Last Chance Llama Ranch (4 page)

Pierce, ever the diplomat, stepped in. “Let it go, Gwendolyn dear. Merry's old enough to make her own decisions. After what she's been through, she may just need a bit more time to explore her options. If she makes a few wrong turns here and there, we need to respect that. Give her some space.”

Yes, please
, Merry thought.

“Really, Pierce,” Gwendolyn said. “I'd hardly be doing my duty as a mother if I blithely gave my blessing while my only daughter turns her back on all our dreams.”

“
Our
dreams?” he asked. “Or hers?”

Gwendolyn's mouth snapped shut.

Merry felt a stab of vindication.
Exactly
.

Thanks, Dad
, she mouthed, and she saw her father blow her a kiss as he gathered the aggrieved Gwendolyn in his arms. Her expression turned tender as she looked up at her handsome husband, as unable to resist his charms as she'd been when they'd met nearly forty years earlier. Pierce was the only one who could soothe her ruffled feathers, and he seemed to quite enjoy it. Experience told Merry they'd be under each other's spell for a while.

OMG
, Merry texted Marcus.
Help me out here. Pull a fire alarm. Fake a seizure. *Anything.*
She saw Marcus smirk as he read her message.
Honestly, Poopyface
, she continued, typing rapid-fire
.
I don't know how you stand being in the room with them when they get like this. And why are you even visiting? Calvin Klein run out of banana hammocks for you to model?

All part of my cunning plan
, he typed.
Every time *you* dodge the 'rents, *I* look more like the golden child.

What else was new. Merry rolled her eyes at him.
Are you *trying* to make me look bad?

It's not hard…;-P

Merry scratched her nose, very deliberately, with her middle finger.

Marcus snickered silently, waggling his ears in a way his legions of sighing fans surely never got to see.

Merry stuck her fingers in her mouth, pulling a grotesque face.

“Meredith, you know it's not good for you to tempt fate that way,” Gwendolyn said, emerging from her preoccupation with her husband with her usual uncanny timing. “After all we've gone through to put you back together, I would think…” She shook her head, her silver-blond bob unmoving. “Well, it's your face, I suppose. You've jolly well never listened to me before, so why should I expect you to start now?”

Merry knew there was little point arguing that mugging for her brother was unlikely to undo tens of thousands of dollars' worth of plastic surgery. “Yes, Mother. Thank you for the reminder.” Stretching sideways toward her nightstand, she rummaged around for the container of Tums she kept in the drawer, grabbing a fistful. Cleese stuck his head forward, his turtly tongue darting out to lick one greenish tablet. “Stop it, you,” she scolded under her breath.

Pierce heard. “I hope that wasn't meant for your mother, young lady.”

“No, no, Dad,” Merry assured him. “Just talking to my pet.” She crunched three antacid tablets. A headache was starting behind her right eye, but there was no cure for that—barring hanging up on her parents. “No disrespect intended.” She scrubbed a hand down her face.

“Yes, well.” Gwendolyn seemed only slightly appeased. “I can see we haven't called at a very good time. You look like you haven't slept in days, darling, so we shan't keep you. Just promise me you'll make time for our get-together. I don't think it's too much to ask to see our only daughter once a year.”

“I don't know when I'll have time for a visit,” Merry hedged. “Now's not really a good time. I've got a very heavy schedule for the magazine, and I'm leaving on assignment almost immediately.”

This was not true.

Merry had yet to accept her next adventure. She'd been hoping to have a few days off to just be a regular person for a little while. Renew friendships long neglected. Visit a museum just because she wanted to, not because she was writing about it. Maybe even hit a few thrift stores. (The “care packages” her mother sent—full of designer clothes that rarely, if ever, fit as intended—were doing Merry's social life no favors.)

“Merry,” her father said ponderously, “I think it would behoove you to
make
time for a visit. Of course we want to see you—we do worry about this new bohemian lifestyle of yours—but we also have important family business to discuss. Your grandmother's bequest has to be addressed—in person—if you want to receive your inheritance.”

Bzzzz
.

There's the carrot…
Marcus texted.

Merry let out a long breath. She knew as well as Marcus did what was coming.
I'm not biting
, she texted back.
You may be a suck-up, but *I'm* above such shameful tactics.

