If Only You Knew (2 page)

“Cool. I'll talk to you both tomorrow then,” Sydney said as she waved them off and headed inside.

As soon as she closed the front door behind her, Sydney could hear her mother's demanding voice going nonstop. As she kicked her studded Sergio Rossi ballet flats off to the side and dropped her keys in the foyer's community key bowl, Sydney wondered what Keisha Duke was complaining about now.

“I'm tired of asking you, Altimus,” Keisha said pointedly.

“Okay, okay, Keish, relax! I just walked in the door. Can a brother please get a minute to breathe before you hit me over the head with your demands?” the twins' stepfather of fifteen years, Altimus Duke, responded wearily.

Tall, dark, and handsome, even when he was tired, Altimus still qualified as a dad most of her classmates wouldn't mind sitting across from at the dinner table every night. Not to mention, on paper Altimus was the modern-day American dream. After hustling his way out of the West End, one of the roughest hoods in Atlanta, he'd continued on to own and operate the most successful chain of luxury car dealerships in the greater Atlanta area. Unfortunately, that was just the story on paper.

Sydney stood quietly outside the kitchen door and listened. “Babe, how long have you been saying you were going to do this? I want you to get on it now or I'm calling a professional to handle it,” Keisha threatened in a low voice. A professional? Sydney couldn't imagine what had her mother, who normally saved all her attitude for Sydney and Lauren, so worked up with Altimus. She leaned in closer to the door.

“Is that so,” Altimus countered unwaveringly as the ice cubes clinked in what Sydney assumed to be his one-a-day glass of Glenlivet and Drambuie on the rocks.

“Yes, yes, it is. Mark my words, Altimus, you've got two weeks.”

“I knew I should have cancelled that damn HGTV channel,” Altimus grumbled and pushed back his chair from the kitchen's center island. “Got me living with the black Martha Stewart up in here…”

“Trust, you're going to thank me a month from now when you're relaxing in our fully furnished basement,” Mrs. Duke replied confidently. “Now please pass me—”

At the mention of the basement, Sydney broke out in a cold sweat. She immediately headed back to the foyer and grabbed all her shopping bags. Grateful for the plush wall-to-wall carpeting to muffle the sound of her footsteps, Sydney sprinted up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her and
her bags. Hanging a hard left at the top, she headed halfway down the hall and directly into her sister's bedroom without a single breath.

Startled, Lauren dropped the brush she was using to wrap and pin her long auburn/black-streaked weave. “Damn, Syd, do you not know how to knock?” she snapped.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry,” she apologized nervously, dropping her bags and turning to close the door behind her. “Anyway, you are not going to believe this!”

“What?” Lauren asked as she finished tying on her headscarf and turned to look at her sister suspiciously. “Okay, you're scaring me with that face. What is going on? Why are you closing the door?”

“Mom is redoing the basement,” Sydney burst out.

“Okay…she's been saying that for years. So?” Lauren asked, clearly confused.

“Lauren, she's really serious about it this time. And just think! The pictures of Altimus with Dad from back in the day, the boxes, everything is in the basement!”

A look of confusion passed across Lauren's face. “Wait, I thought you stashed the photo album in your bathroom under the sink,” she asked.

“I did. But that's only one album. Can you imagine how much more evidence is down there? How are we going to prove that Altimus had something to do with setting Dice up if…”

Lauren's face involuntarily twisted at the sound of her biological father's name. For as long as both girls could remember, Keisha Duke had drilled into their heads that their biological father was worthless, had abandoned his family, and was not to be trusted. Always a daddy's girl, Sydney refused to believe her mother and even sought out a clandestine relationship with Dice on her own. Lauren, on the other hand, bought into the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Even when Sydney discovered old photos that showed Altimus and Dice used to be best friends (and probably business partners), she still had major trust issues.

“Okay, okay, forget Dice,” Sydney implored, noticing her sister's expression. “Think about Jermaine!” Sydney attempted to make the gravity of the situation more personal by reminding her shortsighted sister that her very own boy-friend was also being considered a suspect for the same unsolved crime. “We can't help Jermaine or Dice if all the boxes are destroyed.”

