Bittersweet Wreckage Read online

  ~*~

  I did my morning routine and checked on Mom. Out like a light, she slobbered to rival a bulldog on her side of the bed. Dad’s pillow had no indentation from his head, his side of the bed untouched, the covers hardly out of place. A weird wistfulness overcame me before I booted it to the curb and quietly left the room.

  In the dining nook, Kristen was eating leftovers for breakfast from the jammed refrigerator. The absent blue vase had no place in the here and now, and I hardly missed its constant presence on the table. I ought to frame my confessional note as my last words to my father.

  “Hey.” I nearly ran to the coffee machine for my morning chocolate, sugar, and caffeine lifeline.

  “What up?” Kristen took in my short-short denim shorts and tight tank top. Mariana had talked me into buying the clothes months ago, but they’d remained on Dad’s no-fly list. “Wow, kid. When did you buy boobs and legs?” Kristen’s eyes rounded. “And a butt?”

  “Shut up.” I grinned. “Following in your footsteps, I guess. Just took me longer.” Although I’d quit growing taller at five-eight two years ago, I’d kept developing in other areas that freaked me out. Poor Kristen had topped out at a runty five-five when she’d turned thirteen, but her boobs had a life of their own.

  “Dad would drape you in a nun’s frock and lock you up if he saw you wearing that get-up.” Kristen dumped her plate in the sink. For me to clean up later. Argh!

  “Well Dad’s not here anymore, is he?” My fingers burned as I picked up my coffee and brought it to the table to lay into the goodies from the smorgasbord Kristen had spread onto every inch of table real estate. I still had a hard time believing the devil had departed our plane of existence and returned home.

  “Do you need a ride to the airport?”

  “No.” She followed me into the family room, unbuttoning another button on her pink polo shirt, revealing a dose of boobage. “I’m driving Dad’s toy to LA.”

  I spun around, slopping coffee over the side of the cup and onto the wool rug. We’d picked up the sports car on Sunday from the Santa Cruz harbor parking lot. “What?”

  Kristen smirked, geared to slay the beast awakening within me. “Mom said I could take it. I’m going to sell it for her.”

  “Are you serious?” I sifted my loose hair back to view my conniving sister better. “You’re selling it for spending money, aren’t you?”

  “Mom doesn’t want it in the garage. You know she hates that car.”

  “Because it was an extension of Dad’s you-know-what?”

  “You’re so screwed up.” She stormed from the room.

  “Don’t steal the Porsche or anything else while you’re at it,” I shouted. “Make sure you send Mom a cashier’s check after you sell it.” Fat chance of ever seeing a dime.

  In that moment, digging into our finances became paramount. My mother had no clue how to run the household. Dad had handled everything. Did we have enough money to pay our bills, to buy groceries and drugs to keep Mom in line? If Dad hadn’t left a pot of savings and a life insurance policy, we’d need the money from selling the car or else Kristen could kiss her tuition and housing checks goodbye. My drug-addled mother, who hadn’t worked at a paying job in over twenty years, needed to get a real job.

  Chapter 8

  I wanted to believe life had spun a one-eighty on Mom and me. No dice. Although the eggshells we tiptoed over had vanished, we settled into a strange new routine where I became the parent.

  Mom turned into an antidepressant and antianxiety drug receptacle. She walked heavier than usual, and then flitted about not knowing where to settle. Finally, she took up residence on the family room couch during daylight hours for easy access to the kitchen and bar.

  A new awareness of household finances earned my respect and a place in my stress receptors. Mom didn’t give a crap about the household bills, buying food, cleaning the house. Nothing. She lived for daytime TV, drug cocktails, an evening drink or two, our forbidden junk food stash, and sleep. She’d let herself slide into slovenly land, wearing baggy T-shirts and workout shorts. All the things Dad hated. I applauded the downward spiral into comfy clothes and junk food. The rest, not so much.

