The Love Scam

by MaryJanice Davidson, Camille Anthony, Melissa Schroeder

  “Yes.”

  Argh. Like pulling teeth. “Like…”

  “That’s their business, Rake” came the firm reply, “not yours. You want their secrets, you ask them yourself.”

  “Here’s something weird about you—something else weird, I mean—asking what someone does for a living or where they live isn’t me on a hunt for all the deep dark secrets of your heart. It’s asking what you do. It’s small talk at parties.”

  “Not the ones we go to,” she retorted. “D’you want your phone or not?”

  “FedEx doesn’t sell phones. In fact, what are we even doing here? Why am I only realizing this now? Is this a trick? Are you having me shipped somewhere?”

  “Ha! Like it’d be that easy.” Which made Lillith, who was still irritated with him, look up and laugh.

  He glanced around the busy shipping area, marveling that some things—warehouses, loading docks, cafeterias—looked exactly the same no matter where you were. “Are you going to rent-slash-steal one of their trucks to deliver eighteen thousand Christmas stockings in eight months?”

  “No, you chatty idiot.”

  “Please,” he said, offended. “I prefer ‘gabby dumbass.’”

  They’d gotten in line and Rake saw she had a call slip in her hand. “This is where your phone was shipped, dope,” she said, clearly not tired of insulting him.

  “No one ever gets tired of insulting me,” he lamented out loud. Then her words sank in. “Wait, it is? Why didn’t they ship it to the hotel?”

  “I thought you’d want it ASAP. It wouldn’t have shown up at the hotel for a few more hours.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” He was touched, he’d admit it. “So, while we’re waiting in line—”

  She closed her eyes, rubbed them. “Oh God.”

  “—we can get to know each other a little better!”

  “I already know everything about you I will ever, ever need to know.”

  “Pshaw! Not even close. There’s loads of great stuff about me you don’t have a clue about. Lillith, you can stop giggling anytime now. Anyway, so the others—they help you with your charity work, and—”

  “God, you’re tenacious. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Why would you?” The line was moving steadily, which was ironic. On the one hand: phone, phone! On the other, Delaney was stuck in this line with him, and (kind of) answering all his questions. Some of his questions. “So you kind of live all over, and you do charity work, except when you don’t, and the girls help you, except when they don’t.”

  That surprised a giggle out of her. “Yes, you’ve nailed it. My life in its entirety.”

  “You know who I should be asking?” he added, thinking out loud. “Sofia! She doesn’t treat small talk like it’s a police interrogation.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever been arrested.”

  “Ha! Shows what you know, Delaney, I have been arrested! Disturbing the peace, public drunkenness, assault—but Blake actually started that one, not that anyone ever believed me except my grandma. I always lawyered up before any interrogation could really get going. That pissed my mom off something awful when we were still broke. What? Stop giggling. I’m sharing intimate portraits of my hardscrabble upbringing.”

  “I wasn’t laughing,” she managed, then cracked up again. “Hardscrabble! The local gourmet shop ran out of your favorite pâté?”

  “I fucking hate pâté. Uh. Sorry, Lillith.”

  “What’s pâté?”

  “It’s when a bunch of sick idiots cram geese full of food, kill them, then grind up the body organ that makes bile so people can spend way too much money on it so they can spread it on their toast.”

  “Nooooo.” Lillith looked equal parts fascinated and revolted. “Really?”

  “I swear to God, kiddo, somebody lost a bet. That’s the only reason they tried it.” His voice was rising; he didn’t care. People were turning to look; he gave not a shit. “Then they were too embarrassed to admit it tasted exactly like a ground organ that makes puke would taste, and hundreds of years later, people are still pretending it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

  “That’s it.” Delaney was smiling, the nice smile, not the smirk. “That’s it exactly. You’ve nailed it.”

  Heh, she said “nail”—focus! “We were talking about how you don’t like to talk. Not about important things, I mean.”

  An eye roll. “That’s pretty good, coming from you.”

