Spoils

by Tammar Stein

  I gasp and spin away from the window.

  Isakson rises, his face lightening.

  “He’s here,” I say.

  “Come, come,” Isakson urges. We talked about this earlier. He opens a closet door and I step inside. The door has slats, so I can see the room.

  Isakson hurries back to his desk and rearranges papers, striving for a casual, why-no-I-wasn’t-expecting-anyone look. The door to the office suite creaks as it opens.

  “Hello?” Gavin calls out. “Anyone here? Professor Isakson?”

  “In here!” the professor calls out, in a pitch-perfect tone of irritated surprise, though I hear the undercurrent of nervous excitement.

  Gavin enters the room, staggering a little and bumping into the door on his way in. He’s uncoordinated, awkward on his feet. His face is haggard and he looks years older. Gavin, don’t sleep, if that’s what it takes, I said to him and that’s what he did. His hair is lanky and greasy. I am humbled, amazed at what he’s put himself through. Because I asked him to.

  Isakson rises and comes around the desk to stand near Gavin. He’s much shorter than Gavin, yet he seems to loom over him.

  “Please, sit down.” The professor gestures to the chair where I’ve spent the entire day. Hopefully, Gavin doesn’t notice it’s body-heat warm. “What can I do for you today?”

  Gavin sits, his big hands braced on his knees, his posture straight as he prepares to present his case. My arms are covered in a wave of goose bumps as I’m suddenly transported in time to two and a half years ago, watching his trial as he sat behind the defendant’s table, wearing a suit for the first time, a carefully blank face to try to hide his thoughts, though his fear and tension were clear.

  “I—um—I…” He fumbles for words. “I have—I mean, I came up with a business model. I think you’ll be interested.” He rubs his forehead hard, as if trying to press the right words out of his exhausted brain. It hurts to see this. Gavin, who talks fast and thinks faster, can barely get a straight sentence out. I clench my fists by my sides, willing him to keep it together, to hang on and get through this. Without saying anything, the professor hands him a bottle of water. Gavin cracks the seal and drinks deeply. When he starts talking again, his voice is less crackly.

  “I remembered back at Tech, you told us about your company, AlgaeGo,” he says. “That was last year and ever since then, I’ve had this idea.…” Gavin fades off. It might be my imagination, but it seems that Isakson gets a smug little smile at the mention of his company name. He shoots a glance toward the closet where I’m hiding that seems to say: Not such a bad name after all, is it?

  “Yes?” He turns back to Gavin.

  “Um…” Gavin, who unconsciously followed Isakson’s gaze to the closet, shakes his head. “Sorry, I lost my train of thought.” He fires up his laptop, clicks on a few icons and then turns it around so that it faces the professor.

  The two of them hunch over it and Gavin explains how leasing the land will bring the trials of algae/fuel production out of the lab and into the world. That investors like to see progress, not perfection. Then he lays out the (very favorable) terms of the lease that he negotiated on behalf of the company. I can’t see the screen, but some information appears that makes the professor lean forward in sudden attention. The polite interest is gone. Isakson asks some questions and Gavin runs a different model to illustrate his point.

  “It’s good,” Isakson says, ever the master of the understatement.

  I have to stuff my fist in my mouth to keep from shouting and jumping up and down with triumph.

  “I’ll pay you for the work.” He names a huge sum that makes my eyes pop open. But Gavin has barely heard him. He’s already shaking his head.

  “No, no, I’m not selling it.”

  “What do you mean?” Isakson crosses his arms in ire. “Then why did you come here?”

  “I’m giving it to you.”

  Professor Isakson drops his arms in dumbfounded shock. But he quickly recovers. A cynical look crosses his face.

  “You think I’ll give you a job? Get you reinstated at Tech?”

