Paige Johnson
Imperative Fate
Copyright © 2010 Paige Johnson
Cover design by Maryn Wosu
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 1482506823
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Since I’m not there with all of you . . .
Thank you for all your support and intrigue in my work. I hope you all will enjoy digesting the stories as much as I do creating them. I aspire to be that author whose work you thumb through and discuss in class; this is a terrific first step!
I will always strive to entertain, educate, and articulate as best I can through my artwork. I will always look forward to improving and hearing any of your comments.
Gratefully,
Paige Johnson
The Con Artist
Introducing Rhea Ozera
Chapter One
6/5
My first love was a fink. All lovers are finks, but this one was special. This one was slick as black gold as they say in Texas.
I was just a big-mouthed daisy girl with too much time on her powdered hands, too much green shading her mind, and a mom with too many bad connections. The worst one she had was Uncle Jimmy (U.J.). In his eyes, his sister could do no wrong, have no addictions, faults, or enablers.
I used to wonder if U.J. was too successful to know about these things. Now I know it’s just the opposite. He’s flanked by all sorts of addictions and he just shuts himself off from them and those people. He tries his hardest to keep Mom from becoming that person, and I guess that’s what makes him overstep his boundaries.
I was just sixteen and summer vacation had just begun. I was skipping from the movie theater alone—always alone—sucking on a strawberry lollipop. I always had a sweet tooth and a soft spot (a hole really) for hard-bought sugar that always suffered from neglect. I took that from detested U.J.: I eventually get everything I bargain for through hard work. (It is bolstering artistry but it’s driven me down some very scary roads too.)
I met up with U.J., who was trying to calm down Mom before her job interview to work as a secretary. U.J. never leaves room for my brother (Arthur) and me to squeeze between them.
He said the job offer came from a friend who owes him a favor. Bored with them already, I dazed into the background. My brother and I exchanged stolid glances. We both know everybody is a “friend” to U.J. and Mama has no place in the big city of Austin when she’s in such “a precarious state.” Again, U.J.’s words. He thinks any idleness or unemployment is precarious.
Ma just scratched her anemic, bug-bitten arms and followed him around on the sidewalk with big, dark blue eyes.
I pulled on her blue silk shirt sleeve as we walked toward the building where the interview would be held. “Mama, I went to see Lolita today,” I said. “You shoulda come. You love those types of movies.”
She looked down but never even moved her frail lips. Such a nervous zombie, I thought. Always chasing paper.
I could feel U.J.’s glare bore into my Bettie Page-curled skull. “It was romantic and funny, Mama. When Jeremy Irons was—”
“Arthur, I think it’s time you took your sister home now. Your mother and I have much prepping to do,” U.J. butted in.
I scoffed at his dusty brown suit and intentions.
I had a new idol I wanted to share despite her ugly name: Dolores “Lolita” Haze. At opening credits, I begrudged, “Ugh! Dolores? Makes my name sound like Bundt cake.” I had this new craving and a fresh mind to obtain it. I wanted what Lolita had: an older, more experienced and exciting lover. I wanted a Humbert: a protector, a sweet poison I could live and die happy with. And I knew a guy who could fit the bill.
I’d be sure to meet him later.
I glared at U.J., refusing to take Arthur’s hand.
“You’re a teenager now; don’t you think it’s time to tape down the tantrums, Rhea?” Mama’s bonehead-of-a-brother taunted.
I hate when he has my name in his mouth. I groaned and walked the other way with Arthur. “I don’t care if he’s President of Texas, Ar! He’s ignorant, he’s arrogant. I can’t stand him! Why do we let him boss us around and puppet Ma? She can’t be as useless as he thinks! That’s impossible, right? Mom can’t go through twenty jobs for nothin’. I mean, she landed plenty on her own, huh?”
My brother simmered as we walked down the street. “Cool down there, Rhea. He’s just trying to get Ma back on her feet. She’s had a rough coupla months and he wants to—”
“Control her!” I spat, heat and refraction smudging my plum-purple sunglasses. My brother tried to retake my hand. “No! I don’t wanna go home just yet! I’m sick of watching our pathetic family and you try to justify them.” I jerked around, looking for the direction to nourish my never-ending appetite for entertainment.
