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“Are you free to come to my office now?” Dominic asked.
What’s he up to now? And why didn’t Angela call instead of him?
It couldn’t be anything job related. Chantelle’s heart thrilled as a deliciously naughty thought filled her head.
“I’ll be there in five minutes.” She hung up the phone and reached into the bottom drawer of her pedestal for the cosmetic bag she kept there.
As she refreshed her makeup, Chantelle crossed her eyes and looked down at her nose. She understood Monique’s concern about it now. The photographs of her which had since surfaced on Facebook—group photos which people were suddenly tagging—weren’t as flattering as the ones from the night she’d accompanied Dominic to the musical. Her nose looked larger in them—bizarrely, larger than it appeared when she looked in the mirror. But what the hell, she’d decided. Better to smell with!
Six minutes later, perfume and makeup refreshed, she pushed opened the outer doors to Dominic’s office.
“Hi, Chantelle.” Angela looked up puzzled. “Is Dominic expecting you?”
“Yes. He just asked me to come to his office.”
“He’s in there with someone else. Perhaps he wants you to meet him. Go on through.”
“Thanks, Angela.”
She tapped on the door and entered when Dominic told her to enter.
“You wanted to see...?” The man sitting on the other side of his desk rose to his feet and for a moment the floor felt unsteady under her feet as she experienced a strange sense of displacement.
At first she thought that something had happened to Shawn to age him twenty years. Then she realized that it wasn’t Shawn. Then she was a little girl, but she couldn’t be because she was wearing four-inch heels.
Then it all made sense.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Daddy!” She had promised herself that she would never let him get close again. That she would be aloof and disinterested if and when they met again. Her head reminded her of that promise, but her heart overruled it as she raced across the room and threw herself against his chest. Age hadn’t lessened the height she had inherited from him. She felt safe and secure as his arms came up to enfold her.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
At his words, tears that she hadn’t cried at the time he’d left came flooding out. She buried her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder and released the fear, the anger and the hurt his abandonment had caused. At some point Dominic squeezed her shoulder reassuringly and whispered, “I’ll be back in an hour.”
The door closed behind him moments later.
Finally she raised her head and took a step back from her father.
“Wipe your eyes, sweetheart.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pristine handkerchief that matched his grey shirt.
He still matched his shirts and handkerchiefs.
And he still looks the same.
He seemed not to have aged a single day. His resemblance to Shawn was so pronounced Chantelle felt a stab in her heart. She missed her brother more than she’d realized.
Suddenly her body went cold.
“Why are you here now?”
“I saw your picture in the papers yesterday and felt so proud of you.” Her father’s eyes met hers fondly. “I called the old house, but no one answered. I finally got Dominic’s work number. I had a hell of a job last night convincing him to let me see you if even it was for five minutes.”
“So where’s Paul?” Chantelle’s question came out more belligerently than she’d intended. She never really blamed Paul—he was barely seventeen at the time and wasn’t the one who had been married with three children.
“Paul left me a while ago.”
“The same way you left us,” she reminded him bitterly. “Were you no longer good enough for him?”
“Don’t blame Paul. I knew I was in trouble when he started working in the barbershop on Saturdays. He saw the way my eyes followed him whenever he was in the room. He deliberately came back to the house the day after your mother took you, Shawn and Cerise on holiday to see if his hunch was right. I’d thought that that part of my life was over, but I couldn’t resist him. That summer was the best I ever had. I felt free. We continued when your mother returned, sneaking around behind her back and almost getting caught a couple of times.”
As he said the words Chantelle had a clear vision of going upstairs to use the family bathroom and meeting her father and Paul seemingly stuck in the doorway. Her father had said, ‘It’s all yours,’ and Paul had thanked him, entered the room and closed the door. She had found it odd that the young man had tried to enter the bathroom before her father had exited.
“I nearly caught you once, didn’t I?”
“Yes.” Her father’s voice was apologetic. “Paul had become a bit of a problem by then. It wasn’t his fault that I was living a lie, but he was young and selfish and not concerned who would be hurt if I followed my heart. That year of trying to hide our relationship was tough. When your mother took you away again for the summer holidays, we had the house to ourselves and he slept over most nights. The week you were due back was tough. Paul threatened to commit suicide and I knew that I couldn’t go through another year like the one we’d just had.”
“So you just ran away?”
