20. Black Moment #2
I pinch harder. “I’ll wire double what I just paid you if you can email it to me ASAP.”
“Done.”
I give him the same throwaway email I used for my VPN and hang up to authorize another wire transfer.
I pace back and forth in front of the dealership’s glass storefront until Dale calls my name. “Mr. Kincaid?”
I nearly stumble, turning toward the door behind me. “Yes?”
His wary expression gives way to an awkward smile. “Your keys have been programmed.” He holds out a bag with five fobs inside.
I had extras keys made in case Trish ever gets pissed at me again. Or if she gets scared of her past and wants to run. Because until we figure this out, I’m pretty sure she will. And I need to be prepared.
“Thank you.” I take the bag from the guy. “Do you need my card to?—”
“No, no.” Hands raised, the guy backs up into the open doorway.
“We’ll send a bill. Your car is parked just around the corner.
” He points behind me. “Have a nice day.” The door shuts, and through the glass I watch him walk back to his counter, throwing me guarded looks over his shoulder.
I catch my reflection in the window and see my hair standing on end like a wild man’s.
I refocus, and all the people shopping for cars inside are staring at me.
Between the pacing, the talking, and gesturing, I must’ve given them quite a show.
I head over to the lot where my car is waiting and slide in, tossing the bag of keys on the passenger seat.
My phone pings with an email notification.
Pushing the ignition on so I don’t melt to death in my car, I scroll through all the attachments Ranos sent me.
The more I scroll, the more my heart hurts.
Not for me, but for the small, pale brunette staring back at me in the attached photos.
There’s a picture of Trish from elementary school.
A pigtailed girl with a crooked smile. Birth certificate with the father listed as ‘unknown.’ The missing person’s report for her mother.
A copy of her grandparents’ double mortgage on their mobile home, followed by their death certificates.
Another picture of Trish, this time from high school, her eyes already too wise for her years.
School transcripts that depict a smart, gifted mind and the scholarships she earned.
Community college bills. And finally, a promotional picture from a strip club of a nearly unrecognizable Trish, bent backwards by a pole, one leg pointing toward the ceiling, a sequined red bikini barely covering her breasts.
She’s beautiful in each. And I love her more with each new piece of information I read.
But it hurts that she felt too ashamed to tell me.
There’s also a picture of a handsome twenty-something guy with a younger Trish. It’s a selfie, with Trish kissing his cheek.
I already hate the guy, and I don’t know who he is.
Opening the next page, there’s another picture of the guy. This time he’s older, in a suit, and standing in front of a law firm. Mitchell & Watkins. Must be Chad Mitchell.
Sure enough, Ranos included another dossier, this one on Chad Mitchell, now a senior partner at a top Georgia law firm. The law firm his father founded. Father died three months ago of a stroke.
I call the number Ranos has listed for Mitchell. No answer, no voice message system. Figures. He probably won’t just talk if I get him on the phone anyway.
For some reason, Mitchell wants to keep the Trish situation a secret. It’s obvious they were romantically involved, if Ranos’ information is to be trusted. Apparently, sometime around when Trish was going to college and working at the strip club.
But after the judge accused her of stealing, Trish left town, and a few years later Mitchell married a prominent southern family’s daughter.
I dial the law firm’s number.
“Mitchell & Watkins Law Office, how may I direct your call?”
“I need to make an appointment with Chad Mitchell. As soon as possible.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mitchell is out of town for a memorial banquet honoring his late father. He informed me he wouldn’t be taking any appointments today or tomorrow. I can get you on the schedule next week.”
Shit. A week won’t do. That’s after the wedding. After Trish leaves.
“I see. That is a shame.” My nostrils flare as I steel myself for what I’m about to do.
“You see, I’m Ian Kincaid, and my father, United States Senator Richard Kincaid, asked me to personally speak with Mr. Mitchell regarding an urgent legal matter in Georgia that needs to be dealt with immediately. ”
In the following silence, I imagine the receptionist running through the ramifications of putting off such an important prospective client. “If you could hold sir, I’ll just double-check.”
