Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Ironic I think,” I mused a few seconds before I realized that this might not be the most welcome comment that I could make. “But I’m sure your parents are glad to have him home for a while.”

  “Yeah. Thrilled.” Thayla herself did not look thrilled. “I’m sorry. I won’t keep you from your shopping.”

  “I wanted to ask you,” I began slowly. Turning back toward the entrance I gestured to the windows. “Did you set those up? They are really good. I mean, really good. Inviting, not cluttered, you can see everything, and I swear I’m ready to buy everything in that little reading room and have you come and set it up at my house.”

  Thayla beamed at me. “That was the idea. I’m so glad you noticed. Sometimes I don’t think Dierdra quite gets is. She’s the store owner, but she’s also a really cluttered person by nature. You have to let people see things. You know? It’s like walking into a room in someone’s house when the traffic flow is all wrong and you can’t see any windows because the clutter is horrible, but the lighting is bad too. I have trouble with that. My parents place is horrible. I don’t know if you remember it, but I swear it hasn’t changed since you were dating my brother.”

  She bit her lip. I knew it had to be because she had mentioned the forbidden topic. But I wanted her to know that this was perfectly fine. I had never seen Thayla this chatty or this excited about anything. I didn’t want to cut her off. “Actually, I do remember.” I allowed myself a chuckle. “It was hard to tell if the focal point of your parents’ living room was your dad’s recliner or the television.”

  “Or my Dad’s recliner staring at the television,” she added. “It’s just awful. I don’t know how my brother can stand to sit there with them in the evenings.”

  “Does he?” I found myself absolutely fascinated by the possibility. “I’m surprised he could be away from his laptop long enough to even have a conversation.”

  Now Thayla was laughing. “What? You don’t do that too? And to think I assumed it was just a recruiter thing!”

  We laughed together. It was odd. I think this was the most I’d ever had a conversation with Thayla Landau in my life. I wondered if I could possibly bring up the topic of Brock Mortensen. Thayla seemed so normal. Not beautiful, mind you. She would never be trendy or chic or anything like that, but friendly did amazing things for everything from her complexion to her pug nose.

  “So,” I began slowly, still trying to figure out how to work this in. “I don’t know if you had heard, but my sister is getting married this December.”

  “I hadn’t heard that.” She shook her head. “Wow. Married, huh?”

  “Yeah. Although I’d heard that you’re getting married too.”

  Thayla was quick to sober up and look suspicious. “Did my brother tell you that?”

  “I don’t exactly have a great relationship with your brother,” I reminded her. More of that nuptial stuff. “I was at a bridal shower the other day and the topic came up because women at showers can’t think or talk about anything else.” There. That sounded plausible. And we had discussed Thayla and Brock.

  “I can believe that.” Thayla went back to sorting blouses because it seemed like she needed something to do with her hands.

  “I was just wondering what you would want for a wedding gift.” I left it right there. I could only hope that this would somehow nudge her in the right direction. “I’ll admit that when I went through all of the pre-wedding nonsense it involved a huge amount of time spent at the department store registering for sets of china I was certain I would never need.”

  “No doubt,” Thayla snorted. Then she moved away from the blouses toward the far wall where there were some bits and pieces of furniture sitting out on display, along with vintage lamps, and other antique home décor. “So if I were going to get wedding gifts, this is what I would be hoping for. A matched set of lamps. A cute little hall table. Are they moving into a new place?”

  “Yes. Or they just did.” I couldn’t stop myself from making a face. “He’s loaded so it’s a seven thousand-plus square foot house in Lionsgate. Maybe this kind of thing would be perfect.”

  “Holy cow!” Thayla whistled. “Seven thousand square feet? Who needs that much room? I would be happy with my own place.”

  “Are you living with your folks?” I tried to qualify it quickly. “People always think that I am because the address never changed, but my parents passed away and I inherited the house. I’m never sure if that’s good or bad.”

