Bed of Lies

Dante pounded his fist on the apartment door and angrily paced back and forth as he waited for the door to open. When it didn’t happen within seconds, he banged on the door again.

He was past angry and beyond furious. He felt like steam was going to burst from his ears. He had gotten the call from Terrence Murdoch’s lawyer this morning saying that he was happy to hear that Mavis Upton planned to withdraw her lawsuit and he looked forward to seeing the filing in court.

“I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken,” Dante had said into the phone, holding the handset so tightly that he felt as if he could crush it in his bare hand. “We are not withdrawing the case! We’re still seeking punitive damages in the sum of—”

“Well, perhaps you should speak to your client, Mr. Turner,” Terrence’s lawyer had replied in clipped tones. “Terrence and I had a conference call with her yesterday and she told us quite plainly that those were her wishes. She even apologized for letting this drag on for so long.”

Dante had frowned. “Wait . . . You had a conference call with her?”

“Yes, as I said, we had it yesterday.” The lawyer had paused. “Ms. Upton is still your client, correct?”

“Of course she is!”

“Well, if that’s the case, then I would think you would be privy to this information, Mr. Turner. I thought you would be the first to know she’s withdrawing her lawsuit.”

Dante couldn’t believe Mavis had done it; not dim-witted, mushy-mouthed Mavis. She had gone behind his back and called Terrence. She even took it a step further and spoke to Terrence’s lawyer, purposely cutting Dante out of the discussions.

Does this bitch know who she’s fucking with? Dante thought as he paced the dirty, worn hallway carpet. If not, he was about to tell her. She was about to get a rude awakening!

Slowly, the door creaked open. Mavis peeked her head around the edge of the doorframe and gazed at him guardedly. “Hello, Mr. Turner.”

“I need to talk to you now,” he said tightly. Gone was the lawyerly, refined pretense he usually used with Mavis. At that moment, he frankly just wanted to choke a bitch.

“Now is not a good time. We were just about to have din—”

He shoved his way past her, shocking her and sending her almost stumbling backward against the adjacent wall. On the other side of the room, Renee and her daughter, Tasha, sat at a small dining table. A casserole dish filled with meat loaf sat at the center of the table along with a pitcher of fruit punch Kool-Aid. Renee was reaching for the pitcher. A fork laden with mashed potatoes hovered near Tasha’s mouth. Both mother and daughter gaped at Dante as he stormed into Mavis’s apartment.

“Dante,” Renee said, quickly rising to her feet, “what . . . what are you doin’ here?”

“Your mother called off the lawsuit!” he yelled before turning to glare at Mavis. “And she did that shit without consulting me, without telling me a damn thing!”

Renee stared at her mother, aghast. “Mama, tell me you didn’t do that!”

Mavis clasped her hands in front of her. She pushed back her shoulders and met Renee’s gaze evenly. “Yes, I did.”

“But I thought we wanted to hold out for some money!” Renee cried. “I thought we were—”

“There is no ‘we’ in this, Renee. This all had to do with me and nobody else. It didn’t feel comfortable in the beginning suing that boy. I said I couldn’t remember what happened that night. I couldn’t say for sure that I wasn’t the one at fault. But I let y’all talk me into it.” She reached for the gold cross dangling around her neck and patted it as she spoke. “I thought about it. I prayed on it. I talked to my pastor and”—she took a deep breath—“I changed my mind. It didn’t feel right anymore. I decided I couldn’t sue him.”

“You changed your mind?” Dante repeated with disbelief. He barked out a laugh. “You changed your fucking mind?”

Mavis raised her chin in defiance. “That’s right, Mr. Turner. I changed my mind and no one—not even you—can make me change it again.”

At that moment, he wanted to backhand her clear across her face. He took a menacing step toward her, feeling his hands itch to take a swing. “Now, you listen to me, you stupid old bitch, I’ll be goddamned if—”

“Don’t talk to my grandma that way!” Tasha suddenly shouted, leaping up from her chair at the dining room table. Her little face contorted with rage. Her tiny fists were balled at her sides. “Don’t call my grandma that bad word!”

Dante gave the little girl a withering glance. “Shut up. Just drink your goddamn Kool-Aid.”

“All right,” Mavis said, marching up to Dante’s chest, “you can call me out of my name as much as you want, but nobody speaks like that to my grandbaby!” She pointed to the door that still sat ajar. “You’re going to have to get the hell out of here!”

The pot of rage was simmering and it was on the verge of bubbling over now. He could see it: him suddenly lunging forward and throttling Mavis within an inch of her life. The little girl would start screaming. Renee would shout for him to let her mother go, to let her breathe, but nothing would stop him until Mavis lay dead on her living room floor.

Dante cocked an eyebrow as he considered doing it anyway, but he acknowledged that he was too pretty for prison and he had no desire to serve twenty-to-life for killing this old cunt. With great reluctance, he slowly turned and walked toward her door.

“Wait, Dante! Wait! Don’t go!” Renee shouted while running after him.

He strode through the door and she was at his heels, teetering in her knockoff Louboutins. “Dante, please! Baby, listen!” She grabbed his arm. “Don’t walk out like this!”

He shoved her away as he stalked toward the apartment’s elevators at the end of the hallway. “Where the fuck were you while she was making all these phone calls and talking to her pastor?” he shouted. “I could have used the heads-up!”

“I didn’t know she called him! She didn’t tell me!”

He reached the elevator doors, pressed the Down button, turned, and glared at Renee.

You are so goddamn useless, he thought, shaking his head. He had assumed she would be a reliable ally. Instead she had sat around on her ass, allowing him to get blindsided like this. He pressed the elevator button again, jabbing his finger so hard onto the plastic that his nail bed was starting to hurt.

“Please don’t be mad at me, baby!” She grabbed his arm again. “Look, I’ll talk to Mama! I’ll . . . I’ll get her to change her mind! Just don’t leave like this!”

He rolled his eyes and yanked his arm out of her grasp.

“Okay, then forget Mama! Just don’t let this affect what we have!”

“What we have?” He laughed, hard and loud. “Renee, what we had was a few sweaty hours in bed and a bunch of used condoms. That’s all, honey!”

“What?” Her face crumpled. “You don’t mean that! You told me you cared about me! You said . . . you said we were going to go to Barbados.”

By the time the elevator doors dinged and opened, Dante was laughing even harder. After the day he had had, he needed a good laugh. Unfortunately, it was at Renee’s expense and she didn’t seem remotely amused.

“So you saying you don’t love me?”

He walked inside the compartment and turned to face her. “I’m saying that question is so ridiculous it’s not even worth answering.” He then reached to press the button that would take him to the first level.

Her eyes narrowed into thin slits. Her ample chest started to heave like she was the Big Bad Wolf preparing to blow down some poor piglet’s house.

“Fuck you, motherfucka!” she screeched. “Fuck you! You think you can treat me like some shit? I’ma show you, motherfucka! You’re gonna—”

The doors shut, cutting her off mid-tirade.