Vogel House

by John Forrester

I give him the finger and turn to storm out. Just when I’m about to slam the door, Phillip’s nasally voice stops me.

  “You’ll never find it, you know. Especially now that I know you want it. Come on, Clarise. Hook a brother up. Sport me a bit of cash to hold me over until Yale starts in the fall. Habits are expensive, you know. And how many times have I let you in on a puff or three? You owe me.”

  My stomach twists into an angry clench and I notice my hand has tightened to a white fist. “You’re such a fucking addict. All you can think about is your weed and drugs and your over-sexed organ.”

  Phillip spreads his hands wide and his face holds the pathetic expression of a beggar begging for spare change. “Just a couple G’s. I know Grandmother gave you a bunch, and you don’t spend that much. Come on. School is starting in the fall and my trust fund will kick in then. Okay?”

  “How much?”

  “How much? Oh, now we’re negotiating.”

  “Knock if off, Phillip. I fucking said how much do you want?”

  He rubs his chin and stares off at the ceiling, a simpering grin on his face.

  “Five should do it.”

  “Fine. But show me the key first and then I’ll give it to you.”

  Phillip marches over to the closet and puts on some jeans and a hoodie. I follow him as he winds his way around hallways until we reach the door that leads upstairs to the attic. Of course, I’d left the key in the attic; I used to play there for hours when I was younger. Why didn’t I think of it before?

  When we reach the top, Phillip flips on the lights and I’m blown back to a world of white and glitter and fairy tales. It was my mother’s illusion of the perfect princess paradise. It seems like hell to me now: the unicorn with rubies for eyes; the wise forest tree with the talking face; the rainbow bridge adorned with white crystals; the purple castle with Rapunzel in the tower, her blonde hair spilling down to her rescuing knight in shining armor. And tucked away in the corner is my princess “believe-in-dreams” dressing mirror where Phillip is looping his finger around the silver necklace holding the key to Grandmother’s box. I’d left it hung over the mirror. Of course I did.

  Phillip inspects the key as if trying to discover a mystery. I’d never shown him the box. I’d never shown anyone Grandmother’s box. It’s my secret and I plan to keep it that way. I reach out to grab the key and Phillip yanks it away from me.

  “First things first.” He motions towards the stairwell leading downstairs.

  I follow and ask him to wait outside while I go in my room, remove the Renoir painting from the wall, and open the safe. I always wonder how Phillip can be so careless with money. Grandmother left him a small fortune and I’m sure it’s all gone: blown on weed and drugs and stupid shit. Of course, Phillip has his trust fund, but Grandmother believed in almighty hard cash: gold, silver, and jewels. Which is basically what’s inside my safe. God bless her soul.

  A stack of hundred dollar bills welcomes me. I split it in half, estimate how much I have left in the safe, and close the door. More money than I’d thought. Now I’ll have to see how much is in my bank account. The way things are going, my parents will likely need support to keep Vogel House running.

  I step outside my room and display the stack of cash to Phillip.

  “Now hand over the key.” My voice is terse and harsh, exactly as I intend it. I add a disapproving scowl to the mix and hope Phillip feels like a drug addict selling sperm for another hit.

  “You don’t have to be so cruel about it.” He shifts uncomfortably from side to side. “I would have given you the key anyway. I just need the cash, and you know it.”

  I accept the key, clench it in my hand, and throw the stack of bills over to my brother. Then I flip him off and slam the door shut. Fucking idiot. When Father kept the cash flowing, Phillip was all nice and kind and in good spirits. But when trouble strikes, my brother resorts to extortion? A cold tingle slithers down my spine as I think about the future. I need to open Grandmother’s box.

  I find the box hidden deep underneath stacks of clothes inside an old antique chest back in the corner of my closet. The ivory box is cool on my hands but not cold. I carry the box back to my room and place it on my desk, wondering what’s inside. I slide a finger through the silver chain dangling around my neck and hold the key tremulously in my hands. My heart feels true knowing that I’ve kept my promise to only open the box when it was absolutely needed.