  “Good,” Thayla said decisively. “Living with your parents sucks ass. I’m saving money to get out, but…” She shook her head and refused to go on.

  I pursed my lips. “Thayla, please remember that I remember Brock when we were all in school. Has he changed much?”

  “I—I thought he had. I really did. I thought that he had morphed into this great guy who would be totally willing to pitch in. He’d just gotten out of jail, right?” She actually rolled her eyes and for a second, I wondered if she was just so desperate to tell her story that she had only been waiting for some willing ears. “I figured he would jump right back in, get a job, get on his feet. After all, he’d been wrongfully accused and put away unfairly and yada, yada, yada.”

  I sighed and offered what I hoped was a sympathetic smile because I sure felt it. It would be horrible to realize that the guy you had trusted was actually just a lazy liar. “So I’m going to guess he hasn’t had much luck getting a job.”

  “I even asked my brother to help him find one in the building where he’s working.” Thayla shook her head in disgust. “That’s how desperate I am. I know that the likelihood of that happening is pretty low. It’s not like Kevin is a miracle worker. I just wish that Brock would get a job. Then I could save up more money.”

  “So you’re supporting him?” I guessed, but I felt like this was accurate. “That must be really hard.”

  “Yeah, because it makes it look like my parents are supporting me when in reality I pay for Brock’s apartment, his food, his gas—he has my old car so I pay insurance on that too—I just feel so tired of it all!”

  Whoa, this was a lot worse than I had feared or expected. But I couldn’t possibly start in hating on Brock right now. I didn’t have that kind of credibility with Thayla. That meant I needed to go at this from another angle.

  “You know,” I told Thayla. “With my sister so busy with her wedding, I kind of feel like I lost my hang out partner. It sounds lame, but we used to have dinner once a week and stuff. Now she’s got Damion and I’m pretty much in the way.”

  “Wow. Once a week with your sister?” Thayla looked dumbstruck. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “Yeah, I remember you and Kevin being a little more antagonistic than that,” I told her. “But I would really appreciate it if we could maybe go to dinner or something. I feel like it would help the both of us. Don’t you think?”

  “Tomorrow night?” Thayla answer so quickly that I was almost sure I’d misheard her. “I absolutely love the little Chinese place down on the corner. Have you ever been?”

  “I have and yes, it’s awesome!” I felt surprised. I always had to drive out to Chesterfield when I had dinner with my sister. Here was a friend who could meet me close by. “What time do you think?”

  “Seven?”

  “Perfect.” I was beaming now. “And by the way. I think you’re right about that pair of lamps. I’ll buy those and box them up for the wedding gift. I really appreciate the help.”

  Thayla Landau gave me a very un-Thayla-Landau-like smile. “It was my pleasure.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kevin

  Dinner was over. That was good. I wasn’t entirely certain I could handle just sitting at the kitchen table with my mother for a second longer. She had been prattling nonstop while my father ate his dinner on a TV tray straight out of the seventies. The scarred surface of the thing featured some old barn or tumbledown building or something. I think I remembered my parents having those TV trays when I was a k
id. Except my sister and I had each had our own. Mine had been Dukes of Hazzard. Thayla’s had been Wonder Woman I think. It was hard to remember my sister as a kid sometimes. God, she’d been bossy!

  The television droned on and on as Mom and I put the dishes in the dishwasher. I could see her tossing a glare through the walkthrough into the living room from time to time as though she actually thought she was going to somehow motivate my father to get off his ass and do something.

  “Kevin?” My mother suddenly stopped midway through putting a dish into the dishwasher rack. It was hovering in midair dripping sudsy water onto the floor. Because didn’t you know that you’re supposed to wash the dish completely with detergent in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher? Dishwashers are only there for sterilization purposes I think. “Since you’re here”—she seemed to be slowly gathering her thoughts—“would you go into the attic and get the Christmas decorations down?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Her words surprised me. A lot. Christmas decorations? It was still two weeks until Thanksgiving. On the other hand, it seemed like a potential way to kill time until I could safely retire to my room to go to bed. “Uh, sure?”

