Play Dirty

by JA Huss

  “Dude, I don’t even know where to start with this shit. I mean…”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” Augustine says. “We had to.”

  “Wait. What?” And that’s when the feeling comes back. That heavy stone in the pit of my stomach.

  “We were going to get that building for you,” Alexander says. “It was just gonna take some time. And that’s why we needed the three weeks, OK? It isn’t what it looks like, I swear, it isn’t.” His words are spilling out too fast as he paces back and forth across the living room space.

  “We were just playing along, Jordan,” Augustine says. “We were… we had a plan. And I know it looks bad now, but if you let us explain, you’ll see we had no choice. We had to.”

  “What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”

  But I already know. Have known this whole time, haven’t I?

  They came looking for me only after I brought Ixion home.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head at them. “No.”

  But it’s a just a reflex to help me process. Or wishful thinking. Or one last attempt to make the food go down and pretend none of this is happening.

  “You don’t own that building, do you?”

  “You have to let us explain,” Augustine says.

  “DO YOU OWN THAT BUILDING?” I scream it.

  “He made us, Jordan. You don’t understand. He made us play along and—”

  “He made you… he made you… fuck me? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Listen,” Alexander says.

  “No, you fucking listen! Who owns that building?”

  Augustine just shakes her head.

  “My father, he owns it, doesn’t he? You were never going to sell it to me, were you? This whole thing is just another part of his sick game. Did he pay you? Did you sit up at night, all those months while I was ignoring you, and plot how to make me believe you… you… fucking loved me?”

  “Jordan,” Augustine says. “You have to let us explain. We—”

  “Fuck you,” I say. “Just fuck you both.”

  I have no house. I can’t go back to that house.

  I have no job. I won’t go back to that job.

  I have no family. Probably never did. I was just a pawn in some sick game I don’t even understand and never want to.

  I never want to know what they were planning for me.

  Ever.

  So I go to the only person I have left.

  Ixion opens the door to the penthouse he shares with Evangeline overlooking the 16th Street Mall, frowning.

  “Dude,” he says.

  But I just step forward into the apartment, unable to meet Evangeline’s obviously concerned gaze, and stop in front of the window. Press my hands and forehead against the glass, and say, “Who the fuck am I?”

  Because I don’t know anymore.

  I tell them the whole story. I don’t leave a single thing out. I don’t keep a single secret locked up inside me.

  I tell. The whole. Story.

  At some point I realize I left that folder of evidence on the coffee table in my parents’ living room. But it doesn’t matter. It was just copies Darrel gave me.

  And when I’m done talking I turn around and face them. “I quit,” I say. “I quit. Because a very smart woman once told me sometimes the only way to win the game is to quit the game. So I just… quit.”

  I walk over to their couch, slump down against the cushions, and just stare at the ceiling as they talk, or ask me questions, or whatever.

  Because I check out.

  The one person you never want on your side is the person who can’t accept themselves for who they are. The one who was like you, but pretends he isn’t.

  It’s the smoker who quit and then berates everyone else about smoking.

  It’s the newly converted vegan who turns their nose up at your burger.

  It’s the alcoholic who thinks they have it under control, but you don’t.

  The one person you never want on your side is the hypocrite.

  And the hypocrite is me.

  At some point, Chella and Smith show up. And Chella sits on the couch next to me and just folds me into her arms. She just hugs me.

  I don’t even know how long we stay like that, but eventually she’s leading me down to her car in the closest parking garage, and then we’re at her house down on Little Raven Street. And I’m walked up to their second-floor guest room and put to bed.

  I think I sleep, but I’m not sure.

  I think I wake up, but I’m not sure about that either.

  I think I’m just… existing.

  I could deal with having a father who disappoints. I think most men have that father these days. I think I could even deal with the fact that I’m just like him. That’s pretty common too. The whole apple and the tree thing, right?

  But what I cannot deal with is Ixion.

  How can he even look at me now that he knows it really was all my fault?

  Ixion appears in my bedroom one day.

  I have no idea how long I’ve been here at Smith and Chella’s house. Days, at least. Maybe even longer. Chella brings me meals. I sometimes eat them. Smith brings me alcohol. I don’t drink it, but he does. He turns a chair to the window and sits there, sipping expensive Scotch, looking out at the view of Coors Field with his back to me, and talks.

  Smith talks about his parents. About his childhood up in Aspen. His whole story is fucked up and sorta magical at the same time. He talks about the Club too. Why he agreed to sell it, though he says he had no idea who bought it and neither did Bric or Quin. He talks about his new career saving at-risk teens using boxing as the vehicle. He talks about his stupid dogs, and Chella’s tea room, and the baby.

  I think he just talks to like… put it all in perspective. Help me do the same.

  But Smith has had years to decipher the meaning of his life. Over a decade since his parents died and left him all their money. And I’m just too new at this to fully appreciate it yet.

