She read it and lifted an eyebrow.
My cheeks felt warm again.
“You have eight syllables in the second line,” she said. “There’s supposed to be seven.”
I hurried to light a cigarette. “Are you going to fail me now?”
“I might have to,” she said.
“I don’t give a fuck. How’s that? Rules were meant to be broken.”
Miss Whitaker laughed.
Then she started to write.
When she slid the notebook back to me, I was instantly jealous of her handwriting. It was so perfect and elegant. Not like the bubbly scratch that my hand produced. Her writing was slightly angled too. It was just… cool.
October rushes
By the way we once had lived
I won’t change like you
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not fair. You’re really good at that.”
“No. It’s all bullshit.”
“Nothing we write is bullshit,” I said. “So what happened in October?”
Miss Whitaker leaned against the table. “So what happened in front of the fireplace last night?”
“How was your date?”
“How was your date, Belle?” she threw right back at me.
I had nothing to toss back.
It was too early and I needed more than a cigarette and cup of coffee to function as a normal bitch.
“You win this one,” I said.
“If not, I’ll fail you,” she said.
“Thought you were going to help me,” I said.
“Write something else up for me. Pick something in life and tell me a story about it.”
“Right now?”
“Whenever,” Miss Whitaker said. “Now… what in the hell were you doing with Ulysses last night?”
“You don’t want to know the answer to that, Lake,” Uly said as he stepped through the open door. “At least today is cleaning lady day, right? Get those sheets changed.”
“Uly!” I cried out as I stood up.
“Ah,” Miss Whitaker said. “She calls you Uly…”
“Excuse me,” I said. “Ulysses…”
“Your favorite girl here decided to get really drunk at a party. So I saved her. Told her she needed to really consider her life’s decisions or else she’ll end up in a bad place.”
“Like being too close to you,” I said to Uly.
“Oh, this is spectacular,” Miss Whitaker said as she sat back in her chair and lit another cigarette. “Keep going.” She laughed. “And you were so worried about me, Ulysses. Look at this…”
“There is no this,” Uly said.
“Or that,” I said. “Or Them…”
I grabbed my coffee cup and phone and left my cigarette on the table to die a lonely death.
Uly came after me and slid his arms around my body and walked with me until I stopped.
“Good morning, doll,” he whispered as he brushed his lips to my neck.
I wiggled my shoulders. “Don’t play that with me.”
“Why are you so grumpy in the morning? Is it because you were expecting something when you woke up?”
“Please,” I said. “Don’t be so full of yourself. Where did Hil and Ash go?”
“They just had to leave. So sad. I know.”
“Yeah, you seem really torn up about it,” I said. “I need to get my clothes and get out of here.”
“Yeah, you should. I’m tired of you, doll.”
“You wish you were tired of me. You know, this deal we all made… it’s a little boring. I thought things would be much crazier by now.”
Uly grinned. “Look at you. Pushing at temptation. Do you have a dress, Belle?”
“A dress? What kind of dress?”
“A nice dress,” Uly said.
“No… I don’t have a nice dress.”
“Get one,” he said.
“Why?”
“You want things to get crazy, doll? Here’s your chance. I’ll take you to meet my father. That’ll explain everything you need to know about him, Lake, and this house.”
“Are you serious, Uly?” I asked.
Why am I so excited over this?
“Get a nice dress,” he said. “Nothing fucking slutty. You could get one of those for later though. Don’t spend a lot on it. I’ll just rip it into pieces.”
He made my teeth chatter.
He brushed his lips to my neck. “I’ll see you later, Belle.”
As he slid his right hand away from the front of my body, he gently touched my ass.
I jumped forward and he laughed as he walked away.
My teeth chattered again.
There’s no turning back now, Belle… hope you know that.
* * *
I decided to be a good friend as I sat on the front step of Jo’s house, smoking a cigarette, waiting for Callie’s to deliver the dress I ordered. There was no such thing as cheap when it came to BFH so I had to take the chance that Jo would see the charge and get pissed.
Then again, the zeroes at the end of the price of the dress were nothing to her. She probably paid more for coffee in the morning than what I did for the dress. The cost still hit me hard because I thought about prom. Sarah and I tried so hard to save up together for matching dresses. And it did not go well at all. Her mother then surprised her with a day out which Sarah thought was going to be a long lecture on life, but it turned out her mother had been putting money away for Sarah’s dress. It was fucking beautiful and Sarah killed it in the dress. I asked my mother if she had any money I could borrow and she told me that Arnie had taken it all when he left. That had been her boyfriend at the time. Some douche that made well over six figures in construction and he was going to swipe money from my mother? Not a chance in hell.
My thrift store prom dress looked like rags compared to Sarah’s.
Anyway, back to being a good friend…
I checked on Lizzy and Danica.
Danica was alive and well, thanks to her policy of not drinking.
