Bittersweet Wreckage Read online

  I called Kristen to knock sense back into myself. My tone started calm, contradicting the storm brewing. “Have you sold the convertible yet?”

  “Working on it.”

  The storm erupted, a tornado of rage. “You’re not gonna believe what Mom did.”

  “Now what?” Kristen whined.

  “Dad’s dead mistress orphaned two teenage kids. His kids. Who now live in our house. Our mother just became their foster mother. We have a new brother and sister. Yay us.”

  “Ivy, cut the crap,” Kristen wailed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Who’d kid about Lifetime movie fuel? Kristen absorbed my tale of Leo and the whore’s lame life and conveniently passed out, her roommate clicking off the phone and promising Kristen would call back.

  As I grabbed my purse, a text chirped—Will confirming our date for tomorrow. Son of a messed-up life. I’d forgotten about him. I poised my thumb over my keyboard to text him my apologies and cancellation. At the Christmas party, he’d been a good listener, better than most of the male species. I needed to rant to someone. Though I wasn’t super attracted to him, not like the twisted feelings I experienced for Jesse, going out might lead to a greater friendship if we gave ourselves a shot.

  I shivered hard. I needed brain bleach to scrub out the sick, incestuous thoughts. Will was exactly what I needed. Nervous for the first time, I confirmed the date. Seventeen and perpetually dateless. I was so lame at boys, death, and life.

  Heavy booted footsteps clomped down the stairs. The call of the Goth prodded me into gear. I followed Jade, a mirror image of yesterday, to the kitchen. Had she even changed clothes or taken off her makeup? Jesse wore a faded black rock-band T-shirt and smelled of his spicy cologne I dared not wallow in.

  “Help yourselves to anything to eat.” I snagged an oatmeal breakfast bar out of the pantry and set the box on the counter.

  “Your kitchen always so spotless?” Jesse shook out two bars and handed one to Jade.

  “My dad demanded perfection.” I shrugged. “Old habits. Hard to break. Mom and I are used to it, I guess.”

  “You mean our dad?” Jade ripped off the wrapper to her bar and tossed it on the counter. She grabbed a bottle of chocolate milk out of the fridge and flung the plastic top into the sink.

  “Jay, knock it off.” Jesse picked up the discarded wrapper and dumped it into the trash compactor. “If they want the kitchen kept clean, do your part.”

  “Shut up, JJ.” She sauntered into the family room, deliberately shaking crumbs onto the floor, and stared out the French doors into the backyard. The swimming pool sparkled, the morning sun tossing glittering diamonds onto the surface at the far end. “Must be nice living in a resort. Where’re the pool boys? The maid?” She splashed drops of chocolate milk onto the toss rug in front of the doors.

  “Ignore her.” Jesse shook his head. “Where are the boxes? I’m really sorry about this.”

  Taken aback, I stared at him. “Sorry about what?” About leading me on? Lying? Giving into your incestuous inclinations and kissing me?

  He shrugged, dug his hands in his front pockets. “Everything. That we’re disrupting your life. Do you mind driving us to Santa Cruz? I didn’t ask if we’re screwing up your day.”

  I studied my gladiator sandals, noticing the peeling purple polish on my toes. “Thanks. I didn’t have any plans other than to go through our finances.”

  He flicked his head, swinging a loose lock of hair off his forehead. “Alice mentioned you have a killer head for finances. Maybe you can help me deal with my mom’s finances. We have to sell or rent out our house.”

  What was I, the finance fairy godmother? “Sure,” I found myself saying, unable to deny the mesmerizing appeal in his green-and-gold eyes, mentally kicking myself for giving in so easily.

  “She’ll rob us blind. Don’t trust her.” Jade tossed her empty milk bottle in the sink, splashing chocolate milk all over the spotless stainless.

  “Does it look like she needs money?” Jesse rounded on his petulant sister. Oh, jeez, now my half-monster.

  “Well, Dad’s gone. Who’s bringing in the big bucks now?” She sauntered to the garage door. “Foster care doesn’t pay crap,” she continued, her voice sliding away as she entered the garage. Jesse and I tailed her. “Maybe Mrs. Lynwood will foster a team of minions. They can all pitch in and clean the palace.”

