Queen Move

“Because that’s what some biographer has written in a book that’s publishing soon. Is it true?”

“It absolutely is not true,” she replies, her voice curt.

“So you deny it?”

“Do I deny having an affair of any kind with Joseph Allen? I unequivocally do.”

“Then what happened between the four of you the night of that argument?”

“That is none of your business. You are my only son, and I’ve sacrificed a lot for you. I’ve done all I could to ease your way in this world, as any mother should, but I do have a private life, and you have no right to it.”

“Mom—”

“You asked for the truth and I gave it to you. It’s a lie. When is the book coming out?”

“If Kimba gets her way, which she often does, it won’t come out at all, but it has been written and it’s due to publish soon.”

“Well, she has to stop it,” Mom says, anxiety tightening her words. “They’ll ruin that man’s reputation. And, oh God. Poor Janetta.”

“Are you worried she’ll believe it?”

There’s a long pause from the other end before my mother answers. “No. If anyone knows that’s a lie, it’s Janetta.”

“You two used to be so close, but after that night, everything changed.”

“People change.” There’s a shrug in her voice, but I don’t buy it. “We moved away and made new friends, new neighbors. Life goes on.”

“Are you telling me that what happened that night has nothing to do with this rumor? If there’s anything you can share that will clear your names, you have to tell me.”

“I’ve told you what you need to know, what you asked me. No, I didn’t have an affair with Kimba’s father.”

“Okay. Then we’ll figure out how to make this go away.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Kimba

“This is actually pretty good,” Keith says, flipping through the manuscript Pie

rs managed to procure so we’d have it first thing Monday morning.

“Stoke!” Kayla slaps her copy onto Mama’s dining room table. “It’s a lie.”

“I don’t mean the part about Daddy having an affair with Mrs. Stern,” Keith says. “But they got all the other stuff about his life right. His work in civil rights, all he’s done for the city, his record as a prosecutor in those early days right out of Emory. It’s well written and makes him look great.”

“You mean except for the whole cheating-on-his-wife part?” I ask, tossing my copy onto the table alongside Kayla’s. “Yeah, well if I put a drop of ink in a glass of water, will you still drink it?”

“Depends on how thirsty I am.” He laughs. “And based on our conversation with the publisher, they’re pretty thirsty.”

“He did sound like he will take this all the way,” I mutter, biting the inside of my cheek. “We need to find out who this biographer’s source is for the affair. He doesn’t make it clear in the text.”

“It’s such a small part of the book overall,” Kayla adds. “If they’d just remove that one lie, I’d be fine with it.”

“They’re counting on that lie to sell a lot of books,” I say.

“We can’t let that happen,” Mama says from the door, her copy tucked under her arm. She decided to read hers upstairs in her bedroom while my siblings and I have camped out downstairs all day reading it over wine and snacks from the pantry.

“It’s a lie,” she continues. “Joseph was never unfaithful, and for them to tarnish his reputation, his legacy this way…they can’t.”