Cross My Heart

by Kris Jayne

  “Wait, Carter,” Theresa snapped. “William!”

  “Theresa, do something,” Marie screeched as the rest of the family barraged William with questions.

  I blocked their pleas from my mind and exited the room. The breath stuck in my chest until the elevator doors closed, and I exhaled in a whoosh. John Peter’s “conditions” turned over and over in my mind.

  Leave the position and life I’d built on my own to join this nest of vipers? All that asphyxiation for fun must have left J.P. Star brain damaged.

  22

  Nisha

  I barely suppressed my smile, nearly waggling my steepled fingers like a cartoon villain. A smoking hot lead had dropped straight into my lap. Well, sort of.

  Last Christmas, I attended a party and one of the guests mentioned off-hand that she worked on the executive floor at J.P. Star Energy.

  “Must be interesting being around those Stars all day,” I’d asked her.

  “Not really. Theresa and Reese Star-Hunter work like demons all the time. Trying to get the old man’s attention, I guess. No one else ever comes into the office—except Anthony. He only comes in for every other board meeting to flirt with the interns.”

  I logged the data away and laughed. Libby, J.P. Star Energy insider. A connection like that might prove valuable some day.

  Today was that day. Maybe.

  After a series of phone calls to get Libby’s last name, I finally reached her a week ago via social media, and she called me back. We talked about nonsense until the hottest topic in town to pop up, and then I pounced.

  “Didn’t you say you worked at J.P. Star Energy?”

  “Yeah. Whole place is in a tizzy. They’re reading the will on Thursday,” Libby said.

  I lowered my voice as if I wanted to protect the city’s hottest gossip. “How exciting can that be? He was rich, and now his kids are even richer.”

  Her voice wavered. “I don’t know. Things are kind of tense. You know that Theresa and her sister barely speak.”

  “Really?” I feigned doubt.

  I had heard that. The twin daughters of John Peter Star had different lifestyles. Theresa was hardcore corporate and wanted desperately to be CEO of the company only men were deemed fit to lead. Marie—despite being the elder of the two by a few minutes—was a philanthropist. One spent her time making buckets and buckets of money, the other giving the buckets away.

  My boss, Danny, speculated that Marie had some rich lady guilt about being a billionaire simply because she emerged from a particular uterus. But then that was Danny’s job—speculating about the travails and motivations of Dallas society’s elite.

  That was my job, too. My colleague—definitely not friend—Shayna and I helped Danny get the dirt. The three of us wrote the “Sparks Says” column, allegedly written by Abigail Sparks, since the early 1990s. The real Abigail died ten years ago, replaced by a slate of reporters. Danny, Shayna, and I were currently Abigail.

  I spun in my chair, letting the framed journalism degree from Texas Christian University on the wall of my office whirl in and out of view. My gut twinged.

  Fuck it. This job paid—unlike a lot of journalism these days. Reporting was reporting, and I was good at it.

  Libby seemed energized by having information I didn’t. “Oh, they can’t stand each other,” she replied and drew each word out with glee.

  Perfect. She was dying to share what she knew.

  “Huh. I have a friend who works at The Dallas Post. She does research for that gossip column.” I lowered my voice again to draw her in and let the information dangle until Libby bit.

  “‘Sparks Says’? I love that column.”

  My Cheshire grin almost made it hard to speak. “It’s not my thing, but I know she’d love to hear about the Stars. They pay. I gave her a tip once, and she gave me a thousand dollars.”

  “I couldn’t. I’d lose my job,” Libby demurred, but her tone raged with interest.

  “I can pass it along if you want. So she doesn’t even need to know it was you.”

  The line went silent, but I knew with a tiny push, I’d have her.

  “Let me text her and find out how much she’ll pay.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see how much. I know a few things,” Libby said. “Crazy things.”

  Crazier than the old man dying in a sex romp gone wrong? My pulse raced away from my guilty feelings at the scent of a scoop.

