The Deal

Twenty-Bernadette

"Did I used to have an assistant?" I ask Yvonne, as I switch on Trevor Noah's stand-up comedy show, I Wish You Would on Netflix. While seated on the couch, my best friend rummages through the stack of albums next to the radio stand. She pulls out a red, bulky one with the huge title called '90s' labelled on it. My question falls on her deaf ears so I repeat myself, "Yo!"

"Yeah, Bee?" Yvonne still has her gaze locked on the big red 90s album.

"Did I used to have an assistant?"

Yvonne finally looks at me. "Yes." She scoffs. "She was Shuri Dickson. You fired her all because she tried to stop you from drinking."

I lift my eyebrows and turn to the TV. "Was I really that cruel?"

"No, Bee. You were just depressed." She flips the album page. "Wow. You and Thabo's fifth anniversary. Back in twenty-sixteen, Thabo and I wanted to surprise you by bringing you to your favorite restaurant in Cape Town. Little did we know, that you actually hated that place. Your father used to take you there when you were a kid. You were effing pissed. But we learned a lesson that day, I guess."

Not saying anything to that, I watch her put the album back and sigh, before scrolling on her phone. She switches from the reminiscing best friend to Yvonne the showrunner in a matter of seconds. "One of my co-producers probably leaked this information to the press. We were the only ones who spoke about the replacement thing before I talked to you about it." She exhales after a deep breath.

My mind still focusing on Trevor's standup show, guilt suddenly envelops my chest. All this on-set drama my best friend is going through is because of me. If I died in the accident, I would have been gone from the equation. Yvonne would get her team of writers to probably kill off Puleng. The character would have been buried along with me, and so would the promiscuous, seventeen-year-old Aneska. That way, Yvonne would have shot the third season with a brand-new lead and there would be no problems.

"Bee," Yvonne calls. "Talk to me. What's in your head this time?" She places a gentle hand on my shoulder. "You seem to love watching stand-ups a lot lately."

"Yeah. I actually don't know why, but when I sit down to watch these comedians on stage, when I hear the audience laugh, it just feels so soothing. I just feel at home."

"Hm. Interesting. I don't think I've ever seen you watch a standup. You'd be bored to death. Maybe watching them helps ya jog the memory of the times working onset."

I nod my head. "Sure. It could be that." Silence hovers around us seconds later. "I'm a burden, aren't I? I'm creating all this pressure for you. This season is going down the drain. If only I'd stopped drinking, there'd be no accident. No accident, then no coma. No coma, no memory loss."

"Hey. Hey, look at me." Sighing, I shoot my bestie a side-eye. "This. Is. Not. Your. Fault. Do you see me blaming you for anything? Everyone has gone through their bad times. Booze was ya weakness, it caused you to make the biggest mistake of ya life. But I'm not gonna blame my best friend, who almost lost her life just because some useless show I thought of years ago gets cancelled."

I smile at her. How could I ever think about such a thing like that? Death? I'm scared of death. When Yvonne rubs her hands over my aching shoulders, it feels like an entire month of stress has been freed from me. I close my eyelids and revel in the moment. "Were you always good at backrubs and massages?"

Yvonne chuckles. "It's what I would do back in Uni, anytime ya went through a hard time with the professor or some of the boys. A few of our other friends were like, 'Hey, they're giving gay vibes.' We got teased a lot because of that. They have no idea how sisterly we've now become."

Snapping out of thought, I get off the couch. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I forgot I hadn't given you anything to drink yet."

Yvonne waves her hand. "Don't stress yourself, Bee. It's just me. We haven't done niceties in a while." When I'm in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge, cabinets and cupboards, all I see is hard liquor. Not a regular cocktail or soda on sight. Shaking my head, I make us both a cup of coffee and bring it to her.

"What happened on that day?" I ask. "Before J's Bar. What state was I in?"

Yvonne takes a sip of her coffee. "You were very distant. On set and offset, you were bottling up a lot of emotions. No matter what I did, you wouldn't open up to me. I thought it was going to be a normal day, with you being your moody self until I got the call from Thabo that you were involved in a car accident." She sighs and scoffs. "I came out of the shower to tune in on the news. That young reporter Letoya something was standing next to the crash site, reporting the incident. For the first time, I got on my knees and prayed... prayed that I hadn't lost my best friend." Yvonne sniffs as she wipes a single droplet from under her watery eyes. "Ugh! Why ya gotta make me remember something so depressing? Seriously, you can be unpredictable sometimes."

I smile. "I'm sorry. I need to know if there's any evidence my stalker had an involvement in the crash."

Yvonne looks me dead in the eyes and snaps her fingers. "I knew I was forgetting something. Girl, you've got this mind control power over me, ya know. It's like as soon as I see ya sad, my 'I'm-Gonna-Hurt-Whoever-Did-This-To-You' instincts kick in." She takes a last sip of coffee before folding her arms. "When did this slimy cockroach named Bill creep into ya life?"

From there, I tell her everything. The sometimes violent and creepy Aneska fantasies, the home invasion resulting in Thabo's back being scarred, the letters and his recent plan of attack.

"Blood Fyah! Oh, Christ!" Yvonne sits her mug on the wooden table in front of the couch; her left hand leaning on the couch's arm so she can have some air. "I am gonna kill Thabo for withholding this information from me. He gonna need hypnotherapy after I give him mi piece of mind."

I walk closer. "Hey, don't. I forced him not to tell you. I'm the one in the wrong here."

"Why couldn't he be stubborn? It doesn't make any sense. Thabo would spend a hundred years to life in prison for ya. Why keep this a secret?" She paces left and right, bottom lip quivering with anger while she cracks her knuckles.
"We need to go straight to a private detective. My mother has connections. I-"

"Thabo's taking care of that already," I reply to cut her off.

"Taking care of...?"

"Private investigator. Haven't heard anything from him so far."

Yvonne sighs, and we both sit on the top edge of the sofa. Our feelings of claustrophobic fear connect. Remote in hand, I select a different show, and the Bad Habits theme song echoes in the room.

"Turn that shit off, Bee. Do we look like we have time for that? This is serious."

Shrugging, I change the show to Money Heist. What a great show.

"Let me see the letters," Yvonne says.

"Um..." I hesitate but really don't know why. The more she knows, the better the help. I march to the wardrobe where Bill's evidence lay rest. I pull the drawer open, but the letters are gone. "Strange, I could have sworn they were here. Thabo must have hidden them somewhere."

Yvonne buries her face in her hands, sitting on the armchair.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm here. Nothing is going to happen to me." I wrap my arm around her broad shoulders.

"I didn't tell you this when you woke up." She wipes a droplet from watery eyes. "My messed-up ex-husband had locked me and him in our house for a whole year. He pretended that criminals were after him and he told me that they would use me to get to him. One whole year, I had to live a life of a captor to his twisted mind game."

I furrow my brows. "Seriously?"

Yvonne nods. "Since then, the nightmares wouldn't stop. I couldn't sleep in my own house, because I imagine him sleeping next to me every night. I spend the night in hotels up till now. The scary thing is, I still kind of feel his presence when I'm alone. It's really messed up. I hate that ya going through the same scenario. It's hard having a peace of mind while knowing my best friend is being followed by a maniac."

I hold and press Yvonne's hand. "I can take care of myself. I'm sorry about what happened. Thabo's hypnotherapy is the best therapy you'll ever need."

She scoffs. "Honey, maybe to you. I'd rather let my ex-husband's ghost haunt me than to let your husband put me in a trance."