Single Mama Drama

Shortly before five-thirty, I was heading to the lot where I’d parked my car, when I heard my name.

I turned. Kim, a heavyset, dark-skinned woman from the agency, was rushing toward me.

“Vanessa,” she said as she reached my side. Sadness creased her forehead. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you earlier because I was out with a client. I’m so sorry about your ex.”

“My fiancé,” I clarified.

“Fiancé, right. I read the story on the Internet. Holy shit, it was gruesome. Killed with a bow and arrow! In bed with another woman! I can’t imagine what you’re going through. And when the news hits the papers tomorrow—”

“Thanks for your concern,” I said, cutting her off. But I wanted to say, “Do you think that repeating the dirty details is making me feel any better?”

I cut her some slack, because none of what had happened was her fault. I started walking again, picking up my pace a little.

She clearly didn’t get my not-so-subtle hints that I wanted her to drop the subject, because she fell into step beside me and continued talking. “I was dating this guy once. Big shot in some finance company. He took me out for all these fancy dinners, wooed me on his yacht. I wish someone had shot that asshole with a bow and arrow, because when I found out he was married—”

“You know, Kim,” I said, halting, “I’m really not in the mood for this.”

A hurt look passed over her face. “I’m just trying to say I understand what you’re going through.”

“Yeah, I know,” I told her. “Everybody does. More people have told me today that they’ve been cheated on than during the rest of my life combined.”

“I’m only trying—”

“It’s okay.” I placed a hand on her shoulder and offered her a small smile. “I know you care. Thank you.”

I turned to the right, leaving Kim standing on the sidewalk. Perhaps I was abrupt with her, but didn’t I have a right to be? Let’s face it, I’d had a really shitty day.

I don’t know why, but as I was walking south, I again got that feeling that someone was watching me. Turning, I saw no one suspicious, not even Kim staring at me with an evil expression. I saw office workers making their way to wherever they’d parked their cars.

And then it dawned on me that perhaps I was sensing Eli.

“Forget it, Eli,” I mumbled, imagining him trying to find a ghost whisperer to reach out to me. “Even an apology from the other side isn’t going to get me to forgive you.”

Only when I exited the MacArthur Causeway onto South Beach did I realize that I had somehow navigated my way home. I didn’t remember one bit of the drive, but given my state of mind, I suppose that was only natural.

Glancing at my car’s digital clock, I saw that it was ten minutes after six. Rayna would no doubt be anticipating my arrival at Carla’s place, as she always did this time of day. And yet when I got to Washington Avenue, I found myself driving past my condo and down to South Pointe Park.

I drove as far south as I could go, to where the street ended and the rocky shoreline began. With my car radio tuned to 99.1, I listened to Kanye West as I stared out at the water.

South Beach had been my home for only three months, but I loved everything about this place. My building was in the historic art deco district. Tourists loved taking walks along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, where they could check out the prewar art deco hotels like the Breakwater and the Colony and the South Beach. Buildings with rounded edges, decorative sculptural panels, sleek symmetrical patterns, and a few with futuristic forms. And even though some of the facades appeared small, most of the hotels offered idyllic private courtyards lined with palm trees and boasted pools with stunning designs. During the Depression, the art deco buildings had been designed with bold colors and shapes with the hope of a better future. As such, they had symbolized decadence.

At night, the Ocean Drive strip lit up in an array of neon colors, and that was part of what gave South Beach its appeal. Now, a new generation of architects had designed towering condominiums, which were popping up anywhere there was space. Like Portofino Tower at the southern tip of South Beach, where I now sat in my parked car. But I wasn’t partial to skyscraper condos in a part of Miami that had become world-renowned for its low-rise art deco designs. It’s one of the reasons I particularly loved my building. It was only six stories high, and featured both angular and rounded edges. The blue-hued windows provided a nice contrast with the white-and-cream-colored exterior. And the private courtyard was to die for.

I glanced up at the Portofino, then back at the stretch of beach that overlooked the bay. It was the end of the workday, and many people were out with dogs that had been cooped up in apartments while they’d been at the office. I watched small dogs prance, big dogs race, and contemplated how odd it was that the world around me was continuing as usual when my personal world would never be the same.

