Four - Luncheon

I was forced to promise to get Joyce a job at The Dress Code. I sighed. How’d I even get that done? I couldn’t get anything done at the moment anyway, with grandma singing along to Anaconda by Nicki Minaj that was blasting from my car’s radio. She was bouncing up and down in an attempt to twerk. Her performance was horrible. I was driving to a fancy restaurant where she’d meet up with her date. Grandma had her license taken away from her a while back because of reckless driving. She still took the grandpa’s old Buick out on a ride when mum wasn’t home. I dropped her off at a restaurant that had a French name, I’m not good at French.

I got back to my apartment by a few minutes past ten. I was beat, from the shopping to the emotion cladded dinner. I parked in the parking lot, took the left over desert up the elevator with me. When I got to my apartment entrance, I saw a man seating at the foot of my door. My heart skipped a beat.

“It’s about damn time, lady. It’s felt like ages since I’ve been seating out here.” He stood up and grinned. He had a beautiful smile, he reminded me a lot about Nathaniel. “Hello, Claire.”

“Daniel.”

“You’re not an eyesore,” he said eyeing me up and down. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“I don’t let jackasses into my eyes, Mr. Green-eye.” I scoffed.

“You let my brother in though.”

“What. Do. You. Want?”

“I came to see the lady my brother proposed to.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “How much did he offer you? I know this relationship is a sham, Claire. Even more of a sham than your apartment.”  

I laughed. It was an offensive joke but it was a joke nonetheless so I threw my head back and laughed. He stared at me wide-eyed.

“Whatever it is happening between your brother and me is none of your business, Mr. Carter. I’ve had a long day so if you excuse me, I need to get some rest and get out of these shoes.”

“My grandfather threatened to disinherit him and now he’s

using

you to prevent that from happening. He just wants to run the Carter family business, Claire. He’s

using

you.”

I didn’t like the way he said the word, ‘using’. It pissed me off big time but I didn’t want him to know that so I just put my keys in and opened my apartment.

“Good night, Mr. Carter. It was nice seeing you.”

•••

“Claire! Come quick, please!” Grandma’s voice on the phone was high pitched and it threw me off balance so I fell off the bed.

“What the hell has happened? Rapture?”

“He’s dead.”

“Huh? Who’s dead?”

“Owen.”

“Who the fuck is Owen?”

“My date, Claire! He’s dead!”

“Oh.” Uh-oh. She sent me the address and I left my apartment. She was seating at the foot of the building when I got there. There wasn’t any traffic so it took me less than ten minutes to get there. The air was chilly but I could see beads of sweat on grandma’s forehead.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Things were about to get hot, I had put on my lingerie and I started stripping when I noticed he wasn’t breathing anymore. I think he had a heart attack. It’s a real shame considering I was beginning to think that he might be the one.”

I sighed and took a seat beside grandma. Could my life get any worse?

“I should probably mention this.” Grandma began. “He has a boner. Like a tent under the sheet I covered him with.”

“What?” I was astounded. “The dead man has a fucking boner?”

“I tried everything, it refused to go down.” I called my friend Stanley

Balowiski

who works in the police department. He came over and I reported the whole incident to him. The EMS truck came short after and they said they’d perform an autopsy on Owen. Grandma was to go to the police station later the next day for more questioning.

I woke up exhausted. The sun was out and of course, the day had started without me. It was past nine already which meant the devoted Catholics were already in church, my mother was in church. I rolled out of bed and into the bathroom. As always, I sat under the shower until I ran out of hot water. I dressed up in a thick sweater and jogger pants. I had ran out of clean clothes. So I packed my laundry up, had leftover pineapple upside-down cake for breakfast. It was almost twelve when I set out to my parents house. I checked up on my grandmother and my sister then I dropped off my laundry, grandma promised to help me with it. I munched on the coffee cake in the kitchen for a while before I left and returned to my apartment. On my way back, I got a phone call. I didn’t check the caller ID, I just picked it up while driving.

“Hello,” I said into the receiver.

“Miss Wordsworth,” the voice was calm and soothing. I almost moaned but I didn’t because it was my boss.

“I thought you said we’d call each other by our first names.”

“Hello, Claire.”

I laughed at his response.

“I’m calling to know if you’re ready. It’s almost two.”

“What? It’s not even one o’clock yet!” I yelled.

“It’s just a reminder.” With that he ended the call and I sped up.

