For a while, Charlotte had thought Agnes would never leave. She’d long finished cleaning the house and had even prepared a nice salmon dinner for them to eat this evening, but she’d then hung around talking to Charlotte for more than an hour. Charlotte loved Agnes, but today, she’d wanted her to leave on time so she could go upstairs, pull her vodka out of the closet, and drink it in peace—which was exactly what she was doing now. But then her phone rang, and she hoped it wasn’t the school calling. It rang again, so she took another swig of vodka, finally picked up her phone, and saw that it was Sonya Miller. She had a mind not to answer it, but as it was, she still hadn’t spoken to Sonya about the church’s twentieth anniversary. Worse, the day Charlotte’s dad had gone into cardiac arrest, she’d told Sonya to call her on that upcoming Tuesday, but because Joe had been in the hospital, she hadn’t been able to talk to her. That had been more than three weeks ago, and in all honesty, Charlotte hadn’t thought any more about it. Although, come to think of it, Sonya and a few other women at the church had left her messages, checking to see how she was doing. But what they’d actually wanted to know was why she hadn’t been to church. So she hadn’t bothered returning any of their calls.
Charlotte set her bottle of vodka down and pressed the Send button on her cell phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, Sister Black. How are you?”
“I’m good. What about you?”
“I’m doing well, and how is your dad coming along?”
“He’s doing great. He’s recovering very quickly.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.”
“Thank you.”
“We’ve missed seeing you at church.”
“I know. But with my father being ill, I’ve spent quite a bit of time over in Chicago. And you know Curtis’s sister is very ill, too.”
“Yes, we’ve all been praying for her.”
“We really appreciate that.”
“Well, the other reason I’m calling is to see if we can talk more about our women’s ministry and the church’s anniversary next year.”
Charlotte didn’t want to have this conversation, but she also didn’t want to be rude to Sonya. “I liked the four ideas you told me about last month.”
“Okay, well, I’ll start putting together a meeting agenda. That way we can discuss it in more detail on Saturday.”
“What’s happening on Saturday?”
“Our women’s leadership meeting.”
Charlotte doubted that she would be there, but she said, “Okay, then that sounds perfect.”
“Well, I won’t hold you any longer,” Sonya said, “but it was good to hear your voice.”
“Same here.”
“See you on Saturday.”
“Take care.”
Charlotte set her phone on the nightstand and took another large gulp of liquor, then she glanced at her watch. Curtina would be out of school in a couple of hours, so it was probably best for her to take her bottle back to the guest bedroom. But as she walked past Curtina’s room, she thought she heard a dinging sound. So she stopped to listen, but there was nothing. She waited a few seconds longer and then walked down to the guest bedroom, wrapped her bottle in the blanket, and headed back to her own room. However, as she passed Curtina’s room a second time, she heard the same dinging sound again.
This time, she walked inside and realized that what she was hearing was some kind of phone notification. Either for text messaging, email, or some social media platform. It seemed to be coming from Curtina’s closet, so Charlotte opened it and searched through a couple of shoe boxes. She didn’t see anything, so she searched inside one of Curtina’s storage containers on her top shelf. Then the dinging started up again, and now Charlotte could tell it was coming from the far right of the closet. So she reached through a few pieces of clothing until she found what she was looking for in one of Curtina’s jean jackets. It was indeed a phone. Charlotte wondered whose it was, because once Curtina had showed Curtis her finished homework assignments last night, Curtis had given her phone back to her. Plus, this device didn’t look like her phone, anyway. It looked similar, but it wasn’t the phone Charlotte had purchased for her. Had Curtina somehow bought another phone without her parents’ knowledge?
Still, Charlotte took a chance and typed in the same passcode that Curtina used for the phone she and Curtis did know about. But it didn’t work. She tried a couple of others, but when the phone still didn’t open, she stopped trying before she reached the maximum number of attempts allowed. She then debated calling Curtis. But she knew if she did, Curtina would tell her father that Charlotte was drinking again, and she just couldn’t chance that kind of disaster. So instead, she would wait and make Curtina give her the code when she got home.
Charlotte closed Curtina’s closet and went back down the hallway, then she heard her own phone ringing again. It was the school, and Charlotte was almost afraid to answer it, because there was no telling what kind of trouble Curtina had gotten in. Why wouldn’t she stop all this nonsense? Because if she didn’t, Curtis would follow through on his idea about sending her to a school that could deal with her.
The phone rang again and again, and Charlotte finally answered it. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Black?” the school principal said.
“Yes?”
“This is Mr. Norton, and if possible, we need you to get here as soon as you can.”
Charlotte panicked. “Oh no, is Curtina okay?”
“She is for now, but one of our security officers just caught her and another student having sex in the girls’ bathroom.”
Charlotte dropped down on her bed, speechless. Surely she hadn’t heard Mr. Norton correctly. Either that, or she was simply dreaming and needed to wake up. She knew it had to be one or the other, because there was no way Curtina was having sex at school. There was no way she was having sex, period.