  “Touché, jerk. I meant what I said, though, about talking to Sofia. She at least likes to talk about things besides nothing. A master—mistress?—of small talk. In fact, she…” He trailed off, remembering what had passed for small talk between the two of them.

  Her work is my work.

  Holy shit.

  I would never take her money. She has given me everything.

  “Holy shit!” he cried, then waved at the heads that snapped around. “Scusa, scusa.” And in a lower voice: “You scooped Sofia off the streets just like you did that kid!”

  “No.” Delaney’s solemn expression cracked and she giggled. “She was better than the kid. She actually got my wallet and was halfway up the street before I caught her.”

  He was too delighted to speak. Claire Delaney: Pickpocket Bounty Hunter. And then they were at the window and Claire was presenting her FedEx slip and Lillith asked if she could use the ladies’ room and he said yes and they both watched her as she went in and then Delaney was handing him a box, which he hugged to his chest and then cradled like the most precious infant ever conceived, and Lillith came back out no harm no foul and everything was right and good in the world, probably.

  His last happy moment, in fact, before the nightmare really kicked into gear.

  Twenty-six

  Loathsome brother,

  I am being held hostage in our mother’s hometown and cannot escape the observation that this is ALL YOUR FAULT. She controls the keys to the kingdom, the money, and the nuclear option. Take a moment and think about what that means.*

  “Oh my God.” They’d taken a vaporetto back to the hotel, which was awesome because nothing kicked more ass than a vaporetto. Any water bus instantly put any land bus to shame; it was the rule. Lillith, a sensible and wise child, backed him immediately. Then Delaney talked him down from where he’d perched, arms spread and yodeling, “I’m king of the worrrrrrrlllddd!” by promising he could use her laptop to charge his phone. And, even better, hop on iTunes and copy everything over to the new phone.

  He’d been slobberingly grateful, which he expressed at the top of his lungs once he’d climbed down. She’d then sensibly/ruthlessly pointed out that he could have had a phone much sooner if he’d just opted for a cheap burner, and he’d retorted that even the poverty-stricken liked iPhones, and two days of manual labor and two of sporadic vomiting wasn’t the end of the world, and was she going to criticize how he spent all his money, or just when he used his money for phones?

  Then the three of them sulked for a few minutes. (He had no idea why Lillith was sulking, but couldn’t ask because it meant breaking his own sulk.)

  Back in the room, he’d plugged it in—how much joy the little things brought!—and Delaney watched like a hawk while he used her laptop. “What have you got on here, launch codes? Jesus, I can actually feel your hot breath on the back of my neck. That wasn’t a criticism!” he added as she backed off.

  Then, as the thing slowly charged, it began to wake up …

  (“It’s aliiiiiive!”

  “You have no filter, do you? If it pops into your brain, it pops out of your mouth.”)

  … and began rattling and chiming like it was trying to self-destruct.

  “So many texts,” Delaney commented with a smirk. “The ladies must be missing you.”

  He flushed, then was annoyed he flushed. He owed Delaney exactly zero explanations for his lifestyle. Besides, it wasn’t like he was some careless lothario—that’s what Blake called him, right, lothario?—who only care
d about hooking up.

  Oh, wait. I am some careless lothario who only cares about hooking up. Though I never mind if they stay for breakfast. Or want to come back after lunch. Oh, fuck it. “Well, if the ladies are missing me, Ms. Snoopy Pants, it’s no concern of yours. Also I need to download my ‘forever unclean!’ ringtone from The League.”

  “It’s odd. I understand the words, but none of the context. How can you be fluent in six languages besides your own?”

  “You and my brother would hit it right off,” he snapped back, even as the thought came to him.

  (Blake’s hands, which looked like his but weren’t, on her ass; Blake’s mouth, which looked like his but wasn’t, on her lips, Blake’s dick no no no make it staaaawwwpppp!)

  He shook himself, but, luckily, Delaney was used to it by now; it didn’t even muster a smirk. And God, when did he last get laid, anyway? Not once while he was in Italy, but definitely in—London? Near London? Somewhere that reminded him of London?

