Almost Wrong

by Aubrey Parker

  Hunter slowly closes the door of the long, black car. He’s acting like there’s a fragile vase balancing between us and if he doesn’t move slowly, he’ll risk shattering it.

  Something changes in the air.

  I don’t want him here.

  I want him gone.

  I don’t like Hunter Altman at all. He had his chance with this family and chose to run out on us instead. That’s fine; I’m not even close to his responsibility, and my mother, who always hated him, is clearly no one he’s bound to help or save either. He ditched his dad, too, but I can hardly fault him for that. Bill landing on my plate isn’t Hunter’s fault. I could leave, like he left. I wouldn’t do it in a private plane or go to a paradise island filled with butlers and hedonism, but I could drive my shitty little car to another town, get a different apartment, and leave Mom and Bill to starve. Maybe I should do that, but I can’t. And maybe that — the broken switch inside me that makes me more responsible than I should be — is the reason I hate him so much.

  Although I think a psychiatrist, if she knew the whole story, might feel differently.

  “Angela!” He raises a hand as if I might not have noticed him.

  Maybe I didn’t notice him. Maybe I have plausible deniability. Maybe, if he’s thinking to raise his hand and yell for my attention, it’s feasible to pretend he doesn’t already have it. Never mind that my eyes have been on him for thirty seconds already. Never mind that my heartbeat is faster than it should be even after my final mile. Never mind that this is the kind of place where cars get their hubcaps stripped, and Hunter, right now, is in a goddamned tuxedo next to a goddamned luxury limousine with his goddamned perfect hair perfectly coiffed. Maybe I can pretend I see that sort of thing all the time around here. Just another billionaire on the block.

  I think about running. I have the shoes. Hunter’s are the shiny kind that go with a tux. Both years I went to prom in my secondhand dresses, my dates wore the same kind of shoes. They were hard with sharp edges, and seemed to be made of plastic. I’m sure Hunter’s are made of imported emu leather and inlaid with gemstones, but there’s still no way they’re suited for running. They’re more suited for walking along the Ibiza coast or attending $1,000-per-plate charity balls.

  But as much as I want to turn and run, I can’t. I’ve run from Hunter Altman before, both literally and figuratively. I’m twenty-nine years old now. I’m a big girl. I should really start facing things instead of stuffing them down, no matter how conflicted they make me feel.

  But I can’t go to him. I’m rooted where I stand. The day has dragged into late afternoon, and soon it’ll be evening, but to me it feels like the shadows are deep and miles long. He comes toward me from the end of a long corridor. We are the only two people on the street, maybe the only two people in the world.

  Hunter approaches.

  Loathing rises like bile. Each step he takes is like a tack pressed into my neck. He has his hands in his pockets, a certain smile on his face.

  It took me a while, in my teens, to realize that Hunter was handsome rather than rough. It was like seeing the hidden picture in one of those Magic Eye images. I couldn’t unsee it, as much as I wanted to. At age sixteen, I’d had this scrubby, criminal, scratched-up asshole living in the next room. At age seventeen, I had someone who, if he hadn’t stayed an asshole or been my stepbrother, I might have found attractive. And of course I did anyway. Battling the shame of that realization felt like another burden. After that, I hated Hunter for being attractive, adding one more loathsome thing to his growing pile.

  He’s close. We’re in front of the MacGregors’ house. They have a low picket fence that was once charming, back around the time it was white. The MacGregors are old now, but they’ve lived here since they were practically kids. The neighborhood was different then. The fence was cute. Time changes everything.

  As Hunter comes nearer, I can’t help but think how true that is.

  Hunter used to be poor, like me. Now he’s the wealthiest man I know.

  Hunter used to be mean, dangerous, rude. Now he’s merely arrogant.

  But I’m still the same.

  Mom is still the same.

  Bill is still the same.

  And as casual as Hunter is trying to look right now, we both know that nothing has changed between us. What happened happened, and old mistakes can’t be undone.