  “Oh good!” My mother seemed to realize that she was dripping all over the floor. Hastily putting the plate in the rack, she reached for a paper towel. She bent down and wiped up the mess so her spotless floor would not be compromised at all. “It’s just that your father doesn’t seem to have the energy to do those things and I can’t get Thayla to stay out of her room long enough to help me with anything these days.”

  “I’m sorry about my sister,” I said lamely. I didn’t actually know what else to say about that so I went hunting for straws to grasp at. “She seems really happy with her job at least. That’s good.”

  “Sure, if it paid anything!” My mother sounded frustrated as could be. She refused to look at me. She just kept speed loading the dishwasher with more and more noise as though she were going to punish the plates for my sister’s behavior. “The girl never pays a bill! Her car just disappeared so she asked if she could borrow mine. I don’t know what happened to it. I swear she must have sold it for cash and then she probably blew the cash on God knows what! It’s like she just spends every dime she makes on nothing. I cannot see a single thing that she gets for her money and it’s just about driving me out of my mind!”

  I nodded as the tirade continued. It was like someone had opened a floodgate or something. My mother just could not seem to stop. Obviously, she needed to vent. I just wasn’t sure I was the right person to fulfill this role. I didn’t know what to say. And then I remembered the wad of cash in my pocket that I’d withdrawn from the bank earlier that day before the whole thing had just gone to hell and I had been accused of having an illegitimate lovechild.

  I withdrew the folded cash envelope from my dress pants pocket and set it on the countertop by the phone. “Mom,” I addressed her quietly so that she would have to quiet down and listen. “This is for you.” I didn’t say that it was for my father too because it really wasn’t. “I want to contribute to household expenses since I’m living here. It’s not a big deal. I just chipped in for food and utilities.”

  I expected this to make her shut up. I did not expect it to make things worse. Katrina Landau burst into tears as she reached for the fat envelope. It was in twenties because that’s what the teller gave me. There wasn’t a huge wad of cash in the envelope. I wasn’t even sure that the mortgage on this place was equivalent to the enormous amount I spend on my Kansas City apartment every month. I didn’t actually want to know. I would rather spend more money on my apartment just because it was close to downtown, shopping, dining, and the rest of everything that made me long to get back there.

  Now, I’m a guy. Crying makes me really uncomfortable. It’s just the way guys are. Usually. I’ve known a few in my lifetime who seem fine with it. They’re weird. I’m sorry, ladies, but they are. Crying is uncomfortable. We want to make it better. We’re always afraid that it was our fault even if we don’t readily admit this out loud. But when my mother flung herself into my arms, wet hands and all, I think I actually felt my knees begin to buckle.

  “Oh Kevvie!” Mom sobbed. “You’re just such a good boy! You’ve always been a good boy!”

  I awkwardly patted her back a lot like I probably would have a cluster of lit dynamite. Then I disentangled myself from her very wet embrace. “I’ll just go find the ladder so I can get into the attic.”

  This caused a fresh burst of tears. “Oh, thank you!”

  I hightailed it out of the kitchen. As I passed through the living room on my way to the front door. I didn’t want to try and cross the kitchen in front of my mother to go out the kitchen door. It seemed prudent to just head for the garage this way. The attic access was above the front porch anyway. You know, because that made so much architectural sense.

  “Kiss ass,” my father grunted as I strode by.

  I couldn’t help it. Is there any man or boy who would just ignore that kind of comment? Not in my world. I turned and looked down at my father. The guy had once been a robust guy who spent his days doing hard physical labor. Now he was a shriveled man who seemed to spend his time watching physical activity on the television and his pension money on supplies that suggested he might actually get his lazy ass out of the chair even though it was highly unlikely.

