Chapter 7 Reed
REED
When the rideshare pulls up outside the house I’m going to be staying in for the next week, my jaw joins my duffel bag on the floor.
I don’t know what earns the reaction more, the new-build architectural masterpiece of a mansion or the peaks of the Teton Range visible over the roof as if it is adorned with a crown.
That would be fitting because this place was made for a king, and if what I believe is true, I’m the lost prince who’s finally made his way home.
Nobody at the housesitting agency would tell me who owned the property when I interviewed or was offered the position, despite having to sign a boatload of legal paperwork just to secure the gig.
Half of it I didn’t bother to read. I’d falsified most of my references to make it this far.
While the pay rate is cushy and the private spa looks inviting, I’m not here to pad my resume.
I have bigger plans for my stay. Much bigger. Bigger than this house, even.
When the housesitting company asked if I was comfortable with remote locations, I didn’t bat an eyelash. The nearest grocery store is over a twenty-minute drive away, and the nearest police station is even farther. I told them that was fine by me, and that I craved peace and quiet.
I need a retreat. Away from the trailer, where I can’t stop thinking about my mom. Away from the eastern side of the state, where I can’t stop thinking about Hank. My obsessive mind is a tangle of resistance bands I can’t unknot.
Blue-gray clouds hover overhead as the car stops beside the front entrance with a paved walkway, which is lined by skinny, manicured trees.
From this side, the house is a magic trick.
Because of its position built into a hillside, only the second story is visible from the driveway, creating the illusion of a humble ranch home squirreled away among more ostentatious builds in the rich enclave of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a part of my home state I’ve never been to.
I spent the previous night in a cheap motel in Riverton.
This morning, as I was about to leave for the last three hours of my trek, Mom’s old car decided to die on me.
Crapped out. Even the mechanic couldn’t say what was wrong with it other than that it was old and whatever part it needed would likely be hard to find and expensive. Did I want to wait?
Part of me thought it was a sign to turn back. Then, I asked myself WWNRD?—What would Nova Ranger do?
Go forth, I thought. Find a new ship and continue your mission.
I called a rideshare and charged it to my nearly maxed-out credit card. The pay from this job should cover it once the bill comes due.
The rideshare driver beats me to the trunk, where the shiny silver Hadron logo winks at me. Hadron is an automotive and clean energy company known for its status-symbol electric cars. The fact that I pulled up to this house in a Hadron is ironic for more than one reason.
With a smile and a low whistle, the driver hauls out my suitcase. “This your place?” he asks. He’s older, maybe forties, with dark skin, a shaggy beard, and wizened eyes.
“For the week,” I say, but if things go according to plan, it might be longer. Like, forever longer. A bequeathed-to-me-in-a-will-one-day sort of thing.
For now, I’m a gig-worker like the driver is, hustling to make ends meet.
My professors and advisors in the business department at the University of Wyoming led me to believe a degree was a shiny skeleton key to any entry-level job I wanted.
Come to find out, every place needs candidates for starting positions to have had experience in the field. How oxymoronic is that?
“Staying here by yourself?” the driver asks. His inquisitive eyes sweep over me the way they did the house. Impressed, like he can’t believe what he sees.
“Not sure,” I say, decoding the kind of covert flirting gay men in this part of the country use for their safety.
A light shift of his weight. A lick of his full lips.
A slow brush of his hand across the front of his khaki shorts.
I know the signals. He’s interested in me, and I can’t say the feeling isn’t mutual.
“Easy to get lonely in big houses,” he says.
I blush a little under his suggestion. He’s my type, for sure. I prefer my men taller than me, older than me, and with a nice smile, so the driver fits the bill, but I’m still nursing a bruised ego after Hank blocked me.
It was one thing when he ghosted me. The door was left open, at least a crack. Him blocking me on the messaging app was the final nail in the coffin of our burgeoning connection. Had I done something to upset him?
I knew making food was a risk, but the idea of driving back to the empty trailer of my childhood had made me desperate for an alternative.
I was hoping he’d note the time and let me stay.