Lauren's eyes suddenly became as big as saucers at the sound of their parents walking down the hall. “Oh, my God, Syd, what if Mom notices that her old photo album is missing? You know she'll say something,” she whispered. “And then Altimus…he'll know.”

Put it this way: When Lauren cooked up this particular scheme in the middle of her 2:35
A.M.
Godiva-chocolate-covered-strawberry eating haze, it really did seem like a good idea. All she had to do was convince the masseuse, the manicurist, and the girl who gave her the custom brown-sugar-lime exfoliating facial to pretend she was in the room getting her spa treatments while she hightailed it on over to the West End to have a look-see for Jermaine. She needed to see him. She needed to make sure he was okay. And most important, she needed him to know that she loved him and had his back, no matter what Dice or Altimus or anybody else was up to, no matter what anyone else thought about it.

This, of course, was something Lauren had been trying
to tell Jermaine ever since he was arrested and named as a suspect in his own brother's murder, and everyone in the hood started making it known that Altimus Duke's finger-prints, not Jermaine's, were probably on the bloody metal rod the killer used to beat Rodney Watson so badly his mama had to have a closed-casket funeral. But Altimus and Keisha weren't making it easy for her to get that message to Jermaine. Though they'd ended the girls' joint punishment and finally stopped holding their cars and cells hostage, Lauren's parents still had the parental supervision programs installed on the Macs that alerted them every time an e-mail was sent to an unauthorized account, and the monthly cell bill was on lockdown, so her texting, e-mail, and phone calls were still limited to computer class, various phone messages made from the front office “emergency” phone, and borrowed cells from friends. Still, despite her desperate pleas for him to reach out, her clandestine calls went unanswered.

She'd expected more of the same when she IM'd Jermaine from a computer in the cheerleading field house just before the football game Friday night, but that didn't stop Lauren from sending him another message. “Why won't you talk to me?” she inquired. As usual, there was no answer, and she needed to get out to the field for the pregame stretch, so she left it alone. She thought for sure that she would faint, though, when Elizabeth Chiclana, a sophomore on the dance
squad, called Lauren back over to the computer. “Um, I think this is for you,” she sneered, pointing at the computer screen. It was an IM from Jermaine.

“I just need some space to figure things out,” the message said simply.

Lauren stared at the screen, mouth agape—temporarily forgetting that Elizabeth was not only watching her every move, but now had evidence of the message right there in front of her to tell the entire world, which was already more enthralled in the Duke family drama than they were the current season of
The Hills.
And Elizabeth was a nosy heiffa, too, so it wouldn't be but two seconds before she reported Jermaine's IM to the entire Brookhaven junior class, or worse, posted it on YoungRichandTriflin.com.
Damn, what the hell was I thinking,
Lauren thought.
Damn, what the hell is he thinking,
Lauren thought some more.
I've got to see him face-to-face.

Which is how she ended up plotting out her harebrained scheme to get back to the West End—with her mother's help. She was going to talk her way into Keisha's spa appointment, then dip out and get back before Keisha realized she was gone. Keisha, who treated her standing first-Saturday six-hour appointment at Château Elan like it was a CIA stealth mission (details on what she was getting done were apparently top secret and known only at the highest levels), would
be none the wiser; she'd be too busy getting pampered to give a damn where her daughter was. Lauren had already worked through all the details, down to paying off the staff on the off chance that Keisha deigned to think about someone other than herself and actually, like, checked up on her daughter. Lauren went to sleep knowing that the hard part was going to be talking her mother into letting her crash her spa date.

Luckily for Lauren, her period was due in only a few days, which meant that her skin was a hot mess. First thing Saturday morning, Lauren swiped a little Vaseline over the offending pimples to make her face look like an oil slick, then hobbled into the kitchen rubbing her lower back, knowing full well that Keisha, dressed impeccably and sipping her coffee, would take immediate note of her skin and back issues. “Oh, you're already up,” Lauren said, feigning surprise and tossing in a yawn for good measure.

“My God, you look a wreck,” Keisha said, frowning between sips. “Did you fall into a jar of Crisco? And why are you walking like that?”

Lauren sucked her teeth and threw in an eye-roll for good measure to play up her displeasure with her mother's greeting. “Well, good morning to you, too,” she snarled.

