“It has been decades, actual decades, since someone told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.” She leaned forward, inspecting Blake’s palms, and looked back up at her with one of the sweetest smiles Natalie had ever seen. “And in this, you’re right. I didn’t know. Thank you.”
A test, Natalie realized when the older woman instantly dropped the snobbish affectation and patted Blake’s hands. She was testing me. What a bat.
“Your poor hands, darling, you have to take better care.” Then, to Natalie: “Isn’t he marvelous?” Blake’s loving grandma was looking at him like—well, like a loving grandma. “My son’s looks,” she added fervently, almost like a prayer, “and Shannah’s brains. An outstanding combination.”
Natalie agreed, and couldn’t help notice the look of surprise on Shannah’s face. Compliments from Miz Tarbell aren’t something she’s used to, maybe. But without knowing how she knew, Natalie at once sensed it was more than that. Shannah’s family history would have made it impossible to open up to a stranger. She would have never, could have never, let anyone in, especially Blake’s grandmother. She would have known by then of the Banaan family curse.
Blake cleared his throat. “The reason I called you, Nonna—”
“You want your money back. Well. My son’s money, God rest his silly soul.” The smile dropped off as if plucked, and the woman’s blue eyes went dark with sorrow. “A fool, but my fool, and my fault. The money—my money—it ruined him.”
Blake sighed. “Apples and oranges, Nonna. I am nothing like my father. There’s no need to punish me for the things he’s done. Money hasn’t ruined my life. It didn’t ruin his.”
“Wrong, and wrong, and it’s not punishment, dear.”
“No? Have you asked my mother?”
“Atonement isn’t punishment.”
Shannah looked ready to bolt, and Natalie didn’t blame her.
“I am almost thirty years old,” Blake said through gritted teeth. “It is inappropriate for you to sit in judgment of me and levy fines on what you perceive as my bad behavior. Your arbitrary actions have forced me to go over your head.”
“You squealed on me,” was Shannah’s flat reply.
“Well, yes. And now you must reap the whirl—”
“I’m not giving you any money, Blake,” his grandma put in.
“What?”
“I didn’t give your mother control of the trust to second-guess her. She did a fine job of raising my son’s children; I won’t cast doubt on her judgment now, for all you’re grown men.”
“What?”
“My son chose your mother, Blake. I have to respect his choice. He wouldn’t want me to undermine her the minute things aren’t going your way.”
“Chose?” Blake shoved his chair back, doubtless to leave, then checked himself and stayed put. To rant, apparently, because he followed up with, “Can we please stop romanticizing their one-night stand? They barely knew each other! They married when Rake and I were born because you would have cut him off otherwise. It was a shotgun wedding and you were holding the eight gauge.”
“Twelve gauge,” Natalie mumbled. God, he was so cute when he tried to sound like a local yokel. And his voice, already deliciously deep, seemed to drop into the basement as he gave way to fury.
“They never lived together! They barely spoke in the years before he died. It’s time to face the truth of his marriage, Nonna: Your son lost interest in my mother about eight seconds after he filled the condom ouch!”
He clutched his face and glared. Natalie, raised by hunters, hadn’t even seen Miz Tarbell’s arm move. I could learn from this woman. Natalie traded glances with Shannah. Never in life did I think anyone could intimidate Shannah Banana. This is fascinating agony. Don’t panic, don’t panic.
“Do not lie.” Blake’s sweet li’l old lady grandma was sitting tall and straight, her back not touching the chair and sunlight flashing on her pearls. “You know the idiot didn’t use a condom.”
“Actually, I didn’t. Rake put it down to ‘birth control fail’ and I agreed.”
“I should g—”
Blake’s hand shot out and grabbed Natalie’s wrist as she started to rise. “Her version has gotten ever more saccharine over the years, Natalie. Would you like to know how it truly was?”
She sat. Couldn’t help herself. These people were insane, and fascinating, and insane.
