by Joy Fielding
I have always loved that house. The rooms, while undeniably large, are warmly decorated in an assortment of earth tones and filled with oversized, overstuffed sofas and chairs, antique wooden tables, and finely textured area rugs. Brightly colored abstract paintings by artists both well known and obscure cover the walls. Even as a small child, I felt comfortable moving about the labyrinth of rooms, exploring each twist and turn of the classic Spanish architecture. I especially loved the large and open inner courtyard filled with flowers and tall blossoming trees. Heath and I used to consider this courtyard our personal playground. We’d hide among the shrubs and jump out at each other from behind the blue and pink hydrangeas.
“We won’t be able to go inside,” I tell Claire as we turn the corner onto my old street. “I don’t have a key.” Normally, I have two keys to the house. One lies in my desk drawer at home. The other was on the same keychain as the key to my condo and was stolen the night I was attacked.
“It’s the one on the end, isn’t it?” Claire asks.
I nod, and we walk toward it.
I know something is wrong from almost half a block away. The gate, normally closed, is wide open. As we draw closer, I see several cars crowding the driveway, one with its tail end up over the curb and resting on the grass, its heavy tires flattening a row of delicate white and purple impatiens. “Looks like you have visitors,” Claire says, pulling her cell phone out of her purse.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the police.”
“No,” I tell her, recognizing the dark green Volvo. “I know that car.”
“You do?”
“It belongs to Travis.”
“Your old boyfriend?” More statement than question, although Claire looks to me for confirmation. “What would he be doing here? How would he get in?”
“I have no idea.” We walk through the open gate, approach the massive wood-and-glass front doors, and try to peer around the intricately carved design of floating palm leaves in the etched surface. I see the marble foyer with a large oak table containing a spectacular arrangement of eerily real-looking artificial flowers. Beyond that is the central courtyard where Heath and I used to play. It appears empty.
I try the front door. It opens.
“I’m calling the police,” Claire says again.
“Wait,” I urge, as the unmistakable odor of marijuana wafts toward my nose. If Travis is here, that means Heath must also be here. Heath has a key, and Travis doesn’t. Unless he stole it from my purse the night I was raped. Which means he’s the one who raped me. Which is impossible. I know that. Don’t I? “Please, just wait.”
Claire lowers her phone.
“Heath,” I call out. “Heath, are you here?”
We glance down the corridors leading to the left and right wings of the house. “You really think your brother is stupid enough to violate a court order?”
Heath is not stupid. But neither is he famous for his good judgment.
We turn a corner into the first of the home’s three living rooms. I hear a moan and sense movement to my left. I freeze as a slender arm drapes across the top of a sand-colored sofa, a mop of uncombed, curly red hair popping into view. Half-closed eyes squint, although the sunlight is behind her. “Who are you?” a sleepy, dope-induced voice inquires.
“I’m Bailey. This is my house.”
“No shit. Nice to meet you, Bailey. I’m Samantha.” The girl, who can’t be more than eighteen, tries to stand up, which is when I see that she is naked. Luckily, she tumbles back to the sofa before she is fully upright and doesn’t bother trying to get up again.
“I don’t believe this,” Claire says.
“Is Heath here?” I ask Samantha, the words scratching against my throat.
“Who’s Heath?” comes the slurred reply.
“What about Travis?”
“Oh, yeah, Travis,” Samantha says, as if this is all the answer I need.
I struggle to find my footing as we turn to leave, a now-familiar panic building with each step.
“Nice meeting you,” Samantha calls out as we exit the room and continue on down the hall.
“This is like something out of the movies,” Claire says as we walk through the dining room, with its skinny, medieval-looking oak table that seats twelve, into the large modern kitchen and equally large breakfast room. Other than Samantha, we encounter no one. We turn and retrace our steps, heading back down the corridor in the opposite direction.
We walk through the second living room and my father’s impressive book-lined office as well as the media room, with its huge, high-definition television screen mounted on the wall opposite eight large burgundy leather chairs arranged in two rows of four. The blinds are closed, and the television is on, although there is no sound, and no one is watching. “Heath,” I call, locating the remote control button on the seat of one of the chairs and clicking off the TV. The motion makes me dizzy. I fight the almost overwhelming urge to flee.
We enter the third and smallest of the living rooms, its four sofas arranged in a neat square in the center of the room, then peek into the four guest bedrooms, each of them empty, although the cloyingly sweet smell of marijuana grows stronger with each step. We finally reach the end of the wide, winding corridor to find the door to the master bedroom closed. Claire and I exchange glances as my hand grips the doorknob. She lifts the phone in her hand, as if raising a weapon, her fingers ready to press 9-1-1. My heart is pounding so hard, it feels as if it’s about to explode.
The bedroom is in darkness, so at first I don’t see them. “Ouch,” someone says as the door connects with a mound of flesh lying only inches from my feet. I fumble for the light switch and flip on the overhead pot lights. The room is flooded with light.
