by Amelia Wilde
That’s my opening to tell her about Daddy’s new wife. She used to scoop every detail out of me like I was a melon, hollowed out and left dry. “Mostly I’ve been sleeping.”
“Are you still in bed?” she asks, laughing a little. “Me too.”
That makes me smile. “You should be relaxing. You’re a free woman. Stay out late. Go to a party. You don’t have a kid at home to take care of.”
“I don’t think I’ve had to take care of you since you were eight.”
That’s probably true. I was the one who brought her breakfast and her medicine in the morning. I signed my own permission slips and called the driver when my art club meeting ended.
“How is he?” she asks, her voice soft and a little sad.
“He’s good. Same old Daddy.”
“And his… family?”
“I’m not sure. His new wife seems okay. She mostly just ignores me, which is fine. She has a son, though. He’s… older.”
She must sense something in my words, because her tone changes. “How much older? He isn’t being a bully, is he? Or worse?”
“It’s nothing like that,” I promise her, because I wouldn’t put it past her to fly out to Logan International by tonight if I didn’t reassure her.
She felt terrible about the job-website man. He’d needed to get drunk to come into my bedroom, which means his reflexes were slow. I ran out and woke up Mom, who had us out of the mansion and in a motel room by morning.
“Christopher’s nice, actually. Nicer than I expected.”
A pause. “Don’t get too close, Harper. It’s only temporary.”
I can’t blame her for the warning. She knows all too well how temporary being the wife of Graham St. Claire can be. Theirs had been a whirlwind relationship, the kind that every man and woman envied. By all accounts, even their own, they had been in love.
And then something had happened. To this day I still don’t know what.
Now they hate each other. It scares me when I think about it, how two people can go from love to hate so quickly. It scares me enough that I try not to think about it. About the way Daddy could have given her enough money to be set for life, it would have been pennies to him, but he denied her everything that wasn’t court-ordered out of spite. The child support they negotiated was contingent on a third party auditing her bank account to make sure every cent of it goes to my care. If she eats a Snickers bar purchased from his check, he could sue.
If that’s what happens to people in love, I don’t want any part of it.
I find Daddy at the breakfast table, the newspaper propped open like I knew it would be. He’s not content without reading three newspapers every morning, even when we’re on a trip. It comes ferried to us via a speedboat at five a.m., along with fresh supplies because God knows what we would do without catch-of-the-day lobster for dinner every night.
“Morning,” he says without looking up.
I dig in the pile for the Art & Style section, like I always do. Other kids may have read Garfield, but I’ve always been a museum opening kind of girl. “Good morning.”
A chocolate chip pancake appears in front of me, the butter melting in a delicious puddle. I’m a continent away from our apartment in LA, but it might as well be a different planet. I don’t have to use my lunch money to tip the bellman so word doesn’t get back that we’re flat broke. Don’t have to work an evening shift at the deli down the block to pay the bills.
“How’s your mother?” The question comes in that neutral voice, so without inflection that it conveys everything. The way they end up screaming at each other on the phone. The very careful way that Daddy agrees to pay for my prep school tuition and room-and-board fees in a private suite—but nothing else. On that point he stands firm.
I once told my friend in middle school, because she didn’t understand how the daughter of a billionaire couldn’t afford to take the school trip to France. I would be pissed, she said, sounding scandalized. Like he’s trying to control you with money, even though he has so much. It doesn’t make me angry, because I know he has terrible and complicated feelings about money.
Terrible and complicated feelings about money, like my mother.
It’s something we pass down through generations, like a grandfather clock that chimes every time your bank account rises or falls. A legacy and a family curse. I’m not naive enough to think I’ll manage to escape that.
“Good,” I say, because we decided a long time ago, when I was only ten, that it was me and her against the world. If I tell Daddy what it’s like when she’s between husbands, how it feels to be hungry or cold, he’ll take me away from her.
“And how’s school?”
“I’m working on a sculpture for the spring art festival. My teacher said it’s inspired and strange and sinister. That’s a direct quote.”
Daddy gives me a fond look, mixed with the kind of bemusement he’s always given me. It would be so much easier if I loved the stock market or international law. “Christopher told me about last night.”
Panic squeezes my throat. That bastard.
Maybe it’s not fair to get mad at someone who saved my life, but still. He seemed like he was going to be cool about it. I’m two seconds away from saying, He took a drag of the weed too! Before reason prevails. Never give them eight words when two will suffice.
“He did?”
“I had half a mind to wake you up, make sure you get on the East Coast schedule right away. Christopher told me he heard you playing music until late, so we decided to let you sleep in.”
For a second I’m struck by the horror of Daddy walking in on me and Christopher, both naked and tangled beneath the sheets. That’s only superseded by the horror of him knowing that I fell overboard last night. Thank God someone woke up early—and that someone appears at the table, looking annoyingly well rested compared to the bags that must be under my eyes.
“Are you a vampire?” I demand as he pours himself a cup of coffee.
