Hoax

by Lila Felix

  “Abel, for the love of all that’s holy, let me help you.”

  I didn’t wait for his permission. I took his arm and slung it over my shoulders and walked him towards the bathroom. I sat him on the closed toilet and turned on the water. I got boxers, and shorts from his room and threw them on the counter in the bathroom. I reached into the tall cabinet and got two burgundy towels down and plopped them next to the clothes. In the meantime, he had shrugged out of his suit jacket and out of his shirt. He stood up and took off his pants, the belt clanked on the tile floors. I turned around for the rest and heard the change of the shower spray as he stepped in. I picked up a towel and threw it over the door. I gathered his clothes and put them in his room in the laundry basket. I got my phone from the kitchen and asked Sean to stop by my house and get the bag that I kept behind my truck seat. A girl never knew when she might need some extra clothes.

  I knocked at the door when I went back to the bathroom and he stood in front of me, dressed but mentally giving himself round two of a beating.

  “Don’t do it, Abel. There was nothing you could’ve done differently.”

  “My freakin’ head hurts. I’m gonna find some Tylenol.” He moved to walk around me.

  “Go lay down, let me get it for you. Stubborn much?”

  He cracked a sideways smirk and turned to do as I asked. I found the Tylenol after digging around a bit and got him a glass of water from the bathroom. I sat down next to him on the bed, his arms were folded.

  “How long is this going to last?” I said and tried desperately not to laugh.

  “What?” He shrugged.

  “This, this, broody, pouty Abel.” I pointed at his face.

  “I’m not pouting.” He tilted his chin in the air, it disagreed.

  “The hell you aren’t. Look at you, arms crossed, chin in the air, you might as well roll over and refuse to speak to me.”

  “Well, maybe you can do something to make me less pouty.”

  My eyebrows rose in response, “You, sir, have a busted lip. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Just be careful.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, even though only one would move, and I couldn’t resist.

  I leaned down but didn’t go for his lips. I kissed his chin, the underside of his jaw, the spot below his ear and then I got a little braver. I grazed my teeth over his earlobe and he let out a groan. I took the opportunity and whispered into his ear. “There’s so many more places than your lips.”

  I pulled away to look at his face and it was priceless. His eyes, well one eye, was wide as could be. “Revenge is a dish best served cold Mr. Collins.”

  “Tell me what it was revenge for so I can do it again.” He laughed and rose up from the bed to kiss me, gently and even at that he winced. I heard the doorbell and he cursed.

  “Let me get it, what if it’s them again.” He moved to get up.

  “It’s Sean, he brought me some clothes from my truck,” I jumped off of the bed to answer the door.

  “Tell Sean I’m gonna kill him.” I heard him grumble under his breath.

  Sean dropped the clothes off and I promised him that I would call tomorrow and give him the run down.

  I made a new icepack while I was in the kitchen and brought it to Abel who was now asleep. I put it against his eye and propped it up with a pillow so it would stay while I went to change. I grabbed my bag and tip toed out of the room.

  “Take a shower if you want to; use whatever you need to from the bathroom.”

  I turned around and his eyes were still closed.

  “Thanks,” I muttered on my way out.

  I showered, had to use his ‘prowler’ soap. That’s what I called it. The men’s soap that claimed women would flock from miles away if you used it. It kinda smelled like chocolate. No wonder they flocked. I got out and put on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. I didn’t bother washing my hair since there was no blood in it. I packed my stuff back into my bag and went back into the bedroom. He had a lounge chair on the other side of his room by the desk and I sat down in it and let out a sigh of relief.

  I saw Abel shift on his bed and then survey the bedroom.

  “I know you’re not going to stay on the other side of the room all night, are you?”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you, you need rest.”

  “Well then, get your cute ass over here because I will not be able to sleep while you’re sitting in a chair.”

  “Ok, ok, ok.”

