Chapter 15 – Aricia
Chapter Fifteen
Aricia
Ifeel foolish for holding onto the traditional idea that Peter will call me.
Life is not an episode of Sex And The City, and regressive gender roles don’t make sense when you own a multimillion dollar law-firm.
But I still foolishly hope that Peter will call since he’s the one who made such a big deal out of that pregnancy test. I could have enjoyed my life without the weight of this for another several weeks before noticing.
Knowing about this baby means that I have to do something.
For the first time in my life, I don’t have a clue what to do.
This could be my last chance. My only real chance to go through the experience of pregnancy, and having a baby.
Many women say it transforms everything about the way you think and feel.
But I’ve just never been the type to think of myself as a lesser woman because of my choice to focus on my career.
Plenty of folks bet on a husband and kids, and end up divorced with a bunch of ungrateful children.
I always assumed that if God wanted me to have a child, he would put me in that situation, but now that I’m there, my feelings are more paralyzing than I ever expected and Peter’s absence bothers me more than I thought it would.
It’s so much worse when he doesn’t call.
By the next morning, I tell myself that I’m a modern woman who doesn’t need to wait for a man to text first. I message Peter something quick, saying that we should probably talk, but not putting any pressure on him about either the sex or the pregnancy test. I can tell him in person.
He doesn’t respond right away, so I try to stop thinking about the unanswered message and get ready to go into the office.
Rana tried to tell me not to come, but I can’t just sit at home stewing over anxious thoughts about a guy like I’m a college student.
I have to do something to distract myself from thinking about the pregnancy information along with the throbbing pain in my ass from the wild sex I had with Peter.
I never expected the wildest sex in my life to be in my early forties, but my body still shudders involuntarily when I think about how good he felt, even if I had no business being up in that mobster’s hotel room.
I should be way above the whole bad boy thing, honestly.
But Peter isn’t some hood rat selling dime bags. He’s… powerful.
At least I think he is. I know better than most how much some men are willing to commit to an illusion.
When I get to the office, Rana greets me with my coffee order and a croissant that I didn’t ask for.
She reviews all my meetings for the day and points out that I have the afternoon clear if I want to leave early.
I assure her that I have no reason to leave early and send her to handle an issue in the billing department on the second floor.
Emails and spreadsheets soothe me. People might call me crazy, but I like getting my house in order and I love being the boss, even if there are tough moments sometimes.
Right before my need for a mid-morning coffee reaches a fever pitch, my office door buzzes with an alert that someone is riding the elevator up to my floor.
I smile, eagerly expecting Rana to show up with my mid-morning coffee.
That woman deserves a raise, lowkey.
When the elevator door pings open, I hear Rana’s heels clicking anxiously down the hallway.
“Don’t you dare go in there without knocking!” Rana grunts. I hear sounds of what might be a struggle, but before I rise from my desk, Rana yanks my office door open and sticks her head inside.
“Aricia, I need you to stay calm, okay?”
“Get out of the way, Rana…”
I swear I recognize the voice, but I don’t immediately place it because of all the other shit going on until the voice’s owner rips the door away from Rana and practically shoves her out of the way to enter my office.
It’s my dead husband’s mistress, Inessa Dabrowski, and judging by the scheming smirk on her face, this is not a social call.
Rana’s eyes meet mine as we mutually encourage each other not to crash out with silent communication.
This is a law office after all, and I had to spend a lot of money to keep the press from investigating my ex-husband’s death more deeply than they did.
They kept it at the public statement and didn’t unnecessarily drag anybody through the mud.
One look at Inessa and I know she means trouble.
“Hello, Aricia.”
She doesn’t call me Miss Plant or even by my maiden name if she wanted to get all possessive over my husband.
It’s clear Inessa doesn’t respect me, which shouldn’t surprise me, because I can’t imagine her respecting herself.
It doesn’t matter how smug she looks right now, I watched her slip and slide in some baby oil until she knocked herself unconscious, all with a purple dildo strapped to her crotch.
I cannot let this vile antisocial creature have a single victory over me. This is not how bulldogs in the courtroom go out.
“Hello, Miss Dabrowski.” When they go low, you go high.
I meet her devilish smirk with a warm, impenetrable smile.
Betraying any emotion, especially a negative emotion, would only give Inessa an opportunity to read my intentions and develop a strategy for victory.
Whatever she wants, I expect it’s something like that.
She’s the type of woman deeply competitive with other women to a fault.
Rana clears her throat. “Inessa, drop off your documents and I’ll take you back to your car.”
Inessa towers over Rana and looks down at her over her right shoulder with blatant derision.
“You shrimp, I am not leaving until I get what I want. Pull up a chair if you want. We don’t have to have any secrets amongst the three of us.”
“You have more audacity than Christopher Columbus.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Inessa snaps. “He was a hero and he built this country, unlike your people. What has Pakistan ever contributed to the world?”
