The Things Everson Lost

by Tina Martin

  “And family don’t take each other’s troubles and make them jokes like this clown has been doing all night,” Everson said, face still red with anger as he glared at Rexford.

  “Don’t take your problems out on me, Everson,” Rexford said. “If you didn’t want anyone to know what was going on, then maybe you should’ve kept your mouth shut.”

  “How about I shut your mouth?” Everson said, trying to maneuver his way out of Barringer’s and Colton’s tight holds to reach Rexford again.

  “You know what...just go, Rex,” Barringer said. “Leave.”

  “Gladly,” Rexford said. When Bryson and Garrison released him, he added, “Do me a favor...leave me out of these soap opera card games from now on.” Then he was out the door.

  “Gee, Everson. I know you’re under pressure and all, but you can’t be attacking the fam, man,” Colton said.

  “Yeah,” Everson said, still heated. “I see I’m going to have to deal with this on my own since y’all think it’s a joke.”

  “Y’all?” Bryson frowned. “I don’t see nobody laughing, Everson.”

  “Well, whatever. Screw it. I’m out.” He beelined it to the door.

  “Wait a minute, Everson,” Barringer said.

  Everson ignored him and continued until he reached the doorknob, snatched the door open and slammed it after he exited.

  “Just let him go,” Bryson said. “He probably needs to be alone with his thoughts right now so he can get himself together. God knows he’s going to need all the help he can get when June finds out about this.”

  “That’s for sure,” Garrison said.

  Chapter 14

  “We were all sitting around like this for Vivienne’s party, remember?” Candice asked, sitting on the couch with a plate of meatballs, cheese and crackers.

  “Yes,” Calista said, thinking fondly about her.

  “It still hurts…feels like a bad dream,” Candice said, reflecting on how Vivienne’s death rocked the Blackstone Family. She’d died giving birth to her son, Garrison, Jr.

  “Yeah, but when you look at Junior, it makes it a little easier to bear,” Kalina said watching as Calista held Junior in her lap.

  The little boy loved Calista as much as she loved him. Before she died, Vivienne had asked Calista to be Junior’s caretaker to which Calista happily accepted. She saw it as an honor and took the responsibility seriously. Vivienne knew Calista always wanted a child of her own but for some reason or another, she and Barringer never had one. Now, though, she was expecting, and it made her care and concern for Junior that much deeper.

  “Come here you little, wiggly worm,” Candice said, taking Junior from Calista’s lap. He’d just finished a bottle and was in no way showing signs of sleepiness. He was alert and playful – making sounds and grabbing at Candice’s mouth. “I can’t get over how much he looks like Gary,” Candice said. “But he has his mama’s eyes, though.”

  “Yes, he does,” Kalina said. “I wonder how Gary’s doing? I know he’s gone back to work and everything but losing someone you love, your mate, is hard.”

  “Gary’s strong,” Calista said. “He’ll pull through.”

  “I’m sure he has his good days and bad ones, though,” Candice said. “But, he comes to work every day and makes the most of it, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Calista added. ‘‘That’s why we need to be there for him and not by doing anything major. It’s the simple things that count the most. Like, if you cook a meal, make him a plate or offer to drop off his dry cleaning. If you’re shopping for tissue, paper towels and stuff like that, buy some extras for him. Do things that Vivienne would do if she was still here.”

  Candice nodded.

  “Since you brought up the subject of dry cleaning,” June chimed in to say, “I found something interesting when I dropped off Everson’s dry cleaning.”

  “What’s that?” Candice asked. “A stack full of hundred-dollar bills. As much as he works, I’m going to have to hit him up for a loan.” She giggled.

  “No, it wasn’t money,” June said, not the least bit amused. “More like a receipt to a hotel.”

  Kalina’s stomach knotted when she glanced over at Calista.

