EPISODE 94
Written by : Bre L. Drew
September 7th, 2020
Last Time On Town and Country
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Tanner and Elijah both got accepted into Sampson University.
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Tommy's admission to Pepperdine was rescinded however at the eleventh hour Daniel was able to get him into Sampson University.
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Steven discovered a letter written to their later grandfather, which includes the sordid detail of an affair he was having before his death. He confessed it to Martha, who had the idea to search the attic for any other information.
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Mae was disappointed in Will having a connection to Jerome Hawkins.
SAMPSON UNIVERSITY : ASHTON DORMITORY
The sweeping historic campus of Sampson University brings back nostalgic memories for Louise Saunders Lockhart, In 1993, she was an incoming freshman majoring in agriculture she too ventured in and out of the same lecture halls and the undergraduate library located on the west side on the grounds, now over twenty years later her own daughter will have that same experience, She alongside Lynn and Sean were assisting Tanner with the move-in into her room in Ashton Dormitory which is on the east side of campus,
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"You sure your roommate won't mind if you take the bottom bunk, Pretty Princess?" Sean Lockhart asks his brunette twin daughter.
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Tanner Lockhart finishes making up her bed with the new sheets her mother purchased two weeks ago, "No, and that is because we have been texting each other back and forth and she said she claimed the top,"
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"I always thought inside of a dorm room was suppose to be bigger," Lynn Lockhart glances around the atmosphere, impressed with how minuscule it is compared to what she thought.
"Those are only on television sweetheart," Louise remarks, "Where is this roommate? I can't wait to meet her," she adds.
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As soon as Tanner is about to reply, someone steps into the room. However, it isn't the person who is going to be spending the next year living in close quarters.
"Hello, fellow member of the Class 2024!" Elijah Barker exclaims.
Lynn, Louise, and Sean also offer verbal greetings to him.
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"Hey, how is your room coming along?"
"Well you all know; my mother had everything in mine last week, so I didn't have to do anything but move in today," he informs them.
No one is surprised by this fact since not only the type of woman Brynn Barker is but Elijah's father Nathaniel Barker is also an tenured professor giving her enough pull in terms of getting every settled in advance for her only child,
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"Met your roommate yet, Barker?" Lynn says
Elijah sees his ex-girlfriend sitting down in a chair with her iPhone at her side.
"Yep, he's cool, his family is getting his stuff together, but you'll meet him at orientation."
"Yeah, Tommy is on his way," Tanner informs
At the eleventh hour, Tommy was able to be allowed acceptance into Sampson. After his admission being rescinded from Pepperdine University due to his family being in the news for his sister-in-law's abduction.
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The new student orientation is supposed to commence in thirty-five minutes over oh the west side.
An attractive young woman with long dark hair with blonde highlights wearing a dark orange tank jumpsuit carrying a mannequin torso with shoulders in her arm as well as a leopard suitcase on wheels with her other hand,
"Let me get that for you," Sean offers. He goes over the girl whom she gives the suitcase to be put anywhere for right now.
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"Thank you so much," she says sweetly. She also sets aside the dummy on the side of the wall.
"Hi, I'm Tanner Lockhart," she introduces herself to the girl whom she gathers is her roommate. "My parents Sean Lockhart and Louise Saunders Lockhart, my twin sister Lynn, and our best friend Elijah Barker."
All of them exchange pleasantries with the new person they just met.
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The recognition of the surname makes Louise does a delayed reaction due to already knowing two people with the same last name who both moved into town this past year. Not to mention one is Daniel's new girlfriend in which bothers her even though she was the one who didn't want to pursue anything else other than maintaining a friendship with her high school sweetheart.
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The door opens wider revealing Mala Gupta carrying more leopard suitcases in addition to her holding a box that has her daughter's sewing machine in it.
"Mommy, this is my roommate," Aaliyah says to her mother.
Mala looks up to see Louise along with three other teenagers, and a man whom she gathers is around the same age she is.
"You know what, let's get out of here, Lynn I don't think we're needed," Elijah says as he feels the room is getting cramped.
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"We will meet you all later," Lynn announces.
The two exit out of the room and out of the suite,
"This is a small world isn't it," Mala says in amazement in her British accent.
"It sure is," Louise utters
THE WATERFALL BAR
The new song by Kem and Toni Braxton is currently playing on the sound system inside The Waterfall as customers were in for the early rush this afternoon. Behind the counter, Mae Jackson is giving a patron their change. With everything that has occurred to her family in recent times, she is relieved people are now comfortable coming back here.
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From her peripheral, she sees her son approaching her as he rubs his hands like he does when he is nervous.
