“I don’t know little brother,” Margie said, grabbing a glass of wine before the first guest arrived. “She seemed fine. The usual.”
“What does that mean?” I felt a stab of anger. Seven sisters. A couple were bound to dislike my wife.
“Charming and polite. Warm, even. But not.”
“Howdy!” Leanne came across the empty backyard, grabbing a glass as soon as the bartender poured it. The emerald of her dress brought out the fire engine in her hair. “You should see Jess’s nails. She got a French with an airbrush. So cute.”
“Did you see her out front?” I asked.
“Nope. Are those the cufflinks you’re wearing?” Leanne fixed the flowers in her hair by the reflection in the window. She wanted to make clothes, so Dad had bought her a factory. Another money-losing proposition. Next to Deirdre, the still devout, chronically depressed Irish poet, she was the most creative in the family.
“No,” I said. “I just wore these to offend you.”
“He wants to know how Jessica looked.” Margie said.
“Cool and collected. She’s a rock, you know.” Leanne squeezed my cheeks. “You did good.”
Leanne, who was habitually single at twenty-six because she was a workaholic, had no business judging, even when I agreed with her.
* * *
I was fifteen, and Rachel was a year and a half older when we began seeing each other, if that’s what you could call it. Discretion was absolutely necessary, so she didn’t come to any family parties. I didn’t want her near my father, period. End of. She knew why. I knew why. No one else did. Her old affair with my father when she was too young and impressionable to know better was a secret bought and paid for with jewelry and electronics. I kept it for her because she wanted it that way, and though I would have loved to tell the world about what kind of animal my father was, the understanding between myself and a few of my sisters, was that Mom would break into a hundred pieces if what she knew in her heart was confirmed. My father was, so far, the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.
Rachel and I were rarely seen in public together unless she went to a Loyola ballgame I pitched, or if I happened to show up at a play she was in. It was hard to stay away from her, but necessary. We didn’t talk about a future past the possibility that we could attend the same college, provided she got a scholarship.
We met in my car, late at night after Mom was passed out. Dad was gone often and he would have let me out the front door anyway. The staff didn’t care, or expected no less: another irresponsible rich brat, in a society full of them, slipping out to debauch himself on school nights.
Rachel had a harder time of it. She had a tough home life. Her stepfather went into a controlling fits, locking her and her mother in the house at night. The windows were barred and the deadbolts had inside keys he slept with. In her closet, Rachel found a trapdoor to the crawlspace under the house. I met her on the corner. Seeing her walk even a block in the dark in that neighborhood twisted my stomach in knots, every time. I never got used to it. Usually, when she got into the car, I laughed from released tension and the sight of cobwebs in her hair.
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 with 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.
“D
id 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?”