“Help who? Help me? Or help settle your conscience for my cousin taking you in? Well, lucky for you, Rayna, she’s dead. All debt has been cleared...null and void.” Amber spews her words evenly. I guess as to not alert Erin or anyone else in the house.
“Looks to me, you’ve moved on to your next benefactor?” She motions towards the Bentley again. I can’t help but feel that word benefactor, in its context, rings familiar. That aside, right now I can visualize kicking Azmir in the shin for forcing me to take his car. Not that mine would have been any better; Amber was only familiar with my old Cavalier. “I heard he’s pretty well off. You always luck up.”
I don’t know if she’s goading me for a fight to prove that I’m as classless as she’s always asserted, or if her ire for me soars that high. I also don’t know how long, at this rate, it will be before I finally break. Break down and break her nose...or her face.
5-4-3-2-1...
“For me,” I mutter.
“What?” Her brows narrow in confusion.
“I need to do this for me. I need Erin in my life for me. Yes, I’d owed Michelle a debt of gratitude for the multitude of things she did for me. But this goes far beyond obligation for me. I’ve bonded with that little girl in there,” I motion behind her, toward the house Erin had run into. “I’m no stranger to her you saw that.”
“I’m going to tell you just like I told Uncle Dave: Erin is being taken care of by her family. She’s loved and is thriving. You will not use her as a reason to further nip off this family. You have a new conquest.” She motions again toward the Bentley, and absentmindedly, I turn to find that Ray has come out and is standing next to the car, possibly sensing our heated conversation. I exhale, frustrated for just breathing at the moment.
“You have a new life now and thank god. For years you leached from Michelle. She moved you out here, gave you a place to live, got you a dream job—”
“You can have the position!” flew from my mouth, unexpected by my brain. I’m desperate to wager a deal now that we’re face-to-face. I want that much to be a part of Erin’s life. “Is that what this is about? I swear you can have the role. I’ll go back to central as an attending PT. Or I can float...I don’t care; just give me some time with her.”
Amber chuckles, “Rayna, don’t be foolish. I will have that position just as soon as I’m done with my internship. I’ve been assigned to Adams.” She gives a menacing smile. “I’ll complete my hours and put in a request to manage the Long Beach City office. Then, you will be completely abdicated of my family; all of us.”
“Is that what you really want?”
She chuckles sinisterly, “Of course! I never liked you from the first time I saw you, Rayna. This we know. And at first it was simple jealousy from my big cousin, who I looked up to, bonding with someone else.” I’m glad she can admit how insular her grievances were. Michelle and I had known it from day one, but viewed it as insignificant. How wrong we were. Amber now holds all the cards.
“But then I learned my instincts weren’t as off as I thought, and certainly sharper than my cousin’s. You use people, Rayna, all the time. And I now suspect your manipulation from the start of your relationship with Michelle.”
“Excuse me?” I don’t understand this new revelation. Amber wasn’t around when I met Michelle.
“How ironic was it that you met a fellow undergrad whose family owned a physical therapy firm, especially when you wanted to study it in school?”
“I didn’t exactly arrive at Duke with an occupation in mind,” I argue.
“Which then narrows it down to something less strategic. You took on a field that she could help advance you in when you were done!”
My mouth collapses at her most absurd theory.
“Amber, Michelle invited me out here just days before my graduation. I had no plans after graduating. She did what a real friend does; she helped me navigate when my ambition was stifled.”
Amber laughs again. “Ambition was stifled. Big concept for a girl from the hood. More evidence of my cousin’s influence. Influence that I’m proud of because, similar to her mother, she was notorious for being influenced by others instead of being proud of who she was.”
“Whoa!” I shoot back cautiously. “I can’t speak for her mother, but Michelle was African American, too. She was true to who she was. She was a black woman, Amber—”
“Half black!” she corrects archly before waving her hand in the air dismissively as she pinches the bridge of her nose.