“No, not stolen.”
“Where is he?” Danny shouted.
“I don’t know,” the stablehand wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist, “You’d better ask your father.”
“My father,” Danny repeated, stunned.
He turned and left the stable, his mind reeling in confusion, and walked as fast as he could back to the house, slapping his riding crop against his leg in his agitation; something had happened to Tenorino, and his father hadn’t said anything at all about it during dinner.
He entered the house by the kitchen and went through the dining room into the den, which was empty; he wondered if they’d gone to bed already, or if they were just spending the evening in different parts of the house, as they sometimes did; he went out into the wide hall and then to the room next door, his father’s study.
“Where is Tenorino?” Danny demanded, walking up to his father’s desk.
“You didn’t knock,” Taylor Vandervere said, not looking up from the blue-backed legal papers he was reading.
“Where is my horse?” the boy demanded, snapping the crop against his boot in impatience.
“I think you’ll find,” his father still didn’t look up, “if you examine Tenorino’s papers, that he was my horse.”
“What do you mean, ‘was’? Where is he?” Danny was terrified that something horrible had happened to the animal.
“On his way to Pasadena,” Taylor answered simply, though Danny could hear a tone of smugness in his voice, “I sold him to a riding school.”
Danny gaped at his father, shocked into momentary silence as he tried to wrap his mind around this news: his beautiful horse, his most prized possession and beloved pet, was gone — in a trailer on his way to a riding school at the other end of the state.
“But… why?” Danny finally asked, tears welling up in his eyes.
“Because, Marc-Daniel,” Taylor set down his papers neatly and finally looked directly at Danny, “I do not wish to pay good money to stable, feed, and insure an expensive horse for the use and privelege of a filthy little faggot.”
Danny blinked a few times in surprise, the venom in the man’s voice shocking him like a splash of ice-water; and before he knew what he was doing, he’d reached out and slapped his father across the face with the riding crop. Taylor flinched at the pain and stared at Danny in outrage; but Danny didn’t see the outrage, all he knew was that slapping the man had felt incredibly good — but it wasn’t enough. He slashed at him again, harder this time and backhand, drawing blood on the other cheek.
“You dare!” his father hissed in that same venomous voice, and Danny launched himself across the desk, his hands at his father’s throat, knocking him out of the chair and bearing him to the floor with the momentum of his leap; he swung again and again, with the crop at first but then with his bare hands, sometimes curled in a fist and sometimes flat, left and then right and then left again, screaming and howling like a furious child.
Danny kept swinging at his father’s head, caught up in the catharsis of punishing the man, pushing his arms out of the way when he raised them to protect himself. But then suddenly, all the fight went out of him, and he just collapsed on top of his father, weeping brokenly, then rolled away and crawled into the corner, putting his back to the wall and pulling his knees up in front of his chest, rocking back and forth.
“Why can’t you love me?” Danny finally wailed, looking at his father huddled up in a heap by the desk, staring back at him like a wild animal.
“I’ll have you arrested,” Taylor Vandervere recovered himself sufficiently to stand up and move around to the other side of his desk, sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs and pulling the telephone towards him.
Danny found that incredibly funny, though he couldn’t say exactly why: only that the idea of a Vandervere writing out an official charge against another Vandervere, a family fight out in public where everyone could see, was so out of keeping with the family tradition.
“You think it’s funny?” Taylor thundered, hitting the hang-up button and restarting his dialing, having lost track in his confusion, “You’ll go to prison.”
“Oh, sure,” Danny shook his head, calmed by the laughter, emboldened by the power he felt after the attack, “I can just see you telling the police chief that a sixteen-year-old faggot cleaned your clock.”
That struck Taylor silent, and he replaced the phone in its cradle and regarded his son narrowly.
“You think you can get away with attacking me, boy?” the man stood up and stared down at Danny in a pose calculated to awe an opponent.
“You think you can get away with treating me like a piece of shit?” Danny countered.