Hey, don't knock it. Sucking up is a fine art!
Marcus made fish-faces at the camera over their parents' heads.

Merry had to smile.
Enjoy your filthy lucre
, she typed.
Cleese and I would rather starve in our garret.
She looked away from her dueling screens long enough to feed her turtle another piece of lettuce. It might be the last bit of green either of them saw for a while. “I understand, Dad,” she said aloud to the webcam. “And I do take this seriously. I'm just not prepared yet to…”

Her phone bleated like an electronic raspberry, interrupting her thoughts.
You may not suckle at the family teat yet
, Marcus's message said,
but you know when it comes to that big, sweaty wad o' Granny-cash, you ain't gonna say no.

Merry did not type “fuck you,” but it took most of her dwindling store of restraint. The truth was, her brother might be right. Their grandmother Renee had finally gone to her dubious reward and, with typical spite, had loaded her will with codicils guaranteed to confound her descendants. Chiefly, by granting Merry's mother complete authority to bestow—or withhold—the nearly ludicrous fortune her family had amassed over centuries of sticking it to the peasants. As her mother's executrix, Gwendolyn Hollingsworth Manning was now sole arbiter of what constituted the type of behavior of which Lady Renee Hollingsworth, scion of a long line of singularly unpleasant Hollingsworths, would have approved.

Which meant that if Merry wanted to claim her inheritance, she'd have to return to the familial fold—in whatever way suited her mother's sensibilities.

“I know this is a great privilege and responsibility, Mother,” she told Gwendolyn. “And I'm not ungrateful. I just…”
Need time to figure out how to politely tell you to shove it
, she thought.
If I can afford to.

Marcus read the consternation in her expression far better than her mother did.
What's the problem, Sasquatch?
he texted.
You allergic to money?

Merry's fingers flew as she replied.
No. I'm allergic to the strings that come attached to it.

Well, consider me strung up
, her brother replied, and she saw him shrug philosophically.
If it requires a little ass-kissery, I'll pucker with the best of them.

Merry rolled her eyes. Marcus often found himself a tad light in the wallet. It was tough work supporting an endless series of dubiously legal parties with swimming pools full of supermodels and celebs, controlled substances, backroom poker tables, and officials of various principalities who required hefty bribes to look the other way. “The life of a male model,” as Marcus put it, “is fraught with back-end expenses.”

I bet you don't even have to practice
, she typed back,
considering your whole job is to make Zoolander faces anyway
.

Marcus staggered back, clutching his chest and pretending to be struck to the heart.

“Children, are you up to something?” Gwendolyn peered into the camera. “Meredith, are you tormenting your brother?”

Merry's tummy tickled, and it wasn't solely from Cleese's tiny claws as he trekked the distance from her belly to her breastbone.
Sure, assume it's me
, she thought.
Precious Marcus never instigates.

“Good lord, Meredith,” Gwendolyn gasped, “
what is that thing
? You haven't got some sort of pest problem in that ghetto of yours, I hope.”

Merry glanced at the screen, then had to laugh as she realized her pet turtle must appear the size of a stegosaurus on the webcam as he trundled into frame. It grounded her a bit, reminding her that her family's dysfunction—as well as their ever-so-tempting money—was on the other side of a very wide ocean. At the summer cottage on the shores of Lake Como this time of year, if she remembered rightly. A far cry from downtown Chicago, perhaps, but the little apartment she'd leased with the last of her endorsement cash—partly because it was a great jumping-off point for travel, and partly because it was about a million miles from the nearest mountain—was hardly a ghetto.

“It's just Cleese,” she said, stroking his little head gently with the tip of one finger before moving him out of camera range. “He hasn't seen me for a while so he's being extra lovey-dovey.”

“Well, Meredith,
we
haven't seen you in quite a while either,” Gwendolyn said. “And considering the substantial inheritance that's at stake, I should think you'd be a bit more accommodating with us than your…reptile.”

Bzzzz
, went her phone.

…And there's the stick.

Merry saw Marcus shrug sympathetically from across seven time zones.

“I'll try, Mother,” she said. “I really just can't break away right now.” She sighed, avoiding her father's eye, which wasn't hard over Skype. “And, Dad, I appreciate that I have to make a decision about Grandmother's bequest—”

“The paperwork has to be signed and witnessed within six months, or you forfeit everything, Merry,” he reminded pointedly.

