Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry, page 22
Dad’s eyes widen, looking between me and Olivia. “You did?”
I nod, looking down to my feet on the tiled floor. “She already knows about the property. It seems I’m the only one who didn’t know.”
“It all happened so fast,” Mom says, stepping around Dad. “We still weren’t sure we wanted to sell it when the buyer contacted us.”
If Hattie’s able to let go, who am I to stop any of this?
“I’m sorry that I lied about Columbia.”
Dad’s face hardens. Then he shakes his head. “I can’t believe you would—”
Mom places her hand on his arm. “Let’s take this in strides. For now, go get cleaned up for dinner. Olivia, sweetie, are you staying?”
“Oh, no, ma’am.” She mumbles the next part. “Carter’s coming to get me.”
I turn and look at her, but she avoids my eyes. I say, “Mom, actually, we need to talk to you about something.”
She goes over to the refrigerator and Dad turns on the oven. Livvy and I sit at the bar across from them. “How much do you know about cyberbullying?”
Mom spins around. Dad turns to look at us too. I pull out my phone, pulling up the recording of Destany and Gia. “We need your help.”
It’s dark outside, but I can see Carter leaning against Olivia’s car under the streetlight. I’m peeking out of my bedroom window, from behind my blackout curtains. Livvy comes outside with her backpack, camera around her neck. She goes around to the passenger side, pointing at Carter to drive.
He rubs his hand over the top of his hair and looks up. He sees me, and I freeze. My heart pounds. I almost forget why I’m pissed at him. But then I hurry and turn away, walking to the edge of my bed to catch my breath.
It’s been heavy in my pocket since the moment he gave it to me, but now it’s burning a hole in my thigh. I have to know. I pull out the folded piece of paper and finally open it.
REASONS I READ YOUR JOURNAL
It started out of confusion. I thought your journal was mine at first, but I knew after seeing the list “If I Could Kiss Anyone” that it was your journal, and that it was very personal.
I kept going because I saw my name at the end of the list, and I never knew you thought about me like that. I was desperate to find my name again.
I didn’t respect you. I thought I knew exactly who you were.
I was angry because of what happened with your father. I thought you deserved to have your privacy invaded. I was extremely wrong. No one deserves that.
I used to see you write in that journal all the time. I’ve always been curious to see what you were writing.
I was enveloped. The more I read about you, the more I wanted to know. Your imperfections, your mistakes, your desires, everything drew me in. I flipped through your pages, like they weren’t pieces of you.
Knowing your secrets was like having cheat codes to you.
I didn’t realize there would be consequences. I thought your secrets would go to the grave with me. I didn’t think I’d fall for you.
I didn’t realize how serious of an offense it was until I saw how much it hurt you.
Chapter 25
Pros and Cons of Having a Lawyer Mom
PROS AND CONS OF HAVING A LAWYER MOM
CONS:
She investigates. I’ve never been able to fake an illness to get out of going to school.
She argues for a living. Winning an argument against her is impossible.
She gets in my head. She always knows my next move.
She’s observant. Lying to her is a full-time job.
She’s a problem-solver. When problems are presented to her, she’s more concerned with solving them than empathizing.
PROS:
She’s a problem-solver. When problems are presented to her, she solves them.
She makes bank.
She’s an independent bad bitch. (Is it okay to call your mom a bad bitch? Because mine totally is.)
If I commit a crime, she’d represent me for free (probably . . . maybe).
If someone comes after her child, she comes full speed for their throats.
Principal Falcon has a bronze sculpture of a falcon on the edge of his desk. I stare at it, wondering if it’s the sole reason he became a principal. No other office would have held this sculpture so well. Maybe a government office, like Governor Falcon.
I’m sitting between my mom and Olivia. My mom got dressed up and insisted that I dress up too. I didn’t, per se, but I’m not wearing sweats. She sits on my left in her attorney clothes—wide-legged black slacks that tie at the waist, silk white blouse tucked in, black pointed-toe stilettos. Her legs are crossed, the bottom foot bouncing.
