"So," he steepled his fingers and looked at her directly, "it's a real coincidence that you are my cousin’s girlfriend and my student."
She sighed. "It is." She sat down on the edge of her chair and looked around his office before her eyes settled on him.
He had difficulty remembering what he was going to say under her direct stare. He was almost sure that she felt the overwhelming tension between them. She lowered her eyes after a minute of the silent stare.
"You two haven't been together long have you?" Nick asked hoarsely.
"No," Brigid said. "Not long at all."
"So how'd you two meet?" Nick asked, knowing that he was delving in business that was not his. But dammit, he wanted it to be his. He wanted her for himself. He was being covetous and that was not healthy.
Brigid looked like she was considering telling him to mind his own business. He was almost surprised when she said after a long pregnant pause, "We met through a mutual friend."
"Ah." Nick nodded. He found himself not knowing what to say next. He wanted to know who the mutual friend was. He wanted to know more about Brigid.
She was a study in contrasts. She didn't dress to highlight her beauty. And it was obvious in class today. When all the other females were dolled up to the nines, she was in a baseball cap and baggy jeans.
She looked much different now from the sleek, sophisticated girl at his cousin's party. She had an air of innocence about her, which was totally at odds with the sort of intimacy he was imagining she shared with his cousin. Maybe she was a good actress.
"Can I get my phone, sir?" she asked hesitantly.
"Sure." He handed it to her. It had taken all of his self-control not to read the text that had come up on her screen earlier.
She got up. "Thank you."
"It will be awkward, you dating my cousin and calling me sir," Nick said when she walked to the door. He didn't want her to go; he wanted to prolong her stay and that was the most inane statement he could have come up with.
She turned her head and gave him a half smile. "I'll try not to call you sir if we meet up in a more intimate setting."
She left him in the office and he drummed his fingers on the desk. He needed to find out more about her. His curiosity was kindled, stoked to a raging inferno. He gave in to the urge to call his mother after much debate with himself.
"If you want to know about a particular student what do you do?" he asked his mother without preamble.
Marisol, thinking that it was strictly business, told him what to do and he spent the rest of the day gathering information on Brigid Manderson.
What he found was an almost impeccable academic record. She had double degrees. She was smart. She was planning to do med school in three years, hence the summers. She was twenty-one; to be twenty-two on August 20. He made a mental note of that, not knowing what he was going to do with that information.
She had listed Patricia Benedict as her next of kin on her files.
He blinked several times before he registered that he was seeing his aunt's name. His aunt. What did she have to do with Brigid Manderson?
He owed her a call.
Chapter Six
Brigid opened the front door to Sonia's townhouse and was surprised to see that she had company. He was an older gentleman who had a receding hairline and a round, kindly face. He was talking to Sonia in low tones and holding her hands.
Brigid raised her eyebrows. She had been living with Sonia now for the past eighteen months and she had never seen her with a man.
Sonia had sworn off men, or so she claimed. She had always maintained that she had a lifetime of them and she was totally unmoved by any male of the specie. This was an interesting development.
He looked up when she came farther into the room and smiled. "You must be Brigid."
Brigid nodded. "I am. And you are?"
Sonia had a guilty look on her face. "This is Pastor Andrew from The Good Samaritan Place of Safety.
"Oh." Brigid was still confused.
Pastor Andrew smiled. "It's a place where our church, First Missionaries, help what we in society would consider rejects. I am surprised that Sonia has not mentioned us to you. She sometimes volunteers on weekdays."
Brigid looked at Sonia and then at the Pastor and shook her head. Was this the twilight zone? Sonia volunteering at a church place of safety. Why had she kept it as some big secret? Her confusion deepened.
"I came to give Sonia a word of encouragement and to pray with her," Pastor Andrew said, completely oblivious to her stunned silence. "She's feeling down. I must say though, Brigid, that you have grown into quite a fine-looking young lady. I remember you when you were just a tot."
Brigid's eyes widened. Prayer and Sonia were in the same sentence and this man, a pastor, knew her from when she was little. Was he her father? Was she the result of some illicit, sick affair with a clergyman?
She looked over at Sonia. She hadn't known that she was feeling low. But as usual Sonia kept her feelings and her life under lock and key. Everything was a bag of secrets for her. It astounded Brigid, though, that Sonia had been feeling so low that she called in a pastor to pray with her and she hadn't said a word to her. That kind of hurt a little. She had thought that she and Sonia were making progress--except for the escort thing, of course.
Sonia walked Pastor Andrew to the door shortly after that and then came back into the living room.
"Is it too much to ask you not to badger me?"
Brigid shook her head. "No way. I need to know what's going on with you. Is Pastor Andrew my father?"
"No!" Sonia slumped in the chair across from her. "That's obscene to suggest. He's a happily married man and he's my friend. The only male friend I have ever had who is genuine. The only person who has never condemned me—and he has seen me in all my states and still he has never rejected me."
"Oh," Brigid looked at Sonia curiously, "you volunteer at a place of safety? I can't wrap my head around that."
"It's not so hard to wrap your mind around when you realize that they are the reason I am even alive today. They rescued me more than once from the streets and drugs and a million and one scrapes. So I volunteer there occasionally, to pay it forward, you know."
