Chapter Eighteen
Ahmalee
It’s our Thursday girl’s night. I don’t know if I would be here with Jamie and Sonji right now if Cain was here. But he’s not here. He’s in Charlotte yet again.
Sonji is beaming with her happily-married self. I’m not hating – just saying because I’m happy, too. I’m not happy about these current circumstances of Cain’s work travel, but we’re making progress on that front. We both agree I’m the one who should move. One step at a time. I know.
I also know something isn’t quite right. At first, I thought Jamie had gotten into my head, but then I got to thinking…
Cain bought me this expensive ring and this necklace. I pulled a Sonji and looked it up. It cost five-thousand dollars! For a necklace? And then he drives an expensive car. He wears expensive clothes. He doesn’t behave like a man who’s starting over. He behaves like a man who has it all, which would explain the card I found on the floor beside the bed this morning.
“Ahmalee, are you with us, hun-bun?” Jamie asks.
I give Jamie and Sonji a half smile and go back to dreamland. I didn’t want to come out tonight. I’d much rather be at home curled up beneath a blanket. My feet hurt – I’ve been making candles all day. I received two special orders for the vanilla cupcake candles for a wedding and an anniversary party. All these orders – I should be celebrating. But I’m here, trying to make myself eat. Trying to block out the fact that my husband hasn’t called me or texted me today. And that card…
Sonji touches my arm. “Are you okay marriage bestie?”
“Yeah. I’m fine, y’all. I have a lot on my mind.”
“Uh oh. What has Cain done?” Sonji asks.
“Why do you think it’s Cain-related?” I ask.
“Isn’t it always man-related when a woman looks like she’s lost her best friend?” Sonji asks.
Jamie laughs. “Not always. Maybe she actually did lose her best friend.”
I say, “Um—Cain got up at five this morning. He had to travel to Charlotte today.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Sonji says. “Girl, I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t have my man leaving me every week—especially a man as fine as yours.”
“I don’t want him to leave, but he has to for his job. He’s trying to balance being here and there and—” I sigh and hide my frustrated face behind my hands.
“What is it, Ahmalee?” Jamie asks.
“I don’t know. I just feel like something’s not right.”
“With Cain?” Sonji asks.
“Yeah.”
“You know what that’s called?” Sonji asks. “Intuition—and you should listen to it because nine times out of ten if you feel like something isn’t right, it’s probably not right. Now, what’s going on?”
I pull in a deep breath, but I feel like my throat is closing up. I breathe and say, “This morning, I was making up the bed. I found a business card on the floor.” I dig around inside of my purse for the card and once I find it, I place it on the table for them to see. Jamie picks it up.
I say, “It’s a business card for a company called Immersive Media Production. Abel Wesley is listed as the CEO.”
Sonji says, “I keep forgetting that’s Cain’s real name. Wait—he’s a CEO?”
“According to this business card he is,” Jamie says. She checks it thoroughly, flips it over and says, “It looks legit.”
“It does,” I say, “So my question is, if he’s the CEO of this company, why didn’t he tell me that?”
Sonji lifts a brow. “Was that the job he landed?”
I shrug. “It must be, right? Maybe that’s how he can afford to buy me dozens of roses and lavish gifts and take me to those fancy restaurants. He never told me the exact job he had, but I thought it was an entry-level position which is why I was surprised to find this card that shows him listed as the CEO of this company.”
“Hold on,” Jamie says, whipping out her phone. “Something doesn’t sound right.”
“What are you doing, Jamie?”
“I’m doing a lil’ Google investigation,” she says, going to town punching keys. “Immersive Media Production, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Mmm-hmm. We gon’ find out some stuff today.” She mumbles as she reads, then her mouth falls open as she hands me her phone. I look at the screen to see she’s done pulled up the company’s website and there’s a picture of Cain – Abel Wesley – listed as the CEO.”
“And this picture of him—jeez. He’s strikingly handsome in a way that stabs your senses. I know he’s the CEO according to the business card,” I tell her.