Arthur’s face dissolved and exhaled. “Then what do you wanna do? Huh? You don’t got no money left.”
My brown brows dropped. “Anthony’s, I’m going there,” I asserted, curling my fingers in preparation of his rejection.
“Anthony Connors? You might as well say ‘I’m going to get into trouble,’ cuz that’ll be what you’re doing.”
“Do I look like I care?” I hustled, giving Arthur the cold shoulder treatment and slapping the upper hand forthwith. “You cover me, or I’ll tell Mama and U.J. you made out with Stacey in Dad’s Cadillac last week while you were supposed to be watching me.”
He unfurled his fists, flushing, and we went our separate ways like cowboys in a Wild West showdown.
~***~
I waited outside Anthony’s door, tracing the smooth rim of my plastic heart-shaped glasses, biting my lip. The sign on his door read DISTRICT ATTORNEY CONNORS. Soon, it would read REP. ANTHONY CONNORS, according to the latest straw poll.
“What’s taking so long?” I mused, already having knocked twice. I didn’t even know office doors locked. I put my nosey ear to the door and heard the roll and sigh of a leather chair. “Mister C—”
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, sweetheart.” His cringing vowels give away that he’s not from this barren part of the country. He’s from Boston.
“It musta been so exciting,” I’d swoon all droopy-eyed when he’d mention home.
I slacked against the door frame, dying to know what color of tie he wore today.
“And how’re you today, impatient miss?” he greeted upon opening the door, dark, greased hair curling about his ears, a smooth smirk wrinkling his handsome face.
Oh, he looked like Mark Feuerstein, only better!
Purple, his tie was purple. No, you’re certainly not from here, I reminded myself, looking over his dull gray suit, the subtle pinstripes. I wouldn’t have been bored counting them.
“Well, don’t just stand there, dumb as a whore, doll face. I got places to be, I got work you’re interrupting.” He swallowed and winked. “Tell me about how today went.”
So I did.
As he leaned back in his cushy chair, pointers squeezing his juicy lips, I sat before his desk with a hand on the paper stack that looked fit to fall over. Smoothing out my tall, ivory socks, I crossed my legs, wondering how some men can focus on such lengthy, boring work.
You’d make a good Humbert, I thought. As good-looking and successful, but only twenty-seven.
“Sounds to me this Jimbo hack’s got his hands in her wires,” Anthony observed, thumb dusting his chin. “I can’t stand people like that, just can’t, micromanaging everywhere; it’s ridiculous.”
> I nodded eagerly, gripping my latex skirt.
“Just gets ya both nowhere but disappointed. Tell ya what I’m gonna do, doll face.”
I perked up, my back straightening and my straightened mouth turning.
“I’m gonna make you forget about all this shit before ya leave. I’m gonna march down to Mr. Manager and stand up for you and your mother. He can’t put his hands on you. What’re you, his kid? I don’t think so. Yell atcha? He’s a glorified ambulance-chaser, that’s all those guys are, honey; get off when they hear themselves speak. You’re your own girl, a special girl. You’re here, aren’t cha? Squirmed out of your brother’s clutches as easily as you did into that filth of a movie you seen this afternoon, right? I know. You know me, I’m not meek, not one to go quiet, I—”
“Oh, you’re never too quiet,” I affirmed, grinning under cheap shades as my feet fiddled in my short heels.
Getting close, his head hovering over my vintage bangs, his breath delicious as it scattered on my pores with the impact of an atom bomb, he whispered, “But you are, Rhea.”
He was never this playful and alluring.
A “yes” crawled around my tongue and sheltering teeth. I was so full of heat; I could power the coldest district of Alaska for a week.
He cupped my little hand, one of his fingers zapping me with a common shock that couldn’t be anything but a lame joke in comparison to the bolts of electricity shimmying down our nerves. My picture was instantly a darker, smuttier one.
