If Only You Knew (7 page)

“I've missed you,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

Lauren, who was holding her breath, exhaled and let out a tight little scream. “Jermaine? Is that you?” she asked excitedly. “Where are you?”

“Whoa, whoa, first things first,” he laughed. “How's that knee?”

“Knee? What the?…Boy! Where are you?” Lauren demanded. “And how did you get into my locker? And whose phone is this?”

Jermaine was quiet at first. “I wish I could be right there next to you, but it's just not safe right now.”

“So I hear,” Lauren said under her breath.

“Lauren, look, I'll give you more details later,” he continued, missing her comment completely. “But right now, I just want to make sure that you're straight. You good?”

“The best I've been in weeks.” Lauren sighed. “I've been so worried about you, wondering where you are, thinking you didn't want me anymore because you didn't answer my e-mails and phone calls, and your moms has made it clear she doesn't want me to call the house. Your cell phone is disconnected.”

“Yeah, I had to drop the number; it was hot. But I got a new phone, and a friends and family plan so that I could get one for you, too. Don't give the number out, okay? Think of it like our special hotline. I'll only call you, you only call me on this number, okay?

“Now look, ma, I gotta bounce, but I'm going to try to call you later on tonight, or maybe tomorrow. You should put the phone on vibrate so your pops don't know you got a phone—”

“But do you have to go? Are you around here? I can meet you—”

“No, babygirl, I already said it's not safe. Just know that we have a way to communicate now, all right? I'll hit you back.”

“But—”

“Lauren,” Jermaine said, cutting her off. “I love you. I'm going to see you soon.”

And with that, he was gone.

“No way,” Sydney squealed into her cell as she lay across her bed flipping through the November issue of
Vanity Fair
that arrived earlier that morning.

“I'm telling you,
chica,
” Rhea insisted on the other end of the line. “I was sitting in Spanish, trying to learn a little something, when everything went down! First, Dominique whispered to Elonda that a reliable source informed her that you guys were planning to ride up on white horses. Then Tristan—who you know can't stand the best bone in Dominique's little anorexic body—started getting loud about how bootleg Dominique's intel is and basically announced that you guys were already confirmed to arrive via hydroplane!”

“What in the world,” Sydney exclaimed, completely flabbergasted by all the growing drama swirling around the twins' impending Lake Lanier holiday soiree. Despite the fact that there had yet to be a formal announcement made, it had become the most highly anticipated event around the Thanksgiving holiday. With exactly eighteen days left ‘til the day Altimus and Keisha had designated for the girls to have their little blowout, Sydney was definitely feeling the pressure. “Okay, just so you know,
your
people are crazy!”

“Those are not my people,” Rhea corrected sarcastically. “And don't blame me ‘cause everyone thinks your party is about to be the location of the Second Coming of Christ.”

“Not the Second Coming of the Lord,” Sydney snorted as she gave up trying to concentrate on her dress hunt. Gently earmarking a Narcissco Rodriguez number, she closed the magazine. “First of all, it's really not about to be shit if Lauren and I don't get started on the planning,” Sydney sighed audibly as she flipped over on her back and picked at the coral polish on her toes.

“Uh, what do you mean, ‘get started,'” Rhea asked incredulously.

“Well, with everything going on, would you believe Lauren and I haven't even decided on the guest list? Or met with the planner? How crazy is that?”

“Wow,” Rhea replied. “And this whole time I thought you were withholding invites to hype up the drama à la
My Super Sweet Sixteen.
You know, kinda like, My Super Hot Holiday Party…”

Laughing, Sydney sat up on the bed. “I wish!”

“Regardless, even if it's the freaking day before, I've heard that Renaldo is such an awesome planner, he'll get it done right. I mean, he pulled off Shar Jackson's Ultimate Revenge party within hours of Britney and K-Fed's divorce,” Rhea assured. “So all I'm saying is, please just make sure I get my invite
and
the secret password. ‘Cause word on YRT is that the lake house is just a front and it's really jumping off in the secret bat cave!”

“Please stop,” Sydney smiled at the image of a secret sliding-rock entrance—all the better to keep certain folks, aka Dara and Marcus—the hell out.

“I'm just saying,” Rhea cajoled.

“Stop or I'm telling Carm and we're both putting your butt on time-out,” she threatened playfully as the sound of a bag bumping against the wall caught her attention.

“See how y'all be ganging up on me?” Rhea asked, feigning helplessness.

Standing up, Sydney headed over to her bedroom door. “Whatever,” Sydney replied as she noticed the light on in Lauren's room down the hallway. “Anyhoo, looks like Lauren
just got home. Let me go and try to figure out what she's trying to do.”

“I'll talk to you later,” Rhea promised, and hung up the phone.

