Chapter 50 #2
“Shit, you say that like I was invited, birthday girl,” she replied, pulling out the other earbud.
My friend hopped off the kitchen stool, patting my cheek like a proud parent.
“I don’t know what happened. All I know is that you showed up at my door at almost two o’clock in the morning, ugly drunk, being carried bridal-style by a dude who definitely wasn’t Rashad. ”
“Huh?” I pulled at her arm, leading her to a couch in her living room. “A dude? Who? Was it Kain?”
“Girl, what?” Lux squinted a grimace, shaking her head and creeping closer to me on the couch.
“No. He was fine as hell, though. He didn’t look like he’d come from the club, however.
You were dressed like a lil’ hoe in your black dress, looking sexy as hell.
But he showed up in a hoodie and sweats, carrying you like y’all just got hitched. ”
I could only look at her with uncertainty. Lux’s descriptions were doing nothing to jog my memory. In fact, she was only confusing me more.
“Are you cheating on Rashad? ‘Cause if your side dudes look like that, I’m here for it, babe.”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I don’t know if I cheated. Did the dude give you a name?”
“Xavier,” Lux replied.
“Xavier?”
With a nod, my friend explained him even more, “He was about… this tall, and I swear to God he looked just like a light skinned Alfred Enoch.”
“Xavier?” I questioned again. The name didn’t ring a bell. At least, not as a first name. “Marlon maybe?”
“Yes!” Lux replied excitedly like we were playing a trivia game. “Yes, that was it! Marlon Xavier. Okay, so obviously y’all talked. So what’s the tea?”
“We didn’t talk,” I sighed, leaning my head backwards against the back cushion of the couch. My hangover and the excited loudness of Lux’s voice were not a good mix. “Marlon is a friend of Kain’s.”
The images in my mind weren’t from dreams.
I really did see Kain last night. Another fresh memory came to me, causing me to cringe.
“I think I threw up on him last night.”
“On who? Sweatpants Bae?”
“No!” I answered, knowing it would hurt to laugh at how silly she was. “On Kain.”
“Ohhh,” she replied, catching what I said last minute. “Wait—on Kain? When did you see Kain?”
“Last night, I think.”
“Well where was Rashad in all of this?”
I shook my head, pulling a blank for the answer to that question. “I don’t remember.”
“You should call him. Maybe he knows what happened.”
“Did Marlon have my purse when he brought me up?” I asked. “My phone was in my purse. Where is it?”
“The only thing he came up with was you,” Lux revealed, adding for good measure, “With his fine ass…”
“Ahh, fuck,” I muttered, taking my hungover little head into my hands. “I think I left my purse at Seven last night. Could you call my phone for me? Maybe whoever has it will pick up and agree to meet us.”
“Wishful thinking for Miami,” Lux mumbled, pulling up her cellphone and pressing in my speed dial number. The phone rang four times before going to voicemail. It would go to voicemail three more times before Lux decided to give up and send a text that read: Phone lost. Call # 7865550001.
The message was short enough to show up completely on the phone’s lock screen, and for now, I could only hope that the person who found my stuff didn’t want to keep it.
***
Both of my parents’ cars were parked in the driveway when Lux pulled up to the front of my house. It was a little after five o’clock in the afternoon, with most of my day spent with my best friend, our time together closing off with a late birthday lunch at the mall.
“I’d stop in, but I figure since I’m in the neighborhood, I should at least visit my parents,” Lux explained, as if she didn’t come down from her newly leased apartment once a week to visit her parents.
All my life, my best friend had always lived directly across the street from me.
When she got her own apartment last spring, it was like a blessing for me as well—the perfect getaway option.
But getaways couldn’t last forever.
My mother was in the kitchen, quietly preparing dinner when I walked in.
For as long as I could remember, my home had always been quiet.
Sometimes the diplomatic levels of noiselessness came off as sterile, as cold.
It made it feel like there was no love here, even though I’d spent years telling myself there was.
When she heard my footsteps pitter pat behind her in the silence, she immediately turned. I expected a, ‘Happy birthday, Lori,’ but what I got was a, “Your father wants to see you in his office.”
“Why?” I asked her cautiously, anxiety already firing up from within me. My hangover had died down some, but not nearly enough to handle it if Daddy had something to shout at me for. “Am I in trouble?”
