Almost Wrong

by Aubrey Parker

  I was sixteen years old; I wasn’t totally oblivious. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what was happening. I’d felt most of this before and knew exactly what was happening.

  I wanted him. I wanted the boy in the next room — the son of the man my mother had married.

  It was wrong, and twisted enough to ache.

  I walked away, back to my room, trying to convince myself I was confused and maybe traumatized by the violence. In truth, I felt nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HUNTER

  Angela sits across from me again, but this time we’re thirteen thousand feet in the air rather than riding along in the limo, looking out on familiar streets. Now we’re above them, and I tell the pilot to fly over our old neighborhood so we can see the same streets from the air.

  “You ever see helicopters overhead at home?” I ask Angela over the comm. Normally, people in a helicopter will have to yell. My luxury model has headsets. It was all absurdly expensive, but I have the money. And once you have a company copter, you’ve tossed “frugal” out the window. Besides, it’s barely the company’s. The Dreadnought Records logo is on the side, so I could pay for it out of corporate, tax-advantaged income then depreciate it. The loopholes available for people like me versus people like Angela are absurd. She needs the money, yet the government shovels it toward me.

  She looks over at me and nods, smiling broadly. Her anger departed the minute we lifted off. I could tell she was trying to remain stoic and unimpressed, probably trying to hang onto her pride rather than getting swept away, but that all flew out the window once we were up in the air. I don’t know that Angela’s ever been on a plane, but she’s certainly never been in a helicopter. There’s a bar in here, like in the limo. The only difference is the way the bottles are sealed and the fact that nothing is carbonated.

  I realize, somewhat uncomfortably, that I’m trying to impress her. That wasn’t my intention. I merely wanted to talk — to see if it was possible to let someone back into my life after being shut out. But even that feels ridiculous; how exactly did I imagine this would work? Were we going to establish a weekly ritual, meeting for coffee? Were we going to start attending Friday night movies together? I’d opened a birthday card, become obsessed, and acted without thinking. I only knew that I desperately wanted to see her again. But was it for a novelty, or something else? I had a business to run; I had a ludicrously expensive penthouse; I had a girlfriend who could bend herself into a pretzel and couldn’t keep her social-climbing hands out of my pants — a girlfriend, I now remembered, I’d forgotten to break up with.

  Where, in all of that, is Angela supposed to fit?

  Why am I trying to impress her?

  Is it wrong to try? Am I doing exactly what she was afraid I would do, earlier, on the ground, when she didn’t want to talk about money? What we’re doing, right now with the old neighborhood below the rotors, is exactly all she’s hated me for. Right now, we are literally looking down our noses at my old life — at her current life. I’m still in my tuxedo, wearing a watch that must cost five times what she makes in a year. My cufflinks would pay her rent for months. Everywhere I look there are signs of wealth, and suddenly I’m afraid she’s seeing right through me.

  If my intention wasn’t to rub my money in her face and make her feel small, I’ve inadvertently betrayed that design. We’re trapped in the sky, and it might only be a minute before she sees how truly transparent I am. I didn’t mean to be an arrogant asswipe, but it seems I can’t help myself.

  But judging by her face, Angela’s mind is elsewhere. She looks elated, like a kid on Christmas morning. She’s wearing one of those smiles people can’t get off their faces even if they want to. It stretches her cheeks, forming adorable half-moons around her mouth as her teeth show and her eyes fill with mirth and wonder. She’s hypnotized by all of this. Right now, I could get her to do or believe anything.

  I want to reclaim my question. I wanted to know if she’d heard helicopters overhead, and when she told me yes, I was going to tell her that a few of those times the copter was probably mine. But the question, like my watch, tux, and cufflinks, suddenly feels like a slap in her face — a way of pointing out the wealth I’ve built, that I’ve kept from my father and his current family, that Angela doesn’t have because I’ve hoarded it like a dragon atop his piles of treasure. Everything around her right now — the helicopter, the bar stocked with aged scotch, the limo we rode in to the airstrip, and the penthouse — has made her angry for years.

