Ephemeral (The Countenance) (30 page)

The entire room breaks out in a choir of groans as if Fletcher’s barb actually insinuated something.

She reaches over and lands the blade of the letter opener on the delicate skin of my wrist. Her lips twitch as she pulls back on the knife, leaving a line of pink flesh rising in its wake.

I gawk at her in disbelief.

She almost slit my freaking wrist.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. It was an accident.” She rolls her eyes, dropping the blade to my feet. “It means nothing. Isn’t that what you said when they shipped you home with all of your belongings? Everything is a big joke.”

I’ll have to ask Wes to fill me in on what I did to get myself kicked out of Rycroft and why I’m suddenly wishing I were back there, far from this brute group of people who claim to be my anything. And what the hell kind of bond do I have with this woman who just handed me a knife in an effort to improve our relationship? Suicidal—homicidal?

“Let’s cut to the bottom line.” Dad clears his throat. His shock of dark hair shines from the canned lighting above. As much as I hate to admit it, there’s something remote about his features that sort of reminds me of Fletch. “As you all know, we’re eligible for a sabbatical for the next six months, and we’ve decided…” He lets his words hang for effect. “We’re not going to take it.”

“We’re headed to Honduras!” Mom shouts with the enthusiasm usually reserved for lottery winners. Her teeth glint in the light, and I can’t help but notice the familiar frame of her jaw, her eyebrows, twins to mine. Her effigy lodges in my stomach welcome as a machete.   

“So tell me, Lakey…” She bites down a smile. “How did you manage to chase away the new roommate so soon?” Her eyes sparkle with the barb. I have to admit, this new version of my mother is as beautiful as she is abrasive. The original one from Cider Plains is beautiful, too, but in a far more dangerous way. Everything was dangerous about my mother right down to her constant run-ins with the Department of Social Services. It was a miracle she managed to keep her children under one roof. For as much as she wanted her liquor, she wanted us kids. After Fletch died, both her alcohol consumption and her stranglehold on me and my sisters proliferated—thus original Jen’s sudden exodus to Spain.  

“Internet romance.” Jen leans in like it’s the best piece of gossip. “Looks like I’ll be Laken’s roommate for a while. Not that I mind. I love Austen House.”

“So it was an internet romance.” Mom dips into Jen with her faux concern for Casper.

“Hardly took a thing with her.” Jen shrugs. “They traced her credit card all the way to Amarillo.”

Mom’s eyes widen then retract. “At least she’s logging airline miles.” It comes out genuine as if Casper was doing something right. “She’ll be back. Those things never work out.”

“Let’s hope this guy doesn’t turn out to be a pedophile or a killer.” Blaine lets out a demented laugh, and the room falls tragically silent.

His morbid attempt to add levity to the situation crashes and burns magnificently. Come to think of it, Blaine looks every bit a pedophile, every bit a killer.   

“Your mother and I met through friends.” Dad nods as if the Internet somehow qualifies as a trusted acquaintance. “And look at us now.” He says it with an uncomfortable level of sarcasm, like maybe things aren’t so hot between him and his longtime bride.

“That, my dear, was a blind date,” Mom corrects. Her tone suggests a lecture might follow suit. “Falling in love with someone emotionally, under what are likely false pretenses, is incredibly dangerous.” She casts a disapproving look in my direction as though I were somehow guilty of this malfeasance. “When it comes to love, stay away from the Internet.” She looks over at Wes and Blaine seated in their uptight positions like good little schoolboys. “But I see the Paxton’s have my girls covered. I take it we’re all behaving ourselves? We have strict rules about dating in this house.” She glances at me. “No kisses that you wouldn’t give your grandmother, no heavy petting.”

Heavy petting?

I’m amused by this. The only petting I participate in is reserved for domesticated animals, and the odd occasion when I play with my ponytail. Nevertheless, a pinch of embarrassment filters through me because, God Almighty, would I like to pet Wes. In the worst way—would I like to
pet
him.

