Previously…
– Molly and Tori planned an elaborate gala to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Objection Designs’ premiere fashion show.
– Rosie lashed out at Brent by quitting her job with the King’s Bay Police.
– Loretta awaited trial for masterminding the baby switch and Rosie and Gabrielle’s kidnappings.

“Bitch, I said what I said. I’d rather be famous instead,” Christian Taylor raps along with Doja Cat’s slinky hit song. “I let all that get to my head… I don’t care, I paint the town red.”

The college sophomore stands before the mirror in his childhood bedroom, which has been updated time and again so that it still reflects his current tastes and interests. He is wearing the new tuxedo that his mother got him specifically for tonight’s event; the white shirt is crisp, and the black jacquard jacket pops just enough that he won’t blend into the sea of regular tuxedos. At present, he has his collar flipped up as he fastens the black bowtie around his neck.

“Need help with that?” Molly asks from the entrance to the room. Christian lowers his arms and smiles at her through the mirror.

“No, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to tie these things,” he replies. “Your hair and make-up look nice.”

“Thanks, honey.” Molly steps into the room, and Christian turns his back toward the mirror so that he can face her in person. “I wanted to let you know that I’m leaving in a few minutes.”

Surprise overtakes Christian. “Really? I mean, I’m almost ready, but–“

“There’s a car coming for you, your brother and sister, and your dad in about 45 minutes,” Molly tells him. “I need to go ahead of you.”

“Right. You probably have a thousand things to check before the event starts.”

She nods subtly. “I’m going to bring my dress and have a stylist help me get into it there.”

“Everything’s gonna be great,” Christian assures her.

“I hope so. Being back in control of Objection after all this time — it’s only right that we celebrate the 20th anniversary of its official launch in high style.” She glances at her iPhone, which has been clutched in her hand the entire time. “I should get going.”

“We’ll see you there, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too. You’re sure you don’t need any help with the bowtie?”

“I’ve got it. Promise.”

Though she purses her lips as she exits, Christian can tell that she isn’t quite convinced. He returns his attention to the mirror and tries to make his fingers remember what the YouTube videos showed him. In the background, Doja Cat’s slightly ominous melody continues:

“Mmm, she the devil…”

—–

“The doorbell hasn’t rung, has it?” Loretta Ragan asks — or, rather, demands — as she sweeps into the kitchen of her son and daughter-in-law‘s home.

Her grandson, Peter, is stationed at the expansive kitchen island, sitting on one of the angular black bar chairs as he plays on his iPad. “I didn’t hear it.”

Loretta sets her iPhone, in its crimson case, and her bottle of Perrier down on the island. “I hope they aren’t standing me up.”

Peter scrunches up his face. “Who?”

“The ‘glam squad,’ as your mother refers to them,” Loretta says.

“The people who make her look all fancy?”

“Yes, them.” Loretta cracks a hint of a smile at her grandson’s description. “They’re coming to touch up Mimi’s hair.” She touches her dull, gray hair, now showing only the slightest signs of its former bold redness.

“Are they making it red again?”

“They are,” Loretta tells the boy. “Mimi always feels more like herself when she has her trademark bold hair.”

Peter shrugs and is about to return his attention to his iPad when Loretta’s phone lights up on the countertop. Both sets of eyes instinctively go to the display. Alarmed to see the name on the caller ID, Loretta quickly snatches up the phone — but not before Peter reads it.

“Who’s Anatoli?” he questions.

Loretta gulps. “No one. A contact of Mimi’s. Someone who was once useful and then became useless.”

“I thought that was the guy Daddy was always talking about,” Peter comments.

“Your father? Talking about Anatoli?”

Growing in certainty, Peter’s nodding picks up steam. “Yeah. He always used to talk about that with Elly.”

Loretta stabs the button on the side of her phone to send the call to voicemail, then sets it down atop the island again. “Your daddy and… Elly? Were talking about Anatoli?”

“Yeah. I thought his name sounded funny.” Peter laughs to himself and then refocuses on his iPad.

A nightmarish realization engulfs Loretta as she processes this news, and she grips the edge of the marble island to steady herself.

—–

When he returns home from his midday shift at Bill’s on the Pier, Travis Fisher slips off his Nikes in the entryway of his mother-in-law‘s home. His feet seem to be groaning with exhaustion, just like they always do after a particularly chaotic turn at the restaurant, as he makes his way past the staircase and into the home’s modest kitchen. He finds Juanita Jimenez sitting at the kitchen table with a fragrant cup of coffee, reading something on her phone.

“Hey,” he says. “Did Rosie go out?”

Juanita looks up but pauses strangely, as if she has words lodged in her throat.

“I noticed her car wasn’t out front,” Travis adds.

“Rocio, um…” Juanita sets down the phone. “She went on a trip.”

“A trip? What?”

“She went to stay with her brother for a few days,” the diminutive woman explains.

Travis feels his head spinning. “In Seattle? Rosie went to Seattle and didn’t even tell me?”

An expression of deep sadness drapes itself over Juanita’s face. “She asked me to tell you. She had an opportunity — a job interview. She said it could be good to get away.”

