The One That Got Away (24 page)

S
erena stood face-to-face with her oldest daughter, applying Dawn's makeup with careful expertise. Stepping over to her bathroom sink and grabbing a mascara pencil, she broke the uneasy silence lingering between them. “It's not that I don't trust you, baby,” she said, reaching out for her daughter's chin again and steadying it between a thumb and forefinger. “It's just that your father and I both have to understand your side of what happened. Like I've told you, you're not to pay these fool reporters or Rowan lawyers any mind, but if I'm going to speak up on your behalf, I have to be able to explain what Mr. Gooden did to you.”

Mother and daughter were as close as lovers preparing to clinch, so much so that Dawn averted her eyes from Serena's patient gaze. “I've told you the whole story like five times, Mom.” Struggling against Serena's attempt to hold her chin still, her voice dropped to a near whisper. “What more do you want?”

Serena inhaled deeply, then released the breath as she applied the mascara. For ten days she'd performed this delicate dance. Every other day or so, she approached Dawn in a different way:
What exactly did he do? What did he say, again? Where did he touch you? Why do you think he did this? Why is he saying this is untrue?
With each probing question, each loving hug, she had offered her child an
unspoken opportunity.
If you made this up—for any reason, it doesn't matter—just tell me now. We can back off this more easily now than later.

Though her story of Tony's seduction wavered in its consistency—in the first version he'd wordlessly squeezed both breasts, in the second he'd laid a hand on one after describing exactly what he'd like to do to it—Dawn refused to bite. While insisting that she didn't want to relive it, didn't want Serena constantly hounding her, Dawn insisted that she'd told the gospel truth or at least the spirit of it. And when Serena saw the fragility, defensiveness, and wounded wariness in her baby's eyes, she knew that her preferred reaction—shaking some sense into the girl until an honest account fell from between her lips—would only make matters worse.

She was saving her firepower for Jamie. While she couldn't prove a thing yet, her interrogation of Fritz had rewarded her immediate skeptical reaction to Dawn's accusations. Jamie hadn't been stupid enough to tell his spiritual mentor any details, but Fritz had his suspicions. He'd stumbled upon Jamie and Dawn on three separate occasions in the week before the incident. Each time they'd been holed up somewhere in Fritz's house—once in the bedroom that had become Sydney's temporary home, twice in the half bathroom that adjoined Fritz's cramped kitchen.

“I saw nothing alarming,” Fritz had recalled when Serena confronted him at the mosque that day. “You understand? I had no sense there was anything improper going on, just a lot of talking and feverish discussion that they didn't want overheard.” When she insisted that this alone was odd—though Jamie loved his stepdaughter, he'd never been big on conversation with her—Fritz had nodded quickly. “Exactly. I felt something odd was going on, but Sister Serena, I did not want to pry. Jamie was doing so well in processing your adultery, and if anything, I felt it showed growth that he was spending time with Dawn at all, given the rift between you two.”

The secret conferences were Ugly Revelation Number Two about Jamie in recent weeks, coming right behind Levi's news
about the apartment her husband had rented for Angelita and Andrea. Serena had already confronted him about that mess, and Jamie had been surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing, admitting he felt it was best to have his “other” family nearby so he could provide them with consistent emotional support. “You and the girls will always come first,” he'd insisted. “Assuming we can get Gooden the hell out of our lives, of course.”

The demands of life—work, motherhood, the lawsuit, crying herself to sleep after reading the latest news accounts of Tony's suspension from his job—had left Serena without the energy to take on another battle with Jamie. To the extent she held out any hope of rehabilitating her marriage, she knew that confronting her husband about Dawn's allegations would be a high-wire act. Make the wrong accusation, ask the wrong question, and any remaining trust between them might be erased forever.