  “If you hire me, that would be amazing, a dream come true,” Gavin says. He has bruise-colored bags under his eyes. He stands up for his last rebuttal. “But the truth is, I’ll work for free. I’ll make coffee. I’ll take out the trash. I was willing to pay thirty thousand dollars a year to go to college for one class a semester with you. I’d be willing to pay a lot more to work with you full-time.”

  “Sit down, Gavin,” the professor tells him. He’s trying hard to maintain his poker face but for once everything he’s feeling is visible and I swallow hard at the answering emotions that clog my throat. “Tell me what happened to you at Tech. Tell me all of it.”

  I hear it again, straight from Gavin to his hero. And he’s so tired that he can’t mask the hurt and the confusion about what was done to him.

  “And the worst part of it is that I feel like you left Tech because of me. Like I drove you away.”

  Isakson shakes his head.

  “I miss the energy and the optimism of my students. It wasn’t an easy decision to leave Tech but no, my boy, you did not drive me away. It was time for me to go. My company was growing too fast for me to keep teaching. It was the right time for me to move on.” He places a kind hand on Gavin’s shoulder, who seems to relax with sudden absolution. “Perhaps it worked out for the best that you are no longer at Tech. I would be honored if you became a partner at this company.”

  Gavin grins and much of the strain on his face is gone. He still looks exhausted, but also years younger than he did when he first walked into the room. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Stay right there,” the professor says, patting Gavin’s shoulder. “Let me pull up some paperwork and we can make this official.”

  He leaves the room and Gavin leans forward, resting his head on the edge of the desk. It’s only when the professor comes in and Gavin doesn’t sit up that I realize that he’s out, sound asleep.

  The professor falters for a moment when he sees Gavin slumped over, and then pats him, very gently, before turning to my hiding place.

  I rush out of the closet and hug the professor.

  “Thank you, Professor Isakson,” I whisper, feeling a giddy rush of excitement. “That was amazing. It was worth every penny.”

  He hugs me back, a great, tight hug. “I don’t say this a lot,” he says. “But I was wrong. Thank you for making me reevaluate.”

  I grin, too full to speak.

  “And please,” he adds with a little smile, “call me Tovar.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The house is warm with bodies and candles. There’s music, something Caribbean with a great beat. There are carafes of tropical iced tea, platters with small appetizers, and napkins with a palm-tree design, my name and today’s date embossed on them. My mother must have worked like mad to arrange everything so quickly. No one would be able to tell this was a last-minute switch or that this morning she was up to her ankles in soot and ashes, wading through the ruins of the tea shop.

  Someone shrieks my name and everyone turns to look at me. Hands reach out for me, pulling me this way and that. Faces blur in a wash of wide-open eyes and moving lips; I can’t make out the words. Someone steps on my foot. I jerk at the sudden pain in my toe and end up head-butting someone leaning in for a hug. Then my mom grabs my arm and pulls me out of the cluster to the counter and shouts for attention.

  “Leni is here, everyone! Time to sing Happy Birthday. Ready? One! Two! Three!” The crowd gamely begins to sing, low and off-key. I stand there, squirming from all the attention. Trying to be gracious about this. Trying to be grateful.

  When they finish on a long, warbling note, I smile and clap.

  “Thanks, guys,” I say loudly. “Nice singing.” There are some chuckles. “Thank you for coming, enjoy the party!”

  They clap for me and then, thankfully, I’m out of the spotlight. A few well-wishers seek me but the
intense attention quickly passes and soon I’m watching guests have fun at my party, as removed from them as if I were standing across the street watching them through the windows.

  My parents have been swept up in their host duties and are chatting with old friends. There haven’t been this many people in our house since the year we moved in, when my parents held a huge housewarming party.

  It takes what feels like eons to make it to my parents, like I’m wading through Jell-O. Who knows what platitudes come out of my mouth or who I’m talking to. As I get close to them, someone grabs my hand. I turn, annoyed, but when I see who it is, my face softens.

  “Eddie.” My voice lilts in surprise. I expected him to hole up in his room until the crush passed.

