Chapter 10 #2
“He’s a successful investment banker, graduated top of his class from an Ivy League college. This means he will be able to take care of you and any children you may have—if you are wise enough to choose to go out with him and pursue a relationship using the lessons I have mentioned to you today.”
Pursue is an interesting choice of words.
Why does she keep bringing up children? Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?
Is there a sign on me saying I had sex with Nick, might be knocked up, but can pass it off as someone else’s?
If she knew, all hell would break loose; she would absolutely jump across this table and bitch slap me for ruining the appearance of our perfect family.
She’s never wanted people to see the cracks in our family’s foundation.
“Um, thanks, Mom, but I can take care of myself. I don’t need a man to do that.”
She pats me on the leg and lowers her voice as if I’m a little girl that doesn’t fully understand what she’s saying.
“I’m thrilled that you can take care of yourself, that’s why we put you through college and gave you an education.
But it’s so much better when the person you’re with can do that for you.
It’s called options, sweetie; options, don’t you agree, Ava? ”
“Yes, I do, Mrs. Reed, if Cat doesn’t want him send him over here. I like to go to the bank especially when I’m making a withdrawal of someone else’s money. It’s the American way.”
“This is a girl after my own heart.”
“Too bad she isn’t your daughter, the two of you sound like the perfect pair.” Of gold diggers.
“Cat, please think about setting up a date with this guy. I have to go make a few phone calls.” With a heavy sigh, she rises from the couch like the queen she believes she is, straightens her A-line navy blue Calvin Klein dress, and leaves the room.
When she’s out of sight I turn to Ava. “Can you believe her?”
“She wants to set you up with a rich, eligible bachelor—isn’t that what every mother wants for their daughter?”
“No, most mothers want their daughter to be happy with whomever they’re with. Mine is more concerned about how much money he has in the bank.”
“She wants the best for you, what mother doesn’t? It wouldn’t hurt to take some of her advice; some of what she said is true.”
“Please, you don’t believe that nonsense she was spouting. You’ve dated lots of men that weren’t rich and didn’t come from a family with good pedigree. What the hell does that mean, anyway? She’s using show dog terms now to describe people.”
She smiles. “True, I have dated a lot of guys who weren’t rich. I’ve learned that men are the same whether they’re rich or poor. If you’re a jerk, you’re a jerk, no matter how much money you have. She was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It is nice to have a man take care of you, even if you can do it yourself. If he starts acting up, you have the option of telling him to beat it, because you have your own money to take care of yourself.”
“I don’t want or need any lessons when it comes to relationships from my mother. She’s the last person I need relationship advice from. If you knew what I knew, you wouldn’t either.”
“What do you know?”
“Forget it. Let’s go upstairs.” I don’t want to talk about my mother’s dirty little secrets. I have my own to worry about. And I don’t want to air mine where others can hear. She follows behind me as I clomp upstairs to my room. Once she shuts the door behind her, the interrogation starts.
“So, best friend of mine, why have you been avoiding me?”
“I wasn’t avoiding you, I’ve been busy,” I say, pinning my hair up in a ponytail avoiding eye contact.
“For you, that’s code for you don’t want to talk about what’s going on so you’re going to avoid confronting the problem.”
“What problem would that be?”
“I don’t know yet. You’ve been avoiding seeing me since the night Nick took you home. Every time I call, you send me a text. I finally had to put my foot down and tell you I’m coming over here. So what happened?”
I can’t lie to Ava. I’m a terrible liar, and she’ going to beat me over the head until I tell her the truth. She’s relentless like that. “Your cousin happened. We had sex.”
“Whaaat! Shut the front door! Slam it!”
“Yep. I slammed it. I should have slammed my legs shut too.”
“I was not expecting you to say that.”
“Me either.”
“Out of all the things you could have said, having sex with Nick wasn’t one of them.”
“I still can’t believe it myself, and I was there.”
She leans in close, sitting across from me on the bed like we’re conspiring secretly in some kind of plot, hand covering the side of her mouth. “Girl, how did you go from a ride home to getting down and dirty?”
“I don’t know, one minute we were listening to music the next thing I know we’re having sex in the back of his car with the driver in the front. That is not me; I don’t do things like that.”