  “Did you get up on the wrong side of the cage this morning?” I turned my back on her, hoping she didn’t go all Goth throw-down on me.

  “Bite me, bitch.”

  Jade tripped Jesse, cutting short his stilted laugh. He spewed out a string of curses and swatted her ass. I punched the door opener for my SUV slot.

  “Holy crap. Whose Porsche is that?” Jade gawked at the glossy black car, barely four months old.

  “It’s my dad’s, I mean, our father’s new car,” I said guiltily. From digging into our finances, I knew Dad hadn’t made enough money to support two mini-mansion households. What kind of support had they received from him?

  “What happened to his Mercedes? Where’s his kick-ass convertible?” Jade’s gaze bounced from my hand-me-down SUV, Mom’s newer Mercedes, and the conspicuously empty sports car spot.

  “He sold his Mercedes and bought the Porsche. My sister has the sports car. She drove it down to LA to sell.”

  “What?” Jade yelled, advancing on me in a black storm. “Dad promised to give the car to Jesse.”

  Had the Jeromes known about the Lynwood family at all? How did they live? The questions kept rising like waves in the ocean, receding as quickly as more replaced them. They overwhelmed and sent a slicing ache through my skull.

  Jesse’s face decompressed. He scuffed his sneakers on the black-and-white checkerboard tiled floor, his fists curling, the first time I’d seen any other emotion than reluctant acceptance. Other than his fake Jay, incestuous brother role, that is.

  “Oh.” I mentally asked my dragon for wisdom or at least a shackle on my hands. Yeah, I’m lame. “My mother hates that car and wants it gone.” The kick-ass angel on one shoulder played conciliator, while the kiss-ass devil on the other now wanted Kristen to sell the car. Payback’s a bitch. “Maybe we can snag it before Kristen unloads it.”

  Jesse lifted his head, eyes swimming. “Forget it. It’s just a pipe dream.”

  “JJ,” Jade yelled, getting up in his face. “You’re gonna take that crap from Vine? The car’s yours. It’s in Dad’s will.”

  Vine? Did the twit just call me Vine as in an ivy vine? And will? I hadn’t seen it mentioned in the precious document anywhere.

  “Let’s just go.” Jesse masked his disappointment.

  I pulled the hanging rope on the built-in stairs. The stairs rolled down from the rafters, and I perched my foot on the bottom step, ready to ascend into the crawl space I hated with a passion. It was a great escape for the spiders from our monthly bug spray maintenance. Guess I better cancel that service too. Cobwebs spun in my head, and I didn’t notice Jesse nudging me aside until my foot hit the garage floor.

  “I’ll grab the boxes,” he said.

  “No. It’s my job.” He tried to climb the steps around me, but I refused to budge. Miffed and unsure, I pounded up the stairs, my footsteps drowning out his protests. “It’s easier for me to do it. Trust me. I’ll throw them down.” Hunched over, I located the flat boxes in the far corner and hauled them to the opening, tossing them down the hatch as quick as possible to avoid death by creepy crawlies.

  He caught the two dozen boxes and stuffed them in my SUV’s cargo hold while Jade baked her retinas into the Porsche’s paint. “That’s good,” he said.

  “We need more,” Jade grumbled.

  I jumped down, and Jesse folded the stairs back into the ceiling storage space.

  “We can’t fit everything in Ivy’s or Mom’s SUVs,” Jesse said. “We’re only packing necessities and personal items today.”

  “What the fuck ever.” She hopped in the back seat, slo
uching down to avoid the rearview mirror.

  As I hunted for packing tape in a cabinet along the far wall, the odor of gasoline wafted up from the corner behind a trash bin. I snatched the tape out of the cabinet and peeked into the corner, making sure there weren’t any open cans of gas. No cans. Stealthily, I dug deeper. Jesse and Jade continued arguing over who needed an attitude adjustment more, and weren’t eagle-eyeing me. Behind the trash bin and lawn chairs, I found a large-sized grey hoodie smelling of gas crammed into the corner. My heart stuttered. Holy exploding boat.

  “Ivy? You ready?” Jesse called.

