CHAPTER SIX
“Rasheda? Rasheda Richardson? Is that you?”
Ricki had parked her Mustang two blocks from the salon and had made it to the front of her place of work when the two ladies stopped her. At first she wasn’t certain who they were. And then she recognized one of them. They went to high school together back in Connecticut. “Barb?”
“Girl, it’s been years,” Barbara Kocklin said as they embraced.
“I haven’t seen you in ages. Let me look at you.
” She pulled her back. Whereas Barbara was decked down in Prada head to toe and her hair and makeup professionally done, Ricki was the exact opposite.
And it showed on Barbara’s face. “Well. You’ve changed. ”
Ricki didn’t see how. “You think so?”
“Yes! Are you serious?” Barbara spoke as if it was self-evident. She even glanced at the friend beside her, who didn’t know Ricki at all, as if she could see it too. “Back in Milton, you used to out-dress me. You were one of the best dressed girls in the whole school. What happened?”
It was the same question Byron had asked her three months ago.
She didn’t answer Byron, and she sure as hell wasn’t answering Barbara.
But she and Barb were more frenemies than friends anyway.
Everything was a competition for Barb when Ricki was just being Ricki. “Nothing happened,” she said instead.
“Uh-hun.” It was obvious that Barbara didn’t believe her.
“So how have you been, Barb? You live in Brooklyn too?”
Barb smiled. Her friend laughed. “Me? Live in Brooklyn? Of course not silly! Oh, by the way, this is my colleague Gweneth. She and I are attorneys at the same law firm. Gweneth, this is Rasheda.”
“Everybody calls me Ricki,” said Ricki, attempting to be pleasant although the interaction was anything but.
“Nice to meet you.”
“We’re attorneys,” Barbara was quick to point out, although she’d already pointed it out.
“That’s nice,” said Ricki.
“But I’ll bet you surpassed me by leaps and bounds,” said Barbara and Gweneth tried her best not to smile, although a grin broke free. “She was voted most likely to succeed in our high school class. Weren’t you, Rasheda?”
“Yes, I was.”
“So tell me. I’m just a little old lawyer. What are you? And what are you doing in this godforsaken place?”
Ricki hated snobs, which she could tell Barbara had become. “Godforsaken?”
“You know what I mean,” Barbara said with a smile. “I’m here because we’re meeting with a very unsavory client. Most disagreeable. But one that will be a very lucrative client if we win our lawsuit. What about you? What are you doing here?”
“I work here.”
“Truly?” She looked around at the working-class area. “Doing what?”
“Hair. I’m a beautician. I work right here.” Ricki showed her the storefront salon with Geraldine’s written in a semi-circle across the window.
It was as if she’d just told Barbara she robbed banks for a living. “Wow. Okay. But you own the salon surely?”
“No I don’t own it, Barb. I just work there.”
“With your own booth making your own money?”
“No. I get a salary. Any more questions?”
Barbara took offense. “It’s not my fault you failed. You don’t have to be all snippy about it.”
“And you don’t have to be an asshole about it,” Ricki said. “Bye bitch,” she added with bite in her voice as she headed across the sidewalk to the salon entrance.
“Isn’t she awful?” Barbara said as she and her friend began leaving.
“What a lowlife,” her friend agreed.
But Ricki didn’t care. It was that spotlight again. It was a chance for competitive Barb to prove, once and for all, that she won the battle. That they had it all wrong and she was the most likely to succeed. But Ricki could have told her that back then.
Inside the salon, Geraldine, the owner, was standing at the front counter with a customer. “I said no.”
“Come on, Geraldine, please.” A client was begging her as Ricki walked in.
“And I say no again. Do I look like a charity to you? This a salon. You got to pay to get your hair done up in here.”
“I’m gonna pay. Next week when I get paid you’ll get your money.”
“Then you come back next week with the coins, and we’ll be happy to do your hair,” said Geraldine. “You’re late,” she said to Ricki.
“No I’m not,” Ricki said as she glanced up at the clock on the wall behind the counter. It was two minutes before noon: her clock-in time.
“She’ll do it for me. Won’t you, Ricki?”
Geraldine laughed. “Girl, you better get on from round here. You’ll stand a better chance of Donald Trump doing your hair than Ricki Richardson!”
