Don't You Wish

by Roxanne St Claire

  He grabs me again, a little friendlier. Okay, like hand-on-ass friendly. “Wanna do some blow?”

  For a second, I don’t have a clue what he just asked. I inch back and out of his palm to let the words settle in. Thank God Lizzie got me hooked on the crack that is bad Canadian teen soap operas, because only on Degrassi have I ever heard cocaine called blow.

  “Not tonight,” I say coolly. But as soon as the dance ends, I manage to slip away, and he gets the message.

  There are more guys at the table with Bliss and Jade, but I don’t really talk to them. Instead I have some water and drink in the glitter on the dance floor and the wild green and pink lights and the very scantily clad girls who dance on the balconies like they’re part of the show.

  The Black Eyed Peas start screaming about what a good, good night it is, and Jade grabs me.

  “Woo-hoo, Ayla! This was our song in, like, eighth grade.”

  “Way to let everyone know how old we are,” I say into her ear, but I let her pull me onto the dance floor, and I have a flash of dancing to this same song with Lizzie … in my basement.

  This is so much better that I let out a little “Woot!” and raise my hands and scream the words while the whole world flashes mint and raspberry.

  “This is amazing!” I scream to Jade.

  She’s laughing and pointing and singing, and then suddenly her entire expression changes to sheer horror.

  I spin around, terrified about what it could be. It has to be Bliss doing something—

  “Jesus Christ on a hot dog bun, your dad’s here, Ayla.”

  The minute she says it, I meet the angriest, harshest stare I’ve ever seen, and instantly recognize the man from the magazine. He’s smaller in real life, narrow-shouldered and mad as hell.

  “Am I in trouble?” I ask her as she gets next to me in a really nice show of solidarity.

  “Are you sober?” she asks.

  I barely drank the mojito. “Enough.”

  “Then hope for the best.”

  He marches toward me. “When you get home, I want to see you.”

  Wow, that’s not too bad. He must be cool. “Okay, Dad.” The word feels weird on my lips, but I say it anyway. “Midnight too late?”

  Just then a woman saunters up to him, a stunning James Bond girlfriend type wearing a tiny black dress and a lot of jewelry. “I’m thirsty, sweetheart,” she says, her eyes on me. “Get me a drink.”

  “Midnight is fine.” He starts to walk away. “In my office. And I need your brother there.” He slows his step and leans close to me. “And let’s just agree we haven’t seen each other.”

  Holy … hell. I’m in collusion with my own father? My mouth opens but nothing comes out. That’s it? No What are you doing in a nightclub, young lady? No What are you doing driving my expensive car with nothing more than a learner’s permit?

  This is … unexpected.

  Bliss stumbles over, kind of drunk and giggly, but Jade looks like the wind’s gone out of her sails, too. It’s a quarter after eleven, and I just want to go home and get ready for a midnight rendezvous with a man I kind of can’t believe is my dad.

  If that meeting even happens. Because surely this dream will end at midnight, like all good fairy tales.

  * * *

  But it doesn’t.

  At midnight, wearing a T-shirt and Agent Provocateur sleep pants (so not SpongeBob), I head downstairs, guided by some mental GPS that hasn’t been wrong yet today.

  My dad’s office is at the far end of a long wing on the first floor, and I feel a little like the Cowardly Lion headed in to see the Wizard. My bare feet pad along the cool marble until I reach two polished wood doors, closed tight, lighted columns like bodyguards protecting the entrance.

  For a moment I flash to the basement on Rolling Rock Road … Wow, did my mom have a range of taste in men. These two couldn’t be more different.

  With a swallow that hurts my bone-dry throat, I knock lightly, even though I’ve been invited—er, ordered, to the place.

  “Come in.”

  Pushing the door open, I blink at the dim room, lit only by the soft lights around a super-modern glass bar that looks an awful lot like the one at Mynt, only the colored lights are blue, not green. There’s a desk on one side, and a squared-off sitting area with two long and extremely uncomfortable-looking sofas.