  I got up and stood at the side of the bed until I felt absolutely ridiculous. Abel tugged on the side of my pants and I sat down next to him and again, didn’t know the next move.

  “It’s just me,” he whispered and somehow just those three words calmed me a little.

  I lay down on my side, facing his door, as close to the edge of the mattress as I could get without completely falling off. He chuckled behind me, I felt the mattress dip and one arm went under my head and one went around my waist. He flexed his fingers at the dip of my waist and when I didn’t respond he moved towards me, so close that I could feel him breathe against my back.

  “Thanks for staying with me. I just needed to feel you, safe and warm against me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His hand, around my waist and holding mine, went slack some few minutes later, and his deep breathing proceeded. Somehow I was going to have to get to the bottom of all of this stuff Brett was talking about. I needed to tell Sean what Brett said to me. But what happened to Abel tonight? Yeah, I never ever wanted him to be in that situation again.

  Abel

  I heard what Brett said to Corinne as he held her against him, restraining her by her wrists. There was only one thing that Brett loved more than beating up people and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. He was talking about drugs. If it existed, Brett had done it. And when he said the word ‘freebies’ to her, I knew what all of this was about. What Corinne had to do with drugs, I didn’t know. And I wanted to get up right this second and strangle him with my bare hands for pulling that shit over the summer. If nothing else, he had scared the crap out of her and that wasn’t ever going to happen again.

  Sean had been feeding me info the last couple of weeks. Every time Corinne told him about someone saying something to her, he called and told me. I knew that he and I were committing a crime by betraying her trust, but it was to protect her. Sean had also been doing some digging of his own. The kid was a genius.

  I went over to his house one afternoon, when I was supposed to be at practice. He told me that some kid in his Physics class talked about Corinne selling drugs but that’s all he heard. He showed me his mom’s home office. She used to be a CPA and she kept meticulous records. More than that, she kept a journal on each and every client. Sean said that some had notes about where she thought they were lying or cheating on their income or deductions. That way, if the IRS got involved, she would not be implicated. The clencher? Sean’s mom was the CPA for the Novak’s, Corinne’s parents, and had been up until about three years before. She had records piled up, seven boxes worth, in the office, with a three inch thick journal. We didn’t look in the journal, but somehow I needed to find a way to tell Corinne that it was worth a shot since her parents were so tight lipped about everything.

  It scared me to death to tell her, but I had already put some things together. Her parents were constantly going on these road trips, gone for weeks at a time—The Mexico trip during the summer. They had suddenly downsized. Add that to Brett’s never-ending drug references and the questionable financial records, it didn’t sound good. Sean and I were just going to present everything to her, in the gentlest way possible, and let her come to her own conclusions and hope that she didn’t hate us for pointing it out. I hoped she didn’t hate me.

  I thought of these things the morning after the dance as she slept next to me. I tried to pry my arm from under her head without disturbing her but when I did she turned over to face me. I took the opportunity to ru
n my fingers through her sandy blonde hair, to touch the outer rim of her ear, to study as her eyes flickered behind her lids, and to take comfort in her toes against mine. I kissed her shoulder, not to wake her, but because I just couldn’t resist and she stretched out beside me, eyes still closed. I thought when she realized where she was she would bullfrog off of the bed like she always did when she was scared. She opened her eyes and smiled and then threw a leg and an arm over me. She snuggled into my chest and said against my neck, “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine. I’ve probably got a mean shiner but my lip doesn’t feel so swollen anymore.”

  She pulled away from my neck, inspected me and concurred. She got out of the bed, a lot faster than I wanted and announced that she was going to make breakfast.

  “You don’t have to; let me take you for breakfast.”

  “Nope, I want you to make you my famous sour cream pancakes.” She got a hairband from her bag and twisted and turned her hair until it resembled a ballerina.