I’d have even taken the couch if he didn’t want to share his bed.
But all he said was “Drive safe,” and that was that. Hopes dashed. Night over.
I’d driven all the way back to Gilette, chugging energy drinks and blasting Johnny Cash just to flog myself some more.
I ask the rideshare driver if he uses social media, and we trade handles.
It’s a vague way to say I’m interested but not looking right now.
Also, it’s a good way to weed out the creeps—does he only have pictures of himself holding up fish on his profile?
No thanks—and not have my number floating around in unknown phones.
Inside the front door of the mansion, I drop my bags.
Beep, beep, beep.
The hair-raising pierce of the home security system nearly shocks me out of my skin.
Behind me, next to the door, the newly installed, high-tech security panel screeches at me.
Following the instructions on my phone, I tap in a code and arm the mechanism for maximum defense.
Whatever that means. It takes three tries before the screen glows green for success and silence befalls the space again.
Settled with that, I take in the house. The first thing I notice is some funky, seaweed-looking light fixtures dangling over the staircase, at the top of which hangs a simple painting of colorful shapes.
I’m sure it costs more than all four years of my college tuition combined and was probably painted by some famous European whose name I couldn’t pronounce if I tried.
From a front zippered pocket in my suitcase, I grab a pair of rubber gloves, a plastic bag, and some tweezers. Relaxation can’t commence until my mission is well underway.
This was never just about the job or the money. Not really.
I kick off my shoes and luxuriate in the cool wooden floors against the soles of my bare feet.
This level of the house has a mud room for jackets and hiking boots, a laundry room with top-of-the-line appliances and hanging areas, and access to the garage, where three cars that appear to never have been driven are lined up in a row.
Two are sports cars and the last is an ostentatious yellow SUV.
I’ve never been able to afford one used car, let alone three new ones.
The only car I’ve ever owned is the one I inherited from my mom, which got sent to an early grave this morning.
I guess all those long, spontaneous trips over the summer pushed it to its limits.
Back down the other fork in the main hallway are two massive walk-in closets only partly filled with designer outfits and shoes.
Their entrances frame the final room of the wing, which is a primary bedroom with a hidden pocket door for privacy.
The walls are painted an airy off-white, and a king bed faces a picture window which looks out onto the majesty of the Teton Range.
I jump onto the bed and allow the soft white comforter to cradle me. I gaze out on the sun-dappled mountains and pinch the inside of my forearm to ensure I’m not dreaming. After months of plotting, I’m inside this house with this view.
Which reminds me: work now, relax later. I need to keep moving.
Around a double-sided fireplace, I discover the coziest reading nook ever.
There are no books lining the built-in bookshelves that bracket the cushiony seat though.
That’s fine. I have the one book I’ve been reading repeatedly for the last few months, Activate Your Inner Entrepreneur by Wendell Blitz, CEO of growing e-commerce company Arrow Mart, tucked in my bag.
The copy is battered, notated, highlighted, and dog-eared.
I could probably recite whole passages of it from memory if pressed.
In the bathroom, I could get lost. It’s like a wing all on its own.
At the double vanity, I pause to take in my reflection.
I’ve got the barest hint of dark bags under my flinty blue eyes.
My curly dirty-blond hair is lifeless from stale car air.
I haven’t been to the gym in a few days, which is making me look a little bloated and puffy.
Once this is all over, I can get back to my routine.
Once I have answers, I can become my best self.
Grief and rejection won’t keep me shackled.
On the vanity countertop, twin electric toothbrushes sit charging side by side. Green lights blink in synchronicity on their fronts.
I need one, and the other is entirely useless. I don’t have the time or the money to make a mistake right now, so I weigh my options carefully.
Most of the counter is clear and wiped clean by a fastidious housekeeping crew, so I open the drawers on either side of the vanity in search of evidence for who uses which.
Under the left sink, I discover nail clippers, makeup wipes, and an appealing, half-empty tub of body lotion named Peony and Blush. The scent is divine, and there are at least a dozen more full tubs where this one came from stacked behind it, so I take it to use later, certain it won’t be missed.