  Now she was snoozing on the couch, the TV blaring while the yard maintenance crew blasted lawnmowers and blowers in the backyard. The sound deafened and Dad’s office at the front of the house quickly became my quiet zone. I’d already plowed through the bills and bank accounts, and discovered that most bills were charged to their joint credit card. I created a spreadsheet and keyed in the monthly amounts of every bill. The ginormous mortgage payment rocked me to my core. A month’s salary at an entry-level job for Mom wouldn’t cover half the mortgage, let alone groceries, water, trash service, and all the other bills that kept the house and family functioning. Such as the humongous monthly landscaper check I had to cut that day.

  I’d found Dad’s passwords tucked under his desk pad… the first place a hacker would look. In the dictionary under the word “dumbass” was a picture of Leo Lynwood with his social security number plastered across his forehead.

  Accessing the main credit card account, I noticed recent and hefty charges at a Hollywood couture shop, and at Target near UCLA. “Son of a Kristen bitch. Racking up charges as though the pot of gold ended in a bank vault.” It took me a half hour, but I figured out how to restrict purchases to fifty bucks each. “That’ll teach you.” I didn’t want to cut her off completely. Yet. I checked the other two credit cards, and was relieved to find that she didn’t have access to them.

  After analyzing the spreadsheet and calculating our zero intake and a king’s ransom outflow, I decided to cancel the housekeeping service and put the landscapers on bi-weekly service versus weekly. We’d have to downgrade our TV package and cancel Dad’s cell phone to trim more. I contemplated cancelling the landline phone.

  “Cell phone.” I banged my palm on my forehead. I’d totally forgotten about snooping through Mom’s cell hidden in my dresser. I checked the time. Later, I’d snoop through both parental phones to satisfy my morbid curiosity. First, I needed to meet Dad’s admin at his former office in the tech sector in north San Jose.

  I dashed to the family room to grab my keys and purse, muted the screaming who’s-your-baby-daddy daytime show, and woke Mom.

  “I’m picking up Dad’s belongings from his office. When I get back, we need to go over the bills. ’Kay?” This parental role had gone to my head. Someone had to toe the line. I voted for my two semesters of high school finance versus Mom’s forty-plus years of ignorant bliss.

  She brushed cookie crumbs off her blouse onto the rug. “I’ll take a shower and get my act together.” She stretched out a weak hand, her fingers stopping short of curling around my wrist, drooping onto her stomach. “Thank you.”

  I toyed with the strap on my purse, its frayed edge a reminder of my constant turmoil that had changed direction, but not dissolved. “You realize you’ll need to get a job, right?”

  “It can wait.” She hugged a toss pillow to her chest. “He had a life insurance policy. It’ll cover us.”

  My spirits soared. “Hope so. Our savings account will only last about five or six months if we’re careful.” At least Dad had the foresight to stash money away. Surely, he never wanted to leave us in the lurch if he died. Oh right, we’re talking about Leo Lynwood, purveyor of whores. Who knew how much he spent on them?

  Despite Dad’s tight fist, he’d been generous when it benefited him or his status. Anxiety snaked in my gut as I realized we’d have to tighten our belts to near suffocating. Did Mom have a clue how much money Dad had made? Had being the operative word. Her expertise leaned more toward the historical significance of lettuce.

  “He has a stock portfolio too. We can dip into that.” She tried to gesture, but her hands kept drooping like wet noodles onto her pillow. “I can’t think. My head’s killing me. Talk later, ’kay?”

  “Don’t you mean we?” I asked. “The money and stock were yours
too.”

  Silence. A snore. Too late. I’d missed my window of lucidity. The landscapers shut down their power tools and snores filled the room. Her snoring had evolved from delicate, loud breathing Before Death to buzz saw level After Dad. I relocated her glass of cherry cola to the center of the coffee table before she knocked it onto the crumb-speckled rug. Dad hated soda and never allowed it in the house, unless it was soda water for the bar. Mom and I sneaked it in whenever he was traveling. We kept a stash hidden in the pantry, while a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge covered for our indulgence. The daily Ivy Spitini was sooo much better for a body than an occasional soda. I skedaddled before I changed my mind about my pending task.

  Weekday lunch traffic congested the downtown streets. Fortunately, no one had the balls to park in Dad’s spot in the three-story parking structure. I walked into the reception room on the top floor of the corporate building and asked for Melody.

