Friends with Benefits

by Melody Mayer

  Now Kiley finally got it.

  “Wait, wait, you can’t do that!” She jumped up.

  “All this is pending a permanent disposition by the court system, of course.”

  “But—but—” Kiley sputtered. “You don’t have to take them away. I’m here.”

  “It’s not my personal decision to make. Besides, this is a crime scene. I think we should go upstairs and talk with Serenity and Sidney—”

  “Siddhartha,” Kiley corrected, an edge to her voice. “His name is Siddhartha. And there’s another kid too. Bruce. You know about him?”

  “I do now. Where is he?”

  “Serenity told me on the phone he went to his friend’s house.”

  “Fine, we’ll locate him. And I’ll call so that they’ll be ready for three, not two.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Kiley demanded. “A shelter? Foster care?”

  The social worker patted Kiley’s arm. “I know it seems harsh. But it’s what’s best for these kids.”

  “No, no, it isn’t,” Kiley insisted. If only she could make this woman understand! “You don’t know them, but I do. I can take care of them, really, I swear I can.”

  “I’m sorry, Kiley. That is not an option.”

  Kiley felt sick to her stomach with guilt and anxiety. It was bad enough that Platinum had let down her kids. Now they would think Kiley was abandoning them too. Besides, this was partly her fault. If she hadn’t called 911, none of this would be happening. No call, no arrest. It was very simple.

  “When are you taking them?”

  “My intent is to have them at our local shelter within two hours.”

  “Well, when does Platinum get them back?”

  “Kiley, this isn’t about Platinum anymore. If the judge grants bail, she’ll come back here, she can even live here eventually, once the police have collected all the evidence . . . and I’m sure there’s quite a bit to collect. I imagine there’ll be court-mandated rehab. But to get her children back, she’s going to have to prove to a judge that she’s responsible enough—”

  “How long?”

  “Weeks, months. Maybe never.”

  Kiley’s hand went involuntarily to her mouth. This was unspeakable.

  “I understand it’s upsetting. Since the kids know you, perhaps you can help me convince them this is in their interest.”

  “No,” Kiley snapped. “It isn’t in their best interest.”

  “The children are coming with me one way or another. Now, do you really want to make it even harder on them?”

  Kiley let her head rest on Tom’s shoulder as they gently rocked in the old-fashioned wooden swing in Platinum’s yard. The police were busy searching her guesthouse for evidence; they’d told her she could wait on the swing. Then she’d have five minutes to gather her belongings and leave. The place was a crime scene and she couldn’t stay there. Tom had suggested that she spend the night in the extra bedroom in his suite at the Hotel Bel-Air, an offer she’d gratefully accepted.

  Funny. During the entire horror story of Platinum’s arrest and the social worker taking the children away, she’d completely forgotten that he’d been waiting for her in his truck. Had it really been only a few hours ago that she’d kissed him, and he’d kissed her back, and everything had been absolutely perfect?

  “I hate myself,” Kiley told him. “This is my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault that the kids got taken, Kiley,” Tom reminded her.

  “Yeah, it is. If I hadn’t called nine-one-one—”

  “Serenity could have died,” Tom interrupted her. “You did exactly the right thing.”

  Kiley felt the tugging at the back of her throat that always came right before she cried. “But the look on her face . . . I’m just one more person who betrayed her.”

  Tom put a comforting arm around her. The night was warm, the air soft, scented with orange blossoms. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said. “That family couldn’t keep going like it was going. Maybe this will shake things up, in a good way.”

  “I should have stopped it,” Kiley insisted. “I should have sat down with Platinum after that newspaper reporter came and warned her what was probably going to happen.”

  “You think she didn’t know?” Tom challenged. “My dad always said, If you know a guy is determined to stick his arm in the wood chipper, all you can do is get the towels.”

  Kiley grimaced. “Not a pretty image.”