Sonia looked at Brigid accusingly. "You know, you should go to church more often, Brigid. You hardly go anymore."
Brigid gasped. "I...hold on a second. You are saying that to me?"
"Yes," Sonia said, "I am saying that to you. I know the value of a spiritual life. I wasn't born a heathen, you know. I went to church when I was younger. I enjoyed it even. The only reason I didn't snatch you from Magnolia House when you were younger was because they taught good Christian values there. Otherwise, I would have taken you like I did from the other girls’ home when you were a baby."
Brigid sat up straighter. It was the first time she was hearing this side of Sonia's story. "When did you take me as a baby?"
"You were between two and three. They took you to the hospital occasionally because of the drug addiction thing."
Tears sprang to Sonia's eyes. "Sorry. It was my fault for taking drugs when you were a baby and it was my fault for taking you to live in that abandoned building. I was a mess but I just wanted you with me."
Brigid's heart melted. "It's okay, Sonia."
"You don't really understand, do you?" Sonia said. "Some days I think about the past, about what I did, and I feel overwhelmed. That is why I call Pastor Andrew. He knew me when I was a crack whore. Used to tell me that Jesus had a soft spot for prostitutes."
Brigid smiled. "He does. Sinners as a whole who seek repentance."
"Yeah." Sonia wiped her eyes. "I can't remember half the things I did. I am lucky to be alive so I guess God must have a soft spot for little old me."
Brigid took in a deep breath. She was on the verge of a breakthrough with Sonia; she could feel it. If she asked the right questions now when Sonia was vulnerable and teary-eyed she could learn about her past and who her father was.<
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"Tell me about your life when you lived in St. Mary," Brigid said gently. "You never really talk about it."
Sonia looked at Brigid. Her face was bare of make up. Her eyes were wet and slightly unfocused, as if she was willing to bare all.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again, and the vulnerability was gone. "Don't believe that you are tricking me into telling you anything I don't want to."
"Please, just tell me something," Brigid pleaded. "Come on, Sonia. I met your family three times. Once I met your brother Dominic and then you introduced me to your sister Harriet and her family and then you took me to see your mother. What could have been so bad that they would abandon you to a life of drugs and street living?"
Sonia cleared her throat. "The family reunion this year with my mother was a bit traumatic for me, if you didn't notice."
"I noticed," Brigid said. "I was giving you time to at least say something about it but you never did. You know, I thought you were from a horrible family but they don't seem that bad.
Sonia swallowed. "I guess. My siblings are okay. It's my mother who is the bad one. Evil Veronica."
"Tell me about them. Please, pretty please." Brigid was on the verge of begging.
"Okay already." Sonia dabbed her eyes with a piece of tissue and then took a clean one from the box and blew her nose.
"I grew up on a farm with a strict Christian mother. My... er... Dad left for the States when we were young. I was a baby. I never met Paul Manderson until I was much older; found out that he and my mom were not together for years. He always sent money to maintain his children, though. You have to give the man props for that; so many men leave Jamaica and forget that they have a family here. He wasn't one of them.
“Anyway, there were four of us, two girls and two boys. We even had a singing group at church when we were younger. We called our group the Manderson Singers. We could really belt out a good tune, the four of us. Especially Harriet, now she was a singer."
Sonia looked out into space and smiled.
Brigid waited impatiently for her to tell the rest of the story.
"My... er... family had a secret and I found out when I was fifteen. It literally destroyed me. I literally lost it when I heard. I couldn't believe it, or wrap my mind around it. Everything was a mess and I was in the middle of it. I had to get out of there. It was so sick and twisted."
"Tell me!" Brigid was itching to hear. She was bouncing on her chair like a ball.
But Sonia continued her story in the same placid, unhurried way that she had adopted, like she was squeezing the memory out in a painful and poisonous trickle.
"My mother broke the secret to me and I couldn't stay a moment more. I jumped on a market truck that was heading to Coronation market in Kingston. Ricky Ramsey was with me. He liked me from high school. I didn't care for him at the time but he was my ticket out of there and I really needed a ticket out of there. Desperately!"
"Is he my father?" Brigid whispered softly. Her hands trembled slightly. Today she would know.
"No!" Sonia frowned. "Ricky was a good guy. He saw how hysterical I was. I told him I wasn't going back to St. Mary. I'd rather die first. So he left me with his grand aunt, an old lady who lived in Trench Town. She needed someone to care for her. She was—how would you say it—miserable. Her caretakers would not last longer than a few days.
"Anyway, I stayed there for two weeks. Ricky's uncle, Gervaise, was the one who was supposed to pay me, and he came by the house almost every day. He was a gangster, one of the main lieutenants for the area leader. He was handsome. Really good looking and it didn't take him long to start putting the moves on me, you know."
"Was he my father?" Brigid demanded.
"No." Sonia looked at Brigid wearily. "He was the one who introduced me to drugs, though. He wanted to cheer me up, make me less serious." Sonia laughed; it was a dry and humorless sound that sounded almost like a sob when she finished.
