Mick Sinatra_Heat Wave Read online

  “What happened to that previous boyfriend ol’ boy didn’t like?” Shaun asked her.

  “It wasn’t pretty,” Gloria said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Let’s hope he likes you,” was all she would say to Shaun’s question, as she released herself from his grasp and got into the shower.

  Shaun was a little rattled. It wasn’t pretty? Let’s hope he likes you? What the fuck was he getting himself mixed up in? Before he got to know Gloria at all, but had only been introduced to her, he thought it would be cool to date Mick the Tick’s daughter. Mick the Tick was a legend in North Philly, where he hung out. But as Shaun shook the last of the pee off of his big dick, he was beginning to wonder if all of those legendary tales about the man, and how he was one cold and vicious motherfucker, were actually true.

  He thought those old fucks were just talking. Nobody could be that vicious. But the way Gloria seemed terrified of the man, and the man was her own father, gave Shaun some pause.

  But he knew what he had to do. A man like Sinatra hated weakness, and would never respect a chump. Shaun had to put on the afterburners of rough when he got around Gloria’s father. He had to show no weakness around that man whatsoever. But even if he showed nothing but toughness, and he intended to carry it to the max, would that be enough, he wondered?

  Tonight, at dinner, would give him all the answers he needed, and he’d worry about it then. Right now, he got in the shower with Gloria. He tried to fuck her again, too, this time in the raw. But Gloria, being that stubborn-ass black chick he was beginning to realize would be hard as hell to tame, pushed him away.

  “Stop, Shaun!” she said angrily as she pushed him. “I’m not playing with your ass!”

  He got the message, and left her alone.

  They bathe together instead.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rosalind Graham-Sinatra walked into the lobby of her company, the Graham Agency, balancing a latte in one hand and her briefcase in the other hand. Kassi Rucker met her in the lobby with a line she never wanted to hear from any of her clients: “It was not my fault, Miss G,” Kassi said.

  It was the last thing Roz wanted to hear, and for a moment she walked past her and kept heading for the elevator as if she didn’t hear it.

  Kassi quickly followed her. “Miss G? Miss G!”

  Miss G was Roz’s nickname among the clients in her talent agency. That was mainly because, before she married Mick, she was Rosalind Graham, the struggling actress more successfully known as an acting coach in New York. Most of her students from her acting studio called her Miss G at that time, and the name stuck.

  “You heard me, Miss G? No matter what he says, it wasn’t my fault.”

  When they made it up to the elevators, Roz used her briefcase-clad hand to press the button. Then she looked at her client. “What happened?”

  “He fired me. That’s what happened. He up and fired me!”

  Kassi still had that raw, southern accent she possessed when she first walked into Roz’s talent agency. It was that same authentic accent that got her the part in the off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. And she blew it already? Before the first curtain call?

  Roz knew it was all Kassi’s fault without first hearing the details, because she knew the director. Donnie Hearns didn’t fire anybody without cause. Without serious cause. “I did everything right. But he fired me anyway.”

  “I am not the one, okay?” Roz said bluntly to her client. “Not this morning.” Roz had too much on her plate already, and she was still worried about Mick. “Cut the bull, and tell me what happened.”

  Kassi hesitated. She knew Roz would fly off the handle if she didn’t say it right. But she just didn’t know what way to say it.

  When the elevator doors opened and both women stepped on, she used that time, too, to get her story straight. Then she shoved her long, strawberry blonde hair out of her face, and answered the question. “He was trying to hold me to a different standard,” she said.

  “And what standard would that be, Kass?” Roz asked. “A professional standard?”

  “He treated me different, Miss G, honest he did! No matter how I did every scene, he treated me like I was some country bumpkin who didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “Compared to Donnie Hearns,” Roz said, “you are a country bumpkin who don’t know what you’re doing! And I told you that, Kassi, before you stepped foot on that man’s stage. I told you to kill the diva, and get to work. And you got fired already? Oh, hell no!”