  “So, what?” Candice asked. “I’m sure you find all kinds of receipts in his pockets. He was in Atlanta last weekend. He had to stay somewhere.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” June said with her jaw clenched. “But when the company you’re working for is in Atlanta, and you told your wife you were in Atlanta, why does the wife find a receipt for a hotel in Myrtle Beach?”

  Candice frowned. “Huh?”

  Calista shook her head.

  “I think Everson is cheating on me. On me…not to say I’m just the bomb and no man can cheat on me…not what I’m saying at all. I’ve been cheated on before which is why I steered clear of men like Everson. I knew he was a player when we married. But he said he changed. He did change. For me. Now, he’s different. Always on the phone. Taking calls in his car while it’s parked in the garage. I know something is going on. Now, I have proof.”

  “Hardly,” Candice said frowning. “Maybe you got the cities mixed up.”

  “No, I’m not deaf or stupid, Candy. I know what he said. Seaton Data is the company he was working for. Seaton Data, in Atlanta. He told me he was in Atlanta. So why was he in Myrtle Beach? And before you ask, no, there is no Seaton Data in Myrtle Beach. In fact, there isn’t a Seaton Data in all of South Carolina.”

  June scooted to the edge of the couch cushion and rubbed her hands down her face.

  Calista looked at Kalina and mouthed, “I’m going to tell her.”

  Kalina shook her head, trying to stop her. She’d warned Calista not to say anything before. Barringer and even told her not to mention anything to June about seeing Everson with another woman. But this was the last straw. She had to say something.

  “June,” Calista began. “I didn’t want to say anything before and I probably shouldn’t now, but you know me and Barry were at Myrtle Beach this past weekend, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well…um,” Calista fumbled with her thumbs.

  “What, Cali?” June asked.

  “I saw Everson at a restaurant and he wasn’t alone. He was with a woman.”

  June’s heart nearly stopped beating. Then, just as quickly, the opposite reaction occurred. Her heart rate quickened to the point that she felt like she was having palpitations. “What did you say?”

  “I said, he was with a woman.”

  Denial kicked in when June said, “B-but maybe she was a client. Right? Couldn’t she have been a client?” June stood, holding the armrest to catch her balance after feeling woozy.

  “Whoa,” Kalina said, jumping up from her seat to go stand next to her, grasping her arm.

  June steadied herself. It’s a crazy phenomenon how the mind of a woman works. It’s one thing for a woman to suspect that her man is cheating. It’s a whole other ballgame when another woman – a family member, someone you trust – furnishes the missing proof that makes the suspicion no longer suspicious. Makes it real.

  “You saw Everson with a woman?” June asked, just to make sure she heard Calista right.

  “Yes.”

  “At the beach?” June probed further, crossing her arms now, no longer needing Kalina’s assistance to stand. She was standing up just fine. The dizzy spell was gone.

  Calista nodded feeling downright awful for telling June this. But what was she supposed to do? Pretend she didn’t know anything?

  “What were they doing?” June asked.

  “They were eating and talking like old friends.”

  “See…old friends,” Candice said. “I wouldn’t read much into it, June.”

  “How am I not supposed to think nothing of it, Candy, when he lied about where he was going? If it was innocent, why would he have to lie about it?” June asked.

  Candice didn’t have answers for those questions.

  “And there’s
something else,” Calista said.

  Kalina’s face went slack as she sat on the armrest of the sofa.

  June glanced over at Kalina, then returned her attention to Calista. “There’s more?”

  “Um, yeah…he kissed her. It was a kiss on the cheek, but—”

  “Stop. Just stop,” June said massaging her temples.

  “June, I—”

  “Stop,” June said cutting Calista off and fighting back tears that only made the pressure intensify and throb at her temples, causing her pulse to beat louder than drums in her ears.

  “So, you’ve known about this for a week, and you’re just now telling me?”

  Calista froze, instantly remembering what Kalina had said – how June would probably be angry for being told that there was a possibility Everson was cheating. But she was in the midst of it now. There was no backtracking.

