Going Broke Read online

  Also by Trista Russell

  Fly on the Wall

  Chocolate Covered Forbidden Fruit

  Going Broke

  Trista Russell

  URBAN BOOKS LLC

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by Trista Russell

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Bank Statement # 1

  Bank Statement # 2

  Bank Statement # 3

  Bank Statement # 4

  Bank Statement # 5

  Bank Statement # 6

  Bank Statement # 7

  Bank Statement # 8

  Bank Statement # 9

  Bank Statement # 10

  Bank Statement # 11

  Bank Statement # 12

  Bank Statement # 13

  Bank Statement # 14

  Bank Statement # 15

  Bank Statement # 16

  Bank Statement # 17

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  First, I would like to offer up thanks and praises to God for breathing into my body each morning, and continually blessing me with words, a vivid imagination, and the time to do what I love to do most, write. I would like to acknowledge my immediate family: my parents, Reverend Everett & Mrs. Zerlean Russell, my sister, Roslyn Underwood (and Mike), my brother, Minister Phillip Russell (and Stefanie), nieces: Raeshawnda and Philisha, nephews: Phillip Jr., Ray Jr., Mailk, and Javon. Relatives and friends in Bimini, Cat Island, Grand Bahama, Nassau & Abaco Bahamas, Miami, Homestead, Florida City, West Palm Beach & Jacksonville, Florida, Brunswick & Atlanta Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. If you find yourself sucking your teeth (Bahamians know what that means), shaking your head, calling another friend or family member, or saying, “Lord have mercy on this child,” during the course of reading this book, remember that it’s just a story and enjoy it.

  Steve Burris, where would I be without you? Not here. Thank you for your continued and unconditional love and support and for reading this book over and over each time I made a change. You were there from day one, and I appreciate your motivation, thoughtfulness, and patience throughout this process. Loving you has changed my life. Roshunda Slaton, you made me feel like this book is the best thing since the invention of the wheel, which means the world to me. Some people actually think that my creative inspiration comes from some of our weekend trips back in the days—the nerve of them. Erica Calderon, if I didn’t believe in myself I know that you’re the one person who would. Thank you for not only making time, but also for taking time out to fly on the wings of my dreams. Sha-Shana Crichton, my agent, thank you for taking me under your wings. It’s to the top from here. Carl Weber and Urban Books, you came along at a time in my life where the thought of this dream was almost packed away for a while. There are no words to say how grateful I am to you. You are a welcomed blessing. Lisa D’Angelo, my editor, thank you for not only working with my manuscript, but also for working with me and coaching me on the do’s and don’ts of this business. You know your stuff, which is why your opinion meant so much. LaTonya Williams, author of Mixed Messages , thank you for your meaningful advice the many times you helped out. To the dedicated few that read Going Broke before the ink dried: Melissa Jones, Ken Hadley, Nikki Samuel, Lori Sanchez, Letanya Brown, Raquel Bogle, Angela Redmon, Steve Hazle, and last but far from least, Joelle Janvier. I thank all of you for your outlook and various opinions on Going Broke. Because of your honesty the finished product will stun, bring tears and put a smile on the faces of many. Your inputs breathe new life into my characters. Many thanks for the accolades you threw my way, even comparing me to some of the industry’s finest. Thank you.

  To you, yes, I’m talking to you, I appreciate your support. Thank you for choosing Going Broke amongst the various other books that it sat nearby. Your purchase means a lot to me. I’d like to hear from you. Visit www.TristaBooks.com to write to me.

  To Grandpee for Father’s Day.

  “Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You

  thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it and

  thought of other things if you did.”

  —James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

  Bank Statement # 1

  Account Balance: $23,567.28

  “Someone needs to write a book on how to love a man with a small dick.” Natalya was rambling the moment she saw me approaching the bar. “Is it possible to truly love a man with a dick the size of his thumb?”

