Her Ruthless Bully

“I can’t believe you got caught kissing Beau Prescott’s girlfriend under the stairs!”

Josie Witherspoon and her best friend, Colin Fairgood, were walking home from school. The large mansions, which lined both sides of the street, bore stately and placid witness to their conversation.

“Everybody on the bus was talking about it!”

Colin shrugged his skinny shoulders, like string-bean violinists stole the hearts of popular cheerleaders every day. “I can’t believe you can’t believe a girl like Mindy wouldn’t rather go out with me than that dumb-ass quarterback you live with.”

“I don’t live with him,” she said, exasperated. “I live in his parent’s house with my mom. Big difference. We barely talk.”

“Whatever. Just because you can’t see what a catch I am doesn’t mean Mindy don’t.”

Josie pushed her cat-eye glasses up on her nose, and looked at Colin sideways. She could never tell if he was joking or serious when he insinuated that she was missing out by not having him as a boyfriend.

They’d been friends since elementary school. Really, it had been a friendship made out of desperation more than anything else. Josie was one of the few black kids in the Forest Brook school system, and definitely the only black nerd, while tall and skinny Colin had been the only kid playing concert-level violin. Plus, despite the fact that she was black and he was white, both of their mothers happened to be live-in help for affluent families with homes on the same street, so technically they had more in common with each other than with other kids who were their own race.

Back when they’d first met, they’d been a pair of misfits with the misfortune of going to an elite school that valued its wealthy student body and athletics over diversity and musical prowess. Why not hang out with each other, who else would want to hang out with them?

But lately Colin had been making jokes suggesting he wanted more than friendship from Josie, and she didn’t know how she felt about that.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re a great catch,” she said. “It’s more like I’m surprised Mindy was smart enough to realize it.”

Really surprised. On the few occasions she’d talked to Mindy, when she’d come by the house looking for Beau, Josie didn’t think there was much more than cotton candy and cheerleader chants going on between her pretty ears.

“Jealous?” Colin asked with an impish grin.

“More like scared,” Josie answered. “I’m just hoping Beau don’t come after you. You know how he gets.”

Then, as if she had summoned him out of thin air just by saying his name, Beau’s over-large, shiny blue pick-up truck screeched to a halt on the other side of the road. And Beau himself came barreling out with Mike Lacer, their school’s starting wide receiver and the son of the family Colin’s mother worked for, right behind him.

Most girls, including her—though she’d never admit it out loud—found Beau mesmerizing. With his thick black hair, contrasting silver eyes, chiseled body, aquiline nose, and All-American good looks, he was like the living embodiment of a Ralph Lauren ad. But right now, he looked a lot less preppy and a whole lot more intimidating as he came straight at Colin, his muscle-bound body tight with anger.

“Fairgood,” he said, pointing at the ground halfway between them. “You and me. Right now.”

“Aw man,” Colin said under his breath. But nonetheless, he put his violin case down and removed his backpack.

“Are you kidding me?” Josie hissed. “You can’t fight them. They’re, like, twice your size!”

Colin eyed Beau and Mike warily. “I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

“Run, fool!” she said, stating what, she felt, was the obvious solution.

“I’m not running,” he answered, clenching his fists at his sides. “I might be skinny. But I’m not a coward.”

“How about your hands? You can’t be getting in fights. You’ve got the Youth Symphony concert at the ASC this weekend.”

She could tell that thought gave him pause. He’d been playing violin since the age of four, and he’d been taught to protect his hands above all things for most of his life. But still, he set his jaw and said it again: “I’m not running.”

And then it was too late to run. Beau was standing right in front of them, his meaty right fist covered with his left hand. His silver eyes almost seemed to glitter with anger in the afternoon light. “Time for you to get out of here, Josie.”

He and Mike reeked of alcohol.

“Now, Beau, just calm down now. Two football players against the two of us? You and I both know that ain’t a fair fight.”

“It isn’t two against two,” Beau answered with a smirk. “I’ll fight Fairgood on my own. Mike just came to watch the beat down.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, obviously feeling no loyalty whatsoever to the son of his family’s housekeeper. “I’m just here to see Fairgood get his ass kicked.”

Josie rolled her eyes. Mike might as well be a hype man, he was so ridiculously fond of repeating everything Beau said. “Beau, you need to think about getting some real friends as opposed to sycophants who go along with everything you say.”

“What’d you just call me?” Mike asked, taking a menacing step toward her.