Twenty-six
“Dead?” Rake stared at the older woman who had been waiting, along with their mother, in the kitchen when he and Blake got home from school thirty seconds ago. The kettle had boiled; there were two cups of tea on the card table along with the plastic sugar bowl and spoons.
“Our father’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so, boy.” Their mother was gripping the back of the folding kitchen chair and he could see how white her knuckles were. “This is your grandmother, Ruth Tarbell. Ruth, this is—”
“My son’s seed!”
Rake actually flinched back. “Oh, man. Please don’t call us that.” He would have said more, because even at thirteen Rake was terrible, but Ruth Tarbell had crossed the faded kitchen tile and hauled both boys into a hug that smelled like lemon and felt like tweed. “Thank God, oh thank God. Look at you, so handsome. I haven’t seen you since you were babies when I made your idiot father—when I was at the wedding.”
“Thank you,” Blake managed. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Oh, man,” Rake muttered. “I’m missing b-ball practice for this.”
After a decade, their lemon-scented tweed-clad grandmother released them from the prison of her embrace. “You’re surprised,” she observed.
“People aren’t usually this happy to meet us,” Blake admitted. “Rake is terrible.”
“Blow it out your butt sideways, Blake. Um, Mom, are you…?” Rake trailed off, went to their mother, and slipped an arm around her waist. And not to show off how tall he was getting, for a change. “Um, I know you guys were technically married, but it’s okay to be sad. And it’s okay to not be sad. Right, Blake? That’s okay?” He looked over at his brother with a hopeful expression.
“Of course.” The exchange, Blake noted, had not been lost on their grandmother. And that’s our family dynamic in a nutshell: Mom is nominally in charge; Rake is the rebel but checks with me on issues of acceptable behavior; I’m somehow the arbiter of when to mourn. Or not mourn.
“See, Mom? Blake’s all ‘it’s cool.’ So if you’re sad—”
“I am fine, Rake.” She patted the hand he had around her waist. “Thank you. Mrs. Tarbell—”
“Ruth, darling.”
“—was telling me about your father’s will. It seems— It seems he left us some money.”
“Oh. That’s good, right, Mom?” Blake balanced her checkbook and knew any amount of money would be an improvement. No one worked harder than his mother, who had flatly forbidden him to get a job; his job, she explained, was to study and get good grades; she would worry about the rest of it. He would, of course, get a job anyway. Never mind waiting until he was sixteen, either. There were advantages to being the genetic double of a criminal mind with poor impulse control. Rake would know who could forge him a new birth certificate.
In the meantime, perhaps their dissolute father had left as much as four or five thousand dollars. School had only just started and already he and Rake needed money for athletic fees, school supplies, book covers, and terrible mass-produced lunches. Their jeans were getting too short again, too, and the ones they were wearing were less than four months old.
“Look, you don’t expect us to cry or anything, right? I mean, we get how you’d be upset, but we’re kind of not.” Rake hadn’t budged from their mother’s side, and his grandmother’s expression was inscrutable. “Because he never visited. We didn’t know him. I mean, we’re sorry for you, Mrs. Tar—”
“Please don’t call me that. Ruth, if you like. Nonna, if you want to know my preference.”
“Italian for ??
?Grandmother,’” Blake spoke up.
Ruth Tarbell turned the full force of her gorgeous smile on him for the first time. “Clever, clever boy.”
“Oh, gross,” Rake groaned.
“God, you’re both his very image.” It seemed for a moment that tears would threaten, but she willed them back. Her smile never slipped. “I’m told you have your mother’s brains. Thank the Lord.”
“Yep, praise Jesus and all that, so what’d he leave us?”
“Rake.” Their mother said it quietly enough, but Rake snapped his mouth closed so fast Blake heard teeth click. He indulged the rare impulse to side with his brother.
“It’s a fair question, Mom. Nonna wouldn’t have come all this way for no good reason.”
“Everything,” was the simple reply. “He left you everything.”