“I would never pet.” I give a sly smile over to the womb impersonator. I’m open to having a little fun with the powers that be, and I have a feeling the nuclear family is a great place to begin my assault. “There are so many other things I would do, but petting isn’t one of them.”

“Laken!” Her eyes spring wide.

Jen spears me with a look that assures I should have never shared the status of my vagina with her. This is a family that doesn’t even believe in kisses, and I’ve already doled them out to two different boys—four if you count Flynn and Tucker. It’s easy to deduce who’s the black sheep.

“Knew we should have opted for the chastity belt.” This contrived version of my father shakes his head.

Something in that moment solidifies my feelings for him. I like him. His light and airy sense of humor—the way he doesn’t try too hard. However, I’m not warming to this puritan version of my mother. My real mom once offered me the bizarre opportunity to bring Tucker home so we could fool around in the “safe confines of my bedroom.” She said she preferred it to the back alleys and dirt lots she assumed we were rutting in. Her idea of safe sex weirded me out more than a little, so I refused the offer. In hindsight, I wish she had a little more of a traditional reaction when she found out I was having relations with the same boy who thought it was a good idea to hack off my braids in third grade. In fact, I sort of wish she freaked the hell out and beat me senseless for ever opening up to him like a flower. I gave him everything I was saving for Wes in exchange for a couple of drunken minutes in the backseat of a Camaro.

“You look confused, Laken.” The woman, who believes she spawned me, slices the air with her hostile tone. There’s an aggressive energy filtering between us and I don’t know why. “Do you have any questions you’d like to ask about the trip?”

“What makes you want to serve?” It fumbles from me unrehearsed. “You know, the poor?”

“Poverty is the lot of many. I find it stimulating—titillating.” She turns her head into the admission as if she were relaying a secret she wasn’t very proud of.

“Titillating? That’s horrible,” I say. Who says that? Who
thinks
that?

Wes looks up at me as if he were sorry he didn’t muzzle me, and now, I’ve subjected everyone in the room to the foul stench from my mouth.  

“You should try it sometime.” A forced smile springs to her tangerine lips. “It’s life reduced to the lowest common denominator—sometimes all they have is love and the air in their lungs.”

Love and the air in their lungs. Honest to God, that’s all I had with Wes once upon a time, and I wish with everything in me that we could go back to our normal, yet titillating impoverished lives.

Dad arouses our attention by way of an exaggerated yawn. “We’re all together and alive—under one roof again.” He leans back in his chair, comfortable with the idea. “It’s nothing short of a miracle.”

“Yes,” I say, reaching over and picking up Wesley’s hand. “Together and alive. It’s nothing short of a miracle.”

Cooper and his explosive kiss blinks through my mind.

Wes snaps his neck in my direction—spears me with a look.  

30

Mr. Jones and Me

Once everyone disperses, Wesley takes me down to my uncle’s office to have a quick chat with him.

It’s lined with the same dark paneling, same rustic furniture that puts me to sleep, boring as an overeducated professor straining out a lecture—too soft to hear over the snores of the other students.

I didn’t think people like the Andersons existed. You heard about them on the news once in a while. They were privy to exotic occurrences like home invasion robberies where they had their throats slit in exchange for jewels. They had fathers that went to prison because they instigated Ponzi schemes, embezzled millions from corporations, or were found guilty of insider trading.

The only other place where the extremely wealthy resided was in the fictitious world of soaps that my mother watched religiously. They were the ones with home libraries, velvet furniture, rooms painted hunter green with oil paintings hung over the fireplace. But here, in this new reality it was all true, every last word, and then some.     

“Laken,” Wes blinks when he says my name, “you know I would never hurt you.” A red flag—a flare, an entire series of blazing sirens go off in my head. No good conversation starts off that way, so, expectantly, I’m leery of his next sentence. “Last night, Jones came up and asked about the commotion.” Wes nods as if I should know where this is headed. “So I told him.”

