Unexpected Bride

by Abigail Graham

  "Nothing. That's just so sweet. I've never been a wallpaper before."

  He snorts. "Go on, get dressed."

  I scamper back to my room, dancing a little as I work the card reader and pop inside. I should be full of dread. Hell, I am full of dread, I'm just too high on pure strain Ryan to care. Quickly, I slip out of my knockaround shorts and bathing suit and slip into an airy, floral sun dress and ballet flats.

  When I step out of my room, Bruce, Karen's husband, is there. He slaps his palm into the wall to stop me from walking past him.

  "Hello, Julia."

  I swallow. "Hi, Bruce. What's up?"

  "My wife is what's up," he says. "How did she find out about the strip club?"

  Ryan's big hand claps on his shoulder and spins him around.

  "Todd told her, you jackass," Ryan snaps.

  Bruce takes a step back, suddenly cowed.

  "Hey, man, nothing..." He notices our hands. "What the hell?"

  I hold mine out and look at my spread fingers. I'm not covering up my ring anymore, and Ryan is wearing his, plainly visible on his big fist as he folds his arms over his chest.

  "Go down to the lobby. I'm going to talk to my sister."

  "Hey," he starts.

  Ryan gives him a short look.

  "Just go."

  Bruce considers him a moment, then scurries off for the elevator. Ryan knocks on Karen's door, and she pulls it open. She looks like death warmed over before a funeral. Her normally lush, immaculately cared for hair is a bird's nest, and she looks like a drowned rat.

  "I guess you had an argument with Bruce," Ryan says.

  "You guess right," she mumbles, walking back into the suite.

  Ryan follows her inside, me on her heels.

  I take her by the arms.

  "I'm going to help her clean up."

  Ryan looks concerned.

  "This is a girl thing. You can't help her now. Just hang out here."

  I guide her into the bedroom and sit her down at the vanity and start brushing her hair. She smiles sadly.

  "Remember when we used to do this when we were kids?" she asks.

  "I do," I say.

  She sighs.

  "I don't know what's going to happen."

  "Me either."

  After a few minutes, she's calmed down and looks presentable. I walk out of the bedroom with her and find that Ryan is gone.

  My phone buzzes, and Karen's goes off in the same instant. We both got the same text.

  Stay there. I'll handle this.

  Chapter Eight

  Ryan

  I tuck in my shirt and straighten my clothes, looking myself over in the mirrored wall of the elevator reflected back through a field of gold. I look tired and drawn, thinner somehow than I was a few minutes ago when I was with Julia.

  Reflexively, I check my watch. The reservation, Dad announced, was for four o'clock, and if I walk at a normal pace, I'll reach the restaurant five minutes early. The sun is out, but there are storm clouds on the horizon, far out over the ocean, as if the sunset decided to show up ahead of schedule. It couldn't be more perfect if it was somehow intentional.

  Dad reserved a private dining room at a restaurant on the second floor of one of the resort buildings, overlooking the ocean. I walk inside, and when a hostess approaches me, I tell her why I'm there. Check my watch again. Six minutes early.

  Dread forms a cold shell over my body as I walk. Makes it hard to move my limbs, like I'm being constricted, strangled. My throat tightens and my stomach coils into a quivering ball. I haven't been this afraid since I was touching down on the deck of a moving ship at sea.

  I stop and take a deep breath. It all just evaporates, the fear, the constriction, all of it. The hostess stops, turns, and looks at me.

  "I'm fine," I say, offering no explanation.

  She demands none.

  "Here we are," she says, gesturing to the big dining room with a long, u-shaped table with enough spots for all the guests.

  Mom is seated at the head of the table, next to the positions of prominence for Karen and her husband. My father stands at the window, looking out at the storm clouds, chin resting on one hand, fingers scratching at stubble. He's wearing a cardigan. In Hawaii. I find that irrationally annoying, but that's not why I'm here.

  I walk over and stand next to him.

  "Have you seen your sister? I asked her and her husband to be here a little early."

  "I told her not to come."