“I won’t have a faggot in my house,” the man said threateningly, thrusting out his chin, which was bleeding.
“But it’s not your house, is it?” Danny stood up and dusted off his knees, then pushed his hair back out of his eyes, “It’s the Trust’s house. And you don’t have any choice who lives here. I am your son, like it or not, and the Trust doesn’t allow you to kick me out.”
“You think you know the Trust better than me?” Taylor challenged him.
“‘Better than I,’” Danny corrected, stooping down to pick up the fallen desk chair and seating himself in it, reeling with a sense of power that he’d never felt before, “And no, I’m sure you’re as well-versed as I. You are a lawyer, after all. So naturally you are aware that the Trust explicitly forbids such melodramatic gestures as disowning and/or evicting your children. It simply can’t be done.”
“Disowning isn’t all there is,” the man spat blood into an ashtray, “As I said, I can have you arrested and tried for assault.”
“You could,” Danny conceded, “But you won’t. There would be a scandal, a Vandervere in Juvie; and not just any Vandervere, but the Mayor’s own son. You would be seen publically as a bad father. And it’s only a step from thinking you a bad father to thinking you a bad Mayor.”
“Nobody would ever run against me,” Taylor stated as if he believed it, but Danny could see the doubts.
“Aunt Mathilda would, if she ever took it into her head to so do. And if I asked her to, she’d be on it like a shot. Send me to jail and she’ll be out for your blood. Election year next year, isn’t it?”
“Are you blackmailing me?” Taylor looked genuinely shocked.
“Just a little,” Danny laughed, and tilted his head to look at his father thoughtfully, “I’m really surprised at you, I thought you were a better strategist than this. That you’d use up the only hold you had over me for something as trivial as my sexuality. Tenorino was the only thing you could take away from me, and you played your only ace this early in the game.”
“I could take your car,” Taylor reminded him, “That’s my property as well.”
“Yes, you could,” Danny smiled at him, “But since you went out of your way to buy me that big black hulk instead of the red roadster that you knew I wanted, you rather pulled your own claws on that one. Take my car, I can get my own. You don’t pay me an allowance, all I get is what the Trust gives me, so you can’t take that away, either. You’ve shot your only bullet, and we haven’t even properly started the war.”
“What war?” his father was starting to look worried.
“Well, for one thing, I’m not going to Harvard, I’m going to Stanford. I’ve already been accepted.”
“I won’t pay for Stanford,” Taylor crossed his arms.
“You don’t have to,” Danny pointed out reasonably, “The Trust will. I already checked: Harvard is traditional, but not required. The Trust will pay for my education, wherever I choose to be educated. Sure, I’ll have to do without you subsidizing my education with a flashy apartment and extra pocket-money, as you did for my brothers; but really, Dad, were you planning to do that for me, anyway? I somehow doubt it.”
“Get out of my study,” Taylor wanted desperately to be alone so he could evaluate all of what Danny had said. It was the long
est conversation they’d ever had, and he could tell that something inside of Danny had broken: his meekness and sweetness was gone, replaced with hard steel that he might have admired if it weren’t aimed at his own throat.
“As you wish,” Danny stood up and sauntered arrogantly toward the door, “Have a pleasant evening.”
21
When Danny got back to his room, he collapsed into the armchair and just sat there for the longest time, letting the numerous ramifications of what had just happened sink in: he’d lost his beloved horse, and a huge section of his life was suddenly gone, no more evening rides, no more dressage competitions; he’d physically attacked his own father, something he never would have guessed he’d do; and he’d challenged the man with a display of power of which he had no idea he was capable.
He grieved for Tenorino, but through his sorrow he could see that selling the horse was the best thing for him: Danny was going away to college in a few months, and wouldn’t have been able to take the horse with him; and he didn’t think he’d have made a good showing on the dressage circuit, with so many other things going on in his life — a string of third-place ribbons would hurt the horse’s career as a champion and as a stud. Though Danny was going to miss the beautiful creature terribly, Tenorino was better off in a nice warm place, with professional riders taking him on the circuit, inspiring new equestrian students.
