I nodded yet again, the feeling in my throat making wet pop out in my eyes.
I swallowed, took in a big breath, dashed my hand on my eyes and shoved the box into the pocket of my jeans.
Then I turned and walked slowly out of the dining room.
Like a lady.
* * * *
“I suppose you’ll be wantin’ some cake and ice cream or somethin’,” Momma muttered when we were in her car on the way back home from Miss Annamae’s house.
“No, Momma. It’s okay.”
“Now she’s bein’ that passive-aggressive bullshit,” Momma kept muttering, now to herself, sort of. It was also to me.
I closed my mouth.
Momma didn’t stop at the store.
In the end, I made myself bologna sandwiches for my birthday dinner while Momma got ready to go out to DuLane’s Roadhouse.
But after she was gone, I ate my sandwiches sitting in front of the TV and I did it wearing pearls.
And three days later, Momma lost her job with Miss Annamae seeing as she went to work (late) and found Miss Annamae had passed quietly in the night while she was sleeping.
* * * *
I walked away from Quick Swap with the cash in my pocket.
I went right to the bus station.
I bought a ticket and sat outside on the bench, my two suitcases on the sidewalk by my boots.
The bus came.
The driver tossed my beat-up, second-hand suitcases under the bus and I climbed in.
There weren’t a lot of folks there, which was good. I didn’t feel in a friendly mood and Miss Annamae had taught me that a lady can make a stranger a friend in no time flat…and she should.
I picked a seat at the back by the window.
I rested my head against it and stared out, unseeing.
I heard the bus start up and felt it pull away from the curb.
When it did, I also felt the wet drip from my eye, rolling down my cheek. Then some more from the other eye.
I let myself have that. Just for a spell. Doing it, lifting my hand and touching my fingers to my neck where the pearls I’d worn every day for the last two years no longer were.
They were at Quick Swap.
The time had come when I needed them.
I knew Miss Annamae wouldn’t mind. I understood her now. I understood a lot of things. Most of it I wished I didn’t.
They were gone, all I had of her. She gave them to me on my thirteenth birthday and I’d pawned them on my nineteenth.
I’d miss them.
But not as much as I missed her.
When it was time to be done crying, I made myself be done. I opened my purse with its cracked fake leather and fished out my hankie (because Southern women carried hankies). I also pulled out my compact. I dabbed my eyes and carefully, swaying with the bus’s movements in order not to make a mess of it (but I’d been doing it now for some time and I was good at it), I fixed my makeup.
I returned everything to my purse, kept it tucked in my lap, and looked down the long bus out the front window.
We were headed west.
It was going to be a long journey.
I rested my head back on the seat and closed my eyes.
Passing the time as the bus rolled over the miles, I built castles.
Chapter One
And Everything
Marcus
Marcus Sloan stood at the window in Smithie’s office, staring down at the floor of the strip club, a quarter share of which he owned, but even so, he rarely came and he never did so when the business was in operation.
He didn’t need to.
Smithie, who started the club, owned the rest of it and ran it, knew his business. He was serious about it. He was also honest. And he had the right reputation for the job—a man you didn’t fuck with, but a man that took care of his business by taking care of his customers as well as his staff, from cleaning ladies to bouncers to bartenders to talent.
That was the first time Marcus had been there in over a year.
It was morning. Early. They didn’t open until one. There were no windows to the building so the lights inside were on. Three women were moving through the space, one wiping down tables, the other two mopping the floor.
And two women were on the stage.
It appeared one was training the other.
The door behind him opened but Marcus didn’t look from the window even as he heard Smithie walk in.
He kept his eyes on the stage.
“I hear you have a headliner,” Marcus noted to the window, his attention aimed through it but locked on the blonde on that stage.
“Velvet rope, brother,” Smithie replied and Marcus felt him move through the office.
He also felt him stop at Marcus’s side.
“She danced with the other girls for about a week,” Smithie told him. “Before I put her out there, saw it during her audition. Still had no idea how much of a stir she was gonna cause due to her talent. Don’t need the bullshit it was gonna bring, all the boys shovin’ their cash in Daisy’s strings, the other girls get screwed since she’s outshinin’ ’em by a mile. If I clear the stage for her, she works the boys on her own, got no bitches workin’ my nerves, whinin’ about their tips. Four sets, three songs each, she gets her take and then some. The other girls get a good break to re-oil or whatever and the boys are primed and motivated to keep the goodness flowin’ after she leaves the stage.”
“Three sets, two songs, and no lap dances,” Marcus stated.
“Say what?” Smithie asked.
Marcus turned to the man.
He was black. Big. In his day he’d been fit, never lean, a powerhouse. His body had gone somewhat soft with age, but Smithie hadn’t gone soft. He was sharp, shrewd, educated, and street smart. His life had been bumpy, not as bumpy as some, but bumpier than most. He’d stood strong through it making smart decisions, wise alliances, and not many enemies.