  “I wanted to tell you June, but I didn’t want to cause problems between you and Everson,” Calista said truthfully.

  “So, instead, you tell who? Did you know about this, Candy?”

  “No. This is my first time hearing it. I’m in shock right now.”

  “What about you, Kalina? You don’t seem too shocked.”

  “I don’t want to get into it, June.”

  “Why not?” June asked tearing up. “Because I came to you, told you I thought something was going on with Everson and—” June sniffled. “You told me I had nothing to worry about…that nothing was wrong and the whole time, you knew about this? I came to your office, as your friend and confided in you about my suspicions – showed you the Myrtle Beach hotel receipt and you knew about this all along, Kalina?”

  “Calista told me in confidence, June. I didn’t want to betray her trust, go behind her back and tell you what she had just told me. What kind of person would that make me?”

  “It makes you a loyal friend. To her.” June grabbed her purse and quickly headed for the door, blurred vision and all. Getting in her car, she threw her purse over to the passenger seat so carelessly that items – lipstick, a pen, mascara and a pack of gum spilled out. She was too focused to pick the items up. She wanted to get home as fast as she could. Everson had some explaining to do – but somehow, she knew his explanations wouldn’t be enough.

  Chapter 15

  Everson sat on a barstool in the kitchen, his knuckles red from decking Rexford. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. He couldn’t even sit up straight because he knew what he had to do – he had to tell June what was going on – and he knew what the consequences would be. Too bad he wouldn’t have more time to come up with a viable way to approach her being that she had apparently left girl’s night early. He heard the moment the garage door raised and closed. And why had she left early? Had she found out something from the women? Maybe Calista, since she, along with Barringer, had caught him in the act of having dinner with Eliana?

  He held his head, listening as her soft steps got closer and closer.

  And closer.

  “June, I need to talk to you,” he said without even looking up. He was too ashamed to look up. He just wanted to say what he had to say and get it over with. “Can you have a seat?”

  “No. I prefer to stand,” she said, her purse still hanging from her shoulder.

  Everson glanced up at her. Her arms were crossed. He could already see sadness in her eyes. She definitely knew something. He was sure of it.

  “Um…” He pulled in a sharp breath. It didn’t matter what she already knew. He knew it was his responsibility to tell her what he did. “I don’t know how to tell you this, June, so I’m just going to say it. I lied to you. I wasn’t in Atlanta last weekend, and somehow, I get the feeling you already know that.”

  “Don’t worry about what you think I know,” she said with a hard edge to her voice. “If you weren’t in Atlanta like you told me you would be, tell me where you were.”

  He looked at her, glanced away, then looked at her again. He had to be a man about this. “I was in Myrtle Beach. I—”

  “Why were you in Myrtle Beach?”

  Her tone was getting sharper and he hadn’t even told her the worst part yet. With a strained voice, he said out of frustration, “This can go a lot faster if you would stop asking questions and just allow me to tell you.”

  June face distorted. “So, let me get this straight. You lie to me and I can’t ask you any questions?”

  “That’s not what I said, June.”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “What I was trying to say was, let me just get this off of my chest. I’ll probably answer most of your questions if you would let me talk.”

  A nerve in her eye jumped. “Okay. Talk, but I’m asking all the questions I want to ask whenever I want to ask them. You’re the liar! You don’t get to say how this is going to go.”

  He dropped his head, staring down at the granite island top. “I went to Myrtle Beach this weekend because someone asked me to come. A woman I used to know. Her name is Eliana, and we used to date in high school. She works for Seaton Data, the company in Atlanta that hired me for two weeks. We reconnected after not seeing each other since high school and we worked together for those two weeks that I was at Seaton.”

  “There was no one else at Seaton you could’ve worked with. It had to be her?”

  “That’s who the CEO assigned on their end.”

  “Did you ask if you could work with someone else, seeing that you and this Eliana person have a history?”

  “No.”