  I don’t miss the fact that he and Ixion are sort of the same guy with similar stories. I don’t think my father killed Smith’s parents, but at this point, who the fuck knows?

  Anyway, Ixion throws the curtains aside, letting the sunshine hit me in the face. I turn away, like it stings. And it does. The light is so much harder to deal with than the night.

  He says, “I have news for you. I mean, I’m totally OK with you checking out for a while. Hell, I did it for eight years so I’m no one to judge.”

  I huff at that. Because he’s not a hypocrite. Never was.

  “But you should know your dad died yesterday morning.”

  “What?” I say, turning over to look at him.

  “Yeah, massive heart attack, I think. I don’t have any details. Your mom called me looking for you. I didn’t tell her where you were and I suppose she got tired of playing my game, because she finally just told me. So…” Ixion shrugs with his hands. “He’s dead.”

  I sit up in bed. “He’s dead?”

  Ixion nods. “I’m sorry.”

  “And my mom?” I ask. “Do you know where she is?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Home, maybe? You should try there first.” And then he points to a suit hanging on the bathroom door. “Smith left you a suit. You should get up now, Jordan. Because…” He shrugs again. “It’s over.”

  He leaves without further comment.

  I spy my phone on the bedside table and reach for it. Find the battery dead. And decide to get up.

  She isn’t at home. No one is. I go inside to look around, thinking maybe she’s just hiding in her bedroom being sad or something, but she isn’t. No one’s home.

  And she’s not at the hospital, even though I called up Lucinda and asked her to check for me. She left, from what Lucinda can deduce, right after my father died and didn’t come back.

  So the really sad thing that hits me now is… I don’t know her well enough to think of another place she’d go. I have no idea where sh
e’d go.

  So I go to work. I park my car in the garage and walk over to the building, and take the elevator up and enter to complete and utter chaos.

  Well, what did I expect? The founding partner just died.

  I go into the private reception area where my office is located and find Eileen. She spies me, then says, “Oh, thank God you’re back!”

  The place is filled with people rushing back and forth moving boxes of legal papers on dollies. I spy the other two founding partners having a heated conversation in the hallway outside my father’s office, and turn to Eileen. “What the fuck is happening?”

  “Your mother’s here. You should go talk to her. She’s down there. In his office.”

  I nod, that awful sinking feeling back in the pit of my stomach. Because I just know something’s happening. Has been happening for a very long time, I just never saw it coming.

  I push past the other two partners, who don’t even stop their argument to say hello to me, and stand in the doorway.

  My mother is sitting in my father’s oversized chair behind his desk, talking a mile a minute, handing out instructions to the five office assistants as they go through file cabinets and drawers.

  “Mom?” I say. “What’s going on?”

  She stops everything and smiles at me. “Oh, good, you’re back. Everyone,” she says loudly as she claps her hands three times. “Get out. And close the door behind you.”

  I watch as all five people drop what they’re doing and leave.

  “Come here, Jordan. Have a seat.”

  “What the hell is going on?” I repeat.

  “Well,” she says, swiping a piece of hair out of her eyes. She’s still Barbara Bush classy, but with a healthy dose of disheveled added in. She takes a deep breath. “I don’t have time to explain the details, but the short answer is I’ve sold your father’s portion of the firm to the other partners. And… and you quit, Jordan. I handed in your resignation and—”

  “What?”

  “—and you’re done here.”

  “You… fired me?”

  “No,” she says. “You’re not fired. You quit.”

  “But—”

  “You don’t want to work here, Jordan. Trust me. Just… just take the boxes I packed in your office and…” She shrugs. “Well, I was going to say go home, but it’s being sold and we’re having an open house this afternoon. Do you have another home? I mean, I’m assuming you do, since you don’t live with us. But…” She shrugs again. “I have no idea where you live, Jordan. And that’s not your fault—it’s not even my fault, not really. It’s his fault. And it ends today. So… wherever you’ve been staying, go back there.”

  I just stare at her. “Who are you?”

  Which makes her laugh.

  And that unsettles me more. Because… “I mean, Dad just died and—”

  “Yes, that reminds me. Can you handle the funeral? I’ve already contacted the mortuary.” She reaches for her purse and goes fishing through it. “Where is that card? Oh, here.” She thrusts a business card at me and I take it automatically. “Can you call them and make sure everything is taken care of? We’re having the funeral tomorrow. Just… you know, pick whatever you want.”

  “Mom,” I say. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Later, Jordan.” She frowns. “I can’t today, OK? But I’ll explain everything soon. I promise.” And then she presses a button on my father’s desk phone and says, “Can you send everyone back in, please?”

  The door opens and all the people who were ordered out return and get back to work as I stand there, just feeling… stunned.

  I turn and leave, still clutching the business card for the mortuary, push my way past the still-arguing partners, and go into my office. Eileen is standing in the middle of the room behind a dollie stacked with boxes. “These are all your personal things. And don’t worry about me. Your mother is hiring me over at her company.”

