by Alexa Land
Chapter Four
The next morning, I was pretty thoroughly pissed off at myself. I’d done everything wrong last night, from going back to Shea’s house to freaking out when his brother confronted me to giving in to self-pity when I got home. None of that was okay.
I felt like crap, too. Crying never did a bit of good. I knew that, which was why I almost never let myself go there.
Dragging my blanket with me like a turtle shell, I went into the kitchen to make coffee. While it brewed, I opened a cabinet that was empty except for seven prescription bottles. I placed a paper towel on the counter and shook out a total of thirteen tablets. The coffee pot was half-full by now, so I executed an Indiana Jones-style maneuver, swapping out the pot with a spare cup so I could pour myself a mugful and use it to wash down the pills. Breakfast of champions.
After standing under a hot shower, I got dressed and picked up the four heavy Amazon boxes just inside my front door. This made both locking up behind myself and the long walk to my Jeep problematic. I had a crimp in my shoulder by the time I heaved the boxes into the backseat.
The grocery store was my next stop. I had a list, but there was no reason to refer to it, since it never, ever changed. Maybe thirty minutes later, I loaded five full canvas sacks beside the boxes, got behind the wheel and pointed the car north.
The drive over the Golden Gate Bridge was usually enjoyable, but today the bay and sky were gunmetal grey, a thick blanket of fog obscuring the city behind me and the Marin headlands up ahead. I clicked the heater up a couple notches and turned on some music to try to lighten my mood.
Traffic wasn’t bad, so it only took about half an hour to reach the town of Larkspur and then head west on very familiar roads. The houses thinned out as I approached Baltimore Canyon. Eventually I came to a gated drive and entered a code, then offered the closed circuit camera a little salute as the gate swung open. I drove another ten minutes on a gravel road before reaching another gate and repeating the process.
My father’s house, which sat by itself amid rolling hills, madrone trees and bay-laurels, was deceptively understated. It just looked like a typical ranch-style family home from the driveway. You had to go around back and see the way its three stories were built into the hillside to understand how it could be almost eighteen thousand square feet.
I used my key on the side entrance and carried the groceries down a long hallway, sidestepping two white garbage bags while barely glancing at the nineteen gold and platinum records lining the walls. In the kitchen, I set the bags on the stone countertop and paused to listen. Piano music was coming from the den. That was a good sign.
Once I’d schlepped the Amazon boxes to the kitchen, I got busy unpacking the groceries, not only from the bags but also from any extra outer packaging. The food went in the pantry and refrigerator, obviously, and the books I took from the boxes got categorized and placed in neat stacks on the breakfast bar. I’d brought up the idea of an ereader to my father a dozen times, but apparently that fell squarely under the heading, ‘Things Distrusted by Alexzander Tillane’.
I quickly gathered up the boxes, shopping bags and packaging, took them back down the hall and deposited them in my car for later sorting and disposal. Then I went back for the two white garbage bags, which also got put in the Jeep’s backseat. I really didn’t have to worry about them leaking, since they were triple-bagged.
My dad was still playing the piano when I finished. I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I sat on the reclaimed barn wood floor outside the den and leaned against the wall, arms resting on my bent knees. The whole house had a rustic, almost woodsy feel, very masculine and no-nonsense. It had been decorated by a high-end designer about twenty years ago, and I always got the impression that he hadn’t consulted or even met my father when he was putting this place together.
I closed my eyes, letting the music wash over me. No matter how many times I heard him sing or play an instrument, I was always floored by my dad’s talent. He’d been a child prodigy, pushed into the spotlight far too young by an overly ambitious stage mother. I often wondered how many of his issues might have been avoided if he’d just been allowed to have a normal childhood.
Right now my dad was playing a gorgeous remix of one of his biggest pop hits, adding texture and layers to the instantly recognizable melody. As I sat there taking it in, my thoughts drifted to Shea. Beautiful Shea. It was surprising how much I missed him, given the fact that I’d known him a day. But what had I just said to Chance about relationships being measured not in time, but in how someone made you feel? I’d had a point there.
Not that it had been a relationship. Not that it could ever be that. I still missed him, though. I sighed, dropped my head onto my arms and just left it there for a while.
“Hey.” My father startled me. I hadn’t noticed that the music had stopped. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me, his dark brows knit in concern as he tucked a long strand of hair behind his ear. “You okay, Christian?” He and I looked nothing alike, except for our eyes. Mine were the exact shape and shade of green that his were, and he was staring into them at that moment.
“Yeah, fine,” I said, pulling up a veneer of composure. “How are you, Zan?” I’d met my father for the first time when I was ten years old. Somehow the idea of calling him Dad to his face sat funny with me, so I usually didn’t do it.
“I feel good. I’m playing again, as you heard.” Sometimes his music deserted him for months at a time. It didn’t go in cycles with his bipolar disorder, it just seemed arbitrary. He’d made international headlines when he walked out of a sold-out concert at the L.A. Coliseum mid-song in 2002. His fans had been outraged, even though he refunded their money.
