“I want to hear the truth: your truth.”
“I’m a sadist. I get off on inflicting pain on other people. To be more specific, I have these two pets.” I looked in Marcella’s eyes. They showed no signs of disgust, or even shock, so I added, “Their names are Glaze and Piece of Shit.”
I could see that she had to suppress a laugh. “I’m assuming Piece of Shit is a man.”
“You got it. When I was trying to come up with a name for him, that was the most derogatory one that came to mind.”
“Well, it definitely sticks with you. And who is Piece of Shit?”
“Doesn’t matter, and there’s no reason for you to need to know that. He’s insignificant in my life. When I call, he comes . . . and then he comes again. We satisfy each other’s need and then I fly him home coach. Same thing with Glaze. I don’t beat their asses once or week, or some shit like that. That would draw too much attention. Everything’s discreet.”
Marcella glanced toward the porch, where my bodyguards were chilling with a pitcher of her lemonade and some glass jars to drink it out of. She’d even thrown in some chicken bacon ranch wraps for them.
“What about them? Do they know about Piece of Shit and, what was it, Glaze?”
“They know that I have a couple who I’m friends with who sometimes meets up with me in different cities to hang out. Since I have so few actual friends, it makes sense. They believe Glaze, who’s a woman by the way . . .”
“I figured as much.”
“They think she’s a friend of mine from back in the day, that we used to take dance lessons together when I first started singing as a teen. She has the looks and the body for it.”
“That’s a good cover story.”
“Marcella, I’m a beast when it comes to making shit up. Some people actually believe that Daddy adopted me after my parents were killed at Jonestown.”
“Wow, that’s over the top!”
“My life is over the top, but money talks and bullshit walks, and that’s the backstory that Daddy and I came up with together. There were a lot of people, especially kids, who went unidentified, and that’s rare in a mass-death situation. We couldn’t say they died in a plane crash. Some nosy-ass reporter would’ve tried to confirm that by now. Same thing with a car accident.
“Anyway, KAD is under the impression that she’s my friend and that Piece of Shit is her husband. They don’t ask any questions, and I get them rooms under Natia, which means “hidden” in Samoan, and Eric Dotson. They ride in the limo with me to some concerts and I make KAD ride separately, so my friends and I can have some privacy.”
“And you beat them?”
“Among other things. I also make them fuck each other in front of me. It gets me off, watching them do whatever I instruct them to do.”
“Just seeing them makes you climax, or do you masturbate?”
“Damn right I masturbate. I’m a master of that, and I do it nearly every day.” I paused and wondered if I should tell her about the things I did with my bodyguards. I decided against it. I was revealing enough for her to get the point. “I’ve tried to have intercourse with a few men throughout my life, but things always fell apart when the shit got real.”
“The thought of having sex reminds you of the rape?”
“The thought of having sex reminds me of the one time that I was too weak to protect myself, the first time that I was betrayed by friends I believed I could trust, and the last time I will ever allow a man to physically hurt me.”
“Caprice, we can work on this. Things can change, but only if you want them to change.”
“Therein lies the five-million-dollar question. I’m not sure that I want to change. But there is this one guy.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s his name?”
“Jonovan Davis.”
“The mascot from your high school?” Marcella grinned. “You have feelings for him, don’t you?”
“I’m not so sure about feelings. More so some type of curiosity. He was a nice guy then, and he seems like a nice guy now. He’s caring for his father, who has Alzheimer’s.”
“He’s still in Atlanta?”
“Yes. He actually showed up at my place to interview me for his music-themed magazine.”
“He’s goal-oriented, he likes music, he showed compassion toward you before you became famous, and your voice changed the second you brought him up.”
I was stunned. “My voice didn’t change.”
“You’re not the one listening to you—I am—and a spark of happiness leaped into your tone when you mentioned him. It’s also written all over your face.”
I tried to wipe whatever expression she was reading off my face. “He’s taken.”
“He told you that?”
“Didn’t have to. I ran into him at one of Bianca’s events and he had a date with him. He did say it was casual, though.”
“You can’t expect a man to go without dating or intimacy before you even come into the picture. What were you doing at Bianca’s event, and what kind of event was she having?”
“She’s an interior designer and she had an event to thank her clients and also to show off Cherie’s clothing designs. Jonovan was there because he was covering some of the attendees. At first I thought he was there as a friend of theirs and that upset me.”
Marcella was about to say something when a light knock came at the front door. She got up to answer it and Kagiso entered.
“You guys must be getting impatient out there,” Marcella said with a chuckle.
Kagiso looked like a doe caught in a headlight. “Just checking on Wicket to make sure everything’s all right. This is going on for longer than usual.”
“I’ll be out in a few minutes,” I said. “Are you all really worried about me, or did the food run out and you want to go get something greasy?”
He laughed. “Antonio’s the grease king, but yeah, he’s out there rubbing his stomach.”
I shook my head and stood up. “We can get going.”
Marcella glanced over her shoulder at me. “Are you sure? We were talking about um . . . you know who. Did you want to take that further?”
