The Rivals

by Allen , Dylan

  I’ve thrown them all away.

  “Nah, it’s probably just starting.” I kick at the leaf-covered ground and avoid his disapproving gaze.

  “So … why are you here and not there?” he asks.

  “I already said goodbye,” I say with a shrug of my heavy shoulders.

  “What about your mom? Your brothers? They good without you there?” he asks. Kindness softens the disapproval in his tone.

  I don’t like it.

  I don’t want it.

  But, I do feel a flush of shame that I’m not there for my brothers. I push that down and say words that are much closer to the surface and less problematic for me.

  “She’s not my mom,” I say.

  “Oh, she’s not?” He looks genuinely surprised.

  “Nope. She married my dad when I was seven,” I say.

  “So, they’re your stepbrothers?”

  “They’re my brothers,” I clarify. I hate that word. We haven’t made that distinction since the first year our parents got married. Their mother was an equal opportunity terrorist. She made them as miserable as she made me and we’d formed a real brotherhood in the trenches of Eliza’s crazy. As far as I can tell, the only reason my father married her is because she was a wealthy widow with the right last name with potential spares for his heir. He adopted them, so we’re not just brothers in spirit—the law says we are, too.

  “She’s never been my mother,” I say, and my voice sounds hollow in my own ears. I’ve never said that to anyone about Eliza. I’ve hidden my resentment. Mainly for my father’s sake. But now that he’s gone, so is my restraint.

  “Where’s your real mom?” he asks.

  “She died.” I shrug because I can’t do anything else. “I’m an orphan.” I say that word out loud for the first time and it tastes as bitter as I knew it would.

  “Go be with your family, kid,” he says.

  “I’m not a kid, and you’re not old enough to be calling me one,” I say.

  “I’m eighteen. In college. My dad’s been dead since I was two, and my mama hates the sight of me. So, I’ve been old enough for a lot of things for a long time,” he says. There’s nothing in his tone that implies that he’s sad about his father, but now that I know what it feels like to have to say ‘my dad’s been dead …’ Or maybe he just has a well-honed poker face. I need to work on mine.

  “Listen, your brothers are going to need you to act like you have your shit together. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for them.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and it’s oddly comforting—not at all awkward. Still, I don’t want kindness or comfort. So, I shake it off.

  “I’m surprised you even care. Don’t the Wildes hate the Riverses? Isn’t that why we’ve never even seen each other before?” I ask.

  “First of all, it’s the Riverses who hate the Wildes.” He bounces his ball once. “And I’ve seen you before. Didn’t know who you were. You and that little cheerleader girlfriend of yours come into Eat! over on Wesleyan. I work behind the deli counter. You probably didn’t notice since you didn’t take your sunglasses off the whole time you were in the store,” he says and dribbles his ball a few more times.

  “You work there?” I ask.

  “Yeah, who else is going to?” he says.

  “Doesn’t your family own it?” I ask.

  “Yes, and we all work in the businesses until we’re old enough and smart enough to run them. We ain’t like the Riverses,” he says, his dark eyes cocky and daring me to challenge him. I can’t. It’s true. My family members don’t work in any of their businesses. They don’t work at all. But damn if I’m going to let him know it bothers me. So, I smirk.

  “I’ll say hi next time I come in. Maybe you can make me a sandwich,” I say.

  “Today, I’ll cut you some slack and let you get away with that. But don’t try that on a day that’s not your father’s funeral,” he says and bounces the ball one last time before he tucks it back under his arm.

  “Or what? You’ll leave the mayo off my sandwich?” I scoff.

  He snorts out a laugh and throws the ball so hard and fast that I barely catch it before it hits me squarely in the chest. “Nah. I’ll use my hands to show you why I can call you kid any time I want.”

  I throw the ball back with as much force as I can. He catches it without even looking. Then he turns and starts to walk back through the little clearing in the woods that leads to the door I’ve never dared to open. It’s the emergency access to Rivers Wilde, the neighborhood the Wilde family established when they bought this land from my father, right around the time I was born.

