Bad Girls Finish First Read online

  Grace cleared her throat. “Wallace, will you please read for us?” She never looked up from her book.

  Silence.

  “Wallace?” Grace looked in the direction of the boy she’d asked to read. She fixed her eyes on his ear.

  The boy stared back at her, his face blank. A few of the others snickered.

  “Ain’t nobody up in here named Wallace,” James said. James was thirteen and the boy Grace asked to read was his younger brother. “His name is Waleed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Grace said. “Waleed, please read the first two paragraphs.”

  The young man stumbled through the first paragraph. Grace helped him out with one or two words, but mainly she left poor Waleed on his own. Grace’s mind was far away, brooding over an article she’d seen in the morning paper: JOSEPH AND WIFE TO BE HONORED AT JUNETEENTH FETE

  I used to be the “and wife,” Grace thought miserably.

  Waleed was about to begin the second paragraph, but James broke in. “Can I read the rest of it?” he asked.

  Waleed looked at James, clearly relieved, but Grace didn’t catch it.

  “You’ll get your turn in a minute, son,” Grace said absently. “Waleed?”

  Waleed slammed his book shut. “Read if you want to, James. She ain’t gon’ be able to tell the difference no way.”

  “No shit,” said Trey, just loud enough for Grace to hear.

  Grace finally took a good look at the students sitting around her. Every boy had a surly expression on his face.

  “But you’re here to improve your reading,” said Grace, a puzzled expression on her face. “The only way you’re going to learn is to try.”

  “That’s why we here. What you here for? You did some kinda crime, got some kinda community service you gotta do?” Trey said, a smirk on his face.

  Emboldened, another student cracked on Grace. “She probably got a child abuse case. We ought to call 911 on her right now!”

  Everybody laughed except for James. One boy started rapping—something about calling 911—and two others stood and stalked about the room, waving their arms and reciting the lyrics like they were on stage at a hip-hop concert.

  “Boys, please sit down! Eric, why would you say something like that?” She fought to be heard.

  “’Cause his name ain’t Eric, that’s why. It’s Aaron,” James said. Everybody turned to look at him. James hadn’t said anything since he asked to read for his brother. James waved a hand toward the window. “Everybody else out enjoying summer vacation. But we here. Ain’t nobody made us come. We came because we want to—” James’s voice got a little shaky and his eyes glistened—“to do better. But you act like we ain’t nothing. You don’t even try to remember our names.”

  “Yeah, and you don’t care if we get embarrassed. When Waleed messed up you barely tried to help him out,” Trey added.

  “Probably think I’m too dumb to help,” Waleed mumbled under his breath.

  Grace’s top lip trembled. “I’m sorry. What can I do to make the class better?”

  “Get us a tutor who likes kids,” Trey said. That set the boys off on another laughing jag, but Grace knew it was no joke. She picked up her book and walked out.

  “Hey, hey, where are you rushing off to?” John Reese asked as he trotted to catch up with Grace in the parking lot. He got to her just as she opened her car door.

  He grabbed the door handle. “Don’t leave, Grace. Don’t run. Talk to me.”

  She turned to face him, tears streaming down her face, “I’m sorry, John, but I can’t do this.” She slammed her fist on the top of the car. “I should’ve known better! Look at me! What do I have to offer to anybody? Not a damn thing.” Grace motioned toward the school. “Even those kids can see that.” She covered her face with both hands.

  John put his arm around her. “There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be fixed,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go back inside.”

  John set a cup of coffee in front of Grace. They were in the little room the school set aside for the literacy program.

  “It hurt me so bad, me and Maggie both, when you and Michael broke up. I can’t even imagine how much it hurt you.”

  Grace let out a low moan. She hadn’t talked to anyone about her divorce.

  “You’ve been in the valley, all by yourself, and that’s to be expected. You lost something important and you needed to grieve that loss.” John grabbed Grace’s hand and forced her to look at him. “But Grace,” he said in an urgent voice, “you’ve been wandering in the valley for too long. If you don’t come out now, you might just stay lost there forever.”