"Momma, can I talk to you for a minute?" he inquires.
"I'm kinda busy right now," she answers him.
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Will notices his mother isn't keen on wanting to converse with him, but ultimately she gets Antoine to cover her in which he doesn't miss the chance to roll his eyes at him., he leads her to a booth near the back of the establishment so no one can be able to overhear him, he takes a seat across from her,
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"What did you have to say to me, Will?" Mae inquires directly
"That I'm sorry for what went down, I should've told you about Jerome blackmailing me,"
Mae doesn't say anything but silently agrees with her son on that matter. She was stunned to hear his former cellmate had been blackmailing him over the phone for ten-thousand dollars in exchange for his silence regarding the drugs he sold to a prison guard. It set up the chain of events involving Jerome Hawkins kidnapping Shauna outside of the bar, taking her to an abandoned building by the railroad district in town until Will and the police were able to get her away from Jerome and his men who were working with him,
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"I'm trying to put it behind me, but I'm having a hard time doing so," Mae proclaims
"Momma, I'm trying to change,"
Mae's facial expression changes from content to more of agitation, "My granddaughter almost lost her life because of that man and then I find out you two were involved selling drugs behind bars, how I'm supposed to trust you," she says incredulously.
"You can trust me," he vows.
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The Jackson matriarch tilts her head at that claim.
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"Thanks for your lack of confidence in me momma, I appreciate it,"
Will says in a huff, quickly removing himself from the booth.
Some customers stare at him, knowing via local gossip the current predicament the family was in because of the abduction. From behind the bar, Antoine looks over at the woman who has been a surrogate mother and grandmother to him he suspects she said something that Will didn't take well.
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FRANKLIN FARM : MAIN HOUSE
"Remind me who had this grand idea of coming up here again?" Martha Saunders petitions to her paternal first cousin Steven Sullivan who is behind her.
The sweltering heat instantly hits her whilst she entered into the attic.
"I wonder who that was," he replies suggestively.
Over a month ago, whilst he was helping out his mother organize the loft-space so when stumbled upon a piece of paper that out turned out to be a letter from years ago written to their late grandfather Jimmy from a woman wanting to end their affair which is a surprise since they have known their grandfather to be a stand-up man who never strayed from their grandmother Rosemary. Steven had only informed Martha about the letter, and it is where she decided the two should go back into the attic to see if they can find anything else to clarify what was found.
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"Sorry, it took us this long to get to this, but with mom's breakdown and Shauna's kidnapping the time wasn't right," Martha says
Steven fans himself with his t-shirt trying to cool himself down. "I think it's better now anyway with everybody out of the house we don't have to explain why we're up here."
Martha takes the ponytail holder out of the pocket of her shorts and uses it to put her shoulder-length hair into a messy bun. "You think we'll find something in here,"
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"It doesn't hurt to try besides what else can we find to shock us like discovering our grandfather had a mistress," he replies. "I'll get started by the bench, and you can start anywhere you want."
Martha salutes him. "Aye, Aye Captain,"
THE WATERFALL BAR : JACKSON APARTMENT
Now on his fifteen-minute break, Antoine goes up to the apartment where he finds Antoine in the kitchen in the middle of making himself a turkey sub.
"You know you got some nerve," Antoine states.
Will begins squirting mustard onto his sandwich. "What are you talking about?"
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"Whatever, you said to Mae she loves you and here you go acting like she is entitled to keep putting up with your bullshit," Antoine says defensively.
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"You don't know nothing, and by the way, I get you were there for my momma when I was gone, but I'm back now," Will replies
Antoine scoffs at him, hearing the jealousy in his voice about him being there for his mother bothers him. On some level, he can understand that, but it seems he keeps hurting Mae with his bad decision making which landed him behind bars in the first place,
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Done with fixing his lunch, Will steps out of the small kitchen into the living room to eat and watch TV.
"I'm always gonna be there for Mae, she means to much to me not to see anything bad happen, she deserves every good thing in her life," Antoine remarks candidly.
"And I'm not good," Will verifies.
"I didn't even mention your name once,"
Will shoots him a look equating to Really?
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"Just don't take Mae for granted," Antoine counsels
He then turns on his feet to go back out of the apartment shutting the door behind him.
Getting to his food, Will is getting tired of everyone around here treating him like some bad guy. He was the one who risked his life to get his niece out of harm's way, though to them, he is still the screw up who went to jail for writing bad checks and counterfeiting money. But he doesn't know how long he can cope being labeled like that in this godforsaken town.
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FRANKLIN FARM : MAIN HOUSE
Unfortunately, within the duration of the ongoing search, neither Martha nor Steven was able to find anything eventful.
