Raw Deal (Beauty for Ashes: Book One) (58 page)

I switched to the fashion channel. They were on a commercial break, so I switched to the entertainment news channel. To my surprise, my mom’s beauty consultancy,
Flawless
, was being reviewed. They showed a couple of celebrities testifying to my mom’s sheer brilliance, and then my mom’s face flashed on-screen.

The beautiful Rachel Dixon is currently in Dallas setting up Flawless for the women of the South. Her daughter, Lexi Dixon, is a model and has worked for the likes of Roz Petroz and Moschino.

They showed a clip of me on the runway, and I smiled. “Mommy’s still going to be a supermodel. She’s just taking a little break,” I told Crystal. She was still awake but only just.

The piece on my mom came to an end, and I reduced the volume as the commercial break began. At least my mom was still alive. I’d been trying to get through to her for months. I hadn’t spoken to her all year. I missed her, and I wanted to tell her about her grandchild.

Crystal had put her small thumb in her little pink mouth. Her long, dark eyelashes almost touched her delicate cheeks. I studied her critically. She was probably more likely to be Dan’s than Carl’s. She was even more likely to be Professor Jackson’s than Carl’s. Dan and Professor Jackson were both dark, and Carl was fair with blond hair and blue eyes. I hoped she had indeed taken her looks from me, because if Carl too decided to get a DNA test, I didn’t know what would happen if it turned out she wasn’t his.

A new show started, and my eyes were drawn back to the TV. Hollywood’s top ten craziest party girls! The countdown began with a blond pop singer. I grinned at the ridiculous outfits she was fond of wearing. Her stylist needed sacking.

As the countdown progressed, I analyzed the celebrities’ clothes. The model in the number six spot wore a dress similar to the one I’d worn to Michelle and Matt’s wedding, only hers was white and got torn before her night out at a club was over.

At number five, we have Hotel Heiress Jamie Price, who parties like it’s going out of fashion. She’s already planning three parties for her twenty-first birthday in December—one in LA, one in New York, and one in London.

I looked at the TV, and my mouth dropped as I stared gob smacked at the footage of Jamie Price dancing on a podium in a club, dressed like a hoochie. I wondered what Jace thought of her partying.

I watched the rest of the countdown and then decided to go upstairs and see what Carl was up to. I tiptoed up the stairs with a sleeping Crystal drooling onto my shoulder and opened the bedroom door. Carl was fast asleep.

***

“What’s this about?” Carl asked furiously, shaking a letter at me.

The white envelope had arrived that morning addressed to Carl, and I had set it aside for him.

“Lexi, when is all this drama going to stop?” Carl asked, his face reddening to an angry crimson.

I sat Crystal down in her baby bouncer and went to get the letter from Carl to see what was making him so angry.

It was from Prestige Law Firm. Maybe Carl had been done for drink driving or something. I started to read:
Carl Layton, I have been advised by my client Daniel Black…

I stopped reading and just scanned the rest of the page, my heart constricting. Words like DNA test and child support jumped out at me. What was Dan’s problem? Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?

Addressing the letter to Carl had been a smart move. That way, Carl would definitely see it.

“Is it Dan’s?”

“Don’t call my baby ‘it’. She has a name,” I sputtered.

“Not if she’s not mine.”

“She is yours.”

“If Dan thinks there’s a chance she could be his, that means you’ve been cheating on me, like I always suspected.”

I decided to come clean. “It was last year when you brought a girl home.

“I knew it!”

“You were cheating on me too!” I looked at Crystal and quickly lowered my voice. “Don’t get all self-righteous, Carl.”

Carl looked like he might explode. Instead, he left the room, slamming the door with a loud bang. I heard Louise asking him what the matter was on the other side of the door.

“Ask my so-called wife,” he yelled. Soon the front door slammed too.

Louise came to the living room. “What’s going on?”

I gave her the letter. She read it then folded it up. “You been fooling around?”

“I’ve only cheated on Carl twice. And to be honest, I had every right, because he was cheating on me too. He always has, and he still does.”

“Well, is Crystal Carl’s?”

I burst into tears. “I don’t know.” Louise pulled me into a motherly hug. “I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s not. Carl will go mad. I’ll have to leave. I think I better start packing now.”

“Do you want me to pray with you?”

I pulled back from Louise. Why hadn’t I guessed she was a Christian? “Okay.”

Louise took my hands. “Dear Jesus, thank you because you love Lexi so much. I pray now because things have been going wrong in her marriage for so long, but I want you to prove to her that you are in control. If Crystal is not Carl’s child, then I ask that you soften his heart so that when he finds out he’ll forgive her. Give Lexi the grace and the strength to cope with whatever happens. And draw her close to you through whatever circumstances she may have to experience. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Louise opened her eyes and squeezed my hands.

I didn’t bother wiping away the tears in my eyes. “Thanks. I wish I had your faith. I wish I could just say a prayer and be filled with peace, but I can’t.”

“Prayer doesn’t always fill me with peace, but faith is not about what you feel. It’s about what you know and what you believe.”

I looked at the clock. “You should have left by now.”

“Dinner took me a while today. I thought I’d treat you guys.” Louise released my hands. “See you in the morning. You have my number, don’t you? Call me if you need anything or if you need to talk.”

“Okay.”

Louise left the room. She returned a few minutes later and set a mug of hot chocolate on the table and then left.

I reached for the mug and took a sip. It scalded me as it slid down my throat, but I barely noticed. When I finished, I went to the kitchen to make another cup. Carl came home while I was pouring in a sizeable amount of sugar. He stood in the kitchen doorway. I picked up the mug and tried to walk past him to go to the living room.

He blocked me. “Is that baby mine or Dan’s? Or someone else’s?”

