9. Piper
Piper
W hile Archie is outside, I pick at my eggs and open my sketchbook. I’ve missed my window for watching the sky change from a hazy gray to bright blue while sipping coffee on the patio, but I’ll take my sketchbook out there once he’s done talking to Malcolm.
He’s left the sliding glass door slightly open, and while I can’t hear all of Archie’s words, I hear his tone.
There’s a careful, pleading vibe to it that makes me even more sympathetic to Archie.
Malcolm is a master of manipulation and control.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he uses both with Archie, who suddenly sounds like a little kid.
When Malcolm and Mom first got married, Malcolm made a big deal about being my “dad.” He showered me with praise and gifts in front of Archie and Frankie—especially Frankie.
He’d say things like, “You’re the daughter I’ve always wanted” And “You’re the kind of daughter who would make any father proud. ”
At the time, I loved the attention and thought he was teasing Frankie. Now I understand that he’d used me to hurt her. I wonder if Archie realized it before I did. Maybe that’s why he was so hard on me.
I would have hated me, too.
The dynamic between all of them is messed up, and I don’t want to be part of it again.
I do miss Frankie, though. When I moved to New York, I just sort of stopped talking to her as much as I once had.
Her life blew up around the time the divorce proceedings started, but I had every excuse I needed to forget about all the Forsythes, including Frankie.
I still feel bad, though, about not staying in touch with her.
Archie may not have been nice to me when our parents married, but Frankie stoked my obsession with fashion by taking me to thrift stores around LA, mostly along Melrose, but to some more obscure ones, too.
Malcolm wouldn’t have cared if she’d taken me to the high-end stores on Rodeo Drive—in fact, he encouraged it—but Frankie insisted that buying vintage was cooler.
But what I really learned from her is that vintage wasn’t only cooler, it was also less wasteful.
Her philosophy was to invest in something classic rather than a microtrend that would be gone in a few months.
I credit her and those shopping trips for inspiring upcycled and repurposed clothing designs.
Archie’s voice grows louder, and I reach for my AirPods to give him privacy.
Then I hear my name and remember Mom saying this morning that Joe was talking to her attorney. Is Malcolm’s call related to that?
I put my AirPods in but instead of turning on the sound canceling feature, I toggle to the amplification settings and turn on Live Listen. Instead of playing music to drown out the outside noises, Archie and Malcolm’s conversation gets louder in my ears.
For the first time, I don’t think the class I took from a soft-spoken professor who was also a spitter was a waste of time.
I wouldn’t have known about this feature if I hadn’t been in that class developing my spy skills.
When things got boring, I’d pretend I was in a Mission Impossible -type situation where the fate of fashion depended on my overhearing what the professor was whispering.
Now that I’m in an actual Mission Impossible sitch, with a villain I used to think was a good guy conspiring against me with his hot—yeah, I said it—bare-chested henchman, I’m grateful for that Professor Whisperer-Spitter.
I know I shouldn’t actually use the technology to spy, but is it really spying if Archie is talking about me? Especially when I have to make some decisions, and I need as much information as possible to make the right one? This is very much a means-justify-the-ends moment.
“Here me out, Dad. What I’m suggesting is that you settle with Cynthia for ten million cash instead of giving her the house…
” Archie says. “She’s planning on Piper staying here, anyway.
So why not give her money so she can buy houses for the both of them and still have money left over?
Then I can use this house however I need to.
It’s a cleaner solution and ten million is a nice round number she’ll be stoked to have in her pocket. ”
Archie moves further from the door and turns his back toward me, interfering with my spy technology. But it sounds like Malcolm is saying no, even though a quick check of Zillow shows this house is worth closer to twelve than ten million.
I’m not sure why Malcolm would be against Archie’s idea.
It’s the kind of deal he loves—screwing people out of what they deserve.
I doubt his no is out of concern for Mom.
He wants her gone. It’s strictly concern that changing the terms now means more time to draft up a new decree and more time he has to stay married to her.
I don’t care if Malcolm is inconvenienced, but for Mom’s sake, I want this marriage over as much as he does.
My understanding—at least since my arrival—is that everything is done. We’re all just waiting for Archie to deed the house back to Malcolm in order for the divorce to be finalized.
What I didn’t realize until right now is that Archie doesn’t want to sign, even though he has a trust fund and can live anywhere. He, literally, has his choice of beach houses around the world. Why is he so determined to keep this one? Why is he still so determined to make my life miserable?
Malcolm is done with Mom, and for all his talk about me being like a daughter to him all those years ago, Malcolm is done with me , too.
Malcolm and I really did have a good relationship—at least, I thought so—until I refused to study business administration so I could take over for Sybil when she retires as his personal assistant.
I wanted to study fashion, but Malcolm hated that idea, so he took my name off the college account he’d set up for me.
I got a student loan instead and realized that our relationship had never been what I’d thought it was.
He'd controlled me with his praise and gifts, similar to what I’d seen him do with Archie and Frankie.
When I left for New York, I made the conscious decision to use the physical distance between Malcolm and me to create an emotional distance.
