Hunted by Billionaires Box Set

by Ryan Ramsay

  I clutch my luggage tighter and walk a little faster towards my destination.

  Three houses down, the ever immaculate white on grey Becket homestead comes to view. I stand three inches off the porch just to take it all in.

  The walls are freshly painted, the roof quietly retiled, the lawn chairs neatly folded against the left wall of the house: right of the hedged fence and above the small, tainted, blacked out basement window flap; and the three wooden seats —dad’s two-month-old project right after he retired from the army —neatly stacked and recently sandpapered, look splendid with the covering of mom’s old church knitting work.

  And what I see at the front, steady and strong, through which many fights and angry outbursts had been weathered, is the solid black door, marked only by the near-perfect stencil markings of flowery vines along its edges and a strict, tight, golden peephole above a yellow knocker, stretching out into infinity as the gate to the prison I once lived.

  My heart beats hard.

  The escape was not easy.

  “Mom, Dad?” I call out, as I pinch the key out of the hole and shut the door behind me.

  It feels great to let my luggage go and unsheathe the scarf from my neck. I let it hang around my open fist and take the house in. Everything is just as I left it: bucolic.

  I hear shuffling from the kitchen.

  “Jesse!”

  She walks through the curved wall unit and heads for me like a train.

  Her weight falls onto my shoulders as she leans and lands thick kisses upon my cheeks.

  Her hair smells of baked potatoes.

  She holds me in her hands, looking at me with a strange mixture of pride and disappointment.

  “Look at you,” she touts, “you’ve not been eating. These bones might as well be held up for a soup contest. I doubt you’d win!”

  “Funny as always, Mom.”

  “Is that my sweet little Messy Jesse?”

  Oh God.

  Dad hurries down the stairs in his infamous green shirt and brown khaki slacks, treading lightly on his fuzzy beige slippers. His stubby chin prickles my cheeks as he leans and hugs me tightly in his warm bear manner.

  His deep brown eyes remind me so much of my own.

  It’s strange, what a love/hate relationship one can have with one’s own parents and one’s own past. How being back can spark memories that are a bittersweet mixture of both pain and comfort.

  He puts me down and pats me on the back.

  “Dear God, how could I forget?” he remarks at my luggage. “I’ll get that for you.”

  “It’s alright, Dad.”

  He smiles widely, heading for my pink case.

  “Oh, come off it. You’re probably tired from the long flight and need some rest. Why don’t you go with Mom to the kitchen and I’ll get this upstairs, eh?”

  “Dad, it’s really alright.”

  He stops.

  I weakly offer a smile and shrug.

  “I haven’t seen the house since I left for the semester, and to be honest, would love to see my room again.”

  Mom cranes her neck to the side and wrings her hands.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Dad lets my luggage go and raises his hands, feigning arrest.

  “Alright then, Messy Jesse. When you fall tired before I serve you my famous chili and Mom’s garlic bread stew, I’m gonna take a long sip from the cold hard glass of ‘I told you so.’”

  “You cooked?” I excitedly ask. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

  No matter how strained my relationship with my parents might be, I always enjoy their cooking.

  I head for the plastic latch and grip tightly.

  Mom beams hard in her navy blue dress and black apron, watching me as I trudge up the carpeted stairs.

  Dad pushes her forward, back to the kitchen despite her protests.

  He follows swiftly.

  “You should have been more firm. Now she won’t have the time to rest or try my lasagna pie,” I hear my mother say.

  “Oh, come off it, June,” my dad tells her. “You know your daughter. Once she sets her mind to something that’s it. Sound familiar?”

  Chapter 2

  Jesse

  The door opens and shuts quietly.

  I make sure it’s tightly locked.

  Done.

  Then I throw my bag at the foot of the bed and fall onto my old mattress, back first.

  The pillows are still plushy and the sweet smell of dust bunnies from the underside of the mattress still linger.

  I brush my fingertips over the pale lining of the nightstand to my right, wishing myself through the next three weeks.

  When I close my eyes, I can almost feel the lucid dreams strike again.

  Why am I here?

  I hate home.

  No.

  That’s an understatement.

  I hate being here, right now.

  That’s so much better.

  Angela Bassett gazes at her palm happily for something I cannot see through the sticky gloss poster I have of her hanging on the wall at the far corner of my room. She seems happy; happier than I think is normally acceptable.

  The colors of the sun breathe through the golden headband that sticks out of the poster, upon the woman’s silky smooth skin, and through the pink and white paint over and over the wall, one streak at a time.

  The shades, though recently dusted, hold a certain allure, as if they haven’t been opened in quite some time, not up until this morning when my parents knew I would be here.

  The air in here is clogged up, lemony and efficiently moist; a nap should do.

  My dad was right. I need rest.

  I feel my hands, dry and oddly shaking, through the fresh sheets that Mom, I’m sure, laid out for me.

  This is home.

  And despite the fake act my parents put on and the warm feeling of familiarity, I feel unwelcome.

  **

  Three days pass. The wind is getting stronger.

  I hold the white linen tight across my shoulders as I bring myself closer to the door.