Lizzy responded with one-word answers, which meant she was feeling it.
I sort of stretched the truth a little and told them both on a group text that I was going out with Uly. I bragged about the dress and told them I had no idea where he was taking me.
It had to be somewhere nice, right?
He wanted me to wear a dress to meet his father. Which meant that his father probably had impossible standards to meet. That made a little sense as to why Uly lived in a house alone. To his father that house probably wasn’t good enough.
Fucking rich people…
The black SUV from Callie’s showed up with a box and a red bow on it.
It was amazing they did this.
The driver told me if anything was wrong or if the dress didn’t fit, just to call.
I hurried inside and up to my room.
When I opened the box, I gasped.
It was even prettier in person.
It was black but shimmery when the material moved.
I tried it on and it fit perfect.
I admired myself in the mirror, nodding at a few curves that took me by surprise.
Me being me, I made sure to put a hoodie on over the dress just for added comfort. I was then back outside, now waiting for Uly to show up.
I didn’t order fancy shoes or heels because there was no way in hell I was wearing those things. So I put on my nicest pair of black flip-flops. They didn’t look great but it was better than me falling on my face.
As I waited for Uly, I thought about Miss Whitaker. Her little October poem stuck in my mind. She had been through some stuff in her life. She had a journey to tell.
I grabbed for my phone and opened a text to myself.
Which I always did when ideas came to me.
Vines. Growing and twisting. Like that’s part of life. They just keep going. And if they reach the top of something they reach out for something else. So take an old house that has vines all over it. It’s been smothered. Or protecte
d. Neglected on the inside but the outside getting a hug. The ground that holds the house up is the same ground that feeds the roots to the vines.
She’s not as tall as a tree,
The one that steals the sun for fun,
But me,
I know what I am and where to be.
Maybe not a purpose but a dream.
To move each way,
Each day,
To find a new place,
Because you’re always in the fucking way
I rocked my head back and forth and started to chew on the pointer nail of my right hand.
It wasn’t good. But it wasn’t all that bad.
I almost wished I had asked for Miss Whitaker’s cell number. To send her stuff when it came to me. Get her thoughts on it.
Uly came up the driveway and I texted myself what I had written and stood up.
I had no pockets with the dress and forgot to order a pocketbook.
So I carried my phone and my cigarettes to the car.
Uly got out and was dressed in the same clothes as always.
“What the hell?” I asked him.
“Look at you, doll,” he said. “You better take that hoodie off.”
“You’re not dressed up.”
“I didn’t say I was going to get dressed up.”
“You told me to wear a dress.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Now let me help you get that hoodie off…”
I stepped out of his reach and put my phone and cigarettes on the hood of his car.
I wrestled my way out of the hoodie in a very unflattering way.
But then I saw Uly’s eyes.
They were dark and wide.
His lips came together in an O shape and he exhaled.
“What?”
He moved toward me. “You look fucking perfect, Belle.”
His eyes moved down and stopped at my cleavage.
I felt the heat rise through my body.
The attention wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
I grabbed my stuff off the hood of the car and walked around to my door.
Just to be a prick, Uly didn’t open the door for me.
I got into his car and he hurried to take off down the driveway.
Rich people loved fast cars. And these were the cars meant to go fast. So as Uly sped and cut the wheel to turn onto the street, the car went along with it, no real chance of crashing.
It was sexy. I couldn’t help how I felt.
Watching Uly smoke a cigarette with the window partially open, his right hand on the top of the steering wheel, a couple bracelets on his wrist just dangling there, the black beanie on his head with his messy hair sticking out of the front, sunglasses on his face…
My knees gently knocked together.
“Anything I need to know?” I asked.
“About what?”
“Your father. I mean, I had to wear a dress to meet him. So he must be stuck up or something, right?”
“He’s quiet,” Uly said. “But he sees and knows everything.”
“Can you give me a hint on Miss Whitaker?”
Uly looked at me for a second. “She worked for him. That’s how I met her. Not my story to tell here but things with her career didn’t go so well. My father gave her a chance though. She wrote everything for him. Memos. Legal documents. Everything. She was going to go to law school I think. I’m not sure. My father always thought I was a smart ass, but Lake always said I was smart. She was the first to see it. I still don’t see it.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
“Funny,” Uly said. “But she stuck up for me. Almost got herself fired more than once.”
“And your mother?”
Uly grinned for a second then frowned. “She was more worried about where to get her next tan from. She had and still has a rigid schedule of when to drink, tan, sleep, and repeat.”
“So your parents aren’t… I mean, you know, together?”
“Well, they aren’t together,” Uly said. “They aren’t divorced either. I realized a long time ago to them it was cheaper to stay together. At least for my father’s sake.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
“You get it though, right, doll?” Uly asked.
“I don’t know who my father is, Uly. But when it comes to messed up mothers, sure, put my name in the running for top prize.”