Anthony placed a hand on the small of my back as I moved to sit in his lap. With a muted mind, I was bold. My inquisitive mouth hung around his, not ready to kiss.
“Don’t think of me as Humbert, baby,” he persuaded gently, wooling my hair from an old, orange band.
I shook my head, thinking naught. I pressed my knees together, hoping he’d like what’s between them and what isn’t in the next ten minutes. “Humbert’s not a bad guy, really,” I peeped, nuzzling into the invisible stubble on the DA’s cheek. “He’s not because he thinks he is. All good guys have it wrong.”
“You’re so smart, darling. You have the most unique speech pattern,” he whispered and gave me my first kiss. It was strong and could conduct lightning. It was like a lamb and like a chain secret. It was Silicon Valley perfection.
~***~
Oh, Arthur, that boy is always right! I get into trouble as easily as raccoons gets into the garbage at night. Or, more aptly, as Anthony got into my lockbox and took its treasure. I told Anthony I’d forgive him if he came around my shore more often, but—truth is—this burglar is untouchable. Completely unassailable. If he returns I’ll be considered blessed.
“Oh, but I already feel so fortunate!” I muttered with a leer, making my way home through a dry gaggle of bushes.
Anthony just couldn’t believe it when I told him no one would even notice I was missing. “Though I suppose you’re the type of girl to dizzy ’em up before they realize,” he joked and sent me packing with a quick peck.
“Dopes, buncha dopes,” I told him.
And I was right.
All gathered in the sultry living room, sweat stapled to the creases above their thirsty lips, the Ozera family had not flinched at the sound of the door, or noticed my smudged lipstick and tacky limp.
“You guys are lucky I’m no Baby Face Nelly. I’d have you reelin’, on the ground ’fore you knew what hit cha,” I fished. I put my jacket on the rack and smiled. No one else was. “What’s the matter, you guys?” I asked, eyes locking bitterly with my brother’s for a moment, hoping he’d not told.
“Sit down,” U.J. besought, reddening my cheeks, readying me for a mudslinging match.
Mama, small as ever, slouching into the couch, started: “I-I just don’t think we can say that I was good enough for—”
“We can’t say anything until tomorrow, when they call,” U.J. interjected harshly, shaking his head, cowboy cap in his big paws. “Rhea,” he directed his attention towards me. “I can’t stay a day longer. You—you and your brother—are gonna havta look after your mom while I’m gone. Can you do that much?”
The anxiety was useless; I was fine. “Sure, I can do that,” I said with a hint of revolt.
Mom put on her brave face, holding her thumb. “Jim, I’ll be fine. I told you, I won’t get into that jumble again. The kids aren’t guardian to me. I’m fine, we’ll be fine. Go; make business deals and riches like you’re supposed to. Without me.”
I turned my head and rolled my eyes. It was just as she said the last time. I didn’t even know the jumble she was referring to. Surely, whatever it was, it was too big to be called a “jumble.”
U.J. was just as exasperated with her placation. He stood up, put his gin on the mahogany table and crossed his arms.
Arthur sighed, attentive only to the stitching of his pants.
My eyes were glued to U.J.’s spiked coffee cup. It summoned two memories.
The first, vices are disguised too easily in plain sight and no one ever brings them up. Until it’s too late.
Like with Mama, when six months ago she had this shack strewn with liquor bottles. She hid Jack Daniel’s in her closet and Absolut Vodka below her bathroom sink. (God knows why, her life has been a pretty persistent suck. No ups or downs really. Just a lackluster straight-line flitting in purgatory.)
The second and seconds old, when Anthony sprinkled malt over my abdomen and licked it off, suggesting I clutch tight the dark, wooden desk.
“Damn it, Julia!” her brother exclaimed, rupturing my quaint fantasy, making a fist and quickly burying it in his pocket.
Everyone’s eyes flickered back on scene.
