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  A small card inside the box read “God was the first that marriage did ordain, by making one, two and two, one again.” Otis felt even though he and Spice had begun their relationship singularly, through marriage, a union of love, of intimacy, they would become as one.

  I shouldn’t call her when I’m drunk. But what difference did it make? He held the same conviction sober or drunk. One day soon she would be his wife. He was tired of waiting. And if it went on too much longer, Golden would persuade Spice that he was the man for her. No, he had to find a way to remove Golden from Spice’s life.

  Easing back on his king-size bed, he turned on the television—the main event was on. He knew he needed something to take his mind off Spice. The alcohol definitely wasn’t working.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said to himself, propping several pillows behind his back. Julio César Chávez, one of Otis’s favorite boxers, was just entering the ring. His opponent, Dustin Melford, was two years younger and had a three-inch height-and-reach advantage. Melford had taken the title away from Julio eight months earlier. Scheduled for twelve rounds, the fight promised to be a great show. Otis sat back, urging Julio on to regain his crown as junior welterweight boxing champion for the WBC.

  As he watched the action begin, Otis thought about Spice and Golden. At first he was angry, then he knew in order to win her back, he had to have patience.

  But he needed more than patience with Golden. He needed a plan. And suddenly he had one.

  On the southwest side of Detroit, all new construction plans were reviewed by the Departments of Planning, Engineering, Building, Fire, and Traffic Safety. This combined committee made recommendations to the planning commission about any proposed site. Once a site plan had been approved by the planning commission, the plan was sent to the building department.

  Golden had submitted the site plans for his low-income housing development on February 9. They’d been approved by the planning commission and sent to the building department—Otis’s department—on March 28. And that was where they would remain.

  Over the next few days, Otis put his plan into action. With a smile on his face and $1,000 bribes to the heads of the plumbing, electrical, mechanical, and structural departments, he doomed Golden’s plan. Otis saw to it that each of the various departments would go over Golden’s documents with a fine-tooth comb. Even if Golden could have the problems they cited corrected, each inspector would present yet another list of mandatory corrections. Otis figured it would take at least six months before Golden’s plans would be approved.

  Six months. It was all the time he needed. Otis would be able to bleed Golden dry and pull him off his holier-than-thou throne. NAABR would want nothing to do with Golden if he couldn’t deliver on his promises, and Spice would certainly be showing Golden the door.

  Otis’s next plan of attack was to help Sterling. He knew that was one way he’d win favor with Spice. Not that he didn’t have genuine concern for his troubled niece. But this way he’d get two birds with one stone.

  His last visit to Sterling had been upsetting. She obviously hadn’t taken in a word he’d said about looking for a job or made one step toward enrolling in architecture school.

  Instead Sterling had been high. It had taken a while for her to even open the door to let Otis in. Sitting once again in his bedroom with a tumbler of Hennessy, he looked back on that visit.

  “Can I fix you a drink, Uncle O?” The lids of Sterling’s eyes were not fully open. Her bottom lip drooped, looking as though gravity were tugging at it.

  “No thanks.” He handed Sterling an envelope, then his coat, and took a seat in one of the leather side chairs. “Happy belated birthday.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Pamphlets and literature on drug abuse.” His niece, he remembered, had thrown aside the envelope. “I don’t know why I love you so much, Sterling. You’re spoiled, you’re lazy, and you’re strung out on drugs. But for some reason I feel I need to help you.”

  “What are you talking about, Uncle O?”

  “First of all, you need to get off that shit.” He gave her two business cards. “Here. Call them.”

  Sterling read over both cards and sneered. “Why?”

  “For God’s sake, look at you.” Otis half carried, half dragged her tiny body to the mirror and said, “Look. I remember when you were pretty. Now you’re nothing but skin and bones. Your face is all puffy and splotchy, and your hair isn’t even combed.” He turned up his nose, sniffing. “And you haven’t bathed, either.”

  Pulling away, she caught his wrist and glanced at the time. “Oh.” She shook her head. “It’s seven already.” Otis was positive she didn’t know if it was seven in the morning or at night.

  “You’re strung out. Don’t try to deny it. But I’ve seen addicts worse off than you make a complete recovery.”

  Sterling struggled to make it back to the chair.

  “Look, Bennie’s days as a hustler are coming to an end.”

  Sterling looked up. “How would you—”

  “I know what you’re doing, Sterling. You’re lucky I got you out of that situation in Texas unscathed. Haven’t you learned anything?” Otis sighed, shaking his head, thinking of how he could make her understand the seriousness of this. “Running drugs is not a game, Sterling. Stay away from Bennie, and get off the heroin.” He bent down beside her and placed a gentle arm on her shoulder. “If you respect yourself, if you care about . . .” Otis stopped, seeing the tense expression on her face. “Look, we both know you love your mother. Who do you think you’re kidding?

  “You know you can trust me. I never told your mother about what happened in Texas,” Otis lied. “But your mother loves you, Sterling. She worries about you. Think about Spice, think about yourself, goddammit. We care about you. Bennie Locke doesn’t care about anything but money.”