He was also sorry he’d hit his father: he deplored physical violence, and whatever the provocation, to beat a man savagely in anger was just plain wrong. He hated that he’d lost control of himself like that, and vowed to exercise his temper better in the future so such a thing wouldn’t happen again.
Nevertheless, though he had no idea where all that cool, contemptuous back-talk had come from, he was very glad he’d been able to tap into it; he knew that his relationship with his father was forever altered, and altered for the better, due to that scene. He would no longer have to feel ignored and disdained by his parents, he now had the power to ignore and disdain them right back.
“Mijo, what is going on?” Mrs. Espinosa came into the room with his cheese and milk.
“Did you see my father?” Danny wondered, accepting the plate from her and indicating she should sit down in the other armchair.
“He looked like he’d been in a bar-brawl,” the housekeeper was wide-eyed with surprise, and just a little bit of pleasure, “He’s in there yelling his head off at your mother right now. What happened to him?”
“I beat the crap out of him,” Danny hung his head with shame, “He sold my horse to punish me for being gay, and I’m afraid I lost my temper.”
“Lost your temper?” Mrs. Espinosa scoffed, “I never thought to hear such a thing from you, mijo.”
“I’m deeply ashamed of myself, letting myself be overwhelmed by anger like that,” Danny admitted, “But what followed was right and necessary. I told him that I am going to Stanford, and that if he doesn’t like it, he can blow it out his ass. Pardon my French.”
“What’s he going to do to you?” Mrs. Espinosa wondered, knowing that Taylor Vandervere was a vindictive man and would find some way to get back at his son for the humiliation of being beaten.
“He’s already done all he could do, by selling Tenorino. He mentioned taking away my car, and I dared him to. I never particularly cared for the great hideous tank, anyway. And he threatened me with the police, but I pointed out that doing so would hurt him more than it would hurt me, so he backed down.”
“He may have backed down tonight,” the housekeeper frowned with worry, “But he’s a snake, he’ll find some way of hurting you.”
“Do you think I should move out, Tia?” Danny asked her, “Go to the Aunt Ems’?”
“Perhaps, mijo,” Mrs. Espinosa considered the idea, pulling herself out of the chair and leaning down to kiss Danny on the forehead, “But not yet. See what happens, and if you find that living under the same roof with him is uncomfortable or unpleasant, then go to your aunts. And in the meantime, be very much on your guard. I’ve worked for that man twenty years now, and I don’t trust him.”
“I will,” Danny promised, “Good night, Tia, and thank you.”
*****
For the rest of the week, Danny and his parents coexisted much as they always had: essentially in silence. But now there was no criticism punctuating the long silences, Danny could tell both his parents were too afraid of him to make a peep. And for the first time, without the criticisms and without Tenorino, without anything in particular to keep him there, Danny felt empty and unconnected. He was resolved, by the end of the week, to move in with the Aunt Ems if they would have him.
The emptiness of his home life made him cling more desperately to his life at school, holding tight to Jeremy and his little clique of friends. But even that felt empty sometimes; he’d be talking with Jeremy about little nothings after sex, or laughing with his friends at lunch, and he’d have this odd sensation of being behind glass, looking at his life from the outside. It frightened him, and made him cling even closer to everything around him.
And so it came as a horrible blow when he got a call from Mrs. Sinclair on Saturday night to tell him that Jeremy had crashed his car and was in the emergency room. Without even telling Mrs. Espinosa, he tore out of the house and got into his car, driving at breakneck speed to Vandervere Hospital; when he got there, he hugged his boyfriend’s parents and asked them what was going on; they didn’t know, so Danny armed himself with his Vandervere name and started throwing his weight around.
