Ruin You

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Who the hell is that?” Simpson yells. “Get rid of them, Tina!”

  “I’m sorry,” Megan says, cracking open the door. Her face is pale. “But there’s another guest here to see you. He…he says you’re expecting him.”

  “We’re not expecting anyone!” Simpson yells.

  And then Bates walks in the door.

  Penny

  I PULL IN SLOW, deep breaths. Trying to get myself together. To gather the frayed bits of myself close enough so I can figure out a plan. A move.

  My father is going to go ballistic. And for the whole of my childhood, I would just take it. I would stand there and let him rage. Let him howl. I would find little rebellions to pull me out of his way, but they were few and far between.

  Because I was too young to stop him. Too powerless to change anything.

  I don’t want to be that person anymore. It’s one thing to lie and make up some kind of alternate history. A lie to make myself feel stronger. More loved.

  But that lie only landed me right back where I started.

  Staring down my father’s evil anger.

  The new man who walks in makes Simon stiffen. Makes Simon actually look afraid. He steps in front of me like he can protect me from this new man and it’s all the information I need.

  Bad guy. Got it.

  “This is a beautiful inn,” the new man says, looking directly at me with icy gray eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not here under more pleasant circumstances.”

  “Th-thank you.”

  “Bates!” my father cries. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I followed you,” he says calmly. Like it’s no big deal. Like he follows my father all the time.

  “Why?” Dad asks.

  “To make sure you don’t do anything stupid,” he says. “Like hurt your daughter.”

  “Why would I hurt —”

  “Or my colleague,” Bates says, turning to include Simon in this conversation. “I believe you know Simon Malik.”

  “Tina’s boyfriend?”

  Bates lifts his eyebrow at Simon, who only shrugs. “I was referencing his work as a journalist with the Los Angeles Times. He’s caused you some trouble over the years.”

  “Jesus,” Dad says with an incredulous laugh. “That’s you? Tina, I hate to break your heart but this boy isn’t after you. He’s after me. He’s been after me for eight years.”

  “And now I have the files,” Simon says in a voice so chilling I shiver.

  “You got them,” Bates asks and Simon nods. “Excellent.”

  “Wait.” Dad asks. “What files?”

  “What files do you think?” Bates asks Dad like he’s the class dummy. And the tension in the room — already so high — goes higher.

  Dad’s face gets florid. “Marianna’s files?”

  “Dad —” I put my hands up to placate him and I realize how stupid this is. How it’s never worked. My father can never be placated. His rage is just something that has to be endured.

  “You just gave him your family’s business?” Dad spits. “Jesus, what did he do, Tina? You always were so fucking desperate for attention. Did he tell you he loved you?” It’s so painfully true I feel a sob rise up in my throat. I can’t look at him. I can’t look at anyone. I close my eyes and want to sink into the floor. “Did you spread your legs —”

  There’s a thunk and crash and I open my eyes to see a beautiful table knocked over and my father on his ass.

  Simon standing over him.

  “Say one more word and I’ll kill you,” he says.

  “There is another way we could handle this,” Bates says and he holds up the gun, drawing everyone’s attention to it. “It solves a lot of problems. Marianna will be safe. Justice will be served. You can still win that Pulitzer. Seems win/win to me.”

  “Put the gun away!” I yell, but Bates ignores me. Looks at Simon. “Simon. Tell him to put that away.”

  But Simon doesn’t say it. He’s looking at my father with pure bloodlust in his eyes.

  “You were going to kill him once before,” Bates says to Simon.

  “What?” I ask, my lips numb. My body frozen. “What is he talking about, Simon?”

  “We met before.” Simon says. His face unrecognizable to me. He’s not the man I spent the week with. He’s not the man I had in my bed last night. I don’t know him at all. “Eight years ago. Outside the courthouse in San Francisco. Your mother had just been sentenced —”

  “And my father had been exonerated,” I say. The memory bright and clear because I walked away from the courthouse that day and started my new life.

  My new lie.

  “You were there?” I ask.

  “Standing beside you when you threw the rock.”

  I remember him. The short kid with the hoodie. He’d been crying. He started that chant. My heart, already so broken, finds a new way to feel pain.

  “You said he killed your mom.”

  “My mother died of a brain tumor. His medicine could have saved her but we couldn’t afford it.”

  “And your dad?”

  “Committed suicide four days later in front of the Simpson Pharma headquarters.”

  “Jesus,” my Dad says. “That crack pot was your father?”

  “Don’t-“ I snap. “Just…shut up, Dad.”

  “That day in front of the courthouse, I had a knife in my hoodie,” Simon says. “I was going to rush the steps and stab him.”

  “But you didn’t,” I say, stupidly.

  “No.” His laugh is coarse and awful. I flinch from the sound of it. “I got blamed for the rock and tackled by the police. They found the knife.”

  “Simon, I’m so sorry. I’m so —”

  “Tell her the rest of it,” Bates says, still holding that gun. We’re all frozen in time. Even my father is sitting there, his eyes darting from Simon to Bates like he isn’t sure who is going to cause him the most damage.

