Everybody Plays The Fool Sometimes: The Legacy Babies, #1

By Gloria F. Perry

Ida Mae Mays is determined to protect her girls from the hypocrisy of the times and from becoming victims in the best little whore town in Mississippi. Her girls can recite her long list of good girls' rules verbatim about how to conduct themselves around men, especially white men. Johnny Lee Mays supports his wife, but he is a gambling, whiskey making, blues singing man who makes a lot of his money with the men he wants to keep away from his daughters. 

Sharon Mays Armstrong's secrets would probably send her parents to an early grave. She plans to take them to hers instead. She refuses to tell her daughter, Erica, who her father is, and to make matters worse, she sleeps around. Her secrets are destroying her relationship with her daughter, and her self-hate is becoming too much for her to bear.

Erica is a green-eyed beauty that already knows her beauty only buys her extra passes for sad love songs. She even gave up her dream to be a singer to follow a sensible path to become a dentist like her Aunt Gina. Love and life are good to the Mays girls when Erica's secret father throws them all a curveball from his grave. Twenty-three years after his wife killed him; James Russell Chesterfield leaves his fortune and a series of love letters to his illegitimate African American daughter and takes her on a roller-coaster ride of self-discovery. Erica's paternity isn't the only secret he will unearth. Russell's wife, his lover, and the sheriff all scramble to prevent a dead man from revealing their secrets and other crimes. Everybody plays the fool sometimes, but can love still prevail?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gloria F. Perry
• Release date: Mar 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224253777

Gloria F. Perry

About the Author  I dream in color. My imagination is vast. My passions include reading, writing, listening to music, and I love, love, love, to kiss. I also enjoy being a mother, a dentist, a real estate investor, an events planner, and a public speaker. I've lived most of my adult life in Connecticut, but growing up in Mississippi taught me volumes about people, politics, perseverance, patience, and power. I have published three novels; Playing Your Game, Stay in My Corner, and A New Rising Sun, which complete my Consequences Series. The series is about family and relationship issues.

Book preview

PART ONE

A CURVEBALL FROM THE GRAVE

1

Ida Mae

It is difficult being a black woman in a town best known for being the best little whore town in Mississippi. Like most mothers, I breathe a sigh of relief every time one of my beautiful daughters, or my lovely granddaughter, come home at night. Soon, Johnny Lee and I will have an empty nest. Our Gina got remarried tonight, and two of the groom’s friends have their sights set on Sharon and Erica. The Mays girls are on a roll lately. They are happy, but not too happy. Nothing destroys happiness like deep dark secrets and a town like Sweetwater. My mother used to say, count your blessings—and I do. My granddaughter, Erica, finished dental school recently and is moving to Connecticut to work with Gina. And my daughter Sharon promised to stop wasting her time with married men, and think about telling Erica who her father was. I doubt if she will. The child is an adult now. I don’t see how either of them can get their love lives back on track with a secret like that hanging over their heads.

Gina used to be my obedient daughter, but with all that explicit kissing and dirty dancing she and Don did, I probably wasted my good girls’ rules on all my girls. Of course, times have changed since I was a young girl growing up in the backwoods of Mississippi. I taught my girls how to conduct themselves like sweet southern belles. They hold their heads high and wear their pastel dresses, high heels, and pearls with class. In my defense, any mother raising daughters in a town where men are seeking whores must set some strict ground rules. What people do in the dark will eventually bite them in the ass in a town like this. Sharon has kept her secrets longer than most, but it has cost all of us.

Johnny Lee and I were having a great time dancing, drinking, and making new friends at our baby girl’s reception, even though the bride and groom disappeared a while ago. Gina shocked us when she hooked up with Don a few months ago and announced that they were getting married. The wedding came dangerously close to being canceled when Don got traded a few weeks ago. None of us expected my sensible daughter to marry the famous playboy basketball star. Even Erica feared that her levelheaded aunt had lost her freaking mind. Gina has a thriving dental practice in Connecticut. How she plans to run her business from way across the country is beyond me. Gina’s daughter, Myesha, is okay with her mom getting remarried, but her son, Kevin, thinks his mother is in over her head. Only God knows for sure if love alone can hold a marriage like theirs together with so many challenges trying to tear them apart. Not that long ago, Gina was in a deep depression over losing her first husband. Even the tabloids are talking about how the older country girl must have put a mojo on the famous playboy when she did his root canal. From where I sat, they were putting something on each other. I wouldn’t call it a spell; it reminded me of how I got caught in her father’s irresistible web. I got lucky, maybe she will too.