Josie stood her ground and stared Mike down. “So, what, now you’re going to beat me up, too?”

“No,” Beau said, raising his hand to still Mike before the wide receiver could answer. “Like I said, this is between me and Fairgood. You go on home now, Josie.”

He was so sure she was going to follow his command, so sure he had her under his thumb. It was hard to believe she’d ever liked Beau as a human being, much less had a raging crush on him the summer before she started at Forest Brook Senior High, before he’d shown his true colors.

She drew herself up to her full five-feet-five inches and lifted her chin. “And like I said, that’s not a fair fight. It’d be like Colossus beating up on Yo Yo Ma!”

Beau’s face screwed up. “Who and who?”

Colin stepped in front of Josie explain. “She’s referring to a comic book character and the best cellist on the planet. But it doesn’t matter, because if you want to fight I’ll fight. I’m not a coward.”

Colin tried to push Josie behind him, but she scrambled to get in front of him and spread her arms in a protective stance.

“No, I’m not going to let this happen,” she said.

Beau threw Colin an exasperated look. “So you’re going to hide behind a girl? That’s how you want to handle this?”

“Jo-Jo,” Colin said behind her, “you’re embarrassing me.”

“I don’t care if I’m embarrassing you,” Josie shot back. “You have more talent in your index finger than Beau’s got in his entire body. And I’m not going to let you risk your hands because he’s mad over a stupid girl. And when I say stupid, I mean, really, really stupid—bless her little heart, but she ain’t nobody to be fighting over.”

If Josie had been hoping to make Beau see reason, she got the opposite response. He stepped forward, so close she could feel his beer-tinted breath on her face when he said, “Josie. Go. Home. Now.”

And before she could protest again, Mike was pulling her out from between them.

“No!” she yelled. “Don’t touch me!”

She kicked Mike straight in the balls. And when he fell to his knees, cupping his crotch like a movie villain, Josie used the opportunity to jump on Beau’s back. “Run!” she yelled at Colin.

“Get off me!” Beau said, swiping at her like a bear.

It took all of Josie’s strength just to hang on. “Run!” she yelled again.

“I can’t leave you,” Colin yelled back. His fists were tight at his sides and it looked like his body was primed to do something to help, but his mind didn’t quite know what yet.

Mike started trying to tug her off of Beau’s back from behind, but Josie tightened her grip around Beau’s neck and waist like a squirrely monkey. “If you want to fight somebody then fight me you stupid bully,” she said to Beau.

“Josie, you work for me,” Beau said. “Now stop this and get on out of here so Fairgood and me can settle this like men.”

“I don’t work for you,” she spat back. “My mama does. As long as I’m breathing, I promise you this, Beau Prescott, I will never, ever work for you.”

“Get off!” he yelled, pawing her.

Her glasses fell off her face then, followed by a sickening crunch.

The world beyond Beau went blurry, but she hung on. “I’m not letting go until you promise to leave Colin alone!”

They went on like this for a few minutes, until Beau finally yelled, “All right! All right! I won’t fight him.”

Josie immediately loosened her grip and let herself slip to the ground. Beau Prescott might be a lot of things, arrogant, classist, and mean, but like her, he’d been raised by Loretta Witherspoon, and Loretta didn’t raise liars. The one thing Josie and him had in common was if either of them said something, you could trust it was true.

She could barely see the expression on Beau’s face without her glasses, but it was easy enough to tell he was hopping mad by the sound of his voice. “I won’t fight him,” he repeated. “But this ain’t over.”

With that, he headed back to his truck, Mike once again right behind him. Meanwhile Colin and she stood together, both breathing hard like a couple of prizefighters that unexpectedly managed to go the distance.

“How am I still alive?” Colin asked. “What just happened?”

“We showed them,” Josie said with a happy smile. “We finally showed them that our mamas might work for them, but that don’t mean they can push us around.”

Colin was close enough that she could see the skeptical look on his face. “Yeah, but now I’m going to have to put up with Mike making my life hell.” He bent down and looked at something on the ground. “Plus it looks like Beau broke your glasses.”

Josie’s heart sank when he pointed out her broken glasses. There was no way her mother would be able to replace them any time soon, without raiding Josie’s college fund. And heaven forbid if Beau told Loretta how her glasses got broke. She’d be in so much trouble. Josie couldn’t even remember a time when Loretta hadn’t lectured her about how important it was to always be respectful around the Prescotts, how she should never, ever cross them, no matter what any of them said to her.

