Twisted Vows of Seduction (15 page)

“How can I forget? She called the police and everything. Had me thinking I was going to the pen. Ha, ha, ha!”

Nadine could barely contain herself she was laughing so hard. Remembering that day brought joyful tears to her eyes. “Poor Herald.”

“Poor Herald nothing!” Kelli turned her nose up and did a playful wind of the hips. “As they say, he didn't marry me for my cooking, honey. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Awwww shuckey now!” Nadine clapped, laughing uncontrollably at the dance Kelli was imitating from Beyoncé's “Dance for You” video that happened to be playing on the flat screen hanging above the kitchen nook.

“What the hell are you over there doing, girl!” someone called out from behind. “The Funky Chicken?” Kelli and Nadine both turned around to find Janeesha walking into the kitchen. Neither of them had heard her come in before now. Janeesha's wide-toothed grin vanished when she looked toward Nadine. She acted as though she wasn't as happy to see her.

Janeesha was a thick sistah with skin the shades of maple and orange. She was at least a size twenty, according to Nadine's guesstimate. The blue dress she wore was fitted to celebrate her voluptuous curves, and a silver sequined belt accentuated her waistline while her matching sequined flats depreciated her true leg value. She had a baby face, full lips, and a roundabout waist.
She wore her hair the same way she had in college. Hard and skinny tight curls with a fade at the back.

“Hey girl!” Kelli said. “Come right on over here and get comfortable.”

Janeesha's face contorted into a scowl as her eyes shifted from Kelli and then back to Nadine.

“Well hello, Janeesha,” Nadine said. She wasn't going to be rude and disrespectful in Kelli's house. She was bigger than that. It was no secret that she and Janeesha weren't the best of buddies, but damn, Janeesha had a serious eye problem and whatever her issues were with her, Nadine wished she'd get over it, because she sure had.

Janeesha rolled her eyes at Nadine and then looked back to Kelli. “Who the hell invited her?”

Nadine was taken aback and she sat there stiffer than a tree stump.

“I did!” Kelli said, obviously seeing where this was headed. The tension in the room had changed and the camaraderie had been killed the moment Janeesha had walked in.

Nadine's incredulous eyes darted from Kelli to Janeesha. “Janeesha, is there a problem?”

With scolding eyes, Janeesha pursed her lips. “The problem is the nerve you have showing your face here after what you did to Denise.”

“What
I
did to Denise?”

“You run around and act like you Miss Goody Two-Shoes, but word gets around and you ain't as holy as you pretend to be! You had an affair with that woman's husband and then procreated with him,” Janeesha spat with conviction, cutting Nadine a look of disdain.

Nadine stood up and grabbed her purse from the counter. “You don't know what the hell you're talking about!”

“Really? So everybody at church is a liar!”

“Stop this!” Kelli said, stepping in between them. “Janeesha, if you have a problem with my friend,
you
can leave.” She pointed in the direction of the door. “This is
my
house and Nadine is
my
guest!”

Janeesha cut her eyes and wore a conniving smirk. “Fine! I'll leave,” she huffed. “I refuse to be in the same room as this jezebel.” She hooked her purse strap all the way up on her arm. “Just keep your enemies close, and your sorors closer!” she admonished nastily before turning to leave.

Kelli shook her head at the perpetual rubbish that had just transpired. “I'm sorry that happened, Nadine. Her ass was completely out of line for that.”

The color in Nadine's face was nearly gone. Janeesha's words had been so cutting that Nadine didn't deny the tears that jetted down her face. Her perfectly arched brows folded in at the innuendo. “Oh my God.” She sniffed. “So is this how everyone really feels about me?” she asked Kelli, her voice barely audible.

Kelli quickly shook her head. “Not at all. We all know that Janeesha can be garrulous. And she can even be a bitch sometimes, but that right there was totally uncalled for.” She shook her head despicably as she turned to retrieve a paper towel. Nadine accepted it and blotted both her burning eyes.

She gave Kelli a pained look. “If I could take back my part in all of it, I would. If I could…see her one last time…” She paused. “I would tell her that I'm sorry!” Her voice cracked along the way as a despairing look settled in every crease of her skin. Her eyes pleaded for empathy. “I would tell her I never meant for any of it to happen.” She stopped as more tears piled on her face. This was a sore subject for her and she hated when it came up. “But what no one understands is that I didn't do anything to hurt Denise,”
she tried to explain. “She knew about Jeff and I all along,” she sniffed. “For three years.”

Kelli's hand flew to her mouth. She appeared completely shocked by the revelation.

Nadine continued. “And she never said a word. Do you care to know why?”

Kelli was speechless.

Nadine really didn't care if Kelli wanted to know or not but someone was going to hear this. “She never said a word because it was what she wanted. We were the perfect diversion for her to commit her own affair.”

Kelli placed her left hand over Nadine's shoulder. “It's okay, honey,” she murmured. “I believe you. You don't have to say…”

Nadine shook her head. “It's not okay and…” Her words dragged out of her mouth, but the heavy weight of her burdens was finally being lifted. “I am so damn sick and tired of people judging and criticizing me on what they think they know. Assuming that I'm the one to blame for all of this!” Traces of her mascara skidded down her warm butterscotch skin. “When the truth of the matter is, they don't know a fucking thing!” She snatched her keys up. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that two of her sorors were standing right behind her in utter disbelief of what they'd overheard. “Great! Now the whole world will know how bad of a friend I am.”

“Nadine, please don't leave,” Kelli pleaded. “You just got here.”