  “Shh.” I looked around. “Why are you talking so loud, and who are you talking about?” I slipped onto the barstool next to her.

  “I am so disappointed and depressed.” She sipped her martini then slammed the glass back down so hard that the bartender shot her a bitch-you-break-it-you-buy-it look.

  “What are you talking about?” I giggled off her dramatics.

  “There ought to be a law stating that when you meet a man he issues you a card with the exact measurements of his dick before you give him your number, or before he gives you his.” She sighed. “I’ve wasted the last six months of my life.”

  “Nick?” My jaw dropped.

  “Yes.” She rolled her eyes. “Now known as two-inch-dick Nick.”

  I laughed but quickly sympathized. “What happened?”

  “I finally gave in.”

  “When?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Nick had been wining and dining Natalya for six months. He worshipped the ground she walked on, sending her flowers once a week, cutting her lawn bi-weekly, making appointments for her, and picking up the bill for her monthly spa visits. He took her to Jamaica, and not only did he respect the fact that she wanted separate rooms, he even paid for both rooms. He seemed to be the be all and end all.

  “Damn! So, Mr. Nick only has a grand in the bank, huh?”

  She looked at me like I missed the point. “I wish.” She turned toward me. “The man has insufficient funds in his dicking account.” She finished her martini in one large gulp.

  I grimaced, watching her.

  “His account is negative thirty-two dollars and seventy-eight cents.”

  “So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Sarai, I really don’t know. I’m so confused.” She motioned the bartender over. “I truly believe that he cares for me, but—”

  “But his account is in negative status.” I looked up at the new bartender. I was used to being served by Tammy. It was always two for one on her shift. “I’ll have a Chocolatini, please.”

  “Forget the martini, Jack.” She looked at his nametag. “I’ll have a double shot of tequila.”

  “My opinion is, if the sex isn’t good, everything else will fall out of line,” I continued. “Regardless of how good he looks in a suit, how passionate he kisses you, or how well he eats the cooty-coo, he still can’t throw down when it really matters, so life would be a constant tease.”

  “I’m hating life right now.”

  “I told you to stop believing all of those stupid myths. Oh, he’s tall, he wears a size seventeen shoe, and his fingers are long and fat.” I rolled my eyes. “All that shit ain’t true. He’ll have you wondering where the fuckin’ beef is.”

  I thanked God that this wasn’t something I had to worry about. I’d met Damian almost two years ago, and my baby had a whopping ten grand in his account and didn’t mind investing it in my bank whenever necessary.

  “Damn.” She shook her head from side to side, as though this was the worst thing that could ever happen to her.

  “I think I need to send out an e-mail,” I joked. “Too many women are fooled by brothas who know exactly when their accounts are
low in funds. That’s why they drive those fancy cars and spend their paychecks on cologne, clothing, and expensive shit. All of that is to compensate, when they can’t penetrate. They want us to fall for the presentation.” I found an example. “I bet P. Diddy has a small dick.”

  “But I’m getting too old for this.” She pouted. “I’m less than a week away from my thirtieth birthday and I’m still single, with no children and still no active sex life. I really thought I had it going on with Nick, thought I had fallen for him, until last night.” She sounded like she wanted to cry. “I mean, am I stupid for freaking out because of this?” She tried to rationalize. “Shouldn’t I be looking at more than just the sex, when it comes to a relationship?”

  “Okay, just calm down.” I tried to take her situation seriously, but I couldn’t believe that her urgent voicemail on my cellular to meet her at The Clevelander was about Nick’s dick. “Did he at least know what to do with his limited access pass?” I tried not to crack the smile hiding beneath. “I mean, did he know how to work it?”

  “First of all, it wouldn’t even stay hard.” She rested her head on the bar like the world was coming to an end. “When he was holding it to put it in, his hand completely covered it. I mean, his hand completely swallowed it up like a pig in a blanket.”

  “Damn!” I frowned at the picture she was painting. “What a waste of brown skin! But he is so fine.”