  “You know what I’m talking about. On some level, I think your boss wanted this to happen. When’s the newspaper story coming out?”

  Kiley shrugged. “I bet there’ll be something in the Times tomorrow. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she buried her face in her hands.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s going to be in all the papers.”

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed. “And?”

  “The town you come from is even smaller than La Crosse, but you’ve still got a newspaper, right? And all those celebrity TV shows?”

  “Yeah. We have a satellite dish. What about them?”

  “Well, tomorrow one of Mom’s regulars at the diner is going to come in just as Mom is pouring the coffee and say: ‘Hey, Jeanne, isn’t your daughter working for that rock star in California?’ And my mother is going to say: ‘Gee whiz, Louise, she sure is.’ And then the customer will say: ‘Well, that rock star’s in jail now, and they took her kids away, I just saw it on TV.’ And my mom is going to have the mother of all anxiety attacks until I get my butt back to La Crosse.”

  “Well, just explain to her—”

  “No, I can’t! You don’t understand. My mom flips out if she reads that crime is up in Milwaukee. She tests the batteries in our smoke detectors every day. She wouldn’t go on the tour at Scripps with me because all the people made her too nervous. My mother is not rational!”

  “Your dad—”

  “Trust me, he won’t be helpful.” Kiley rubbed her forehead. “I have to think.”

  “I suppose staying with me at the hotel wouldn’t fly,” Tom ventured.

  Kiley snorted at that. “Let me put it to you this way. Are you ready for the Wisconsin National Guard?”

  “Friends, then?”

  Kiley mused a moment. She did have friends in Los Angeles—Esme and Lydia. She explained this to Tom. “They’re nannies too. Esme works for the Goldhagens.”

  “Goldhagens, like Steven and Diane, the hosts of the party tonight? I met their son, Jonathan, at dinner. Good guy.”

  Kiley stopped the rocking of the swing, then started it again. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t impose on either of my friends. I don’t think their bosses would take too kindly to their having a house-guest in their guesthouse.” She threw her head back. “Let’s face it. I am so screwed.”

  “Look, there has to be something—some path we didn’t think of. . . .”

  Kiley smiled at him sadly. He’d said “we,” which was touching; as if they were in this together. But they weren’t. His future wasn’t in jeopardy; only hers. Her guesthouse was being searched from top to bottom and was being put off-limits by the police. Her boss was probably in a courtroom that very minute. Her kids—she really did feel responsible for them—had been forcibly removed from their home, maybe never to return.

  She had no place to live, no job, no money, and no way to stay in Los Angeles. The fact was, every path she could envision led directly to the last place she wanted to go: her parents’ house in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

  30

  Though Esme hadn’t seen Jonathan after their brief encounter in the ship’s corridor, she’d spotted him later in Sir Winston’s Salon, dining with a large tableful of his friends. Mackenzie sat next to him, draping an arm around the back of his neck, leaning her head against his shoulder, murmuring to him in one ear. Everyone at the table was beautiful, young, and white, with the privileged air of those born to wealth. That, Esme thought, might be what she resented most of all.

  Fortunately, Diane didn’
t make Esme stay at the party for long. She showed the twins off in their little flapper outfits, letting all the stars who’d sent adoption gifts ooh and ahh over the children, and that was that.

  The girls had fallen asleep almost instantly. There was a Ukrainian night nurse named Olga on duty, so Esme was able to put the children to bed and return to her guesthouse; appropriately named, she thought, since she still felt as if she was living there as a guest.

  Now it was two hours later. She was in bed, trying to sleep but staring at the shadows on the ceiling cast by moonlight filtered through tree branches. The bathroom faucet was dripping; the sound felt as if it was hitting Esme in the middle of the forehead over and over, like some medieval torture device. Sheer masochism prevented her from getting up to do anything about it—she liked the pain. No, she deserved the pain. She punched her pillow into a better shape and rolled onto her side.