  No. Paris. Three days before the flight to Milan, Carol Kennedy had met him in the lobby of Le Bristol, and they’d gorged on strawberries and truffles and ice-cold champagne (he didn’t like champagne or strawberries, but it’s what the babes like, and Rake Tarbell goes along with what the babes like), and they’d started in the impossibly long tub (strawberry seeds got in the weirdest places), and finished by bending her over the glass-topped desk in the other room. She’d been getting over a cold and kept sneezing at, um, inopportune times. Then she’d dressed, polished off the last of the fruit, waved

  (waved?)

  and disappeared into the mysterious Parisian spring night, which, in this case, had been Serge Lutens at twelve-thirty in the afternoon.

  That … that wasn’t good.

  That really wasn’t good. Because standing in line at a FedEx hub, fully clothed and having a sex-free chat with Delaney while Lillith darted off to use the loo had been more fun than rich-guy banging at the Bristol with a former Miss New York who loved doing mouth and butt stuff.

  Butt stuff, Rake? Really?

  Shut up. I just need to get laid. I need to get ahold of Blake, get my money, do something nice for Delaney, and then get laid. I’ll feel better then. I’ll be back to myself then.

  Yes, but is getting back to yourself what you—

  “Shut up!”

  “Are you yelling at your inner voice again?”

  “No,” he grumped.

  “Your pants are on fire, you liar liar.” And God, it sounded affectionate. Like when a normal woman would say “You’re so cute!” Wait, did he want a normal woman? No, he wanted Delaney. Wait, what? Wait.

  What?

  And now, in the midst of many weird feelings, Blake was sending him the mother of all texts. And/or had lost his mind.

  You’ll recall we felt the best way to assist Mom would be to pay off the bank holding all the paper. This solved the immediate problem, but as a long-term tactic it was brought to my attention that it will prove to be a disaster. And so, though we are equally culpable in our mother’s perceived crimes against Sweetheart, I am the only one exiled. Because you are terrible.

  Wait, what? Crimes against whose sweetheart? Paying off what banks? Was that why there was a money mix-up? Did Blake and/or Mom send the wrong money from the wrong account somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go? And why the hell had Blake brought up the nuclear option? They had a deal: Rake could joke about everything except the nuclear option, and Blake could bring up any topic except the nuclear option. Okay, not really a deal. A general understanding they usually stuck to while not acknowledging that’s what they were doing.

  “Trouble?” Delaney sounded tense but was sitting like she always did: straight, shoulders back, comfortably alert. Like she could scope Cracked.com’s Five Villains Who Went Out of Their Way to Screw Their Own Plan, or leap out of the chair and stuff a hundred Easter baskets in under twenty, or nail an intruder in the ’nads. “Everything okay?”

  “I don’t know.” He scrubbed his fingers through his clean but unadorned hair—soon he’d be able to buy product! Not that he used it. He just loved knowing he had the option of buying it. Lord, let me never be bald. “I haven’t talked to Blake in—uh, what month is it?”

  “May.” This with barely veiled amusement.

  “Don’t you give me that look,” he ordered. “People forget what month it is all the time.”

  “They don’t, though.”

  “Anyway, Ms. Asks a Question Then Changes the Subject, it’s been several weeks. See, our mom…” He trailed off. “Aw, you don’t want to hear it.”

  She’d closed her laptop by now, the one with the absurdly long password that was at least twenty characters, including I and H and Y, and was giving him her full attention. She even scooted the desk chair closer to him. “I do, though.”

  Damned if she didn’t seem sincere. “It’s rich-people stuff,” he warned.

  She took a deep breath and leveled her steady gray gaze at him. “I can take it.”

  He snorted. “Okay, the thing is, my mom’s been on her own longer than I’ve been alive. But a few weeks ago, she heard from her hometown, Sweetheart, North Dakota. And…”

  Twenty-seven

  She knew part of the story, of course, from her employer. But she was dismayed to find that Rake didn’t know much more. How could he be raised by such a determined woman and not know anything about where he came from? Wasn’t he curious? Didn’t he want to know everything about those who came before him, made him?

