29. Calista

29

CALISTA

T his morning, I took Mom shopping and bought her a new laptop. We set it up together, and she asked me questions about my life in California. I installed her banking app, connected it to her phone, and showed her and Melanie how it all worked. We transferred all her bills, paid the long overdue ones, and the water that was close to being cut off.

Her machine is so much more powerful than she needs, and there was a part of me that wishes she was still more mentally agile so I could show her. But I kept it as simple as I could, so as not to unnecessarily overwhelm her.

After everything we went through, she was most excited about being able to watch movies on a larger and clearer display. So, I set her up with a bunch of online offerings that I signed up for with my credit card. I'm not sure Mom even noticed.

I uploaded the few photos she'd taken from her phone, then gave her phone a solid software update while she watched another courtroom reality show.

"Okay," Melanie says as we're wrapping up. "If you two are finished, there seems to be a break in the weather. We should go to the store."

Mom places her hand on top of mine and pats gently. "Thank you for helping me with this, Calista."

She used to pat my hand when I was little, and it's a core memory. Immediately, I'm ten again. Tears threaten and I swallow them down. "You're welcome, Mom."

She heads to the front door and Melanie has to remind her to grab her coat. It's bittersweet, knowing she has Melanie, but also knowing why she has her.

I look at the photographs she saved. A black cat on the wall across the street. A bird on the planter in spring. A squirrel on the same planter in snow. A purple flower.

There aren't any of people.

Not a single one.

Mom's lonely. Or maybe solitary is a better word.

But she's seemed a bit more engaged today. Perhaps having company is good for her. So is getting out of the house and taking responsibility for daily tasks that require some thought: meal planning, food shopping, and cooking.

I'm pleased to see Melanie hasn't just moved in and taken over. She's encouraging Mom to be responsible for herself without infantilizing her.

And she doesn't seem fazed by my dropping in and out.

I pull all my things together and ready them for Vex…Ti to collect. As we lay in the clubhouse the other night, I told him about my living situation predicament, and he was more than happy for me to stay with him until it's time to leave, which…

I dial Becca's number.

"Hey," she says with her permanent high energy. "All packed up and ready for your flight tomorrow?"

"About that," I say. I hear the wince in my tone. "I need to stay longer."

"Okay," she says without missing a beat. "How long do you need? And let's work through your calendar to see what we need to change."

It takes about ten minutes to give me an extra ten days. We make my advisory board meeting virtual instead of in person. We do the same with some of my other meetings. I delegate four meetings to two of my most trusted people. We cancel three things and postpone five. But it really means that I have to catch that flight in ten days.

"Okay, so I'm not going to ask how things are, because you wouldn't be asking for ten extra days if everything were sunshine and daisies."

"I'm not even sure how to answer that."

"That bad?"

"No. It's not even that. I got Mom a great live-in carer who I really like, but…"

There's a long pause. Becca doesn't jump in straight away, but finally she speaks. "But you feel like you should be the one looking out for her. Or feel like you should make the most of the relationship you have with her before it's too late."

I sigh. "Yeah. Something like that."

"Here's the plan," Becca says. "I'm going to find you a realtor. We're going to find you a small but perfect place to stay that requires zero renovation near your mom. You're going to buy it because you're wealthy enough. I'm going to look at your calendar and clear it in such a way that you have at least one week a month that does not require you to be in California. I'll adjust the time zones for those meetings for that week only. That way, you can spend more time with your mom. We'll get you some first-class vouchers and you can give me all the miles or points or whatever it is you earn as a thank you."

I hadn't realized how much stress I was carrying until the tight band around my chest loosens.

"Thank you," I say. And yet, it still doesn't feel like quite enough.

"The free trip I'm gonna take to Greece will be thanks enough."

I make a mental note to get her a hotel booking to go with those flights for her birthday. "There's also a man, Becs."

Her squeal is loud enough to make me move the phone away from my ear. "Tell me."

I smile at the thought of him. "Vex. Well, Ti. He's the man who caused me to leave Jersey and head out west."

"Oh," she says. "A love-hate lover."

"Something like that."

"So, he wants you to stay?"

"Yes. He hasn't said as much. More an acknowledgement that we could be so much if I didn't have to leave."

"Oh, sexy Vex. I like it."

I grimace. "Please don't call him that."

She chuckles. "Okay. So, he knows you're needed here?"

I think about that for a moment and sigh. "Yes."

