Chapter 61
“ M rs. Hunt?”
I hadn’t even called Melanie Hunt, my adopted mother, when I uttered her name. It just felt so… surreal to see her name. She just didn’t call us.
She spoke to us and was very warm to us when we saw her. But it was as if Edwin had made a specific request to her not to speak to us when we were gone. She was like the angel in the shadows, there if we needed it but largely invisible no matter what.
Well, heaven knew I needed as much of an angelic presence as I could get. Mrs. Hunt could sure go a long way in providing it. I called her back, and she picked up on the first ring.
“Well hello there, young Chance!” she said.
“Hi, Mrs. Hunt, you called?”
I knew she never liked it when I called her anything other than Mom.
It was my way of keeping some distance from her, of reminding her that I was not of this family and didn’t deserve anything other than to be called Chance, not son.
Still, she was definitely the second-favorite of the Hunts behind Morgan, and had now clearly vaulted so far ahead of Morgan it was like comparing two different podiums.
“I did? I was not aware! But it would still be good to see your face! I will be in Manhattan in an hour, would you like to grab some coffee?”
“Uhh… sure.”
Not aware? What kind of bullshit is this?
“You do know you called me a little bit ago, right?”
“I swear, the way my mind goes sometimes… no, I did not, Chance, but we will get into everything you want to talk about when I see you, OK?”
This was very unlike Mrs. Hunt, who had a way of saying things through subtlety and through hints, not like this.
It almost made me wonder if she had a reason for specifically seeing me in person instead of on the phone.
As if… as if she didn’t want to say them on the phone…
because someone might be spying on it? Or tapping it?
“OK, sounds good Mrs. Hunt. Joe’s Latte at 60th?”
“Perfect, hun. See you there at 1 p.m.!”
I quickly glanced at the clock to see I had about fifty eight minutes to go before that time. I went back to the phone, but Mrs. Hunt had already hung up.
To say that was odd behavior for Mrs. Hunt was all too simplistic but also all too accurate. What was the deal?
The questions brought back my feelings of disgust, once more, with Edwin Hunt. I just knew now, having hung up the phone, that that asshole had tapped his wife’s phone and recorded all calls. That motherfucker was probably listening in to everything about her, trying to get some dirt on her.
It’s the only way he can ensure that he doesn’t get cheated on. Heaven knows there’s nothing attractive about him aside from his money. And a lot good money is when it’s attached to a fat, shitheaded pig like him.
Still, it would be nice to hear from a trusted, loving family member. The only trusted, loving family member.
“Where have you been?”
I shook, startled from the surprise appearance of Layla. I turned around to see her with a bath towel around her head, but a t-shirt and panties on otherwise. At least this decreased the chances that she was going to suggest I do something.
“Just wandering the streets,” I said. “Thinking. Trying to get all the shit in my life in order.”
“The dream,” she said with a snort as she went back into her room, though she still continued the conversation.
“I thought you had left this morning, but when you left your phone, it made me think you’d gone downstairs for a workout or something.
It’s been, like, four hours since you first left, Chance.
That shit worries me, being gone so long. ”
“Yeah, well, when you’re unemployed and living off of the good graces of a friend, you take all the time you need to figure shit out.”
A lull came in the conversation; I suspected she wanted me to apologize for having disappeared as I did, while I wanted her to discuss literally anything else.
But what did I have to apologize for? Making her think that I’d gone to Connecticut or New Jersey?
I hadn’t done anything other than do what I needed to do; if she wanted to worry about that, tough cookies.
“What about you?” I said, changing the focus of the subject. “What have you been doing?”
“Job searching,” she said with a long sigh.
“Where at?”
“Couple of hedge funds, one marketing firm.”
I cocked my head to the side.
“Seems like two very different types of industries, no?” I said. “Hedge funds I get, you’ve got the background with your uncle’s company and what not. But a marketing firm?”
“Look, I’m not looking for career advice, I got more than enough of that from my creeper uncle.”
Short-tempered today, I see. Take it easy, Chance. You know this has been you before.
“Fair enough, sorry,” I said, willing to apologize for that.
“I will say, my long hike helped me some. I’m not going to say it solved everything for me, but I did become a little bit more level-headed after that.
