Wealth Pt. 02

She sent Anita a text; Anita must have had her phone in her hand; the reply was immediate.

"Bye Daddy, bye Miss Stacy, like getting Anita, all right?" Toni called out as she sprinted down the stairs.

Barry pursed his lips tightly as Stacy's smirk.

It had been Stacy that had pointed out to him that his daughter and Anita were lovers. They had just finished a rather energetic lovemaking when Stacy waved at Barry to be quiet.

"What, I don't hear..." Barry said and she waved even harder for him to be quiet.

A moment later, he heard a low moan.

"What do you think..." he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Uh, what do you think that is?' she smirked. "Uh, had me doing that just ten seconds ago, huh?"

He heard a small gasp and giggle coming from Toni's room and grabbed his remote control and turned on his bedroom television, pushing the volume button hard.

Now he looked at Stacy's knowing little smirk and turned away to wipe the kitchen counter even though he had just wiped it down a second earlier.

"And that's another reason there ain't no ring on that finger; you're a arrogant little bitch," Barry thought to himself.

At the trailer, Louisa looked up from the television set and glared as Anita pulled on her coat.

"Uh, excuse me, where you think you going?" she barked.

"I'm going to work, that all right? We got another order for more soap," Anita lied.

"No it ain't all right!" Louisa shrilled. "God damn! Can't even take one day! One day be with your family?"

"What 'be with my family?' You and Luther watching football! I don't want to watch football. Marco's in his room sleeping; I don't want to be with him! I been with y'all all day and now I need to go make some soap for Saturday delivery! God!" Anita screamed.

"Fine, fine, selfish bitch!" Louisa screamed.

"What? Going doing some work is selfish? How?" Anita asked.

"Rather be doing that than just spend some time..." Louisa shrilled.

"By Mother; I spent all day with y'all," Anita snapped, opened the door, which let a chill blast of air in, stepped outside, and slammed the door closed.

"God damn, break the fucking door why don't you?" Luther bellowed angrily.

Fortunately for Anita, Toni was there in only a few minutes so she didn't have time to feel the bitter cold.

"Hey," Toni said and the two kissed quickly.

"Hey; just get me the fuck out of here, all right?" Anita said, buckling up.

"Luther? Marco?" Toni asked sympathetically.

"Mother; she's all like 'why you can't be with your family' and I'm like 'Why? Y'all are fucking useless' and..." Anita complained.

"Uh huh, and now you like know how I feel when I'm with my mom and her loser boyfriend," Toni said.

Toni gritted her teeth when she pulled up to her home; Miss Stacy's Jaguar was still in the driveway.

"Oh, and how was your Thanksgiving? Did Martha Sewage, I mean, Martha Stewart just make the like best Thanksgiving ever?" Anita asked snidely.

"Like fuck you, okay?" Toni giggled. "Honestly, it like wasn't that bad. Food was real good; she like even made that spinach artichoke dressing stuff there."

"Lucky bitch; we had frozen macaroni and cheese, canned yams, and this pre-cooked turkey and that's it," Anita groused.

"Ew!" Toni said as they entered the ice cold garage.

Two hours later, Toni declared an end to their work day.

"Take me back home, I guess," Anita said somberly. "I need to make up with my mother."

"Oh," Toni said, cuddling up to Anita. "I kind of um, like hoped you'd um, you'd like spend the night."

"Tomorrow night," Anita promised. "Remember? We got them dates?"

"Oh God, Boyd and Brett," Toni grimaced.

"Gee, I hope they'll talk about football," Anita said as she pulled her coat back on.

"You think?" Toni said. "Like I bet they don't! I bet they like talk about you know, like quantum physics and stuff."

"Like Brett could even spell Quantum Physics," Anita giggled as they hustled to Toni's car.

Chapter 13

Just as she had done from the time she could read the tags on the gifts under the Christmas tree, Toni crawled around, gathering up all the presents and distributed them.

"And like here's another one for BJ; like think you got enough?" Toni announced.

"Like I like see like she like hasn't like learned any like new like words yet," Michael said to their oldest brother.

"Like bite me," Toni said and pushed one last package over toward Barry.

"Oh, no, this is Caitlin's she like said she wants to be here when you open it," Toni said and pushed it back under the tree.

Barry fought down his smirk; Stacy had thrown a major fit when she spotted the large gaily wrapped present underneath the tree and saw the tag.

"What is it?" she had demanded of Barry.

"Beats me; came by the other day, dropped it off," Barry had shrugged.

