His Majesty's Measure

by Pamela DuMond

  Excerpt: 21st Century Courtesan

  SYNOPSIS: I moonlight at Ma Maison as a high priced escort to pay for Mom's pricey psych treatments.

  When beautiful, broken high stakes poker player Dylan McAlister hires me, my empathic ability returns with a fury.

  I feel the emotions that torment him -- they swirl about inside my own body. His shame roots in my belly. His heartache compresses my chest. His fear stabs me in my back.

  It’s overwhelming. It's excruciating. I wish I could walk away. I can't -- I'm falling in love with him. Can I help Dylan McAlister heal? Or will I break him beyond repair like the first boy I feel in love with?

  TYCOON: A 21st Century Courtesan Prologue

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  BEFORE

  It is a cold winter day in Wisconsin. The kind of mean-girl cold where my eyes water from the winds gusting off the lake, not from the fact that I’m terrified that Mom is once again, full blown manic.

  I stamp my galoshes on the snow-embedded gravel trying to center myself as she pitches trash bags bloated with papers, clothes, and food, into the back of our salt-stained beater SUV. Mom’s bad episodes happen twice a year. On occasion, a psychotic split lands her in a place with a 72-hour hold, and they keep her locked up for a few weeks or months.

  When Mom’s able to function, when she’s able to swing through normal highs and lows and not crash like a meteor to earth, they release her, and she comes home to me and my sister. She comes home to people who love her. “Hey, Mom,” I say. “Ms. Portman my ballet teacher decides who goes to recital today.”

  “Ballet’s on hold,” Mom says squeezing over-stuffed grocery bags into the car.

  I peer down at my winter boots – mid-calf length galoshes, and focus on the dangling laces. If they can stay attached, I can too. I silently recite the words the social worker, Miss Williams told me over and over until they ear-wormed into my brain. ‘You are strong, Evie. You are sturdy. Not a rickety shed shaking in a twister’s path. You survive when the storm blows through.’

  “In the car. Now.” Mom says slamming the back door over and over until it latches.

  I climb in the back next to Ruby who is already strapped into the seat next to me, absorbed in her tablet.

  Mom slides in behind the wheel yanking the door shut. “Check your sister’s safety belt.”

  I know it’s fine yet I tug on it to make Mom happy. “Good.”

  “Again,” Mom says, turning the key over and over, the engine grinding until it fires.

  “Good,” I say, passing a hand over it, unzipping my backpack, staring at the ballet slippers that I packed in the hopes that today might be uneventful: that our spur of the moment trip is simply a run to the store for milk, or eggs, or something special Mom’s cooking for her boyfriend, Kyle, when he gets home from work at the hardware store.

  Mom revs the engine. “I am done with Kyle and his shit for good.”

  My heart wobbles. “This time.”

  “Forever time,” she says. “Buckle up. We’re out of here.”

  I cinch the belt across my lap.

  ‘When the storm blows through, Evie,’ Miss Williams told me, hold onto something. A person. A feeling. A thought. Something solid with heft and grit that keeps you grounded no matter the twister spinning around you.’

  I think. I reach. I find it. Ballet. I’m still hoping Ms. Portman picks me for the recital. “Mom, about ballet…”

  “Ballet’s not happening today.” Mom throws the car in reverse, squints out the rear window and backs like a bullet out of the long, skinny driveway, snow piled high on either side.

  “Uh-oh.” Ruby clutches her stomach, a frown on her face.

  This isn’t the first time we’ve left home in a hurry. Most likely we will be gone for a few days, maybe a week. Nine out of ten times we return. Quietly. Shamefully. Apologetically. ‘Please. I didn’t know what I was thinking,’ Mom would say to the live-in boyfriend. ‘I’m sorry. It will never happen again. I don’t know what got into me.’

  She screeches out of the driveway onto the rural road, a skinny patch of gray asphalt, lonely against the white winter day, and I hope that I don’t puke, ‘cause I’m feeling sicker by the second. She throws the car in drive, and we pitch forward. Thick clouds bump across the open skies. It’s as if the heavens unzipped them, and a big sloppy mess of snowflakes hit the windshield.

  Ruby burps, her cheeks popping apple red.

