Lovers & Players (47 page)

O
n Thursday morning Diahann got out of bed at the usual time, but instead of dressing quickly and heading straight to the kitchen in the main house, she took time for herself and applied a careful make-up, then styled her hair. After that was done, she chose a simple but stylish blue dress, then added a couple of pieces of gold jewellery left over from her days as a singer. If Red insisted that she be at his meeting, she certainly wasn’t about to walk in looking like the dowdy housekeeper.

She stood back and appraised her appearance in the mirror. The transformation was quite startling. Like her daughter, Diahann was a beauty, a darker beauty than Liberty, but stunning with her green eyes, full lips and clouds of jet-black hair.

It was strange seeing herself all done up. It had been so long since she’d got herself together. Why now?

She knew why.

Something
big
was about to take place. Something that would startle everyone. Although perhaps not Lady Bentley–for she’d obviously, somehow or other, found out her and Red’s secret. However, Red’s three sons would be shocked, and so would Liberty, if only she was here. Diahann had begged her to hurry back to New York but, as usual, Liberty was stubborn–she did things her way.

Diahann thought about her daughter for a moment. When she’d been forced to send Liberty away to live with Aretha, she’d lost all control over her. Always a wild child, Liberty had grown up fast and furious. Diahann often thanked God for Cindi, at least Liberty wasn’t out on her own–she had her cousin to protect her.

Diahann sighed. There’d been no one to protect
her
when she’d left home at sixteen, and arrived in New York. No one at all.

Diahann Dozier got off the bus from Atlanta full of excitement and big dreams. She was in New York. New York City! And even though she had only a small amount of money, her desire to succeed as perhaps the new Anita Baker or Diana Ross outweighed all the disadvantages she might face. She could sing, she was good-looking–she’d imagined it was all going to be so damn easy
.

But no. Nothing was easy for a pretty black girl alone and broke in New York
.

For two years she persevered, scoring a few gigs here and there. Along the way she’d hooked up with a series of jazz musicians–not a good idea, for they all treated her in a cavalier way, passing her from one to the other
.

One day, at a recording session, she ran into Zippy Ventura, a two-bit manager who talked a big game and liked what he saw. ‘You do for me, kiddo, an’ I’ll do for you,’ he told her
.

Zippy was a short, skinny white man in his forties. He was married to Kandie–a tough-looking black woman with bleached, white-blonde hair and enormous fake breasts.

Marriage didn’t seem to hinder Zippy, who was after any outside-his-marriage action he could get. In exchange for the occasional grope in his seedy office, he began to score Diahann quite a few decent gigs singing background at sessions and, even better, solo spots at a late-night club, Gloria’s in Harlem.

Gloria, a large gay woman, took an immediate shine to Diahann, nicknaming her Dini, and constantly lecturing her on the joys of being with a woman as opposed to a man.

Diahann was not convinced, although she could certainly have done without Zippy and his lascivious moves.

Diahann sang at the club twice a week. Standing on the small smoky stage, belting out jazz versions of standards like ‘You Go To My Head’ and ‘But Not For Me’, she felt very much like she was heading for the big-time.

Men chased her, especially the regular customers, but after her bad experiences with musicians, she’d kind of given up on men.

One night Red Diamond showed up. Diahann had no idea who he was, but a very impressed Zippy and Gloria soon filled her in: Red Diamond was a much-married billionaire media tycoon with a fierce reputation. Zippy and Gloria were over the moon that he’d chosen to spend time at Gloria’s.

After his first visit, Red Diamond returned several times, sometimes with a woman, sometimes alone. He sat at a front table and never took his eyes off her as she went through her repertoire of old standards.

‘He likes you,’ Zippy informed her.

‘So what?’ was her reply.

‘He wants you to have a drink with him,’ Gloria informed her
.

‘Not me,’ was her reply
.

This went on for several weeks, until one night Zippy cornered her, and said, ‘You’re gonna sit down an’ have a drink with him or you’re outta a job.’

Red Diamond was sixty. Diahann was eighteen. This didn’t seem to bother either Zippy or Gloria, so she sat down and had a drink with him
.

Red insisted she drink champagne–even though she was under-age
.

She obliged.

He plied her with compliments, telling her he thought she was beautiful and sexy and ripe.

Ripe?
she thought
. What does he mean by ripe?

‘I want to fuck you,’ he said.

‘No way,’ she said.

A week later Zippy told her that if she didn’t sleep with Red Diamond she was out of a job
.

Nice. But she had nothing to lose
except
her job, so she did it
.

The experience wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good. It was just…nothing. Diahann was ashamed of herself for sleeping with a rich old man just to keep working. It wasn’t right, and she knew it. However, she reconciled herself to it: he wasn’t the
first man she’d slept with and he certainly wouldn’t be the last
.

After that night Red Diamond stopped coming to the club
.

‘What didja do to turn him off?’ Zippy demanded, left eye twitching as he stared at her accusingly
.

‘Nothing,’ she answered blankly.

‘You happy now?’ Gloria complained to Zippy. ‘You
made
her sleep with him and now we lost us a big-time customer.’

Diahann couldn’t care less. All she wanted to do was sing. It didn’t bother her that Red never came back.