Twenty-seven
“You whirled into our lives like a tsunami of tweed and tea, at once heartbroken and overjoyed.” Good God, it was hot out here! “And you changed our lives for the better, but you’ve always watched and waited for the fall you feel is inevitable. You think blood will out, and you’ve spent years expecting us to expire in some sex-related shenanigans, but we’re not our father.” His grandmother, it must be said, was getting on in years. That must be why her whole face was a blur; all he could make out were piercing eyes, rose pink lipstick, and face powder.
“Are you all right?” Natalie murmured.
He blinked down at her, surprised. “Fine, yes.”
“Because you’re screaming.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He made a visible effort to calm himself. He noticed he was standing. When did that happen? “Better?”
“Much.”
God, she was so beautiful. And concerned! Possibly about him! Or just horribly embarrassed to be there, like any right-thinking person would be.
“If you two don’t mind,” his mother said with raised eyebrows, “you were ranting about—”
“It’s not just about me, Mom. The quarterly payments on the shelters are coming due.”
“Shelters?”
“My grandson used part of his fortune—”
“That’s right, my fortune,” he emphasized. Sometimes there was no point to subtlety.
“—to set up shelters for single mothers all across the country.”
“Shelters that aren’t free. Well, for the residents they are, but they cost money.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Money I don’t have.”
“We get it, Blake.”
“Because unlike Rake, I am not entirely a layabout lazy playboy reprobate. I’m only partly a layabout lazy playboy reprobate! Yes, my relationships are all shallow and meaningless, but at least I’m helping people when I’m not indulging in meaningless sex!”
Wow.
He peered down at Natalie, swaying ever so slightly. “Am I shouting again?”
“Little bit, yeah.”
“Don’t worry about the shelters,” his mother began, and Blake turned on her quick as thought.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Blake!” A trio of feminine reprimands. Reprimands in stereo.
“Well, are you? It’s the only explanation. The whole reason I’m marooned here is because you think I’m not taking responsibility for my actions! So when I point out my other responsibilities the response is ‘don’t worry about it’? This is what is known as a mixed message, Mom! And what about the York Loans?”
“Like the White Rose of York, that York?” Natalie asked, which was adorable.
“Yes. I also provide loans to single mothers for low-income housing in the Vegas area. Loans I can no longer make good on. ‘Dear Miss Smith, you and your baby will have to keep living in your cockroach-laden studio apartment because I’m grounded.’ I’m not signing those letters, Mother! You sign them.”
“For cripes sake,” Shannah muttered. It hadn’t taken her long to revert to the local patois, Blake noted. Before last month, he’d never heard “cripes” out of her mouth. “And don’t call me Mother.”
“Maybe sit down while you rant,” Natalie suggested, and he obeyed at once and got a smile for his trouble. Oh, she was a goddess.
“So you see,” he said, and it was hard to say that for some reason. All those s words. He was slurring
(another s word! curses!)
for some reason. Well, he was tired. He’d been exhausted for a month. “’Snot just my dissolute lifestyle on the line. You really think I was mad because you took my allowance away? Okay, I was, but not just because of that. I’m mad—angry, I mean; ‘mad’ is British English for ‘crazy,’ which I’m not. Probably not. Nonna, Mother, while you’re busy breaking me of habits you indulged for years, innocent families will lose their homes. But that’s all fine, because I’ll have learned my lesson, won’t I?”
When there was no answer forthcoming, he tried again. “This! This is why I had to turn the key on the nuclear option!”
“The what?” Nonna asked.
“I got the idea from you!”
“You two intimidate each other by threatening to invite me to visit?” Ruth considered for a moment. “That is genius.”
“My mom is unmoved by the plight of single mothers, which is absurd, as she is one! Was one, I mean. Although technically you still are, even though we’re grown men. Grown men, Mom! ’Swhy I hadda bring out the big guns: the tweed tsunami! You have only yourself to blame. And you! Nonna! I get you all the way out here and then you’ve got the nerve to back my mother! You don’ fool me; you think I’m a mess, too.”
