“That might be a great idea.”
Chloe's eyes lit up. “And I could coordinate it. It will be incredible.”
“Maybe you could work with my mother on making it spectacular.”
Chloe looked annoyed at this statement, but Quentin was just trying to prepare her for the inevitable. There was no way Chloe was planning a party in Estelle's home without Estelle having the final say on every phase of the plans. The Chambers estate was Estelle's queendom, and she was the only queen.
“I suppose that would be a way for your mother and me to get a little bit closer. I'm not sure she likes me very much.”
“She likes you because I like you.”
That declaration made Chloe smile and erased any looks of concern regarding working with Estelle. And Quentin needed the peace. He was allergic to drama, and for the most part Chloe didn't seem to come with it. She wanted to enjoy life, and he was trying to learn how to enjoy it again. It had been five years since he'd lost the love of his life, and he was still in a haze. But Chloe helped.
“Hurry and get dressed,” Chloe admonished. “And wear something pastel, but not white. It's not quite white season yet.”
Chloe watched Quentin rush out of the room and then sat down on the couch with a satisfied grin on her face. Her boyfriend was nearly a billionaire. He didn't even need to hold a fund-raiser for his foundation. She knew he did it because he wanted everyone to care about his cause. She admired him for that. At times she felt herself falling in love with him for that, but she stopped short. There was no way she was going to give her heart to Quentin when his heart wasn't available to her. As long as his money was available, she would be okay. The Chambers family had built an empire of chemical products for the African-American woman's hair. Chloe had never used any of their greasy gels or sprays. She giggled at the irony of how she enjoyed spending that money.
“What's so funny?” Deirdre asked.
Chloe rolled her eyes. The girl had interrupted her thoughts. “Nothing. An inner musing.”
“Whatever that means. You and my daddy going somewhere?”
“Yes, sweetie. Your father is taking me to a dinner party on a yacht and probably to see some friends for dessert and coffee.”
Deirdre looked Chloe up and down. Unintimidated, Chloe returned the look. The girl did not bother her one bitâor worry her. Deirdre had no idea what she was up against.
“Did my daddy have to pay for this party?”
“No, it's nothing like that. There's no charge for this. A friend is having a birthday party. They love to entertain.”
“It's free? Wow! I'm surprised because you usually cost my daddy lots of money.”
Chloe tossed her head back and gave a throaty laugh. “Trust and believe, I do not have any problem spending your father's money. That is one of the perks of having a rich boyfriend.” Did she say that? Yes she did. “Remember that, honey . . . that advice was free.”
As if Deirdre would ever have to worry about a man with money. It annoyed Chloe that this girl had no idea how fortunate she was. She'd never have to wonder if the man she was dating would ever marry her. Deirdre would have more suitors than she could count, because she was an heiress to a ridiculous fortune.
Danielle entered the room and plopped down on the couch next to Chloe. Chloe's lips became a thin line. She guessed it was annoy Chloe time.
“Hello there,” Danielle said. “Do you want to play with me?”
“Play? Play what?”
Danielle said, “We could play dolls or Dance Revolution on my Wii.”
“It'll have to be some other time, honey. I'm afraid I'm all done up for a party.”
Danielle took in Chloe's appearance. “I think you're pretty. I really like your makeup. Did you do it yourself?”
“Oh, no, sweetie. This look, right here, takes an entire team,” Chloe replied, as if it was the most ridiculous question she'd ever heard.
“Can you show me how to do it?” Danielle asked. “I want to look glamorous too.”
“Daddy said no makeup until you're sixteen,” Deirdre said. “You might as well forget about that.”
“Sixteen? That's preposterous,” Chloe said. “I've known how to properly apply lipstick, mascara, eyeliner, and eye shadow since I was twelve. A woman needs this in her arsenal.”
“What's an arsenal?” Danielle asked.
“It's all the tricks that women use to trap their husbands,” Deirdre said.
Danielle looked confused. “You have to trap them? I thought the prince comes along and finds his one true love and marries her. Trapping them seems scary. What if they don't want to be caught?”
“No man wants to be caught, honey,” Chloe explained. “They're like wild animals that want to roam free. But if a woman is beautiful enough, and skillful enough, they will give in. They don't have the will to fight it.”
Danielle gave Chloe a blank stare. Apparently all of this knowledge was too much for her.
