Unlike Any Other (Unexpected #1)

by Claudia Burgoa

  “I can tell you about the huge list of insecurities that weighed me down; I was a freak.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Simple, Dad. I was fourteen, stupid, and childish?”

  We sit on the couch that faces the large mahogany desk and blue sky.

  “Care to share a little more than that?” Dad’s humorless smile curls the edge of his lips.

  “Not really, Dad, my fourteen-year-old brain decided I was fat, stupid, and ugly.” He frowns. “I wanted to look like the models who you were photographed with. Those women you made movies with. Slim, sophisticated, beautiful…”

  I mumble trying to push away the shame that brought from recognizing it. I wasn’t skinny, my boobs weren’t as big and I had pimples, nothing like those girls. No one had explained to me that airbrushes, Photoshop, and other tricks made them perfect. That in order to look like that, some starved themselves to maintain those perfect camera bodies.

  “Maybe if I did, you wouldn’t be ashamed of me.”

  “Oh, sweetie.”

  “Stupid.” I point at myself. “Then one day, I decided that no one should see me outside my baggy clothes in case they realized I wasn’t perfect. But someone saw me and that someone said the right words. A set of magical words that trapped me…” My eyes water and I can’t continue.

  “Sorry, Daddy.” I shake my head. “I can’t. Not today, please.”

  2015

  I don’t have time to convince AJ to tell me what happened to her. I had somewhat of a lead, and suddenly she closed up entirely and begged me not to pressure her. She gave me those same eyes, the ones where she begs for mercy and to stop torturing her. Like the times when we took her to the hospital for yet another round of blood tests and she was poked several times until they found a vein. The door of the library opens with a big thunk as it slams into the wall. Tall, long blond hair almost reaching his shoulders, blue eyes, and a need to kill someone. JC. He and his brother are my spitting image, but their attitude isn’t mine.

  “What the fuck, old man?” he barks.

  “JC, respect,” AJ talks before I do.

  “Sorry, princess. Did you miss the fucking pregnant woman when you arrived?” He points toward the door while he continues his way in. “Because, believe me, she is real. Damn it, AJ, when you called earlier I thought this was yet another one of his stunts. You blowing things out of proportion and the beginning of another nuclear war between Gabriel and you which we came to stop.”

  Then JC’s eyes harden as he narrows his gaze at me. “Not that I know much about it, but that’s more than a three-month pregnancy. Are you telling me now that you’re a fucking cheater?”

  “You wouldn’t, would you, Dad?” AJ’s posture stiffens and her mouth opens slightly. “You’re not one of those men, Daddy.”

  I rub my face and try to think about what I should say.

  I don’t have enough time to think as MJ enters the room and points at me. “Six fucking months, I can’t believe it. The guy who swore to be in love but couldn’t work things out. You know, learning that shit from the tabloids kind of hurts.”

  MJ touches his chest and glares at me.

  “Dad?” AJ’s glassy eyes widen and I have no choice but to stand up, close the door, lock it, and confront the truth because I’m not losing my daughter again or the respect of the other two either.

  “Nikki is the niece of an old friend.”

  The three of them stare at me, and I feel like a felon trying to convince the jury of my innocence, when I can read on their faces that they’ve already reached the verdict: guilty.

  “A week ago they asked me to take the heat while they figured out what to do… that’s something I won’t talk about. It’s their business, not mine. So far, I haven’t searched for a new relationship or fathered another child. I have no more offspring than you three and that’s enough since at least one of you usually keeps me entertained.”

  “I can’t believe it.” AJ tosses her hands in the air. “You’ll never change; it is still the same shit.”

  “Not my woman,” I repeat. “Not my child, I’m doing a favor,” I blurt, as her green eyes darken and the red rim forms, granting me her best disapproving stare. It matches the gaze the other two are giving me already—there are times they all share one brain.

  “Give me a few hours and she’ll be taken care off,” I promise. “Now that you’re up to date on that issue, I hope you can forgive yet another bad publicity stunt. Can I offer you something, you bunch of brats?”

  “Yes, some food will be welcomed,” AJ pulls her lips hard but her mouth can’t form a smile. “I’m due for some lunch pretty soon, but a snack can fuel me for another hour.”

  JC and MJ blaze out of the room, yelling that they’ve got it.

  “Pump?” I inquire.

  “Up and running, Dad.” She checks on it and gives me two thumbs up. “I don’t let my sugar drop, that’s why I asked for food. You can check my glucose levels; they are where they are supposed to be. Please don’t mother me, Dad.”

  A chuckle escapes me, she always says that when I’m being overbearing.

  “Well, that was awkward.” MJ steps inside holding a glass of orange juice and a protein bar.

  “What?” AJ asks.

  “The woman glared at me like I owe her something, and I just walked around her.” Then MJ’s gaze turns my way. “Does the favor include marrying her… are you marrying her?”

  I shake my head.

  “Dad was telling me our parents’ love story.” AJ takes the glass and drinks everything before talking again. “He assures me that he became an actor so he can bore us to tears as he explains how movies are made.”