  We shot the shit about more nonsense, then I—surprise, surprise—got word back from my “friend.”

  “Wow. She says they’re paying double for dirt on the Stars.”

  That was the trick. Let Libby expect one thousand, up the ante, and she spilled. Easy peasy. She spilled.

  I stared down at the name scratched on my memo pad.

  Carter Cross.

  Libby didn’t know who the guy was, but her boss added him to the security sheet for the private elevator at the last minute, and the Stars seemed peeved when the guy—a black guy—showed up.

  “There are hardly ever black people in the executive offices. So, you know, it stands out. No offense.”

  I stifled a laugh. Nice white people always felt the need to say, “no offense,” about every racial observation—racist or not.

  “And he’s there for the reading of the will?” An excited squeak threaded through my voice.

  “The lawyer was here to talk about the estate, yes. He went in with the family. I mean, there’s the obvious reason, but…” Libby paused. “That can’t be true. He was young, you know. Too young to be John Peter’s…right? I can’t even say it out loud. It’s too crazy. And gross.”

  I swallowed hard to turn a cynical snort into a non-committal noise.

  No one was too old. A man caught dead with his pants down could have toddlers in every area code. Age had nothing to do with it.

  “Anyway, do I still get the two grand?”

  “Yeah. We’ll meet up for happy hour tomorrow. My friend will meet us and give you the cash.”

  I would get there early and tell Libby that my buddy hadn’t been able to stick around.

  “Cool. And you won’t tell anyone? The money is nice, but you know, I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “I’ve done it myself. I totally get it. I won’t say a word,” I promised. And I wouldn’t. I never wanted to turnover a source this connected on a story this hot.

  “O-k-kay,” Libby stuttered, breathless.

  “No worries,” I tittered with the upbeat ease of friendship. “And if you have anything else. Cindy will totally pay more. Shit! Don’t tell anyone I said Cindy.”

  “Oh, God, no! I won’t say anything.” The woman heaved a relieved sigh into the phone. “See you tomorrow.”

  We hung up, and I leaned back, feeling thrilled—if, yes, villainous.

  All I had to do is figure out who this Carter Cross was and what he had to do with the Stars.

  Easy peasy. I typed the name into my computer and got to work.

  If this panned out, maybe I’d finally get assigned more than stories about professional football players and the occasional basketball player. Plus, Danny had a bounty on Star news. At least, two grand for another lead item. Five for a story worthy of being above the fold—not that most people read our print edition these days. If this was as big as I thought, I could get two or three items above the fold and maybe a promotion to lead reporter with a bump in pay.

  Eat shit, Shayna.

  No more relegation to the stupid escapades of athletes—the black athletes. It was getting boring.

  “You blend,” Danny said.

  It grated on my nerves. Shayna covered hockey and baseball plus the Dallas party scene. There were only so many stories I could write. Well, not really. There were always stories about football players in Texas. That could be a full-time job in itself, and the readers had an endless appetite for it.

  Still, the society beat had more juice to it—elite parties, a clothing stipend, and significantly fewer nigh
ts hanging out in the alleys behind strip clubs or sliding Edgar the barber fifty bucks for information. Shayna wasn’t half the reporter I was, and I’d love to write about the stupid stuff white folks did for a change.

  23

  Nisha

  I turned the phone in my hand over and over, expecting it to buzz at any moment with a reply text from Maya. Where was she?

  I hated getting home late. Leaving her unsupervised made me nervous, never more so than when I stepped through the door of the duplex to find the place as clean and quiet as when we left that morning. That meant she hadn’t even been home. My mind and my stomach churned with the things a fifteen-year-old girl could get up to in the hours since school let out.

  Me in high school? The squarest teenager imaginable. I never even thought about drifting out of the lines.

  I got myself to and from school, did my homework, made my dinner, and got to bed on time so I wouldn’t be tired when I had to walk that straight line again the next day. I wanted everyone on the outside to see nothing but a good student—well cared for and the last one you’d think had chaos at home.