Maybe you could do the same? Maybe you could find some answers to whatever questions you may have? ”
“That would be nice,” Layla said, her eye contact becoming noticeable stronger. “But I can’t. Whenever I do that, my thoughts all return to the same thing.”
Her prolonged eye contact left little to the imagination in terms of what she was referring to. Me.
She means her thoughts keep coming back to me.
And boy, the longer I stay here, the worse I’m going to make it.
“Gotcha, well, hope you manage a breakthrough and a career find,” I said, backing up from the door frame. “My, uh, Mrs. Hunt just called me. She wants to meet for coffee soon. So I’m heading out.”
“Mrs. Hunt? Huh, never thought she’d be coming here. OK, sounds good. I’ll be around the city, doing more interviews.”
“Quick pickup, huh?”
“Not looking to be penniless any longer than I have to.”
Wonder what sort of “punishment” Craig Taylor put on her for leaving.
Ahh, well, a conversation for another time.
I didn’t say anything else as I slid out of the apartment and headed for the elevators, riding down in silence.
My early departure meant that I still had about forty-five minutes to go before Mrs. Hunt would even be in the city limits, but fortunately, I had had some pretty good practice about being by myself this morning.
I wound up just making laps around the various blocks of NYC.
The traffic had picked up a bit, both on the streets and on the sidewalks, making it feel a little bit more like a typical New York day, and, weirdly enough, it gave me a better chance to dive deeper into my mind.
I was able to feel more anonymous, more free in the sea of businessmen and women headed to their lunch breaks or their afternoon meetings than I had in the earlier part of the day.
Not that I had any new breakthroughs in thought. Not that the additional anonymity opened up new portals of knowledge. It just told me that in the future, I’d probably have a better time of figuring things out on my own than I did when things were quiet, strangely enough.
Around 12:55, I made my way to the coffee shop to meet up with Mrs. Hunt.
I had last seen Mrs. Hunt at the 4th of July party the Hunts always threw, and it never stopped hurting me to see how she seemed to grow much older than her chronological age with each passing year.
Though she was very well put together, always perfectly dressed, and had some part of her that looked youthful, the subtle aspects—her crow’s feet, the skin on her hands, the skin on her elbows, the bags around her eyes—told of a woman who dealt with way more shit than any woman should ever have to.
It made me wonder if she had only aged a few months since, or if she had gotten even older in that time frame. What would she look like today? 55? 65? Maybe even older than that?
I hated the fact that I played this game in my head, but I hated even more that the way Edwin treated her—or didn’t treat her, as the case was—made it all but impossible to play this game.
I came to the coffee shop and saw her approaching from the left. Wearing sunglasses, a nice blue dress, a long coat, and nude heels, I went over and gave her a hug, kissing her on the cheek.
“Hi, Chance,” she said sweetly, much more genuinely and real than before. “Follow me, we’re going someplace besides Joe’s Latte.”
“Oh, OK, not feeling it?”
“Somewhat,” she said, putting her hand into my arm. “You look great!”
I laughed as she first led me in the general direction, back from where she came, before I took the initiative to follow her.
“That’s a… heck of a thing to say for all that has happened,” I said. “I mean, you do know what’s happened, right?”
“I heard the version Edwin gave me,” she said, making her eye roll through her sunglasses practically visible. “Why don’t you tell me your version of things?”
“Oh, alright,” I said, surprised at the acrimonious words she had for her husband. They weren’t the model of a stable relationship, but I’d never seen her say anything other than kind words with anything worse than a passable attitude.
Still, that didn’t stop me from telling her everything that had happened and how it had happened from my perspective.
I spared no topic, though I spared some details—I just told her that my father had faked being a former girlfriend to get some blackmail on me.
I didn’t need her to know that I had taken pictures of my junk and sent them, now in the possession of my adopted father; God knows who looked worse for that part of it.
“I was just trying to take him down, if I’m being honest,” I said as Mrs. Hunt pointed toward an old coffee store that looked like it was built in the 70’s. “I know that sounds harsh, maybe karma—”
“No, karma nothing,” Mrs. Hunt said, giving a gentle squeeze of my arm as we walked inside “Your Coffee.” “Many, many, many people in this world want to see Edwin Hunt taken down. You are far from the first. He treats people ruthlessly, both in the business world and at home.”