“My god.” His stomach drops; things have been tense and painful between him and his wife, but for her to leave town without even informing him seems so ominous. “Is she okay? I mean– I know she’s having a hard time. But did she seem…?”

“She’s safe, and she’s okay,” Juanita says softly. “I don’t know what that girl is thinking, Travis. Not telling her husband she’s going away, that’s not what a wife does.”

He scrambles for a response, torn between outrage and heartbreak. Neither feels entirely appropriate to express to Rosie’s mother.

“I can pack some things and go stay with my parents,” he blurts out instead.

“Don’t,” Juanita says just as quickly. “This is your home. You don’t have to leave.”

“If Rosie’s not here…”

“Rocio will be back soon,” she insists, “and you two will work this all out. She is hurting. But you should not leave. No, no.”

“Thank you,” he says, still reeling. “All I want is to work this out, but…”

“You will. I know you will.”

Her declaration dangles in the air, but Travis cannot bring himself to pick it up. It all feels too uncertain right now.

—–

“You snake!” Loretta hisses as she barges into the en suite bathroom of the bedroom that Spencer occupies. She finds him at the vanity, in black pants and a well-pressed white shirt with its top two buttons still undone as he styles his hair. He freezes mid-movement.

“Excuse me?” he responds.

“I should have known you were behind this,” she says, and the fire behind her eyes leaves Spencer with no doubt that he is the target of her fury.

“I’m missing part of the puzzle here.”

“That cretin Anatoli called me just now, looking for a handout. Does the name ring a bell?”

A dagger of panic stabs Spencer in the stomach. He fixes his face and asks, “Who?”

“You know damn well who. I didn’t think you were like them, Spencer. I really didn’t.”

Not wanting to say anything that will provide her with more ammunition than she already has, he simply swallows, trying to force down the lump in his throat.

“You helped her, didn’t you?” Loretta presses. “You’re the reason she took an attitude with me.”

“Mother,” he tries to interrupt, though the word feels strange on his tongue now.

“There’s no use denying it or lying to me any further,” Loretta says. “You helped that morally challenged junior lawyer wriggle out of my grasp. You betrayed me, Spencer.”

—–

Upstairs in the Jimenez home, Travis is perched on the edge of the bed in the room that has been his and Rosie’s since they moved in with Juanita some time back. At the time — following Rosie and Gabrielle’s kidnapping at the hands of Loretta Ragan — it felt necessary to run from their old apartment, to ensconce themselves in someplace different, someplace that could feel like home. And it did, for a long time.

But since they surrendered custody of Gabrielle, everything has changed. So often, Travis has felt that he and his wife have been on different tracks, unable to merge back onto a single path to travel together. He has been holding out hope that they could make it work, even through all the pain and struggle, but finding out that she went to Seattle without even telling him… for some reason, that feels like the most dire sign of all thus far.

“I can’t lose you, Rosie,” he says under his breath. “I can’t lose us.”

His sock-clad foot thumps anxiously against the soft carpet. Thoughts of when they first decided to adopt Gabrielle, right around the time of their wedding, wash over him. Everything seemed so promising then. It was a thrilling leap of faith, a sign of how much they both believed in their future.

But it was all built on a foundation of mud. Because Gabrielle was really Molly and Brent‘s child, and it was only a matter of time before that came to light and upended everything.

“This is all your fault,” he says, as clearly as if the target of his ire were physically in the room with him.

With a wild rage simmering in his bones, he springs to his feet and grabs his car keys from the dresser.

—–

Spencer quickly calculates that his best chance is to play dumb in a particular way and set Loretta back on her heels.

“I don’t understand what Anatoli harassing Elly has to do with you,” he lies.

Loretta narrows her eyes.

“They had an affair,” he continues. “While she was working at his firm. He was married and convinced her to–” This next part gives him pause, but he has to remind himself that Loretta knows all this and it is part of what she was using to get Elly to do her bidding. “He convinced her to have an abortion.”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Spencer,” she snarls. “I thought you were different. I really did. But they got to you, didn’t they?”

“Who?”

“Those damn Fishers. They destroyed your brother and your father, and now they’ve taken you, as well.”

Spencer wants to fire back that Tim is his father, that James Ragan — Robbins, whatever — is a man he never knew and certainly doesn’t remember, who stole Spencer from his actual parents at birth and condemned him to this life. But he knows better than to argue with Loretta, especially when she is like this.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be so disappointed,” she says. “You do have their blood running through your veins, after all. But I expected better of you.” She taps her nails against the countertop. “Now Peter is the only one left. The only hope.”

The mere mention of his son’s name makes Spencer want to cry out.

“I won’t let them corrupt him, too,” Loretta vows. “I simply won’t.” She casts one last, disgusted look at Spencer. “You’ve disappointed me terribly.”

With a flourish, she turns, the legs of her black palazzo pants billowing around her as she does. A chill runs through Spencer’s body as he watches her go, wondering what she could possibly do next.

END OF EPISODE 1235

Will Loretta take action against Spencer now?
What should Travis do about Rosie?
What are your predictions for the Objection gala?
Discuss it all in the comments below!

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