  But wait, is the situation really all that dire? I have more than $100,000 in my safe, plus easily double that in diamonds and gold, and who knows how much more I have in my bank account. The servants are gone so that will cost a lot less, right? How much will it cost to keep Vogel House running and my family out of trouble? Like Phillip and his drug consumption. Mother and her habits. Father and his business debts. I shake my head, overwhelmed at what it all might cost.

  What did Father call it when he tried to figure things out in his business? An audit, a financial assessment? That’s what I need to do to sort things out. And things will have to change, that’s for sure. Phillip will have to spend less and Mother too. I’m determined not to open Grandmother’s box, not until I have absolutely nothing left to turn to.

  I sit at my desk, power up my Mac, and then search for the login to my bank account. When I finally manage to get inside, I find a surprising amount of cash and assets waiting for me: $1,124,148.87. Fuck, I have over $1 million in the bank. Won’t that be enough? But then I picture the house’s twenty-seven bedrooms, the garage with Father’s classic car collection, Mother’s trips to New York, the extravagant dinner parties, vacations to Europe, private jets, and weekend getaways to Aspen and Banff. And my school tuition. Father complained last year that Scheumann Academy had raised tuition and fees to over $40,000 per year. I remember my idiotic brother rolling one hundred dollar bills with hemp buds inside and smoking them at a party. Funny thing was the marijuana cost more than the cash.

  I realize what a farce my life has been. All those years of self-absorbed revelry with Phillip at the helm. Why hadn’t I thought of any future consequences? Grandmother had passed on the role of caring for Vogel House to me; I am its owner and protector from all harm. She had warned me of winds of change, of trouble in the air, and to be diligent and mindful in my actions. Of course, looking back, I was too young then and unable to comprehend the full meaning of her words. She was fighting to save her legacy, but her time in this world was slowly slipping from her grasp like Father’s hold over his business.

  It won’t be enough money for how we’ve lived until now, and we have to change. Care for Vogel House is first on my mind, then caring for my family’s needs (the needs that really matter), and ensuring that I can continue my education. Beyond that I have no sense of certainty over the future. For now, I can sleep with some sense of comfort that, for tonight at least, we won’t starve or worry about the next day.

  The burden of caring for Vogel House and my family is on my shoulders. And that both frightens and excites me to my very core.

  CHAPTER 11

  A GENTLE KNOCK on my door startles me out of a dream where I’m kissing Keary like a madwoman in the rain. I can still feel the wetness of the showers washing over my face and clothes, and hate the fact that I have to answer the door instead of plunging my hand between my legs and finishing the fantasy and ecstasy of the dream.

  “Yes?” My voice is as hoarse as a prostitute’s after giving a blow job. I clear my throat and crave a drink of water to wash away the bad taste in my mouth.

  “It’s Mother. Can I come in and talk?” My jaw clenches up and tension ripples down my neck to my shoulders. Why do I feel this way when I hear her voice? I expected Father to come, to talk about what to do, but I never thought that she would come.

  I tell her to come in and the door creaks open slowly. Mother’s puffy, apologetic eyes greet me as she tiptoes her way inside. She lets her gaze drop to the ground as she continues towards my bed, then she slides under the covers, cudd
les next to me, and breaks out bawling like a child who’s lost her puppy. I’m completely nonplussed as I feel the pretension washing off her shoulders for the first time in years. Has Mother come back to me? Or is she riding the wave of a hangover-fed realization that the money’s gone and there’s nothing left to fuel her artificial beauty? No more spas, Botox, fashion consultants, or plastic surgery.

  As I feel the hard lumps of her silicone breasts pressing against my arm and I’m scared, wondering how much it will cost to fix them if they pop.

  “I’ve been a terrible mother to you, Clarise. I should have tried…tried more to be there for you.” Or at least pretend to be an adult and not suck Phillip’s friends’ cocks. That would be a start.

  After all the images flash in my mind of her drunkenness, her meanness, her stupid slutty seductions, my body stiffens to the point that I fear nothing can melt my agitation.