I let my hair fall over my shoulders. I had my hair curled yesterday so it looked a lot less like a cat’s scratch post. I put on a dress I got before my credit card maxed out. It’s a mini floral corset dress with off shoulders. I put on mascara, eyeliner and little lip gloss. I was trying to decide on shoes to wear when I heard someone knock on my door. I opened the door and was face to face with the most beautiful man in the world, or in my world. If I had met Benedict Cumberbatch at least once, he could’ve been the most beautiful in my world.

He stared directly into my eyes like he could see my soul. I’m five foot six inches and he should be a little bit over six feet.

“Hello, Miss Claire. You look beautiful,” he said. I wanted to tiptoe and kiss him but that reminded me that I was barefooted.

“I’m not ready yet! Is it two already?” I was running around and flapping my hands in the air.

“You have time, go get ready.”

I put on a flat red shoe, pearl necklace and pearl earrings. I picked up a small purse that my phone could barely fit into.

I ran into the sitting room and saw Nathaniel sitting there and waiting patiently. I stood before him with my hands on my hips, I was panting. I really needed to get into shape. I was a lot taller than him now that I was standing and he was sitting. He put his hand around my waist and pulled me to him, I lost my balance and landed on him. He spoke against my lips.

“Would you let me kiss you?”

I didn’t know I was bobbing my head up and down until I saw his lips spread in a wide smile. I saw his teeth again and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“We’ll be late. You need to make a good first impression.”

I stepped down from his body and straightened my dress. I followed him out of my apartment and locked it behind me. When we got to the parking lot, he opened the door of his Porsche Cayenne and I slipped in. Such a tiny cute car. He was wearing a black button up shirt and black pants. His hair was still scattered and all over the place but somehow he managed to look even sexier. I don’t know if it’s because of the car or how he looked against the leather seats.

“If you keep staring at me like that, we’d never make it to the luncheon. I don’t know who’s going to be there but I know my family will be there. My grandfather is—”

“Jarrett Carter,” I said before he could. “Who doesn’t know? Speaking of your family, Daniel showed up at my doorstep last night.”

“Daniel?”

“Yeah, he went on and on about how we’re a sham and blah blah blah.”

“Daniel means no harm,” he said subtly.

“And your step mother?”

“Evelyn.” He

tsked. “She’s gonna be a little struggle but not for long.” Oh boy.

When we arrived for the luncheon, we were twenty minutes late and that’s because it took me so long to get ready. I almost never visit this part of the city, the rich side. Growing up, we weren’t poor, we were just an average family so I didn’t get to live in mansions as big as this or gated houses at all. The house was beautiful, they had a garden and a mini children’s park, a whole parking lot, it was astonishing. There were a lot of people there, it looked like a party. There were tables and chairs set up, lots of children and newly married wives. I always avoided this kind of gatherings since I turned twenty-five and considered overripe for marriage. I cleaned my sweaty palms on my dress and took a deep breath. For someone that used to work in the mall, I do hate crowds.

“You’ll be fine, just breathe,” Nathaniel whispered.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, like I wasn’t breathing before you said that.” He chuckled at my comeback.

“You two look so good together, don’t they, Evelyn?” A lady who looked like she has had more plastic surgery than all the Kardashians put together said. I recognized Evelyn, brown hair, light brown eyes and a body every woman dreams of. She looked a bit overdressed but of course I didn’t mention that.

“Hello,” I said with a little wave.

“Evelyn, this is Claire. Claire this is my step mother Evelyn,” Nathaniel introduced us. I went in for a handshake but the woman just looked me up and down and ignored my hand. I wore an awkward smile and turned to the other woman.

“This is Judith, Evelyn’s elder sister. Evelyn, this is Claire, my girlfriend.” I could feel my heart pounding at the word girlfriend. I wanted to shake her hand but she hugged me instead. She smelt like weed that was covered up with expensive cologne.

We followed both of them and there was a lot of introductions afterwards and lots of people whose name I don’t care to remember. Daniel was there, he came with his wife, Mariah. Jarrett Carter was at the grill cooking up burgers and barbecue. There were lots of children too and they all looked the same.

The tables were decorated and people were already chatting up and conversing. I was bored, I just wanted to go home, wear shorts and cartoon themed shirts and drink beer. We settled down on the same table as Judith, Evelyn, Daniel and Mariah. We went ahead to begin the small talk and jokes that weren’t funny but everyone still laughed at.

“So, are you pregnant?” Evelyn asked me out of the blue. Everyone at the table went silent and they all stared at me.