  He’s in the same clothes he had on at the club, a white business shirt, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up. He has the same dark brown hair I do, and some of that Botoxed perfection my mom sports.

  He doesn’t look at me, so I check out the room some more. Not only is this dad not a hoarder, his office is practically empty. What kind of work does he do here, anyway?

  “Hey,” I say to break the awkward silence.

  He knocks back a drink, then finally looks at me. “Trent’s on his way down, too,” he announces.

  “Okay.” I take a step closer. “So, what’s up?” Besides the fact that I used a fake ID, drove without a real license, and hung out in a SoBe club on a school night?

  He turns, so I get a good look at his handsome, hawkish features, and his eyes, also green like mine. “I thought I’d call an impromptu family meeting.”

  “Oh, well, Mom’s not home yet—”

  “I know,” he interjects. “That’s why we’re meeting.” He gestures toward the stiff-looking bench. “Sit.”

  I feel a little like a dog, but perch on the edge, feeling awkward inside and out. “So, what’s on the agenda?” I say, a tease in my voice to break the ice.

  “You’ll see. If Trent ever gets in here.” He strides over to the desk and pulls out the chair. He’s really going to sit there? I guess he wasn’t kidding about a meeting. “That’s another bad trait he picked up from your mother—serial tardiness. That won’t help his cause in life.”

  It’s midnight, for crying out loud. How serially tardy can he be? And does Trent have a cause in life? Besides being a jerk? I decide to keep my comments to myself until I can figure out which way the wind blows in the room.

  I hear footsteps in the hall, apparently not moving fast enough to suit Jimbo, who rolls his eyes and shakes his head a little. “Any day now, Trenton!” he calls.

  Finally, my big brother cruises in, shirtless, shoeless, and, of course, wired with earbuds. He pops them out and frowns at both of us. “What up?”

  “Sit down, Trent. I have an offer that could change one of your lives.”

  Trent looks as perplexed as I feel, but drops onto the sofa and slaps his bare feet up onto the barren coffee table.

  “Must you?” Jim asks him, looking pointedly at his toes.

  “I must. What the hell’s going on, Dad?”

  “I’m about to transform your existence. Is that important enough?”

  I sit up a little straighter, but Trent, ever the tool, just shrugs. “I already know about the split, Dad. I’m going with Mom.”

  They’re splitting up? So the blonde in the club was more than arm candy? I eye Jim for his reaction, but he gives none.

  “We haven’t made that announcement,” he says quietly. “If your mother is talking divorce, it’s because she’s seeking it, not me.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, feeling clueless and oddly frightened. Am I the only one who thinks divorce is a scary, scary thing?

  Trent spears me with a look. “Earth to Ayla. Mom and Dad hate each other. Oh, wait, you’re not in that sentence, so it doesn’t matter to you.”

  Jim saves me from digging for a suitable comeback by pushing his chair out dramatically. “We don’t hate each other,” he says, standing slowly, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. “It’s just that … we have different ideas about how a marriage should work.”

  “Yeah, dude, it works like this,” Trent quips, hatred and disrespect rolling off every one of his words. “You come home and sleep here at night, and don’t tap your patients in your spare time.”

  My jaw drops at this, but Jim stabs a finger toward Tr
ent. “You are out of line, mister.”

  “And so are you.” Trent stands. “I don’t have time for this shit. I’m outta here.”

  “Sit down,” Jim barks. “Or you’re cut off from every dime I have.”

  Trent glares at him, then me, slowly returning to his seat.

  I can’t help giving him a snotty grin. “Nice to see you have a price,” I say.

  “You should talk, MasterCard whore.”

  “Stop it,” Jim says, coming around the desk. “I have an offer to make to both of you, then you can take your bickering out of my sight. Just hear me out.”

  We both look at him, waiting.

  “One of you is going to take over the reins of my business.”

  Whoa. Where did that come from? I look at Trent and notice his jaw tighten.

  “I’m ready to make that official by signing a contract to that effect.”

  “Wait a second,” I say, holding my hand up. “I’m sixteen. Do I seriously have to even think about this yet? And don’t we, like, have to go to med school?”