  I’m guilty of that. A few times I had paused a movie and explained to them how they added the explosion behind us, or that we had filmed the ending before we shot the beginning. Stuff that no one thinks about as they watch a movie from beginning to end.

  “Did you guys know that Dad’s roommate made him go to a Dreadful Souls’ concert?”

  MJ and JC shake their heads and stare at me waiting for a reason.

  “Why would he make you, Dad?” JC narrows his gaze.

  “Because I slept with his girlfriend.” The heat of embarrassment crawls up my neck as I confess that to my children.

  AJ hisses.

  “We were drunk,” I weakly explain further. “And my roommate was cheating on her with another girl at a frat party.”

  “College kids, never a dull moment.” AJ rolls her eyes dramatically at me, then smiles. “But the best is how not once Christian has said the F-word.”

  MJ and JC laugh hysterically.

  “You need to hear it, it’s over the top.” AJ pats the seat next to her and her brothers actually join her and stare at me with expressions of love and admiration I’m used to seeing.

  “Where was I? Yes, of course, moving to Russia or staying with the crazy musician while searching for an agent and other roles.”

  “I never understood why you wanted to move to Russia, Dad.” JC angles his body, resting his head on the headrest and his legs on his siblings and starts biting an apple while waiting for the conversation to continue.

  “Because Chris had already watched movies with most of the women around the country,” AJ responds.

  “I don’t believe it,” MJ says. “Chris watching movies… like going out on dates. Not happening.”

  “That’s code for having sex, you two,” AJ clarifies. “In fact, I bet Chris said, ‘I fucked the entire female population of the United States and Canada. If you want to marry someone I didn’t fuck, you better move to fucking Russia before I get a visa and…’”

  “Say the F-word one more time AJ and I’ll put you in time out,” I warn her.

  The three of them explode into laughter.

  It’s like
watching them fifteen years ago when their innocence knew nothing about the fucked up world.

  I miss this, having my kids around, my family. My kids I have no doubt will forgive me, I worry about the one I hurt the most as I left our house. How do I say I’m sorry?

  “I’m going to the kitchen to order lunch.” I have to clear my mind and think about my next move.

  “We’re not sharing the table with your new whatever, are we?” JC asks, rising to a sitting position and opens his eyes as big as the apple he’s eating.

  “We’ll eat here, and she’s not my ‘new whatever.’”

  I arrive in the large kitchen where I find Nikki, my pseudo fiancée, talking with Coco, my maid.

  “I can only assure you,” Coco tells her, “those children aren’t reporters. I can’t divulge any further information.”

  She’s worked for us since the children were, in fact, children. Coco went wherever they went. Usually, she prepared lunch and dinner for us as we tried to make breakfast an all family affair. Once the triplets left the nest, she stayed with us because we were too used to having her cook for us. I bet if one of those children asked her to pack up and go with them, she’d do just that and abandon us—or rather, me.

  “Nikki.”

  The girl turns around giving me an annoyed glare. I can’t believe my children thought for one second that I’d consider dating her.

  She’s their age.

  “My family isn’t taking the news well,” I announce. She crosses her arms and switches the weight of her body from one foot to another. “I’m going to make some calls and you’ll have to find some other scapegoat.”

  “But you promised to marry me.”

  My mouth gapes open.

  “No, I said that I’d give you a place to stay until you find another alternative. As agreed, I won’t marry you.”

  I don’t add that I need to divorce in order to marry anyone or that I’m even married for that matter. My separation will never include me signing a bunch of papers that say I’m no longer bound to the love of my life.

  “Coco, can you fix us lunch, please? We’ll eat in the library.”

  “I heard my little girl is here,” Coco says, clasping her hands together.

  I nod. “Then I’ll make sure to cook something special for her.”

  Before I receive a call or a text to send me back to the hell where I took residence three months ago, I send a text of my own.

  Gabe: Our kids are with me in St. Barbara.

  » Should I say congratulations?

  Gabe: For getting AJ back, yes; for the shit published, no. That’s crap and you more than anyone should know it.

  » Ainse? How’s my girl?

  Gabe: It sounds stupid, but she’s a grown up… you need to see her.

  » I’ll try to call her, see if she wants to have Thanksgiving dinner with us.

  Gabe: Can I join?

  »Gabriel, don’t do this. We’ve talked and decided your fucking career is more important. We should file the divorce papers.

  Gabe: I love you, babe, and I won’t sign any papers.

  »You love me so much, there’s a pile of magazines saying you’re getting married—for the first time—and having your first child. I can only imagine how Ainse reacted.

  Gabe: She spent a ton of money on a plane to come and confront me; on the positive side, she came to me. Can we talk?

  » If I’d known, I could’ve done something shitty like you three years ago, and had her at home in no time.

  » Look Gabriel, I love you, but I won’t do the ‘let’s be friends’ for the sake of the kids. They are old enough and I’m too old for this fucked up shit.

  2015

  “What up, Princess?” JC breaks the silence. He could never stand quiet time while growing up.

  He’d hold the clock and showed it to whoever was in charge of us several times until the hour had passed.

  Instead of acknowledging him, I keep my gaze toward the ocean enjoying the scene and the feeling of having almost all my family under the same roof for the first chance in a long time.