“I'm just saying—” Keisha started.

“For your information, my back is a little stiff from dancing at the game,” Lauren said. She sat across from her mother
and moved only slightly to let Edwina place a cold glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in front of her. “It went into overtime, which meant we were dancing overtime.”

“Hmm,” Keisha said, eyeing the juice. “Well if you ask me, the last thing you need is that orange juice. “Unless, of course, you actually want more pimples and blackheads on your face. Yuck.”

Lauren rolled her eyes again but pushed the orange juice away.

“Well,” Keisha said sighing. “You know how sacred my spa appointment is. But it looks like today your back and face need a little bit more TLC than even mine do. Let me call over there and see what miracles they can work for you today.”

Lauren said a silent “yes” and danced a jig, if only in her mind. “Aw, Mom, I know how you like to hit the spa solo; I don't want to knock your hustle…”

“Oh, let's be clear. You won't be anywhere near me, little girl. Not after I slip into my robe, start sipping my green tea, and fall into the latest issue of
domino.
Trust, I don't want to see your face until I'm about to pull out of the parking lot.”

“I love you, too, Keish,” Lauren said, showing every last one of her pearly whites.

“Uh-huh. Now go shower and be quick about it. I can't stand rushing, and I don't want to be late,” Keisha said,
looking at her Philip Stein Teslar timepiece. “Edwina, hand me the phone. I need to have them put some folks on standby for this child.”

“Thanks, Mom—you rock,” Lauren said, standing up from her chair and hugging Keisha from behind.

Game on.

Marquette? Marquita? Marcia? No matter how many times the facial chick had squeezed Lauren's blackheads and buffed her skin to a high-gloss mahogany, Lauren still couldn't remember her name. Had no reason to, until now. Because the facial chick was intent on giving Lauren a hard time about her escape plans, unlike the masseuse, who happily shoved Lauren's fifty-dollar bill into her lab coat pocket and skipped the hell on for her unexpected but much-appreciated ninety-minute breakfast break.

“But I'm being paid to give you your signature facial,” Facial Chick insisted, putting her hands on her hips for emphasis. “That's what I do.”

“I know, I know, but come on now, every girl can use a break, right?” Lauren said, putting on her best syrupy smile.

“Uh-huh, right,” she said, running her fingers over the folded towels that stood sentry on the table next to the facial table. “I'm going to go ahead and let you disrobe and get comfortable, then I'll be right back in to service you.”

“Wait,” Lauren said, putting her hand on Facial Chick's shoulder. Immediately, she regretted it. Could have been the fact that homegirl looked at her hand like she was going to rip it off Lauren's limbs, could have been that Lauren had long ago assessed that she could not take Facial Chick on her best day, even hopped up on multivitamins and Red Bull. But whatever it was, Lauren knew she better get to some fast talking before this girl a) kicked her ass, b) blocked her chance to go find Jermaine, and c) told Keisha what she was up to. “Sorry, sorry—I don't mean to be inappropriate,” Lauren said. “I shouldn't have touched you. It's just that I really need to skip outta here. I mean, you're young, you know what it's like to be on lockdown and have your parents constantly blocking, right?”

“Go on,” Facial Chick said.

“Well, I really need to go see my boyfriend, but, well, put it this way: My parents think I need to find another man.”

“And I take it you don't agree, huh?”

“Right.”

“Well, personally, I happen to think your parents have a damn good point,” Facial Chick said, folding her arms.

Lauren didn't quite know what to say, which explained why her mouth was hanging open. Facial Chick was amused.

“Well, my fifty dollars says you try to see things my way,” Lauren said, recovering.

“Girl, please. Fifty dollars? Your mother will give me double that in tips after I finish fixing your face.”

“Okay, well then, take her hundred and my hundred, too, for doing nothing but keeping quiet about me leaving while my mother's getting worked on. If you've ever been in love, you'll understand why I need to do this, and outside the prying eyes of my parents.” And with that, Lauren reached into her robe, pulled out a crisp hundred-dollar bill, and let it hang in the pocket of space between the two of them. Facial Chick looked down at the hundred, and, after brief consideration, slowly pulled the money from between Lauren's fingertips.

