"No," I said firmly. "Let the woman do her job and leave her be."
"This woman is too stupid and simple to do her job," my mother told me tremulously, and I wondered which personality I was dealing with today. "That is my problem. This is what I get for hiring trash to clean my house."
"Just stop. Go to your room," I softened my tone, because sometimes that worked with her, though nothing inside of me remained soft toward my mother. She'd stomped out every tender feeling I had for her a very long time ago. "I think you need to lie down. Maybe take something? This isn't like you." That was a lie, but sometimes lies worked with her too.
My mother studied me like I studied her—like she wasn't quite sure how to handle me today.
"Perhaps I will." She dropped the spoon and moved to me, taking my arm. "Walk me. I feel a bit weak."
I walked her dutifully to her room, because I knew well to keep up appearances, even in front of the staff.
I thought that was the end of it, but as I began to move down the hallway, she called me back into her room.
"Yes, Mother?" I asked her. She was lying on her bed now, looking like a delicate doll against the pillows.
She smiled serenely at me. "If you correct me in front of the help again you will be sorry. Scarlett will be even sorrier. I'll make sure of it. You're little cum-dumpster will pay the price for your insolence."
Fucking triggered. I went for the jugular. "Stay the hell away from Scarlett. If I catch you saying or doing one fowl thing to, or about her, here's what's going to happen: Your friends at the country club are all going to hear every awful thing you've ever said about them. I've been paying attention, Mother. I've been taking notes. I'll tell them everything. Who will even talk to you again after they've heard what you think of them? It's bad enough you're stuck holding court in this rinky-dink nowhere town—you think if you get ostracized here, that you will ever live it down?"
I had her, I saw it. Still, I took it a step further. "And leave Glenda alone. Quit abusing the staff. I catch you doing it again, I will tell at least one of your friends something interesting that you've said about them. Is that clear?"
She nodded, her face a careful mask.
Round for me.
I went back to packing. My dad was supposed to pick me up at two, and I had to rush to be ready on time.
Still, I was ready at two. Two came and went, then three. Then four.
At five o'clock a car and driver showed up.
"Do I really have to go?" I asked my mother, who had only just emerged from her wing of the house.
"Of course you do. It's part of the deal."
"He didn't bother to show up himself, and even his driver is three hours late."
She shrugged, completely unaffected. "So? A deal's a deal. He has you for the weekend. Go."
"I don't want to go. I want to stay with Gram instead."
"It's interesting that you think any of us care what you want. Now go."
It was hopeless. My mother had never been any help in dealing with my father, and she clearly wasn't interested in changing that.
I went with the driver.
I hated visiting my father. Living with my mother was obviously no picnic, but I'd learned how to deal with her and stay largely out of her way.
Leo was a different and less familiar challenge. Who knew what awful things he had planned for me this time?
A selfish part of me wished I could at least have brought Scarlett with me, but even if I could have gotten her away, the fact was that I didn't like to bring her around my father.
I didn't like the way he looked at her. It was unsettling and infuriating, some strange mixture of distaste, recognition, and animal lust. It made me want to hurt him.
I'd taken to sheltering her from my father even more diligently than I did my mother.
I only had to stay with Leo a few weekends a year, but they were always particularly dreadful.
This one was no exception.
I wasn't greeted at the door of his penthouse apartment. I had to ring the doorbell several times before a redheaded woman in her underwear answered the door.
She smiled when she saw me. "You must be the birthday boy," she said and took off her bra. "I've got a present for you, D—" She paused, then called over her shoulder, "Leo! What's your son's name again?"
"Dante," he called back from somewhere in the large apartment. "Happy Birthday, boy!" he shouted.
At least he's here, I thought wryly. Drunk off his ass, but here.
It wasn't even my birthday. That'd been over a month ago, and I'd seen him at least once since then.
The topless woman started moving closer, and I warded her off with my hands. "No, thank you. I have a girlfriend."
She giggled and went down to her knees. She put a finger over her mouth and said in what I think she thought was a quiet voice. "I won't tell her if you won't. Now come here. Let me see if big cocks run in the family. Don't be shy. I don't have a gag reflex."
I wanted to leave right then, but I was too proud. My father would say I'd run away like a pussy or something along those lines. He always turned everything into a test for me, like he was some standard to be held to, which was a joke.
"No, thank you," I told her, coldly and politely. "Which room is my dad in?"
Another woman walked into the entryway, this one blonde, wearing a corset around her middle and nothing else. The blonde was not natural.
"I'll show you to him, baby," she purred at me. "You guys are into some fucked up shit—the father/son kink, but I'm down. Ever double penetrated a woman? If you're into that, I'm your girl."
I was genuinely horrified. I didn't consider myself a prude, but she'd more than shocked me.
"I want to talk to him," I clarified. Translation: I wanted to chew him the hell out.
She nodded her head toward the billiard room. "The party's in there, birthday boy. You're in for a treat, let me tell you."
It was not a treat.
Well, not for me, at least. Leo seemed to be enjoying himself.
I hadn't thought I could have less respect for my father, but I'd been wrong.
