by Cora Brent
“You heard me. The girl from the restaurant that Dad mentioned. What was her name? Tammy?”
I didn’t want to talk about Taylor. She certainly wasn’t my girlfriend. She wasn’t my anything. When a girl won’t give you her number in this day and age it’s a pretty clear signal that she’s not interested in hanging out. Or talking. Or anything else. No doubt she had her reasons. Yet watching her walk away from me without a backward glance last week still stung somehow.
“Paige jumped to conclusions,” I said. “I should have corrected her. Taylor’s just a friend and I was kind of helping her out.”
Derek threw me a skeptical look. He knew me too well. I could successfully bullshit just about anyone on the planet, including Thomas, but Derek was someone I could never fool and vice versa.
“Whatever you say,” he said, choosing politeness. That must be Paige’s influence. I’d have to remind myself to thank her.
“What do you and Paige have going on this weekend?”
He became cheerful. “Tonight I’m planning a quiet night at home with my girl and one of those gangster movies she likes so much. Oh, and tomorrow we’re going over to see the folks. I know Mom’s climbing her empty nest walls and Paige always gets a kick out of it when Mom hauls out the old photo albums and shows her pictures of me being potty trained and shit. We’ve got a plan to bring over some pizzas from Esposito’s because Mom says the oven doesn’t work right. I promised Dad I’d take a look at it.”
I snorted. “There’s a good chance that Mom broke the thing herself to avoid cooking.”
“Possibly. But I bet I can fix it.”
“Well, aren’t you the model son.”
He threw a potato chip at me. “Don’t be getting all jealous because I’ve got practical skills.”
“Why would I be jealous? I’m the smart one.”
“Yeah? Well I’m still the one who can kick your ass any day of the week, little brother.”
“Only if you tie my hands behind my back first.”
“Excuse me. Do you want your fucking radiator fixed?”
I grinned. “Yes please.”
That’s how we always were, through thick and thin. We’d suffered our bad times. Derek had been through hell and in a way he’d taken all of us along for the ride but that was all in the past. I’d walk into traffic for my brothers, both of them.
“Can you leave your car here this weekend?” Derek asked. “You shouldn’t drive around with the radiator leaking like a bastard. I’ll work on it first thing on Monday and get it back to you by the afternoon.”
“I appreciate that. Is there any way you can drop me off at Esposito’s? I’m supposed to be at work in half an hour.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “We’re pretty dead this afternoon. Let me just go tell Stone that I’m going to run you over there real quick.”
Derek took an indirect route to Esposito’s and we were about to pass by the street where Closet Exchange was located.
“Hang a right here,” I said.
“What for?”
“I just want to see something real quick.”
Derek grunted but obliged. We passed right by the eclectic storefront of Closet Exchange. The building was pink and there were butterflies painted on the windows. But there was no sign of Taylor. Her car wasn’t in the small parking lot. Maybe she wasn’t working today. I’d stopped stalking her around town the day we had lunch. She’d made it clear enough that she wanted to be left alone. The message was taking some time to penetrate all the layers of my brain. It kept thinking about her.
“Have you seen enough?” Derek asked.
I turned away from the window. “Yeah, sorry for the detour.”
Derek dropped me off in front of Esposito’s. I’d be working until closing. One of the guys in the kitchen lived over in The Palms so I was sure I could get a ride home from him.
The next six hours were hectic, filled with pizza orders and a never ending parade of customers. In other words, a typical Friday night at a popular eatery in a busy college town. I loved this atmosphere though, loved chatting with people and deftly moving between the happy bustle of the kitchen and the social atmosphere of the dining room. A summer of being cooped up in a gray cubicle in a downtown high rise made me realize I didn’t get much joy out of sitting behind a desk and playing office politics but it was too late to change directions now. Anyway, I was sure that when push came to shove, a nice sized paycheck would help me get used to the daily grind.
Nico, a cool guy who was an aspiring comic book author, worked in the kitchen and lived in The Palms with his fiancé, an architecture student. As expected, he was perfectly agreeable to giving me a ride when I explained that my car was in the shop. He had a penchant for old heavy metal bands and blasted head banging music on the drive home.
Thomas had texted to let me know he was at a party in our neighborhood. Someone must have dragged him there because if left to his own devices Thomas would be engrossed in something athletic or healthy and a college party was neither.
As for this party, I knew the hosts. One of them, Aimee, was an accounting major from Idaho who’d been in some of my business classes and we had a long standing flirtation that never went anywhere.
I texted Thomas that I’d stop by after a quick shower. The prospect of a typical party scene filled with sins and debaucheries suddenly sounded glorious. I’d kept my manners intact and my pants on all freaking summer. Maybe the time had come to cut loose a little.
Nico wasn’t interested in coming along. I didn’t think he would be. I just asked out of politeness.
“I just want to get home to my girl,” he said with a grin as he braked in front of my apartment.
“I hear ya. Thanks for the ride, man,” I said and climbed out of his car.
