Highways & Hostages (5 page)

“So you have to get to Texas with no money, no car, no help? Ha! Good luck with that. Dad always has you taking on the odd jobs.”

Tell me about it
. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“You know you’ve got this. You’ve just got to be resourceful. What about taking a bus to Texas?”

Finn stared at him, aghast. “Are you kidding me? Number one, that would take forever. Number two, I don’t do the bus.”

Alex shrugged. “Didn’t you take the bus before my father found you? I mean, I’m not trying to be a dick, but it’s an option.”

Finn swallowed down a retort and forced a tight-lipped smile onto his face. “I’ll think of something. Maybe I can rent a car?”

“Well, at least you’ve got your bank account. You’ll have rental fees. And expenses for the trip: gas, food, a place to stay…” Alex trailed off.

Finn threw his hands up. “Your father did some kind of voodoo to have my checking account frozen. I just went and checked: it’s a no-go.”

“What about your savings account?”

“I have around $200 in my savings. I don’t think that’s going to carry me,” Finn said sheepishly.

Alex stared at him, bewildered. “What the hell do you do with all your money?”

Finn flushed. He had been tempted to ask Alex for a loan, but he pushed the idea aside. Times like these reminded Finn that he and Alex were from different worlds. Alex and Billy had grown up in a mansion with nannies and doting parents; they’d spent their teenage years in boarding schools. Even though their father made them work for their money now, Finn knew he still gave them everything they asked for—well, maybe not
everything
Billy asked for.

Finn’s maternal grandparents raised him. His mother was an alcoholic with little interest in her son and he’d been told his father disappeared before he was born. His grandparents did the best they could, but Finn was an angry child and a restless teenager. Larceny and vandalism kept him in and out of the juvenile detention center. It had only been within the last few years, under Julian’s employ, that Finn fully understood all that his grandparents sacrificed in order to provide everything he needed, and a good deal of what he wanted. He wished he had realized it before his grandfather passed away ten years earlier. Finn was determined to pay back the love his grandmother had shown him while she was still around.

“Earth to Finn.” Alex waved a hand in front of his face.

Without realizing it, Finn had pulled his grandfather’s dog tags from under his shirt and was stroking them with his thumb. He snapped out of his reverie and gazed directly at Alex.

“I’ll help you in any way I can.” Alex gestured at himself and the bed. “But I’m not exactly at my most useful right now.”

“You mean you’ll go against your dad’s wishes?” Finn asked. Alex deferred to his father on everything. If his father had told
him
to go to Texas, Alex would have been gone before Julian even finished his sentence.

“Whoa there, buddy. I didn’t say all that. I just said I’d help in any way I can. That means whatever is within limits…and won’t get me into trouble. But you know who
would
help with no regard for Dad?”

“Billy,” they said at the same time.

Stella sat in the parking lot of Francois Bistro in Josie. She grimaced at the reflection in the car’s rearview mirror and rubbed at a lipstick stain on one of her front teeth. Derek’s mother always noticed the tiniest details.

Sighing, Stella opened the door and unfolded herself from the cramped car. She glanced up at the cloudless sky.
Maybe it’s a sign that this meeting will go well?
Ha! Who am I kidding?

She smoothed down her sunflower-patterned halter dress and hoped Derek’s mother would see she was making an effort. Squaring her shoulders resolutely, she moved toward the bistro’s entrance. As she opened the door, cool air blew over her warm skin. She breathed a sigh of relief. It had to be dread and not the heat that was causing her to sweat like a marathon runner. She tugged at the straps of the dress.

Francois Bistro was the complete opposite of the Leaky Stein. Stella wasn’t a fan of the interior, with its damask wallpaper, lacy tablecloths, and country club patrons. She felt completely out of place in her thrift store dress and the oversized canvas tote she used as a purse. This was Diane’s realm; of course she wanted to do battle on her own turf.

Speak of the devil.

Diane Warner halfheartedly waved a limp wrist to capture Stella’s attention. Diane was neatly put together as usual, her dark shoulder-length hair swept up in a chignon and her green eyes shrewdly inspecting Stella from head to toe. She rose, clad in a lilac-colored silk sheath as Stella approached the table, then gave Stella a peck on the cheek before sitting.

