The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [87]
Scott Fenney was still a winner.
He stuck the key card into the slot on the entrance gate and waited for the gate to rise. And waited. He stuck the key card in again and waited. Still nothing. He punched the button that rang Osvaldo over in the exit booth twenty feet away. When Osvaldo turned and saw him, Scott waved him over. Osvaldo exited the booth and walked over. Scott held up the key card.
“Card won’t work,” Scott said. “Raise the gate.”
Osvaldo retreated a step and said, “No card.”
“No, I’ve got a card. It’s not working. Open the gate.”
Osvaldo was now shaking his head. “No gate.”
“Open the goddamned gate!”
Osvaldo held his hands up. “No card. No gate.”
“Jesus Christ!”
Scott backed out and parked the Ferrari on the street, pumped a few quarters into the parking meter, pissed off until he remembered that the Ferrari would be his for only nine more days. Fuck it. Two-hundred-thousand-dollar car gets scratched, it’s the bank’s loss. By the time he hit the front door of Dibrell Tower two blocks away, he was whistling.
Rebecca Fenney was crying. She was still in bed, hiding from Highland Park. She had bet her beauty on Scott Fenney and lost. Her house. Her car. Her status. Her life. Everything she had acquired over the last eleven years would soon be gone. And it hadn’t been lost to a twenty-two-year-old blonde with big tits and a tight ass—to a girl by the pool—but to a heroin addict, a whore, a…Rebecca never said that word because even in Highland Park such words are best said only behind the brick walls at the club, but she thought that word now: nigger.
Her husband had sacrificed her life for a nigger’s life.
There. She had said it. Or at least thought it. As everyone in Highland Park was thinking at that very moment—the town is so small, so insular, that nothing escapes notice. Not that this could have escaped the notice of anyone in America, her husband on national TV, for God’s sake! And today at lunch, her (former) society girlfriends would order Caribbean salad, tortilla soup, sparkling water, and for dessert, Rebecca Fenney. She would be today’s scandal soufflé.
Oh, how they would gossip! And how they would laugh!
There’s nothing the girls love to sink their sharp teeth into more than a juicy scandal: a lesbian affair; a good Highland Park girl knocked up by a black SMU athlete; botched cosmetic surgery; drinking, drugs, and STDs at the high school; criminal fraud committed by a scion of an old Highland Park family; a Democrat in Highland Park; failure in Highland Park. They lapped it up like the family dog laps up leftovers.
Rebecca Fenney had gossiped so many times about other women’s scandals. Now everyone in Highland Park would be gossiping about her—at the Village, at the club, at the gym, at every restaurant and in every dressing room. They would all be gossiping and laughing—at her expense.
How could she ever show her face in this town again?
She was crawling back under the comforter when the phone rang.
Boo quietly pushed open the door to her parents’ bedroom and stuck her head in. She saw her mother sitting on the far side of the bed and heard her talking on the phone. Her voice sounded strange.
“What?…Sleeping with Trey?…Where’d you hear that?…It’s all over town?…Everyone knows?…Oh, my God!”
She hung up the phone and put her hands over her face.
“Mother?”
“Oh, God.”
“Mother?”
“Oh, God.” Finally she turned to Boo. Her mother looked like a frightened little kitten. “What, Boo?”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Can I help?”
“No. What do you want?”
“Is it okay if Pajamae and I go to the Village? We’ll be real careful crossing the street.”
Mother waved her hand. “Fine, whatever.”
“Okay. See you later.”
Boo started to shut the door, but her mother said, “Boo, wait. Come in. I need to talk to you.”
As soon as Scott stepped inside