All About Eva (22 page)

Before I knew it, my time with Donovan was up, and it was Vance's turn to come in and see him.

“I have some things I need to take care of, but I'll meet you at the apartment later on,” I told Vance before he went in the visitors' room.

“Okay, but what did Donovan say to you?” Vance asked, holding me back.

“Um, nothing much,” I said, biting my bottom lip, which for those who knew me well was a dead giveaway that I wasn't being truthful. “He just apologized for getting me involved, and that was pretty much it—I didn't tell him about you and me, so you might want to keep that under wraps for now.”

“Yeah, you're right,” said Vance. “Donovan has enough to worry about, and there's no telling how he'll react to the news of us being together.”

Vance gave me the spare key to his apartment, and I took off like a light to retrieve my luggage from the lobby officer. Ms. Flossie was packed away in my suitcase, and had been traveling with me from pillar to post ever since I had picked up what was left of my earthly possessions at the Funderburk.

I had no clue what a stuffed animal had to do with any of this, but I was damn curious to find out.

I ripped out the rest of the stuffing and found dozens of humongous rolls of hundred dollar bills hidden inside the cavity.

Two hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash, plus hidden treasure boxes around the world containing millions of dollars. Hallelujah!

I felt like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz,
and that I'd had it all along. Lord, if only I had known about this sooner, things would have been different!

With all that money, I could pay off all of Mama Nita's overdue medical bills as well as pay up her participation in the Healthy Mind Project for the rest of her life.

The cards had been re-dealt, and I was now holding a winning hand that I fully intended to play the hell out of.

“Honey, I'm home!” Vance called out from the living room. I jumped at the sound of his voice and scrambled to stuff Flossie, the money, and everything else back into my suitcase. By the time Vance walked into the room, I was as breathless and jittery as a crackhead, but at least I had hidden the evidence.

“Hey, sweetheart!” I said, nervously wiping sweat from my brow.

“What's up, Eva,” he asked, a bit suspicious. “Did I scare you?”

“
No!
It's just that seeing Donovan today wrecked my nerves a little bit, you know?”

“Yeah, it was unsettling to see the physical condition he was in,” Vance said, “and frankly, I'm worried about Donovan's mental health as well. I'm going to have someone evaluate him soon to see what's going on. If there is a problem, maybe we could use that in his defense.”

“That makes two of us,” I said. “I think being locked up is literally driving him insane. So will he be able to get out of there pending trial?”

“It depends on how much the judge sets his bond for. Considering that all of that money is still out there unaccounted for, and Donovan has absconded before in order to avoid jail time, I'm certain that they are going to set the bond pretty high,” Vance said. “I keep hearing varying figures from ten million all the way up to fifty million, which is ridiculous! Ten we can do, but if his bond turns out to be anything more than twenty million, he's just going to have to sit in jail until trial.”

My head was spinning from all the legalese. Enoughalready.com!

“Whew, it's been a long day,” I said, wrapping my arms around Vance's waist. “Kiss?”

Vance bent down and kissed me on the mouth, and playfully bit my lower lip. “Hmm, you taste good,” he said. “So, what do you want to do to commemorate our first evening of cohabitation?”

“Hump.” I laughed. “
Not
talk about Donovan Dorsey, how about that?”

“Done! And how about we include dinner and a Knicks game at the Garden?”

“I knew there was a reason why I like you so much,” I teased. “Yeah, how 'bout it?”

The Knicks lost to the Bulls 111 to 119. Afterwards, Vance and I had dinner at The Palm Restaurant near our apartment where they have the best Shrimp Bruno and double-cut New York Strips, and then we went home and made fast, passionate love.

The sex was phenomenal, but I could not get Donovan's face out of my head. Not the one that I'd seen earlier down at the jailhouse, but the face of the man that I loved dearly prior to the scandal.

While I still cared for Donovan, I was not
in love
with him. How could I be with all that had transpired, added to the fact that he was facing a long prison sentence?

Still, I felt guilty about my budding relationship with Vance—like I was a low-down, out-and-out cheater. I felt sorry for what Donovan had gotten himself into, but damn it, I deserved some happiness, didn't I?

After only a couple of days of working at Vance's law firm, I was performing Sonya's job duties just as well as she had.

“You have reached the law office of Vance Murphy, Attorney at Law, how may I direct your call? One moment please . . . Mr. Johnson, line five . . . Mr. Murphy, line two . . . Ms. Greer, line seven . . . Hello, you have reached the law office of Vance Murphy, Attorney at Law, how may I direct your call? One moment please . . .”

My days were spent handling a barrage of incoming calls, making appointments, light filing, greeting visitors, and occasionally making love in the boss's office.

It was easy work, but it was also boring as hell and made me long that much more to get back into publishing and my first love of writing.

Ronald Nash, the Manhattan D.A., came in to see Vance one afternoon, and as you can imagine, it was difficult for me to maintain my civility. Especially after he had treated me so harshly that day in his office when he was questioning me about Donovan's whereabouts.

Donovan's idea to keep me completely in the dark until well after the fact had been genius, because if I knew before what I knew at that moment, I would have definitely cracked under pressure.

I was just dying to singsong to Mr. Nash,
I know something you don't know . . . onion-head bastard!