Sharon and Gina were nice girls when they were teenagers. Poor Erica was the one who gave us hell. She searched for love in all the wrong boys, ways, and places. That child wanted a father, but Sharon wouldn’t even give her his initials or a stepfather to replace him. I did what I thought I needed to do to protect my girls. Lately, there has been a lot of talk about sex trafficking and women speaking out about sexual misconduct. It does not differ from what the women in my family had no choice but to suffer through for generations. Nobody answered our calls when we cried out. Nothing would have changed either way. Things probably would have gotten worse. I was more determined than ever to protect my girls once I understood the rules. Like everything else, the laws did not apply equally to us. I was very clear about telling my girls those men could have us, but we couldn’t have them. My girls were opposites, and that made them dangerously beautiful—exotic. All the signs leading to that assignation whorehouse said exotic girls ahead. Sharon and Erica are on the dark end, and Gina is on the light end of the beauty spectrum. Opposites, but they struggled with concerns about their so-called exotic skin colors. And poor Erica has the green eyes of the man my daughter refuses to acknowledge. Sure, I taught them to love themselves, and the only opinions that matter come from the people who love them back, no matter their color. Love trumps hate every time. Occasionally, color doesn’t matter, but mostly in the bedroom around here. During my time, it was dangerous to be a woman in the backwoods of Mississippi and Louisiana. It really didn’t matter what shade you were, but if you were a pretty girl, Lord help you—trouble would find you faster than a fox chasing a rabbit. They snatched girls up, and took them over to that whorehouse, and turned them into sex slaves like they used to snatch boys off the street and put them on the chain gangs. That was what human trafficking was all about—same thing, different name, nobody was safe, hardly anybody cared. 

Sweetwater is a small river town tucked into the backwoods of Southwest Mississippi. Its claim to fame was being the last restricted district, with a legal assignation house where rich white men could legally commingle with black women. That race mixing was against the law in Mississippi is laughable. Back in my day, when black girls went missing, their families feared someone had turned them into sex slaves at that house. The houses were usually in larger towns like Jackson, Clarksdale, Greenville, and Natchez. Many biracial children are proof of its existence in Sweetwater. The house shut down for good only twenty years ago, but private sex clubs continue to this day. Sweetwater is still trying to change its image. My family has a thriving funeral home business, but even that didn’t protect Sharon and my niece from getting tangled up in the town’s alluring web.

Champagne flowed like sparkling water on our tables. We were celebrating the union of our daughter to Don, who is Sloan’s best friend and business partner. This wedding on his yacht in the middle of Long Island Sound didn’t cost Johnny Lee and me a penny. Sloan and his rich uncle Bo are paying for everything. Sloan invited us to stay for a breakfast after-party. We laughed, talked, and danced as we got to know Don’s mother, Edna, and his son, Jason. Edna is a walking and talking black Barbie doll. And Geneva and Justin are Sloan’s parents. They have a black love thing going on like Barack and Michelle Obama. Johnny Lee and I haven’t danced and drank so much champagne since we married off Sharon and Barry. That marriage was over before we paid for the dang thing. It was a grand celebration, and worth every penny, though. Johnny Lee and I are country folks. I asked Omar and his band to play us some blues. That boy showed out!

I strutted right up to him, with sweat still dripping, and gave him my telephone number. I winked and said, You never know when an old lady can help you out, young man. He was drooling over Erica. She’s like her mama—she doesn’t pay the good ones any mind. Omar winked and added my number to his phone. I laughed all the way back to my seat. Johnny Lee asked me what I was up to? I told him the boy played the blues as good as him when he was trying to woo me. He said he was still trying to woo me. I still love me some Johnny Lee Mays.