“Sorry, but I couldn’t face saying goodbye.”
“So you took the coward’s way out?”
He squeezed Chantelle’s hand in apology.
She pulled it away and said, “Continue.”
“Leicester was tough. Money didn’t flow as easily there, so guys didn’t spend as much on their appearance. When we were in London between his parents and me, Paul got whatever he wanted. His parents stopped supporting him when we left and I earned less than half of what I did in London. If he wanted money and I couldn’t give it to him, he would go to a gay bar and pick up someone who could give him what he needed. He led me a merry dance. It’s what I deserved after cheating on your mother, but it sent me into a serious depression. I loved him and took him back after each affair. He finally left me three years ago and moved to Amsterdam. Things haven’t worked out for him there. He phoned me only the other day begging me to send some money for him to buy a ticket back to the UK. He wanted me to take him back, but it’s too late. I’ve met someone new.” He laughed with a hint of embarrassment. “Someone more my own age.”
“I’m glad for you.”
“We started a beauty salon in Wales five months ago and it’s doing really well. We want to open another branch in London in about six months.”
“Wales?”
“Monty’s Welsh. I’ve dated only white men since Paul.” Chantelle’s eyes widened in surprise. Her father acted camp for the first time in her presence by snapping his fingers and saying, “You get your jungle fever from your daddy, sweetheart.”
“I’m not an animal in the jungle, nor do I have a fever. I doubt that I have much in common with you,” she told him coldly, letting her anger show for the first time. “I certainly didn’t run from responsibility, even though it wasn’t mine to assume.”
“I never thought that your mother would take my leaving so hard. She earned enough to take care of you kids—I didn’t think that she would miss my contribution.” Chantelle glared at him and he continued hastily, “Not that I hadn’t meant to send money when I could, but most months I barely had enough to pay my own bills.”
“Why didn’t you return to London then?”
Her father looked uncomfortable.
“Dad, I’m not going to tell you that it’s alright and all’s forgiven because it’s not.” Chantelle kept her voice level by sheer willpower. “You married Mom, had children with her and then ran away from your responsibility to her and to us, just to satisfy your own selfish need.”
“Chantelle—?”
“No, you’ve had your say. Let me have mine.” Chantelle brushed aside his objection. “You told me once that you married Mom because you feared for your life. If you didn’t want to be a father why didn’t you use protection or get a bloody vasectomy.”
“I never regretted having you or your brother or sister.” His face showed some of the misery his decision had caused him. “I really thought I could change my life when I got here.”
“I can’t pretend that I know how difficult it was for you to deny your true inclination, but that’s not what I can’t forgive. Mom lost her job and drank herself to a stupor for several years because of you. I lost my teenage years because of you. We couldn’t move to a better neighborhood when the gangs started operating in the area because of you. If Shawn had joined one of them it would have been because of you. If Cerise had become one of the unfortunate girls attacked by any of them, it would have been because of you.” Every time she uttered the words, ‘because of you’, her father flinched. “But I’m a stronger person because of you...and I met Dominic because of you. I hadn’t wanted to see you ever again, but I’ll glad you’re here. I hadn’t realized that I missed you so much until today. I can’t promise to forgive you, but I promise to try.”
“I guess that’s all I can ask.”
“Yes it is.”
Chantelle stood up and hugged him to soften the harshness of her blunt response. She wouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep, neither would she try to make him feel less guilty.
They talked for another fifteen minutes before Dominic returned.
As she kissed her father goodbye, she realized that he’d barely asked about Shawn and Cerise.
She hadn’t felt it necessary to tell him he had a daughter who was conceived years after he’d last slept with his wife, but who bore his surname as he was still legally wed to her mother.
***
“YOU COULD HAVE WARNED me!” She turned on Dominic as soon as the door closed behind her father.
“You would have refused to see him.”
“I would have. And that would have been a mistake,” she conceded. “As a little girl I had an idealized vision of my father. Seeing him today made me realize how selfish he really is. He was the one who tucked us in at night because Mom worked shifts and was either at work or too tired to read us bedtime stories. He was the constant and he walked away from the responsibility. He said today that Mom earned enough to look after us adequately. She earned enough, but I was eleven—it wasn’t legal for her to leave me in charge of Shawn and Cerise while she was working, especially at night. I know she did it anyway when she started drinking, but Dad must have known that she would struggle on her own. He didn’t care about that...or about us.”
