CHAPTER 67

Dear Yolanda,

Just a little something to show I care. Hope everything is going well with your father. Do you think things will ever be good between us again?

Maxwell

Yolanda smelled the beautiful red roses on her desk again.

“You ready?” Maxwell asked, entering her office.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Yolanda said. She stood and smoothed her suit. She wanted to look professional, trustworthy, especially when she was about to tell her boss that her daughter was betraying her.

“You look nice,” Maxwell said.

“Thanks.”

She walked out of her office, following Maxwell down the hallway to Dee Dee’s office.

“The flowers are beautiful,” she said. “Thanks.”

“It’s the least I could do. Is your dad gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, he’s gonna pull through. He’s tough. Thanks for asking.”

“How come you still aren’t returning my phone calls?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk to you. Our relationship is strictly business from now on, okay?”

“Yolanda, I’m sorry…”

“Whatever,” she said, waving her hand. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I have better things to do than to satisfy your overweening ego by accepting your apology. Now are you gonna open the door or what?”

He stiffened. He opened the door and Yolanda strode into Dee Dee’s office, file in hand with the evidence she had gathered about Jackie: a copy of the e-mails and letters and a signed eyewitness statement from Maria saying she saw Jackie coming out of Theresa’s office. She was ready.

“Please have a seat,” Dee Dee said, without looking up from her desk. Maxwell looked at Yolanda, then they walked over and sat down.

Dee Dee looked up.

“I understand you have some information that proves Theresa was innocent. You think someone was setting her up?” she asked.

“I don’t think, Dee Dee, I know,” Yolanda said.

“Well? Who is it?”

Yolanda cleared her throat. She looked at Maxwell. He nodded his head and she continued.

“It’s your daughter. It’s Jackie.”

“What? That’s absurd! Jackie would never do such a thing!”

“I have proof.”

“Show it to me.”

Yolanda passed her the file.

“I’ve already seen these letters. And this letter from Maria? She’s an old woman. She sees and hears a lot of things that don’t happen. Besides, it’s not uncommon for Jackie to go into someone’s office.”

“But after hours?” Yolanda asked.

“It may be a little unorthodox, but yes, even after hours.”

“Did you see the time at the bottom of that e-mail? Dated August twenty-fifth?”

“Yes, I see it. What’s your point?”

“My point is that Theresa couldn’t have sent that e-mail.”

“And why not?”

“Because she was with me,” Maxwell interjected. “With both of us, actually,” he added. “We all went to dinner that night…”

“What time?”

“I picked Yolanda up around eight. We got there about eight-thirty.”

“When did you leave?”

“Yolanda left early; she wasn’t feeling well. Theresa and I stayed.”

“‘Til after nine?” Dee Dee asked.

“Yes, we left there and then went dancing somewhere else,” he said. He looked at Yolanda, but she refused to look back.

Dee Dee sat back in her chair, silent.

She pressed a button on her phone and asked Jackie to come into her office.

“I’m about to teach a class. Can it wait?”

“No, it can’t, Jacquilyn. My office. Right now.”

She picked up her cup of coffee and took a long sip. Her hands were shaking.

“All right, Mama, what is so important…” Jackie said, bursting into Dee Dee’s office, stopping short when she saw Yolanda and Maxwell. She gave Yolanda a long, hard look.

“What’s going on?” she asked, still looking at Yolanda.

Yolanda refused to look at her, keeping her eyes on a black figurine on Dee Dee’s desk.

“Sit down, Jackie,” Dee Dee said.

“I’m not sitting down until someone tells me what’s going on here.”

“Fine. Stand. What were you doing on August twenty-fifth at 9 p.m.?”

Jackie looked at her mother.

“Why?”

“I’m curious.”

“You’re not curious. You want to know something.”

“I want to know what you were doing that evening.”

Jackie looked at Yolanda.

“It’s a simple question, Jackie, answer it,” Dee Dee demanded.

“Sure. Me and Yolanda went out for drinks. She was upset because Maxwell wasn’t interested in her, but she kept throwing herself at him. She felt like a fool so I—”

“That’s a lie!” Yolanda blurted.

“—so I took her out to cheer her up,” Jackie continued, ignoring Yolanda’s outburst. “I tried to make the poor girl feel better about herself.”

“Have you ever seen these letters? Or e-mails?” Dee Dee asked, showing Jackie the papers.

Jackie looked through them.

“Nope,” she said, passing them back to her mother.

“They don’t look familiar?”

“Never seen them before.”

“You don’t remember me showing these to you after I fired Theresa?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that now,” Jackie said, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Did you write these, Jackie?” Dee Dee asked calmly, looking into her daughter’s eyes with wrenching intensity.

“No! How could you even ask me that?”

“You had nothing to do with this?”

“That’s what I’m saying! I don’t know what Yolanda said to you, but I swear—”

“Maria saw you coming out of Theresa’s office that night.”

“So? That doesn’t mean I wrote—”

“And I know you couldn’t have gone out with Yolanda, because she and Maxwell went out that same night. I would love to believe that Yolanda and Maxwell are lying, but so far all signs are pointing to you,” Dee Dee said, her voice trembling.

“You skinny crackhead,” Jackie said glaring at Yolanda. “I helped you.”

Yolanda looked up then and saw that Jackie’s eyes were shiny as glass with unshed tears.

“You were nobody without me…I helped you get Maxwell…”

“Jackie! Did you do it?” Dee Dee shouted.

“YESSSSSS!” Jackie screamed at the top of her lungs. “I DID IT!”

Her face was twisted, ugly. She looked like an animal, except animals don’t cry. Slow, painful tears crept down her cheeks.

“Oh, Jackie,” Dee Dee said, deflated. “Why?”

“Why? You want to know why? First it was Sheila! It took me ten years to get rid of her, but finally I did.”

“You framed Sheila?”

“YESSS!” Jackie screamed, spittle flying. “Sheila and Theresa! Two whores who tried to ride on your coattails. Look around you, mother! You have this huge empire, and all I want is just a small slice, just a little piece of the pie. But you gave it away, to some stranger no less. So I set out to take it, ’cause I knew my own mother wouldn’t give it to me.”

“You’re so young, Jackie…”

“Michael was young! He was only fifteen when he died, and you would’ve let him rule the world if you could. Why not me, Mama? Why couldn’t you let me rule, too?” she cried.

“Oh, Jackie, why did you do this? You would’ve had everything you ever wanted and more. But you couldn’t wait. You never could wait. That’s why I would’ve given Michael the world. Because he would have realized he wasn’t ready and would have given it right back. That’s what you never understood. You’re not ready. And you never will be.”

“You are always breaking my heart,” Jackie said quietly.

Jackie walked over to Dee Dee’s desk and angrily knocked Michael’s picture off, breaking the antique silver frame and shattering the glass into countless little pieces.

“Now your heart is broken, too,” Jackie said.

She walked out and slammed the door, the walls reverberating behind her.

Dee Dee looked down at Michael’s picture on the floor. A piece of glass was on Michael’s smiling face and glinted in the fluorescent light.

“Maxwell, make sure Jackie has all her stuff gone by the end of the hour.”