Full Figured 9 Read online

  Fifty thousand lousy dollars? Really! At least that time I’d managed to keep the thought in my head and not speak it out loud, but this was some bullshit to the tenth power. I know I had given this man the best years of my life, and for what? For shit, that’s what!

  Ivan went into the next portion of the will. “Concerning the estate property in Santa Ynez, Glendora will become the deeded owner of 1201 Rancho Alisal Drive . . .”

  That was all I needed to hear. I hoped Jamela still remembered my words from this morning. It was time to start looking at the glass half full. I did get a million-dollar life insurance policy, fifty grand, and a house that I could sell for almost a million and a half. And I didn’t have to mop floors at a restaurant. Everybody in L.A. was so damn health conscious these days, it was only a matter of time before Long’s Soul Food restaurants were long gone.

  Nothing else Ivan had to say could make things any better than this, unless the next words he read were that Jamela inherited a noose and a tree to hang herself.

  “This concludes all matters of allocation of the deceased, Mr. Victor Long. May he rest in peace, and may his family find comfort in what he has left for each.”

  He couldn’t end this meeting any faster for me. I need to hurry to the bank to find out how much money I have to play with, because Momma needs a new pair of Jimmy Choos for when she goes out to celebrate.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JAMELA

  I bet Glendora’s ass thought she’d hit the lottery back in Ivan’s office. In a sense she had, but not the mega-million lottery I was sure she’d thought she bought the ticket for when she married my dad.

  She raced out of Ivan’s office so quick she caused a breeze. She was probably headed straight to the bank. Me, I had to sit there in his office for a moment and let everything register. I was officially the CEO of my father’s restaurants. I would be the sole decision maker, under the guidance of Ivan, of course. Fortunately, Ivan had been guiding me for a while now, when he started to see the way Glendora was treating the restaurants like her own personal bank account.

  Ivan had suggested that I should take the time to learn everything about my father’s affairs. I had gotten right on that, never knowing when Glendora would talk my father into revoking my power of attorney. I couldn’t believe how she was going through everything my father had worked for like it was water. That’s when Ivan had helped me to immediately begin shifting money around into various names, protecting them under his corporation. She was ruining Daddy’s personal credit. That was a rope I was willing to let her hang herself with, but Long’s restaurants was a legacy that I could not, would not, let her destroy.

  My father was a decent man. He never would have wanted to leave this earth without making sure Glendora and her children were taken care of the same as me. That’s why we decided that instead of having a $5 million life insurance policy, he would have five individual million-dollar policies for each of us. The fifth one would be divided among the restaurant employees who had helped make Long’s what it was.

  As far as Brielle’s and Brendon’s policies, they were none the wiser. I’d retrieved them out of Daddy’s safe deposit box ages ago. I didn’t trust the three of them not to conspire to have Daddy killed if they knew they could run off with $3 million. Beecause I didn’t let Glendora and her kids get to me, she never saw me as a threat. Little did she know, I was a quiet storm.

  “You still here?” Glendora said from the doorway of my bedroom.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of here shortly,” I said as I closed the plastic bin that held some of my personal items, like my journal, pictures, and other keepsakes.

  “Ha, not from the looks of things.” Glendora looked around my room. Everything was still pretty much in place. The only things I’d packed were personal items. My clothes were still in the dresser drawer or hanging in my closet, as well as any shoes, purses, et cetera.

  “Brielle,” she yelled. “Come help your sister pack.” She looked at me, then with a grin on her face, said, “Oh, yeah, with Victor being dead and all, I guess that means you and Brielle aren’t really sisters anymore.”

  I shook my head. “You really don’t know who you’re fucking with, do you?”

  My words wiped the smile right off of Glendora’s face. She wasn’t used to me holding my ground.

  “You’re right, my daddy is gone. It does mean that Brielle is no longer my sister, and thank God it means your perverted son is no longer my brother either. But you know what else?” I glared at her and began walking toward her. “It also means that you’re not my stepmother anymore either. Now you’re just another bitch on the street. I’ve respected you for all these years because my father really loved you. Why? I’ll never know. You might think you’re the shit, but trust me when I say that you really don’t want to find out what happens to a bitch on the street.” I was now nose to nose with Glendora. “Up underneath all this fat you love to criticize me about is a broad who will beat your ass and leave your children spending the rest of their lives trying to figure out where the body is at.” I pulled back away from her.

  “Now, why don’t you just go on out of here? Isn’t it Wednesday? Don’t you have a standing appointment on Wednesdays?” I smirked.

  Ohhh, the look on her face. Priceless! I could see the wheels in her head churning now, trying to figure out how I knew about the little boy toy she’d been screwing—until recently, that is. “Tell Jasper congratulations on graduating summa cum laude. Guess he won’t need me tutoring him anymore—which also means no more nookie for you. Isn’t it funny how he paid for my tutoring by doing me the favor of sleeping with your old ass?” I let out the most annoying laugh I could muster up.

  “Wha . . . what are you talking about?” Glendora began rubbing her chest as if she was about to have a heart attack of her own.