  He’s almost disappeared into the brush when he stops and looks back at me.

  “Go to your dad’s funeral. Trust me, you’ll never finish saying goodbye, and you’ll be glad you saw him this one last time.”

  He leaves, and after a few minutes, so do I.

  “You wanted to see me?” I duck my head through the heavy oak door of Swish’s office. He’s had this office in Rivers House for as long as I’ve been alive.

  The smell of old books, aged leather, and coffee is comforting. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see that he’s alone. Everyone else has met with me in pairs—mostly with their lawyer present. I haven’t had a truly personal conversation in a whole week.

  “Hello, son.” Swish greets me in his swashbuckling East Texas twang that sixty years of living in Houston hasn’t ridden him of. Despite the red-rimmed eyes and the disheveled, finger-mussed state of his normally perfectly styled, legendary silver hair, he’s smiling at me. It’s a beleaguered lift of the left corner of his mouth, but it’s more of a smile than I’ve seen on his face in a month. It’s sincere and warm, and when he says, “I’m glad to see you,” I believe him.

  He tugs his glasses off his nose, dangles, then drops them wearily onto one of the haphazard, stacks of paper littering his desk.

  “Come in, close the door.” He gestures to it and then hefts his bulky frame out of his chair and strides over to sit in one of the tufted dark red leather seats in front of his desk.

  “Sit down, please.” He nods at the identical chair across from him. The warm smile is gone and what’s replaced it is so grave, so grim, that my stomach clenches. I wipe my suddenly sweaty palms down the front of my jeans-covered leg and do as he asks.

  He groans through a yawn, presses the heel of his hand to his bleary eyes and rubs them slowly.

  He’s oozing fatigue, and it’s catching because I’m starting to feel weighed down by my own as I watch him. He looks old. And I’m very aware of the fact that time is not on his side … or any of ours, really. But, he folds his gnarled, spotted hands over the middle of his infamously large beer belly and leans back in his chair.

  “The last two weeks have been … difficult.” His voice is weighed down by all the things we’ve faced this week.

  Difficult.

  Memorizing the first nineteen lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Olde English for class last month was difficult.

  Having to live without someone you love and knowing you’ll never hear their voice again isn’t difficult. It’s impossibly hard.

  I wish he would get to the point so I can go back to my room and put on some music and try to sleep. My father loved Elvis. I used to think it was such an odd thing for a boy from East Texas—who grew up sucking at the teat of Wednesday night Bible study, Friday night football, and Sunday morning service—to love music that my grandmother used to call the Devil’s seduction. The night he died, I played one of his albums on repeat and fell asleep to “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Now I can’t sleep without listening to it.

  “Your father was like a son to me. That I have outlived him and his father …” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to feel about it, Hayes. But the one thing I know is that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’ve had a real difficult time finding reasons to be grateful for my advanced age, son. But today, I’m glad I’m here—because you need someone,” he says solemnl
y.

  This time, his lips only quirk when he attempts to soften the graveness of everything.

  “You don’t have to smile. I don’t even try,” I say. We’re familiar bedfellows when it comes to sitting across from each other with grim sadness between us.

  When my father’s brain tumor returned so aggressively—and within weeks of his surgery—it was Swish who told me it was time to get ready to say goodbye. He was dead two weeks later. In so many ways, my life feels like it’s come to a screeching halt.

  I haven’t been to school. My stepmother has taken my brothers and gone to her parents’ in College Station. And my uncle Thomas and his newest future ex-wife have moved into the wing that belonged to my father. I don’t know how he can stand to be in there. The last time I walked into that part of the house, it smelled like my dad, and I couldn’t stomach being there. I can’t imagine sleeping in his old bed, breathing air that smells like him. I miss him so much.

