Dirty Laundry:
A Dramatic Tale of Lies, Secrets, and Betrayal

By Gina Maria Spriggs

Blond haired, blue-eyed Butterfly Wilson and coffee colored Maria Butler were as different as night and day, but became fast friends as teenagers. Scarsdale had very few black families in the 70's and each child had her own struggles trying to fit in. Despite many differences and arguments, each relied on the other for friendship.

When after 15 years their bond is severed, the feeling is mutually hostile. Butterfly-now dethroned Beauty Queen-turned-Actress, believes that Maria divulged her biggest secret to her first husband, causing their divorce. Butterfly seeks revenge by an embarrassing public announcement of Maria's lesbian past-in the presence of her new husband.

At 40, each are caught up with the details of their lives. Butterfly struggles to manufacture a pristine image as a loving mother of three perfect daughters and adored wife of pro-football "Playa" Nick Fontaine.

Maria, now a sales executive for a cosmetic manufacturer-juggles career, motherhood, her platonic relationship with her jobless husband and a new female love interest. When life throws and unexpected turn, the two former friends find themselves face-to-face. But will resolving the sins of the past bring forgiveness?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 4, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595854721

Gina Maria Spriggs

Gina Spriggs grew up in Millwood, New York, and graduated from the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising in New York City. She is a creative consultant for cosmetic and skincare manufacturers and lives in North Carolina.

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Contents

PROLOGUE

PART ONE—BACK IN THEDAY

KEG PARTY!!!

SUMMERTIME!

BACK TO SCHOOL

PART TWO—THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW

BUTTERFLY WILSON

DESIREE WILSON

BUTTERFLY

MAREA ALVARICE

MARIA BUTLER

DREAMIN’

STUART

PARTY TIME!

STORM HAYDEN

WE ARE FAMILY!!

BACK TO REALITY

BUTTERFLY

MAREA AVERICE WINS AN OSCAR

ELITE COSMETICS

BUTTERFLY

MAREA ALVARICE

MARIA HEARS THE NEWS

BUTTERFLY HEARS THE NEWS

JILTED!

TERRY TARELTON

MARIA

FLY

NICOLE DUMAS

BUTTERFLY

MARIA AND DENISE GO TO NEW YORK

TERRY GOES TONEW YORK

BUTTERFLY PREPS

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!

ENTER THEBUTTERFLY

MADELYN BUTLER

NICK

ELITE COSMETICS

BUTTERFLY’S EPIPHANY

TRISTAN

BUTTERFLY

HOME

DENISE

90 DAYS LATER

WHAT GOESAROUND, COMESAROUND

MAREA ALVARICE

Epilogue

For Gianna who brings me sunshine every day, my parents Frank and Bette Spriggs, my sisters Desiree, Vicki, Cheri and Kristi, and all my girlfriends ..past, present and future…

When a butterfly fluttersits wings in one part of the world,it can eventually cause a hurricane in another …

-Edward Lorenz, Chaos Theory

PROLOGUE

SKU-000038195_TEXT.pdf

What the hell is that??

Waking from his sleep in nothing but sweat, Storm Hayden opened his eyes to Sarina sleeping soundly beside him. He flexed his fingers and shook his left arm, trying to remove the numbness that had awakened him.

Storm swung his feet off the bed leaning on his right hand, still flexing the fingers on his left. Standing, he bent his head toward one shoulder, then the other, like a boxer, stretching to get ready for a fight.

He felt like shit.

He dragged the weight of his body over to his vanity and glanced back at Sarina lying naked and beautiful under 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. The crisp whiteness of the sheets gleamed against her smooth brown skin. Thick dark lashes cast a shadow on her cheekbones, and shoulder length black hair fanned the pillow.

Any other man would have been able to fuck her senseless— but he had failed to maintain an erection tonight.

