Real Wifeys: Get Money (12 page)

“Hot wings and moscato,” Michel said, strolling out of the kitchenette holding a bright fuchsia tray and wearing a tight pair of jean shorts and a ruffled strapless shirt. Makeup in place. Lace wig pulled up in a ponytail. Long, shapely legs greased.

Sometimes I forgot he was a dude.

I eyed his crotch as he slid the tray onto the white coffee table. “Where exactly is your dick?” I asked, leaning forward to accept the plastic cup of wine he offered me.

Eve laughed into her own cup.

Michel stepped back and posed like he was at the end of a runway or in a beauty pageant. “Ready to drop down when your man ready for it,” he said, playfully sarcastic.

Luscious arched a brow. “You mean Goldie’s man,” I reminded him, sipping my wine as my left eye jumped.

Michel pouted his glossy lips and shook his head. “We are not going into another long discussion on why Make$ and Goldie need to be fed Ex-Lax brownies—”

“And magnesium-citrate milk shakes,” Eve added, leaning over to slap the hell out of Michel’s smooth hand.

Okay,
that
made me laugh out loud.

“They gone get theirs; you don’t even have to pray or wish on it, baby-boo,” Michel said, snapping his slender fingers in a full circle.

“That caramel is a bitch,” Eve added before biting into a hot wing.

Michel frowned and looked at me before we both looked at Eve. “What?” we asked.

Eve was busy getting the hot-wing sauce from under her acrylic tips. “That caramel,” she repeated. “What goes around comes around.”

“Lord, help this dumb bitch,” Michel said, falling back against the fuzzy turquoise area rug and fanning himself.

“What?” Eve asked, looking lost as hell.

“You mean karma. It’s
karma
,” I stressed.

Eve flipped Michel the bird. “Y’all know what the fuck I meant,” she said.

“Barely. Shit, I was looking for ice cream, bananas, and whipped cream and shit. I was lost like a motherfucker for a sec,” Michel teased.

Bzzzzzz . . . Bzzzzzz . . . Bzzzzzz . . .

I picked up the vibrating BlackBerry just as Michel jumped to his feet and started rapping the hook from Wu-Tang’s “Ice Cream.” “French vanilla, butter-pecan, chocolate deluxe. Even caramel sundaes is gettin’ touched.”

Laughing, I answered the call without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Oh, you fucking laughing and my son in fucking jail, bitch!”

My heart dropped into my stomach at Peaches’ words. I waved my hand for Michel to be quiet. “What did you say? Make$ locked up?” I asked.

“Yes, he told me to call you. We need to get to Philly ASAP.”

I jumped to my feet, already sliding on my shoes. “In Philly? What happened? What’s going on?”

“That bitch Goldie said Fiyah and Tank raped her and then said my mufuckin’ son helped cover the shit up. The police locked all three of they asses up.”

The strength left my knees and I sat back down. Michel and Eve were looking at me for details, but what the fuck could I say? The same bitch I caught my man eating out in the club just got him locked up in another state and now he want me to come be by his side like one of those wives of a cheating politician or minister or some shit. Looking stupid. Looking played out. Caught up in they bullshit.

“I will handle it, Luscious.”

All of a sudden, his promise after I saw the DVD of Peaches getting that girl jumped came back to me.

“I’ll take care of it.”

Did him trying to handle or take care of what his crew did to Goldie get his ass in jail? But why would he cover up them raping
his
side-chick? And did he forget that he told me he fired Goldie?

“The twins drove the truck to Maryland, so I need you to come get me, Luscious.”

I bit my lip as my thoughts raced just as hard as my heart.

When was enough enough?

“Luscious!”

I wanted to tell her,
Fuck your son, because he’s getting what he deserves for even dealing with that ratchet bitch behind my back.
I wanted to hang up the phone in her face. I wanted all those crazy motherfuckers out of my life.

But that would piss him off and my money would be shorted. I wanted no part of a stripper pole again, and Make$ owed me the good life.

