9. Adriana
9
ADRIANA
PRESENT DAY
San Francisco
“Adriana, did you grab me the things from the store?”
Ugh. My stepmother’s voice grates on my last nerve. I sigh and head downstairs. I need my own place, but after finishing university in England, full-time work has been hard to come by.
Hence me moving back home to live with my father. A move I now greatly regret since Hana entered his life like a blonde tornado.
I learned two things the day we moved in with Hana, my new “mommy.”
One, I had a stepbrother, and I loved him from the first moment I saw his innocent little face.
Two, my stepmother is horrible, and I firmly believe her beauty, and possibly her money, hoodwinked Dad. There’s no other explanation for their whirlwind marriage. Unless … oh God, is she pregnant? But no, she has to be in her late forties. Surely not. She has Cade, my stepbrother, and he’s only four, so maybe?
I enter the kitchen and see she’s drinking prosecco. I sigh because it isn’t even early afternoon.
“There you are.” She strides over to me. “There’s no crab meat.”
“You didn’t ask for it,” I say.
“I definitely did. Run back out to the store, will you?” She hands me her card.
I sigh. Great. By run, she means pound the pavement because she knows I can’t drive. I never had lessons.
The dishes are piled up dirty and smelling by the sink. I sigh and start to clear them into the dishwasher. I wipe the surface then check in the fridge.
“What is Cade having for dinner this evening?”
Hana turns from where she’s sitting and fixes me with a harsh glare. “There’s all sorts of food in there.”
“Not things he likes.”
She laughs. “You know him so well, do you?”
“I know he doesn’t like seafood or salad.”
“Well, perhaps he should. I had a much more advanced palate at his age.”
“I’ll grab some ground beef and make meatballs and pasta. He likes that.”
She waves and sips at her drink again. “Whatever. Just make sure you get the damn crab this time.”
I suppress my eye roll and give her a polite smile. No point riling her. She’ll only take it out on Cade. He gets scared when she shouts.
I tried to talk to Dad about the way she treats her own son, but he brushed me off. He said Cade can be challenging, and Hana just wants the best for him. He used to be such a gentle, kind man. A good soul. I barely recognize the person the grief has twisted him into, and even more so since he married Hana.
My dream is to get myself settled and earning a steady income, and then somehow save Cade from this situation. I don’t think Hana loves him the way a mother should. She barely bothers with him. He might not be my biological brother, but he deserves more than this life, and I want to give it to him.
“Do I need to pick Cade up today?”
Hana frowns. “Um, yes, if you can.” She has the grace to flush a little. “But you still have time to go to the store.”
God, she’s a mess. She forgets so often when it’s time to fetch him from preschool. No way she can drive today if she’s already on the Prosecco. At least I know I will enjoy the walk.
I look at her dispassionately.
My stepmother is a striking woman. She’s tall, curvy, with thick blonde hair and startling green eyes. She’s way out of Dad’s league, and rich too, or at least I assume so, with the way she lives. I’m not sure how he managed to convince her to fall for him.
He and Hana don’t seem matched the way he and Mum did. When Dad met my mum, she was living in England, so he moved there. They were both into books, academia, and walks in nature.
I was born in England but have dual citizenship. Mum and Dad were happy, but they had very little money. There wasn’t any left over for things like driving lessons for me. Dad is an academic, but not one of the new, glamorous kind; more of the dusty, old kind. He’s as worn and leathered as some of his books, but he’s a kind man. Sadly, he fell into a bottle of whiskey when Mum died and never climbed out.
I get it; I was lonely too. A weird book nerd. Beautiful, I was repeatedly told, but not sexy. Never sexy. I wore boring clothes, and my ever-present glasses gave me even more of an intelligent appearance.
England was lonely for Dad, and the world was lonely for me, so why stay? Eventually, he moved back to America to be near his family.
I stayed and went to university in England because I didn’t want to lose the course place I had, but I came home each holiday. Staying in the university accommodation would be expensive, and the flights were cheaper. At the time, Dad lived near his ageing parents and his aunts and uncles. Then last summer when I finished my course, everything changed.