  I stuffed the hoodie back behind a five-gallon paint can. “Just getting packing tape.” I moved the trash bin in front of the chairs. Oh, hell in a handbasket. Dad wore an extra-large hoodie when he jogged in the winter and it didn’t belong to him. Mom? Had she set the boat on fire and hid the sweatshirt? In zombie mode, I joined my half-siblings in my SUV. Had guilt about killing Dad and Miz Jerome forced her to take in Jade and Jesse? Should I call Kristen? No. She’d spill it to the world. Best leave her perfect college life alone and leave me to deal with Whackjob World.

  My belly began that incessant churning, an internal beast of dread eclipsing the disgust and hatred my father had created in me for years. Ulcer, here I come. If I made it to the end of the year with my stomach lining intact, I’d be one lucky girl.

  Escaping from my crappy life over the foothills and into the salty sea air usually gave me such great pleasure. Santa Cruz appeared less like my safe haven and more like the frontlines of the zombie land I now roamed, incessantly searching for a life.

  A prickly silence engulfed us until I exited the highway and Jesse directed me toward the Jerome house. Situated in an older Santa Cruz neighborhood, the small, well-kept home reminded me of the bungalow my parents first lived in after they got married, before the money rolled in. Mom kept a picture of it on her dresser as a reminder of their humble beginnings. Dad hated the picture, yet never forced her to remove it. That tiny house wasn’t the Jerome house, but it was eerily similar. Had he wanted to time-travel to those simpler days?

  Surprise splattered the prickles of our silence as I parked in the driveway in front of the single-car garage, ogling the house small enough to fit inside our four-car garage.

  “So, Vine.” Jade stretched the word. “Here’s where the poor relations live. Bet you thought we lived in some fancy-ass mansion like you princesses.”

  “Grow up.” Argh! Why did I engage? I let it go before I stuck my foot in my mouth or in Jade’s rear orifice. Neither would serve to earn me points. Not that I needed to earn Jade’s favor. And I held no plans to keep giving without a tradeoff on her part either.

  Jade didn’t want me to enter the house or help them pack. In silent agreement, I sat on the porch steps, slanting my head against the wood railing, and called Kristen.

  “Is it true? Dad had kids with that bitch?” The wobble in Kristen’s voice slayed me. Why did I have to be the strong one in the family?

  I gave her the lowdown. “I’m sitting on their porch while they pack. Can you believe Mom made me do this?” Not sure why I expected any different. I inhaled the sweet, heady fragrance of roses bordering the neighbor’s lawn. Beauty in all the wrong places.

  “How bad is it? The house.”

  “They won’t let me inside. It’s tiny. Not sure Dad gave them much money. Who knows? I’m still rifling through his stuff, trying to figure him out.”

  “Do you need me to come home?”

  “I’ll sort it out. Oh, apparently, he promised he’d leave the convertible to Jesse. Don’t sell it.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, it’s not in the will but it was promised. Who knows what he wanted left to whom?” I paced the small porch, spying Jesse watching me through the living room window. He motioned for me to enter. “Okay, I’m sneaking inside. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, send in the Hobbits.”

  “Are they that bad?”

  “The girl’s a troll, a succubus,” I whispered. “Fifteen, Goth, chip of BS on her shoulder.”

  “She’ll put The Mother in a drug-induced coma.”

  “You got that right. As usual, I’ll have to clean up the pieces.” I hung up and pulled the screen open. Jesse stood in the living room off the small foyer. “Talking to my sister, Kristen. I don’t know if my mom told you, she’s at UCLA, working in LA this summer.” I babbled to defray the weirdness surrounding us.

  “How’d she take the news?” Jesse nailed an intense stare on me. Perspiration formed under my breasts, and my gaze latched onto his scruffy gray sneakers. A worn paisley rug covering the hardwood floors cushioned our feet. The small room was cozy, old antique charm, no similarities to the newer traditional look and size of our McMansion.

  “Not well. I told her not to sell the car.”

  “It’s chill. Your mom might need the money.” He wrapped framed photos from the fireplace mantel in newspaper and stuck them in a box.

  “No. We’ll do it right.”

  He continued packing, the crinkling newspaper deafening, smothering, and encouraging my brain cells to kick my heart into gear.

  “Did you know about us before?” I asked in a small voice, bracing for the answer, preparing to die on the spot, and dreaming of all the Ivy Spitinis that weren’t nasty enough for my father. In hindsight, I should’ve made him Ivy Ratinis. Slow death by rat poison.