  The elevator jerked to a stop, and the doors opened. Another momentary reprieve for Kassi. She and Roz stepped off.

  She still didn’t give Roz a better answer as they walked up the hall toward Teegan Salley’s desk. Teegan was Roz’s secretary.

  “’Morning, Boss,” Teegan said. “You look beautiful as usual. What are you doing here, Kassi?”

  “Her ass managed to get herself fired,” Roz said. She didn’t break stride as she headed for her office.

  “Fired?” Teegan replied with surprise, and looked at Kassi. “But your little butt just got the job!”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Kassi said again.

  “Well it sure as hell wasn’t Donnie Hearns’s fault,” Teegan replied.

  “Exactly!” Roz could be heard saying from inside her office.

  Kassi, realizing she did not have an ally in Teegan the way she thought she would, given that they both were white, southern gals, hurried into Roz’s office to continue to plead her case. Roz had already sat her briefcase and latte down, and was sitting behind her desk.

  Kassi hurried up to Roz’s desk just as Roz had pulled out her cellphone and had pressed an icon. But Kassi, being Kassi, started to talk anyway. Roz gave her a look. She closed her mouth.

  Roz held the phone to her ear and listened as Mick’s phone went straight to Voice Mail. She exhaled. Said a silent prayer that he was okay. And left a message. “Call me when you get this,” she said, and then ended the call.

  Roz tossed her phone onto her desk, picked up her latte, and leaned back.

  “He treated me so harshly, Miss G, you would be horrified by the way that man treated me.”

  Roz sipped her coffee and stared at her client. She knew eventually the true story would be told somewhere in between the lies she was telling Roz now.

  “Everybody else got to do whatever they wanted to do,” Kassi continued, “but he treated me like I couldn’t do anything. They got to talk on their cellphones. If I did it, it was a problem. They got to take a long lunch. If I did it, it was a problem. I mean, what’s one rehearsal,” she said, and Roz’s eyes stretched. So that was it!

  “You missed rehearsal?” Roz asked.

  Kassi was surprised that Roz would hit the nail on the head that easily. But it was out now. “Yes,” she said. “But what’s one rehearsal?”

  “He fired you because you missed one rehearsal?” Roz asked.

  “Not just one, but yeah.”

  Roz frowned. “What do you mean not just one, but yeah? You missed only one, or you missed more than one, Kassi? Don’t play with me, little girl!”

  Kassi exhaled. “More,” she said.

  “How many more?” Roz asked.

  Kassi paused. “He claims I missed ten.”

  Roz couldn’t believe it. “Ten?” she asked. “Your ass missed ten rehearsals?”

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Yeah, go with that and see how far that gets you,” Roz said. “How many rehearsals were there in total?”

  “So far?”

  Roz wanted to roll her eyes. “Yes, Kassi, so far.”

  Another exhale. “Eleven so far.”

  Roz was about to sip her latte, but stopped mid-sip and looked at her client again. She sat her latte down. She knew better than this. “You only made it to one rehearsal?” Incredulity was in Roz’s voice.

  “I went to the first one to see what it was about,” Kassi said. “But they weren’t e
ven doing my parts yet. One of the stage hands told me it would probably be weeks before they get to my parts. So why would I need to be there?”

  That was wrong on so many levels Roz couldn’t begin to even unpack it. A stagehand told her something, and she ran with it? Was this child for real?

  Then the desk intercom buzzed. Roz exhaled, to control her growing rage, and pressed the button. “Yeah, Tee, what is it?”

  “Gloria’s mother is here to see you, Boss.”

  Gloria’s mother? “Bella Caine?” Roz asked, surprised. “What does she want?”

  Teegan lowered her voice. “Damn if I know,” she said.

  Roz exhaled again. “Send her in,” she said, and released the button. Then she looked at Kassi.

  “What am I going to do, Miss G?” Kassi asked.

  “Right now, you’re going to go home,” Roz said.

  Kassi was surprised. “Aren’t you going to call him?”