It was the beginning of a slow song that had me getting out of my Honda Accord and walking across the short expanse of grass to the rocky shore. I hugged my torso as I did, a wave of sadness crashing over me as I remembered how Eli and I had liked to take walks here in the evenings with Rayna.

And, Lord, the tears started again.

“Vanessa Cain?”

At the sound of my name, I whipped my head around. And saw a tall, thin black woman who looked vaguely familiar.

I brushed away my tears as she approached me. “Vanessa, I’m Cynthia Martin from the Miami Herald. You were Eli Johnson’s girlfriend, correct?”

My eyes widened. I stood there stupidly, in complete shock.

“I know this has been a very hard day for you.”

Suddenly, I realized what was going on. I asked, “You’re a reporter?”

“Miami Herald,” the woman repeated, this time handing me her card.

And then it clicked. I knew why she looked familiar. I’d seen her today at Bayside. I’d seen her face in the crowd.

Which meant she’d been stalking me.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Cynthia said. “But I do have some questions about your boyfriend. If I could have just a few minutes of your time.”

“Excuse me?” Slowly but surely, outrage was bubbling inside of me.

“A few questions, that’s all.”

“I heard you. I—I understood what you meant. Why do you want to ask me about Eli?”

“He was your boyfriend, right? Or…” Cynthia’s eyes lowered to my left hand, landing on my engagement ring. “Oh.”

I whipped my hand behind my back. “How do you know who I am?”

“Your fiancé’s death has been big news here,” Cynthia replied, not at all answering my question.

“You—you’re spying on me?”

“It’s my job to find people,” she said simply.

“How?” I demanded.

“Your name is on the deed with Eli’s,” Cynthia answered.

“Of course,” I mumbled.

“And I don’t expect you to remember, but I met you once before,” she added. “At a fund-raiser for Jackson Memorial Hospital. I had to coax Eli into letting my photographer take a picture of the two of you together, but that must have been before you got engaged.”

“That’s right,” I said softly, remembering the event. And remembering Eli’s reluctance at having us be photographed together. He had explained that he didn’t want the media to start harassing me. I’d appreciated his concern, but didn’t think that one picture was a big deal, and he’d ultimately agreed to a photograph.

The one thing I’d liked about Eli was that although he’d been a professional athlete, he didn’t crave the spotlight. Certainly not like Christian Blake, who was often pictured in the paper at some club, with a different woman on his arm each time. Eli freely admitted that he hadn’t been the most popular player on the Braves, but said that had been fine with him because it was the team’s superstars who constantly had their privacy violated and dirt dug up about them. He’d made his money, and was happy that he could live a relatively normal life.

After Eli proposed, I’d placed an announcement in the Miami Herald, and when I showed it to him, he couldn’t have been less enthused. Again, he’d said how he wanted to protect me from any media scrutiny by being associated with him. Personally, it seemed to me that he was overreacting, since during the time I’d been with him we’d been able to walk the streets, shop, and dine at expensive restaurants without any paparazzi bothering us. Yes, some guys recognized him from time to time, but since Eli hadn’t played professionally in seven years, he was hardly a blip on the media’s radar in terms of current celebrity gossip.

“I followed you from your office this afternoon, but I left you alone because you looked so distraught.” Cynthia’s words drew me from my thoughts like any slap in the face would. Feeling utterly violated, I grunted and marched past the woman en route to my car.

“Tell me what it was like learning your boyfriend had been murdered,” Cynthia called out. “That he’d been gruesomely shot with a bow and arrow.”

The words made me halt, but only for a moment. I quickly kept going and scrambled into my car. Cynthia hurried to my window and rapped on it with her knuckles. Ignoring her, I revved the engine, surged forward, then did a fast U-turn and sped down the street. In my rearview mirror, I saw her hurry to her own car, a gold-colored Saturn that had been parked behind mine.

