Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance)

by Graham, Abigail

  I'm not knocking anybody's work here, but that's just not me.

  The Shop, that's what everybody calls the off-limits areas of the museum, is not a very impressive place. It reminds me of the workshop at my high school, really. Big and well lit but somehow dark at the same time, with a smell of oil and sawdust. I only took a design class that was held in the shop for some reason, but the place always creeped me out. I don't like band saws, they look like they crave fingers.

  Mom stares at the painting like it's a lost child. It's sealed in some kind of case within the crate, a block of protective material to keep anything from touching it.

  "It's exquisite," she coos, to no one in particular. "Let's get it into the vault."

  The vault is the dominating feature of the Shop. It was in a bank, once, but when the bank closed during the Depression the museum bought the thing and had a crane drag it out of the bank, and it was brought here and a big concrete bunker cast around it. It takes two people entering an access code and encryption key to get in… Mom's key opens a little door, and Mom puts in the key code and a second code that's some kind of encryption key, that gets rotated every two weeks. Somebody else has to stand at the far side and do the same thing, too far apart for two people to reach.

  I don't know what either code is. I think only Mom and some board members and Anderson know the codes. When she opens the door it hisses as cool, dry air seeps out, curling around my ankles like invisible fingers. The new acquisitions go inside where they rest in prepared places on sturdy shelves, and then the big door slams closed and locks with a heavy, hollow thunk as bolts as big around as my head slide home in equally robust, uh, bolt holes.

  After that, the truck leaves, the staff is dismissed, and Mom walks me to her office.

  That means a trip outside. It's muggy out here, and dark. The museum grounds are well lit, but that only makes the darkness in the world around us that much deeper, and washes out the stars. I've always felt uneasy being outside in this place, and I've lived here since I was seven. I don't think I'll ever feel at ease on the grounds. We live in the original servant's quarters, long since converted into office and housing for the curator and their family, though Mom has a house down at Rehoboth Beach that her sister has named Fort Alimony, since that's what paid for it. We don't spend much time there.

  Mom opens the five locks and lets me in, then closes it and looks at me.

  "Isn't it exciting? We'll be displaying a lost Vermeer here. Attendance levels will double, I'm telling you. The board will be thrilled."

  Yes, I'm terribly excited.

  The house might not be part of the museum, but it feels like one. The antiques and the subtle, masculine air of the leather and dark panelling and rich carpets make me feel like an outsider. Thankfully the rooms upstairs are ours and I don't have to live in a room that looks like the Ghost of Christmas Future will pop in any time to pay me a visit in the middle of the night. (Look, I know that movie is cheesy as hell, but it scared the shit out of me when I was six). For now I follow her to her office, still carrying my messenger bag and its cargo of secret acceptance letters. I got a few rejections and I've already sent cordial thank you letters, but every letter in my bag comes with an offer of at least a half ride scholarship and four of them offer a full ride, so she can't throw it in my face that she's going to be paying for my education. One of the places is even closer than where she wants to send me. I don't see how I can object.

  Ha, right.

  She looks tiny when she sits in the huge antique chair behind her huge antique battleship of a desk, but somehow the room doesn't swallow her, she fills it like it's choking on her aura. I sit in one of the guest chairs and wring my hands.

  "Well? What's got you so nervous?"

  I take the letters out and lean over to rest them on the leather panel in the middle of her desk. She keeps her work area completely neat and organized, like no one is ever in here at all. It's amazing, sometimes, and a little scary. I feel sacrilegious profaning the clean space with the letters. Mom picks them up, and flicks through them one by one, like a card sharp arranging her hand. She pulls one letter from its envelope, smoothes it on the desk with a nervous intensity, and looks up at me after scanning the contents.

  "You've been applying to other schools."

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I've been offered scholarships-"

  "I've already secured a scholarship and a grant for you."

  "Yes, to major in history at the school you picked for me. I'm not sure I want to do that."

  She removes her hands from the letter and it lifts up a little, folding along the lines where it was creased and stuffed into the envelope.

