Chapter 3 #2
“Definitely not,” Munir agreed. He started talking about several artists who were much better but I had to stop him.
“What’s the name of that song?” I asked. “I want to hear it.”
Rashelle already had it in her playlist. “It’s really not the best,” she repeated. “But, you know, it’s catchy.”
We stood in our boss’s driveway to listen and it was exactly what they’d said, the sad saga of a mistreated guy named Jax.
But there were other details I picked up on as I got over my initial shock and I made Rashelle play it again, and then again.
It talked about how Jax loved to dance and was so smooth, but his girl looked uncoordinated and awkward.
Since those adjectives didn’t fit well in a song, the rapper said that at the club, she moved “like a baby hippo but with an ass that made his heart go.” Then the base thumped twice to imitate that beat.
And it was true that Dax thought he was an amazing dancer and had made fun of me for being terrible.
“Did it just say that his mom’s name rhymes with…” I didn’t want to say that word in front of my coworkers.
“Yeah, and I was trying to think of what it could be!” Rashelle answered. “What girl name rhymes with ‘bitch?’” She shook her head sympathetically. “Poor Jax got treated so badly in their relationship, too. I’ll never be like that when I have kids!”
Dax and his mother had always acted awful to each other and from my perspective, it was mutual combat.
She had come to stay with us for several weeks and it had been miserable.
They had fought and called each other names, but he had also defended everything she had done—including when she’d taken money out of my purse.
And her name was Michelle, but people called her Mitch. It rhymed perfectly with the word they used in the song.
“We should probably leave,” Munir suggested, looking back at the castle-house. He reached over and stopped the music.
“Yes, you’re right,” I agreed. I had places to be. Specifically, I had to be at the place were Dax was because I needed to figure out what was happening! “I can’t believe this,” I muttered. “I can’t believe he did this.”
“So…it is about you?” Rashelle’s eyes were sparkling and I knew what that meant: she was thrilled by this major scoop of gossip. She was going to tell everyone, if they didn’t already know.
“No, it’s absolutely not about me,” I said distinctly. “And if anyone says that it is, I’ll make it my personal mission to sue them until they regret the day they were born. I’ll quit my job at Whitaker Enterprises so I have all the time in the world to go after them.”
“Wow, ok,” she said, and she had lost the sparkle. “I’ll share that with, uh, any people who may think that Cameo and Jax are Camille and Dax.”
There were probably no grounds for a lawsuit and I was perfectly aware of that.
I wasn’t a litigator, though, and beyond some classes I’d taken, I wasn’t well-versed in defamation statutes.
We said goodbye and I went right to the office to start researching.
I read the Michigan Complied Laws and I looked at applicable case law.
Then I went home to get dressed.
A few hours later, I was at the club. “Ah, Jesus Christ on a cracker. How the hell did you get in here?” Stone, Mr. Flip Phone asked me when I made my way to him. He was back to guarding the VIP area at Chateau Moderne, and I was back to hunting my former fiancé.
“The guy at the door wasn’t looking at my face,” I said, and both of us glanced down at where the doorman’s gaze had also fastened.
I’d worn a bra that Dax/Jax had gotten for me, and it pushed my breasts almost up to my clavicles.
It made them easy to focus on and distraction had been my goal.
“Is my ex-fiancé here, the one who defamed me?”
“I guess you heard the song, Cameo.”
“Yes, I did.” I leaned to peer into the lounge behind his broad back.
Chateau Moderne was busier tonight since it was Saturday, but there still wasn’t anyone pushing to get past this velvet rope, and there wasn’t much happening in the VIP.
I certainly didn’t see Dax but I assumed that he was in one of the back rooms with his zipper down.
“Come on,” Mr. Flip Phone told me. He started to walk toward the rear of the club.
“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding this place?” I called.
“You know what? I don’t care if the whole damn club gets overrun by simulant aliens,” he said over his shoulder. He turned into a hallway with a sign that pointed toward bathrooms.
I moved a lot slower and by the time I joined him, he was waving impatiently for me to hurry. “It’s hard to walk in these shoes,” I said grumpily when I finally got there. “You should try it.”
“You think they make those in a size seventeen?” He opened a door labeled “employees only.” “Welcome to the Chateau Moderne,” he told me as it closed behind us.
This new area was nothing like the front.
That was trying desperately to be cool and sleek, dark and sexy.
