Best Kept Secrets Page 6

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” Leila assured. “I told you, don’t worry about it.”

  Paulette nodded and waved good-bye. Leila watched as Paulette walked back toward a sleek sports car that was parked along the curb at the end of the block.

  It warmed her heart that Paulette had been willing to write a check to erase all her problems. But Paulette couldn’t. Leila would have to dig herself and her family out of this hole.

  Chapter 6

  LEILA

  Hours later, Leila arrived at her mother’s pale yellow bungalow, which sat at the end of a cul-de-sac bordered by grand old oaks and maples. A tire swing hung in front of the house, swaying faintly in the evening wind. Isabel’s tricycle was turned on its side on the front lawn.

  The night barely cloaked the drabness of the neighborhood. Most of the houses had been built in the late sixties and early seventies with exteriors that could use a fresh layer of paint. There were more chain-link fences than white picket ones. Front lawns were dotted with chipped garden gnomes and Mother Marys instead of manicured rose bushes. It was definitely one of the less glamorous enclaves in Chesterton, but the neighbors were kind, quiet, and humble people. Leila and her small family were happy to call it home.

  Leila parallel parked her hatchback along the curb. When she killed the engine, the sound of crickets filled the night. She saw Isabel silhouetted by the kitchen light shining through the screen door. The little girl eagerly bounced on the balls of her feet as Leila walked up the concrete walkway with heavy plastic bags in her hands. Diane stood behind Isabel.

  “We were wondering when you would get home,” Diane called out as she pushed open the screen door. Isabel rushed toward her mother in her pale yellow pajamas, squealing with excitement. Her black pigtails went flying behind her. She instantly leaped at Leila and wrapped her in a hug around the waist, making Leila laugh with joy and almost teeter backward to the walkway. All her sadness from earlier that day instantly dissolved.

  “Hey, baby!” she cried, leaning down to kiss her daughter on the crown. “What are you doing up this late? It’s nine-thirty—well past your bedtime! I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

  “I tried more than once to put that child to bed, but she wouldn’t hear of it until you got home,” her mother said, stepping aside to let Leila and Isabel through the front door. “See, Izzy! Mama’s home. Now you can finally go to sleep, girl!”

  Leila lowered her grocery bags to her mother’s WELCOME mat and eased her way through the crowded entryway that, thanks to her pack-rat mama, was bordered by potted plants, a metal stand filled with umbrellas, stacks of newspapers and magazines that had yet to be recycled, and a few of Isabel’s discarded toys.

  Leila playfully swatted Isabel on the behind, making the little girl giggle. “Okay, off to bed with you. I’ll be in your room in a minute.”

  Leila watched as Isabel ran down the hall to her bedroom. Leila then turned to her mother when the door closed. “Mama, can you take these into the kitchen for me? I stopped by the store to pick up a few things.”

  Diane nodded before leaning down to grab the bags. “Sure. Tell me how your day went after you kiss Izzy goodnight.”

  Seconds later, Leila strolled into her daughter’s bedroom only to find Isabel screaming and bouncing up and down on the bed, making the bedsprings squeak rhythmically.

  “Get down!” Leila shouted, holding back a smile, trying her best to play the role of the stern mother but failing miserably. Her daughter let out one last squeal before flopping back onto her double bed.

  The ten-by-ten foot room was painted a pastel pink and decorated with stickers and figurines of unicorns and rainbows. A few posters of teen pop princesses were on the walls. It used to be the only guest room in the house, but it had become the little girl’s bedroom once Isabel and Leila moved in with Diane. To give Isabel privacy, Leila slept on the living room’s fold-out sofa.

  “Did you brush your teeth?” Leila asked, perching on the bed beside her daughter.

  Isabel crawled to her knees and emphatically nodded, though Leila was skeptical.

  “Uh-huh. Let me smell your breath so I can know for sure.”

  Isabel melodramatically rolled her brown eyes and leaned toward her mother’s face. “Ahhh!” she shouted, making Leila laugh again.

