“I want to offer you a chance to join the Coalition,” I said.
“Let’s walk,” Pops said. Despite the freezing temperature, we headed into the woods on a path beaten by his soles. Hawk followed closely behind his father.
“You already offered this to us. Many years ago. This offer was refused.”
“This is the last time I will be making this offer.”
Pops smiled.
“We’ve been fine without your Coalition. We answer to no one,” Hawk answered.
“Things are changing. If you don’t join the Coalition, you will lose our business.”
It was a matter of weeks, possibly days. Once we joined forces with the Mexican president, once the Coalition broke apart, it would quickly ensue that all known independents would have to pick a side or see their work, their family, everything they had ever known and loved burned to dust. If the tribesmen joined our side—joined me—I could protect them. If they joined Shield, they were the enemy. I didn’t want to see this happen.
Pops stopped at a tree and examined a lone wisp that was growing out of the trunk.
“What will happen to you if you lose our business?” I wondered, my voice low.
“We will go elsewhere,” Hawk grunted.
“What if there is nowhere else to go? What if the only other place to go is worse than us?”
“We’ve always found our way. With or without your Coalition.”
I wish I could tell them, tell Pops, about what was about to go down. How bad it was going to get.
But Pops was too busy looking at sticks and trees. “This twig is nothing more than a cumbersome piece of wood,” he said. “It sticks out as though it was a mistake. Some would see it as something that needs to be broken off, because it whips them in the face every time they pass by, because it doesn’t fit with the rest of the tree. Look at this tree. It is beautiful, tall, and thick. But inside, it is dying, and this misplaced little wisp is its only hope. Disease has already spread though the veins of this tree, and what was meant to die, will. There’s no changing that. But this tree will grow strong again because of this insignificant piece of wood. In the end, this twig will become its strongest branch.”
I knew not to expect an explanation, and I really didn’t have time for one anyway. “I won’t be able to protect you anymore. If you don’t join, this will be the end of our affiliation.”
Pops turned and made his way back down the path. Hawk and I followed him all the way to my car. Apparently I was being escorted out.
Pops took a serious tone as I opened my car door.
“As planned, we have arranged for a full shipment to come through in two weeks, and the plants that you have requested us to produce are almost ready for cultivation. If you honor your covenant, so will we.”
He walked away. They were on their own from now on.
CHAPTER 11: EMILY
HATE TO LOVE
As my roommates finished their last exams, the house slowly emptied. Everyone was going home for the Christmas holidays. Joseph and I were the only ones still left. And Meatball, of course.
I wasn’t exactly sad to see everyone go. No one had really talked about the fact that Griff was gone overnight, but there were the uncomfortable stares. I knew what they were thinking: it should be you who left, not him, not our Griff. Except that he wasn’t their Griff—he was mine. And I was the one who had sent him running.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to people leaving—eventually, everybody did in some way or another. My brother, Bill … Rocco … Cameron … and now Griff. If Cameron had, or had had my heart, then Griff had my soul. But there are only so many pieces people could take from you before you disappeared altogether. I could feel myself sinking, as though I had plunged through thin ice and gotten pushed down by the undercurrent, hands skating under the cold hard ice, unable to come up for air.
And then there were all the nightmares. At least one every night since Griff had left. Spiders falling, dangling from my ceiling. Trying to run away from Victor with my feet stuck in quicksand; him holding an olive branch, watching me go under. My dreams of Cameron and Rocco had been replaced by my own eventual, definitive demise. My prophesy.
After Bill died, I came to loathe the holidays. All holidays. Because my brother wasn’t there with me and because I was forced to be with my parents, wherever they were in the world, without my brother as a buffer. When Griff bought that Christmas tree and we started making plans to spend the quiet Christmas holidays together, I had started looking forward to this, like a prisoner looks forward to a day pass. I was imagining carolers coming to the door while we sipped hot cocoa … I didn’t really have much experience with happy holidays.
