Disastrously Fabulous: A Novel of Loves, Betrayals and New Beginnings by D.A. Prince Read Free Book Online

out. I would forever feel guilty about that.
    Luckily I had boyfriend to call.
    Barry got it done—he sent the $2,000 bond release easily and set me free. I was so grateful.
    The comforting feeling didn't last. About a week later, our relationship came to an emergency stop
    It was a ordinary day. The sun was shining. I was in a great mood listening to some beats on the radio on the way to Barry's house. From a distance, those same red and blue lights flickered menacingly at me. The closer I got, the more my heart sank.
    Police. On-lookers. Yellow police tape. What was going on?
    I pulled into the driveway and found the house cordoned-off with tape. Stark black words on yellow plastic warned, Crime Scene – Do Not Cross.
    I phoned Barry at once.
    “Hello, girl.” His voice sounded smooth and unconcerned.
    “The police are at your house. What’s going on here, Barry?” I asked him, my nerves on edge.
    “Trust me, babe, nothing is going on. This is all a big misunderstanding. I was not involved here, but the police are looking for me. I can’t get some of my stuff. Would you go inside and fetch a few things for me? Don’t tell the police you have had any contact.”
    Of course I agreed. I picked my way through people into the house, explaining that I was Barry's girlfriend. This didn't have the impact I wanted. A policewoman sat me down and filled me in.
    The house was ransacked. Everything was gone, there was nothing to collect. Worse yet, some kind of violent encounter had happened there.
    The policewoman’s eyes filled with dark concern. “Do you know where Barry is?”
    I shook my head, in fright. Then the story came out.
    The FBI was everywhere. People were taking photos of rooms, scrapes on the wall and collecting bits of evidence as I barely heard what the police woman was saying to me.
    “Barry is a well-known drug dealer, a very dangerous man. Did you know that?”
    I shook my head.
    “He and his wife fled this morning, and the FBI is looking for him…”
    Drugs. Dealing. Wife?
    I couldn’t grasp what she was saying. It was as if she was talking a foreign language I didn’t understand.
    The woman took my details and told me someone would come around to my house to question me later on in the week. With that news, I staggered off, in a non-reality of epic proportions.
    Gradually, understanding trickled into my consciousness: Barry, the drug dealer. Barry, the married man. Barry, the liar.
    Every moment I spent with him I had been ‘the other woman.’ Every second we shared together was a lie! Sure, we liked to party, but drug dealing? What had I gotten myself into?
    Memories knocked and demanded admission. All of those times Barry left dinners to take secret phone calls, the way he spent money—it all made sense now.
    As I closed the door of my car, tears flowed down my cheeks like Niagara Falls.
    I had believed Barry to be my Black knight sent to save me from a life of boredom. Like an emotional vampire he fed off my youthful dreams and lust for excitement. I felt betrayed down to my core.
    From that day, Barry vanished. He never came back, and I never went looking for him.
    Barry taught me my first valuable lesson of love: men lie.
    I resolved to be a lot more careful about whoever I fell for next time.
    The aftermath of Barry's lies left me in a funk. I felt like Cinderella who, after dancing with the prince, had been cast back into a life of servitude raking cinders.
    At 21, I decided to get a more exciting job, and bluffed my way into a bartending position. How difficult could it be to pour drinks?
    When a massive crowd pressed in at the bar, dozens of people at a time shouting for drinks I never even heard of, it dawned on me that confidence and charm might not be enough. I stared blankly at the woman shouting, “Get me a Shirley Temple, a side car and three mudslides.”
    To me, Shirley Temple was a fifties actress and mudslides were a natural disaster. My boss watched for an hour, then took me