Chapter Twenty-Four Agree to Disagree
July 2022
The mayoral debate was starting in just a few hours, and Olivia rushed to get ready. She wondered about the angle that Lauren would take that night. Alan thought she would leverage the negative news coverage and social media posts. Cindy thought she would bring up their relationship and secret baby.
Olivia didn’t think either of them were right. Lauren gave her the impression that she had a secret agenda beyond that of a woman scorned, beyond mounting a response to mudslinging gossip. But that assessment didn’t untwist the knots in her throat. In the past year, Olivia had begun listening to the little voice in her head. And lately, the alarm bells had been ringing.
Just as her senses tingled, her phone rang.
“Ama?” Olivia answered the phone.
“Hello, cher. Will you be at CJ’s home for a while?”
“No. We are on the way to the debate.”
“Oh, well, goodness. I feel like such a fool. I was popping by for a visit.”
Those alarm bells started clanging.
“I’m sorry, Ama, but we’ll be at the Pavilion. There’s a nice restaurant in Annapolis that I can meet you at by... seven p.m.?”
“Don’t need a recommendation, cher. I can find my way. See you soon.”
“I...” Olivia bit her lip. “Is everything okay? Did you find more information about my family?”
Ama chuckled. “I have, and everything will be just fine. I look forward to our chat. And oh, I brought you some more of my special blend. I’m sure the debate will be one to celebrate.”
“S-sounds good. Thank you, Ama. I’ll call you right after.”
“You do that. Take care of yourself.” Ama ended the call.
Olivia looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. I don’t know what her plans are, but Ama’s up to something.
Thankfully, Ama’s meddling was usually benign.
Olivia opened the door to her room just as her mother lightly rapped her knuckles against the door.
“Ready?”
Olivia glanced at herself once more in the mirror and nodded. “Let’s go support CJ.”
Olivia and Cindy left the house and noticed a few neighbors were en route to the Pavilion, which stood in the middle of the neighborhood.
Cushioned folding chairs were lined up in neat rows. Cindy and Olivia opted for the middle row. Pastor Stanley strode toward the front, and his wife, trailing behind, gave them a sweet smile and small wave before she hurried after her husband.
“It’s good to know she doesn’t hate us,” Olivia whispered.
“She’s a sweetheart. Now, that pastor needs someone to knock the old-school out of him.”
Olivia laughed.
The click of heels against the wood floor seized Olivia’s attention. Lauren Miles walked into the room wearing a pale green dress with a smart collar, flared pockets, and yellow stilettos.
“Good afternoon, everyone.” She smiled and nodded at those already in their seats, but she didn’t break her stride. Lauren’s eyes were on the prize—three mic’d lecterns at the front of the room, where CJ and Harold were already standing.
Aneesa, who was serving as the debate moderator, surveyed the room. When she noticed Olivia and Cindy, she simply nodded. Olivia took no offense. She knew that Aneesa, as moderator, needed to maintain impartiality.
Christine strode in. She glanced at Olivia and Cindy, sighed, and sat down on the vacant seat on the other side of Cindy.
Cindy stretched her eyes wide but didn’t utter a word. Olivia wasn’t surprised. She knew it wouldn’t bode well for her not to sit beside CJ’s family.
Cindy reached for Olivia’s hand and squeezed. When she didn’t let go, Olivia covered her hand with her own. She stared at her mother, giving her the same “winning smile,” as she called it, that she gave to her jumpy clients. She tried to convey a message silently with her eyes.
It’ll be okay. CJ will do just fine.
Her mother nodded, then returned her attention to the three candidates. CJ stood in the middle, with Lauren to his right and Haroldon his left.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Aneesa began. “Today’s event is brought to you by the League of Black Voters. Each candidate has graciously agreed to take part in today’s debate.” She paused and looked at the audience of close to fifty residents, who took their cue to clap. Cindy still held Olivia’s hand like a lifeline.
Olivia squeezed her mother’s hand one more time and then pulled it away to rest in her lap. She didn’t want to show nervousness or weakness during CJ’s debate.
Aneesa ran down the rules of decorum and reminded the audience that she would be the only one asking the questions. Then she launched into the first question.
