by Sloan Archer
What Greg couldn’t grasp was that, no matter how many times Marissa had neglected Vanessa and caused her emotional pain, she was still her mother. Marissa Paul, so hopelessly vulnerable, needed protecting. Even if the one person she needed protecting from most was herself.
Still, Vanessa was no fool. She’d learned her lesson long ago about giving her mother money directly, which was essentially the same as handing it over to the nearest liquor store or drug dealer. The rent she’d been paying on her mother’s behalf for the last few years went directly to the landlord, Benji, who had a strict rule against non-married couples living together. The policy had nothing to do with Benji’s moral outlook on matrimony but everything to do with the financial hit he took each time a couple broke their lease after a split.
Vanessa didn’t really care why Benji had instilled the policy. She was only glad that he had. It made Vanessa sleep a little better knowing that, at the very least, her mother was still safe. The added bonus being that Marissa’s lowlife boyfriends—Kyle being a prime example—were unable to live off her dime.
CHAPTER SIX
Vanessa stared down at the phone, which was causing her a gigantic amount of distress for an object so small. “What a hot mess,” she said, though she wasn’t sure if she was talking about Kyle, her mother, or even herself.
All three, she decided as she got up and made herself another cup of coffee. Shuddering—Doing the ditty!—she scrolled through her phone to find Benji’s number.
He answered on the first ring.
“Benji, hi, this is Vanessa Paul. Marissa’s daughter?”
There was a clatter in the background and then Benji loudly cleared his throat. Vanessa could picture him flapping a spastic arm at her mother—It’s her! It’s your daughter. “Vanessa! Always nice to hear from you. How are you?” He sounded nervous as he prattled on. “Are you calling about the rent? You know, it’s not due for another couple months. Sorry, I’ve been meaning to get you the account number for that direct transfer thingie, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. But, I can do it first thing tomorrow—”
“No,” Vanessa cut in. Was her mother seriously sleeping with a grown man who used a word like thingie? “It’s nothing like that. It’s about my mother. Have you seen her?”
It took Benji longer than it should have for him to answer. Vanessa took this as a solid indication that he was preparing to sell her a story. “Your mother?” he said with a shrill chuckle. “Why would I have seen her? I mean, I haven’t not seen her, if that’s what you’re asking. She hasn’t disappeared or anything—I’ve seen her around, of course.”
“Benji?”
“Yes?”
“I know.”
Benji seemed to be weighing what to do next. There was a short, muffled conversation on his end, and then: “You know what, exactly?”
“Kyle told me everything.”
“I’ll get your mom. Hold on.”
Vanessa pursed her lips while she waited for her mother to get on the line. What was it with men—were they all just a bunch of liars? Maybe she really was better off on her own.
“Hey, Van!” Marissa sang as she got on the phone, as if they’d only spoken yesterday. Maybe in her mind they had. “How are things?”
“Hi, Mom. I tried calling your cell earlier, but it said that your number’s been disconnected?”
“Yah, I got tired of lugging it around. The phone, not the number! And I don’t like people being able to reach me all of the time.”
“That’s sort of the point,” Vanessa said and then forced herself to switch gears. It would be unwise to lose her temper so early in the conversation when there was surely more aggravation to come. Better to pick and choose her battles. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.”
Stay calm, Vanessa told herself. You’re going to have to live with the woman for a couple months. “No, I mean, what’s going on with Benji? Are you with him now?”
Marissa let out a girlish giggle. “Don’t say it like that. He’s a nice guy!”
Vanessa paused a moment to collect her thoughts. Since keeping her mother’s attention was as tricky as walking a tightrope in a windstorm, it was always best to be direct.
“Hello? Van?”
“I’m still here. So, listen, Mom, I’ve kind of fallen on some bad luck.”
Marissa let out a dramatic gasp. “Are you hurt? You’ve been mugged, haven’t you? I always said that you’d be mugged if you lived in New Yo—”
“No! Mom, listen! Geez, it’s nothing like that. I’m okay, at least physically,” Vanessa said, dreading what was coming next. “But, the thing is, Greg and I have broken up.”
“Greg? Whose Greg?”
Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm. “Greg is the man that I’ve been dating for the last two years. We lived together?”
“Oh, right! Greg. How is he?”
“Well, like I said, we broke up, so . . .”
“That’s too bad! I always liked him.”
“You never met him, Mom.” Because you never made yourself available when he and I were both free. Not even when we said we’d come to you in Rylone. Not even when we offered to pay for your airfare to New York and put you up in a swanky hotel.
“Oh, well, he was always nice to you, so that’s what I meant.”
“Yah, so nice that he knocked up another woman while we were living together,” Vanessa grumbled.
“What? No! Want me to come kick his ass?”
“No, Mom. I really don’t want to talk about it, okay? But it’s kind of the reason I’m calling. That, and because I lost my job.” Vanessa let out a tired breath. “Actually, I was fired.”
“What? No!” Marissa screeched once again, though this time she did not extend the offer to beat up her daughter’s bosses. “What happened, Van?”
Vanessa’s eyes prickled. With a sniff, she cried, “They said I was embezzling, Mom!”
