Diva's Last Curtain Call (4 page)

I
n the year that Carl and I had been dating, I’d yet to really see him in full-on lawyer mode. It was fascinating to watch. Barely ten minutes had passed from the moment he’d arrived to the time he’d convinced Allegra to go with him to the police station, but, then again, Allegra loves men. She’s one of those women who sees other women as competition and doesn’t have many female friends. She had always gotten along much better with men since she didn’t care whether they dressed better or were thinner than she was. Carl was apparently no exception. Standing in the middle of Mama’s kitchen dressed in a charcoal-gray suit that framed his six-foot-one frame well, with a burgundy silk tie that had been loosened, a crisp white shirt against chocolate skin, and smelling good to boot, Carl was the very image of tall, dark and handsome, my sister’s favorite type. Allegra quickly dried her tears and adopted an air of innocent fragility that made me want to kick her.

“So, does this make you my lawyer now?” Allegra asked, looking at Carl with big doe eyes. I sucked my teeth and Mama cut me a Your-sister-could-be-in-trouble-so-cut-the-crap look.

“Well, let’s not jump the gun, Allegra, I’ll certainly be present while you give your statement. But I imagine that should take care of it. Once you explain what happened, that should be the end of it. Now, you’ve told me everything, right?” Carl asked. We all looked at Allegra.

“There’s nothing more to tell. I told you everything that happened,” she said, getting up from the table and putting her water glass in the sink. Carl and Mama seemed satisfied she was telling the truth. I wished I shared their satisfaction. I knew better than anyone how sneaky Allegra can be. I prayed she’d told Carl the truth.

“Oh, and Kendra,” Carl said, addressing me for the first time since he’d arrived. He must still be a little pissed over me abruptly changing my mind about jumping his bones the night before and sending him home with a boner. But there was no way I was having sex with him with my sister in the next room. Plus, after ogling her, I had a pretty good idea who he’d be thinking about while making love to me. He should be happy I didn’t give him a fat lip to go along with his stiffy.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the police contact you and your grandmother for statements since you were both at the auditorium when the murder occurred. You two might want to come down to the station with us and go ahead and talk to them and get it over with.”

“But we were in the auditorium. We didn’t see a thing,” Mama said.

“Doesn’t matter. They’re going to want to talk to everyone who was there,” Carl said fixing his tie.

“And how would they even know we’d attended the ceremony?” I asked. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to the police if I didn’t have to. There was a certain Willow police detective named Trish Harmon who wasn’t a big fan of mine, and the feeling was very much mutual.

“We had to reserve our tickets for the ceremony, remember, Kendra? I bet our names are on a list. Carl’s right. We need to go on down to the station with him and Allie.” Mama got up and reached for her purse.

The doorbell rang and we watched as Mama hurried off to answer it. She returned seconds later with a white woman who looked to be in her late twenties. She had short, spiky hair a shade of bright red that couldn’t possibly occur in nature, was rail-thin, and dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt and high-topped tennis shoes. When she spotted Allegra, she instantly smiled, revealing small white, pointy eyeteeth that made her look like a bride of Dracula.

“There you are,” the woman said, walking over to embrace Allegra. But I noticed Allegra didn’t seem all that pleased to see her visitor.

“Everyone, this Noelle Delaney, my segment producer at
Hollywood Vibe,
” Allegra said, quickly pulling out of the embrace and causing Noelle to give her a curious look. We all exchanged subdued hellos.

“I’d just checked into my hotel when I heard about what happened to Vivianne DeArmond. It’s all over the news. They said she was murdered. I’ve been trying to call you. Your cell phone must be turned off.”

“I think I left my phone in my rental,” Allegra mumbled, looking at the floor.

“Where’s the crew? Out back?” Noelle asked, walking over to the back door and looking out into the empty backyard. I assumed she was talking about Allegra’s camera crew, whom she’d sent back to L.A. Allegra looked panicky and remained silent.

“Please tell me you got the interview before someone stuck that knife in Ms. DeArmond?” Noelle asked, like it was no big deal, then seeing the shocked looks on all our faces tried to clean it up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so insensitive. I’m just tired. I worked twelve hours yesterday then had to hop a plane out here at the crack of dawn. I’m running on empty.”