  “Mother, just go away. It’s too late for all this.”

  “Please just listen to me, Clarise. I promise I’ll explain everything. How I acted was all wrong. Can you ever forgive me? I should have been a real mother to you, been there for you instead of living out my dream of being a fashion—”

  I interrupt her with a twist of my body. “It’s not that and you know it. I love that you’re into fashion—you’ve spotted and groomed some amazing designers. I just never understand why your sweetness left you…why you turned so cold and bitter.”

  “I made mistakes, many of them.” Like all the sex with strangers, the drugs, the alcohol, and whatever else twisted that happened in New York while she was away. “I pushed you away because I was afraid you’d follow in my footsteps and crave the fashion life. You showed so much interest and potential—your sketches—but the life is no good, Clarise.”

  “Who are you to judge what’s good for me or not? And is leaving me here with Phillip and his friends any better? Do you know what goes on when you’re away or when you and Father are off drinking with your friends?”

  Mother scoffs disdainfully. “Some friends. We laugh together at parties, laugh and drink and smile at each other—it’s all fake—they’re like assassins wearing masks, pretending to care. When you’re weak, when you turn your back on them, then the steel comes plunging into you.”

  “Then leave them all! They don’t matter. They hate you anyway because of Great-grandfather. Don’t you know that?”

  “Of course we know that. I hear the whispers and the snide comments. My parents warned me against marrying into the Chambers family, did I tell you that? They were against the marriage. But I was so desperately in love with your father.”

  “Was?”

  Mother turns and frowns at me. “I am in love with your father, don’t ever doubt that. I may have had my indiscretions—”

  I bark out a laugh at that.

  “Okay, many horrible indiscretions, but I had my reasons.”

  “Reasons or lust?”

  She sighs, exasperated, and flings her hands back until they slap against the headboard. “It started out as jealously and suspicion: a beautiful, intelligent, witty woman at your father’s work. His business analyst…young and so very lovely and charming. Twenty-seven or something at the time. He hired her from McKinsey & Company—stole her from McKinsey if I recall correctly.”

  “Ms. Chen?” The image of the woman from Father’s business flashes in my mind: a girlish figure, laughing almond eyes, and seductive lips that spewed crass jokes. She possessed a wit like Dorothy Parker. The repartee between her and Father was like an impenetrable force field that one watched, mesmerized and amused at the same time. She was utterly entrancing and I don’t doubt Mother would have been furiously jealous over her.

  “The very one. The way that bitch looked at me with her haughty, I’m-so-going-to-steal-your-husband eyes. I wanted to rip her eyeballs from their sockets and throw them into a pot of won ton soup.”

  I cough, amused and shocked at her racist tantrum.

  “Do you think Father slept with her?”

  “Of course he did! That slut knew exactly what she was doing. She—like all the other competitive, ladder-climbing, power-hungry bitches in the office—knew exactly how to maneuver the power chain of corporations. Through a deft combination of ruthlessness and temptation. She lured Father with the immense prowess of a skilled fisherman catching a prized fish.”

  “Did he admit to it?”

  “Oh, he did far worse than that. He left me for her. Do you remember that long business trip to Shanghai that Father took?”

  “Vaguely…in 2008? Wasn’t it after summer?”

  “September of 2008.” Mother laughs madly like she’s enjoying a private joke. “Father was out fucking that Chinese slut, probably fucking her and all her best friends in some crazy orgy for all I know. Or maybe it really was love, who knows? But your foolish father was the one getting fucked. I heard from society whispers that while that bitch was screwing your father in bed, she had tied him up with silk—she convinced him that it excited her—then, while he was helpless and tied up, she told him that his business was ruined because of the credit default swaps she had convinced him to buy. She told him this while she was grinding her exotic pussy into—”

  Mother’s voice breaks now and falters. She whimpers like a whipped dog. “They told me…that after she pushed him over the edge of ejaculation, she leaned down and whispered in his ear: ‘Compliments of Howard McNaughton. Family never forgets treachery.’”

