No, I wasn’t. I shouldn’t have promised I’d never hurt her. What was I thinking? We hurt everyone; it was the Carmichael way. But that wasn’t what bothered me right then and there. After waiting on us all evening, her eyes averted, her head bowed, never once drawing attention to our relationship, how could she still greet me with a smile?
Maya pinned me with a cautious glare. In this light, her eyes reminded me of the sea on a stormy day.
“I’m fine. I just had dinner with my grandmother, as you know, of course.” Way to point out the obvious, Ainsley.
Maya’s shoulders tightened. “Did they suspect?”
“What? No? I don’t think so.” My eyes ping-ponged every which way other than on Maya’s face, unsure whether I was afraid of what I’d see there, or what she would see in my eyes.
“That’s a relief.” Her posture softened. “When I walked into the room, I nearly fell to the floor.”
“A relief? Aren’t you mad?” I crossed my arms.
“Mad? About what? We got away with it.” She tossed her arms in the air.
“What’d we get away with?”
Maya swallowed as if taking her time to concoct an answer. “Ains, I don’t know about you, but the last thing I needed tonight was to lose my job. Dating clientele is strictly forbidden. I don’t work here often, but on the nights I do, I make some serious dough—well, for me at least.” She shuffled her feet.
I let out a long breath, feeling like I had been swimming underwater for several minutes. “I hadn’t looked at it that way. I thought you’d be pissed I didn’t introduce you.”
“Is that why you rushed back?”
“Yes. I wanted to explain.”
“You don’t have to explain anything. Being a Carmichael and dealing with your grandmother… well, you know that better than I do.”
“Oh boy, do I.”
Maya didn’t know the half of it. The goons were probably scouring the Web for intel. Now I was worried about Maya’s job as well as breaking her heart, and about losing the one person I’d realized I didn’t want to live without. Not to mention that Maya would no doubt flip her lid if she learned the goons had invaded her private life. I had to do something to shield her from that, but I was drawing blanks.
“How come you didn’t tell me you were working tonight?” I asked.
She laughed. “I didn’t know until an hour before the shift started. I got an SOS from Rick. Tonight was my first time working the private room. Imagine my shock when I walked in and saw you.”
“What a coincidence.” A wave of queasiness flooded my belly, but I willed it away. “Can I walk you home?”
“Yours or mine?” she asked, her tone mischievous. It instantly put me at ease.
“Which do you prefer?”
“I don’t care as long as I’m with you. You look beautiful in that dress, but right now, all I want to do is rip it off.”
Chapter Fifteen
We lay in bed together, naked. Maya had one arm wrapped around me, her free hand tracing circles on my stomach.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re tense again.”
What could I say? That I’d just told my grandmother I was involved with a girl from Mattapan and that I was positive my family’s henchmen were right this minute combing through Maya’s past, which didn’t exist until 2003? Oh, and that I expected a phone call from my mother at any second, telling me to never see Maya again? No. Of course I couldn’t say that.
“Just tired.”
“Sometimes I think I’m lucky it’s just my mom and me. My life is a lot less complicated.” She hugged me tightly.
“I have more family members than I know what to do with, but no one really shows an interest in my life, not my real life anyway, only the life I’m allowed to publicly project,” I told her. “Everything in my family is orchestrated.” I pointed to the dress thrown over the desk chair. “Most of my outfits are bought by a professional. My makeup, same. Lately, I’ve been feeling like a doll.”
“Just lately?” She propped up her head.
“I…” I cupped her cheek. “Someone is showing me there’s more to life than boxes to tick on my way to success.”
“Who is this person? Sounds like trouble?” She squeezed my nipple.
“The best kind of trouble.” I winked.
“Tell me something no one knows about you, not even Fiona.” The pad of her thumb circled my breast.
“I’ve probably read more lesbian romance novels than anyone else on the planet.”
“No erotica?” Her eyes widened.
“Of course. I have a secret Kindle I keep in the fireproof safe.” I pointed to the metal box on the bottom shelf of my bookcase.
“Scandalous.” She scanned the other shelves. “Did Fee help you decorate?” She gestured to Lincoln’s image on the middle shelf.
“Some. I admire Lincoln,” I tossed out. “This room isn’t for me, though. It’s in case I have visitors.” Everything was neat and tidy, even the family photos, pens and pencils, and silly knickknacks on the shelves and desk. It was homely, to a point, but still staged.
“Tell me something else.” She peppered my neck with kisses.
“No. Your turn. Tell me something no one else knows.”
“Let’s see… Well, I’ve never read a lesbian romance in my life.”
I elbowed her side.
“Ouch. Okay, how’s this? When I was seventeen I tried to brand myself.”
“How? With a match or a lighter?”
“No, with a cautery pen. A friend got her hands on one.” She shrugged.
“A girlfriend?” I teased.
She shrugged. “We were close for a bit.”
“What happened?”
“She moved the summer of our senior year.”
“No. I meant did it hurt?”
“Not really. I knew she was moving for a while.”
“Not that! The branding.”
“Oh, of course it hurt. And I messed it up. Big time.”