“Stop telling me what I want to hear and do it instead! You’re a grown lady now, for Christ’s sake! I better not come back to excuses and ‘little fibs’ and logjam poverty. I don’t mind coming to the rescue; you’re my li’l sis and I’ll be here if you need help or a hand, but not if you’re always to blame. You have to stand on your own two feet and should have by now—”
In came the inevitable crying. When I’m not the cause, it can be rather annoying.
I ran a tube of gloss over my parched lips, and tapped at Arthur’s shoulder to ask him to leave with me. He shook his curly head and gripped Mama’s arm, too comforting. I always suggested he become a therapist, so patient, a pro boot-licker.
“Now c’mon, Julia, didn’t mean to make you cry. I know since Jerry left you, the economy, and everything as tempting as it is, it’s been tough … but beyond that … you could stand to be more assertive and successful. I know you can.” Jimmy picked Mom up from the couch and pulled her into a hug.
Yuck.
Feeling awkward, ignored, and selfish, I scampered to the only place allotting adequate privacy in a shoddy two-bed apartment: the garage.
Right as I was wishing Anthony would pursue his vow to take care of Mom and U.J.’s personalities, to protect me from their smarmy influence, Arthur came to check on me.
“Okay there, Ree?” he asked.
“We’re the epitome of white trash, aren’t we?” I insisted, wiping the dust off my knees.
Arthur smiled, dragging on one of U.J.’s cigarettes, and sighed out the smoke. “Someone has to be, I guess.”
“And someone’s got to break free from it,” I finished, praying my future has more potential than this damn house.
Chapter Two
6/6
“I just want to make sure you’re being safe,” Mother droned behind me on the porch, trying to fix the sharpness of my cuffed short sleeve. Addict’s fingers; they kept slipping.
I exhaled dramatically and spun around. “Like you ever cared before! I’ll be fine, Mama. I’m outta here. I’ll call, whatever, I’m going.” I watched her grip and eyes decline.
Mama’s a weak woman, a girl truly. I knew by now it didn’t matter who I said I was with and how much doubt it brought. Mama’s not a fighter. Mama’s not even an arguer.
“Just like that?” she queried
, eyes tapering like the widow she is. “You’re not gonna change? You know I think that dress is awfully short. People will talk. You’re gonna leave me by my lonesome self while your brother’s at Stacey’s? No kiss goodbye? Like I’m a—” Mama’s more of a pitier.
“Ma, relax!” I insisted with a quick peck on the cheek. “Brittany’s just taking me for a few days; you’ll live. And there’s nothing wrong with what I have on!” I pirouetted, showing her that the belted beauty really isn’t so revealing. “I look so cute!”
She smirked, arms feebly crossed. “Yes, you always do. That’s why I worry.” She sighed and folded. “Hold fast to what is good and wholesome,” she warned.
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about yourself?” I challenged emotionlessly.
She frowned and waved farewell with the little spunk she had left.
~***~
“Your daughter?” I repeated, giggling, so giddy to get away from home drama. Not only did I get to spend more time with sweet-talking Anthony, but he brought me to Galveston for the Texas Republican Convention! (The politicking is pretty blah, but at least it’s by the beach and nice hotels.) I poked at the culprit like questionable leftovers.
“Like you never lied,” Anthony dismissed quietly, shaking his head now that his campaign cronies were gone from our hotel room. “How’d you get here? Who’s selling your story four hours away?” he asked rhetorically. “’Sides, who else am I gonna say you are?”
“Yeah, who else?” I snarled, pseudo upset, hitting him with one of the thick couch pillows.
He rolled up my prodding hand and squeezed it, trying to act serious. “You got brain worms, baby doll? You’re underage. I ain’t sayin’ you’re my girlfriend.”
“I’m just saying if I gotta play DA’s daughter, I oughta be a legitimate one.”
He laughed and wrapped an arm around me. “That ship sunk already, sweetheart. There’s only so much we can pretend and get away with when it comes to the press. Can’t make up a wife. Can only say it’s a touché subject, my baby mama and all, and the press oughta get back to the political questions, to business; that’s what it’s all about. Business.”
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