  I blink three times. “My mother has a company?”

  “A real-estate business, apparently. I never knew.”

  “Me either.”

  “Well.” She shrugs. “It was a good offer. So I’m not unhappy about it. Do you want some help to your car?”

  “Don’t you think this is weird?”

  “Super weird.” She laughs. “But… you guys have always been weird. So not that unusual. Oh, and before I forget. Finn and Darrel came by yesterday and I sent them home. Your mother was already in control. So you should probably call them and let them know the game is over.”

  I just stare at her. Blink. Say nothing.

  “Jordan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you need some help to your car?”

  I shake my head. “No. Thanks. I got it.”

  “OK,” she says, walking around the dollie. “I’m gonna miss you. Maybe you’ll come by your mom’s office some time and visit?”

  “Sure,” I say, even though I have no idea where that office is.

  And then she’s gone. And I’m left alone in my office with a dollie stacked with boxes.

  I pack up my car, head over to the mortuary, and spend the next five hours dealing with the details of death. And then I go back to Chella’s house.

  Because I feel like there’s no place in this world I belong but there.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I attend the funeral out of obligation and feel like a hypocrite doing so. It’s raining at the gravesite. Coming down in sheets, and we—my mother and me, the only family there—are sitting under a small hastily erected black canopy as the ceremony drags on.

  Everyone else is huddled under large black umbrellas and it kinda pisses me off. That he gets a horrendous thunderstorm as the backdrop to his farewell. Something so dramatic should be reserved for people you’re truly sad to see die.

  I’m not sad and I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think my mother is either.

  We stay there, sitting in our chairs, until everyone else has left. My mother reaches for my hand and says, “Your friend came to see me the day after you left the house that night.”

  I turn in my chair, the rain pelting the roof of the canopy so hard, it makes her hard to hear. “Ixion?” I ask.

  “No. Chella.”

  Chella. “Why?”

  “She was worried about you. And she told me some things. Things I had already found out about because when you left that night, you forgot to take your folder of evidence with you.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I didn’t know, Jordan. But I should’ve suspected. Because when you came back from LA and joined the firm, I decided to get my real-estate license. And I did that so one day, when my nightmare was over, I’d have something of my own to fall back on. Oh, we’re filthy rich, but all that money was his, not mine. And before you say it’s half mine too, I don’t want it. I don’t even need it. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

  “You sent me that listing last year, didn’t you? For the garden mansion.”

  She presses her lips together. “I knew who she was. I suspected what had happened to her. And I couldn’t let him sweep it all away by letting the house be sold in foreclosure. There was too much anger inside me last year. So I sent it to you and hoped. And you, for whatever reason, heard my prayer to keep their story alive, and bought it.”

  “I don’t even know why, though. Why did I buy it?”

  “Because somewhere inside you, you knew too.”

  “I didn’t. I blocked it all out.”

  “I didn’t know who she was, I just knew of her. I knew she got pregnant, that her oldest was your half-brother, and that she married another man and moved on. I forgave her because she was very young and very young people do very young things.”

  “She was the one who came to me in the cabin,” I say.

  “I know. I figured that out from your file. And I’m so, so, so sorry I wasn’t there for you when that happened. I truly had no idea. If I had…” She shakes her head. “I’d have
done this sooner.”

  “Moved out?” I ask, kinda confused.

  “No,” she says. “Got rid of him.”

  “What?”

  “Your friend Chella came and told me what you did for her. She said… she said she owed you but she wasn’t sure how to repay the debt.”

  “She told you I—”

  “She said you helped her with a problem,” my mom says, not letting me finish my sentence. “And she wanted to help you back. So I took care of it. Because I owed you too.”

  “You killed him?”

  “That night you left… well, let’s just say I was done being told to go back to the kitchen. And before you start feeling guilty about this, Jordan, let me just say one more thing about it and then I’ll never speak of it again. He got what he deserved and it was a long time coming.”

  We just sit after that. Listening to the rain. Staring at the gravesite. Trying to understand the new world we both now live in.

  And then she says, “Walk me to my car. I have one more thing to tell you.”

  “We came in a limo,” I say, once I look around and see all the limos are gone.

  “I had my car brought so I could leave on my own terms. It’s right there.”

  She points to a silver S-class Mercedes and we walk towards it, no umbrella, but in no particular hurry, either. I open the driver’s side door for her, then close it and walk around to the passenger side and get in.

  “Reach into the glove box,” she says.

  I do, and pull out a folder. “What’s this?”

  “The will is being read this afternoon, but that’s all yours now. You don’t need to go if you don’t want to. I just wanted to explain two things. One. The building? The one you wanted so bad? It’s yours now. I made sure that was in the new will I drew up.”

  “New will?”

  She smiles at me and pats my cheek. “The partners helped me forge it. That’s what they were fighting about yesterday when you came in. I told them we’d sell them back your father’s stake in the firm for half price if they put their stamp of approval on the new will.”