Geneva’s brother, Bo, caught Gina’s garter. Sharon caught her bouquet. They would make a beautiful match—they could even make a brown sugar baby with blue eyes if they were a little younger. We showered Gina and Don with confetti on their way off the yacht. Gina drove the Bentley Don had given her as a wedding gift. I hope he doesn’t think he can buy her love. My Gina sees things. I read about Don’s playboy reputation. He’ll have to leave all that mess alone if he wants to stay with Gina. I’m not sure about their rushed wedding. It seemed as if they were still trying to convince themselves they were ready for marriage with all that kissing and whatnot.

After we said our goodbyes to the newlyweds, Johnny Lee and I stayed for the late night breakfast on Sloan’s yacht. We went back to the salon and dining area where the wedding had taken place. Geneva, Edna, and I had already become as thick as thieves playing matchmakers. Omar had already tested my number out, and I’d already invited him to Sunday dinner. The ladies thought Bo and Sharon would make a handsome match as well. We had a good laugh about half the guests at the wedding thinking Geneva was Gina’s mother and Bo and Sloan were Gina’s uncle and brother. Some people even thought I was Don’s mother and Johnny Lee was his father. I call it color confusion. It’s just another dilemma that only black people have to deal with when they look nothing like their parents or siblings.

After a while we didn’t bother to tell them any different, Geneva said. 

Some people even thought I was Gina’s big sister. Now that our children are married, we are all family, and it doesn’t matter who birthed who, Edna said. I had doubts about my son, but I knew from the moment I met Gina that she was right for him. I’m glad he came to his senses and didn’t let her get away. Thank you, Sloan, for being like a brother to Don. And thank you, Bo, Geneva, and Justin, for always taking care of him like he was yours. 

No need for thanks—you did the same with Sloan. The fifth rule of business is—family always takes care of and supports family, whether it be for business or for pleasure, Bo said, and he winked at Sharon. That doesn’t mean that they won’t have to work hard—it just means that if they do right, we will have their backs.

Tell them about your business rules for getting to know your business partners’ real shit, Sharon said. She winked at Bo. He turned red. She thinks she doesn’t blush because her skin is dark, but I saw it. Nothing gets past a mother. It sure would be nice if she found a good husband and settled down like her sister, like she promised. She ought to be tired of running from man to man.

Cheers to the recent additions to the family empire, Justin said. 

Well, in honor of my man, Don, and his lovely and wise bride, it is my honor to keep this party going by making you all breakfast before you all turn in for the night. Gina once told me her number one rule about drinking is to never go to bed with an empty stomach. I have plenty of eggs, but since Don and Chef West are not here to help with the cooking, I could use one or two volunteers, Sloan said.

I’ll help, said Sharon.

Sloan had a strange look on his face when he said, Are you sure? Don told me to keep Gina away from the stove. Did she tell you she set off the fire alarm in his apartment in Manhattan? The fire department came and everything. Don was like, no problem, Mr. Firefighter, it’s just me and my old lady burning up the sheets.

We all laughed. My daughter may not be worth a hoot in the kitchen, but she must have it going on in the bedroom. Don couldn’t keep his hands off of Gina. If they weren’t so sweet together, I would have been embarrassed.

Aunt Sharon is nothing like mom in the kitchen, Kevin and Myesha said in unison. Gina’s children act more like twins than sister and brother. 

I’ll set the table, Myesha said. I made a mental note to give Kevin and Myesha some cooking lessons before Johnny Lee and I go back home.

I can help, Erica said after I flashed her a stern look. I’m not bragging, but my pancakes are the best. She smiled and followed Sloan and her mother to the galley. I’ll have to look into what is going on with her and Sloan later. I eased my way nearer to Bo. I needed to pick his brain on his intentions for Sharon. His rules of business didn’t fool me one bit. He was trying to get with Sharon.