“Holy crap,” a man’s voice exclaims from the bed in the middle of the room.
Heath?
“Turn that damn thing off, will you?”
“What the hell …?” another male voice demands from the floor at the foot of the bed, an unfamiliar head appearing, an unlit joint dangling from thin, half-parted lips. Almost immediately, the man slinks from sight again.
Despite the light, it’s hard to make out how many people are actually in the room. In addition to my brother and the man at the foot of the bed, I make out two women in differing stages of undress sprawled across the bed’s down comforter. There is also the matter of the semi-conscious body, whose sex I have yet to determine, on the floor in front of the bedroom door.
“Good God,” Claire says as the door to the en suite bathroom opens and Travis appears, a look of embarrassment sweeping across his handsome face when he sees me. He’s wearing jeans and an oversized Tommy Bahama shirt I’ve never seen before. His feet are bare.
“Bailey,” he acknowledges. “What are you doing here?”
My heart rate steadies. Outrage overtakes panic. “What am I doing here?”
“I know this must look pretty bad.…”
“Trust me—you have no idea how bad this looks,” Claire says.
“Who are you?” Travis asks.
“What the hell is going on here?” I demand.
“I think you should probably talk to your brother about that.” Travis motions toward the bed as Heath’s hand reaches out from underneath the covers to heap a pillow over his head.
“Get out,” I say quietly.
“Bailey …”
“And take your friends with you.”
Travis acknowledges my directive with a silent nod. He walks to the foot of the bed, bends down, and slaps at the head of the man lying there. The unlit joint tumbles from the man’s lips, although even this fails to rouse him. Travis lowers himself to the bed between the two semi-comatose, semi-dressed women. “Okay, ladies. Party’s over. Time to get up.”
“I want all of you out of my house,” I tell them.
“Last I heard, this was my house, too,” Heath volunteers from underneath his pillow.
“Last I heard,” Claire says,
“that was up to the courts to decide.”
“Who are you?” Travis asks again.
“Wait,” Heath says, his face still hidden. “Let me guess. Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” He sits up abruptly, the pillow sliding from his face, dragging his unwashed hair across his forehead into his eyes. “No! It’s Super-Claire!”
“Heath, for God’s sake …”
“You probably didn’t recognize her, Travis, because she’s in her everyday disguise as mild-mannered nurse and savior of troubled, long-lost sisters, but don’t be fooled. Super-Claire has a secret identity. Beneath that unflattering blue blouse and too-tight khaki pants lurks the blue-and-red spandex of a true schemer, false friend, and looter of lost inheritances. I don’t need X-ray vision to see through you,” he says to Claire, pointing a wobbly finger in her direction before collapsing back on the bed in a fit of boyish giggles.
“Are you done?” I ask him.
“Are you done?” he repeats.
“Please don’t make me call the police,” I say.
The word police seems to wake everyone up at once. The two women wrapped in the comforter push themselves into a sitting position, bare arms overlapping, bare legs casually entwined, so that it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. “Where are my panties?” one girl mutters, hands searching blindly through the pile of crumpled bed sheets.
“Don’t think you wore any, sweet cheeks,” Heath says, giving her naked bottom a playful slap as she dangles over the side of the bed, searching.
The two men on the floor rise up, their eyes glazed, their movements stiff, although strangely graceful. Everything feels as if it is happening in slow motion. The young man at the foot of the bed—he is about twenty-five with dark hair and a skinny, hairless torso stretching out of the top of his unzipped, skinny black jeans—glances toward the door. “Did someone mention the police?”
“I could use a glass of water,” says the other man, now leaning against the bedroom door. He says this to me, as if I am here to service him, his eyes growing noticeably impatient when I fail to respond. He is wearing a pair of boxer shorts festooned with images of Mickey Mouse, although he must be at least thirty, and his wild, shoulder-length hair is an unnatural, almost neon shade of yellow that puts me in mind of a large dandelion. Dark roots peek out from the surface of his scalp. I estimate by the size of his roots that he probably dyed his hair himself sometime in the last month. Possibly around the time I was attacked. Possibly soon after. I close my eyes and try to will such thoughts from my brain. What is my brother doing with these people?
“I think you should get your clothes on and get out of here,” Claire says.
“I think you should go take care of sick people,” Heath retorts, laughing.
“Heath,” I warn. “Please. This isn’t funny.”
“You’re certainly right about that.” He pushes away the sheets gathered in his lap. “It’s pathetic.”
Claire throws a pair of jeans directly at his head. I don’t know where she found them. I don’t know if they even belong to Heath. “For God’s sake, cover yourself up. Don’t you know this is the last thing your sister needs?”
“The last thing my sister needs,” Heath repeats, refusing to be cowed, “is people pretending to give a damn about her when they’re only thinking about themselves.”
“And who could that be?” Claire asks, staring him down.