  “When I get a chance, yes. But not right now. Go home. If I can smooth it over, I will. If I can’t, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe the stagehand can figure it out. Maybe the prop man. Maybe the janitor! Especially since you seem to think everybody knows more about Donnie Hearns’s production than Donnie Hearns!”

  Kassi knew at that moment that she had made an awful mistake. “I’m sorry, Miss G,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I always sabotage myself.”

  Roz’s heart went out to the idiotic girl. She was young and dumb like many of the starlets in show business. “Go home,” was all she would say. Mainly because the door to her office opened, and Bella Caine, in her overdramatic mink stove, walked in.

  Kassi said her goodbye to Roz, glanced warily at Bella, and then walked out of the door.

  Bella smiled. “Young girls leaving your office in tears again, Rosalind?” she asked as she headed for Roz’s desk. “Some talent agent you are.”

  “Good morning to you, too, Belle,” Roz said.

  Bella smiled. “Good morning, darling,” she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bella Caine began walking toward Roz’s desk, looking around as she walked. “This is a nice setup you have yourself here, Rosalind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Mick set you up very nicely.”

  Roz knew there would be a zing in there somewhere. “I’m sure you didn’t come all this way just to tell me that.”

  “Why, Rosalind,” Bella said as if she was some black southern belle, “where do you get all of this animus from? And so early! What have I ever done to you but try to be your good friend?”

  “My good friend?” Roz asked. “You mean when you weren’t trying to take my man? When you weren’t trying to undermine our relationship? When you weren’t trying to be a bitch in Prada? I guess, if you overlook all the shit you’ve pulled, then yeah. I guess you can call it a friendship. I can’t. But you can.”

  Bella smiled again. Roz was quick with the comebacks. Far quicker than she could ever be. And she didn’t like it. “Anywho,” she said, pulling out a small bag. “This is for you.” She attempted to hand the bag to Roz.

  But Roz didn’t take it. “What is it?” she asked.

  “You can look and see for yourself,” Bella said.

  “I’d rather you tell me what it is.”

  Bella shook her head. “Is that a ghetto thing?” she asked.

  Roz stared at her. They were both African-American. She was Gloria’s mother, and perhaps Mick’s favorite baby mother before Roz came along. Why did she feel a need to reduce herself this way?

  “I asked you a question,” Bella said. Roz always had a way of behaving as if she was superior to everybody else because she was the one who Mick put a ring on it, and it bothered Bella to no end.

  But Roz continued to stare at her. She could see why Mick fell for her. Bella was still a very beautiful woman. But she’d changed over the time Roz knew her. When they first met, of all of Mick’s baby mamas, she was the most cordial. Not that she approved of the match. None of Mick’s exes approved of it. But she at least wasn’t as aggressive with her disapproval as some of the others were.

  But time changed Bella. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t that fresh face on the block to the cameras anymore. Maybe it was the fact that her modeling career stalled and she had to turn to fashion design to make her mark. Maybe it was just the fact that she realized what a catch she once had in Mick, and how she and he threw it all away.

  Roz had a lot of tough days with Mick too. He was never going to be an easy man to live with. He was so exacting, and so domineering that they made war almost as much as they made love. But Roz would never, not in a million years, contemplate leaving Mick Sinatra.

  Not because he didn’t deserve being shaken up and left alone on numerous occasions. He could be the king of assholes sometimes. But because Roz knew what she had. And no matter what, she wasn’t giving that away for some other woman to have and to hold. And Roz also knew what she was. With Mick, and only with Mick, she was ride or die to the bitter end. Couldn’t help it even if she tried. And those bitches out there, Roz also knew, knew it too. Bella, perhaps, because she sincerely loved Mick once upon a time, and maybe still did, knew it most of all.

  Bella attempted to hand the paper bag to Roz again. “You’re going to take this or not?” she asked.

  “Let me think. Not,” Roz said.

  Bella shook her head. “Were you born a bitch, or do you just play one for the world to see?”

  “No, I think I was born this way,” Roz replied.

  Bella gave in. She always did whenever she was in that tug of war with Roz. “It belongs to Mick. He left it.”