"The sigh says you wish it weren't true. But, maybe, you guys could long-distance it. Or he could move here."

Seeing him with his friends in the clubhouse made me realize I could never ask him for that. Who he is would never fit in with the life I have out there. Not that I would be embarrassed or ashamed of him.

I wouldn't.

But reputationally, it would be a blow for the CEO of a company that effectively deals with cybercrimes to be fraternizing with a member of an organized crime group.

And I'm not sure he'd be happy, even if there's a chapter of his Outlaws close enough for him to join. Assuming that's how it works. He's a Black biker, and there aren't many of those around. And from what I understand, there are few true one percenter motorcycle clubs around the country that aren't racist.

There's a knock at the door, and I wonder for a minute if Melanie and Mom forgot their key. I should probably have a properly secured little lock box for a spare key placed somewhere innocuous for emergencies.

"Listen, I gotta go, Bec. Someone is at the door. Call you later."

"Just when I was about to ask you all the juicy questions. I'll text you them."

"And I'll ignore them."

We both laugh as I hang up the phone.

When I open the door, I'm surprised to see Rae standing there.

"Hey," she says. "Vex gave me your address. Hope you don't mind. Do you have five minutes?" she says.

"I do. Come in out of the cold. We'll go into the kitchen. Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee?"

Rae shakes her head. "No. Neither, thanks. I came by to ask if you'd join me and the rest of the old ladies to help me choose my wedding dress."

"Umm. When?" I'm not sure I want to go. But hopefully, it's when I've returned to California and have a legitimate reason to bow out.

"Right now."

I think about the party and what I know of these women. I still don't understand the point of submitting to be someone's property.

As if sensing my thoughts, Rae smiles. "I know. You don't think you're like us. You may even think you're better than us. But I still want you to come shopping for my wedding dress with me."

"Why?" It makes no sense to me. "Why would you want me there?"

"Because I have a really strong feeling that, one day, you'll be an old lady because Vex will be able to explain what it means to him. And what it means to him will mean enough to you that you'll agree. Then, we'll win you over with our eclectic charm and chaotic adventures. And because you'll be an old lady one day, we might as well start practicing now, even if you don't agree. Because ten or fifteen years from now, we'll all be sitting in the clubhouse, or in the yard behind it, laughing and joking about something, and someone will say, ‘Remember that day we went looking for Rae's wedding dress?' And I'll say, ‘Yeah, it was the first time the nine of us all did something important together.'"

I smile because, I have to admit, Rae has a way with words. "That was a sneaky way of convincing me."

Rae nods enthusiastically. "I know."

"I have a business to run in California. I don't know that I see myself sitting in the clubhouse a year from now, let alone ten years."

"I know that too."

"And I have this mess of feelings with Ti, with us not knowing what to do or how to make it work." The words come out in an unexpected blurt.

Rae snatches my hand and squeezes it. "Why do you think I'm here asking?"

I hold her hand for a minute.

"You know, there are some really fucking genius women in the business world," Rae says.

"I'd like to think I'm one of them."

Rae nods. "You are. Possibly the smartest out of all of us. And I would imagine you've considered expansion, starting an East Coast office and moving out here to build it yourself, seeing you built the West Coast so successfully. And I would imagine you've also considered who the smartest woman at your company is besides you. One you might want to encourage to set up and say, run the West Coast office, reporting directly to you."

"We're not ready to expand," I said, the words falling out on rote.

"The company's not or you're not?" Rae asks.

"Again. Sneaky."

"Listen. I know one thing for sure. You only regret the things you didn't do in life. The old ladies of the Outlaws are as different as you and me. On paper, Catalina and Iris have nothing in common beyond belonging to bikers, and yet, somehow, we've become the friends and support we couldn't find for ourselves outside the club. What you do doesn't matter. How much you earn doesn't matter. What you love doesn't matter. It simply matters that you love an Outlaw. We're one hundred percent there for each other during the good and bad. It's time you gave all your preconceived ideas of who we are a break and just come find out who we are for yourself."

"Fine. I'm buying what you're selling."

Rae laughs. "Jesus. You're as bad as King. I'm not selling anything beyond an afternoon with eight women who want to watch me try on dresses. Well, only seven, really. Catalina would rather be cleaning guns or something, but even she's going to put a brave face on and do it. So, if she can, you can."

"Okay. Okay. Color me convinced. If you're like this with King, I can see why the big bad president might capitulate."

Rae chuckles. "He's not bad all the time."