  The blue basket sways lightly to the call of the sharp wind cutting through its banana-shaped holes as I grab it and head for the door.

  The screen almost hits my ass when it goes slamming against the wooden frame. I stop and clench my jaws, warming up. Mom rushes in behind me, scratching at her excited hair and eyeing the basket in my arms.

  “Boy, it sure is something out there, huh?”

  “I never thought it could get this bad.”

  “Darling, it’s Newport. There are always surprises ’round the corner.”

  She pauses to turn the stove dial down, noting the heat while bent, and then, quietly, sharply turns upward and walks past me towards the laundry room that is a few feet, with the familiar blue laundry basket in her arms and a windswept expression on her face.

  She stops by the dining room threshold, right by the black, almost silvery cupboard— gifted to her and Dad on the eve of their twentieth anniversary by some benefactor overseas; a colleague, Mom said, back from Dad’s old days as a Major in the Army.

  “Would you like a bath before dinner? I can always turn the heater on for you.”

  “I would love that, Mom,” I say, with an open smile.

  My hands grab onto a spoon and reach it into the jar of peanut butter waiting, with its lid already off, above the spice compartment. It’s crunchy, like a soft chunk of nuts and subtle oils were used in its creation.

  The feel of wide-open plains and raw palms and thick crushing machines is in every lick of the spoon. It tastes like earth, in a good way. Mom throws her head back in disdain.

  “You’d better wash that spoon when you’re done, young lady.” Her voice echoes across the empty hall. “Supper should be ready in half an hour. The bath water will be ready in ten. Do not be late!”

  I head up after her, stretching my thighs and soles under the fresh numb prod of the thin
carpet threads. A steely branch keeps banging at the roof on the farthest corner of the house, at the laundry room edges. It will be dark soon, and then begins the ‘debriefing,’ as Alex put it so beautifully.

  Growing up in the Becket household meant two things: never being late for a home-cooked meal, and always, always never being late for church. Alex tried once to evade rule number two, which meant him never getting any of whatever was involved in rule number one.

  Afterwards, at two in the morning, Dad got him awake with a cup of steaming hot cocoa, some homemade hotdogs, and a warm crunchy pair of toast, like a drill sergeant but bearing gifts. By the end of the thirty-minute conversation, Alex was in his room and Dad in his, neither one ever bringing up what they talked about.

  Needless to say, Alex has always been the one making Saturday night dinner and Sunday morning breakfast, and has done so for the past five years.

  Tonight will not be any different. I disrobe and turn the shower on, hoping that I will not regret coming home after three years of a lengthy absence.

  Chapter 3

  Jesse

  “So, how was your day?”

  “Fantastic. I finished a novel and started on a new scrapbook. Marvelous Journeys is what I like to call it.” Alex pauses. “It’s a book filled with pictures of us travelling and seeing new places. So far, I have that trip we made to the Canyon like… it was seven years ago, right?”

  “Eight, Alex. It was eight. And my, oh my, was that an amazing trip,” says Mom. “Do you remember how you two hated each other and fought like cats and dogs over the smallest of things?”

  “Oh, Mom. That was ages ago,” I interject. “And I wouldn’t say we were like cats and dogs…”

  “It feels like yesterday,” says Dad, cutting me off. “Your brother would steal one of your cookies; you know, the assorted creamy ones from Deci’s Deli that you loved so much, and eat half of it and crumble the other half just outside your tent?”

  Oh, I remember. Alex scoffs. Well, clearly so does he.

  “You two were adorable,” sighs Mom. She wipes her mouth with a napkin and softly belches. “Excuse me. Have you kids had enough, or shall we have some more of Alex’s succotash stew and cinnamon bread?”

  “I’m great.”

  “Me too.”

  “Stuffed, honey,” smiles Dad.

  “Suit yourselves. I’m gonna have some more.”

  Mom heads off to the kitchen, leaving us to Dad’s pre-practiced puns, corny jokes and quite possibly even a rehashing of the same old stories he always loves to tell as if we’ve never heard them before.

  She comes back to the aftermath, finding quiet and red-faced participants across each point of the table. She places her plate on her plastic mat and talks through the steam emanating from her bubbling broth.

  “Are you alright?” she asks, worried at the fast change of pace in the room.

  “Fantastic,” I say.

  “Epic,” Alex says.

  “Wouldn’t mind some more of that succotash, my love,” says Dad brightly.

  Instinct jumps in; I lift the chair back and utter a quick ‘May I be excused?’ to them all before running off despite their confused protests, jamming my toes on the carpet up the stairs as I go, but not letting it stop me, as I keep going, through the hallway, past my bedroom door and off, finally, under the wanting sill of my bedroom window.

  “Fuck!”

  I hate Newport.

  ***

  “And so that, along with the safe word of King David, is a solid reason for the wrong of this holiday.”

  The congregation says “Yes.”

  “Halloween is the day of the devil; the one day of the whole year where his powers rest strong. Take heed, brethren, for the moon is upon us. Take heed and pray!”

  “Amen.”

  “Preach!”

  “Let they who believe in eternal damnation rise above this paganism. Is it not true that ye who are meek and serve your Lord shall be saved?”

