Collection: A Submission Series Story Collection Read online

  She attended Marlborough on a hefty financial aid package which was still a stretch for her parents, and was required to maintain a GPA of 3.75 or face the budget cuts and substandard educational opportunities of the LAUSD. She was in the home stretch. Smart, diligent, studious, and yes, beautiful; she would be the first in her family to attend a top school and get a medical degree. I’d have followed her anywhere. Business schools were a dime a dozen, and Dad would buy me entry to the university of my choice, even if I never told him why the choice was made. In this case, Rachel and I chose University of Pennsylvania and crossed our fingers, she for Perelman School of Medicine, and I for Wharton a year later. It was Ivy League, which was easy for me, and hard for her.

  All this meant she didn’t have the time or permission to drive around in my Mercedes, or run into hotel rooms with me. But we were young, and infatuated, and on the cusp of freedom, or in her case, death.

  * * *

  What do you mean by “wish” then, Rachel?

  Like, hope you get something you know is impossible, but hope anyway.

  I wish I could be with you like a normal person.

  What’s normal to someone like you?

  * * *

  The backyard buzzed with activity. Fiona, never one to miss an opportunity to invite Deirdre’s scorn, had managed to book psychics, tarot card readers, crystal healers and a hypnotist for the cocktail hour.

  The black baby grand had been brought onto the patio, and the four musicians Dad had plucked from some music school in central LA set up stands and instruments. Piano, two violins, and cello. Except the first violinist wasn’t tuning a violin. She was tuning a viola. Hardly worth making a fuss over, except she was stunning, with full lips and long, dark hair. She had to be five-ten in flat feet, with a chin that pointed upwards as if daring the world to hit her on the jaw.

  “She’s magnificent, no?”

  My father’s voice beside me, admiring a girl who was probably in high school. I looked away quickly.

  “Jail bait, dad. Ever hear of it?” I turned to face him. In his late fifties, he was still a good-looking guy. His red hair had turned completely silver five years earlier, and stayed fully attached to his head. The girls loved him. And when I said girls, I meant just that. Girls.

  “You’re avoiding me. I was looking for some common ground.”

  “Uh-huh.” I didn’t know where to start with him. Common-ground wise, we had Rachel. That was awkward enough. I glanced around. We were relatively alone, a situation Mom never let slide if she could.

  He spoke quietly, barely moving his lips. “You never stop wanting them that age. Every man fantasizes about the dew on the flower.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “Were you not just looking at that girl? She can’t be a day over fifteen. On the evening of your engagement, no less. It’s time to accept reality, son. The need is biological. You can fight it your whole life if you want to, but it will be a fight.”

  He looked like he’d wanted to say that to me for a long time. Like it was some kind of big talk every man gives their son, and it had been denied him by my avoidance and Mom’s intervention.

  “We aren’t having a meeting of the minds on underage girls.”

  “Except the one,” he said as if we had some delightful shared history.

  “I’m going to need you to stay away from my wife, and if there are children, especially if there are children—“

  He got that look. The one like he was being electrocuted. It was hard rage directed forward. I’d only seen it once before, days after I found out what he was and I saw him touching Theresa’s arm when he spoke to her.

  “Do not ever presume that I don’t have boundaries, son.”

  Much as an animal won’t shit where they eat, he’d never touched any of my sisters, but when I flew at him I didn’t know that. We may have been evenly matched the day he laid a chaste touch on Theresa, but at my engagement party, I was older, taller, and less fearful.

  “You will never be alone with my children,” I said. “Those are my boundaries.” I took a gulp of my whiskey. Too much. The drink would never last if I kept doing that. But I needed to do more than let the liquid touch my lips when I stared at him over the glass.

  “I wanted to just elope somewhere far away,” I said, seeing Mom coming up behind him, “so there would be no problems with Jessica’s family. But it wasn’t possible. I’m sorry you’ve been insulted in the process. Truly.”

  He smirked, because he knew the kinder tone and change of subject must have come for one reason. He and I had come to blows after Rachel’s accident, and I’d taken a handful of pills. Mom didn’t let us alone in the same room if she could avoid it. Over the past seven years, she’d run a pretty tight interference. I had to admire her aversion to conflict. It had kept her in a state of blissful, drunken ignorance that my sisters and I had sworn to protect until death.

  Dad took the opportunity to clap me on the back just as the string quartet started warming up.

  “No worries, son. No worries. It was just business. Can’t win at it and make friends, too.”

  I smiled, not mentioning the tens of millions in payoff money that had drained him to the point where only shady deals kept him afloat. Nope. It was all smiles when Mom reached us. Dad put his arm around her and I made it a point to shake his hand like a gentleman so she would enjoy the rest of the evening.

  “Jonny! Come over here?”

  “Come on!”

  “This is perfect!”

  It was the sound of a gaggle of sisters. Four rushed up in green dresses and varying shades of strawberry chignon. Margie, Sheila, Leanne, and Theresa. Their voices became a cheering chatter.

  “You have to see the hypnotist.”

  “He’s going to relax you.”