“I’m on my way,” I said, ending the call.

Damn.

Goldie had been raped.

That’s all that kept playing in my head as we drove through the busy Philly streets to the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

Not
“My man is locked up.”

Not
“I hope my man is okay.”

Not
“Make$ is already on probation.”

Not
“I can’t wait to get to the police station.”

Not
“Has his lawyer gotten to the police station yet?”

Not even
“I wish Peaches would stop complaining about me bringing Eve and Michel with us.”

Goldie got raped.

Bitch probably lying
, I thought as I gripped the steering wheel tighter.

And if she wasn’t?

Fuck her. Serve the bitch right.

You lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas.

And I meant that shit. Fuck Goldie. She deserved one of those beat-downs Peaches’ ass had put on that girl.

Funny how hate will make you see—and feel—shit differently.

My BlackBerry vibrated in my left hand while I steered with the right. “It’s the lawyer,” I told Peaches, while I answered the call and pulled over to park in front of a homeless shelter.

“Hurry up and answer,” she snapped, sitting tense as hell in the passenger seat decked out in twelve shades of blue.

Shut the fuck up!
“Mr. Levitz, I’m putting you on speakerphone.”

“Mr. Gardner just had his bail hearing and there was no bail set—”

Peaches cried out and then slumped down in the seat so low that I thought she passed out completely. I ignored the bitch.

“Also he failed a drug test and I already spoke with his Essex County probation officer. She plans to immediately notify the courts that he has violated the conditions set by his probation. She will be requesting a revocation of his supervised release because of the failed drug charges and the seriousness of the Philadelphia charges—”

Peaches came back to life, sat up straight, and hollered out again.

“Hand me that bottle of water, Eve,” Michel mumbled from the backseat.

“Peaches . . . please,” I stressed, shooting her a serious hard stare.

“Anyway . . .” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, there’s really no need to come to Philly. You won’t be able to see him until he’s finished being processed, and depending on what happens in Essex County, he might get shipped there.”

Make$ was staying in jail. Humph.
See how much pussy you find up in that bitch,
I thought, even as I turned in my seat to face Peaches. “What do we do?” I asked, forcing my eyes to fill with tears as I pretended to let my hands shake like I was nervous. Like I gave a fuck.

Peaches reached over and grabbed my hand. “Wait to hear from him and do what he say,” she said.

I fought not to get her touch off of me. After the shit Make$ did to me—the disease plus fucking Goldie and God know who else—maybe a little time sitting in jail would help him get his mind right about what was important. But it meant more wifey duties for me: weekly visits, care packages, high-ass phone bills, and making sure he got everything he needed in there. But I would do it for him—and continue to do for myself while he was in there. It cost to be a prison wifey. Fuck the dumb shit.

I dropped my BlackBerry in my bag as I turned the car around and headed back to Jersey.

I stayed quiet while Peaches made her phone calls, cussing and carrying on like she had the power to talk him free. My thoughts?

Where was Goldie’s snake ass, and what really went down?

I pulled up in front of Michel and Eve’s apartment building. I used to live here, but I felt so far from it. This used to be my world when my parents cut the strings and left me on my own. Nothing had changed. There was mad people sitting on the stoop and in metal chairs in front of the building. Music blared from one of the windows. Some had box fans in them; a few were lucky enough to have an air-conditioning unit, but most were just open and letting in the summer heat.

I double-parked the Jag and everyone on the block had eyes on us as I climbed out to let Michel and Eve out of the backseat.

“You cool?” Michel asked, pulling me close for a tight hug.

“I’m good,” I assured him.

“Free Make$!” someone screamed from one of the windows above.

I didn’t bother to look. I was too busy thinking that Make$’s arrest had already hit the news . . . or the blogs . . . or the streets. Same damn difference.

“I’ll call you later,” Eve said, squeezing my wrist before she walked away in her heels.

I climbed back into the driver’s seat. “You going home, Peaches?” I asked as I checked the mirror for oncoming traffic and checked the street ahead for a child about to dash out before I pulled off.