  “And what would be so bad about that, John? Michael was my life.” She shook her head as she remembered the last year of her marriage. “I tried. You don’t know how much I tried. I prayed. I fought. I tried to cook better meals, to have better sex. But nothing I did was good enough to make him want me.”

  “Michael wasn’t your life, and you were wrong to ever put him on a pedestal like that. God gave life to you directly, Grace, not through Michael. You can’t spit in God’s eye by letting your spirit die just because Michael walked out.”

  Grace stood and walked over to the window. Her class, the boys who wanted “to do better” were outside playing basketball. “I feel so empty,” Grace said as she watched them. “Those boys thought I didn’t care about them, and you know what? They were right. But it’s not just them. Since Michael and I broke up, I can honestly say that I haven’t cared much about anything, except trying to figure out where I went wrong.” She turned and faced John. “I’m not even as interested in my own sons as I should be, especially Evan.” Grace picked up her handbag. “Find another tutor for the boys, John. I won’t be back.”

  The Juneteenth gala, held on the nineteenth of June, turned out to be Michael’s coming out party, the prein-augural ball, as black radio stations called it the next day. The guest list was a Who’s Who of black America—actors rubbed shoulders with scholars, ministers danced with hip-hop queens, and politicians wheedled money out of millionaires. Everyone else in Texas who mattered was there as well, and in a reversal of roles, it was the whites who had to fit in. Most of them handled it—what was the Cha Cha Slide, after all, but the Cotton-Eyed Joe minus the flair?—but a few fled the scene in confusion.

  When Michael and Raven entered the hotel lobby and Raven loosened her wrap and let it fall into the bend of her elbows, Michael was mildly shocked and thoroughly turned on. As usual, his wife walked the thin line between sexily tasteful and slightly slutty. Raven checked her lipstick, turned to her husband, and smiled. “This is my moment, Michael.”

  “It’s for all of us, honey,” Michael said. He half turned, looking for Christopher and Evan. “Here they are,” Michael said as he watched the limousine carrying Christopher, Genie, and Evan, along with Dudley, his wife, and two other staffers, drive up. Raven hadn’t wanted anyone to ride with her and Michael, even though they’d been in the super stretch. Dudley’s wife started standing before she’d completely emerged from the limousine and got stuck in the doorway.

  “It’ll take that fat cow five minutes to get out,” Raven said as she watched Dudley’s wife struggle to free herself. “Let’s go.”

  “Not yet. I want my sons with us.”

  Just then Raven caught a glimpse of Evan, who had gotten out of the limousine from the other side. She saw him all the time, but dressed up it struck her. He looks just like Grace. If he and Christopher walk in with us, it’ll remind everybody of her. I’ll be an outsider.

  Raven motioned for the attendants to throw open the ornate double doors, and stepped forward, pulling Michael with her.

  “Wait on them? For what? When I’m with you, you don’t need anyone else,” she said. By now the doors were wide open and the guests were on their feet, loud and bodacious, clamoring for Michael.

  “Are you going to stand here like an idiot or are we going in?” Raven whispered.

  Michael, who could smile and cut l
ike a knife at the same time, commenced doing both. He got his feet moving and said, “I don’t have a choice, do I? After we do the happy couple routine, you need to stay the hell out of my way. I let you get away with murder with me all the time, but you’re going to learn, Raven, not to mess with my sons.”

  Michael looked back one last time, directly into Evan’s eyes. His son’s broad smile faded when he realized that his father was going ahead without him.

  Michael and Raven knew how to work a room, and even their detractors had to admit that the senator and his wife were a charismatic team. Raven charmed every man whose equipment still worked, and women who’d expected the worst whispered to each other, “She’s not so bad.”

  Raven and Erika Whittier were within arm’s distance a few times—while Erika talked to the head of Hub Oil, Raven was just behind her greeting a congressman from Tyler. During dinner, Raven stopped at Erika’s table, but turned away after she greeted Tina Boss, who was seated next to Erika. Tina was the young wife of one of Erika’s best friends. He was out of the country, but he had called Erika that morning to ask her to keep an eye on Tina.

