Under the Orange Moon

by Adrienne Frances

  “Thank you,” Warren said, and sipped in his usual way, pompous and snobby. He lifted the glass and swirled his drink around. Ben wasn’t sure why he did that, nor did he care.

  Ben sat down across from his father and smiled as he stared at him, waiting to hear the meaning of his unannounced visit. There was no way he was there under any warm circumstances. He watched as Warren looked around, just trying to find something he could scold Ben about.

  Warren picked up a picture of Jonah and Ben on Spring Break in Cancun two years before. It was one of two that Ben had framed and displayed in his bare apartment. Naturally, the other picture on exhibit was of him with his arm around Kendra Wilkinson. As his good luck would have it, he happened to walk right into a Playboy shoot on a night out in Chicago. He simply had to frame the evidence.

  “Ah Jonah,” Warren said, avoiding the conversation he meant to have. “How is he?”

  “Good,” Ben lied. He hadn’t heard from Jonah since he last saw him in Phoenix. He didn’t seem good then. He looked close to punching Ben in the face actually. “He’s really good.”

  “That family has always been good to you, son.”

  “Sure.”

  “Son?”

  “Dad?”

  “Son.” Warren paused while his eyes trailed to a random area of the room. He sipped from his glass again, and then he let Ben have it. “Jackie and I were married three weeks ago.”

  “You what?” Ben asked, slightly surprised.

  “I’m in the process of adopting her children. She has two lovely daughters; you have sisters now.”

  Ben wondered who in their right mind would marry that man and, more than anything, he wondered who the hell would allow him to be a father to their children. He was a lousy father to his own biological son. Odds were he’d be just as neglectful to them, too.

  “How old is Jackie?” Ben asked before he thought. “I mean, you had her sign a pre-nup, right?”

  Warren looked a bit insulted. “She’s thirty-eight,” he shot too quickly, causing Ben to automatically assume five years younger than that. “Why do you ask?”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “She was the paralegal under Bob Dawson. Why?”

  Ben smirked. “Was?”

  “She doesn’t have to work anymore.” Warren sipped from his glass. It was obvious to him where Ben was going with his questions.

  Ben nodded. He didn’t have much to say. He wasn’t surprised his father found a plaything. He could only imagine what this Jackie person looked like. She was probably hot as hell in a trashy way with her boobs hanging out over low-cut, slutty shirts. Knowing a bit of Bob Dawson, she probably wore tight skirts that showed her ass while she bent over to dig through file cabinets that were purposefully placed too low to reach. Of course, this was only Ben’s assumption, but it was probably dead-on.

  Still, no matter how much fun Warren had with her, Ben hoped his father wasn’t blinded by his own stupidity. He certainly didn’t expect him to get married, only because he did such a horrible job with it the first time.

  “If you’re wondering about money, Benjamin, I’ve had your trust fund set aside since you were born. No one but you will ever get that.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. After he graduated, he wouldn’t need his father’s wallet or assistance ever again. He chewed on the inside of his mouth and tried to narrow in on what it was that had him so angered. Was he jealous?

  “You need to meet her, son. She’s a good person. She’ll make a terrific mother.”

  That struck an unfamiliar nerve in Ben. His mouth moved quickly in retaliation as he leapt to his feet. “I have a mother. Have you forgotten her already?”

  Warren looked down to his glass and sighed. “No. No, I certainly have not.”

  “Oh, be honest. There’s no one here to impress,” Ben said sharply. “You forgot her a long time ago. Tell me, Dad, was it a relief to you knowing she was dead, eliminating your time in divorce court? You must have been happy when she shoved those pills in her mouth.”

  Warren stood to his feet angrily and backhanded Ben in the mouth. It wasn’t the first time he used his hands to silence Ben. Only this time, it may have been his last.

  Ben barely flinched. He smiled an expression that was sure to irritate his father more. He wiped the blood from his lip and laughed. “Oh, there you are, Dad. Welcome. For a minute there, I thought I had an imposter in your place.”

