Fragile Beasts (43 page)

I also sense a tiny bit of regard coming from him when there was absolutely none at first. The night we met, I’m fairly certain if I had collapsed on the floor in front of him, he would have stepped over me and left. Now I think he’d call 911 before leaving.

All this aside, I have to accept that I’ve failed to make them fond of me.

It sounds so silly. I didn’t even realize I wanted this until my encounter with Cameron.

I suppose I haven’t tried very hard. I haven’t spent much time with them. I haven’t tried to engage them aside from my attempt to encourage Kyle’s art and that didn’t go very well. I haven’t shared much of myself.

I also haven’t given them much in the material sense, either. I definitely haven’t been extravagant with them.

Cameron accused me of making them my heirs! Two teenage boys I barely know? I’m going to hand over a fortune to them and the house my brother built?

Although when I think about leaving it all to Cameron or dividing it among my three nieces, giving it to Kyle and Klint doesn’t strike me as such a bad idea.

I’m fond of Shelby and have high hopes for her, but for all her newfound worldliness and maturity she’s brought back with her from Paris, she’s still very much a spoiled little girl with too many romantic ideals and a selfish streak I see in her from time to time that I don’t like at all. During the two times she’s been here to see me since she’s been back, she made several comments to Kyle in my presence that I found condescending and bordered on rude.

Skylar is already engaged to a fabulously wealthy, dim-witted young man. They’ll have an extravagant wedding and live an extravagant life with several dim-witted children, climaxing in an extravagant divorce.

Starr at nineteen is dangerously unstable, self-destructive, and uncontrollable. She’s run off again this past week—no one is quite sure where this time—after inciting a near riot at a local eatery by gyrating topless on the bar
at the culmination of something called Wing Night, then being arrested for drunk driving. If she lives to see thirty, I’ll be amazed.

More wealth will only provide them with more opportunities to destroy the family, yet they are my only living blood relatives. Isn’t it my duty as the matriarch to make sure they continue to have the means to eventually degrade and humiliate themselves to the point where they warrant their own reality TV show and clothing line? Isn’t this the new American dream?

Whatever it is, it’s not something I wish on Kyle and Klint. Money isn’t what these boys need, or at least it’s not the only thing they need.

Money can make life easier, but it doesn’t make life livable.

In the midst of being distracted by these thoughts, I received a most disturbing phone call from Bert who had received an equally disturbing phone call from Chip Edgars: the boys’ mother had returned and wanted to pay them a visit and see where they’re living.

This request bothered me on many levels. I knew a meeting between the three of them couldn’t possibly result in anything positive. To my knowledge she hasn’t had any contact with Kyle and Klint since they started living here other than the gifts she sent at Christmas that upset them both so much. I don’t think they’ve made any effort to contact her, either. They’ve never once referred to her in my presence except for Klint’s painful explanation of the glass horse he gave to me.

She’s aware of my wealth and has already managed to extort a large sum of money from me. Her desire to see my home and to see the boys could only be part of an even more elaborate scam, and it was this knowledge that led me to agree to her request. Frankly, I can’t wait to hear the latest scheme she and her sister have concocted.

They were due to arrive fifteen minutes ago. Their tardiness doesn’t surprise me in the least. Selfish people are never on time.

I’m not nervous about seeing the two chinless wonders, but I am nervous about the boys’ reaction. I never told them she was coming. I’m aware this is an act of betrayal on my part, but I was afraid if I told them and gave them advance notice, they would run off and refuse to see her.

As much as I dislike this woman, she is their mother, and regardless of the repulsive manner in which she abandoned them and now is using them to make money, she is their mother.

This is not a relationship that can be ignored. The boys may not live with
her, they may not like her, they may choose to have no contact with her in the future, but they can’t pretend she doesn’t exist.

I’m not presuming to play social worker or family therapist, but anyone with common sense can see that they’re too young to simply sever all ties with her without first resolving a few issues. They need to understand that she can be avoided for the rest of their lives, but she can’t be erased.