“Hello, dear. Don’t you think that dress is a bit…loud?” Diane brushed a renegade strand of hair from her face and crossed her ankles.

Stella pasted a smile on her face. “If you can’t wear a dress like this on a beautiful summer day, when can you wear it?”

Diane shooed the comment away and placed a pristine floral notebook tabbed with fluorescent sticky notes on the table. “I’ve marked a few dresses you might want to take a look at—”

An aproned waiter had appeared out of thin air. Stella nearly kissed him in gratitude. “So sorry to interrupt,
mesdames
, but may I take your drink orders?”

“Lemonade, please,” Stella requested.

“Perrier,” Diane commanded. “Also, we’re ready to order. I’ll have the salad niçoise.”

Stella looked up incredulously from the menu she had just opened. “Um, I guess I’ll have the ham and Gruyère omelet. Please.” She snapped the menu closed.

“Just a moment.” Diane lifted a hand to halt the waiter, then turned to Stella, covering Stella’s hand with her own. “Are you sure about that, dear? You don’t want to put on much more weight before the wedding. That omelet comes with potatoes; that’s a lot of carbohydrates.”

Stella caught the waiter’s sympathetic look, flushed, and plastered a new smile on her face. “I’ll take my chances.”

Diane gave a nearly imperceptible sigh and opened her notebook. The waiter vanished just as silently as he’d arrived. “Well, this dress will probably be out of the question now,” she remarked as she removed a magazine cutting from her notebook and crumpled it into a ball. She placed it in the middle of the table.

Stella stared at the crumpled ball, anger and annoyance bubbling to the surface. She couldn’t take it anymore. She stood from the table abruptly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to run to the bathroom.”

Diane’s eyes narrowed as if she suspected Stella might try and escape through the window. “But you only just got here.”

“It’s an emergency,” Stella called over her shoulder as she raced away.

Once inside the bathroom’s lush antechamber, Stella perched on a padded bench and tore through her purse for her phone.

“Help!” Stella said as soon as Derek answered.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asked breathlessly. “I thought you were supposed to be having brunch with my mother.”

“That’s why I’m calling. She told me I’m too fat for the wedding dresses she’s picked out. Why is she even choosing dresses?” Stella was quickly approaching hysteria. Derek sighed, and Stella heard some kind of commotion on the other end of the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Team-building activities.” Derek paused. “Look, Stella, I’ve got to get back to work. I’m sure it’s not really that bad, and if it
is
really that bad, it’s only a couple of hours. I’ll talk to you later, after your shift, okay? Love you, Stella Sunshine!”

He hung up before Stella could squeak out a response. She sat despondently on the bench for a moment longer before standing, fanning herself, and exiting the bathroom.

She gently lowered herself into the seat across from Diane and offered an apologetic smile. Diane glanced at her briefly before continuing to flip through her notebook.

“Have you thought about colors? Clearly we’ll need something that won’t clash with that red hair of yours. Have you thought about dyeing it?”

Stella dropped her purse on the coffee table and flung herself face down on the couch. Her meeting with Diane went exactly as she thought it would: Stella tried to tell Diane what she wanted, and the shrew walked all over her. After the dress debacle, Diane insisted on setting up a food tasting with a few of
her
favorite restaurants, and then informed Stella she had already hired a string quartet. This lady was killing her. At times like these Stella was glad her mother had been a laidback parent after her father left, but if she was honest, sometimes she envied the “normal” mother-daughter relationships she saw on TV.

After the day she’d had, Stella needed to get it all off her chest. Derek was still working, Valerie was on a date, and Phoebe was nowhere to be found. As if talking to Phoebe was an option.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. There was one option left: her mom.

Stella picked herself up and pulled the phone from her bag. Despite how late it was in Italy, her mother would still be up.

“
Buona sera, cara
Stella
,” her mother’s boy-toy, Paolo, answered. “How is the moon?”

Stella debated hanging up. She didn’t understand: 1. why her mother couldn’t answer her own phone, and 2. why Paolo still felt the need to repeat the same pathetic joke after five years. Yes, her name meant “star” in Italian. She got it the first time.

“Is my mother there?”