“The Highland Beach living shoreline project has been and continues to be a very contentious subject that has yet to be resolved. I want each candidate to share a leadership example that involves either taking a controversial position or bringing people together to solve a controversial issue. CJ, since this is your idea, let’s start with you.”
“Thanks for asking, Aneesa. When I first came to office, several residents quickly brought the shoreline erosion to my attention. I partnered with a biologist from National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science two years ago and received a recommendation for a cost-effective way to stabilize our ecosystem, also known as a ‘living shoreline.’ I’ll admit that there are potential cons. Some scientists have highlighted that dunes and other beach features may migrate landward. The living shoreline isn’t a guarantee and could fail with any sort of erratic weather. Many of you are concerned about maintaining our beachfront and views. We’ve heard your concerns, and therefore we canceled the project and did so democratically. Our goal is to avoid complete erosion at the beachfront, like at Venice Beach. So, Aneesa, to answer the question, I’ve listened to my constituents and deferred to their recommendations. We still have our task force in place, and we’ll vet through workable options that will reduce the impact on the beachfront. I have and will continue to work with all of you.”
A few people clapped.
Aneesa pointed. “Harold, you have the floor.”
Harold smoothed his maroon linen shirt before he began. “Well, now, if my memory serves me, Mayor Jones, I distinctly recall that you didn’t run this project by the fine people of Highland Beach, which is why we were upset.”
Olivia scanned the crowd, noticing a few heads nod at his statement. “And it wasn’t just about views. Let’s get that squared away, Mayor Jones. It’s not a guarantee with the sea level rise and increased rainfall.”
More people clapped. She turned her attention to her father, who exuded confidence.
“Now, as far as what I’ve done to bring people together. As the former CEO of the largest textile company in the Northeast, I’ve had the exceptional responsibility of managing thousands of jobs while maintaining manufacturing safety with an eye on eco-friendly process.” Harold continued to run down his résumé, citing examples of how he mitigated the pandemic by repurposing his factory to produce face masks.
Harold is definitely a top contender.
“Thank you, Harold. Now you have the floor, Lauren. Would you like for me to repeat the question?”
“No, thank you. And Harold has done an amazing job illuminating some of CJ’s opportunities during the shoreline project. During my decade-and-a-half-long tenure as a trial attorney, we dealt in listening, in researching, in negotiations, and in going to court. The word ‘contentious’ feels hard. It feels belaboring.” Her eyes scanned the audience, as if seeking to make eye contact with everyone there. “But sometimes things must be destroyed for new growth to come forth. We can’t be afraid of hard truths.” She leveled her stare at Christine.
“So as your mayor, I’ll listen, I’ll fact-find, and I will bring the truth to light.” An eerie gleam shone in her eyes. “Thank you.”
There were a few, markedly less enthusiastic claps.
“Actually,” Lauren added, her fingers gripping the podium, “excuse me, but I have more to say about this thing called the truth. Some people,” she said, staring at Christine, “would have you live in ignorance. Some people—”
“Ms. Miles, this is not the question I posed. I’ll warn you that you need to adhere to the decorum of this debate.”
“Screw decorum,” Lauren growled, her voice low and guttural.
CJ turned to fully face his opponent. “Lauren, if this is about us, we can take this offline.”
“It’s about the Douglass-Jones family. Christine, in particular. Thirty-one years ago, my mother, Agatha, reached out to Christine in good faith. She told her that we, too, are descendants of the great Douglass family. But she just wouldn’t hear of it because my mother is white.”
Gasps filled the room. Everyone turned their attention to Christine, whose face had turned the color of a cherry tomato.
Olivia could feel a blush spread on her own cheeks like wildfire. Though her mother squeezed her hand, she couldn’t quite feel anything but numb.
Aneesa leaned into her microphone. “Lauren, this is not the time or place for this conversation.”
“Oh, I think this is the perfect time and the perfect place. You see, Christine paid off my mother.”
“Mother?” Christine’s voice shook with rage. “I didn’t know that swindler had a child.”
“Your karma has finally come.” Lauren smirked. “And I’m so happy I get to serve it to you. You and your family have fooled Highland Beach long enough. You all deserve a mayor who doesn’t use their family and connections to run this town like a Mafia boss.”
