Snapshot (The Jamieson Collection)

by Angie Stanton

  He still wore his rocker hair long and straggled. Grey blended in with his blonde, belying his fifty-four years. He wore swim trunks low on his hips, and his tattooed chest and arms were bronzed from the southern California sun. His aging skin sagged on his thin frame. He still looked every bit the rocker with diamond studs in his ears and numerous gold chains and leather necklaces around his neck. Despite his dilated eyes, he seemed happy to see her.

  Marti’s heart leapt, and for a moment she forgot about all his wrong doings. She became the little girl whose daddy sang her back to sleep after a bad dream.

  “Look at my baby! She’s all grown up.”

  Marti smiled. She had worried that her dad wouldn’t want her. He engulfed her in a hug. His long hair brushed her shoulder. She didn’t quite know what to do. She hugged back a little. He smelled the same, like aftershave, scotch and pot.

  “Steven, you never mentioned you had another daughter.” The woman in the red bikini droned with annoyance. “Or that she was stopping by today.”

  He released Marti. “Didn’t I, Courtney? I thought I did.” He looked at Marti and smiled then confusion clouded his eyes. “How’d you get here?”

  “I took a cab,” she said, wondering how he’d respond.

  “Shit. I was supposed to send someone, wasn’t I? Damn, I’m sorry.” He rubbed his weary eyes.

  At least he had the decency to act remorseful.

  “Well you’re here now!” He put his arm around her. “Hey everyone, this is this is my daughter, Martini, and she’s come home to stay.” He sounded every bit the proud father. Marti blushed at the sound of her given name and nodded to the nearby guests who acted all happy, but probably couldn’t care less.

  Courtney stepped closer. “What! You never told me she existed, let alone that she was moving in!” The woman lowered her voice to a whisper and spoke between clenched teeth. She was a force to be reckoned with, despite her waif-like frame planted in five-inch heels. The other guests watched as if hoping for a show.

  “Of course she’s moving in. My kids are always welcome here.” He looked back at Marti. “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown up. Isn’t she beautiful?” he said to some nearby friends including a guy with stringy hair and eyes that looked her up and down. They all nodded their agreement. Marti guessed they were part of her dad’s current entourage of people who hung around to build him up and tell him how great he was in exchange for free booze, drugs and a good time.

  Courtney pinched her collagen-filled lips together, and her eyes aimed daggers at Marti.

  “Let’s celebrate! I think there’s some champagne around here somewhere. Courtney, where’s the champagne?” he said.

  Courtney stomped off in a huff. The partygoers cheered in approval, and her dad joined them to accept his false accolades. They went back to their clusters and conversations as if she’d never arrived.

  Marti glanced around. No one even seemed to notice her anymore. How quickly she’d been forgotten. She slowly backed away and reentered the house. She had no interest in the champagne or celebrating. She’d been up since six a.m., and all she wanted was to change into more comfortable clothes and be alone.

  She lugged her bags and the annoyed Kahlua into the entryway. She didn’t know how her dad would feel about having a cat in the place, so she hustled her upstairs and out of sight before it became an issue for him or the bitchy Courtney.

  Marti wondered exactly who Courtney was. The woman seemed to think she was in charge of the place, but that wasn’t true, based on the fact that Courtney knew nothing about Marti. No doubt the woman was sleeping with her dad. She looked like a wanna-be actress who hoped her dad’s tarnished celebrity status would launch her career. Good luck with that!

  After climbing the long staircase that wound the perimeter of the great room, Marti took the hallway to the north wing bedrooms. The south wing featured a music room, a library, a den, couple offices and an enormous meeting room. More rooms existed on the third level, but were rarely used, because heck, how many rooms did one past-his-prime rocker need?

  Memories washed over her as she carried Kahlua down the wide, marble-floored hall. The same strange picture of a naked woman with three breasts hung on the wall.

  She passed the bedroom door of her half-sister, Brandy. She’d be in her mid-twenties now. Did she still live here? Marti remembered Brandy’s numerous nose piercings and pitch-black dyed hair.

