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Category:
Gay/Lesbian/Bi
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1537195182
Type: Fiction
Pages: 227
Copyright: 12/14/2016
ISBN-13: 9781537195186
Price: $6.95 (eBook)
A romantic Lesbian action adventure murder mystery
When destiny brings together two women with completely different backgrounds, will it play a cruel joke on them? Renny James pulled herself up by her bootstraps, fighting to make something of herself. Vivian Blackmore has always moved easily among the rich and famous. They couldn’t be any more different, yet Renny can’t get Vivian out of her mind. Is Vivian the warm wonderful creature she appears to be or a soulless killer?
Excerpt
We are all the master of our own destiny! We don’t have to be products of our environment. One can change the future. Right?
Even her name was nondescript, Mary. No one named Mary had ever accomplished anything notable.
One had to discount Mary mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. They were vessels of God. Their claim to fame was their association with Christ.
Mary Queen of Scots – had her husband murdered and was eventually beheaded. No great accomplishments there.
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, had died of a brain tumor at age 53. She had accomplished something.
In the more modern-day world, Mary Kay founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics died at age 83. She had five husbands: three died, and two were divorced. She put pink Cadillacs on the map. Yeah, Mary Kay, she had accomplished something.
But in the grand scheme of things, in the entire human race, Mary was a mundane name.
She thanked God every day that her mother had the good sense to do something right. She had given her the middle name of Renee; a name she had used since her thirteenth birthday. Her friends and associates called her Renny. She liked Renny.
“Ms. James, your attorney, is here,” the jailer called out as she unlocked the cell.
Renny followed the woman to the visitation room.
“Mary Renee James,” the elderly man in the wrinkled suit acknowledged her as he gestured for her to sit down.
“I am Harrison McCall, your attorney, appointed by the great state of Texas.
Renny nodded.
McCall scrutinized the young woman. Even in the hideous jail uniform, she was beautiful. He shuddered to think what would happen to her in prison.
##
Every day Renny James awoke to the same filthy house with the same horrible people in her life. The same sense of futility washed over her every morning.
Her mother, Maggie Lee, was a real piece of work. Standing five-foot-ten and weighing over three-hundred pounds, her favorite term of endearment to Renny was, “I’ll whip your ass, young lady.”
When Renny turned four, her mother presented the family with another mouth to feed. Her sister was named Anna, but everyone called her Annie. Annie had a mop of red hair that was a natural afro. It never grew any longer than two inches and always curled tightly all over her head like a hideous, fuzzy red cap.
Unfortunately, Annie was about two streets left of Crazy Lane and slightly homicidal.
A firm believer in marriage, Maggie Lee had married Bull James, Renny’s sperm donor, a hulking blob of fat that was almost too lazy to breathe. Renny seldom saw him but was sure he had only one eye in the middle of his forehead. It still amazed Renny that he had procreated anything. She couldn’t imagine him expending that much energy.
Around her second birthday, Maggie Lee and Bull divorced.
Maggie Lee met Annie’s sire in a bar and couldn’t remember his name. He had the same wild, red hair Annie had. Friends helped Maggie track him down. He was in jail waiting for the convoy that would take him to the big house. Somehow Maggie Lee arranged marriage on the courthouse steps. A three-time loser, he went away for good. After Annie was born, Maggie Lee divorced him.
The only thing Maggie Lee was obsessed with was that none of her children would be illegitimate. She was adamant about marrying anyone with whom she had conceived.
Maggie Lee was one of those stupid, insipid women who thought she was nothing without a man. Having a man was the driving goal of Maggie Lee’s pitiful existence.
Her mother's third husband had been a transient farm worker who spoke little English. Renny wasn’t sure the man knew what he was doing when he grinned and nodded, “Yes, yes,” as the preacher asked for his answer to the marriage vows.
“Pepe had stuck around just long enough to impregnate Maggie Lee. After Ignacio was born, Maggie Lee divorced Pepe (No one could pronounce his last name).
Ignacio was Renny’s favorite. From infancy, he was saddled with the nickname Nacho. He also brought in the highest support check from social security. His father was an illegal, so Maggie received a bonus for him.
Maggie Lee’s fourth consort was a Yankee. A certifiable loon from New York.
Maggie Lee met Charlie Crude online. They corresponded for two months in a chatroom and fell gloriously in love. Charlie asked her to marry him, and Maggie sent him the money to purchase a bus ticket to their town.