Now, perched on the couch next to him in their living room, Stacy Falgout was doing her very best to demonstrate her matronly skills as she organized the chaos of gift unwrapping.

"Swear to God, pussy must be gold plated," Michael whispered to BJ as they rolled their eyes at Stacy's pathetic performance.

"You ever had gold-plated pussy?" BJ asked.

"Monique," Michael responded immediately.

"Aw, your ass!" BJ laughed out loud and gave his brother a slug on the arm.

When they had been younger and needed a baby sitter, Monique Breaux had been the sitter of choice. BJ had harbored a major crush on the shapely girl. A few years later, he had been crushed when she abruptly moved away and neither her mother or father would tell him where she went.

Twelve years after Monique's abrupt disappearance, Michael had seen Monique as she was coming out of a supermarket in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The only reason he recognized the obese woman with the lifeless strands of brunette and the sunken eyes was because of the girl next to her. The young girl was the spitting image of what Monique had been. There were four other children following behind the large woman that also resembled Monique's former beauty.

But Michael, a burgeoning writer, embellished the incident, creating an elaborate afternoon of wild and kinky sex for BJ's benefit.

BJ knew Michael was lying, but still smiled whenever Michael brought it up.

"Now, BJ, it's your turn," Stacy said, forcing herself to sound cheerful.

"Oh, hey, nice," BJ said after unwrapping a Saints football jersey emblazoned with the number 8 and Manning on the back. "He is still the best quarterback we ever had."

"Damned shame he never had anyone throw to," Barry agreed.

"I thought Drew Brees was..." Stacy said.

"Archie puts Drew Brees to shame," Barry, Michael, BJ and Toni all said.

"Now, how would y'all know?" Stacy demanded. "None of y'all are even old enough to remember when Archie played football. Really!"

"Got like two boys playing, both of them like got them

Super bowl rings," Toni said. "They didn't just like lick that off the wall."

"You have been around Michael too much," Barry laughed at his daughter.

"And now Michael..." Stacy intoned.

While Michael unwrapped a heavy box, Stacy turned to Barry.

"Now, why couldn't Patrick be here?" she asked peevishly.

"Because he and Debbie Don't Touch Me are at her parents' house, making them miserable," BJ answered.

"They spent Thanksgiving with us so it's only fair that they spend Christmas in Jackson," Barry said, perturbed with Stacy.

They'd had this conversation last night as they lay in his bed. She insisted on spending the night, even though he would have been fine without her there. She came out of his bathroom, dressed in only strategically placed bows, asking him if he'd like to 'unwrap' his Christmas gift early.

She was still trying to fuck him into changing his mind, still trying to fuck him into marriage.

Rather than being enjoyable, an intimacy to be shared, sex was becoming a chore for Barry.

At her trailer, Anita Lopez forced herself to smile at the cheap, gaudy baubles her mother and Luther had wasted their money on, thanking them for the gifts.

"Oh no you didn't?" Marco whooped when he pulled out the black suede tennis shoes.

"Those are the ones you wanted, right?" Anita asked him as he quickly bent to lace them up.

"You kidding?" he said.

"Well, how about that?" Luther said, pulling out the fifth of Johnny Walker blue label.

"Mr. Barry says that's his favorite and he's like an expert," Anita said.

"Well, I'm willing to bet it'll be my favorite real quick," Luther agreed.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Louisa chirped as she unwrapped the three cast iron skillets, each just a little larger than the last.

"The two larger ones also have lids," Anita pointed out. "You know how you always watching that Cast Iron Skillet show and saying if you had you a cast iron skillet? Well now you do."

"No, think I'll use them keep my man in line," Louisa said, playfully threatening Luther with the largest skillet.

Anita brought the cheap trinkets to her bedroom, put them on the rickety chest of drawers and flopped on her bed.

Suddenly she remembered that she had homework that needed to be done over the Christmas break and slid open her closet door to retrieve her book bag.

She saw the little black dress, smelled the smells of the Christmas party still in its fibers and smiled.

She and Toni had lugged the three boxes of soaps into the salon then stared at each other.

"You got the heavier coat," Anita finally pointed out.

"Here," Toni said, shrugged out of it and held the heavy coat to Anita.

"I hate you," Anita said, grabbed the car keys out of Toni's hand and braced against the cold December wind that howled off of the Atchafalaya Basin.

She grabbed the heavy box out of the trunk and scurried back into the salon. With a shudder, she handed the box to Toni.

"Miss Selena, this is gift baskets," Anita said, pulling one out of the box and showing her the cellophane wrapped basket. "See, it's got like three bar, the peppermint, gingerbread, and hot chocolate and..."

