Truth Be Told (3 page)

S
tarlight took another sip of coffee, her eyes plastered to the newspaper. She squinted as the sun's light cast a glare over the article. The brightness of this penthouse was one of the reasons she'd chosen it. This was the first morning she'd had time to relax in the breakfast nook. She looked toward the windows. Even though she didn't want to cover the glass, she'd have to find something to soften the light.

She returned to the paper.
Monroe is the first candidate to win on a totally Christian platform….

“Still reading about your sister?”

She forced herself to look up. “Did you get me all the newspapers?”

Lexington, her assistant, nodded. “Every one.” He settled across from her. “Still think … big mistake not going to the celebration last night. Grace would've been surprised.”

Starlight smoothed the paper onto the table. “Surprise doesn't describe what my sister would have felt if I'd walked into that ballroom.” Her glance returned to the newspaper.

Lexington lifted the coffee pot from the table and filled his cup. He took a sip and grimaced. “Awful … it's cold.”

“Carletta,” Starlight called.

A moment later, a stocky woman appeared cradling a pile of purple towels. “Yes, Ms. Starlight?”

“The coffee is cold,” she said without looking up.

Carletta laid the towels on the couch and ambled through the maze of moving boxes that filled the room. She grabbed the pot, then disappeared into the kitchen.

Lexington picked up one of the papers Starlight had discarded. “Can't believe Grace did it. Didn't think she had a chance.”

“Why?” Starlight asked, still not raising her head. “Every poll said she was ahead.”

“Polls said she was in a dead heat.”

Starlight looked up. “Same thing. If an incumbent can't beat you in the polls, he certainly can't win at the polls.”

Lexington waved his hand in the air. “Never believe the polls; believe only facts. The Eighteenth District is one of the few predominantly white communities left in the city.”

“And that means?”

“White people don't vote for us.”

She shook her head. “Maybe in your mind. But it's not about color. Grace is part of that Christian coalition, and with all that's going on in this world, that's all that matters to white folks.” Starlight stood and walked to the gold-trimmed french balcony doors. From her thirtieth-floor window, she could barely see the traffic below on Ocean Boulevard, but across the street, she had a one-point-two-million-dollar view of the Pacific Ocean.

“It makes me laugh sometimes,” Starlight began, though there was no humor in her tone. “My sister judges me so harshly, but really, we do the same thing. We say the same thing. Our goals are the same. But she doesn't see it.” Starlight sighed.

“What Grace thinks certainly doesn't bother you.”

Starlight turned to her assistant—her armor bearer was what she called him. She liked that term from the first time she heard a pastor refer to someone that way. At that time, she didn't know what it meant, but she knew one day she'd have one. Two years from that date, she had her armor bearer, in the person of Lexington Jackson, and they'd been together for seven years now—actually longer, if she counted the year they spent with Dr. Carr, her mentor.

Although her look had evolved over the years, Lexington's had not. The first time she saw him, he was wearing a navy blue pinstripe suit with a white shirt that had been so starch stiff, she wondered how he moved. Today, his suit was still navy, though absent of the pinstripes. But his shirt could have been the same one he wore the day they'd met.

“Starlight?” he said interrupting her memories. “Your sister doesn't bother you?”

“She doesn't bother me,” she affirmed. “I am so over her.” Her purple silk robe fluttered at her ankles as she returned to the table.

“Good. 'Cause look at it like this,” he continued. “She's playing political footsies while you have a personal banker.”

Her eyes narrowed. No matter how many times she told him, he didn't get it. The dollars she earned were great—beyond anything anyone would have imagined for her. But it was what came with the money that made her love this life. She couldn't walk down the street without someone calling out to her, requesting an autograph, or begging to say hello. And she lived for the times when she pulled out her credit card. People fawned when they saw her name.
Starlight.
There was no last name. One day she'd be as famous as those other single monikers: Oprah, Rosie, Whoopi.

Carletta returned with the coffee pot. “Do you want anything else?” Her accent made her words sound more Spanish than English.

Starlight motioned to Lexington. When he shook his head, she said, “That will be all.”

Carletta bowed, then rushed to the couch, picked up the towels, and vanished into the hallway.

“I hope she works out,” Starlight said. “I hate that I lost Maria.”

Lexington said, “She'll be fine. Just a little nervous. She knows she landed the best job in the housekeeping industry. But why do you have her in a uniform?” He laughed as if he'd told a joke

She ignored his question and poured coffee into her cup.

He glanced at his watch. “Need to set a time for a run-through. Gotta practice for tonight.”

Starlight closed her eyes. There wasn't a number high enough for the times she'd spoken in the last year. From women's organizations to community centers to corporations across the country and internationally. She'd even appeared on
Good Morning America
and
Dateline.
She'd been everywhere—except a church.

But tonight, she'd be speaking at Greater Faith Chapel, one of the city's super-churches. The main sanctuary held eighty-five hundred, and yesterday Lexington told her that the tickets were sold out. Now they were selling seats for the overflow section.

I'm speaking at a church, she thought to herself. Grace should accept me now. She opened her eyes. “I don't need practice. I want to relax. Maybe I'll go out to lunch.”

Lexington leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “What's bothering you? Tell me.”

She stared at him. He was her confidant—or so he thought. He believed they shared everything. That's what she wanted him to think. She said, “There's nothing to tell.”

“Doesn't make sense,” he said.