She had come to the stark realization as she’d sat across her father, their hands entwined, as he tried to convince her that his leaving had been for the best.
“Why do you think he’d contacted you now?”
“I don’t know.” Chantelle’s brow creased as she considered the possibilities. “He would have known before now that I was old enough to help support the others, so if he’d made contact we wouldn’t have necessarily been looking to him for money. Unless, he now thinks that I have money...”
“What would you do if he asks you for money?”
“It depends on what he wants it for. I would be willing to invest in his business with Monty, if I can assess it for myself and decide it’s a sound investment.” Rogers’ talk had been an eye-opener. The man’s confidences had not been spilled lightly and it would be a travesty if she didn’t heed his words. She had money in the bank for the first time in her life and if the growth of the business had been as accelerated as her father claimed, it would be a great investment opportunity. “I would give him nothing otherwise.”
Of course, she wouldn’t see him destitute, but there were other people and charities who deserved her money more.
“I used to wonder if I’d done something wrong to make him leave. When you’re a child you think everything is about you.” She could laugh now at the angst she’d suffered at the time. “Now I know that he made a deliberate choice—our happiness or his.”
“It’s not as clear cut as that,” Dominic assured her. “I think if he could have had it both ways, he might have stayed.”
“Truthfully I will never be certain that he didn’t get in contact again because he somehow assumes that as my father, he’s now a mini celebrity or something as I’m dating you.” Chantelle laughed derisively. “I will never know, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it.”
“I’ll set up a meeting with him and his partner for sometime next week. If he’s willing to keep his mouth shut, I will give them the capital for the salon they want to open in London.”
“Dominic you don’t have to do that.” She would still prefer if the whole sordid story of her father’s affair with the young, barely-legal son of his close friends wasn’t made public, but to pay for his silence? That would be too much!
“It’s not a large sum and it’s essentially an investment.”
“Okay.” She was sure they had differing ideas of ‘large’, but she decided to let the matter lie.
“Don’t get mad at me, but...” Dominic’s eyes pleaded with her “...I made some enquiries and knew where he was within a week of you telling me about him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She didn’t know how to feel. He had known that she wanted to see her father again, had known where he was and hadn’t told her?
“I’d planned it as a surprise for you, but the private investigators reported that he looked to be enjoying his life. He had walked away and it didn’t look as though he wanted to be found.”
It hurt that he’d kept the information from her, but seeing her father today had made her aware of things she hadn’t been conscious of as a child. If she had reached out to him before she’d appeared on the front page of the tabloid newspapers, he might not have been receptive. If he had rejected her it would have permanently ruined any chance of a reconciliation between them.
“Were these the same investigators you used to find me?” she teased, deciding that she would be grateful that he cared enough about her to initiate the search in the first place and not dwell on the fact that he’d made a decision that concerned her without consulting her. It wouldn’t have been an easy decision for him.
“Yes,” he admitted with a laugh. “At least this time they bloody earned their fee!”
She knew it wasn’t the money spent, but the lack of success of their investigation that still irked him.
“To be fair, I went to great lengths to avoid detection. Dancing at Armstrong’s was so not what I wanted to be doing with my life, but I needed the job to be able to finish off my degree.” I had other choices but they would have been sacrificing my education and time with Shawn and the girls.
“You know there’s a slim chance that someone from there will recognize you?”
“I’m not worried about the clients or the other dancers—I told them that I was Nigerian and was in the country illegally. I think I disguised myself well enough to fool them, but you said you went back to Colin to ask for my details?”
“Yes,” Dominic confirmed.
“I think he’s the only one who might make the connection. Tiffany saw you close up, but it was quite dark and though she’s a great waitress, she’s a little...shall we say...mentally challenged. I don’t think she will suspect I’m the same person in a month of Sundays.”
“Do you think I need to have a word with Armstrong?”
“No. I think I trust him.” She smiled at Dominic’s cynical expression. “He might run a successful strip club, but he’s quite a principled man.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron? A strip club owner with integrity?”
“He’s one. And if you approached him you’d be definitely confirming his suspicions.”
“I have no problem with him or anyone knowing that you danced at his club since no one but me can say that they ever paid you for a private lap dance...or something more than that.”