“You should have just let us fight,” Colin said beside her, his voice laced with the same dread she was now feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She shook her head. “I hate Alabama. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Me either,” Colin said. Then he took her hand in his. “But no matter what happens, just keep on thinking about the leaving part. One day we’re going to get out of Forest Brooks and nobody from here is going to be able to touch us.” He squeezed her hand. “You just wait and see.”

Josie squeezed his hand back. Colin was right. She’d figure out how to get out of Alabama one day and when she did, she’d never think twice about Beau Prescott ever again.

Fifteen years later…

Josie was not having a good week, a good month, or even a good year. And waking up in a freezing mobile home pretty much confirmed she wouldn’t be having a good day either.

Luckily for her, her grandmother’s trailer had been paid off years ago. However, unluckily for Josie, rent-free didn’t mean utilities-free, and apparently the Alabama Gas Corporation had grown tired of her inability to respond to all of their “pay now” notices. The frigid air hit her face like a slap with a wet towel and sent a cold tremor down the spine of her overly thin body.

She put on her old, chunky cat-eye glasses and got out of bed anyway, if only so she could grab one of her grandmother’s quilts and wrap it around her shivering shoulders. It was Alabama, she reasoned with determined cheerfulness, so the poorly insulated mobile home would warm up later in the day. Maybe she could run to Wal-Mart after her shift at the shelter and use the last of the money left on her only credit card for a space heater to get her through the night.

But then, she flipped on the trailer’s main light switch and nothing happened.

She groaned. Not the electricity, too!

Less than an hour later, Josie arrived at Ruth’s House, a small, unmarked domestic abuse crisis center in a recently gentrified area of Birmingham. And she was still shivering from the super cold shower she’d forced herself to take before reporting for duty.

Technically, she could have showered at the shelter. But mornings were basically rush hour for the shelter’s communal showers, especially when they were over their 17-bed capacity as they had been lately. She didn’t want to further tax the shelter’s already over burdened resources.

Still, she didn’t think she could take too many more cold showers, and she definitely didn’t think she could take another night in the freezing trailer.

“Hey, Josie,” Nancy, Ruth House’s latest receptionist, said after buzzing her through the outer glass doors. The young, sloe-eyed brunette sat behind a panel of bulletproof glass toward the back of a small outer room pebbled with a few banged up folding chairs. “Sam said she wanted to see you as soon as you got here.”

Josie’s heart lifted. A couple months ago, she and Sam had applied for a grant, which would enable Ruth’s house to promote Josie from her volunteer position to one of the shelter’s official intake workers. If Sam was asking to see her right away, maybe she had some good news.

“Thanks, Nancy,” she said, as she waited to be buzzed through a second set of doors that led straight into the actual shelter part of Ruth’s House.

This part of the shelter was much nicer, with a carpeted front room where their temporary residents could congregate and seventeen small private rooms with beds for sleeping.

Sam, who had come to Alabama five years ago to open the center, had somehow managed to make the industrial space look cozy, painting the walls a pale yellow and adding quality furniture, which was holding up well despite having seen better days.

Josie walked down the center’s main hallway and knocked on a wooden door that had Director of Center Services written across it in peeling gold letters. She made a mental note to redo the sign herself when Sam wasn’t looking. Her friend would pay for a hotel out of pocket if it meant keeping one woman safe for the night, but wouldn’t ever divert funds to the upkeep of her office—if the converted broom closet that barely fit Sam’s desk could really be called an office.

“Come in,” Sam’s lilting voice called from inside.

Josie walked in and found Sam digging through a file cabinet. “Hey, Josie. I’m just looking for this one thing that might be able to help me figure out how to get this other thing we really need if we want to—aha, found it!”

Sam pulled out a manila folder and waved it around triumphantly.

Josie shook her head. Samantha “Sam” McKinley was pretty, bright, warm, and generous, almost to a fault, but she wasn’t exactly known for being succinct or even comprehensible at times.

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that, girl,” Josie said, dropping into Sam’s guest chair.

Sam winced, her soft brown eyes clouding over as she dropped into her own chair. “It’s this other grant we got at the last shelter I worked at. Technically, it’s only supposed to go to shelters in Missouri, but maybe they’d be open to giving it to us, I mean considering all the good work we’re doing.”

Now Josie winced. “So we didn’t get the grant.”

