by Wilde, Ora
She continued to laugh like crazy.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she reminded, still recovering from riotous laugh. “Just don’t mind it. It’ll go away soon enough.”
“Like how long?” I was brimming with impatience.
“Weeks... months maybe... it depends on the quantity applied.” The sudden seriousness in her tone terrified me.
“What?! Oh my God, Phoebe! What have you done to me?”
She burst out in laughter once again.
“I was just kidding,” she revealed. “Give it a couple of minutes... and stop moving around. Air will just make the affected area worse.”
I immediately froze, maintaining my position, my hands on my sides in mid-flap. Somehow, she found that even funnier as she cackled even louder.
Once the laughter subsided, though, she clarified another matter.
“By the way, I haven’t done anything to you,” she said. “You’re the one who stole my arm and led my hand to your... your...”
She couldn’t say it. She was too virtuous to utter that word in front of a man.
“Say it!” I ordered her, wanting to test the limits of her squeaky clean sense of morals. “Come on, Phoebe, just say it! I know you can do it! I know there’s a rebel hiding there somewhere.”
“I... I... your... I...” she kept muttering.
“Come on! Say it! Say it, or else...”
“Or else what?”
“Or else...” I thought about something that I could threaten her with. Telling her mother about that near sex experience we had the night I brought her home from our date? The almost farewell fuck we had at the hotel just before the wedding? Those were tempting thoughts. Her mother would surely feel bad if she would find out about them. And she’d tell my father, and he’d be furious. Indeed... a very, very tempting thought.
I looked at her. She was still sitting on the side of the bed, staring at me, wondering what was on my mind. There was excitement in her gaze. Fear, too... but the good kind of fear... the fear of the unknown that, though it remained an invariable, held so much promise.
“Or else...” I began to say once more.
“Or else what?” she asked again.
“Or else... I’ll tickle you until you scream your lungs out!”
Why the fuck did I say that? It was so... so... so juvenile... so saccharine... so sickening...
“Noooooo!” she yelled as I approached her with my fingers extended, ready to drive her nuts. She retreated to the farthest end of her bed, her face a picture of horror and exhilaration... like she was afraid of being prodded into uncontrollable laughter, yet delighted by the thrill of such a moment.
“So go on, say it!” I repeated again. “Say dick. Or cock. Or wiener. Or wang. Say it!”
“Noooooo!” She twisted and turned on her bed as I tried to reach her underarms and the sides of her stomach.
“Stick shift. Twinkie. Jerk machine. Tan banana. Say it!”
“Nooooooo! Please stop!!!”
“Schlong. Schnitzel. Sausage. Pecker. The Great Masturbator. Say it!”
“Noooooo!” She remained defiant even as my fingers neared her ticklish parts.
“One-eyed dragon. Slit-eyed demon. Cervix crusader. Say it!”
“Noooooo... Hayden, you’re being ridiculous! Where did you even get those names?”
“Mr. Sniffles. Muff marauder. Womb Raider. Dora the Explorer...”
“Nooooo... wait.... Dora the Explorer?”
“Hey. Why not? It is apt.”
And she laughed and laughed and laughed, without the need for my poking fingers. She found is so funny that she covered her face with the pillow to muffle the noise she was making.
It was a rather charming sight.
But one that was loaded with uneasiness.
For as she laughed, I found myself doing something that I never thought I would do.
I was laughing with her.
We laughed for minutes. We paused for a second or two, then our eyes would meet and we’d be reminded of that stupid cartoon character whose name we attached to the male genital. Then we laughed again, louder and longer than the last.
What’s worse, however, is that I found myself feeling something that I never thought I would feel.
Happiness.
A genuine kind of happiness that tickled my own heart.
Chapter 34
PHOEBE
“So, you have no idea - no idea at all - how he got those cuts and bruises on his face?”
My mother wasn’t mad. Just curious. Most probably, she wanted to know the details so that she could protect Hayden from his father’s wrath. He fell on the stairs, or he got hit by a speeding motorcycle, or he fought with a girl who he didn’t want to hit... something like that. I could’ve told her the truth, that Hayden came to my defense, that he put on a brave fight, that he was simply outnumbered, that he eventually succumbed to the odds that were stacked against him. But he has built quite a reputation for himself since my mother met him, and it wasn’t good at all. She’d just think that he started the fight, and I don’t know how that will affect their already fallible relationship. So...
“Sorry, I don’t really know what happened, Mom,” I lied.
She sighed.
“Well, at least he’s okay. I just hope it’s not something, well, criminal in nature. Like a drug bust. Or a pimp he didn’t pay. Or...”