  Jimbo blows out a “Pffft” and waves his hand. “You hire doctors, you don’t do the slave labor.”

  Trent shoves back on the sofa. “This is totally effed up, Dad. You already promised me I’d be CEO of Forever Flawless when I get out of college. Ayla’s not capable of managing her bathroom vanity, let alone a multimillion-dollar business.”

  “And you are?” I shoot back. Not that he’s wrong about that, but still.

  “I have twice your IQ, three times your common sense, and quadruple the ability to think about people other than myself. This is a moot point, Dad.”

  “Not anymore. I’m turning this into a little contest.”

  “What?” Trent and I ask in shocked unison.

  “I want something, and one of you can get it. If you do, I’ll formalize your future.”

  “What do you want from us?” Trent asks. “Just come right out and make your demands and don’t make it some kind of stupid contest. Everything’s a freaking contest with you.”

  “I need information.” Jim directs this to me, as if he just can’t take another minute of his son’s contempt. Can’t say I blame him. “I believe your mother is hiding something from me.”

  I can’t help but choke. This from a guy whose sign-off at Mynt was Let’s just agree we didn’t see each other here?

  “I want to know what she’s hiding,” he says.

  Trent puffs in disgust. “You want dirt that isn’t there,” he says, his voice tight.

  “I want a fair fight,” Jim fires back. “And I don’t want to lose everything I’ve ever worked for because she’s got a wily attorney.”

  A chill slithers up my spine. The whole conversation is kind of grossing me out. Would he actually ask his own kids to dig up dirt on their mother just so he doesn’t get taken to the cleaners in a divorce? An hour after I saw him cheating on her?

  “I need your help in order to keep the business financially sound and my empire—which will someday belong to one of you—intact. The one who is willing to go the greatest distance will have proven to be the one who is most worthy of the CEO title in the future.”

  He avoids our gaze by looking at his nails, which are clipped and buffed. For one sharp instant, I remember my “real” dad’s hands—inventor’s hands, he used to call the calloused palms and cracked fingers. Maybe he has crappy hands, but he isn’t a snake.

  Trent is nearly imploding, working to hold in his reaction.

  “Dad,” he says, his voice tight, “you know I’m gonna side with Mom on anything.”

  “I know you’re very close to her, Trent. And that was real sweet when you were six years old. But you’re a man now, and—”

  “I’m not going to spy on my own mother.”

  Jim lifts an eyebrow as if he doesn’t believe him. Then he looks at me. “Ayla and I have a closer relationship, don’t we?”

  Oh, so that’s why I’m not in trouble for stealing the Aston.

  “Because you’re both made of the same crap.” Trent stands. “I’m not going to help you, Dad.”

  “Then, you’d better figure out what you’re going to do with your life, because the gravy train is about to end.”

  Trent mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “Screw you”—or worse—and walks to the door. Just as he’s about to leave, he throws one more look at me. “You guys deserve each other.”

  Wait a second. Did I die and get reincarnated in a daytime soap?

  “Well, Ayla?” Jim asks when we’re alone. “Are you in or not?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit.

  He laughs softly. “You want to negotiate, huh? Okay, I noticed the Aston was parked in a different spot when I came home. How’d it drive for you? Maybe we can upgrade your last birthday present.”

  Holy cow, talk about sweetening the deal.

  “I still don’t know. Is there no hope for you and Mom?”

  “I’m willing to make compromises; she is not.”

  Do the compromises include the thirsty blondes he’s … tapping?

  “Why don’t I give you a little something in advance?” He goes back to the desk chair and sits down, pulling out the drawer. “I’ve never really understood Trent’s blind loyalty to his mother.”

  Blind loyalty? “Well, she is his mother,” I say.

  He pulls out a black card … a credit card. As he holds it between his finger and thumb, the light catches the American Express logo in hologram.

  “In your name.” He flips it, Vegas dealer–style. “Unlimited.”

  “That’s … nice.”

