Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

honor, and finally a little sunshine to lift her spirits. Tigress was a business magazine that helped women scale their businesses and featured articles, tools, and advice on leadership and how to unleash their inner tigress.

“I have an idea,” Alicia said, bobbing up and down with excitement. “I’m throwing you a party at the country club. You deserve to be celebrated, so we’ll make it a fun night. We can invite your staff and clients, so just send me a list with their contact info and I’ll do the rest.”

“Can we invite our friends, too, so they can learn from a female entrepreneur who’s crushing it?” Marston asked.

“That’s a great idea, kiddo,” Eliot said.

Excited chatter took over the table as they discussed plans for the party. It would be next week, to coincide with the magazine release, and there was so much to plan, so much to do…

A thunderous clap split the air, followed by another and another, slowly building to a crescendo that brought the chatter to a slow halt.

Maxim was standing and applauding his mother. But by the look on his face, it wasn’t a compliment.

“Congratulations, Mom. You did it again. Made a fun family gathering all about you. You can’t stand not being the center of attention for five whole seconds. It must be so exhausting.”

Eliot cringed. The girls’ eyes popped wide. Richard stared down at his plate. A fake smile froze on Kat’s lips like someone on Botox overload.

Alicia’s heart rate kicked up several notches. She had suggested this dinner. Now, it was a bust. Things were way past bad.

“Aren’t you excited at your mother’s wonderful news, Maxim?” Eliot said, turning to the teenager, now seated again. “She works hard, and she’s receiving some well-deserved recognition. We’re all proud of her.”

“Maybe she should put some of that effort into being a better mother.” His lips curled in disgust.

Alicia observed Eliot glaring at Richard as if to say, “Do something.”

But Richard pretended that he hadn’t seen the stink-eye directed at him and ignored Eliot’s non-verbal cue.

Kat let out a joyless chuckle. “Maxim believes in honesty. He holds nothing back.”

“You should try it sometime, Mom,” he said. “But I won’t hold my breath.”

“Maxim, we’re all friends here. We care about you,” Eliot said. “Where is all this anger coming from? Is there something wrong?”

Maxim grunted and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.

“Don’t do that at the dinner table,” Kat said. “It’s rude. Take off the hood.”

With defiance radiating off him like an energy field, Maxim did the opposite and pulled on the strings of the hoodie, further covering more of his face.

Silence pervaded across the table. The dinner was over. Eliot suggested that Richard take Maxim home. He didn’t object. Marston and Lily maintained their incredulous looks and eventually retreated to their rooms. Alicia told Eliot she would hang with Kat for a while and then escorted her out onto the patio.

The evening air was still warm as they sat together. Alicia watched her best friend struggling not to fall apart.

Kat was quiet. She rubbed her eyes, then slumped into the enveloping comfort of the sofa. Kat rarely brought down her walls, but it was clear that Maxim’s words had cut her.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?” Alicia asked gently. “I thought you were exaggerating when you told me he hates you.” She thought it best not to reveal what Rina had said about Maxim acting out at school, as well. No point in kicking Kat while she was down.

“I don’t know what to do,” Kat choked out. “He gets more rebellious every day. I’m avoiding my own kid now.”

Alicia moved to sit closer to her friend and placed her arms around her. “We’ll figure it out. We won’t let you go through this alone. Maxim loves you. We just need to get to the root of his anger, find out what’s really troubling him. It can’t just be about you working all the time.”

Kat wept into Alicia’s shoulder. In loud, straining breaths, the entire story poured out.

“I missed several baseball games at the beginning of the season. I had meetings with a major high-tech client, and it came down to KTM Creative and another agency. They were leaning our way, but they needed a nudge.”

Despite having never been in the same situation, Alicia could understand the difficulty of making the decision of doing whatever it took to land a lucrative client, even though it would cause chaos at home. Her friend was truly caught between a rock and a hard place.

“We won the account,” Kat continued. “That’s when my relationship with Maxim torpedoed. New clients, with the kind of money they threw at us, came with excessive demands and aggressive timelines to deliver the campaigns. Things spiraled from there. I had more missed games, events, dinners, breakfasts even.”

“Where was Richard? What was he doing? Surely, he noticed Maxim had a problem with your absence?”

Kat lifted her head from Alicia’s shoulders, wiped her tear-stained cheeks, and tucked the loose tendrils of hair behind her ears.

“We’re not in a good place. I’m sure you noticed tonight.”

A dog howled in the distance. The night air had cooled as they sat outside. Alicia lit the firepit to keep them warm. This might be a long night. “We need more wine,” she declared. She headed inside and returned with two glasses and a bottle of merlot, then poured them each a glass.

Flopping down next to Kat again and handing her a generously filled glass, Alicia said, “Yes, Richard did seem disinterested tonight. It surprised me when he showed no excitement about your news and did nothing to reel in Maxim when he mouthed off to you. It’s as if he’s checked out.”

“Always so polite, Alicia. You can say it. He’s lost interest in me, in our marriage.”

“Oh Kat, Richard adored you—”

“Adored. As in past tense.”

Both women fell into contemplative silence as they sipped their wine. Kat inhaled hers and was soon two glasses ahead of Alicia