Authors: Lonaire Drummond
“Robynne, don’t blame CT. He was just a pawn in a little game I’d like to call payback. Game. Set. Match,” Mindy said.
Robynne closed the distance between Mindy and herself. “This was a game to you?”
“Not a very entertaining game, but a game nonetheless. You can have CT back. I like my men a bit more lively in bed.” Mindy said, dressing herself.
“Is scalping still practiced? If not I’m about to bring it back into the 21
st
century.” Robynne said.
CT had dressed himself during round one of Robynne and Mindy’s melee. “If I didn’t sleep with her, she would have fired me. I just leased a new apartment.”
Too busy cornering her prey to acknowledge him, Robynne flinched when CT grabbed her. “Don’t touch me. Luckily, you will be easier to get rid of than my cheating husband was. I never want to see you again.”
“We can work this out. I love you. This—was just business.” CT said.
Mindy’s $2,500 vase went airborne the second CT finished his sentence.
The handblown antique missed his eye, but unfortunately for CT, it struck his temple instead. An angry red bruise quickly overtook his tanned features. He sat on the edge of Mindy’s desk, the blow to his head squelching his opportunity for rebuttal.
Robynne’s quest for more objects to lob at CT was forgotten when Mindy, maniacal laugh and all, approached Robynne. “I wouldn’t get to close if I were you.”
“You won’t have to worry about seeing CT ever again—not here anyway--I fired you; remember? I knew you would come traipsing in Corentini like you owned the place. You’re so predictable.”
Robynne busted Mindy’s lip in the time it took to blink.
“How’s that for predictable? I can see the future too. You will be thrown out on your ass when the board members find out about what you’ve been up to. Don’t bust an implant on your way out.”
Adele stepped between the two opponents before they could be a round two.
“I see you brought your lackey. I’m clairvoyant too. I see an assault and trespassing charge in both your futures—two convictions for the price of one.”
Adele looked Mindy in the eyes. “You’re bluffing.”
“I’ve put up with crap from the both of you for way too long. Whatever Robynne thinks she has on me became irrelevant an hour ago. Go look in what used to be her office if you don’t believe me.”
They single-filed it out of Mindy’s office, pushing through onlookers. Not even a third of the size of Mindy’s office
,
Robynne’s workspace was decorated in a minimalistic manner much like their apartment. The old-fashioned abacus (a gift from Adele purchased at a storage unit sale) sat proudly on Robynne’s oak desk.
A post-it note outlined space the size of a computer was the only indication a terminal once resided on Robynne’s desk. Self-satisfied and cocky, Mindy feigned shock, bending down to look under Robynne’s desk, even going so far as to pick up the abacus to look under it.
“Where’s my computer,” an indignant Robin asked.
“I don’t know where your computer is, but the computer provided by Corentini, which technically makes it my computer, has vanished. What were you saying about evidence you had against some epic wrong I’ve committed?”
Adele stood on her tip-toes in order to whisper in Robynne’s ear. “Please tell me you backed-up the evidence you had against her.”
Two police officers interrupted Robynne’s response. Adele had just received her wish, although it was a day late and in the wrong country.
The gossip spread quickly and purposefully—the accelerant—Mindy’s big mouth. The clerks in the mailroom, human resources, the sandwich lady, the janitor, the upper and lower echelon of executives, the lawyers, every nook and cranny where people worked emptied out to see Adele and Robynne wear matching handcuffs.
Mindy, playing the part of the victim, had an optimal vantage point. She stood by the squad car’s passenger side door. The cold compress she held over her split lip did little to obscure her victorious smile.
“This is not how I imagined my day turning out,” Adele said.
The pounding headache she had been nursing paled in comparison to the pounding of her heart at the thought of spending even one minute in jail.
Robynne held her breath, but the putrid odor fermenting in the police car’s backseat was persistent. “Why does it smell like urine back here?”
A punt-faced officer addressed Robynne through the grill. “You’re lucky that’s all it smells like back there.”
“A release of bodily fluids is not uncommon when perps are faced with the reality of going to jail,” the second officer in command said, recounting his musings on spontaneous release made Adele and Robynne ease their bodies as close to the edge of the seat as possible.
“The likelihood of catching a communicable disease from these seats is a distinct possibility.” Robynne said with a sigh.
“You ladies might want to sit back. Office Candella likes to take sharp turns. You might end up with a face full of grill. Perps, especially the drunk ones, tend to spit,” he said.
With tears welling up in her eyes, Robynne said, “It’s like a fucking Petri dish in here.”
Chapter 21
To Adele, the thought of occupying an enclosed space filled with miscreants was too much to bear. Separated, handcuffed to a chair like common criminals, fingerprinted, in-processed and remanded into a cell with women who seemed to feel at home in a jail cell the way a chef would feel at home in a kitchen, both woman were on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“Did you have to hit her?” Adele asked
“Punching her smug pinched-up face was a reflex, one that I’ve been suppressing for five years.” Robynne stated.
“Was it worth the momentary satisfaction.” A surprisingly sober Adele asked.
