Work of Art (6 page)

Once I learned about my birth father, a part of me wanted to find him more than anything, so I set out to do just that, not even sure if he’d want to hear from me. But h
e’d been elated to hear from me the first time I called since he’d been trying to have a relationship with me for years, but my mother wouldn’t let him. She was a little bit of an evil bitch when she wanted to be – or when she needed to protect something important to her, like her reputation. So she’d kept me in the dark as long as she could.

But once we started talking, I knew I wanted a relationship with my father. He was a great man, a better man than my stepfather had ever been. So Bill and I started talking regularly. And w
hen I’d called him in tears asking if I could come live with him he hadn’t even hesitated before saying yes. He sent me a plane ticket to San Francisco, I was there the next day, and I rarely ever looked back.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

I sighed, contemplating whether I wanted to tell him about my dream or not. “Nothing. I just wanted to say hi.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Sure,” I said, snuggling deeper under my comforter, feeling better already just hearing his voice. “I missed you, I guess.”

My father lived
nearby in North Beach, but I’d been so busy that it had been a good month since I’d seen him.

“Well, why don’t you come for dinner tonight?”

I sighed. “I can’t. I have to work.”

“Is business good?”

I smiled. “Yeah, it’s really good.”

My dad had helped me get my business started
six years earlier. He’d owned a small business for twenty years, so he knew so much about how to succeed and how to fail, but he’d also helped me negotiate the loan for the business, secure the space I rented and remodel the shop so I could turn it into an art gallery/tattoo parlor. It was eclectic, but I liked to think I was eclectic, so it fit.

“Maybe one of these day
s I’ll let you give me a tattoo,” my dad interjected then.

I laughed. “Dad, tattoos are really personal. I won’t give you one until you decide you want something meaningful. I’ve told you that before.”

I was big into the symbolism of tattoos, one, because it was part of my job to help people figure out what they wanted to permanently ink on their bodies for life, and two, because I would never tattoo anything on my body again that didn’t have a strong meaning. I’d made that mistake once.

“Fine, I want a ’57 Chevy
on my ass.”

“Dad!
Be serious.”

“Fine.
I’ll keep you posted.”

He’d been saying the same thing for the past
eleven years, ever since I’d gotten a job as a receptionist at Black Ink, a parlor in North Beach, simply because I needed to make money when I’d first moved to the city. I’d started getting more tattoos once I was around them every day, and my dad had been joking since then that he was going to get one too. I wasn’t holding my breath. He wasn’t an ink kind of guy anyway.

“How about I come over for dinner on Monday night? I’m not working then. I’ll bring Chinese.”

I’d planned to work on a photography series I’d shot a few weeks earlier that was for a show in August. I’d been working steadily to edit the thousands of pictures I’d shot and still had a long way to go, but it could wait. Seeing my dad was more important.

“
It’s a date,” he said. “So, how was Boston?”

I’d been wondering if he’d ask me about the funeral. My father had made the decision not to go to my mother’s funeral. They hadn’t talked for close to fifteen years, their relationship had never really been civil, and I was pretty sure he’d lost all empathy for her when she kicked me out of her house eleven years earlier.

There had been a time when they’d been in love, and they’d tried to make a go of raising me together when I was first born, but they were in high school, so it was hard, and then my father joined the military when he was eighteen and was stationed overseas for several years.

While he was gone, my mother met George and established
a life with him, and when my father reached out to her to try to see me once he was back in the country, she wouldn’t allow it. She told him I was happy and well-adjusted, and I didn’t need a father I didn’t remember coming back into my life. He’d stayed away, but I knew he hated it, and he’d been so grateful for a second chance when I’d tracked him down in high school.

“I don’t want to talk about Boston,” I told him.

“Her friends were that mean to you, huh?”

“I have no idea what she told them about me, but yeah, I think they would have preferred if I hadn’t been there.”

I’d barely talked to my mother in
the eleven years since I’d moved out, but I’d felt obligated to go to her funeral. It seemed heartless not to, but then again, I’m not sure she would have come to mine. I probably shouldn’t have bothered.

“Harper, I hope you didn’t let them get to you. You’re a beautiful, successful, wonderful, caring woman, and I am so proud to call you my daughter.”

I hugged myself as I listened to his words, knowing he meant each one of them.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

“
You’re welcome. Now go back to bed. And remember, it was just a dream.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. How he knew
the reason I’d initially called him was because I’d had bad dream, I’d never know.

“I know. Thank
you, Daddy. Love you.”

“Love you too, little girl.”

Chapter
Five

Ryan

Shit
.
I had not been this hung over in years.

I rolled over to look at my alarm clock and didn’
t see it. In fact, all I saw were the legs of my fifteen thousand dollar ‘you can’t put your feet on it’ coffee table and realized it was tilted away from me.

I groaned, vaguely remembering kicking it repeatedly the night before at like three in the morning. What the
hell was I thinking? Trish was going to kill me.

But I knew what I’d been thinking. I cringed at the thought. I was going to kill Brandon – as soon as I could get up off the floor because my back was killing me
and my head was pounding, and I wasn’t moving any time soon.

“Morning,” Brandon said then, sauntering through the living room wearing a pair of baske
tball shorts and a t-shirt. “We’re going to the gym. Get your ass up.”

“No,” I mumbled, rolling back over and
smushing my face into the carpet, glad we’d paid for top of the line. It didn’t make for a bad pillow.