He totally withdrew from the public eye after that, spawning a media frenzy. Thirteen years later, it still hadn’t completely died down. There were a million stories circulating about what had happened to him, when the simple truth was that he just wanted to be left alone.
That was the reason I never used my last name. It was unusual enough to attract attention, and the paparazzi didn’t know about me because I’d been illegitimate. Zan had quite a few lovers (both male and female) while he was married to Dev Holland, one of the most famous women in Hollywood. My mother had given me his last name though, which hadn’t been the smartest idea since I was supposed to be a secret. I always assumed she did that to cement my relationship with the superstar that had fathered me.
Apparently it had worked, too. He’d financially supported my mom and me all of my life, even after she got married. When I was fifteen and showed up on his doorstep because my home life had become unbearable, he took me in without question. Zan Tillane might have more than his share of flaws, but he was a good dad.
“You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, boyo,” he was saying. Thirty years in the States had only slightly diminished his English accent.
“I had a really weird day yesterday.”
“Weird how? Alien abduction? Bad drug trip? Bad drug trip making you think you were abducted by aliens?” His green eyes sparkled. It was good to see him happy.
“Not quite. I met a great guy and then totally freaked out in front of him. His pro wrestler-sized brother got in my face, and I flashed back to that night in the dorm bathroom and went all Girl, Interrupted on him. I hadn’t done anything like that in ages.”
“Shite, sorry to hear that. I thought you’d gotten a pretty good handle on it.”
“I had. There were just a lot of similarities to that night and it flipped a switch.”
Zan got up and offered me his hand. “Come on, let’s pretend it’s a reasonable hour to have a drink. Sounds like you could use one.”
I let him pull me to my feet, then followed him into the den. My father used exactly three hundred and sixty square feet of his huge home, plus the kitchen and one of the bathrooms. He lived his whole life in this one room, which was packed to the point of bursting with books and movies, all stacke
d around a grand piano, an elliptical trainer he used obsessively, and the big, brown leather couch that was the epicenter of his existence. There was a giant flat screen on the wall, nestled between two gorgeous oil paintings by obscure artists, but it wasn’t for watching television, it was just for playing DVDs. Zan also didn’t own a computer and the only names in the cellphone I’d forced on him for emergencies were mine and his lawyer’s. He preferred to live his life completely cut off from the rest of society.
I didn’t know how much of this was just his own brand of eccentricity, and how much stemmed from legitimate mental illness. He had a whole laundry list of diagnoses that had been stuck to him back when he still saw doctors: bipolar. Paranoid. Obsessive-compulsive. Agoraphobic. There was no denying that a lot of that fit. But somehow, I just couldn’t see my dad as a bunch of labels.
I thought about all of that as I watched him mix up a couple drinks at the little bar in the corner. He was barefoot and dressed as always in old Levis and a wrinkled, slightly bohemian button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the faded fabric covered in a tiny monotone floral pattern. Zan was pushing fifty, but the streaks of grey in his thick, dark hair and the laugh lines around his eyes somehow just enhanced his striking good looks.
I tried to imagine him up on stage in front of a crowd of eighty thousand people, but I just couldn’t, not even after watching his concert tapes a million times in an effort to understand that side of him. Somehow, the man the public knew and my father were just two totally distinct people to me.
“Grab some ice, kid,” he said, handing me a silver bucket and pulling me back to the present. I did as I was told.
Once we were settled on the sofa with matching whiskey sours (the only drink he made) Zan said, “So, tell me about the great guy that preceded the freak out. What’s his name?”
“Shea.”
He grinned at that. “Watch out for those Irish boys. They’ll steal your heart every time.” It always threw me off a bit when my dad said something like that. I knew he was bisexual, but I’d only ever heard about the famous women he’d been involved with. And my utterly not famous mom, of course.
Still, I grinned too and said, “You’re not wrong.”
“And what does the lovely Irish Shea do?”
“He’s a cop.”
“Ah, excellent. They always have handcuffs at the ready, you know.” His grin got wider. He was trying to make me blush and it worked. He chuckled at my embarrassment and asked, “Did you two meet while he was arresting you for vandalism?”
“Did you get a call to bail me out of jail?”
“No.”
“Then you already know the answer to that.”
Not that he would have shown up personally. He hadn’t actually left the house in a decade, but he kept a lawyer on retainer to deal with stuff that cropped up. If I ever did get in trouble, I knew he’d have my back.
My big fear though was that my last name would go public if I got arrested and someone would make the connection to Zan. I didn’t want to live in the public eye if the press ever found out who I was, but far more than that, I sure as hell didn’t want the paparazzi following me here. My dad was too messed up to return to life under a magnifying glass. And yes, I knew I should change my name officially, but somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Truth be told, I liked having that tie to my dad.
“So, where did you meet him? If you say Craigslist, I’m locking you in here with me.”
“How does your computer-shunning self even know about Craigslist?”
“You told me all about its wonders and horrors, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. And no, I didn’t meet him there. I met him at a tourist bar that I’d never go to under normal circumstances.”
Zan took a sip of his drink and asked, “So what were you doing there?”