In the end, the holidays would still be quiet … very quiet. At least there were still Meatball and Joseph, I thought.
But when I came out of my room and Joseph was loitering by my curtain, I realized that I wouldn’t even have that. He was swaying, as though he had been deciding something and been caught trying to escape. When he saw me, he held off and forced a smile. I was embarrassed for putting him in that position. Of course, he wouldn’t be there to spend the holidays with me or with Meatball. He had a family. A mother who loved him, who worked three jobs to keep him in school, who sent home-cooked meals because she was worried he wasn’t eating enough.
I felt my stomach flutter in a way that comes only when you come to terms with the fact that you’re a total loser.
“Oh, hi, Joseph,” I said, adding the element of surprise to my tone. I quickly turned to my bins that were stacked against the wall outside my room and pulled off the lid. “I thought you had left already.”
“Yeah, I’m, uh, heading home. For, you know, Christmas. And all that family stuff.” He stood for a second, watching while I started digging through the top bin. “Did you, uh, wantta come?”
I could almost hear what he was thinking. Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno.
“Thanks. That’s really nice of you to offer. But,” I quickly added before regret could settle his features, “I really should go through these bins before Hunter calls the fire captain on me.”
Joseph flipped his backpack over one shoulder and rushed to the stairs before it was too late. “Okay. Happy holidays.”
Meatball followed him down and waited by the door. Unfortunately, he was stuck with me. We were each other’s only family.
Even though Joseph was gone and I really didn’t need to keep up the charade, I kept plunging through my bins. I hadn’t really gotten around to it since Carly and her cronies brought them back to me. More than anything, I needed to keep busy. The house was just too quiet, and the sound of work underway made it slightly less monstrous.
I remembered running through the house as a little girl, looking for Maria. Whether I was upset or scared or needed to be with someone who wasn’t trying to mold me, I would run through every room until I found the one Maria was cleaning. Then I would pick up a rag or a mop and try to help; she would hum, and I would talk about nothing, and she would listen anyway.
For me, cleaning was tantamount to a hug.
Though we always had to keep an ear out for Mother. Catching me fraternizing with the staff (cleaning no less) would get Maria fired and earn me a disappointed scowl like the mother duck gave to her ugly duckling.
I went through the Rubbermaid bins rather aimlessly. Searching for clothes that would fit my growing state, knowing that I had barely enough clothes at the most skeleton of times. I made a small, very small pile of things I could probably toss, which included miscellaneous class notes, inkless pens, a key chain, and a sock without a partner. I put the single sock back in the keep pile. As less than an hour had gone by when I popped the lid off the last bin, I worried. Now what? I immediately comforted myself with the remembrance that I lived in a student dump. A million hugs awaited.
While I worried about keeping myself busy, I ought to have been worried about what I would find in the last bin. Part of me had initially, briefly wondered wher
e these had gone, while the other part stopped me from really searching for them, hoping that I would never see these again. There, under the scarf and mitts that I had been looking for a few days ago when the really cold weather started poking through my jacket, was Rumble Fish—the book and the movie. The book I had been reading when Bill died, and the movie Cameron had gotten me to help me deal with Bill’s death. More reminders of love and loss, reminders that I didn’t need and could hardly bear.
I carefully placed the lid back on the bin, my hands trembling. Then I stacked the rest of the bins back on, burying the find, putting its contents back to forcefully forgotten places. I walked down the stairs slowly, mechanically. Meatball was still waiting at the door as I passed him on my way to the kitchen. In my peripheral vision, I saw the lone tree sitting in the corner. Griff and I had bought a box of secondhand ornaments that we had placed next to it, ready for some happy time around the tree. Would there have been Christmas music in the background? And then the carolers would come knocking, and we would turn the music off and go sip our hot cocoa on the front stoop.
It hit me. It really hit me. I was alone, completely, totally alone. I had a dog who wished he were somewhere else, and a child growing inside me who would soon wish the same.
