by Kasia Fox
“Wow,” he said, “do you ever look like her.”
“My mother?” she said. He didn’t move. “You knew my mother too?”
“Just like Lily, only prettier, you know that?” He winked.
Tessa didn’t know how to respond to a comment that was both a compliment to her and an insult to the person she loved more than anyone else in the world. Also, it was also hard to imagine anyone mistaking her for a duplicate of her mother, who’d lopped off her hair and let it go grey and dressed in dowdy sweaters she’d knitted herself.
“Thank you,” was what she settled on. “I’m Tessa.”
“You don’t go by Mary-Therese? Or Mary?”
“Nope.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
The lawyer seemed nervous. She expected him to shake her hand or introduce himself. Instead, he shook his head for a second, as if remembering where he was, and stepped aside, inviting her in with his arm. As she passed he said, “I hope that knucklehead offered to carry that in for you,” he said of her backpack.
“He did. I brought all the books I haven’t been able to read for the past two years because of school,” she said, stepping into the cool air conditioning. The entranceway was wide with pale stone floors. Natural light from a pair of twin atriums on either side of the hallway flooded the place with light.
“Wow, so pretty,” she said.
The lawyer waved to the driver of the car, which was still idling in front of the house. It pulled away. Fear flickered in her. Now she was alone in a strange house, with a strange man in a city where she knew no one. He closed the door, darkening the hallway slightly. He locked the door and turned to her.
“Follow me.” The lawyer walked down the corridor without turning back to see if she obeyed. She hurried behind. He led her to an open kitchen and living room. The entire south-facing wall was made of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on a swimming pool, a lawn, and a rolling green golf course behind it. Aside from the green outside the windows, everything inside was white or off-white except for a lacquered black baby grand piano in one corner.
“Did he play?”
“Huh?” The man gestured for her to sit on a low, ivory-colored couch so pristine Tessa was sure she’d leave a mark on it. Tessa dropped her backpack to the floor and sat.
“The piano? Did my dad play it?”
“No.” The lawyer pinched his lips and breathed heavily through his nostrils. He tented his fingertips in front of his mouth. Then, silence.
“It’s such a beautiful house,” she said. “I can’t believe he lived here.”
“Listen,” he finally said, “I have to give it to you straight. You’re not inheriting this house. You’re not inheriting anything today, okay?”
Blinking, Tessa sat back in her seat. “I didn’t think I –”
“Shut up and listen, okay? The reason you’re not getting any of it,” he interrupted, “is because your dad’s not dead. My name is Ron Doucette. I’m your dad.”
5.
Tessa sat very still as the information sunk in. The man, the lawyer – no, not the lawyer, her father – didn’t move either. Holding his breath, he stared down at her as if he were trying to predict the the next action of a dangerous wild animal.
Shaking, she rose from the chair.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way, okay?” the man, her dad, said. “Really. You have every right to be mad at me. I get it. I’m sorry. And I never say I’m sorry. I’m sure your mother told you that about me.”
Run.
“The only thing she told me to was stay away from you,” Tessa said. “That was all I needed to know.”
“Hey!” His expression darkened and then he shook his head as if to calm himself. “Okay, fair enough.” He took a couple of deep breaths. “I was a different person back when your mom knew me. She made me promise that I wouldn’t try to have a relationship with you and I didn’t. I did that for her. To honor her. When I heard she had… passed, I wanted to reach out. I figured you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“So you faked your own death?”
“For all of forty-eight hours. Gimmie a break.”
“You could have called. Sent a message online –”
“When Lily was sick I reached out. Offered to help. Asked her to tell you about me and she said she’d told you all about me and that you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“Even if that’s true, you tricked me into coming here. You played with my emotions.”
“So you were sad, huh.”
“I was confused.” Tessa crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back on him.
“Listen: I would be sad if you left, okay?”
She shook her head. She walked to the window, looking out onto a view of the pool she hadn’t been able to see because it had been blocked by the open piano top. She saw a woman laying on a chaise on the pool deck. Her skin was bronze and gleaming in the sun and her hair was an otherworldly shade of red. On the ground next to the chaise was a cold drink and the crumpled fabric of her bikini top. She was on her back, yet her nipples thrusted upward, toward the sun. Like the color of her hair, her full breasts looked unnatural. Expensive. What kind of place was this?
“What a huge mistake.” Tessa turned from the window. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m such an idiot.”
“I know it’s different here. I know your mom is gone now and I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“You should stay.” He said this firmly, as if he were a man who was used to being obeyed. Tessa bit her lip. She was accustomed to following rules, listening when she was told what to do. “Please. I want you to stay. I want to know my only child.”
She appraised this strange face. Wondered if she’d have seen more of herself in it when it was new, before life had beat Ron Doucette up. In the moment she felt hatred for him. But also love. Resentment. Sadness. Fear. A confusing mix she’d felt – each emotion weighted in different proportions – when her mother was alive. Her mother. Tessa knew what her mom would have to say about Tessa standing in this man’s living room.