  “Just get through school. Get your work done. Don’t get pregnant.”

  Those were the words I had repeated to myself like a mantra, and that was the advice I flung at Maya every chance I got. Keep your feelings under control. Stay focused.

  She showed her emotions more, acted up more, stomped her feet more in the face of her circumstances. All things considered, she was a great kid, but she had a stronger taste for trouble. Sometimes, she took after—

  I halted the thoughts midstream. No matter how often the words, “You’re so much like your mother,” tried to rise in my mind, I beat them back. Maya wasn’t Lisa. Or at least, I was determined that she wouldn’t be. She just needed stability and someone who could show her how to hustle within the lines—work hard, do well in school. Versus, well…whatever Lisa was doing, wherever she was doing it.

  She’d been gone for more than six months, which was the longest she’d ever been gone. Per usual, the longer her daughter stayed with me, the more routine her life became and the more settled and happy she seemed. I hated wishing my own sister would stay gone, but when she blew into town on a jetstream of drama, it reversed every bit of progress Maya made.

  I tried calling again.

  “Hey, Maya, it’s Aunt Nisha. Call me or text me when you get this. I’m home.” I paused and hooked a finger over the edge of the bag of takeout on the counter. “I got Chinese with extra pot stickers. Let me know where you are.”

  Maybe she’d gone to Ava’s. Her friend lived at the end of the street. I could walk down there to check. What if—

  Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  The heavy knock on the door jerked me out of my doom spiral, and I hurried to the door, peeped out, and then swung the door open.

  “Forget your key?” I asked. My left brow cocked upward, and I struggled not to be angry. At least, she was home.

  Maya scooted past me with her backpack. “It’s at the bottom of my purse, and since you said you were home, I knew you could let me in.”

  She dropped her bag over the back of the sofa, which sat opposite the bar-height counter that skirted the kitchen.

  “I’m starving.”

  “You didn’t eat wherever you went after school?” I didn’t want her return to become an inquisition.

  Maya rolled her eyes and avoided mine. “I hate eating up Ava’s mom’s food all the time like a beggar.”

  Ava’s mom, Sheryl, lived to cook and feed people. She would have insisted Maya eat a snack.

  “So you were at Ava’s?” My voice steadied as I filtered out the disbelief.

  Maya made a vague noise somewhere between affirmation and a grunt but still didn’t look at me. She stuffed a steamed pork dumpling in her mouth and lifted the tops on the foam takeout containers.

  “Wash your hands before you go poking around. I’m not trying to catch hepatitis,” I said.

  She smirked but headed for the sink.

  “You’re welcome to bring Ava here if you want to eat up my food instead,” I suggested.

  “Her mom doesn’t want us unsupervised.” Maya shut off the water and grabbed a plate.

  A quick answer, but I still didn’t believe her about this afternoon.

  “Maybe we can invite them for dinner. Ava and her parents.”

  She wrinkled her nose and spooned some broccoli beef on a scoop of rice. “That’s too awkward.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re her parents. They have this whole family thing, and it’s just us.” Maya shrugged, then shot me some mischievous side eye. “Get a boyfriend first so the numbers even out.”

  “I don’t need a boyfriend to invite a couple to dinner. There are lots of single parents in the world, you know.”

  “Of course I know,” she shot back and flopped into a seat at the kitchen table. “Believe me.”

  My stomach twisted. “Did you hear from your mother?”

  She played with another pot sticker and said nothing.

  “Maya?”

  “She texted and picked me up from school. We went out.”

  “Oh.” It was all I could say as fear and rage mingled, building from my feet and crawling up my legs until they burned.

  “She’s back in town. She got a new place in Arlington. She didn’t want me to tell you until she got everything set up for me to go live with her,” Maya explained.