  "Why?" she says, a peculiar tone in her voice.

  "Um," I say, in all my eloquence.

  I've been worrying over this conversation for days and all I can come up with is um. This is going well.

  "I don't want to work in a museum," I add, quickly.

  You know, I wasn't expecting the look on her face. I expected righteous fury, to be matched by my own. The look of shock on her face twists in my chest. It's not disappointment or even anger.

  "I don't understand. I thought you loved it here?"

  "Loved it here? I'm trapped here. I can't stand the idea of spending the rest of my life cooped up here. All I want to do is get away."

  "You'll have a chance to spread your wings at school."

  "Right, then come right back here to work as your intern or whatever. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this place. I'm not interested in any of this stuff. I could care less about some old painting."

  She bites her lip and sneers. She does that when she's really, really mad.

  "You could have said something before I prostrated myself and begged and, borrowed, and stole to get you appointments and grants. I call in all my favors. I thought you wanted this. Why have you never brought this to me before?"

  "I…" I trail off. "I can't talk to you. I can talk at you, but you don't hear what I have to say, you hear what you think I should be saying. You dismiss me and if I want to do anything I want, I have to beg and plead and if you don't like it, your word is final. I've never had any say about anything in my life. You pick my friends, you picked my school, you've even been trying to push that jackass Lucas on me."

  "Lucas is a fine young man, and he likes you quite a bit."

  "He likes what's in my bra. The rest of me is just annoying."

  She's flushed red now, and if she bits her lip any harder she'd draw blood.

  "Out. Take those and go. We'll talk about this later."

  "I'm going to pick my own…"

  "Go ahead," she says, her tones dripping with acid. "Go ahead and pick whichever one you like, and you'll be on your own. No financial support from me."

  "Didn't you hear me? I've been offered scholarships…"

  "Good. I hope they include a budget for food."

  "Um. I think they do. There's a meal plan…"

  "Out," she snaps. “The new wing opens in two months and I have mountains of work to do. I don't have time for this. We'll talk about this tomorrow. By then I expect you'll have gotten this out of your system."

  I just stare at her for a few seconds, and then collect my letters when the weight of her own gaze all but shoves me out the door. I close it behind me and trudge up to my bedroom.

  Once inside, I lock the door, flop the bag on my desk chair and drop onto the bed, exhausted and defeated. She does have a point. I could live on the meal plan alone, but it would be tough. I think they don't even pay for all three meals on weekends, and there's more than just meals, there's all the little things. I could look into getting a job, but what if I can't find anything? Depending on where I go, there might not be any work, no matter how hard I look.

  I'd take whatever I could get, but to keep the scholarships I'm being offered I'd need to maintain an exceptional average in very rigorous programs. Still, I wouldn't need much, and once I put some
time in on it, I'm sure Mom will turn herself around and support me.

  Right?

  Even if she doesn't, I'm sure I can find something part time, like a grocery store or something. A weekend job with a full ride on the room and board would be more than enough.

  Sleep comes fitfully to me, in bursts, and I spend half the night staring at the walls and worrying. This room has been my home since Mom took her position here, two years after Dad left us. I haven't seen him since. He remarried and lives in Texas now. I have a half-sister I've never met; her name is Sarah. I would like to meet her, someday. She is my blood, after all.

  Mom would flip out if I even hinted at an interest. Think she was cold tonight? Bring up my father in conversation, and the temperature in the room drops to hypothermia levels. His fault, though. He's the one that stepped out on her. I remember when my mother was different. She was actually nice, for one thing. Sometimes she can be like that, now and then. It's like she forgets everything for a while and then some little thing reminds her and ruins it and she hardens up again and turns to stone, like tonight.

  I worked my ass off to get where I am. 4.0 average, all the extracurriculars (she approved of that, it made getting me a spot at her school of choice that much easier) all the begging and kissing up for recommendation letters and all that. All of it for nothing, tossed out the window like it's meaningless. I'm starting to feel bad for getting so worked up over this. There are people out there with a lot bigger problems than "My Mommy won't give me an allowance so I can’t go to the college I pick."