Bert wanted to be present at our little get-together, but I decided against it. I think Ronnie and I should finally meet one on one (her sisterly appendage aside).

I’ve asked Luis to provide refreshments, and I put on a lovely, dove-colored georgette dress with beaded pewter lace at the neck and cuffs.

My initial reaction was to meet them in the front hall, show them the boys’ bedrooms, and then have them sit in their car until the boys got home, but Luis and I discussed it and we decided I shouldn’t lower my own standards for entertaining just because I happen to be entertaining someone of low standards. Everything should be approached in a civilized manner.

When they finally do arrive, Luis and I both hurry to the front door and peer out the side windowpanes. Luis has been dying to see what they look like.

They emerge from Aunt Jen’s car in almost identical ensembles. They’re both wearing extremely tight jeans with studded, thick leather belts, clunky platform sandals, tight black T-shirts (Aunt Jen’s has the name of a bar emblazoned across the front of it and Rhonda’s has the words
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
written on it in red foil letters shaped like flames), and dozens of bracelets that clink and jangle when they walk.

I’m sure they picked out their outfits together. It probably took them several hours, a bag of barbecued corn chips, and a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew to arrive at this particular decision.

They come lurching toward the porch on their spindly legs and heavy hooves, their long necks craning in all directions like hungover giraffes.

“Which one is the mother?” Luis whispers to me.

“The one who’s too hot to handle.”

“Oh,” he says and then words fail him.

I retire to the front parlor where I usually receive guests.

I hear voices in the hall, then Luis walks into the room with an amused light in his eyes followed by the sisters.

“Your guests, Miss Jack,” he announces.

“Hello, ladies,” I say.

They mumble something I can’t decipher.

“Please sit down.”

They glance all around them, searching for an overstuffed sofa with a Steelers blanket thrown across the back of it.

They settle for a leather settee with hand-carved mahogany feet.

“May I offer you a drink?”

“A beer,” Aunt Jen replies, assertively.

Rhonda nods.

“Yeah, a beer would be good.”

“Luis, do we have any beer?” I ask him.

“I think I might be able to find some.”

“So,” I say in attempt to break the ice. “I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten your last name. May I call you Rhonda?”

“I don’t care.”

“So, Rhonda, what brings you back to Pennsylvania?”

“I’m visiting my sister.”

“Is your daughter with you?”

“No. She has school. She’s staying with friends.”

“And your …,” I seem to recall she’s not married to the man she lives with. I search for the proper word for him, “… man friend?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Things kind of fell apart with Jeff,” Aunt Jen explains.

“I’m stunned,” I say.

“Yeah, Ronnie’s thinking about moving back here.”

Rhonda shoots her sister a scathing look. Apparently, this information wasn’t supposed to be revealed so early on in our discussion.

“Really?” I ask.

“Yeah, and that would mean she’d want her kids back.”

I try not to show any surprise or concern. When trying to envision how this meeting would go and what we’d talk about, I never once imagined this.

“Is that true?” I ask her.

“Well, it would be kind of stupid for me to be living here in the same town as my kids and not have them living with me.”

“Whereas running off with another man and leaving them behind with
their father and then, after their father died, selling them to a stranger wasn’t stupid?” I ask.

“My private life is none of your business.”

“Believe me, I can’t think of anything that I’d like to know less about than your so-called private life. I’m just trying to understand how your mind works, which I’m afraid is going to prove as futile as trying to apply a moral compass to a badger.”

Luis reappears with a tray carrying two frosted glass mugs filled with beer, an iced tea for me, and an assortment of tapas.

“Toasted almonds tossed in sea salt,” he says as he sets down the first bowl. “Dates stuffed with guindilla chilies, wrapped in jamón iberico, then baked.”

“Wonderful, Luis,” I tell him, smiling. “I had no idea you were making these. I love them.”

“You know those things,” Jen whispers to her sister, who’s wearing the same look of fearful disgust I’ve seen on her eldest son’s face so many times. “We had them one time. When they wrap bacon around stuff.”

“Croquetas de pollo and of course, aceitunas.”