  Drip-drip-drip. Damn sink. When Jonathan was there with her, she never noticed a dripping sink, or shadows, or much of anything. All her senses were filled with him. She was such a foolish, foolish girl. Drip-drip-drip.

  That was it. She decided she could at least make herself useful, threw back the covers, and went to get the tool kit under the kitchen sink. Then she took it to the bathroom—the room where she’d first met Jonathan, when she had been helping her father repair the toilet. The repair had been unsuccessful and the toilet had overflowed, soaking her sandals and feet. Jonathan had witnessed her humiliation.

  Her father, who was good at almost everything, had taught Esme to be self-sufficient, a lesson she’d learned well. Her mother had taught her to be proud and strong, a lesson she now realized she hadn’t taken to as well as her father’s. If she had, she would have heeded her mother’s warnings about getting involved with their boss’s son.

  Here’s to you, Papa, she thought as she loosened the faucet and removed the index cap. How ridiculous it was for the Goldhagens to have kept the original fixtures in this old house, rather than replace them with new, modern ones. Diane had used the word “quaint” and was proud that Cary Grant had once lived there. Big deal. There was no reason to have plumbing fixtures as old as Grant would be if he hadn’t died ages ago. Esme checked the cartridge stem and the retaining ring and found the problem—the pressure on the washers had loosened. She tried tightening the packing nut, but the faucet still dripped. It meant that the packing itself needed to be replaced. Unless . . .

  She went back into the kitchen and rummaged under the sink; sure enough, her extremely efficient caretaker father had left a second box of useful items—masking tape, superglue, twine. She took the twine to the bathroom and carefully wrapped it around the compression stem.

  This is how you fix a faucet for free, niña, he’d tell her; it is shameful to waste money.

  She replaced all the parts once more, then turned the water on and off. No drip. “We can’t go on meeting like this,” said the voice from behind her.

  Jonathan. Of course, Jonathan. Damn him.

  She knew she looked a mess. She was wearing polka-dot short pajama bottoms and a MEXICO T-shirt that had been the party favor at a friend’s quinceañero celebration back in Fresno. Her makeup had long been scrubbed off; she could feel the tingling of a coming cold sore on her lower lip. He still wore his perfect tux, the tux shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the tie charmingly askew.

  Oh, how she’d fantasized about staring him down and telling him off. But in those fantasies she’d always looked fantastic and felt in control. She hadn’t imagined him in a tuxedo that cost more than she made in a month and her . . . like this.

  “Get out,” she told him, trying the faucet again even though she didn’t really have to.

  “If that’s really what you wanted, you would have locked your front door.”

  She forced herself not to look at him and instead deliberately replaced all the tools in the toolbox. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at your parents’ party, dancing with Mackenzie?”

  “I’m not ‘with’ Mackenzie. I haven’t been with her for a long time.”

  “Don’t hand me that shit, Jonathan. ‘I had so much fun yesterday, Jon-Jon.’ ” She did a whining imitation of Mackenzie. “Move.”

  He stepped aside and she carried the box and twine back to the kitchen.

  “Come on, Esme. We played a charity tennis match together,” Jonathan explained as he trotted along behind her.

  “What was the score? Love-love?” Esme shoved the supplies back under the sink and banged the door shut for emphasis.

  “Why are you so willing to think the very worst of me?”

  “Mis padres no criaron una tonta. My parents didn’t raise a fool.” She forced herself to pretend she still had on the armor of her designer dress, her beautiful hairstyle, and her high heels as she swept past him once again, this time into the living room, where she pushed open the front door.

  He didn’t budge. “I’m not leaving until you hear me out.”

  “What’s to hear? You played me.”

  “God, Esme. I didn’t play you!”

  “What do you call crawling into my bed every night and then leaving before the sun comes up, eh? So no one would know?”

  “I call it what you wanted.”