“Um . . . can we play now?” Danielle asked. “Tag! You're it!” Danielle tapped Chloe on the shoulder and skated away from the couch. Chloe didn't move a muscle. Was the girl lacking in cognitive skills? Didn't she say she wasn't going to ruin her yacht party look? After a couple of laps around the room, Danielle gave up trying to engage Chloe in her game of tag and skated out of the room, probably in search of someone else to harass. Chloe sighed with relief when the child had gone elsewhere.
Deirdre laughed out loud. “You do know you're going to have to play with her if you ever finally trap . . . I mean, marry my dad.”
“We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“We're a package deal, you know,” Deirdre continued. “You're going to have to get used to five children.”
Chloe laughed. “I don't have a problem at all with motherhood. As long as it includes some very expensive, very elite boarding schools.”
“I'm going to tell my father you said that.”
“Don't be silly, Deirdre. You'll find that I make a much better ally than an enemy.”
As if on cue, Quentin returned, now ready for the yacht party in a dapper sky-blue jacket and gray slacks. Chloe rose to her feet and kissed Quentin on the cheek.
“Look at you! Don't you clean up nicely?”
Quentin smiled and seemed to melt at the attention. “Thank you.”
Chloe looked over at Deirdre stealthily and winked. Deirdre seethed and rolled her eyes.
“Deirdre, we're going out for a while, and we'll probably be out late, so don't wait up for us.”
“Okay, Daddy, I won't,” Deirdre said.
Quentin leaned in and inhaled Chloe's scent. “What is that perfume you're wearing? I just can't get enough of it.”
“Oh, it's nothing, love. Just something in my arsenal.”
Chloe gave Deirdre another wink as she and her date left the house. She had meant what she said about being a better ally than an enemy. Deirdre would do well to get on her good side, because she intended to have Quentin and everything that belonged to him, and there wasn't a teenager, roller-skating little girl, or sour-faced mother that could stop her.
CHAPTER 3
D
eirdre was glad Chloe had gotten her father out of the house, because she had plans for the evening. Her grandmother had choir practice, and getting past Ms. Levy was easy, but it was dang near impossible to sneak out when their father was home. It was like he had supersonic ears or something.
Deirdre pulled out her cell phone and sent her boyfriend, Moe, a text message. I'm ready now. Pick me up at the edge of our drive.
A few minutes later, Moe replied to her text: I'm waiting for you.
Deirdre hopped up from the couch and made a dash for the door. Of course, the snitches Morgan and Madison came into the room just as she was leaving.
“Where are you going?” Madison asked. “Daddy didn't say you could go out.”
“You don't know what Daddy told me. Why don't you go play with your little friends on the Internet and mind your business.”
“Pay us,” Morgan said, “or we'll tell Daddy you snuck out.”
“I'm not paying you anything, and I'm not sneaking. I'm just going.”
“Really? Let's see what Ms. Levy has to say,” Madison opened her mouth to yell, and Deirdre clasped a hand over her mouth.
“Okay, snitches, I am going out with Moe.”
Morgan said, “I knew it!”
“But he is really nice, so I need y'all to cover for me.”
Madison and Morgan looked at each other. They both turned and stuck their hands out.
“Pay up,” they said in unison.
Deirdre reached in her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “You'll have to split this. It's all I have.”
Madison said, “Twenty bucks? This is enough for us not to initiate a snitch. It's not enough to keep us from telling if someone asks.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “So you better get home before Daddy if you know what's good for you.”
Once Deirdre finally got rid of her little sisters, she quietly left the house and headed to meet Moe. This was one of the few times Deirdre regretted living on their huge estate. It would take her about ten minutes to walk to the edge of their property. Peach and magnolia trees lined both sides of the walkway, their aromatic scents filling the warm spring evening.
Deirdre looked at her watch. It was nine o'clock. She calculated that she had about three hours to spend with her boyfriend before anyone noticed she was missing. Maybe her father would stay out all night with that gold digger Chloe.
Deirdre wondered why no one except her seemed to notice that Chloe was after her dad's money. She remembered Chloe showing up at her mother's funeral in a too-tight dress with her breasts spilling everywhere. She claimed to be a friend of her mother's from college, but no one had ever heard of her. Deirdre's dad was clueless, and he was a mark from day one. A mark with a whole lot of cash.
A huge smile burst onto Deirdre's face when she approached Moe's car. Although it wasn't a baller's ride, the black Nissan would do. Most of the boys who tried to talk to Deirdre couldn't even pick her up. They could only call her on the phone and send text messages.
Moe took two steps toward Deirdre and encircled her in a hug. She liked the smell of the expensive cologne she had given Moe for his birthday.