So, Bo, you said taking care of family is the fifth rule of business. What are the other four? I thought it was an innocent enough question, but Bo turned fifty shades of red.

Mrs. Mays, Sharon asked me how I’d become a billionaire. It wasn’t anything, really.

Well, I like your fifth rule. And since we already said we were all family now, you can start by calling me Ida Mae. And if you are interested in my daughter romantically, I suppose it will be respectful to start with Miss Ida Mae.

Well, you have some beautiful daughters. We are not blood family, but we are family now. I’d rather be safe than sorry. So, Miss Ida Mae, it is.

Great! I put my arm around Bo’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. If you need to know anything about my daughter, I’m the one to come to first, understand? My Sharon can be her own worst enemy. I didn’t mean to let that slip. Bo nodded instead of answering directly. My family has been in the funeral arrangements business for four generations. We are a small but tight family of businesswomen. Helping each other out is what we do best. I always tell my girls having a family legacy is the key to generational wealth. I’d like to hear all about your business rules. How does dinner tomorrow at Gina’s house sound?

Fantastic, he said, but his fifty shades of red had returned. Bo was one of those black men with light skin and blue eyes who could pass, but I pride myself on knowing the many ways one-drop of black blood looks in America. Most people would never guess that I’m biracial. My skin is dark, but women always ask me what type of perm makes my hair so silky.

No pressure, just dinner. I patted him on his back and walked away. Still on a mission, I sat next to Bo’s sister, Geneva.

I think my big brother has a thing for your daughter, she said before I could say a word.

I think you might be right. Sharon pushes the good ones away. She is probably afraid of failing at love again. I get the sense that she and Bo are two peas without a pod.

Geneva laughed and said, Girl, you ain’t never lied. I had to do a double take. All of her dignified New York Upper East Side sophistication went right out the window with that comment. She really was a Louisiana girl to her core, as she had said. She laughed again and said, Let me translate. What I meant to say was, you called that one correctly, darling. She said primly and even stuck out her pinkie finger and pretended to sip tea.

Edna scooted her chair closer. Don and Sloan look up to Bo. If Sharon is anything like Gina, she might be the one to get Bo back on the right path.

We tightened our circle. I invited Bo to dinner tomorrow. I know my daughter. Tell me about Bo. We need a plan to keep them from running in opposite directions. She was in too much of a hurry to go help Sloan in the kitchen.

Bo was married for twenty years. His wife died shortly after her doctors diagnosed her with cancer. Bo was angry for a long time because even with all of his money, there was nothing he could do to save her. He became this bitter person no one could deal with but my son. They started a bunch of businesses together and spent a lot of time together. I was hopeful when Bo started dating again, although I’m not sure if I should call it dating. He was hanging out with Sloan and Don, and women half his age for a night or a weekend before moving on to the next one. Bo seemed happier than he had been since he lost Kate, so I said little about it. He made the mistake of sleeping with Kia’s friend when he’d had too much to drink. I wasn’t there, but Bo does not tolerate alcohol well. Half the time, he can’t remember what he did or said. My niece hasn’t spoken to her father since. It breaks my heart. He is such a brilliant man. He deserves to be happy again.

So, what is the deal with Sharon? Edna asked.

She was married for a hot minute. She actually loved her husband, probably still does. While he was away in law school, she went to a party at the college with her best friend. She thinks someone put something in her drink. Erica was born with a heart defect. She needed surgery to fix the problem. When they typed her blood, they discovered that there was no way her husband could be Erica’s father. That boy left Sharon at the hospital to deal with Erica all alone. To this day, Sharon doesn’t know who Erica’s real father is. Sharon made one mistake. She blamed herself, and she never forgave herself. Sharon couldn’t stop loving Barry, so it was hard for her to move on. She dates men who are noncommittal or men who are flat out unavailable. Sharon has been on a path of self-destruction since Barry divorced her. I know my girls. Sharon and Bo would be good together. She is trying to change.

