Remember the Time

Chapter 26

April 7th, 1997

Michael was sitting in the living room speaking with his wife about their potential new home. The two had been so impressed with their stay in Aspen, they thought it'd make a nice place to stay whenever they wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of Southern California.

"Babe, I know you're really excited about this and you have a lot of ideas but I'm not sure it would be wise to buy a home right now. We have so much to do, you know?" Mariah explained with a concerned expression.

"I thought you were super excited about this?"

"I am. But we can't afford it." She said.

"Can't afford it? Babe I'm releasing some stuff soon. I'm sure we can."

"No. We can't." Mariah said sternly. She looked down at her knees. "When I was talking to Denise earlier, she was saying that we spent way over budget last month."

Michael tried to explain it away. "Well that was just an extra-ordinary month babe. We had the honeymoon and we bought all that stuff to remodel both the condos."

"Well it's not only that-" Mariah quickly responded. "Do you know anything about a one million dollar debit from the account?"

Michael tensed up and raised his eyebrow. "A debit?"

"Yes."

Michael grew anxious. "No."

Liar.

"Are you sure?" Mariah asked, skeptically.

"Yup."

Mariah folded her arms. Her expression indicated growing impatience.

"Okay because Denise told me that you two spoke and you asked her to transfer one million dollars into some New York bank account."

Michael looked up at Mariah, exasperated. "Oh! You're talking about that one. Okay yeah, I had to put some money in there for production costs of my short film. It's nothing."

She unfolded her arms and looked him dead in the eye.

"So you took money from our personal account to use for business?"

Michael gazed up at her for a moment. He was knee deep in bullshit.

"Yeah, sorry babe. It was supposed to be from my business account. Denise must have mixed it up. You know she still gets it confused ever since we got married."

Mariah looked up at the ceiling. Her lips formed a hard line and scrunched toward the side of her face.

"Okay. Well just let me know when you're gonna do these things okay?" And maybe just stop lying to me so I can trust you for once. "You know I don't like surprises."

Michael nodded his head eagerly before relaxing back on the couch.

She looked around, distraught. "I'll be right back."

April 7th, 1997

Mariah walked into the bedroom and picked up the phone. She dialed a New York landline before being met with a dial tone. Her mother's home phone had been disconnected.

What the hell?

She held the FLASH button and then dialed Pat's cell phone.

Ring

Ring

"Hello?" Pat answered.

"Stay the fuck out of my pockets and stay the fuck out of my marriage, Patricia." Mariah growled.