“Ms. Delaney, Allegra is the one who found Vivianne’s body,” I said, since Allegra seemed to have lost her tongue.

“Oh, my God! Are you kidding? You found her? You poor kid! Are you okay?”

Someone once told me that Hollywood was home to legions of insincere and phony show-biz people. I was now a witness to this fact as I listened to the concern that spewed from Noelle lips and noticed that her words didn’t quite match the glitter of excitement in her green eyes. She looked as if she’d just hit the entertainment-news mother lode.

Allegra finally spoke up and explained what had happened that morning, conveniently leaving out being picked up for trespassing the day before. When she told Noelle about having to go down to the police station to make a statement, Noelle looked a little worried, but I figured it had more do with negative publicity for
Hollywood Vibe
than concern for my sister.

“Can I ride to the station with you guys? I told my cab to go. I should probably be there, too,” said Noelle.

“Sure, but it’ll be a tight fit with all of us in my car,” Carl said, looking at me for some reason. I’m no skinny Minnie, but surely he didn’t think I’d be a danger to his car’s shocks. I knew I was being overly sensitive, but why was I feeling like he didn’t want me around?

“No problem. My car’s here. I’ll drive myself and meet you guys there.” I watched as they all left and tried not to blow my top when I looked out the window and saw Allegra give Carl a seductive smile as he held the car door open for her. Flirting was as natural as breathing to my sister, but I didn’t appreciate her doing it with my boyfriend.

I was pulling the back door shut when I heard a shrill chirping sound from inside my purse. It took me a second to realize what it was. It was my cell phone. Carl had given it to me for Christmas. I’d accepted the gift graciously, because I knew it had cost him a lot of money. But I don’t need a cell phone, a new car, most definitely, but not a cell phone. I rarely used it, and especially not during peak calling hours, which, of course, it was now. This had better be important I thought, pressing the talk button.

“Hello.”

“Kendra, it’s me,” said a small voice I barely recognized as my best friend’s.

“Lynette?”

“Are you busy? Can you come over here, please?” I heard what sounded like sniveling.

“What’s wrong? Is it one of the kids?”

“No, they’re fine. I just…I just really need to talk to someone,” she said dissolving into tears. Between her and my sister I was going to drown in a sea of tears.

“Lynette, honey, I’m on my way someplace important, but I’ll be by just a soon as I—”

“The wedding’s off, Kendra! I know you really didn’t want to wear that dress anyway. So, now you don’t have to.”

“What happened?” I asked, but I was answered by the sound of the dial tone bleeping in my ear. I couldn’t believe she’d hung up on me. Damn! Why did everyone’s problems have to hit on the same day?

Figuring Allegra and Mama would be tied up with giving their statements, and hoping I wouldn’t be missed for a while, I hopped in my little blue Nova (see, I told you I needed new car) and headed over to Lynette’s.

Lynette and her kids lived with her mother Justine in a brick tri-level on Pickett Avenue. Six years ago, after catching her husband Lamont in bed with their babysitter, Lynette had moved back home and filed for divorce. Living with her mother was supposed to be temporary. But Justine usually found one reason or another to discourage Lynette from moving out. Free child care was the biggest reason Lynette had stayed at her mother’s. Justine worked part-time and was able to take care of her grandkids while Lynette worked. The arrangement kept her from having to entrust her children to the care of strangers. I didn’t blame her. After all, her last babysitter had fucked her husband.

I parked in front of the house and knocked on the door. Lynette answered it wearing a ratty-looking terry-cloth bathrobe. She’d recently taken out the braids she’d worn for the past two years and was wearing her long hair pulled into a fat braid that hung down her back. Thick gym socks were on her feet. She blew her nose on a wadded-up tissue and stepped aside to let me in.

“Now, what’s all this about the wedding being off? Did you and Greg get into an argument?” I asked, looking around. No one else appeared to be home except Justine’s terrier Coco who spun around in circles at my feet for attention. I bent down and stroked her back.

“Where’s everyone at?”

“Ma’s at work and the kids went to King’s Island with the church youth group,” she said, sinking down on the couch.