  He’s perched uncomfortably on a stool against the wall, wearing a clean black shirt and jeans that squeeze his wide thighs. He’s sweating from the heat and probably from the overwhelming press of people after months of self-imposed, nearly solitary confinement.

  “It’s your birthday, kid, the big one-eight. What kind of brother skips that?”

  “It would have been okay,” I say softly. “I would have understood. Besides, I thought you were mad at me.”

  “I don’t know if ‘mad’ sums it up. ‘Enraged,’ ‘appalled,’ those come a little closer.”

  I stiffen. “Fine, why did you come, then? I did what I said, so if you came here hoping that I didn’t—”

  “It’s okay, Leni.”

  I blink and raise my eyebrows.

  “Yeah,” he says to my unvoiced question. “Really. I’m okay with it. I thought a lot about what you said. There’s a part of me that’s been waiting all this time for someone to come hand me another chunk of change. And when I finally realized that wasn’t going to happen, I also realized that it’s a stupid thing to wish for. My baby sister is giving her money away to someone she thinks deserves it—though I have to tell you, kid, I still think you could have done better than that jackass—but regardless, I realized that if my own sister wasn’t going to hand it over to me, or even to Mom and Dad, well, maybe it’s because we don’t deserve it, you know? We don’t need it. And then I realized that I’ve wasted half of my twenties. I mean, what the heck? It doesn’t get any better than this. I have to rescue my own fat ass. No one is going to do it for me.”

  I blink faster, trying not to cry.

  “Eddie, that’s fantastic.”

  “It’s like the fog burned off, you know? I feel like it’s the first time my brain is working since I got back from Bali.”

  I hug him, tightly. He hesitates for a moment and then gently wraps his big arms around me. “Not that Mom and Dad necessarily see it that way,” he warns.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m about to tell them.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to need it.”

  “Leni,” he says as I turn to go.

  “What?”

  “It was a good decision. I’m proud of you, sis.”

  “Thanks.” I smile. “That means a lot coming from you.”

  When I finally make it to my parents, I wait as they finish their conversation. I catch something about a sailing trip and calling to firm up plans later next week. I swallow past the lump in my throat.

  “Hey, Mom, Dad,” I finally interrupt. “This is a great party. You did an amazing job.”

  My parents turn with a glad smile and I’m enveloped in their arms and their familiar, comforting smell. I soak up the feeling of their strong arms around me. This is my childhood. This feeling of love and security, the certainty that everything will be okay because my parents are here.

  When I finally step away from the hug, I step away from my childhood. I’m eighteen and a lot has changed since yesterday.

  My mom is high from the social success of the evening. It couldn’t have been easy to switch venues on the fly and yet she pulled it off. The pleasure from her success has taken years off her face. She looks truly happy.

  “I gave away my money this morning,” I say.

  My mom doesn’t hear me at first. It’s loud in here—the background music with its pumping beat is barely audible over the roaring conversations of the guests. It’s my dad that gets it. His jaw slackens and his lips tremble before he presses them tightly together.

  “Mom.” I keep going, knowing I have to make her understand. “I gave away my trust fund. All of it.”

  She hears me this time, but it takes her a minute to process the words. She’s looking at me, with all the love shining, and then, slowly, there’s a furrowed brow, a math equation with the answer out of reach. Then a little half smile—it’s a joke, right? Except she sees my serious face, anxious and guilty, and she turns to my dad.

  “Did you…” She sees that he already understands what she’s starting to figure out. “Did you know about this?” she asks in a strangled voice.

  “No,” he says. “No, I didn’t know.” I can hear in his voice what he doesn’t say out loud. How could I not have told him?

  They both turn to me and for a moment they look alike. Then I realize it’s that they both have the same sucker-punched expression on their faces.

  I clutch my hands together. “I’m sorry I’m telling you this way. I know this isn’t the time and I really wish I could have told you earlier. But I’m not sorry that I did it.”

  “You’re not sorry you did this?” my mom says, turning white with rage.