I hit twenty-one, graduated, and moved back to America for good. Dad changed colleges, moved us closer to the coast, and that’s when he met Hana. She works as a secretary at the college he’s tenured at now, and her money must all be from her dead husband because no way does a secretary earn enough for this kind of house. Now, she has her claws into Dad, and he seems smitten.
He isn’t glamorous or rich. I’ve concluded that she simply hated being alone and wanted company. The fact that they both like their wine, and in Dad’s case, whiskey too, probably didn’t hurt the attraction.
As for Dad, he clearly fell for her surface beauty, and they were married in a whirlwind after only dating for a few months. Does he regret it? Does he sit in this shiny, new, soulless house and miss his messy office, the garden with the weeping willow tree? Does he really believe it when he defends her? I could keep pushing, but that might drive him further away from me.
Does he miss England, rainy days, and long walks in the woods with Mum? I know I do. Her absence is like a toothache. I feel it all the time, every day, but at varying intensities. Some days I can ignore it, but other days the pain is sharp and insistent.
“Chop, chop. Stop daydreaming and run to the store, oh, and grab some capers too.” Hana purses her lips.
She stands, walks to me, and tugs on my ponytail. “Why does such a beautiful girl insist on always wearing her hair up? And never putting on makeup?” she asks. I don’t think she’s speaking to me, just venting her dismay to the universe. “The glasses are bad enough, but this hair only makes it worse. You know, you could be a stunner, but you seem to revel in being dowdy.” She sways a little on her feet and holds onto a chair to steady herself.
I don’t explain myself. She isn’t owed that.
From the age of thirteen it started, and it freaked me out. The looks, the comments. Dirty old men who should know better watched me with hungry gazes, their eyes raking me up and down. They tried to talk to me too.
Before she died, Mum told me I had great beauty, but it was a curse to be so striking. She told me to be careful and hide it if I had to. She also told me not to trust most boys. “Find a good man,” she used to say. “A good man doesn’t need glamorous clothes and makeup to see true beauty. Let your inner self shine through, the way mine did for your father.”
I did as she said. I didn’t wear makeup, even when all my friends were experimenting with it, and the clothes she bought me were baggy and boring. I got used to them and continued to buy them after she passed away. I pulled my hair back, read my books, wore my glasses, and waited. I waited for my prince. The man who would see me for who I really was.
Along the way, plenty of frogs made themselves known to me. Despite my boring hair, my lack of makeup, and the clothes hiding my figure, I was still inundated with harassment from men. They whistled at me. Catcalled. Tried to touch me. One guy even sat next to me on an empty bus once and proceeded to try to film me with his phone.
When I got to college, I hoped my luck might change, but I overheard the boys talking about how they would love to screw me, and they placed bets on who would get to me first. They said I was hot but weird, and they’d report back on if I was any good in bed. I retreated farther into myself.
I became known as the nerdy girl. The bookish one, and by less kind students, the weird one.
Soon any offers dried up, the chat up lines died down, and even the friendships I had tentatively made cooled off. All except one, with the girl who became my best friend. As for the others? I was deep in the wild wilderness of grief, and frankly, I didn’t care. I had my books, and they got me through. I attained a first-class degree in English Literature because I had few distractions, but how the hell do you turn that into a job if you don’t want to teach or be a librarian?
My student loans are massive, and I need a job, but when I arrived here and attended my father’s wedding, even still reeling from the shock of it, I quickly realized that Cade needed me around. I’ve become stuck in a catch-22. I want work, hell, I’d take shifts in a coffee shop right now, but I don’t want to be out of the house for long hours when I’m so worried about Cade.
Hana’s drinking has worsened considerably in the last few weeks, making me more concerned.
Hence why I’m stuck here today, instead of job hunting, dealing with the stepmom from hell.
She pulls the band out of my hair and fluffs it a little before taking my glasses off. “You need them for reading not walking,” she snaps.
I’ve explained to her that they’re prescription lenses for use all the time, but I need them the most for reading. They aren’t the same kind of reading glasses older people need. She never listens, though. As I can see without them, and I can’t face a row, I sigh and walk away.
The quicker I get the food and get home, the faster I can get a meal on the stove for Cade, and then I can go pick him up. I’ll take him to the park for a bit before we come home. He loves the park. He likes to pet the dogs. I know he would love a puppy, but Hana refuses to consider it.