“Yeah, and it also says he’s the founder. He’s been the CEO from the beginning. Take another look at the date, hun.”
I take a moment to read his bio. I read through how he went to Morehouse and majored in Business Administration with a concentration on finance. He graduated Summa Cum Laude. I knew he was smart, but Summa Cum Laude smart is on a whole new level. And then I read about how he started Immersive Media Production in 2004.
“You see that,” Jamie says. “He’s been the CEO since two-thousand-freakin’-four. Something ain’t right about this whole situation, Ahmalee.”
“Okay, ladies. Let’s back up here. I’m probably trippin’ and getting hyped up for nothing. Cain told me he was the CEO of a company that folded, so this would make sense if they still have him listed as the CEO on the website.”
“But this card doesn’t look old to me,” Sonji says. “And if the company folded, what’s the use in having business cards handy?”
Sonji takes Jamie’s phone out of my hand and scrolling through the webpage, she adds, “And this website is active. Look. Everything is up-to-date. This is isn’t a company that folded. This company is active.”
“Okay, so maybe things worked out where he got his old job back somehow,” I conclude, trying to find logical answers. But why wouldn’t Cain have told me that? He would’ve been chomping at the bit to tell me that, wouldn’t he? So, why didn’t he?
“Or maybe he’s lying,” Sonji says. She hands Jamie her phone back. “Think about it, Ahmalee—what are the chances this company would reinstate him as the CEO if his leadership is what caused it to collapse the first time around?”
I shrug. She has a valid point, and I have no answer. I massage my temples. What am I missing here?
“Let me see if there’s a company Facebook page,” Jamie says, still playing detective. “Yep. They’re on Facebook. Look at this—Cain-Abel—whatever his name is—he’s all over the place doing all kinds of media events. Looks like Immersive Media Productions was hired to do promo ads for some Charlotte Festivals. They’ve done some commercials, too. Okay—this looks like a big-time company, Ahmalee.”
She’s still scrolling and says, “Here’s a pic of your man back in April posing with the Mayor. And, oh my goodness! He received an NAACP Image Award in January.”
“What year?” I ask, frowning.
“This year.”
“That can’t be right,” I tell her. “That can’t be right.”
“Well, unless Facebook went into this account and did surgery on these dates, this is right. Why do you think it’s wrong?”
“Because I first met Cain in June and he told me he’d been homeless and on the streets for a year.”
“Then this settles it,” Sonji says. “This is proof he was lying.”
Jamie shows me her phone and says, “As you can clearly see, he’s among Hollywood’s elite and he doesn’t look homeless to me.”
I hear what she’s saying, I see Cain in this picture, but I can’t wrap my mind around it because there’s no reason why Cain would’ve lied to me about being homeless. In my frustrated state, I blurt out, “Who lies about being homeless? What would he possibly have to gain from doing that?”
“I wouldn’t have any idea,” Sonji says.
“Oh…my…goodness gracious. I know why,” Jamie says. She covers her mouth with her hand while looking at her phone. Her face turns as red as a beet.
“What is it, Jamie?” I ask. She’s seriously freaking me out.
She looks up at Sonji, then at me.
“Jamie?” I say to get her attention again.
She says, “It was all a lie, Ahmalee. He’s in media production. It makes sense now.”
“Ain’t nothing making sense to me right now,” I say.
She hands me her phone again. Points to a specific post she wants me to read:
What is the state of the human race? Do we love one another or is it every man for himself? We wanted to know the answer to that question, so we went undercover to see if anyone would help a homeless man – more specifically, a homeless African-American man. We conducted an experiment. We were shocked by what we discovered.