  “Excuse me?” I shook my head and looked down at him. “You think I’m a kiss ass? Why? Because I’m doing what you used to do and it somehow makes you look even lazier than before?”

  “Yeah,” Dad snorted and didn’t even look away from the television. “I did that shit and followed that woman’s every order for forty years. I’m not going to spend my retirement with a honey-do list a mile long every damn day!”

  “Uh huh.” I felt like clocking him over the head with the nearest object I could lay hands on. The fireplace poker was pretty handy after all. “Because it would take so much freaking effort to get out of your chair and go to bed or get out of your chair and go to the table for meals. You act like that woman owes you or something. She doesn’t. She’s put up with your shit since the day she said yes. You wanted her to stay home. I remember. You wouldn’t let her get a job when we got into high school. You said it would disrupt the household too much.”

  Dad only grunted. Apparently, he didn’t remember that kind of stuff. The kind of stuff that made him feel bad of course.

  “Congratulations,” I told him. “I think you’ve actually managed to make your father look like a real upstanding and sensitive husband.”

  I left the conversation right there. I could see that my words had hit a mark. My grandfather had been an ass. Dad used to tell me all the time that I needed to be grateful that my father was nothing like his father because his father wouldn’t have gone to my baseball games or my soccer games or spent his hard earned money on cleats and uniforms and travel fees for school. Then of course he would regale us with tall tales of how he got his ass beat all the time because he got a bad grade or didn’t do his chores on time. Dad made it sound like he had grown up in a very abusive household and that we needed to be grateful that we weren’t. And yet my sister was about to sign up for the same treatment.

  I shook my head as I finally located the ladder behind the garage. It was just leaning up against the back wall covered in freezing rain and several years’ worth of leaves. Thankfully it was a newer metal one and not the old school wood ladder I could still see lying beside the base of the rickety privacy fence.

  I found a pair of old work gloves just inside the door to the garage. I could only locate them once I turned on every single light both inside and outside. They were covered in dirt and a really rank musty smell. Better than freezing my hands off on the ladder. I pulled them on and then did my best to maneuver the ladder into place without bashing myself in the head or taking down the front porch. The more I looked at my parents’ house, the more I realized that my father had really let things go. There
was a time when he would not have been able to tolerate the scratched and peeling paint on the eaves or the black mold building up in the gutters. It was like he had retired from life in general when he started getting his pension checks.

  I settled the ladder underneath the attic access and kept the gloves on. I remembered there being a light just inside on a pull string, but I was pretty much expecting the place to be a rodent tomb of death and excrement.

  I’m sad to say that I wasn’t disappointed in the least. I pushed open the access panel and immediately started coughing. I held my breath and groped for the pull chain. I had to stand on the topmost rung and stretch up to even reach it. My fingers brushed the chain and I pulled. It was broken, of course. Not the light, thank goodness, but the cord. It had a frayed end as though someone had either yanked too hard or had possibly been chewed to pieces by the local denizens who had managed to escape the myriad of traps up here.

  The place was an utter mess. There were boxes piled near the entrance as though they had just been shoved up there recently without much thought for organization. The light didn’t manage to penetrate very far. The attic stretched the length of the house until it came to a halt where the second story erupted from the original architecture. The entrance had a peaked A-frame style roof. The rest of the house was a hodgepodge of bits and pieces that had been added on over the years by different owners until my parents had purchased the place not long after they married in the late sixties.

  “Aha, you little bastards haven’t been eating Christmas, have you?”

  I muttered to myself and to the mice because I didn’t care to see any come streaming out of the holes in the old boxes labeled CHRISTMAS in my mother’s scrawling hand. I reached for them and one by one I carried them down the ladder. There were eight in all. Each about the size of a medium moving box, which at least made them manageable.

  After all eight boxes were safely on the ground, I made one last trip up the ladder. The rain had started again. I could hear it pattering on the roof above my head. This time of year it was just the way things went. You got one or two days of sun and then boom, it was gray and wet again.