The Glamorous Life (13 page)

Damn,
she thought,
he’s early and I haven’t even gotten this started yet.

“Ohhh, I thought I told you to call me before you came!” she screamed before she opened the door. But she was happy that he wanted to see her that badly. She opened the door without hesitation.

But it was not her new man standing on the colonial-style porch. Instead, it was the last person Tricia expected to see:
Reggie. Putting her hand on her hip she exclaimed, “What in the hell are you doing here, Reggie? Or maybe I should call you Regina!”

He haltingly said, “Look Ms. Tricia, may I come in? I … I ummm …”

Tricia looked around. She didn’t want him to make a scene outside her door.

“Come in and make it quick. I’ve got company coming over, and by the way, it’s Ms. Ferguson to you. Only friends call me Tricia, and you damn sure aren’t any friend of mine.”

Reggie took a deep breath. “A’ight, Mrs. Ferguson, please, I just really need you to listen to me. I promise I won’t take but a minute of your time.”

“One minute is all I got for your half-of-a-man ass.” She returned to the kitchen, washed her hands, and began to cut some green peppers and put them in the pan. She wondered how he could have the nerve to stand here in her kitchen after what he did to her baby girl.

Reggie spoke slowly, as if he was trying to get his words right.

“Listen, Mrs. Ferguson,” he said.

“It’s Mizzz Ferguson,” she interrupted him while looking into the refrigerator to get some butter.

“Mizzz Ferguson,” he said to her, humbly watching as she put a thick sirloin in the pan, “I know I made a mistake, but the truth is I love your daughter.”

“A mistake? How about a biiiig mistake? And did you say you love my daughter? Seems to me you claiming you love my daughter is the only mistake you made,” she said as she sprinkled seasonings over the steak.

“Please, Ms. Ferguson, I am asking you to talk to her….”

“Talk to her! For what?” she interrupted him.

“To let her know I love her and let her know I am sorry,” he pleaded.

“Are you out of your mind? You made a fool of her and of me in front of God and everyone. The best thing you can do is get out of her life and never darken my doorway again. Sorry? You damn right, you’re sorry. Now, go on and get out of my house. I got so much better things to do than listen to this.”

She turned away from him. Damn, she’d left the oil going, and now it was too hot.

“You bitch,” Reggie said. “This is your fault. You turned her against me.”

Tricia didn’t like the tone of his voice. She turned to face him, but when she did, he reached over to the stove and grabbed the pan of oil.

“What?” she cried out, but it was too late. Reggie had slung the pan directly at her. Drops of boiling oil splashed her face, her neck, her arms. It was like being cooked alive. She screamed out in pain.

Reggie lowered the pan.

“I only asked you to help me, you
bitch,
” he cried.

But Tricia just kept screaming, the searing pain on her skin like the worst nightmare. Then she felt the pan crash against her skull, and the pain slowly dimmed as everything went black.

W
hen Tricia woke up in the hospital room, she felt the pain all over again. She groaned.

“Momma, don’t move,” she heard Bambi say. “You’ve got third-degree burns all over your body.”

As the tears leaked out her eyes, she felt the salty water trickle over the burned spots on her face. Oh, God, her face.
He had destroyed her. He might as well have killed her, she thought, before she slipped off to sleep again.

Weeks later when Tricia finally was able to look in a mirror, she wanted to scream. She wished she were dead rather than have lost her beauty. She thought of suicide but couldn’t follow through. Her pretty face was her only asset, and now she couldn’t find a reason to go on. She had no idea how she was going to survive. She was sent to Charter Westbrook mental hospital for a few weeks to try to cope with her injuries and to find some meaning to keep on living. She wouldn’t accept hardly any visitors, so wrapped up was she in the loss of her looks. Only Bambi and Egypt were allowed to visit, and even their visits were limited as Tricia sank deeper into a depression. Reggie had been arrested for attempted murder and was in jail waiting to stand trial, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to her.

Bambi looked at her mother’s pill bottle.

“Mommy, stop taking so many pills,” she said.

“The pills are the only thing that makes me forget.”

Tears formed in Bambi’s eyes as she thought,
Damn this is all my fault. I guess maybe I should have at least heard Reggie out a little bit, and now my mother had to pay. I wish it was me instead of her.

“Ma, I swear to God on everything I love, this dude gonna get his.”

“Don’t you go out here and get yourself in any trouble. Let the law deal with him,” Tricia said as she took another pill.

“The law?” She raised her voice a little bit and immediately realized that she didn’t want to upset her mother.

D
ays later Bambi stopped by her mother’s house to check on her, a daily routine that she had adopted since Tricia had been released from the hospital a few weeks earlier. That day she was dropping off groceries and got the shock of her life. As she entered the house, she called out, “Mommmeeeee.” She listened, but there was no answer.