  “Whether you choose to believe this or not, I grieved for your mother. It broke my heart when she did what she did.”

  “Maybe if you had been there, I could have seen this so-called grief you speak of. I suppose it’s one of those had to see it to believe it things. I’m positive a night with Jackie took it all away, though.”

  “Damn you!” Warren cocked his fist back again.

  Ben grabbed his hand and held it tight this time. “Damn you!” he shouted back. He threw Warren’s fist away and took steps closer to look deep into Warren’s shocked eyes. He drew long breaths, inhaling and exhaling heavily with each gulp of air he took. His shoulders rose and fell as he clenched his fist and latched onto his father’s shirt.

  Warren cowered back. For the first time in his entire life with the man before him, Ben had the upper hand.

  “You sad, wretched old man, you’re as selfish and pathetic as they come.” He shook Warren’s shirt, as he snarled into his face. “Get the hell out of my apartment. Go make your new family as miserable as you made my mother and me.”

  Warren’s eyes were round with surprise. Ben had never spoken to him that way before now. He looked into his son’s angry, raging red eyes and wondered if they were wet with tears of fury or sadness. He didn’t ask.

  Ben walked to his door and opened it wide. “Get out of here. Don’t come back.”

  Warren nodded his head as he adjusted his shirt. “You just kick everyone out of that lonely life of yours, don’t you?”

  “I learned from the best, sir.” Ben’s jaw tightened. His heavy breathing slowed somewhat, but it was still out of control. “Go,” he said, moving his head in the direction he wanted his father to leave.

  Warren stepped out into the hallway. He turned and, for only a brief second, his eyes fell sad, revealing that very rare spark of humanity he hid so very often. “I didn’t do everything right. But you and your mother never wanted or needed anything. I always provided.”

  “We needed you, not your damn money!” Ben blasted with anger, and slammed the door in his father’s face.

  Ben sat back on his couch. He always imagined one day he’d stand up to Warren, and he always thought he’d congratulate himself after the big event. He never considered the guilt that he felt now. He didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment. He felt anger. He finished his father’s scotch and stood to make himself another one. This was it. He was becoming his father. He was his father.

  His voicemail alert light was red, he noticed. Against his better judgment, he put the speaker phone on and played his message that had been marked urgent. He knew it would be nothing good. His motions were robotic and he did it all without thinking.

  “Hey man. It’s Charlie. Listen, I just left my sister. I know you don’t want to hear this, but—I don’t know—I just think you should. She’s different, you know? She’s getting her own place and moving on. Meredith told me what she said to you. I freaked out on her and I may have called off my wedding. I don’t know. Anyway, Dylan’s fine, Ben. I thought maybe you were waiting to hear that before you showed your face around us again. It’s just not as bad as you think. Everyone can get over this if you give them a chance, is all I’m saying. Hopefully we see you at the wedding,” he laughed nervously, “if I even have one. Later.”

  What the hell did that even mean? She’s moving on. Why was Charlie rubbing his face in it? Why wouldn’t the world allow him to forget her?

  Ben pressed the delete key. He slammed the last of the scotch, emptying the nearly full bottle, and threw his coat on. He sto
mped out of his apartment and went to the first bar he could find. He could have stayed home and gotten stinking drunk on his own. Not even he could explain why he left. It was one of those moments where the intelligent part of the mind is screaming to stop, but your legs keep going and lead you to a bad place.

  He walked into the campus pub and sat down along the rail. The bartender could already see that Ben was on some kind of rage. He groaned in irritation and made his way to Ben. He had seen him in there before, and he was well aware of Ben’s quick temper and callous personality. He had just opened for the day and was not ready to begin it like this.

  “Son?” he began carefully, “what would you like?”

  “I’m not your son, asshole,” Ben snapped. “Get me a whisky. I don’t care how it comes.”