The drawers under the right sink are sparser. I sort through a travel-sized bottle of migraine relief, a sample tube of charcoal face wash, replacement toothbrush heads, and a close-shave razor, perfect for someone who keeps a bald head.
Bingo.
I pop the head off the toothbrush on the right, careful not to disturb the bristles, and I preserve it in my baggie. Once sealed, I replace the toothbrush head with a fresh one and continue my self-guided tour.
To my left, there’s a toilet room, and to my right, there’s a tiled spa room with two showerheads mounted to the wall with drains drilled into the floor. On the other side of the spa room is a rustic clawfoot tub that could easily fit three people.
I get lost on my way back to the front door to nab more supplies from my suitcase.
The wings look the same with their minimalist aesthetics, so I’m surprised when I seem to have wandered into an entirely new one without realizing.
This wing of the second floor houses an open-concept space clearly meant for entertaining guests.
Floor-to-ceiling windows and telescope doors beam sunlight onto a butcherblock table that seats twelve.
I imagine the celebrities, dignitaries, and business powerhouses that will come to eat here.
Glasses of expensive wine clinking in toasts.
Laughter shared over stock market snafus.
Photos taken out on the balcony will make their way onto gossip sites by morning.
Beyond the table is a chef’s kitchen. Spotless, never-been-used pots and pans hang from a rack affixed to the ceiling.
Behind the gleaming cookware are a butler’s pantry and plentiful cabinets all painted a tasteful midnight blue.
The fridge is hidden inside one of these cabinets and, to my delight, is stocked to the brim with food.
I snag a protein bar from an already-open box and bite into the combination of fruits, nuts, and oats that satisfies my craving.
An elk-horn chandelier presides over a seating area to my left, where two expensive couches and three armchairs are arranged in a rectangle.
The fourth side of the rectangle is an exquisite stone fireplace that’s so homey I could cry.
Above it, two stuffed elk heads are mounted, bracketing yet another painting.
This one isn’t some abstract art by a long-dead savant.
This is a portrait, and the squinty blue eyes of the man in it bear down on me.
Blue eyes that look a lot like mine.
In a brown leather chair, a bald white man in a dark-blue suit sits with a pipe in his hand.
Smoke curls out of it, almost in the shape of a dollar sign.
The subject is the embodiment of the one percent.
The painter captured the gleam of his shined shoes, the heft of his massive watch, and, judging by the wide spread of his legs, the size of his ego.
“Dad,” I say, trying it on for size. The word is foreign to me. My mom only ever acknowledged that I had a dad when she scolded me for ruining her life.
“Dad.” I say it again to get a good handle on it. It sounds right, feels right.
Wendell Blitz, the CEO of Arrow Mart, is my dad.
The first time I came to that conclusion, I swore I had to be wrong.
After my mom died and I started packing up all the junk she left behind for me in the rundown mobile home and the cheap storage unit I never knew she had, I figured I had followed a trail of evidence down the wrong path.
But the deeper I dug, the more the opportunity and timeline became indisputable.
Now all I need is the paternity test to prove it.
I hoist the ziplock baggie into the air, the toothbrush head like a rare gem that could unlock access and wealth and a real future.
Finally finding my way back to the front door, I grab the DNA testing kit from my suitcase and swab my cheek in one of the many guest bathrooms on this level.
I date and label my sample before placing it inside the mailer my friend Carson gave me.
He works as a lab technician and has promised me priority once I get these samples in.
With any luck, I’ll have results back within forty-eight hours.
I peer back up at the painting, trying to emulate the pose, the posture, the stare.
I went to the College of Business at the University of Wyoming with a focus in management and entrepreneurship.
My dream is to run my own enterprise and be my own boss one day.
I wouldn’t mind inheriting and heading Arrow Mart should the opportunity arise.
Wendell’s success and this house are shining examples that people who come from nothing can make something out of their lives.
Aside from our probable shared DNA, Wendell and I have another point of true connection. We both have the drive to succeed at any cost necessary.
Nothing—and I do mean nothing—is going to stand in my way.