“Don’t mind her,” Daddy warns in a tone that says teenage girls are stupid. I’m hardly the person to disprove that, but it has way more to do with changing prep schools every single year than the fact that I have a vagina. It’s easier to let everyone think I don’t care.
“I have been known to order my steak rare,” Christopher offers.
I nod in satisfaction. “You have that whole old-soul thing going on. No wonder you’re getting straight A’s. You probably wrote the textbook when you were a professor. And now you have to get a new degree as someone else or people will get suspicious.”
“The typo on page seventy-eight haunts me to this day,” he says in a grave voice.
Daddy stares at me like I’m speaking a different language. “I don’t suppose it factors into this conversation that vampires aren’t real?”
“Not with that attitude, they aren’t.”
A slow smile spreads on Christopher’s face, and my breath stutters. It’s the kind of smile so rare and precious it could be sold at Sotheby’s. Quality, the auctioneer would say, standing in front of the well-dressed crowd, in its raw, natural state. The world is going to want that smile. It’s going to polish him into a sharp geometric shape, hard and gleaming. And it will be worth more money than God.
5
The Best Curtsy
It’s not until that night that I find Christopher alone, head bent over a thick textbook at his desk, the lamp casting shadows on his furrowed brow. It softens me more than it should, seeing him working hard when no one’s watching. “This a bad time?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe.
He turns to face me, his expression inscrutable. “Would it stop you if I said yes?”
I pretend to consider this. “You did save my life, but I think that only means I have to save your life back. Or maybe give you my firstborn child? They skipped this part in my etiquette class, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have to respect your time either way.”
“You took an etiquette class?”
“Standard operating procedure for any debutante.”
He shakes his head as if bewildered. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“My curtsy is literally the best curtsy, thank you very much.”
“Not that you’re a debutante. Just—” He waves a hand at the cabin, the whole yacht. “This whole thing. It’s kind of insane, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
That draws me farther into the room. I perch on the end of his bed, which is still neatly made after turndown service. “You didn’t grow up with the silver-spoon thing?”
He snorts. “The only thing silver we had was a ten-year-old Toyota Camry.”
“Then how did your mom bag my dad?” I say the question without thinking. There are too many wives in too many years for me to treat the marriages as anything sacred. Or love, for that matter. Daddy doesn’t even bother inviting me to the ceremony, though I never really know if that says more about the women or about me.
Christopher shrugs like he doesn’t take offense. “Mom came from money, but when she married my dad, they cut her off. He was a hard worker. A regular office job. A 401K. That kind of thing. Then he got cancer, and I… I don’t really begrudge her this. It’s what she wants.”
“That’s very understanding of you.”
“It’s not exactly a hardship,” he says. “Even if I do have to dive into cold water.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, meaning it more than words can convey. It’s a situation plenty of boys would have taken advantage of. The kind of boys who bring roofies to parties and get away with things because they can. The only kind of boys I’ve known until now.
He shakes his head, pushing aside my gratitude. “You wouldn’t have died. Probably.”
“I’m glad you’re good at the whole numbers business thing, because a career in motivational speaking is out of the question for you.”
He leans forward and opens his mouth, as if he’s going to say something important. And then he stops. When he finally speaks, it’s something I never would have expected. “You’re smart,” he says, and I laugh.
“What?”
“You’re smart, but you don’t want anyone to know.”
“I’m not smart, as my grades can definitely attest. We can’t all be valedictorian, can we?”
He laughs a little. “You are so full of shit.”
“Excuse me? My report cards are very clear on this issue. I am the absolute best at failing. If there were grades given for failing, I would get straight A’s.”
When I was in third grade, the teacher called my mother in for a conference and showed her my math workbook. I had used the numbers like an abstract paint-by-numbers, turning the pages into stained-glass drawings of flowers and puppies and this one grim reaper with its scythe made out of a column of fractions. It’s not that I can’t add or subtract or even do advanced derivatives. It’s that my mind will flit away like a butterfly in a meadow filled with flowers.
“Okay,” Christopher says. “But I know the truth.”
Frustration makes me huff, which is a lot safer than letting myself smile at him. “Fine, but I know the truth about you.”
One dark eyebrow rises. “What’s that?”
The insight hits me with the same clarity as I saw every page in that workbook, the possibility rising up out of the framework. “This whole thing. The insanity of the yacht and the silver spoon, you want it so bad it hurts. That’s why you study so hard. Because you want this life as bad as your mom, but you’re working for it in a different way.”
The silence descends on us, as heavy and cold as the water. His throat works. “That obvious, huh?”
My brain, usually good at comebacks, falls suddenly silent. There are things I could say to ease the moment: I didn’t mean it, I’m sure it’s not true. But those would be lies. We’re sitting in the cabin with only nakedness between us, the same way we were last night. “It doesn’t mean anything bad about you.” At least that much is true.
He laughs without humor. “It doesn’t mean I’m a greedy asshole?”
“Oh, for sure, you’re definitely a greedy asshole. Who isn’t? Everyone wants money. Very few are willing to work as hard as you to earn it.”
