The Stranger

by Anna del Mar

  “Nothing’s broken,” Stuart confirmed, letting go of my hand. “You’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  Seth didn’t say anything. His face was blank. His silence spoke volumes. I was pretty sure he was livid with me. He held me responsible for the fight. Oh, hell, I held me responsible for the fight.

  “Summer’s got quite the hook.” Jer winced when he dabbed his forehead with alcohol. “Really impressive. If we ever have to fight again, I want you on my side.”

  Stuart grinned. “Are you sure you’re not from Texas?”

  “You made that jerk whirl,” Ally said admiringly. “He deserved it.”

  “I hope he’s black and purple all over,” Jer said.

  “If you must know,” Stuart said, “Alex is worse off than any of us, by far. Astrid asked me to check him out. His nose might be broken. I put his arm in a sling, and his clothing is in tatters.” He eyed Seth obliquely. “He looks as if the wrath of God descended on him in lightning form.”

  “I don’t know what got into me.” I mumbled a bad attempt at yet another apology. “I’m really sorry. I’ve never hit anybody in my life.”

  “If you had to hit someone, you picked a good one,” Jer said.

  “I can’t believe I did that.” I dipped my face in my hands. “I lost my cool.”

  The sounds of an argument came from somewhere upstairs, a screech and a crash. Seth set aside the ice bag and sat up on the couch. “What the hell is that?”

  “Master Erickson!” Robert’s shouts rang through the house. “Miss Silva!”

  Seth bolted out of the sitting room and tackled the stairs like a horse at a gallop. I followed on his heels and so did everyone else. Our feet hammered on the polished wood floors and thumped over the oriental rugs. Robert met us at the top of the stairs, face ashen, mouth set in a downward curve.

  “What’s wrong?” Seth demanded.

  “It’s the mistress,” Robert said, “along with trouble like I’ve never seen before.”

  Another crash echoed from the library.

  “Dear God.” Robert grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me through the doors. “You have to fix this. Go in there.”

  I stumbled into the library and took in the scene. Astrid stood by the family portraits dressed in a silk kaftan, hands on her head, mouth gaping, eyes fast on the broken pieces of china scattered on the floor. The dogs whimpered, hiding behind her legs. I was distantly aware that there were other people in the room, but my stare was glued to the wiry woman with an awful lot of crazy in her glare who faced Astrid.

  Nah. It couldn’t be.

  I took in the woman’s teased, bleached blonde hair, her artificially enhanced pout, which was smeared in neon-pink lipstick, and her toasted brown-and-orange skin, wrinkled and freckled by too many hours spent under the sun.

  I knuckled my eyes. Was I seeing right?

  Standing next to the fireplace, her chest puffed out like a rooster in the fighting ring. The pair of artificial double Ds skewering the air dwarfed her scrawny frame. Leopard-print tights did nothing to suppress an overall impression of feral wildness. My throat constricted. Oh. My. Freaking. God.

  I squeaked. “Louise?”

  My stepmother didn’t even bother to look at me. Her furious stare beamed on Astrid like a death ray. Her platform sandals crunched on the broken shards on the floor as if she were playing Candy Crush with her feet. And the filth coming out of her mouth. My nails bit into my palms. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Seth said under his breath.

  “Yes,” I muttered, “and she can’t be around china when she’s in a rage. Help me, please?”

  “Got it.” Seth peeled off to my right. “Go.”

  “Louise?” I edged my way forward. “Look at me. What are you doing here?”

  “That bitch!” Louise growled in her best Brooklyn accent, adding a string of mortifying obscenities. “She set her dogs on me!”

  “I know you’re mad,” I said, advancing slowly. “But you need to calm down.”

  “Who the hell does she think she is?” Louise grabbed a Ming vase from the shelves. “The queen of England? Nobody treats me like this. Nobody! I’m not trash to be thrown to them devil dogs. I’m not putting up with this stuck-up bitch.”

  “Louise, please.” My eyes shifted between her face and the vase in her hands. “I know you’re mad and you’re right, Mrs. Erickson shouldn’t have set those dogs on you. But this is her house and you have to get your temper under control.”

  “What about her?” Louise’s face flushed with a surge of fresh rage. “She’s the one stinking up this mausoleum.”

  God almighty. How on earth had I gotten stuck in this nightmare? Louise raved and Astrid sneered and all I could do was stare at those broken shards on the ground and think about the six-hundred-year-old vase in Louise’s hands, which had survived war, natural disasters, raids, time, and greed only to succumb to clashing egos and my stepmother’s legendary temper.

  “This is no mausoleum,” Astrid spat, incensed. “This is my family’s home and you’d be well advised to behave in my presence!”

  “Well, since you asked nicely,” Louise said, “allow me to say... Up your ass!”

  The vase went airborne at the same time that Seth tackled Louise from behind. I dove to the ground and caught it, not two inches from the floor. I lay there for a moment, knees and elbows smarting, catching my breath, balancing six hundred years of history in my quaking fingers, listening to Louise’s foul string as she wrestled in Seth’s arms.

  “Mrs. Silva, please calm down.” His voice broke through, even and neutral. “I assure you, we mean you no offense.”

