Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen (7 page)

“
What? Why in the hell are
you so interested in him or how I treat him? Please, if I didn’t
know any better I would think you’d want to hook up with him,” she
spat as she pushed her back into the door and faced me with a
scathing look. Her lips drew tight across her teeth as her eyes
closed to a squint.

“
Come on, you’ve been on
his case since you saw him at the airport. He hasn’t done anything
to you.” Confidence surged through my body and I felt the need to
fight this out until she saw what I was saying.

“
Please—I see where you’re
going with this and as honorable as you’re trying to be, you have
no idea what
this
is between him and me.” She pushed her pointed finger back
and forth between her chest and the front seat where Nick was
sitting.

“
Well, you might be
surprised at what I know,” the words flew from my mouth before I
had a chance to look at Nick in the rearview mirror. His eyes
narrowed, his face radiated a flash of red that rolled up from his
jowls. I stopped, my lips pressed closed. I promised him I wouldn’t
rat him out.

“
What? What do you know?
What did you tell her?” She bounced her scowl between Nick and
me.

Back pedal, I need to back
pedal because of my big mouth. Think… come up with some brainless
excuse for saying what I did
. Before I got
a chance, Nick covered me.

“
Like I would even have a
chance to talk to her.” He turned around, glancing away from the
road long enough to make eye contact with her. “You are so
insecure. I had nothing to do with our parents getting married!” He
pulled to the side of the highway and turned to her; he wasn’t done
spewing. Cindy must have seen red, because she just went off the
hook.

“
Shut-up you fricken gold
digging tool. You had everything to do with them getting married.”
She swung her arm up through the cab of the car and tried to hit
him.

“
Oh, no way, I am through
taking your crap. I’ve felt guilty for long enough. I didn’t have
anything to do with
your
father shipping you off to boarding school. I
fought for you. I’m done with feeling guilty because my parents got
back together.” He kept slapping her fists away from him. I just
moved back into the farthest corner of the Sequoia.

“
You’re so full of bull
crap, you didn’t fight for me. I watched them the night they
decided to send me away. They were concerned that I was going to
hurt
you
. So
instead of sending
you
away, they sent me—away. They wanted you more than me.” She
looked at me, tears rolling heavy down her cheeks. I’d never seen
her cry before, not like this. These were real tears that trailed
and marked her cheeks with evidence of her sincere
anguish.

Nick was ruthless, “Paa-leese, just
stop. You’re so ridiculous. The self-pity has gotta go. It isn’t
going to work—I’ve known you too long.” He was like a caged tiger
that had been taunted for the last time. Three and a half hours in
the car with her, must have been the straw that broke the camel’s
back, because he didn’t let up.

“
You are such a
self-centered bitch. Do you honestly think you have that much power
over me? Everything I have EVER done for you was because
our
father asked me to.
Not because I liked you or wanted anything from you.” He pushed the
driver’s door open and got out into the snow-plowed road. The chill
of six degrees below zero flooded the SUV. The door slammed shut
and Cindy pushed the switch of the automatic locks.

“
I can’t believe he’s my
half-brother,” Cindy grumbled under her breath as she adjusted her
iPhone on her lap and pulled her jacket up from by her feet. I had
nothing to say. No comeback or snide remark.

Chapter Five:

Nick kept walking—I was still in shock
that they were even blood related. Cindy unbuckled her seatbelt and
jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. I could have
sworn I saw a slight smile on her face.

“
I better pick him up. I
don’t want to get blamed for his frostbitten stupidity.”

“
If he’s your half-brother
why do you talk about him that way? Do you really hate him that
much?” I looked in the rearview mirror to catch her
expression.

“
I don’t hate him. It’s not
like I wish him dead. I just don’t like him. Come on Wilson, he
ended up with the perfect family, his mom and my dad hooked up in
high school, she took off and then ten years later she showed up on
my dad’s doorstep with Nick. Just goes to show you a one nightstand
can work out.” Her eyes filled the rearview mirror.

What’s that supposed to
mean?
A one nightstand can work
out.
I felt myself boil inside. She knew I
was born because of a one nightstand. I wanted to scream at her,
tell her what a spoiled brat she was, but I didn’t, instead I
swallowed and played along.

“
I’m an outsider and all I
can see is that you hate him enough to let him stand out there in
sub-freezing temperatures.” She put the Sequoia into gear and
started towards him. He was walking at a pretty fast pace. His face
was glossed bright red. The edges of his ears were the unfortunate
victim of being hatless.

Cindy lowered the passenger’s window
and yelled across telling him to get into the car before he froze
to death. He kept walking.

“
Come on, I’m sorry you’re
pissed off.” Even when she apologized it was never her
fault.

“
I’ll freeze before I get
back into that car with you.” His breath hung heavy before it
crumbled and dissipated into the winter air.

The car rolled slowly keeping pace
with him. “Please. I can’t drive in the snow. You’re gonna make me
kill innocent people.” He shook his head back and forth and I knew
why.

Cindy never took responsibility for
anything. As long as I’d known her, she had always been that way.
Nick didn’t see her everyday like I did. His skin wasn’t as
calloused as mine. If she broke a fingernail, it would be someone
else’s fault. That was Cindy.

Three years ago, we were
collecting canned food for the Rumbling Tummies Food Bank and she
volunteered to be one of the helpers that separated the food into
categories. The day we were supposed to go, I got super sick with
the flu and I ended up staying at the dorm. They told her to stack
the canned meats on the second shelf from the bottom.
Easy, right? Wrong.
She
ended up stacking it on the third shelf with the canned
soups.