As I near the front door, I pause. There’s a dark shadow outlined through the glass, and I know it isn’t Dad. He doesn’t have the height or the bulk. The fist on the glass makes me jump.
I open the door, and a man with dark hair, brown eyes, and a scar across his top lip stares down at me. His mouth twitches into a twisted smile. “Well, well, well, who are you?”
A small gasp behind me has me turning around. Hana stands at the kitchen door, peering into the hallway. Her eyes widen when she sees the man standing there.
“Ali, what are you doing here?”
“That isn’t a polite greeting for your cousin,” the man huffs. “How about you ask me in? Dorian is worried about you.”
Dorian? I recall her mentioning the name a few times. I think he’s Hana’s cousin too, or some kind of relation. I know my father had said he didn’t think Dorian should come around, and that’s why the name had stuck. I’d overheard them discussing it one night and thought it odd that he didn’t think Hana’s cousin should visit.
The man pauses and looks at me again, then he shocks me by putting his hands on my waist and pressing in so that my baggy sweater hugs my flesh.
“Hmm,” he says under his breath as he stares at my figure, clearer now with his hands pushing my sweater in at the sides. “This the stepdaughter?”
“Yes,” Hana snaps. “She’s just leaving, aren’t you, Adriana?”
“Yes,” I say, for once not wanting to argue with her. I just want this man to take his hands off me.
I step around him and head out of the door.
“What an astonishing face,” I hear him say.
“If you like them all wide-eyed and innocent, I suppose,” Hana scoffs. “It’s a bit round too, her face, I mean. A round, moon-faced girl, with eyes too big for her head.”
I walk faster so I don’t have to listen anymore, but the man’s next words reach me.
“Those eyes are exquisite. Nice body too. You said you didn’t have anything worth a damn, but it seems you do.”
What the hell does that mean? I race around the corner, not wanting them to be able to see me anymore, and power walk to the store.
It’s been four days since I saw the scary man at the door, and something is wrong. Hana is more of a bitch than usual. She snaps at me all the time, makes Cade cry, and treats Dad with utter disdain.
On day four I can’t take it anymore when she lays into me for the third time that morning.
“God, are you getting your period?” I snap.
She marches up to me, grabs my ponytail, and pulls. It shocks me as she’s never hurt me like this.
“You’d do well to try to remember how kind I am being to you right now.”
My heart races although I’m not sure why.
“What do you mean?”
Her face turns blank and stony. “Nothing.”
Bullshit, she meant something.
Heavy footsteps enter the room, and I turn to see Dad with his hand luggage and briefcase.
Hana’s face transforms into a happy smiley mask as she beams at me as if she’s fond of me. The bitch does a good impression of being nice when she needs to.
Dad in return smiles warmly at her. “I’ll call when I get to the hotel.” He kisses Hana on the mouth, and I try not to gag when she slips her tongue in.
Then he turns to me. “Be good. Take care of your brother. I’ll see you in two days.” He kisses my forehead, leaving a wet patch. The urge to rub it off because it might contain Hana spit is almost overwhelming.
His words hit me when he’s gone. Take care of your brother. He knows . Dad knows how messed up Hana is getting. That it’s only getting worse. He’s never said anything like that before.
The day drags on, and I miss my father, even though we don’t talk that much anymore. He’s at an academic conference. I check my watch. He’s probably already on his second glass of wine at the post conference dinner now. It’s getting dark outside. It’s warm today, unusually so. There hasn’t been much fog this past week.
Cade walks into the room, rubbing his eyes.
“Hey, bug. Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I’ve been watching television in my room. Mama didn’t come to say goodnight.”
Jesus, it’s late. I smile at him, big and happy, despite my heart aching. “That’s okay. I’ll do it. Shall we go clean those teeth?”
He pulls a face. Cade hates cleaning his teeth. “They aren’t dirty.”
“Hmm. Did you eat food today?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Like some?”
“Some.”
“Well then, bug, you need to clean those gnashers.”
He frowns. “What’s gernashis?”
I laugh. “Gnashers. Teeth. Maybe that’s a British word. Come on.” I ruffle his hair and then take his hand.
After I help him brush his teeth, I read him a story. He snuggles into me, and his hair smells of coconut.
Sleepily he mumbles, “I love you, Dreenana.” It’s how he says my name, and it always makes my heart melt.
