Chapter 7 Kaelee
Kaelee
Kaelee opened the messages on the dating app several times on Friday and then again on Saturday.
Hearing from her editor, hearing from her agent, knowing people would be reading her book, knowing the deal would be announced soon …
it was a lot. She had a long mental list of all the skeletons that could reach out of the past and ruin her present.
Logic was pointless when her anxiety spiraled like this.
My biological family doesn’t care about me.
It’s not like they’re out there looking for me.
I changed my name so I won’t tarnish their sterling reputation.
She was ninety percent certain her family had simply washed their hands of her and said good riddance to bad garbage or whatever the religious version of that was.
They probably claimed to pray for her, but they weren’t praying for clarity or even acceptance.
They were praying she would repent and change.
Tripp Alden could never be wrong! Ergo, it must be me.
He’s such a narcissistic fuckwad.
Kaelee hated that so many thoughts of her father had crept into her mind lately.
She’d removed the name he’d given her at birth, combining her maternal grandparents’ names—Katherine and Leland—so as to honor them.
Kaelee was a name of her own choosing, and she’d removed her father’s surname.
She wasn’t even going to pretend that “Carpenter” was anything but a jab at him, too.
She wore a common name, instead of the one he was so proud of, not that she thought her father even knew her current name.
He wasn’t likely to care enough to track her down.
I’m just being paranoid.
What reason would he have to decide to keep tabs on his lesbian daughter who defied and embarrassed him?
But thinking about him led to thoughts of her farce of a fiancé, and thinking about Kyle was a surefire way to give herself insomnia.
She’d been a victim, and neither her mother nor her sister had been there for her.
No one had. She was alone dealing with the fallout of a rape that had resulted from her father assigning her a fiancé—and that fiancé taking what he thought was his.
Never a-fucking-gain.
Kaelee didn’t exactly share her past with people. She didn’t want pity or the rubbernecking trauma lovers asking questions. The past was the past, and it needed to stay there.
But thinking about the secrets she’d lived with made her wonder if her publishing dream was foolish. She didn’t want to be in the public eye. Ever. She didn’t want to be found by her father’s associates or Kyle’s and have her life wrecked by them and their hateful, narrow-minded lives.
I need an anchor.
I need a …
Without letting herself spiral any more, she opened the dating app and started typing a message.
Lee: Last minute trip to NY. You around tomorrow? Monday?
Marie: Maybe tomorrow. Work on Monday.
Lee: All day and night?
Marie: Noooo. Work all day. Free after. What time?
Lee: Work meetings all day Monday. Maybe dinner? You?
Marie: Are you asking to meet for dinner or have me for dinner?
Lee: I want to have you.
Marie: Yes.
Kaelee relaxed. Foolish though it was, just chatting with Marie made her feel better, especially the fact that Marie replied so quickly. Kaelee was insecure about her life plan, her book, her decision about whether to finish her PhD, but she was sure of her body and what she could do with it.
It’s not like I am trying to claim it’s a healthy coping plan, but I’m not using anyone either. We are both going into this with eyes open. Just a fling. Just a fuck.
Typically, she went old-school when she traveled, but more and more, that had led to awkward I’m not looking to date conversations, as if I’m only in town for the weekend was somehow unclear.
So many people were looking for that media-created lie that there was such a thing as forever love or that wanting it was something everyone felt.
That was pheromones or some other hormone talking.
There was even research that kissing and cuddling created some bonding chemical in people.
Love was just a mix of biology and societal training.
Lust … was something else, and Kaelee would own having that. That was the only reason she’d been tempted to go to the city early. Lust, plain and simple.
Her phone chimed, and the group chat with the rest of the English grad students was a flurry of conversation.
A group of them were headed to a dive bar, Marley’s House, for drinks and pool, or maybe drinks and darts, or possibly a band.
She honestly couldn’t tell. The conversation was happening too quickly.
She grabbed a jacket, wrapped a scarf around her throat, and headed out.
She paused to throw all three locks. Maybe it was obsessive or paranoid, but she had the super’s permission to add extra locks.
There was a fourth lock, but that was one that could only be locked from inside.
