Something Like This (Secrets) (16 page)

I knocked on Mr. Walker’s door.

“Come in,” he said.

“Grace Smith is here. Can Tom bring her in?”

Looking up from his computer, he said, “How are you, today?”

“I’m well, thank you for asking.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, good. I was going to ask you to sit in on this meeting, but I didn’t know whether or not you’d be coming in today.”

“I told you yesterday I’d be here.”

My stomach started turning, my palms began sweating.

“You looked really sad yesterday. I wasn’t convinced I’d see you today or ever again, quite frankly.”

“I’m here. I’m focused again.”

“Maybe you can sit in on the next meeting, okay?”

“I can sit in on this one. Just tell me what you need from me. I’ll take notes.”

Please don’t banish me to the hinterlands. I promise, I have my act together. I’m not messed up anymore, I swear it. I’m good now. All is well. Please believe me.
Please
believe me. I want to make something of myself. I’m strong. My father didn’t hurt me. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.

“The next one. Send Tom and Grace in.”

I hung my head in defeat. I couldn’t blame Mr. Walker for not letting me join the meeting. He probably thought I was unstable.

“Yes, sir. Understood.”

Once outside of his office, I told Tom and Grace, who were busy laughing and carrying on as if they had known each other forever, “He’s ready. Go on in.”

“Wish me luck,” Grace said.

“I don’t think you’ll need it,” Tom said.

Oh, brother, shall I get you two a room?

“Good luck,” I said.

I slid into my chair and sulked. But only for a few seconds. If I was going to prove to Mr. Walker that I could be trusted, that I wasn’t unstable, I had to buckle down and focus.

“Thank you, thank you, I’m so excited,” I heard Grace say.

I flipped around in my chair.

“Guess what?” she asked me.

“Let me guess. We now represent you.”

She clapped her hands. “Yep. Isn’t that great?”

I stood and hugged her. “I’m proud of you.” And I meant it. Grace was a good person. A little too bubbly and a little too in love with being in love with every guy she met, but a good person, indeed.

“I’ll walk you out,” Tom said.

“Sounds perfect,” Grace said.

And off they went.

“She’s going to fit right in. I hear she’s your roommate,” Mr. Walker said.

“You heard correctly.”

“Good, maybe you can help her finish her novel, encourage her, offer her some suggestions, that kind of stuff.”

“I thought Tom would be doing that.”

“To some degree, but he’s going to be busy compiling a list of editors, talking her up to them. We’re hoping for an auction.”

“Her writing is that good?”

“You’ve never read it?” he asked, frowning.

“She’s never offered to let me read it.”

“Huh, I thought with you two being roommates and all, that...”

“Nope, never read it.”

“Well, you’re in for a real treat.”

“Can’t wait.”

He went back in his office.

I’m feeling all kinds of crazy emotions right now. I’m jealous,
really
jealous. Celeste was wrong because apparently, I am the jealous kind. I’m also mad and sad and well, I feel unstable. So, it looks like Mr. Walker was right not to let me sit in on the meeting because who knows what I would have said or done. Things just seem so easy for everyone else. I have to fight for my place. Mami had to fight for her place and she failed. And my father, well, he’s still fighting. Yet it just comes easy to others. Love, support, success, it surrounds them everywhere they go.

I spent the rest of the day re-reading the manuscripts I was supposed to have handed over to Tom. I hoped and prayed I’d discover a brilliant writer. I don’t recall Tom coming back to the office after he walked Grace out, but then again, I zoned everything and everyone out so it’s quite possible he came back and I didn’t notice him. For the rest of the day, I didn’t move from my chair one time and only raised my head once to say goodnight to Mr. Walker.

A text jarred me.

Reaching into my purse for my phone, I licked my lips. I hadn’t had anything to drink since the coffee I had in the morning.

Shit
. It was from Reece.

Hey, I’m at ur apartment. Where r u?

It was 7:15. Crap, oh, crap. Shit to the shit. I’d forgotten about tonight. Reece was supposed to pick me up at 7 so I could meet his mom.

I ran to the bathroom to check my appearance. Holy mother of all Gods, my hair was a mess and my face looked tired, dreadfully tired, like I had spent the last day hitting the bottle, hard.

Quickly, I turned on the faucet and splashed water, lots of it, on my face. Thankfully, I had a brush in my Bermuda Triangle of a purse, otherwise, I would have had to twist my hair into a bun—which wouldn’t have been a bad thing except for the fact I pretty much sucked at it. When I was a kid, Mami used to wake me up at five in the freaking morning so she could brush my hair, braid, and bun it before she would start getting ready for work. I hated it.

I checked myself in the full-length mirror, twirled around to make sure I didn’t have anything stuck on my rear end, like a piece of gum or some dirt. I sucked in my stomach and corrected my slouching posture. If I could only lose five or ten pounds, I wouldn’t have to ever suck in my stomach. Oh well, I wasn’t going to be able to magically wish away the extra pounds so just like my hair, I freed my little gut and made for the door.

Feeling a headache coming on, which I attributed to too much coffee and zero water or food, I ran to the break room for a bottle of water. In my haste, I tripped on my own feet and fell right into the break room door. If it wasn’t for the door, I would have certainly landed face first on the floor
.

Once I composed myself, I decided to call Aunt Conchita. I felt a panic attack coming on and needed to hear Aunt Conchita tell me I was going to be okay,
more
than okay, that meeting my boyfriend’s mom was a good thing, a great thing.

I dialed her number.

“Jadie?” she said.

“Si, Tia, it’s me. Am I disturbing you?”

“Of course not. How are you?”

“I have a boyfriend. His name is Reece,” I blurted out.

“My goodness that is some news. Tell me about him.”

