Chapter 59
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
To Do:
- Order high capacity thumb drive for Luke
- Limo pump-up playlist?
“I really shouldn’t be taking shots tonight,” Brianna said with a groan. “I’m going to look like a puffy, bloated nightmare tomorrow. You have no idea how rude the press can be. I’m one unplucked armpit hair away from a scathing tabloid cover.”
“It’s just one,” Claire said, dumping cinnamon whiskey into three shot glasses. “Think of it as a sisterly bonding ritual. But only if you’re comfortable.”
Bri shrugged and sniffed the whiskey. “This is probably a bad time to mention that I’m leaving early tomorrow morning. I have to go to my last fitting and spend the whole day getting ‘cover-worthy,’” she said with finger quotes and an eye-roll.
Claire paused mid-pour. “Are you bringing someone with you?”
Bri nodded. “My assistant will be at the appointments with me. Why are you pouring three? Didn’t Luke say he was heading up to watch one of his episodes?”
The knot in Claire’s stomach released. She nodded. “It’s not for him. Just wait. You’ll see.” She screwed the cap back on the bottle, and there was a knock at the door. “Told you.”
She didn’t pause to pull up the app before yanking the door open. There she was. Charlie stood with her arms crossed, tapping one foot against the stamped concrete porch.
“Come in.” Claire stepped back.
Charlie all but stomped into the foyer and flung her purse and jacket at Claire.
“I can’t believe you made me do that.” She glared at her sister.
Brianna hesitated in the kitchen like a startled deer. She clearly wasn’t used to sibling blow-ups. Claire had seen more than her fair share from Charlie before she had left for college.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Claire asked gently, as if she was questioning a child who had just woken from a nightmare.
“It’s just—” Charlie paused to take in Luke’s foyer as if she hadn’t seen it before. “I like this flooring. Luke has good taste.”
“Well, obviously. He picked Claire, didn’t he?” Brianna called from the kitchen.
Charlie’s attention snapped to the kitchen. “Oh, good. Shots.” She strode into the kitchen like she owned the place. Her elbow lifted, head thrown back. Something glass clattered against the kitchen island. Then she strode over to the window above the kitchen sink and seemed to be composing her thoughts.
Brianna and Claire hurriedly took their shots and sat down at the kitchen table, where tall glasses of water were waiting. Claire’s throat burned from the whiskey. Was Charlie about to confess to running Jack over with her car? That would really put a damper on things.
A second later, Charlie spun back around to face them. She looked a little more composed.
“So?” Claire prompted. She pushed the chair across from her out with her foot. Charlie sank into it and took a big sip of water.
“We talked. I didn’t flip the table over.”
“Always a good start,” Claire said. “How do you feel about what you talked about?”
“I don’t know. He hurt me—and you and Mom of course. I know you guys have both somehow found a way to forgive him. But I had him for sixteen years. He was teaching me how to drive when he left. I never really learned how to parallel park. I almost rear-ended a Tesla last week.”
“Of course,” Claire said, reaching over to squeeze her sister’s hand. Roy had systematically taught Claire how to parallel park, and she could practically do it with her eyes closed. Maybe he could teach Charlie at the next uncomfortable family gathering. “It was different for you.”
Charlie stared at the ceiling. “I knew what it was like to have a stable, two-parent household. Even though they fought, at least they were both there. And then one day he just wasn’t. And everything changed. Our house, my responsibilities, everything shifted.”
“But he reached out to you?” Claire asked. She had only recently learned that Alice had hid years of birthday cards Jack had sent.
Charlie shrugged. “Here and there. He emailed and sometimes called, but he told me Mom got upset and made him stop. I guess after a while he got tired of trying. I didn’t really help things. I was so angry I never wanted to speak to him again.”
“For good reason. What he did was super shady,” Brianna said, throwing her own dad under the bus.
“Exactly. But there is a small possibility that I’m getting tired of being angry. I’ve been so focused on raising Ryan and making sure he never has to go through what I did that I didn’t stop to ask myself if he would want to meet his grandfather. And maybe I did him a real disservice.”