  “During one of my meetings with Ivan about the whole power of attorney thing, he might have accidentally made mention that you and Daddy had a prenup . . . with a stipulation. Something about adultery,” I continued to tease her. “I honestly never expected my father to die, but I didn’t know how much longer I could take having your evil ass around. So just in case I needed to help him see the real you, Jasper was going to be my backup plan. I’d been collecting evidence of your affair for longer than you would believe. Lucky for you I never had the heart to reveal it to Daddy.”

  “You’re lying,” she said weakly.

  I had to put the nail in the coffin. “Do you really think someone as fine as Jasper would want an old wrinkled-up prune like you?” I laughed. The more I laughed, the angrier she got.

  “Fuck you!” she spat. “He clearly didn’t want a fat, black bitch like you.”

  I put my finger on my chin then looked upward in thought. “Actually, you’re right. Do you know how hard it is to get a gay man to have sex with a woman?”

  Okay. I needed a spatula to be able to pry Glendora’s fucked-up face up off the ground. Splat!

  “You never wondered why he always opted for oral sex first, hoping that he could get you off to keep from having to screw you?” I shook my head in disgust.

  “You trifling—” she started before Brielle walked up behind her, looking like hell. She’d probably been high ever since the night before. That girl was headed nowhere in life real fast.

  “Did you call me, Mom?”

  Glendora stood there glaring at me with the look of death. Her chest was heaving up and down. “Hurry up and help this bitch pack before it’s me who gets locked up.”

  Brielle looked around the room. “Pack what? In what? There’s no boxes or anything.”

  “That’s because I’m leaving it all,” I said, looking at Brielle. “To you. I know how you like my sloppy seconds.”

  Brielle turned red.

  “Yeah, Isaac told me how you showed up at the gym trying to get with him,” I said to her, unfazed. “He also told me how you went on and on about how he must be gay if he didn’t want you, blah blah bla
h.” I looked at Glendora. “I’m sure your mom can vouch for the fact that even a gay guy will play in the kitty litter if there’s a buried treasure within.” I guessed that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, because the next thing I knew, Glendora came charging at me.

  “Ma, no,” Brielle said, grabbing a hold of her mother before Glendora could put her hands on me. I hadn’t even backed away. She could come get some of this if she wanted.

  “This pig isn’t worth it,” Brielle spat at me, holding her mother’s arm and trying to calm her down.

  “You’re right,” Glendora agreed. “She’s just bitter, black—”

  “And fat,” Brielle said.

  “And my Creole momma back in New Orleans always taught me that fat girls finish last.”

  Those two stood there sounding like some high school mean girls, or those girls from the movie White Chicks trying to tell “yo’ momma” jokes. Lame. I grabbed my plastic bin and my purse and stepped toward the doorway.

  At first Glendora and Brielle stood there like they were going to try me. I twisted my lips and dared them to go for it. They could tell by the look in my eyes that I would drop that bin and go to work on them. My size would definitely come in handy. The two parted like the Red Sea, one on each side of the doorway, allowing me to walk through.

  “Fat bitch,” I heard one of them mumble under her breath.

  I stopped in my tracks and then turned to face them. “I need to just remind you both of one more thing before I go,” I said. “Big girls might not finish first because we had to stop and get a chocolate milkshake in the middle of the race, but damn it, we finish!” And with that, I strutted my fat ass right on out of that house.

  I sat in front of the fireplace of my home I’d just closed on earlier that afternoon. I stared at the flames as I looked back at my life over the years. I think I honestly was the black Cinderella. My father married the wicked stepmother then turned ill, eventually passing away, leaving me having to fend for myself.

  But just like Cinderella, my Prince Charming came and saved the day. Isaac and I had become inseparable over the last six months since my father had passed. I had taken a leave from school, but I was still working harder than ever in the restaurants.

  “I have more wood out back if you need to keep up the fire,” Isaac said, entering the room.

  I looked down at the last piece of paper I had in my hand that I was about to ball up and throw into the fire. “No, this ought to do it.” I tossed the final page of Brendon’s insurance policy into the fireplace and watched the flames devour it. Brielle’s was the first I’d burned to a crisp. I knew Daddy wanted them to know how he never saw them as any different than me, which is why he’d left them a policy identical to mine, but I’m almost certain Daddy wouldn’t have wanted to be responsible for Brielle’s death. She would have spent all the money on drugs until she was found dead in an alley somewhere. And Brendon, the stepbrother who, after living in our home for just a couple months, woke me with his hand over my mouth as he rammed himself inside of me—well, if I had ever told Daddy the truth, I don’t think he would have been too keen on taking care of Brendon either.

  I never told anyone about what Brendon was doing to me. At first it had only happened that one night. My body didn’t react to the rape the way I thought it should have. I actually came. I thought that meant that maybe a part of me liked it, therefore I never screamed rape. Once Brendon saw I wasn’t going to say anything, he came back another night, and then another. But then things started getting more and more violent, until I would just shut down.

  That’s when I started to gain weight. I was subconsciously hiding the thin, weak girl up under all this skin, while at the same time hoping that eventually Brendon would get so disgusted with my weight that he would leave me alone. When that didn’t work, I just stayed away from home as much as I could. I was busy on purpose. Then finally Brendon’s time was more occupied with gangs. That’s why I was so happy when he moved away for good.

