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Chapter 1
On the set of The Queenie Show, the lights blazed hot. The stage was all decked out in trademark white, gold, and maroon, flanked by massive brass pots filled with fresh-cut orchids, lilies, and exotic greenery.
Queenie Abara herself sat center-stage, perched on the edge of a huge golden chair with a high back and overstuffed leather upholstery. It bore more than a passing resemblance to a throne.
She was a statuesque African American woman who, rumor had it, had just hit forty, but she looked thirty. She stood a squeak over six feet tall, with a tiny waist, thick thighs and butt, and a bountiful bosom that she didn’t mind showing off when it suited her. In other words, she had the kind of body that gave Megan Thee Stallion a run for her money.
On tonight’s show, Queenie was decked out in purple, one of the colors she favored, a velvet bodysuit topped by a lacy, long-sleeved white blouse bedecked with gold brooches that struggled to hold together the plunging neckline of her top. Many of her fans in the live studio audience, as well as those watching along at home, wondered if her designer had raided the late Prince’s closet, but were too smart to voice that thought out loud.
Her glorious natural hair was wound into passion twists, then piled onto her head and held in place by gold clasps and diamante hairpins, adding another good eight inches to her already imposing height. Her makeup was flawless: her lips were the color of pigeon’s blood, and her eyelashes were so lusciously long that they brushed her cheeks as she blinked, like butterfly kisses.
Currently on stage, Queenie had one of her victims, a viewer’s hapless husband, Alfred, squirming on the couch before her. Millions of women watched as she skewered him as surely as a lamb roast on a Sunday afternoon.
“Alfred, honey, what you’re saying is, that even though you were on our show three months ago… for the second time, mind you… promising Victoria that you would never cheat on her again, you’ve gone back on your word. Is that what I’m hearing? Did I get you right?”
Alfred gave Victoria a nervous sidelong glance and wet his lips. “Well, not cheating, exactly… it was more like….”
“More like what, dear?” Queenie asked, all ears.
Alfred sighed. “Just a few texts….”
“What kind of texts? Did you talk about the weather?”
“Um… no?”
“Well… did you talk about how much you like the Celtics? You aren’t a Celtics supporter, are you?”
The entire audience stiffened, knowing that Queenie was surely trolling. The show was being filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, home of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. And everyone knew that the very worst thing you could mention to a Hawks fan was the name of their worst enemy, the Boston Celtics. Everyone knew that if you walked into Queenie’s studio and even said the word ‘Celtics’, you’d better have a getaway car idling outside, and a sure way to reach it before the audience tackled you in the doorway.
Alfred wasn’t stupid. He paled, holding up his hand in a gesture of self-defense towards the audience. “No! Never!”
Queenie allowed him that little victory. “Okay, hon. So what were those texts about? I know they couldn’t be sexy time texts, because you sat right there in that chair and promised… that you wouldn’t cheat again!” The increase in volume of the last few words rang up to the rafters.
Alfred said nothing. Victoria folded her arms and tapped her foot, mouth pursed in the face of impending victory.
Everyone waited, because they knew that when Queenie raised her voice, she was about to go in for the kill. A whisper went around the large studio: He’s dead meat….
Queenie said, smiling like a jaguar, “Now, Al, honey, I’ve got a problem. Know what my problem is? My problem is you’re sitting here, telling us you were only sexting with this… this trollop… and yet Vicky’s friends told her they saw you coming out of a motel with your saucy little homewrecker a week ago….”
Alfred looked stunned, as if he never expected that little tidbit to come out. He hung his head. “It was just once….”
“And one of my loyal subjects sent me a photo of you exiting this manstealing wench’s house at twenty past eleven, just last Tuesday. Vicky says you told her you were working late….”
“It was just twice,” Alfred conceded miserably.
Queenie leaned forward, her voice like a sweet, toasty crème caramel laced with shards of broken glass. “I don’t like you, Al. Because you’re a liar and a cheat. You promised your wife, in my presence, that you’d never hurt her again… and what did you do?”
Not a word from Alfred.
“You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you?”
A bolt of electricity circled the room. Every single breathing soul was enraptured. A rare event was about to occur, the kind that many tweeted about, gossiped about, but few were lucky enough to witness in the flesh.
She pointed at him with a single, blood-red stiletto fingernail, at the tip of which a diamond glittered. “I’m going banish you. It is the edict of the Queen.”
Alfred bristled indignantly. “You can’t banish me! I’m not one of your Minions!”
“Ip-ip-ip!” Queenie made a rude shushing motion with one hand. “I’m speaking!”