  “Ok, if you must.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I had fallen asleep again. But I woke to the smells of pancakes and syrup. I groaned as I pulled myself out of bed. I texted Sean before heading to the kitchen to ask him if he had plans today. He texted back almost immediately saying that he didn’t and he was ready. I didn’t want to do this so soon after what happened last night, but she needed to know what was going on so we could take steps to prevent a repeat of the night before. And I couldn’t protect her if I didn’t know exactly what in the hell was going on.

  I padded barefoot into the kitchen and she was doing that thing she did with her hips, her signature dance while she cooked. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t escape the moan that came from my mouth.

  “I’m going to pretend that moan was about the pancakes and not other things,” She said as she turned the last cake out onto a plate.

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  As we ate we both avoided the subject of what happened. But I needed to gather some gumption and see if she would comply with going to Sean’s house.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” I put down my fork and waited until she looked at me.

  “Spill it.” She said.

  I blew out a huge breath and ran my hand over my face.

  “There’s something at Sean’s house that we want you to look at. And something that Brett said last night triggered our theories. I don’t want to make assumptions. I just want you to look at it and see what you think. But I think if we can find out what Brett’s after, then we can stop all of this before it gets any more out of control.”

  “I need to confess some things too. There’s been more going on than I’ve told you about.”

  I put my hand up to stop her. “I know. Don’t be pissed at Sean but he told me everything. He did it so I could watch out for you better.”

  I braced myself for the anger. My hands gripped the underside of the table, waiting for the wrath.

  “It’s fine. I just didn’t want you to worry. I feel like I walked into your life and stirred the fire, so to speak.”

  “You walked into my life and made it a hundred times better, honey.”

  She smiled a hint of a smile and then we got ready to go. At least she wasn’t pissed.

  Corinne

  I was so pissed—so pissed. I wasn’t mad at them, I was just mad about the whole situation. I was smack dab in the middle of a lame ass Hardy Boys book. This one’s title: The Hardy Boys and the Prep School Idiot.

  We drove to Sean’s house and knocked at the door. Abel was twitching and his jaw worked overtime. Whatever they thought they knew, it couldn’t be good. Sean answered the door and pulled me into one of his bear hugs. Then he took me by the hand and pulled me into a room. It smelled like old paper, like a library. Everything in it was boxed up.

  “Corinne, this is my mom’s old office. She was a CPA. She mostly did taxes and some bookkeeping. My Dad asked me to go through some of it the other day and begin throwing stuff away. I shredded two boxes worth when I came across one box labeled Novak.”

  My eyes snapped to him, and then to Abel. The first thing that came to mind was why my Dad had a CPA when he was in banking or investments. Certainly he could do his own taxes.

  Abel chimed in, “Just tell her Sean.”

  He nodded once, “So it turns out that there’re seven boxes labeled Novak. Each one has tax records and the top one has a journal. My mom kept very detailed journals on each of her clients. She thought it could keep her out of trouble one day.” He pointed to Abel. “We didn’t look in the journal, we left it to you.”

  I looked at Abel for answers. “What are you thinking?”

  His jaw moved back and forth as he studied the carpeted floor and chewed on the inside of his mouth. “Why don’t you take a look at the first box with the journal and then we’ll talk about it, ok? Do you want us to leave or stay? Or I can leave if you just need me to leave? Sean can stay.”

  “No, I want you both to stay. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure it’s just financial records.”

  “OK,” he said and sat on the loveseat in front of the desk.

  Sean took the first box down and I opened the lid on the white cardboard box and I knelt on the floor next to it. He went to sit beside Abel.

  I didn’t see anything out of order with the tax records until I got to one that stumped me. It was the first year I went to Wellsley. One of my first experiences at Wellsley as a ‘big girl’ was handing the Headmaster, a man at the time, a huge yellow envelope that was tucked into my pink suitcase. It was filled with cash. It was an entire year’s tuition. But the 1040 I now stared at said that my parent’s total income was a little under fifty thousand dollars. How in the world do people pay forty thousand dollars in tuition when they made less than fifty?