“You were protecting him,” Claire said. “It’s understandable.”
“Anyway,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “I told Jack he has one chance. If he screws it up, he’s right back in the mental dumpster. He’s going to come out for Christmas this year.”
“We can all come out if you think that’ll make it less awkward,” Claire said without thinking. Crap. She probably should have made sure Luke hadn’t already made holiday plans.
“I think this is something we should try just ourselves. You’re wonderful, but sometimes you can be too much of a buffer,” Charlie said, raising her eyebrows.
“That’s fair.” Something in Claire was glowing. Maybe, just maybe, her dream of a blended Hartley/Alejo family was becoming a reality. If only she could find the stick that was permanently lodged up Rachel’s ass, maybe she could whip Luke’s family into shape too.
“Do you want to drink a glass of wine and dance to some nineties music?” Claire asked when Charlie didn’t respond.
Charlie shoved herself back from the table and downed her glass of water. “Will there be costumes?”
“Obviously. Come on.” Claire led the charge upstairs.
Thanks to Claire’s cache of emergency disguises, the three of them were unrecognizable as they thrashed around the living room thirty minutes later.
Charlie, in a lime-green wig with matching lipstick, sang into an imaginary microphone while Claire and Brianna did backup dancing. Brianna wore denim overalls and a clown nose while Claire had slithered into a replica of Sandy’s final outfit from Grease . The wine was flowing—definitely more than just one glass now, and Claire’s head was swimming pleasantly. She would do better at cutting back tomorrow.
At one point, Luke came down with his camera, but Claire chased him out.
Surrounded by her sisters, the warm feeling only grew. Because of her age gap with Charlie, Claire had practically been raised as an only child. Now that Happily Ever Afters had a branch in Los Angeles, maybe they could make up for lost time. Monthly dance parties, weekly dinners.
“Brianna,” Claire said when the song stopped. She grabbed Brianna by both shoulders and shook her. “You are a magnificent beam of human sunshine. I’m so glad my dad accidentally knocked up your mom and destroyed our nuclear family. You are a brilliant, talented actress, and I am beyond jealous of your gorgeous complexion.”
“Stop it.” Brianna swatted at her, but she was smiling.
“And you.” Claire rounded on Charlie. She poked her in the arm, where Charlie had applied a temporary tattoo of a butterfly. “You are a fierce, loyal lioness. I’ve looked up to you my entire life. No one can command a room the way you can. I’m pretty sure I’ve actually witnessed a man shit his pants because he was so intimidated by you. And beyond all that, you are an amazing mother. Ryan is the coolest kid ever in a generation of kids who are all-too-frequently little assholes.”
Charlie’s lower lip trembled. “Another song!” she demanded, turning away. Luke’s stereo blasted with a summer pop hit, and they launched into another dance routine. As the song faded out, something clanged against the window outside.
Charlie and Brianna froze. Claire leapt across the room. Scrrrrrtch . A Taser separated from the Velcro on the back of the couch. She threw her shoulders back and pointed it toward the window. Brianna and Charlie fell in behind her.
“Do you think it’s them? ESA?” Brianna asked.
“Turn that down,” Claire barked over her shoulder to Charlie. She couldn’t think straight with Barbie Girl blasting. For once, her older sister twiddled the dial without a fight.
Claire picked up her phone, then pocketed it. Luke was deep in documentary mode. There were three of them. Nobody would be stupid enough to abduct Charlie. In fact, out of the three of them, Charlie had barely been threatened at all. Her vast knowledge of the Hollywood underground must have kept her safe.
Claire twitched the curtain aside. A streetlight illuminated a patch of sidewalk that was in need of repair. No shadows moved across the lawn.
Claire turned to face the other two. “Let’s go see what it was. Weapons first, though.”
Charlie and Brianna armed themselves with a butcher knife and a corkscrew. Claire flipped the porch light on and flung the front door open quickly, as though she expected to see someone casually preparing a murder kit. The porch was empty except for the Adirondack chairs and a bag of vegetables that Mr. Nesbit must have dropped off. Maybe that was the noise she had heard.
She crept down the short flight of stairs to the walkway. Charlie and Brianna followed her. She swung her head from left to right, probing the dark yard.
“Could it have been Olivia?” Brianna whispered.
Claire shook her head. “According to her Instagram, she’s at some wellness retreat in Santa Barbara.”
“She could be lying.” Charlie lofted her butcher knife. “Claire, do you recognize that car?” She nodded toward a dark gray sedan with tinted windows idling on the other side of the road.
“No, I don’t. But I don’t know all the cars in the neighborhood.”
“Then let’s go find out who’s inside.” Charlie drew herself up to her full height of five feet and ten inches. Her bare feet padded over the grass.
Suddenly, something rustled in the buckwheat shrub that had just begun to bloom. Charlie screamed and threw the cleaver at it like a medieval knife-thrower. Claire swung the Taser up and fired without a second’s hesitation. No one was getting kidnapped today. A crackle of static split the air as the prongs went flying across the yard and buried themselves in the bush. A second later, a very startled-looking squirrel sprinted across the yard. It could have been a trick of the moonlight, but it looked like the end of his tail was slightly singed.
“You just tasered a squirrel,” Brianna said.
“Oh my god. He looked like he was okay, right?” Claire turned and glanced at the upstairs office window. Luke was pressed to the glass, camera at eye level and body heaving with laughter. She flipped him off and turned back around. “You want to see who’s in this creepy car or what?”
She marched across the grass and picked up the knife that Charlie had thrown. The wine and whiskey mix had had a peculiar effect. She felt invincible—dehydrated, but invincible. She’d find out who was in that car. And if it was someone from ESA, she’d punch them right in the face, drag them out of the car, and sit on them until the FBI arrived.
Knife in hand, she stormed across the grass and tiptoed across the asphalt in her bare feet. She rapped on the driver’s side window until it rolled down. Claire gasped.
“Jack! What the hell are you doing here?”
Jack Hartley sat in the driver’s seat, mug of coffee steaming in one hand. Tanya sat next to him, a pair of binoculars and a partially crocheted blanket in her lap.
“Hello, darlings!” Tanya called enthusiastically, even though they had all seen each other two hours ago.
“Charlotte forbade me from installing agents to watch out for you all, so I thought I’d do it myself. Thank you for all being in the same place, by the way, it makes it much easier.”
Claire sighed. “You don’t need to do that. We have a security system. And each other.”
“You’ve also had…” He paused for a moment and sniffed. “Several glasses of wine.” What was he, a booze-seeking bloodhound?
“Forgive me if I have less than complete faith in your self-defense skills while your blood alcohol level is elevated,” Jack continued. “As entertaining as it was to watch you tase a bush. By the way, if you were wondering what hit your window, it was a bird.”
Claire whipped around. Was it injured? She wasn’t versed in bird CPR, but she had quick hands when it came to YouTube.
“It’s fine,” Jack added. “It flew north. Here,” he said, reaching into his back seat and pulling out a new Taser. “In case the chipmunks stage an uprising next.”
“Deadbeat Dad’s got jokes.” Claire snatched the stun gun from him. There were five more inside concealed beneath various pieces of furniture, but she wasn’t going to turn her nose up at a free weapon. Not after everything they’d been through in the past month. She turned on her heel and cut across the yard. Charlie followed her, but Brianna stuck her head inside the car.
Even under the blue tone of the streetlight overhead, Brianna looked like an elf princess from a fairytale as she skipped lightly over the asphalt and came back with a gallon-sized storage bag that looked to be full of cookies.
“Mom made us cookies. They’re vegan, but I can confirm that they’re edible,” she said, brandishing the bag.
“Let’s go back inside. I don’t want to shame-eat these where they can see us.” Claire stepped into the foyer and snapped the door shut behind them.