Their eyes met and they smiled at their shared memory of that fateful night. Who knows what would have happened if she’d been greedy and looked to double what was already more money than she’d probably see in her life? The time he’d spent searching for her had sharpened Dominic’s appetite—she’d become almost an obsession. Being around him and seeing the way his every need was pandered to, she was slowly beginning to understand how frustrated he must have been at being denied something he’d wanted. He’d told her that he would have probably have had her and moved on, though finding her a virgin would have made that hard to do. He’d said, though, that if they’d had a chance to talk, a chance for him to get to know her better, he would have realized that she was a special woman. It was hard to predict which of the outcomes would have become a reality, but for Chantelle things had worked out exactly as they should have. She’d had a hard enough time focusing on her final exams with memories of his chiseled face intruding in her thoughts. She’d seen the difference that money had made in her life and had been determined to earn as much of it as possible on graduation. The first step on the ladder to success was achieving the highest degree possible and she’d done just that. Sex with Dominic, even if it had been for one night only, would have thrown her and those plans in total disarray.
“Actually the press finding out that I was once a dancer at Armstrong’s might turn me into an overnight celebrity.” She winked at him.
“If you really want to be a celebrity, we could make a video and have someone leak it. After all, where would Kim and Paris be today if the world hadn’t seen their stellar performances?”
“You’d use any excuse to get your kicks,” she accused, giving him a dirty look. “I don’t want fame that badly, thank you very much!”
“I would have only been doing it for you!”
“Yeah right,” she contradicted, knowing that he’d enjoy the experience thoroughly.
He’d suggested that they taped themselves making love, play it back and then erase it, but she’d declined. She wasn’t saying that she’d never do it, only that they postpone that sort of thing for some distant time in the future when they were jaded enough to need something to perk up their sex lives. If they didn’t last long enough for them to become jaded, then the more reason not to have to worry about a sex tape that may or may not be erased.
***
AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY.
Two days before Shawn comes back!
Chantelle was anxious to see him and for him to meet Dominic again. She felt nervous about the two of them meeting, which was irrational since they had met before. At that time Shawn must have suspected that Dominic was interested in her. But, it would have only been speculation; now it was confirmed. Dominic wouldn’t tolerate nonsense from Shawn. Yet, he wasn’t Shawn’s father and Chantelle didn’t want him making any decision about her brother without her full approval first.
She would cross the bridge when she came to it, but with men tempers could flare at any given minute.
But, she had two more days before she had to worry about any of that, so she’d enjoy it.
27th August? she questioned under her breath. It was significant in some way, but exactly which was eluding her.
She quickly ran the birthdays of family members in her head.
Nope.
A friend’s birthday?
She almost dismissed the thought.
Then she remembered...it was Gail’s birthday.
They had been so close at one point. Neither of them had been trendy, or popular or able to afford the iPods, iPads or the BlackBerry phones that had been all the rage in secondary school. But instead of acting deprived, they had acted as though they were above such trivialities—slave to no one’s fashion but their own. The fact that they had both been in the top 1% academically had made their claim more believable. They had been deemed ‘eccentrics’ rather than ‘nerds’ by their fellow students and it hadn’t bothered them one bit.
But halfway through sixth form college Gail had accidently become pregnant. With no support from her mother, who’d openly shown favoritism for her other children, or from her boyfriend’s white family, she’d had to drop out of school and look after the baby.
They had married eventually, but things were tough for them and their two children financially, trying to survive on benefits as neither of them worked.
With their lives taking different paths, it would have been difficult to maintain their friendship, but it wasn’t the fact that their lives had diverged that had made Chantelle and Gail grow apart. Her friend’s husband was in a word, obnoxious.
Gail had accused Chantelle of not liking him because he’s white, but that hadn’t been the issue. Chantelle’s main problem with him was the fact that Gail had admitted that he’d called her the N-word twice. It would also help if he got off his butt and looked for a damn job to adequately provide for his family! He had a way of coming too close and hugging her too tightly in greeting and had once pissed her off royally by trapping her in the corner of their kitchen, when she’d gone for a fresh bottle of feed for the baby, pressing his erection against her stomach and telling her he knew she wanted him, she was just playing hard to get.
She’d pushed him away, regretting the fact that she was in his house and couldn’t knee him hard in the balls. Later, when she’d tried to give Gail a watered-down version of the event, her friend had laughed and said that he’d been only joking.