  I guess it’s too late to run. Or rather, it’s too late to run and pretend I didn’t see him. I could still flee, and very much want to. I probably look as disgusting as I surely smell. Hunter is polished and beautiful. He’s parked his billionairemobile behind my piece of shit as if to show the people across the street how different two things can possibly be. I don’t like it. I have a sinking, hollow feeling in my middle, as if I haven’t eaten in days. As if I’m lightheaded or dizzy. Maybe I really did run too hard. Maybe I need sugar.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I got your birthday card.”

  I resist an overwhelming urge to clarify that I had nothing to do with that card. I also resist a similarly strong urge to tell him thanks for the card from his assistant, the one he surely knows nothing about.

  “Happy birthday,” I say instead.

  “Happy birthday to you.” Then he clarifies: “Belatedly.”

  I don’t know where to take the conversation, seeing as I don’t want to be having it. He did this. He can carry the ball. I wait, trying to hide the resentment from my face.

  “I’m sorry I forgot to send you a card.”

  I can’t help myself, so I say, “You did send one.”

  His eyebrows narrow.

  “I got it today.”

  Again, Hunter says nothing. I want him to accept my implied thanks, if that’s how he chooses to take it. Or to at least wriggle off the hook I’m apparently willing to let him off of, not mentioning the assistant’s dismissive bullshit.

  “Did Charlie send it?”

  “Who’s Charlie?”

  “My … the guy who keeps track of dates I tend to forget, and saves me from myself.”

  I notice the way he sidesteps the word “assistant” as if I won’t figure it out. As if I’m five, and he can spell big words I won’t understand and shouldn’t hear. Words like A-B-A-N-D-O-N and A-S-S-H-O-L-E.

  “Oh. I don’t know. I got it. With a gift card inside.” Then, hearing the word leave my lips without permission and hating myself, I add, “Thanks.”

  Hunter at least does me the courtesy of not accepting my thanks. He sighs and looks around. At his old house. At the path to the park he used to take when he wanted to smoke with his buddies. At the mailbox he used to pull birthday cards from back in the day, before anyone could see them, so he could steal any cash that might be inside.

  His big, black car is a blight in reverse. As bad as things sometimes look around here, I’m used to it all. That car just shines a spotlight on the way everything in my world is broken and dull.

  He looks down at me. I think for a moment that he’ll comment on the weather because that’s all two people who shouldn’t be speaking usually say. He’ll tell me how nice it’s been lately, then we’ll both say, “Well, anyway,” then move on, this stupid awkward encounter finally finished. I can take my shower and rinse this taste from my mouth. And good riddance.

  Instead of saying something about the weather, Hunter touches on a different flavor of vapid conversation. “You look good.”

  I laugh.

  “You do.” But that’s all he can say. He won’t be specific. He won’t ask if I’ve lost weight because men should never ask that. He won’t ask if I’ve changed my hair because if I have he’ll look like an asshole. He surely won’t compliment my clothes. Not only am I in crappy workout gear, but everything I own costs pennies to his twenties.

  “So …” I say.

  “Anyway.”

  Now I look him over. He wears the tux extraordinarily well. Hunter used to have a nice body; I saw him wrapped in a
towel every day for a while. He might be in better shape now, and he’s still kind of dashing. But I don’t want to think about any of that. Not while looking like a Sweat Hog.

  “Did you just come from a … a gala or something?” I ask, unsure what to say.

  “Oh, no,” he almost laughs. “I had an event earlier, though, and this was still out, so I tossed it back on.” But that makes him look uncomfortable too, and maybe right now he’s starting to realize how this must look. For all I know, this is how he’d go for groceries, if he didn’t employ someone for his shopping. Maybe for Hunter Altman, of Dreadnought and Rolling Stone fame, this is errand casual. Take the shortest limo, dress in your shoddiest tux. Take your least qualified driver. Because hey, this is just a run out to say hi, no big deal worth primping for.