You have to know there is something wrong with a man who can’t afford a bus ticket to meet his future wife. Charlie stepped off the bus with all his worldly belongings in a small brown, paper bag. Renny was certain it was his lunch, but no, it was a change of underwear.
You also have to know there is something wrong with a man who will travel from New York to Texas to marry a woman who could whip the ass of most sumo wrestlers. Maggie Lee was no fawning Southern belle.
Maggie Lee had worked at Target from the day she graduated high school. At least she held a job and provided food and a roof over their heads. She made the mortgage payments on a mobile home situated in a nice trailer park.
On Renny’s twelfth birthday, Maggie Lee and Charlie Crude tied the knot. Maggie Lee had insisted on a church wedding. She had also married Bull and Pepe in a church. Three out of four wasn’t bad. Maggie Lee never talked about “What’s his name.” Honestly, she couldn’t remember his name. Poor Annie was always just Annie. No one else remembered her last name either.
Charlie was Renny’s worst nightmare. A lazy, lecherous, good for nothing, he laid around the trailer house in nothing but his skivvies. Maggie Lee was the bread winner.
Defending herself from Charlie and her Uncle Bubba, Renny had learned the fine art of street fighting to protect herself from the lecherous men. On more than one occasion, she had fought them off. She quickly learned a well-placed kick would send them to the ground clutching their groin area.
After a particularly horrible encounter with Charlie, Renny informed her mother that the man had attempted to rape her on more than one occasion. Annie’s call to the police had saved Renny from a fate worse than death.
Of course, Maggie Lee believed Charlie’s side of the story and told the police the entire incident had been a misunderstanding.
After that, Renny stayed with her grandparents, Nonie and Papa. She felt a little guilty about leaving Annie alone with Charlie, but Annie refused to go with her. Their grandmother always made sure they bathed, did their homework and got to school on time. Annie preferred taking her chances with Charlie to bathing and going to school.
After Annie had stabbed Charlie with a pair of scissors, he left her alone. Annie told the creep that she would sneak into his bedroom while he was asleep and bury her scissors in his privates. Charlie had the good sense to believe her.
When you team up two people as stupid and sex-crazed as Maggie Lee and Charlie, an offspring always rears its ugly head. It just made sense to get the bread winner pregnant, right?
Adding the extra weight of a baby to Maggie Lee’s manatee bulk, resulted in eclampsia. She delivered Charlie, Jr. and he was fine, but Maggie Lee’s heart was so badly damaged she was unable to work. Charlie, Sr. was too lazy to work, but Maggie Lee told him to get a job or get out.
Renny would never forget the day the police showed up at their door. Charlie had applied for a job that required a background check. Fool that he was, he had filled out the application and background check request. He was a wanted pedophile in New York. A fact that surprised only Maggie Lee. He was arrested and returned to his home state to stand trial. Fortunately, he died of a heart attack while he was in jail.
The city of New York quickly notified Maggie Lee that her husband was dead and that they would be sending her a large sum of money as a death benefit and a monthly check for Charlie, Jr. One had to love New York!
Renny’s family was used to the police showing up at their door. Her uncle, Bubba was a drug dealer. Unfortunately, he used more than he sold. Consequently, he was usually wandering around in a daze, burglarizing homes in their town.
Nonie spent more money keeping Bubba out of jail than she did taking care of herself. Fortunately, Nonie had a sister who was as much a success as Nonie was a failure.
Nonie’s sister, Aunt Kristine, always sent money when Nonie needed it. She refused to send money to bail Bubba out of jail, but she loved Nonie and always tried to help her. Nonie used her social security checks to bail Bubba out of jail and used Aunt Kristine’s money to pay the utility bills and buy groceries. In Nonie’s mind, she wasn’t using Aunt Kristine’s money to keep Bubba out of jail.
Renny knew education was her only way out of the crushing poverty and filth that was her life. She was certain education coupled with hard work would lead her to the promised land. A land that was anywhere outside her miserable hometown. She dedicated her life to making good grades in school. She knew the only way she could go to college was on scholarships and Pell Grants.
She took all the college classes her high school offered juniors and seniors. She took on-line college courses during the summer. She amassed enough credits to enroll as a sophomore in college at the age of eighteen.
Unable to work, Maggie Lee moved her family into Nonie’s house. It was more of a lean-to that had other lean-tos added to it. Somehow, Papa had managed to add three rooms to the original one-room structure. They had one bathroom with a shower. A hole in the bathroom wall let in light year-around and cold in the winter. Maggie Lee’s family of five, Nonie and Papa filled the small house to capacity.