Not about to give her the chance to follow me, I raced down the street, then turned left onto Fifth in a bold move that could have gotten me into an accident if a car had been coming. I zipped into the right lane, glancing in my rearview mirror as I did. Cynthia was stopped at the light. I kept going straight, hoping she’d think that I was heading back to the causeway. But when I hit Alton Road, I made a hasty right turn and sped north.

When I reached Tenth Street and saw no sign of the gold Saturn, I finally started to calm down. But the calm lasted barely a few seconds before my heart spasmed in my chest.

Cynthia had found my name on the deed, which meant she knew where I lived. She wasn’t the only reporter in the city. If she could find me, how many others would?

Cynthia, however, had met me before, and therefore knew where I worked. She’d likely tried to get the jump on other reporters by showing up at my office building. But if other members of the media had found my name on the deed and wanted to reach me for comment…

Urged on by the suddenly desperate feeling that I needed to protect my daughter, I made a series of turns and sped the rest of the way home.

Sure enough, I saw a throng of people milling about outside my condo. I didn’t need to see the cameras to know they were reporters. In my numbed haze, I’d driven right by my building and not even noticed them before.

Some surrounded the front door. Some hovered near the entrance to the building’s parking lot. Slowing, I drove past my condo, wondering what to do.

As I circled the block, I realized that I didn’t have a choice. I had to get inside, had to get to my daughter. And my best bet was to drive into the condo’s parking lot, as I always did. At the very least, it would provide me the protection of my car should the reporters recognize me, and I doubted any of them would risk getting run over simply to get the perfect photo of the grieving fiancée.

Eli and I had been photographed at the hospital fund-raiser, and that picture had made the pages of the Miami Herald. So had the photo that accompanied our engagement announcement. Clearly, the reporters surrounding my building figured they could spot me when I approached.

I wasn’t about to let that happen.

Before I rounded the corner that would take me back to my condo, I slipped off my sleek sunglasses and put on the large pair I always kept in my car. Then I placed my cell phone at my ear, and acted like I was in the middle of a fun conversation. A short while later, I drove past the reporters as though they didn’t faze me one bit. Cameras swung my way, as did curious glances, but I kept my cool and inched forward, even laughing loudly into my phone as I pressed my key card to the electronic sensor.

And then I was on my way into the indoor parking for the residents of Cosmopolitan Towers.

Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. Good grief, this was insane! Here I was, having to sneak past reporters to get to my own home. Damn Eli. He hadn’t just died in the sleaziest of situations. He’d thrown me into a potful of drama.

Oh, he’d been right to be concerned that my association with him might bring out the paparazzi. But never in my wildest dreams had I thought it would be under these circumstances.

Just before I rounded the corner inside the parking garage, I craned my neck for one last look at the reporters pacing the sidewalk.

And I couldn’t help thinking, My life is about to get seriously complicated.

chapter four

Carla opened her apartment door and immediately swept me into her arms. “Vanessa!”

“Mommy!” The shriek came immediately afterward. I broke apart from Carla in time to scoop up Rayna, who was racing toward me. There’s nothing that brings a brighter smile to your face than coming home to a child who loves you so much she’ll drop whatever she’s doing to throw herself into your arms.

“Rayna, sweetie.” I planted kisses all over my daughter’s face, which had her in a fit of giggles. “I missed you, baby.”

“I miss Mommy.”

“Well, Mommy’s home now.” I held her tight, emotion welling up inside me. “Mommy’s home.”

Rayna shimmied out of my arms, then headed back to the center of the living room. She lifted a paper full of colorful swirls. “Look, Mommy.”

I walked toward her and examined the artwork she held. “Oh, wow. You made that?” Rayna beamed. “It’s beautiful.”

“Rainbow.”

“Yes, a rainbow,” I agreed, amazed at how much the picture did resemble a rainbow. “Look at all the beautiful colors.”

“This for Daddy.” Rayna lifted another picture that had a big circle colored mostly black. “A cat.”

I had to swallow back the tears. “Yes. For Daddy.”

Rayna planted herself on the floor beside Carla’s daughter, Amani, and they resumed playing with a range of colorful ponies that they were both so fond of. It was a bit of a reprieve, thankfully, because I had no clue what I was going to say to Rayna about Eli.