  “Okay, you’re minty fresh. I guess you’re good.” She pulled back the tie-dyed comforter and thumped the mattress. “Time for bed. Climb in and say your prayers.”

  Isabel scrambled to the head of the bed and lay back against the pillows that were propped against the headboard. Leila placed butterfly kisses on her button nose, making the little girl giggle again. She entwined her fingers, closed her eyes, and bowed her head. Isabel dutifully did the same.

  “God bless Mommy and Grandmommy,” Isabel began, lisping a little thanks to her missing front teeth. “Bless my teacher Miss Abrams, even though she tells me I talk too much in class. Bless our janitor at school, Mr. Dudley. Bless my best friends Tisha and Miranda. Bless the doggie I saw on the street on the way home, God. He looked really hungry. That’s why I gave him the rest of the nasty sandwich Grandmommy made me for lunch.”

  At that, Leila cracked open one eye and choked back her laughter.

  “Bless the goldfish in the tank at school. It looks really bored. I hope it makes friends with the other fishies in there. Bless the turtles in Miss Whitley’s class. Bless the—”

  “All right, Izzy. This list is getting kinda long, baby. Do you think we can wrap it up now?”

  “All right, Mommy,” Isabel said before letting out a dramatic sigh and pausing for a bit. “Bless all the kittens in the world. I hope I get one of them for my birthday in August. Oh, oh! Before I forget . . . please bless my daddy too, God. I miss him.”

  Leila tried not to flinch at that one. She knew Brad would always be Isabel’s father and Isabel would probably always love him.

  Even if he is a son of a bitch, she thought.

  “Amen,” Isabel whispered.

  “Amen,” Leila chimed before kissing her daughter again and pulling the sheets up to Isabel’s chin. “Good night, baby.”

  She then walked to Isabel’s dresser and turned off the only lamp in the room. She leaned down and turned on a nearby unicorn nightlight before creeping to the bedroom door.

  “Mommy?” Isabel called out just as Leila stepped into the hallway.

  “Yeah?”

  “When are we gonna live with Daddy again?”

  Leila paused, taken aback by the question. “What do you mean? We live here with Grandma Diane. Your daddy lives back in California.”

  “I know,” Isabel answered quietly. The little girl then began to pick at a loose thread in her comforter. “But when I talked to Daddy tonight, and asked him when I would see him again, he said that we’d all be together soon. He said we’d be coming back home soon too.”

  Leila clenched her jaw and silently cursed under her breath. She had gotten used to the mind games Brad would play on her during the course of their relationship, but it pissed her off that he was still playing those same games now that they were separated. This time, he was doing it through their daughter.

  “Honey,” she said, stepping back into the darkened room. She sat on the edge of the bed again and gazed into her daughter’s eyes. She could see faintly by the light in the hallway. “We aren’t going back to California to be with Daddy. This is our home. Here in Virginia. This is where we live now.”

  “But Daddy said—”

  “I don’t care what Daddy said!” Leila answered firmly, cutting her off.

  Leila inwardly kicked herself when Isabel’s eyes went downcast. The little girl bit down hard on her bottom lip and sniffed. Sadness washed over her face.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Leila whispered, rubbing her shoulders. “I just don’t want you to get confused. I’m sorry if what Daddy said confused you, but we aren’t going back to live with him.”

  Isabel sniffed again, no longe
r meeting Leila’s gaze.

  “But maybe you can go to visit your daddy in a few weeks when summer vacation starts. Maybe then you can spend some time with him. Huh? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  She watched as Isabel hesitated and nodded.

  Leila hoped Isabel and Brad would get to spend some time together. Who knew when father and daughter would see each other again if Brad got sentenced to jail time for his fraud and money-laundering charges? It could be years—maybe even decades.

  “Try to get some sleep, honey. You need your beauty rest.”

  A smile finally crept to Isabel’s lips. “Okay, Mommy.”

  “Night, night, Izzy,” Leila said, walking back to the bedroom door. “Love you, baby.”

  “Night, night, Mommy. Love you too,” Isabel whispered just as Leila closed the door behind her.

