Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
T he long, glossy dining table dividing Olivia from Mei and me pretty much sums up the slippery distance I feel with someone who supposedly gave birth to me. Cold, hard, no scars. Polished. Sharp edges. Since we arrived three hours ago, everything’s felt like if I make one wrong turn, I’ll meet the tip of that sharp edge and bleed out. The silence between Mei and me only added to the tension. So, when we got to the pool house, Mei slipped into the shower, and I didn’t follow for the first time in weeks; I needed more space to think than even that thirty-person shower could offer. After she got out and I took her place, I stayed in until the water ran cold. After I was done, I sat on the back patio and stared into the bushes while my mind slowly, cautiously unwound.
Now I’m suspended in discomfort at the dining table, twisting the cap on my imported Italian soda that probably cost more than my Adidas. “Thanks for dinner,” I say to Olivia. My leg bounces under the table.
Her gaze lingers on me. “Funny, you look just like me but your mannerisms…it’s like I’m looking at Raymond right now.” She shoots a smile. “And if you’re wondering what you should call me, it’s Olivia. Just Olivia. No one would ever believe I could have an eighteen-year-old son, anyway.”
Like I would call her mom after she strode into the dining room wearing a skirt I’m afraid will slide up and show me exactly where I came from.
“It’s still just such a great surprise to have you here.” She sips her wine, then sets it down, clearing her throat. “I only wish I didn’t have to leave on Saturday to deal with a new line in Paris.”
Turns out, my timing’s always been inconvenient.
Her house help floats around the dining room, making sure our plates are full of appetizers that look like leaves, and even though they smell nasty, I pop one in my mouth so I don’t have to talk. Is this what my life would’ve been like if Dad and Olivia had stayed together? Or if they’d split but I had to choose to live with one or the other? And what if I’d chosen to live with Olivia? I’d go to a private school. Drive a Ferrari. Eat gross food in fancy dining rooms. Be a total douchebag. I’m glad I didn’t have a choice.
Allen, Olivia’s boyfriend or agent or husband or whatever he is, keeps flipping his hair and smiling at the windows like the paparazzi are outside, just waiting to get a great shot. He’s too old for that hairstyle, but Olivia can’t keep her fingers out of it. Dad looks like a Scottish warrior compared to this mannequin-guy. I wonder how many guys there have been since Dad.
“So you really got married?” Olivia rakes her fingers through the back of Allen’s hair like he’s her puppy and raises her eyebrows at me.
I nod. “Yep. Really did. About three weeks ago. On the twenty-first.”
She swirls her glass of wine and takes a sip. “Why?”
I choke down whatever I just put in my mouth and chase it with the whole bottle of soda. Did she seriously just ask that? Aren’t rich models supposed to have manners?
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. Mei Li’s beautiful.” Olivia gives Mei a tight smile, and I lean a little closer to Mei, like I can shield her from Olivia’s judgement.
“Uhh…” I glance at Mei, who looks like she’s concentrating on surfing the waves of awkward rolling through the room. “Because we couldn’t stand being apart? Because we’ve been in love since day one?” Why does she think we got married? “Why are you two married or shacking up or whatever you’re doing?” I motion between her and her man-pet.
Allen chokes on his food, and Olivia laughs. “Oh, we’re not married. I don’t believe in it. But if I did, I’m slightly older than eighteen. Even if I don’t look it.” She leans over and kisses Allen, and I find my plate fascinating and a perfect place to puke until she speaks again. “I’ve been eighteen, so I get it. I mean, I thought I loved Raymond for, like, ten minutes.” She laughs and rolls her eyes. “I finally figured out I just liked looking at him. Getting pregnant definitely wasn’t part of the plan, but I guess I looked a little too long.” She flips her hair. “Don’t get me wrong. I tried the whole mom thing. You were about ten months old when Raymond finished police academy and proposed, thinking we could be the picture-perfect family. But really, I didn’t want any of it.”
My blood runs cold. “I was ten months old when you left?”
She takes a sip of wine, staring at me over the rim of the glass. “Has Raymond never told you any of this?”
I shake my head, and Mei rubs my leg under the table.
“ Really ?” She leans forward, a smirk on her face. “What did he tell you about me?”
“Nothing.”
She sits back in her chair, running her hand over her hair. “Huh. Well…yeah. I gave motherhood a go. But after ten months, I just knew it wasn’t for me. And after Raymond proposed, I told him I felt the best thing we could do for you was give you up for adoption—let someone who wanted kids raise you. But he refused. So I controlled what I could and that was that.”