  He turns to me slowly, and for a brief instant, I'm twelve again. Then I wonder, why? Why would I ever be afraid of this twerp? I've got six inches and a hundred pounds of muscle on him, and the most challenging thing he's ever done was push a pen. He likes to crow about how we're both Navy men but, because of who his father was, he never left the continental United States and spent his four-year stint doing paperwork for some admiral.

  Coincidentally, that was a big part of me getting to fly. Yeah, I had the reflexes, and the physical skill, but he put in a word for me and he will never let that go, not ever.

  "I'm sure you did, but I'm also sure she has more sense than that."

  My nostrils flare.

  Memory bursts into my head like an exploding shell, and I'm standing not in Hawaii in a trendy American-Asian fusion restaurant that's noted for its fun spin on international food, I'm standing in that place of sublime dread—my father's study. He's called me to the carpet. Literally; there's a hand-woven Persian rug that costs as much as a small house in front of his great battleship of a desk, which is always pristine. I am seventeen years old, so I have understood for years that his desk is always immaculate because he doesn't actually do anything. He just collects money; dividends, proceeds from accounts he doesn't manage.

  The majority of his time is taken up by the ship on a bottle he's constructed on a second desk behind the first one, built into the wall. It's mahogany, all of it. I can smell the stain and the years of cigar smoke and brandy fumes that have soaked into it. The only thing on his desk is the latest issue of The Economist that he won't read.

  These details etch themselves into my mind because I already know this is going to be important.

  He swivels around to face me in his chair, like a villain in a cheesy spy movie. All he needs is a cat and a monocle to complete the look.

  "I think we need to have a conversation," he says.

  I don't, but I am seventeen years old and my jaw is too tight to open my mouth. It's for the best. I can't predict what I might say to him.

  "Some of the staff have brought something to my attention. You've been paying inordinate attention to that girl the maid brings along with her in the summers. Jessica?"

  "Julia."

  "Yes, her. I'm also told she pays quite a bit of attention to you."

  "And?"

  "You are not to indulge her. I would prefer it if you never spoke to her again. You're an Archer, you don't fuck the help."

  I flinch. This is the second time I've heard my father use that word in my life, and while I will use it many, many times in days to come, in this moment, in this place, it seems profoundly obscene, like he'd said it in church. Portraits of my grandfather and great grandfather flanking his desk stare down at me, disapproval on their patrician faces. Just telling their sons they weren't good enough was insufficient. They had to pay a painter to capture their contempt for all time.

  "Now, I know my son," he goes on, before I can reply. "I know you. You're defiant, you're arrogant, and you'll be more interested in the girl now because I told you nothing can come of it. So let's be clear. If you defy me in this, I'll fire her mother and you'll never see her again."

  "You can't do that."

  "I can't?" he says, casually, as if he had never considered this novel idea I’d just suggested. "Yes, I can. I pick up that phone on my desk, call Harris and say the word, and she gets a pink slip and a check in the mail. Honestly, I would do this anyway, but Maria implored me to allow the girl to remain here for Kare
n's sake, and I agreed."

  "She did?"

  "Yes, she was quite passionate about it, insistent really. Karen needs a friend, though God only knows why. She can make friends at her boarding school and when she goes to university."

  "So that's it," I say. "Was there anything else?"

  "Yes. You're enlisting in the Navy when you graduate. Keep a clean nose this year."

  Without waiting for his leave, the only petty defiance I can muster, I turn and walk out of the office.

  I turn to him now, in the private dining room looking out over the ocean in Hawaii.

  "I've married Julia."

  He just looks at me. Behind me, Mom barks out a loud gasp and jolts shakily to her feet.

  "What? When? Why didn't you tell us?"

  I look at her and rest my hand on her shoulder.

  "Yes, why didn't I tell you?" I ask my father.

  He looks at me, at her.

  "I told the boy that the maid's girl is not a suitable choice for his spouse and that if he defied me in this, he'd be cut off. I'm profoundly tired of his antics."