  I turned the paper around and showed Abel and Sean. “What are you thinking, honey?” Abel said and he looked like he already knew the answer but was looking for me to find out for myself.

  “Wellsley costs forty thousand dollars a year. My parents always, always paid cash, in full, for the entire year on the first day of school. How can you do that if you make less than fifty thousand dollars?”

  Sean and Abel looked at each other. The Hardy Boys were about to get their nuts punched if they didn’t stop giving each other looks. I rolled my eyes at them.

  “Why don’t you read the journal, see if there’s something in there.” Sean said gently, like he was throwing a steak at a tiger.

  “Ok,” I picked up the heavy journal and went to the same year as the 1040 I held. His mother’s entries were short and sweet. Maybe not so sweet.

  The Novak’s have substantial savings accounts, CDs, and investments. It looks inconsistent with their income. They also have no mortgage interest, no car payments, no debt, though they drive expensive cars and their house is worth upwards of 300,000 per their tax bill. Their daughter also attends a private school that costs 90% of their annual income. Mr. Novak also claims travel expenses that are almost equivalent to 50% of their income. I have advised them of these inconsistencies and was told to file them as is. Mrs. Novak came in to sign the forms before I mailed them in to the IRS but seemed removed from the situation. They also paid me in cash, and insisted that I take double my usual fee.

  “Do you have a copy machine Sean?” I asked, never looking up from the journal.

  “No, but she kept electronic copies. I put them all on this.” He pulled a memory stick from his pocket and tossed it to me.

  “Abel, tell me what you’re thinking.” It was a command, I was done with their tiptoeing around the princess.

  “Truth?” he said and got squirmy again.

  “Duh,” I said simply.

  He scrunched up his face and chewed on the inside of his cheeks for a minute. It made me question his human/zombie status.

  “Driving to Mexico, lots of time travelling, sudden downsizing, installing all of those cameras and alarm systems, taking yo
u out of private school, people at school asking you about drugs, Brett mentioning your Dad having freebies. It’s not good, Corinne.”

  “Jesus Abel, you’re just spouting shit out. Make some sense.” I didn’t know if I was unable or unwilling to put it all together.

  “I just think you need to talk to your dad, honey.” He leaned over and put his face in between his hands.

  “Fine.” I put the box back in its rightful place and got up to leave.

  I stormed out, I needed to breathe, and it was too hot in there. I could feel the walls of the room closing in on me. I finagled with the doorknob of the front door until someone reached around me and unlocked it and opened the door for me. I stood on the lawn, my breaths shallow and stiff. Abel stood in front of me.

  “Tell me what you need.”

  “I need to walk home. I need some time to myself. I need to confront this on my own.”

  He said, “Ok” but I had crushed him. I stomped and stamped over the monkey grass outlining Sean’s yard and began to walk home. It was several miles home and that’s what I needed. Many miles to think.

  Eventually I saw Sean in his beat up GMC driving behind me, making sure I got home ok. He was also on the phone. I would bet my eyeballs that he was on the phone with Abel. I walked through the doors and called my dad. He said they were on their way home and would be back in thirty or so minutes. I sat on the couch and waited. Then I puked. Then I waited some more.

  They finally came in and my dad must’ve read something on my face because he sent my mom to her room. She, of course, obeyed, and went to her bedroom. He sat across from me and pretended to be his regular stern self. I didn’t even know where to start.

  “Since I started school, some kids have been hounding me about some things. I ignored them for a while, told them to go to Hell or that they were insane. But they were pretty damned persistent. So persistent that Abel has a fat lip and a black eye. I managed to only have bruised up wrists.” I held them out to show him.

  “Make a point, Corinne,” he snapped.

  “I want to know why people at school are asking me for drugs. I want to know why they want me to get drugs from you. I want to know why they assume that I’m some kind of drug dealer. I want to know why they expect you to give me ‘freebies’. Is that specific enough for you?”