My whole body tenses against the information assault, my stomach cold, her words acidic. I’ve never heard this version of my history. Dad said she left not long after I was born. But…ten months after? She wanted to put me up for adoption after ten months? Rejection echoes through my body, achy and empty, but before I can respond, Olivia continues.
“So maybe you two are Raymond and Olivia 2.0, and Mei Li just likes looking at you.” She grins at us like she didn’t just drop a jagged boulder in the middle of the table. She spears something on her plate with her fork. “You pregnant?” she asks Mei.
“Are you serious?” I blurt before Mei can say anything. “No, she’s not pregnant. What kind of?—”
“Why are you offended, Marcus? You wouldn’t be sitting here right now if I hadn’t gotten pregnant at eighteen, you know.” Olivia tips her wine glass at Mei. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were pregnant, Mei Li. He’s gorgeous—perfect jaw line, amazing nose, perfect face, perfect height. All of it. And those blue eyes. A camera would make out with that face.” She and Allen chuckle. He clinks his wine glass against hers and shrugs at me.
“I’ll try not to be jealous since she’s your mom.” He throws his smile at me as an apology.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Olivia says, waving her hands. “Let’s not call me ‘mom.’ I never wanted to be one but I have to say…I’m proud of my hard work.”
I consider grabbing her glass and hurling it against the wall, and Mei must feel me tense because she slides her hand onto my leg and blurts, “I guess neither of us can resist Miller boys. And I’ve definitely been in love with Marcus for way longer than ten minutes. In fact, I love him so much, nothing could make me leave him.” She takes a bite of a cracker with a glob of yellow on it.
I snap my head toward her, my eyebrows reaching for the 80-foot ceiling. “ Are you freaking kidding me? Did you really just say that? I love you so hard right now.” We haven’t talked in hours, and I’ve kept my eyes quiet on purpose, but I could jump on this rich person table and breakdance over that comment.
Mei sips her water while Olivia watches us.
“You two are adorable,” Olivia croons. “Seriously. What did Raymond say about all of this, anyway? He’s so opinionated about everything, and when I stopped by your apartment, he was so lit up about you not showing up for graduation, he was practically in flames. I can only imagine his reaction to this whole situation.”
Hearing her call him Raymond all night has grated against my nerves. She doesn’t know him. Doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know anything about us because she chose not to. Despite my anger toward Dad, she has no right to talk about him. I wanna stand between him and her stupid words. Protect him from her sharp angles and scratchy eyelashes and puffy lips. Kind of like I always tried to do but didn’t realize why until now.
“Raymond gets it,” I say even though he totally doesn’t and never will. “He’s getting married, too.”
“Mmm.” Olivia’s lips are tight. “Interesting. He said nothing about that when I saw him, but Rozalynn will be so happy. She always wanted him to get married and ‘settle down like a good little boy.’ She just always wanted it to be with me but…no thanks.” Olivia shakes her head too many times.
I’m coming unglued that she mentioned Meemaw, like she has any right to talk about her, either. I’m sick of deflecting her insults and hope the house help brings out food right now and rescues me from this moment.
But Allen clears his throat. “So, Marcus…what are your plans for the future?”
We just showed up. Like we were in the L.A. neighborhood and decided to drop in for a dinner party. I haven’t mentioned we’re homeless, and I won’t. Meth labs are a more attractive option than anything Olivia has to offer. “Uhh, we’re…” Wandering. Running. Fugitives? “Taking a summer road trip before school starts.”
“Ah. That sounds perfect. Wish I’d done that when I was your age instead of focusing so much on making money.” He smiles and rests his arms on the table like a normal person having a normal conversation. “Where are you headed in the fall?”
I swallow. Mei doesn’t know that when we stopped for gas earlier, I called Stanford and found out I can apply for a leave of absence—put my scholarship on hold and maybe get my spot on the team back. Maybe.
“Stanford,” I blurt, and Mei tenses beside me. But I refuse to say “maybe” or “I hope” because right now I could say anywhere since the answer today is nowhere. Someday, when this dumpster fire is finished exploding, I’ll be back at Stanford. So yeah—that’s the plan. After all this.
“Oh, very nice!” Allen says, beaming across the table. “Congratulations. Do you know what you want to study? And what about you, Mei Li?”
Allen’s asked us approximately a hundred more questions than Olivia, and actually seems to care, so I feel bad for lying to him.