  When the lock clicked, Leila stood alone in the empty hall for several seconds. She took a few deep breaths, feeling as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. This was too much. It was all just too much—between the divorce, her back-breaking debt, her mother’s foreclosure, and now Brad wreaking his own brand of havoc from as far away as California. Thinking about it all, Leila’s lashes started to dampen with tears. How was she going to stand this? How was she not going to crumble even though every day it was a struggle not to sit in a corner, crawl into the fetal position, and weep?

  “Lee?” her mother suddenly called from the kitchen.

  Leila straightened her shoulders and quickly wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Coming, Mama!”

  Leila took her final deep breath and strode down the hall and into the dinette kitchen, where she found her mother putting a carton of apple juice Leila had just purchased onto one of the refrigerator’s metal shelves.

  “I didn’t know you were going to stop at the grocery store,” Diane said as she balled up the empty grocery bag.

  “We needed the food,” Leila answered, reaching for one of the bags. “I thought I’d just get it on the way home after work.”

  “But you’ve got to be tired, Lee! Didn’t you pull a double shift?” Her mother sat down at their metal kitchen table. When the older woman fell back into the chair, she let out a groan and kicked off her canvas shoes. “I know I’m tired just thinking about it,” she muttered before flexing her toes.

  “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me.” Leila removed a loaf of bread from one of the bags and placed it on the counter.

  “I can’t help but worry about you,” her mother muttered.

  Leila pretended like she hadn’t heard that. She chose to change the subject instead. “So you’ll never guess who stopped by Dean’s Big Burger today.”

  “You better watch out, Lee, or you’ll end up with feet like mine! Damn my corns,” Diane mumbled before looking up at Leila, taking a break from rubbing the ball of her right foot. “I’m sorry, baby—what were you saying? Who came to visit?”

  “Paulette Murdoch.”

  Diane did a double take. She slowly lowered her foot back to the floor. “Paulette Murdoch? You mean Evan’s sister?”

  Leila nodded as she put a bottle of dishwashing liquid near the sink.

  “I didn’t even know you were talking to the Murdochs again! Why’d she come to see you?”

  “She wanted to reach out to me since we didn’t get to talk at her wedding.”

  “Wait a minute! You went to her wedding?”

  Leila paused. She forgot that she hadn’t told her mother about crashing the wedding last month. She shrugged. “Uh, yeah. She invited me so I went,” Leila lied.

  “What did she want to talk to you about?”

  “About Evan and the way he’s been treating me. I think she feels bad about it.”

  “As she should!” Diane obstinately crossed her arms over her chest and poked out her chin. She had known Evan since he was a young man, back when he would ride home with Leila after school in his father’s chauffeured Lincoln Town Car, looking every bit like a pre-teen African prince. Diane also knew a little about the drama now between Evan and Leila. “I’ve got no idea what crawled up that boy’s hind parts when it comes to you, but he better dig it out! It wasn’t your fault you didn’t want to marry him!”

  Leila rolled her eyes as she placed the last of the groceries in the fridge. “Don’t exaggerate, Mama. Evan never asked me to marry him.”

  Diane looked at her knowingly. “Only cuz you didn’t give him the chance to ask.”

  At that, Leila’s face flushed with heat. She turned away from her mother and closed the refrigerator door. She always became unnerved when someone brought up the topic of Evan’s unrequited feelings for her. It made her embarrassed that she had ignored for years what seemed to be plainly visible to the rest of the world. But it had obviously been a bad case of puppy love that Evan didn’t feel anymore. She didn’t understand why everyone kept bringing it up.

  Leila busied herself with putting the discarded grocery bags into the recycling bin under the sink.

  “Well, anyway, Paulette didn’t just want to talk about Evan. She wanted to give me money too.”

  “What?” her mother exclaimed. Her eyes widened.

  “I know, right? She said she knew about my divorce from Brad. She heard I had hit hard times so she offered me money to help out.”

  Diane eagerly sat forward in her chair. “And what did you say?”

  “I turned her down, of course.” Leila turned back to her mother to find the older woman gazing at her in disbelief. “What?”

