Karma's Kiss

Chapter Thirty: Cord Cutting

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*Copyright: All Rights Reserved, Stephanie Myrick, 2024. Posted to Wattpad ONLY*

Antonia, Raven and Jynx finished up at the condo and got ready to go to D'arcy's. They were almost out the door when Antonia remembered she needed pictures of both Dallas and Nola and ran back inside to get them. She struggled to find one of Dallas and finally ended up printing one she had taken with her phone and pulling one from Nola's social media to print as well. Her phone rang, and to her complete surprise, it was Nola. She hesitated, considered sending it to voicemail, and then showed Jynx and Raven her screen. "Should I answer?"

"Might as well. If she tells you what happened, make her promise not to tell Dallas." Raven suggested. "And we'll figure things out from there."

Antonia nodded and answered on speakerphone. "Hello?"

"Toni?" Nola's exhausted, nervous voice came over the speaker, and the three of them looked at each other in surprise.

"Yeah, it's me. Is everything okay? You sound terrible." Antonia collected the two pictures and gestured for Raven and Jynx to grab the bottles of wine from the table as they left.

"I haven't been sleeping well," she said abruptly after a moment of silence. "Listen, I think you should take Mom's pearls back."

"What?" Antonia closed the door behind them and locked it. "Why?" She followed Raven and Jynx down the stairs slowly. "Listen, if you don't want to be a bridesmaid, that's fine. You don't have to give back the pearls; they weren't a bribe or anything."

"No! No, that's not it at all. Actually, I think I want to be a bridesmaid. But... And don't make fun of me or anything, but I think Mom is haunting me." She sounded like she was about to burst into tears, and Raven and Jynx practically ran to the car so Nola wouldn't hear them laughing.

"Oh. Okay." Antonia paused beside the car. "Well, I'm excited that you want to be a bridesmaid, but what do you mean you think Mom's haunting you? Why would she haunt you?"

"I keep smelling her perfume randomly, and I hear noises at all hours of the night... Levi says he doesn't hear anything, but I think he's lying or just ignoring things. And she says she's disappointed in me!"

"She spoke to you?" Antonia sat in the backseat. "Like you actually heard her talk?" She put on her seatbelt and looked at Raven and Jynx, mouthing, "What the hell?" But they both shrugged and looked just as confused as she felt. Raven started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, starting the drive to D'arcy's, who lived on Beach Avenue near the Salem Willows Yacht Club, about 15 minutes from Antonia's Condo on Buffum Street.

"No, it was written on the bathroom mirror in the steam!" Right. Antonia had forgotten she had done that.

"That's weird. Why do you think it was Mom?"

"Because it started the night you brought over the pearls! And no one but Mom and Dad calls me La-la." Her voice was high-pitched and strained.

"Okay, but I never experienced anything, and I have had her pearls for years," Antonia said soothingly. "And why would she be disappointed in you?"

"Because I..." She trailed off and started to cry. "Because I was trying to hurt you by not being in your wedding." She finally said after a few minutes of sobbing."