The employee room featured fluorescent lights, a crusty microwave, an old coffee maker, and a wobbling table surrounded by plastic chairs.
I sat in one of those and Stone took another, and I realized that he was staring it me in a way that was… unflattering.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked, and preemptively wiped my nose with a napkin from the plastic box on the table.
“No, I was just thinking how different you look when you put all that shit on your face. I’m used to women dressing this way, but I liked it better the other night when you had on your gym clothes.”
“Well, I’m not wearing this for your benefit,” I told him. I was dressing for Dax and that was even worse because it was humiliating and silly.
“It was just an observation,” he said. “He’s not here to see you anyway.”
I got up. “I wish you’d led with that fact when I came in.” Where was he? According to his latest posts, this was one of his nights.
“He got fired when he showed up a few hours ago,” Mr. Flip Phone stated.
“Deb and two other women got into a fight over him, and the owner didn’t like that.
Dax was spending so much time screwing everybody that he wasn’t selling any bottles.
I don’t mean me,” he added. “He never tried anything on me.”
“What…he was…” I sank back down.
“He’s a shitty promoter and not only here, but at every club where he’s supposed to be working. He’s either in the VIP trying to act big or he’s off with a woman. Or two.”
“Screwing…”
Stone, Mr. Flip Phone stared at me again. “Did you really think it was just the one blowjob on the night you caught him? Really?” He shoved the napkin box closer to me.
“I didn’t know…” I gulped. “Please don’t say anything about how I’m crying again. I don’t mean to.”
“Yeah, I get that.” He waited for a moment as I fought it off, and he stared at me as I did. “You really cared about him,” he stated, and he sounded surprised.
“Yes, of course I did! We were together for nine years, since I was eighteen.”
“And in those nine years, you never noticed that he’s a complete and utter ass waffle? Didn’t you say that your grandma tried to kill him?”
“No, my grandma didn’t try to kill him! She only wished for his death, but she never acted on that.
Of course I noticed that he clashed with a lot of people, including her.
I didn’t always like the way he acted…I don’t know why I’m explaining this to you,” I said.
“Dax isn’t here and I need to find him.”
“Why?”
“Again, that’s not really your business, but I want to talk to him about that song and see if it is supposed to be about me. We also need to discuss what you had told me before, about the rumors he’s spreading,” I explained.
“Why?” he asked again and I didn’t understand.
“Are you asking for clarification because you didn’t hear me?”
He pointed at his head. “I have ears, Camille Carpenter. I heard you fine, but I don’t know why the hell you want to do those things.”
“A few months ago, I had a problem at work. People were gossiping and telling lies about me and Dax knew that,” I explained.
“Yeah? And?”
“And he saw how much it hurt my feelings and how upset I was,” I responded but now Mr. Flip Phone was shaking his head.
“So what? You think he cares about his feelings? He was shit-talking you from one end of the city to the other. Did you convince yourself that I was lying when I told you about that?”
“No. Well, I had more time to consider things,” I said. “I was with him for a long time and…I don’t know.”
“I looked you up,” he told me. “You really are a lawyer. You seem to have a real career, too.”
“I am and I do,” I stated.
“Then how can you be so damn oblivious?” he wondered. “You think that you’ll have a nice conversation and then Dax Miststuck is going to stop being a meanie?”
“No!” Yes.
“You think that he couldn’t be saying crap because he’s such a nice guy? Why the hell do you think he paid for that song? He wants to humiliate you and make himself look better. Obviously. Jesus.”
My emotions swung back into anger. “Then I’ll sue him for defamation!”
“Really? You’d sue him?”
“I had already thought about a heartbalm tort. It’s a breach of promise lawsuit,” I said. “He had promised to marry me and then he didn’t, so it’s the same thing as if he’d reneged on a sales contract. Except a lot more personal,” I acknowledged.
“You can do that? It sounds like an old-time thing.”
“It is, and I don’t think that I’d actually benefit from either of those actions,” I sighed.
“Suing him would only bring more attention to the issue. That’s why it’s a better idea for me to talk to him instead.
” Also, that way I would get to see him and I had missed him…
oh, no. Was I trying to solve my problems, or was I coming up with excuses to be with my ex?
And there was Mr. Flip Phone, looking at me like I was pathetic.
“Who knows if that song is even about me,” I ventured.