These and other ugly realities inhabiting her, Serena bit her lower lip as she turned Dawn toward the bathroom mirror. “There,” she said, stepping back and sizing her daughter up. Fully dressed in her red-and-white silk dress and black heels, her face now perfectly made up, Dawn was sure to be one of the most striking girls at Rowan's Black History Month program. “Girl,” Serena said, beaming, “I only wish I could have been so fine in my day.”

Blushing, Dawn leaned in toward the mirror, admiring her mother's handiwork. “How long did it take you to get this good at makeup, Mom?”

“Oh, just a few years,” Serena replied. Taking a deep breath, she finally launched into her long-delayed plan, the one she'd hoped wouldn't be necessary. She informed her nearly sixteen-year-old daughter that she couldn't take driver's education until she turned seventeen.

 

Forty minutes had passed by the time they pulled into the school's parking lot, and Dawn still hadn't said a word since they'd left the house. Sitting in the passenger seat with arms crossed, she didn't budge as Serena climbed from the car.

Standing in front of her open driver's side door, Serena leaned down and aimed her words at Dawn. “You've been doing really well in school, honey. Let's not mess with that by being late for the concert. The choir's counting on you.”

Her arms still crossed, her eyes wet, Dawn glared at her mother, emotions on her sleeve. “How you gonna drop that crap on me right before this program, Mom?”

“Look, my timing may have been off, okay?” Serena's conscience knocked, setting off a momentary twitch in her right temple. “That's no excuse to show out, young lady. Now get out of the car!”

Dawn stormed ahead of Serena through the crowded parking lot, her deep-set frown holding as she nodded stubbornly at passing teachers and friends. Serena stayed close on her daughter's heels until they entered the school auditorium. A few rows from the back, Jamie and Sydney sat with their necks craned toward the main entrance, looks of relief flooding their faces.

Serena paused and stood there, just inside the entranceway, as she watched her daughter's predictable next move. Bustling forward, her gold necklace and diamond earrings flying, Dawn bobbed, weaved, and even elbowed her way to her stepfather's row. Even from where she was, Serena could tell from the tense look on Dawn's face and Jamie's narrowed eyes that it was not a particularly respectful exchange. In seconds Jamie had kissed Sydney's forehead, whispered something into her ear, then scooted out into the aisle and taken Dawn by the elbow. Pausing there, he caught Serena's eye and nodded briefly before turning and dragging Dawn in the opposite direction. By the time Serena reached Sydney's row, Jamie and Dawn had flitted out the exit door near the stage.

She told her baby daughter a quick, necessary lie—“Mommy has to use the bathroom, I'll be right back”—then continued down the aisle, following her husband and daughter's footsteps. Flitting out the exit door, Serena came to a sudden halt the minute she stepped into the hallway. Looking left and then right, she sought any sign of her family.

At the other end of the short hall, she saw a long arm fly into the air, its owner gesturing wildly but struggling to keep his voice down. “Get a hold of yourself, girl!”

Scooting down the hallway, her back to the wall, Serena shut her eyes, absorbing the conversation.

“You owe me, Poppa Jamie! The car you said you'd buy me, that won't do any good if I can't drive it! You gotta talk some sense into her. I'll be damned if I'm gonna wait a year to get my license! It's not enough that she ruined my relationship with Glenn, locking me up like I was some wide-eyed virgin.”

Serena could hear the impatient pleas in Jamie's tone. “Dawn, let's talk about this later, okay? Your program starts in a couple minutes—”

“I don't care about that! I mean, I don't mind singing in the choir and stuff, but come on, you know she's tripping about this driver's ed thing. And you owe me!”

“You may have misunderstood her,” Jamie said. “I'll handle it, though, okay?”

“You better.” Dawn paused as if taking a beat to check their surroundings, then lowered her voice so much that Serena struggled to follow her. “This ain't turning out like you said it would.”

Jamie groaned, then said, “I told you, baby, there's nothing to worry about. Right now everyone believes you, not Mr. Gooden. Why do you think the school suspended him without pay? Everyone believes you, Dawn.”

“Everyone,” Dawn sighed, “except Mom.”