Six weeks later she realized she was pregnant. She kept the news to herself until it was too late to have an abortion, whereupon she informed Zippy and Gloria that she had to go home to Atlanta and visit her family for a while. Then she took a job as a receptionist in a beauty salon on Lexington, working up until three weeks before her baby was born.

Diahann named her baby Liberty–for freedom. And when Liberty was six weeks old, she contacted Zippy, told him she was back in the city and needed work.

He grumbled that she’d been away too long, the small following she’d started to acquire had moved on.

‘Don’t you
want
to be my manager?’ she asked him.

‘
You do for me, an
’—’

‘No!’ she said, backing away from his hands-on approach. ‘It’s business or nothing.’

‘Go find yourself a new manager,’ he muttered, quite insulted that she would turn him down.

So she did. She found Fred Marks, an energetic go-getter who immediately booked her into a series of clubs–some as far away as Atlantic City. It didn’t matter, at least she was making enough money to pay her rent and hire a woman to take care of Liberty when she was working.

Diahann adored her baby. She thought Liberty was the most beautiful little creature she’d ever seen. Sometimes, when people found out she had a child, they wanted to know who Liberty’s daddy was. Diahann came up with a variety of stories, none of them true. She had no desire for Red Diamond to find out that he’d fathered her child. She could manage very nicely without him, although sometimes–when things were slow–it was quite a struggle
.

Right after Liberty’s fifth birthday she met a man she liked. His name was Leon, and they were both singing back-up for some female one-hit wonder. They bonded over coffee and complaints about how bad the singer was. Two weeks later Leon moved in with her, which was a big help because he immediately took over half of the expenses. The other good news was that he fell in love with Liberty, and she with him. The two were sweet together, and Diahann knew that if Leon asked her to marry him, she would do so without a moment’s hesitation
.

But Leon didn’t ask, and one year together turned into two, and Diahann realized she wasn’t getting any younger and no big breaks were staring either of them in the face, so she broke up with him
.

Liberty was devastated. To her, Leon was Mr Daddy, and for him to abandon her was extremely painful. She was only seven, but it was the start of the trouble between her and Diahann
.

Fred did his best, but as time passed, the gigs became fewer and fewer–girl jazz singers were out of style. So one night Diahann decided to revisit Gloria’s
.

The club was still open, and there–mingling with her customers–was Gloria herself, big and warm and welcoming. Unfortunately, Zippy was still around too, pushing a young singer he insisted was the new Whitney Houston. Divorced and bitter, he was not pleased to see Diahann, but Gloria was. She invited her back to sing at the club three nights a week.

Diahann gladly accepted, which pissed Zippy off, causing an angry rift between him and Gloria. This was a relief to Diahann, because now she didn’t have to deal with Zippy and his wandering hands.

‘Zippy’s got himself a little problem,’ Gloria confided, pantomiming someone sniffing a line of coke.

It wasn’t long before Gloria found out about Liberty, who was now nine, and quite a budding beauty.

‘When did she happen?’ Gloria exclaimed.

Diahann made up an old boyfriend back in Atlanta. Gloria seemed to accept her story, and as a special treat Diahann sometimes brought Liberty to the club to listen to her sing
.

One night Zippy turned up. He was an unexpected and unwelcome visitor. Unfortunately it was a night when Liberty

was there, standing at the side of the stage watching her mother perform
.

Zippy slobbered all over the child while Diahann was singing, telling her how pretty she was and how he was her mom’s best friend so they should all get together more often
.

‘Where’s your daddy?’ he asked
.

‘Don’t have a daddy,’ Liberty replied, thinking what a funny-looking man Zippy was.

‘How old are you?’

‘Nine.’

‘Nine, huh? When you gonna be ten?’

‘May the first,’ she said proudly.

‘I’ll buy you a present,’ Zippy promised, his almost coke-addled brain figuring out a thing or two.

When Diahann got offstage, she was furious. She and Zippy became involved in a loud argument, which finished when Gloria intervened and threw him out.

Diahann had a hunch that she had not seen the last of Zippy, and she was right. A week later he turned up at her apartment. ‘I know whose kid she is,’ he said, taunting her. ‘The dates fit, so don’t go thinkin’ y’ can fool me.’

She blanked him
.

He was insistent
.

‘Does Red got any idea he has a kid with you?’ Zippy asked, trying to force his way past her into her apartment
.

She was sure he must be bluffing, how could he possibly know? And why would he even care?

She told him that he was crazy, that he should go away and leave her alone or she’d call the police
.

Zippy laughed in her face. ‘Ya dumb bitch. Doncha know this means big fuckin’ bucks? We gotta partner up an’ take the old guy for a bundle.’

Diahann called the police to get him to stop bothering her.

She was a black woman, Zippy was a white man. The police did nothing.

A few days later Zippy accosted Liberty outside her school. He reminded her that he was a good friend of her mom’s and that he had the present he’d promised her. He took her to a nearby coffee shop.

Liberty went with him willingly. Since she’d met him at the club, she figured he
was
her mom’s friend. Besides, he had a present for her.

Zippy ordered her a strawberry smoothie, then presented her with a cheap plastic manicure set. He extracted the nail clippers from the manicure set. ‘Gimme your hand,’ he said, ‘an’ Uncle Zippy’ll show you how t’ use it.’

She did as he asked, and he clipped a couple of her nails. Then, as if by accident, he jammed the sharp part of the clippers into her wrist, drawing blood
.