“How so?”
She showed me her inner arm. “You can’t make heads or tails of it.”
I gently fingered the scarred flesh. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“My initials.”
I laughed. “The first letter doesn’t look like an M at all.”
She pulled her arm away. “I told you I messed up.” Anger sparked in her eyes, but they soon softened. “And it got infected.”
“Bad?”
“Septicemia bad. I had to spend time in the hospital.”
I covered my mouth. “Can septicemia kill you?”
“If it advances to sepsis it can.”
“You idiot!” I whacked her arm, knocking her chin off her hand.
“Don’t worry. Mom made it clear I should never ever do such a thing again.”
“I bet.” I thought of how Grandmother would have reacted if I’d tried the same.
“Is everyone afraid of your grandmother?” she asked as if she could read my thoughts.
“I was just thinking what she’d do if I ever did something like that. How’d you know?”
“Your furrowed brow. Everyone seemed tense at dinner, even Fiona.”
“Grandmother’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“Can she be kind?”
“I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure. She expects a lot.” And she’s manipulative, I mentally added, suddenly realizing the quotes might even be from her.
Maya propped her head up with her hand again. “Like what?”
“Success at the highest level.”
“Like, president high?” She nodded toward Abe’s image.
“Exactly like that.”
Maya pulled a face. “Does that mean your mother is going to run? Susie Q will have a field day!”
Susie wasn’t the one I feared at that moment.
I pulled Maya’s head to my chest. Could she feel my heart hammering? Why did I have to be a Carmichael? Why couldn’t I be from
a normal family—a family whose only recourse was snide comments, not having an investigator comb through available records to dig up dirt on Maya like she was being vetted for vice president? My grandmother and her connections probably had more reach than those vetting a president’s running mate. Hell, my grandmother probably knew who shot JFK.
***
My eyes popped open at 4:30 a.m. Maya was lying on her back, and my hand trailed her supple skin, teasing her hardening nipples. I kissed her shoulder and she stirred, which had been my intention. Thoughts of last night flooded my mind. Soft kisses. Lingering caresses. Licking. Fingering. My God, I was falling hard for Maya.
Unease still nagged at the recesses of my mind, but waking up with Maya dulled my memories of the night before. All I wanted was to feel her skin against mine.
Then it hit me. Grandmother!
I bolted upright. How could I have forgotten about Grandmother?
I snatched my cell off the bedside table and fired it up. The thirty-second wait took forever, but the absence of alerts shocked me.
No texts. No voice mails. No e-mails. Nothing. Mother—the usual messenger of death—was eerily silent.
Grandmother didn’t know anything about Maya. Wait—that was impossible. Chuck had uncovered some of her past, and surely Grandmother’s goons were heads above Chuck.
That meant…
Half-filled with dread and half with hope, I brought up the front page of The Boston Globe. There wasn’t a death announcement. I googled my Grandmother’s name. She had to be dead; that was the only explanation for her silence.
There weren’t any notices. Nothing. Just a whole lot of nothing. Besides, surely someone in the family would have called by now or sent someone to look for me.
Suddenly, I had never been so frightened in my life.
“Everything okay?” Maya asked, her voice thick with sleep.
I looked over my shoulder at her smiling face. Her hair was mussed from last night’s tango in bed, making her look adorable and vulnerable in equal measure.
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Except for one thing.”
She sat up. “What’s that?”
“You took way too long waking up. I have plans before we head to breakfast.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I’m up now. Let’s not waste any more time.”
***
“You haven’t heard anything?” Fiona’s head popped into view over the coffee table and disappeared just as quickly. I was on her couch, and Fee was on the floor, doing sit-ups.
“Nope. What do you think it means?”
Her head crested the table and then dipped out of sight again. “You got me. It didn’t take Chuck long to find out what little there is to know.” She finally sat up and guzzled some water. “Maybe Grandmother’s losing her touch. She is in her nineties.”
I shook my head, and Fiona’s scrunched face conveyed her own disbelief.
“No. Something else is going on,” I said. “I just don’t know what yet.”
Fiona was polite enough not to add her two cents. I had enough crazy scenarios running through my brain.
“Why are your panties in a bunch today anyway?” I asked.
My cousin cocked a thin eyebrow.
“Since I’ve been here, you’ve jogged on the spot, completed one hundred push-ups, and now 250 sit-ups. What’s going on?”
She shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“Pat?” I pushed.
Looking away, she nodded. “He’s being so open-minded, giving me a pass to do what I want, when I want.”
“And you don’t want that?”
“Of course it’s what I want,” snapped my usually cool-as-a-cucumber cousin. “It’s…” She let her sentence die, probably because she didn’t know how to explain. Fiona was about action. Doing things, not contemplating emotions.
“Are you afraid he’ll take to the lifestyle more than you?”
“I doubt he’ll even step outside of the relationship, but he thinks that’s what I want.”
For as long as I could remember, Fee had preached against monogamy, saying it was virtually impossible to achieve. Pat was giving her a free pass, and she suddenly wanted him to fight to be the only one. Was my cousin becoming the kind of woman she despised? A nester?