I walked up to her. “It’s probably pointless, but I’ll consider taking it further.” She was referring to me pursuing Jonovan but didn’t want to come out and say it. I knew what she meant, though. “Maybe I’ll call you know who, and feel him out.”
Marcella actually hugged me and I started trembling. I’m sure she felt it. I was not big on human contact, only with hugging Daddy, or Hannah when she was still alive. I missed her so much. One day, I was going to have to let her truly go as well. Even though I had convinced myself that time heals all wounds, that was still an open cut on my heart.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, moving back and gazing into my eyes. “You can call me anytime, day or night. If I’m preoccupied, I’ll call you right back. I promise.”
I smiled at the concept that I might actually have a new friend. It had been so long. She knew about most of my crazy shit and was still willing to talk to me.
“That means a lot to me. Thank you.”
Kagiso cleared his throat. “Antonio might pass out in a minute if you don’t get him a fried chicken wing, or a taco, or something.”
All three of us chuckled as I followed Kagiso out.
* * *
“What do you want to do for your birthday?” Nikki was sitting at the kitchen counter on a stool running her fingers swiftly across the keyboard of her laptop. “I’m getting requests for media passes for your party.”
“I’m doing the same damn thing that I do for every other birthday. Spending it with Daddy or spending it alone if he’s not around. And he’s not going to be in the country on the eighteenth, so that means I’m flying solo.”
Nikki smirked and kept typing. “Boss Lady, it would be great if you had a party for your big four-O. I put the ballroom at the Georgian Terrace on hold, just in case.”
“So what you’re basically saying
is that you’ve started planning a birthday bash for me, and now you’re trying to be slick and get me to do it because it’s a press opp.”
“I know you don’t care about the media but yes, I have done some preplanning and, if you want, I can make it lovely. All you’ll have to do is throw on a sexy outfit, a pair of fly shoes, and show up as the queen that you are.”
I was making a chopped salad for dinner. I didn’t like what the chef had prepared: Chilean sea bass with fried brussels sprouts and yellow squash. I loved the vegetables, but the sea bass killed it for me. It was often one of the most expensive entrées at fancier restaurants but, to me, it had no flavor. It was so light that it was invisible to my taste buds. No matter what they sautéed, marinated, or sprinkled it in, it did nothing for me. So I was making a salad of mixed greens, goat cheese, red onions, grapes, and Granny Smith apples with low-fat raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
“Flattery usually gets you everywhere with me, Nikki, but I’m not caving on this. Why should I spend a bunch of money to impress people who I don’t give a fuck about and who don’t give a fuck about me?”
“You do concerts all the time.”
“Yeah, but I get paid to perform, and I don’t do phony well. The last thing I want is a bunch of people touching up on me at a party. At concerts, I go onstage, do the damn thing, and bounce. Go to my dressing room, shower, and get the hell out of there.”
Nikki laughed. “And you have that routine down pat.”
“Damn right. I’m the modern-day Houdini, except instead of escaping, my ass pulls disappearing acts.”
“I remember that time when we were in Phoenix and this reporter was checking for you less than ten minutes after the show and you were already ghost.”
“Yes, girl! The shit, shower, and shave military policy didn’t have anything on me that night. They usually get fifteen minutes, but I did my thing in nine and a half and was out in the car in ten.”
Nikki chuckled, got up and took a bowl out the cabinet. “Let me have some of that salad. It looks good.”
I pretended to block the salad bowl. “Didn’t you eat that amazing sea bass for dinner?”
“I didn’t want to hurt Simon’s feelings, but that joint didn’t have any taste.”
“I keep telling you that,” I said as I made a few more chops with the salad scissors and then put some in her bowl. “One of us needs to tell him that he needs to take that out of his recipe box.”
“You’re the boss.”
“And you’re supposed to be the extension of me, so handle that.”
Nikki sat back down by her laptop and started typing. A few seconds later, she said, “Damn, you’re right. They do only get fifteen minutes to shit, shower, and shave in the military.”
“I don’t know why you think I make shit up. I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that you’re like a walking encyclopedia. Sometimes when you start dropping knowledge, it trips me out.”
“When I was younger, I didn’t have much else to do other than read a bunch of shit. The Internet wasn’t even around, so I read book after book and, as I grew older, I still enjoyed trivia questions.”
Nikki took a bite of her salad while she continued reading. She smiled. “They have this one site where men are debating on the order that they should shit, shower, and shave. Some say they shave before they shower and—”
“I hope no one is saying they shower before they shit. If they do that, then they’re just mega nasty. That goes double for women. What sense does it make to come out the shower smelling and feeling pure and fresh and then take a dump and have shit kernels all in your crack?”
Nikki almost choked on her food. “This is such a lovely conversation to have over dinner.”
“Isn’t it, though?” I sat down on the stool next to her with my salad. “Back to your party idea. That’s a negative for me, so stop fantasizing about it. And cancel any preplans you’ve made.”