Stella heard murmuring away from the phone.

“She is in the Jacuzzi,” Paolo replied.

“Well, can she come out of the Jacuzzi to talk to me? Or can you take the phone
to
the Jacuzzi?” Stella asked, annoyed. “It’s important.”

More muffled murmuring.

“Stella, are you hurt?” her mother, Lisa, answered after a pause.

“Uh, no. Why would you think that?”

“Paolo said it was important. I had the most taxing day at the wheel and was relaxing in the hot tub with a bottle of wine.”

“Is that safe?” Stella asked. What she really wanted to say was:
How hard can it be to spend your day making pottery? Try being a waitress and working a twelve-hour shift.

Lisa gave a noncommittal grunt. “Darling, you always worry too much.”

Stella glanced at the ceiling and silently counted to ten. “I had brunch with Derek’s mother today to go over some wedding plans.”

“And how was it?”

Stella looked down at her lap and ran her hand over the sunflower fabric of her dress. “Horrendous.”

“Darling, you know how I feel about marriage: it’s just not necessary in this day and age.”

“Yes, Mother, but that’s how
you
feel. I love Derek, and I want to marry him.”

“Where did I go wrong?” Lisa groaned. “Well, if you insist on marrying the man, why not just elope? Come to Italy; it’ll be great fun! I’d love to meet the man who has managed to convince my free-spirited daughter to settle down and be a housewife.”

“I haven’t been a ‘free spirit’ since I was twenty-one and you were busy ‘finding yourself’ in India.” Stella put a hand to her forehead. She felt a headache coming on. “What’s so wrong with wanting to be someone’s wife and settling down? You did it for fifteen years.”

“And except for you, darling, that was fifteen years wasted. Fifteen years of marriage, and did it stop your father from going and getting his mistress pregnant? And then the ass decided to divorce
me
to marry
her
! How
is
Phoebe, by the way? Are you two getting along?”

Stella paused but refused to let her mother distract her. “Don’t change the subject! You can’t tell me you don’t have any good memories from your marriage that aren’t related to me.”

Lisa remained quiet for a moment. “There are a few.”

“Exactly! That’s what I want, Mom. And I’ll have those with Derek.”

Lisa sighed. “I always told you to follow your heart.” She paused. “But I meant to explore the world and have adventures.”

“Mom, I think you and I have had enough adventures to last me through my golden years,” Stella said with a smile.

Stella was eleven when her parents divorced, and her father, Greg, moved from New Mexico to Ohio. Lisa immediately sold the house in which Stella had grown up and bought an RV. She pulled Stella out of school and homeschooled her as they traversed the West Coast, peddling Lisa’s pottery and “getting reacquainted with themselves.”

After seven years of that, Lisa decided she would only be able to “unleash her inner goddess” by selling all of her belongings (except the pottery wheel) and seeing the world. She and Stella spent three years backpacking around South America, harvesting fruit, and completing odd jobs before Stella was ready to return to the States. Lisa went on to India, roamed Southeast Asia, and eventually settled down in Florence, Italy, where she’d been living for the last five years.

Stella was twenty-one when she returned to the States. She had her GED, but that was it. Totally fine by her—she didn’t think of herself as the college type anyway. She’d always wanted to live in a big city, so she moved into an apartment in San Antonio with three girls she met on Craigslist, and got a job as a barista. A year later she met a boy in a band, sold all her stuff, crammed into a Volkswagen bus, and went on tour. That lasted all of two years. The band broke up, and so did their relationship. Stella called her best friend from childhood, Valerie Cheng, who had moved to Las Vegas. Valerie invited her out, and they both found jobs at the Leaky Stein Ale House while waiting for something better to come along.

Three years later, and nothing better
had
come along…until Derek. Derek grounded Stella; she couldn’t imagine picking up and leaving again. She was ready to put down some real roots. That’s what you did in your late twenties. Right?

“Nonsense!” Lisa admonished. “Is there anything else? Paolo’s getting antsy in the hot tub by himself.”

Stella stifled a groan. She had only seen Paolo in the pictures her mother sent her, and over Skype, but the mental image she conjured up at that moment made her shudder. “That’s it. Go back to Paolo.” Stella went to end the call.