Christine shot to her feet. “That’s enough!” Her screech nearly popped Olivia’s eardrums. Like everyone else, Olivia stared at her grandmother, whose body shook like branches in a windstorm.
With red-flushed cheeks and her shaking body, Christine was the picture of rage. “You think you know the truth, but you don’t. Your mother is a swindler and has conned people several times over the years. There is no way... no way, the Douglass family has white descendants. I’ll bet my life on it.”
“Please,” Lauren scoffed. “Everyone here knows the history. Helen Pitts Douglass married Frederick Douglass.”
“They had no children. She was barren,” Christine shrieked.
“Yet I’m standing here. Living. Breathing. Proof.”
Olivia stared at Lauren as if she could visually piece together the clues of her lineage. Until just now, she hadn’t realized Lauren was biracial. She had incredibly fair skin, just a shade darker than Ama’s. Her hair was bone straight, likely the result of blow dryers and flat irons. Her eyes were a deep chestnut brown.
She’d seen the pictures of Frederick Douglass’s second wife. In one she looked at him adoringly while he stared straight at the camera. Helen was twenty years his junior.
“You are nothing. A product of lies and nothing more.”
Lauren narrowed her eyes, but her determination didn’t waver. She crossed her arms and smirked. “Okay, then. If what I’m saying is a lie, why did you write my mother a check for $15,000 to leave town?”
More gasps and shouts and whispers filled the room.
“I can’t believe they had kids!” someone who sat near Aneesa shouted.
“There’s been no record. No, nothing. This is ludicrous,” a woman who worked at the Frederick Douglass Museum argued.
Christine moved from her seat and stood in the middle of the aisle. “You little idiot.”
“Answer the question, Christine. Did you pay my mother Agatha Pitts to go away?” Lauren taunted.
Aneesa ripped up her cards and threw her hands in the air. “I guess the mayoral debate is over now.”
“I should have known Agatha’s lies wouldn’t disappear. And to think she deceived her own daughter.” Christine shook her head. “Regardless, you have no relation to Frederick Douglass.” Her voice shook with fury.
“My mother didn’t lie to me. She told me the truth, and then I told your daughter, Indigo, the truth.”
“What did you say?” CJ whispered.
“My mother wanted me to befriend Indigo.” Lauren shrugged. “Seeing as we’re related and all. She wanted to see what Indigo knew about the Douglass line.”
CJ stumbled away from the podium. He looked sick. Seeing her father’s distress, Olivia stood, on wobbly feet, and tried to move to the front, but Lauren’s shocking accusations had rooted her in place.
“No, we aren’t,” CJ said in a choked voice.
Lauren turned around to face CJ. “Yes, we are. Which is why we haven’t so much as kissed.”
She tossed her hair and turned toward the audience. “I told Indigo everything. But I... I also told her how my mom planned to blackmail the family. When my mother shared her plans, I warned Indigo because she had genuinely become my friend. I didn’t want any money. I just wanted to get to know my family.” A tear rolled down Lauren’s cheek. “Indigo was real and raw and saw past the fact that I didn’t wear designer clothes and shoes. And she treated me like a sister. She, above all, wanted people to know the truth. And the truth is, the Douglass family has—”
Loud banging interrupted Lauren’s impassioned speech.
The door opened, revealing an older white woman who looked to be in her sixties.
“Mom?” Lauren gasped. “What are you doing here?”
Everyone’s attention focused on the white woman gliding through a sea of Black faces. But Olivia noticed someone just behind Lauren’s mother—Ama, wearing an ankle-length persimmon dress. Quietly, she settled in one of the few open seats near the door.
What is Ama doing here?
It seemed as if Ama heard her question, because she put a finger over her mouth, signaling Olivia to keep quiet.
Olivia nodded once. Her attention returned to the older woman, who wore a wrinkled olive-green blouse and equally wrinkled khaki shorts. “Why are you here, Bree?” she said as she shuffled toward her daughter.
Aneesa narrowed her eyes. “Is your name not Lauren Miles?”