“I’m pre-med,” I answer, nodding.
“Culinary.” Mei’s voice is strong and solid, like she feels next to me. I rub her thigh under the table, and she puts her hand over mine.
“Wow. That’s just great. Just great.” Allen nods, but Olivia leans toward us.
“Or…I could get you both started in the biz.” Her focus shifts from me to Mei and back again. “We could hire you both at the store, and Marcus, you could do shoots on the weekends. I’d love to show you off to my agent. He’ll love your look. He has a type.” She motions toward herself and bursts out laughing from either too much wine or too much of herself. I’m mad at Dad all over again for ever loving her. Even madder at him for telling me she came for graduation. I choke back anger and take a drag on my water.
“Oh. Wow. Yeah, that’s…something I’ve never considered. Or wanted.” I manage a shaky smile. It’s the best I can do when what I wanna do is run. “Thanks for the offer but…not really my thing.”
“Well, it should be.” She flips her hair and adjusts the strap on her dress that shows way more of her than anyone wants to see. “You’re obviously not following in Raymond’s footsteps, so there’s a big old world out there. You too, Mei Li. My agent is always looking for people of color.”
I’ve never shoved food in my mouth as fast as I do when the helper lady sets down a plate of something unidentifiable in front of me.
Olivia smooths her napkin on her lap. “If you two don’t have plans for tomorrow, I’ll take you to the store, and you can meet all my people. It’s in the Fairmont Hotel. I’ll show you a bit of my world. Once you get a glimpse, it will be hard to say no to it.”
Mei stands, tossing Olivia a weak smile as she picks up her plate. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to call it a night and let you talk. Thank you so much for dinner.” She scoots in her chair and disappears.
I watch her go, wondering what’s wrong, my legs twitching to go after her, but Olivia continues the conversation.
“So how about tomorrow?”
My attention is with Mei, and I wish my body had gone with her, too. “Umm…sure. Yeah,” I answer distractedly. But no way. Not a chance. We won’t be here tomorrow—I’ll make sure of that.
If I’d met Allen somewhere else, some other way, some other time, we’d probably be chill. I like the guy. Just can’t respect him because he’s with Olivia. After dinner, we went back into the white living room, and he’d asked me questions about soccer. Turns out, he played in college. Olivia got bored and scrolled on her phone while Allen and I talked, then interrupted so she could take me on a tour of the house, which could fit 100 Clubhouses inside it. At midnight, I told them I was tired, but instead of heading to the pool house, I came out here on the deck and just…sat. Alone in the dark. Letting my thoughts swirl in all the emptiness between me and the city below.
Less than a day ago, I was on the Stanford soccer field, running plays and living my dream. Now it’s 2 AM, and all my dreams are dead, along with the one where I meet my mom and she’s amazing and loving and wants me in her life. But she decided a long time ago she didn’t. After she’d known me for ten months.
I close my eyes, clenching my jaw against the surge of pain. What did I think she’d be like? A mom who just steps out of the kitchen with freshly baked cookies and milk? Offers to read me bedtime stories? Throws a welcome home party for the son she’s agonized over for eighteen years because “Raymond” intentionally kept us apart? Maybe an apology? A sort-of apology? A hint of one? Didn’t happen. None of it happened. I wish Dad had told me the truth. It would’ve hurt a lot less to kill my dreams when I was young than it does now, after eighteen years of believing one thing and finding out the opposite. Dad’s had eighteen years to settle into the truth that he has terrible taste in women, and I really did derail his life.
I pull out my almost-dead phone and navigate to the Stanford leave of absence form. All I can do is apply, then wait and hope and frantically pray that they accept my excuse: family crisis. I squint at the light beaming from the screen, my fingers stiff but determined to get this thing sent before I head back to the pool house and Mei. I’m not gonna tell her until I know the answer, yes or no. We can’t go back until the Nick thing’s settled anyway, and I wish that was as easy as an application.
I double-check the form and click the Submit button. Now I wait. They’ll either tell me I can freeze my scholarship and my spot on my team or tell me too bad.
I push out of the chair and walk down the lit path to the pool house like I’m at some kind of resort instead of trapped in a busted-up dream. I wanna run from all the debris behind me, the resentment building toward Mei and fear about where we go next because we’re not staying here. I’m disgusted and embarrassed with myself for building Olivia and the Mom Moment up in my head.