But I maintained my professionalism and showed the onion-headed bastard to Vance's office, where they had a long, closed-door meeting.

 

 

The following week, Donovan plead not guilty to a laundry lists of criminal charges, and the federal judge presiding over Donovan's case set his bond at an unprecedented forty million dollars. Donovan was clearly guilty as sin, but Vance's strategy was to make the district attorney's office prove their case on a victim-by-victim basis.

“We're going to force all the alleged victims to produce paperwork, receipts, etcetera, because there is a good chance that not everyone will be able to come up with proof, which will weaken the prosecution's case and possibly reduce the sentence that Donovan will ultimately be given.”

At that rate, the trial had the potential to last for years. Of course, that didn't sit well with me. Hundreds of lives had been ruined, including mine, and I wanted nothing more than to get out from under the shadow of this whole ordeal—once and for all.

Adding fuel to the circuslike atmosphere was the revelation that Mama Dorsey was sitting on thirty-three million dollars even though the only income she had earned in the last several years was from meager sales of her 2001 nonfiction book
From Queens to Wall Street: Raising Successful Children in Today's Society.

Also, according to Vance, Annette refused to pony up any money toward Donovan's bond, which is the reason she had given me for liquidating his assets in the first place. Annette's reasoning was that Donovan will be headed to prison anyway, whether she forked over that much cash or not, which was true, but still. What a ruthless bitch. Annette Dorsey was truly about saving her own ass, even at the expense of her own child, who was the reason she had been able to live so well in the first place.

“I'll tell you one thing: whoever says money can't buy happiness is not shopping at the right stores!”

That's how I used to feel about money, but since I've been on this rags-to-riches roller coaster, I have definitely changed my mind. Money doesn't buy happiness per se, but what it does do is give you freedom, peace of mind, and more control over your life and circumstances.

I knew that I could do a lot of good with the money that Donovan had stashed away, but the problem was, it wasn't my money.

It was a couple of weeks after my discovery of all that loot, and while I had kept my mouth shut all that time, I was bursting at the seams and needed some advice on how to proceed.

I called my two most trusted advisors, Tameka and Kyle, to meet me for lunch and a powwow at Cornelia Street Cafe in the West Village.

“Hypothetically speaking, what would you do if you had access to millions of dollars,” I asked. “Would you keep it, or turn it in?”

Kyle and Tameka sat across the table from me, looking at me as if I were growing a second head right in front of their eyes.

“Well . . .” Tameka said slowly, giving it some serious thought, “I would break off everyone I love with a high six figures, and definitely pay off all my debts and financial obligations.”

“And is that before or after they cart your ass off to jail?” Kyle asked. “Because make no mistake about it, you will be watched, and you will be caught.” Kyle looked me directly in my eyes when he said that, and his point was taken as well.

“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” I said.

“Oh, but of course!” said Tameka.

“No doubt, no doubt,” Kyle said, “but please elaborate on this situation with Mr. Murphy.”

“Yeah!” Tameka said. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Hey, like Pebbles and Babyface told you way back in the day, ‘Love Makes Things Happen,' ” I said, hitting my glass of iced tea against each of theirs. Neither of them drank to that. Haters!

“Yes, but is it really love, or is it just daddy hunger rearing its ugly head again?”

“There you go with that bullshit again,” I snapped. “Look, the fact that I prefer older men doesn't have anything to do with my father not being around, all right? Over and out!”

“Ooh . . . careful now, she gon' cut you!” Tameka said to Kyle under her breath.

“Okay, sweetheart, don't go taking your extreme bitch disorder out on me,” Kyle said. “If you love it, I
live
for it!”

“Okay, good,” I said, “so we're in agreement, right?”

“Mmm-hmm . . .” said Kyle, exchanging the side-eye with Tameka.

“You know, I can't stand it when people think they know more about my business than I do,” I said. “Vance is my new man, and that's that. No couple starts a relationship being head over heels in love right off the bat. You build, and work up to that.

“And as far as my so-called daddy hunger, everyone is entitled to their preferences, and when it comes to men, mine just so happen to be men who are mature, stable, and already are what they want to be when they grow up.”

“Now that is something I'll toast to!” Tameka said, hitting her glass against mine. “But back to your original question, what would you do? Keep it, or turn it over?”

“If I were in that situation,” I said, “it would be hard as hell, but I would do the right thing and turn the money over.”

“Yay!” Kyle applauded me. “ 'Cause it sure wouldn't be cute if I had to come see my Boo-Boo up in the big house. I mean, hypothetically speaking, of course!”

I wondered what Tameka and Kyle would say if they knew that the oversized hobo bag I was carrying was bulging because it contained three plastic Pathmark bags filled with a quarter of a million dollars. Considering that I could get mugged, it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but seeing as how I had no other alternative, it was the safest.

Before we parted ways outside of the cafe, I slipped an envelope into Tameka's tote bag, which contained twenty thousand dollars. I wasn't as smooth about it as I wanted to be, so it did not go unnoticed.

“Eva, what is this?” Tameka asked, and then peeked inside the envelope. “Say word!”

“Word!”

Tameka grinned and gave me an appreciative hug. “Wait, this isn't part of what you were talking about earlier, is it?”

“Well, yes and no,” I said, “but trust me, it's all good. And if I do go down because of it, then it was well worth it just to see that smile on your face.”