  “Money comes and money goes,” he says, his eyes glinting. He holds it out to me. “I can terminate this at any time. I need some answers, Ayla. She’s no saint. I have to give my lawyer something, and fast, or we’re going to be out a lot of cash.”

  We’re … like we’re in this together.

  “And I know I can count on you,” he adds with a smile that looks an awful lot like the one I’ve been seeing in the mirror today. Ayla has a lot of genes from the Monroe side, that’s for sure. But I’m not sure I like all of them.

  “I don’t know, Dad,” I say, even though calling him that feels so wrong deep inside.

  “What don’t you know?”

  Why I’m here. Where this is. And what it all means. “I just don’t know … if I’m in this for the long haul,” I say vaguely. “I might leave … soon.” Like tomorrow, when I wake up back on Rolling Rock Road.

  He laughs softly. “You’re not going anywhere, Ayla. Just do what you’re best at.”

  “What’s that?” I really want to know, but I’m a little scared what the answer is going to be.

  “Play both ends against the middle, that’s what. How could I blame you?” His lip quirks. “You’ve inherited so many of my most impressive traits.”

  He snaps the card onto the desk, next to a single pen. That’s all that he has on his huge block of gleaming wood. Just imagine how much of my dad’s junk this surface could hold.

  But this man, this dream dad, is so not like my dad.

  He slides the card toward me. “Go ahead. Take it. Use it. And do your job. Sneak around a little. Ask some questions. See if you can get her to trust you.”

  Blood money, that’s what he’s offering. Well, blood credit. But maybe with this card, I can convince my new best friends not to steal. With that pathetic rationalization in my head, I reach for the card. As I do, Jim’s phone beeps with a digital melody, and he grabs it before the third note and presses it to his ear.

  “Well, hello there,” he says softly, pushing away from the desk and getting up to walk to the bar, his voice so different and … warm.

  What’s she thirsty for now? Or is this someone else?

  I stand there, but he gives me a dismissive wave and shoulders the phone, laughing softly.

  “I thought you’d like that,” he says, his tone entirely different. “It was the least I could do after …”
He glances back to see me riveted to my spot; then he points to the door. “Get out,” he mouths.

  I turn and walk out of the room, knowing instinctively to close the door behind me. As I reach the end of the hall, I turn to find Mom standing right there. Her expression is pained as she looks down at the card in my hand.

  “What’s that for?”

  I just stare at it, then her. “Um, Dad gave me this for … supplies. For a school project.” The words taste sour in my mouth. Have I ever flat-out lied to my mom before?

  But this isn’t my mom. This is some other woman who …

  Who is she? She is Emily, deep inside, the same person I just shopped with at Walmart—

  That’s when all this started. That day in the store, that magazine, that iPhone app and the Picture-Perfect mirror. Maybe Jimbo is right. Maybe she does know something. Like what I’m doing here.

  I stuff the card into my back pocket. “Mom, can I talk to you?”

  She looks at me, her eyes impossible to read, like there’s a veil over them. Not the bright, open eyes of my mother, my real mother.

  “I’m tired, Ayla.”

  “It won’t take long.” I angle my head toward the hall. “Let’s go into the kitchen and …” With Mom, it was always tea. I’d drink hot chocolate at night, and she’d drink tea. “Have some tea.”

  She frowns, a creaseless effort. “I don’t drink tea, Ayla. And I’m too tired to talk.” She passes me, heading up the stairs.

  “But, Mom, I really want to talk to you.”

  She shakes her head and continues on her way.

  “You’re just going to ignore me?” I call out to her. I mean, she is my mom. On any planet.

  She turns around. “I already talked to your brother, Ayla. Don’t waste your time trying to suck up to me. Nothing’s going to change.”

  I stare at her back as she makes her way up the curved staircase, moving like an old, tired, aching woman, even though she looks much younger now.

  I hear her sigh as she turns and disappears at the top.

  Wow. The Monroe family is a hot mess.

  Maybe this is a weird twist of my dream, a message telling me I better watch for warning signs back at the Nutter house. Divorced parents … it’s like my very worst nightmare. Like the world cracking underneath me.