  “You’re too tense.”

  “A teepee and a wigwam!”

  “It’ll only take a second.”

  The drink was taken from my hand and I felt myself being pulled to a guy in a fedora and handlebar moustache sitting by one of our chaise lounges.

  “Hang on, hang on…” I held my hands up in surrender.

  “What?”

  “It’s fun!”

  “Chicken.”

  “Bok bok bok.”

  They were beautiful, each one of my older sisters. A huge pain in my ass, each in a different way, but all precious. And annoying.

  “I need to use the restroom. If he relaxes me too much I’m going to have a problem, if you know what I mean. That’s all.”

  Margie, the oldest and most practical, who didn’t believe in anything but money and death, took charge, spinning me by my shoulders. “Go. Then you’re back here or we’re dragging you out for a crystal cleansing.”

  I walked to the house, making a point of not looking at the stunning brunette plucking her viola. Not easy. She had the kind of face one stared at. But I glanced over, and there was Dad, talking to her, leaning over in a way that seemed respectful and dignified, getting her comfortable. I wondered if he did it to spite me, then remembered he simply and shamelessly liked fucking girls too young to drink legally. It had nothing to do with me. Which meant I’d be unable to get him away from her. I couldn’t say, ‘Okay Dad, you’re right, high school girls are hot. Now can you step away?’ because then he’d take her to bed for sure. I couldn’t try and cut in or he’d make a light hearted competition of our pursuit. And I couldn’t cross-check him through the windows or I’d ruin my own party, and I’d have to explain to my fiancée why I was protecting the honor of an underage girl I’d only glanced at.

  I got past them and into the house. I needed another drink, but my excuse to Margie had been real. On the way to the hall bathroom, I spotted the pianist from the quartet. A blonde with faded acne and an odd, melancholy confidence.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Your friend? On the viola?”

  “Monica?”

  “Tell her no flirting wit
h the guests or hosts. Understand?”

  Her look went from offense to curiosity, as she craned her neck to see past the sitting room windows. The set up for the quartet was just about visible.

  “Oh, crap.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “She’s not like that really,” her words ran together. “I mean she’s just started seeing my brother, but she’s not a flirt like that at all. She’s barely even friendly.”

  Caught between the desire to know more and the desire to run away, I simply walked quickly and rudely down the hall before I heard another word about that woman.

  Girl.

  * * *

  I never let myself truly fall for Rachel. I’d always felt bad about that. I’d trapped her, protecting myself from that moment I’d see her and my father in the same room. Unfortunately, all that guarded emotion didn’t pay off. At Sheila’s party, Rachel had shown up with Theresa, and Dad was still there. When I saw them together, I felt like my spine was being ripped out. She was giving him what-for with her finger extended and mouth demanding something through gritted teeth and intense, burning eyes.

  He took whatever verbal abuse she was dishing out with the serious air of a guy who didn’t give a shit. This man was impossible to understand unless you saw him work a room, his uncanny appeal, the way he didn’t look like a fifty year-old man in a party full of kids. The way he melted into any situation. The magnetism I never understood was illustrated over and over again, even as he refused advances when Mom was around, and always left open a maybe as soon as she turned her back.

  As I got closer to them, I got disproportionately angry. Rachel wasn’t supposed to be there. That was the rule, and it was in place because seeing her in the vicinity of my father made me consider patricide with a cold, collected calm that scared me.

  My peripheral vision closed in on her as I navigated the crowd. It’s possible the multiple bong hits were making me paranoid. There was zero danger of her falling into his clutches that, or any night. But I didn’t want him to know I was just short of loving her. I didn’t want him to have information he could use, because he’d use it to hurt me. He’d pulled strings to keep Margie from a man he found threatening, destroying a law firm rather than have her work there. He’d do it to me, but as the only male of eight children, the damage would come faster and I’d fare far worse.

  “Rachel,” I said when I reached her. Her pale brown eyes were tear-streaked, and her beautiful mouth cut into a line of rage. “Come on, let’s go.”

  My father smiled as if I was rescuing him from an embarrassing incident.

  And that was the last I remembered of that night.

  * * *

  On our backs, in the grass of Elysian Park, where my family would never find us, Rachel and I stared at the clouds. She liked to wonder what it would be like to be me. She thought I had not a worry in the world. Yes, my father was a fucking sociopath, but he didn’t stick his fingers inside me like hers had, and he didn’t scream and hit and lock me in the house like her stepfather had. And for me, whatever I endured would end when my trust fund spread its legs at twenty-one. For her, the light at the end of the tunnel had not appeared.

  “Do you wish for things you can’t buy?” she asked.

  I looked over at her. Blades of grass sat in the foreground of my vision, slashing her face, which was turned to me. Her eyes were tobacco brown, wide and light, catching the sun inside them. “You’re fascinated with money,” I said.

  “I think I am.” She smiled. “It’s made you different, you know. You’re fearless. It’s exciting, kind of. Watching you is like watching someone who’s really, truly free.”

  I laughed. I never felt free in my life.