“Good for you, honey! I’m glad you finally decided to grow a pair. Screw ‘em for all they’re worth, I say.”
So much for getting emotional. Her mother’s misdirected pride nipped that right in the bud. “God, Mom! I didn’t actually do it. I was framed by somebody in the company.”
“Oh.”
Vanessa let out a long sigh. “Anyway, as I was saying, I broke up with Greg, which means that I have nowhere to live. And I lost my job, which also means that I no longer have any money coming in.”
“Does this mean that you’re not going to pay my rent anymore?”
That’s my mother, Vanessa thought with bitterness, always looking out for number one. “Your rent isn’t due for another couple months, so I should have another job by then. I’d better, anyway.”
“Shew! Good.”
“But here’s the thing: I’m wondering if I can come and live with you in Rylone while I’m looking for work?”
“Where?”
“At your apartment.” Where else?
Marissa made a panicked humming sound. “Mmm-hmm, no, I don’t think that’d be possible. Not right now.”
This, Vanessa had not expected. “I don’t see why not. It’s a two-bedroom place, and last time I was there, the one bedroom was just sitting empty. But, even if you’re using it now, I could always sleep on the couch.”
“No, honey.”
“What do you mean, no? I’m your daughter,” Vanessa said, indignation pinching at the center of her chest. It was a sharp and all-too-familiar sensation she’d come to associate with exchanges with her mother. “I know it’s out of the blue, and I’m sorry to put you on the spot—trust me, I wouldn’t have called if I had any other options—but I’m in a real bind here.”
“It’s not possible,” Marissa said stubbornly.
“And just why the hell not?”
“Because . . .”
“Because why?” Vanessa said, getting her hackles up. “Actually, you know what? I don’t care what your reason is. I’m sorry tha
t I’m now being forced to say this, but, please, listen to me now. I’ve been paying your rent for so long that I can’t even remember when I started. I have never held it over your head or asked for a single thing from you in return. So, when I ask you, my mother—the only mother I have in the entire world—for the small courtesy of letting me stay for a couple of months at the place I’ve been footing the bill for, I expect you to be welcoming. Or, call me crazy, maybe even a little grateful. But, instead, you tell me it isn’t possible? No-no-no. I don’t think so.”
“Van, please don’t be angry! I’m not telling you no because I don’t want you around.”
“Yah, then why are you?”
“Look, you can’t stay with me because.” Marissa paused. “I no longer have an apartment.”
“What? Where have you been living?”
“At Benji’s place.” As if it should have been obvious.
“Benji’s? For how long?”
“Hmm, I don’t know . . .” Marissa stalled. “I guess I moved in with him around the time that I last saw you.”
Vanessa smelled a rat. “Wait a minute. If you’ve been living at Benji’s, why have I been sending him your rent? Has he been charging you the same to live at his place that he did for that two-bedroom apartment?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where, exactly, then, has my money been going?”
“We bought an RV!” Marissa exclaimed. “Used, but it’s a real nice one.”
A high-pitched whistle rang through Vanessa’s ears from the inside out and she thought, My brain is screaming. Actually screaming. Her mouth fell open and a hot breath steamed past her teeth. Gripping the phone so fiercely that it quaked against her ear, she remained wordless.
She was completely and utterly at a loss for words.
“We’re hitting the open road! We’re leaving next week—first stop, Niagara Falls!” Marissa let out a squeal and then prattled on. “So, you can see why you can’t stay here, since I’ll be gone. Well, that, and because I don’t have an apartment anymore! From now on, it’s just me, Benji, and Bessie. That’s what we named it—our RV—Bessie! Cute, right?”
Vanessa was seeing the world through a blood-red tunnel. It took her a moment to get her mouth to work but, finally, she managed. “Let me get this straight, so that I’m understanding you. You’ve been living rent free for who knows how long, and you and your landlord-boyfriend have been using the payments I’ve been sending to buy an RV, so that you two can go on vacation?”
“You sound mad—you aren’t mad, are you?”
Vanessa suspected that if she were to open her mouth at that precise moment, she might start shouting and never stop.
Marissa tittered nervously. “It’s just that you had that big, fancy job and all. And you were living with that rich guy . . .”
Vanessa found her words. “So, what, you figured that all my extra money should go toward buying you an RV so that you and your latest boyfriend could go gallivanting around America?” She swallowed hard. “The income I made from working days, nights, and weekends, so that I could have the means to keep you from being homeless—you figured that money should be yours to do with whatever you wished?”
Now it was Marissa’s turn to sound offended. “I don’t see why you’re getting so upset. You act like I’ve stolen from you or something!”
“No, Mother, you tried to do that the last time I saw you, remember?”
“You aren’t still mad about that, are you? I was on some pretty heavy stuff back then, so you can hardly blame me for what I did.” She clicked her tongue. “Man-oh-man, you’ve always been a little grudge-holder, even as a kid.”
Vanessa snapped her head back, incredulous. “Blame you? You act as if someone was holding a gun to your head, making you take pills or speed or whatever the hell it was that you were on that time. It’s never your fault, is it?”