  I got up on my knees and, holding on to the Ming vase, accepted the hand that came to my assistance. I’d been so focused on Louise and the vase, that, other than Astrid, I hadn’t taken notice of who else was in the room. It was Alex who helped me up to my feet. His face looked deformed, his arm was in a sling and one of his eyes was swollen shut, but his other eye gleamed with amusement that irritated me to no end.

  “Family rows are such a riot, don’t you think?” He smirked. “Welcome to my world.”

  I couldn’t share in his good humor. I snatched my hand from his and, after dusting off my jeans, returned the vase to the shelf and went to Seth’s assistance.

  “Let me go, you big brute!” Louise kicked his shins and stomped on his foot. “Is this what you call Alaskan hospitality?”

  Seth winced, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he asked, “How long will this last?”

  I shrugged and gestured toward the balcony. “Maybe a breath of fresh air will help?”

  “This way.” Seth dragged Louise along while she kicked and screamed like a cranky mule. He glowered at his grandmother as he went by. “I’ll be right back.”

  I straightened my back and followed Seth, aware of all the eyes fastened on me. I was so embarrassed. There was Astrid, of course, beaming her icy glare in my direction, and also Robert, who looked both shocked and appalled. Jer, Ally, and Stuart looked somewhere north of supremely uncomfortable. Alex’s face was set on that stupid smirk. I tripped when I saw Hector Carrera, a tiny elf of a man, pale as a ghost and making himself even smaller in the corner by the door.

  I frowned. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” he said. “Tell you later?”

  “Good idea.” I pushed through the doors to the balcony and got walloped by a lungful of freezing air.

  The Alaskan evening had the desired impact of cooling down Louise’s temper. Seth let her go, but blocked the door to the library, just in case.

  I crossed my arms and faced my stepmother. “What was that?”

  “I’m sorry.” Louise slumped, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t know what go
t into me.”

  “Your temper got in the way,” I said. “You know you’re not supposed to react like a crazy woman every time somebody rains on your parade.”

  “I know, I know!” She looked wretched. “I tried, I swear, but that woman, she’s got the worst case of the snobs I’ve ever seen, and you know how I feel about snobs.”

  I knew very well. I also knew that some situations challenged people like us worse than others. Case in point, I’d just socked Alex myself. Still, I wasn’t feeling very sympathetic toward my stepmother at the moment.

  “I’ve been doing better with my temper.” Louise’s huge eyes leaked a few fat tears. “But I guess I didn’t do too good today. I made a spectacle of myself, didn’t I?”

  “Un-huh.” I gave a crisp nod.

  “I promise,” she said. “If it makes you happy, I’ll go to Dirty Dog Pottery next week and make the witch another vase on my buck. Or five if she wants. Or maybe I should make her a turtle-shaped ashtray too?”

  “Louise?” I said. “That vase you broke before I came into the library can’t be replaced with something you make in your pottery class. It was probably really old and extremely expensive.”

  “I’ll put it on my credit card, then.”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, dear.” Now she looked sick. “Will I need to get a second mortgage on the condo?”

  I took pity on her. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Thanks, you always do,” she said in her hoarse, cigarette-husky baritone. She lifted her arms and wiggled her fingers. “Aren’t you gonna say hello to your Mami?”

  I tried to stay mad at her, I really did, but then I spotted the longing in her eyes, and yes, maybe even a bit of remorse, and I just couldn’t.

  She embraced me, poking her double Ds like concrete cones into my chest. I knew she was sincere. This was the same woman who’d cared for my dad when he was sick, the same loving soul who’d tried to be a mother to me after I became an orphan. Beneath her jean jacket, she was shivering. I took off my jacket and put it on her.

  “Better?” I said.

  “Better.” Louise huddled inside the jacket. “Is it always so cold here?”

  “As far as I know,” I said, feeling the chill in my bones.

  Seth had been quietly standing by the door, but now he came forward, took off his leather coat and draped it over my shoulders.

  “Who’s he?” Louise asked.

  “This is Seth,” I said. “Seth, this is my stepmother, Louise.”

  “Mrs. Silva.” Seth gave Louise a curt nod.

  “I’m very sorry if I hurt you.” She winced when she spotted Seth’s bruised eye. “Oh, geesh, please tell me I didn’t do that.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Good—well, not good that you have a black eye, I didn’t mean it that way.” Louise twisted the golden rings adorning her thickened knuckles. “It’s just that sometimes I get crazy when I’m mad. I’m not wrong in the head, you know. I just lost my marbles when that woman said that Summer was sleeping around with some Alaskan guy.”

  Seth’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what she said?”

  “Imagine that,” Louise said. “Summer. Sleeping around. That broad doesn’t know anything about my baby, and yet she implied my Summer was nothing but a cheap slut.”

  Seth’s irises darkened. “Did she now?”

  “Un-huh.” Louise nodded. “She tried to feed me some yarn about Summer, hitchhiking, but she doesn’t know Summer like I do. My Summer is as cautious as they come. Classy too. She’d never hitchhike. As to sleeping around. Ha! Not Summer. She doesn’t sleep around. Period. I’m sorry, but could you stomach someone you loved being thrashed around like that?”