Sam shook her head, a glum expression overtaking her usually sunny face. “I wish it was only as bad as we didn’t get the grant. They made a point of saying our application was exceptional and we would have gotten the grant, but unfortunately, they lost funding for it, so they’re no longer able to offer it.”

Josie fell back in her chair, more than a little disappointed. Sadly, funds for social service grants were being cut all over the place, even as demands for those services were going up.

“But maybe…” Sam flipped through the application literature inside the folder, but then her shoulders sank a couple of pages in. “Shoot, has that stupid restriction, too.”

Josie’s heart sank. She didn’t need a translation to understand what that meant. This grant also required whoever Sam hired with the funds it provided be in possession of a bachelor degree, which Josie didn’t have because she had oh-so-stupidly followed her former husband to Atlanta during what was supposed to be her senior year of college as opposed to finishing up at University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Back then, it had finally felt like she was achieving her dream of leaving Alabama behind, but now her lack of degree had come back to bite her in the worst way. She’d been looking for work ever since moving back to Birmingham, and hadn’t been able to find any. Even the lowliest office jobs seemed to want a college degree these days, and the twelve year gap on her resume didn’t help either. Not for the first time, she cursed herself for letting Wayne convince her not to get a job after they got married. And she wondered once again how she could have been so stupid.

Sam let the folder drop out of her hand. “Okay, back to the internet. There’s got to be something out there.”

But Josie stopped what she could tell was going to become one of Sam’s pep talks with a weary raised hand. “No, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to start applying for those other grants you passed up in order to get me in here.”

“No,” Sam said.

“Yes,” Josie insisted. “I never should have let you put all your eggs in this basket in the first place. You really do need another intake worker and new mattresses for the beds and all the other stuff we listed in our application.”

“But you’re the best intake worker we’ve had since starting this place! There’s nobody better than you. I can’t just let them take you away from us,” Sam said.

Josie appreciated Sam’s loyalty, but… “It’s not about me. You can get by without me, but I’ve seen the finances, Sam. You’ve only got another few months to keep this place open, three tops if we don’t get an infusion of cash. And you definitely can’t keep it going with only one official intake worker. You should just hire somebody with a degree.”

But Sam shook her head. “We can figure this out. I know there’s a way to figure this out.”

And they went back and forth like that, both too loyal to back down from their positions. By the time, they finally reached an agreement—to let Josie continue applying for grants until they could come up with a better solution—it was lunchtime. Josie scarfed down the sandwich she’d brought from home and spent the rest of the day calling around to other shelters to see if they could take their surplus residents, helping three of their temporary residents navigate Section 8, explaining to three different irate husbands that their wives weren’t at the center (even though they were), and barely making a dent in the never-ending stream of paperwork for the state.

Yet at the end of her shift, she walked out of Ruth’s House feeling satisfied and complete, even if she hadn’t earned a dime that day. However, that feeling of accomplishment wasn’t enough to keep her warm when she walked into her icebox of a trailer. Or provide her with decent food. It hit her again how bad her predicament was as she ate crackers and cold, congealed soup out of a can.

And though she put on a long-sleeved shirt, two sweaters, and a couple pairs of socks, that feeling of accomplishment wasn’t enough to stop her from shivering or keep the gnawing hunger at bay as she fell asleep...

Only to be woken up a few hours later by the sound of a ringing phone. She came awake with a jolt and it took her a few moments to realize that the old-fashioned ringing was emanating from the trailer’s landline.

Apparently, they hadn’t shut off the phone service yet.

“Hello?” she said tentatively. “This is Josie Simmons—I mean Witherspoon. Josie Witherspoon.”

The one thing Josie managed to do before leaving Atlanta was get her last name changed back to her maiden one. The prospect of continuing through life with Wayne’s last name had been even less appealing than spending a few extra days in a city that held nothing but bad memories for her.

“Josie? Josie? Is that you, dear?” came a genteel voice down the line, one Josie recognized despite having not heard it in the year since her mama’s funeral.

“Mrs. Prescott?” she said, more than a little surprised to hear from her mother’s old employer. “Yes, it’s me.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I wasn’t sure anyone would be at this old number. At least not anyone who knew you. I can’t believe I managed to reach you on the first try!”

“Well, you got me. How are you, ma’am?” Her mother was dead, but Josie still couldn’t keep the deference out of her voice when talking to Kitty Prescott. That was how thoroughly Loretta had trained her.