  "You married her?" Mom asks again. "When? I thought you hadn't seen her since you were teenagers."

  "I hadn't," I say. "We went into a chapel on Thursday night and married."

  "You'll take care of that immediately," Dad says. "You should have thirty days to annul. If there are complications, my attorneys will handle them. The girl will pose no threat. If you prefer, I can arrange a payment for her."

  Mom looks at him and says, in the coldest voice, "You're awful."

  "I'm concerned about his future."

  "No, you're not," I sigh, surprised at how indifferent I sound. "I assume you haven't told Mom what you did to Karen."

  "No," she says, "What did he do?"

  Dad looks at her inscrutably, then at me.

  "What did she tell you?"

  "That you threatened to screw over her work if she didn't do as you say, get married, and have a kid."

  "She's getting old."

  "Old," Mom says, scowling. "Old. Christ, David, she's twenty-six!"

  "As I said, getting old. I wanted to make sure she leads a respectable life, unlike her brother. I've already tolerated a lot of nonsense from her. A career in design or whatever she calls it."

  I blink a few times.

  "Are you completely oblivious to what a complete shithead you are?"

  Mom gasps and grabs my arm.

  Dad stares at me in that flat, emotionless aspect he takes on when he's furious about something.

  "I see you're intractable in this. It doesn't matter. Fine, you're cut off. The credit cards will stop working, the money will stop flowing, and you're on your own. You'll come crawling back to us in a week. You don't care about the girl anyway, she's just a hot lay."

  I don't realize I've struck him until after the fact. I didn't punch him. He's not worthy of a real fight, a contest of strength between men. I slapped him, open handed, and he thumps into the windowed wall and stares at me in absolute shock.

  "You think you can scare me?" I demand. "Do you? Do you? I've already cheated death fifty times. I've done things so difficult and so deadly you'd piss your pants at just a hint of them, and you have the balls to stand there and talk about my wife like that and think I'll just take it?"

  "Stop it!" Mom screams, but it's too late.

  He throws a punch. I duck, twist, catch his wrist and trip him, and flip him onto the floor. Combat training. He cries out and grasps his elbow, his shout folding into a pained whimper.

  "There you are. That's the real you, down there on the floor, terrified. All the money in the world won't do anything for you right here, right now, will it?"

  He rises to his hands and knees. "You're cut off. You—"

  "No, you are cut off. Karen is pregnant. You're never going to see your grandchild. Or any that I father, either, and yes, I will almost certainly be having some. If I don't, it ain't for lack of trying."

  "Maria, talk some sense into him."

  Mom looks at him, at me.

  "I'm leaving too."

  "What?"

  "You heard me. Let's go, Ryan."

  Without another word, she walks for the door.

  Dad stares at her back, then at me, then snarls, rising to his feet.

  "I'll—"

  "Nah," I say, shrugging. "Come on, you're not that stupid. You made your play. You lose."

  "Fine," he says, "I may reconsider if..."

  "No," I shake my head. "No conditions, no argument, no negotiation, none of it. I'm leaving. We're all leaving. Go home and enjoy your legacy."

  I walk out of the dining room, feeling his infuriated state, and know the satisfaction of not looking back. Mom walks next to me across the resort, without a word until we reach the elevator. She finally turns to me as we're riding up.

  "I'm furious," she says. "You got married and I wasn't there."

  I sigh. "Karen said the same thing. Apple, tree, all that."

  "You'll have another ceremony. There will be guests."

  "Yes, that's fine. We already talked about it."

  "I wasn't asking, I was telling."

  I raise an eyebrow.

  She shrugs.

  When we walk out of the elevator, Julia steps out of Karen's suite and motions us over. While I was gone, Karen and Julia apparently ordered the room service menu.

  I mean the entire room service menu. Mom throws the door shut, walks over, and sits down. Without a word, she grabs some crab Rangoon and Julia pours her a glass of that pink wine they all drink.

  "What happened?" Julia sighs.

  "I told him to fuck off and we're all leaving."

  Mom doesn't look at either of them.

