The CEO's Wife

Chapter 25

Family

Melody Young

The drive that we took was a short one. We pulled into the parking lot of a building that looked a lot like Larry's. The name on the side of the building read The Cabaret. Uncle told me to wait there, and he got out of the car and went inside. I sat there listening to the distant booming of music coming from inside the building. He was only in there for a few minutes before he came back over to the car and opened the door.

"She's here?" he replied.

"Who's here?" I asked him.

"You will meet everyone in a second," he said to me.

Inside the was like a restaurant. It was a big room and at one end there was a stage at the far end, and that's where the music was coming from. There on the stage was a woman in a red dress singing an old song that I knew the words to but didn't know the name of. It's one of those songs that are always in old movies but there isn't anything to give away the name of the song in the lyrics.

"you'd think after all this time she'd change up this old show, but she doesn't." I looked over at uncle and he stood there with his hands in his pockets.

"Who's that?" I asked him.

"Someone you need to meet," he replied. "I can't tell you your mother's story, but I don't think that it's appropriate. She needs to do that."

We walked through the room and passed the people at the tables who looked to be enjoying the show. We sat down at the table that was near the right side of the stage, not too far out but from where I was sitting, I could see now that the woman on the stage wasn't a woman at all.

"we're at a drag show?" I asked him.

"Not exactly," he said.

His reply was strange because he said that this wasn't exactly a drag show, but I know for certain that what I'm looking at is a man, dressed as a woman singing a disco melody to a room full of middle-aged people who looked to be enjoying the music.

The performer on stage danced and spun, flipped their hair, and even stepped off the stage and moved around the tables. When he spotted uncle, he smiled and when he laid eyes on me there was a range of emotions that washed over his face. He turned and went back up to the stage.

"And 1, and 2, let's wrap this up band," he said into the microphone. The music slowed and started to build back up again before she started to sing, I will survive by Gloria Gaynor. The performance was amazing. He sang, danced, and interacted with the crowd, and when the song was over the lights when out and she left the stage. Uncle got up from the table and took me out into a lobby where people were standing and talking amongst themselves. The performer entered the room to applause, but their eyes were on me.

"you'd think that you would call before you came," he said to uncle.

"It was important," uncle replied. "Long lost family member doesn't come into town too often," he replied.

"Okay so," I said. "he's my uncle, no name just uncle, and who are you."

I looked up at the man in front of me. Still in a wig and full make-up from the sequined dress was replaced with a floor-length red robe that was just as dramatic as the person wearing it.

"Well, sweety, I'm whatever you want me to be," he said. "I'm everyone and no one. A mother and a father. A sister and a brother. The audience and the performer. The sun and the moon all wrapped up in one, but you honey you're the universe."

I looked at the person in front of me, and then over at Uncle. "So why is it important that I meet you?" I asked him.

"You probably can't tell because of all the makeup, but you got your eyes from me," he said with a smile. "And that's my attitude."

"And who are you again?" I asked him.

"Well, if we're going by society's standards, I'm your grandfather, but I didn't raise my daughter that way," he said. He's my grandfather, or grandmother, or maybe I should say, grand person.

"So, you're my family?" I asked him.

"And we've got some catching up to do baby," he said with a smile as he placed his hand on his hip.

Kirsnick Ball

Melody's father is about to talk me to death. He was sitting on the passenger side giving me a bunch of excuses about how the way he raised his daughter was the right way, and the fact that he'd hidden things about her family from her when she asked was better than giving her the truth of what happened.

"Are you just going to make excuses for everything?" I asked him.

"I'm not making excuses," I lied.

"Yes, you are," I said. "You should have told her about her mom. You should have introduced her to the family she has instead of hiding her from everything that makes her who she is."

"So, you think that this is all my fault?" he asked me.

"I mean, sort of." I replied. "She has family out there that she's never met, and that whole story about her mother leaving you was just a metaphor for-"

"Listen," he cut me off before I said it every single time, I get close to saying it. "After it, all happened. That was hard. It was hard to stay at the oasis. It was hard to be around mother, had to look at Melody some days, because she has those same eyes that her mother had."

"I get that," I said to him. He was looking out the window now. "But at some point, you should have come back to face her, not run from it for years and years."

"Maybe you're right," he said. "Maybe things could have been different for her,"

"We wouldn't be going through this right now if you had," I said to him.

We sat in silence until we got to the oasis, well that's what he called it but it looked like a motel 6 to me. I got out of the car and followed him into the lobby. As soon as he got in there the girl behind the counter rolled her eyes. It was a younger girl. She didn't look to be older than 15 or 16.

"My grandpa left," she said. "He was with your daughter."

"where'd they go?" he asked.

"To see mother," she replied. She was smiling like there was a joke being thrown around and I could tell by the groan from Melody's dad that he wasn't happy.

"Whose mother?" I asked him.

"My in-law," he replied. He shook his head and smacked the counter. "Damn I didn't want her to go there."

"Go where? What the hell is doing on?" I asked him.

"They ain't here," he said.

"So where are they?" I asked him. Now I'm starting to get impatient. I've been stuck in the car with him for way too long to get here and I want my wife right now. I don't know who mother is and I honestly don't care. I don't care about mother, I don't care about uncle, or any other nameless family member we ran across.

"don't yell at me you ass," her dad told me.

"Well stop playing around," he said. "I'm not in the mood anymore."

"Alright you grouchy bastard, come on," he said. "I promise this will be the last stop."