Deirdre said, “Hey, Moe. You smell good.”
“Oh, you like that? It's some of that expensive stuff. Some rich girl got it for me.”
“You got a rich girlfriend?”
“She is paid, fo' sho'.”
Moe opened the car door for Deirdre to get in. He might be a thug, but at least he was polite. Well, he was almost a thug. Moe was a member of their church, Freedom of Life, and had known their family since he was a baby. He didn't attend church much, though, which was great for Deirdre. Church boys made her itch.
“So, how were you able to escape? I thought you said your dad was home.”
“His old bootleg girlfriend came over, and they went on a boat or something.”
“Your dad's girlfriend is fine. She ain't bootleg. I saw her at church and thought, âshe could get it.' ”
“What? You better stop playing.”
Moe laughed as he pulled away from the mansion. “You know I'm just playing with you.”
“Yeah, whatever. She gets on my nerves.”
“Why you always gotta sneak out to meet me, though? Why don't you just tell your dad about me?”
Deirdre laughed out loud. “You do know my father is insane, right?”
“The parents always love Moe.”
Deirdre doubted this was true. Moe was the type of guy fathers hated. He was dangerously handsome, with his long hair that he wore in a slicked back ponytail and his thick goatee that wanted to be a beard but wasn't quite there yet. A star athlete at his school, Decatur High, Moe had a muscular body. He looked like he was ready to lose his virginity or, worse, take some girl's virtue.
“Maybe some parents love you, but my dad is a lunatic. He already has me at an all-girls school with a bunch of lames. I don't want to be on total lockdown.”
“At some point you're going to have to let us meet. You can't hide me forever.”
Deirdre's smile beamed in Moe's direction. “You're planning on being around forever?”
“Forever, ever.”
Deirdre reached across and held Moe's free hand while he drove. She'd never felt this way about any other boy, and while she knew most people didn't stay with the people they dated as teens, she hoped they'd be the exception.
“So where am I going?” Moe asked. “You didn't say where you wanted to go.”
“I don't know.”
“You wanna go skating?” Moe asked.
“No. The last time we went to the rink, someone from church saw us and told my grandmother. I almost got grounded.”
“So . . .”
“I just want to do something exciting.”
Moe laughed. “I mean what you trying to do? Sneak in the club?”
“Maybe . . .”
“Well, we could go over my cousin's house in Decatur. They're having a little house party.”
Deirdre clapped her hands. This was exactly the type of thing she was talking about. She was sick of church skating parties and shut-ins where a bunch of church kids sat around pretending not to be bad when they really were, or wanting to be bad when they were incredibly scared to do anything other than read the Sunday school primer. Deirdre wanted to experience life outside of church. Her father had given his entire life to church, and look at what it had gotten him.
“I definitely want to do the party. Let's go!”
“All right. Okay. Party it is,” Moe says.
“Do you know what time it's going to be over?”
Moe shook his head and laughed as he pulled onto I-20. “You can't want to kick it hard and then worry about what time you're gonna get home. These kinds of parties don't have an end time. They go until.”
“Until when?”
“They're over,” Moe said. “Forget it, I'm about to take you to IHOP to eat. You ain't ready.”
Deirdre slumped in her seat and crossed her arms across her chest. “I am ready. I was just trying to see if I was gonna have to sneak back in or walk through the front door.”
“If I take you over my cousin's house, you gonna have to sneak in.”
“Okay, then, let's go.”
Moe still seemed hesitant, so Deirdre repeated, “Let's go. I'm serious.”
“We'll go, but don't be trying to blame me if you get in trouble.”
“They don't run me like that.”
“Oh, you a boss now?” Moe laughed so hard that he snorted.
Deirdre rolled her eyes and pounded the dashboard. “Just drive!”
When they pulled up to his cousin's house, Deirdre tried to hide her nervous energy from Moe. There were cars parked along the side of the house and in the yard. There weren't any cars in the driveway, because there were three very frightening-looking dogs there in a huge, cage-like contraption. It was too late, of course, for Deirdre to change her mind, but she wished she'd let Moe talk her out of this.
“You okay, baby girl?” Moe asked when she paused before stepping out of the car.
Deirdre gave him her fakest smile. “I'm cool. Just afraid of dogs.”
“They're on lockdown. They can't get you.”
Deirdre and Moe walked into the party with his arm around her waist. She couldn't have been more ecstatic. He was claiming her to his friends and cousins, and not just to the lame boys he knew from church. These were his hood friends. That meant she was down enough and fly enough, no matter how much money there was in the Chambers fortune.
