Truth Be Told Read Online Free Page B

reading about your sister?”
    She forced herself to look up. “Did you get me all the newspapers?”
    Lexington, her assistant, nodded. “Every one.” He settled across from her. “Still think … big mistake not going to the celebration last night. Grace would’ve been surprised.”
    Starlight smoothed the paper onto the table. “Surprise doesn’t describe what my sister would have felt if I’d walked into that ballroom.” Her glance returned to the newspaper.
    Lexington lifted the coffee pot from the table and filled his cup. He took a sip and grimaced. “Awful … it’s cold.”
    â€œCarletta,” Starlight called.
    A moment later, a stocky woman appeared cradling a pile of purple towels. “Yes, Ms. Starlight?”
    â€œThe coffee is cold,” she said without looking up.
    Carletta laid the towels on the couch and ambled through the maze of moving boxes that filled the room. She grabbed the pot, then disappeared into the kitchen.
    Lexington picked up one of the papers Starlight had discarded. “Can’t believe Grace did it. Didn’t think she had a chance.”
    â€œWhy?” Starlight asked, still not raising her head. “Every poll said she was ahead.”
    â€œPolls said she was in a dead heat.”
    Starlight looked up. “Same thing. If an incumbent can’t beat you in the polls, he certainly can’t win at the polls.”
    Lexington waved his hand in the air. “Never believe the polls; believe only facts. The Eighteenth District is one of the few predominantly white communities left in the city.”
    â€œAnd that means?”
    â€œWhite people don’t vote for us.”
    She shook her head. “Maybe in your mind. But it’s not about color. Grace is part of that Christian coalition, and with all that’s going on in this world, that’s all that matters to white folks.” Starlight stood and walked to the gold-trimmed french balcony doors. From her thirtieth-floor window, she could barely see the traffic below on Ocean Boulevard, but across the street, she had a one-point-two-million-dollar view of the Pacific Ocean.
    â€œIt makes me laugh sometimes,” Starlight began, though there was no humor in her tone. “My sister judges me so harshly, but really, we do the same thing. We say the same thing. Our goals are the same. But she doesn’t see it.” Starlight sighed.
    â€œWhat Grace thinks certainly doesn’t bother you.”
    Starlight turned to her assistant—her armor bearer was what she called him. She liked that term from the first time she heard a pastor refer to someone that way. At that time, she didn’t know what it meant, but she knew one day she’d have one. Two years from that date, she had her armor bearer, in the person of Lexington Jackson, and they’d been together for seven years now—actually longer, if she counted the year they spent with Dr. Carr, her mentor.
    Although her look had evolved over the years, Lexington’s had not. The first time she saw him, he was wearing a navy blue pinstripe suit with a white shirt that had been so starch stiff, she wondered how he moved. Today, his suit was still navy, though absent of the pinstripes. But his shirt could have been the same one he wore the day they’d met.
    â€œStarlight?” he said interrupting her memories. “Your sister doesn’t bother you?”
    â€œShe doesn’t bother me,” she affirmed. “I am so over her.” Her purple silk robe fluttered at her ankles as she returned to the table.
    â€œGood. ’Cause look at it like this,” he continued. “She’s playing political footsies while you have a personal banker.”
    Her eyes narrowed. No matter how many times she told him, he didn’t get it. The dollars she earned were great—beyond anything anyone would have imagined for her. But it was what came with the