Run.
And so, without another thought, Tessa ran.
6.
Cal backed out of the four-car garage and waited on the driveway for the garage door to descend. This practice had been suggested by Nisai, the new head of his security team. One of the moves in the stalker handbook, apparently, was to duck in under a closing garage door as an owner drove away.
“You’d think criminals would be scared to break into a boxer’s house,” he’d said to Nisai when they’d met at Cal’s offices for an early consultation.
“You’re not a boxer anymore,” Nisai replied. “Google your name. What comes up? Callum Quinn net worth, Callum Quinn girlfriend, Callum Quinn American Prizefighter. All those come up before Callum Quinn heavyweight.”
Cal had just turned thirty-one, hadn’t competed in a professional boxing ring since he was in his early twenties. But you can’t help how you see yourself. How he saw himself was as a fighter, even if the only real money he ever made from boxing was on the business end of things. Now that people could find his address online, weirdos had popped up around his house, scaling the wall or lying their way past security at the front gate of his community in an attempt to – what? Meet him? Ask him for a loan? Murder him? Exact motivations were unclear.
The garage door touched the ground and he finished backing out. As his car wound around the street, he told his phone to call his brother. When Jay picked up, Cal said, “I just sat it my driveway making sure the garage door didn’t leave an inch open for someone to crawl through. Money is turning me into a pussy.”
“That’s why I choose not to have any,” Jay laughed. “And for the record, you’ve always been a pussy.”
Jay was a public school science teacher in Queens, New York, not far from where they’d grown up. Unlike Cal’s other three brothers, Jay wouldn’t hear of taking money from him or ask
ing him for a cushy job. “Seriously though,” Jay went on, “you can’t be too careful. Jenna watches all these shows about people getting stalked and murdered. People really do sneak in under garage doors. It’s a thing.”
“I called you so that you’d talk me down, tell me I was being paranoid. You’re useless.”
“Money definitely hasn’t made you any less disagreeable, brother.”
“I have to get in a better mood. I’m picking up a girl to go watch the fight and if she senses my mood is off in any way, she’ll worry I’m annoyed at her and it’ll be a whole thing.” He sighed.
“A girl? Care to offer any more details?”
“No.”
“I guess I’ll have to see her on the television like everyone else, huh?” Jay went on to say that he was having some of the other teachers from his school over to pay-per-view the fight. He was joking around – something about Cal holding up a sign that said Hi, Mom! – when a woman dashed out of a house ahead. Her dark hair flew behind her as she hurtled down the front walk and ran directly in the path of Cal’s car. He braked and cursed.
The girl whirled around, her almond eyes widening in surprise in his headlights. Her dark hair settled around the small curves of her chest. In recent years, living in Vegas and traveling in the circles he did, Cal had grown unaccustomed to a certain type of girl. Thick, brush-like fake lashes. A nest of hair extensions. Spray tans. This girl looked like she’d come from another place, possibly another time.
“Cal? Cal?” Jay’s voice, playing over the Bluetooth in Cal’s car, was loud.
“I almost ran over a beautiful woman.”
“Get her number. For insurance purposes,” Jay joked.
“How does this guy gets these girls…” Cal muttered, letting his voice trail off. He did know how his neighbor got them. One of Ron Doucette’s more legitimate businesses was a massive three-floor strip club in an industrial park.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said through the glass. Cal rolled down his window.
“What’d old Ronnie do this time?” Cal asked, leaning out the window, trying to sound lighthearted. The girl wasn’t amused. She was scared. Or maybe sad? Reading women wasn’t one of Cal’s strengths.
“I’m sorry?” she said.
He nodded to the house. “You aren’t the first girl of his I’ve seen flying out of there in a rage. Ron Doucette has that effect on pretty girls.”
As he watched the expression on her face shift, Cal recognized that if she hadn’t been angry before, she was now. Anger was an emotion all too familiar to Cal when it came to women.
“I’m not some girlfriend of his,” she said.
So this girl was Mrs. Doucette? Too bad. Smart of the guy to put a ring on this girl, if a surprising choice. For the years he’d been acquainted with Ronnie – and eventually neighbors with him – all the women Cal had seen around him were skinny with huge fake breasts and purses rattling with prescription bottles. Ron’s male guests, on the other hand, drove luxury cars with personalized license plates, had bad tattoos and dressed in dirty sweatpants.
“Sorry,” Cal said to the girl. “Have a good one.”
“Wait!” She held up the palm of her hand to him like a crossing guard. “How do I get to town?”
“Town?” Cal laughed.
“Where stores are. People.” She waved a hand around in the air. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.”
How to explain suburban Las Vegas to someone who’d never been here before?
“Do you need a ride?” Instantly he regretted the offer. Where was he going to take her?
The door to the house opened and a man’s voice called out a name: Tessa.