  Except that's not the problem is it?

  My life isn't my own. It's her way or the highway. I already know I'm going to cave in to her again. I'll end up enrolling in her program of choice, pursuing her career of choice, living her life of choice. I'll end up back here, married to the museum like she is. Or worse, to Lucas. I can't stand that prick, and she practically sets me up on dates with him. Like I'm a six year old again, and she's trying to pick my friends. That is the limit of her interest in my having a social life.

  At some point I actually get to sleep.

  When I rise in the morning, there's a note taped to our kitchen table. Mom is out, the car is mine if I want to use it. The idea of hanging around the museum all day is less than appealing, but I don't have a lot of options. I end up showering, munching down a bowl of Captain Crunch, dry, and head down to the car.

  Between her precious painting and the new wing, she'll be working twelve hour days, seven days a week. What I do during that time, as long as I don't get arrested, is not her concern, usually. Now that I've graduated and it's all over I'm in this weird interregnum between being a high school student and a college student and I don't know what to do with myself.

  I guess I'm an adult now. An era of my life is over, and all that crap. I can't stand that nonsense. Being an adult doesn't feel much different than being almost an adult, to be brutally honest. If I ever leave my mom's shadow, it's going to be a long, long time from now. I snatch the car keys and trudge down to start up the 1999 Honda that my mother refers to, charitably, as The Car.

  It putters to life and I head down the access road, tap in the pin number to the back gate and watch it rumble open. This whole estate is like a castle. It's a ten minute trip to town.

  It would be a pleasant drive if I wasn't so used to it. The place has the unlikely name of Persistence, Pennsylvania, really a suburb slash bedroom community for Philadelphia. Once it was a cute little village of maybe three thousand people, but that's increased by a factor of five and now the quaint old town is lost in a sea of chain stores, big boxes, and metroplexes. It's full of people that live in developments with names like Huntley Chase at the Mews by the Brook and stuff. I don't even know what a mews is, but Persistence has five of them. I think. I stopped counting.

  Parking in the old town is easy this early on Saturday morning. I drift down the sidewalk, wishing it were later in the day so I could hit Antonio's and get a cheesesteak. Everybody complains there's no good pizza places out here, but Antonios has the best greasy takeout food in the world. Their calzones are just incredible.

  I end up wandering into Hermitage Books. Hank Hermitage runs the place, and it's the hangout for all the local witchy types, like wiccans and stuff. It's also the only bookstore in Persistence. We had a Borders, but it closed when the company folded. Now the only way to buy books besides this shop is drive to Philadelphia, or try to find another independent bookstore.

  About a third of the floorspace is dedicated to the occult crap. I have a drawer full of stuff back at home, pendulums and tarot cards and something my friend Charity called a "mojo bag". I even bought some of the magic books he sells, but I couldn't get any of it to work.

  Besides the books, there's a newsstand type section and the real source of most of the business the place generates, the cafe slash deli slash coffee shop. At least I don't have to sit in a coffee house with a clever pun name. We had one of those, Black to Black, but it went out of business last year.

  Hank's niece Charity works the counter on weekends. She's full into the witchy stuff, with a pentagram hanging around her neck, a lot of black clothes, purple lipstick and a ring through her lip. She looks like Hot Topic barfed on her.

  We're friends.

  Still have to pay for coffee. She mixes me up a "Mocha Choca La-Ta-Ya-Ya", the special, and one for herself. She doesn't have to pay for her own coffee.

  I still have to pay. Did I mention that?

  She on the sofa next to me.

  "So how'd it go?"

  I let out a long sigh.

  "That well, huh?"

  "If I don't go where she says, I'm cut off."

  "So? The scholarship-"

  "Isn't going to buy me laundry detergent and pencils. I still need her support."

  "Or you could get a job," she says.