Mom looked at me, her face like mine and Morgan’s, save for a few differences here and there, and the addition of time. “If you have to ask…?” She raised an eyebrow. “Go on, Lori. The longer you stall, the more time he has to sit on it.”
“Sit on what?”
“Go.”
My feet dragged against the mahogany floors spread throughout my house.
Goosebumps rose along my skin in anticipation for what this unexpected chat with my father might be.
If Dr. Eloise could catch a glimpse of the anxiety levels in my body, she would quickly make sure I knew that the relationship I had with my father couldn’t have possibly been a healthy one.
But that was us, though. Dysfunctional. Especially as of late—like two ill fitting parts being forced together to create some semblance of togetherness.
I longed for the days I could move out of my parents’ house the way my best friend had already done.
Only then would I be spared from the hair graying stress of being ‘called into my father’s office’.
I knocked twice before entering, noting the slight shake of my hand as I did it.
A girl should not be this afraid of her father. This is not natural.
When I stepped into my father’s private space, I found his office overrun with a heap of campaign swag. Caplan For Governor 2018 on just about everything you could think of from t-shirts to lawn signs, a campaign headquarters nestled away into the far back corners of my childhood home.
“Hey, Daddy,” I greeted him quietly, cautiously stepping into crowded space.
He didn’t say anything at first, but I could just tell from the look on his face that this wasn’t some elaborate way of pranking me into a birthday surprise. No. My father was angry. About what, I didn’t know, but somehow I knew it tied into the previous night I was having trouble remembering.
“Lauren,” he started, voice somber, like a person who’d done everything he could to salvage something, and still couldn’t succeed.
“You know, I really loved my job. From the moment I knew what a state’s attorney was, I put my everything into becoming one.
Sleepless nights. Day in, day out. I was dedicated.
” He pulled out a folder from the top of a stack of papers on his desk.
“Last year, I lost that job. Lost that dream.”
“I’m sorry Daddy.” I’ve apologized for this over a hundred times.
“And for a very long time, I felt like my life as I knew it was over. But then this opportunity to run for office came along. I’ve run a good campaign; my poll numbers are high. No negative press,” He paused, looking at me with eyes so venomous you’d think that he hated me. “Until now.”
Slowly he opened the folder in front of him, pulling out a single sheet of color printed paper—a photograph. I reached for the sheet, my stomach heavy with stress, and dropping when I was finally able to make out what I was seeing.
A picture of me.
Wearing the dress I had on the night before, I was nestled comfortably within Kain Montgomery’s arms, my arms clinging around his neck as he carried me out in the open.
The picture didn’t give away much, but two things were abundantly clear—one, I needed to be carried out of a nightclub, which came with obvious insinuations, and two, it appeared as if I was still associated with Kain Montgomery.
I cringed.
My father pulled out several more photos—my face covered in most of them, although Kain’s was not. There were dozens, however, and any one of them could make the front page given the right headline.
Candidate Caplan’s Daughter Still Seeing Kain Montgomery.
Lauren Caplan & Kain Montgomery: The Saga Continues.
Is Kain Montgomery CHEATING On Eden Xavier?! How A Summer Fling Became The Sidepiece.
The last photo my father pulled out was the most damning.
Kain crouching low beside a car’s open back seat, a single hand holding my face, pressing a kiss onto my forehead.
Objectively speaking, with no context, the photo could have been seen as sweet.
I couldn’t remember the kiss, but from the photo alone, it looked tender… warm… loving.
I shook away that last thought.
Kain Montgomery never loved you. At least, not for real. It was all a scam.
My inner thoughts talked me out of the heart flutter I felt coming on. I only saw love in that photo because that’s what some unconscious part of me wanted to see.
“The photographer who took these photos is shopping them around to all the major news outlets,” my father explained.
“Montgomery is allegedly in a high profile relationship with some popstar, so these photos are a double whammy—celebrity cheating scandal and political ammunition. Do you know what the papers will say about me when these photos go public? My campaign—all of it—in the garbage. Who can expect me to run a state when I can’t even run my own daughter? !”
I shrunk under the volume of his words, wanting to cry, but not allowing myself to. “Is it possible to just buy the pictures?” I asked quietly.