“Mom, your imagination is out of control again,” I reminded her. She did have that tendency to overanalyze things and come up with the most insane ideas about them.
“Okay, okay... I’m sorry, honey,” she apologized. “I just got so worried when I saw him this morning. He looked like he came out of a boxing match.”
A wrestling match would’ve been a more appropriate analogy, what with the way they hugged the floor.
“He probably got into a simple fight with someone over some... mundane reason,” I told her. “You know, boys will be boys.”
“Oh well...” she tried to dismiss the subject as she continued vacuuming the covers of the couch, a chore she shouldn’t be doing anymore but one that has been deeply engraved in her system. I could still remember the first couch we ever had in our Chalfant home, when the delivery people brought it to us and she proudly explained that she splurged that year’s bonus on the nice sofa set she saw at Walmart. She took good care of that couch. It was one of the most important things we brought with us when we moved to Van Nuys. If she had a choice, she would’ve brought it to Bill’s Beverly Hills mansion too.
I observed her as she went about her errand. The glitz and glamor of our new life hasn’t changed her a bit. Her face was still that of a single mother’s, passionately determined with a singular purpose: to raise me well. But I wasn’t her only child anymore. Her tummy wasn’t big yet. It will take a couple of months more before it will bulge and become visible. I was excited for her. I was excited for myself as I never imagined that, at my age, I would get the chance to be an older sister to a newborn babe.
Of course, she had another kid aside from the two of us, as well... technically speaking that is.
Hayden.
“Okay, Mom, I’m off to school now,” I said.
“Take care, honey. Be back by dinner, okay?”
On my way out, I saw Barton, the household’s resident butler, place some mails on the counter near the door. He was old enough to retire, I believed. His receding hairline littered with stands of white revealed as much. Why he continued to work for the Summersmiths, I wouldn’t know. Perhaps because out of a deep sense of loyalty? Or maybe it was as simple as the pay being good?
He smiled at me when our eyes met.
“Letters?” I asked.
“Bills, most probably, Ma’am,” he replied.
“Mr. Barton, please don’t call me Ma’am,” I told him. “I’m young enough to be your granddaughter.”
“Great granddaughter, even,” he added.
It was refreshing to see that he actually had a sense of humor.<
br />
I perused the mails on the counter. I wondered if some of them were mine. We have changed our billing address before the wedding, after all. I wanted to know if the companies who usually sent us their bills got our new address right.
All of the letters were for Bill. None were for me or my mom.
But there was one particular envelope that was meant for Hayden.
There was something really peculiar about it. It wasn’t a bill from any company, like most mails were. The sender’s name and details were on the upper right hand of the cover:
Fr: The Clinic of Dr. Linda S. Scott
43 Sunbeam Road, Beverly Hills
CA, 92010
A clinic?
Was Hayden sick, I wondered? Was he asked to visit this doctor for regular checkups? What was he suffering from?
Given his rather promiscuous lifestyle, I hope it wasn’t some kind of STD or something.
I chuckled at that thought, but deep inside, I felt a creeping kind of worry and a lingering sense of alarm about my stepbrother’s mysterious condition.
I had to know.
Not out of curiosity or anything like that. But I cared for him, and I didn’t like the feeling of not knowing what was ailing him.
You care for him, Phoebe?
As a sibling, even if our relationship isn’t forged in blood, yes.
Really now?
He’s... different. I don’t think anyone in the world is like him. I know, I know. I haven’t dated, nor met, a lot of guys that I could compare him with... yet, there’s something special about him that affects me in ways that I couldn’t really fully comprehend.
He has this unique ability that makes me feel very special... even during those times when he was seemingly pushing me away... even during those nights when he tried to make love to me just to win a bet... even during those days when his heart was full of anger and hatred for reasons I still don’t know.
Reasons.
That reminded me of what he said. He killed my mother.
I could’ve asked him last night. But I was so worried about his condition. And when he showed me that he was alright, I was swayed with his antics that, quite honestly, were fun and exhilarating.
And euphoric?
Maybe. But it was a welcome respite from how he usually was: arrogant and cruel one moment, and dark and moody the next. Last night, he was so loose, so vibrant, so carefree, so... endearing.
I looked at the letter once more.
I knew that some answers can be found inside. If I could just take a peek...
But that would be violative of his privacy. He wouldn’t like that at all. I wouldn’t like that if it happened to me.
So I placed the envelope in my bag, hoping that I’d bump into him in school that day and hand over the letter, personally. Barton offered me a ride, courtesy of one of the drivers under Bill’s employ. I refused politely. He offered to get me a cab instead. I thanked him for his kindness.
