Feelin' the Vibe (26 page)

I walked through the house and into the kitchen. Kenneth was sitting in the family room, and I let him know she was on her
way in. He looked at me like he was helpless, like he didn’t know how to begin the conversation. I gave him a confident nod
and smirk like I had it. Mia opened the door, and her big brown eyes looked into mine. She wanted to know everything. I gave
her a hug and she said, “Hey, Ma.”

“Hey, Mia-Mia.”

She dropped her bag and went in the family room to hug Kenneth. They embraced for a long time and I heard them mumbling in
each other’s ears, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I walked in to sit in the chair opposite the couch where
they stood. When they pulled apart, I noticed they both had tears in their eyes.

Kenneth looked at me and I said, “Mia, I know you’ve heard bits and pieces of things from everybody and I know you just want
to know what’s going on.”

She gave me her infamous
duh
expression, and I continued, “Well, I’m not sure if you remember Raven. She’s only been in the group home for about a year
and a half.”

“Yeah, I know her.”

“Well, she’s the one. She’s the one trying to say that your father molested her.”

She looked at Kenneth. “Daddy, why is she saying that?”

“She’s sick, Mia. She’s a very sick girl. She’s bipolar and has a host of other mental issues. I never touched that girl,
and Clark knows I never touched her, so we’re just going to fight this.”

Mia dropped her face in her hands and finally looked up and said, “But it’s your word against her word. What if you get wrongly
convicted? Morgan told me that they found raunchy text messages between the two of you.”

Kenneth’s tone elevated. “Mia, look! I have never sent this little girl any text message. If anything, I may have left my
cell phone unattended around her and she sent the messages to herself. I don’t know.”

Mia shrugged and looked at me. “Whatchu think, Ma?”

“I agree. Raven is very sick. She has a very sick obsession. That’s what I think.”

Mia looked like she trusted us. I walked over to sit beside them. I held both Mia’s hand and Kenneth’s, and I said, “We’ll
get through this like a family.”

Mia joked, “So, Daddy. You want me to go beat her up?”

We laughed a little, but I knew Mia had no clue about our financial state. When she realized we might need her money from
her summer job, which would eliminate her ability to shop, she probably would want to fight Raven.

There was no summer vacation, just Kenneth and me sitting in the house wondering how something so tragic could have wedged
its way into our lives. I just wanted the nightmare to be over. Bill collectors had begun to call. Our lives were falling
to pieces, one brick at a time. We were forced to put the group home up for sale because there was no way we could continue
footing the bill. I prayed that it would sell in time to pay some of our legal fees, but the housing market was horrible.
It would probably end up being foreclosed on. Reggie was helping me a lot financially, and I was beginning to feel too dependent.
Not to mention, he’d been acting irritated about giving me money, primarily because he questioned Kenneth’s innocence.

If my career in human services was over, I had to make some money somehow. I never thought I would have to do it again, but
I began putting my résumé back out there for engineering positions. I knew that would pay the bills, but I was afraid that
no one would hire me after I’d been out of the field for so long. As August approached, I started desperately posting my résumé
on every career Web site available, because if I didn’t get a job, we would be on the street by September.

A
week after I told Taylor what I needed, she woke up and said, “Devin, maybe we should go to counseling. Before you, I hadn’t
had a real relationship. And I had to put all these things and activities in place so that I could still enjoy single life,
and I guess I’ve never gotten rid of them. I was anxious to get married. But I think we missed a step. I was just becoming
good at being a girlfriend, and the next thing I knew, I was a wife.”

“Thank you. Do you want your father to do it?”

“Nah, I think another minister would be better.”

We had a few sessions with a minister at the church, and he’d confirmed that I wasn’t a basket case. Taylor was not being
supportive, but it turned out that she resented how supportive her mother had been, sacrificing everything to be the preacher’s
wife, and Taylor refused to live in her husband’s shadow. While I understood her issue, she had to understand this was a different
form of support. I wasn’t asking her to sit down and shut up; I wanted her beside me. Once we came to that conclusion, she
agreed that she would do it.

As the weeks passed, our relationship was growing and I was the front-runner in the election. Thousands of Taylor’s father’s
church members lived in District 4, and the race was scheduled to be a steal. My campaign was heavily funded, and we’d geared
up to smoothly transition into the House of Representatives. The first week of August was when most candidates really began
to air commercials and make themselves known. We took a head start and began flooding the airwaves on July 28. Everything
was coming together.

Nicole had been with me for the entire summer, so I’d been able to spend a lot of quality time with her. It bothered me that
she’d told me that she didn’t like Taylor. Whenever I asked her why, she’d say, “It’s just a feeling.”

While it bothered me, it tripped me out at the same time. Nicole was definitely my child, because we acted on feelings and
rarely on facts. I’d brushed it off since there was nothing she could pinpoint. I figured she’d grow out of it, assuming maybe
it was just a slight rivalry, because Nicole had always been number one and now she shared the spotlight.

I stepped out of the car to grab Nicole from day camp. While I was in there for five short minutes, Curtis called nearly seven
times. There was obviously something wrong. When I sat in the car, I called him on the car phone. Without greeting me, he
said, “Dawg, tell me you didn’t take your mistress to Nicaragua with you.”

I looked in the rearview mirror to see if Nicole heard him or even knew what he said. She squinted slightly. Then, my stomach
dropped as I pushed the phone button and held my phone to my ear. “What?”

“Ted Denorges is about to run a negative commercial, showing pictures of you and some chick in Nicaragua. Say it isn’t so.”

I sat in shock and said nothing.

Curtis said, “Devin, please don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to fuck the whole thing up over a piece of ass.”