She approached the den and stood shocked when she saw her mother sprawled on the couch with her legs wide open. One leg was hung off the sofa, and there was an empty bottle of Belvedere on the coffee table. As she got closer, she could smell the liquor reeking from Tricia’s body. Bambi was devastated. She knew her mother had been drinking a lot lately, but she’d always thought her mother would stop as she got better. She’d had no idea at all that the bottle was her mother’s new best friend.

Every night Tricia went to the local bars for happy hour and to get pissy drunk. Sometimes she would get so drunk she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten home. Since Bambi had begun doing events, she had become acquainted with most of the local bartenders. In turn, the bartenders tried to watch out for her mother as best they could. So it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for Bambi to get a call saying, “Bambi, I think you need to send someone to come and get your mother, because she’s really out of it.”

Most of the time, Bambi would drop what she was doing to go pick her mother up, and once she arrived, there would be no doubt Tricia was out of it. Bambi would graciously thank and tip the caller. Whenever Bambi saw her mother drunk, it shattered her heart. But she held her head up like a champ and dared anyone to make a negative comment. Bambi was always patient with her mother, never losing her cool. She sympathized
with her mother’s plight and vowed that she’d never look down on her or turn her back on her. After all, she felt partially responsible. On the few instances that she couldn’t pick up her mother, she would send Ruby.

Her business continued to thrive, and she had just scored a big event—a bachelor party for one of Richmond’s native NFL players. She was working on the plans when she got the familiar call. “Come get her, Bambi. She’s gonna get herself in trouble.” She hopped in her car and drove to Peenuckles, a low-rent kind of dive—the kind of place her mother would not have been caught dead in before her run-in with Reggie. She saw her mother slumped over the bar, her wig crooked and her makeup smeared.

“Mommy, come on now,” Bambi said gently.

“I don’t know why they had to call you and disrupt your business to come get the wrinkled-up old woman.” Tricia’s burns had healed, but an ugly scar was left on the left side of her face, and the burns on both of her hands were puffy and ugly as lobster claws.

“Because they know I love you, Mommy,” Bambi said as she gathered her mother’s keys and cell phone.

“Nope, ’cause them African booty sniffers is snitches! That’s why. They know you gon’ pay them for calling,” Trish said, and nearly fell off the bar stool.

“Mommy, that’s not why.”

“Why you looking at my daughter? You like her little black ass, don’t you? Well, she doesn’t want you because she doesn’t want a drunk,” Trish shouted at some guy who was trying to mind his own business. “Her momma is a drunk, and she don’t need two drunks in her life.”

“Mommy, come on. Be nice.”

“Only because you said so! I love you, girl, even though you black as tar.”

Bambi always ignored the comments her mother would make about her dark complexion. She took her mother home and led her to the big king-sized bed with the floral comforter on top and helped her undress.

“I can’t pay my electric bill, Bambi,” Tricia slurred. “What am I gonna do?”

“I got it all taken care of, Mommy. I already paid that bill last week.”

She heard the doorbell and went to let Egypt in.

“I got your message, girl. How can I help?” Egypt asked.

Bambi hugged her friend and thanked her for coming.

“Just stay with her for a while. I’ve got to go to handle my business. Oh, and here’s some money for her in case she needs anything.” She handed her friend a hundred dollars.

“She’s just gonna use it to buy drinks, Bambi.”

“I don’t care. She’s my mother, and I’d rather her have her own money than to get caught out dealing with a nigga and he have the nerve to think she owe him for some ten-dollar drink.”

“I feel you.”

The roles had reversed. Bambi now became the provider just as her mother had provided for her for so many years. Bambi busted her butt to make sure her mother never needed or wanted for a thing. She was the only thing that kept Tricia going, and she took care of her as if Tricia were the child and not her mother, and never complained. When Tricia was sober long enough to let everything sink in that Bambi had done for her, she hugged Bambi and said, “Thank you so much, baby.”

“Ma, don’t thank me. You’re all I got, and I would rather die than to have you go without,” Bambi said, and put her head against her mother’s shoulder.

CHAPTER 12

In da Club

L
ynx, one of the most well-known and biggest ballers in all of Richmond, sat at a table in Disco’s club in Richmond and ordered another bottle of Dom Perignon. He had returned to town after having been gone for most of the past year, making deals and connections on the West Coast. Now he was back home, and things on his end were all good. Cook’em-up and three other members of his crew all sat at the table with him, catching him up on what had been happening since he was gone—who was doing time, who had rolled over, who was knee-deep in the money, who was broke, and who had gotten the most pussy.

Lynx felt like he had earned the spot in the Richmond gangsta scene that was once occupied by his father, Wild Cat, who was killed when Lynx was only nine years old. Cook’emup used to be one of Lynx’s father’s little shorties and was always loyal to him. He stepped in to watch Lynx’s back and give him advice from his many years on the street. The two men
had known each other since Lynx was a little boy, and Lynx was about ten years younger than Cook’em-up. Ever since Wild Cat got killed, Lynx had vowed that one day he’d be a gangsta like his dad. Now he was.