Page 2 of Denying Davis
I glided through it ten minutes before curfew with a dizzy smile on my face, and the kind of bliss that only comes from a first kiss—a moment I’d waited on for months. Finally, I was getting somewhere with Davis Armstrong, III. Finally, we’d made the move from friendship to more.
Andfinally, my love life had started to resemble the pile of romance novels I kept stashed in a cardboard box on the second shelf of my closet. Whatever happened next was going to be amazing. I felt it in every muscle of my body.
“Hey Mom,” I said as I entered the apartment. I shut the door behind me then kept moving toward the front room that dominated our place. I still clutched the iPod Davis had given me that night, one that came loaded with theRentsoundtrack, something we both loved. “Tonight, was the best. The absolute best. I can’t tell you. I was with Davis, and you’re not going to believe this but…”
Two men I didn’t recognize flanked my mother.
One sat next to her on the couch, the other perched on the overstuffed chair we’d salvaged from a yard sale the previous year. They looked stricken and stone-faced. “Wait. Who are—?”
“Samantha, I’m glad you’re home.” Mom wiped her red nose with a wrinkled tissue. Her voice sounded hollow and lifeless. “Please, pull up a chair. These men want to talk to us.”
“Okay.” I dropped my purse near the alcove and followed her request. I dragged the wooden chair from around the kitchen table into the living room and took a seat. No one spoke for a long moment. My gaze settled on my mom. “So, what’s going on?”
“Well, these are”—Mom gave the man in the darker suit a helpless look as she threw up a hand—“I don’t really know how to introduce you all.”
“That’s fine. We will take it from here,” the man replied. He had a booming, baritone voice and a dark, scruffy beard. He fixed his attention on me. “I’m Gregory McCord, attorney-at-law. I represent the Armstrong family.”
“One of several who do,” the second man said, his voice only a little bit higher than Gregory’s. “I’m Robert Perez, and I also represent the family.” The two men glanced at each other. “We’re here to talk about the effect you and your mother might have on the family, and how we can, perhaps, smooth things over.”
My stomach dropped, and I knew instantly what this was about. Things had been odd since a few days earlier, when my mom had come home late from work. She’d been crying; her mascara had run down her face in large streaks, and I spotted what looked like a large welt across the side of her face. But when I’d asked her what happened, she’d only told me that Davis Armstrong, Jr. had been drinking again, and he hadn’t known what he was doing.
She’d also begged me not to tell his son anything. So, I hadn’t.
“Is this about the other night?” I whispered. I looked at my mother for confirmation. She stared at the ragged blue carpet.
“Whatever the two of you think you might know happened that night, I assure you, Mr. Armstrong is terribly sorry for his actions,” said Mr. McCord. “And the family appreciates your discretion so far.”
So far? What?
“Thanks,” my mother choked.
Something heavy hung in the air.
“Ms. Green, he’s willing to offer you a formal written apology if this conversation goes as well as he expects. That’s in addition of the previous offer, the one we were just discussing.”
“In fact, when we looked over the terms, we believe it’s very generous,” added Mr. Perez.
“Terms?” I asked. “What do you mean?” I’d never heard people speak like this, as if they had an agenda they wanted to lord over my mom and me. I searched their faces for clues about where this all might be headed.
I didn’t get much.
“Terms, meaning conditions. We’ll get to that in a moment.” Gregory McCord still spoke in a flat, clinical tone, and I wondered if he had said these kinds of words many times. “As I said, Ms. Green, Mr. Armstrong can be careless, and he makes mistakes.”
Mom scoffed. “I’d hardly call what he did that night a mistake. He knew full well what he was doing. He’d done it with others—”
Mr. McCord waved away her statement. “Whatever it was, he knows the incident has given you and your daughter some…ahem…leverageagainst him. He’d like to release the pressure.”
My mom’s face went blank, expressionless. In fact, she’d mostly been that way since that night. My mother, the strongest woman I knew, had cried for hours on the kitchen floor when she came home. I shifted in the chair as I remembered how powerless I’d felt. Over and over, she’d mumbled how she needed to keep her job no matter what, but she’d done nothing wrong. The look of abject despair and her cries were unlike anything I’d ever seen.
She blamed herself.
“I’ve worked for the Armstrongs for almost fifteen years.” My mom cleared her throat. “I’m a loyal employee. For the last five, I’ve overseen their household cleaning staff. I’ve never done anything to make them think I’m not devoted to my job. And I’ve certainly never collected anyleverageagainst Junior or anyone else.”
Mr. Perez picked up a file off the coffee table, one I hadn’t noticed before. He took a pair of glasses from his pocket, put them on his large nose, opened the folio, and studied the contents. “Yes, I see here you’ve had nothing but glowing reviews and recommendations from the other staff members.” He looked up from the paperwork. “That’s certainly something we can take into account.”
Mr. McCord reached for the folder then examined the pages. “Let’s get to the point. Ms. Green, the Armstrongs are prepared to offer a one-time payout of one hundred thousand dollars, along with two years of supplemental payments of twenty-five thousand, for a total of one hundred fifty thousand dollars.” He paused. “Quite a generous offer, don’t you agree?”
My throat went dry. One hundred fifty thousand dollars.One hundred fifty. Why would they offer her so much money?