  “Ivy, good to see you. How are you? How’s your mom?” Melody greeted me from the open door to my right. Although I made cracks about her laziness, I truly believed she was a nice person and Dad had created the beast by dumping tasks meant for her onto me. Mousy brown hair, glasses, and twenty pounds of extra weight placed Melody in the average category. Average lucked out, or else Dad would’ve bagged and banged her too. Shut up, Ivy, my brain screamed at me.

  Disconcerted and jittery, I joined her in the wide, marbled hallway leading to the executive offices. “I’m dealing, under the circumstances. Thanks for asking.” No need to bounce my true feelings off her, or reveal Mom’s current couch-potato-druggie persona. Did she know about Dad’s mistress? Ideas bloomed. Did she know Jay? Wings of fiery torture assaulted my middle region. I didn’t know why I wanted to see him again. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have enough problems. You know, like playing the parental voice of reason to a forty-five-year-old child.

  By the time we reached Dad’s office, eagerness bounced me on my toes. A flip-lidded box sat on his cleared desk. The executive office hardly appeared different, since all his personal belongings fit into one stinking banker’s box. The medieval decorations, the fake sword, the English shield, two castle paintings, and other knickknacks belonged to the corporation, since each executive received a decorating budget upon receiving their highfalutin corporate officer status.

  “Melody, can I ask you a few questions?” Claiming the box, I set my purse on top of it.

  She waved at the couch. “Sure.”

  Bare thighs sliding on the leather cushion, I turned to her, wiping my damp palms on my denim shorts. “Did you know my father had a mistress?” Why sugarcoat it now that the lid had blown off?

  Picking at invisible fuzz on her knee-grazing, gray skirt, Melody said in a stage whisper, “I covered for him a lot. I’m really sorry. But I did what he asked without question. There weren’t any other openings in the executive offices and I really enjoy it here.”

  “More than one affair?”

  “He never associated names with his private appointments.” She lifted her fingers on her thigh and tapped them one by one.

  “How long?”

  “At least three years, since he joined the corporate headquarters. That’s when I was hired to work for him.”

  “Oh. You don’t know the identity of the woman?”

  Her fingers tapped another drum solo. “Sorry, I really don’t know anything else.”

  She needed a license to be that evasive. I wanted to punch something. I stood, pulling my shorts down from riding up into places they didn’t belong. “I need to cancel my internship. I’ll probably have to get a paying job.” I hated to lose out on the internship, but more than anything, I needed separation from anything Dad related. I needed it to dance past the reminders, and the small amount of grief shooting holes in my looming liberation.

  “It’s still open if you want it.”

  “Better if you cancel. Thanks.”

  “I’ll let HR know.” She handed me a flash drive. “All your father’s work benefits are explained, including info on how to access the various insurances and such. Other documents are in the box. Payroll said his final check would be deposited on the fifteenth. Any vested company stock will be deposited into his brokerage account.” I stuck the flash drive in a zippered pocket of my purse. “If you need any help, call me.”

  I hugged her, grateful to have the assist and a promise for future help. Which reminded me…

  “Melody? Do you know of a teenage son of an employee by the name of Jay?”

  She did a slitty-eyed, racking-the-brain-cells look. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

  “A boy I met at the wake.” I reached to pick up the box.

  “Hold on.” She called in the shipping boy passing down the corridor pushing a cart of mail and boxes. “Will, can you carry this out to Ivy’s car?” I’d met Will once before and knew about his summer job there.

  “Sure.” He hefted the box into his arms. Lean and a couple inches taller than me, seventeen-year-old Will had wavy brown hair and a light complexion, as if the sun was his enemy. A few acne scars dotted his cheeks, which gave his plain face character. And he had amazing bright blue eyes, the kind you wanted to dip into and float off to paradise. I remembered him as the son of a peer to Dad. I knew Will a little after getting stuck sitting next to him at last year’s Christmas party. A flush wormed up my chest when he noticed me checking him out.

  He pressed the elevator button. “Sorry about your dad.”