“I’ve sobered up since then. I promise! It was that rotten Kyle—he was a bad influence. He made me—”
“Oh, save it!”
Vanessa forced herself to take a couple deep breaths. In, out. In, out. Breathe.
Calmer now, a nasty possibility struck her. But surely her mother couldn’t be that conniving? “Hold on a sec, I just thought of something. You asked me before about whether I’d still pay your rent. Why would you need rent, if you’re hitting the road?”
“That was before you asked to come and stay with me,” Marissa said, dodging the question.
You mean, that was before you’d been caught, Vanessa thought. “That’s not an answer to what I asked.”
“What do you want me to stay?”
Vanessa’s fury snarled deep in the pit of her belly. “TELL ME WHY YOU ASKED! WHY?” She seized the nearest throw pillow on the sofa and strangled it. She was stunned by the intensity of her shouting, which had echoed so sharply off the walls of Margo’s tiny apartment that an alarmed neighbor might take it upon his or her self to call the police. If she were not in New York, that was.
Unaffected by the outburst, Marissa said primly, “Well, we’re going to need spending money. How else do you expect us to eat?”
“Right,” Vanessa said at last. The room around her took on a canted appearance, her eyes seeing the world from a hideously distorted angle. This cannot be my life right now. No job, no boyfriend, no home, and now . . . this. Surely this hopeless new life belongs to somebody else. Please, anyone but me.
Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. When she opened them again, her view had not changed. This is my life. The nightmare is real.
Marissa demanded, “What do you mean, right? It’s the truth.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if you actually know what ‘truth’ means,” Vanessa said and her mother made a sputtering sound. “Look, I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“I’m saying that I’m done. I know I’ve said this before—and shame on me for believing that there was even the slightest chance you’d ever change—but this is it.”
“I have changed!”
“No,” Vanessa said numbly. “You haven’t.”
“Van!”
“You’re on your own from now on. I tried, I really did, but all you ever do is take. So, you and Benji go and run away in the RV that I paid for. I hope it was worth it, because understand this: I. Am. Done. Consider your cash cow dead.”
“So you’re not going to send my rent money anymore?”
“Goodbye, Mother.”
Vanessa turned off her cell and set it down on the edge of the coffee table. She toed it over the edge and let it drop to the floor, as if it might suddenly strike out and take a chomp out of her flesh, and then flopped back on the sofa. She waited for the rush of tears to come, but none did. Not a single drop. Maybe she’d finally cried herself dry.
* * *
Vanessa awakened several hours later in faded light, her sense of foreboding lingering. She sat up and groped around for her phone on the coffee table before remembering that she’d nudged it to the floor. She was disoriented by the time displayed when she found it, unsure if it was six in the morning or six at night. Yet another cruel reminder about how much she needed to find work, having no idea what part of the day it was.
A text from Margo offered clarification. Going to be working late tonight, but I’ll try not to wake you when I get back. Hope the job you’ve found is amazing. They’d be crazy not to hire you!
Well, wasn’t that just great? Seemed the mood around home was going to be a lot lighter now that they’d established a timeline for her departure. Even better was Margo’s assumption that she’d found a job in the short time that had passed since they’d seen each other.
On the bright side, with Margo working late Vanessa would have a few more hours to delay revealing that she still hadn’t found a job or a place to live. Though maybe she’d save herself the grief and simply lie; then, at the end of the week, she’d quietly skulk out while Margo was at work and find herself new
dwellings under the nearest bridge.
Vanessa frowned as she saw that she’d received a voicemail from an unfamiliar number—where was the area code 406? Probably a telemarketer seeking money. Hah! Good luck on that one, buddy!
She listened to the message. Hi, I’m hoping that this is the right number for Vanessa Paul—you’re a difficult woman to track down! If you are the right person, could you please return this call? My name is Gary Hinkle, and I’m an attorney here in Dunblair Ridge, Montana. I’m calling you, Vanessa, about your aunt Jeanie’s estate. It’s a fairly pressing matter, so if you could please get back to me at your earliest convenience, I’d really appreciate it. The best way to reach me is on my cell, which I’ll leave the number to now . . .”
Vanessa scrambled for a pen and jotted down the number. Aunt Jeanie? There was a name she hadn’t heard in decades. It had been well over twenty years since she’d seen her, but what she could recall was nothing short of wonderful.
What could she possibly have to do with her estate?
Vanessa sat back on the sofa and thought about the magical summer she’d spent in Dunblair Ridge as a child. The details were hazy at first, but as she dug deeper, prodding the murkiest crevices of her mind, she began to remember fragments of events she’d all but forgotten. She took a deep breath, relaxed, building on each memory, layer upon layer. While there were still some gaps, she was eventually able to draw a bigger picture. A smile played on her lips over what she could recollect.
Still, there was a whisper of sadness that stirred just below the surface, a feeling of loss for a better life that almost was. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else she was failing to remember,
(I’m going to marry you!)
or someone. She tried to work out why that was, but the answer was just a little out of her mind’s reach, like a forgotten word teasing the tip of her tongue. She shook her head, threw her hands up—so frustrating!
Vanessa closed her eyes, let her thoughts travel back in time . . .