On the way to school, I checked my notes and prepared myself for the subjects I had to attend that day. I opened my phone and tapped on the calendar app to see if there were pressing matters that needed my time. It was a light day. I had the entire afternoon off. I thought about what I could do to be productive during those hours. A lot of ideas came to mind... start reading a new book... check out the new applicants for our band... inquire about that student assistant position in my college’s Help Desk... lots of possibilities!
But somehow...
Somehow, I can’t stop thinking about the letter inside my bag.
Chapter 35
HAYDEN
I didn’t know why he asked me to go to his office that morning. He knew I had school. He could’ve talked to me at home before I left. But he just had to text me to meet him at work for something very important, or so he said.
I could’ve told him that I was going to miss my classes. But I didn’t. The truth was, I never really attended most of them. I spent a lot of time with Donnie and Zack at our hangout, just ogling at the pretty girls who pass by and wasting away the time.
Very important, his text kept flashing in my head.
And so I went to his mother company’s building at World Way, eponymously named The Summersmith Skytower. I would’ve loved the alliteration, were it not for the fact that it sounded so... narcissistic.
It was a nice building, I’d give it that. The facade was made of white marble from top to bottom, studded with granite that was imported from Egypt. It was built in the nineties, when I was just a kid... when my mother was still alive. She never liked it. It’s an unholy place, she said, where men converged to plot the downfall of others. She always had a good grasp of the intricacies of Mergers and Acquisitions.
The lobby was huge. A beautiful chandelier greeted visitors as they entered the fifties-style revolving door. The reception desk was unlike that of any other building in Los Angeles. There were several counters, ready to accept inquiries from people the company dealt business with.
Even with my dark-tinted glasses, the employees recognized me. They gave their polite good mornings and asked how they could help me that day. I just returned their felicitations with a smile and silence.
I liked Barry, the elevator operator who has been there since the dawn of time, or so it seemed. He greeted me differently as soon as I entered the compartment.
“Yo!” he said with a ghetto slang that sounded very awkward, considering his old age.
“What’s up, Barry?” I asked as I patted his shoulder.
“Lakers got that D’Russell kid from the draft,” he mentioned enthusiastically. “Isn’t that exciting? Or are you a Clippers fan now?”
“Warriors, actually. They’ve got more spunk.”
“Indeed, they do. You damn traitor!”
My father’s office was at the seventy-second floor of the building. Emmy was just outside his room, taking some calls and jotting down some notes. She immediately ended the call she took as soon as she saw me.
“Hayden!” she greeted me, quite surprised. “It’s been so long since I last saw you and... oh my God... are you alright?” Her face turned to shock as she noticed my cuts and bruises.
“Yeah... boating accident,” I calmly told her.
“I see,” she replied, skeptical but polite. “Your father’s waiting for you inside.”
“Sure he’s not busy?” I asked her. “No business meetings? No data analysis session? No one else is inside? Not even an employee he’s about to fire?”
“He kept his schedule free this morning, actually,” Emmy said.
“Ah. Thank you.”
I proceeded inside. I contemplated on knocking at the massive red door made of teakwood. Teakwood! Why would he even use that kind of lumber when rain doesn’t leak from the ceiling?
I didn’t knock. I just turned the knob and entered.
He was looking outside the expansive glass panel that covered the entire side opposite the door, marveling at the city, planning what company-in-distress he’ll take over next?
“Hello, father,” I uttered. I wanted us to start as soon as possible. The earlier we could begin, the earlier we could finish. There was no point in prolonging the discomfiture of our meeting.
He turned around to look at me, and just like Emmy, he was startled by how badly beat up my face was.
“What happened to you?” he furiously asked. “You look like a bloody mess!”
“Phoebe,” I collectedly replied. “She accidentally kicked me when I tried to tickle her.”
“That doesn’t seem like something that a single kick would cause.”
“What can I say? Wild and crazy and violent, that one.”
He sighed as he sat down on his throne-like chair. He invited me to take a seat in front of his desk. I didn’t. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.
“Why do we have to talk here?” I questioned.
“Because I don’t want the rest of our family to know what we are going to discuss.”
Family. Heh. It’s been three days since the wedding and he’s referring to them as if they’ve been there forever.
“And what are we going to discuss?”
“Your future.”
“What about my future?”
“Exactly. I don’t see you as a man who has everything planned out. I don’t see you as a man at all.” His voice was stern and serious and mocking, as if he was challenging me to a fight. “You’ve been cruising through college, something which you should be finishing by the end of this semester.”