  “I was raised in a different time. And your father, God rest his soul, reminded me so much of his father,” he adds,

  “They weren’t anything alike,” I interject and lean forward because I want to see his agreement with my own eyes.

  Instead, all I see is pity.

  “They weren’t,” I insist.

  He sighs. “I know your grandfather was ruthless at times.”

  “All the time,” I mumble.

  “People tell all sorts of stories about him. Your father didn’t speak highly of him. Thomas only speaks of him in hushed tones of reverence. The truth of the treatment his legacy deserves is somewhere between those two. But, he did what he had to, to preserve the family’s traditions of service. As did your father. And you will, too. Remember that you’ve been raised to honor and preserve your family’s money and their name. Your grandfather was the first Rivers to serve the family’s business in a purely figurehead capacity. Your father expanded some of the roles, but they both saw to it that the family’s businesses were run by people who’d done more to prove themselves worthy than just inheriting it. So, as chairman of the board, the title your father held—and that you will hold—is still an important one because you’re in charge of the family’s personal fortune. You’ve seen the reports in Forbes?” he asks.

  “Yes, I have no idea if they’re true. I mean, do we really have twenty billion dollars?” I ask.

  “There is no ‘we.’ It’s just you. And it’s much more than that,” he says, and my jaw drops.

  “Me?” I ask.

  “Yes, you,” he says mirthlessly.

  “Holy shit.” I sigh and lean back.

  “A lot of that comes from your ownership in Kingdom stock. But Hayes, the trust doesn’t give you access to the any of it until you’re twenty-five. Until then, your guardian has control over it, and the trustee has control over him.

  “The will says that in a case where the heir is too young to assume, a regent or guardian is appointed. It would have been your mother. But …” He purses his lips.

  So, I finish his sentence for him. “But, she’s dead, too.”

  “Yes, she is,” he says with a new heaviness in his voice. “Your great-great-grandfather Rivers was obsessed with the idea of establishing his own dynasty. Unfortunately for Thomas, it means his inheritance and importance to the family is much smaller. But now, as your guardian, he’ll also be the acting chairman,” he says grimly.

  “So, it’s only until I’m thirty?”

  “Yes, but I know he wants that chairmanship permanently. And he wants it to pass to his heirs. That useless cousin of yours would then inherit after him,” Swish warns me, and my worry spikes when I think about my cousin Jesse, who lives with his mother in Miami. We’ve never gotten along. I can’t imagine him leading our family.

  “As we learned yesterday, your father’s adoption of your brothers doesn’t make them heirs as he’d hoped. So, the only way Thomas could ever take your place permanently is if you died. And you’re so young, he has no hope. But he’s going to do everything he can to find a way to undermine you. And he’ll have sixteen years to do it,” he says.

  “What can I do to stop him?” I ask.

  “Nothing. I think he’s going to ask me to resign as the trustee of the family foundation where all the money sits,” he says.

  “But you won’t. Right?”

  “No. And he can’t remove me. But son, I’m eighty-two. I’m not going to be here forever. And he’ll have complete discretion to pick the next trustee,” he says, and I feel a surge of worry.

  Each word stings like they’re wrapped in shards of glass. My stomach dropped when they read the will yesterday. I didn’t expect to become chairman right away. I’m only fourteen. But to have no say—at all—over anything completely surprised me. What was I going to do for the next sixteen years?

  “Okay, so what happens now?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. Your father made plans right before he died.” His voice is grave, and he stops and watches me while his words sink in.

  “What plans?”

  “You’re going to live with your aunt Gigi. In Positano,” he says.

  “Who?” I ask sharply, sure I hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “Your father has an older sister, Georgiana, but everyone calls her Gigi,” he says again, and I sit back. A cold weight spreads in my core as I look at Swish with eyes that go from wide with shock to narrowed in suspicion.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I insist.

  “Yes, Hayes, he does,” he says softly. He watches me solemnly, and I realize, with real horror building in my chest, that he’s telling the truth. But … my father wouldn’t hide his sister. Would he?

