eyes were poked out.

I recognized the number on the fax machine. It was the number to the fax machines at my office on Sepulveda.

That was impossible. No burglar alarm had been detected.

Hand shaking, eyes welling with tears of anger, I stared at a half-empty bottle of Gatorade and cheap red roses. But it was when I went to my master bedroom that I knew Franklin had been here.

The evidence was on top of the bed, waiting on me, staring at me. The nine-inch-long Jack Rabbit I had left at Franklin's home was in the center of my bed. An ass print was on the end of the bed.

He had sat there, after Driver had kicked his ass, angry, waiting on me to come back home.

I hyperventilated, had to sit down, had to wait for my life to stop spinning like it had done before. Soon the world moved in
slow motion; I felt like I was swimming in oil as I picked up my phone.

I called the man who is six foot two, two hundred pounds, dark as an open road. A giggling woman answered his phone, changed her tone and became professional, and said the business's name. She had a Southern voice. That caught me off guard.