  “If I miss ballet today Miss Portman won’t let me be in the recital,” I say. The nerves in my stomach sizzle like drops of grease dancing in a frying pan.

  “Miss Portman can be a bit of a bitch,” Mom says. “There’ll be other recitals.” We shoot down the stark, narrow road, blow past telephone poles, skeletal trees, heaps of snow plowed in odd shapes like puzzle pieces that don’t fit. Crows circle high in the cloudy gray skies over the fields.

  A knot grows thick and hard, curling and tightening in my stomach. Queasy and Hope, my usual team of advisors, give me a heads up when something’s not the norm. When something’s playing out a little different.

  ‘Pay attention, Evie, take a ticket, and hop aboard. Your ride’s leaving the station.’ Queasy says, always the worrier.

  ‘Maybe everything will turn out just great!’ Hope’s the eternal optimist.

  They’ve been dogging me since I was five years old. The first time was when I’d spiked a fever, Mom shoved the thermometer in my mouth, declared I had the flu, and tucked me into bed. She pressed a cool cloth to my warm forehead, rubbed my shoulders, soothed me with a story about bears and beds.

  I finally slept, but Grandma Berlinger popped up in my dream, shaking a large baking spoon with an owl’s head carved into it. ‘Look out for your Mother, Evie Beanie. I am past tired, and taking a trip. Not coming back any time soon. Love you, munchkin.’

  ‘Grandma?’ I asked, blinking my eyes open, but she’d vanished.

  Mom got the call the next morning that Grandma had passed.

  We traveled to her house to pay our respects. To collect Grandma’s jewelry that she promised to mom before Uncle Nate could steal it. After graveside prayers, I wandered into her kitchen, spotted that same wooden spoon with the owl head on the counter and jumped half a foot. I wandered right back out and kept on walking down the crunchy gravel driveway until Mom ran after me and asked me if I was okay.

  I shook my head. “Grandma’s spoon.”

  “The owl spoon?” Mom rubbed my arm in the way that quieted me.

  I nodded.

  “Damn bird always scared the crap out of me, too.” She ruffled my hair and kissed my head. “We’ll get through this together, Evie Beanie. Love you, baby.”

  And we always do get through whatever the problem is, but there’s a more determined set to Mom’s jaw this time. I don’t know why, but this time things feel different.

  There are no other cars in our lane and we fly down the highway like a bullet, passing a few vehicles headed in the opposite direction, moving a lot slower than us. One car flashes its lights repeatedly and I wince, the beams boring holes in my brain.

  “Fucking asshole.” Mom keeps her foot on the gas. A T-shaped intersection looms. A traffic light swinging from overhead cables hooked up to poles turns from yellow to red.

  “Red means you’re supposed to stop,” I say, squeezing my hands together, feeling heat blossoming on my face and chest.

  Mom grumbles and taps the brakes.

  I worry about Ruby. Does she know Mom’s freaking out? Is she scared? But she’s still playing a game on her tablet.

  Mom hits the brakes harder and we grind to a halt. A hundred yards ahead the road ramps up to train tracks, its guard rails painted candy cane colors. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel.

  Maybe I’m thinking too much. Maybe we’re just picking Kyle up from work. Maybe my warning signals really are the flu? I place the back of my hand to my forehead. Hmm. Feels normal.

 
The warning lights adjacent to the train tracks flash, a ding-ding-ding of alarms as the striped protective guard rails lower, crossing in front of each other.

  Mom taps faster.

  Harder.

  An incoming text pings on her phone. “Crap no.” She digs her hand in her purse and drags it out, staring at it. “What does he want?”

  Queasy wriggles its thin, hairy toes down deep into my stomach and digs in. My stomach lurches. I wince and clutch the front of my parka, my breath shallow, my heart lurching about in my chest.

  I am not a rickety shed.

  I survive when the storm blows through.

  Mom tosses her phone onto the passenger seat. “I don’t care what he wants. I am done. We are out of here.” She glances up at the freight train chugging down the tracks toward us. Her hazel eyes narrow and I can almost see her brain calculating options like time lines drawn on a white board in History class. She takes a deep breath and white knuckles the wheel.

  “Fuck it,” she says and hits the gas.