  Of all the nerve. “What I—”

  Jonathan cut her off with a wave of his hand. “You said Diane still has you on probation, that you were afraid you’d lose your job if she knew we’re involved. Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely think. Yes. She recalled how she had said something along those lines, but the explanation was too damn easy.

  “How convenient for you that you never questioned it all this time,” she shot back. “You didn’t have to face your stepmother, or introduce the chica from the Echo to your friends. You could blame it all on me and take the easy way out, because that’s the only way you know.”

  She saw color rush to his cheeks and knew she’d hit her mark. “C’mon, Esme,” he said. “I asked you and the girls to go for ice cream yesterday. Why would I do that if I didn’t want things to change?”

  “Gee. Aren’t you the macho one? Big brother taking his little sisters for a snack and the nanny tags along,” Esme jeered.

  Jonathan’s eyes flashed. His jaw set hard. “Fine. Be that way. Like I said, you never locked your door. Not even tonight. You wanted me here. You loved every minute of it.”

  “Screw you.”

  “You did. Which makes you just as responsible as I am.”

  Ouch. That hurt. Esme didn’t want to admit how much it hurt, especially because it was true. She turned away.

  When she finally turned back to him, she was careful to maintain her dignity and spoke in a quiet, controlled voice. “It is my fault too,” she allowed. “That you used me makes me sick. That I let you use me makes me even sicker. Satisfied?”

  “No. Not at all.” He edged toward her. “Esme—”

  She backed away. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Shit.” He swung around, made a fist, and drew it back as if to power it through her living room wall, then stopped himself. She was shocked to see tears in his eyes. He let his arm fall to his side. “I hate this. How did it all get so damn complicated?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. There’s some truth to what you said.”

  “I hope you’re not waiting for me to disagree with you.”

  He almost smiled. “You’re such a pain in the ass. I’m sorry. I screwed up, okay?”

  Was it? Could it ever be okay? Esme thought about Junior, hooked up to an IV in the hospital. She thought about how being with Jonathan meant risking not just her job, but also her parents’. The Goldhagens weren’t likely to keep her parents on if they fired her—it would all be just too awkward. And there were plenty of off-the-books replacement caretakers and housekeepers Steven and Diane could hire. All they had to do was go to any bus stop in the Echo or any street corner in
Van Nuys.

  And what about what Jorge had said; that a relationship with Jonathan was doomed to failure, because the two of them could never be equals? Was that true? If so, was it worth risking everything for what would, in the long run, be a crash-and-burn?

  “Esme?” He moved to her, a question in his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “But I do,” he insisted. “I know that I don’t want to lose you.”

  From outside the front door came high-pitched canine yapping.

  “Cleo?” Esme questioned.

  “I took her for a walk. It was supposed to be my excuse in case you asked. She’s tied to the pole of the basketball hoop. Esme, please—”

  He was interrupted by loud barking, followed by a low growl.

  He exhaled loudly with frustration. “She must have spotted a rabbit or something. You mind if I bring her in?”

  “Okay.” Esme sighed, sat on the couch, and waited for Jonathan to get the peach-toned, pampered pooch. Her head was pounding. She knew what she ought to do—end things, even if he was right that their secretive relationship had been just as much her fault as it was his. It was just that—damn—it had been so much easier when she could blame him.

  Jonathan led Cleo inside. The dog, dragging its leash, leaped onto Esme’s lap and licked her face.

  “Down, Cleo,” Jonathan commanded as he slid in next to Esme. The dog bounded down to the floor, panting and scurrying around, her tail zigzagging with happiness.

  “So, am I banished?” He reached out a hand and tenderly stroked Esme’s hair.

  Her eyes closed. The same old feeling came over her: wanting him so much that she could barely breathe, like walking a tightrope without a net; exciting, dangerous. How could she give him up? He’d apologized, hadn’t he?

  But words were cheap. He hadn’t said one word about how things would actually change. Un árbol que crece torcido jamás su tronco endereza. A tree that grows crooked will never straighten its trunk.