  “You tell ’em, Pastor Brown!” yells a purple-robed choir member.

  And so he continues to breach his fire and brimstone.

  Sunday morning comes with an abundance of sunlight, breaking through the grey clouds. It finds me in a black dress, salty around the thighs and extra sweet all the way down to the shins; Mom’s delight. I sit quietly right next to her, arms folded and lips pursed.

  This sermon has been two hours long. I use the time to think, of how the ride to the airport from the sleek and rocky cobblestone of Cornell dorms made me think, just as I am thinking right now.

  I had no choice but to come back here.

  Dad told me he was not doing so well, and Mom confirmed it. He stands by the pastor today, resolute and straight-backed, listening hard to every word coming from the pastor’s thin and wet lips.

  She found him muttering to a tree three weeks back, stories of old from his Army days. He has no memory of it.

  “And shall we pray, brethren, to fight away the will of the Devil before us as this holiday of sin approaches,” says the pastor, as he signs off.

  Every head bows, even Alex’s.

  Except for mine.

  I don’t bow my head.

  I look up.

  I look around.

  I watch as most lips quiver and bless and curse and wish and willfully force the eventualities of the future with words full of faith and abundance and greed and envy.

  I watch.

  I see.

  But I don’t conform.

  The prayers are silent, almost whispered. I turn away from Mom’s audible mutterings and look through the congregation, past the pulpit, past the cream-colored walls and right at the weird painted pastel of Jesus, two disciples and a litter of children following them.

  It seems curious that they would commission such a thing.

  It almost feels obscene, staring at Jesus’ brown eyes. They seem broken.

  The pastor ends his prayer solidly and warms his crowd up with a loud and eventful clap.

  “See you outside!”

  ***

  I have never seen so much food on one length of wood before.

  Mashed potatoes.

  Greek yogurt.

  Salami.

  Baked bread.

  Jugged virgin margaritas.

  Sautéed beef and onions.

  Ice cream.

  Something black that bobs in the wind and hobbles when touched with a spoon.

  Tea.

  The mid-autumn potluck, organized by the best of the best in the church’s programs, springs out at me like a feast for hibernating Halloween away. It’s what my church does to celebrate the season since we’re not allowed to celebrate Halloween, the Devil’s Holiday.

  I stand at the far end of a candled table that smells like peppermint and sage, holding a spoon in one hand and a white plastic party plate in the other.

  The white canvas, now off-white and stained up in the corners, that makes up the community tent, flaps in the wind. It’s our only shield against the ruthless cold winds of fall.

  I watch as the clouds gobble up the remnants of light flittering through, daunted.

  I wish I was back, back at school, in my room, with my books and clothes and not-so-subtle doom neighbors blasting their music loudly at 4 in the morning.

  I feel a light tap on my shoulder and turn to the aggressor.

  “Hey!” she says, in a calm and powerful tone.

  “Hi,” I say back, holding out my hand, the one with the fork.

  She laughs.

  “Sorry,” I add, putting the fork down and extending my fingers.

  She takes it in and shakes it.

  “It’s okay. You’re Jesse Becket, right?”

  “The one and only, unless you’ve had a visit to my Grandma’s in Omaha. She’s the only other person I know who has my name.”

  “Oh, nice! I haven’t met her. Would be a shame if I did, though. Uniqueness is something I quite admire in people.”

  Tha
t’s disarming.

  I grip tighter to my plate.

  “Can I help you?” I ask, trying my best not to come off as rude.

  The familiar face squints lightly, and she opens her mouth, only to shut it.

  “I am so sorry. I’m Mia. Mia Lin? I’m part of the church events program, the coordinator in charge. We’ve met before.”

  “Oh! Yeah. I totally forgot.”

  We’d gone to school together but I don’t have vivid memories of her, other than feeling as if she was always one of those bitchy mean girls.

  I suddenly have a random memory, which isn’t very helpful.

  It was 11th grade, summer, at Paul Wilkins’ uncle’s wedding reception. Mia was in the band, playing more instruments than singing. I was in the guests’ section, bingeing on creamy cake and sipping wine out of a water bottle.

  She never attended this church during all the years I came here with my family.

  We were never friends.

  “How rude of me,” I say.

  It occurs to me that shaking anyone’s hand this long comes with some unwarranted discomfort.

  I immediately let it go.

  “Mia. Wow, you’ve changed. The years have been kind to you, huh?”

  “I’d say the same thing to you. Look how far you’ve come. That dress is really saying praises to your hips.”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  “Really. It is. How is college? The last time I spoke with your mother she said you were in your last year?”

  “I am.”

  I pause.

  Then my heart beats too quickly when I realize what she’d said.

  “You talk with my Mom?”

  “And your Dad. I’m an events coordinator for several churches in the area, including yours. Your parents are the best when it comes to everything, including making props for the kids’ cantatas. I haven’t seen you around here, though.”

  An awkward silence befalls the corner of tent one, under the lights of a white and gold lantern gracing the oncoming afternoon gloom.

  “I’ve had to focus on my studies. Being pre-law isn’t easy.”