CHAPTER TWELVE
Verdi’s La Traviata was not an opera Grayson ever enjoyed.
How could he? the heroine Violetta dies in the end every single time!
But his father was on his feet in raucous applause and therefore everybody in their private box were on their feet too.
Because his father was their biggest patron, he made the opera company perform that same opera once nearly every other month it seemed to Grayson.
Simply because his father loved that tragic opera that Grayson abhorred.
But that was the nature of their relationship: opposites.
Grayson’s limousine pulled away from the opera house as they all were seated on either side of the spacious compartment staring at the bustling city none of them lived in.
His father and mother, Sebastian and Petita Carrington, sat on one side, while Grayson was hemmed in the middle with chief-of-staff Dena on one side of him and his date, twenty-five-year-old Charlotte, on the other side of him.
Charlotte was his father’s choice in mate for him when Dena, his father’s previous choice, didn’t work out.
Grayson knew his love-life, or more specifically, his lack of a wife, was where the conversation would end up.
It didn’t take long.
“Every time I see Traviata,” his father said, “I think of you, Charlotte.”
“You think of Charlotte?” Petita asked. “How so, Sebastian? Traviata means fallen woman.”
They all laughed.
“But she’s a good woman,” his father replied. “That’s what I mean. Charlotte is a good woman and it’s high time Grayson recognizes that.”
“Here we go,” Grayson said.
“Yes, here we go,” his father said. “You had a good one in Dena.” Dena smiled. “But you didn’t want her.” Dena’s smile disappeared. “Now you have a good one in Charlotte.” Charlotte smiled. “But yet you behave as if you don’t want her either.”
Grayson glanced at Charlotte as her smile dissipated too. She knew there was no commitment in their future, just like Dena knew the deal when she agreed to sleep with him all those years ago. But yet they loved to sit there like wounded puppies whenever his father broached the subject.
“It’s unheard of, Grayson,” his father continued. “You’re a forty-four-year-old man.”
“I’m well aware of my age, Father.”
“A man of your years and your status in this community is supposed to be a family man. But you’re still single and, even worse, you’ve never been married ever.
That’s downright disgraceful. You have no children.
You have no grands for your mother and I.
What on earth is your problem? Charlotte is beautiful.
She’s caring. She’s resourceful. She’s perfection in motion, boy. What more do you want?”
Love. Not perfection, Grayson thought. He wanted somebody who loved him, flaws and all. And whom he loved, flaws and all. That wasn’t Dena. That certainly wasn’t Charlotte. But he kept her around so that his father didn’t bother to bring yet another pick around for him to ignore.
When Grayson’s lack of interest in the conversation was all over his face, his father shook his head in frustration, but he ultimately changed the subject. “Did you receive another one?”
Grayson looked his father dead in the eyes. Given what he knew about him, sometimes he wondered how he could stand to be in the same room with the man. “Not since the last one three months ago.”
His father nodded. “You received one then?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t mention it.”
“It was addressed to me.”
“Did you turn it over to my people?”
Why would he even ask him that? Of course he turned it over! What did he take him for? “Yes,” he responded.
“Good. Can’t ask no more than that.”
Grayson could see Dena and Charlotte both moving closer against him as if by acknowledging their presence he would tell them what he and his father were talking about so cryptically.
But they were wasting their time. Charlotte knew he would never confide in her.
But Dena still thought she had the inside track with him regardless of who he dated. But he never confided in her either.
Then his phone began ringing, which was rare in and of itself. The few who had his number knew not to disturb him unless it was vital. But when he saw that it was from a detention center, he was too curious to ignore it.
He answered, but he did not put the call on Speaker. “Hello?”
“You have a collect call from Jameesha Latoya Morgan, an inmate at a correctional facility.” Do you accept the call?”
A correctional facility? An inmate?
“Do you accept the call?”
There was a long pause on Grayson’s end of the line. Anybody else and he would have ended the call already. But he was still holding on. Because he was floored. She was incarcerated? “Yes,” he said anxiously.
The recording added additional this call will be recorded or monitored information, and then the call came through.
“Hello. This is Jameesha Morgan. I need to speak with Mr. Carrington please.”
There was no response. Grayson felt trapped.
“Hello? Hello? Are you still there?”
But he also felt compelled, yes compelled, to answer her. “This is Grayson Carrington.”
He could tell she was shocked. What she didn’t know was that he had given her his private cellphone number by mistake. And she had no clue. “Oh! Mr. Carrington. I didn’t realize you would be the one to answer the phone. But I guess when we’re all gone you have to.”
What an absurd thing to say, he thought. “What is it, Jameesha?” he asked.
Jameesha? Dena looked at Grayson when he said that name. Not that ghetto witch again!
“Who in the world is Jameesha?” his father asked him. His mother and Charlotte were curious too.
But Grayson ignored them all as he listened to what Toya had to say. “I need your help, sir,” she said to him.
When Grayson said nothing, she kept on talking because she knew her time was limited.
“I took my sister’s boyfriend to the gas station to get some beer.
Not for me. They like to drink beer. I don’t drink it at all.