Who would have thought the cure for a hang-over resided behind the reinforced steel doors of a prison cell.
Eyeing a pair of mannish looking prostitutes huddled together on the other side of their cell, Robynne crossed her legs before answering Adele.
“No, it wasn’t worth it.”
“I’m sorry about this, Robynne. Mindy’s trying to get back at me through you.”
“It’s not worth it because I didn’t drag her around the office by her dark roots. Don’t flatter yourself, Adele. Mindy is my sworn enemy foreign and domestic.”
“And what happened back at the office, Shock and Awe 2011?” Adele said.
“Mindy’s the one who should be shocked and awed because she’s still alive. I went to the bad place.”
“Where the homicidal maniac lives?”
“Where the welcome mats are made from the skins of those who’ve wronged me.” Robynne said.
“You may need to seek help.”
“They will need to seek help if it burns when I pee. CT cheating on me with Mindy was the equivalent of planting a land mind in my vagina. Who knows what lethal explosions are about to go off down there? I need to get tested immediately.”
Adele rubbed her head, the dull ache from before had returned with a vengeance, intensified by a lack of food for almost twenty-four hours.
“I didn’t even think about it.”
“Well, I’ve never thought you’d admit how useless you are. All you did was not think at Corentini,” Mindy appeared around the corner. Her swollen lip looked like it needed to be flown during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Adele sprung up along side Robynne. “I couldn’t have been that dumb, considering I ran Corentini for you.”
“Prove it. No one is going to believe you. You’ll be lucky to get hired as a degreaser at a dive restaurant.” Mindy said.
Robynne outstretched her hand in an attempt to grab Mindy. “Come closer so I can smack you again.”
“Despite your outbursts, I’ve come to bail you two convicts out of jail. Being the head of my father’s multi-million dollar company, I have an obligation to uphold Corentini’s status. The media shit-storm resulting from this could cause our stock to take a nose dive. If it were up to me, you’d rot in jail, but it’s for the best interest of the company. You can say thank you at anytime,” Mindy said.
Mindy lorded over their release, expecting gratitude for dropping the assault charges. After an hour, the ladies were free to go. Mindy, on the hunt for stray crumbs of appreciation, trailed behind her former employees as they left One Police Plaza.
Businesses put to sleep by the advancing night sky closed for the day, While others, newly awakened, had their shutters creak to life. On it’s worst day, New York smelled like an abandoned port-a-potty. On it’s best day, Manhattan smelled like money, the freshly printed kind.
Adele opened her arms and sniffed up the city’s eclectic bouquet of scents. Mindy pointed at Adele’s strange exhibition from inside her Lexus.
“She’s finally lost whatever was left of her mind. Anyway, I would offer you two a ride, but I haven’t scotch-guarded my seats, so maybe next time,” Mindy said.
“If she’s lost her mind, it’s thanks to you. Why are you still here? Don’t you have some late night soul-stealing to do?” Robynne asked.
Mindy disappeared into a see of tail lights.
Robynne pulled her friend back into reality. ““What are you doing?”
“Smelling freedom.” Adele lifted her nose high in the air. “It’s wonderful. Take a whiff.”
She waited expectantly for Robynne to oblige her. After a few eye rolls, she inhaled the stagnant air into her lungs.
“It smells like urine. Can we go home now? I have to wash Eau d’Prison off me.” Roybnne said.
“Do we have any lysol?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Robynne said.
After one hailed cab, one impromptu stop at Ray’s Pizza, and one mad dash to their neighborhood corner store (for some vintage boxed wine), Adele and Robynne settled in for the night.
Parboiled in a tub overflowing with every perfumed soap-based product on her side of the sink, Adele’s thoughts turned to Ambrogio. She envisioned him sitting on a desk, strong-arming his way through some business deal or another. Ambrogio’s scent rose in her nostrils in defiance of robust aromas like Jasmine and Lilac floating in the air.
Her mind, her spiteful arch nemesis, conjured Ambrogio’s touch against her skin. His ghost caress sent chills down her arms, pebbled her nipples and made her center spasm.
A insubordinate hand traveled down her body quickly finding its intended target.
With her neck tossed back against the lip of the tub, ears ringing, eyes closed against reality, heart a flutter, and stomach convulsing as the water gently lapped against her hand’s diligent ministrations between her legs, she came.
Adele heard herself moan when the ringing in her ears subsided. The climb was gradual. The fall over the edge was instantaneous. Her body bucked against the orgasm coursing throughout her body, so much so, that her leg slammed against the faucet.
Just like that it was over. Adele’s heart throbbed along with her shin. She gripped the edges of the tub to aid in her escape from the water’s tepid grasp when she heard sobs coming from the living room.
She went from Robynne’s bedroom, to her’s, and lastly, the kitchen where she saw her roommate sitting on the fire escape. Adele’s first thought was to give Robynne privacy, but the urge was superseded her need to console her friend, who cried only on rare occasions. Adele listened as Robynne recounted the details of their jail ordeal, CT’s betrayal, and her newly unemployed status.