  “Did you go a little psycho-bitch on the new woman?”

  “No.” I lightly shake my head as I wonder why I didn’t. That’s something I always thought I’d do if we ever had a stepmom, being Daddy’s little girl and all that. “Other than asking for him and trespassing while screaming his name like a child about to die, no. Did you MJ?”

  “What, go bitch on her?” he chuckles. “No, I’d have to be an annoying sister to be able to pull that off.”

  He grins and blows me a kiss.

  Ugh, annoying brother.

  “Maybe I spoke to her harsher than I should, but can you blame me? Not that long ago, we got the call saying, ‘Your father and I are calling it off.’ They’re splitting holidays now, what the hell? We’re twenty-four, too old to be dealing with immature parents, if you ask me.”

  “Why didn’t they call me?” I ask, aware that I sound like a whiny child.

  “My guess, because you screamed loud enough that everyone in Canada and Alaska could hear you, ‘I hate you. You two are dead to me,’” JC reminds me as he fakes a squeaky voice. “Your own fault, Princess.”

  “Stop calling me that, you know I hate it.” I exhale and turn around finding his humorous eyes waiting for a better comeback.

  I have nothing.

  “Whatever you say, little sister,” he rolls his eyes. “Just don’t go all full-blown bitch on me.”

  “I’m not your little sister,” I correct.

  In fact, I was the first one to be born, but I won’t go back to that eternal discussion. They both gang up on me with the theory that the last is the first and the first is last and then I’m so confused, they win.

  “And for your information, I’m not that bitch you swear I am.”

  “Your ex said something different,” JC’s shoulders lift in a casual shrug. “While living with him you were somehow bipolar and while enraged, a huge bitch.”

  “True story,” MJ confirms.

  I scratch my ear and think about fighting the image they have of me, but I don’t.

  Knowing that if we go that route, I won’t stick around and listen to Dad finish his tale of the most perfect love in the world. And now that I know there’s no baby involved, the plan to fix his marriage is in motion. I change the topic of conversation to a safer one… and one that’s maybe less painful.

  “Back to splitting holidays,” I say. “Are they really doing that? There should be a way to spend them together… we are, after all, a family. Family stays together.”

  “Says the one who left the house years ago,” MJ adds. “Your shit started it all, AJ. Not that what you said wasn’t true… but let me tell you; you opened Pandora’s Box. Tell you what, to make up with the consequences of their separation—” His hand becomes a spider that travels from his opposite arm to his ear. “Because of this new feeling that’s crawling inside my heart and making me an asshole with the entire human race, you get to host Thanksgiving and make them be in the same room.”

  “No, MJ, I think she’s going to have dinner with Mr. Football Coach and family,” JC says with a terrible southern twang. “Aren’t you, Princess?”

  “You two are just ganging up on me, aren’t you?” I take a deep breath. “Sure we can have Thanksgiving at my tiny studio.”

  I don’t own a table big enough, we can eat on the couch, next to Constantine—my baby grand piano. That will be an unforgettable dinner, no way to keep the parents in different rooms unless one is inside the bathroom and the other outside.

  “No, JC, I’m not having dinner with Mr. Scumbag and family. If you must know, his wife isn’t too crazy about me. You can now call me the southern mistress.”

  “Nose goes,” MJ shouts, like when we were children and didn’t want to do a chore. “Arm, I’ll take
the arm of Mr. Scumbag.”

  “No go?” I’m confused as what he’s trying to say.

  “It’s shotgun, Matthew James,” JC growls at him. “You can break his arm, I’ll break his pretty face and then we can pay someone to break his legs.”

  “Now you’re hiring a hit man?” My brother’s imagination is blowing me away. They should stop writing music and should start writing Lifetime movies.

  “It’s the least that guy deserves,” JC waves his hand as if telling me he got it. “He played my sister.”

  “Well, yeah, but that’s like a tradition… remember your friend?” I drop my head and close my eyes momentarily, chiding myself for bringing him back to the table. “He had me as a side dish while he screwed the hot chick from that vampire show.”

  My brothers gaze at each other and shake their heads. Great, they’re hiding something from me. Let’s not break family tradition, but suddenly they start laughing like college frat boys after drinking an entire keg of beer.

  Weird.

  When my father enters the room, my brothers compose themselves and he narrows his eyes at them, knowing they are up to no good. Then he turns his gaze to me. I shrug, indicating that I’m fine.

  “Why is she still thinking Porter dated that vampire chick?” JC throws his hands up in resignation. “Someone might want to inform her about what happened, and who came up with the brilliant idea, Dad.” Then he looks at me. “And the parental units should be informed of the why.”

  JC’s comment and the way he dragged out the last word makes me focus on my father whose skin color is turning a shade of red. My cheeks heat up while my heart accelerates with a bad case of nerves about telling Dad the truth and anger because there’s more to the story about those magazines. You don’t live with celebrities all your life and not know what that might mean.

  One: that my pseudo boyfriend had been hiding the girlfriend for a long time and someone finally caught them.

  Which is the one I believed—still believe.

  Two: they both needed some free publicity, and it sounded like a perfect idea to have them start a relationship.