Renny was the only one who seemed concerned about cleanliness, so the bathroom shower was always available when she wanted to use it.
During Renny’s fourteenth year, Bubba and his two sons, ages four and ten moved into the overcrowded house. Bubba’s wife had gone to prison for prostitution and drug dealing. With his major source of income in prison, Bubba had no place to go. It never occurred to him to get a job.
Renny’s only solace was school. She loved leaving the house in the morning and loathed returning to it in the afternoon.
Most days, Maggie Lee was still piled up in bed when Renny got home from school. Bubba was wallowing on the couch. Nonie and Papa sat in the recliners Aunt Kristine had given them for Christmas.
They derived their family income from Papa and Nonie’s social security checks, and child support checks Maggie Lee received from the state for Annie, Nacho, and Charlie. Maggie Lee also collected social security because her heart condition made it impossible for her to work. Doctors had told Maggie that a weight loss of two hundred pounds would solve her problem, but she lacked the willpower to eat healthily. Her often repeated philosophy was, “If God hadn’t intended for us to eat cheeseburgers and French fries, he wouldn’t have allowed us to make them.”
Papa had worked at the same company for twenty-five years. They fired him when he raised the bucket on an excavator too high and drove it under a cluster of power lines, ripping them down for miles. His company had to pay the electric company for the cost of repairs, more money than Papa had made in all the years he’d worked.
Renny knew that laziness and poor choices were responsible for her family’s plight in life. Poor choices, no, stupid choices. She was determined that poor choices would not dictate her destiny.
Her senior year, Papa threw Bubba out when he caught him stealing money from Nonie’s purse. Of course, her two cousins stayed, and the four-room shack became home to nine people.
“White trash” was a term Renny often heard in the same breath with their name. It was true. They were white trash. They were all too lazy to work. They didn’t even clean the house and yard. Their front yard looked like a junk heap.
Nonie and Maggie Lee cleaned out their vehicles by shoving everything from the floorboard and seats of the cars out into the front yard. McDonald’s sacks and drink cups, Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets and napkins, Taco Bell boxes and cup holders littered their front yard.
There were things growing and dying in the front yard that she was afraid to touch. Sometimes things moved under the garbage that covered their yard. Renny made a concentrated effort to avoid the front yard.
She cleaned it the summer of her junior year. It had taken her three weeks to shovel and haul off the trash that buried their lawn. She had been so proud of how nice it looked. It only took her family a week to return it to its normal dump site appearance. Renny gave up trying to pretend there might be hope for her family.
The living room, which also doubled as a sleeping place for her brothers and two cousins, had a hole in the floor big enough to swallow small children.
The hole had rotted out because that was where Nonie’s Chihuahuas peed and no one cleaned it up. It simply soaked into the hardwood floor. Over the years, the dampness resulted in wood rot that caused a hole that grew a little larger every year. Renny was certain she would never get the stench of dog pee and rotted wood out of her nostrils.
No one ever cleaned the kitchen or put leftovers in the refrigerator. Renny was pretty sure everyone in her family had gone to the emergency room at one time or another with food poisoning.
She shuddered when she thought about how many times she had been sent home from elementary school because her hair was lice-infested. As she had gotten older and able to care for herself, she constantly showered and washed her hair.
Two months before high school graduation, Renny received notification that she had been awarded a full academic scholarship to a college on the other side of the state. A high school counselor helped her apply for Pell Grants that would cover her living expenses and pay for books. For the first time in her existence, Renny could see a door opening to a new life, a good life—a clean life.
Nonie passed away the summer after Renny’s senior year. Annie had acted out by stabbing Charlie, Jr. with the scissors—her weapon of choice. Nacho had dropped through the hole in the floor and crawled into a damp corner under the pier-and-beam shack. The fire department had to get him from under the house.
Maggie Lee cried and carried on, and Bubba acted like he cared. He had not visited Nonie in the hospital and didn’t attend her funeral. Bubba was about as sorry as any human God ever let live.
Renny often wondered why God let the man use up oxygen. He was a horrible person. A mouth breather, he abused his sons and was in constant trouble with the law. He was a despicable person. The entire family was happiest and did best when Bubba was in jail. It seemed that law enforcement officers had always made her life better. Police officers had hauled away Charlie Crude and police officers always arrested Bubba, making their lives a little safer.
The family was more concerned that Nonie’s death meant the end of her monthly social security check than the loss of their matriarch. No one bothered to notify the government that Nonie had passed away, so her check showed up every month. God bless the ineptness of the social security department.
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