“I understand. And I
will
take care of it. I promise. I'll come to you, or maybe we can meet in DC this fall if you're in conference with the State Department. Certainly by Thanksgiving at the latest. I'll have made my decision by then.”

“What is there to decide?” Gwendolyn asked sharply. “Of course you'll accept. And of course you'll come home. What else is there for you now?”

Penury
.

Freedom
.

Merry looked at the stack of bills at her bedside, the corners of which Cleese was currently attempting to ingest. If only it were that easy to make her debts disappear.
I really can't afford to say no this time, can I?

C'mon, come hang with us
, her brother texted.
I'll introduce you to some Abercrombie & Fitch models.
Marcus made the Zoolander face again.
With all that Granny-
money, you can stuff twenties in their low-slung jeans all day long.

And what would I do when that got old?
Merry wondered with a tinge of bitterness.
Spend my days attending charity luncheons and getting my hair done with Mother? Host state dinners for my father's diplomatic colleagues? Watch Marcus strut his stuff down the runways of Paris while I pretend I'm not his loser, half-crippled baby sister?

I'd die.

Some other time
,
she typed, mustering a wan smile.
Now, help me get G&P off my back, 'k, Uglymug? I gotta go walk my turtle.

Sure, Squatchy. Love ya, furball!
A pause.
And really, seriously…happy birthday.
Marcus turned to Pierce and Gwendolyn. “Why don't we let Merry-Contrary do her thing for a little while longer?” He threw an arm around each parent and smooched them loudly on the cheeks. “You don't want to see her until autumn anyhow. You know how frizzy she gets in the summer.”

“Well…” Gwendolyn melted under her son's winning smile. She was clearly not pleased, but the prospect of Merry with frizzled hair seemed to give her pause. “I suppose we can put off our rendezvous until Thanksgiving, but
no
later. Understood, Meredith?”

Merry nodded. “Yes, Mother.”

“And Meredith…” Her mother paused delicately. “Those brows. Really, dear. They have tools for that.”

Merry hit “Escape.”

And started thinking about
her
next escape.

W
e're renaming your column,” Joel announced. He kicked feet shod in painfully fresh-out-of-the-box Converse up on his desk and beamed at Merry as though delivering the best news imaginable.

“Uh…we are?” Merry slung her bag off her shoulder and slinked over to the visitor's chair in her editor's office. A sign reading “Entering Upper Slobovia” was taped to the open door, and it wasn't kidding. Joel's den of iniquity/place of business was a graveyard of dead computer equipment, obsolete file folders, and crusted-over coffee cups into which Merry preferred not to look too deeply. With two fingers, she picked a gym sock off the chair's seat, searched in vain for a place to put it, then gave up and set it on the floor at her feet, nudging the dingy cloth aside discreetly with her toe.

Her editor didn't take offense. “Yup.” Joel's smile grew, if that were possible. “From now on, we're calling it, ‘Don't Do What I Did'!” He spread his stubby arms in a “ta-da!” gesture and looked at her expectantly.

Merry got a bad feeling in her tummy. It was not an “I shouldn't have eaten that sausage-egg-and-cheese dollar breakfast special from the roach-coach downstairs” feeling. No. This was more of an “Oh, fuck, am I out of a job?” bellyache.

“And, uh…why are we doing that?”

“Well, Merry,” Joel said, putting on his Serious Editor face, which didn't quite jibe with his cherubic, triple-chinned features. “We're in a recession, you know.”

There seemed no safe response to this, so Merry just waited.

“And in a recession, do you know how many people are spending money on high-end travel?”

This time, Merry suspected she was supposed to answer. “Well, I, ah, don't have solid statistics, per se, but—”

“Fuck statistics. The answer is
less
. Fewer. Whatever.” He scowled, which suited his face better than the jollity of a moment ago.

“But, Joel,” Merry began, dredging up her most unflappable voice—the one she'd learned early on to employ whenever her mother went into rant mode over Merry's unacceptable hair/clothes/shoes/general lack of social grace. “I've been getting
great
responses from my readers lately. I can hardly keep up with the comments on my page, and my Twitter feed totally blows up every time I publish a new piece. I know I'm still finding my sea legs, but I thought ‘On My Merry Way' was starting to go pretty well.”