“What did you call these?” Jen asks, pointing to the croquetas.

Luis repeats himself.

“They look kind of like chicken nuggets,” she observes.

“Yes,” Luis replies, cordially, smiling grandly. “Consider them a sophisticated nugget. I think you will enjoy them.”

He gestures for the women to help themselves.

“Por favor.”

The adventurous Rhonda pops an olive into her mouth while the hungrier Jen tries a croqueta.

“Mmm,” she says. “These are really good. Try these, Ronnie.”

Her sister scowls at her while working an olive around in her mouth.

“These have seeds.”

“Pits,” I correct her.

“Be careful,” she tells Jen, ominously.

“Yes,” I concur. “We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself on an olive.”

“What do I do with the pit?” she asks me.

“What would you do with a watermelon seed?”

She looks around the room.

“Spit it in my hand.”

“There you go.”

She puckers her lips and deposits a slimy stone into her palm.

I hold out a plate.

“And then place it here,” I instruct her.

Luis leaves after making a dramatically low, poker-faced bow.

Jen picks up her own plate and begins loading it with food.

Rhonda gulps at her beer.

“Now where were we?” I ask. “What were we talking about?”

Jen looks up from licking salt off her fingers.

“You just called Ronnie a badger.”

“Oh, yes. I remember now. Even if you do move back here, what would make you want to have the boys live with you again?”

“They’re my kids,” she tells me with her endearing sneer.

“Yes, no one has ever disputed that, but tell me, other than feeling the need to constantly point out this fact to people, what exactly do you think motherhood entails? You’ve shown no interest in your sons the entire time they’ve lived here.”

“I thought it would be better for them if we didn’t talk too much. That way they wouldn’t be distracted by thinking about me.”

“I see. It was a selfless act on your part. You were doing them a favor. And before that? What favor did you think you were doing them when you left them three years ago?”

Her hackles begin to rise again.

“I told you before I had lots of good reasons for leaving.”

“There are plenty of good reasons for a woman to leave her husband, but there are no good reasons for a mother to leave her children,” I say, then take a toothpick and spear one of Luis’s fabulous dates.

“What do you know about being a mother?” Rhonda counters and snorts a laugh. “Or about having a husband?”

I finish chewing and ask, “Do you know who the secretary of state is?”

“Huh?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“And see? You’re still allowed to vote.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Jen drains half her beer and laughs.

“I think I get it.”

“Go to hell, Jen,” Rhonda says icily. “One beer and you’ll roll over for anyone.”

She turns back to me.

“Anyway, I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’m taking my boys back as soon as I get settled.”

I don’t respond.

“You don’t have a problem with that?”

“It doesn’t matter if I have a problem with that. As you just reminded me, they’re your children. I’m happy I’ve been able to assist them, but I have no say in their futures.”

“So you’re dumping them just like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess you really are a nasty, old bitch like everyone says. You got two kids living with you all this time and you don’t even get attached to them at all? You don’t care if I take them back?”

Relief floods through me as I suddenly realize why she’s really here. Bert’s original warning comes back to me: these kinds of people never go away. She wants more money.

However, my relief quickly turns to indignation and then to an overwhelming sadness as I understand in a flash of self-preservation and pride that I won’t pay her a cent more than I’ve already given her.

“No,” I lie to her. “I don’t care at all.”

I
used to think guys who screwed around a lot were wrong and kind of disgusting. Now I understand them. I want to have sex as much as possible. It’s my new and only goal.

And it doesn’t matter if I love the girl. I don’t think I even have to like her very much. I actually think it might be better if I didn’t care at all. If I experienced that much physical pleasure with someone I loved like Shelby, I think the combination of the two forces would make my heart explode inside me, and if it didn’t, I’d still be a dead man anyway because afterward she could control everything about me. I’d never be able to say no to her. She could tell me to wear pink shirts and aftershave and never let me go to a baseball game or watch pro wrestling and I’d say, “Yes, dear. That’s fine, dear. Whatever you say, dear. Now let’s have sex.”