Rexanne Becnel - Leaving L.a.

I tried to picture Carl married to my sister, to picture her crawling into bed with him, and felt a shudder rip right through me. “Do you think she loves him?”

He gave a hopeless shrug. “I don’t know. All I know is I don’t like him, and he’ll never be my dad.” He looked up at me. “Did you ever meet my dad?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Sorry.”

Again he shrugged. “So how come you were gone so long? Mom says it’s like, twenty-five years.”

“Twenty-three. And I left because I hated this house and everybody in it.”

He picked up his remote control, pointed it at the stereo and lowered the volume. Then he stared intently at me. “You hated my mom, too?”

I let out a long, slow breath. “When I left here…yeah. I hated her, too. I begged her to leave with me. I’d been begging her to leave ever since she turned eighteen. But she wouldn’t go.” Chicken-shit bitch. I managed a careless smile. “So one day I just took off on my own. But don’t you be getting any big ideas like that,” I added. “You’re only fourteen. And from what I can see, you’re not exactly in any danger here.”

“You were in danger? In your own house?”

I straightened up, stretched my legs out and flexed my ankles. “I thought I was. The kind of men who hung around here weren’t above hitting on a teenaged girl.”

He digested that a moment, then in a low voice asked, “What about my mom?”

“You mean, did they hit on her?” I thought back to those days, to how fat Alice was then, how frumpy and maternal. Meanwhile I’d been the leggy daughter, willowy and tall for her age, with an untamed head of fiery red hair—and a fiery temperament to match. To a certain sort of self-indulgent man, that’s like a signal light flashing “come and get it.”

“Alice had a way of discouraging dirty old men. Look,” I went on, needing to change the subject. “I doubt your mom wants you knowing all this sh—all this stuff. The reason I knocked on your door was to try out an idea on you.”

“An idea? On me? What do you mean?”

“I write articles for magazines, newspapers. Usually they’re interviews with musicians or music reviews. Stuff like that. Anyway, I was thinking about an article on kids your age—what they’re listening to, what they might be listening to in the future. Sort of a check-in with the young teen music-lover. And I thought I’d start off with you.”

He’d become somber during my description of the old days in this house. But the thought of being featured in a music article brought an eager smile back to his face. He swiped one hand through his sandy hair, leaving part of it sticking up straight. “Yeah. Sure. And I can hook you up with some of my friends, too.”

“Great. Do you know any online chat rooms with mostly young teenagers talking about music? I thought I could—What?”

His face had grown dour again. “I’m not allowed to go online for anything except school stuff. Especially not to chat rooms.”

“Okay. That’s okay,” I said, wondering how long Alice could choke him before he burst free. “I’ll figure that part out myself.”

“There’s one more thing,” he said, when I stood up.

Another question about his mom in this house, I figured as I braced myself. “Okay, what?”

“If I’m gonna help you with this article, well, I thought maybe you could help me with something in return.”

“If you mean putting in a good word for you with your mother, sorry, Daniel. I’m not exactly her most favorite person. If I asked her to go easy on you with this being grounded, it’s more likely she’d double your punishment.”

“No.” He shook his head and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want my mom to marry Carl.”

Uh-oh. Tricky territory. I shook my head. “There’s nothing I can do about that either.”

“I know you and Mom aren’t too cool with each other right now. But eventually you’ll straighten things out. I mean, you’re sisters. You can’t be mad at each other forever.”

Ah, the innocence of youth. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I know one thing, she won’t be asking me for any advice about men.”

He frowned. “All I’m asking is that you discourage her from marrying him. Is that so hard?”

“No. On the surface it’s not hard at all. But there’s so much going on beneath the surface here, Daniel, that I’m just afraid anything I try might backfire on you.”

“Well.” He plopped down on a blanket chest beneath the window. “Be subtle then.”

Subtle. Never my strong suit. But what could I say? Besides Alice, Daniel was my only living relative. “I’ll tell you what.” I stood up and sidled toward the door. “Let me think about it, okay?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

I would think about it, but in the end I was pretty sure the answer would be the same. No. And yet as I stared at him I felt the weirdest sensation, the strangest sort of affection for this kid that I’d only met today.

Not a rush of love or anything sickly sweet like that. Not a rush. But maybe…a trickle.

I slept like G.G. used to when he was mixing drugs and alcohol: comatose for twelve hours straight, and I felt groggy when I woke up. A little clock ticked on the small, round table next to me, but I felt like it was shaking the whole bed. Then I realized that it was Tripod’s whiplike tail whacking the mattress in rhythm with the clock.

“Okay, okay,” I mumbled, squinting at the brightly lit window. Nearly eleven? No wonder Tripod was getting antsy. I rolled out of bed, found my same jeans and T-shirt—I really needed to unpack—then on bare feet headed downstairs. The house was quiet, and I could tell I was alone.

I saw a sticky note on the office door: “Leave Angel inside.” Sure enough, fluff-ball’s shrill yapping started up. Tripod’s ears perked up. Once he sniffed and snorted at her, however, only silence came from the other side of the door.

“What the hell,” I muttered, and opened the door.

I’ll give Angel credit; she was fast. Through the door, across the foyer and halfway up the stairs before Tripod could even turn around. There she stood her ground, ceding the first floor to Tripod but daring him to try for the second.

Tripod, of course, leaped joyously into the dare. But I caught him by the collar and dragged him to a standstill. “Cool it, mutt. Let’s go outside.”

Once we were on the porch, Angel ventured down, resuming her yapping at the front door. I figured the two of them would eventually sort things out. The real question was how I was going to sort things out with Alice.

One hour, one shower and one cup of coffee later I was on my way. There were a couple of lawyers in the several towns around here, but I worried that some of them might know Alice and her recently deceased minister husband. So I picked the sleaziest, most likely to be godless one I could. According to his yellow pages ad, Dick Manglin was just what I needed. Personal injury, criminal defense, DWIs and bail bond reductions. Someone whose only goal was to win, win, win.

I didn’t call for an appointment. I figured my snug-fitting dress, stiletto sandals, red toenails and redder lipstick would get me in.

Sure enough, by the time I left Dick’s office he was dictating a demand letter for my sister that would give her one week to produce my portion of the property sale to the church, as well as one-half the value for the remaining acreage and house. It would be hand-delivered tomorrow. Otherwise, the letter concluded, we would take legal action to challenge the sale as fraudulent and to force the sale of the house. Copies to be sent to the Simmons Creek Victory Church.