“Hmmph, I can’t tell,” Rachel said. “I seem to recall you breaking off your friendship with her. So the way I see it, Tameka has just as much right to be here as you do.”
I waited for a triumphant look to cross Tameka’s face. I was shocked when it didn’t.
“I’m assuming Alexis was fine, since the nurse said she and her mother left about twenty minutes ago,” Rachel continued. “But I have a suggestion.” She dug in her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “How about you call her and find out.” She handed me the phone. I just stared at it and didn’t take it. She moved it toward Jasmine, then Angel. Both of them did the same.
Rachel shook her head. “Some friends you guys are.”
“I’ll call her,” Tameka said, stretching her hand out to take the phone.
Don’t ask me why, but I was offended. Tameka didn’t even like Alexis, so what was she trying to prove by offering to call her?
“Look,” Tameka said, noticing the expression on my face. “I don’t want to start any mess. I know I did some jacked-up things, but honestly, I like hanging with you guys. And I…I don’t know. I just want to make sure Alexis is fine.”
I think all of us were shocked by Tameka’s change of heart. I don’t know if we could get used to the new Tameka, not that we’d have to, anyway, since none of us were talking.
“Well, mija, since we know your friend is fine, we’d better get going,” Angel’s mother said. Angel looked at us like she wanted to say something. Instead she just nodded to her mother.
“Good-bye, everyone,” Angel’s mom said as she walked off.
Angel waved when she reached the door. “Bye, y’all.”
I wanted to stop her. This was our chance to make up. So why wouldn’t any words come out of my mouth? Probably because I knew everyone was still mad at me, and I didn’t want my efforts to make up thrown up in my face again.
I looked back at Jasmine, who had turned her attention somewhere else like she was still mad.
Rachel shook her head in disgust. “I’m going to check on Mari. Her mother and sister are distraught, and I want to pray with the family before I go. Tameka, do you need to ride home with me?”
“No, I have my mom’s car.”
“Fine.” Rachel looked at us like she wanted to say something else. I guess she decided against it, because she just sighed as she left and made her way back down the hallway.
“You know what, y’all something else,” Tameka said to me and Jasmine. “You want to put me down for not being a real friend. But the way I see it, neither are you guys.”
She shook her head as walked out of the waiting room, leaving me and Jasmine standing there speechless.
35
Alexis
If I wanted any more proof that counseling wasn’t working, I had it.
My parents were standing in our living room, yelling back and forth, trying to figure out who was to blame for my “spiral into the bad girl role.”
My mom nearly had a heart attack when she found out what happened to Mari. Why the police had to call her anyway was beyond me. It’s not like I did anything wrong. But they called her, then she called my dad and he’d come rushing over. They were totally trippin’. It’s not like I took any drugs. My mom had made the hospital run all kinds of tests anyway, and my dad looked like he was about to blow a gasket.
Mari had to stay overnight at the hospital after having her stomach pumped, but thankfully, she was going to be okay. Still, she had us all scared to death. Marlee had totally freaked out all the way to the hospital and wouldn’t leave her sister’s side. Then the police wanted to question me about where the drugs came from. That was drama I could live without. And what if I had taken that X? It could’ve been me laid up in the hospital. No thanks.
I plopped down on the sofa, preparing for a lecture I really wasn’t in the mood for.
“What are you doing hanging around with girls who do drugs?” my mother said. She and my dad were standing over me in our living room.
I glared at her. “But she’s from such a good family, Mother,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm.
My mother threw up her hands in exasperation. “Arthur, would you talk to your daughter? Because I don’t know how much more of this smart-mouthing I can take.”
My father sat down on the sofa next to me. “Lexi, what is with this attitude…this change?”
I sighed. I debated giving my usual “nothing” response, but I decided if my dad wanted to know what was wrong, I was about to tell him. “I hate my life. There, are you happy?”
My father shook his head like that was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. “What are you talking about, Lexi? You have everything you could ever want, and things other people only dream about.”
I stood up. “Do I, now? Do I have a family? I don’t think so. Do I have a boyfriend? Nope. Do I have best friends? No. I’m all by myself. Nobody cares about me.” I know I sounded like a whiny little brat, but I was tired of acting like everything—the divorce, me and Jaquan, and me and my friends—wasn’t bothering me.
“Honey, we love you,” my dad said, softening his tone.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. Your idea of love is raising the limit on my credit card. And Mom, when’s the last time you put my needs in front of your own? It took the threat of a divorce before you even paid me any attention.” I began pacing back and forth across the living room. Since I was on a roll, I was going to let it all out. I was mad at the world, and my parents were about to bear the brunt of my anger.
“You two are the most selfish people in the world. Me and Sharon didn’t ask to be brought into this world. And you make me sorry we were.”
“Lexi! Don’t say stuff like that,” my mother said.
“Why? I’m just a burden to you. If I wasn’t here, you could each just go your separate ways and forget the other one exists. That’s what you want to do, anyway.”
My father looked shocked—I guess because I’d never really gone off like I was going off now.