“Okay. So tell me what happened.” I sat down next to her.

“Nothing happened,” she said shrugging, “I just can’t go through with it, that’s all.”

“Why?” I’d reached my tears-and-drama quota for the day with Allegra and had little sympathy left.

“Because I’m no good at marriage, that’s why. Look what happened to my first marriage.”

“Is this about what your mother said at the shower? She was just trying to be funny.”

“No, she wasn’t, Kendra. She was serious and she’s right. I don’t know if Greg will be any happier with me than Lamont was.” She dabbed at the tears than had started to flow down her face again.

“Lynette, you and Lamont were teenagers when you ran off and got married. You were just kids. What the hell did the two of you know about being married?”

“There was more wrong with our marriage than us just being young,” she said, looking uncomfortable. I waited for her to elaborate but she just blew her nose. I looked at my watch. Allegra, Carl, Mama and Noelle were probably at the station by now and wondering where the hell I was. I felt bad for my friend but I didn’t have time for this.

“Meaning what?” I asked. I immediately regretted sounding so impatient when Lynette jumped up suddenly and glared at me.

“Excuse me if my problems are bothering you. I can tell you don’t really want to be here so why don’t you just step!”

“Look! I’m sorry, Lynette. You asked me to come over and I did. But now you’re talking in circles. Just sit down and tell me what the hell is going on.”

“All right,” she said, plopping back down on the couch. “Sex, Kendra! The problem is sex!”

Uh-oh. I looked at her dubiously. “What about sex?” I asked. Did I really want to know about this? It didn’t appear that I had a choice.

“Well, you know I’d never been with anyone before I married Lamont, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding for her to continue.

“I couldn’t wait for our wedding night. I thought it would be like something out of a dream.”

“And it wasn’t,” I said. I couldn’t really blame Lynette for thinking her first time was going to be a multi-orgasmic delight. We’d both bought into that heaving-bosom-throbbing-manhood romance-novel crap as teenagers. But Lynette had never told me that her wedding night had been anything but wonderful.

“It was terrible. I mean, you can’t expect a teenage boy to be a red-hot lover but, damn. He was pitiful, Kendra. It hurt. He had no rhythm in his stroke, and two minutes into it he’d start moaning and screaming like a girl and sweating like a pig. I had to fake these loud-ass dramatic orgasms just to get him to stop. Otherwise, he could go on forever. It was worse than watching paint dry. And in the five years we were married, it never got any better.”

I had to look away so she wouldn’t see me laughing, but I failed miserably. I’d never got to know Lynette’s ex-husband Lamont Gaines very well, but I didn’t have a hard time imagining his six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-forty-pound butt moaning and screaming like a porn star en route to the money shot.

“I’m glad you think my pain is so funny,” she said, but I saw her own lips twitching and didn’t feel so bad.

“The night I caught him with the babysitter I knew what was up before I even unlocked the door. I could hear his ass all the way down the hall.” We were both laughing now.

“What happened after you caught him?”

“He had the nerve to tell me it was all my fault ’cause I wasn’t satisfying his needs. But, hell, there was only so much I could stand. I would make up any excuse not to have to be with him. It’s a wonder I managed to get pregnant once, let alone twice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this before?”

“I was too embarrassed. I just wanted to forget about it.” I guess I couldn’t blame her for that.

“Okay, I get it. Lamont was a piss-poor lover. What’s that have to do with Greg?”

“There hasn’t been anyone since Lamont, Kendra.” It was a moment before it dawned on me what she was saying.

“You mean you and Greg haven’t—” I began incredulously.

“Made love. No. We’ve never been together.” I looked closely at her to see if she was kidding, but she was dead serious.

“Wow! You’ve been together for two years. I just assumed you two had been getting busy all this time. What’s the problem?”

“It’s not a lack of desire. I want Greg. I just keep thinking about how it was with Lamont. I feel so inexperienced. With Lamont, all I had to do was lie there with my legs open. It was all about him. I could have been a hole in the mattress for all he cared. I’ve never even had an orgasm, and I’m afraid Greg will be disappointed and be sorry he married me,” she said in a small voice.

“You haven’t told Greg about any of this?”