  "You're pregnant, and you're married to my son. Go."

  Both women look at each other, wide eyed, and Julia sputters on a crab roll she's biting into.

  "I can explain," she says.

  "I was going to tell you," Karen says in the same instant.

  Mom leans back in the couch and sighs.

  "Ryan," she says, "be a dear and go order us another of everything on the menu and tell them to bring us their finest and most expensive wine before your father does something stupid about the room tab. We girls need to talk."

  Smirking to myself, I walk into Julia's bedroom to use the phone there to make the call.

  When I return, Karen and Julia both look at me.

  "Would you mind? Give us the room?" Julia asks.

  I agree but pause to plant a kiss on her forehead before I step out. The tower has a roof deck bar, not a bad place to spend the waning light. I catch the elevator up and walk over to the bar.

  "What can I get for you?" the bartender asks.

  I start to say "scotch whisky, neat," but stop, and frown, drumming my fingers on the bar.

  "Give me a Diet Coke. No ice."

  He shrugs and squirts the soda into a glass, then passes it to me. It's a little warm with no ice, but it's wet, and my throat is a little dry. I was all smooth control and focus ten minutes ago but now my hands are a shaky mess.

  I could take a drink.

  I could, but I'm not going to.

  I've got responsibilities now. I'm going to have to take care of Julia and probably kick in for taking care of Karen for a while, too, or at least help her out. It startles me to think: I don't have a home of my own, or really much of anything in my own name.

  What I do have is all my pay from my military service. I didn't exactly need it, so I just deposited it all into an investment account and forgot about it. That should last us a while—a year, at least.

  In some ways, this will be an adventure.

  After maybe an hour, Julia comes to bring me back. She takes the drink from my hand and sips it.

  "Diet Coke?" she sputters.

  "Were you expecting to come up here and find me hammered?"

  "Kind of," she says.

  I slip my arm around her waist.

  "No alcoho
l is as thrilling as you."

  "That's not the song lyric," she giggles.

  "Close enough."

  "Come on. You're staying with me tonight, and your mother is staying in Karen's room."

  "What about Bruce?"

  "Oh, screw Bruce," Julia says.

  I chew on that for a bit, and decide I agree.

  We're leaving in the morning, for a new adventure.

  Seattle

  Ryan

  It rains every day here. If not a downpour, at least a drizzle. What's weird to me is that almost none of the locals carry umbrellas. Now that the lease is up on Julia's apartment she'd shared with Karen, we need a new place. Downtown is too expensive.

  Julia's world has been strange to me. Yes, she probably could have had anything she wanted if she'd just asked Karen for it, but she's weirdly stubborn about her independence. Not that I mind. Our car is a twelve-year-old Volkswagen New Beetle in bright blue, and Julia always keeps a fresh flower in the little cup on the dashboard. She calls the car "him" instead of it and invests a strange amount of energy into it.

  We're in a neighborhood called Freemont that used to be a little town of its own that got swallowed up into Seattle. Most of the city is like that. Being from the East Coast and being used to Philly and New York, I'm familiar with cities as packed-in forests of tall towers and close-in buildings sharing walls. Seattle is a lot more spread out and reminds me of the small town near the family estate where I grew up, only on a much, much larger scale.

  The agent showing us the apartment meets us on the sidewalk outside of a music store that specializes in used vinyl. There's a small door between door fronts to a narrow staircase that leads up to a second-floor apartment. The ceilings are low and close in, and I can already tell that one wall, the one facing the street, is almost all huge, arched windows.

  Julia is in love with the place already. I can tell. It's not very big, but it'll do for a start. I don't care as long as she likes it. There's two small bedrooms, so she'll have room for her little studio.

  She's actually the breadwinner right now, though I plan to change that. Karen didn't give her father a chance to wreck their business—she and Julia left when we got back, and left him holding the bag on a tanking business. Julia started selling her art online and has gotten all kinds of commissions for illustrations and book covers, and she's talking to a game company here that wants digitally painted art for a collectible card game.