“Come on, douchebag,” he said, as he kicked me in the thigh.

I reached out for him blindly with my arm and missed by a mile. “Go away.”

Then my stomach started to seize, and I doubled over in pain, rolling onto my knees with my forehead still resting on the carpet.
Shit. I needed to get up, or I was going to get sick all over the living room.

Pulling all my strength together, I got up and bolted to the nearest bathroom while Brandon laughed behind me.

Shit.
I knew the raging hot chicken wings, onion rings, draft beer, and all that other toxic shit Brandon had forced down my throat had been a mistake. I hadn’t eaten fried foods in years, and Trish and I had lived on a low carb diet for the past six months. My body was not accustomed to digesting crap like that, and I was paying like hell for it now.

“I’m pulling your Man Card, you jackass,” Brandon called to me from outside the bathroom.
“Anyone who can’t stomach pub food and keg beer doesn’t deserve a penis.”

“Fuck you,” I grunted, as I
fell in front of the toilet and threw up everything in my stomach.

He just laughed wh
en he heard the toilet flush. “Lightweight pussy,” he muttered.

I didn’t have the energy to dignify his jab with a response. It had been years since I’d been that hung over. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thrown up from drinking.

When I emerged a few minutes later, Brandon was standing in front of my open refrigerator. “Well, it’s no wonder you threw up. You eat like a chick.”

I slumped down at the breakfast table and leaned my head on my hand. It was throbbing. “Aleve,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Get me some fucking Aleve.
It’s in the cabinet above the coffee maker. Please.”

Brandon laughed. “Sure thing, dude.
Just don’t vomit on my shoes if I get too close to you.”

I glared at him, and m
y cell phone chose that moment to ring, but I ignored it, hoping it wasn’t work. I couldn’t talk to anyone or make any coherent decisions yet.

“It’s your girl,” Brandon said, glancing at the screen
as the phone vibrated along the counter.

Shit, I couldn’t ignore it. She’d flip out if she couldn’t get a hold of me.

“Hand it to me,” I said, sticking my arm out. “Hello?”

“Ryan, sweetie, are you sick?”

“Hey, baby,” I said, garnering as much strength as I could. “Sorry, I just woke up.”

“It’s eleven in the morning.”

Oops.
I never slept in. Trish knew I was up and at the gym by seven on the weekends.

“Yeah, I had trouble falling asleep last night. I had some indigestion.”

At that, Brandon started laughing, so I punched him in the stomach, and gave him a look that said ‘shut up’. I did not want to explain to Trish why he was there.

“
Aww, you pour baby. Did you take some Tums?”

“Yeah, and then I was able to fall asleep.”

“Pass out is more like it,” Brandon muttered.

“Who’s there with you?”

“Huh?”

I was totally buying time.

“I heard someone in the background. Who was it?” Trish demanded.

“Oh, uh,
Sports Center.
”

Yeah, that sounded plausible.

“Oh, well, don’t watch too much TV. Get out and do something, get some fresh air.”

Yes, Mom.

“Yeah, I think I’m actually going to hook up with Chris from work and see if he wants to bike over to Sausalito.”

“Well that sounds like fun. Tell him I said hi and to have Sandra call me. We need to do lunch next week.”

“Yeah, sure thing. Will do.”

Brandon raised an eyebrow at me, so I just ignored him.

“I love you, baby.”

“
Me too,” I said quickly, my brain suddenly remembering how I’d sort of trashed her the night before and I cringed.

I’d gone on and on
about how she kept me on a tight leash, never let me do anything fun, constantly told me what to do, where to go, who to hang out with, what to eat, and I’d complained about the sex, since when we’d been having it, it had sort of sucked. I’d let it all out, airing all the things I usually tried not to let affect me.

Then I’d proceeded to kick the coffee table until it broke. I needed to find someone to fix it before Trish got back on Monday, or I’d be in deep shit.

I was a dickhead.

“Does she not know I’m here?” Brandon asked as soon as I hung up the phone.

“No, dude, she hates you.”

Brandon just nodded, as if intrigued
by this information. “Well, I’m not a big fan of her, so I guess we’re even. She does know I’m one of your groomsmen, right?”

Oh, she knew. That had been one hell of an argument.

“Yeah, she knows,” I said begrudgingly.

He laughed. “Oh, that should make for an interesting weekend.
Hey, can I bring the hot tattoo girl to your wedding?”

“What?”

I was trying to remember who he was talking about from the night before. He’d brought two girls back to my condo, and I’m guessing they disappeared with him into the guest room soon after I passed out. Had one of them had tattoos? Hadn’t one been a stripper? Could I actually allow him to bring a stripper to my wedding? Trish would be pissed.

“The hot tattoo girl we’re going to see this afternoon. She’s cool as shit, and I want to ask her to your wedding. You invited me with a date, and she already lives here. It’ll be great.”

“Are you sure she’ll want to go with you?”

He shrugged. “I’m not going to make a pass at her, so yeah, probably. She’s fun to hang out with, but she’s too cool to sleep with.
I think we’ll just be friends.”

I laughed
, and it hurt. “Seriously?”

He nodded and grinned.

“Really. Brandon Cooper is going to be friends with a girl and not sleep with her?”

“Yeah.
Trust me. She’s too much for me to handle. She’s hot, and I have no doubt that she’d be off-the-charts in bed, but she’d eat me alive.”