  Maybe, right now, he’s realizing how uncomfortable this would make me feel. Maybe he’s realizing that anyone who sees his car right now sees him as an arrogant braggart, flashing his wealth in front of all our poor faces. Maybe he’s wondering if his old friends and neighbors are creeping forward in the shadows now, clutching crowbars, ready to mug him and take what he’s gained, what they’ll never have.

  He changes the subject, his transition awkward. “Look,” he says. “The card got me thinking.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I turned thirty today. Thinking about it, thinking about the past? It got me … nostalgic?”

  “For your good old days,” I say, unable to help myself, “when things were worse.”

  “A lot has changed.”

  Now that I’ve had a moment to rest and get used to the shock of seeing him, my urgent anxiety has dulled. I’m present enough to feel spiteful and slightly angry. How dare he come here and rub my face in the past? Most of all, how dare he adopt this sad, reflective tone while he ruminates on all that once was? Am I supposed to sympathize with his birthday sorrow? Am I supposed to tell him that no, he didn’t do anything to be ashamed of in his thirty years of life?

  Fuck him and his pity party. He has everything. We have nothing. Fuck him if those old guilty wheels got to turning. He should feel guilty. Fuck Hunter Altman. Fuck him for the way he left, for all he abandoned. And fuck me, while we’re at it, for knowing exactly what I think he might actually be regretting beneath it all, and feeling its unrelenting tug.

  “Angela.” He nods toward the car. “Would you like to take a ride? To catch up?”

  I’m insulted. I want to punch him. I want to slug his tuxedo-clad, pompous-ass chest. I want to slap his pretty, magazine-cover face. The world is falling in love with Hunter Altman? I’m over it. His charm is useless on me.

  I’m supposed to take a ride? A pitiful taste of the good life touched to the tongue of the penniless girl? It’s a scrap tossed to a starving dog—a tease, and nothing else.

  “No thanks, Hunter.”

  “I’ve been thinking. And I don’t really like the way I left things.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Not with Dad. With …” He hesitates. “With you, I guess.”

  “Why me?”

  He sidesteps. “Dad is Dad. I’ve tried with him. I give him anything, and he uses it to hang himself. I’ve seen shrinks, Ang. They all say I should just let him go, because every time I try to make up with him or even just listen to him for a few minutes, it’s like he gets his hooks back in me. And your mom? I’m sorry, but she’s never given any indication that she’d accept anything from me anyway, she hates me so much.”

  I’m thinking about the card Hunter got from “all of us.” I’m thinking that Mom isn’t as resistant to accepting charity as she used to be—if she ever was. Hunter has clearly forgotten his roots. Everyone has a price. My mother hated him plenty, and still does. She’s only softened on him in the past few days because she thinks he might be willing to pay her price. If he does — if he’s willing to “renew acquaintances,” complete with all the financial responsibilities that come with such action — she’ll pretend to like him plenty. Just like the moneybags son she never had.

  “But you and me, Angela, we were good, weren’t we?”

  I don’t know how he means that. He could mean “we were good” in the way people say that after reconciling an argument, or he could mean something else. I don’t want to give him hints in case my gut’s wrong.

  “Were we?” I can hear my bitterness. We were doing fine without him. I don’t like the way he’s shown up and made me aware how much we could use some help. Before, there was no chance of a renewal. No chance of having Hunter and his money back in our lives. Now that it seems like there could be, my choices are to refuse or accept it. Now the decision is in my hands, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to resist. And even if I am, I know how hard it will be to return to our shoddy state of normality after turning him down.

  “Sometimes I think about you. About—”

  “Why did you really come here, Hunter?”

  I look at his car. Inside, through several panes of not-quite-blacked-out glass, I can see his driver’s head. He’s waiting patiently, ready to obey the great Hunter Altman’s whim. I refuse to do the same. We have little left these days. If I give him my pride, we’ll have nothing at all.

  “I just thought we could talk,” he says

  “‘Talk.’”

  “Yes.”

  “Not because you feel guilty.” Now my bitterness is obvious.