  “I know, and he loves me,” she said. “So what do I do?”

  Why was she asking me? I’d be out. See ya! Good sex is like oxygen; if you don’t get enough of it, you’re bound to do something stupid. “Well, Nat, I think I’d just—”

  “Sarai and Nat, why in the world am I in a bar in the middle of the week?”

  For the first time, I was happy to hear India’s high-pitched voice. “I hope she hasn’t told you what the emergency is yet.”

  She hugged us both, did the cheek-to-cheek kiss, and sat on the other side of the drama queen. “What’s with this urgent message business? I couldn’t even find a damn parking spot, and you know that I don’t like parking my baby just anywhere.” She shouted at the bartender like he was her hired servant. “A glass of Moet.”

  “Forget your puke-colored Benz and its stupid parking spot.” Natalya grabbed the shot and swallowed it. “I’m in the midst of a crisis.”

  I looked at India and playfully smiled behind Nat’s back. “The sky is falling,” I said.

  Natalya looked at me glaringly. “Excuse the hell out of me, Miss Dick-for-Days.”

  “Don’t get mad at me because I’m getting it good.”

  India held up her hands. “Whoa, will one of you please tell me what the heck is going on?”

  I shut up and let Natalya tell her story. She reminded us of how she met Nick, (a financial advisor at her bank), and how he had just been picture-perfect up until last night. She fell hard for him and all but wore out the batteries in her bedroom toy trying to play hard to get. Now look at what she got—a financial advisor who drives a Jaguar, owns a three-bedroom home in Coconut Grove, a speedboat, and a dick like Mini Me.

  I chuckled as I listened to the gory details of Nat’s night. After four Chocolatinis, the story got more and more hilarious. My side was hurting like it did when I was watching Martin Lawrence’s Runteldat.

  As you’ve already heard, my name is Sarai (pronounced Sa-rye) Emery. I’m twenty-seven years young and work as a radio personality, disc jockey, hostess, or whatever you choose to call it. I pay my bills by talking between songs from 12:00 midnight to 5:00 in the morning at WBIG, also known as BIG COUNTRY 104.5 in Miami, Florida. Why? Like I said, it pays the bills while I’m waiting for Tamara G., Supa Cindy, or Cheryl Mizell to slip up; then I’d be able to submit my resume to 99 Jamz. I’d love the opportunity to dance to hip-hop, rap, and reggae during my sets. Along with my job at BIG COUNTRY, I also own two very small Internet-based businesses, youplanmytrip.com and picnic-togo.com.

  I moved to Miami eight years ago to attend Florida International University and would not ever move back to Dover, Delaware to save my life. There was nothing that I missed about Dover, nothing that I liked about Dover. The only reason I still had ties to the town was because I still had a father.

  I met Natalya during my second year at FIU, where she and I had a psychology class together. I always thought she needed to do the studies on herself, but if you asked her, she had all the sense in the world and then some.

  Nat was smart, ultra-sensitive, and generous enough to give you the bra off of her back if she wasn’t worried about her breasts sagging. At twenty-nine years old, she valued our friendship and loved teaching math at Northern Dade Middle School. Her dream was to be married and have two children before the age of thirty-five. However, because of her many failed relationships, her heart was naïve and fragile. She had forgotten what having fun, love, and sex at the same time was like.

  Though she drifted off from time to time, Natalya was my dearest friend. When I met her, she had an idiot named Joseph. She let him run her around like a chicken with its head cut off. He didn’t have a job, but he didn’t need one. She paid for everything, including his monthly car note—Error!

  Boy, did Joseph hate me! In just three months, I revolutionized Nat, and she kicked him to the curb. Joseph began looking for his own apartment and a nine-to-five, but he didn’t find one in time because his car was repossessed. Over the years, I’d seen Nat grow a backbone, but she was still not where I’d have liked her to be.