  The bartender’s eyes narrowed on Ben. “Sure,” he answered as he poured Ben a shot. “We should probably just keep it at this one, though.”

  Ben threw the shot back and eyed the older gentleman in front of him. He slammed the glass down, and demanded, “Fill it.”

  The bartender shook his head slowly. “I told you just the one, son.”

  In a move that would have surprised no one that truly knew him, Ben reached over the bar and grabbed the bartender by his white, collared shirt, the same way he had just grabbed his father’s only moments before. He yanked the man close to his face, and growled, “I said I’m not your son.”

  The bartender stared with alarm in his eyes as Ben slowly released him. The man’s hands shook now and he was completely paralyzed with fear. Ben was unhinged; there was no room for argument there.

  “Fill it,” Ben demanded again, and tossed the glass onto the bar where it shattered into pieces.

  “All right, buddy. Here you go.” He filled a new glass and slid it over to Ben. He watched as Ben disappeared into it. He then placed the entire bottle beside the glass in the hopes that it would distract Ben while he slipped away. He hurried to the back office and locked the door, where he quietly called the police.

  “McKenna?” the guard called as he opened the door to Ben’s cell. “You made bail. Get out of here.”

  Ben lifted his head and groaned. He stood to his feet and could only speculate who his father sent to plead his case. As he shuffled his feet down the long, fluorescent hallway, he wondered what time of day it was or, more importantly, which day it was. He had nearly two fifths of liquor in his stomach, and he thought seriously about throwing up just to get the nauseating feeling out from inside him.

  He rounded the corner and felt the worst kind of fear when he realized his bailers were none other than two of his professors, Bethany Gray and Paul Arthur. Great. Ben retrieved his belongings and walked slowly to his teachers, contemplating what words to use in order to get out of the load of trouble he was in.

  “Jesus,” Ben grumbled while rubbing his head.

  “Don’t say another word,” Professor Gray warned with a pointed finger. She looked over a piece of paper that was attached to a clipboard and signed the bottom in an angry manner. “Come on,” she ordered the clerk holding more papers in the window, “I know there’s more. Give them to me!”

  Ben yawned. He headed out the double doors of the station and strained his unadjusted eyes at the bright sun. He stretched out as he put on his jacket and leaned against the brick wall, waiting for the wrath of his two favorite professors to come down on him like an anvil.

  The two came out through the double doors only minutes later. Before they could even clear the final cement step, Professor Gray was yelling at Ben. “Do you have any idea how stupid that was?”

  Ben figured she wasn’t asking for an answer. He knew how stupid he was.

  “I just had to beg—plead—for that judge to let you out of there! I had to convince him that you weren’t some psycho hoodlum terrorizing innocent old men for no reason. We had to scramble to clean this up, making sure Tanner didn’t get wind of it. He’d pull you from the program so quickly you’d be waiting a year before you got another chance at it.” She straightened out her coat, and sighed with aggravation. It seemed as though she was counting to ten, which Ben may have found hilarious if his life wasn’t dangling on a thin string in front of him. She drew in another long breath, adding, “Your father will make sure Tanner doesn’t find out as long as we gave our word that we would watch you from now on.”

  “Benjamin, what were you thinking?” Professor Arthur asked more calmly. Clearly this was a good cop/bad cop sort of thing. “I’m trying to understand here, son.”

  Damn that word, Ben thought.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Professor Arthur said with a wave. “The bar isn’t pressing charges, because—well—because that idiot of an old man served you when he shouldn’t have. With a little legal mumbo-jumbo and a small payoff, he isn’t going to talk.”

  Ben smirked. He knew well enough that if that man had refused him the first time, they’d still be standing exactly where they were. He would have lost it still, and he still would have gone to jail. There was nothing that man could have done to change a bit of it.

  “Go home. Sleep,” Professor Gray demanded. “You have a therapy session with Dr. Roberta Fields tomorrow.”

  Ben’s eyes lit up like a raging fire.