“Actually, I went with a new friend. He’s a prostitute and wanted to work the crowd.”
That earned me a big smile. “I love it when you try to shock me.”
“But it never, ever works! I tell you I was out with a prostitute and you take it in stride.”
“It’d take far more than that to shock your old man, boyo.” He was still smiling. “So, this Shea fellow. Was he a tourist, fresh off the boat from the Emerald Isle?”
“No, he lives here.” I proceeded to tell him more or less the whole story, up to and including last night’s fiasco, but glossing over the sex. I was what Zan had in place of television, so he always wanted to know all about my life. But obviously, some things were too private to share with my dad, even if he was super cool.
When I finished, he asked, “So, what are you going to do about this boy?”
“Nothing. I ruined it. You know I can’t start something anyway, so it’s probably for the best.”
“You didn’t ruin anything! The lad’s a copper, he’s used to seeing people in crisis. Did you ever think of that?”
“Well, no,” I admitted.
“And you’re wrong that you can’t start something, son.”
“Six months, Zan. That’s when I’m going away, you know that. Before that happens, by the way, we need to get serious about finding someone we trust to come in here twice a week and take over for me.”
He tossed back what was left of his drink and told me, “I’m not ready to have that discussion yet.” I suppressed a sigh. He was never ready to have that discussion. This was going to become a real problem, I just knew it.
Zan deflected the subject back to me. “Do you know how much you could do in six months? You and this fella could travel the world. You could make love a thousand times. You could dance in the moonlight and fall asleep all wrapped up in each other on the shores of paradise.” Sometimes it was really obvious that my dad used to write pop songs.
“And then I could leave him all alone and break his heart.”
“He’s already alone! So, you give him six months before putting him back where you found him. You give both of you six months. Enjoy him, Christian, and let him enjoy you.”
“That really isn’t much time. Plus, I have school to finish. I’m going to be busy.”
There was a lot of sympathy in my dad’s eyes when they met mine. “I know you set that goal for yourself to finish art school, son. But all I been hearing is how half the professors in that place are drivin’ ya mad, and if I’m being honest, it doesn’t sound like your heart’s really in it anymore. I know you wanted to get as much out of it as you could to make yourself a great artist, but if you ask me, you got there. Your work is brilliant. And you know what? It always was. That didn’t come from that fancy art college, it came from here.” He rested his palm on my chest. “Maybe it’s time to live a little and enjoy yourself, and maybe this Irish lad is just the way to do it.” He removed his hand from my heart and tucked my hair behind my ear, just like he always did with his.
“He couldn’t even touch me, Zan. After I told him I’d been raped, he reached for me and then he stopped. That’s how awkward and uncomfortable I made it for him.”
He shook his head. “Son, don’t you see? Let me remind you yet again that the boy is a police officer. That means he’s seen and heard it all. What do you think, that he was repulsed when he found out you’d been raped? That he thought less of you somehow?” I dropped my gaze to the couch as he said, “No feckin’ way is that what happened. He’d just watched you break down and was giving you some space. He probably figured you didn’t really feel like being handled right then, so he was respecting your boundaries.”
I considered that, then looked up at my dad and offered him a half-smile. “You’re pretty smart sometimes. You know, for a crazy hermit.”
He laughed at that and lobbed a throw pillow at me, which I deflected. “Craziness is hereditary, son. You get it from your kids.”
That made me laugh, too. “Where’d you get that? Were you up on your roof with a telescope, reading bumper stickers on the 101 freeway?”
“Nah. It was in
one of those books you brought me last week. I don’t think I can handle any more so-called comedies, by the way. It’s time to change gears. I’m thinking about reading a few romance novels.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Don’t judge me.”
“Sorry. Gay or straight?”
“Gay.” He smiled at me pleasantly.
“Alright, I’ll see what I find.”
“Make sure they’re really hot with loads of sex.”
“Because that’s not awkward, shopping for things that I think might turn my dad on.”
“Yeah, a bit skeevy when you put it that way. Just make sure there’s a cute guy on the cover and I’ll take it from there.”
“Will do.” I pivoted around so I was facing him and said, “So, there’s something else I need to tell you. I’m going to be gone for a week, beginning next Sunday. I’ll still be here Wednesday as usual and I’m planning to come on Saturday before I leave, but then it’ll be the Sunday before Christmas before I can make it back here.”
“No worries, I can cope for a week.” He really was in a good place today. There were times when information like that would have thrown him. “Doing something fun, I hope?”
“No. I’m going on a Dotsy cruise.”
My father burst out laughing. “Good heavens, why? Do you have a missus and two or three little rug rats that you neglected to mention?”
“Because that’s likely. No, a friend’s getting married on the cruise, only he doesn’t know it yet.” I told him the whole story, which seemed to amuse him.
I hung out with my father well into the evening. We cooked dinner together and as we sat down to salmon and salads he asked, “How are your parents?”
I frowned at him, even though I myself was guilty of saying that occasionally. “Mom and her husband are fine. My dad, however, is five years overdue for a haircut and in desperate need of some new shirts.”