“Of course.” I settle my head back against my car seat. I’m slightly sick with myself.
A moment later, the receptionist comes back on the line, singing a completely different tune. “Mr. Kincaid, Mr. Mitchell would be happy to meet with you tomorrow afternoon once he gets back to the office.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“Will three o’clock work, sir?”
I do the math. The Atlanta law firm is about twelve hours away by car. If I drive straight through, just running home to grab a bag and only stopping when I need gas, I should make it with time to spare. I put the car in reverse and let Bluetooth pick up the call.
“Three o’clock is perfect. Thank you.”
I maneuver out of the lot, wishing I had taken Dale up on that second cup of coffee.
It’s going to be a long drive.
Trish
“I told you I’d look good in anything.” Jules preens in the dressing room’s gilded mirror.
“This isn’t just anything, this is Vera Wang,” I admonish, helpless to feel less than fabulous in the chiffon artistry draped around me. It even twirls when I spin.
Rose jostles her boobs into place under her ruched bodice. “We’re literally wearing Wangs.”
Snickering, Jules and Rose fist-bump.
“Everything okay?” The seamstress pretends she didn’t just hear two grown women make penis jokes in her couture wedding shop.
I also notice that no mimosas are offered this visit. Probably a good thing, what with the bachelorette party tonight.
“How are the hemlines?” The woman steps back, looking at the floor, tape measure in hand. “You’re wearing the shoes you’ll be wearing for the wedding, right?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t realize Shortstack would be wearing stilts.” Jules pokes me in the shoulder with her index finger, causing me to fall into the wall.
Rose, Jules, and I were all supposed to wear the same shoes. And we are. Basically. I just happened to find a pair identical to theirs, but with an additional two-inch platform.
I push myself upright and smooth out my gown for the seamstress to check. “I didn’t want to look like a little kid walking down the aisle behind your Amazonian rear end.”
“Please, you’re lucky to have this in your direct line of sight.” Jules slaps her backside.
I shake my head, laughing, but trying to remain still as the woman duckwalks around me, double-checking the length. “Your humility knows no bounds, sugar.”
“Just one of the many things Holt loves about me.”
“One of them, huh?” Last night I learned the hard way not to come a‘knockin’ if the ranch is a’rockin’. I took one step into the newly renovated, open-concept house and nearly blinded myself with what I saw taking place on the kitchen countertop.
I’ll never look at a spatula the same way again.
Next time I need a box of tissues to wipe my tear-stained face, I’ll just make do with a roll of TP.
“So much for your self-imposed sex sabbatical.”
Jules shrugs, a smirk on her face. “I can’t help it if the man is sex crazed for— ow!” She looks down at the seamstress, who has made her way over to Jules, pins in hand.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, but we all know she doesn’t mean it.
“Serves you right.” Rose doesn’t even try to hide her laughter. “No sister wants the details on her brother’s sex life.”
I turn away from the mirror and their direct line of sight and unzip my dress.
“Yes, some things you can keep to yourself.” I pull my plain blue T-shirt over my head and step into my elastic waist pleated skirt.
I keep the shoes on to break them in before the wedding.
And so I don’t look like the dwarf I am.
“No can do.” Jules, stock-still after being pin-pricked, waits for the seamstress to nod her approval over the hem length before kicking out of her shoes. “Love means no secrets.”
“Then you can love me a little less, Starr,” Rose jokes. “You can keep your bedroom shenanigans private .”
Both laugh, but I can’t quite lift my lips into a smile. “Everyone has secrets.”
“Well sure, I guess.” Jules unzips, completely at ease with her boobs out in front of everyone. “But not between you and the people you love.” She grabs her T-shirt once she hangs up her gown. “Learned that the hard way, didn’t I?”
Rose nods solemnly, as if thinking over what happened to Jules a few weeks ago.
“Now there isn’t a damn thing that Holt doesn’t know about me. And the man still loves me.” She tips her head to one side, apparently pondering what she just said. “Or maybe he loves me because he knows everything about me?”