“What can we do to get your mind off it?” I asked.
“Eat some bad oysters. That would keep me busy.”
“There’s always that option. Bit drastic, doncha think? I hate oysters. How about Chinese?”
Her smile answered me. When either of us needed to bury our troubles with binge eating, we headed to our favorite all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
“Promise me you won’t choke on an egg roll or something. Should we bring Pat, just in case?”
“Why do I ever confide in you?” I groaned.
“Got me. It’s not Carmichael-like.” Fee smiled.
Maybe that was the reason: I was baby stepping my way to a massive rebellion.
Chapter Sixteen
“How come you never talk about your childhood?” I sat across from Maya in La Creperie. She’d finished her shift an hour earlier, and we both had our notebooks open and random stacks of books piled near them on the table. Midterm fever had arrived with a vengeance. I eyed a goofy Frankenstein decoration that hung over Maya’s head. When you pulled a string, the arms and legs moved jerkily.
“Not much to tell, really. I didn’t have a glamorous life like you.” Maya shrugged and continued scribbling on one of her notepads. She had three notebooks laid out, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t figure out her system. Still, she aced every quiz and paper, so whatever her system was, it obviously worked.
“My life isn’t glamorous.” I scooped a bite of apple and cinnamon crepe into my mouth.
“Says the daughter of a senator with houses in Beacon Hill, Cape Cod, and Washington DC.” She looked up from her notebook and winked.
I grunted playfully.
“Your timing is impeccable, though,” Maya said with a silly grin.
“What? Why?”
“My mother wants to have you over for dinner.”
I didn’t respond right away, feeling guilty that I had zero intention of introducing her to my family, aside from Fiona. Not now, at least. Maybe in five years. Or ten. Twenty. If Maya wasn’t poor and of mixed race, would I feel so weird about it? I squashed the thought.
“Of course, I told her you were too busy.” The unease in her eyes made me feel ten times worse.
I slapped her arm. “Why’d you say that? I’m not too busy, and I would love to meet your mom.” I plastered on a fake smile to mask my shame.
“Are you sure?” Maya’s face softened.
I gave her my duh look. “Tell me when,” I said, before taking another bite of crepe.
“S-Sunday after midterms,” she stammered.
“Sounds great!” I was overdoing it, but couldn’t stop myself. “What can I bring?”
I hated that I was putting on a show. Normally, I could fake it with the best of them, but this was Maya—the girl I was falling for.
“Trust me, you won’t need to bring anything. Mom is a tour de force in the kitchen. She’ll have enough to feed all of Texas, and then some.”
“Does she like roses? Wine? I can’t show up empty-handed.”
“African violets are her fave, but seriously, you don’t have to bring anything. She’s not the type to expect anything from anyone.”
What would her mother think of me? Even Maya thought I was spoiled.
“Will that be kinda…? Will she like it if I got her an African…?” I didn’t know how to ask whether that would be construed as racist. Was it like giving a Chinese person a Chinese teapot as a birthday gift?
Maya’s eyes twinkled with merriment. “Are you asking me whether it would be racist to bring my mom African violets?”
“Yes,” I whispered, lowering my head, worried someone might overhear.
“You know
I’m not just black, right? I’m a regular Heinz 57: African, Hispanic, white, and God knows what else.” She looked at her hand. “Of course, many only see the pigment of my skin.”
“I don’t—”
“You never noticed. Not even after our first night. I noticed your freckled skin.” Her grin split her face in half.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant I see you as you are.”
Her eyes clouded over, but then she forced a snippet of a smile. “Sometimes you overthink things.”
Confused by the flicker of fear in her eyes I wanted to move to safer ground. “You write too much.” I lamely gestured to her notebooks.
She laughed it off, and I crossed my arms, annoyed.
Maya reached over and uncrossed my arms. “Did you know African violets are linked to motherhood in many cultures? When I was seven, I learned that tidbit and bought Mom her first one for Mother’s Day. She’s been hooked ever since. Being a mom is her proudest achievement.”
“You’re lucky.” The words slipped out, and I think Maya sensed I hadn’t meant to say them aloud. “My mom barely knows I’m alive. I have more contact with her staff.”
“What was it like, your childhood?” She stirred a spoon in her coffee.
“Hot and cold. Sometimes I mattered. Most of the time, Mother’s career took center stage. Everyone in the family is a political pawn. We have roles to play, and if we break the rules…”
She licked the spoon. “Like dating someone from Mattapan.”
I wanted to defend my family, but I didn’t want to lie, not outright. “They know I’m seeing someone. It isn’t that. Ham, my brother, is engaged to a Chinese–American.”
Maya rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just… They expect big things from me, and well, my past dating experiences—experience—ended in disaster.”
“What happened?”
I covered my eyes. “I can’t tell you. If you really want to know, it’s on Susie Q’s blog—the entire humiliating experience.”
She tugged my hand from my eyes. “I’d rather hear it from you.”
I sucked in a cleansing breath and closed my eyes. “I can’t,” I said. “Not now.”
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