“How was she making her own money?” Nessa asked.
Laverne stared down at the butter rolls on the counter. “Men,” she said, leaving it at that. “I told her how dangerous it was. I told her she’d end up dead. But you know girls. I was the same way.”
It was time. Nessa had loaded a tray with the coffee cups and dishes. “Would you mind carrying that plate of butter rolls for me?” she asked.
They took everything to the living room, where Franklin was waiting in a chair.
“Have a seat on the sofa,” Nessa told her guest. She chose the chair next to Franklin’s for herself.
Nessa watched as the woman sat down beside the girl in blue, whose name, Nessa was almost positive, was not Venus Green. The ghost’s head slowly swiveled to get a look at the woman. Then it turned back to face Nessa. Nothing had changed.
An hour later, when her guests had gone, Nessa used a pencil to pick up the coffee cup that Laverne Green had used. She carefully placed it inside a plastic bag.
“That wasn’t her mother,” Nessa told Franklin when he phoned later that evening.
“She brought a birth certificate and photos and a folder full of documents,” Franklin said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Nessa insisted. “I kept the woman’s coffee cup. You need to test her DNA against the girl’s.”
“Nessa.” Franklin sounded like he was going to talk sense to her. “There is no way I can justify that. Laverne Green had all the right paperwork. What makes you think she’s not the girl’s mother?”
“The whole time that woman was in my living room, she was sitting right next to the girl she claimed was her daughter. The girl didn’t recognize her.”
“Hold on a second,” Franklin said. “Are you telling me that girl’s ghost is inside your house?”
“Do I sound like I’m messing with you?”
Franklin took a moment to absorb the news. “Nessa, there is no way I can justify doing a DNA test. I believe what you’re saying, but as far as the department is concerned, the girl is Venus Green.”
“Fine,” Nessa huffed. “I’ll do my own test. She left her DNA all over my cup.”
“You’ll need the girl’s DNA, too,” Franklin said. “How are you going to get that?”
“I’ll ask for a few strands of her hair when I have her buried.”
“When you have her buried?” Franklin sounded confused.
“Now that the girl’s body has been identified, it will be released from the morgue. Is Laverne Green planning to take it?”
Franklin pulled in a deep breath. “She said she doesn’t have the money for a funeral. The county will have to bury the body.”
“Mmmhmmm.” Nessa’s hunch had been confirmed. “I knew there was no way in hell that woman was going to pay for a funeral for a girl she doesn’t know. Tell the county they can save the taxpayer dollars. I will take care of that baby.”
Laverne Douglass Gets What She’s Owed
Anthony walked in at one in the morning, smelling like another woman. She wasn’t asleep. Sleep wasn’t an option. She hadn’t made it to the grocery store and there was no food left in the house. It made her suffer if she didn’t feed it every few hours.
She was sick when he opened the door. Still, she didn’t yell. She’d learned better. Those powers didn’t work on him anymore.
“The baby’s hungry,” she told him.
“Then feed it.” He walked past her. “You’re its mama.”
“Why are you like this?” she asked.
“What did you expect after you let yourself go?”
She made to stomp out, and he didn’t stop her. “Go on, then,” he said. “Run home to your daddy. But if you do, don’t bother coming back.”
Back then, a pregnant lady walking down the street at three a.m. was a murder waiting to happen. The Lord hadn’t paid Laverne much mind in a while, but he must have been smiling down on her that night. She made it to her aunt’s house just as the sun came up. Across the street at her parents’ house, the light in the kitchen was already on. Her father was getting ready for his shift at the hospital. But she didn’t dare knock. He’d made it perfectly clear how he felt about her coming home. Theirs was a good family, and she didn’t belong.
Her aunt tsked when she told her what had happened. “Bastard,” she said. There were moments when it was possible to see that she’d once been as beautiful as her niece. Those moments were now fewer and farther between.
“What happened to Auntie?” Laverne once asked her mother.
“She fell for the trap that snares pretty women,” her mother answered. The look on her plain face said there was a lesson to be learned. “She was sure her beauty would last forever. So she didn’t bother looking for other sources of strength. And when her beauty faded, as it always does, your auntie found out she had nothing left.”
Laverne had never believed her mother’s tale, until now.
Across the street, the light came on in her sister’s bedroom. Janelle was five years younger and went to Hunter College in Manhattan. The subway ride to the Upper East Side could take two full hours. Soon, she’d be heading out the door, wearing her mom jeans and basic sneakers.
Anthony thought Janelle was ugly. She wasn’t ugly. She just wasn’t a swan like Laverne. From the time she was five, Laverne’s beauty had had the power to stop people in their tracks. At nine, she was on her first catalog cover. At twelve, she was cast in her first commercial. By sixteen, she’d lost count of her suitors. Men of all ages found themselves tongue-tied in her presence. She was twenty-three when Anthony spent weeks wooing her with gifts and jewelry.
When Laverne got pregnant, they married. But instead of binding him to her, the baby had broken the spell.
“Maybe I’ll have an abortion,” she heard herself mutter as she watched Janelle leave for school. She’d come to hate the thing growing inside her.
“Too late for that, sweetie,” her aunt said. “But in a few months, you can get alimony and child support.”
Laverne didn’t go outside after that. She didn’t want anyone in the old neighborhood to see what had become of her. Her parents gave Laverne’s auntie enough money to feed her, but they never once knocked at the door.
Then one night, seven months in, she woke up in a pool of blood. By the time she got to the hospital, the baby had died inside her. The doctor gave her a lecture. Said she’d had preeclampsia, and it was a miracle she’d survived at all. The condition would have been detected if she’d sought care when she first felt sick.
“Next time,” she promised.
“You won’t be having any more babies,” he told her.
She thought she’d enjoy her freedom, but she was never the same after that. There were no more modeling jobs. When the doctors cut out the baby, they’d botched the incision. More than one man lost her number after seeing it. She still did a little acting here and there, but nowhere enough to pay the bills. She was working at Target when they offered her money to pretend to be the girl’s mama. She took it without a second thought. The way she saw it, it was the baby paying her back for everything it had stolen.
Faith