Unemployment, Adele ascertained, was the number one cause of Robynne’s strife. Caught of guard by Adele’s snooping, Robynne (who had noticed Adele standing there ten minutes deep into her phone call) looked angry as she climb back through their window.
“I never took you for an eavesdropper,” Robynne said.
“I heard noises from the bathroom, so I came out to investigate.”
“Interesting, I heard suspicious noises coming from inside the bathroom. What happened to your leg?”
Adele blushed. “I’m clumsy, remember? Classic deflection. Want to talk about it?”
Both women converged on the sofa. Wine flowed freely and the oil-slicked pizza disappeared with breakneck speed. Ebony and Ivory, uninvited guests in the women’s “woe to us” party, wormed their way in between the women.
It was a scene that would be replicated for weeks to come. Their moods spun round an emotional Roulette table, alternating on loneliness, bitterness, indifference and sadness.
A carton of frozen calories her closely guarded companion, Adele kept Ben & Jerry’s in business. Robynne scoured the help wanted ads in her devout pursuit of a new job. Unfortunately for her, Mindy is only thorough when it comes to vindictiveness. Blacklisted, Robynne stopped sending out her resume, instead, she sat on the couch watching soap operas.
Adele entered the room in a battered Fordham University t-shirt and basketball shorts, rolled over three times at the waist.
“I’m going to the store for more ice cream. You want anything?”
Currently using Ivory as a pillow, Robynne picked stray popcorn kernels off her chest. “I’m on a strict popcorn and Ramen Noodles diet. I can’t afford your designer ice cream habit.”
Adele shrugged her shoulders and headed for the door. On her way out, she glanced at her reflection in the glass key-holder posted next to the door. A fat scrunchie failed at rounding up her hair, crusted ice cream hid in the corners of her mouth, her bloodshot eyes looked sullen and distant.
Adele did not recognize herself. She peered at the stranger posing as Robynne, who was busy cursing at a character on the TV, and cringed.
“What have we become?” Adele asked.
“Could you keep it down. My stories are on.”
Adele marched over to the flat screen, unplugged, and blocked it from Robynne’s view.
“Weren’t you leaving?”
“We’re leaving,” Adele replied.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Robynne said.
She kneeled in front of Robynne. “We need a change of scenery.”
“If I want a change in scenery, I’ll just change the damn channel.” Robynne said, now fully erect, prompting Ivory to make his great escape.
Adele ignored her friend. “Let’s go to Italy.”
“Have you lost your mind? We don’t have jobs, and I’m not secretly rich like you. My sister still hasn’t found work. Funding my mom’s stay at the best assisted living facility takes money. My savings will carry all of us for a year at most. How the hell am I supposed to just pick up and fly to Italy?” Robynne said.
“I will pay for it,” Adele answered.
Robynne stepped on Ebony. The cat screeched loudly at the offense.
“I can’t let you do that.”
“You’ve been nagging me to go a vacation for years. We’re both depressed, jobless and bored. It’s exactly what we need,” Adele said.
“You need a lobotomy.” Robynne said.
“I’ll get one after we go to Italy. Come on. It will be fun.”
Robynne scratched her head. “I will go on two conditions.”
“And the conditions are?” Adele asked.
“I will pay you back.” Robynne said.
“Done, and what is the second condition?”
“Give me back my sweatpants. Not only are you ruining the fit, but your vertically challenged ass is dragging them on the floor.”
Adele jumped up and down. “Fine. We have so much to do. I have to get Ambrogio’s address.”
“It didn’t take you long to reveal your ulterior motive.”
“I can’t pass up the chance to catch Ambrogio off guard.”
“You mean you can’t wait to scale him like a building,” Robynne said.
“He better have a good reason for just up and leaving me in St. Lucia without a goodbye, then if the mood strikes.......”
“I’m sure it will, you whore.”
With a new vigor, Adele and Robynne planned their trip in just a few days. A week later, they boarded a flight bound for Italy: by way of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Chapter 22
Amerigo Vespucci Airport in Florence was an alternate universe where life happened upon a whim. Adele and Robynne touched down safely after a catastrophic trip which consisted of delayed flights, a courtesy booking at an airport hotel and two sets of wayward bags. Awarded a casual shrug of the shoulders by an unaffected customer service representative, Robynne, the designated alpha female, fell under the tutelage of Adele’s more level headed manner.
“Sir, we’d appreciate it if you could help us find our bags,” Adele said.
“
Miss
, your bags….they will get here eventually,
” he said.
He had tenuous strains of hair combed indiscriminately around his balding head. The country-side resided in his brown eyes. Weighed down by the woes of traveler’s past, the bags under his eyes sagged.
“The contents of my luggage are worth more than you make in a year,” Robynne said.
She wasn’t wearing her travels well. The inner workings of a bird’s nest looked more organized than the tussled mess on her head. Wind-tunnel chic, normally put-together, Robynne was on the brink of a nervous breakdown…her trigger, a lost set of Prada luggage.