The first thing I noticed was the two girls on the pool table. They were naked, on hands and knees, facing away from each other, and they were moving. When I realized what they were doing, I felt myself blush.
The next thing my eye caught was my depraved father. He was sitting on one of the low leather couches with a glass in one hand, while the other was tucking himself back into his pants, his eyes glued to the pool table. The woman beside him, his mistress, I realized in shock as she straightened up from his lap, was wiping her mouth.
"Can I have a word?" I asked him sharply.
He sent me a glare that made him look like a spoiled child told to put down his ice cream. "Oh what now? You're not happy with your birthday party?"
"I'll be in the kitchen," I told him and left the room, having to shrug off two half-naked prostitutes as I went.
He didn't make me wait as long as I thought he would, only ten minutes or so, but in that time I had to kick five working girls out of the room.
"It's not my birthday," I said when he finally made his way leisurely into the kitchen.
He leaned against a countertop, his dirty blond hair mussed, part of it standing on end. I don't think he noticed.
He folded his arms over his chest, glass of liquor still in hand, staring me down. It wasn't very intimidating considering he was swaying on his feet. "It's not?"
"It's not." But that wasn't even the point. "You do know I'm only fifteen?" I asked him, curling my lip with the question. I wanted him to know how disgusted I was with him.
I always wanted that. It was the focal point of our relationship for me. I wanted, always, to establish how different I was from him.
How I was nothing like him.
He blinked a few times slowly, his mouth opening in what could only be described as a vaguely shocked, drunken pout.
I'm not even sure why his reaction surp
rised me. It wasn't at all out of the question that he'd forgotten how old I was.
"Fifteen?" he finally got out, taking a long swig of his drink and pursing his lips. "I thought it was fourteen. How the years go by. Damn, I hope you're not still a virgin?" He laughed. "Have I neglected my fatherly duties?"
I wanted to punch him right in his smug, drunken face. I was shaking with the urge.
"You're sick, old man," I sneered instead.
"Don't tell me you're queer." Something bright entered his eyes, and he smiled. "Actually, that would be just fine with me, as long as you can still manage to produce an heir. My God, that would be justice. Adelaide would lose her cunt mind."
I'd been rolling my eyes pretty hard, but he didn't seem to notice, so I finally just interrupted his strange tirade. "I'm not gay, and I don't want a whore for my birthday."
"I wasn't offering you a whore, son." In spite of everything, my heart jumped a bit when he called me son. It was pathetic. "I was offering you a room full of them. An apartment full. I was offering you as many different whores as you could stick your squeaky clean dick in between now and your next school day."
"No, thank you. I have a girlfriend."
"So? Is she here now? Grow some balls, boy, or at least get yours back. Gotta be a man sometime."
"Even if I didn't have a girlfriend, I'm not interested in prostitutes," I sneered.
That had him lifting a brow and calling, "Heather! Get in here."
"Why does she need to be here?" I asked him. I had no reason to like his longtime mistress. Just the opposite.
He grinned and it was unpleasant. "You're not interested in whores." Heather walked into the room, looking unfazed.
Well, dead behind the eyes if I was accurate.
The things she must see on a daily basis, I thought. I should have more pity for the woman.
"Heather, Dante says he's not interested in whores, but I still owe him a birthday present."
I still didn't catch on until she started to strip, her dead eyes on me. I was more naive than I'd realized.
"What are you doing?" I asked both of them, backing up a step, then another.
"Her tubes were tied after she had Lorenzo, so you don't have to wear a condom. You're welcome."
"You're disgusting," I told him.
"Is he gay?" Heather spoke for the first time.
Leo shrugged. "You prefer anal? Go for it. Heather's up for anything."
"Fuck no. Fuck you."
"He always was a brat," Heather noted.
This from the woman that had tried to smother affection on me in front of Leo when I was a child, then had shown me nothing but cruelty when his back was turned.
I gave my despised father the coldest stare I could muster over my rage. "I said I'm not interested in prostitutes. Get her out of here."
She left in a huff, like I'd deeply offended her.
"I'm going to tell Mother about this," I told him when she was gone.
I hated that I sounded like a child as I said it.
"Ha!" He got a real kick out of that. "Go for it. You think she doesn't know what I'm up to? I can't divorce the cunt, but she sure as hell doesn't get to tell me where I put my dick."
I stared at him, glared, and hated that aside from the eyes, I was the very image of him. Only on the outside, I told myself.
It cannot be stated strongly enough—I hate my parents.
"I'm going to Gram's for the rest of the weekend. Any objections?"
He shrugged, waving me off. "Whatever. More for me. Have my driver take you."
One good thing came out of the weekend: He never insisted that I stay with him again.
CHAPTER FIVE
"If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?"
~Lily Tomlin
PRESENT
SCARLETT
It wasn't an easy drive to get to my friend Gina's house. It would've taken a solid hour without traffic, which was a laughable assessment. There was always traffic. It was an hour and a half if traffic was good, two and counting if it was the alternative, which it almost always was.
I loved driving, loved going fast, even in my shitty old sedan I wreaked havoc on the streets like I was racing every stranger I passed. God help me if I ever actually owned a car that could perform to match my mood.