Technically, she had to keep a duplicate key on file for every lock, but she figured she wasn’t violating any terms if she didn’t have a key for it.
She attached her keys to the carabiner that she’d stitched inside her pocket with a Kevlar thread. There was zero chance anyone was taking those without her noticing.
I’m not paranoid. I’m just prepared.
By the time she got to the bar where the department seemed to cluster, Kaelee felt a familiar wave of fuck you, Tripp wash over her.
Mentally, she could summon up the expression of disgust he felt at the thought of his child in a place like this.
Aldens did not drink in places where the floor was sticky or there were black light stamps on the backs of everyone’s hands.
Kaelee Carpenter, however, most certainly did.
About six of the English department grad students were all huddled in the area around the dartboards.
A very soulful singer, far too good for this bar, was accompanied by an upright bass and a woman on keyboard.
Suddenly the cover charge seemed like a small price to have paid.
Music like that would get swept into somewhere with a better budget soon enough.
Marley’s House had carefully constructed the dive vibe, though. The drinks were still on the high side for a dive, but on the low side for NoVA. It was cheaper than Georgetown bars, though, so that was a plus.
“There you are!” Cherie flung herself at Kaelee as she joined the crowd.
Everyone else nodded or said hi. Only Cherie was so forward. She didn’t mean anything by it. She greeted everyone that way. She was a freckled white beauty with shampoo-commercial hair and a love for the WNBA that rivaled the fiercest fans out there. “Drinks on you?”
“Why would I do that?” Kaelee signaled the bartender all the same and ordered. “One of whatever that is, and a double shot of the Macallan.”
“Sherry oak, eighteen, or…”
“Sherry oak.”
The bartender turned away, and Cherie leveled a look at her. “Oh! Are we having a drink to celebrate?”
“Celebrate what?” Kaelee knew what she meant, but she wasn’t ready to deal with it.
“Didn’t you see the department newsletter?” Cherie tossed her hair with the kind of gesture that was both unconscious and painfully attractive. If she ever actually came out, hearts would litter the ground at her feet.
“No…”
Cherie shoved her shoulder gently. “News like that is something you share with your friends, in case you were wondering for the future. The right move would have been calling me and saying ‘Guess what?’ and then preening.”
Kaelee sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, of course it’s complicated. Half the department will hate you. Some will think that Dr. D greased some wheels.” Cherie held up a hand when Kaelee tried to object. “But some of us are just damn happy for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, yes.” Cherie gave her a strange look, paused, and then said, “Look. I don’t know what you’ve been running from, but I know there’s something in your past you don’t want to share. Like recognizes like. That doesn’t mean that no one wants to cheer for you.”
Kaelee paid the bartender and turned away from the bar to stare at Cherie. “Right. Well, I sold two books.”
Cherie lifted her wineglass and lightly tapped it to Kaelee’s glass. “To giving them hell and being better than they thought we were.”
After they took a drink, Kaelee said, “I sold them six months ago, and I feel a little odd about the whole thing. I’m going up to Manhattan to meet my editor on Monday.”
“Need a friend to come along?”
“Seriously?”
Cherie shrugged like it was no big deal. It was huge, though. “I mean, I would have to spend the whole time grading but if you needed me to…”
Kaelee rolled it over in her head. She could cancel on Marie. She could just focus on work. Maybe see a show or something. That was the smart idea.
Evander, one of the grad students who was pursuing a PhD in something that crossed into linguistics and Afrofuturist literature, came over then. “Did you read…” She braced to hear him say “the department newsletter,” but he mentioned a journal article instead.
Evander looked like he was a stereotypical jock; he had a build like a linebacker that was honed by a lot of hours at the gym.
The six-foot, five-inch Black man had to curl forward to talk to them, which he did as he started explaining the article he was going to forward them a citation for that week.
Cherie met her gaze and grinned before saying, “Tell us about it, Ev.”
And they stood in pleasant company, talking about the pedagogical inconsistences of whichever article had rattled Evander.
Sometimes, Kaelee thought she’d end up staying and finishing her PhD just because of the people.
Here, she felt normal, not stand-out, not strange or off-putting.
Academics were her crowd. The bookish people, the nerds, the people who stood in a bar talking about research and books.