  “I shouldn’t have done it as a surprise. I was afraid that you’d stop me and…”

  My dad looks like he’s fighting tears.

  “How could you do this?” my mom hisses. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you think money is only about trips? About clothes? Money is about never being hungry or cold. It’s about taking care of each other. You didn’t even ask! You didn’t even give us a warning!” And then she wails, “I’m going to look like a fool!”

  “I love you,” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I love you so much, but winning the lottery was the worst thing that ever happened to our family. I want my family back. I don’t want fancy lessons or trips. I don’t want a wasted brother or a crazy sister. I want my family.” I swipe at my tears. “I hate our horrible house. I hate your fake friends who like you when you spend money and don’t call you back when you’re broke. I hate that you and Dad stopped working at the shop together. We had a good life!” I don’t know if the guests can hear this. I don’t care. “That money was cursed, you know it was! It bought us nothing good.”

  My mom won’t look at me.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Can you undo it?” she suddenly asks, her eyes blazing with some nameless mania. “You can still get it back, right?” She twists my arm. Her manicured nails, a vivid burgundy, dig into my skin enough to make tears of pain well in my eyes, this from a woman who never raised a hand to me in anger my whole life. She doesn’t even realize she’s hurting me. She doesn’t care.

  “No.” I shake my head, eyes wide to keep the tears at bay. This is going about as badly as it could go. “No, Mom, I can’t get the money back. It’s gone forever.”

  “Who was it? Who did you give it to?” she hisses, spraying my face with spittle. “I can make them give it back. You’re young, you don’t know what you’re doing. Tell me who you gave it to!”

  “This is why I didn’t tell you what I was going to do,” I burst out, jerking my arm out of her grip. “I knew it would be like this!” I rub my sore arm, feeling little half-moon indentations left by her nails. “I’m not telling you.” I shake my head. “The money is gone. It’s not coming back.” With a cry of disgust, my mom turns, pushing me away in a throwing motion, as if she’s getting rid of me. She wedges herself against the wall with her back to my dad and me, hands covering her face as her whole body shakes with sobs.

  I look at my dad, afraid of what I’m going to see on his face.

  But he’s not crying or looking at me in d
isgust. There’s something in his gaze that makes me think maybe he understands.

  My mom pushes past us, heading to the bathroom to fix her face. A few people turn their heads to watch her fly by. Rumors will not be far behind.

  “Dad?”

  “Lenore,” he says gruffly. “I always knew you had a will of iron behind that sweet, quiet face.”

  “Are you furious?” Of course he’s furious. What did I think would happen?

  “I’m not going to tell you this is a pleasant announcement,” he says. “And I sure wish you had picked a different way to break the news.” He gives me a stern look. “You ruined your mother’s evening and she worked very hard to give you a beautiful party.”

  I nod, my eyes downcast.

  “But when we gave each of you a trust fund, we gave it to you. It means you get to decide. Not saying it’d be my first choice, but then again…” He shrugs. “Life is full of surprises, I guess.” Then with something close to the old twinkle in his eye, he winks at me. “It might be interesting to go back to the old shop.”

  I smile tentatively.

  “You still love me?” I ask, rubbing the sore spot on my arm, feeling frozen inside.

  “Of course I do, Leni,” he says in fond exasperation, warming my frozen core. “And so does your mother. Give her a day to recover from the shock, and we’ll all sit down together and see where we stand.” He pulls me into a big hug.

  “We are a great family and great families adjust,” he says firmly, kissing the top of my head. “Have a little faith.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  No one shouts goodbye or Leaving so soon? as I slip out of the house as quietly as I entered. Which goes to show this party was never about me. I amble down the packed driveway, cars parked every which way, and I’m crossing the street when someone calls me. I turn, expecting to see someone from the party, but instead Gavin hurries to catch up.

  “I didn’t want to crash the party of the year,” he says. “But I have something for the birthday girl.”