“It’s been all over the news,” Carla said, her tone quiet. “You must have seen the media camped outside the building.”

I nodded. “I assume they were looking for me, but I drove past them and they didn’t notice me.”

“This is crazy.”

“Tell me about it.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I took a detour to the beach for a moment to clear my head, and a reporter from the Miami Herald approached me.”

Carla’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“Yeah. I’d apparently met her once with Eli at an event, and she remembered me. Plus she found my name on the condo’s deed. The woman had the nerve to follow me! I saw her when I was at Bayside earlier today. Of course, I didn’t realize who she was at the time. Until she approached me twenty minutes ago and said she wanted to ask me a few questions.”

“Wow.”

“Wow indeed.” I sighed softly. “Hopefully by tomorrow, they’ll lose interest in this story. Staking me out like this? It’s crazy. I’m not Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. I’m a woman whose fiancé was killed by a jealous husband. Happens every day.”

“I hate to tell you this, but CNN hasn’t stopped running the story. They’re saying that neither you, his ‘live-in love—’” Carla made air quotes “—nor his family could be reached for comment.”

“What family? They tried to reach his mother in Barbados?” Eli’s father had died the year before he retired from baseball, and his mother had moved back to Barbados right after that. When we got engaged, I’d asked Eli if he would call his mother and let me say hello, but he didn’t want to. Something about her being a Christian and that she’d hate the idea of us living in sin. “I know he’s got some cousins somewhere,” I told Carla, “but I’ve never met them. Eli said I’d meet them all at a family reunion this summer, and that he was looking forward to surprising them with news of our engagement.”

“They certainly had enough to broadcast without comments from his family,” Carla said. “CNN spent the day replaying the scene outside the house where he was…well, you know. Showing the crime scene tape, and that woman’s husband in handcuffs. He wasn’t shy about talking to the press, that’s for sure. They also showed highlights of Eli’s career with the Braves, and even had people phone in to share their memories of Eli.”

“Share their memories? He hasn’t played pro ball in seven years.”

“It’s still big news. With how he was killed, and why…It’s a sensational story.”

I grew quiet. What else was there to say? Carla was right—it was the outlandish nature of Eli’s murder that had garnered such media interest. I wondered if the reporters were going to stick around until they got a statement from me.

Carla rubbed my forearm. “How are you holding up?”

“Okay. I think. But I don’t know how…” I had to stop, take a calming breath. “I’m afraid to go upstairs, Carla, and be there…knowing that Eli won’t be coming home.”

“You can stay here if you want.”

I shook my head, dismissing the idea without giving it a thought. “The routine has to be the same. For Rayna’s sake.”

Carla gripped both of my hands. “Don’t you worry about Rayna. She’s perfectly fine.”

As if to emphasize that point, my daughter’s high-pitched laughter pierced the room.

“I know,” I agreed.

“You need to take care of you,” Carla insisted. “If it’s too soon for you to go upstairs, you tell Rayna we’re having a sleepover. Trust me, she’ll think it’s fun.”

“I hear you. I do. But I can’t…” I swallowed, considered my words. “I can’t avoid this situation forever. I have to go home and deal with…with the truth. If I don’t go now, when will I? I may never be ready.”

Carla pulled me into her thick arms and gave me a heartfelt hug. “Oh, Vanessa. I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine how you’re feeling right now. But you’ll get through this.”

I nodded, but I didn’t entirely believe what she was saying. As it was, I felt like I was walking an emotional tightrope. One wrong move and I could fall into a pit of despair. The only thing keeping me walking a straight line at the moment was my daughter. She was the reason I was able to summon the strength to keep moving forward.

“What can I do?” Carla asked.

“Nothing. But I love you for caring.” I’d met Carla only three months earlier, when I’d moved into the building with Eli, the first time I went down to use the pool one warm January day. Our children had brought us together, the way so many women make friends with other mothers in play groups or at the park. Rayna and Amani had hit it off playing in the water, which had led to me and Carla talking. I soon learned that she was a military wife, and that her husband, stationed at the Homestead Air Reserve Base, was deployed in Iraq. Her daughter, Amani, was a year older than Rayna, and the second cutest child in the world—after Rayna, of course.

