CHAPTER 16
“
T
hat bitch is really Sable!” I whispered to Bunni as we stood locked in my bathroom with the doors to our suites closed up tight. “That's
her
!”
Bunni nodded with her eyes all big and wide. “I know, girl. Ain't that some shit? But you and her look just alike. You think y'all might be related or something?”
“Hell no!” I shook my head. “Everybody got a twin somewhere in the world who looks just like them. Her people probably came up outta the same grimy Louisiana swamps as the LaRues.”
“Well, mami got her a
real
DNA test!”
“I know. And ya fuckin' pain slut Kelvin at the lab better act like he know! I paid him good money and he better not bust us out!”
“Don't worry, I got his freaky ass in check. But how in the hell did that broad find out about the money?”
I shrugged and boosted myself up on the edge of the sink. “Probably the same way we found out about it. She saw Sable's picture somewhere and did a little digging around, and bam. She bumped into the same shit on the Internet that we did. Damn! Why that dusty bitch had to turn up right
now
?”
“I'on't know,” Bunni said, frowning, “but did you see that critter's
feet
?”
“Crusty!” I blurted. “Straight crusty!”
“And the heels on them turned-over shoes?”
“Kickstands! Lean wit' it, rock wit' it!”
“So what we gonna do now? They ain't gonna give that money up to both of y'all, and we sure as hell can't take our asses back to Harlem broke!”
I thought about Gutta laying in a New York cut and ready to strangle me, and I shook my head. No, hell nah we couldn't go back broke. We just couldn't.
I slid down off the sink and started pacing the floor. They had put Dy-Nasty in a suite that was right off of Selah's, and it pissed me off that she might be up there sticking her dirty tongue all down in Selah's ear.
My mouth was dry as shit and my stomach was in knots as I tried to come up with a whammy. I didn't know how the hell I was gonna get outta this one but the look in Selah's eyes made me think my lil con number was definitely up.
Me and Bunni were deep in scheme-mode and burning up our brain cells when Dane hit me on my cell and told us to meet him in his crib. “I figured this shit out,” he said as we got lit and smoked some hash in his bedroom. Dane's get-high was exactly what I needed right now because my ass was totally shook. Selah had called him and Barron upstairs to her suite and I couldn't wait to hear what he had to say.
“Bump is tryna fuck you up,” Dane told me as he passed me a straight shot of gin. “He's tryna fuck both you
and
DyNasty up.”
I tossed the gin back real fast and almost peed on myself when all that pure alcohol burned a hot trail of fire down my throat. “What you mean?” I said, coughing hard with tears coming outta my eyes. “What the hell you talkin' about?”
“Bump's a strategist, Mink. He's a real slick lawyer. He's setting both of y'all up. Tryna play y'all both into a trap. That nigga don't care which one of y'all is really Sable. He don't give a damn about none of that. But what he does give a damn about is that trust fund and control of Dominion Oil.”
I wiped my eyes and shook my head. “What does all that got to do with me and Dy-Nasty? Why would he bring that dusty trick all the way down here if he thought she was lying?”
“Because,” Dane said, tryna break it down to me. “He's gonna try to take both of y'all down at one time. Check it out. If he can prove to the board that Dy-Nasty is really Sable, then two things happen. One, it knocks you outta the fight for the trust fund, because obviously if that chick is really Sable, then you ain't. And if she
is
Sable, well, c'mon. Y'all saw what she looked like. Like he snatched her up right outta Strip Clubs R Us. He's probably got pictures of her swinging off a pole and everything. Mama might not care about none of that, but the board damn sure will.”
“That slick-ass dog,” Bunni said, toking real hard on the stick of hash. “He's tryna catch y'all in a cross-con, Mink. You know how that shit goes. He's gonna use you and Dy-Nasty to cancel each other out!”
I sat there with my head spinning. I needed me another shot. And another joint too.
“So how the hell are we gonna get around him?” I asked Dane, praying he had some answers. I was way too pressed out to come up with anything. My scheme bag was bone dry.
“That's easy,” Bunni said. “All you gotta do is make friends with Dy-Nasty. Be nice to the bitch.”
I gave her a shitty look. “Make friends with her? Bunni put that hash down! That chickenhead got a major attitude problem.
Me
be nice to
her
? You must be trippin'.”
“Damn,” Bunni said, shooting me a look of disgust. “I gotta get you outta all this Texas heat, Mink, because your brain done got fried. It don't matter whether you like DyNasty or not, you gotta make friends with her. At least for a little while.”
“Why?” I demanded. I didn't see where Bunni was going and I wasn't feeling her logic at all.
“Because,” Bunni said simply. “We might be able to use her ass one day. You know how that shit goes. You gotta keep your friends real close, but your enemies even closer.”
Â
Everybody was real excited at breakfast the next morning. Everybody except me. Bunni had started snoring like a truck driver the minute her head hit the pillow, but I had stayed up tossing and turning and worrying like hell for half the damn night. All I could think about was the three-hundred-grand pay day that was about to slip through my fingers. Dy-Nasty had come pissing in my territory at the worst possible time, and unless I came up with something to convince Selah and the rest of the family that she was the fraud and I was telling the truth, everything I had worked for was gonna go up in smoke.
I had started to go upstairs and climb in the bed with Selah and order in breakfast the way she liked me to, but I felt kinda funny inside, and the way she had fronted me off in front of everybody made me wonder.
Instead, I waited around for the cooks to start banging the pots and pans. Everybody in the family showed up for the grits, pancakes, sausage, and egg breakfast that Miss Katie had cooked, and the only person who was missing was Pilar's boyfriend, Ray. I had planned on getting a seat at the table right next to Selah's, but by the time I got downstairs Barron was already sitting on one side of her, and Dy-Nasty had stolen the seat on her other side. The seat that was supposed to be
mine.
