4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Echo
" I don't know, Lani." I was comfortably ensconced on my couch with a book and a glass of wine on a Friday night. The last thing I wanted to do was go to Paint the Town Red to keep Lani company who was struggling with not being able to have a destination wedding because Tommy wanted to get married in Memphis.
Shoot me now!
"Echo, please ," she whined.
God, I hated it when she did that. Lani was a friend, even if she acted like she was doing me a big favor by letting me hang out with her. I figured that out early on. She was lonely and didn't have many friends she could trust—actually, I was the only one. I knew all her secrets. The miscarriage she had at twenty—I drove her to the emergency room. The time Tommy cheated on her and broke her heart—she didn't talk to me for two months after they made up because she was afraid I'd judge her. But I wouldn't. I told her whatever she did was her business, and I'd be her friend no matter what. I owed the Drakes that.
Lani wasn't a bad person. She was, however, thoroughly spoiled. Unlike Remi, who'd worked hard and continued to work hard to be successful in his chosen career, Lani had decided to get married and be a society wife like her mother. I'd tried to put her on the career path, but Lani didn't have it in her to work hard or even spend time figuring out what she enjoyed doing.
I gave up in the first year of my PhD because I mostly didn't have the time to baby Lani. I was stressed out of my mind studying night and day, accumulating as many credits as I could so I could finish sooner rather than later. My goal was to get a job, pay my bills, and work on a cure for cancer—and in that order.
While I'd succeeded at my life goals—I had a kick-ass job that paid very well, and I was working diligently on a gene therapy cure for cervical cancer—I'd failed at my other secret goal: to get Remi Drake to notice me. He'd noticed me alright—as a slut who was sleeping with his father. His accusation and assumption still mortified me. Did I look like a teenage Barbie type who could be a trophy bang? I was five feet five—average height. I had a not-ugly face with a half-decent nose, brown eyes, and normal lips. I had brown skin because my mother was black, and my father was probably white or multiracial. I grew up being too white for the African American community (like my Aunt Fern) and too black for the white people (like Lani and co). I didn't fit in. Period.
"Echo, please ?" Lani cried.
"Fine. I'll be there."
"Thanks so much."
Lani had become a little needy in the past eight months since she lost Marina to Remi. Making me hang around Remi with his girlfriend was not helping my bruised heart—because this was worse than when he had a flavor of the week on his arm.
Remi Drake was known all around Memphis to be able to get any legal-aged woman to drop her panties for him. I'd seen him with models, wannabe musicians, one or two famous musicians, two actors—one who had a show on Netflix and the other whose show had been canceled on Hulu, and many other women.
Since Remi started having sex when he was fifteen (Lani told me), not one single woman I'd seen him with looked anything like me—as in, a plain-looking nerd.
I mean, just take Marina. Blonde. A body that went va-va-voom—perfect for Playboy magazine and our local lothario. She came from a family as wealthy as the Drakes. She went on vacation to Paris and Rome. She spoke French. She knew how to tell a salad fork from whatever other silverware there was on a table lined up next to a plate. She'd gone to etiquette school as Lani had for a summer in Switzerland. I thought those places only existed in books and movies—I was wrong.
Marina worked at her family's charitable foundation doing…I had no idea. But you probably didn't need a job when your family had things like estates, trust funds, and charitable foundations.
I beat them all in one area—IQ. I was smart, like really smart . Somehow, that wasn't getting me laid, not in real life, just in Remi's imagination and that too— yuck— by his father.
Besides Lani and Marina, the girls who called me Poopy Pants were Katherine, who went by Kate (like the Princess), and Petal. Kate was engaged and was getting married this Christmas in Aspen. It was a destination wedding —and a small one with just close family and friends. Translation: the guest list was easily around five hundred but didn't include me. I would have RSVP'd "hell no," anyway. Kate's fiancé did something in his father's company, which was a financial institution. Petal was a kindergarten teacher because she loved children—not because she needed to work 'cause she didn't. She and David were high school sweethearts. David was a smarty-pants like me, but unlike me, he was handsome and rich—hence better than me, which Petal let me know every time she saw me. David, on the other hand, was actually decent, and I could carry a conversation with him. He was a big shot at an AI company.
So, yeah, there was a theme here. All my high school friends came from wealthy families and lived a life people only dreamed about. They went skiing in Austria, went to the Maldives for a break, and owned homes in several places around the world. They traveled in private jets and expensive cars. Most had family money, inherited over generations. Even though Dallas Drake had built his biotech company on his own, he didn't have to. The Drake investment portfolio was substantial enough that neither he nor his grandkids needed to work. How nice for them!
I handed the keys to my BMW to the valet and walked to the entrance of Paint the Town Red.
The bouncer looked at me when I took the VIP entrance.
"Get in line," he rudely said.
I don't think so!
I called Lani. She didn't pick up. Great. I texted her, told her I was outside and if she didn't show up in ninety seconds to get me in, I was out of here. Okay, so that was my inner monologue; my message actually said: I'm here; bouncer won't let me in through VIP .
The bouncer looked at me suspiciously when someone put an arm around me. "Poopy Pants, what're you doin' here?"