  The car pitches forward and I fly back in my seat. The gates close in front of us. Ding-ding-ding the approaching train shrieks.

  “I can totally be late today,” I say— ding, ding, ding—as we hurl toward them. “I’ve only been late once before. It’s fine. Really, Mom.” Panic rises inside me elbowing Queasy out of first position.

  Ruby’s face blotches red and she hiccups uncontrollably.

  “Is your sister, okay?” Mom says, hunching forward.

  “Mom!”

  The conductor will see us and brake. He will see us and stop. But the train doesn’t slow and no one brakes. I glance around, panicking, panicking, but all I see is white. Snow surrounds us. Snow hushes us. Snow will bury us. Who will hear one creaky car? Who will hear the whir of an old engine over the rumble of an approaching train? Who will hear the screams of a 13-year-old girl?

  We rocket up the incline and slam under the gates. The little hairs on my arms stand straight up in my thick down winter coat and my lips burn like I’ve accidentally brush them against hot sauce, the kind Kyle likes with his taco chips when he watches football games.

  I squeeze my eyes shut as bad feelings, horrible feelings, surge inside me. Feelings that this is it. I will never get to dance in Ms. Portman’s ballet recital. I will never graduate middle school. I will never eat a sandwich in the high school lunchroom.

  We fly across the tracks and are airborne for a forever second. The car dips, front wheels slam onto the road with a thud that rattles my bones and the candy cane barriers crash across the flat hood. My eyes pop open, my head swivels, and I stare wide-eyed out the back window as the train thunders down the tracks behind us, sparks flying off its wheels.

  We bump, rattling fenders and thumpy old tires down the decline and rocket toward the line of cars queued on the highway’s opposite lane. Maybe Grandma Berlinger in Heaven said a prayer for us, because we escape. I am flooded with happiness and silly words pop out my mouth. “We can still make ballet!” But then I spot the Wolfe boys crossing the two-lane highway and my breath catches.

  Wyatt Wolfe and his older brother, Easton, wear headphones as they walk along the road a hundred or so yards in front of our speeding car. They are oblivious.

  Wyatt has floppy black hair, a wiry build. We sit together during lunch, play mobile games, and study at the library. Wyatt is my escape from crazy mom and I am his from his angry dad. Wyatt was my first kiss at last year’s mixer. It was a meeting of awkward mouths lasting fifteen or so seconds before we separated – me giggling and him smiling sheepishly, rolling his eyes. When I stare up at the glow stars on my ceiling at night before I fall asleep, I imagine that some day I will marry Wyatt Wolfe.

  Snow falls harder.

  Meaner.

  Wyatt wears a backpack, a thick winter coat, and galoshes that look just like mine. “I got those stupid boots you like,” he said in study hall last week, leaned back in his chair, and stuck his foot out in front of me.

  “We’re twinning!” I extended my leg, and indeed we were wearing the same fleece-lined galoshes. We laughed and shared a look as my heart bumped around in my chest in a weird way.

  Now the Wolfe brothers step out from across the path next to the tracks crossing the line of cars waiting for the train to pass and my heart falls into my boots. “Mom!”

  Easton is three years older than Wyatt, a high school junior, almost a man. He glances up, spots us barreling toward them, and panics, one arm flying in front of his face.

  But Mom doesn’t see because she’s absorbed in her phone.

  “Stop!” I reach between the seats and punch her arm but she doesn’t slow down so I punch her again, harder. “Look!”

  She finally glances up, her shoulders hitting her ears. “Fuck!” She hits the brakes.

  We skid across the snow toward the Wolfe brothers and I scream. We plow into them with a series of sickening, heart-breaking thuds. The brothers bounce off our car, and fly through the air like broken birds.

  “Goddamn!” Mom grimaces, the car screeching until we stop a dozen or so yards away, spinning out on an angle on the side of the road.

  Nausea consumes me.

  Nausea is me.

  I can’t feel my hands.

  I can’t feel my feet.

  I claw at my neck because my throat is trapped in there and I have to get it out or I will suffocate and die. I tear off my seat belt.

  Ruby, her lower lip quivering, points a shaky finger to the tablet on the floor of the car that had just flown out of her hands and smacked me above the eye. She bursts out crying and pukes, yellow liquid burbling out of her lips, spilling down her chin.