  “You turned her down? Are you crazy? Why in the world did you do that?” Diane shouted.

  “What do you mean, ‘Am I crazy?’ Mama, there is no way I could accept money from Paulette! I couldn’t take advantage of her like that.”

  “You wouldn’t be taking advantage! Those M&Ms have more money than they know what to do with. If they wanted to give you some of it, you should have just said thank you and told them who to make the check out to!”

  Leila shook her head, now bewildered. She’d thought her mother would take her to task for humbling herself and begging Evan for help, which was why she hadn’t told her about going to Paulette’s wedding. Instead, her mother was now chastising her for not accepting his sister’s money.

  “I cannot believe I’m hearing this! I mean . . . from you of all people, Mama! You’re the one who taught me about working hard and not accepting handouts! You’re the one who taught me about being proud and self-reliant and—”

  “And look where all that pride and self-reliance got me,” Diane said, sweeping her hand around the room with flourish. “Look where it got us! With the situation we are in, Lee, you can’t be too proud to take a handout, honey.”

  “Well, it’s too late anyway,” Leila grumbled. “I told her no, and I’m not going back to bring it up with her again.”

  The kitchen fell silent. Leila turned on the faucet and grabbed a sponge. She began to take out her frustrations on the pile of pans in the kitchen sink.

  “I’m heading to bed,” Diane murmured before rising from the metal table. “Don’t stay up too late. You need your rest.” She stretched, winced at the cracking sound in her back, and shuffled across the room. When she reached the kitchen entryway, she turned to stare at Leila. “If you’re going to do this on your own, you need all the strength you can get, honey. Trust me. I speak from experience.”

  She then turned back around and headed to her bedroom, leaving Leila alone with her burdens and her thoughts.

  Chapter 7

  EVAN

  “So he’s trying to renege on our agreement?” Evan asked Joe Cannon, his director of operations.

  Joe shook his snow-white head. “Not renege. He says he wants to ‘renegotiate.’ He knows our contract is up for renewal next year and he’s playing hardball. He wants to charge us more to lease those warehouses. He claims that he has another company that’s interested and willing to pay more for the space. Greedy little bastard,” Joe muttered.

&nb
sp; Evan pursed his lips as he listened.

  They were discussing a group of warehouses Murdoch Conglomerated used for its line of specialty food products. The guy who owned the storage facilities wanted to bump up the price of the lease he was charging the company by more than 50 percent. Joe considered the price outrageous. Evan considered it a personal affront to his sensibilities as a businessman.

  “So what are our options?” Evan asked. “Can we just switch the inventory to another facility?”

  “Maybe.” Joe shrugged. “But it’ll be a real pain in the rear to find one. He has the special refrigeration we need for storage that most facilities in the U.S. don’t have.”

  “I see,” Evan muttered. He reclined in his desk chair and sat silent for several seconds, contemplating a solution to their business dilemma.

  Joe tried to do the same, to lean back and think, but he could only manage to shift awkwardly in his leather chair. It was all blunt angles and little padding. He grimaced as he tried his best to get in a comfortable position while Evan sat across from him, lost in thought.

  The chairs were one of many additions and changes that Evan had made to the expansive CEO office on the twelfth floor of Murdoch Conglomerated. The room had once been occupied by George Murdoch and therefore reflected the old man’s aesthetic, which leaned toward more traditional design and antique accents and furniture. In fact, George had modeled it after a study he had seen at an old estate in the Hudson Valley. He had wanted the office to have presence and gravitas.

  “Let any man who steps through that door know not to underestimate me,” George had instructed the designer.

  But when Evan took over the office when he became CEO seven months ago, he’d wanted to show there was a new sheriff in town—in more ways than one. He got rid of the walnut paneling his father had so loved, gave away the rosewood desk, removed the French sconces, and ripped down the heavy curtains over the windows. He’d replaced it all with clean modern furniture that had steel frames, glass shelves, and a low profile. He’d had the walls painted a stark white and ordered simple solar shades. No sconces—just recessed lights. No expensive oriental rugs—just plain hardwood floors.