The seamstress fluffs out Rose’s gown and checks the hem.
“I don’t know much about relationships, having never been in one.” Rose faces the mirror. “But I have to agree with Starr on this.”
Jules nods, picking her pants up off the floor where she dropped them earlier. “Of course you do.”
Rose rolls her eyes but continues. “My father never really knew all that much about our mother.” She shrugs, causing her hemline to rise, and the seamstress to tsk.
“None of us did, or do to this day. To hear my grandpa tell it, my mama just sort of showed up. As I got older, I became more aware of my dad’s struggles.
He loved her, but it was like trying to hold on to smoke— no substance. Too many unanswered questions.”
“Didn’t help that the woman wasn’t faithful.” Jules catches Rose’s eyes and pauses. “Ah, no offense.”
“No offense taken.” A sad smile pulls at Rose’s lips.
“But that was just one more not-so-secret secret between them. Sometimes she’d just leave, and no one knew if she was ever coming back.
Dad, never knowing why she’d left, felt like it must have been his fault.
As the tension between them built up, he spent more and more time with his cars, blowing off steam 100 miles per hour at the track.
” Rose looks straight into my eyes, like she’s talking to me and not about her mother.
Maybe she is.
Finished checking the last hemline, the seamstress gathers her things and scurries out of the large dressing room, head down and eyes averted. We might have subjected her to a little TMI, but at least this time we aren’t three sheets to the wind.
Jules stomps her feet into her motorcycle boots.
Standing, she checks herself out in the mirror, looking just as confident in a Captain Marvel T-shirt and loose, low-slung jeans as she did a moment ago dolled up in couture.
“It’s awesome knowing the person you love knows everything about you and still loves you. ”
Jules’ words freeze me from the inside out.
“Yes, yes, you’re so loved.” Rose shimmies out of her dress, her large chest requiring a corset underneath. “If I have to hear one more time how loved you are I’m gonna scream.”
Leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest, Jules smirks at her. “You mean you don’t want to hear how your brother loves me so much that he was willing to defile his precious kitchen with sweaty, kinky sex last night?”
Rose hangs her head. “Jesus. You know that’s my kitchen too, right?”
“Oh yeah.” Jules strokes her chin like a villain, evil smile still in place. “Maybe don’t eat at the island anytime soon. Not sure if Holt remembered to give it a good wipe down.”
They continue bickering, which I usually find amusing, but my mind can’t register the insults.
Hearing Rose talk about her past and Jules her relationship, it hits me how selfish I’ve been. Withholding my truth may protect them, but it protects me more. And when I’m gone, will they always wonder why I left? Will they think it’s their fault?
If I couldn’t give them the truth while here, couldn’t I at least give them the truth after I’m gone? So they don’t worry, or question, or somehow think they’re to blame for my leaving.
It isn’t until Jules starts talking in an outside voice about sex with Holt while Rose chants “la, la, la” with her hands over her ears that I break out of my trance.
“Okay, okay, you two, time to go.” I open the dressing room door and push Jules and Rose out, Rose hopping on one foot while trying to jam the other into her boot. “They’re fixin’ to kick us out of here if you two don’t stop with your shenanigans.”
Based on the mother-daughter duos in the store who stare and whisper as we pass by, Jules’ outside voice had definitely carried.
The store manager waits by the entrance, one hand poised to yank open the door for us.
Despite the amped-up air conditioning, her face is pink and glistening, her smile frozen in place like those of the mannequins.
Once outside, Jules links her arm with mine. “Speaking of kicking out, you do know that I need to revoke Ian’s ban from the ranch for the wedding, right?”
The mention of his name brings me up short. After my emotional support animal session with Cookie, I threw myself into last-minute preparations with Jules and the wedding planner. Rose had called dibs on the bachelorette party tonight.
But it only takes hearing his name to bring it all back. The good, the amazing, and the regrets.
And I realize it isn’t just my girlfriends that I need to come clean to.