We talked for three hours straight that day, as if we’d been friends for years. Carla confided in me her fears that her husband could die any moment, and that sometimes it was a real struggle to stay strong. She also wasn’t happy with her weight, and hoped she could lose the twenty-five pounds she’d gained during pregnancy by the time Paul returned home from his tour of duty. Her problem, I’d soon learned, was that Carla ate sweets when she was down, which negated whatever progress she made in the building’s gym.

At five foot five, she carried the extra pounds well, I thought. She was pretty, with flawless skin the color of milk chocolate, and whenever we were out together, she attracted her fair share of masculine attention. The brothas appreciated the extra pounds on her butt, something she told me her husband, who was white, didn’t at first. Until he’d seen how men had tripped over themselves to get a good look at her behind.

Carla also shared her annoyance at the fact that many of the building’s residents had made a point of asking her how she and Paul could afford to live in this building, considering she was a stay-at-home mom and he was in the military. To others, she said they’d invested well in the stock market. But she’d admitted to me that Paul’s father had died, and he and his mother, the only two heirs, had split the million-dollar life insurance policy.

I’d never met Paul, but based on everything Carla said about him, I could tell that they had what I wanted—a happy marriage. Why was that so hard to find?

“Let me at least feed you,” Carla said, interrupting my thoughts. “I made a pot of spaghetti.”

I waved off the suggestion. “No. I’m gonna take Rayna and go.”

“This isn’t about pity. You know I enjoy the company.”

Shortly before Eli and I had moved into this building, Paul had left for Iraq. He was to be gone for a year, which meant he had eight months left to serve before returning home. And ever since his departure, Carla had been lonely. She never said so, but I could tell.

“Another time,” I told her. Tonight, I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Needed to be. I wasn’t interested in talking with anyone about how I felt. I simply wanted to be with my baby and act like our world was still normal.

I approached my daughter. “Rayna, sweetie. Time to go home.”

She immediately got up and came to me, still holding a pony in each fist. Before I could try to wrestle them from her—a task I knew would be difficult—Carla said, “It’s okay. Amani won’t miss them. Bring them back next time.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I got her double of each pony in case she ever lost one,” Carla explained. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“All right, then. Thanks.”

I scooped Rayna into one arm, then went back to the door, where I lifted her diaper bag with the other. Amani wrapped an arm around her mother’s leg.

Carla lifted her daughter, kissed the girl’s cheek, then gave me a look full of sympathy. “If you change your mind, I’ll be here. Like I said, the kids can have a sleepover, and we can watch a movie to take your mind off things.”

“I’ll let you know,” I murmured, but I knew I wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer. I couldn’t watch a movie and pretend everything was okay. A romantic comedy would make me cry. A murder mystery would make me cry.

Anything would make me cry.

Rayna rested her head against the crook of my neck, and I treasured the warm feeling of her little body. She seemed tired, which was good. If she went down early, she wouldn’t have a chance to ask me where Daddy was.

No sooner than I had entered my apartment, than the phone rang. Carrying Rayna on my hip, I raced to answer it.

“Hello?” I said breathlessly.

“Vanessa Cain?”

“Yes,” I answered, my tone guarded.

“This is Robert Rooney from Channel 2 News. Can I set up an interview—”

I hung up the phone. It rang again.

I picked it up, but replaced the receiver without answering.

That happened five more times. So when it rang yet again, I snatched up the receiver and put it to my ear. “No, I won’t give you an interview. Please leave me alone.”

“Baby, you know the last thing I want from you is an interview.”

My eyes narrowed—and then it clicked that Lewis Carter was on the other end of my line. Thankful that it wasn’t another reporter, I felt my body relax—then immediately tense. I hadn’t heard from Lewis in about six weeks, and the last time he’d called, he had been hoping to get me to cheat on Eli.

“Lewis?” I asked.

“Who else, baby?”

Rayna started to squirm, so I let her down. “What do you want?”

“Is that any way to greet me? After everything we once meant to each other?”