  “I—”

  “If you feel guilty, Hunter, why are you just showing up? Not calling? And not just showing up to knock on the door, but instead making a spectacle, waiting for us to see you out here in all your splendor?” I glance again at the house. “Have Mom and Bill seen you yet?”

  “No, I—”

  I’m not willing to hear the ends of any sentences. I cut him off. “Just wanted to set up a showcase? Saw Bill’s car was gone, knew he ran out? Remembered that the living room is at the back of the house and that Mom, if she was in there as she always used to be, wouldn’t see you pull up? Wanted to make sure that whichever of us saw you first — me, Mom, or Bill — we’d see you after you were all set up, looking pretty, like a fucking centerpiece at one of your fucking fancy-ass charity events, like a — ”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what is it like?”

  He sighs before responding. “I saw them leave. I saw them turn out onto Figueroa. They were in Bill’s car. Then when we got closer, I saw you running, turning onto the path.”

  I don’t see what this has to do with anything. I roll my eyes and stalk past him, toward his fancy car and my ramshackle house.

  “I waited because I knew nobody was home and I would have to wait,” he says behind me.

  I turn.

  “I waited because I didn’t want to talk to them.”

  I thought I was over my exertion. My heart rate had settled to normal. Now I feel it creeping back up and warming my skin.

  “I waited,” he says, “because I came to see you.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HUNTER

  Angela looks like she’s doing me a favor, being here. It’s kind of hard to blame her.

  She’s sitting across from me in the limo, both of us traveling sideways so we can look at each other rather than being side by side. Right now, that feels too familiar anyway. Side-by-side is the sort of thing you do with friends at the movie theater, with family on the couch, or with a date if you’d rather touch sides than look into each other’s eyes. Angela and I, right now, are none of the three. We were never really friends. For the first long while, we couldn’t stand each other. When I moved out, I’m sure she learned to hate me more because I left her holding the bag. But we’re not really family either; we only seemed to be because my deadbeat dad married her crotchety mom. And we’re sure not on a date. That would be strange.

  Angela pretends like she’s not going out of her way to ignore me. The limo’s glass can be manually darkened. Once we got in, I turned it all the way up so nobody would see her leaving in this shamefu
l vehicle — not that they wouldn’t have noticed it parked outside her house. But still, the day’s light is strong, and she can easily see out, so she’s feigning interest in familiar streets so she won’t have to talk to me.

  We have time. Her getting in the car is a victory. I take it as a good sign; maybe I haven’t burned all my bridges.

  Angela wasn’t inside long enough to shower. She could have made me wait on the curb for hours but was probably eager to get that big, black car away from the front of the house before Bill and her mother returned. She might also have been outrunning her doubts about coming with me. I know I had to force myself. I didn’t know how long she’d be running, but we only waited twenty minutes. That was enough time for me to tell Brian no fewer than three times to pull away and forget this stupid errand. A roll of the dice. Would she finish her run before I lost my nerve? Or would I break first, and she’d never know I had come?

  I didn’t even know what I was there for. I still don’t. I just knew that ever since getting that dumb card in the mail, my mind’s refused to stop turning. I made a lot of decisions in life, too many as the idiot kid I used to be. I didn’t realize how selfish I was at the time. I saw myself as a put-upon loser who never got any breaks. Somehow, I thought a lack of self-esteem made it impossible for me to be selfish. Turns out, that’s not true. My disrespect for myself, ironically, held hands with intense egotism.

  I was thinking of myself when I left our old house.

  I was thinking of myself when I stopped returning Dad’s calls — and Angela’s, because a call from her was a call from Dad by proxy.

  I was thinking of myself when Duncan and I partnered to create Dreadnought because I’d had another sorta-partner at the time named Chuck, and Chuck wasn’t smart enough to pull off what Duncan could.

  I was thinking of myself when we ditched acts that needed us early in Dreadnought’s career. Callous, perhaps—and a breach of loyalty, since they stuck with us back before we were anything at all—but the press saw those decisions as smart business. They were, but I’ve always felt guilty.