“Congratulations again.” Nadine leaned in and gave Kelli a kiss on the cheek. “I'll call you,” she said, dismissing Kelli's request to hang around. “Hello, ladies,” she acknowledged. She found herself leaving before anyone else could get the chance to humiliate her.

Barely out of the estates, Nadine found herself being flagged down by a jogger. Nadine slowly reversed to see what the woman
could have wanted. She was in a hurry to get home and the last thing she wanted to do was talk. She stuck her head slightly out of the window. The pale white woman with long sandy-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, jogged over to her.

“You're not going to get very far with that bad tire,” the woman said, pointing to her rear tire.

Nadine's eyes bucked. “Are you serious?” Her head started to pound. She stuck her head out of the window further to see that her rear tire was practically on flat. “Oh God. Not now.” She cursed Janeesha under her breath, suspecting she'd done it on her way out.

“Do you happen to have a spare in your trunk?” the woman asked. Her accent was subtle and distinctive of a true Texan's.

Nadine placed her car in “park” and turned on her hazards. She couldn't believe this was happening. “I do. I'll call my friend,” she said finally, referring to AAA. There was no way in hell she was calling Jeff's ass. She would have had it towed to her house before she did that. And she would have called Kelli, but she didn't want to interrupt her party.

The woman shook her head. “Don't trouble yourself. My husband can fix it for you. Let me go grab him. You stay right there.” She smiled.

“Thank you,” Nadine said. Relieved.

The woman began jogging up to the grandiose house on the left. It was immaculate on the outside and Nadine couldn't help but wonder how it looked on the inside. She bet it was twice as nice as Kelli's because it was twice as big.

Nadine laid her weary head against the headrest as she waited.

“My wife said you needed your spare…” The resonant voice stopped mid-sentence.

Nadine literally froze. She couldn't understand how she managed
to find herself in yet another tight fix. “Greg Adams,” she gasped, acknowledging him as a former client of Denise's, but in the back of her mind, she played out the version she remembered him best. It was the night she'd caught him and Denise having sex on the conference room table at Platinum Crest. The night Denise confessed to her that she was having an affair with him. The night Denise admitted to knowing all about Nadine and Jeff. Seeing Greg stirred horrible memories. And no matter how bad she wanted to push that night out of her mind, she couldn't.

“Here's the flashlight, honey,” his wife said, walking back up.

“Thanks, baby,” Greg said, shifting his gaze from Nadine to the deflating tire. “I need to get to your spare,” he said, walking to the back of her vehicle.

Nadine popped her trunk and got out of the car. It was going to be a long night after all.

“W
hat I need you to understand, Tyrone, is that I'm looking for more than just sex! I need a man who can satisfy me on a deeper level. Intellectually, emotionally, and physically. So until you can handle all that, I need you to lose my number.” Ménage's eyes were mixed with seriousness and sadness. She didn't miss a beat as she stared straight ahead, imagining something like the size of the Dallas convention center, where the Mavericks sometimes played, being filled to its capacity. The scripted lines she had memorized for the audition flowed out of her mouth like smooth wine. The easygoing tone of her voice and the confidence in her posture made her appear like a seasoned veteran opposed to the neophyte she really was.

She remained in the exact position, waiting for Russ to completely assess her. She had taken Reginald's advice of not wanting to come across aggressive, so instead of talking herself up to him on why she was the one for this role, she kept a tight lip. After all, actions spoke a hell of a lot louder than words.

While Ménage had dreamt of her first audition being in a Hollywood studio complete with a stage and big bright lights, today's audition didn't measure up to those expectations by a long shot. She found herself in a cramped hot-ass studio apartment. She knew it was a low-budget film, but damn, could he at least afford a decent spot to bring her, she complained in her mind.

“I have to say I love your energy,” Russ said, revealing a full top row of gold teeth. “You bring life to that character.”

Ménage warmed her face with a humble smile, all while praying that he was getting ready to tell her that she got the part.

“Where you from again? You have an accent,” Russ asked in his deep Southern drawl.

“Detroit. But I live in Dallas for the moment.”

“Aghhh…for the moment, huh?”

Ménage blushed a schoolgirl grin. She faked an innocence that Stevie Wonder himself could see right through. But it was all in the act. The performance. This is what she did for a living.

“Yeah, just for the moment,” she said, warming up to Russ. Her shoulders relaxed slightly. “I'm still trying to find work so that I can further my acting career,” she continued.

Russ nodded his head with every word that exited her mouth. “I can dig it. Well, I'll tell you what. Because I'm feeling you. I mean really really feeling you. I'm gon' turn you on to something big that I happen to be working on behind the scenes. Something that's gonna get you hella paid, ya heard me. And put you in the Hollywood spotlight in no time.”

Ménage's eyes lit up in excitement. “Really? How big and behind the scenes we talking?” The seductive way she licked her lips should have told him she was more than interested. She just needed to hear those dollar figures.

“Ten grand!”

Ménage's pussy started to tremor and all she could see was green money and big bright lights. She was on her way to superstardom.

“One scene,” Russ added, as if she needed more convincing.

“One scene?” Ménage had already made up in her mind she was doing it, but she didn't need him to think she was that easy.

“Trust me on this. I'll make you a celebrity overnight.”

“You got it like that, huh?”

Russ nodded. “I know people that know people.” He simpered. “Don't let this little studio gig fool you?”

Ménage stuck her hands in her back pockets. “Well I'm all about getting money so…let's get money. When do I start?”

Russ smiled wickedly. “Let me make a couple of phone calls. In the meantime, there's a few outfits upstairs to choose from.”

“All right,” Ménage said, heading upstairs.

Ménage couldn't wait for Tiffany to pick her back up from the airport so that she could tell her all about her business meeting with Russ.