I click the video link. I nearly lose the ability to breathe. It’s a video of me when I found Cain hiding behind the bushes at my house. Mail goes flying, I run in the house. I was terrified then, and that comes across well in the video. There are more clips of me talking to him the day he cut my grass without my permission and me giving him snacks and money when I had to leave for work. Seeing it posted on social media is a sword to my heart because it could only mean one thing – this whole homeless fiasco was a setup. Cain used me. Used me for an experiment for video footage that’s been seen over a million times. My good deed is on display for the entire world to see. I gave of myself to help Cain and turns out it was all an act.
I drop Jamie’s phone on the table.
It’s all making sense to me now. Cain never lost his job. And he was never homeless. He pretended to be homeless for this specific purpose – to conduct an experiment.
And I married this man. A liar.
No, I take that back. I married Cain, a man who doesn’t exist and ended up with Abel, a man I don’t know.
I look at Sonji and Jamie and say, “I gotta go.”
“Wait, at least finish your food, Ahmalee,” Sonji says.
“I can’t. I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
I leave a hundred-dollar bill on the table – it should be enough to cover all of our meals – then I go home. My head is spinning, I have a headache and my chest is tightening. I need some alone time to think this through, but I spend more time researching Cain and his company because Immersive Media is his company. He’s not working at some entry-level job. He’s at the top of the ladder. Making millions. I wonder how much he’s made off of the footage of me.
My head aches more when Cain, or whoever he is, calls me back-to-back. I wanted to answer, but I was afraid of what I might say. He proceeds to send a series of text messages:
Cain: Hey, baby. Where are you?
Cain: Hit me back when you get a minute.
And then…
Cain: I’m starting to worry.
Cain: Call me.
It’s close to midnight when I finally decide to call. It’s not like I can sleep, anyway. I have too many questions and he’s the only one with the answers. I try to think positive still – maybe this is all one big misunderstanding and talking to him will clear it up – at least that’s what I’m hoping.
“Hello?” he answers mid-first ring.
“Hi.”
“Where are you, Ahmalee? Is everything okay?”
He sounds panicky. I say, “I’m at home.”
“You didn’t see me trying to call you?”
“Yes, I did. I—”
“What’s wrong, Ahmalee?”
“Um—I have to ask you something. Well, not something but some things and I need you to be honest with me, Cain.”
“Okay. What is it? What’s going on?”
“I was making the bed this morning before work and I found a business card on the floor. Are you the CEO of a company called Immersive Media Productions?”
There’s a pause longer than I would’ve liked to hear, then he finally answers, “Yes.”
That’s all he says – yes – as if I’m not owed anything further. He doesn’t give up anything more, answering me at the bare minimum like he’s afraid of incriminating himself. He won’t be able to do that with my next question. I ask, “When we met, were you really homeless, or were you pretending to be homeless?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I need an answer,” I respond, but his failure to answer technically is my answer. He’s hiding something. My conclusions are looking more like the actual truth. “Cain, were you pretending to be homeless?”
Another pause.
“We need to talk about this face-to-face, Ahmalee.”
“We could actually do that if you weren’t over there, couldn’t we?”
“I understand your frustration.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Ahmalee, we shouldn’t talk about this over the phone.”
“I need you to answer me now,” I say, losing all control of my emotions. I’m a mess. I know it. He knows it even though he’s not here.
He says, “No. I wasn’t homeless.”
“You were pretending?” I ask, my hands shaking.
“Yes.”
“For a stupid Facebook video, Cain?”
“What video?” he asks.
What video? Now he wants to act like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about? That pisses me off even more.
“I can’t believe you did this to me.”
“Ahmalee—”
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” I say again, tears spilling from my eyes.
“Ahmalee—”
“You lied to me. You’re a liar. Everything you’ve done is a lie. We are is a lie. Why did you do this to me? What did I do to deserve this, Cain? I’ve been nothing but honest with you and—and this is what you do this to me?”
I hang up before he can explain himself. He doesn’t have to explain anything. What explanation would be good enough to fix this mess he’s made? Besides, I’ve already put the pieces together and figured out what’s going on. He came to me under false pretenses. Nothing about the way he reached out to me was genuine. He was never homeless. He’s just a liar.