  “Don’t speak,” she snapped. “You need it, damn it. And don’t even think that you’ll fill the doctor’s hour with silence and BS. You’re going to actually talk to this woman. If you want to keep your internship, you’ll do exactly what we tell you. We aren’t going to allow someone as intelligent as you to become a raging moron.”

  “We let ourselves into your apartment and took the liberty of dumping the liquor cabinet you called a kitchen,” Professor Arthur added. “You won’t be drinking while you’re at Weis and Carter.”

  Ben surrendered, nodding his head.

  “We know it’s been tough on you, Benjamin. We’re here to help with whatever it is you need us to do.” Professor Arthur placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Get your head together, son.”

  Ben nodded again, resisting the urge to throw a punch. There was nothing he could have said to change their minds and he only wanted to be home at that point. He figured silence was most definitely golden in these particular moments.

  “Go home,” they both demanded in unison.

  Ben walked the short walk home, thanking the gods above for his free idiot pass. He wondered if it would always be this simple for him. His last name took him far and seemed to be the golden ticket to being a flat out dick most of the time.

  He’d go to therapy and do all the little tricks they ask him to do. They had him by the balls, so he’d do whatever they wanted. When his internship was over, however, he’d go right back into that bar, finish off a full bottle of whiskey, and then bash the empty glass over the old man’s head.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On Friday, Dylan hurried along the walk that lead to the Coney Island she was to meet her new landlord at. She was running late, naturally. She hoped he hadn’t left in anger over her rude sense of time. All of her belongings were packed and ready to move and it would be extremely disappointing to start over in a search for a new place all because she couldn’t find an outfit that resembled something a responsible tenant would wear.

  She really didn’t understand this lunch date of a meeting anyway. Even Linda and Charlie thought it was completely odd for a landlord to want to meet his future tenant for lunch. Linda thought it was a ploy and checked all the papers for sadistic mad men in the area that had set up fake rental possibilities, and then lured sweet, innocent young girls with bright futures to him by requesting a lunch meeting. She was sure Dylan would never be seen again.

  “Dylan!” Michael Olerson called to her from just outside the Coney Island.

  “Great,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Hey, Dylan! Wait!”

  “Michael, I am so late,” she said, while power walking to the doors. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now.”

&
nbsp; Michael began to walk with her, taking each quick stride at the same time she did. He opened the door for her, and smiled. He waited for her to run through, and then he followed right behind her fast pace.

  Still ignoring Michael, Dylan looked out over the room of diners and realized she had no idea what this man looked like. She stood on her tiptoes and arched her neck as she scanned each table and booth, looking for a lone diner.

  “Excuse me,” Dylan asked a passing waitress, “do you have anyone waiting for someone to join them?”

  The waitress shot her a peculiar look. “Um, just that guy behind you,” she answered, and rushed away.

  Dylan turned and looked at Michael’s smiling face. She frowned and looked back out over the sea of people. “Damn,” she whispered. “He left.”

  “Who left?” Michael asked.

  “What? Nothing.” She sighed heavily. “I mean no one.”

  Michael stepped next to her. “Who are you looking for, Dylan?”

  The waitress came back around. “Do you guys need a table?”

  “Yes. A table for two, please,” Michael answered. He didn’t even look at Dylan to ask if she wanted to join him. He just assumed she would.

  “Oh. No, Michael, I can’t stay.”

  Michael laughed. “I’ve carried this on long enough.”

  “Huh?” Dylan asked, slightly annoyed and still looking around the room in the hopes that she may have missed someone.

  “You’re meeting me here, Dylan,” Michael said, grabbing her hand to lead her behind the waitress that would show them to their table. “I’m your new landlord.”

  Dylan stopped and stared at Michael with a look of pure puzzlement. “What?”

  Michael laughed again as he slid into the booth and picked up a menu. He looked up at Dylan and laughed when she didn’t sit down. “I’m sorry. That was really evil of me to stress you out like that. To be fair, though, I have been waiting for a while. Sit down.”