But I went in to get me some lunch meat and a bag of chips because I planned on taking a lunch to work tomorrow.
It’s supposed to be my first full day as a permanent employee.
But when we went up to the counter to pay . . .”
Grayson could feel her tension through the phone.
“When we went to the counter to pay the clerk, Bam, that’s my sister’s boyfriend, he pulled out a gun, and then he and that store clerk fought for control of the gun. Then it went off.”
Grayson’s heart dropped. “Are you okay?” he suddenly blared out, which caught everybody in the car’s attention even more.
“He didn’t shoot me,” Toya said, “he shot the man behind the counter. I don’t know if he died or not, but it looked real bad.
But then Bam turns the gun on me and made me drive him back to my mama’s house.
The police chased us and we crashed. Or they crashed into us.
I was so scared I don’t remember how it happened. ”
Grayson couldn’t believe what he was hearing, or that she had the gall to tell him about it. What did any of this have to do with him? But mostly he was unusually concerned about her. Was she truly alright? And why was she incarcerated?
She explained. “They didn’t just arrest Bam when they caught us.
They arrested me too. They said I aided and abetted him, but that’s not true, Mr. Carrington.
That’s not true! I didn’t know nothing about him trying to rob that store.
I knew nothing about it. And the only reason I drove away was because he was pointing that gun at me.
He was gonna shoot me too if I didn’t do what he said. He told me that himself.”
Grayson could hardly believe what he was hearing. It sounded like something straight out of a movie.
“They locked me up,” Toya continued. “Like I was a criminal too, they locked me up.”
When she said it again, Grayson could hear her sniffles. She was crying.
“I don’t have money. I don’t have connections. I don’t have nobody else to call.”
“You have one minute,” a recorder said over the phone.
And he could hear the sudden panic in her voice.
“Please help me get out on bail, sir, so I can fight this. The BPD always putting people behind bars who don’t suppose to be there.
They do it all the time. If you help me I promise you I’ll pay you back every single dime even if it takes the rest of my life.
I just need you to get out and fight for my life.
But I can’t fight anything in jail. If you could just … ”
And then the call went dead. Her minute was up.
Grayson removed his phone from his ear, but still held it in his hand as if he was in deep contemplation.
“What was that all about?” Charlotte asked him.
“Who’s this Jameesha person?” his father asked him.
“That’s what I want to know,” his mother said.
But Grayson said nothing. He was still thinking it through.
For her to phone him with such desperation in her voice made him realize what he saw on her face that captivated him so.
It wasn’t fear like he at first thought.
It was desperation. A desperation that was ingrained within her.
She’d been living that life of quiet desperation for a very long time.
It was all over her face then, and in her voice now.
And now she needed his help. She needed him.
He made a decision and pressed the button.
His driver looked through the rearview mirror at Grayson as soon as he heard the buzz. “Sir?”
“Drop me off at the Baltimore Police Department, take my party to their destinations, and then double back to pick me up.”
Although his driver said yes sir like it was no big deal, everybody else in that limo were floored. “The police station?” his father asked him. “Have you lost your mind, Grayson? Why on earth would you be going to the police station?”
“Someone needs my help.”
“This Jameesha person? Are you joking?”
“She needs my help.”
“Then send an attorney darling,” his mother said. “You have reams of them.”
“And who is she anyway?” his father asked him again.
Dena, even more upset than his parents, couldn’t contain herself any longer. “She’s been working at the mansion.”
Sebastian looked at her. “At the mansion? At Grayson’s house?”
“Yes sir.”
“In what capacity?”
She glanced at Grayson before answering. When Grayson didn’t give her that look of disapproval he was known for, she replied. “One of the temp agencies sent her over to answer phones while our regular girl is out on maternity leave.”
“That’s who this Jameesha person is? A temporary worker answering phones?” Neither of his parents understood as they both looked at their son. “You’re going to risk your reputation for a temp agency person who answers phones for you?” His father was beside himself with umbrage.
“What’s the meaning of this, Grayson?” his mother asked, as she was equally perturbed. “I clearly don’t understand it, but if you must intervene then let the attorneys handle it. Grayson?”
“Is she pregnant?” his father asked pointblank and all three women quickly looked at Grayson.
Grayson wanted to toss every one of them out of his limousine. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said to his father.
“Then why are you doing this?” his mother asked. “Just tell us why when the lawyers can handle this.”
But Grayson wasn’t listening anymore. An attorney could try to get her out on bail alright.
But given the allegations as she laid them out to him, he knew that wasn’t going to be good enough.
He had to get those charges dropped. He didn’t even know the woman, but even he knew she wasn’t capable of aiding and abetting a robbery that turned into a shooting. He had to handle this himself.
It was an absurd tale of beer and lunch meat and a struggle for a gun and a police chase and everything else she said in between. Just preposterous on every level. But he believed her.
Maybe it was the way she took such care to comb his hair.
Or the way she gave him advice on his disheveled appearance at work when nobody else had ever dared to so much as mention it.
Maybe it was as simple as that earnest, compassionate look in her golden eyes.
But for some unfathomable reason, he believed her. He believed every single word she said.