  “That’s when I was sent to that foster home.”

  My mouth opens, but I can’t breathe.

  “It’s not your fault,” Simon says quickly. But I don’t know how he can think that. It’s all my fault. Everything, right now, feels directly my fault.

  “Simon,” Bates says, holding the gun out to him. “You doing this or not?”

  “The files are yours, Simon,” I say. “You’ll avenge your parents. They…they wouldn’t want you to do this. Your dad who made his grandfather’s mutton biryani, that was true, right?”

  He nods.

  “He wouldn’t want you to do this. And your mom, the firebrand who played bad cricket on purpose just so she could read in the shade, that was true, wasn’t it?”

  He nods again and I’m comforted that not everything was a lie.

  “She wouldn’t want you to do this.”

  Still, he’s silent. Still, the gun is there, a threat and a promise.

  “You don’t want to do this, do you?” I ask and I step up next to Simon. My father, on the ground, is crying now, beaten for the moment. “You have a life to live. I spent years under the threat and shadow of this man. Hating him and fearing him ruled my life, Simon. And then when I got free of it. When I changed my name and made up a new story, I was…was so happy. I was free. You need to experience that, Simon. You need to experience life after Dale Simpson and if you shoot him, you’ll never be free.”

  The moment is never-ending. Stretched on a wire and I want to vomit from the tension.

  “Put the gun away,” Simon says and I’m lightheaded with relief. I nearly fall sideways but I catch myself against a chair.

  Oh, my God. Guests. Dinner. Even if everyone leaves right now, I’m not sure I can salvage this night.

  My business.

  My home.

  Ruin. Ruin. Ruin.

  Bates slips the gun under his jacket.

  “Tina,” my father says, his voice calm but shaking. He knows he’s going down. “Listen to me. I didn’t frame your mother. She was working with some bad people an
d if those people find out the files are in the wrong hands, your mom could be hurt.”

  “Don’t believe that, Penny,” Simon says.

  “I don’t believe any of you,” I say. “And I want you all out of my home. Right now.”

  Bates leans over and pull my father to his feet. There’s some kind of struggle, but Bates does something to my dad’s arm that makes my dad go white.

  “You’ll regret this,” my dad says to me.

  “I already do.” I laugh and it sounds a little too scary so I swallow it back. I’m hanging on by my fingernails.

  “Penny,” Bates says. “Look at me.”

  I do, empty and void, I do what he tells me to do.

  “Your father won’t hurt you,” he says. “I’ll make sure of it.” He turns to Simon, standing beside me. “Send me the files and I’ll pass them on the SFPD. They’ll have a warrant for his arrest by the time I get him back to San Francisco.”

  Simon nods.

  “What — What about my mom?” I ask through a dry throat.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Bates says and, somehow, I believe him. Somehow, I’m comforted.

  “Simon,” Bates says, walking towards the door with my father in front of him. Wincing and sweating. “You’ll be in touch.”

  It’s not a question.

  “Yeah,” Simon says, then Bates and my father are gone. And the silence…is loud. It booms then I realize that’s my heart.

  “Penny?” Simon asks, he’s approaching me like I’m a wild animal. “Are you okay?”

  I nod, shaky and far from okay.

  “You want a drink or —”

  “I want you to leave.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Simon

  “I’M SORRY,” I say. It’s the only thing I can say. Over and over again like an idiot. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t care.” She sobs, once, and I step forward but she stops me. Her hand up, her tear-streaked face turned away. I stop in my tracks.

  She licks her lips and wipes at her cheeks, scrubbing away the tears like she doesn’t want to feel them and I understand. I spent a lot of years trying not to feel anything.

  “I need you to leave.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If anything you felt for me was real. Anything at all. You’ll leave. Guests are arriving. I have a business to run. I can’t ruin this, too.”

  “You haven’t ruined anything, baby.” I rush forward to grab her. To hold her. To try, if I can, to convince her with my touch. But she flinches away.

  She doesn’t want me. Not right now.

  Maybe never again.

  I turn away and do my best to clean up the mess we made. I right the tipped-over table. Reach down to grab the flowers.

  “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t touch anything else. I’ll do it.”

  She doesn’t want my hands on her things anymore. And I realize the depth of betrayal I’ve caused her.

  “How can I fix this?” I ask her.

  “That’s not my problem,” she says. I nod, realizing how awful that question is.

  “We’re not done,” I tell her. “I’ll leave because you have a big weekend and the last thing you need is distraction. But I’m coming back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s so much more I need to say. Because we’re not done.”

  She remains silent and I realize she’s been pushed too far. Megan comes in the barn door behind me.

  “Oh, my God,” she says and she runs right past the broken glass and the tipped-over chair and pulls Penny in her arms. For a second, Penny is so still. So rigid that I think she might break.

  “It’s okay,” Megan says. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  Penny sobs. She sobs so hard my own heart breaks then she throws her arms around Megan and lets herself be comforted.

  Megan turns and looks at me over her shoulder. “Get the fuck out,” she says.

  I don’t deserve to be a part of this. This isn’t for me. I turn and walk out of the dining room. In my room, I gather up all my tools of betrayal and I do the only thing I can.