  This is a life she’s never had. And I’m trapped because there’s no way to offer a morsel. If I give her money, my father gets it, too. Even if I’m willing to give, she’ll never take. I realize that part of me has wanted for years to see her again, to do exactly what we’re doing now. But it’s all temporary. Where does she fit in this life, in any way, at all? She doesn’t. Angela’s pride would never allow her to stay, even if she had a place.

  Wondering whom I’m trying to fool, I tell myself that she’s never been more to me than a girl I once knew. I lie to myself, pretending that all we’re doing now is some sort of charity, and that my goals are to assuage guilt and right a wrong.

  This isn’t selfish at all.

  I can’t reclaim the question. But she’s lost in wonder, looking out the windows, looking down. I don’t have to follow it up. Angela’s a child at Disneyland.

  “Is that the park?”

  I can’t see from where I am. It feels sensible, in something hovering high in the air, to sit on opposite sides of the body. But this is a midnight blue Sikorsky S-76C, the same company that makes the Black Hawk, and it weighs over seven thousand pounds. My 190 pounds of shifted weight won’t make a difference.

  So now I’m sitting directly beside her, looking out the window, both of us sinking into the soft, tan leather seats. I follow her finger and feel our legs brush one another.

  “The park by the house, yeah,” I tell her.

  I sit back in the big seat, feeling my wide smile and wondering if it’s appropriate. Now she’s out past dark, and I still don’t know what we’re doing here. I’ll obviously need to take her home in the limo. Then what? Do I say, “Well, it’s been nice seeing you again, Sis … have fun among the rabble, hope you don’t get shot tonight”?

  But it’s not late, despite being dark. I tell myself to relax. If I’d had a plan, it would have required two stages. Stage Two was whatever conversation we’d eventually have, but Stage One had to open her first so she’d be willing to have it. We have time. We’re both adults, despite the maybe-I’m-getting-myself-in-trouble way I can’t help feeling. If it gets too late, that’s neither here nor there. For now, Stage One is working. Whatever makes Angela lower her guard enough to chat is good enough for now.

  “It looks so small,” she says. “And look … there’s my house!”

  “Want to call your mom? Tell her you’re in a helicopter above her right now?”

  I wince a little, wondering if that will come off as pompous, too, but Angela seems to take it for the playful question it was meant to be. Call Mom; tell her to look up; wave even though she’d never be able to see. She already called, the way she used to when she was first driving, back when we met. I don’t know what she told her mother about when she’d be home, or who she may or may not be with.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Do you want to?” I repeat.

  She smiles and shakes her head. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes — something that regards “call your mom, and tell her you’re with Hunter” as a laughable proposition. Then it’s gone. She looks out the window again then straightens in her seat. The helicopter’s interior isn’t what you’d expect from the movies. It’s more like a tiny private jet or a small but opulent living room. There’s a flash where I see our surroundings as she must be seeing them: awed and duly impressed but too lightheaded to resent me.

  As if reading my mind, she suddenly says, “How much does a ride like this cost?
”

  I don’t want to answer, but she’s looking right at me. I can’t help but be bowled over by the change in her. The intervening years have settled phenomenally well onto Angela’s shoulders. She has the same girlish look she had when I last spent any real time with her at eighteen, but now she seems to have grown into that quiet, classic beauty she had as a kid. She’s wearing her hair in the most casual of styles. Her clothes are nothing special, and I’m dimly aware I picked her up after a run without so much as time for a shower. And yet she’s somehow more striking than any of the women I’ve dated in the past several years, despite her lack of makeup or style.

  “About as much as my old Ford,” I say.

  She laughs a small, unthreatened laugh. We both remember my Tempo without the front bumper. We both remember the way it smelled like the cigarettes I always used to smoke. I’m probably the only one who remembers fucking maybe a dozen girls in it over the years, but I was never careful about concealment, so it’s possible the vehicle was known around town, possibly with a cool nickname like the BoneMobile.

