“Sounds awesome. I’ll just put my stuff away.”
I should probably mention that Lila used to have a chef, but not anymore. She also had a driver and a personal assistant, in addition to her agent, Lee Miles, and her manager, Sean James. After Rainmaker lost so much money, though, and the pilot about the young dancer wasn’t picked up, Lila was mostly doing commercials for companies in Europe. So she was down to a house cleaner who came in once a week, and we just ordered food in, or we’d go out.
“Oh, sure. Get settled. Make yourself at home.”
Jake—he was the one who was making himself at home. I heard him toss his keys onto the long white counter in the kitchen, and then I heard the opening and shutting of a cupboard. There was the sound of rattling in a drawer, then a few moments later, the pop of a wine bottle opening. I actually heard the liquid glug as it went in the glass. It was pretty obvious that I’d stressed him out.
I carried my pack upstairs. On the second floor, there was Lila’s huge bedroom and bath that looked out over the sea, as well as a media room, and a guest room with a view of the front garden. Up another flight was my room. Also, a second guest room and a workout space, which had a bunch of weights and equipment no one used. My room was smaller than Lila’s, but it had the same view. I was the only one on the entire floor.
Up there, it was a little echoey, and I suddenly felt the kind of alone I did when I was the last one left in the dorm before vacation. I opened all the drawers of my dresser to see everything again. I got reacquainted with my stuff. Jeans! I remember you. Oh, right—those shorts and T-shirts and dresses.
And on my pillow was that stupid doll. It used to belong to Edwina’s grandmother, the aforementioned baby who was carried from the burning building after the earthquake. Lila always put it there after I left. I hated it. The staring eyes scared me. I kept telling her that, but Lila loved dolls. I took it and tossed it under the bed in the guest room and I shut the door. I hoped it wouldn’t haunt me from there, same as in R. W. Wright’s Glass Eyes.
In my double-sink bathroom, with the stylish, retro octagon tile, I checked out all the cabinets. Hey, my old lotion from last time! There was the same half bottle of shampoo from my Christmas visit. Also, that enormous and stinky pine-scented candle Lila had set out as a holiday decoration. I stuck it under the sink.
The floor creaked, and I jumped. It was silly to be so jittery, but the rooms felt hollow, and cold, too, even in June, probably because no one had been upstairs in months. It was just Max, though, standing in the doorway. I was glad to see him. The house was stunning and beautiful, but it was old, and houses have stories, and I wondered what the walls knew. That stupid doll probably didn’t help.
“Hey,” I said. “Come on.” I patted the bed, and he galumphed up. He curled his giant self into a doughnut. A very large doughnut. He was going to get hair everywhere and Lila would kill me, but I liked him there. I liked his warm body and the fact of his beating heart. The sea was so many gorgeous shades of blue outside those windows, but I was already feeling windswept.
My dream of some exciting, life-changing summer was floating away fast, like a piece of trash snatched by an outgoing wave. And if it weren’t for that large doughnut dog, I’d be as lonely as I always was at Lila’s. I remembered it then, that loneliness. Like my clothes and my old lotion, it was another thing I had to get reacquainted with.
CHAPTER NINE
Exhibit 14: Sworn statement of Albert “Lee” Miles, of Stevenson and Miles Ltd.
At first I thought the television was on in the media room downstairs. The house was so large that it was hard to tell where noises came from. I heard the lifts and drops of conversation.
But then Lila’s voice drifted up through the caverns of the heat ducts. This was how she sounded when she was displeased. Clipped, cold. Dismissive. Jake’s voice was a low drone.
Shortly after, a full sentence burst through the vent like she was right there in the room. So, she wasn’t friendly! What do you expect from a teenager?
God. The words made me feel instantly awful. My insides did the horrible curling-up of humiliation. I felt like I’d failed. The summer was already a disaster. And why was the word teenager so often an insult, when adults caused the biggest trouble?
I set my head on Max’s side, and it bobbed up and down with his breathing like I was on a big dog boat. He sighed through his nose as if he totally understood, and my throat got tight with tears.
It was true that I hadn’t been that friendly to Jake. But the thing was, I had been friendly. To Papa Chesterton and Ben Salvador and Roberto-someone and Mr. Henderson and Gerry H. and Jerry W. Every time she’d said Hug Mr. Chesterton or Mr. Salvador or Mr. Williams, I’d hugged Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Salvador and Mr. Williams, even if they were strangers that I didn’t want to hug. I’d laughed when they tried to be funny. I’d disappeared when they wanted me to be gone.
I listened to see if it would turn into an argument. There was silence for a while. Everything was fine, I guess. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to go down there.
When I heard footsteps on the stairs, I knew Lila was coming up. Max knew too, because he hopped off the bed and arranged himself on the floor like he’d been there all along.
“Hey, baby.”
I didn’t want her in my room. No. I didn’t want me in my room. “What was that about?”
She sat down on the bed. “I never come up here! Someone could be living on this floor and I’d never even know it.”
“Were you crying?”
“Do I have raccoon eyes? Stupid mascara. Oh, I’m fine. Really. It’s just, baby, couldn’t you have maybe asked Jake a few questions about himself? Been a little welcoming? He drove all that way to get you.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“Well, he feels left out because we’re so close.” I didn’t answer, and she sighed. She took my hand. “It’s always just been the two of us, since your father.”
Maybe it was a new record, because I’d been there only, what, an hour before she said it. Your father—it meant that asshole and the one who’d hurt her and the one who’d left her and the one I should never love as much as I loved her. It meant the loser parent, compared to her. It meant the enemy. It warned me what a horrible traitor I’d be if I ever stepped into enemy territory or said anything nice about the enemy. It jammed me up close to her, because it also meant we’re on the same team. Sometimes I heard the word your louder than father, and then I felt awful and guilty, like his badness belonged to me. Sometimes I heard the word father louder than your, and then I had to remember that that badness had made me, and that even an asshole-loser-enemy really didn’t care about me.
I couldn’t stand it when she did that. I was pissed at him, too, the way he treated me like a box to check off once a year. But I didn’t want my anger to be forcibly bound to hers. I hated that game. I felt that hate rise up. And maybe I was acting like a teenager, because I wanted my hand back. I left it there, though, because I wasn’t hateful, and I loved her, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Plus, it was easier to just play the game than not.
“Jake—he’s a real man. He would never run off like a coward. We have another chance with him, baby, you know?” She was sitting right next to me now. She set her head on my shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re home. My person.”