  “How come I’ve never even heard her name before?” I ask, the demand in my voice softened by the quaver in it. My entire body is shaking. My mind is whirling. I don’t understand.

  “She was disinherited before you were born,” he says, and I blanch at the idea.

  “Are you serious?” I ask rhetorically—the answer is obvious from the look on his face.

  He just nods.

  “But-why?” I stutter on my question because I can’t imagine that there’s an answer that would help me understand.

  “She chose a man over her family, and that was that. Your grandfather wrote her out of the will, out of the family Bible, out of the family tree, and for him, she hasn’t existed in almost sixteen years,” he says.

  “His own daughter?” I ask. My grandfather was not a kind or loving man, but he behaved like family was paramount to everything. And he liked control. Over everything. I can’t imagine him having a child out in the world whom he couldn’t rule over with his iron fist.

  “It was her choice. Your father stayed in touch with her—secretly. The week before he died, he asked her to be your guardian,” he says.

  “He did?” I ask dumbly. But I’ve stopped thinking. What else don’t I know about my family? About my father? Part of me wants to know. The other part hopes I never find out.

  “I would have rather he’d let me be your guardian, but he insisted. He wants you to live with her. And she agreed. So, she’s coming to get you, Hayes.” His big body heaves with his sigh like he’s relieved to have said it.

  “Coming from … where’d you say? Post what?” I ask. My head is spinning; I don’t even recognize my own voice.

  “Positano,” he says with a weird accent.

  “Where the hell is that?” I ask.

  “Italy,” he says.

  “What’s she doing there?”

  “She lives there,” he says slowly, his face contorted like he’s bracing for a strong gust of wind.

  “In Italy?” I ask.

  “Yes. She got married and moved there with her husband. They’re not married anymore, and she stayed after they got divorced.”

  “Is she moving here?” I ask hopefully.

  “No,” he says that and nothing else.

  “You’ll leave with her in two days. And you will tak
e care of yourself and your name,” he says.

  I look at him, confused and in denial about what he’s saying and shake my head as it starts to settle.

  “But—I live here. I just made the JV team. I have a girlfriend,” I say and my life flashes past my eyes like a movie. But the reel is withered, burned, incomplete. My heart races as panic starts to set in.

  I scramble to my feet. The chair scrapes against the floor as I push out of it.

  “I’m in the middle of my freshman year. I just—”

  “There are no options for you to stay here.” He cuts me off brutally.

  “But …” I shake my head helplessly. How, in the span of two days, can my life go from one thing to something completely different? “I don’t even know her. We’ve never even met,” I say.

  “You will get to know her. She’s already here,” he says. I surge out of my seat and turn around to scan the room.

  “What I mean, Hayes, is that she’s in Houston, at the St. Regis. Not here at Rivers House. She got in very late this evening,”

  I sink back down in my seat, disappointment ripe in my chest. I sit, my head bowed, my hands dangling from my knees and only half listen to what he’s saying.

  “Now, she’s going to do her best to make sure that you’re ready for the chairmanship when you turn thirty. Chairman of the board at Kingdom is a figurehead mainly, but there’s also power and discretion that comes with that role. So, just because you’re not an executive making decisions, you need a good understanding of the company’s business model. Every year the chairman, with the advice of the board, revises or reaffirms the platform and goals. The foundation and the family have had decades of solid leadership. I’m sure that when you’re ready to take over, you’ll continue that legacy. For now, it is up to your uncle to act in your stead.”

  I drop my head into my hands.

  “I know … I know. Since his last divorce, he’s taken an advance on his income from the trust nearly every month,” he says sadly but with growing conviction in every word. “As the trustee, I have discretion over what happens to your money. I’m going to make gifts to you from the trust every year. It will be a lot of money, and you can’t touch it until you’re ready to assume the chairmanship. But at least this will keep it out of Thomas’s reach.”