She cringed. Sometimes his fragmented style annoyed her.

Lexington continued, “Should be ecstatic today.” He covered her hand with his and stroked her fingers. “This is our first church,” he whispered. “If we do this right, all kinds of doors will open for us.”

She slid her hand away.
Our, we, us?
“I just want to relax,” she repeated. She stood, piling all the newspapers into her arms even though she'd read every article. “Meet me back here at six.”

He blinked. “I … thought I'd hang out with you.”

“No need.”

“I could help you … release some of your tension.”

Starlight knew Lexington's smile was meant to be seductive. Instead, he was a twenty-eight year old, wearing an eighty-two-year old man's leer. For an instant, she thought she might lose her breakfast. “You should leave.”

He sat up straighter, his smile gone. “Where should I go?”

She raised her eyebrows, daring him to ask the question again. “Do you remember where you live?” She left him at the table and rushed to her bedroom.

Sitting in the middle of her king-sized bed, she heard Lexington and Carletta exchange mumbles before the front door opened, then closed. Starlight sank back into the eight down-filled pillows. She didn't have any reason to be mad at Lexington. He was the closest person in her life. Maybe that was the problem.

She picked up the
Los Angeles Times
and looked at the picture of Grace waving to reporters after she stepped from the voting booth. Conner was by her side, as he always was, smiling, looking disgustingly doting. The headline read, “Getting to the God Part.” It was amazing—her sister had turned a small neighborhood election into front-page news just talking about God.

“And she has the nerve to criticize me?”

Starlight tossed the paper aside. She gazed around the room. This was the only space that looked as if she'd lived in the Santa Monica penthouse for more than two days. In her head, she calculated the cost of her designer furniture and antiques. From the Queen Anne—styled bed to the custom-made chairs, she could have easily spent over thirty thousand dollars in this room alone, though she didn't know since a decorator had chosen everything.

She leaned back and molded one of the purple satin pillows to fit under her neck. She now lay in the lap of opulence, but there was no one who would have bet a nickel on her a few years ago when she worked as a beautician, or when she sold insurance, or when she took classes to become a masseuse. She had taken every sales position available, hawking everything from Amway to Avon.

But ten years after her high school graduation, she still hadn't found her way—until she met Nathan Carr. She had been sitting in the dentist's office, staring at the Victoria's Secret ad in
Cosmopolitan
. She shook her head, marveling at how women could spend fifty dollars on a bra when she didn't even have four dollars to buy another small tube of Orajel. She certainly didn't have the money to pay for this dentist visit, but her gums ached so much that she was willing to write another bad check.

“Must be a good article.” She hadn't noticed the gentleman who sat next to her. She looked up, forced a smile, then turned her attention back to the magazine.

“I didn't mean to disturb you,” he apologized.

She sighed. “I'm sorry. I'm just not in a good frame of mind.”

“Really?” He smiled. “That's my specialty.”

She frowned.

“I help people frame their minds.”

She wasn't sure what made her put down the magazine. “How do you do that?”

He pulled a card from his jacket. She read the words on the white linen paper: Dr. Nathan Carr, Carr Enterprises, Inspirational Speaker-Author.

“Maybe you've heard of me,” he said, drawing her attention back.

She shook her head. “What do you do specifically?”

“I help people find their life's calling,” he said through his permanent smile.

He sounded like her pastor, who preached about being called in life. “How do you do that?”

“I teach how to tap into your inner being. To find that power inside so that you can go places you never dreamed.”

She had chuckled. “I don't know, Dr. Carr. I've had so many living nightmares, I'm afraid to dream.”

“Really? What do you do?”

She grimaced. “I'm in between jobs.”

“Ah … actually, you're just between successes.”

She laughed.

“See, it all depends on how you frame thoughts in your mind.”

“So that's why my thoughts are going every which way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Right now, I can't even afford a frame.”

This time, Dr. Carr laughed. “Well, that might change. What's your name?”

She took his outstretched hand. “Mabel Morgan.”

Their conversation continued until she was called in for her appointment. She waited another hour for Dr. Carr to come out of his. She agreed to walk with him around the corner to Denny's, where he treated her to a chicken-fried steak lunch. Then she followed him in her car to Zahra's Books 'N Things, where he impressed her with their collection of his books.

“This was my first book,” he said, handing her a thin paperback—
Honor Thyself.
“And this is my latest.” This time, it was a two hundred page hardback—
Unleash Your Hidden Gifts.

She stared at the shelves that contained twelve of his books.

A woman walked up to them. “Dr. Carr? Oh, My God! It is you!”

Mabel had watched as Dr. Carr spoke to the woman, who gushed that she had all of his books and had attended every seminar she could.

“I even went to your three-day conference in Palm Springs. But I missed you at the Forum last month.” The woman lowered her voice. “I didn't have the one hundred and seventy-five dollars. But my friends said the place was sold out.”

Mabel's eyes widened. One hundred and seventy-five dollars … a sold-out Forum. Mabel hadn't graduated at the top of her class, but she didn't need a statistics degree to calculate the numbers. As Dr. Carr continued chatting, Mabel stepped back and considered him with fresh eyes. Now she noticed his suit—tailored. Her glance moved to his polished Italian shoes. The deep burgundy leather matched his suit. She shook her head. It wasn't like her to miss the signs. Yes, she had followed his platinum BMW 740i as they drove to the bookstore, but this was Los Angeles. He could have been sleeping in his car.