Rana isn’t from Pakistan, but we both know there’s no point in correcting a racist. If she wanted to learn, she would. This type of person just gets a thrill in getting under your skin. It’s the type of racism you get from people who weren’t hugged as children – pure attention seeking.
“Do you like your veneers, Inessa?” Rana says with a sweet smile that reminds me of Southern women right before they say “bless your heart”.
Rana just might swing a punch at this girl’s head, which would only make my position here worse.
I was foolish to assume Inessa was content to collect her severance package and quietly heal her wounds.
Kennard was her cash cow and probably got her used to a lifestyle that she can’t afford right now. I can’t believe I let this happen to me.
I have to stop this from spiraling further out of control.
Rana asks her outright. “Inessa? What do you want?”
“Money.” It’s just like I expected.
She drops her documents on my desk. The brown folder lands with a heavy smack that makes me jump.
I stare down at it with enough fury to burn a hole through my own desk.
This is all Kennard’s problem. My stupid dead ex-husband is coming back to haunt me just when I get news that Peter got me pregnant.
I say nothing, and neither does Rana.
Inessa “I have over 500 Gigabytes of images and videos of all the kinky weird ass shit your husband Kennard and his friends used to do to me. How do you think it would look if these prominent black men and church leaders including your husband were caught degrading a beautiful, American woman like me?”
“Your last name is Dabrowski,” Rana says. “Please, drop the racism.”
“You shouldn’t lecture me,” Inessa responds haughtily. “I have all the power here and I also have something that Aricia could never give her husband.”
“What, chlamydia?” Rana says, clearly hoping to push Inessa into a physical altercation. It’s getting just as hard for me not to react to Inessa’s taunting, so I promise to only intervene if Rana throws a punch.
“No. I have a baby,” Inessa says, dramatically touching her stomach without a baby bump. “She’s an infertile useless cow and I am going to have a child who will inherit half of this whole law firm.”
“What did you just call her?” Rana asks. “I want to confirm before I slap the filler out of your fucking lips.”
“Rana…” I respond, secretly proud of her for voicing what I can’t do, considering I’m an upstanding professional in this community and a black woman who would be subject to far more scrutiny than anyone else in my position.
Unfortunately, there’s a part of me that will have to hear her out, even if it’s just so I can formulate a strategy.
“What do you want, Inessa?”
“I have video proof of your husband engaging in various kinds of debauchery. Piss drinking, for one thing.”
I feel a slow crawl of disgust down my back.
It happens whenever some new betrayal gets unearthed.
I don’t think about him on most days anymore, especially whenever Peter is anywhere near me, or when I have so much as a single work email to respond to, but whenever I have to think about Kennard, my stomach turns with whatever new horror I have to absorb into my reality.
“Get to the part where you tell me what you want. I have a job, Inessa.”
And a strong desire to push this woman down an elevator shaft.
“I need $50,000 to give my surgeon a down payment for my upper bleft.”
“What the fuck is that you dumb bitch?” Rana asks.
Inessa glares at her. “Don’t talk to me like that when you need a surgeon to fix that weird ethnic nose.”
“Aricia?” Rana asks. “May I?”
“Inessa, I can’t give in to blackmail. It’s a felony.”
“Then I’ll go to The Buffalo Standard with pictures of your ex-husband shoving a cucumber up his asshole.”
I flinch as I suppress my anger. The last time I got into a fight was outside my sorority when I was twenty years old and I can’t remember if I won or if my sisters just pulled me off the other girl.
I can’t run around beating people’s asses anymore.
I’m too mature to solve my problems with violence.
“Go ahead, Inessa. And make sure you’re ready to prove in court that your so-called pregnancy is a result from an encounter with my dead husband. I have no evidence of your decency.”
“I’d rather be a slut than a frigid bitch who sucks in bed.”
Rana takes one of my big law school books and smashes it across Inessa’s head.
I didn’t even notice her slinking slowly towards my bookshelf and I knew she was up to something when she stood behind Inessa, but Rana moved swiftly and it’s instant hell once she smashes Inessa’s head forward into my desk.
“My veneers!” Inessa screeches. “You ugly curry scented bitch.”
Rana slams the book against her head again. My heart pounds as adrenaline floods through me and I’m torn between my long-term responsibilities and my desire to watch Inessa get her ass beat. I stand up as blood spurts over my desk.
“I’m going to get David to clean this up,” I say to Rana. She gives me a confused look and I nod. If she wants to beat Inessa’s ass a little more before I get to our janitor? I’m going to let her.
“I’ll stop by security and make sure the room is dark.”
Inessa tries to escape, but she underestimates Rana’s abilities.
Rana grabs her hair and rips out enough of Inessa’s extensions that she yowls in pain and falls to her knees.
I move around my desk and walk past them slowly.
Rana’s eyes lock with mine one last time before I leave her alone with my ex-husband’s mistress in my office.
“Thank you,” Rana mouths.
I make a quiet mental note to add an extra zero to Rana’s Christmas bonus.