  Next came her half-brother Jack’s room. He had been a mighty terror. If her dad’s past drug use had affected any of his kids, Jack was the one. All her memories of Jack involved him getting into trouble, like climbing on the roof or taking their dad’s car out when he was thirteen.

  Then she came to the door of her old room. Further down were guest bedrooms and at the very end, her dad’s master suite.

  Was any of her stuff still there? Was her Barbie bedspread still on the bed, or her rock collection? She’d been pulled out of there so fast, she took very few of her childhood items.

  Marti turned the knob, pushed the door open and took a step back.

  Her little girl bedroom had been turned into some sort of African voodoo torture room. Wooden masks lined the walls along with spears and shields. All her furniture had been replaced with heavy, dark pieces. The light pink walls were now the color of dried blood. One shelf held necklaces made from some sort of animal teeth. Another featured skulls. She hoped to God they weren’t human.

  No way could she stay in this room! She backed away and pulled the door shut. She shuddered at the violation of her childhood space.

  She crossed the hall and checked a couple other rooms, settling on a tidy, spacious room with a queen-size bed, light beige walls, and a balcony overlooking the pool.

  Marti set Kahlua’s crate on the floor and fetched the rest of her bags. After hauling her four suitcases up the steps, she let Kahlua out of the carrier and brought her a glass of water from the attached bathroom. But the little shit ignored the water; obviously her cat wasn’t happy about their cross-country trek either.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault,” she told the arrogant cat. Marti searched the room and found a washtub stashed in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. She opened her bags and searched until she found the small bag of kitty litter. She knew she might not get to a store for a while, so she came as prepared as possible. She poured the gritty litter into the tub and placed it in the bathroom in the far corner near the state-of-the-art shower.

  Marti rifled around a little more in her luggage and found the framed picture of her and Grandma at their favorite restaurant after Marti’s eighth grade graduation. She placed it on the bed stand, then sat on the floor and leaned against the bed as the cat nosed around the room, checking out her new digs.

  The party outside grew louder. She hugged her legs and listened to the strangers having a good time in her new home.

  Oh Adam, what am I going to do? She wished desperately she could call him but knew he was in route to New York.

  She was on her own.

  * * *

  The two-hour time difference caused Marti to wake early to a sunny California day. Kahlua, still mad at being carted across the country, slept inside one of Marti’s open suitcases. After throwing on a t-shirt and shorts, Marti wandered downstairs to get the lay of the land.

  The vast great room was littered with empty bottles, glassware, and a multitude of ashtrays, lighters, and the familiar bong.

  The open patio doors revealed a man in a white polo shirt and shorts cleaning the pool. The scene reminded her of staying at a hotel once where the help cleaned up while the guests slept. Warm air wafted in and tickled her skin, making her think maybe life would be okay.

  She wandered down the hall to the kitchen for something to eat. Inside the restaurant-size kitchen, designed for catering companies instead of families, she found the granite counters covered with dirty glassware, serving dishes crusted over with dried hummus and a platter containing the remains of a dead, smoked
salmon.

  If Marti hadn’t heard the clink of silverware, she might have missed the tiny figure working hard at the sink. Marti moved around the edge of the giant island to get a closer peek.

  “Rosa?” she asked.

  The middle-aged woman looked up from her work. Her round cheeks and bobbed haircut hadn’t changed a bit. “Yes.” She took one look at Marti and squinted her dark brown eyes as if trying to puzzle something out. Then her eyebrows rose. She pulled her hands from the soapy dishwater and grabbed a towel. “Marti? Is that you?”

  Marti nodded and smiled.

  Rosa dried her hands in haste and came at her like a mama bear to a lost cub. “Oh my goodness, look at you! All grown up and such a pretty girl.” Rosa held Marti’s face between her damp hands.

  Marti smiled again. She had forgotten all about Rosa. She had worked for her dad all those years ago and had been one of the only constants in Marti’s chaotic life.