“Yes!” she cried, running to the passenger side of the car and crawling inside. Ron Doucette stormed down the walkway from his house. Cal assumed he was furious; his expression was hard to gauge given how smashed-in his mug looked.
“Go!” the girl cried. Cal put the car in gear. Over the squealing of his tires, he caught the words, “That’s my daughter!”
Daughter? Surprising development. He steered the vehicle out of the gate leading to Tropicana and asked where she wanted to go.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I gave this plan absolutely zero thought. I’m not like this.” She turned in her seat and faced him, her expression pleading. “Where are you going?”
“…To work.” It was partially true.
“So take me there. And then I’ll walk someplace.”
There was no way he could show up at Morgan’s house with another girl in the car.
“As a general rule, only tourists walk in Vegas,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’s a city built for the motorist.”
“That’s too bad because walking in a new city is the most fun thing in the world to do.” She looked out the window. “Did you know I’ve never seen a palm tree before?”
“Uh, Cal?” Jay’s voice cut through on the Bluetooth. “I think I accidentally became the third-wheel on a first date.”
“Shit, sorry, man, I forgot about you.” To the girl he said, “That’s my brother, Jay.”
“His favorite brother. And that’s saying a lot because he has four of them.”
“There are five of you? I’m an only child. I’m so jealous. My name is Tessa.” She said this to the dashboard, which meant his brother had more charisma on speakerphone than Cal did in person. Great.
“Nice to meet you, Tessa. I’m Jay.”
“I just hopped in your brother’s car and forced him to give me a ride.”
“That’s probably wasn’t a good idea.”
“Is he dangerous? I’ve seen way too many episodes of Dateline to be sitting here right now.”
“You and my wife would get along just fine,” Jay laughed. “Here I was thinking you might be the dangerous one.”
“Me?! I don’t know if you’ve seen your brother lately, but the dude I’m looking at is…massive. His arms are like the size of punching bags. Truly.”
“When he stands next to me I make Cal look like Danny DeVito.”
Tessa tilted her head back and laughed open mouthed.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Cal said, surprised by the twinge of jealousy he felt to see her laughing like that at his brother’s joke. “Who’s on a date with who now?”
“This is the longest I’ve had you on the phone in ages. He’s a real caveman, Tessa. A man of few grunts.”
“I’ve had more of you than I can handle,” Cal said to his brother.
“I’m gonna call later, make sure she hasn’t murdered you, bro.”
“Don’t call me for a week.” Cal hung up. “Idiot,” he laughed. “Can you believe they trust him to teach middle schoolers?”
“I bet they like him. I always liked the funny teachers,” Tessa said. “Are you two close?”
“That’s kind of personal.”
“That’s personal?”
“My private life is private.” Cal checked his mirror and turned onto the busy avenue.
“What are you, Beyoncé? That’s a normal question.”
“Are you close with your dad?” he fired back.
“In this one instance that actually is personal.” They sat in silence for a full minute, the girl staring straight ahead out the windshield, Cal driving to nowhere in particular. Then she spoke up. “But seeing as you insist on dragging it out of me, I’ll tell you that until just moments ago, I didn’t even know I had a dad. So you’re currently taking part in this truly peak dysfunctional moment in my life. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
In spite of himself, Cal laughed. “Every family I know is messed up. Mine especially.”
She looked at him and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” She pressed a button on the armrest to bring the window down. They drove down Tropicana in the general direction of the highway. She sighed. “The air feels so nice here. You can’t imagine.”
Days like this made living
in the murderously hot brown desert worth it. He glanced from the road for a quick look at his passenger. She leaned against the headrest, her eyes closed. Her long hair whipped around in the breeze from open windows. It caught on her lips and she pulled it away from her mouth. She opened her eyes and smiled at him.
This was why men bought a $100,000 car, Cal thought. Not for the power. Not to toss the keys to the valet. To have a beautiful girl smiling at you from the passenger seat.
Her smile turned quickly to alarm when she faced forward. “Watch out!” she cried. The cars in front of them had slowed down for a red light. Cal braked hard and the car shuddered to a stop.
Tessa sat up in her seat. “Be honest. Have you been drinking?”
“It’s three o’clock.”
“This is Las Vegas! I don’t know what you people do here.”
“I don’t drink.” Cal cleared his throat. “Speaking of dysfunctional family stuff.”
The light turned green. He eased the car forward. He chanced a look at her. She was chewing her lip, deep in thought.
“Be honest,” Tessa said. “Do you think I should go back and talk to Ron? I didn’t give him a chance to fully explain himself. I just panicked and ran because that what my mom would’ve told me to do.”
“I really don’t want to get involved.”
“I’m not involving you, I’m asking your opinion.”
“Giving an opinion intended to influence someone’s actions is getting involved,” he replied. “I prefer not to give opinions.”
“Well that’s boring.”
Cal squeezed the steering wheel.
“Can you just pull over here?”
“Why?”
“All on my own, I decided I’m going to go talk to my dad. I’d like to walk back.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, thanks. It’s nice out.”