And that's how I find myself sandwiched between Gwen and Vi on an overstuffed ivory sofa half an hour later.

Vi pats my knee. "I'm so glad you came."

I glance over toward the dressing room we're all awaiting for Rae to emerge from. "I'm not sure I had that much of a choice."

Gwen shoulder checks me. "She's like that with all of us. I call it her Jedi mind trick. One moment you hate the idea of going to a water park, and four hours later, you're at the top of a slide in your swimsuit."

"Is there a theme for the wedding?" I ask.

Catalina sits on the floor next to Gwen's feet, her long legs stretched out in front of her. "Not sure King is giving her time to come up with one."

Sophia is seated next to Vi but leans forward. "He is. It's a theme of ‘hurry the fuck up and marry me because I need a wife more than I need a perfect wedding,' or something like that."

Briar puts her hand to her heart. "That is very romantic, though."

Iris shuffles about the sofa, her palm pressing firmly on the top of her bump as she tries to get comfortable. "Yeah, that's King, the born romantic."

The women chuckle.

"You know, you could just get married at the courthouse and call it good?" Catalina asks.

"Says the one who had a custom Armani suit for her wedding, and a custom white leather cut, and then the tiniest dress for the evening that drove Niro so wild, you disappeared for ninety minutes during your own party," Vi says. "We ran out of excuses to tell Avery where Uncle Colton had gone."

I can't help but laugh at that.

And then, everyone goes quiet as Rae walks out in the most beautiful wedding dress. It's mermaid style, and as she turns, I see it's backless with tiny buttons over her butt and a rope of pearls that dangle down her back.

"What do you think?" she asks.

Ari is the first to speak. "It's beautiful."

"I don't think my brother is gonna make it through the ceremony alive," Gwen says.

Briar purses her lips. "It's February, though. It's a gorgeous dress but aren't you going to be cold?"

"Oh, good point," Sophia says. "But she could add a fake fur jacket."

"Or a cape," Iris adds.

"What do you think, Rae?" I say.

She studies herself in the mirror. "It's not the one."

I point toward the dressing room. "Then you need to go take it off and try on the next one."

"Thank you," Rae says to me. "Not sure why I felt that I had to love the first dress I put on. Probably plays into the wedding day princess trope we've been told about our whole lives. The one where we find the perfect dress and perfect shoes and get married with perfect hair to the perfect groom."

As she walks back into the dressing room, Ari says, "Is it wrong that I'm glad she didn't like it so I can get it?"

"You gonna run that by Daddy Halo?" Gwen asks, teasingly.

Ari flips her the bird. "He can have his say in everything except my dress, the flowers, and the bridesmaids."

"Daddy?" I whisper to Vi.

She leans close to reply, her voice low. "Halo has a Daddy kink a mile wide. Ari's his little."

"Little?"

"You know, like, he likes to Daddy her. And she knows how to tease him like that."

"But she's a grown woman?"

Vi nods. "She totally is. You're going to have to broaden your mind to mix with all these badass women."

"Ow," Iris says suddenly, leaning forward.

Briar is immediately by her side. "You okay?"

Iris winces. "I didn't want to say anything because it's wedding dress shopping day, but I may have been in labor since this morning."

Gwen jumps to her feet. "Why the hell didn't you say anything?"

Iris gestures around the room. "Because I didn't want to miss this. Because you know babies take hours, and because we all know Spark would have wrapped me in bubble wrap and driven me straight to the hospital."

Rae appears in another beautiful wedding dress. No, not just beautiful. Stunning. It has lace sleeves and a sweetheart neckline and hugs her to perfection. But her face is one of concern. "Is Iris in labor?"

"Yes," Gwen says. "For hours. For all we know, the baby is clawing its way out of her vagina as we speak."

Rae looks at Gwen. "Pretty sure it's more of a slide." She turns to Iris. "Is it time?"

Iris grimaces. "I'm so sorry, Rae."

Rae turns and moves her hair out of the way as Sophia lowers the zip for her. "Gimme two seconds to get changed," she shouts as she disappears. "This is going to be the best day."

"We should get you to the car," Vi says.

Cat smacks Vi's hand away. "You're no use if she falls over, given you can't see your own toes because of your baby bump anymore either."

I laugh at that, but Cat takes one side of Iris and I take the other.

"You're coming with us?" Iris says.

"Oh, I don't know if I should be?—"

"She is," Cat says with a glare. "If I have to go through this, so does she."