  Sterling, high as a kite, was still sensitized—on red alert. Otis watched her eyes blaze the moment his conversation veered toward Spice.

  “I hope you find out before it’s too late. You mean less to Locke than his beloved money does.” Otis wanted to deliver Sterling to her mother clean. As he was leaving, he turned back and looked at her. “I’ll be back, Sterling.”

  * * *

  Otis stepped out of the city car that was part of his pay package and moved toward the Chesapeake Park building site, a new subdivision of roughly sixty manufactured homes erected on eight acres of land on the southeast side of Detroit. Dozens of backhoes were digging foundations. Several cranes were lifting mobile homes and placing them on the foundation-ready concrete slabs.

  Moving toward Jonas, one of the park’s supervisors, Otis raised his voice over the sound of trucks hauling away dirt and rubble. “We’ve discussed this before, Jonas. I can’t authorize your company to cut the metal frames.”

  “Listen,” Jonas pleaded as he watched Otis jot down notes on his inspection sheet, “can’t we work something out? I’ve got families waiting to move in.”

  “That’s not my problem.” Otis walked over to one of the homes that had recently been completed and opened the door to look inside. He pointed to the ceiling. “See that? Some of the support beams are starting to show. The two halves of this mobile home don’t seem to be married to one another.”

  Jonas was silent. He followed him through a few more structures, with Otis making more and more “Stop” notations on his pad. “Chesapeake Park is going to have to do better than this. No way can I let families move into this kind of situation. It’s not safe,” he said, pointing to the floor. There was a one-inch gap running along much of the floor in the kitchen area.

  Otis heard Jonas’s heavy footsteps following him as he made it back to his car.

  “If we hire on another crew, it might take us maybe . . . another three weeks to fix the problems you’ve ticketed.”

  From the corner of his eye, Otis glanced at Jonas. “I can’t let the violations linger that long, Jonas. We have codes to follow. I’ve got developers lined up for
inspection. I don’t have the time to reinspect properties three and four times. If these violations aren’t complied with by next week, I’ll have to recommend closing the park down. Meanwhile . . .” He handed the man a copy of the report.

  Jonas accepted the paper from Otis. He was clearly too mad to speak.

  “Aren’t there going to be families with young children living in these quarters? I won’t have someone’s life on my conscience. No, sir,” Otis insisted.

  Jonas mumbled under his breath.

  They both knew the deal. They’d been through this before.

  “However”—Otis rubbed his fingers together—“if you can hire, say, two crews, I could be persuaded . . .”

  Jonas reluctantly pulled a packet from his inside pocket and handed Otis an envelope filled with cash.

  “Thanks.” Otis scribbled a few notes on his inspection sheet and said, “Even though you’ve got an early okay, I still want these violations fixed.”

  Jonas rolled his eyes at Otis as he drove away.

  Once inside his car, Otis checked his route sheet for his next inspection. By bypassing the next stop, which he didn’t need to inspect, he could save two hours. Chuckling to himself, he signed his name on the back of the next inspection sheet, then drove in the opposite direction toward Southern Spice. He wanted to give Spice an update on his “progress” with Sterling.

  STERLING

  God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race—to enlarge our hearts; and to make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affections; to give our souls higher aims; to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion; and to bring round our firesides bright faces, happy smiles, and loving, ten der hearts. . . . My soul blesses the great Father, every day, that he has gladdened the earth with little children.

  —MARY HOWITT

  I f anyone asked, Sterling would say that she was better at describing unhappiness than happiness. She searched for the sublime in sorrow. Sometimes she found it. But one thing was sure, everything that she’d learned in life, and learned well, she had learned from pain.

  Sterling was giving some serious thought to what Otis had said. She even called the rehab facility listed on one of the cards. Refusing to admit where she’d gotten the name of the clinic, and not agreeing to come in, she hung up after the woman kept insisting that Sterling give her name and number.

  With the blinds closed morning and night, Sterling hadn’t left her home since returning from Texas. Had it been a month? Now it was April, and she was ready for a fresh start. Since the Texas run, she’d hoarded her money. Fuck Spice, fuck her money. Sterling would take care of herself.

  Her basic needs were met with weekly groceries, highlighted by weekly sex and heroin delivered by Bennie. Until now, there had been no need to go out.

  But over the past four days, Sterling had been unable to keep anything in her stomach. She felt as if dozens of acidic bubbles were surfacing and busting inside her belly, relentlessly and slowly, one by one. Bennie wanted her to do a run to Arizona, but there was no way. She had to start taking care of herself. She knew she had no choice: it was give up drugs or be sick, then die. She worked up her nerve to tell Bennie.

  “Okay, babe. I’ll get Jamie to make the run to Phoenix.”

  “Are you coming by tonight?” she asked.

  “I’m leaving right now. I got some good shit, too.”

  “I’ll pass,” Sterling said, suddenly feeling stronger than she had in months. It had been almost a week since she’d touched heroin or alcohol.

  But no one knew Sterling’s addiction better than Bennie. She was his hostage; he was her addiction. In lucid moments, like now, Sterling could see clearly that each time she’d try to get clear of Bennie, he’d propose. She’d feel blindsided, unable to say anything but yes.