I loved driving, yes, but no one loved driving in this town. It was a chore to get to my dear friend's house, but when she called, I answered. When she asked, I came if I could.
It was a one-sided kind of friendship. I never called her, never asked or invited myself. But some friendships are just designed that way. It's unavoidable. A give and take that we need even if it's not what we want.
Some people are put into our lives at just the right moment. Of this I am certain.
And the why of it was this woman. Gina.
Gina was the kind of nice that made everyone around her uncomfortable. If I so much as mentioned a hardship I had suffered, even a casual one that was years old, her eyes would water as though it was a fresh wound. There was nothing I despised more than receiving someone else's pity. It literally made my skin crawl, but I knew that she couldn't help herself.
Eugene, her husband, was not much better. He was more in touch with his emotions than a Care Bear. And not in an annoying way. Well, not completely. He had a method of disarming that was rare. He brought out the soft side in everyone, asked just the question that let you know he was in tune with your mood. That he cared, that he felt.
He was one of those sensitive men that had more of a hard-on for Adele than Angelina.
I secretly loved that about him, and I tried my best to behave when I came over to visit. I kept the more acidic side of my tongue to myself.
Mostly.
They lived in a mansion in the hills. A dream house beyond even my overinflated dreams. They were both successful entertainment attorneys that came from money, and everything about their life was a bit of a fairytale, but that didn't make me jealous or covetous. Unworthy, perhaps, but never jealous.
No one deserved a perfect life more than they did.
They greeted me as a pair at the door when I arrived, opening it before I could knock. Gina pulled me into a tight, long hug. She was a short, heavy blonde woman with a pretty face and at least fifteen years on me, though I'd never been so ill mannered as to actually ask her age. "How are you, gorgeous?" she said, beaming as she let me loose.
"Hanging in there," I said with a rueful smile, my best version of looking at things on the bright side.
Eugene gave me a warm hug. He was a big man with a soft voice. "You've lost weight. Luckily I made pasta."
I tried not to groan in dismay. The last thing I needed was carbs. I fucking hated carbs. They made me feel bloated and sleepy. And fat. "Yum, my favorite," I said, trying, as always with them, to be a good sport.
"Had any interesting roles or auditions lately?" Gina asked politely as we stepped into the house. She was always very interested in my career, or lack thereof. She'd been the one to connect me with my agent, years ago.
My mood brightened slightly. "Actually, yes. I had an audition last week that felt like it went really well. I've got my fingers crossed."
She clutched her hands together, face brightening like I'd just made her day. "That's wonderful! What sort of a part is it?"
I shrugged. "It wasn't really clear. Some kind of a character role. I wasn't even sure if it was major or minor, but the director is Stuart Whently, so I'm pretty excited."
"Love his movies!" Gina exclaimed.
"We love his movies!" Eugene chimed at the same time.
I smiled nervously and found myself ringing my hands. "Well, cross your fingers. He was at my audition—it was a call back—and we actually hit it off pretty well. He said some nice things to me and it felt like, I don't know, like he at least wanted to hire me."
"That's awesome!"
"Brilliant!"
I smiled ruefully. I imagined that this was wha
t it felt like to have your mother compliment you. I appreciated it, even if it didn't mean anything. But even so, I felt better, enough so to elaborate. "He said I had defining characteristics. That I would give the movie panache. Like I said, it felt like we hit it off."
They overreacted.
Eugene made me give him a high five as he congratulated me as if I already had the part. Like I even knew what the part was.
Gina put both hands to her cheeks and teared up.
It made me feel silly, like I'd overstated things, even though I had actually understated them.
These people were way too nice to me. It made me so uncomfortable that I felt awkward in my own skin.
I tried not to let it show and allowed them to fawn over me.
We went straight to the dining room. I was just in time, and I knew that they'd have dinner ready. They were always very prompt, never taking too much of my time when we had these dinners. It was ironic that they valued my time when they were both worth much more per hour than I was.
But they did value it, I knew. I was equal parts flattered and baffled by that.
Their daughter, Mercy, was already in the dining room. They had a house that was elegant and extravagant enough to have come straight out of a magazine, but they let their precious little girl have the run of it. Currently she was finger painting on a child-sized easel, her colored fingers dripping generously onto their expensive marble floor.
Neither parent so much as scolded her. They were doting to a fault, which wasn't at all surprising, since they even doted on me.
Mercy was the most beautiful child I'd ever seen. She just was. It wasn't any one thing about her face that made her so, but the way each feature fell together like poetry. To describe her was to do it no justice. Masses of streaky, dark blonde hair with just the right thickness and wave to it that it fell in a perfectly arranged waterfall down her back.
Big blue eyes, again something that sounded so plain, but made stunning on her. Thick lashed, almond shaped, and heavy lidded. They were bright and fathomless at once.
Her cheekbones were high and colored as though someone had taken blush to them, though I knew her mother, of all people, would never do such a thing to a child. Her lips were a perfect little rosebud, her nose small, straight, and shaped appealingly.