  I stand there, stunned and silent, shocked at my mother’s explicit words. Keary’s father did all this? How the hell could anyone do something so cruel? I pat Mother’s back as she falls in and sobs against my chest, her tears staining my silk nightgown. Her voice picks up again, mottled and strained.

  “That bitch left him tied up in his room until the hotel cleaning staff found him spread-eagled on the bed. He came groveling back to me like a dog that’s been sprayed by a skunk, stinking of her smell.” Mother slams her fists against her head and stifles a scream through her clenched teeth. “Why was I so stupid to take him back! It was the worst kind of betrayal—a betrayal of love and loyalty and friendship. He was my best friend for God’s sake; I loved him like I’d never loved anyone before and he betrayed me not only with his cock, but with his heart. I still don’t understand myself why I forgave him and took him back. What makes it worse is that I heard all this at the club from a woman who’s had it out for me for years. I wanted to strangle her right there at the bar for her gleeful delivery of the story.”

  Mother bawls and seethes and coughs for a long time, and I just stand there listening to the sounds of anguish and self-loathing fill my heart. I feel a constriction in my chest as emotions well up inside and my tension and animosity towards Mother melts away with her tears. Unable to hold up the dam any longer, I join in the fray and release years of pent-up sobbing and sorrow. I finally realize the reason behind Mother’s actions.

  “I forgive you,” I whisper in her ear and she nods against my shoulder in response, her trembling movements mollified by my acceptance. But I don’t think I can ever forgive Keary’s father for what he’s done to us. I want to kill him. I’m furious at Father for his stupidity and betrayal to Mother, but men are like that, aren’t they? Most of their thinking happens in the thing sticking out between their legs.

  “What do we do now, Clarise?” Mother’s blue eyes pierce into me.

  “I have an idea, but I need to talk to Father first.”

  Mother leads me into their dark and disheveled bedroom, and we find Father staring out the window into the garish light of day. Mother retreats and leaves me alone to speak with him.

  “Funny how things turn out in life, don’t you think?” Father remains motionless as he speaks.

  “Funny how you when fuck someone you also screw your business and family in the process.”

  Father whirls around, eyes furious, face flushed, and raises his hand like he wants to slap me. When he sees my immovable, testing eyes, the fi
re goes out of him and his arm deflates to his side. “I suppose I deserve that, don’t I? For all the idiotic things I’ve done. No, for all the terrible things I’ve done to this family and to your mother. She didn’t need to go through all that.”

  “Why did you do it? Why did you betray Mother by leaving her for that woman? I could easily forgive you for having sex with her, but letting that cloud your judgment in business, and turning your back on Mother and your family? You know Mother still loves you intensely, don’t you know that?”

  Father nods. “I don’t deserve her, really, I know that now. For so many years I was angry at her for getting back at me over and over again. I’d said sorry to her countless times, but it seemed like it was never enough.” He turns and looks at me with these vulnerable, sad eyes. “Maybe one day she’ll truly forgive me and let the past go?”

  I interrupt him. “But we’re all living in the past, and the past’s decisions are catching up to our family and engulfing us in all the mistakes done by you and Great-grandfather.”

  A scowl crosses Father’s face. “Who told you that? How did you find out about what happened with your great-grandfather?”

  “I’m not stupid, you know. Vogel House is mine to protect, so shouldn’t I know all about its history? Cornelius Chambers won the house in a game of chance from Keary’s great-grandfather and now their family is hell-bent on ruining us. Don’t you see that?”

  “So it’s that McNaughton boy again, is it? He’s poisoned you against me, against our family with his lies? I had the same questions as you when I was a boy, but your great-grandfather assured me that Vogel House was securely in the family’s possession. That’s why he entrusted your grandmother to own and protect it and encouraged her to pass the house down from grandmother to granddaughter.”

  “Well of course it was in the possession of the family, we’ve owned the deed. That doesn’t mean Great-grandfather didn’t swindle his way into its ownership.”

  Father sighs and rubs his eyes in frustration. “That doesn’t matter!”