I grabbed my car keys and Meatball’s leash, and we headed out.
For the past couple years, my mom had been spending the holidays holed up in a Belize spa, which was code word for the plastic surgeon’s office, where she worked on looking rested. She had gotten nipped, tucked, and filled so many times that she was starting to look like a balloon animal: a little twist here, a little air there, and voila, you’re a poodle!
As for my dad, he was wherever work took him.
As a kid, my parents would plunk me in some hotel or in one of our houses—Hamptons, Aspen, Paris—where the staff were paid to ensure that I had a merry Christmas. One year, my mom had even paid some of the staff’s kids to come over and play with me on Christmas Day. I ended up hiding in a corner, watching them as they jumped on my bed and complained about my lack of toys. I had no idea how to play with kids or toys.
Eventually, I made Isabelle and Burt’s life easier and cheaper by finding something better to do over the holidays. Last year I’d found a professor who was looking for an assistant to do free grueling research over the holidays. He never thought he’d actually find someone desperate enough to do it.
When Meatball and I pulled up to the gates, it was already dark. With my parents gone, I had expected the Hamptons estate to be sparsely staffed and no more than dimly lit. Instead, it was fully decked out for the holidays. Large Christmas wreaths hung on each of the iron gate egress panels, and little white lights had been spiraled around the stone pillars. This was as Christmassy as the Sheppards had ever gotten. I didn’t know they had it in them.
“It’s Emily,” I yelled to the freestanding speaker pole.
“Who?”
It was a new voice on the other end. A new head of security. I sighed. Lansing had been head of security for as long as I could remember. I think he was already ninety years old when I was born. I knew he would have to retire eventually, though sorrow filled me as I realized I hadn’t been there to see him off.
“Sheppard. Emily Sheppard. I …” While I struggled between I live here or my parents live here or I’m selling Girl Scout cookies, there was a scuffle over the speaker.
“Tesoro! Is that you?”
Maria had come on the line. Her voice had aged into a scratchy coo, but I would have recognized it anywhere. She had called me tesoro, Spanish for treasure, since I was a kid. It was a comforting pet name, though I had always wished she had chosen a different one. Treasure reminded me of something buried, something that could be looked at but not touched, which I suppose was true.
The gate swung open, and we drove ahead. Meatball sat erect next to me. Even he could feel the impending doom. But this was still better than spending the holidays alone, cooped up in decrepit student housing. At least, he’d have room to run around here.
The cobblestone driveway led into the trees and was lit up by lampposts, each adorned with chic flags that hung down like icicles. Artsy snowflake, tasteful snowman, artsy snowflake, tasteful snowman. It was like driving on the main street of small European towns. My mother’s personal touch?
The end of the tree line disclosed a surging four-tier water fountain and a mansion that was lit like it was goading landing airplanes—no carbon credits were being saved here. Good-bye, Amazon forest!
I wasn’t sure if my parents were “home,” though it sure looked like they were. I went straight for the service entrance, which was where I really wanted to be. My parents would find out soon enough that I was there.
Maria was waiting for me hands on hips, devilish smile, when I pulled up to the side. The service entrance was barely lit, and once I turned off my headlights, Maria would have disappeared in the darkness had it not been for her blotted white apron. I had to use the weight of my whole body to drag Meatball out by the leash. He was resolute on spending Christmas in my car. I didn’t blame him.
Maria ushered me into the kitchen, not knowing that I was accompanied by a beast. When there was light, the look Maria gave me spoke loudly: your mother is going to have a heart attack when she sees that. I smiled her devilish smile and shrugged my shoulders in response.
