LOVING THE HEAD MAN (14 page)

       Malcolm looked at Bree.  “You mean you don’t know?”  He was a handsome man, with a low-cut fade, walnut-brown skin, and glassy green eyes.  He was the one who had called it off with Bree, deciding that she was too ambitious, that any wife of his would have to put family first and forego any heavy duty career.  Other than that, Bree thought as she stared into his beautiful eyes, he would have been perfect.

       “What are you talking about, Mal?” she wanted to know.

       “It’s all your mother’s been talking about since you phoned and asked me to talk with her PD,” he said as he looked at Bree’s mother.  “I just assumed you already knew.”

       Bree looked at her mother.  Francine Hudson was pushing fifty hard, and had a hardcore edge to her appearance, but she still had a nice figure and attractive face.  She puffed on her cigarette, sipped from her can of beer, and shook her head.  “What’s going on, Ma?” Bree asked her.

       “I ain’t wit it,” her mother said.  “You hear me?  I ain’t wit yo’ shit today, Bree, I ain’t wit it.  Just spent all that time in some pissy-ass jail, you taking you precious time to get here, don’t even think about looking at me like that!”

       It always hurt Bree to her heart the way her mother would lash out at her, but it wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to it.  “What auction, Ma?” she asked again.

       “The house,” Ricky
said,
which caused a stern rebuke from Francine.

       “What you tellin’ her for?  She
don’t
give a shit about you and me neither!”

       “She didn’t have to bail you out,” Candace reminded her mother, only to get rebuked also.

       “You shut the fuck up!” Francine yelled.  “You ain’t
nothing
but a child.  You don’t know shit about shit so shut the hell up!”

       Bree’s leg touched her sister’s arm.  “What about the house?” Bree asked Ricky, certain that she would get nothing from her mother.

       “She couldn’t make the payments on the mortgage, so it’s up for auction in a couple weeks.”

       “In nine days to be precise,” Malcolm said.  “That’s why I asked if you had a game plan.”

       Bree thought he was talking about a game plan to secure her mother’s release.  That was why she said yes.  But she was still confused.  “But what mortgage,” she asked.  “Pop paid off this house before he died.  And
  he
left the house to me.”

       “The second mortgage,” Ricky said.  “Ma got Dad to sign the papers two years ago, just before he died.”

       “But he didn’t know what he was signing.  He was sick out of his mind.”

       Francine looked at Bree with a look that could bend steel.  “What you tryin’ to accuse me of fraud?” she asked Bree.

       “The house was supposed to go to me when Daddy died.  He left the
  house
to me.  And you knew he was going to.   How could you . . .”

       Bree was stunned.  She couldn’t believe her mother would be that irresponsible with the only thing, and she meant the only thing, they as a family had in this world.  And it wasn’t exactly the Taj Mahal.  It was, in truth, a small, shack of a house but with a good roof, three bedrooms, and a big backyard.  She looked at Candace.  “Why didn’t you tell me, Can?”

       “I didn’t know until last night, when I heard Malcolm talking to Ma about it.”

       Bree looked at Malcolm. 
“How much?”

       “She has to have forty-four to keep the house.”

       “Hundred?” Bree asked, hopelessly hopeful.

       “Thousand,” Malcolm said as she knew he would.  “She couldn’t or didn’t pay the
mortgage,
the bank therefore exercised its right to accelerate the Note, which, as you know, means that the entire loan, not just the back payments, became due.  She’s already received the Notice of Foreclosure sale, which gave her thirty days advance notice of the date of sale.  There are only nine days left.  And she has to have forty-four thousand dollars in nine days or bids will be open to the public and this house will most definitely be sold.”

       It felt as if a ton of bricks had fallen on Bree.  She could hardly believe it.  Her father worked his entire life to pay off this home, and just like that it was about to be taken away?  “How could you do something like that?” Bree confronted her mother.

       “Bree, don’t,” Candace said.

       “You know what this place means to Pop,” Bree kept on.

       “Yeah, well, pop’s dead, ain’t he?” Francine said.  “And I still had bills to pay.  Ain’t
nobody
round here taking care of me. 
TiTi, Candy, Ricky, all them sitting around here expecting me to hold down this household.
  You ain’t helping.”

       “I just got out of law school, Ma, and when I got that expense check from Colgate I sent every dime I could to you, and you know that.”

       “Well that wasn’t near ‘bout
enough,
and you know
that
!”

