Chapter 1

 

Dayita opened the door walked into the foyer of her loft and let out a huge sigh. The last six months had been very stressful for her. "All of it was worth it," she thought as she opened up the stainless steel refrigerator and took out a bottle of Evian. Moving to the kitchen counter she looked around, and heard nothing but silence and a few birds chirping in the distance. She looked at the Evian bottle and began to weep. "I have got to get it together," she yelled to herself. Dayita had been through hell and back in a hand basket of sorts. She and her lover Anji split cataclysmically leaving her in the pit of despair and twenty paintings short of her November gallery opening. The board of the gallery was very heated but yet understood being that she had given them a huge amount of money to open it. The November opening was to be her emergence show, her show,  to show the world her love and passion for art and for Anji. Dayita had worked diligently for the gallery pushing herself till no end, holding fundraisers and  soliciting old money in Mountain Brook, day in and day out for a five years, now she just sits in her executive office and watches while others makes decisions instead of her being that she is "ineptly artistic" at the moment. "I have got to quit brooding," she thought as she made her way up the spiral stair case of her loft with her faithful Yorkie Nikki behind her. As she entered her bedroom she let out another sigh, a failed attempt to release all of the memories that surrounded her. Her bedroom used to fill her with love, she had commissioned a designer make it as Zen as possible making sure the chi of love would always follow, "Apparently somewhere there is a defect," she thought.   She walked to the floor to ceiling glass doors and opened them stepping out onto the veranda. It was a warm day in Birmingham, the temperature just right a sunny eighty degrees with a cool northern breeze. Dayita basked in the sunlight, her thoughts began to drift.   Her life wasn't so bad, she had grown up poor in the urban jungle of New York, the child of a broken home, but she had made it, she had healed all the wounds and scars that childhood had left on her. She put aside her feelings of inadequacy and studied art, travelled abroad, and opened two of the galleries that she so desperately wanted naming them Peace and Passion. Her galleries became her babies; she put everything into Peace and Passion making sure that she adequately promoted artists that would normally not get a second look. Dayita is known in the southeast as the patron saint of emerging artists, having articles in all the newspapers and art magazines for her commenting on her aggressively innovative style of marketing techniques.  She scouted out poets, musicians, and artists from the southeast making her galleries known for showcasing and starting artists of all kinds on their way.  

That is how she met Anji, who she called her poetic angel. Anji was heavy into the poetry scene, she was one of those brooding poets, she'd get on stage and command your attention with her sinuous poetry, her passionate voice, and her gorgeous facade.  Anji had the frame and features of an angel.  She stood tall her frame slender but thick in all the right places, her features were dainty, hair long and in beautiful curly dreads. Anji's complexion reminded Dayita of creamy butter pecan ice cream and she had this captivating smile that is when she thought her company was worthy of receiving it. Seven years earlier, Dayita saw Anji at every spoken word event from Birmingham to Pensacola. The two flirted, exchanged words over coffee, and then when Dayita decided she would open up the first gallery. Anji made her move.  Anji became involved in Dayita, spending every moment at the gallery helping to hire contractors and getting building permits, she handled everything concerning the renovation. She encouraged Dayita when there seemed to be no hope, she listened to her and told her to let her imagination run wild for she could create anything. Anji began spending the night at Dayita's loft saying that she was just too tired to make it home. Anji drew Dayita into her web in everyway imaginable. Dayita is shocked suddenly back into her reality by the ringing of her phone, "Hello," she said. The voice on the other end was that of the T.J. her attorney and friend of over sixteen years, "Dayita," he said with urgency, "You have got to get down to the Peace Gallery immediately. I'll meet you there." Nervously, "I'm on my way," she answered. 

Dayita and T.J. had spent their teenage and college years as friends and lovers, she trusted him with handling all the legal issues of her life. Dayita never realized that there were so many legalities in opening up a gallery, never mind running one. T.J. was the constant in her life, always had been, and she knew exactly what he wanted from the urgency in his voice for he was always calm and collected. Dayita had almost a million dollars tied up in the galleries. When she started them she did so under the not for profit umbrella so that she could get grant money for her educational programs. A not for profit agency on which Anji sat on the board. "This b***h is trying to kick me out of my own gallery!" Dayita's heart couldn't believe that it was true but her mind knew that it was. Dayita ran down the steps, out the door, hopped into her silver jaguar, and hurried to the gallery. See once Dayita starting dating Anji she gave her one-third ownership of the galleries, she knew that was a stupid idea, but Anji was her wife, and this was their vision. She wanted them to have joint ownership and she had T.J draw up legal papers saying that in the case the relationship failed the galleries could not be touched. However, Aji had been telling certain board members things, portraying Dayita as this moody incapable artist, Dayita prayed that her vision would not be touched by her fallen angel. 

©Sheenae Westmoreland