  But despite my attempt to divert, Angela says, “Seriously. How much?”

  I don’t want to say, but resisting any more would be false modesty and make me look like an asshole. “I think it was about $13 million.”

  “Oh, sure,” she says. “No big deal.”

  Is it terrible that I’m not even sure? I think it was $13 million, but it’s not like I wrote the check personally or noticed the hit. I have a small fleet of other vehicles, and right now their values are flitting through my head and making me uncertain.

  “Pocket change,” I say, trying to play along.

  Angela glances out the window. I realize how gun-shy I am and wonder if it’s time to relax. She seemed to have a rather large chip on her shoulder in the limo, but the helicopter’s spinning blades seemed to have knocked it off. Now she’s just a girl on a ride.

  She looks back at me. “This was cool.”

  I cock my head, feeling playful and increasingly confident. Every minute she fails to jump down my throat for being a rich asshole, I feel my sense of certainty ramping up. I didn’t get where I am by being timid.

  “Was?” I say.

  She looks across the city lights again. We’re headed toward my penthouse, but we pass it by. She seems to notice, then looks over at me with adorable befuddlement.

  I open a private channel to the pilot and give a command that Angela can’t hear. Then, subtly, the copter noses down a hair, and I feel the copter gather speed.

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  Somewhere, I’m sort of thinking, that we maybe shouldn’t go.

  “You’ll see,” I say.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ANGELA

  I don’t know why Hunter kidnapped me that one day back in high school, and I honestly have no idea where he got the car he kidnapped me in. I only know that on that day, while I was walking home from school, he pulled up in this Camaro that I felt certain he’d stolen.

  I was with Sandy. We were on foot, and Hunter was waiting dramatically for us on one of the side streets, leaning low with his window open. He waited until we were right next to the thing before gunning the engine and sticking his head out, laughing.

  I jumped a foot. Sandy practically caught me. Then I looked over and saw the way she was looking at him, her eyes full of suspicion. Hunter had been nothing but rude to any of my friends, and Sandy was no exception. He was passably rude to me in public, too, but after a year around Hunter I’d learned to see right through him. He was an asshole, but an asshole I’d come to slightly understand. The best way to deal with Hunter’s brooding temperament was to starve it of oxygen, to play off his insults and not let them bother me. Every once in a while, I could mock him right back — not in my usual style, but in a mimicry of his. That earned me more respect each time, and by then, I’d chiseled a hole in his armor. Sandy didn’t like it. And she sure didn’t want me to get into the car.

  “Come on, Angela,” he said. “Got a surprise for you.”

  I moved without thinking. Hunter was strangely interesting to me, despite his drinking, his smoking, his insults, and the way my mother rolled her eyes whenever he got into trouble. I found his father insufferable, and Hunter flat-out hated him; in a way, that had helped us to bond.

  Sandy grabbed my arm.

  “No way, Angie.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, what?” Hunter said to Sandy. “I’m just giving her a ride home.”

  “How about Sandy then?” I asked. “You wanna give her a ride home, too?”

  “No,” Hunter said.

  “Oh, wow, I’m hurt,” Sandy said.

  “She’s just a few blocks up,” I told him.

  Sandy didn’t seem to want my intervention, nor did she want me to get into the car with Hunter. He pushed the door open.

  “He probably stole that car,” she said, echoing my thoughts.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “I’m going. You want to go?”

  “No,” Hunter repeated, answering for Sandy.

  Sandy pulled me closer and whispered. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Getting a ride.”

  “He said he’s got a surprise. Not just a ride.”

  “Getting a surprise then.”

  Sandy peeked at him, her gaze uneasy.

  “What’s wrong with you, Angie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Another glance. “You like him.”

  I felt myself blush. “He’s my stepbrother!”