“I love you too, bug.”
He snuggles deeper, and I hold him to me. Soon, his warm little body grows heavy against my side, and I stand, pulling the covers over his shoulders.
As I walk to my room, I pause outside Hana’s door. I listen but can’t hear anything. Is she passed out in there?
Once in my room, I throw myself on the bed and try not to worry.
I check my weather app and see tomorrow is going to be a nice day. I might call my friend Raine and see if she fancies a day at the beach. She’s the only friend I’ve managed to make here. Thinking about friends has me missing my one friend from England. My bestie. Sian. The girl who stuck with me through university. We met during Freshers week and have been best friends since. We didn’t share lectures as she studied art history, but we’d spend as much time together out of studying as we could. She wants to be an art historian and already has a great gig at a London museum two days a week.
The time over there is late evening. She might still be up, so I message her. I get an immediate reply.
Facetime me, Specs.
It’s her nickname for me, and it isn’t a cruel one. It’s because she was going through my drawers one day and found my collection of glasses from childhood, including some super fun ones in the shape of horses. She thought they were awesome, and I gave her a pair with fairy wings on them. “Thanks, Specs,” she’d said, and it stuck.
I call her on the tablet immediately.
Her happy face beams at me over the distance. “Hey, Specs, how goes it?”
“Ugh,” is my reply.
“That bad?”
“I hate my stepmother,” I whisper dramatically.
“You should come and live here. Daddy says you can.”
We bonded because we both had something terrible in common. We had both lost our mothers although her mother died when she was young. Her father isn’t like mine, though. He’s attentive. Kind. He’s also incredibly wealthy. I’ve never seen anything like how Sian lives. Her home is literally a stately mansion. It’s in the history books, and they say Queen Victoria stayed there as a girl. Sian’s father, Barnaby, is handsome as well as rich. He’s in his late forties, and a silver fox if ever I’ve seen one.
He began to treat me like a second daughter. Hugging me the way he did Sian, giving us both spending money for treats when we went out for the day. Warning us about boys. He even bought me some clothes the way he did for her. I used to fantasize sometimes that he was my dad for real, and then I’d feel incredibly guilty.
“I can’t sponge off you guys, but I will make a deal with you. If I manage to get a job back in England, I’ll stay if you let me pay rent. I won’t come out there until then, though.” Could I smuggle Cade out of the country? Probably not, but it’s a nice fantasy.
She mock pouts. “But I miss, you. Daddy does too. He says it isn’t the same just us two rattling around here. The holidays when it was the three of us were so happy.”
They were.
“You are still coming in a couple of months, aren’t you?” she demands.
We had arranged it a while ago, and she’d made me swear that no matter what I would keep the date, but with how things are with Cade and my stepmom, I don’t know if I dare leave him alone here that long. My face must show my hesitation as she shakes her head.
Her face darkens as if a huge storm cloud has passed over her. She can be scary when she wants something. “Specs,” she warns. “You swore you would. Daddy has gone to lots of expense for when you arrive.”
Oh, crap. That makes it hard for me to change my plans.
“Who are you talking to?” Barnaby Kane’s smooth tones drift through the ether.
“It’s Specs, Daddy. Come and say hi.”
“Adriana!” His face appears next to his daughter’s. “My darling girl, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Kane.”
“Barnie, please. I’ve said it enough times.” He smiles at me, then his smile drops from his face. “Adriana, you don’t look well. You’re paler than usual. Thinner, too. Are you eating? Are you sick?”
“Daddy, such a worrywart.” Sian rolls her eyes.
“I’m a bit fed up, but I’ll be okay. I miss you guys. I miss England.”
“You must come and stay. You should live with us if you’re missing it here. My God, what is the point of a thirty-bedroom house and only two people?” He smiles again. “Your room is ready. We kept it as it was; didn’t we, Sian?”
“We did. And every time Daddy buys me clothes now, he buys you some too. They’re in your wardrobe here.”
I smile, but that’s a bit weird if I’m being honest. Still, they’re aristocrats and terribly eccentric. Some of their friends are mad as hatters.
“You know, I understand,” Barnaby says. “You’re striking out on your own. But you must come for that visit you promised us. Otherwise, we’ll be very cross, won’t we darling?” he addresses his daughter.