Nikki sighed in disappointment. “It was worth a try. I just want you to be happy.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“When I go hang out with friends, I feel bad leaving you here. Some of the places in Atlanta are really hot. You need to check them out.”
Nikki was on point with one thing. I couldn’t simply go “hang out” anywhere without it being a big production. The paparazzi in Atlanta were nowhere near as bad as New York City and Los Angeles, but it wasn’t toned all the way down like Birmingham, Alabama, either. I had to fly private—not because I was bougie—but because the commotion it would cause walking through the terminal would have been insane. Many times I longed to be able to run out to a convenience store to get a hot dog or a pack of sanitary napkins. I longed to walk through a grocery store, aisle by aisle, and see what new food products were on the market that I might want to try. I yearned to go for a walk down the street and take in the fresh air without people rushing up on me to ask for an autograph. But the life of Wicket was the hell that I had created and there was no turning back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Monday, September 3, 2012
1:38 p.m.
Atlanta, Georgia
People look upon Mondays in different ways. Those like me could not care less. We work seven days a week if that is what it takes and there is little difference between the weekends and weekdays, with the exception of some of those who work with us, or for us, considering Saturdays and Sundays are times to get some errands out of the way, make special plans with loved ones, and laze around watching Netflix or Law & Order, Criminal Minds, Hoarders, or The First 48 marathons.
Then there are those who feel like the weekends are their Holy Grail. They aren’t a cup, dish, plate or stone in the biblical sense, but some do believe that weekends off from work are designed to provide them with happiness, eternal youth, and an abundance of food. They hate their jobs, so it feels like being let out of prison for the weekend. They get an opportunity to relieve some stress by taking morning jobs, playing basketball or softball in leagues, taking the kids to the neighborhood park or other child-themed places, and lie in bed late after a lengthy night of sex. Some curl up with books or the video game controllers, hit up the shopping malls. Then there is the food aspect of it. They can grill out, go have long, relaxed meals at restaurants—instead of adhering to breaks and lunch hours—or they can have friends or relatives over to laze around with them. But when Sundays start winding down, the stress of what happens on Monday mornings starts winding back up. Lunches have to be packed for the kids and/or leftover lunches for themselves because they don’t want to spend more money on their lunch than they actually make on their lunch hour. Clothes and/or uniforms have to be washed and ironed and hung in closets for the week. They may have to run out and fill up their gas tanks that were depleted over the weekend to make sure they don’t have to leave ten minutes earlier in the morning. In larger cities, they prepare to go to battle with the dins of other people who will be on the roads trying to get to work on time, for fear of being called on the carpet by their supervisors or docked of their pay. Or even worse, fired if this has happened before or sometimes fired if it is only the first time.
Last, there are those who love their careers. They thrive on their work and can’t wait until Monday mornings arrive. They hate having to shut down their offices or businesses for the weekends. They find it to be a ridiculous concept because their motto is “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” The weekends actually bring them a great degree of stress. They can’t relax. Why the hell should they when money was out there to be made? They are the ones who look uncomfortable lingering by the bar with a beer in their hands while the rest of their buddies are joking and laughing and relaxed, completely appreciating their mini-sabbaticals from the office. They spend time with family and loved ones more out of obligation than a true desire to do so. While everyone is sitting around talking about the latest movies, or gossiping about who did what at their offices the
past five days, they are worrying about how they can make up for lost time once Monday gets there, and it can’t get there fast enough for them.
Based on Bianca’s descriptions of her husband, and my own observations over the past few months, Herman Hudson fell into the last category. Bianca definitely fell into the first. If Herman could’ve seen patients or performed surgeries every Saturday and Sunday, he probably would have. But orthopedic surgery was rarely an emergency or life-threatening intervention so sans a few people who didn’t want to take their sick leave off work—most embrace taking it—people preferred to have their surgeries performed during the week.
On any given Monday, Herman generally did in-and-out surgeries in his fancy-schmancy clinic in the Buckhead area of Atlanta in the mornings, followed by a lunch break from noon to one, and consultations in the afternoon. If he could’ve done away with a lunch hour for his staff, he probably would have, but they had rights. He didn’t take Mondays or Wednesdays off like many of his peers. The theory of having a three-day weekend or a two-day, one-day, two-day split week was beyond his comprehension. He hadn’t busted his ass getting a four-year undergraduate degree, a four-year medical degree, and spending five years in a hospital as a resident to not swallow up every dollar he could make. He’d decided on orthopedic surgery because they tended to be one of the highest-paid specialties, averaging about a half million a year in take-home pay, comparable to a cardiologist.
I had been joking with Bianca when I kept talking about him playing with feet all day. I was amazed that she had not corrected me that day at the restaurant. I was very aware that an orthopedic surgeon was not a podiatrist. That while they could treat hammertoes and club feet, they also treated patients with cerebral palsy, severe arthritis, fractures, sprains, spinal issues, and many other things. Herman was brilliant, and that was nothing new. He had been very smart back in school, especially in math. He was to be the one who explained what the teacher had said in class to the rest of us.