  “Thanks.” I wanted to hear someone say, “about time the grim reaper called your dad home,” or “thank God someone punched his ticket to hell.” Had Dad lived a different life at work? How many personalities did he trot out to other people?

  Will and I made an uncomfortable hushed walk to my SUV. He pushed the box into the cargo hold, and I waited for his brain to achieve its right to abort, speak, bark, or do something.

  I pulled the hatch down and broke the barrier of silence. “Um, did you ever meet a boy here by the name of Jay? Seventeen, eighteen, son of an employee.”

  Will scratched his temple, jiggering his brainwaves until I thought he’d wind up with a thatch of hair in his hand. “No. Why?”

  “Met him at the funeral. Just curious.” I skipped to a safer topic. “So how well did you know my dad?”

  “Not well. I delivered packages to him and helped Melody pack his office. He never had any pictures of his family on his desk. It was weird.”

  “Okay.” I pressed my purse to my hip. “He was a private man.” I felt the need to defend him, or make excuses as to why he didn’t keep family photos on his desk. Too many choices. Eenie, meenie, miney, moe. Which significant other should I display to the public?

  A flush worked its way down to his neck, giving him needed color. Hey, red’s a color. “Melody thought we could get to know each other this summer.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “Do you want to hang out sometime?”

  Whoa, what? I blinked up a breeze. “I just cancelled my internship.”

  “Oh—”

  The strangling four faces of evil still influenced every facet of my life, including the life where I never dated. I’d never wanted to subject a boy to his polarizing assholeness, not that he’d ever grant me the right to date. Kristen snuck around for ages, got caught, almost caught, grounded and worse. Her virginity had waved the welcome signs over three years ago. It’d flipped Dad the bird on its way out the door and he never caught on. All in all, it totally was never worth the hassle to incur the wrath of his multiple personalities.

  But that was over now. I held up a hand to forestall him. “I mean, sure, yeah, I’d like that.” Maybe he’d shed light on my dysfunctional life, or distract me enough to spin to that elusive one-eighty.

  His smile lit up his face and his straight, shiny teeth lent a handsomeness to him not so obvious at first glance. “Cool. Give me your phone.”

  I handed him my cell and he punched in his digits, then punched in my digits on
his phone. “Friday, dinner?”

  “Sure. I can meet you someplace.” I didn’t feel comfortable giving up my independence by letting him drive me, especially if the date didn’t go well. I may be blonde, but this blonde still had a code to live by.

  “Cool. I’ll text you.”

  An awkward cool silence descended. Hug or shake hands? We did neither and he strutted away, one glimpse over his shoulder, shooting me his face-transforming grin. Did a boy just ask me out? On a date? What a weirdly horrible and wild week.

  Anticipation worked its way inside me, couched the farther I drove into the Almaden Hills. Will didn’t set off the pulse-quickening, butterfly-tickling, and heat-swamping sensations that Jay had. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel so oddly wonderful again.

  The checked-out dopehead still occupied the couch where I’d left her. I dumped the box in Dad’s office, a room Mom hadn’t set foot in since we’d rearranged his presentation.

  I kicked off my flip-flops, toeing them beside the door, putting my own footprint, literally, in the inner sanctum of Jerks ’R’ Us’ former headquarters. I left the door wide open for the first time ever. The office belonged to me until Mom snapped out of her stupor and rejoined the living.

  I strolled down the hallway and punched the air conditioner temperature down several notches, well past the mandated temperature. “Take that!” I scrubbed my hands together. My badassness was going to town.

  “Mom, wake up.” I noticed the dark wet spot on the rug and the glass of cherry cola tipped in a puddle on the table. I righted the glass, shrugged at the mess. Let her deal.

  Making gross noises, her mouth smacked and twisted against the desert storm invasion. “What time is it? Did you go to the office yet?”

  I crashed onto Dad’s leather recliner sideways, swinging my legs over the arm, a complete infraction of The Rules. “Been there and back. We need to talk finances.”

  “Order pizza and we’ll talk over dinner.” Her eyelids fluttered open and she blocked the evening sunlight streaming through the western windows, bathing the earth-toned couch in rays of gold and amber. “Don’t sit like that. Dad will…” Her hand flew to her mouth.