Miss Opportunity - Ch. 8.1

Twenty-five months later - May

Although Cami was released from prison in December, she didn’t come anywhere near the east coast again until five months later. And that was only at the urging of her father and son, who’d been given permission by the courts to start visiting Delia again, despite Cami’s protests otherwise.

Needless to say, Cami wasn’t happy at all to be in London Bridge, Florida this weekend. She definitely wasn’t looking forward to seeing her cousin Delia again. Nor did she want to attend some church carnival, which was on tomorrow’s agenda.

If I wanted to fool with Dee again, I would have written her back from prison, Cami thought from the passenger seat of the black rental car her father Frank drove.

Just thinking about prison now sent her into a bad mood. Cami could never get those four years and eleven months back. Incidentally, when anyone asked how much time she’d done, she always rounded up to five years since her incarceration was just one month shy of that.

It darkened Cami’s mood even more to know that Delia had been free all this time, even though she’d taken a man’s life. So what if it was accidental, she mused, remembering that fateful night well.

Cami knew Delia didn’t mean to kill E-Blade. That she hadn’t been trying to kill anyone that night. Why else would she have been aiming for Cami’s left leg with the gun? It wasn’t Delia’s fault that E-Blade unexpectedly got in the line of fire.

And yet knowing all that still didn’t lessen Cami’s ire. It definitely couldn’t give her back the time she spent away from her son in prison.

Now Cami was about to see what Delia had been up to over the last five years firsthand. Through her father and son’s letters she already knew about the three extra children Delia had by now, one of which was another child by E-Blade since she’d been pregnant at the time of his death. The twins were by Delia’s husband Royal.

Tess is the first girl’s name. She’s the singer among the kids. Lena is the second girl and also the twin of D.R., Cami recited silently, trying to make sure she kept everybody and everything straight in her head based on what she’d been told.

Cami had also been told about Delia’s salvation and about her unfortunate miscarriage. According to the letter Frank wrote, that miscarriage occurred the year before the twins were born, a few months after Delia sent that apology letter to Cami.

Cami felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of her cousin’s miscarriage. She remembered wishing evil upon Delia as a direct result of that letter. She hadn’t wanted it to manifest that way. She knew how much Delia loved kids.

Cami would never want her cousin to experience that kind of hurt, no matter how resentful she was. Unfortunately, like most feelings of resentment, following close behind them was jealousy.

Cami had been jealous of Delia for years. She was jealous of Delia’s close relationship with her mother, of Delia’s natural mothering instincts, and especially of Delia’s ability to snag rich men. Even Delia’s first teenage boyfriend was from a wealthy family. So what if every one of those men had been a cheater. They’d still heaped gifts upon her cousin as if she was a queen.

I wonder if her current man has the cheating gene, Cami mused. She was looking forward to finding out, despite the fact that Royal Seeger was related to her former rival Aisha.

But first Cami had to think of the right words to say in order to make this fake apology her father wanted her to give Delia sound real.

© 2008 by Suprina Frazier