  That’s the way it happened before Christmas, Sterling remembered. Sterling had told him she was through. Then Bennie had arrived, his arms filled with flowers, champagne, and, of course drugs. They’d made mad love for a solid week, and on the final day, Bennie had proposed. He’d suggested they get the marriage license by Friday. And with barely six full days to prepare, Sterling had made arrangements for a small ceremony at the Little Wedding Chapel in Taylor, Michigan.

  All that Friday, Sterling had sat without watching television or radio, waiting for a phone call, the doorbell, any sound saying that Bennie had come for her. Sterling hadn’t realized how compliant she had become. She hadn’t realized how much she depended on Bennie.

  She’d rechecked the contents of her suitcase and taken one more look at the wedding dress that it had taken her eighty hours of shopping to finally settle on. At eleven P.M. Sterling had turned out the lights and, without shedding a tear, unpacked her suitcase and gone to bed.

  True to form, Bennie had stood her up again.

  But now she lay in bed, queasy.

  There, she felt it again. The stale bile percolated in her stomach and rose, rose and rose still, until she was forced to run to the bathroom.

  Her hair stuck to her face as she vomited again and again into the toilet. She lifted a weak hand to flush, then tried to lift herself. In a half stance, she felt her body convulse and she heaved in the porcelain basin once again. After wiping her face and mouth with a cold towel, she forced herself to shower and change into clean pajamas. She brushed her damp hair, twisted it, then pinned it on top of her head.

  Feeling a little better, she knew she had to eat. When she opened the refrigerator door, the strong aroma of garlic from yesterday’s half-eaten spaghetti made her stomach lurch. She slammed the door and held her breath for a moment before barely making it to the bathroom.

  As she staggered out after vomiting again, the phone startled her. “Hello?” she asked.

  “Hi, Sterling.”

  “Spice?” Her heart fluttered like a fan. Spice had left many messages on her machine, which Sterling had ignored, but they hadn’t spoken since their fight all those weeks ago.

  “I miss you, baby. Can we meet and talk?”

  Sterling was overwhelmed with emotion. Having been psychologically dependent on heroin for so long, she hadn’t realized the pain of being estranged from her mother. It seemed to overpower even the pain of withdrawal from the drug. “Name a place and time. I’d love to see you, too.”

  Mother and daughter scheduled their momentous reunion for four P.M. the next day at the Golden Mushroom restaurant.

  Sterling arrived a few minutes late. She saw Spice getting out of her seat, coming toward her, an eager look on her face.

  “Hi.” Spice greeted her daughter with a quick hug.

  Sterling felt herself stiffen.

  “Hello.” She followed Spice to the booth and sat across from her. “It’s nice to see you, Spice. You look . . . good.” Sterling was shocked by how youthful her mother’s complexion looked. Her soft brown eyes, lined with a navy kohl pencil, positively sparkled. Most little girls thought their mothers were pretty. Sterling could honestly say that about her mother today. She was beautiful.

  “Let me buy you lunch?” Spice offered.

  “It’s nearly dinnertime.”

  “Dinner, then.”

  Sterling smiled nervously.

  Both chose to ignore their last meeting, which had ended in screams and accusations. Instead they asked each other safe questions until they placed their orders. After ignoring several pages from her beeper, Spice finally excused herself for a moment to make a phone call.

  When she returned, Sterling was sipping on a diet Coke and flicking the leaves of a chicken salad.

  Spice sat down to her tuna salad and said, “You’re not eating, Sterling.”

  Sterling shook her head and turned away from the food.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, but you look like you’ve lost some weight,” Spice continued.

  “No,” Sterling lied. “I’m still a perfect size four.”

  Sterling hadn’t touched a forkfull of her fo
od, and when she looked at the beautifully served entrée, she felt repulsed.

  Spice looked worried. Finally breaking the silence, she asked, “Sterling, are you sick?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  Sterling took longer than she should have to answer. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sterling fought back tears and fixed a steel gaze out the window. Was that why she was sick? How fitting that Spice would know even before Sterling knew herself.

  There was a long period of silence between them.

  “Is it Bennie’s?” Spice asked.

  “Why would you care?”

  “I’ve always cared. And I hate to see a man like Bennie taking advantage of you.”

  “I love him. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Does he love you? Does he know about the baby?”

  “There is no baby, Spice.” Sterling pressed her fist to her mouth, suppressing a cry. She felt hot. And she was positive that her face revealed what a mess things were. She hated to hear Spice bad-mouth Bennie. He was like black charcoal, burning deeper and deeper into her heart—and even though she tried to extinguish the flame, it still burned, smoldering the embers of her soul.

  “I don’t want to argue, Sterling. We’ve been through too much already. Listen, if Bennie is the man for you . . .”

  “We’re going to be fine. I know it.”

  Spice reached out and took Sterling’s hand. “I’m dating someone now, too. His name is Golden Westbrook. I’ve grown to care about him. Deeply.”

  “Isn’t he a preacher?” Secretly she hoped that the preacher would break it off just as Bennie had with her over and over again. She knew she should be ashamed for thinking this way, but she wasn’t.