Uly started to slow the car.
He turned off the main road to a narrow paved road.
We started to climb a hill.
“Is this the driveway?” I asked.
“I guess you could say that.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just watch, Belle. Don’t hate me too much when you realize.”
“Hate you? Why would I hate you? And what am I going to…”
My voice trailed off when I realized where we were.
At the top of the hill, yes.
But we were also at a cemetery.
* * *
I started to shake.
“You could put the hoodie back on, doll,” Uly said.
“Why did you tell me to wear a dress?” I asked, trying to control my shock, sadness, and anger.
“To see if you’d listen to me,” Uly said. “And because I wanted to see you in a dress. It was worth it.”
Uly left the car and smoked the rest of his cigarette.
I looked around, shaking at the sight of the house looking white buildings where those who had passed were laid to rest. I never understood how those buildings worked. What was actually in the walls and stuff. And I didn’t want to know.
It creeped me out.
And it also meant Uly’s father was…
I got out of the car and turned my back to Uly so I could fight to get the hoodie on again.
I wasted Jo’s money on a dress for this?
“Uly, your father is dead?” I asked.
He looked at me. “Yeah. What did you think?”
He walked around the car and took my hand and started to walk.
I put on the brakes. “Wait a second. You made it seem…”
“I didn’t lie, doll. Everything I said was true. My mother lives an hour away. Right on the beach. She got a nice check from his estate. She’s set for life. The main shit between them was sold off. His law firm was scooped up by some national company or whatever. The only thing I wanted was the house where I live now. That was my favorite house. My favorite place to stay when I was younger. Lake would basically babysit me there. She loved it too. She was crushed when he died. She looked up to him as a father figure too. Things happened, Belle. I told Lake the house was hers. It works for us. She’s like an older sister to me. A pain in the ass older sister.”
“You saw everything that happened to her,” I said. “That’s why you’re so protective.”
“I’m not protective.”
“Yes, you are. Admit it. You care for her. And it makes sense now.”
“Told you it would. Want to meet him now?”
“No,” I said. “This place scares me.”
“Well, that one in the back over there,” Uly said, pointing. “The biggest one? That’s where the Penton men end up. That’s the end of the road, doll. I have to see that and remind myself that nothing here really matters.”
“It all matters, Uly,” I said.
“Does it? My father wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. But he stayed loyal when he didn’t have to. He made all these fucking plans… and then one day while standing at the window in his office… that was it. He collapsed and was dead. There was nothing anyone could do about it. Done. Gone. Dead. Reduced to a pile of ash that’s stuck in a fucking wall with his name on a gold plate.”
I swallowed hard. “Oh, Uly… is that why you and Them happened?”
“What are you talking about?” Uly asked.
“Them. It makes sense now. You all lost a parent. You get what it feels like…”
Uly backed up and leaned against the hood of his
car. He patted the spot next to him.
I sat next to him.
Uly started to laugh.
Not a smile.
Not a chuckle.
But a full blown laugh.
I shook my head. “What’s so funny?”
Uly looked at me. “The way you care, doll. It’s going to get your heart shattered over and over again.”
“Then maybe I should leave.”
“If you wanted to leave you would have. We didn’t need to take our stand in front of you to keep you around. If the Rulz want to fight, we’ll fight. If Hil and Ash want to blame me, let them. I’m not worried about it. But you…”
“What?” I asked.
“Hate to tell you this, doll, but you were misled again,” Uly said.
“What now?” I asked.
Uly leaned toward me. I smelled his cologne and cigarette smoke. “Not everyone lost a parent.”
“What?”
Uly laughed again. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “Well, you’ve seen where my father is. And you’ve seen the scar on Ash’s head. So…”
Uly turned his head and blew smoke in my face.
My eyes burned.
And then the same for my heart.
I jumped off the hood of the car.
“Figure it out yet, doll?” Uly asked.
I swallowed hard. “Hil’s father isn’t dead.”
Uly moved from the hood of his car and winked at me.
nine
Uly faced me, his right hand touching my cheek.
I smoked a cigarette, stuck once again between confused and angry.
“It’s not my job to spill secrets, doll,” Uly said. “But here we are. This is what you’ve done, Belle. Gotten this whole thing twisted up. I had Ash and Hil come over so they could talk to you. Well, Ash, not Hil.”
“And Ash told me he was going to fuck Lila,” I said. “Until I showed up.”
“Exactly,” Uly whispered. “We all had our plans.”
“I didn’t do anything to anyone.”
“That’s where the story twists.” Uly leaned forward and put his lips to mine.
The second he took his lips away, I put my cigarette in his lips place.
“This is what you wanted, doll. And look, I didn’t even ask for anything. Yet. I’m not sure this is the right place for me to tell you to get those knees of yours dirty. So I could get that dress dirty.”
NOT SO Beautiful: a bay falls high novel Page 9