“What’s going on?” asks one of the girls as Heath pushes his legs into his jeans and, as discreetly as he can, pulls them up over his slender hips.
“I thought the police were here,” says her friend.
“Are you cops?” the man with the hairless torso asks.
Is this the man who raped me? Could someone who looks so insubstantial have been able to overtake me so easily?
The man looks from Claire to me, then over at Travis, “Are they cops or what?”
“I could really use a glass of water,” the dandelion says.
“I’m giving everyone two minutes, and then I’m calling the police,” Claire tells them.
“Oh, come on, man,” whines the dandelion. “You gotta give us longer than that. I don’t even know where my pants are.”
“Where’s Samantha?” one of the girls asks, her hand rifling through the bedcovers, as if her friend might be lost somewhere inside the folds.
“I believe she’s in the living room,” Claire says.
“What’s she doing there?”
“Suppose you ask her on your way out.”
“I’m really sorry about this,” Travis says. “Honestly, Bailey, I …”
“Just go.”
Travis turns toward Heath. “Come on, man. Let’s get out of here.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re in violation of a court order,” Claire reminds him.
“So sue me,” Heath says. “Oh, I forgot. You’re already suing me. Sue me again,” he says, even more provocatively. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you know you’re in violation of a court order?”
I’m about to explain that I merely intended to show Claire the exterior of the house where I grew up, when Claire stops me. “Don’t waste your breath.” She checks her watch. “One minute,” she warns.
Everyone scurries into whatever clothes they manage to locate, then flees the room.
Everyone except Travis and Heath.
“Bailey, please …,” Travis says again.
“Just leave.”
Travis offers no further protest as he walks from the room. Heath pushes himself off the bed, about to follow.
“Not you,” I tell him.
“You just said …”
“Not you,” I repeat.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Heath says. “I’ll stay … if Florence Nightingale goes.”
“Heath …”
“Take it or leave it.” He turns to Claire. “You can spare her for a few minutes, can’t you, sainted sister? You can go keep Travis company. Get to know him better. I think you’ll find you have a lot in common. He’s a bit of leech as well.”
“Bailey?” Claire asks.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s okay,” Heath repeats.
Claire reluctantly exits the room. Heath kicks the door shut after her with his bare foot.
“What’s going on, Heath?”
“Nothing’s going on. You’re overreacting. I had a few friends over. So what?”
“Those are your friends?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Do you even know their names?”
“What difference does it make what their names are? They’re upstanding citizens, fellow actors and future stars, every one.”
“They’re lowlifes.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“Wait a minute. You said they’re actors?” My mind is racing. What am I thinking? “Do you know Paul Giller?”
“Who?” Heath looks toward the door, then at the floor, anywhere but at me.
“Paul Giller. He’s an actor. Do you know him?”
“Should I?”
“Why aren’t you looking at me?”
“Why are you yelling?”
“Do you know Paul Giller?” I ask again.
“I already told you—no. What’s your problem?”
“You’re my problem,” I cry, frustration getting the better of me. “You bring these strangers into our parents’ home, you get wasted out of your mind in the middle of the afternoon, you break in …”
“I didn’t break in. I have a key, remember? I don’t get why you’re so upset. What’s the big deal? This is my house. Our house. Our father left it to us, along with his considerable fortune, and our greedy half-siblings, including the sainted Claire, have absolutely no right to any of it. I will fight them to my dying day before I let them have a single dime.”
“With what?” I ask plainly.
“What do you mean, with what?”
“You need mor
e than willpower to fight them. Gene is threatening to tie us up in court for years, and he has the power and the know-how to do just that. Sooner or later, whatever money we’ve managed to save up is going to run out. I have no idea when I’ll feel strong enough to return to work, and you don’t have a job.”
“What? You think I’m not trying?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I came this close, this close,” he says, bringing his thumb and index finger almost together for emphasis, “to getting that damn Whiskas commercial. I rolled around on that stupid floor for hours, hours, with that fucking cat licking my face, giving the director exactly what he said he wanted. The commercial’s in the bag, my agent tells me, a national spot, residuals up the wazoo. And then at the last minute they decide they want to go in a different direction. Nothing personal, my agent tells me. The director loved what I was doing. It’s just that I’m a little too good-looking for what the client has in mind. After reviewing the audition tapes, the client’s worried I might upstage the fucking cat. So they’ve decided to go with more of an everyday Joe, someone the average-looking cat-lover can relate to.”
“I’m sorry, Heath,” I tell him. “I know how frustrating it must be.”
“You have no idea how frustrating it is,” he snaps. “You have no idea what it’s like to keep getting the door slammed in your face. Time after time after time. Everything’s always come so easy for you.”
Can he be serious? His self-absorption takes my breath away. Heath has always been self-absorbed—interestingly, that’s part of his appeal—but can he really be so oblivious as to what I’ve been going through these past weeks?