  Tina turned to Erika and said, “I wanted you to meet Senator Joseph’s wife. She’s, like, the most fabulous woman ever!”

  “There’ll be time,” Erika said. She looked toward the podium. “Isn’t that the minister David Capps?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t tell me you’ve never met him?”

  “Never, but I’ve heard plenty about him.”

  “I guess he’s going to introduce the senator.” Tina leaned toward Erika’s ear and continued, “He wouldn’t have been my choice. When a black preacher opens his mouth he’s going to, like, whine first and beg second.”

  “Shhh! You’re going to get us thrown out!” Erika said as she lightly tapped Tina’s knee. As she listened to David speak, Erika realized that he was not a preacher by default; David was a natural leader: compelling, intelligent, and decisive.

  “No whining yet,” she whispered to Tina.

  “Who’d notice if he did? The guy’s a hottie, don’t you think?”

  Erika’s table was just to the left of the stage, so from her vantage point she was able to inspect David from the top of his clean-shaven head to the toes of his Cole Haan shoes. Her eyes traced the length of his body. He wore a tailored tuxedo that perfectly draped his well-built frame. Always one for the athletes, she judged him to be a sprinter or a basketball player when he was in college. Given his height, she settled on basketball. Erika imagined long, spindly legs, which didn’t do much for her, but the high, tight butt of a baller had always been one of her favorite parts of a man’s anatomy.

  “A hottie? I don’t know, Tina. If you like his type, then I guess so,” Erika whispered back.

  “Of course he’s not my type, but, you know, he’s got the look of those black guys in the videos. Kind of like, you know, like a caged animal that’ll rip you to shreds if you let it out.” Tina shook her head, certain she was right. “Yeah, that’s how he looks. Dangerous and sexy.” She giggled, cupped her hand to her mouth, and whispered, even lower, “He looks like a pimp, like a dangerous pimp looking for some hos.”

  Erika looked at young Tina’s super-sized breast implants and thought: And you look like a ho looking for a brain.

  When David finished the introduction and Michael rose to speak, Erika examined him too, but not as closely. Although he was much shorter than David, and on the slim side, Michael Joseph held his own when it came to good-looking men. Yet his sexiness didn’t impress Erika. She hadn’t been attracted to him in years.

  After Raven and Michael made their rounds, he ditched her and kept Christopher and Evan at his side. Raven was getting so much attention from their guests that she didn’t mind being on her own; she didn’t have to share compliments with Michael or patiently wait while someone showered him with praise. This is my night, she constantly reminded herself, and yes, she was on. Still, although she was glad Michael had left her alone, he had to pay for choosing his sons over her. Raven prowled the room looking for something to get into, something juicy.

  She spotted David Capps and thought about the flirting they’d done in the bar in Lufkin. The next day David had avoided being alone with her, but she’d caught him staring at her a few times. She looked over at Michael, who was across the room with one arm slung around each of his sons’ necks. What better payback to him than to light a fire in the middle of the room with his friend as kindling?

  “Reverend, you sure are wearing that tuxedo.” Raven took David’s hand in both of hers.

  Raven watched his eyes. At his height, all David had to do was look down, and he’d be instantly lost in two mounds of buttery bliss.

  “Thank you.” His voice was warm, but his eyes didn’t really focus on Raven or her breasts, which were practically screaming for attention.

  Raven looked down at herself, and thought, Yep, still there and still awesome. Is he blind? She forged ahead. “Everything’s been so hectic, we haven’t had a chance to talk, just the two of us, since that night in the hotel lobby. We should get together over lunch.”

  “I’d love to,” he said with as much enthusiasm as a man scheduling a root canal. Raven didn’t know it but David had scoped out her breasts and every other inch of her as soon as she and Michael walked into the ballroom. She looked so stunning that David didn’t dare let himself be drawn into a conversation with her. Not here, anyway. He wasn’t sure of what he might say.

  He scanned the room, desperately searching for Michael. He needed a powerful antidote to fight his attraction to Raven. A glimpse of her husband just might do it.

  David’s eyes fell on the ultimate cure. His eyes lit up.

  “Spotted someone important?” she asked.