Turning back to the dresser, he looked at himself in the mirror and smirked. His powerful chest, ‘six pack’ abs, chiseled facial features and deep green eyes were his package—the hand some, successful man that other people saw. The reality was that he felt impotent, overworked and under loved.

Most people thought of Puff Daddy (or is it P. Diddy these days?) when they thought of young black millionaires who made their fortunes spotting talent for record companies before running record companies of their own. The flurry of entourages and ‘bling’ made for great press coverage and added to the hype of the infamous personality.

There were few others like Storm.

The general public had no idea who he was. While he was just as accomplished and probably wealthier than his Puffy counterpart, he kept his business to himself, did not have a publicist for his personal life, did not wear sunglasses at night or go to Dr. Cohen-Stein for Restlyne injections, and preferred his behind-the-scenes lifestyle. Storm was both famous (in the industry) and anonymous. Estée Lauder seemed to like his discretion: he was currently in secret negotiations for a fragrance licensing deal with them. Those in the know knew exactly who he was, but he could walk down the street without people harassing him and could even meet women without thought as to whether they were after his money. Well, usually. The woman lying in his bed now, Sarina G., was new to his label. This was a first for him, actually dating the talent. On occasion he screwed the talent, but this was different.

So far so good he thought to himself as his eyes washed over her sleeping naked body.

He wasn’t seeing stars or anything … wasn’t in love, but she was particularly good in bed and certainly worth keeping around for a while. Her free spirit and any way you want it attitude toward sex was right up his alley. He had not slept with anyone as free-spirited and willing to serve since … boy, it had been years … Butterfly Wilson. Dethroned beauty queen, turned singer, turned actress.

Storm rubbed the stubble on his face and smiled as he thought back to those Butterfly days. He didn’t have any problems getting it up back then. Their little affair was over thirteen years ago, but he remembered it like yesterday. They had a good run that included late-night trysts at the studio while she was ‘working’ on her album. She was working it, all right. That girl fucked him like she hadn’t been fucked for years—like she was just released from jail or something. On those rare occasions that they would hook up at the studio to actually record, she would wear snug dresses, looking hot as usual, but what no one else in the studio knew was that she was wearing nothing under those dresses and frequently gave Storm sneak previews of her nakedness—of what was available for him when they were through. Storm chuckled as he thought Britney may have made going pantyless popular, but she certainly wasn’t the first.

Butterfly’s husband seemed clueless about the affair—Storm sensed that from the couple of times they met. Butterfly abruptly cut short her ‘sexcapades’ with Storm. Soon after, Storm found out through the grapevine that she was pregnant, and he assumed she wanted to play the ‘good wife’ role again. It crossed his mind that the child could be his, but he didn’t really want to know. She switched labels weeks after her contract was up, and he was okay with it. Their great sex was causing him to lose sight of what was important—business. Even though (in retrospect) she was a manipulative bitch, he was starting to have feelings for her. She had made it clear early on that she would never leave her husband. In fact, he recalled her saying, quite bluntly, I love fucking you, but that’s it.

Pursuing a relationship at that time would have been difficult at best, especially with her ‘whichever-way-the-money-blew’ ass. He worked with a lot of rappers and was amazed how she could smile in their faces and be ‘down’, and then talk about them like dogs when they were out of earshot.

Glancing back at Sarina as she stirred in her sleep, he watched her roll over on her stomach and hug her pillow closer. She pulled her right knee up toward her chest while extending her left leg, stretching like a cat in her sleep. The sheet covered only her glorious ass, and for a moment he admired her smooth skin, toned arms and long legs. Sarina’s athletic body reminded him of one of his other favorite woman: Maria Butler.

Maria wasn’t in the music business and could care less about it. He loved her for that—she was real, not trying to work any angles. She worked in the cosmetics industry and would talk to him about how products were formulated, which skin care was the best in the industry, or her ideas on her own cosmetic line. He could tell she had a real love for the business. Maria was a sensuous and passionate lover, preferring long hot baths together, deep massages to wind down at night, and slow early morning love making to start the day—rather than primal, body-slapping sex and rushing out the door at 3:00AM.