  "I could work over the summer," I shrug. "Save up. I don't think I can juggle a job and the kind of programs I'm looking at. Biotech stuff is pretty unforgiving. Lots of long hours studying. Labs and stuff."

  It wasn't like I'd never worked before. I had two summer jobs; Mom thought it was great I was being responsible and all that. Meaning I was out of the house and out of her hair during the summer. My favorite was working here. I'd never have met Charity otherwise.

  She punches me in the side when she realizes I've drifted away on her, mid-conversation.

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  I'm about to tell her when the door chimes, and in walks Lucas McCray. Nothing could make this day worse than Lucas showing up. It can't just be coincidence that he's decided to walk in here. Lucas and books aren't exactly well acquainted, and as far as I know he doesn't drink coffee, either. Since literacy and caffeine don't spark his interest, there isn't much here for him. Except me.

  "There you are. I saw your mom's car parked down the street."

  "Hello, Lucas." My voice drips with contempt.

  He sits down next to me and drapes his arms over my shoulders. He smells like cheap cologne, something with a ship on the bottle. He's got a scrubby blonde stubble dusting his cheeks, but that's the only flaw in his otherwise perfect appearance. I seem to be the only person who realizes what kind of a viper is hiding behind the blue eyes, the designer wardrobe, and the killer bod. Even Charity gives him a good eye groping, though she's not even on his radar.

  "Party tomorrow night at my place. Time to celebrate our freedom."

  I shift away from him and shrug out from under his arm. "Not interested. Go away, Lucas."

  He grins. He honestly thinks I'm playing hard to get. He doesn't seem to grasp that I can't stand him.

  "Why don't we go get something to eat?"

  I'd rather swallow a dead goldfish. I'd rather snort a dead goldfish.

  "Not interested. Go away, Lucas."

  "I think you should leave," Charity chimes in.

  He looks at her like she's a particularly disgusting insect.

  I rise to my feet.
"Piss off, Lucas."

  He rises in front of me. He's a lot bigger than I am. About twice as wide, a foot taller and outweighs me by who knows how much. The door chimes again, but his eyes don't leave me.

  Lucas looks over my shoulder. "Fuck off. This is a private conversation."

  "Excuse me?"

  I glance over my shoulder and feel a cold shudder, like goosepimples breaking out all over. Oh wow. I've never seen this guy before, but he's hot, like otherworldly male supermodel underwear on a billboard hot, the kind of hot that makes something simple like khaki slacks and a tight black polo shirt look good.

  He's lean and spare where Lucas is heavy and overbuilt, lithe and graceful in an almost predatory way. I can't place his age except 'older', like twenty maybe. Black hair, fair skin, hazel eyes with a slight tilt to them. The look he gives Lucas, half grin and half challenge, makes me think 'cheshire cat'.

  "You heard me, I said fuck off."

  The stranger flinches. "Hey, now. No need for the attitude. I just wanted a cup of coffee."

  Charity gets up. "What can I get you?"

  "I don't know what a Mocha Chocka La-Ta-Ya-Ya is, but I'm dying to find out."

  "Let's talk outside," Lucas says, and grabs my arm.

  I try to shake loose, but he doesn't let go.

  "Get off me."

  "Hey," the stranger barks, "You heard her. Hands off."

  "Lucas," Charity says, her voice edged with warning. "I'll call the sheriff."

  I give another tug, and his hand doesn't budge. The stranger walks over, hands in his pockets.

  "Hey, man. I really think you need to let go of her arm."

  Lucas does let go, but shoves the stranger instead. He tries to, anyway. The other guy just sort of melts out of the way, pivoting on his feet and ducking back without losing his balance in a way that makes my stomach roll just to watch. Lucas stumbled past him, spins around and bares his teeth in a sneer.

  "I wouldn't," the stranger says.

  There's an excited undertone to his voice, like he means I wouldn't, but I hope you will. The way he's standing he looks like he could dash into movement at any moment, his hands already in loose fists, a kind of relaxed tension stilling his movements. He looks like a marionette hanging by invisible strings.