  I gag. I push the door open and crawl out, collapsing knees first onto the pavement, my heart bursting out of my thin chest.

  I am not a rickety shed.

  I will survive the storm that blows through.

  Using the car door I pull myself to standing, my legs like noodles beneath me. I stumble forward, my forehead throbbing.

  Easton is laying in a snow bank, cursing. His left leg and right arm splay out, his blood has sprayed random patterns, so red on the white snow. Sirens ring in the distance.

  “Evie?” He grunts. “Evie?”

  I’m clueless what to say, clueless what to do. I stagger past him – so cold, so mean – toward his brother, Wyatt, the floppy haired boy who I love. He lies half in and out of a ditch and I drop to my knees next to him. “Wyatt?”

  Sprawled on his back, his headphones on the ground, a thin, twisted trail of blood trickles out of his nose. He doesn’t answer. One leg lies twisted at an impossible angle, his twinning boot stuck in a snow bank a few yards away. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. I screw up my courage and place a gloved hand on his chest. “Wyatt?”

  He blinks his eyes open and stares up at me, his pupils round, his beautiful pale lips breathing thin, smoky puffs, barely visible in the frigid air.

  “Wyatt? Can you talk?”

  He does not answer.

  “It’s Evie. Can you hear me?” Drum. Drum. Drum. My heart beats so loudly in my ears.

  He blinks.

  I lean and stare into his heartbreakingly beautiful face. Black hair, white skin, full lips. My Wyatt has the face of an angel. “It’s going to be okay,” I lie.

  He blinks.

  Hot tears slide down my cheeks. I need to feel him—no—I need to save him.

  I know then and there that God, and Grandma Berlinger, and anything good in the world that just saved me from that train has put me in charge of saving Wyatt Wolfe. And I wonder, can I save Wyatt Wolfe if I touch him?

  Sirens shriek. People spill out of parked cars and race toward us. The crows circle the field, cawing.

  Hands shaking, I rip off my gloves. I unzip Wyatt’s jacket and place my bare, shaking hand on the soft v-shaped divet where his chest meets his neck. His breath ratchets up, his chest rising and falling unevenly under my palm. “Help’s on its way,” I say. “We can do this. J
ust like we twinned on the galoshes. Just like we aced history test.”

  His eyes meet mine. Our gazes lock. “You and me? We’ll always be together, Wyatt. We’ve got this.”

  A quirk of a sad smile tugs at the corner of his pale lips. But then his eyes glaze, his lips grow bluer.

  My stomach lurches. “No.”

  I cannot lose him now. We are laughter. We are hope. We are each other’s way out of mean dads and crazy moms. I will life back into him. My life.

  “Stay,” I command, staring into his pretty blue eyes, eyes that are so hazy. My blood warms, my face flushes, tingles zip down my spine. I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. Hard. Just as hard as my need, my want, my intention to make him stay here on this earth. “Stay, Wyatt. Please. Please. For me. For your friend, Evie.”

  But he ignores me. He’s slipping away. He’s leaving me.

  “Stay,” I command. Desperate. “You have to stay.”

  Beautiful, kind, lovely Wyatt Wolfe shouldn’t lose his life on this cold, snowy, mean winter day just by crossing a path. My hand grows cold, then colder, my warmth traveling from me into him.

  His breath billows. “Evie?” he rasps.

  It feels like Christmas and I smile. Healing is working. “Yes! We are doing this! Hold onto me.”

  He smiles. Just like he smiled after he kissed me. We’ve got this.

  Grandma’s owl spoon stomps into my brain.

  Wyatt shudders, and his eyes roll back in his head. His limbs twitch, muffled against the snow. Only now do I see the blood pouring out of the back of his skull, pouring into the snow, the red warmth staining the white cold in angry blotches.

  “No!”

  Paramedics pull me aside. Mom envelopes me. It’s too much. Too close. She pulls my face to her chest, suffocating me. “Don’t look, baby. Please Jesus, don’t look, baby.”

  I struggle to break free, throwing elbows, blindly striking out with fists. “I’m not a baby! Wyatt needs me.”

  “Evie! You’re thirteen. You can’t heal everybody. You can’t fix everything.”