“All I need is four big braids. That’s all, Ricki. I’ll pay next week. But tomorrow I have a job interview. A job that’ll change my life if I can get it. I can’t go with my hair looking like this.”
Ricki gave more hairdos on credit than anybody else in the salon. Problem was, only a few kept their word and returned when they got paid next week with the cash. And every time, that hairdo came out of Ricki’s paycheck. “If you’re lying to me, Neika, I’ll track you down like a hit man.”
“I’m not lying, I declare I’m not.” The salon phone began ringing. Geraldine answered it. “You’ll get your money. I’m good for it and you know it.”
It was the same thing JoJo had said to her. But the girl’s hair was jacked-up. And if she did have a job interview that could change her life. And after that, maybe she’d get out of this life of struggling. “Okay. But just four braids.”
“That’s all I need,” Neika said.
“It’s for you,” said Geraldine.
“For me? Who is it?”
“Didn’t I tell you about personal calls on my phone? What happened to your cell phone?”
“Nothing. I got it right here. Who is it?”
“Some cop.”
A cop? Ricki’s heart dropped. She took the phone from Geraldine. “Hello?”
“Is this Rasheda Richardson?”
“Yes it is. Who is this?”
“I’m Sergeant Austin with the Milton PD. Your sister wanted me to call and tell you that her bail hearing has been set for four p.m. today.”
Ricki was puzzled. “Bail hearing? What bail hearing?”
“The bail hearing that will determine if she gets out until trial, or have to stay in jail.”
“What do you mean? There’s been some mistake. My sister isn’t in jail.”
“Is your sister Erica Richardson?”
“Yes, but--”
“Then there’s no mistake. She’s been arrested for the murder of Dr. Harvey Proctor.”
“Murder?” Ricki gripped the phone with both of her hands as Geraldine and Neika both looked at her. “You’re accusing my sister of murdering Dr. Proctor?”
“She’s been arrested for his homicide, yes ma’am.”
“But that can’t be right. Put her on the phone. Let me talk to her.”
“No can do. She’s still being processed in. She asked me to call you, I called you. Her bail hearing will be this afternoon, 4p.m., in courtroom seven. Good day.” And he ended the call.
Ricki was so blown away she could hardly think straight. Geraldine took the phone from her. “What is it, Ricki?”
“They’re saying my sister murdered somebody.”
“Wow,” said Neika. “Murder?”
“Who they’re saying she murdered?” Geraldine asked.
“Dr. Proctor.”
Geraldine was confused. “Who’s Dr. Proctor?”
But Ricki was still in a state of shock. “They’re saying my sister murdered Dr. Proctor.”
“Wow,” said Neika again.
Ricki looked at a stunned Geraldine. “I need to go to Milton.”
“Then go. We’ll hold it down until you get back. You go see about your sister.”
Ricki nodded. “Thanks.” Then she looked at Neika, distress all over her face. “I won’t be able to do your hair today.”
“Of course not,” said a still-stunned Neika.
“I’ll get somebody to do it for her,” said Geraldine. “You just go and take care of your sister. That’s the baby sister you told me about, right?”
“That’s the only sister I have, yes. And I know what you’re thinking. She do what she do. Yes, she does. But she could never in a million years murder anybody. Never.” Then Ricki hurried out of the salon.
“That’s what they all say,” Geraldine said.
“Their loved ones can never in a million years do it. Never, ever. And that sister of Ricki’s was already a troubled soul.
But never in a million years could she harm a flea.
Jeffrey Dahmer’s family probably thought he would never in a million years eat people. But he ate’em.”
Neika looked at her. “Wow. You think her sister ate that doctor?”
“What?” Geraldine looked at her as if she couldn’t believe she just said that. Then she shook her head. “Stupid people have no business living. None whatsoever! Jurita? She yelled toward the back of her salon.
“Ma’am?”
“Do Neika’s hair. Four big braids and that’s it.”
“Yes ma’am. Come on back, Neek.”
Neika didn’t hesitate. She hurried to the back of the salon to get away from the woman that just called her stupid.
But Geraldine wasn’t thinking about Neika. She was thinking about Ricki and how she once told her that that baby sister of hers was nothing but trouble. With a capital T, she remembered Ricki said. Now this? Murder?
She said a quiet prayer because she knew Ricki was going to do everything in her power to help that trouble. That was how she rolled. Ricki was a helper. The only person she never bothered to help, if you asked Geraldine, was herself.