  I leave.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Penny

  THE NIGHT IS A SUCCESS. I throw myself into it like it is a new life. A new lie. I close off every thought I have of my father and my mom. I close off every thought I have of Simon.

  I don’t feel anything.

  I am cauterized and tempered. I am a machine.

  I do everything Megan asks of me. I speak during dinner, explain how I set up my garden. I drink a toast with my staff. And I walk home in the moonlight, sure I am proud of myself. But I can’t feel it.

  The locks on the trailer feel unnecessary. And I am glad not to have anything to hide anymore. The relief of that, I do feel.

  My trailer is a mess. Simon and I left it a disaster. A map of what we’d done to each other. The wine bottle and smashed plate. The two glasses. The bed with twisted, sex-smelling sheets.

  Steeling myself against the memories, I strip the sheets to put my life back in order, to erase the night I had with him. My ribs shake. The tears I held back all morning can no longer be controlled.

  The sob racks me. It shakes me.

  I crawl onto the bed, put my face in the pillow that smells like him, wrap myself in sheets that smell like us and cry myself to sleep.

  Simon

  I DON’T GO home to Los Angeles. Nothing about that condo feels like home. Nothing about that city feels like home. Instead, I drive north to San Francisco, where my only friend lives. Where my parents are buried.

  And every mile away from Penny feels like it’s scraping off my skin.

  The rental car is going to cost me a fucking fortune but I can’t be bothered to care. I can’t be bothered to care about anything.

  But Penny and the devastation I brought on her.

  Tommy finally moved out of the shitty neighborhood we found ourselves in after getting out of St. Jude’s. That’s probably Beth’s influence.

  They’re renting the top floor of a house in a shady street where kids play. It’s nice. It’s what Tommy deserves.

  What do I deserve?

  Nothing, is the answer.

  I sit in front of his house working up the balls to go inside. I’ll be accepted in there. Fed. Given a beer. Tommy will listen to my story and probably side with me. But I’m covered in lies like fleas and I don’t want to take them into his home.

  My phone rings beside me on the passenger seat. For the second before I look at the number, my heart lifts because it might be Penny.

  But it’s Tommy.

  “Hello?”

  “Is that you in the Cadillac?” I look up and see him in his front window. A big, wide shadow against the brightness of his home.

  “Yeah.”

  “You coming in?”

  I’m silent. I put my head down on the steering wheel.

  “Whatever it is,” he says. “We’ll fix it.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Come up, brother,” he says and the word compels me forward. Out of the car, into the house, home to my friend.

  Penny

  THE WEEKEND IS A SUCCESS. A brilliant one. Guests leave and make reservations for the next available weekend.

  Sunday night everyone collapses. Including me. Finally too exhausted to keep myself up worrying about my parents.

  About Simon.

  Bright and early Monday morning, I finally sit Megan down and tell her everything. She listens with a kind of slack-jawed astonishment.

  “The brothers? The farm?” she asks.

  “A lie. And I’m sorry.”

  “Well,” she says. “I met your dad so I get why you’d want to make up something different.”

  That’s far more generous than I deserve.

  “Is your mom…okay?” she asks.

  “I got word from her lawyer that she’s being moved. Dad’s been arrested and denied bail.”

  “Simon?”


  I shake my head because I don’t know what to say about Simon. I don’t know how to explain how I can miss a man I never even knew.

  When I tell her there’s no private investor, that I’m using my trust in an effort to turn dirty money into something beautiful, I can tell she’s mad. Not that it’s Dad’s money but that I didn’t tell her.

  She wants to draw up some kind of repayment plan so that she’ll have paid for half of the renovations that came out of the trust.

  The money doesn’t matter, but I agree anyway.

  I leave the office and head to the front desk where I hear voices. The last of the guests checking out maybe. But the tone of one voice is so familiar it stops my heart.

  My feet run without me telling them to and I see him. Wearing a broken-in leather jacket and carrying a suitcase.

  He’s here, I think. He’s back.

  Simon.

  “Are you sure you want the room under the stairs?” Patricia at the front desk asks him. “We have better rooms —”

  “That room suits me,” Simon says, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.

  “How long would you like to stay?” Patricia asks.

  “What’s available?” he asks, and my heart clogs my throat.

  “The room is booked for Friday so you can have it for the week.”

  He nods, hands over his credit card and I walk down the stairs to stop him.

  “Don’t run the card,” I say, and both Patricia and Simon look up at me. His eyes…those beautiful eyes, they light up.

  For me.

  “Penny,” he says like he’s just so happy to see me.

  “If you’re here for forgiveness, you’re forgiven. You can go.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “If you want more information for your story about my family, I don’t have any. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “I’m not writing the story.”

  That makes me pause.

  “Then what do you want?” I ask.

  “You.”

  I can’t stand it. I can’t listen to these words I want to believe but can’t. I turn and walk through the foyer, past the dining room and into the kitchen. My safe place. My safest place. I built it like a haven where nothing could hurt me. Nothing could touch me unless I wanted it to.