“You know what, I was upset about you two getting a divorce. But I don’t care! I hate this family, and we’d all be better off if we never spoke to one another again.”
“Alexis, stop being dramatic,” my mother said.
“Huh?” I looked at my mother like she’d lost her mind. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
“Alexis Denise Lansing,” my father interrupted. “I understand you’re upset, but you will not disrespect your mother.”
“Why not? You do. You disrespect your promise to her, to us. You promised God you’d stay together. None of that matters to you. We haven’t been a family in years. Think about it. We don’t even go to church together anymore. We don’t go anywhere together anymore. No wonder our family fell apart.” I looked at my mother. “Mama, maybe you should disguise your marriage as a business deal, and I’m sure then Daddy will find a way to make it work.”
“Enough!” my father said as he stormed over and stood in my face. “You stop all of this smart-mouthing right now.”
I glared at him, determined not to cry. “Or what? You’ll lower the balance on my credit cards? You’ll trade my BMW for a Nissan?” I swear, for a minute, I thought my dad was going to hit me. But I really didn’t care. They both made me sick.
“Where is all of this anger coming from?” my mother said as she gently put her hand on my father’s arm and eased him away from me. He moved. I think he was still in shock over my outburst.
My mother looked at me with a concern I hadn’t seen in years. “Please tell us what’s going on. You’re hanging out with the wrong crowd. You’re mad at the world. What happened to our sweet little girl?”
“She doesn’t exist anymore,” I said, finally letting the tears out. “You made sure of that.” I know I was probably emotional about everything going on in my life, but I was just sick and tired of everything and everybody.
My parents looked at each other, and for once they both seemed at a lo
ss for words.
“Alexis, please talk to us. Tell us what is going on.”
“Just leave me alone, okay. Please.” I didn’t give them time to say anything else as I took off upstairs to my room.
I threw myself across my bed as I thought about my life. How had everything spiraled into this?
I lay on my bed thinking until I finally dozed off. I had been asleep a couple of hours when I heard a knock on my bedroom door.
My parents stuck their heads in when I didn’t answer. “Can we talk to you?” my father said.
“Whatever,” I said, rolling over on my back. At this point, I just wanted them to leave me alone and let them go on with their funky little lives.
My father sat down on my bed. My mother sat on the sofa across from my bed. “Sit up and look at us,” my father ordered.
I blew a frustrated breath as I sat up. I crossed my arms as I waited for them to talk.
“Alexis, first, let me apologize. On behalf of your mother and I…we…we want to say, we’re sorry,” my father began. “I know things haven’t been easy on you these last few months. Heck, they haven’t been easy on any of us lately.”
My mother nervously rubbed her hands together as she jumped in. “Your father and I can’t agree on much lately,” she added. “But one thing we do agree on is how much we love you. And the fact that we didn’t do enough to show you that.”
I felt my anger dissolving. It had been so long since I’d seen my parents act civil about anything together.
“Your mother and I also agree that we made a lot of mistakes.” He looked up at her. “We’ve been seeing a counselor. We didn’t want you to know because we didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”
I tried to keep a straight face so I wouldn’t let on that I knew already.
“But truthfully,” my dad continued. “I don’t think either of us gave it a real chance.”
My mother nodded in agreement. “But watching you, watching this outburst, and this person you’ve become, well it’s just putting some things back in perspective.”
I looked back and forth between the two of them. “What are you saying?”
“We’re saying, we haven’t been successful with fixing our marriage because nobody wanted to take the blame for it being broken,” my father said.
“So you’re not getting a divorce?” I asked.
“Sweetie, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” my father said. “But we’re going to keep seeing the counselor. We owe it to you and Sharon to at least try.”
I turned to my mother. “Is he for real?”
My mother walked over to me. “He is. We are. We’ve been talking since you came up to your room and we both agree that we never took into account what this was doing to you.” She rubbed my hair. “When I think of what could’ve happened had you been the one taking those drugs, well, fighting with your father seems so trivial. Baby, I know we haven’t been the best parents. When I saw what we’d turned my sweet, sweet child into, well, let’s just say I didn’t like it.” She paused and lifted my chin. Tears filled her eyes. “So I’m willing to do whatever I can to bring her back. Because I don’t believe you when you say she doesn’t exist anymore. Now, don’t get me wrong, you mouth off like that again and you’re in a world of trouble.”
Shoot, I didn’t even care about getting in any trouble. My parents weren’t getting a divorce, at least not anytime soon.
“I can’t promise you it’ll be easy.” My mother sighed. “I mean, you know I’m a shopaholic, and Macy’s is having their three-day sale, so I’m not going to be able to go cold turkey.” She smiled. “But I’ll try.”
My father squeezed her hand. “We’ll try. And we both recognize our problems are much deeper than your mother’s shopping. I neglected you and your mother…” He paused. “And Sharon. I promise I’ll try to do better. So we just ask that you be patient with us, with our family.”
I jumped up and threw my arms around my father’s neck. “Daddy, you just don’t know how much this means to me.” I squeezed him, then hugged my mother. “Thank you, Mama. You all won’t regret it. We can make this work.”