She could hold her own around the wealthy as well as the common folk. The fact that she had spent several years in a relationship with a woman didn’t bother him one bit. In fact, he actually liked it. She was comfortable in her own skin, and never apologized for her past relationships. Her ‘gay-dar’ was always on point, with both men and women. He chuckled to himself as he thought back to the time his new ‘hard core’ rapper Sordid (real name: Christopher Buckley) introduced himself to Maria at the studio one day. After he left the room she smiled and said, "Mmm-hhm, I bet he is sore." Storm thought she was way off base—but it turned out she was right. Sordid, with his hard-core persona and posse of ‘ho’s’ was busted in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles, taking it in the rear by one of the messengers from Fed-Ex, moaning like a bitch.

Storm dated Maria for over eight months and when she broke it off, she explained that he wasn’t the type of man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. He hadn’t asked her to spend her life with him, but she must have read the signs because he was close to it. She called him a month later to tell him she was pregnant with his child. He thought foolishly that she might be after his money, but when he asked outright, she chuckled and assured him she was not. It was only after a full year of silence that he realized she had told him the truth.

She never asked for anything. Maria didn’t ask for child support and did not want him in the baby’s life. He started calling her every year or so to see if she needed anything. The answer was always no, then they would chat genially, but she always kept it brief.

Thinking of those two past lovers now, he recalled how different they were—as different as night is to day. Maria was tall, athletic, the color of strong coffee, with angular features. At her core, she was authentic and warm. Butterfly had a petite dancer’s frame, blue eyes, wheat blonde hair and honey colored skin. She appeared sweet and caring, but inside she was a cold bitch. They were negatives of each other, really. Something in their mannerisms and the cadence of their speech was similar, though. Storm wondered if they knew each other, since, if he recalled correctly, they grew up in the same town. Even though it was years after Butterfly that he dated Maria, they both popped in his mind as being his favorites, for totally different reasons.

Storm walked out into the main room of his loft. His 3000 square foot condo had only one wall, which he had put up to separate the master bedroom from the rest of the apartment. He purchased this loft from some hoity-toity, name dropping (and rather country) realtor, but he had to admit, he got what he wanted. His Soho loft was his favorite of three living spaces.

Walking into his kitchen, he grabbed a bottle of Evian from his stainless steel refrigerator and looked down with disappointment at his flaccid dick. He had so much on his mind with work. Sarina had tried every trick in the book tonight but it was like trying to wake the dead. She licked him from head to toe (actually sucked his toes), and he finally decided to create a diversion by licking her from head to toe, lingering around her warm wet folds, bringing her to a climax, and holding her until she went to sleep. Storm was generally not into performing oral sex, not into getting all warm and cuddly after it (especially when all he really wanted to do was brush his teeth). He was certainly not into toe sucking (you want to suck my toes then kiss me?), but tonight was different. He needed to do something that would take her mind off ‘Mr. Softy,’ and that was the only thing that came to mind.

Shit! There it goes again, Storm thought as he extended his arm, flexing his fingers. That feeling … Storm put his glass down on the dark wood Nakashima dining room table (which he used as a desk), and sat in the oak and leather armchair at the head of the table. From where he sat he could see out into the night, across Broadway to the next building. He’d had the original windows replaced with five double-height and dou-ble-width windows, framed by sheer white panels that touched the floor. Here he had created a South Beach feel: white and spacious, with dark wood accents. It was a contrast of white and dark brown, heavy and delicate, masculine and feminine.

Storm picked up his leather-bound date book, reviewing his schedule for the coming days, weeks, months. He had a lot on his plate on both coasts. Something was gonna have to give. He had allowed work to take over his life. Other people had friends, spouses and children. Jail House Records had been Storm’s lover, wife and best friend; the talent were his children. He often went home to an empty place and felt lonely in a room crowded with ass kissers. He wondered what the hell he was working so hard for. He needed a break, and every day was booked for the next 45 days—except Easter Sunday, which he would undoubtedly spend alone.