Slipping into her favorite fuzzy slippers, Sydney padded softly down the hall. She hoped to catch Lauren before her Mariska Hargitay-obsessed ass got all engrossed in some TNT rerun of
Law & Order: SVU.

“Hey, you busy?” Sydney asked as she knocked gently on the door and peered around it. She spotted Lauren on her knees, halfway under the bed, talking a mile a minute.

“Argh, I freaking hate when I drop my things behind my bed! It is so damn dusty. I swear sometimes Edwina be slacking on her cleaning game…” She continued unaware of Sydney standing at the door watching her Citizens for Humanity-clad booty bob up and down.

“Hey, Lauren,” Sydney repeated, clearing her throat.

“Anyways, can I tell you how this whole boyfriend thing has me so crazy? I don't know if I'm coming or going. I swear, life was so much simpler before I gave a damn about anyone but my—”

“Lauren!” Sydney snapped.

The red-faced twin finally pulled her body out from under the bed and turned to face Sydney. “Um, Donald, lemme call you right back,” she continued as Sydney noticed
the silver house phone headset in her left ear. After a brief pause, she pushed the button and disconnected. “Why are you yelling?” she asked, slowly standing up.

“I've been standing here like a dummy trying to get your attention for the past five minutes,” Sydney exaggerated.

“Okay, you got it,” Lauren said, not bothering to refute the dummy description. It was obvious she was far from over Sydney's blowup at the gym.

“Listen,” Sydney sighed, pulling on her favorite Victoria's Secret pink boxers, “I wanted to let you know that our planning meeting with Renaldo is on Thursday evening at seven-thirty. Since Altimus is flying him in from Los Angeles just for the meeting, you would want to make yourself available.”

“I hear what you're saying, but honestly, I'm way too stressed to concentrate on a party right now. I mean, have you forgotten that my
man
is under investigation?” Lauren asked contemptuously.

“Lauren,” Sydney said, struggling to remain levelheaded. “Considering our
father
is locked up as a result of the same investigation, I doubt I could forget. How-some-ever, blowing off the party will send up too many red flags. If you don't show up to the meeting, Mom will know something is up.”

Lauren looked at Sydney like she was speaking a foreign language. “Fine, fine, fine, just let me think,” she grumbled, pacing across the messy room. With each step, the vein in
Sydney's temple pulsated faster and harder. Finally, she came to a stop and faced Sydney. “Okay, here it is—the invitations should have my picture on it, I'm wearing a gold Carmen Marc Valvo dress, so naturally everything should complement that, if push comes to shove I'll do without the red carpet entrance, but Goldfinger must DJ the party,” she said, ticking off her list of demands in a single breath. “You got all that? Think you can handle it from there?”

Before Sydney could close her gaping mouth, the phone started to ring. She clicked the earpiece. “Hello? Wait, what?” Lauren questioned the caller incredulously before throwing her head back in laughter. When she eventually pulled herself together, she turned to Sydney, mouthed the phrase “Please close the door on your way out,” and used the TV remote to turn on
Law & Order.

“What I'm envisioning is…snow. Lots and lots of snow! Maybe an igloo with a blizzard,” Renaldo announced dramatically after sitting with his eyes closed and his fingers on his temples for what felt like hours to Sydney.

“Snow?” she asked in disbelief. “Um, Renaldo, sweetie, we're in Georgia. Southerners don't do blizzards,” Sydney said as gently as possible considering all she wanted to do was slap some sense into his crazy artistic head. After two (torturous) hours, three glasses of wine (his), and countless ideas (horrible), the
über
-fabulous Renaldo and a very
frustrated Sydney were no closer to figuring out what the hell the theme of the twins' ultimate holiday bash was than Sydney was to forgiving Dara. Granted, it didn't help matters that Sydney's brain was still burning from her sister's diva moment the other afternoon. Every time Sydney looked at the list that Lauren had handed her this morning—comprised solely of people that she
didn't
want to see at the party—she completely lost her train of thought.

“Humph, that's a very good point,” he agreed, taking another long sip. Suddenly, Renaldo scrunched up his over-tanned face like he was on the verge of a major breakthrough or taking a huge dump. “I've got it!”

“Is that so?” Sydney said as she turned to accept a plate of sliced fruit from Edwina and gave her a subtle signal not to serve Renaldo another drop of wine.

“Holiday in HOT-lanta,” he exclaimed, looking at her expectantly.

“I'm sorry?” Sydney asked as she looked down at her lime-green Chanel cuff.