  “What are you doing here? Mr. Hunter never say you are coming back?”

  No big surprise there. Apparently he didn’t tell his girlfriend either. “My grandma died.” Marti’s voice cracked before the words were out.

  “Oh, you poor girl. That is terrible.” She wrapped her aging arms around Marti and patted her back. “I only met your grandmother once, but I could tell she was a fine lady. Things will be okay, you will see.”

  Marti swallowed back her tears. Crying wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  Rosa sighed and released her. “You must be very hungry. Let me get you something to eat. Sit up to the counter.”

  Marti sat while Rosa pulled items out of the refrigerator and went to work pulling items from the industrial-sized refrigerator. “He didn’t even remember to pick me up at the airport.” There, she’d complained about him and felt a teeny bit better getting it off her chest.

  “That is no surprise to me. Your father, he is loony. He fried his brain a long time ago. Too many bad drugs.”

  That made sense. Deep down, Marti always knew that.

  Before she knew it, Rosa set a dish of fresh strawberries, blueberries and bananas along with two slices of crusty toast spread with blackberry jelly before Marti.

  “Here, you eat up.” And that was the end of the touchy feely display.

  Marti sunk her teeth into the warm bread. Satisfied, Rosa went back to her work, this time humming a happy tune.

  After thanking Rosa for breakfast, Marti decided to check out what had changed here in the years she’d been gone. She passed the library with books she knew no one ever read and the smoking room with dark wood, dark walls and the heavy scent of cigars. The game room was made complete with an antique pool table with inlaid wood and carved legs. Her dad’s favorite arcade games from when he was a kid, Galaga, Asteroids and Ms Pacman, lined the wall. Every room featured framed photographs of her dad with famous people including rock legends and even a couple of past presidents.

  When she arrived at the music room, she lingered in the doorway. Inside, a grand piano anchored the room. Drawn by some invisible pull, she entered and rested her hands on the polished wood. Not a spec of dust rested upon it. She considered raising the lid to touch the ivory keys, but her stomach clenched, and she decided not to. Instead she examined the numerous guitars propped in their stands around the room. A different guitar for each kind of music. Her dad kept a saxophone, an oboe, and a trumpet on display. In this room, unlike the others, there were no pictures of famous people or even of her dad, which was a rarity since the man always surrounded himself with his own image.

  The decorations in this room were things that inspired him. His first guitar hung on the wall over the fireplace. The flyer from his first gig with his high school buddies was pinned up next to his Eagle pin from Boy Scouts. Hard to picture her dad as a scout, let alone an Eagle.

  She walked the perimeter of the room, taking in the tokens of his life that meant so much to him. As a little girl, she never noticed these things. Maybe he added them more recently.

  When she reached the far wall, she found more pictures, but not like the ones adorning the rest of the mansion. Surprised to see herself, Marti walked closer to check out the picture of her, about four years old, at the beach. She wore the brightest, sweetest smile. Her light blonde hair blew in the wind around her sun-kissed, chubby cheeks. The little girl in the picture didn’t have a care in the world.

  Next, she found pictures of Jack and Brandy. They varied from pictures of them as little kids through their teen years. One picture featured all three of them the Christmas before she left. Marti looked young and innocent; while Jack was about fourteen, his hair long, and he wore a sullen expression. Brandy, the oldest, must have been about nineteen. Her hair was cropped short, dyed black and spiked out in rebellion. Her face featured a nose and lip piercing, along with several on her ears. Dark make-up outlined the eyes of the troubled girl. Marti wondered what this messed up girl grew up to do with her life. When Marti moved to Wisconsin at age ten, they never tried to stay in touch. Not that they were ever close.

  As she scanned the pictures, she came across one of a beautiful blonde girl wearing a wedding dress. The girl looked radiant, but Marti didn’t recognize her.

  Marti wandered through the remaining rooms on that floor, and then back to the great room. During the time Marti explored, Rosa had cleaned the disaster of a room, leaving no hint of the previous mess.