“Oh.” I’m not exactly sure what Wes told him since he only knows half the story, and I’m not feeling too altruistic about spilling the lip lock with Cooper. It’s bad enough he saw the visual manifest in my mind earlier.

“And,” he says, making wild eyes at the carpet before looking back up at me, “I sort of filled him in about your ongoing inability to remember.”

Wow. Payback for kissing Cooper is a real bitch. He doesn’t really know that Cooper kissed me, does he? As far as Wes is concerned, he just pried into one of my warped fantasies, not some play-by-play of what actually happened. 

“Thanks a lot, Wes. I’ll be in lockdown at the Flanders house of horrors before dinner. People with money always lock up their crazy relatives,” I hiss. “They’re not like the rest of society who give them free roam of the general population—the option of group therapy on the odd fucking occasion.”

Wesley’s face bleaches out at my viral expletive before his lips curve as if he suddenly found my state of panic adorable.

Jones strides in. His cologne enters the vicinity long before he swoops over to the other side of the desk. Suddenly it feels like an official visit to the counselor’s office, the Oval office, anything but a quick word with a relative about chasing prospective she-devils in the backyard.

“Laken.” His voice resonates softly. It endears me to him without even trying. “I hear you’re seeing Dr. Flanders.” He gives a heartfelt look as if this were the worst news possible, and it very well might be. He has a soft way about him and he draws me in with his genuine concern. Something in me craves his attention, and I showboat with a tiny smile—let him know it’s welcome.

“Dr. Flanders is great,” I whisper. I leave out the part about him drawing my blood—that, perhaps, he might even believe the psychotic drivel that flies from my mouth.

“I trust you’ll be receiving the best of care.” His cheek crimps to the side. “I’m beginning to regret letting you out of my sight so soon after your accident. But if anyone can get to the bottom of your memory loss, it’s Mark. He’s the top-ranked psychiatrist in all of Connecticut.”

First named basis? Top ranked? I smell an incarceration coming a mile away.

“Look…” My heart races at the thought of meds being involuntarily shoved down my throat. “I’m really not sure about this.”

“Nobody is taking you in.” Jones holds up his hands trying to alleviate my agitation. “I promise, you can relax. I want you to feel safe with me. With all of us.” His shoulders sag as if he means it, but too much. “Wesley says he’s been helping you with whatever you need.” He gives a sober look to Wes. “And for that, Wesley, I can’t thank you enough, but, Laken, I want you to know you can come to me for anything.”

“Did you tell him about the Spectators? The Fems?” I cock my head at Wes accusingly. If he was going to throw me under the bus, I want him to know I’m more than capable of returning the favor.

“Pardon me?” Jones’s voice spikes, filling the entire room with the burden of this revelation.

Wes looks up at him from under the dark ridge of his brows. “I didn’t want to worry you.” He shoots me a look, letting me know I’ve gone someplace I shouldn’t have. “I’ve got it under control.”

“What do you have under control?” I ask. I’m shocked by his reaction. “I almost ate it twice, no thanks to those rotting corpses, and I’m pretty sure the mutant Fems wanted to eat
me
.”

“Laken.” Jones bullets my name out with resolute anger. “I want you to stay the hell away from the woods. Do you hear me?” He takes a measured breath. You can tell he wants to reach over and shake me—shake Wes, to drive home his point, but, instead, he kneads his open palms into the veneer of his glossy desk. “Keep clear of any remote areas, especially when alone—keep Wesley with you at all times.” He shoots a cold look to Wes as though he were purposely putting him in harm’s way as punishment.

I’m not opposed to having Wes around, but I have a feeling there’s more to the story. Something tells me that both Jones and Wes are less apt to fill in the blanks than Coop. My heart sinks like a lead brick at the thought of Wes being a party to this insanity. I’m sure this new version of Wesley is convinced he’s protecting me. Or at least I’d like to believe it.