  “But you’ve settled into school here, and you have friends.” A train of other objections and counterpoints threatened to run away from my mouth. I paused, dropped an egg roll on my plate, turned, and sat down. “Do you want to go live with your mom?”

  Maya’s eyes clouded over. “No. She doesn’t even have her own place. She’s rooming with this weird friend. But she’s my mom.”

  I drew in a ten-pound breath. “You don’t have to go just because she’s your mother.”

  “She says I do. You don’t have rights.” Maya’s voice drifted toward a whimper.

  “You have rights, Maya. You’re old enough to have a say, and if you want to go, I’ll support you. If you don’t, you can always stay here,” I said, struggling for diplomacy, but she should be able to make some of her own choices.

  “I’m good here. School is good. I only have three more years.” Her statement turned into a plea.

  “Of high school.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “That’s what I meant, Ms. College Graduate.”

  I smiled, cringing at the taunt her mother had leveled at me over the years. “Sorry.”

  “No. It’s what I want too. I like living here. I like having Chinese food and hanging out at Ava’s. I was thinking I could file for hardship and get a job,” she said between chewing and stabbing at more food.

  I hated that she felt she couldn’t wait until she was sixteen to get a job. She should have a childhood. Someone in this family deserved to have one. Still, I was glad to hear she had a plan. “You don’t have to work. I got you. You know that.”

  “But I want to help out. Especially if you have to get a lawyer. You can’t afford that.”

  Neither could Lisa probably, but I didn’t say that. If I pulled things off at work, I’d get the Star bonus and the promotion, and she wouldn’t have to worry about working or how I would pay for lawyers.

  I took Maya’s hand. “Don’t worry. It won’t come to that.”

  She picked at another dumpling, turning it over and over on her plate. “Yes. It will. She said she can get the police to bring me back. You’d have to pay a lawyer, and she can go to legal aid.”

  “So I’ll get a lawyer. No judge is going to force you back to your mom when you’re here, settled, and doing better in school,” I assured her and skipped adding that this was the fifth or sixth time her mother had abandoned her for months at a time with me or Aunt Della. Plus, at fifteen, Maya did have a say in where she would live, but I didn’t want it to come to that either. I didn’t wa
nt her to have to stand in court and reject her mother.

  I’d done that once, and it broke me. It broke my mother.

  Mom did the best she could, working two jobs and raising two daughters, but she left Lisa and I alone. A lot. I had to admit that in court, and Mom briefly lost custody. She fought to get us back, but things between us were never the same.

  After going to a foster family for a few weeks, my dad’s sister, Della, took us in for a year. Dad died when I was nine and Lisa was eleven, but he hadn’t been around much before that anyway. He and Mom never married—a fact that twisted her up for years. A long-haul trucker, he died in an accident on the road, and she was denied surviving spouse’s benefits. Lisa and I got $25,000 each when we turned eighteen.

  I used mine to buy a car and help with college. Lisa used hers to leave home and do whatever it was she was doing until she came back a couple of years later, broke and with a dodgy boyfriend nipping at her heels.

  Aunt Della helped with Maya, but she was older now and had her own troubles. Her husband was recovering from a stroke. And Mom was Mom. She’d put in her time raising kids and refused to “let Lisa off the hook” by swooping in to raise Maya.

  Maybe she was right in a way, but that didn’t do her granddaughter any good. So I told Della to call me the next time Lisa left her there. She had.

  Lisa never told us who Maya’s father was, but I remembered the squat, nervous man she’d dated around the time she got pregnant. He had those red, soupy eyes that always looked at you like he couldn’t see straight. Gerald something. I think it started with a T. That’s all I knew, and it was more than was listed on Maya’s birth certificate.

  “Did she say anything else?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “And she’s staying with a friend? A woman?”

  “Yeah. Her name is Clancy. She smiled too much and kept telling me how much fun it would be to live with them. She said she has a daughter my age, but she’s twelve.” Maya balked.

  The edge of my mouth twitched into a smile. At that age, three years seemed like thirty.