  The sound of splashing water attracted Marti’s attention. She walked onto the terrace and discovered her father swimming smooth clean strokes across the pool. This was new.

  She stood in the doorway. She didn’t really belong here, and she really didn’t know the man in the pool either. He was her father, but he was mostly a stranger. He spent all of thirty seconds talking to her yesterday. He hadn’t given her enough thought to pick her up from the airport or even send someone in his place. She was no more to him than something to brag about. He’d created a kid. Big deal.

  He reached the far end of the pool and hopped out, revealing his naked butt. Eww! Marti whipped around to avoid a more informative view. She stepped into the great room to find Courtney eyeing her. Courtney perched on a pristine beige couch eating Cheetos. She wore tiny shorts and a tank top that hugged her body so tight a blind man could see her nipples. Her mussed hair and lack of makeup gave her an air of youth and innocence, which Courtney erased by speaking.

  “You’re still here.” She crunched down another Cheeto.

  What did she expect? For Marti to disappear over night? “Still here,” Marti stated, her voice solid even if her future wasn’t.

  “So how long is this little visit of yours?” Courtney licked cheese residue from her fingers.

  Marti sank her hands into her pockets. What could she say? This was her new home, because otherwise she was homeless? That her dad was the only one left on the planet who could take her in? Before she could come up with a lame answer, Courtney continued.

  “Because I’ve got a lot of plans, and they don’t include some doe-eyed, long lost daughter.” Courtney’s laser sharp eyes pierced Marti.

  Her dad entered with a towel the color of the ocean wrapped around his narrow hips. “Hey, everybody’s up. Did you have fun last night?” he asked Marti and plopped down in the middle of the couch.

  He hadn’t realized Marti left the party after a minute and a half. “It was great.” She tried not to roll her eyes.

  Courtney slid next to her dad. “I was just telling… what’s her name again? Oh yeah, Martini, that we have some big stuff coming up.”

  Her dad reached into the drawer on the coffee table and pulled out a joint and a lighter.

  “We’re in the final negotiations to star in a new show. We’re about to start filming a reality show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Rockin’.”

  Her dad lit the joint and took a long drag. He held it in for a while and then blew the stinky smoke into the air.

  “This show is going to launch my career,” Courtney said. “The produc
er said I’m going to be the next It Girl! I’m going to be bigger than the Kardashians.”

  “You’re planning a comeback?” Marti asked her dad, as he slowly got stoned.

  “Yup,” he said, holding his breath, then exhaled. “The band’s meeting here tomorrow night. I’ve been working on new material to put with our greatest hits. It’s going to be our best tour yet.”

  Courtney looked away every time Marti’s dad spoke to Marti. Courtney nuzzled up to him and drew little circles on his neck with her finger. It totally grossed Marti out.

  “So, sweetie, how long is Martini going to visit?”

  Despite his dilated eyes, he responded right away. “As long as she wants. I imagine at least until she finishes high school.”

  Courtney’s eyes flashed rage. Marti knew Courtney would do everything in her power to make sure Marti didn’t want to stay very long.

  “School? Are you sure that’s a good idea with all the film crews moving in here?”

  “She can be part of the show.”

  What? No way did Marti plan on being part of a reality show or any other show, for that matter. She needed to get them off the subject of her being part of their train-wreck lives. “Speaking of school, I probably need to get registered. It must start soon.”

  “Courtney will help you. Won’t you, honey? She’s good at organizing things.” He picked up the TV remote and aimed it at the mammoth flat screen. He tuned it to some show about buying junk from forgotten storage units.

  Courtney smiled sweetly at Marti’s dad and then turned an evil sneer on Marti. “I’d like nothing better.”

  Message received. Marti took the signal and retreated to her room.

  Chapter 16

  Adam hated red-eye flights, because even though they had the comfort and privacy of first class, he could never sleep. So while his parents and brother Garrett snoozed like babies, he watched a dozen episodes of Family Guy and tried not to miss Marti. The wheels touched down at JFK, and Adam practically jumped off the plane.