"And it's like got sample size bars of all our other soaps," Toni chimed in.

"And a peppermint candle," Anita said, proudly pointing to the slender candle. "All organic."

"Yeah," Toni said, giving Anita an affectionate squeeze; the candle had been Anita's idea and Anita was the one that had looked up how to make them and had spend her spare time developing the process.

"How much?" Selena asked.

"What you think? Like fifty..." Toni said.

"Wow, eighty nine ninety nine? Hope you brought us plenty of them!" Selena said out loud.

"Miss Terry here?" Anita asked Selena.

"Yes ma'am, like that's what we said, eighty nine ninety nine; there's like twenty of them," Toni agreed as Selena pushed the button to silently page Terry Dayton.

"Oh, I am so glad to see you; wait right there," Terry said, then turned and dashed back to her work station.

"Miss Terry, this is for you," Anita said, holding out an gift wrapped basket.

"Well, thank you so much," Terry smiled accepting the gift.

"And these are for you two; Paula and I are having a little Christmas get-together next Saturday night; please tell me you can make it," Terry said, handing Anita the two invitation envelopes.

"Put on your favorite little black dress," Selena said as Terry strode away, Anita still staring transfixed at the gilded invitation in her hand.

Selena leaned forward.

"And that chef guy does that Cast Iron Skillet show; he's doing all the cooking," Selena confided.

"Like let me guess," Toni smiled once they were back in her car, waiting for the heater to chase away the bitter chill. "You like really really really want to go."

"Oh please, can we?" Anita begged.

"Got a little black dress?" Toni asked, pulling out of the parking lot.

"Um, no," Anita admitted.

"Babbage's," Toni announced and drove toward the exclusive department store in Bender, Louisiana.

"Toni! Are you crazy? I can't..." Anita started.

A moment later, Toni looked over and saw Anita staring straight ahead.

"What? What's wrong?" Toni asked her.

"Toni, I can afford Babbage's," Anita whispered.

Now, Anita touched the simple, elegant garment and smelled the evening's festivities on it. The tag said 'Dry Clean Only' but Anita didn't know where a dry cleaner's was. She resolved to look one up on her cell phone.

The party had been at Paula Lambert's condominium and it had been Paula that opened the door. The strawberry blonde smiled and ushered them in. She wore a red Santa dress that ended just below her crotch and everyone kept complimenting her on all the weight she'd lost.

Terry, dressed in floor length dark green velvet gown that had slits up to her waist to allow movement, came, and kissed Anita and Toni on their lips, put her arm around their waists, and personally introduced the pair to each person at the party.

"This is Cindy Broussard-Robichaux and her husband, Paul Robichaux; Cindy just won that election; she's our next parish president, and Paul, as you know, is a very successful contractor," Terry said. Paul, Cindy, this is Anita Lopez and Toni Delacroix; keep your eye on them; they're going to be our next millionaires."

"Chelsea! Chelsea Guidry, this is Anita and Toni; believe me, you want to interview them; they are the next big thing to hit Louisiana," Terry introduced them to the Channel 12 reporter.

Paula took her place at the head of the elegant table, Terry sitting to Paula's right. Anita wanted to swoon; Terry insisted that she and Toni sit next to her at the table.

Sophia Coutre, Paula's attorney, and now Anita and Toni's attorney as well, offered a simple blessing.

Before Toni could stop herself, she loudly announced "And God bless the cook!"

"Amen!" everyone at the table laughed and Milt Duhon beamed at the now furiously blushing teenager.

"Amen," Paula agreed, smiling at the girl. "Sometimes, I get so caught up in my own little world, I just take for

granted all the hard work others put into it. God Bless the cook."

Anita watched the elegance and grace which Terry conducted herself and blurted out, "Were you a model before you became a hair stylist?"

Terry looked startled and for a split second, Anita saw a little girl. Then Terry smiled and grabbed Anita's hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

"No Sweetheart; I was a car hop at Clark's Drive-In," she quietly told the girl. "I lived in Section Eight housing with my aunt, didn't ever see any way out of it, then Paula said to me, 'If you could do anything, anything at all in the world, what would you want to do?' and I told her 'I want to open my own hair salon' and so she paid for me to go to school," Terry started her tale.

"One day, this beautiful girl was dragged into my salon by her best friend, and they said 'we want to sell soap' and I said 'okay then, sell soap,'" Terry smiled and used her knife to cut more of the goose breast. "And in three or four years, you'll say to some young lady 'if you could do anything, anything in the world, what would it be?' and you're going to help her do it. Yes, God bless the cook, and the hair stylist, and the soap maker and the candle maker."