His hard cock was funny? Ha-fucking-ha!
Chantelle had never visited them again.
But that wasn’t the only thing that worried Chantelle about her friend’s marriage. Gail referred to her children’s race as white, though they were, and clearly looked, mixed race. Chantelle could only see pain and disillusionment in their future, if their mother tried to deny her heritage and in turn, part of their own. Gail refused to discuss the topic, all that Chantelle could do was hope that her friend realized what she was doing before it was too late.
“Hi, Gail. I just remembered that it was your birthday today.” Chantelle said quickly when the phone at the other end stopped ringing. The silence that greeted her was not reassuring. “Happy birthday!”
“Thanks.” The word was uttered in a way to convey that the woman was not in the least bit grateful. “I’m surprised that you can find the time to remember your old friends.”
“Sorry. I’ve been a bit busy lately.”
“Busy with your new, rich...white boyfriend?” Her friend sneered. “Well you did an about face on that didn’t you, girlfriend?” And then in a mocking parody of Chantelle’s voice she went on, “I would...never... ever...date a white man!”
“I never said that I wouldn’t date a white guy.” She had thought it, but she’d never said it aloud to anyone. “I said that I wasn’t that into them.”
“Unless they have tons of money, of course!”
“Dating Dominic has nothing to do with money! If he lost it all tomorrow, he would still be the person I want to be with.”
“Fool yourself if you want to, but don’t try to fool me.”
Belatedly, Chantelle remembered how jealous Gail could be.
In the past there had been little to cause it, but Gail had still clearly shown her envy of Chantelle’s thicker, longer hair and her impressive waist-to-hip ratio. On the other hand Chantelle had rooted for her friend every time she auditioned in the hope of appearing on TV. She had accompanied her on auditions for Big Brother, X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, but Gail hadn’t gotten as far as the first round. Her singing voice was pleasant, but not exceptional. If she’d looked more like Beyoncé, Rihanna or Alicia, she might have had a chance.
Gail had planned to do a degree in Media at university and later becoming a news presenter, but getting pregnant had sidelined that plan.
Seeing Chantelle with Dominic on the news, even though it had only been a brief flash of a photo of them, would roused Gail’s green-eyed monster. If there was any hope of them regaining the friendship it wouldn’t be while Chantelle was dating Dominic and was likely to appear in the news from time to time.
“Gail, I have to go, but I’m sending you some vouchers. Buy yourself something nice.”
“I don’t need your charity. Pixie just got an agent who says she has real potential, so stuff your fucking vouchers!” Gail slammed the phone down.
Pixie, Gail’s five-year-old had a beauty that was almost startling, with her grey eyes and thick curly, black hair. Gail had desperately wanted to move to the USA so that the child could become one of those pampered princesses who did Toddlers & Tiaras. Unfortunately—some would say fortunately—she hadn’t the means to do so.
Chantelle was pleased that something was going well for her friend. She only hoped that Pixie wasn’t being pushed into fulfilling the dreams that had eluded her mother.
She would send the vouchers, anyway, as well as some for the local supermarket, and keep a record of their serial numbers. She would check to see if they had been cashed by the end of the month. If Gail had used them, she would send more on a monthly basis. If she hadn’t...there are always charities that need donations.
Gail’s marriage was an example of what can go badly wrong in a mixed partnership. Gail had serious issues which all stemmed from her mother’s criticisms. She was from her first marriage to a fellow Grenadian. Their divorce had been acrimonious and left her mother bitter. Gail’s father had only paid the amount of maintenance the Child Support Agency had demanded for Gail’s upkeep and not a single penny more. It didn’t help that Gail looked like him. Her mother had constantly abused Gail about the short hair and dark skin she’d inherited.
Her mother had married an Englishman after her divorce and so all her other children were mixed race. Perhaps it was easier for her to love the children of her happier marriage, but for Gail, the reason her mother had loved her half-siblings more was due to the fact they had lighter skin and softer hair.
Her stepfather came into her mother’s life when Gail was ten and already on the way to becoming a young lady. He hadn’t tried to engage her as he might have done a younger child. His hands-on approach to his own children when they came along was in stark contrast to his relationship with her.
It didn’t help that Gail could never pass for the man’s biological daughter. An outsider for a number of reasons already, at a glance it was clear that she wasn’t a product of their union.
*****