Looking at his schedule for the upcoming Thursday, he called his assistant. Sonya picked up on the first ring: Jail House Records, Storm Hayden’s office. Even though it was 1:00AM, Storm knew she would be in the office. She was a workaholic like him.

Hey, Sonya, it’s me. How are we doing with RSVPs on the guest list for this week’s party?

Excellent, Sonya replied. The top twenty all RSVPed that they would attend, except one—Puff Daddy. The top twenty included everyone from Dana Owens (better known as Queen Latifah) to Russell Simmons, a contemporary he had much respect for.

It looks like its gonna be jammin’! enthused Sonya I don’t think that Fez has ever seen the likes of the folks that will be rollin’ up in there on Thursday. Fez was a club uptown on 79th Street on the West Side, above a mediocre restaurant. It was not particularly known for having an ‘A’ list crowd—especially mixed up with a lot of hip-hop artists.

Good, sounds good. Sonya, when you get a chance, take a look at my schedule and see what we can move around. I am feeling like I can use a few days off as soon as possible.

Sure, will do. Are you okay?

Yeah, I just need a few days of R & R.

Sonya—not only his assistant, but his half sister too—really cared about her big brother. She could and did move mountains for him. And she was one of the few people he trusted.

As soon as Storm put down the phone, he felt that strange sensation in his arm again. I need to chill out with those weights he thought as he just as quickly dismissed the pressure in his chest.

PART ONE— BACK IN THE DAY

Maria dropped the last box on the floor with a loud thud, then plopped herself down on her unmade bed. She looked around her new bedroom and smiled. This room was much bigger than her old room, and she would not have to share it with her big sister, Crystal.

Her mother had the room painted a specific shade of yellow, just ask she asked, and it had a huge window that looked out to the front of the house. I can see who is coming and going, she thought.

She had to admit, she was sick of moving. At sixteen she could recall six moves before this one. When she was younger, her mother always made it sound like fun. "A new room, new friends and new school, you are lucky!" But now the only thing Maria really looked forward to was the room. The ‘new school’ and ‘new friends’ bit was getting old. In high school most cliques were already established.

Maria was going to miss her friends in Mt. Vernon, especially Arya McFarlane. She chuckled to herself as she thought about the crush they both had on their eighth grade math teacher, Mr. Killen. He had a severe stutter, and although they laughed every time he would say that the n-n-n-umbers d-don’t j-j-j-jive! (intentionally getting a math problem wrong, just to hear him say that) they both swooned over his shocking red hair and tall, Irish good looks.

But her parents had saved up for their dream house in Scarsdale and they wanted to get the family out of Money Earnin’ Mt. Vernon. They would no longer have to pay for her private school, and no longer have to worry about the riff-raff that came with the territory.

They purchased this new house for a steal. Maria had overheard her parents talking about how it had been on the market for a while, and that the previous owners had horrible taste. The wallpaper was a shiny gold and black velvet combination, and even worse, they had a child that lacked a tailbone or something to that effect, and he could not control his bowels. When the realtor, Elana Smith, would bring people by to look at the house and they would see and smell shit in almost every room. Fortunately, her parents could see past the shit and black velvet to appreciate what a beautiful house it was. Situated along side of a lake, the four bedroom, three bathroom split-level house had east-west exposure in a charming neighborhood. The school system was supposed to be the best, but there were few black families.

Maria, exhausted, bent over to open the box she just dropped when she heard the doorbell ring. I’ll get it! she yelled to her mother who was organizing the kitchen. Any excuse was a good one to take a break.

Thanks, honey! yelled her mother.