“I find it interesting that two Black students were bullied on school grounds, and you don’t seem to think anything can be done.”
“Mrs. Jackson, I’m taking this matter very seriously. This”—he points down to my phone—“is grounds for expulsion. I’m only saying there might be pushback.”
“And I’m saying there shouldn’t be.” Mom leans in. “I don’t care who Gia’s dad is or how much money he donated. That gives her no right to torment another student. These girls were holding my daughter hostage.”
“I understand that—”
She leans over and points across me at Olivia. “They ruined this child’s reputation a few months ago, spreading disgusting lies, and vandalized her work. They’ve done it twice now, and they’ll do it again.”
She turns back to Principal Falcon. “Here’s the thing: two Black females were harassed under your watch by two white females, one of whom is being protected by a donor. This is a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.”
His mouth twitches, opening and closing like a fish. I feel so much pride for my mom, it’s prickling at my eyes.
“How about we bring the girls in?” He grabs his phone and pages for Destany Maddox and Gia Teller to report to his office. Then he looks at my mother. “I have to ask that you leave the questioning to me. I don’t have their parents present—”
“I get it,” she says, uncrossing her legs and crossing them the other way.
Then we wait. I look at Livvy, and she looks at me, grinning. She was so excited when I told her my mom was coming. It broke my heart. I imagine she’s been waiting for justice for months. She’s so strong; she’s always made it seem like it never affected her. I can see now how much it has.
The girls come in together. Destany looks scared, but as soon as she sees my mom, she turns terrified. Gia is unbothered. “Yes, Mr. Falcon?”
“Please have a seat.”
They pull up chairs, sitting adjacent to his desk.
“Recently, Quinn’s journal was stolen, and she was blackmailed by an unknown Instagram account. And Olivia’s artwork was vandalized back in January. These girls have reason to believe that you two were responsible for both incidents.” He raises his eyebrows, signaling them to speak.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Gia says.
Livvy scoffs. “Are you kidding me?”
My mom reaches across me and grabs Livvy’s hand. Livvy looks into her eyes, takes a deep breath, and sits back in her chair.
“Were you tagged in two lists thought to have come from Quinn’s journal?” Falcon asks.
“Well, yeah. Everyone was tagged in the lists.”
“But you weren’t the ones behind the Instagram account?”
“Nope.”
“So you weren’t in possession of this journal?” Principal Falcon holds up my red spiral. I wince, seeing his hands stain my cover with yet another set of fingerprints.
“I’ve never seen that before in my life.”
“Interesting,” he says. He places the journal back on his desk, then he grabs my phone and plays the recording, starting from when I asked for my journal back, and stopping after Gia threatened to send a message to my father.
Destany’s mouth plops open. Gia looks annoyed. “That’s not us.”
“Both of your names come up,” Falcon points out.
“That proves nothing. Can I call my father?” she asks, pursing her lips. “I don’t feel comfortable being interrogated and accused for something I didn’t do.”
“Yes. We will call both of your parents and discuss our next steps.”
“Next steps?” Gia asks.
“This offense is punishable by expulsion, Miss Teller. We don’t tolerate bullies here.”
“Do you know who my father is?” She smiles. “I’m sure he’ll love to know that you’re questioning us in the presence of a lawyer.”
“Mrs. Jackson is here as a mother. Not an attorney.”
Well . . .
“Miss Maddox,” Principal Falcon says, before Gia can argue. “You’ve been quiet. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Destany looks up at Falcon, then at me. Her nose is turning red, and her eyes are glistening—her sure signs for when she’s about to burst. Right on cue, she hunches over, covering her mouth and nose with her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she cries.
Gia rolls her eyes up to the ceiling and throws her back against the chair.
“Quinn.” Destany looks at me. “You were right. I am a coward.”
My eyes start to glisten too.