“At the moment, yes.” Ruth turned to Natalie. “How much vodka would you say is in these—”
“A liter.”
“Ah.”
“Maybe two?”
“Oh.”
He shrugged it off. Natalie had muttered something earlier about alcoholic punch, but that didn’t apply to him.
Christ, he was tired. And when had he stood? Again?
His occasionally telepathic mother rose, took his hand, and gently eased him back into his chair. “You’re tired, Blake; I know.”
“I am not! Don’t you dare send me to my room. Which is across town anyway.”
“I should go. I’m finished eating anyway.” No! Natalie the Wondrous was leaving! It wasn’t to be borne.
“No, stay. I like you so much. It’s awful without you, I don’t want you to go home; please stay.” And why were all the women staring at him?
Natalie colored, which deepened her natural tan and gave it rich rose undertones. “Blake, I like you, too—”
“You do?” Gasp! “Really?”
“—but I think you’ve had too much to drink. Being tired and working hard has kind of trashed your tolerance, so I think—”
“She’s the best foreman in the world,” he told his grandmother, who was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t identify. “She knows everything about farms because she’s a wonderful farmhand foreman.”
“She’s not a farmhand.”
“And she knows more about financing and mortgages than any farmhand I’ve ever met. And I’ve met three!”
“She’s not a farmhand.”
His mother’s voice seemed to be coming from a tunnel. What the hell was the aggravating woman doing in a tunnel? And braying nonsense? “Of course she is. She’s the one who taught me everything I still don’t know.”
“Um … Blake…”
“Shush, Natalie. I must tell Mom more things about your wonderfulness. Wondrousness?”
“Son, she runs Sweetheart Trust. The bank in town.”
He laughed and waited for Natalie to join in, or calmly refute his mother’s senile implication. When Natalie didn’t say anything, he beamed.
“See, Mom; see, Nonna? This is how wonderful she is: She won’t even correct your doddering nonsense though she knows you’re wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“Stupid,” Natalie was muttering. “So stupid.”
Eh?
“I was
stupid. My own fault. Lunch with your grandma seemed safe, dammit! She wouldn’t know who I was. But I completely discounted the simple fact that everyone else would know who I was.”
“Wait.” The room had begun to tilt lazily. Someone should check the porch foundation. “It’s true? You work for the bank?”
“I couldn’t resist your invitation to lunch, okay? I wanted to hang out with you, and not as a function of our work.”
“My work,” he corrected.
“I knew it’d bite me in the ass and I still couldn’t say yes fast enough.” She was shaking her head, her nearly dry hair curling under with lingering moisture. He caught more of her sweet scent, which was an unwelcome diversion.
“Then why were you even out there? I— I don’t understand.” He couldn’t bear to look at his mother, who had known, or his grandmother, who likely thought he’d gone crazy on the prairie.
“I—I didn’t trust you. I didn’t know why you were really here. It sounded like some kind of contrived plot—you have to spend the night in this haunted house to get your inheritance; you have to work on this farm to save it … like that. It just sounded like a load of shit. I wanted to see you up close.”
“The whole time—” The porch had gone from a slow tilt to a lazy spin. He could barely look at her, literally and figuratively. “You watched me work and you just—” Laughed. Mocked. Judged. Laughed more. “An’ that’s not even awful enough. The worst part is, a fake farmhand is still a hundred times better at it than I was.”
“I’m not a fake!” Natalie had gone from mortified to angry, which was hilarious. She was on her feet … and so was he. Again. Still? He couldn’t remember. Why do I keep standing only to sit right after? No wonder I’m dizzy. “I practically grew up on that ranch! I worked there every summer when my mom got sick and she had to quit her job. After she died I kept working to earn money for college. We had the funeral there and you don’t care! About anything!”
“I cared about you, you deceitful shrew! I’ve been killing myself on Heartbreak in an attempt to earn the respect of a banker.”