“Not well, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Prescott answered. “Beau Jr.’s had a nasty accident, and he’s coming home to Alabama. But I’m on an around-the-world cruise. As a matter of fact, we’re about to dock in Madagascar. So I won’t be able to get back to the States to take care of him any time soon.”

Josie shook her head, still confused. From what she had seen growing up, even if Kitty Prescott hadn’t been on the other side of the globe, she wouldn’t have been the one taking care of her son. That had been Loretta’s job since the day they’d moved in with the Prescott family when Beau was four years old, and Josie was two.

One of Josie’s first memories had been her mama explaining to her how yes, Beau was with them almost 24/7, but no, he wasn’t a really, really light-skinned black person related to them by blood. “He be with us, but he be a Prescott down to the bone. You see that clear when he grow up,” her mother had said with bitterness in her voice.

And she had been right. Everything had come easily to the Prescott’s golden boy: looks, accolades, money, and an almost preternatural athletic ability. And one day, Beau morphed from the fun boy she’d grown up with and eventually come to secretly love into a total prick.

But Josie’s mama had trained her well. She managed to say to Kitty in her politest voice: “I’m sorry to hear Beau’s doing so poorly. Please send him my best wishes, ma’am.”

“Oh, we need you to do more than that, dear,” Mrs. Prescott answered. “You see this accident of Beau’s has left him temporarily disabled.”

“Temporarily disabled?” Josie repeated. “What happened?”

“Well, you know, I can’t watch him in those terrible football games of his. It just about wrecks my nerves. But from what I understand, he was about to throw the ball when a bunch of gorillas from the opposing team attacked him. And they blinded him!”

Now Josie felt bad about her previously unkind thoughts. Beau wasn’t the nicest person she’d ever met, and she doubted his current stint as the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Suns had made him any nicer, but she wouldn’t wish such a life-changing accident on anyone.

“I’m real, real sorry to hear that,” Josie said, this time with sincerity.

“Beau says this blindness is only a temporary condition, but you can’t imagine how stressful this news has been for me,” Mrs. Prescott said.

Josie shook her head again, a small smile appearing on her face. Same old Mrs. Prescott. A former Miss Alabama, Kitty had never stopped believing the world revolved around her. Josie’s mama, Loretta, hadn’t been able to take so much as a weekday off for a funeral without having to hear the next day about how much it had inconvenienced Kitty. And apparently her son’s going temporarily blind was more stressful for Mrs. Prescott than anyone else, including Beau.

“I’m sure I can’t,” Josie said, once again falling back on her mama’s lessons in domestic diplomacy.

“Carol, his L.A. assistant, arranged for a home aide to come in every morning to attend to Beau’s most personal needs, but somebody has to cook his meals, and help him get around the house. And of course, he’d have to get hurt like this when I’m on the other side of the world.”

Josie had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something sarcastic, like, “How thoughtless of him.”

“But that’s why I’m calling you, dear.” Beau’s mother said. “Please tell me another family hasn’t already retained your services now that you’re back in Alabama.”

Josie’s eyes narrowed. She was about to explain that although Loretta had worked as a housekeeper and caretaker for years, that didn’t mean her daughter had grown up to do the same. But then she realized what Mrs. Prescott was really saying.

“Are you offering me a job, ma’am?”

“Yes, at least for a little while. I don’t know exactly when this temporary blindness situation is supposed to end, but until it does, I want you to come to our house and take care of Beau,” Mrs. Prescott answered. “I mean, I could try to call in a service, but who knows what they’d do without me there to supervise? Your mama was the only one I ever trusted to run my house properly and now that you’re all grown up, you’re the only one I could trust to take her place. Please say you can do it.”

Then, taking Josie’s answering silence as indecision, Mrs. Prescott said, “We’re willing to pay you a whole two dollars more an hour than we paid your mama, and of course you’ll have Loretta’s old room to live in along with free board.”

It was on the tip of Josie’s tongue to say no. Her mother had scrimped and saved and made all manner of sacrifices so Josie would never have to work for a white family like Loretta had.

But then Josie quickly assessed her current situation: she was shivering in her grandmother’s old trailer because she didn’t have any heat, and she was fighting back heartburn from her less than satisfying dinner. Plus, Mrs. Prescott had said it would only be for a little while, just until Beau Jr. recovered. Why not take the job, especially if it came with free room and board, not to mention electricity and heat?

“Okay,” she said, firmly pushing her pride to the wayside. “When do I start? Also, is it okay if I move in sooner than later—and by sooner, I mean like tonight?”