I was so happy. Maybe I should’ve gone off a long time ago. My family was staying together. Now if I could just get my friends to do the same.
“No, thank you, baby,” my father said as he took my mother’s hand. “For helping us remember what’s really important.”
My mother smiled, and for the first time in I don’t know how long, my parents kissed.
36
Camille
Thoughts of Walter invaded my mind for the millionth time today. I couldn’t believe things were over with us just like that. I didn’t know that I could really blame him, though. If his ex-girlfriend had put me in the hospital, I’d have to ask myself what I was getting into. Throw in pressure from his parents, and I guess I could understand why he decided to break up with me.
Still, that didn’t ease the pain in my heart.
I think what made things even worse for me was that I really didn’t have anyone to talk to anymore. I tried to call my old friends Melanie and Tonya, but both of them blew me off. I guess they were still salty because they said I dumped them for the Good Girlz.
I felt a lump form in my throat as I fought back tears and thought about the fact that I had lost three of the best friends I’d ever had. Over the last year, Alexis, Angel, and Jasmine had shown me what true friendship really was. And I repaid them how? By lying, cheating, and using them. What was wrong with me? I thought as I slapped my head. And why didn’t I try to make up when I had the chance?
“Hey, Camille, good show today.”
I looked up to see Shereen, who had stuck her head in my dressing room.
“May I come in?” she asked.
I nodded as I checked my reflection in the mirror to make sure my eyes weren’t red. Shereen walked in and sat down next to me.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Was it that obvious? “Talk about what?”
“Whatever it is that has caused you to lose your spark.” Shereen looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
I definitely didn’t want to be whining and crying to my boss. “Naw, I’m fine. Just battling allergies,” I said.
She nodded like she knew I was lying. “You know, my grandmother used to always say, ‘You shouldn’t bear false witness against your neighbor.’ That was her favorite commandment.”
Now, my mother was a devout Christian, and I was raised in the church, but I didn’t pay as much attention in Bible study as I probably should’ve. “That’s the one about lying, right?”
“Yep. It seems like such a little thing, and oftentimes we don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Shereen said. “But when we do it, especially against people we care about, it’s not pleasing in the eyes of God.”
I looked at her, and the tears I was holding back finally came out. “I lost them all, all three of my best friends. They hate me,” I cried.
“Well, what you did was kind of messed up,” she replied matter-of-factly.
I looked at Shereen. “You know what I did?”
She nodded. “Camille, this is my show, and I’ve always wanted it to succeed, but I would never sacrifice someone I cared about for this.” She pointed around the dressing room. “Especially because…” Her voice trailed off.
I stared at her, waiting on her to finish. “Especially because what?”
“Especially because television is a fickle business.” Shereen let out a long sigh.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Shereen took a deep breath like it hurt her to say what she was about to tell me. “Camille, they’re canceling the show.”
“What?” I had to have heard her wrong.
“The show is not doing as well as they thought.”
“Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Everyone is raving about the show.”
Shereen shook her head. “No, everyone raved about the first few episodes, but it’s
just not pulling in the ratings that they wanted it to. It’s no reflection on your talent. It’s just, well, it’s just the way things go.”
I fell back against my chair. Canceled? I’d lost everything for this show, and they were canceling it?
“What did I do wrong?” My voice was just above a whisper, I was in such shock.
“I told you, it wasn’t you.” Shereen stood up. “Believe me, I’m upset, too. But the bigwigs wanted to cut their losses before it was too late.” Shereen reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “You will receive a check for three months, which was how long the original contract for the show ran.”
I just stared at her. I didn’t remember anything about a contract. I was just so happy to get the job that I signed without reading it, just trusting that Rachel wouldn’t let Shereen screw me over. And honestly, right about now, I didn’t really care about the money.
“I’m sorry,” Shereen said. “You can take your time getting your stuff out of the dressing room.”
She stopped right before she walked out. “You know, everything happens for a reason. We don’t often understand God’s motives, but the things He does or doesn’t do for us are ultimately in our best interest.”
I wasn’t in the mood to hear any spiritual lessons. But I forced a smile.
“Camille?”
“Yeah,” I said, still trying not to collapse in tears.
“Call your friends. Make up. Apologize. Just work it out, because when it all boils down to it, family and friends are the only thing that really matters.”
I took in her words as she walked out. I would give anything right now to talk to Alexis, Angel, or Jasmine. Shoot, at this point, I’d even take Tameka.
My vibrating cell phone snapped me out of my thoughts. I picked it up.
“Hey, Camille. It’s Rachel. I’m just giving you a reminder call about the talent showcase tomorrow night. I expect to see you there. The girls we mentor expect to see you there, okay? Put aside your differences for one night and come support these young girls.”
I definitely was in no mood to go smile and fake it around anybody, but I didn’t want to disappoint the girls, who I know had worked so hard for the talent showcase. “Okay. I’ll be there,” I replied.
With Friends Like These Page 14