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“Oh, yeah. She’ll be here about eleven. That’s a good time, right?”
I giggled. “You tell me. All I know is that alerts pop up on my cell phone two hours before and then ten minutes before I’m supposed to be someplace or do something. You do a good job at making me look timely.”
“Well, it’s a quarter to nine, so you’ll be seeing one in about fifteen minutes telling you that she’s coming at eleven.”
We both chuckled.
Nikki was a fantastic assistant. She’d been with me for four years and I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world. She always switched her hairstyles out to express herself. She was shorter than me, which I liked, light-skinned, thick, and always smiled. She had graduated from Spelman in 2004 with a degree in music, so she was excited that I had moved to Atlanta. In the entire time of her employment, we had never traveled there once because I had never been back since 1987.
That was a year that I wanted to forget forever. Well, most of it, up until that night in October where I almost died and was actually resurrected in the downtown Greyhound station. Hannah had saved me from other people, and from myself. I was determined to die, one way or another, but she breathed oxygen back into my lungs.
I clamped my eyes shut when I thought about what had happened at my high school homecoming. Those bitches and bastards had actually tried to kill me. It may not have been their exact intention, but it was the most probable outcome. If Hannah hadn’t cared enough to save me from bleeding to death, it would have been over. What I had craved and yearned for all the years prior, death, was right there in front of my face. I could almost reach out and touch it, smell it, embrace it.
“Wicket?” Nikki snapped me out of my thoughts. “Did you need anything else from me right now?”
“No, I’m about to work out for an hour.” I climbed down off the barstool at the breakfast bar. “I have to keep these tits and this ass tight for the stage.”
Nikki grinned. “And you keep them tight, too.”
I walked off to throw on a sports bra and pair of sweat pants so I could get in a good sweat before Bianca Hudson, formerly Bianca Lee, showed up at eleven. She thought she was coming to acquire the decorating contract of her lifetime and I was going to give it to her . . . right before I took out the knife that she had embedded in my back decades earlier and fucked the conniving, heartless bitch up with it.
* * *
“It is such an honor to meet you, Miss Wicket. Should I call you Miss Wicket or do you prefer just Wicket, or do you prefer your real name, Miss—”
“Wicket is fine.” I reached out and shook the hand fake-ass Bianca had extended to me. “Please, come in and make yourself comfortable. Nikki, get us a couple of glasses of fresh lemonade. You like lemonade, Mrs. Hudson?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, please call me Bianca. I want you to think of me as a long-lost, dear friend.”
It took everything within me not to spit in her damn face when she spoke those words. Little did she know that we had been friends at one point—best friends.
She was putting on airs and was dressed in the latest designer fashion, likely designed by that other bitch: Cherie. Later on in the day, before she left, I planned to fall into the laid trap and have a fit over the dress and ask where I could get one. That was what they wanted; for me to ask about the dress. Bianca would have a chance to introduce Cherie into the mix so she could try to get a lot of my money in her bank account as well. Still the same old slick trifling hoes from high school.
“Why don’t we start in the great room?” I suggested. “It’s a big space, but I have some thoughts about it.”
“That would be lovely. I’d love to hear what you envision.”
As we walked into the great room, I started my description. She was feeling it. I really didn’t need her ass to design shit for me. I was an excellent interior designer myself and owned houses and penthouses around the world that I had decorated alone.
“I envision this as my little-black-dress room. I want to put a black, large square rug in the middle of the floor, about twenty feet square and a huge, circular sofa that seats at least twelve that’s also completely black. I was thinking a nice, round crystal table in the middle with a light that has decorated edges that shine a pattern on the ceiling when the main lights are off. Something real sexy and intriguing.”
“So how does the little-black-dress concept come in?”
“It’s simple. You know how we can take a black dress and change the accessories and make it look completely new? Well, I want to be able to change out the objects on the coffee table and the pillows whenever the mood hits me. I might use yellow in the spring, or sea-foam green. Turquoise or peach in the summer. Red or purple in the fall. You get my drift?”
“That’s hot.” Bianca looked like I had shown her up. That’s because I had. “You’re about to make me feel useless already.”
“It’s merely a concept.” I shrugged. “I’m open to your thoughts. Everyone sees different things in different spaces. You’re the expert, so I’ll defer to you.”
That made her feel like the shit. She started strutting around like a peacock after that, from room to room as she sipped her lemonade and Nikki took notes to transcribe and share with us both later. I decided not to show her up anymore and pretended like all of her ideas were awesome. Some of them were actually pretty damn good. I could see why she was regarded as one of the top interior designers in Atlanta. Several had put in bids, but I did not even look at the others. She was the one that I wanted to trap in my web, and her greedy ass was about to breakdance right into my slaughterhouse.
* * *
Bianca and I were sitting on the veranda drinking two glasses of Moscato when Nikki appeared, as I was about to ask about her dress.
“I’m so excited about working with you,” Bianca said with a huge grin. “You’re such a sweetheart.”
I faked a smile and looked at Nikki, who was waiting patiently to say something. “Yes, Nikki.”