Lauren huffed. “My name is legally Lauren Miles.”
“But I gave you the name Breanne Lauren Pitts,” the woman insisted.
“Wait a minute. Your name is Bree?” Cindy asked. “That’s the girl who hung out with Indigo the summer... the summer she died.”
“Bree, honey, I... I lied to you. I just...” Agatha Pitts wrung her hands as if she were drying a wet cloth. “We needed the money, honey. And I... we aren’t descended from the Douglass family. We’re just distant relatives of Helen Pitts’s family.”
“What?” Lauren snapped.
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” CJ barked.
“I’ll tell you.” Christine’s voice shook with rage. “This woman came to me and had the audacity to lie. She said that she was the descendant of Frederick Douglass and Helen Pitts. But they never had a child. As I said before, Helen was barren. All the women in our family know the true story. And when she came to me with these lies, I shut her down.”
She turned to face Agatha. “And I told her to get the hell out of our town. But she threatened to sell her story to the media. And it doesn’t matter if something is the truth or a lie. People believe whoever tells the story the best. And I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t have her lie about Anna and Frederick’s legacy. So yes, I paid her to go away.”
Olivia thought of her mother, and all the other girls and women Christine had paid to stay away from her sons.
That’s what she does best. Pay someone to run away. But they always come back. Olivia had thought she couldn’t think any lower of Christine, but it seemed her expectations didn’t go deep enough.
“Mom, this can’t be real. You told me... you swore we are descendants of the Douglass line.” Lauren’s voice shook.
“You aren’t, my love. I’m sorry, but it simply isn’t true. The truth is... I became sort of... obsessed with the family while I studied history in college. I had a particular interest because of her family as well. And as much as I wanted to believe it, it’s not true.”
“Why are you here?” Lauren asked. “Wait, let me guess, someone else paid you to show up. You must’ve run out of money again,” she snapped. Though Lauren’s tone was angry, her eyes showed her anguish.
Olivia looked at her godmother. Ama appeared innocent and unaffected by the chaos.
“I was made aware of your intentions,” Agatha deftly avoided Laura’s accusation. “I... I didn’t know you were even here, sweetheart. You told me you were going to Singapore, but someone informed me otherwise.”
“Someone, hmm?” Lauren scanned the room. Olivia exhaled when her attention skipped over Ama. Ama had seemed to know more than she let on during their last call. After the debate, Olivia would confirm her gut feeling that her godmother had been the “someone” who called Agatha.
“Well, I’m here,” Lauren told her mother. “Fighting for my legacy. For a town that I hold dear to my heart. I’m fighting for my beautiful friend who died too soon.”
“I’m not here to fight you. I’m here for you.” Agatha reached out her hand to Lauren. “And I’m so sorry I dragged you into my lies. But it doesn’t matter who your family is... you belong to me. Come home with me. Let’s leave these people alone and in peace.”
Lauren shook her head.
Olivia stood and walked to the front until she stood in front of her father. CJ, who’d been seated, held her stare. A look of devastation robbed him of his usual confidence.
“You have to get up. The town needs to hear from you.” She offered her hand to pull him up.
CJ stood and cleared his throat. “Let’s conclude today’s debate. Our family needs privacy.”
People nodded and began standing. But one woman raised her hand in the air.
CJ pointed to her. “Yes?”
“I don’t want to leave. I want to hear it all. We deserve to know what’s going on with that messy Jones family.”
“This is a private matter for my family to discuss without the public listening,” CJ answered. “We will resume the debate at a later date.”
Janice stood up from her seat. “I agree with our mayor. We are better than this. Let them figure it out, and we’ll wait for an official statement from the mayor. I’ll make sure of it.”
Janice not only stared at CJ but made eye contact with the entire Jones family, including Olivia. Her words encouraged the residents to leave, however, and they filed out, with some groaning and scandalized whispers. It took a full ten minutes for the room to empty out.
“I don’t want to do this here, and there’s bound to be some people listening in from outside. We will finish this conversation at my home,” CJ declared to his family, Lauren, and Agatha. Then he lifted a finger in the air. “Once you step foot in my house, you tell the entire truth. We’ll settle whatever’s left at the end.”