"Maybe we should call it quits," Steven says, his shirt has a drench of sweat on it.
Sitting on the old bench, Martha finds herself placing a cardboard box on the ground. "Can you think of anywhere else granddad would keep anything personal?"
Steven heavily sighs. "If there is I don't know about it,"
"Other than him being an alcoholic, who knows what other troubles Jimmy Saunders truly had," Martha says philosophically
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Steven raises his head in concurrence to his cousin's assertion.
"A glass of lemonade -- or something stronger sounds good right by now," Martha declares
"I guess he covered his tracks better than we thought," Steven exhales. "Maybe instead of looking for something else, we should focus on the letter."
"What do you mean?" Martha says
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"We find out who wrote the letter and whoever wrote the letter ---"
"Had the affair with Farmer Jimmy." Martha interposes
"How in the hell do we go by doing that Martha," Steven questions
Martha snaps both of her fingers as the idea floats into her mind. "I think I got it,"
SAMPSON UNIVERSITY
The new student orientation was finally over as the adults were ahead of the children walking towards the parking lot.
Tommy Covington has his arm around Tanner whilst Elijah, Lynn, and Aaliyah were around them.
"How do you like the campus so far?" Tanner asks her boyfriend
"Uh, so far not bad but ask me when the piles of assignments our assigned," Tommy chuckles.
"I just wish you were staying in the dorm," Elijah says
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"Yeah I know, but it didn't make sense for me to stay somewhere only twenty minutes away from my house, besides I have an excuse to come to visit in between classes."
"You guys all seem close," Aaliyah pronounces.
"Definitely," the four said in unison.
"Get to know us, Aaliyah, and you'll be just fine," Tanner says positively.
Ahead of the group is Louise and Sean who are walking side by side.
"Is it just me or is it surreal we're dropping off our daughter at college?" Louise states. "It seemed like five minutes ago we were bringing the girls from the hospital."
"My mother was right when she said a child's life goes by a blink of an eye," Sean agrees.
"I know today is about Tanner, but Lynn told me they both agreed to stand up in your wedding," Louise mentions
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Sean nods trepidatiously knowing it's quite peculiar to talk his former wife about his almost wife, "Tricia and I was stunned they both said yes. I wonder why they agreed to it."
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Louise stops in place to gaze at the man she was formerly married to. "I think it has more to do more about you."
"I don't know about that," he says nonchalantly.
Sean deeply regrets how much he had hurt his family, especially his girls since the affair with Tricia first started. After they found out none of them had wanted to do anything with him, somehow the girls aren't as upset at him anymore, which means their relationship is in a better place which is always what he wanted.
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Behind them is Mala, who is taking a glimpse of the campus, still somewhat disappointed her daughter isn't attending Yale, where she believes she truly belongs where she should be studying engineering which will get her a job out of school. She then turns around hearing her daughter talking happily to her new roommate and her group of friends. She then gives a partial response to what Brynn Barker had asked her about which area of London she prefers to visit.
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"This is it," Elijah says as the group reaches the parking lot.
Brynn hugs her son. "I'll call you as soon as I get home," The scent of her usual fragrance makes him think about how each morning she wouldn't be there to gently wake him out of bed.
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"See you later, mom," he says to her
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Mala is standing by her white BMW SUV, where she is saying goodbye to her daughter. "Study, study, study, "
"Mom, aren't you missing the part about having fun too?" Aaliyah said half-mockingly.
"Okay, study, study, study, and have fun,"
Lynn and Tanner have remained silent as they get close to their mother's Range Rover.
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I'm going to miss you," Tanner says
"It's not like you're living far besides we're still sharing the car, and there are holidays and weekends," Lynn says fighting back tears.
Tanner folds her arms onto her chest. "I know, but we can't go to each other's rooms and talk all night,"
"Ah Damn it, I'm going to miss having you around the house," Lynn replies
The tears begin flowing as the twins hug one another.
"Keep making us proud, Pretty Princess," Sean advises Tanner.
His broad arms embrace her as protectively as they always did when she was younger and unsure of herself. "I will dad,"
Tanner wipes the tears on her face.
Louise stands there looking at how much her daughter has grown up over the last few years. "I love you so much Tanner, don't ever forget that,"
Tanner clasps onto her mother realizing their lives are forever changed. "I love you too mom,"
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The gang watches from the sidewalk their loved ones take off in their designated vehicles out of the parking lot towards the way out of campus back to the main road.
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END OF EPISODE
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ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF TOWN AND COUNTRY
A surprise is instore for the gang on their first day of classes at Sampson University.
Courtney helps Tricia with the wedding.
Sarah Lynn commits to therapy.
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