“Get it? Hot. Red and gold everywhere, all guests required to wear red or gold!” he exclaimed, jumping to his wobbly feet. “Oh, yes, yes, yes. I can see it now! A red carpet entrance, gold candles everywhere, red signature drinks, and of course big black men covered in gold spray…”

Sydney almost choked on her bite of pineapple. “Excuse me?” she coughed.

Renaldo laughed at the horrified expression on her face. “Oh, I'm just teasing you, dah-ling,” he said with a dismissive wave.

“Uh, okay,” Sydney said, allowing a smile to cross her face as she imagined what Altimus would do to the effeminate little white man if he even thought there would be naked black men at his daughters' party.

“But seriously, what do you think? If you like, I can definitely work it out, no worries,” he assured confidently as he finally stopped sipping and started scribbling in his notebook.

After giving it some thought, Sydney shook her head affirmatively. “You know, Renaldo, I believe I can see the vision…Wait! What about the invitations? We're only two weeks away and the invitations haven't gone out yet.”

“Oh, I know,” Renaldo clapped his hands gleefully. “You and your sister can tape a video invite! I actually had Ray J do one for the release of his duet album with Lil' Kim and it was too many things!”

“You know, to be honest, I'm not so sold on anything Lil' Kim is doing these days,” she replied, trying to be as diplomatic as possible. “Not to mention, good luck trying to get Lauren and I together to make that. We might do better with something more realistic like singing invitations from the last round of
American Idol
castoffs,” Sydney joked bitterly as her cell phone vibrated. Looking down, she read the new text message: Come thru, u've got mail. Aunt L.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the car service pulled up to the Duke house to take Renaldo and his promises of “the best holiday party Atlanta has ever seen” back to Los Angeles on the first thing smoking. And Sydney, under the guise of a crucial last-minute school assignment, was on her way across town to her Aunt Lorraine's house.

Even though she was sure no one under the sun besides Aunt Lorraine knew where she was headed, Sydney's heartbeat raced as she pulled her car onto I-85. “We been too strong for too long, and I can't be without you bay-bay,” she sang along with Mary J, pressing the accelerator well beyond the 65 mph speed limit. It'd been a little over a month since Dice's arrest and subsequent re-incarceration. Since then, aside from the occasional update from Aunt Lorraine, Sydney hadn't heard anything from her father.

As Sydney finally pulled her car up to the dilapidated little house's driveway, she could barely breathe. “Calm down, Sydney, calm down,” she muttered, pulling down the visor to do a quick check on her windblown tresses. Screwing up her face, she made a mental note to schedule an appointment for a blowout first thing in the morning. Now that she no longer had Marcus's controlling ass breathing down her neck about keeping it natural, she was looking forward to trying out some new hairstyles.

Just as she was about to open the car door, her phone vibrated again. “Oh, shoot,” she muttered, praying that it wasn't Keisha calling her on her bluff and demanding she come home right now. She made a quick sign of the cross and clicked the pink Bluetooth she still had in her ear.

“Hello,” she answered hesitantly.

“Hey, Syd, what's up,” a friendly voice with just enough bass to be neither Keisha nor Altimus responded. Sydney's whole body relaxed in relief.

“I'm good thanks…Um, who am I speaking with?” she asked

“You can relax, it's Jason,” he laughed as she exhaled a loud sigh of relief. “Dang, your caller ID on the fritz or have you erased my number already?”

“Whatever,” Sydney retorted as a smile spread across her face. “My phone is at the bottom of my bag so I answered the earpiece without looking at the caller ID.” Although they'd traded a couple of brief text messages since the game, for the most part the two had played phone tag, making this their first real conversation.

“So what's up with you? Where you at? You sound like I caught you in the middle of something,” Jason asked innocently.

“I-um-I'm-” Sydney started to stutter as she looked around at her surroundings. Realizing there was no way she
could tell the truth, she struggled to come up with something believable that wouldn't lead to more questions. “I actually just came out to my car to grab a notebook,” she finally responded.

“Oh, okay, true. So you're still studying, huh?”

“Um, yeah, I'm still studying,” Sydney replied, noticing movement behind the drapes in her aunt's living room window. She knew she needed to get off the phone before Aunt Lorraine came outside and called her out. “So what's up,” she asked, getting to the point.

Seeming a little thrown off by her straightforward attitude, Jason began slowly. “Well, you know, I told you that I would give you a call after the game…”

“Mmm-hmm, you sure did,” she said, trying to encourage him to get to the point.

“Although, I wasn't sure if you were going to wanna speak to me after what happened at the game with your sister and all,” he joked nervously. “I damn near knocked her out.”

“Oh, no, I should probably be thanking you,” Sydney insisted, realizing that he was probably taking her tone the wrong way. “I can't even count how many times I've wished someone would lay Lauren's smart butt out,” Sydney said, throwing in a cute giggle.