I ended up sitting between Bunni and Fallon, and when I glanced down the table at Selah she was so busy listening to Dy-Nasty run off at the mouth that she didn't even look at me.
“Let's go ahead and bless the food,” Barron said as soon as the maids had set all the serving trays out. We all held hands and bowed our heads, but I was peeking outta one eye the whole time he prayed.
“Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for all the blessings You have bestowed upon this family. Thank You for our health, our wealth, and the many gifts that You have seen fit to allow into our lives. But most important, bless You for allowing me to meet Dy-Nasty so that our lost little sister could finally come home to her family. In Jesus' name, amen.”
I coulda put my foot straight up Barron's ass! Instead, I sat there with a brick in my stomach and mad attitude steaming in my chest. I couldn't even move as everybody started reaching for the platters full of food and fixing their plates. I took two sausage links and a spoonful of grits. Bunni piled her plate up. She picked up her sausages with her hands and tore them in little chunks, then mixed everything together, the sausage, cheesy eggs, grits, and hash browns, all in one nasty-looking lump.
“Y'all got any hot sauce?” she asked one of the servers. The old lady nodded and went to get it, but when she came back holding out a bottle of Texas Pete's to Bunni, Dy-Nasty jumped her ass up and snatched it right outta the old lady's hand.
“Ooh! Hot sauce!” Dy-Nasty shrieked like it was a bottle of tequila and tomato juice. She shot Bunni a slick hater look and then opened it up and started shaking the sauce all over her food. That chick shook for a good minute too. By the time she was done her whole plate was swimming in that mess and half the bottle was empty.
“Yum,” she said, setting the bottle down way on the other side of her plate. I frowned as she dug into her food like her fork was a snow shovel. This trick ate worse than Bunni did, who was sitting next to me burning on fire and still waiting on her hot sauce.
“Pass the damn hot sauce!” Bunni barked, and Barron had the nerve to turn his nose up and look at her like,
Damn! Have some manners!
Pilar was the first one to dig up Dy-Nasty's ass and she didn't treat her no better than she had treated me when I first came to Texas. “I don't know about you guys,” she said, holding a piece of buttered toast in her hand, “but this just seems so crazy to me. You know, like it's déjà vu and we've all been in this situation before.” She put her toast down and picked up a sausage link. She took a real tiny bite off the tip and then pointed it straight at Dy-Nasty.
“So, what's your story, Dy-Nasty? I mean, we've got two of you sitting here claiming to be Sable and no doubt going after her share of the trust fund, but at least we know a little bit about Mink. Who the hell are you?”
“I already told you,” Dy-Nasty rolled her eyes and said all funky-like. “I'm Dy-Nasty. Capital
d
, capital
n
, with a dash between the
n
and the
y
.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Pilar waved her sausage around in aggravated little circles. “You've got your name down pat. We already got that part. But where did you come from?”
“From my mother's wound!” Dy-Nasty snapped. “Where the hell did
you
come from?”
“Ay,” Dane said. He reached over and play-punched her on the shoulder and grinned with his mouth full of food. “It's all good, baby D. The fam is just curious, that's all. Ain't nobody jumping on you, they just asking a few questions, okay?”
Dy-Nasty took a quick peek at Barron. She did it so quick, and with such smooth slickness that nobody else mighta saw it. But I sure as hell did.
“Well what else do y'all need to know? I'm Dy-Nasty. I'm twenty-one, I grew up in Philly, and I'm an only child.”
“So what made you decide to go after the money?” That was Bunni for you. Getting all in it when she wasn't even family herself!
I was surprised when Selah cut in real softly before DyNasty could answer. “Are your parents still alive, Dy-Nasty? You took a DNA test, but what made you think you were Sable? Surely your mother never told you that she kidnapped you, did she?”
I wanted to toss my damn plate up in the air when that trick tried to bust my old move.
“No, she didn't never say nothing like that, but umm, I always knew I was different from the rest of my family.”
“Hey! I already said that!” I reminded Selah. “I'm the one who said that first!”
“But did you ever think,” Selah igged me and continued questioning Dy-Nasty, “that your mother wasn't your real mother? Did you ever get the feeling that you belonged with someone else?”
Barron had been coaching this chick. I could tell by the questioning little looks she kept sliding him on the sneak tip. His ass had already schooled her on exactly what she needed to say.
“Yeah,” Pilar jumped back in. “If you
are
Sable, and if your mother really
did
steal you from that drugstore, then she needs to go to jail and answer for her crimes!”
I just knew this trick was gonna keep biting my flow and monkeying my moves, but she shocked me when she stared into her grits and got all emotional and shit.
“Look,” she said, all of a sudden playing like she was soft. “This ain't fair! I don't even know y'all like that and everybody's tryna get all up in my head. I been through a lot in my life, okay? I wasn't raised with all this”âshe looked around the huge, beautifully decorated dining roomâ“
fancy
shit.”
Cursing in front of Selah? Slack-ass heathen! We all gave her the look. Even Barron.
“I remember one day when I was about five,” Dy-Nasty went right on talking. “I was playing in my mother's closet and I found a little outfit balled up in a plastic bag that I thought would look good on my new doll baby. She was one of them real big dolls with blond hair and blue eyes, and the only clothes she had was a fake diaper and a dirty little undershirt.”
She swallowed hard and made her bottom lip tremble like shit was about to get real emotional.
Old trick,
I wanted to scream at her ass.
That's a real old trick!