Free Fool That I Am by Paulette Oakes Page A

from her
friends the night before, she still thought she looked pretty good. She had
spent the morning searching the internet for ideas on modern style and had
managed to come up with a nice outfit that was both trendy and stylish. She
paired her bootcut jeans with a lovely black blouse with a shark-bite hem that
Jessica had given her for Christmas last year, and she accessorized with a
shimmery light scarf that had black, silver, and pink accents artfully draped
around her neck. After adding some silver dangling earrings and her black heels
to dress it up a bit more, she moved on to her hair and makeup. Her hair was
usually her best feature, so she upped the volume, left the waves, and flipped
her hair upside down to spray it to give it texture. Normally, she didn’t wear
a lot of makeup, but today, she used Jessica’s advice on enhancing her eyes
with the cat-eye technique with gray and pink hues on her eyelids, soft blush
on her cheeks, and a pink gloss on her lips.
    When Billie surveyed herself in the mirror, she was
surprised at the effect it had on her self-esteem. She looked damn good and it
reflected in how she held herself and how she walked. Per Connie’s
instructions, she took a “selfie” of herself in the long mirror and sent it to
her friend for approval. Within moments, an enthusiastic response of “ Muy
caliente!” came back to her phone, so she knew she passed muster.
    Before she left, she walked through the house and
automatically picked up dirty laundry to toss in the hampers, retrieved empty
cups and snack bowls from the kids’ rooms, and sent Derrick a text message to
make sure he and Lola were doing alright. Several minutes later, he responded
that they were doing fine, they had just finished lunch, and were headed over
to see Grammy in a little while. Billie barely suppressed a shiver as she
thought of her ex-mother-in-law. While she was pretty good with the kids, she
had always treated Billie with barely concealed contempt and passive-aggressive
comments that had chipped away at her confidence and self-esteem every bit as
much as her son had. Billie now realized that his mother’s coddling and
spoiling of Chad had largely contributed to his laziness, sense of entitlement,
and overblown self-importance and Billie was very diligent at making sure those
traits didn’t pass on to Lola and Derrick.
    Since Billie wasn’t that familiar with Louisville except how
to get to the malls, she looked up directions to the club. And, since she was
already on the internet, she did a more thorough search of the club and its
owner, Daniel Petrosky. According to an in-depth interview done by The Courier-Journal ,
Daniel Petrosky was a 35-year-old entrepreneur who was a self-made
multi-millionaire that had started his career in commercial real estate and
then moved on to open a lucrative consulting firm. His knack for being able to
read trends and predict social needs allowed him to direct businesses and
companies toward decision-making processes that would ultimately net them
millions of dollars in profits. Since Daniel was incredibly smart, he would
often work for a smaller upfront fee, but insist on a certain percentage of profits
or stock options. Within seven years, he cracked the top 10 list of richest men
in Kentucky and was expected to make the Forbes List in the next few years.
    The reason for that would be The Silver Knight club. Opened
over two years ago, the private social club was created for wealthy patrons of
both sexes. Daniel had used his sixth-sense for social trends to launch this
exclusive club that brought back the feeling of classic elegance that was
popular during the age of Big Band and jazz clubs. Exact details were scarce,
thanks to the strict confidentiality clause in the member contracts, but
credible gossip sources indicated that the initial membership fee ran $50,000
plus an annual fee of $5,000. There were also charges for incidentals such as
food, drinks, tickets for galas and