  Wow, maybe take it easy on the projecting? What’s important to you doesn’t have to be important to him.

  Yes. Maybe.

  Probably.

  Fine, fine, probably. As a child of the American foster care program, Delaney had known for more than a decade all she would ever know about those who came before her. She had been named for her grandmother, Claire Maybell Snyder. Her mother had died when she was two. Father: unknown. For years she’d thought her father’s name had been Unk.

  The entirety of her family was dead or unk. That wasn’t true for Rake, though. She reminded herself, again, that what was important to her didn’t have to be important to him. She had the feeling she’d have to do that a lot.

  “… right? I mean, who does that? Cuts a kid out of their life because they want to move to the big city? Mom wasn’t even pregnant! Not then, anyway. So she left it all behind, thank God, and moved to Vegas, and she and my dad—she was his waitress, and he was some rando rich asshole—did the drunken pelvis two-step…”

  And then she thought she should stop reminding herself. It was good to be annoyed with Rake, good to feel irritation and even dismay over his choices. Disliking him was much, much safer than liking him.

  And she liked the entitled rich whiner.

  A lot. Which had never, ever been part of the plan.

  Why’d he have to try to rescue me? And why didn’t I meet him when I was a kid? I could have shown him … trained him. We could be doing hits together. Instead, he met Donna and set the current disaster in motion, and poor Lillith will have to pay for it. Literally.

  “… so off she went to Sweetheart, and off I went to Gstaad, and then London, and Paris, and Lake Como, and now here, except I’m pretty sure the last leg of my trip was against my will, and off Blake went to wherever he goes when he’s not being reprogrammed by his robot overlords. And look!” Rake brandished his (new) phone at her. “Look at this text that goes on forever and won’t die! Just like Blake!”

  The terms of my atonement are as follow: 1. No more selling people’s homes/farms to the bank. 2. The remaining farm, scheduled for closing next week, is off the market. 3. Said farm must be made profitable within six months. 4. By me. 5. Without my fortune, which she has pulled off the table. (You’ll recall that though she allowed access to our inheritance on our eighteenth birthday, we are not legally entitled to it until we are thirty, which is twenty-three months and seventeen days from today.) 6. I cannot terminate anyone or sell anythin
g. 7. Resistance is futile. 8. If condition #7 is ignored, she’ll activate the nuclear option.

  * * *

  “What,” Delaney asked, terrified and trying to hide it, “is the nuclear option?”

  “Never ask me about the nuclear option.” Rake stared at her, unblinking. “Not ever.”

  “Okay.”

  “Not ever.”

  “O-kay!”

  “We shouldn’t even be talking about not talking about the nuclear option. Thank God Lillith’s bunking with Sofia again.”

  “Your brother knows when you’ll both turn thirty to the day?”

  “See? This is what I’ve been dealing with. For just under thirty years, apparently.”

  “And … your mom took away his money?”

  “Naw. She’d never. He’s exaggerating. Blake’s always been the golden douche.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like he’s”—in as much trouble as you are, she thought but didn’t say—“being serious. Like she really did cut him off from his funds.”

  “Impossible.”

  Sound nigh impossible? I quite agree, but our mother does not.

  For this, in addition to many other crimes you have perpetuated upon me since our birth, you will be made to pay and pay. I warn you only as a courtesy, as dictated by the bonds of family.

  Good night.

  * * *

  “Wow.”

  “Right?”

  “He sounds like he could be a handful.”

  “A handful of priggish hypocritical crap. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.” Rake was slashing his fingers through his longish dark blond strands; he was borderline shaggy and deliciously rumpled. “I was really looking forward to getting my phone, and the first thing that hits is a ton of Blake.”

  “Which you weren’t expecting.”

  “No!”

  Why do I want to keep warning him? I’m not supposed to warn him. “Yes, well, the thing is, he sounds like he’s in tr—”