Serena fought tears as Jamie responded. “What did she say?”

“Nothing direct, but I'm not stupid,” Dawn replied. “She knows something's not right.”

Wiping her eyes, Serena took the last few steps down the hallway—some of the longest she'd taken in years—and rounded the corner. Crossing her arms and letting new tears flow, she looked into her husband's wide eyes and said, “Oh, you're so right about that.”

“Oh, God. Mom.” A hand plastered across her mouth, Dawn froze in place.

Looking between his wife and stepdaughter, Jamie let several beats pass, his hands clenching into fists. “What are you going to do?” he asked, his eyes meeting Serena's accusing stare with the equivalent of a middle finger.

Serena hugged herself, then glanced at the floor. “Dawn, go join the choir members in the band room, now. You do that, maybe I'll forget my idea about postponing your driver's ed.”

After glancing quizzically between her parents, Dawn stepped out of her heels, grabbed them up, and took off down the hallway.

Serena looked at her husband, shaking her head. “So, after your spiritual rebirth, after the confessions we made to each other, you used our child to set Tony up?”

Jamie straightened his back, amplifying his height advantage over his wife. “I'm human, Serena, no church or mosque could change that. You may as well know, I'll never have it in me to forgive Gooden. First, he ruined what should have been the happiest day of our lives, crashing the wedding. Then he has the nerve, the
balls,
to bring his ass to Cincinnati and swoop in the minute you're feeling vulnerable?” He swept a hand forward, wiggling it dismissively. “No, there's not a real man alive who could let that go.” He curled his upper lip as he asked, “You'd have preferred it if I'd literally killed his ass, huh?”

Though she knew someone could happen upon them any minute, Serena didn't fight the urge to let her head fall into her hands. Cathartic tears washing her palms, her words burst forth in strong shudders. “Oh, Jamie. Oh, Jamie.”

He stepped toward Serena, a comforting hand extended, then retreated when his wife backed out of his reach. “This was the only way to get him out of our lives, Dee,” he said. “I know it looks bad, but I need you to stand by me on this. At this point, it wouldn't do any good to have Dawn recant. Think how it'll make her look. She might get suspended from Rowan. Expelled, even.”

A sense of acceptance welling up within, Serena crossed her arms again and looked at Jamie with drying eyes. “Dawn will be
all right, I'll see to that. She's a kid. Principal Jacobs, the school board, even the courts, they'll all understand.”

Jamie pressed a palm against the nearby wall, gathering himself as if he'd been knocked off balance. “So Dawn's welfare is all you're worried about,” he said, his eyes hardening. “Well, as your husband, don't forget this is about you, too. For me to take the fall for Dawn's accusations, Dee, you'll have to tell everyone
why
I wanted to ruin Gooden. And bear in mind, I'm not just talking about your colleagues and friends. I'm talking about your parents, about Dawn and Sydney.” His eyes probed hers. “The last thing you want is for them to relive some of the shit in your past, right? You think you'll help them avoid those same traps, admitting you cheated on me?”

Though Jamie's questions had turned her creeping confidence back into a quivering blob of fear, Serena set her jaw and turned away from her husband. On one level, she felt the same sensation she'd suffered the day she learned about Angelita and Andrea; it was as if she were again watching this action from a remote location, taking in a movie.

This time, though, Serena was determined to write her own script. Forcing herself to take one step after another back toward the auditorium, she raised her voice for Jamie's benefit. “The concert's starting.” When he shouted at her, insisting she answer his questions, she shrugged before turning back to face him.

“You really think so little of me,” she asked, “that I'd let my need to please my parents, to please my coworkers, scare me into giving you a pass on
this
? A few more days of these accusations, and you'd have had Dawn committing perjury.”

Jamie's Adam's apple constricted and he flexed his fingers. “It would have been worth it to get rid of Gooden, Dee.” He advanced on Serena, his arms crossed as if to control himself. “Don't throw your good name away for him.”