“I never knew that the . . .” She looks down. “The race stuff, I didn’t know it bothered you. I mean, we were all joking. And you were always different. We were never talking about you.” She looks at me, tears pouring down her face.
She doesn’t understand that she can’t talk about Black people without talking about me too. She doesn’t understand that using the N-word in any context is never a joke. Not for me, it isn’t. But she’s sorry. She cares. I didn’t know she cared. No matter how much she hurt me, there will always be a hole in my heart for her.
“Miss Maddox, did you have any part in this?” he asks her, motioning to my phone and my journal on his desk.
Destany looks at him. Then she blinks up and nods. “I stole the journal.”
“And the Instagram account?” he asks.
“I knew about it, but I didn’t do the posting.” She glances at Gia.
“Miss Teller?” he asks.
Gia crosses her arms over her chest. “Wasn’t me.”
He nods. Then he looks at my mom. “I’ll call their parents now. You’re welcome to stay.”
“No.” My mom stands up, holds her hand out to Principal Falcon. He shakes it. “Let us know your final decisions.” Then she faces us. “Girls, let’s go.”
Falcon hands over my phone and journal. “Do email me that recording,” he says.
I nod, following Olivia out of the office. I glance at Destany. She’s got her top lip tucked in, watching me go. “Thank you,” I say to her.
She slowly closes her eyes and nods. Then she turns back to Falcon, covering her mouth with her hands. Gia doesn’t look at us as we leave.
Once the office door is shut, Livvy turns and squeals, hugging me so tight, I can barely pull my arms up to hug her back. Then she runs into my mom’s arms. “Thank you so much.”
Mom smiles, hugging her back. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yeah we do,” I say. “You were awesome, Mom.”
Livvy pulls away and nods.
When Mom looks at me, her smile fades. “I just wish I’d known sooner.” She shakes her head at me. “I wish I had known everything so much sooner—Columbia, the racism, the blackmail. I can’t believe you kept all this from me.”
I drop her gaze. “I know. I’m sorry.”
She sighs. “Olivia, you can go back to class. Call me if you need anything,” she says, looking at her sternly.
“Yes, ma’am.” Livvy nods. “Thank you again.” Then she turns away, waving at me over her shoulder.
“What about me? I can’t go to class?”
“We’re going to lunch.” She leads me down the hallway to the front office.
“Right now?” I ask as she signs me out.
She looks at me with cold eyes. “We have a meeting with one of my friends at UT. You’re getting off that wait list one way or another.”
We’re sitting at a table near the windows, overlooking the porch and decorative palm trees in the distance. It feels like summer in here, like I should be wearing a light dress and sandals instead of these tight jeans and this sweater shirt.
I’m slouching, with my head on the back of my chair. We’ve been waiting, occupying this table for forty-five minutes, not ordering anything but water.
“Sit up,” my mom says, swatting my arm. “She’s here.”
She’s a dark-skinned woman who skirts her heels along the floor. When she sees my mom, she sings, “Wendy!”
“Alorah!” My mom stands and hugs her tight. They rock, humming. Then they hold each other at arm’s length.
“Sexy momma,” Alorah says, looking at my mom in her office wear.
“Gurrrrl.” Mom takes in Alorah’s tribal print dress, abundant cleavage, bangles for days, dog hoop earrings, and a vibrant hair wrap tied around the back of her head, her massive pile of curls coming out of the top. Alorah does a twirl as my mom gives her praise. She truly is beautiful. She looks like a queen.
Then she and my mom both stop abruptly. Alorah looks at me over the top of her big round glasses. “Is this the delinquent child?”
I frown and look at my mom.
“Yep. That’s her.” She motions to me. “Say hello, Quinn.”
“Hi.” I hold out my hand.
She shakes it as she sits. Then our waiter comes by and hurriedly takes our orders. Once he’s gone, Alorah crosses her arms on the table and gets right to it. “Wendy told me about your situation. Pretty messed up what you did.”