As I unlocked the door to my empty apartment I wondered what it was like to be eager to hurry home because someone was waiting for you. Someone you wanted to be with more than you wanted to be with anyone else. It was the first time it occurred to me to envy guys like Nico and like my brother. They had already found that person.
As for me, I’d never kept a girlfriend for longer than a few months. The fault was usually mine.
But that didn’t mean I planned to go hunting for a long term situation tonight. There was no law against having some conventional vulgar fun now and then. I wouldn’t be opposed to enjoying a little of that.
The way I figured it, I was long overdue.
Chapter Nine
Taylor
“That’s not possible,” I argued.
The bank teller frowned and clickety-clacked on her keyboard for an eternity while I held my breath.
“Uh, according to the system there are no funds available in your account,” she confirmed.
“Like I said, not possible. The loan company made a deposit into my checking account yesterday. Ten thousand dollars.”
The bank teller, whose Ameriwest Bank badge advertised her name was Jo-Lee, exhaled loudly over my idiocy and smashed a thousand more buttons on her keyboard. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ballerina type severe bun. I thought about suggesting that she loosen the knot. Perhaps it was strangling her brain and that was why she couldn’t find my money.
“It’s not there,” she said. “I’m sorry, but there are no funds in your account.”
I threw up my hands. “Well that’s just insane. In additional to the loan deposit I have over a thousand dollars in there.”
“Oh.” Jo-Lee ceased clacking. Her eyes widened at something on the screen. “I get it now.”
“You get what? Where the hell is my money?”
Now she looked at me and there was an ‘I know something you don’t know’ kind of taunt about the way she pursed her lips and declared, “You’ll need to speak to the manager.”
“Fine.” The sick sensation in my stomach gave birth to a litter.
Ten minutes later I was sitting in the office of the branch manager and trying to grasp the words o
f the crisply suited Al Albertson as he informed me that my account had been frozen due to suspicion of fraud.
No, he didn’t have any details.
No, he couldn’t do anything about it.
No, there was no one he could call this late on a Friday afternoon to find out exactly what had happened to my money.
“I’m going to call the police,” I said, throwing out a last desperate card as I struggled not to cry. “I’m going to call the police and tell them I’ve been robbed.”
Al Albertson was unimpressed. His thick, shiny wedding band caught the overhead light, piercing my left eye.
“Ms. Briggs, as best as I can tell, the decision to freeze your account is due to fraud. The police cannot help you.”
I took a deep breath. Struggled to collect my thoughts. I’d come here to obtain a cashier’s check, the required deposit for the apartment I was planning to sign a lease for today. That wouldn’t happen now. I didn’t know what would happen now. Except for the cash I was carrying and the meager possessions in my car, I had nothing. Nothing! Just when I’d been on the verge of taking a step forward I was tackled and sent about fifty-eight yards back.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, as much to myself as to my disinterested audience.
Al Albertson didn’t care what I did. Al Albertson was impatient to close his tidy office for the weekend and go home to whoever had supplied him with that shiny ring.
“Unfortunately there is nothing I can do today,” he said. He ripped off a Post-it note and handed it to me with a pen. “I should be able to get more answers next week and if you write down your contact information I will call you when I hear something.”
I scrawled my cell phone number down and shoved it at him. He turned off his desk lamp.
“You have a nice weekend,” he said.
Was he fucking kidding? The guy was so expressionless it was tough to tell. Perhaps those were just words he spit out robotically, as automatic as breathing.
I stood and slipped my purse strap over my shoulder. My throat was threatening to close. My mouth quivered. Al Albertson deposited a silver plated fountain pen into a crystal holder and averted his eyes.
“Well,” I said, “at least this was a good opportunity to spend a few minutes with resting bitch face up close.”
Petty, thy name is Taylor.
Immediately I regretted what I’d said because I needed Al Albertson to follow up and find out where my money was. I attempted to undo the damage.
“You have a nice weekend too, Al.”
Then I ran out of his office before I could do or say anything else stupid.
I waited until I reached the front seat of my car to bang my fists on the steering wheel and release a rage-filled scream through my teeth. Then, following a few deep cleansing breaths that Cynda would applaud me for, I drove to the parking lot of a nearby Target where I could think the situation over in peace.
I still didn’t understand why my account had been frozen. I thought that the officials pursuing my father’s case had long since realized that I knew nothing about his shady businesses and had decided to leave me alone. Over a year had passed since I’d heard anything.
Perhaps there had been a mistake, a clerical error somewhere in the electronic intestines of Ameriwest Bank. The idea breathed a sense of hope into my soul. An oversight could be corrected. It was possible that by this time next week all would be well, with my money rightfully restored to my account. I’d be enjoying a leisurely evening in my apartment and gloating over the groveling apology I’d extracted from Al Albertson.
My cynical side disagreed.
An error of this magnitude would be too much of a coincidence when paired with my family’s troubled history. Everything had been taken from me before. All of my father’s properties were seized and liquidated, including my condo in Castle Court. His bank accounts were frozen and none of us ever saw another dime from them. Luckily my car title was in my name and none of my personal possessions were affected so I’d been able to sell off almost everything of value to live on while I tried to carry on and finish school.