The small house was dimly lit, and it was very hard to see through the foggy, smoky haze that filled the room. For half a second Deirdre was scared. The whole scene reminded her of one of those Lifetime movies where a teenage girl wakes up clutching her tattered clothing, unable to remember the previous night. But then, as she focused on each face in the room, her nerves calmed. These were regular teenagers getting together for fun, and even though the room was smoky, only one person seemed to be actually partaking in the weed. Everyone else drank soda out of cups and balanced plates with spaghetti, chips, and burgers on their laps.
“Hey, y'all, this is my girl Deirdre. Can y'all make her feel like family?”
“Yeah,” shouted one of the guys. “Just like kissin' cousins.”
Deirdre chuckled nervously as Moe led her to a tiny love seat near the back of the living room. At least everyone wasn't paired off. There was a boxing match playing on a big flat-screen TV that was mounted on the wall. Deirdre glanced around at the other meager furniture and decided the TV was out of place.
“You okay?” Moe whispered, as he put his arm around Deirdre. “You seem a little uptight.”
She nodded and repeated her words from earlier. “I'm cool.”
Deirdre felt herself relax even more when one of the cousins brought her a plate of food. The spaghetti looked incredibly greasyâthere was actually a puddle of orange-tinted grease around the glob of food, and the burger was cold, but she ate it with all the enthusiasm she could muster. She wanted Moe's cousins to know that she accepted their hospitality.
The undercard boxing match ended, and the main fight started. Deirdre had no idea who the boxers were, so she cheered when Moe cheered. He seemed happy that his down, fly girlfriend was taking an interest in the sport.
“Who you got? Ruiz or Lopez?” one of the cousins asked Deirdre when she cheered again.
Since she hadn't bothered to learn their names, Deirdre said, “I've got the guy in the white shorts!”
“Lopez! Good choice. He's gonna put Ruiz to sleep in a couple of rounds.”
Deirdre assumed that “putting to sleep” included winning the boxing match. She wondered if the party would be over then, because it was getting late, and it had taken about twenty minutes to get over here. She wanted to make it home before her father and be safely in bed by the time he got home.
Lopez delivered those winning punches just a few moments later. As everyone in the room cheered, Deirdre saw a gigantic cockroach scurry across the floor in her direction. It was almost as if the monstrous bug was charging. Deirdre closed her eyes tightly and gasped.
“What?” Moe asked.
“It's a r-roach!”
Moe burst into laughter as the roach scurried on past their feet and under the love seat where she and Moe were sitting. Deirdre immediately started squirming, because now all she could picture in her mind was the roach crawling up the back of the couch and jumping on her neck. Did roaches attack? Did they jump? She didn't know, but she was getting the heck off that love seat.
When Deirdre jumped up, Moe's laughter intensified, and now the others were looking in her direction with questions on their faces. Deirdre was beyond embarrassed, but she couldn't make herself sit back down.
“What's wrong witchu?” The pretty, round girl who asked the question looked Deirdre up and down like she was crazy.
“Nothing,” Deirdre replied. “I just like standing up. My legs get restless sometimes.”
“She's scared of a roach!” Moe blurted. His giggles made Deirdre want to choke the sound out of his throat.
“You ain't never seen a roach before? Girl, bye.” The round girl gave Deirdre a disgusted look. So much for fitting in with Moe's family and friends.
Deirdre didn't want to admit that she hadn't ever seen a roach up close before. It wasn't her fault that the Chambers family exterminated.
“Well . . . uh . . .”
“Deirdre?” A loud and very recognizable voice boomed behind Deirdre. She spun on one heel and found herself eye to eye with her brother, Reese.
“What are you doing here?” Reese asked, his voice not lowering one bit.
Deirdre was in utter shock. Her legs were shaking so badly that she could feel her knees knock. Then she took in her brother's appearance. His clothes were disheveled, and there was a girl with him who definitely looked like she'd just done something the mothers of the church would get all up in arms about.
“What are you doing here, brother? Looks like you're doing more than I am.”
Moe jumped up from the love seat. “Reese, she just wanted to hang. Nothing popped off.”
Reese looked Moe up and down. “Don't think my sister is about to be your next little freak. It's not going down like that.”
“Stop it, Reese. He really likes me.” Deirdre didn't like the sound of her voice when she said that. It seemed too desperate, and she thought that maybe she should've let Moe proclaim his honorable intentions.