  “Doesn’t mean you don’t like him, Ang. I know you. You’re stupid about this stuff.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s not your fault. Maybe it’s a daddy thing. With your mom — ”

  I yanked my hand away from Sandy. I wasn’t about to hear her armchair psychology, or listen to outrageous ideas about my being into Hunter. Of course I wasn’t into him. That would be wrong. He was a jerk, and the son of my dickhead stepfather. I wasn’t that dumb.

  That’s the impression I’d outwardly maintained, and what Sandy should have believed.

  “Thanks for your assessment,” I said.

  “I’m just saying it’s a bad idea to play into —”

  “He’s just helping his sister out.” I tried to repeat the word a few times in my mind: His sister. His sister. Maybe I should say it a few times to Hunter out loud, to make sure we were on the same page.

  “Hunter Altman doesn’t help anyone out. Have you forgotten what he did to Carter last year?”

  “He’s fine, Sandy.”

  She stared at me. Hunter was waiting, his door still open. His hair was in messy spikes and her wore a plain white tee, arms thick, his smile practically sideways — the grin of a man who’s clearly up to something, and probably no good.

  I stood between them for a moment, then went to the car and got in. Sandy was still staring. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

  Hunter pulled away from the curb. He drove too fast through the neighborhood streets, as if daring pedestrians to get in his way. I looked over, my heart thumping, wanting to tell him to be more careful but not quite finding my voice.

  It was clear almost immediately that we weren’t going home. He wasn’t just giving me a ride, which I already knew no matter how I’d justified myself to Sandy. I didn’t need a ride, for one; our house was a few blocks away, and the weather was warm — hot, even. The Camaro was also wrong. Hunter owned a rusted-out Ford, and while this car wasn’t in much better repair, it was definitely nicer and apparently faster.

  I wanted to ask where we were going, but Hunter always made fun of me for never stepping a toe out of line. He was clearly getting us up to no good, and I knew it; he’d see right through my question. He was too cool for the phrase “goody two-shoes,” but it was what he’d be thinking. Though, of course, with more color.

  What was I afraid of? Hunter? Whatever
scheme he was up to? Going along with it so readily? Maybe Sandy had been right. It didn’t make sense; Hunter and I didn’t hang out, and this was unprecedented, whatever it was. Maybe that’s why I’d gone: I’d sensed a rare chance to have him alone.

  But now, alone with him, I felt uneasy. What were we supposed to talk about? We were opposites with nothing to share.

  “Where did you get this car?”

  “Borrowed it.”

  “From who?”

  “Why the fuck you need to know that? Just buckle in, okay?”

  I did. He’d shut me down so completely I didn’t want to say another word. I felt dumb for my questions — as if they’d been highly unreasonable, not at all what someone in my position would ask.

  We left the dirty city streets and drove onto the highway. We’d had a half day of school, so it was barely after noon, and the highway wasn’t yet packed as Hunter headed west.

  It was ten minutes before I summoned the nerve to speak again. It was so strange. He’d picked me up, and yet he seemed put out. I wondered if he’d been sent on an errand. It didn’t make sense — either of our parents decreeing, “Hunter, pick up your tightass of a sister and drive her wherever” — but it made more sense than this being his idea. His profile was set, that eternal half-scowl on his square, stubbled jaw. The abandon in his eyes.

  I didn’t want to say anything more, because he’d only make fun of me. Hunter didn’t want to be there, and whatever bolt of excitement I’d felt earlier was just me being stupid, chasing the idiot fantasies I didn’t have the guts to declare.

  I asked the obvious: “Where are we going?”

  He looked over, still seeming half-annoyed. But there was something else there too — or so I imagined.

  “The beach.”

  The beach? I must have misheard. “Why?”

  “Because it’s a hot day, shit.”

  “But … why?”

  “We got a half day. You wanna see the ocean or not?”

  “I was going to help mom with the shopping.”

  I watched him roll his eyes, feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation.