14. Jake
Chapter 14
Jake
M y dad’s a bad person.
I’ve known that for quite some time.
Ironically, it wasn’t seeing my dad lie shamelessly in his testimony in front of a judge that convinced me. It wasn’t watching other people call him a criminal. It wasn’t even the judge reprimanding him, saying he was what was wrong with America, and it certainly wasn’t watching them sentence him to the maximum penalty for his crime.
No, what convinced me that my dad was a bad person was living with two truly good people.
You can’t really understand dark until you’ve seen light. You can’t comprehend salty without tasting bland. Most concepts are really defined by the existence of their opposite, so it wasn’t until I saw how good people handled the same situations I’d already encountered that I really came to understand that my dad was the opposite of that.
Also, his letters provided evidence of his thoughts I could go back and study. Even after dozens of letters from me, extolling the many things the Fansees had done for me, he never relented in his hatred of them. At first, I thought that I could convince him to let it go.
I think that idea was inspired by Julian. We adopted him, a small, wiry-haired dog, a few months after I went to live with the Fansees. He wasn’t much to look at, and he limped. Even after we bathed him, he smelled pretty bad. But the longer he lived with us, the better he looked. Most of the awful things he did—like pooping on Seren’s favorite rug over and over—gradually improved.
One thing he never stopped doing was chewing on shoes.
We learned to hide our nice shoes, or they would quickly become not nice. We should’ve kicked that crappy dog to the shelter. He was a real mess. Seren was far too soft for that, and she felt like him finding the hotel was some kind of sign that he should be part of our family. But if he managed to get one of your shoes, and you caught him before he did any real damage, the only way to save your shoe was to distract him with something he wanted more and trade them out. He was a terrorist, really.
After watching that, I had an idea.
I could entice my father with other ideas—other people or companies—he could defraud when he got out instead of the people I cared about. Sadly, my clumsy efforts only made my dad more doggedly determined to punish the Fansees for turning me against him.
And now that he’s out, I’m worried.
I was able to put him off last night, at least a little, by telling him how tired I was. My dad knows movie stars need to get enough rest, so after I bought him an expensive steak dinner, he largely let me go to sleep.
Not that I could fall asleep until quite late indeed.
But now that I’m awake, I can’t really put him off any more. The second he hears movement in my room, he taps on the door. “Coffee?” He pokes his head in.
I hold out my hand. “You want to be my manager?” I take a sip, and then spit it right back out. “Black, Dad? Really?”
“Real men take their coffee black.”
“I’ve seen you add a bucket of cream,” I say. “And sugar.”
“That was before.” He sips on his own mug. “Now I take it black.”
“You said one day I should take it any way our mark was taking it, so we could bond.” I arch one eyebrow. “What happened to that?”
“Black’s a way they could take it,” he says. “You should be ready for that.”
“Not with you.” I shake my head. “You’re true north, right?”
He snorts. “You don’t think that, not anymore.” He sets his coffee down. “Yes, to answer your question. I think the least you can do is pay me a generous salary for being your manager.”
“I don’t have a manager.”
“Now you do,” he says. “And I’ll only take a paltry twenty percent. And for that, I’ll make sure no one else is fleecing you the way that I am.”
I roll my eyes. “Gee, thanks.”
“Speaking of, I spent a few hours reviewing your contracts last night?—”
“Wait, you did what?”
He plows ahead. “Several of them have clauses that concerned me. What kind of agent lets you sign a non-com?—”
“Dad, I don’t want you digging through my stuff.” Not that I’m surprised. I knew he’d have pawed through everything. He probably placed bugs, too. “But if you need a job that badly, maybe I’ll let you be my manager from New York , where your job couldn’t send you back to prison.”
“Please.” He rolls his eyes. “I’ll tell them I had to come here because of work.” He beams. “It’s a high profile, honest position. My salary will impress them, and it’ll drag their ex-convict averages way up. Trust me, they’ll grant me a waiver.”
I can’t help staring.
“Relax,” he says. “It’s all going to be fine now that I’m out.”
He still hasn’t brought up the Fansees at all.
Maybe he won’t.
“I have to film early today,” I say. “We’re way behind, thanks to?—”
“I’ve been following along,” he says. “I know all about Patrice Jouveau.” He shakes his head. “What kind of a moron is that blatant anywhere someone else could see her?”
“Clearly her father was less rigorous with her education.”
“You’re mocking me, but I’m serious.” He leans closer. “I taught you well, at least. You’ve never been naive or clueless.”
He’s right about that.
When I go in to work half an hour later, he insists on following me. He tries to drive, but there’s no way I’m allowing that.
“A manager’s supposed to drive.”
“They drive if it’s a van,” I say. “Or maybe a charter of some kind. Even a limo, but not this.” I shake my hands over the steering wheel of my Mercedes. “Only I drive this.”
Once I get out of the car, my phone bings, and I realize I have quite a few messages, including one from Bea asking about my dad. I can’t really text her about it now. She’d just come rushing over. I’m stuck hoping she’s bluffing about confronting me in person.
I’ve just come out of costume and makeup when my dad almost runs into me with another black coffee. “Dad, be careful,” I snap. “You almost dumped that all over me.”
He leans closer. “That was the point. Then you can get a better shirt.”
I roll my eyes. “I like this shirt. I picked it.”
“Oh.” He eyes me sideways. “Interesting.”
I might dump the coffee over his head in about thirty more seconds. “What do you want?”
“Can we chat for just a moment? They said you had five.”
Of course he was listening, but he didn’t really get it. They told me to take five minutes so I could go pee, not to argue with him about my shirt. Even so, I just nod. “Sure.”
We duck into the janitorial closet since my trailer’s a hundred and fifty yards in the wrong direction. The door won’t close all the way, but that’s fine. I don’t really want to encourage a long heart-to-heart anyway.
“What did you want?” I arch one eyebrow. Maybe if I’m rude enough, he’ll give up and go back to New York without me. I can deal with him later, once I’ve made up a plan for how to keep Dave and Seren safe.
“While you were getting ready, I was able to walk around mostly unnoticed.” He nods slowly. “It’s helpful to have someone around whom no one knows. We’ll have to remember that, once everyone knows who I am.”
I blink.
“What I heard might surprise you.”
“What did you hear, Dad?” In spite of my efforts not to insult or offend him, my tone’s flat. Too flat. “Just tell me.”
He purses his lips like he’s not sure I really want to know.
“I just have five minutes, remember?”
“Here’s the thing. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the positive chatter, and you definitely didn’t want to wind up on the wrong side of things there. That Patrice woman. . .” He shakes his head. “That was a total disaster, and you wisely steered way clear. But I will just say that your acting has improved dramatically.” He slow claps.
I’m still not quite sure what he’s saying. “Dad, can you get to the point?”
“No one likes the idea of you dating that burned woman.”
I ball my hand into a fist and grit my teeth. Neither action helps me calm down. “Octavia,” I hiss. “Her name’s Octavia Rothschild, not the ‘burned woman.’”
“Well, I know you didn’t want to be the one attacking her, but can I just say how impressed I am that you’ve been able to convince everyone you’re actually dating that Crispy Critter?” He chuckles. “The funniest thing Patrice said, hands down.” He leans closer. “And give the man an Emmy. I didn’t think your acting was very good until I saw the video with you and her. I mean, you really look like you like her in the clips I’ve seen.”
I don’t think about it or clench my jaw or grab the sides of my jeans.
I just punch him.
With the position of the door, and the fact that it’s not entirely closed, the impact of my blow sends him sprawling. He spins, grabs for the handle, partially slows his fall, and slams face-up, back-down on the ground. Someone almost trips over him.
When I look up, I realize that someone’s Octavia.
She looks as pale as, well, as pale as a ghost. Which means she probably just heard everything my stupid Dad said. Now I wish I’d punched him a whole lot harder.