I didn’t bother to tell my new friends that only half of what I said about Sharon’s situation with Erica’s father was the truth. Sharon and her friend Wendy made up the one-night stand story to stop the rumors my niece spread, claiming that Johnny Lee was Erica’s father. I don’t know why Fannie Mae would do such a horrible thing, but it probably had something to do with the married white man she was fooling around with. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe he was Erica’s father.

James Russell Chesterfield was Johnny Lee’s number one gambling buddy. He owned a bunch of businesses in Sweetwater, including the whorehouse. Long before his wife killed him at Fannie Mae’s house, he had turned the old mansion into a gentlemen’s club. He advertised about strippers and gambling downstairs, and private dances with exotic girls upstairs. Russell bragged about training the girls himself on the fine arts of performing all kinds of sexual acts and fetishes, and ways to make even sadomasochist acts pleasurable. Some girls worked for him just to learn the tricks of the trade. The women were all black, and the men were usually white, but by the late eighties, the only color that counted at that place was green. I just couldn’t figure out why Russell wanted Sharon when he had Fannie Mae.

Bo and Sharon sounds like a match made in heaven. I’m in. How are we going to get those two together and keep them from self-destructing? Geneva asked.

We have until dinner tomorrow evening to come up with a plan. Let’s try to keep some distance between them for the rest of the night.

We also need to help Gina and Don figure out the best way to blend their families and run their businesses after Don moves to Phoenix, Edna said. Gina may be in over her head, but Erica can help while those two lovebirds figure something out. And if Sharon lets go of her secrets, there might be hope for Bo and her and Erica and Omar.

2

Sharon

The day after Gina’s wedding, a text alert from Bo jarred me awake. He regrets he can’t come to dinner. I told him to let Mom know, and it wouldn’t hurt if he sent her some flowers. Sure, I’m disappointed. I’d ignored his offers last night, because he is the type of man I could fall hard for. His business rules about getting to know his business partners made sense, but I paid more attention to the things he said about himself. Bo loves rehabbing old houses and fucking young women because he can, not because he has to. He likes his coffee black with a hit of fresh lemon juice. He never let his feet touch a bare floor. And he loves a woman who can take his cock down her throat. He probably said that just to see how I would react. I also noted that he doesn’t handle alcohol very well. He surprised me when he said, We should just fuck and get it over with. It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said it that made me laugh from deep in my gut—it wasn’t girly or sexy like Mom taught me—it was as obnoxious as his out of the blue comment.

I’d placed my hand over his to stop his finger movements on my thigh and said, Being the oldest Mays girl, and way over twenty, it is not the fucking part of your statement that worries me. It is the get it over with part that implies that there could be many more things or nothing at all in store for you and I.

Bo said, Well, damn, I’m gonna have to stay on my A game with you.

And I’d said, Baby, you will need your A through Z game if you want to fuck with me. Pun intended. That had been the champagne talking, but I probably have just as much fucking and business experience as him. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that his grandmother ran a whorehouse in New Orleans like Russell’s or why he has beautiful blue eyes. I’ll get the full story about his grandmother if we ever meet again.

Bo makes my juices flow, but that doesn’t mean I should give in to my desires. That’s the old Sharon. Gina wants me to go for it. My sister is special—it wasn’t just the sex that helped her snag Don—my sister worked her mojo on that man. Maybe if I take my time with Bo, I can get my mojo back as well.

A few months ago Gina said, Just because you can still attract men Erica’s age, it doesn’t mean you should screw them. I still regret what I did with one of Kevin’s friends. Kevin just turned sixteen! Shock stopped me from asking her for details. It was also a defining moment for me. I’m fifty-two years young. I still rock a Jennifer Lopez body with no surgeries, fillers, or Botox ‘cause my black ain’t cracked, and I workout and have lots of sex. Plus, God blessed the Mays Girls with pretty faces, long legs and nice racks. Bo’s hands on my thighs and those little fiery circles he was making heated me up like a pot bubbling to boil over. I could have made his wet dreams come true, but I promised to make some changes in my life. Gina was the sister who always had everything under control. After Armstrong left me, I pretended to be grown and sexy, but acting like a whore, lead to being a whore, and that just wasn’t cool. For some dumbass reason, Gina thought she could protect her heart by screwing around like me after Charles died. Even my daughter wanted to be more like her aunt than me. I didn’t blame Erica. Gina was always a better role model, and she was always lucky in love. I couldn’t bear the thought of either of them having a fucked up love life like mine. I may have made it look like fun, but there were many times when I was so disgusted with my behavior that I considered suicide.