  “Was that because you didn’t want to? Because you wanted to work with her and reminisce about the good ol’ times?”

  “Let me finish, June.”

  “Answer my question.”

  He sighed heavily and then said, “She’s who the CEO assigned to work on the project so I worked with her. When the project was over, she asked me to meet with her. She wanted to see me again…wanted us to get reacquainted. As friends. So, I agreed to meet with her.”

  “So, you gave this hoe your number?”

  He frowned. He didn’t know the word hoe was in June’s vocabulary. “Yes. I had to work with her. She had to have my number, anyway.”

  “No, you didn’t have to work with her. You made the choice to work with her, just like you made the choice to meet the hoe on the beach!”

  “Will you stop calling her a hoe?” Everson said.

  June’s eyebrows darted upward. “Oh, now you’re defending the hoe?”

  “No, I’m not defending her. I just don’t understand why you’re calling her a hoe. You don’t usually talk like that.”

  “Oh, I don’t usually talk like that,” June repeated, laughing awkwardly afterward. She was so pissed, she resorted to out-of-place giggles. It was either that or grab one of those butcher knives on the counter next to the electric can opener. “You’re going to see a whole new June before this conversation is over. That I can promise you.”

  He shook his head. “See, this is why I wanted you to just let me get it out.”

  If she crossed her arms any tighter, she’d form a knot. “Okay. Get it out.”

  “I don’t even remember where I left off.”

  “I do. You agreed to meet the hoe on the beach. Start from there.”

  There was nothing he could say in his own defense so he continued on by confessing what happened. “I got there Friday. We stayed in separate rooms. We hung out together on the beach, we had dinner together and she admitted that she still had feelings for me.”

  “Aw, isn’t that sweet,” June said, her voice filled with anger and sarcasm. “And what about you for her? Did you make any confessions to her?”

  “No. I told her I love my wife.”

  June sneered. “That must’ve been awkward—telling another woman you love your wife while you’re having dinner with her. She probably laughed, huh? If not at you, at me for being your fool.”

  “She didn’t laugh, June.”

  “Then she should have because it’
s funny. You love me and you’re sneaking around on the beach with an ex-girlfriend, kissing her and taking her out to a fancy dinner.”

  “I didn’t kiss her.”

  “You did kiss her! Did you really think it wouldn’t get back to me, Everson?”

  Everson rubbed his temples. “I didn’t kiss her on the lips. I kissed her on the cheek.”

  “Oh…you only kissed her on the cheek…that makes it okay, huh? So that means, I can call up one of my exes and meet him at a restaurant for dinner, then leave kisses all over his face. You’d be cool with that, right?”

  Everson glared at her. Nah, he wouldn’t be cool with it. Not at all.

  “What else did you do, Everson? Huh? Did you walk along the shoreline holding hands? Talk about how much you missed each other? Did she tell you how she wished you two would’ve worked out? How different your lives would be now? Blow your head up and make you think you’re all that and two bags of chips? Had you forgetting that you have a wife back at home holding down the fort, cleaning the house, washing your clothes, waiting for you to return?” For the first time since this discussion-turned-argument began, June’s eyes teared, but she wouldn’t allow any tears to fall. “And I texted you. Was worried about you. I was genuinely concerned that you were stressed out like you said you were. Said the manager at Seaton needed you to do your work over and it was all lies. You were lying to me, your wife, so you could spend the weekend with another woman. How am I supposed to feel about that, Everson?”

  He looked up at her and turned away. He hated seeing her this way, knowing he was the cause for their current state of affairs. And he hadn’t told her the worst part of it all yet.

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  “No,” Everson answered quickly.

  Not believing him – because how could she believe him when he’d told her so many lies already – she asked, “You two stayed at the same hotel, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she come to your room?”

  “No.”

  “You to hers.”

  “Yes.”

  Tears dropped from her eyes. She tried to hold them in, but that admission pushed it over the edge. “And you expect me to believe you didn’t sleep with her?”