I felt like a complete asshole. Not only did I not have Clark, I was in jeopardy of blowing this election. No Clark. No Congress.
Curtis yelled into the phone, “Say something, man! Shit! I gotta schedule a press conference like now to refute these claims.”

Finally, I stepped out of the car. “Man, it wasn’t just a piece of ass.”

“What the hell was it?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“Look, you gotta be honest with me.”

“Well, it was my old girlfriend and she wanted to come down to help out with the mission.”

He chuckled nervously. “Devin, that sounds like bullshit. C’mon man. We’re either going to blow this whole thing or we’re
going to come up with a strategy to combat it.”

I huffed and paced in front of the car. Nicole hopped out. “Daddy, are you okay?”

I shooed her back into the car.

“Devin!” Curtis shouted. “What’s the deal, man? You seeing the chick or what?”

“I saw her. She went to Nicaragua with me, but we’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“So it was a one-time thing?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“If you stand before the press with these half-ass answers, you may as well stop campaigning.”

“We hung out a few times. I mean, she’s married and I’m married. We decided it was best to leave it alone.”

“From what I can tell, they don’t have an ID on her. She’s wearing sunglasses in most of the photos. Do you think she’ll come
out?”

“Nah, I doubt it.”

“We’re going to take the route that you were in Nicaragua on a mission and a volunteer from the States happened to stay in
the same resort as you and it was a one-time thing. You and your wife were facing some problems at the time. Okay?”

I kept wiping my face, hoping that somehow this would go away. More than myself, I worried about Clark. She would be shattered
with this coming out now. I wondered if I should call her or try to contact her. Just as the thought crossed my mind, Curtis
said, “Whatever you do, do not try to contact that chick in any way. No e-mail, no text message, and definitely no phone calls.
We want to make sure she stays anonymous.”

“I hope so.”

“You need to come to the office to check out this commercial.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

I wasn’t sure I should take Nicole to the house first, because I didn’t want to see Taylor before I had all the facts. So
Nicole and I headed down to the office. When I walked in, some of the volunteers looked at me with disappointed expressions.
I told Nicole to play on one of the computers and headed into Curtis’s office. He was shaking his head. The commercial was
loaded on his computer.

It opened with me talking about the school system and at-risk kids. Then a voiceover came on stating my slogan: “Devin Patterson,
the voice of the people, the voice you can trust.”

A cracked image of Taylor and me displayed and quickly crumbled. Images of Clark and I hugging and kissing in Nicaragua piled
rapidly on top of one another with a repetitive photo-snapping sound effect. The voiceover comes back. “How can anyone trust
Devin Patterson, when his own wife can’t?”

“Paid for by Ted Denorges for Congress. The voice people
should
trust.”

That was a low blow, and I couldn’t imagine why these images would surface three months later. Who took the pictures? Clark
and I intentionally didn’t take any pictures. My mind played tricks on me, and I wondered if Clark had a hidden camera and
had sold these images.

“Who knew you’d be in Nicaragua? I intentionally told the media you’d be in the Dominican Republic.”

I shrugged.

Curtis said, “It had to be someone close to you.”

I didn’t have any enemies that would want to destroy me in this way. As I sat and thought of the few people who knew where
I was, my chest suddenly caved in. “Shawna Dillon had access to the foundation’s intranet while we were planning the girls’
conference—which would also give her access to the contact information of the student volunteers.”

Curtis laughed. “Why would she do that?”

I blew out some hot air. She had probably never come on to him the way she came on to me. The look in her eyes on the day
of the conference popped into my mind. And for someone so anxious to be a part of my campaign to simply fall off the face
of the earth… surely she was involved. I wondered how much she paid the volunteer. I wondered how much they paid for the pictures.
Some people will do anything for power, and my heart told me she was that person. Why didn’t I listen to myself? I decided
not to attempt to convince Curtis, because he’d probably think I was tripping. Not to mention, he was the one who brought
her on board. The damage was done and it didn’t matter who did it. What could I do to make it right?

“Maybe she didn’t. Who knows? Maybe I’m just pulling at strings. What are we going to do?”

Curtis looked at me. “It will start airing at midnight. So I suggest you go home and talk to your wife. The press conference
is scheduled for nine. Whatever you gotta do or say to get her here beside you tomorrow morning, do it. Let’s go over the
story again.”

We got the story down. I met her in Nicaragua. My wife and I had a fight prior to leaving. We had a short affair and that
was it. I was wrong. My wife and I made up. End of story.

When I walked out of the office, Nicole said, “Daddy, do you plan on feeding me anytime soon?”

I’d completely forgot that I hadn’t fed the child. We rolled up to Chick-fil-A. After I ordered her food, she said, “Daddy,
do you have a mistress?”

“What is a mistress, Nikki?”

“It’s when you have a wife and a girlfriend.”

“Who told you that?”

“I watch Lifetime with Mommy,” she said.

“No, Nicole. I don’t have a mistress,” I said, half-laughing.

“Good, because nice guys don’t cheat.”

I looked at her through the rearview mirror. “Exactly.”

When we walked in the house, Taylor had just come in from the hair salon. She wore a pair of plaid shorts and a T-shirt. Her
flip-flops clapped on the floor and the happy pace of her steps saddened me. “Hey, honey.”

“Taylor, let’s go upstairs.”

She frowned. She was still working on recognizing my emotions as she said, “Why? Let’s chill down here for a minute.”

I shifted my weight onto one leg and looked at her. “Taylor, we need to talk.”

“A’ight, then,” she said with a pout, and winked at Nicole like what’s wrong with him. Nicole shrugged.