Not everyone could make the adjustment. My siblings had become accustomed to the endless spigot of cash that indulgently flowed from my father’s wallet. They were unwilling to do without.
In times of crisis it’s not unusual for people to turn on one another.
We didn’t exactly turn on each other.
No. They turned on me.
Yesterday I had treated myself to a pack of gum at the gas station. I chewed on two sticks of mint cinnamon and brooded. Obviously the bank situation was not going to be resolved this weekend. Pouting in the Target parking lot would change nothing.
First I called the office of the modest apartment complex where I was already late for my lease signing appointment.
“We’ll only be able to hold the unit for you until Monday,” warned the deep smoker’s voice on the other end. A series of wracking coughs followed, broken by the sound of spitting.
“But it’s a bank issue,” I explained. “I don’t know if they’ll get it fixed by Monday.”
An indifferent shrug had a sound. I’d just heard it.
“That’s what you agreed to when you signed the paperwork,” wheezed the voice. “There’s a ton of demand for those studio units.”
Awesome. Terrific. Homelessness Part Deux here I come.
This feeling of defeat was becoming too familiar. I told myself the loss of the apartment might just be a temporary setback. If the bank managed to get their act together within the next week then I could find another place. Maybe. I counted the cash in my wallet even though I was pretty sure I already knew the total.
Forty-two dollars. Not a windfall but enough to keep me coasting for a few days. My car had nearly a full tank of gas and now that the extreme heat of the summer was fading I could avoid running the air conditioner. So far no one had questioned me when I showered at the university rec center every day. I looked like I belonged. If anyone second guessed me I was ready to flash the college ID card that remained in my wallet though I wasn’t attending classes. I’d managed on my own so far. I could manage for a little while longer.
On the other hand, if I couldn’t get this mess straightened out then I was in trouble. Real trouble. Like doomsday kind of trouble. Worst case scenario shit. Not only would the loan money be gone but so would every penny I’d been painstakingly saving.
Panic returned and brought all of his friends.
I crossed my arms around my middle and let my forehead touch the steering wheel. My stomach hurt. My pulse raced. I wanted to cry. More than that I wanted to call someone who might give a damn and sob out my misfortune to a sympathetic ear. But the only someone I could think of was Kellan Gentry and I’d refused to accept his number when he offered it. All because I was embarrassed to be seen as weak. Now I wished I hadn’t been such an idiot.
Scrolling through my phone didn’t magically produce a list of friends. After my family’s scandals went public, a lot of people I’d assumed I could count on either evaporated or openly reveled in my misfortune.
I paused over Laney’s contact information, which I’d never found the courage to delete. Delaney Marino and I grew up in the same neighborhood and although she’d attended an east coast boarding school throughout high school we had remained close friends. Some of my favorite memories involved a whole lot of mischief on Laney’s school breaks. She knew which bottles in her mother’s wine cellar could be lifted without much notice and after months spent cloistered in a single gender environment she was in a hurry to locate boys to share them with. Laney was bold with a crackling wit and was the only friend I had who didn’t tear me down as soon as my back was turned.
After graduation she’d persuaded her folks to purchase the condo two doors down from mine at Castle Court and we celebrated with a rousing and decadent freshman year. My good times came to a screeching halt with one tearful phone call from my father. After that the dominoes
fell with alarming speed.
As for Laney, she started practicing her disappearing act right around the time law enforcement began watching the every move of the entire Briggs family. She had not even come to my father’s funeral. We hadn’t spoken in two years.
No, Laney didn’t want to hear all about my troubles and I wasn’t eager to choke them out to her anyway.
A logical approach to this dilemma was in order. Right now there was an important question that I had no answer to. Why was my account frozen? If some new (and incorrect) information had come to the attention of the authorities then the rest of the wretched Briggs family might be likewise under the microscope. The family lawyer had stopped taking my calls ages ago. He was unlikely to be excited to hear from me now. That left me with few options.
Even setting aside her ominous voicemails, I’d have more fun eating glass than having a conversation with my sister. We’d always been oil and water. Growing up in a bedroom down the hall from Sierra was like being raised beside a wolverine.
Aiden was different. My brother was twelve years older and away at college by the time I reached second grade so we’d never spent a ton of time together. But whenever he visited he would always tweak my nose and say, “Hey, squirt,” before offering some tiny toy or piece of candy he’d bought just for me. Sierra and I were dolled up as junior bridesmaids for his wedding to his college sweetheart and I was there in the hospital waiting room when both my nieces were born. The day my mother died in a hit and run accident during a morning jog he was the one who collected me from school and hugged me tight as we both sobbed with broken hearts.
Everything changed after my father was arrested.
Aiden and his wife had expensive habits and depended on a generous allowance to finance them. And their oldest daughter, Regan, had a few medical problems that were not serious but still costly. He hadn’t been involved in my father’s business practices so at least he escaped being implicated there. However, his bitterness over the chain of events turned him into someone I no longer knew and when Sierra planted the seed that I knew more than I said I did, he believed her.