“If you don’t mind,” she said politely.

That shit made me raise an eyebrow. That was the most manners she’d ever shown. To top if off, she said absolutely nothing during the whole trip across town to her small brick house—the rent was a gift from her son.

Maybe she’s worried about Make$.

I shrugged, just happy as hell for the silence.

Later that night I was lounging in the living room watching a marathon of
The First 48.
My attention wasn’t focused on the TV, though. I was too busy thinking over all of the shit I was discovering about the man I used to hate. I always knew he treated me different when he was on the road, but just what the fuck was really going on during this touring? Just how clueless was I? Did it matter at this point?

I would never love Make$ again. Never. But I needed to know just how dumb I’d been during this relationship.

I picked up my BlackBerry from the end table. I had a bunch of missed calls but I wasn’t worried about those. Those calls were all about asking me questions. I needed answers.

I scrolled through my contacts and stopped at Missy’s number. I hadn’t talked to her since that night at Club 973. Biting my bottom lip, I called her. I took a deep breath that didn’t do shit to calm my nerves as the phone rang.

“Luscious. So I only hear from you when you know Make$ fucked up, huh?” Missy asked, answering her phone after the first ring.

Her attitude made me lean back a little bit.

“I ain’t surprised at all he got arrested,” she said.

That made me lean back a little more. “What happened on the road, Missy? I need to know,” I admitted, my voice soft.

“Why are you still with him, Luscious? Seriously?” she asked.

Something in her voice let me know that she felt sorry for me. “What happened?” I asked again.

“I was only on the road with them for like two weeks but, Luscious, that nigga out there living life. Groupies. Threesomes. Partying. Living it up,” Missy said. “You deserve better than that. It’s too much diseases and shit out there for that nigga to be wildin’ out like that.”

So all my fears and gut instincts about Make$ were true. I felt my face get hot as fuck as I remembered the STD he gave me and how I actually believed him when he said he must have caught it before he met me.

“So you not with Goldie no more?” I asked, pretending all these emotions wasn’t building up in my chest.

“Fuck Goldie’s scandalous ass too. She’s just as dirty as a motherfuckin’ dude,” Missy said. “You know what? After the way she stabbed you in the back I shoulda known Goldie was on some selfish bullshit. I knew she loved making money, but I didn’t know she’d sell her fucking soul for some cash.”

I didn’t say a word as she told me in detail about the night in Atlanta when one of Goldie’s dancers was assaulted and almost raped by one of Make$’s crew. Make$ paid the dancer off with five thousand dollars . . . and Goldie convinced her to take the money.

I felt a chill to my bones as I flashed back to his crazy-ass mother having that girl beaten and his assuring me that he would “take care” of it.

He was in jail now for trying to help the dude who raped Goldie get off.

And now I’m hearing about this shit.

This was Make$’s M.O. He felt like him, his family, and his friends could float above the law on his dime.

I shook my head at the shame of it all.

“This shit with Goldie is some wicked-ass karma and I hope her ass think about that slick shit she pulled with Kerri.”

“Kerri?” I asked, still feeling numb.

“That’s the girl that was assaulted. She used to dance as TipDrillz. Matter of fact, she was with me the night of Goldie’s party.”

I remembered her. “How is she?”

“The same. I don’t even know if she really realized what happened to her. You know? She just took the five grand went home and went shopping. She blew the money and now she living with her sister in a run-down apartment on Clinton Avenue.”

I shifted my eyes to look out the window at the night sky. It was starting to feel like all this info was more shit dropped on my shoulders that I couldn’t hold up under.

“I’m telling you all this, Luscious, for you to know you need to get the fuck away from that nigga. You know what I mean? I feel bad knowing that I know what they did to her and said nothing, but I’m respecting what she wants. He knows the same shit I do and paid to keep his rapist-ass friends free. Like it’s okay for them to rape. Shit, who’s next? You?”