  Roz was intrigued now. What did Mick have to do with this? “Left it?” she asked as she accepted the bag. “Left it where?”

  “At my place in Paris last week,” Bella said.

  Her place? In Paris? Last week? Roz knew nothing of Mick seeing Bella last week. He was in Europe on business. She knew that. But she had no idea Bella was on his itinerary.

  Roz opened the bag. When she saw a pair of male briefs inside, the kind Mick definitely wore, she frowned. What the what? She looked at Bella.

  “He left those when he spent the night at my chateau last week,” Bella said. “I was asleep when he left that morning, so I didn’t realize he left that until later that day. When I was making up my bed. But you know how he doesn’t believe in disturbing people early in the morning. Especially me, since I am not, on any given day, a morning person.”

  Roz didn’t know where to begin. She heard what she said. He left them. And she discovered them while she was making up her bed, as if he took them off in her bed! But Roz never flew off the handle when it came to somebody accusing Mick. She knew what she had, and what others wanted. She had to be careful. She looked at Bella. “Underwear?” she asked. “Really?”

  “I would have washed them,” Bella said as if handing a wife her husband’s alleged briefs was as normal as that crazy-ass fashion world she hailed from. “But, I must confess, I am not the domestic type. Since my maid was on holiday at the time, I said, you know what, I’ll be in Philadelphia next week. I’ll just bag them up and take them to him just as they are. It’s not as if they’re dirty. Because we both know how clean and tidy Mr. Sinatra keeps his stuff.”

  Roz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Bella was smiling. “Oh, yes, indeed,” Bella continued. “Mick keeps his stuff tight and right. Clean and mean. You can just eat out of the seat. And I have, more than a few times, let me tell you.”

  Roz rose quickly to her feet. This had just left the twilight zone and was merging into X-file territory. “You need to get out of my office right now,” she said.

  Bella was at first offended. “Get out?” she asked. “What did I do? All I did was bring you what he left. I would have given it to him, but you and I both know how difficult it could be to track Mick down.”

  But then, as if a lightbulb suddenly came on, Bella smiled. “Oh. I get it now! H
e didn’t tell you, did he? He didn’t tell you that he spent the night with me last week! But then, why would he? Because I knew something was wrong. As soon as word hit the grapevine that he was going to renew his vows to you, I said what? Mick the Tick? You have got to be kidding me. That don’t even sound like Mick! But now I know why he’s doing it. It’s that guilt that’s kicking his ass.”

  Then suddenly Bella’s smile was gone. “And Mick Sinatra has a lot to be guilty about,” she said bitterly. “You just don’t know!”

  But Roz wasn’t about to hear anymore. “Goodbye, Belle,” she said. “I want you out of my office, and I want you out now.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Bella responded. “You’re such a hot shot. Or, at least, just because you have Mick’s name now you think you are. Make me leave.”

  Roz began moving swiftly from behind her desk. It would be her pleasure!

  But Bella, realizing Roz was actually going to call her bluff, began hurrying toward the exit herself. “Okay, alright,” she said. “I’m leaving!” She hurried out of the door, with Roz fast on her tail. “They say you’re crazy, and I agree. Your ass is crazy as hell! I’m saying it too.”

  “But guess where you’re saying it?” Roz asked. “On the other side of this door!” Roz slammed her door shut, right in Bella’s pretty face.

  But then Roz leaned against the door she had just so violently closed, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. Of all the women who would have this story to tell, she hated that it was Bella Caine. For some reason, Mick had a blind spot when it came to that woman. He didn’t think Bella was as calculating as she was. But Roz knew there had to be a reckoning one way or the other. She couldn’t take anymore of Bella’s games!

  If it was a game, Roz thought nervously. She wanted to call Mick right away, and get him to confirm that it was just another one of Bella’s tricks. But she decided against doing so. Talking about something like this over a telephone wasn’t Roz’s style. She needed to see him in person, and show him Bella’s so-called evidence, when it came to something like this.