  “What do you wish for?” I asked. “Besides money.”

  “You make me sound like a golddigger.”

  “You are, but you’re terrible at it. I think a few more years and you’ll be sleeping with the right guy.”

  She flung herself on top of me and pinched my sides. I laughed and rolled her over until I had her pinned.

  “Tell me what you wish for, and if it’s any part of my body, your wish will come true at the Regency Hotel in forty minutes.”

  She giggled and turned her face to the sunlight. “Free, Jonathan. I wish to be free.”

  I unpinned one of her shoulders to pluck a seeded dandelion out of the grass.

  “Blow,” I said, holding the white puffball in front of her.

  She blew hard, and the seeds went into my face. We laughed, and blew the rest of the seeds off together, wishing her free from the constraints of her family and her scarcity. They floated away on their sinuous parachutes, like little messengers to God, saying take me, take me, take me. Set me free.

  * * *

  “You’re mine,” Leanne said, yanking me out into the backyard.

  “Did anyone hear from Jessica yet?”

  “She stopped to get you something.”

  “Pepto bismol, I hope.”

  A few early birds gathered around the bar. I’d be on call for congratulating and handshaking soon, so I hoped I could get hypnotized into a state of blissful relaxation in five minutes or less. Didn’t seem possible.

  Theresa, standing with the gaggle of green, waved me over to the man in a tweed jacket and handlebar moustache.

  We shook hands.

  “David Mesmer’s the name. I hear you’re a little tense?”

  “Mesmer, huh? Any relation?”

  “Great grandfather. I fell into the profession. Lie down right here.”

  The sky was clear blue and sunless as the day darkened into night. I felt ridiculous lying on a chaise in a formal suit. I felt vulnerable and scrutinized by four of my seven sisters. I feared I’d miss Jessica’s arrival if I wasn’t by the door and if any of my friends saw me getting hypnotized the ribbing would break a bone.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said.

  “Said like a truly anxious man. Can you focus your mind on what’s making you tense? I’m going to count backwards from ten.”

  The string quartet keyed up and began with Mendelssohn. Very nice, even for a group of teenagers. Despite being from the gifted school, I hadn’t expected much, especially not from the viola. No one could be that beautiful and talented at the same time. But her beauty carried to her playing, because as David counted back from ten, I didn’t hear a goddamn thing past five except the viola as if there was not another instrument on the planet.

  * * *

  The rain on the night of Sheila’s party was near blinding.

  “Stop it!” Rachel shouted, snapping away the jacket I tried to hold over her head. “I want to get wet, that’s why I came into the rain. To get wet!”

  I tossed the jacket to the side. “You came out here because I’m taking you home.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Drunk as I’d been that night, I took in the conversation as a cold, sober observer. On the night it actually happened, alcohol had blacked me out. I remembered nothing after Rachel saw my face and stood up. My memory of the events of that night ended there, and were retold to me by the media and my parents. The hypnosis was like watching a movie in my own point of view.

  “I am sick of this,” she shouted. “I’m sick of you wanting to know where I am all the time. Sick of it. You’re a control freak. You’re worse than my stepdad, do you know that?”

  I knew I was getting hypnotized. I knew Franz Mesmer’s great grandson had counted from ten and my body was at my engagement party, and I also knew the movie was about to play the part where I lost someone I cared about.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing in there?” I growled. Though I felt all the panic and fear I felt that night, I was also my older self, who knew how it all ended.

  Calm down. Get control. My older self spoke to my younger self urgently, as if it could change anything.

  “What’s going to happen when I go to college? You going to tell me who to talk to from here? Should I keep a
log of what I wear? Well I won’t. Nothing. No more.” Rachel’s brown hair was soaked. She’d run out in a light sweater, leaving her jacket and purse behind.

  “What were you saying to him?” I yelled.

  “You really want to know?”

  I stepped forward. I was already six feet tall, an intimidating presence in the class, and in front of a young woman in the rain.

  She stepped back. “I’m not going to get enough to go to Penn, so J. Declan Drazen’s coughing it up. Every fucking dime, or I’m telling everyone what a sick bunch of fucks you are.”

  She and I were open about what a sick bunch of fucks we were. We even laughed about it sometimes, but I’d always felt like she was talking about my parents. This time, it sounded like I was included. It sounded like she’d be more than happy to take me down as just another sick fuck who bedded her. What had I thought I meant to her? Did she think I’d used her? Or was it the other way around?

  “Don’t play with him, Rachel. You can’t win.”

  “I’m not playing.” She looked more like a grown woman when she uttered those words than ever before. She really meant to tangle with my father.

  I took my car keys out. “I’m taking you home.”

  She stepped back, under the edge of the eave, where the water dripped in fatter, condensed streams. One splashed on her shoulder, but she didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t look at me like that. I love you Jay.”

  “And I’m just one of the sick fucks? Did I ever treat you with anything but respect?”

  “There’s too much baggage, Jonathan. I want a regular boyfriend.”

  I froze. What did she mean? Instead of asking her, in my immaturity and drunkenness, I stepped forward again.