“Did you say, ‘driver, roll up the partition please, you don’t need to see Cat on her knees?’” She’s laughing, and I’m looking at her not amused. “Was that playing? If it was, you could blame it on Beyoncé and J getting you caught up in the music.”
“Not funny, Ava. Not funny.”
“I’m sorry.” She puts her manicured hands, one over the other over her heart. “No more jokes, I promise. Go ahead, tell me what happened.”
I tell Ava the whole story, and for once in all the years that I’ve known her she’s speechless. Not one smart remark or I told you so, even when I tell her about Nick and Kate. The only part I leave out is there’s a chance I could be pregnant.
“Cat, this is unbelievable. It’s like an episode of Days of Our Lives. It’s like Sammy and Carrie, two sisters fighting over Austin. That bitch Sammy would do anything to get Austin but he didn’t want her, he wanted to be with Carrie, the woman he really loved.”
“You’re comparing my life to a daytime drama?”
“Honey, your life is outdoing daytime drama, this is real life drama. I can’t believe she’s pregnant. She probably got knocked up on purpose.”
“Believe it, it’s true, and it takes two people to make a baby.”
“It might not be his,” she says, dragging the last word out.
“What are the chances of that?”
“There’s always a chance. How do you know she wasn’t hooking up with someone else? If she could hook up with Nick that one time, how do you know she didn’t hook up with someone else around the same time? You said they used protection, right?”
“She said the baby was his.”
“Cat, I’m not saying your sister sleeps around, but at the time, she was two weeks out of a five-year relationship with a man we all assumed she was going to marry. How do we know she didn’t get nostalgic late one night and decided to hook up with Michael? It happens all the time.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell Nick if there is a chance this baby could be someone else’s? She wouldn’t do that. What is my family going to say when she tells them they’re not getting married? My mother’s going to go ballistic.”
“You didn’t break up anything; it wasn’t real to begin with. What did I tell you? I know my cousin. I knew he would never in a million years marry your sister.”
“No, but he would sleep with her.”
She nodded. “He fucked up there.”
“Before it got to that point, why didn’t his feelings for me stop him from having sex with her? If he cared about me so much and wanted to protect me from getting hurt, why didn’t he walk away?”
“I don’t know. That’s a question he’ll have to answer. The one thing I do know is he cares about you, and he’d most likely do anything for you.”
“How do you know that?” I sit back on my pillows biting the side of my cheek. “I’m not sure I believe that’s true. If it was, he damn sure wouldn’t have had sex with my sister, not even one time.”
“You need to talk to him.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to see him yet or deal with him. I’m still trying to process everything that has transpired and how I feel. I don’t know what to do next.”
“Where’s your pendant?”
“The one Nick gave me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s in my jewelry box. Why?”
“I was there the day he bought it for you.”
“I didn’t know that—why didn’t you tell me?”
“The day he bought it, I asked him to come to the jewelry store with me, because my dad was afraid I would buy the entire store. The only way he would let me go is if Nick came with me to make sure I didn’t max out his card, which is ridiculous. Black has no limit.”
“Your father’s a very smart man.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Anyway, when we got to the jewelry shop, I was so excited to show him the pendant I was going to buy. It was the most beautiful, unique piece of jewelry I’d ever laid my eyes on.
The second Nick saw it he said to me, ‘You’re not buying it.
’ I said why not? You know what his answer was? ”
“What?”
“His exact words were, ‘It was meant for someone else, someone special. A person that will always be a part of my life, without a doubt in my mind.’”
“He said that?” She nods her head slowly.
“Jokingly, I said yeah, I know the special person is me. He said, ‘No, this person is a different kind of special, and I need to remind her of that. Whether I’m near or far away from her, she will always come first above everyone else. All she has to do is call.’ He said the eyes were wrong; the original gems were emeralds.
He had them changed to a light blue star aquamarine. What color are his eyes, Cat?”
“An undeniable haunting, beautiful shade of gray-blue. Sometimes I feel like he can see right through me.”
“He chose that particular gem because it bears a close resemblance to the color of his eyes. So whenever you looked at it, you would know he was always with you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the night he gave it to me? I called you and you acted like you didn’t know about it.”
“I didn’t know he was talking about you when he bought it so I was just as surprised as you were. I thought the dope would eventually tell you. You want to know what I think?”