I hope my sister hasn’t taken on more than she can handle with Don. I can see that the man loves her, but I can’t honestly say Gina’s changes to be more like me were a good thing. Something is going on with her and Don. Why else would she call me in the middle of the night while she is on her honeymoon with a man that can’t keep his eyes and hands off of her? Why is she so worried about me being able to contact her if there is an emergency? Now she has me worried. Gina is the type of person who can sense when danger is near. She refused to say where the hell she went when she disappeared all day yesterday before the wedding.

My turning point came when my married lover said my heart had turned stone cold. He’s the fool if he didn’t already know that what we had been doing was never about the heart. He took me all the way to Memphis to tell me it was over. The fool really thought I had wasted seven years waiting for him to leave his wife and family. I had gotten all the future shit we may have had out of my system when we made love the night before his wedding day. Sure, we got together many times over the years, but like that song—love had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t waiting on him for anything but a good time, and he never disappointed me or made me wait too long. Sharon Mays Armstrong hasn’t sat around and cried over a man since Barry Armstrong left Erica and me in the hospital without giving me a chance to explain. The moment we found out Erica was not his; he jetted and never looked back. It was a hard pill for me to swallow as well. I didn’t have a clue until the doctor said my husband’s blood ruled him out for being Erica’s father. 

Barry and I were three years into our marriage by then. Our families didn’t know about the first two. Mom insisted on giving us a big, expensive wedding when I discovered I was pregnant. My husband was in Michigan in law school when everything went wrong. Barry had been my one and only lover until the night someone called from Erica’s blood father’s gentleman’s club. I will never forget the caller’s words, even though I can’t remember much about what happened after I got there.

You need to come and get your father. Hurry, there is some shit going down and he may not survive it, the caller had said. He hung up, and I rushed off to go get him.

Daddy used to be the best poker player in and around Sweetwater. Russell actually nicknamed him the poker king of Sweetwater. Russell would invite him to play with high rollers from all over the country long before and after they built the casinos. They made a lot of money most of the time. Bo would probably call daddy’s gambling a side hustle. It was profitable, but it was dangerous in those days for a black man to play with white men and win thousands of dollars of their money. Daddy enjoyed it, but Mom always feared he would end up dead like our great grandfather, who died over a cockfight. 

I was a good girl once upon a time. Barry and I had planned a wonderful life for our future. I could only see us in my future dreams long after he left me. I slept with lots of men afterwards, but my heart and everything else still belonged to Barry. We had been in love for ten going on eleven years and married for three. I denied feelings I developed for Erica’s real father. Not so much because of how she was conceived, or because he was white and older, but because I was still in love with Barry.

To say Barry’s parents were afraid I was going to ruin his life was their nice way of saying my skin was too dark to be his wife. His parents did all they could to keep us apart. Barry asked me to keep our union a secret. He wanted us to postpone having children until after he finished law school and joined his father and uncle’s law firm because of them. I was lonely, but I was happy until the night that destroyed my dreams and me with Barry.

Gina sometimes has premonitions. Our family was well aware of my sister’s gift, even though we didn’t know what to do about the things she said most of the time. She had predicted that I would sleep with someone other than Barry and my life would never be the same. In my mind, the likelihood of me sleeping with someone else was zero to none. A few years later, my conversation with Gina was the last thing on my mind when I got that call late that night. By morning, everything had changed, and I couldn’t remember a thing.

Mom called again for me to hurry and get downstairs for dinner. I put on a yellow sundress and put my hair in a ponytail. I put on my flat strappy sandals. My feet were still recovering from Gina’s