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“So you know the rules, and you did it anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, knowing it’s not enough.
“Do not think that it doesn’t pain me, Evangeline,” Ellen says, her face softening just a bit, but if it gave me any comfort, it’s lost the minute she finishes. “You made me a lot of money. A girl like you,” she looks me up and down “has only a few more years left, so that’s why I say, take the money he’s offering you. You won’t have another chance like that again.”
I shouldn’t be disappointed, because I know better. I’m a commodity to her, I always knew this.
“Does Darren know?” She looks up at me, and I shake my head as if I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Does he know that you knew his father?”
6
Less is More
Darren
“Was that really necessary?” Alistair chastises me.
“I’m not heartless. She’ll get paid well for it.” I set down the phone Alistair had to buy for me, because apparently my credit card doesn’t work anymore.
“If you say so.”
“Don’t tell me you’re growing a heart, Alistair. It’s unbecoming,” I tease, giving him a daring look.
“I would never.” He uses the same voice as when he imitates his mother and mimes clutching a string of invisible pearls.
I stare out the window, noticing how dirty Vegas looks in the daylight. It’s as if the sun sheds a spotlight on all the things that are wrong—wrong in my life, and wrong with what I’m doing.
I press on, the laptop in front of me open to the document my lawyer sent over an hour ago. He’d already expressed there was nothing I could do, and after a conversation where he pointed out that I wasn’t a member of the Bar, and how I couldn’t possibly know more than him, we hung up, and I started doing research.
“Dare?”
I know what he’s going to say, because grief is written all over his face. Now that Rausch is gone, we can both let our guard down. I sometimes forget that my parents were just as much a part of his life as they were mine. Our lives had always been tangled up together like the branches of a cherry tree, each growing in different directions, but still stemming from the strong and firm trunk of our upbringing.
Before he can say anything else, I stop him. “I know.” I know that he’s sorry. I know that he feels the loss, too. I don’t need him to say it, because saying it will make it too real. It will bring that grief forward, and there will be nothing I can do to push it back.
We’ve never been good at the serious stuff—probably because we’ve never had to be. Our friendship was built on the basis of alcohol and pussy. I get the feeling we might have to learn now, or we will fall apart. And I can’t think about losing another person in my life right now. Not when there is so much at stake.
A Metallica song starts to play through the Bluetooth. “Turn it up!” I signal to Alistair, and he does. The music pounds through the speaker and it helps me to think—like it did when I would study in school, much to the chagrin of my fraternity brothers who couldn’t understand how I could retain anything with such noise. They didn’t understand that the heavy sound of Hammett’s Les Paul drowned out all of the other noise—the constant chatter that never ceased in the fraternity house, or the pounding of a baseball against the drywall.
Metallica helped me concentrate—and that’s what I need to do right now.
Alistair shakes his head at me.
I sit at the bar with a computer in front of me, searching through probate law like my life depends on it. I’ve been staring at the screen for so long the words begin to blend together, and I haven’t even thought about having a drink, at least not until I’ve looked through every case I can find.
It reminds me of late nights sitting in my dorm, preparing for Professor Delaney’s dreaded debates. He could pull a case out that could derail my whole argument. I didn’t rattle easily—not then, and certainly not now—which is why I’m thinking about him, because there’s a case somewhere I haven’t found yet where I can get myself out of this mess—where I don’t have to get married to get my money. I could leave Vegas on the private jet I flew in on and get my life back in order.
Except I’d be lying to myself if I thought it was that easy. Getting control of my parent’s money was only the beginning, but it would get me out from under Rausch’s oppressive thumb. Running a hand through my hair, I rest my chin against my palm, thinking. I was watching Alistair make a fool of himself last night without a care, misquoting Emerson, until it all came crashing down on me. All of the carefully laid bricks of foolish pride and incredible privilege just blown away, lying in rubble at my feet.
Emerson—I hated him and his poetic words that won’t or can’t leave my brain, and that leads me to think of her—Evangeline—the way she looked at me, and the anger surfaces again, but not at her or Rausch, but at myself.
I push the pad of paper off the bar, and if I could punch and throw everything in this room into a pile of rubble, I would, but I’m painfully aware of why that won’t solve anything. It won’t make me a good person—a good son.
Instead, I pick up the phone and pull up my favorites. There were only a few I’d saved for quick access—Alistair was one, a friend-with-benefits was another, but at the end of the very short list, was just the word: Home. I hadn’t lived with my parents since before I went to law school, and even then, I barely lived there—sleeping in my childhood bed like it was a hotel room.
I hit the green call button, and hearing it ring, thinking someone will pick up, and I’d hear the dulcet voice of my mother who was always happy to hear from me—maybe too eager at times, and that always left me feeling guilty. I end the call before it goes to the answering service, because the reality is she will never answer that line again, and yet, as I stare at my phone, I know that I will never bring myself to remove that number.
“Find anything?” Alistair asks, entering the room freshly showered, and I tuck the phone in my pocket.