  “Nope,” Seth said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to set some things straight.”

  “Seth,” I said. “Don’t...”

  His glower forbade me from saying another word.

  “It’s cold out,” he said, before he went in the door. “I’ll clear the crowd. You come inside as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Boy.” Louise whistled as she watched him go. “That guy reminds me of thunder booming over the ocean. He’s something else, isn’t he?”

  “That he is.” I took a deep breath. “There are a couple other things you should know about him.”

  “Like what?” Louise said.

  “I did hitch a ride with him,” I said. “And then I slept with him. A lot. And then some more. And now? I’m totally hooked on him.”

  * * *

  By the times things settled, the evening was late. Seth had disappeared with his grandmother, but Robert had obviously been instructed to keep us comfortable, something he did to perfection. I was surprised and grateful when he offered Hector and Louise rooms. After the spat tonight, I expected that the Ericksons would throw me out, along with anyone remotely related to me.

  Hector looked dead on his feet and I really wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. He accepted Robert’s hospitality and followed the attendant who led him to his rooms for the night. I suspected he’d traveled all the way here to check up on me. With a multi-million dollar deal on the table, could I really blame him?

  Louise, on the other hand, wasn’t one to let go of a grudge so easily. She crossed her skinny arms and grumbled. “I’d rather stay at Motel 6.”

  “You’re not in Miami anymore,” I said. “The nearest hotel is far, far away.”

  “So what?” She wrinkled her nose. “These people give me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “Please, Mrs. Silva,” Robert said in his British accent. “On behalf of Master Erickson, I strongly urge you to reconsider. He insists you accept his hospitality.”

  Louise gestured to Robert with her pointy chin. “Does he always speak like that?”

  “Always,” I said. “Louise, can we try to get along, at least for tonight?”

  “Okay, fine,” Louise said. “We’ll do it your way.”

  We followed Robert to a luxurious suite on the third floor, appointed with all the conveniences, including a crackling fireplace and tray of hot tea along with a three-tiered platter loaded with finger sandwiches and tiny cakes.

  “Not too shabby.” Louise stuffed tiny cakes in her mouth as she moseyed around the room, taking in the elaborate wallpaper, the heavy drapery, and the massive canopied bed. She poked at the mattress. “To think that an old broad like me gets to sleep on a bed like this one.”

  I went around the room, collecting everything remotely breakable from the mantel top, the shelves, and the tables. After piling my findings on a tray, I handed them over to Robert. “Here.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Better safe than sorry?”

  “Ah.” He inclined his head formally. “Excellent idea, Miss Silva.”

  Louise dropped into one of the club chairs by the fire, propped her feet on the ottoman and popped a tiny sandwich in her mouth.

  “Will there be anything else?” Robert said.

  “Sure, handsome,” Louise mumbled through a mouthful. “How about a shot of whisky? I like a little punch in my tea, if you get my drift.”

  “I’ll have a selection delivered to your room.” Robert walked out of the room, trailed by Louise’s brazen stare.

  I groaned. “Louise!”

  “What?”

  “Stop staring at him!”

  “It’s not my fault that the waiter has a nice ass.”

  “He’s not a waiter,” I said, exasperated. “He’s the house manager for the Ericksons and the man who helped raised Seth and his siblings.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice.” Louise grinned. “Seth has a nice ass too.”

  It was going to be a long night.

  I perched on the chair across from Louise. “Do you wan
t to tell me what the hell you’re doing here? And why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “It was a spur of the moment decision,” Louise said. “I thought about it and I did it.”

  Of course it was an impulse. That’s how Louise and Tammy lived their lives, but I didn’t say that aloud.

  “To be honest,” Louise said, “I was lonely without my girls. It’s so boring without anyone around. I’ve got my bridge friends, but even those gals get stale like moldy bread. So when Hector showed up at my door, I said, ‘What the hell. Let’s go to Alaska.’”

  “Hector showed up at your door?”

  “You know he keeps an eye on us,” Louise said. “He said you were working on a difficult project. I would’ve never dared to come out here on my own, didn’t have the dough either. But Hector offered to pay for the ticket and so I came. We tried calling you, but your cell didn’t answer. When we got to the house, they told us you were at a concert. Then that woman called us up to her throne room. Didn’t know Alaska had a queen. But enough about that: Where’s Tammy?”

  I told Louise everything I’d done to find Tammy. I also told her a little about Seth. She asked a lot of questions, some of which I wasn’t ready to answer just yet.

  “Does the boy know?” Louise’s eyes widened with expectation.

  “Yes,” I said, although I didn’t tell her how he had found out that I walked in my sleep.

  “Are you okay with him knowing?”

  “I trust him.”

  “Holy cow, Batman.” Louise stared. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that about anyone other than your dad.”

  No point in denying the truth

  A discreet knock echoed from the door. I got up and answered. It was Seth, his face set in that terrifying, forbidding expression, his eye still bruised from the fight earlier. I stepped out of the room and, closing the door behind me, faced him.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” I mumbled.