“You got about five hours before your moms is finished,” Facial Chick said, snapping the hundred-dollar bill and holding it up to the light before tossing an evil eye at Lauren and stepping out of the room.

Lauren rolled her eyes at the door, smoothed her hair, and tipped on out of the swank room. She said a silent prayer that she'd have an easier time at her destination than she was having at the beginning of her journey.

It was a little after eleven when the train pulled into the West End Station, and already the sun was pounding down on the busy sidewalk, like it was late summer instead of November. Still, Lauren pulled her jacket just a little tighter around her
chest. Despite having been to the West End enough times to find her way comfortably from the station to Jermaine's house, the neighborhood still made her feel like it would swallow her whole before she made it to the corner. But she pushed forward anyway, eyes darting—partly in search of Jermaine, partly in search of trouble.

She found it—not him—at Pride, the fried-fish joint where she and Jermaine had gone the day Altimus caught Lauren hanging with her man. Except this time, it wasn't Altimus's sinister hand that caught her off-guard: It was Brandi's. Lauren jumped when the girl, Jermaine's ex, tapped her on the shoulder. “Well, didn't expect to see you here, slumming in the daylight. Usually, the Dukes do all their dirty in the dark,” Brandi sniffed.

Lauren felt her heart go into overdrive; she could practically taste the adrenaline in her throat. “Uh, Brandi, right?” Lauren stammered.

Brandi said nothing.

Lauren swallowed hard but made a quick decision to play it cool a) to keep Brandi from beating her ass and b) in hopes that the girl would have mercy on her and provide a clue as to where she might be able to find Jermaine, and quick. “How you been?” Lauren said, this time, a little more confidently. “Haven't seen you in a while.”

“Why would you see me?” Brandi snapped. “You ain't from ‘round here. As a matter of fact, you ain't got no business
‘round here now. What you want? Didn't your daddy make clear his little princess isn't supposed to be around these parts?”

“I came to see about Jermaine,” Lauren said as she willed her hands to stop shaking. They didn't.

“Came to see about Jermaine, huh? Well, from what I understand, he's doing just fine, so there's no need for you to worry your pretty little weaved head,” Brandi said, laughing. “He's being well cared for.”

Well cared for,
Lauren said to herself.
Just what the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Oh, really? And who's caring for him?” Lauren said, finding her voice and raising it a decibel or two to match Brandi's, a move that turned a few heads in the half-crowded restaurant.

“Like I said, that's really none of your concern now, is it?”

“You know what? It
is
my concern because Jermaine is my friend and I want to make sure my friend is okay.”

“It's because of you that your ‘friend' is lying low,” Brandi said, emphasizing the word “friend” with hand quotes. She leaned in so close Lauren could smell the Breathsaver on her tongue. “Some kinda friend if your actions do more harm than good.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Lauren said, squaring her shoulders and pushing her nose slightly into the air.

“Oh, yeah? You don't know what I'm talking about, huh?” Brandi said, this time loud enough to draw the attention of the entire room.

“Ain't that nothing? That boy's body ain't even warm in his grave yet, and the person responsible for putting him there don't even remember it happening,” Brandi said to her audience, a clear attempt to get them hyped.

“I…I didn't say I didn't remember Rodney,” Lauren stumbled. “I'm just saying I didn't really have anything to do—”

“Right, I know, I know—you ain't had nothing to do with it, right? Must be nice being able to go on back to Buckhead and pretend. Jermaine told me you were trying to be an actress; but funny, he didn't mention you were so good,” Brandi snapped, folding her arms. The murmurs of Brandi's audience started to get a little louder, the crowd started getting a little closer, and Lauren started to get a lot more nervous.

“Look, Brandi, I didn't come here to start anything with you—” Lauren said.

“Just being here in my neighborhood means you looking to start something,” Brandi snapped, her proclamation punctuated by “I know that's right” and “You betta tell it” from the audience, which was getting steadily closer. Brandi stepped up to Lauren and raised her hand with such quickness, Lauren thought she was going to hit her. But at the last
second, Brandi psyched her out and scratched her head instead. Brandi smirked; Lauren gulped.