Now, a week after that party, Anita smelled the dress and forgot about looking for a dry cleaner.

At the Delacroix house, they were slowly gathering the wrapping papers and making sure to not accidentally grab any gifts hidden in the papers.

"Caitlin's like on her way," Toni announced, much to Stacy's annoyance.

"Thank you so much," Stacy fawned to Barry, holding out her wrist, which now displayed a Rolex watch.

"Welcome; said that Seiko of yours would cost more to fix than it was worth, right?" Barry said, wishing Stacy would go brush her teeth.

"Heeeeey!" Caitlin drawled out, hugging Michael when he opened the door for her.

"Hey, Toothpick," Michael agreed, calling her by her hated nickname.

"Shut up! Was going to tell you 'Merry Christmas' but you can just forget it now!" Caitlin screeched.

"Don't worry," BJ said, hugging the girl. "I won't call you 'Tooth Pick' all right?"

"Well Merry Christmas to you," Caitlin said.

"Even though you are," BJ finished, then laughed when a surly Caitlin slapped him on his arm.

"Did you open it yet?" Caitlin asked Barry as she skipped into the living room.

"No, I was told under no circumstances was I to open that box until you got here," Barry smiled and held out two small boxes to her.

"Oh, Barry, you didn't have to get me anything!" Caitlin protested; her protest being genuine.

Stacy ground her teeth and busied herself with finding those small scraps of paper that fall to the floor when gifts are unwrapped.

"Go ahead, open it," Caitlin urged, taking the seat next to Barry.

"Okay," Barry said, using a crystal letter opener to cut through the paper.

"What is it?" BJ asked.

"Oh my God, where in the world did you ever find this?" Barry asked, stunned.

"Mister Henry helped me," Caitlin admitted.

"What is it?" BJ asked again.

"It's a Service Manual for a Nineteen Sixty Five T Series Bentley," Barry said, carefully undoing the leather strap and buckle that held it closed.

Stacy actually felt nauseous; her gifts of leather attaché case and two silk ties paled in comparison to the girl's

gift.

"That's the car you got out there, right?" Caitlin asked as Barry carefully turned the brittle pages.

"Yes it is," Barry said, still amazed at what he held in his hands.

"You little fucking cunt!" Stacy screamed, launching herself at Caitlin.

Barry stood, putting himself in between Stacy and Caitlin.

Michael grabbed Stacy around the waist, holding her back.

"Stacy! Really! It is Christmas!" Barry said.

Stacy glared white hot hatred at Caitlin, who just looked back with complete unconcern. Stacy whirled and dashed up the stairs.

"Got any guns up there, Dad?" BJ asked.

"Not yet," Barry said.

"Like, go ahead, I want to see what he got you," Toni finally said after a few moments had elapsed.

"Oh!" Caitlin gasped, looking at the St. Thomas Aquinas class ring.

"Toni said you didn't have one," Barry offered.

"Couldn't afford one," Caitlin admitted.

"But you could afford..." Barry asked, indicating his treasure.

"That's different," Caitlin said, looking into his blue eyes. "That's for you."

"Oh wow," BJ said, sharing a look with Michael.

Now dressed in her long coat, Stacy barged down the stairs and out the front door.

"Hey!" Toni protested; Stacy did not bother closing the door and the bitter December wind blew into the house.

Michael closed the door, shaking his head.

Outside, in her car, Stacy wanted to scream with rage; BJ and Michael's cars had her blocked. But rather than go back into the house and ask them to kindly come move their cars, rather than have to face any of them, she decided to cut across the lawn.

"Are you believing this shit?" BJ asked Michael as they watched the Jaguar become bogged down in the soft earth of Barry's meticulously arranged tulip garden.

"Hey, Dad, how much them tulips cost you?" Michael called out

"I don't know, about a thousand, why?" Barry asked, coming into the foyer.

"What in the world?" he asked as he watched Stacy's tires thrash through his garden.

"My car!" Caitlin cried out as Stacy's car finally gained traction and catapulted forward, smashing into Caitlin's

car.

"I am sincerely sorry about this; I'll get you a loaner," Barry promised.

"Can I have that Maserati?" Caitlin asked, watching as Stacy sped away.

"In your dreams, kid, in your dreams," Barry shook his head as he called 911.

Chapter 14

Sadie had greeted Mommy with yelping barks and whines; she'd been cooped up in the condo's small laundry room all night.

"Not now, Sadie," Stacy demanded, dropping car keys on the counter.

Sadie responded with more yelping whines.