With a Vandervere breathing down their necks, the hospital staff went into high gear to take the best possible care of Jeremy; within minutes of Danny’s arrival, Jeremy was in a private room with a team of specialists fussing over him.
While the doctors worked, Danny questioned the EMTs who’d brought him in; apparently, Jeremy had been driving on the River Road, a winding highway that ran alongside the Augusta River northwest of town; it was dark and raining pretty hard, and Jeremy’s little car skidded through a guard-rail and down a fairly steep cliff, only barely avoiding going into the rushing river itself when the car’s rear tires caught on some rocks at the river’s edge. A logging truck coming down out of the mountains saw Jeremy’s headlights below the road and CB’ed for help.
“What the hell was he doing on the River Road?” Danny wondered; there was nothing up there except logging camps and a few vacation cabins.
Nobody knew, and Jeremy had not regained consciousness; when the doctors finished with him, they came and reported directly to Danny, including Jeremy’s parents in the conversation but automatically deferring to the Vandervere in their midst. Jeremy had a broken collarbone and two broken ribs, a fairly serious concussion, some bad lacerations to his face and forearms, and a dizzying array of contusions. The little car’s airbags hadn’t deployed, and though Jeremy had his seatbelt on, the downhill roll and the breaking glass had done a lot of damage.
On the bright side, he did not appear to have sustained any internal damage, no injury to his eyes or hands or ears, and his face most likely would not scar. He would recover to complete fitness within a few weeks.
Danny broke down and wept when the doctors left, with Jeremy’s parents comforting him as well as each-other. But eventually Danny realized he was being selfish and left the Millers to themselves, allowing them to recover from the shock of the accident. He met with the hospital administrators on duty to ensure that the Millers received every kindness and comfort the hospital could offer them, and then went out toward his car, intending to go stay the night at Pine Street and get comfort from his great-aunts.
“Here we are again, Mr. Vandervere,” Officer Kelly stepped in front of him as he made his way through the hospital lobby.
“Officer Kelly,” Danny greeted him with a handshake, “What do you mean, ‘again’?”
“Somebody close to you was nearly killed,” Officer Kelly explained, “The same someone as last time, even.”
“But Jeremy had an
accident,” the boy pointed out.
“I don’t know,” the officer shook his head and opened his notepad, “It looks like he sideswiped a deer before he went over, but there was no deer on the road. And according to the phone company, he received a phone call from a public telephone booth, five minutes before he went out driving on a wet and dangerous road that he had no plausible reason to be driving on. That phone call came from a closed gas-station about two miles from where he went off the road. A phone booth with no fingerprints whatsoever on the telephone or the door.”
“Oh, Christ,” Danny breathed with horror, sinking down onto the nearest chair.
“This is the second time Jeremy has been attacked. We need to figure out who wants your boyfriend out of the way, before he succeeds in getting your boyfriend out of the way.”
“But how?” Danny shook his head in perplexity, “Who in the world could possibly want to hurt Jeremy?”
“Did you see the movie The Fan?” Officer Kelly asked, sitting down in a chair across from Danny.
“Of course,” Danny looked at him as though he’d asked if the sky was blue, “Lauren Bacall singing, for Christ’s sake, how could I not see that?”
“You remember that the young man killed people he felt were a threat to the star, and people who stood between him and the star.”
“Yes, but…”
“You’re a star, Danny Vandervere. People worship you here. You’re not just a Vandervere, but you’re good at everything you do, incredibly nice, and beautiful. You excite passion and envy. You’re as much a celebrity in this town as any movie star or pop singer could be.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Danny looked askance at the man, “I’m just a kid.”
“You’re just a kid like Prince William is just a kid,” Officer Kelly corrected him with a touch of exasperation, “And I believe you have a fan who’s obsessed with you. I further believe that this fan is someone you know, probably someone you’ve had sex with, or who you have turned down for sex.”
“Well, that certainly narrows things down,” Danny said with some asperity.
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