I shift my eyes, caught off guard by her harsh tone.
“I took a look at your application,” she says. “Your GPA and your ACT scores are . . .”
“Bad.”
She nods with her teeth bared. “Pretty bad.”
I glance at my mom, then down at my glass of water, the condensation dripping down the side. I wonder when we’ll get our food. I would like to leave now.
“But then I looked at your essay.”
I meet her eyes.
“I guarantee, your essay saved you. It was interesting.”
A smile teases my lips. I push it down.
“The prompt was to write about what makes you different from every other candidate,” she explains to my mom, then she turns back to me. “You wrote about how good you are at lying to yourself. Ironically enough, your essay was one of the most honest I read in this coming batch.” She tilts her head, her curly hair flopping to one side. “Want to tell me about what inspired it?”
“Umm.” I don’t remember what state of mind I was in when I wrote that essay. It was last minute, early November. “Recently, I’ve had to face a lot of the lies I’ve told.” I look at my mom. “As much as I lied to you about Columbia, I lied to myself too. My whole life I believed I’d be going to Columbia.” I turn back to Alorah. “But I didn’t really put in the work, and I don’t think I really wanted to go to Columbia.”
She looks at me with a light smile, the kind that you aren’t conscious of.
“I kept all of my truth in a journal so that it could never get out, but once it did finally come out, everything blew up in my face. I lied to myself about my friends, that I wasn’t offended by their racism. I lied to myself about my grandma, that time would stop for me, and would start back up once I was ready to face her. I lied to myself about my parents.”
My mom’s chin drops.
Alorah glances at my mom, then back to me. “Lied about your parents how?”
“That anything I did could affect their feelings for each other.”
“And when did you stop lying to yourself?”
I smile and shrug. “Today? Yesterday? Literally, at some point in the past three days.”
She laughs, turning to my mom. They look at each other for a while, then my mom shakes her head. “Don’t start.”
“You and Dez?”
Mom looks down at the table. “We’re starting therapy.”
Alorah tsk-tsks. Then she looks at me. “You know I was your dad’s high school sweetheart?”
My face turns horrified, and she laughs at my expression. “I met Wendy at Columbia. I followed your father there.” She shakes her head. “We broke up a few weeks into the first semester.”
“Wow.” I lick my lips. “So many layers to this story.”
She laughs. “I met Wendy in—”
“Women’s studies,” my mom says.
“Do you know how your parents met?” she asks me.
“All I know is that they met at Columbia.”
Alorah smirks. “Wendy was studying in my dorm. I went to do something.”
“Shower,” my mom fills in.
“And your father came by to drop something off.”
“Your sweater.”
Alorah smiles. “And what did he say, Wendy?”
Mom rolls her eyes. “Let ’Lorah know I dropped this off. But he kept staring at me. He asked me my name and if I would be hanging around more often.” Mom smiles. “I said that I would. So he said he’d have to come by and drop off another sweater, then.”
I snort. “What? Dad was smooth?”
“Hardly,” Alorah says. “Your mom thought he was pretentious. But your mom thought everyone at Columbia was pretentious.”
“They were,” she says, taking a sip of her water.
“Wendy told me Dez had come by and that he had hit on her.” Alorah shrugs. “So I told her she should go for it, but not to get too serious. He was not marriage material.”
“You didn’t care if your friend dated your ex?”
“Girl,” Alorah says with pursed lips. “The day your dad and I broke up, I had about ten guys come through my room. I moved on fast. He had been my one and only for four years. I was ready for something different.”
I nod, laughing. “I see.”
“Anyway, this idiot went and married him anyway.”
“Hey.” Mom laughs. “And we made a beautiful baby girl.”
“Yes,” Alorah says, smiling at me. “She is gorgeous.”
My cheeks warm.
“And smart. Despite the numbers, I can see you have a good head on your shoulders.” She pulls her straw from her water, then drops it back in. “You should hear a final answer from the administration by the end of business tomorrow.”