I caught a whiff of alcohol on Carl’s breath. I knew better than to engage in an argument right now.

Carl pushed me, sending scalding hot chocolate all over my hand. Some splashed onto my face. I screamed. “Answer my question!” Carl yelled.

I set the mug down on the table and ducked Carl’s flying fist. “Carl, why don’t you wait until we do a test and you see the results before you get angry?”

This time I wasn’t quick enough, and Carl slugged me hitting me in the jaw. I tasted blood.

Carl staggered slightly, his drunkenness making him unbalanced. I seized the opportunity and dashed from the kitchen. I ran up the stairs and locked myself in one of our bathrooms and turned on the cold water faucet. I rinsed my mouth over and over until the bleeding stopped, then I sat in the bathtub and cried. I didn’t dare look in the mirror for fear of what I would look like.

“
God, you have to help me if You’re there,”
my heart cried out.
“Please, God. I will go to church and become a Christian. Just get me out of all this.”
I swore and punched the side of the bathtub. Why was I praying? If God was there, I wouldn’t be in this state to begin with. And the starving children in Africa wouldn’t be starving. There’d be no wars, and there’d be no diseases. The atrocities of the world were all testimony to the fact that there was no God. I punched the bathtub again, punishing an inanimate object for my pain. I felt like any moment I was going to snap and just go crazy.

I heard Carl leave the house after a while, and I wondered if it was a ploy to lure me from the bathroom so that we could have round two. Then I remembered that Carl was drunk. He wouldn’t be thinking that intelligently.

I let myself out of the bathroom and descended the stairs painfully. My hands and arms had reddened where the hot chocolate had burned me. Poisonous hatred writhed within me like a viper. I was leaving Carl, and I was leaving him now. I’d had enough of this!

I went to the living room to get Crystal from her bouncer. It was empty! I choked back a sob. What had Carl done with her? I ran around all the rooms downstairs, frantically searching for her even though I knew I had left her in her bouncer. I went back to the living room and dropped onto the hard wooden floor, ignoring the pain of the tender skin of my hands and arms, and forgetting my throbbing nose and jaw. If anything happened to Crystal I would never forgive myself. If Carl did anything to her, I would hunt him down myself and murder him. I didn’t care if I’d spend the rest of my life in jail. I didn’t care if they put me on death row and tortured me for weeks before killing me.

I rose to my feet and grabbed the phone and dialed Carl’s car phone. “Where’s Crystal?” I demanded as soon as he picked up.

“I’m taking her for a DNA test. I have to know if she’s mine.”

“You’ve been drinking. I can’t believe you’re driving her when you’ve been drinking.”

“I had one beer.”

“But don’t you need to have an appointment for this? You can’t just show up and expect a DNA test on the spot.”

“Dan’s booked us in.” Carl hung up. I called him back, but he didn’t answer.

I sat on the couch and waited. Carl didn’t come back for hours, and it just rang out whenever I called him.

***

I woke with a start when Carl got home. It was ten past two in the morning, and I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He came into the den and put Crystal in her bouncer. She was crying wildly, probably hungry. I jumped up and went to get her.

Carl slammed a letter onto the table and walked out. I heard him leave.

I picked up the letter and stuffed it into my pocket. “Let’s get you something to eat first,” I said softly to Crystal. I took her to the kitchen and made her milk. The poor child was probably starving. How could Carl not think to take a bottle with him?

She sucked her bottle hungrily, and I balanced her in one arm and took the piece of paper from my pocket. It was the DNA test results. Crystal was Carl’s!

I felt my hatred for Carl increase a notch. So why hadn’t he apologized? Why had he stormed out of the house as if he’d found out that Crystal was Dan’s?

I smiled down at Crystal, and my tears fell onto her face. “So you’re Carl’s after all. You just decided to only look like me.” I wiped my tears from her cheek. “Clever girl, you don’t want to look anything like that Carl. He ain’t all that good-looking.”

Crystal finished her bottle, and we both went to sleep. She had me up again at six, and I took her down to the kitchen for another feed.

When she finished, I took her to the study and put her in her bouncer chair. She waved her hands and kicked her feet, smiling. I watched her lovingly. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I didn’t care who her father was. But I guess it was lucky for me that it was Carl.

I packed Crystal’s bottles, sterilizer, milk, and a hot water flask to the study so that I wouldn’t have to come out all day. I didn’t want Louise to see me and know that Carl and I had fought. I left the DNA test result on the kitchen table so that she’d see it when she came in later. I wrote her a note saying that I would stay in the study all day, and that I would prefer it if she didn’t disturb me because I wanted to be alone. I told her she could leave at noon even if she hadn’t finished her work.

Before long, Crystal fell asleep. I was tired too, but I couldn’t sleep. I took a novel from the shelf and started to read. I heard when Louise arrived. I listened to all the homely sounds she made. Around eleven, she started cooking.
Green bean casserole,
I guessed. My stomach rumbled.

Carl was supposed to be at college until five, so I was surprised when I heard the doorbell. He had better not come into the study.

I glared at my book angrily when the study door was flung open. I looked up and nearly died from shock. “Jace?”

It couldn’t be Jace. It had to be a ghost!

Jace stopped. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”

I looked away, and Jace came and sat next to me. “Lexi, what happened?”

“You have to leave, Jace. How did you even find this place?”

“You answer my question, and then I’ll answer yours.”

A tear dropped onto my book, and I shut it. “Close the door.”

Jace went to shut the door, and I tried to pull myself together. I had told Louise I didn’t want to be disturbed. Why had she let Jace in? He came back and sat next to me.

I looked down at the floor and let my hair fall over my face. Jace pushed my hair back, and I swatted his hand away.

Crystal chose that moment to wake up. She started kicking her legs and moaning. Jace looked at me. “Are you, uh, babysitting?”