“He loves me.”

“Do you love him?”

“Si, mucho.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s a writer. He’s gentle. And gorgeous.”

“Dios mio, sounds like a keeper.”

“I’m meeting his mom tonight. I’m nervous. I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t want her to see who I am. I don’t want her to see what I keep inside.”

“You don’t want her to see your beauty and kindness?”

“The dark part of me. The painful part. I’m scared she’ll see it and think I’m not good enough for Reece.”

“You’re being dramatic. You’re just meeting his mom, not confessing your sins to the Pope. But, if you insist on being dramatic and since you are my sister’s hija, you’re destined to lean toward the dramatics, here’s my advice. People rarely present their true selves to the world. Don’t mistake a smile for happiness. A smile often hides sadness. If you don’t want people to see your pain...the darkness that haunts you, keep a smile on your face.”

“Tia?”

“Si.”

“Gracias.”

“Andale. Go meet your boyfriend’s mom. Have a good time.”

“Do you know when you’re coming?”

“I’ll call you when I know, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now then, are you smiling?”

“Si.”

“Good.”

“Bye, Tia.”

“Adios.”

I intended to follow her advice tonight. I would not allow Reece’s mom to see even a glimpse of my soul.

Hopping on the elevator, I popped open the bottle of water and gulped down sips in a hurry. I emptied the bottle before I made it to the first floor.

The elevator doors opened and there was Reece standing in front of me. He was dressed in a black suit and blue tie. He stole my breath and brought a genuine smile to my face. He looked so beautiful and so handsome and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

“I thought you were going to wait for me outside,” I asked, making myself breath.

“I decided that wasn’t proper.”

“Proper?”

“I want this night to go well. Manners are very important to my mom. And had she known I was waiting for you outside instead of coming in...well, she would have slapped me in the back of my head.”

I wanted to kiss him all over.

I’ll say it again. He’s different and he has broken me.

“So you’re being a gentleman for me?”

His blue eyes fixed on me so long I thought my clothes were going to drip to the floor.

“For you, always.”

He was the prince and I was the unstable, reluctant damsel in distress who didn’t think she deserved a happily ever after ending.

“I’m a mess, I should really go home and change,” I said, trying hard to hold back how badly I wanted to run away and hide. He was perfect, and had perfect manners, and I was a misfit whose mom ate with her fingers and chewed with her mouth open and never got past the eighth grade.

I was faking it. Everything I did was fake. My past, my upbringing, my father— it was all always there reminding me I was an imposter and that soon, very soon, everyone would find out the truth about me and I’d be dragged to the center of town and stoned.

“You look beautiful.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s because you don’t see yourself the way I see you.”

“And how do you see me?”

“As the most beautiful girl in the world.”

He was so wrong, so dreadfully mistaken. But, at that moment, I would not argue with him because his voice made me feel that maybe I could be his princess and he my prince. We could ride into the sunset and live happily ever after.

I looked down at myself and noticed that my shirt wasn’t tucked into my skirt anymore. I started to tuck it back in when he said, “Leave it.”

“What will your mom think? I can’t leave it the way it is.”

“She’ll think what I think. That you’re breathtaking.” He unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out his shirt from his pants. “There, now we’re both messy.” He held out his hand for me. “Shall we?”

I smiled. “Lead the way.”

––––––––

A
bout thirty minutes later, we pulled into a tiny, narrow driveway in Georgetown. Reece got out of the car and came around to open the door for me.
My gorgeous gentleman.

I stepped out and gave the townhouse in front of me a long glance. Dark brick front, four stories high, huge windows framed by black shutters, it looked like one of many of the houses Mami used to clean on the weekends for extra money. After my father disappeared, whenever I couldn’t convince her to let me stay home so I could sleep past 6 a.m., watch cartoons and do whatever I wanted all day, like eat cereal and ice cream, write in my journal, and shut out the world, I’d be forced to go with her and help her clean other people’s houses. I remembered staring at strangers’ family pictures and envisioning myself among them. I’d dust their coffee tables, bedside tables and bookshelves and tell myself that someday, I’d have a family and a house and beautiful furniture; I’d have it all because I wanted it more than anything in the world. Even at twelve years old, I craved more, I sought more, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was determined to try.

Reece kissed my hand. “Ready?”

“Nope. But, let’s go anyway.”

“She’s going to love you.”

“I hope so.”

We walked up the steps to the front door. I was crazy nervous, but I held my place.

Reece rang the doorbell. “I have a key, but my little brother loves opening doors.”

I had forgotten all about his little brother. Double whammy, I was meeting his brother and his mom. And just then, it occurred to me that Reece had never mentioned his father to me.

“Here I come!” a little voice yelled.

“Hurry up, little man,” Reece said.

The door opened and a miniature Reece stood there in the foyer, dressed in a banana costume.

“They’re here!” he yelled. “Mommy, Reece and his girlfriend are here!”

“He was in a play earlier today at his preschool. A fruit-versus-evil junk food kind of play.”

“I see,” I said, laughing.

“I’m Connor. Reece is my brother. I’m not really a banana.”

I laughed again.

“Nice to meet you, Connor.”

“Did you bring me anything?” Connor asked me.

“Connor, that’s not very polite. Jadie is our guest.”

I searched in my pocket to see if maybe I had a piece of candy or gum. No such luck. Strike one, before I even made it past the foyer.

Connor smiled a big smile and said, “Mommy cooked a chicken.”

“She makes a mean roasted chicken,” Reece said.

“I love chicken,” I said.

“Mommy, she says she loves chicken!” Connor yelled and took off running.

“I’m sorry,” Reece said. “He’s only three and, well, we spoil him a lot. He gets away with murder.”

“He’s adorable.”