“Very,” she confirms.
“I need to find work,” I say. “Maybe if I can’t make it when we arranged, I can come in the winter..”
“Winter?” He is aghast, and I can’t help my smile at his forlorn expression. “No, that won’t do. Things are ready for you here. Anyway, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you before then, you can’t stay away from us forever.”
Not sure what he means, I smile at him fondly. He really is eccentric and a bit mad, but in the best way. He’s how I imagine the hot professors in the romance books I read to be, except he’s a baron or earl or some such and richer than the King.
“Bugger, the house phone is going. Do excuse me, girls.”
He wanders out of sight, and I hear the door close.
“Darling,” Sian says sternly as her father ambles off. “We really do need you here. I can’t bear it alone with Daddy. He’s so stuffy, but I can’t leave and move to London full time because he’d go to ruin.”
“Well, me being there wouldn’t change that.”
“You could live here, be his personal assistant.” She bursts out laughing. “We have a huge library. You could curate his books and give him supper, and I could come back on the weekends. We could have such a happy time.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say, knowing that I won’t. Not while things are so bad here.
I hope to visit them, but I can’t live with them despite at times fantasizing about it. Even if they charged me rent, and I felt like I wasn’t being cheap and taking from them, it wouldn’t work out in the long run. One day Sian will meet someone and marry. Barnaby will probably fall in love again too, and then I’d be on my own once more. I’m an outsider as much as they try to make me feel like one of them. I also find their aristocrat friends quite overwhelming, and they do like to host impromptu parties, which stresses me out. There’s also Cade to think about. I can’t leave him here alone while I go and live the high life in a mansion in England.
For a moment, I let myself imagine that I tell them how bad it is here, and Barnaby sends his private plane for me and Cade and smuggles us out of the country. Maybe he could keep us, hiding us both in his veritable castle. He might marry me one day and adopt Cade. I laugh at myself and my flights of fancy. It would be funny … if it wasn’t so desperate. I’m a grown adult. I can’t go looking for some man to save me. I must do it on my own, and help Cade out, too. I’ll find a way. I’m resourceful enough, I tell myself.
My call over, I decide to snuggle up in my room and read.
The pages of the horror book have me awake far later than usual, and that’s why I hear my stepmother talking at around three in the morning. I frown. Is she chatting with Dad? I strain to listen, and my heart kicks against my ribs when I hear her panicked tone.
Has something happened to Dad?
Sliding out from under the covers, I silently open my door and sneak down the hallway. Their bedroom door is slightly ajar, the triangle of light on the hallway carpet illuminating my way as I creep closer.
“Tell Dorian I will have it soon.” There’s a long beat of silence. Then she lets out a small sob. “I can’t; I don’t have it. Ali, please, we’re family.”
Ali? The guy from the other day?
“It’s too much money. I can’t sell the house; you know that. The bastard left it in trust for Cade. I’m utterly screwed if you don’t give me more time.”
Another long bout of silence and then another sob and a sniff. “I can’t. I will go to jail if anyone finds out.” She keeps on sniffling, and I picture her red eyes and nose. “Do you promise? No one will ever know it was me?”
What is she going to do? Is this something to do with Cade? The urgency to get out of this house and try to find a way to get Cade help grows within me. I know it won’t be easy. I won’t be able to just adopt him, but at least he could come stay with me frequently, and maybe Hana would grow bored enough of him to let him live with me.
Then again, how can I pay the bills and care for a kid on my own? I’m being na?ve. Cade won’t be living with me because the authorities surely wouldn’t allow it. A perfect in-between plan would be to rent somewhere close by, but that still means I need a job, and one that pays well. My dream was to finish my degree in literature and begin a postgraduate course in creative writing, but it was difficult without any money to fund my tuition. My student debts are already high; with a further course, they’d have been astronomical. I was running out of money to even live day to day, hence why I came back and agreed to stay when Dad asked me to.
But just what the hell have I landed in the middle of?
Sickness washes over me as I think about the conversation I overheard. Is Cade safe? Am I? I had really bad vibes from Ari. The way he looked at me and touched me, and this overheard conversation has me deeply unsettled.
Back in my room, I get back under the covers, but sleep eludes me.