We still had some contact, but our relationship officially ended two years ago when I ran into him with another woman at a fashion show in New York.
He hadn’t told me he was coming to the city, and he’d told Mom he was in Australia.
He acted casual about it and tried to convince me that Mom had it wrong. He claimed the woman was a potential business partner he was networking with, but a little digging into her social media revealed pictures of them on the deck of the South Bay house, as well as her at his house in Brisbane.
When I texted him those photos, to prove that I knew, he offered to pay off my school debt and cover the rest of my expenses through graduation if I kept it to myself.
He said he didn’t want to hurt Mom; things had been hard for them, and they were already moving toward a separation.
Telling Mom, he said, would only make things worse for her.
Obviously, I didn’t go for that.
My loyalty is to Mom first. Always. The news broke her heart.
What I didn’t realize until the divorce was in process is that the pre-nup conditions kept Mom from getting anything.
..except in the case of infidelity. Not only did I expose Malcolm's cheating, I opened the way for Mom’s legal pursuit of everything she felt she deserved.
She didn’t hold back. She went after everything he’d bought or earned in the ten years they were married. Her rightful portion is way more than this house—Malcolm's net worth is in the billions.
And Archie wants to give her even less than she’s already agreed to? Now that she’s ready to stop fighting?
A surge of protectiveness wells up inside of me. Whatever sympathy I had for Archie a few minutes ago is gone.
What is it with these Forsythe men? Do they really believe the world revolves around them? Malcolm has refused to settle with Mom for two years, and now Archie’s going to use this to his advantage?
I don’t think so.
While I listen to—okay, eavesdrop on —Archie’s side of the conversation, I consider my options.
Should I confront Archie about manipulating the settlement?
Should I tell Mom to get ready to go back to court and fight even harder?
Should I get my stuff and leave without a word to anyone so that I’m not a part of this?
Archie walks toward the beach, and I lose the rest of the conversation.
I don’t know what my next move should be, so I do what works best to slow my brain when it’s racing. I open to the design I was working on last night before exhaustion got the best of me, then get my graphite pencil out of my toolbox. Designing and sketching always soothes me. Always has.
The same is true now. As I sketch out the lines and rough pattern of the dress and fill it in with the blue colors of the Murano vase Archie so casually tossed away, my thoughts slow. I gain focus and clarity.
If I leave, I’ll be giving Archie what he wants without a fight, and Mom’s lawyer will have to work up a new settlement while she’s in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. If I confront Archie, he might counterattack and make things worse—plus this truce between us goes away.
As much as I don’t want to be a part of this, I realize pretty quickly that my best option—I think—is to… squat.
Even the word sounds gross, but I don’t want things to drag on any longer than they have to and...well, I still need a place to stay. Mom and Malcolm have agreed to the house as a settlement. We are so close to being done—and Archie is the person standing in the way.
I take a breath, return the settings on my AirPods so that I can listen to some Billie Eilish while I draw, and consider what’s ahead.
A few minutes later, when Archie slides open the back door, I’m at the kitchen table, my leg pulled up on the chair, arm wrapped around my knee, my chin resting against it as I use a tangerine orange color to add dimension to my design. I’m as relaxed as a cat stretched out in a block of sunlight.
At least on the outside.
Inside, I’m a cat with tape stuck to its paw.
He drops into his seat and grabs his fork, sending me a quick smile. “Dad’s been on the phone with your mum’s lawyer. I guess we're sharing this place for the next two weeks.”
“Really?”
Archie doesn’t look at me. “Dad realized I needed more time to wrap things up here, but he didn’t want to throw you out.”
I scoff. That doesn’t sound like Malcolm. Both would require empathy, and Malcolm lacks that chip. Archie’s done something to convince Malcolm to give him more time and let me stay.
I should be grateful. If I believed Archie was doing it from the goodness of his heart, I would be. But he’s angling for something—I just don’t know what. I do know that spending two weeks with Archie sounds as appetizing as the cold eggs on his plate.
I push up my glasses and look him square in the eye. “Two weeks? Or longer? Because you were supposed to be out yesterday.”
Archie’s self-satisfied smile disappears. “Two weeks. Everything will be settled for good by then.”
Settled? Can I trust that he means the original settlement, or is he still pushing a different agenda?
Archie shovels toast into his mouth while I pick out a darker shade of orange for some texturing.
I’m relieved I don’t have to squat —gross—but as long as the house stays in Archie’s name, nothing is “settled.” Malcolm has been toying with Mom since the minute they met, and now Archie is playing his own version of the game.
It sounded like Malcolm shot down his idea, but that could change at any time, and I didn’t hear the full conversation.
If Malcolm changes his mind about giving Mom the house, I’m out of a place to live and Mom’s back in court.
Over the grating sound of Archie’s metal fork scraping across his plate, all I can think is I have to make Archie want to leave before the two weeks. Then an idea washes over me. Not just an idea, a plan.
I’m not powerless here. I won’t be tossed around by the whims of these narcissistic men. I know more than they think I do, and I’m smarter than either of them has ever given me credit for.
What I have planned for Archie will make him actually feel sorry about the Vegemite…and so much more.