  India was a new friend to both Nat and me. We met her in a book club we joined a little less than two years ago. India was a sight for sore eyes. At six feet one inch, she weighed a whopping 120 pounds with a wet mink coat on her back, and her flawless, professional weave job rivaled Toni Braxton’s and Lil’ Kim’s. She claimed that she didn’t get as many modeling jobs as she’d like because of her dark-brown complexion, but I suspected it had a lot to do with her mind-set. Nobody wanted to work with a model with diva attitude and no experience. She didn’t have the name or credentials to prove that she was worthy. However, she did have the money.

  Days after learning of her pregnancy, her boyfriend of just ten months, police officer Andrew Covington, took out not one but two life insurance policies listing her as the sole beneficiary. When she was three and a half months pregnant, he was killed when a gunfight broke out at a Carol City nightclub where he was working overtime as security.

  Two weeks after the funeral, she had an abortion, stating that having the child would be too painful. I guess having $3 million was worth the haunting memories of that day in the doctor’s office. Ever since, she’s been living out her dreams: new cars, a house, trips, clothing, and parties. You name it, she had the money for it.

  Unfortunately, money couldn’t buy her love. Since Andrew’s death, love was still the one thing she’d been lacking.

  “You know what, Nat?” India got more talkative after a few drinks. “I say, fuck a big dick.”

  “That’s what I do, and I like it,” I joked.

  “No, you idiot. I don’t mean it that way. Okay, maybe fuck was the wrong word. Forget looking for a man with a big dick. If he has a big heart, then everything else is gravy. Life is too short to worry about simple things.”

  “Thanks, India.” Nat smiled, pleased with the fake answer.

  “That’s real, girl. True love is worth more than any amount of dick or money in the world.” A tear was frozen on the edge of her eyelid.

  I wasn’t buying her sob story. I’d bet anything that she’d choose the $3 million rather than a resurrection of Andrew.

  I allowed the alcohol to speak through me like an evil spirit. “Are you really buying that?” I asked. “One of three things will happen. One, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what another man would’ve been like. Two, you’ll cheat on him and end up hurting both yourself and him. Or three, you’ll be one of those miserable old women that can’t stop fussing at everybody because you spent too damn long with a ge
ntleman with a petite prick instead of a Mandingo brotha with da magic stick.”

  “It is not all about that, Sarai,” India said.

  “It is all about that. Who wants a man that can’t cause any pain?” The liquor spoke up again. “Well, you ain’t getting none, so maybe she should take your advice.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Don’t worry about me. I gets mine.”

  “From who?” Nat slapped her on the shoulder.

  “Wow, this is a shocker,” I added.

  India had made a promise to Andrew’s ghost that she wouldn’t sleep with anyone for at least five years.

  “It’s a guy friend of mine, no one special.” Feeling the need to explain, she said, “It was something that just happened. I feel terrible about it.”

  “Has it happened more than once?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” She blushed.

  “Oh hell,” Nat said. “Well, that didn’t just happen.”

  “Congratulations.” I held up my glass. “I knew that five-year shit wasn’t gonna hold up.”

  “Oh, ye of no faith.” She rolled her eyes. “I did go a year and eight months, thank you.”

  “That’s still not five years. So who is this guy?”

  She seemed nervous. “I don’t want to jinx anything.”

  “So how long have you been seeing him?” Nat asked.

  “We’ve been seeing each other over the past two months.”

  I was in shock. “And you’ve been keeping him a secret?”

  “I just don’t want to start talking about him yet. Maybe it won’t turn out to be anything.”

  “Tell us something.” Nat was the nosiest. “Where did you meet him? How old is he? What does he do?”

  “Do you really care about that, or do you want to know about his dick?” She smiled.

  I didn’t allow Nat a chance to answer. “Tell us about the dick account—is it overdrawn, barely opened, does he have direct deposit, is he in the hundreds, thousands, or is the man a millionaire?”