Tommy, as always, was tipsy. I shrugged his arm off. "Your fiancée wanted me here."
Remi was with him and the bouncer immediately all but genuflected.
"Major, she's with us." Remi pointed at me, to my surprise.
"Of course. Ma'am."
"Major, I'm Echo." I held my hand out, and he shook it, amused.
"Nice to meet you, Echo. You have a nice evenin' darlin'."
"What are you doing here?" Remi demanded as we walked into his dimly lit club, where the live music was bluesy in keeping with the spirit of Memphis.
"Lani is…." I stopped myself from saying having a crisis because Lani always had those, "Lani asked me to come."
"And you showed up," he sneered. "What a good friend."
"Yeah." I didn't even bother to acknowledge his insulting tone.
Why was he so rude to me? What had I ever done to him? Seriously, why did he tell the bouncer I was one of the cool kids if he was going to do me this way?
Lani all but bounced over to me, wrapping me in a big hug. "Oh, Echo, thank you, thank you, thank you."
I nodded grimly. "What's up?"
"Come, have a drink."
I sat at the table and was shunned by Marina and Petal—the usual. David talked to me because he was bored. He, like me, wasn't suited for the " Hey, did you see what so and so was doing " type of conversation.
"Remi, hang with us," Marina pouted.
He leaned to kiss her forehead. It was a gentle, loving kiss, and my heart stuttered. Would a man ever do that to me?
"I can't, babe. I'm workin', remember." He was distracted by one of his employees—a tall blonde man in a dark suit. He was handsome, but obviously not as good-looking as Remi, but… and that's when Marina caught me lusting after her boyfriend.
"Oh, stop making eyes at my man, Poopy Pants. He's not interested."
I gasped and so did everyone else at the table. We were not in high school, and even though it was not okay to talk to me like that then , it was really not okay to speak to me this way now .
"Stop it, Marina," David growled. "It's disgusting to call her that."
"Oh, Petal, be careful, Poopy Pants here is gonna steal your man next," Marina scoffed.
"Stop, Marina," Petal cried out. This was too much even for her.
Remi finally noticed that some drama was playing out at the table. "All okay?"
"Just sayin' that Poopy Pants here—"
"What the fuck, Marina?" Lani lashed out. "Stop it. Alright."
I got up. I was having a really nice and quiet evening at home—and Lani had dragged me here to be insulted. Enough was enough.
I adjusted my crossbody bag and started to walk to the door. Lani ran behind me. "Echo, I'm so sorry."
"Why did you want me to come?" I demanded.
She looked sheepish. "Tommy has a friend over and he's just your type."
"My type?"
"Yeah. He and Tommy work together at his father's place. He's a bit of a…oh, there he is. Jeremy ."
I turned and felt my heart slide. The man she was calling out was older than all of us by at least a decade—probably in his late thirties. He was balding. Obese. Now, I have nothing against balding or obese people—but this man was wearing a wedding ring.
"Lani, he's married."
"Divorced," she immediately whispered. "Well, separated. He just wanted a fun evening."
And you called me? I stared at her in disbelief.
"Jer, this is my friend Echo."
Jeremy leaned in to hug me, but I stepped away. What in the hell was going on?
"Hi, babe. Tommy here tells me you're single and ready to mingle."
I had an IQ of 170. I was one of the preeminent scientists working in gene therapy for cervical cancer. I volunteered at a women's shelter two nights a week. I was a good person. I didn't deserve this.
"I think Lani is mistaken, Jer. I'm not ready to mingle," I said softly but firmly.
Tommy guffawed. "Aw, come on, Poopy Pants, how long has it been since you got laid?"
Tears threatened to fill my eyes. I had left high school so many years ago, and yet here I was being bullied again.
I stepped away from the three of them. "Y'all have a nice evening."
With my head down, I brushed past them and just walked away. I needed a restroom, so I followed the signs, feeling humiliated.
"Hey." Lani grabbed my arm. "What was that? Why are you being so rude?"
"Me? Rude?" I couldn't fucking believe it, and I didn't even swear. "Lani, you think I want to date a married man who's way older than me and looks like that?"
"You think you can do better?" Lani crossed her arms.
I shook my head. "I have to go."
I walked into the restroom, and thankfully, there wasn't a queue. I went into the handicap booth and locked the door shut. I did my business and washed my hands the whole time, aware that I wanted to lie down in a fetal position and cry.
I stayed there for a good ten minutes, hoping that Lani was not prowling around, waiting for me.
I snuck out of the restrooms and looked around for exits. The path to the front door was filled with mines—Lani, Tommy, and Jer.
I walked around to the back of the club and hoped there was an exit there. I opened a few closed doors and got nowhere.
Finally, I opened a door that looked promising and froze.
It was a storage room, and inside on a desk was Marina leaning over and Remi's employee, the handsome guy I'd seen earlier, pounding into her from the back. She was naked waist up, and his hands were on her tits, squeezing as he said, "Fuck, your ass is so tight, babe."
Marina's eyes went wide when she saw me.
I took a step back and bumped into a warm body. I was about to flee when I saw that the warm body that I had collided with was Remi.
My quiet Friday evening plans were obviously blown to smithereens.