Maria ran down the stairs to the foyer and looked through the peephole. She saw two people, obviously mother and daughter, but she had never seen them before in her life. Opening the door, Maria said Hi to the two strangers. The homemade basket of goodies wrapped in cellophane made it apparent that they were welcoming them to the neighborhood.

Hello to you, dear. I am sure your mother is busy, but I came to introduce myself and welcome your family to the neighborhood. I am Desiree Wilson, and this is my daughter, Butterfly. We live just up the street, greeted Desiree as she gave Maria the once over. It appeared that she mentally decided she was worthy of the gift, and she handed her the basket.

Maria, inviting them inside, suddenly felt underdressed in her own home. She was wearing her favorite pair of Calvin Klein jeans with a dingy used-to-be-white T-shirt, and her feet were bare. Desiree was a well-dressed petite woman with warm brown eyes, a caramel complexion and a cool, professional smile. She reminded Maria a little bit of Eartha Kitt. She wore a black wool coat, black leather gloves, black wool slacks and black boots. Her daughter Butterfly was also small-boned and had large blue eyes and (by the looks of it) kitchen cosmetology relaxed blonde hair. Her genuine smile revealed an ill fitted cap on one of her front teeth, smudged with lipstick. Even so, she was very pretty and dressed nicely in her cream-colored turtleneck and blue pea-coat, jeans and brown penny loafers.

How Waspy! Is this how everyone dresses around here? Maria wondered to herself.

Hi, I’m Madelyn Butler. It is so nice of you to come by, said Maria’s mother, who appeared behind Maria at the bottom of the landing, wiping her hands in a dish-towel. Madelyn wore a red bandana around her head to keep her curls out of her face, and was wearing high water jeans with white Keds, red socks and a red sweater. Maria was briefly embarrassed by her mother’s appearance, seeing her through the strangers’ eyes.

Elana Smith told me you would be moving in. I had to greet you in person, Desiree cooed, as she peered down the stairs trying to get a better view of the house.

Did you know the previous owners? Madelyn asked cautiously.

No, I didn’t. But I understand the house was on the market for some time. Glancing at the walls Desiree continued. Was it true about the wall paper? she asked in a conspiratorial tone.

"Yes, thank God! The wall paper (and the shit, she thought to herself) made most of Elana’s buyers run for the hills! We were fortunate. They took what we offered, which was far below asking price. We love this house. Come in and take a look around, offered Madelyn as she invited Desiree into her new home. As you can see, we removed the offending wall paper, and I have just started unpacking." she said as she waved toward the unpacked boxes in the living room. Desiree looked distastefully at a bronze bust sculpture in the living room, trying to hide her expression. It featured a black woman with a huge afro, ála Angela Davis.

Isn’t that a great piece? Madelyn asked, noticing Desiree’s interest. Milton Sherrill is the artist. It is actually a bust of my oldest daughter. You could say that he is a family friend."

How lovely, Desiree lied. Is your husband home?

No, he is working. He would only get in the way anyway. There are some things that men should just leave to us. Madelyn mused.

What does your husband do?

Skip is with IBM.

Oh. Replied Desiree, trying to figure out what that meant in terms of income.

Desiree and Madelyn walked into the kitchen and continued their conversation while Maria asked Butterfly Would you like to see my room?

Sure, Butterfly responded with a smile, and the two went up the stairs that led to Maria’s room. Butterfly took a seat on the bed while Maria opened the box and started unpacking her things.

So, what do you guys do around here for fun? asked Maria.

Well, a lot of us belong to Jack & Jill. Are you a member?

Maria, who had never even heard of Jack & Jill, did not want to appear ignorant by asking what the hell it was, so she just replied No.

Well, all of us are,. You may want to join.

Who is ‘us’?

The other black kids. There is Alley, her father is a lawyer, Laura, her father is a judge, Tina & Marybeth, their father is a surgeon and Tonya, her father owns a chain of restaurants.

This is freaky thought Maria. Who cares what parents do for a living? Feeling