       But it was Titianna, Bree’s younger sister, who brought it all back home.  “What we gonna do, Bree?” she asked.  “Where we gon’ go if we lose daddy’s house?”

       Bree leaned her head back on the sofa.  Life was so unfair, she thought, fighting back tears.  Then she pulled out her cell phone, and called Alan DeFrame. 

Two hours later, Alan DeFrame walked into Robert’s office with news he didn’t want to hear. 

       “One of the finalists is calling it quits,” Alan said as he walked over to Robert’s desk.  “We just got the word.”

       Robert was seated behind his desk going over a document dump from the prosecution that required too much delicacy to delegate to his staff.  The only person he did allow to assist him, Monty Ross, was at the conference table
pouring
over documents as well.  When Alan walked in and made his pronouncement they both looked up, with Robert staring at him over the top tip of his reading glasses.  “This is rather late in the game, especially after the finals,” Robert said. 
“Which one?”

       Alan smiled, as if he could hardly contain his glee.  “Bree Hudson,” he said.

       Robert frowned.  “Brianna?  She requested a couple days off.  Why would she quit?  You gave her permission to take a couple of days off, didn’t you?”

       “I didn’t like it, and I told her she wasn’t helping herself by doing it, but yeah, I gave her permission.”

       “Then why did she suddenly decide to quit?”

       “I have no idea, sir.  All I know is she called me from Mississippi and said she wasn’t coming back.  That’s all I know.”

       Robert exhaled.  “Okay.  I’ll take care of it.”

       “It’s typical Bree, if you want my opinion,” Alan added.  “The program is already just about over, and here she is giving up the opportunity of a lifetime.  I read her the riot act, sir.  I was very upset.”

       “That doesn’t sound like Bree to me,” Monty said.  “What reason did she give?”

       Alan rolled his eyes.  He never liked Monty and never pretended otherwise.  “I just said she didn’t give a reason.  Didn’t I just say that?”  He looked over at Monty as if to make
himself
clear. 

       “All right, Alan,” Robert said.  “I’ll take it from here. 
Thank-you.”

       It was a dismissal, and Alan knew it, but he left smiling anyway.  The way Colgate was always pampering Bree and singling her out over and over again as if that hood rat was something special, irked him no end.  As far as Alan was concerned, Colgate was getting exactly what he deserved.

       Robert, however, had Monty pull up from the computer Bree’s cell number from the
finalists
demographics page and he was on the phone to Bree within minutes of Alan’s departure.  He leaned back in his executive swivel chair and pinched the bridge of his nose.  He had so much on his plate that the last thing he had time for right now was drama.  But he dialed her cell anyway.

       “Bree’s no quitter,” Monty noted.  “I don’t care what Alan says.”

       Robert nodded his head.  It was no secret to him that Monty liked Bree, almost as much as he did himself.  And when she came on the line, and Robert heard that soft, almost melodic voice of hers, he closed his eyes.  Why
that slip
of a girl pulled at his heartstrings so, confounded him still.

       “This Bree,” she said into the phone.

       “This is Robert,” he said to her.

       “Oh. Mr. Colgate.  Hi.”

       “What’s happened?” he asked her.

      
“Sir?”

       “What’s this I hear about you not coming back?”

       Bree exhaled.  “I’ve got a lot going on here, a lot I’ve got to handle, and I can’t handle it and be there, too.  But as soon as I get a job here, I’ll start paying you back every dime I owe.”

       “What is it?”

      
“Sir?”

       “Don’t jerk me around, Brianna.  What’s going on down there in Mississippi that requires your full attention?”

       There was a pause.  “Just some family problems,” she said.

      
“Such as?”
  He knew he was being intrusive, and he knew she was uncomfortable with his intrusiveness, but
he wasn’t about to not have the full story this time
.

       “It’s just something I’ve got to take care of.”

       “I’m not asking you again, Brianna.”

       There was a long pause.  “My mother was arrested for selling drugs,” she finally said.

       Robert frowned.  “Your mother?” he said, and Monty looked at him. 

      
“Yes, sir.”

       “Well is it true?  Was she selling drugs?”

      
“Drugs?”
Monty asked, astounded.

       There was another pause of hesitation by Bree.  “Yes,” she said.  “It’s true.  I was able to get her out on bail, that’s why I needed the ten thousand.  But it’s so much going on, I’ve got to stay here and hopefully get a job with the public defender’s office--”