“Listen,” he says, seeming uncertain for once. “What you said about that guy. The one who owned the job website. The one who—”
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” I say, my cheeks burning like fire. “It was a moment of weakness. Which I seem to be having around you with unfortunate frequency.”
“Maybe we should tell your dad. He could make sure that—”
“Absolutely not. No offense, but you’ve been my stepbrother for like a month. You don’t know the history in my family. That guy is gone, and the best thing to do is leave it alone.”
My parents alternately hate each other and love each other, but that isn’t what breaks us. It’s the money that fractures us into a million sharp pieces.
Like the men in my life, money is only temporary.
And if I never want either of them, I won’t be disappointed when they’re gone.
6
Admissions Essay
Dear Christopher,
My mother married a German count, which is exactly as pretentious as it sounds. We’re moving to Frankfurt and that means a boarding school with new rules and lesson plans where I’m already going to be behind. I hope you don’t mind that I’m writing you, because I know we’re not technically related anymore.
PS. Who’s going to dive in and rescue me on spring break?
Dear Harper,
Thank you for writing to me, even if we aren’t related anymore. If it’s any consolation, you feel as much a sister to me as you did before. Which is to say, not much. I’m sorry to hear about the new boarding school. I hope they have lots of paint.
PS. Don’t sit on the rail at midnight, and whatever you do, don’t die.
Dear Christopher,
Germany is cold and guess what? They speak German. It’s hard to make friends when the only things I know how to say are “Yes, ma’am” and “Which way is the bathroom?” I’m super popular.
You will be pleased to know that while I did smoke a joint on the railing, I had my phone in my pocket in a waterproof case. So even if I had fallen in, which I didn’t, I could have called the yacht’s concierge line and gotten rescued. Three cheers for technology.
PS. My new stepbrother wears twenty pounds of cologne and has a goatee.
Dear Harper,
It’s kind of strange how different the second year is from the first. In the freshman classes they kept talking about weeding people out (which doesn’t mean what you think it does) and how hard it would be, but I felt like I had a handle on things. Now they’re acting like it’s straightforward and I’m staying up late every night banging my head against these textbooks.
I feel like I’m drowning here.
PS. If I had written this textbook, I deserve to be shot. With a silver bullet.
Dear Christopher,
You have an amazing brain, which is something I can state without any hesitation because you said I was smart—so obviously you have a clear and accurate understanding of the world. Plus, Daddy keeps talking about how you’re going to do great things.
And I’m not just saying that because you’re a vampire who wrote a shitty textbook.
PS. For the love of God, don’t die.
Dear Harper,
Finals damn near killed me, but I kept your letter on my desk. I figured as long as you had ordered me not to die, I had no choice but to listen. That’s how saving your life works, right? I never took etiquette class, so I’m just guessing here.
Your dad gave a speech at commencement and took me out to dinner. He said you were doing some kind of big art exhibit in New York City. That’s incredible.
PS. Why didn’t you tell me about it?
Dear Christopher,
That’s exactly how saving my life works, and congratulations on graduating!!! The only rea
son I applied to Smith College is my art professor. Her work is amazing. In my admissions essay I wrote about the Medusa painting. I thought they only made interns read those things, but Professor Mills found out and asked me to do an exhibit.
I thought about vandalizing the school and tearing out the wall of the gym, but shipping rates are ridiculous. So instead I’m doing a series of canvas paintings about the myth.
PS. I’m enclosing an invitation to the exhibit in case you can make it.
7
Breaking And Entering
It seemed impossible that Christopher would spend his weekend traveling to New York City for a girl he knew for a week a couple years ago. The fact that we kept in touch felt surreal, almost a dream, like the night I fell into the bay. That we were stepsiblings, if only for a few months, made it more strange, not less. I couldn’t be sure what I wanted from him, not even in the privacy of my mind. What were the odds a man like him would be interested in a girl like me?
I never told Daddy that Christopher and I wrote letters. At first I wasn’t sure what he would think about it. And then it became weird to mention, as if I’d been keeping a secret. That’s what the letters were—a secret. An escape.
A lifeline, like the red and white round buoy.
The exhibit becomes bigger than I thought it would, once my mom finds out about it. She invites every friend and enemy she ever knew in New York City, and the whole thing blows up. It would have been nice to have a small show filled mostly with the art scene, people who would appreciate the work more than the champagne.
But I accepted my mother’s ambitions in society a long time ago. As Christopher said once, It’s not exactly a hardship. Even if I do have to dive into cold water.
All the pieces for the show are packed into foam-padded crates stacked along the foyer of the penthouse suite. Daddy’s paying the bill, of course. Mom’s last divorce gave her the smallest payout yet, which had less to do with a prenup and more to do with the man’s failure in the stock market. Only the main piece remains propped against the window, surrounded by tubes of paint and a disarray of brushes. I can’t seem to stop myself from dabbling at it, even though I’ve lost any perspective on whether I’m making it better or worse.