I stare at the pool house door, my feet heavy, heart empty. Lamplight streaks through the cut glass on the door. Mei’s on the other side, so why do I feel so alone right now? My hand shakes as I turn the knob and slip inside. I close the door behind me and lean back against it.
Mei’s curled up on the bed, still in her clothes, even though she left a few hours ago. She sits up and swipes at her eyes when I shut the door.
I stop, hand on the knob like it’s gonna hold me up. “You okay?”
She blinks at the ceiling and nods, her lip quivering, and I’m on the bed in two steps, pulling her into my arms. “What happened?”
She cries silently into my chest for a few minutes, her emotions leaking all over mine until we’re clutching each other as we drown. “Talk to me, Mei,” I beg.
“I…” Her voice is pulled under by tears, so I clutch her tighter, and she digs her fingertips into my back. “I didn’t realize that coming back here…I didn’t know it would affect me like this, but it’s too close.”
The words swirl in my head and drop one by one with a thud, kicking up dust, but no answers. “Too close to what?”
“The hotel.” Her sobs deepen.
The hotel. L.A. We’re in L.A. The last time she was here…
“The store Olivia mentioned? In the Fairmont Hotel? That’s the hotel,” Mei chokes. “I can’t go there again.”
I sit back on my legs, holding her by the arms. My throat’s raw from the flow of emotions up and down it all night. “We’re not going there, Mei. We’re leaving.”
“I’ll be fine. We can stay. I just can’t?—”
“No. I wanna get so far from here.” My jaw aches from being clenched for the last four hours. “She has a wall covered in pictures of herself.” I picture the gallery of model photos. “She doesn’t have room to love anyone but herself, and my dad told me I’m turning out to be just like her.” I pause when my voice wavers. “But I won’t be her. I can’t even stand to look at her because I hate that we look so much alike. She wanted to give me away after knowing me for ten months. Who does that?” Silence crashes, a little of my emptiness spilling into the room. “We’ve been here four hours too long, and I’m so sorry I brought you here,” I whisper to the bedspread and pull Mei back into my arms.
“Where do you want to go?” she murmurs.
I close my eyes. Back to Stanford. Back to my spot on the team. Back to the life we left this morning or the one before that when I didn’t know Olivia. I want the future with Mei, but more than anything I want something solid around us, and right now, nothing is. “I don’t know where, but we’re getting out of here.”
The sun has yet to show up, but we’re still on I-15 in the middle of the desert, headed east. Toward somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere, maybe. Not a studio apartment on a college campus that meant we’d made it somewhere and definitely not a soccer field that proved I’d made it somewhere. Away from L.A. where I never would have come if I’d stopped to think for one second.
When my eyesight blurs, I veer off the road and park under the lit canopy of a lonely gas station. I hang my helmet from the handlebar and shove the gas nozzle into the tank to top it off. Mei waits with it, and I go inside the convenience store, striding to the back and snatching two sodas from the fridge. I throw them on the checkout counter and rip some cash out of my wallet.
The cashier scans the sodas, glancing at me. “Long night?”
“You could say that,” I answer, shoving the change into my wallet. “What’s the nearest city?”
“Vegas. ’Bout an hour and a half or so…”
“Thanks.” I grab the sodas and push the door open with my shoulder. Mei sits sideways on the motorcycle, watching me walk toward her, fingers spinning her ring in her lap. I avoid her eyes, afraid of what mine might say. “Guess we’re going to Las Vegas,” I say, handing her the soda and throwing my leg over the seat. I start the bike so at least there’s some noise between us.
She hesitates before scooting behind me, her hands gripping the seat instead of my waist. I tear out of the gas station, thankful for the darkness of the deserted road and the way the yellow stripes rush at us.
When the haze of city lights stretches across the horizon, I speed up, eager for a distraction and a target for my attention.
Buildings pop up on either side of the road, and I turn off the interstate. Never been to Las Vegas, but I gotta figure out where we’re going so my mind will stop pulling me backward to where we’ve been. Or comparing the looming mega-resorts to our safe, calm Stanford apartment. The never-ending asphalt and cement of Las Vegas to the soccer field turf.
My mind shifts to dark thoughts, and I shut it down, stopping at the first pay-by-the-hour motel we come to. I don’t wanna think about staying for longer than that. But for now, I’m done thinking. Done with roads and motorcycles and Mei with all the extra space she’s giving me on this seat. I just wanna go to sleep and wake up back in Stanford as if none of this ever happened.