  Most of all, did you know I was your sister when you drew me into your heaven? I wanted desperately to know.

  Chapter 12

  Jesse stopped packing and leaned close. “No. I had no clue you existed.” He shook his head into whiplash territory. “And if my mom knew, the secret died with her,” he said quietly as if to avoid Jade overhearing.

  “Why wouldn’t she have told you if she knew?” I demanded, shuttering my heart.

  “I don’t know, Ivy,” he lashed back. “I’m in the dark, just like you.”

  Confusion swirled threads of ideas in my mind and I separated a safer thread from the mass. I softened my voice. “Dad wasn’t here much, was he?” He’d traveled a lot over the years, but his trips were legit business trips. Or so we’d believed. “Did you always live here?”

  “Lived in this house since I was a baby. He came and went. Stopped coming for a few years and my mom hooked up with some dude from work. Then Dad and my mom reunited three years ago. He visited regularly afterwards.”

  Was the other guy from work a married man too? I refrained from asking, not wanting to sound like an ass. Let’s just keep that in the vault with the donkey and its rear end.

  It explained Dad’s constant late work nights and working weekends. It totally explained why he’d purchased the sailboat, knowing Mom detested being on the water. He’d told my mother he bought the boat to woo clients.

  “That’s when we moved to San Jose after living in Texas for two years.” It felt weird comparing memories and timeframes with a stranger who had a vested interest in the same life or a wing of the same life. “I don’t get it.” I wilted onto the comfortably worn couch, wondering how they watched TV on such a small screen across the room. I buried the stupid thought. It was becoming painstakingly obvious how my father had split his life between the two families.

  “My mom harbored no illusions about him.” Jesse returned to packing his photos. His hands turned red again. His nervous tell? “He said he was divorced and didn’t want to marry again. He traveled and moved from place to place for his jobs. Mom was chill enough with the situation. She never wanted to leave Santa Cruz. It gave her independence. Jade and I didn’t know any different.”

  “Why’re you telling Vine our business?” Jade tramped into the room and slugged her brother’s upper arm.

  “It’s everyone’s business now.” Scowling at his sister, he rubbed his arm. “Dad scammed both families. We’ve all lived a lie of his making. It pisses me off, and it pisses me off that Mom may’ve gone along with it.”

 
Although I didn’t know Jillian Jerome, I had a hard time believing she had known and accepted his two-faced life. The more I discovered, the more I believed my father had been a master manipulator.

  “But he spent all his time with them,” Jade shouted. “Not us. Why should we give up our part-time pieces of him?”

  It felt like someone had stuck a steel rod up my ass and twisted it sideways. What kind of relationship did they enjoy with my father? I bit my tongue to end the questions I was dying to discharge on bullets aimed at Jade. Had Jade and Jesse experienced a different fatherly dynamic than Kristen and I? Facts dangled in my face in the tiny house and the clean, somewhat shabby furnishings. Were the Lynwoods the trophy family while the Jeromes were the real family? Had he loved us, or were we an obligation, a duty to fulfill due to marriage vows? Who did he love more, Mom or Jillian Jerome? Jade and Jesse or me and Kristen? Oh. My. Freaking. God.

  Stars wavered in my vision and I listed to the right on the couch, smelling sage and rosemary incense. The first time Mom burnt incense in the house for ambience during a curry Indian dinner, Dad had a royal conniption and yelled at her until the smell dissipated. Did incense belong to Jillian Jerome, not Alice Lynwood?

  Jesse’s voice drifted from across the universe. “Hey. You need water?”

  “Oh, jeez, the vine’s wilting on her stem.” Jade’s sarcasm woke me up.

  “Shut your trap, Rock.” I bolted from the room, slamming the screen door in its frame. Propped against my SUV, I hauled in fresh salty sea air.

  I climbed inside the vehicle, opened the windows, and reclined my seat, letting the ocean breezes bestow clarity on me. Not that my brain allowed much clarity past the steel doors of epic confusion.

  Jesse loaded boxes into the cargo hold and ignored me. He’d made three trips by the time I worked up the courage to speak.

  “Do you need any help?” I didn’t want to help, but it seemed the neighborly—or sisterly—thing to offer.