  So, I can’t honestly say that I felt bad about burning up their policies. My only regret was that I hadn’t burned up Glendora’s, but I made it a point to use hers for the funeral. That bitch needed to pay for a proper burial for the man who’d taken her from the hood life to the good life.

  She might as well have been left with nothing anyway. When she went to sell the house, she had a rude awakening. With two mortgages, the house was way in the red. Even after listing it for its full value, she still owed the bank a balance. It was her fault for taking out a second mortgage and letting it get delinquent. As Daddy’s wife, she was also responsible for any outstanding debts he left behind, so all those charge cards and loans, yep, she had to pay all of them off, plus the vacation pay for the nurses. Ha! She couldn’t afford to keep the house, and she couldn’t afford to sell it either. Go figure. By the time everything was said and done, she’d ended up with exactly what she’d contributed: nothing!

  I ended up buying the house through a short sale. The longer she kept it, the more of a deficit it became. Glendora had no idea it was me who was purchasing the home. I made sure that she didn’t find out until after the fact. Ivan put her on speaker when she showed up at his office, cussing and fussing. Payback was a mutha indeed.

  I exhaled as Isaac slid behind me and held me in his arms while we listened to the crackling of the fire. Just then my cell phone beeped, alerting me that I had a text message. I reached for it and read the words that appeared across the screen: You look nice and cuddly lying up in my house with the man who should have been my daughter’s.

  My heart immediately began racing. I shot up from Isaac’s arms.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  I stood up to walk over to the window. Before I could even make it over there, I heard my phone letting me know that I had received another message: Don’t get used to it. That’s my life, bitch, and I’m going to live it even if it means I have to take yours.

  I hurried to the huge picture window that gave a view of the front yard. I looked at the trees and bushes, but I saw no one. I did, though, see the taillights of a car driving away just as I received another text: You might have thought your fairy tale had come true, but so has your worst nightmare.

  “What is it?” Isaac walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around me.

  I looked into his eyes, wondering if I should fill him in just yet. I decided against it though. I wasn’t about to scare him off with this drama. I knew it was Glendora having a hard time letting go. She’d just have to get over it, though, because no way in hell was I letting her steal another second of joy from my life. I had put up with too much from her over the years, and I would do whatever it took to protect myself and my new life now. All those years of doubting myself because of her mistreatment were over. Everything I’d been through had made me a stronger person, and I would never let someone like Glendora keep me down again.

  “Nothing,” I told Isaac, “I just thought I heard something.” I smiled at him. “I’m going to go grab us a drink. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  He kissed me on the forehead. “Sure, honey. I’ll be waiting by the fire.”

  I headed into the kitchen, truly amazed that six months had passed and Glendora hadn’t found her another sugar daddy. Well, if it’s true what they say that it’s not over until the fat lady sings, then I suppose I should start taking singing lessons, because when all was said and done, I would make sure to have the last word in this story....

  THIS CAN’T BE LIFE

  by

  Ms. Michel Moore

  CHAPTER ONE

  I swear I despise Tori. My mind, body, and soul simply hate her. Matter of fact, hate is not a strong enough word to describe how I truly feel about my little sister. However, it’s the only one that constantly haunts my daily existence. I promise every single bone in my body aches when even speaking Tori’s name.

  Ever since that child was born, I knew her dimple -having, green-eyed, bony ass was gonna be tro
uble. I should have socked my mother in the gut or attempted to shove her down two flights of stairs when they broke the supposed blessed news to me. I should’ve pretended I was sick and had to sleep in my parents’ bed for a month straight to stop them from even creating Tori’s spoiled, annoying self in the first place. If I could only turn back the hands of time, my life would be so much better.

  First the manipulating trick took over my bedroom, forcing me to take the smaller one, then she turned all my friends against me, and now she even got Mommy and Daddy to spend half their retirement nest egg on a lavish wedding she doesn’t deserve. I had to work part time to help pay for college, but they had money to spare for that three-ring circus. What part of the game is that?

  Yeah, if you hadn’t guessed, here comes that word hate again. For once I wish I would win and that sneaky, man-stealing monster would lose.

  It doesn’t matter that we are both grown women now. Who gives a shit? Not me! The time limits on being a bitter bitch never run out, and trust, I stay on the clock.

  With her ear firmly pressed against her younger sister’s bedroom door, Tami grew more irritated as the seconds dragged by. Seething with jealousy, she quietly ate several Double Stuf Oreo cookies, surely adding a pound or so to her already big-girl frame. Oh my freaking God! Listen to these two going at it. They make me downright sick to my stomach. Well, at least she does.

  Dark crumbs fell down onto the lavender-colored maid of honor dress she’d felt obligated to wear. Fed up, Tami’s true emotions were boiling to the surface. Heated, she wanted nothing more than to kick down the door. She yearned to slice her own blood’s face and snatch the man she secretly loved out her conniving clutches.

  Tami’s true colors were definitely ready to be revealed. The older sibling was done keeping up appearances for appearance’s sake.