She stacked fifty cans of
Spam in three different pyramids and rearranged the soups in
alphabetical order. When they asked her about it, she blamed her
lack of following directions on me.
Can
you believe that?
She told them she
stacked the Spam with the soup because the cans of tuna fish packed
in water reminded her of a very sick friend who had to stay back at
the dorms. I still don’t know how tuna packed in water reminded her
of me. I assume it had to do with the boycott I started over
‘dolphin safe’ brands like Stark Tuna and the Ocean’s Chicken. But
you know what happens when you assume? You make an ASS out of U and
ME. That was her in a nut shell or a tuna fish can. At the end of
the day, they thanked her and asked her to refrain from
volunteering for their organization in the future and suggested
that she might have a better fit with the OCD anonymous group of
Alameda County. Up until that day, I’d never heard of someone being
fired from a volunteer position before.

At last, Cindy was able to get Nick
into the SUV. She promised she wouldn’t be rude and would try and
give him the benefit of the doubt. I think it was the fact she
crashed the SUV into the side of a snow bank as she tried to cut
him off from walking away. The last hour and fifteen minutes of the
drive to Aspen was awkward and quiet.

I was glad when we pulled into a
neighborhood that resembled Beverly Hills on steroids. It wasn’t
like I had ever seen a Beverly Hills house in real life, but seeing
them on the TV, I could imagine how huge these places were. Nick
pulled up to a massive entry to a gated community that had a booth
as large as a small house. A security guard opened a window and
asked a series of questions. I was waiting for the guy to ask for a
copy of his birth certificate and a blood sample next. Instead Nick
pulled out his Starlingwood pass and driver’s license. After he
proved he belonged there, he was able to enter the gated community
of monstrous estates only the very few of the wealthy elite
owned.

My heart was pounding. If Max’s family
owned a cabin here, I could only wonder where it was; and if his
family was wealthy enough to have a house up here what was he doing
working at Wesley? Maybe it was fate that he worked at my school.
Maybe the universe wanted us to be together. Or Kismet,
or—Destiny.

We drove for another twenty
minutes through pimped out cribs that only a few gazillionaires
could afford. Finally, we turned down a long winding driveway and
arrived at anything but a cabin; it was a mansion. This monster had
a four car garage. We could’ve driven the SUV through the front
doors. This manor was two stories high with humungous windows
facing the snow filled four acres that we passed as we drove in.
The front porch was as big as a parking lot with the largest
chandelier I had ever seen.
Who
had a chandelier out on their front porch?
I would have to say, I was
intimidated.

The only thing that went through my
mind was how pretentious these people must be. I started to run
tallies through my head as I got out and grabbed my duffel bag from
the back. How many hungry refugees from Darfur could that
chandelier feed? The Italian marble from the porch could rebuild a
neighborhood in Louisiana. The front doors could build at least
four schools in Mexico. I had to stop. This weekend would drive me
crazy if I did that. I had to remember where I was. But, if just
the front porch alone could help rebuild Haiti, I wondered what the
inside could do?

“
Come on. Just leave your
bag; we have staff to do that.” Cindy grabbed my arm and pulled me
to the steps. I stopped and started to remove my shoes before I
stepped on the marble.

Her face twisted. “What are you
doing?”

My balance wasn’t the greatest. “I’m
taking my shoes off.”

“
You take your shoes off
now your feet will freeze before you get to the front door.” She
swung her arm around to get me to follow her.

I turned to Nick who was still getting
out of the SUV. I wanted to tell him to come in with us, but didn’t
want to stir anymore animosity between him and Cindy. I walked up
the marble steps and across the massive front porch. Cindy pulled
on the ginormous door and it swung open with classical music
welcoming us to the Chateau Browlers. It was a bit much. Cindy
wasn’t the least bit phased.

“
Hello, we’re finally here!
Dad—Miranda—Hello?” She passed under the oversized double staircase
and around the colossal table with a flower arrangement that would
make any FTD franchise jealous. I was still at the front door
trying to take off my scruffy knock-off UGGs.

“
Well guess they must’ve
gone out—will you stop it.” She tossed her hands in the air and
spun them in circles trying to get me to follow her. I shoved my
foot back into my boot and followed her under the imperial
staircase to the kitchen.

It wasn’t your average kitchen; not
even close. It was a restaurant kitchen. The stove looked like a
contraption from outer space. The refrigerator and freezer were two
separate appliances sprawled next to the bathtub-sized
sink.

“
Great, my dad and his wife
won’t be back until Sunday night!” She picked up a handwritten note
from the counter and waved it above her head. Her face went deep
red and her eyes glossed over.

“
I frickin knew it. I bet
she took him away because I was coming this weekend. She is such a
bitch!” She pulled her phone from her pocket.

I didn’t know what to do, she was
completely devastated. What kind of parent wasn’t around when their
kid came home from boarding school for the weekend? If there was
one good thing that came out of my absent parents, my grandparents
were always there for me. Anytime I came home from school, my
grandma would have a package of my favorite cookies in the car when
she picked me up. My bed was always turned down and Nemo, my teddy
bear, would be waiting for me. Yeah, up until she died she always
put Nemo on my bed when I came home.

I watched as Cindy paced across the
kitchen to the dining room. Her voice was hurried and cracking. It
was messed up that she came all that way from California to see her
dad and he didn’t have the decency to wait for her to show up. She
looked like a lost little girl in a busy shopping center, utterly
confused and desperate to be found. She hung up her phone, wiped
her eyes with her arm.

“
Forget him. He is such a
frickin A-hole! He said he had to fly out to New Mexico, problem
with one of the stores. It’s such bullshit—another excuse for being
a screwed up parent.”

I still didn’t know what to say, so I
told her what I thought might make her feel ok, maybe validate her
frustration. I wanted to come up with something that would help her
feel better. She wasn’t the nicest person, but in the spirit of
common courtesy the situation would warrant a couple of nice words.
You would’ve thought.