“That was probably when I was in jail—”
“What was that like?”
“Awful and then worse than awful,” I said. “The worst part was that I didn’t expect to go there. I thought there was something I could do, but as soon as the doctor pulled the bandage off of my head, I was carted downtown in the back of a van.”
“I’m sorry to hear about that,” Sharika said. “You know some detective called here. Everyone at central knows you’ve been out. I couldn’t lie. It would’ve been my ass then.”
“Please, you don’t have to apologize, Sharika,” I said. “I understand. I don’t think either of us saw this coming.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt. It just seemed so unreal, you know? How everything happened. I actually went and did some research.”
“Research about what?” I asked.
“About Ms. Stinky Bellamy and that conference you said she was in town for. I don’t know what it was, but when you told me she was here in Augusta for some conference, it didn’t sit right with me. I mean, conferences come here all of the time, but we know about them—especially if someone from the news or something is going to be there. We hear about them. And I didn’t hear anything about a journalism conference.”
“So what did you do?” I sat up in the bed and looked at the knot on my forehead in the mirror on my old dresser.
“Just asked around. Spoke to some people downtown. And you know what? There was no conference. Nothing anyone could recall.”
“What?” I stood up.
“No conference. You heard me right. There was no conference.”
“But she said she was in town for a conference,” I explained as if this would negate what Sharika was telling me.
“Well, she was certainly in town, but it wasn’t for a conference,” Sharika said. “Any idea what else could’ve brought her to Augusta?”
I sat back down on the bed and tried to remember Sasha’s message on my machine. Reginald saying she was coming over. The car in the driveway. Her suitcase. The red candles on the dresser in the guest room. Phil Landon’s nervous eyes on her legs at the car dealership. Then there was his wife at the nail salon. Her angry face. Her cold eyes. She’d pointed at Sasha. “I guess you’re the black whore who’s been fucking him,” she’d said. “I have all of the receipts from the hotel last week. When I get finished with your ass, you’ll wish you never gave him your number.”
“What, Dawn? What do you think?”
“I don’t know. There was something. Something with Phil Landon.”
“Phil Landon? From the car dealership? The jungle fever skirt chaser?”
“Skirt chaser?”
“Yeah,” Sharika said. “You never heard about him? Oh, I forgot you’re not from here. Both he and his daddy have chased every black tail in Georgia.” She laughed. “We have like four caramel-colored families in Augusta that can trace their roots back to the Landons. And you know what that means. The only problem with those guys is they love black women, but they won’t marry one to save their lives.”
“What? But he was so nice,” I said. “And Sasha said he was her—”
“Friend?”
We sat and listened to each other’s thoughts. Sharika was sure she could get more information on Landon. He’d dated and dumped some girl she’d gone to high school with. His wife showed up at the house one afternoon, threatening to take her to court, saying she had receipts. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t make sense of it. If Sasha was having an affair with Landon, why would she come after Reginald? And if Landon had dumped Sasha like Sharika was implying, why would she take us to his office? Why would he agree to a deal?
“I’m going to put my ear to the street,” Sharika said, like we were in some old blaxploitation movie. “See what I can find out.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a little bit of soft rain over my fury.
“Well, if you ask me, that’s what friends are for.”
“Thank you for being my friend.”
My mother had chucked a spoonful of lima beans and ham chunks into two bowls on the kitchen table. There was no salt, no pepper, just beans and ham clumped together.
I moved the food around. Ate a little. Picked the pork from the bone and used it to suffer through the beans.
I couldn’t stop seeing Landon’s wife standing there alone in the nail salon. How Sasha responded to her. How Sasha responded to me when I asked if she was actually sleeping with that woman’s husband. She smiled. She grinned.