Her editor was unmoved. “Have you seen the numbers from your most recent series?”

Merry's stomach was definitely in “I'm getting shit-canned” territory now. She dug into her bag for her trusty Tums and crunched down. “I actually hadn't had a chance to run the analytics…” she admitted.
Damn it, I should've done that first thing
, she thought.
Gotta stop making stupid mistakes like that.

“Uniques were down a full
fifteen percent
,”
Joel said. “And click-throughs are thirty percent lower than this time last year. Sponsors are threatening to pull out, Merry.”

Where had she heard that one before?

“We're sorry, Ms. Manning. Mountain Sports is all about freedom, excitement, healthy competition. Not…”
The advertising rep, visiting Merry in the second of her long-term sports rehab centers, had paused delicately, then waved at the cast that had encased Merry's leg all the way up to the hip. He'd avoided looking at her swollen, stitched-up face.

Not losers.

They'd been the first of her sponsors to pull out after the accident, but they hadn't been the last. Endorsement deals had dried up faster than well drinks at a frat house happy hour. The loss of income had hurt—badly—but the shame of failure had hurt even worse. Merry swallowed hard. “Does this mean you're dumping me?”

Joel looked at her a bit more kindly. “Not dumping you. Just…
retooling
you a little bit. You've come a long way this past year. You still sound like you're trying to write the great American novel instead of a quickie service piece sometimes,” he hastened to add, “but you've been coming along great. You're polling well personally, and the comments are as positive as ever. People still love to
read
about your travels. They're just not following in your footsteps the way they did when times were better—which means they're not buying what our ads are selling. Frankly, four-star resort and spa advertisers were never really our demographic to begin with, and sales is having more and more trouble landing them lately.” He sighed. “What I'm trying to say, Merry, is that corporate ripped the ed board a new one over the latest quarterly figures, and if we don't keep Five-Second Sally happy,
Pulse
will go the way of the AOL home page.” He looked down at his pristine Chuck Taylors, sparing a longing glance for the well-worn loafers that lolled exhaustedly under his desk. “We've all got to think younger. More hip. Less moneyed.”

“Ah ha.”
And that means?

Joel seemed to read Merry's thoughts. “That means twentysomethings who can't afford pedicures at the Parker Meridien, or a private cruise on the Caspian Sea. Millenials who fancy themselves adventurers, but still probably siphon cash off Mom and Dad to finance their backpacking expeditions. You know…
hipsters
.” He shook his head. “I fought for you, Merry. The board was all for replacing you with someone…more
relatable
, if you know what I mean, but I told them you had what it took. That you were a team player. And you'd play ball.”

Team player? Is he kidding?
I was
captain
of the women's US downhill ski team.

Operative word:
was
.

Sure, she'd been put up in some pretty swank hotels when she was being wined and dined by advertisers eager to score her for a commercial or a sports drink endorsement. And yes, she'd grown up traveling in style as her father's diplomatic duties took the family all over the world. But did that make her
unrelatable
? The thought stung.
I work
hard
, damn it. I've
always
worked hard. I'm not some entitled, whiny rich girl.

Yeah? Well, hard workers
don't bitch when their bosses give them bad news. Suck it up, Merry.

“Okay…” she said warily. “I appreciate that, Joel. I know you've always had my back.” When it was convenient. Joel was supremely self-interested, a fact which hadn't bothered Merry previously because he was
also
a brilliant editor and a shrewd manager. He had to be, to have reached his fifties and remained relevant in the cutthroat world of digital media. “But what does that have to do with renaming my column ‘Don't Do What I Did'?”

Joel's grin returned. He lumbered to his feet and rummaged around in one of the precariously balanced piles cluttering the storage closet behind his desk. With a triumphant grunt, he pulled out a long, narrow object and held it up for Merry to see. It looked to be…

A canoe paddle?

Somehow, Merry wasn't surprised—she'd seen him pull weirder items out of those depths. She looked at him with an expression halfway between a raised brow and a full-on cringe.

“Here you go, kid. You're gonna need this.” He handed her the paddle.

Merry stared down at the splintered wood in her hand, holding it as if it might bite. “Dare I ask why?” she asked faintly.

Joel paused as if he were waiting for an invisible bandleader to give him a rim shot. “Becaaaaaause,” he drawled, “next stop is Shit's Creek.”