"I was game for anything that would make me forget what I was running from in St. Mary. So I tried the drugs, moved in with him, became his girlfriend."
"But if he wasn't my father who was?" Brigid frowned. She was confused now.
"I was already pregnant when I came to Kingston." Sonia twisted her hands. "I had no idea I was pregnant though. Gosh, I had no idea. When I found out I called my mother. I was hysterical. She was hysterical."
A tear came to Sonia's eyes and she swiped it away. "I moved in with Gervaise already pregnant. When he found out that I was pregnant, he was good about it. I gave him a rape story, told him that is why I ran away from home, et cetera."
Brigid gasped. "Were you raped?"
"No." Sonia grimaced. "Nothing like that. I told him that story for his sympathy. By that time I had become hooked on drugs. When I went to the hospital to have you I was high as a kite."
Brigid shook her head. "Wow."
"Yup," Sonia swallowed, "that's my life. One tragic mistake after another and papered over with my lies. If I hadn't told some whopper lies, I wouldn't be here today. When I went to the hospital they took you away. They sent me to Magnolia House to dry out and recover because I was still a minor.
"I ran away from Magnolia House after a few months. They were a bit too strict and judgmental for me. I hooked up with Gervaise again and got involved in the drugs again. When he asked me to service a couple of friends of his, I did it. The rest, as they say, is history. Except for that one time when you were around three. I snatched you from the State children's home and took you to live with me downtown in an old abandoned building. That was not one of my better ideas. My mother found out where I was and called Social Services and they took you away."
"What was the family secret?" Brigid gritted her teeth. "Did it have anything to do with my father?"
Sonia looked at her vaguely as if she wasn't really seeing her. "I don't think I should tell you," Sonia cleared her throat. "Maybe I've said too much."
"Why not?" Brigid growled. "I deserve to know. What you say won't hurt me. I won't run off in a tiff and go do drugs and become a prostitute. I am twenty-one, soon will be twenty-two."
Sonia pursed her lips and hung on to a bundle of tissues, staring into space as if she was warring with herself as to whether she should say more.
Brigid leaned back in the settee, feeling a bit guilty for harshly bringing that up. She looked around the living room. Sonia had recently painted it a soft beige.
The place was lavishly furnished. She remembered the first time she had seen Sonia again when she was nineteen and at a crossroads in her life. She had been the very last one to leave Magnolia House. Casey had gotten a place to stay with a roommate, Caitlin had been staying at a place in Papine that her aunt had paid for and Hazel had gotten a job as caretaker to a rich old man.
She had been contemplating where to live. Even though matron hadn't said it at the time, she understood that she couldn't continue staying at Magnolia House when she was approaching her twenties and there were other children who needed her spot.
Sonia had just popped out of nowhere. She had driven up to the compound, parked under the magnolia tree near matron's office and was on her way out of the car when she saw Brigid and stopped.
"Do you remember me?" she had asked Brigid briskly.
"Yes Sonia," Brigid had responded. "You visited me five years ago. I don't have memory issues."
Sonia had smiled. "So what are you still doing here at Magnolia House?"
"Still sorting out where to live," Brigid had replied. The thought hadn't even entered her mind that Sonia would suggest that she could come live with her.
"So come and live with me," Sonia had said casually. "I have a three-bedroom townhouse. One bedroom is an office; you can live in the other."
"What? Why?" Brigid had looked at her mother, dissecting her feature for feature. She was a little bit shorter than her, her face was oval, she had a much lighter complexion than hers and she had on tons of makeup.
Her purple eye sh
adow had matched her stylish blouse and her hair was a thick, healthy cap cut close to her head. She didn't look like she was old enough to be her mother.
Brigid reminded herself that Sonia had given birth to her when she was just sixteen and she was still in her thirties.
"Because," Sonia withstood Brigid's intense scrutiny, "you are my daughter. We can get to know each other again. I have been drug-free for five years. I don't drink or smoke anymore. Well, I do sneak in a ciggy now and again but I am quitting."
"But..." Brigid had always thought that Sonia didn't have the resources to take care of her. Her sporadic visits in the last couple of years had been few and very brief. It was as if Sonia had been compelled to come and see that she was alive and then leave.
Brigid had no idea what was happening in Sonia's life apart from a very few superficial things. She had picked up a bit of Sonia's history from sneaking into matron's office when she was eleven and pulling her file. That's when she had found out that Sonia had been a drug addict and a prostitute.
She hadn't wanted to get mixed up with her at the time.
"I run an escort agency now." Sonia had read her reluctance. "It does really well. It's not seedy or anything like that. It is quite aboveboard. I even have corporate clients and I have money."
She had seen Brigid's frown and started talking faster. "My ex was a drug lord and he put all his money in my name to evade taxes and stuff. He was killed a year ago. I didn't even know that he was doing that until I got a call from the bank. So I live in his/my apartment and run the business...which is... er... completely legitimate now."
"I don't think I should." Brigid had been doubtful.
"But you want to get to know me," Sonia said confidently. "Everybody wants to know their family, no matter how old they are. I am the only one who can help you with that."
Brigid had thought it over. She discussed it with her sisters and Patricia and everybody had said no.
Bad Girl Blues Page 5