  Before he could reply Raven heard a familiar voice.

  “Mrs. Joseph, I’ve been trying to get to you all night. My, that’s a beautiful dress. So daring.”

  David yanked his hand from Raven’s grasp. “Reverend David Capps,” he said, extending his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “Erika Whittier, Reverend Capps. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Then you should’ve heard that my friends call me David.” He didn’t eye Erika in a disrespectful way, but he did notice everything about her, and he couldn’t hide the fact that he appreciated what he saw.

  Raven flung her hair and posted herself closer to David. “Erika, great to see you.” She threaded her arm through David’s. “We’re just finishing a little business, if you don’t mind.”

  “Business comes first, that’s my motto. Call me,” she said to Raven and walked away.

  “Now, about lunch,” Raven said, but David barely heard her. He was too busy watching Erika’s teardrop of a derriere saunter away.

  9

  “Just look at the crime rate in black communities. They ought to be the first in line to bear arms,” Erika said.

  “So they can do what? Shoot Lil’ Man and Pookie from the next block over?” David asked. He smiled when he said it, which added to Erika’s confusion.

  David sat back with his arms folded. He’d been that way for much of the hour that he and Erika had been together. They were in David’s office at New Word. After the Juneteenth gala, she’d approached him and offered to fly to Dallas to meet with him on an issue that she said was “important to the African American community.”

  David sat on the sofa and Erika sat in the chair to his left. The coffee table was strewn with documents—think-tank reports, poll results, and statistics. Erika went through each one in detail, but David didn’t pay much attention. Before Erika arrived, David had wanted to have a drink to calm his nerves but he talked himself out of it. His resolve weakened when she walked in wearing a white pantsuit with an embroidered pattern that ran down the front of her outfit, from the shoulders of her jacket to the slight flair at the bottom of her pants. When Erika sat down David got a good look at her strappy white sandals, perfect feet, and little go
ld ankle bracelet. He broke down and headed straight for his private stash. Now they both nursed bourbon and Cokes and Erika matched him, sip for sip.

  “Questions?” she said after explaining the final report.

  “No.”

  “Judging from your body language we’re not going to agree.”

  David shook his head. No.

  Erika frowned. “In my world you’re reputed to be flexible. I was told it was worth a try.”

  David wasn’t sure what Erika meant, but he felt a little offended. He leaned forward, elbows on thighs, and slowly turned his glass round and round with his fingertips. “I’m flexible under the right circumstances, but there’s no way I’m coming out in support of citizens being able to pack any type of gun anywhere, anytime. That goes against everything I believe in.”

  Erika looked disappointed. “So . . . I guess we have nothing more to talk about. There’s nothing I can do? Come back with a better proposal, maybe?”

  David gave her the smile that he used on church sisters when delivering bad news that he wanted them to accept with a good attitude. “Any proposal involving guns you can keep, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to talk about. We’re both interested in the welfare of our state. I’m always looking to make friends in influential places, and I’m sure you are too. We should stay in touch.”

  Erika, thinking she was getting the brush-off said, “Sure thing, Reverend Capps. We’ll have to get together sometime.”

  David kept twirling his glass. He cleared his throat. “I was thinking of something more definite. Like dinner.”

  Erika stopped gathering her things. She thought, What’s going on here? One look at David told the whole story. The all-powerful David Capps was gone, replaced by a self-conscious man with the hots. “Tonight?” Erika asked.

  “No, no,” David said quickly. He shifted in his seat. “Let’s do it in Austin. I’ll give you a call.”

  On her flight home to Austin, Erika thought about the way David kept staring at her throughout their meeting. Many Southern white women felt uneasy under a black man’s gaze, but not Erika. Although she was a lot of things, Erika wasn’t a racist despite having been bred in a culture of casual racism. She didn’t pretend to be colorblind, but since she was a child, Erika had seen people as individuals, neither bridled nor crowned with racial stereotypes. Erika knew she’d been a showstopper in her day, but she also knew that beauty and sexual attraction spanned the rainbow. She’d had plenty of nonwhite lovers—her Blackberry was a mini United Nations log.