The kitchen was not what I remembered it to be. Darlene, our head cook, used to have the kitchen running like she was in the midst of a magazine shoot: smiling over steaming pots, a little stir here, a little jiggle there, sipping on a glass of Cab-Sauv. Everything amazing always. And she had a full staff bouncing at her commands. Now there was a staff of three, steaming over enough food to feed the queen’s jubilee. Saucepans overflowing, dishes falling over in the sink. More new faces—young faces—stress closing their faces. I felt as though I had just entered a university dive that served caviar and risotto.
“Where’s Darlene? Where’s everyone else?” I asked Maria, eying the kid security guard sitting on a bar stool by the speakerphone and playing a game on his phone.
When I turned to her, I saw strain reflected off Maria’s features. There was only a twenty-year difference between the two of us. And yet Maria looked as though she had aged an extra fifteen on top of that. Her hair was graying, and I could swear that she used to be taller than that. But more so, Maria never—I mean, never—had a dirty apron. Even if my mother had her scrubbing the cobblestone around the pool, Maria always reappeared looking untouched.
“Darlene found something else,” she said, using her apron to wipe off fish guts. I noticed a half of salmon left bloodied on a plank.
“And Lansing?”
She gave me a sympathetic smile. “He found something else too. Are you hungry? I can make you something, if you like.”
“How long have they been gone?”
She brushed my shoulder. This was as much touching as she could get away with without getting fired. “Just a few months. I don’t remember your mother advising me that you would be coming home for Christmas. How’s school? We’ve really missed you, you know. Darlene was just saying the other day—”
“You mean, before she left?” My jaw was so tight I thought my teeth were going to pop out of my gums. Darlene and Maria were best friends. My childhood was filled with memories of their inside jokes that I never understood but giggled at with them. Neither had ever gotten married; neither had ever had children. Maria’s family was in Mexico, and Darlene never talked about any family. All they had was each other.
“Don’t worry, niña. Everyone’s okay. But it looks like that one might be hungry.” She pointed at Meatball, who was salivating a puddle on the kitchen floor.
“He’s always hungry.” We had that in common lately.
When I went to find a paper towel to wipe the saliva off the floor, I received nasty glares from the young staff. They were sweating over stoves; I was in their way, and I was distracting Maria, their fish gutter.
“I’ll go find my mother,” I suggested with a bit of a growl to my voice.
Maria smiled without argument and rushed back to her station. I wasn’t dumb enough to think that Lansing and Darlene, two loyal employees, had left voluntarily. They were either fired or forced out for whatever reason.
I pulled Meatball away and headed through the halls into the main house. It appeared as though the Christmas spirit had oozed into the house. My mom had had the place professionally staged to make it feel warm, happy, and un-Sheppard-like. Clearly, she was planning a big party.
Meatball stayed close as we checked the rooms, looking for my parents, who I feared might have been eaten up by all this happiness. In the dining room, a tuxedoed waiter was setting up a table for eight, even though there was enough food in the kitchen to feed all of New York State. Economy had never been in my parents’ vocabulary.
It wasn’t too hard figuring out where in the house my parents were. Their screaming voices were enough to wake all four seasons at once.
I thought about turning around and heading back to my very quiet Christmas with Meatball. But I was curious, so I treaded into my parents’ quarters.
They had their part of the house.
And I had a whole other part that I used to share with Bill. This part was on the opposite side of the house—as far away as possible from the adult area, like a contagion antechamber. Though I wasn’t sure which side was more diseased.
As I approached the master suite, the reproachful words were sharp, each one enough to leave a mark. I was about to knock on the door, holding my knuckle an inch away from the wood. Then I caught a glimpse of Meatball. His ears were so flat against his skull that they almost disappeared into the fur. He was right. Going into the war zone would be like two hyenas fighting over a pig carcass, until a buffalo with a broken leg limps in between them. They would eat me alive.
I slid to the bench in the vestibule and Meatball crawled under, his head popping between my legs.
“I don’t know how much more I can take of these evenings. It’s one thing to be forced to stay put and play hostess to these never-ending evenings. It’s another to have to beg and plead these people to help us. It’s degrading.”
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