CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was a big fat waste of time. At least as far as Ricki was concerned.
For the balance of that day, her and her parents and her big brother Davey all sat around that house talking.
They talked a lot. Or at least her father talked a lot.
Her mother said little of nothing, and Davey was, as usual, in his own world.
Ricki spoke her truth. She didn’t hold back.
She let both parents know how they failed her and her siblings.
She let them both know how they never showed anything remotely resembling love to any of them. Especially to Erica.
But to her parents’ credit, they listened to her. Both of them disagreed with her assessment of her childhood, but they listened to her. Her mother disagreed tepidly. I did the best I could, she said. Her father disagreed with long, drawn-out, ridiculous disagreements.
But mostly they just sat around and mourned Erica.
Then nighttime came and they all retired to their various bedrooms. Ricki ended up in the front of the house, in her childhood bedroom in her childhood bed.
And although she was emotionally spent, and otherwise exhausted, sleep was too difficult to achieve.
She kept checking her phone. Vince had asked for - and she had given to him - her phone number earlier that morning.
But he never phoned her once that day. She was more convinced than ever now that her initial gut instinct, that he was done with her when he left her at her parents’ home, was spot on.
Which was a shame, she thought, as she turned onto her side.
There was something about him that made her feel so secure.
He made her feel special for the first time in her life.
Every man she’d ever been with turned out to be self-centered jerks who only wanted what they could get out of the relationship, not what they could put into it.
They depleted her. Every single one of them.
But when her phone began ringing. She was so hoping that it was Vince that she quickly grabbed it off of the nightstand. But it wasn’t Vince. It was Geraldine.
“Hey, Dean.”
“Just checking to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m okay. Still at my parents’ house.”
“I been around for years, and I know black folks are changing, but I ain’t never known one to commit no suicide yet. Not me personally.”
“It’s happening more than it used to, that’s for sure,” Ricki replied, “but my sister didn’t do that. I know her. There’s no way she did that.”
“But then who did it?” Geraldine asked.
“I don’t know. But Vince has people checking on it. It’ll come to light.”
There was a pause. “Who’s Vince?” Geraldine asked.
And as soon as she asked it, Ricki realized she had slipped. “Oh. Nobody. Just this guy I know.”
“I thought you were done with men. The way you were talking, I thought you was ready to go over on the other side and give the ladies a try.”
“Me? Give up men? Girl bye. But it’s not like that. He’s just a friend.”
“Ain’t no such thing as no man friend. Especially not one that’s all into women. Anywho,” Geraldine added, “that’s not why I called you anyway.”
“Then why did you call?”
“JoJo came by the shop today. He left four hundred bucks for you.”
“Are you serious?” Ricki was pleasantly surprised. “He actually paid me back.”
“I’m stunned you loaned his dope ass four hundred dollars when you can barely pay your rent.”
“Don’t judge. He was in a fix, Dean. For real.”
“Whatever,” Geraldine said. “I’ve got to go. Got me a hot date myself. Tell Vince, whoever he is, I said hello.”
And before Ricki could make clear there was nothing to it, Geraldine ended the call.
But when Geraldine said whoever he is, it got Ricki thinking. Who was Vince really? Did he have an online presence? If he was a billionaire like her father claimed, surely there were comments about him.
She quickly Googled him. Most of the articles were all about his company Fontaine-Bachman, but a few gave personal details about Vince.
And none of it was flattering. He played hardball, they said, with everybody he came into contact with.
He was unrelenting in his pursuit of more money.
He and his public relations firm represented some of the most unsavory characters on the planet, and he rehabilitated all of their shattered reputations.
They confirmed he was one of the most eligible billionaires in America.
But what got to Ricki the most was when they said he was thrice married and thrice divorced.
All three were under prenups, but the third wife still got fifty-plus million dollars.
The other two ex-wives only got a few million because their divorces was early in his rise to super-money.
And his third divorce was final only three months ago.
Ricki couldn’t believe it. It was bad enough she was falling for a man with little or nothing in common with her, but he was also a man who had just gotten divorced three months ago. Just three months ago!
She put her phone away, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose. It was as sad as it was distressful. Because she knew it for a fact now. She knew that if there was ever a guy not to fall in love with, Vincent Fontaine was him!
She shook her head, and remembered that old line from that old television show Hee Haw: If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
She gave up on any future with Vince Fontaine, turned over again, and cried herself to sleep.
But less than an hour later, as silence fell over the Richardson home and the seventeen acres of land that surrounded that home, a car drove up and parked just before the long driveway that led up to the quiet, ranch-style house.
It was the security detail Vince had ordered to watch that home as long as Rasheda Richardson was on that property.
They had just arrived in town and got on it.
It seemed like a wholly unnecessary assignment, and they both commented about it, asking each other who was this girl that had the boss so worried about her? “I was supposed to be on a hot date tonight,” said one member of the detail, “but I get this nothing assignment.”
But that nothingness completely changed less than two hours later when what sounded like a massive sparkle being lit, and then a big pop sound being heard, and then, to the shock of the security detail in that car, a massive explosion that ripped through the entire front side of that ranch-style house and blew it apart.
And it burst into a fireball of flames and ashes.