Текст книги "Born Savages"

Автор книги: Cora Brent

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CHAPTER TWELVE

OZ

 

Loren Savage was never as tough as she pretended to be.  I’d figured that out less than five minutes after meeting her.  Beneath that know-it-all shell was a vulnerable girl just aching to be loved.

Which I did.  Goddammit, I did.  Not that it mattered when the world caught fire and a choice was laid at her feet.  I don’t know what she really believed or didn’t believe.   But she turned her back and cowered behind her train wreck of a family.

And now…

I don’t know who the hell she is.   I just know that the second she sees me she looks like all the blood in her body went somewhere else and she might tip over.

Maybe if she does fall over I will catch her.

Maybe I won’t.

Some perverse part of me is glad to see the alarm in her eyes.  She probably thinks I’m just here to fuck things up with her stupid show.  Ren glances sideways at a creeping cameraman and then looks back at me with what seems like silent pleading.

Yeah, I know they’re there, sweetheart.  If you think I give a damn you’ve got another thing coming. 

I’m pretty good at playing it cool when it suits me and right now it suits me to act like I’m just here for shits and giggles.

“Are you staying?” she asks.

The tremor in her voice does something to me and it crosses my mind that I ought to cut the crap and just go to her.  If I could touch her, just once, I’d know right away whether or not I’m wasting my time.   Problem is, I’m not ready to face it if that’s the case.  I’ve upended my simple, solitary life to come out here and expose myself to the world.

For her.

I’m just not ready to let her know that.

“I am,” I answer and she tiredly nods like she was expecting that answer but hoping for another one.

There’s no time to say anything else because the most irritating feline shriek in the world crushes all the conversation.

“Oh. My. GOD!” it says as its owner flies out of the house in a cloud of red hair and skin. “Oscar Savage!  We thought you were dead!”

It’s Brigitte, the youngest and most obnoxious of the Savage siblings.  I didn’t like her five years ago and I don’t like her now, especially not when she wraps her ropy arms around my neck and makes me choke on her perfume.  She detaches herself after a quarter of a second and starts howling about how she absolutely can’t believe it and oh my god she’s so glad I’m not dead and oh my god she can’t believe that the earth is really round and that I’m still walking around on it.

Ren remains silent, rooted to the front porch, although I notice she has shifted her attention from me.  She’s now glaring at her sister with angry suspicion.  She should.  After all, someone told that Vogel character more than he ever had a right to know and by the look on her face, that someone sure as hell wasn’t Ren.

“Hey there, Oscar,” says a more timid voice.  It belongs to a stacked blonde holding a little kid.

I don’t know her.  I wave half-heartedly.  Never mind, I do know her.  It’s Ren’s other sister, the one who was always walking around with her teenage tits hanging out and waiting for someone to notice them.

“Hey, Ava.”  I greet her with a smile because I don’t remember her being awful. Kind of lonely and needy but generally a good kid.  The only ones in this ridiculous family I could stand to be in the same room with for five minutes were Ava and her twin brother, Spencer.  And Ren of course.   The rest of them were generally pains in the asses.  Brigitte with her scheming seemed destined to be a carbon copy of her witchy mother.  August kind of lost himself in his own hazy fantasies and generally couldn’t hold a conversation.  And Montgomery, Ren’s older brother, always skulked around spoiling for a fight just for the sake of fighting, not because he gave a shit whether he won or not.

Once we’ve said our awkward hellos, things kind of come to a standstill.  Ren disappears into the house without another word, Ava on her heels. Brigitte sighs and wanders purposefully toward the scenic backdrop for some meaningful modeling.

I would grab my bags out of the truck but no one ever gave me any hints about where I’ll be staying.  Atlantis looks pretty much the same as is ever did, a fake town that some rich guy bought as a souvenir.  A sturdy-looking barn has replaced the dilapidated building that I remember.  The brothel has crumbled a little more, the phony jail is more rusted, the church seems like it’s one sigh away from pitching over into the dirt.

The only really nice building is the main house and it looks like someone has been keeping it up okay.  But overall, Atlantis Star doesn’t look like the kind of place anyone would brag about so once again I wonder about what kind of ideas that Vogel character has.

I still don’t know what the hell the point of this show is.  Was the whole pack of Savages lured out to this bad memory just to be made fun of?  Gloated over?  And are they all so goddamn desperate not to have to earn an honest living that they fell for it?

“Oz!” hails a voice and suddenly there’s some middle aged woman with bouncy implants heads my way.  She’s not familiar so either she’s part of the crew or some other long lost Savage.

I was right on the first count.  Her name is Cate Camp and she’s part of Team Gary.  She fluffs her brassy blonde hair, describes her role here as something more than a director but less than a therapist, Ha ha. 

She actually laughs just like that; HAHA, two staccato bursts of artificial personality.  She’s trying to get me to like her because someone in Reality Television School probably told her if she wins over the cast they’ll be more likely to spill a thousand and one of their darkest secrets.  Nothing about her interests me but I’m trying for minimal civility until I can figure a few things out.

So instead of silence or profanity I give her a series of one-word answers.

Cate Camp says, “You’ve traveled a long way.”

I say, “Yes.”

Cate Camp says, “And you haven’t had any contact with the family at all these past five years.”

“Yes.”

“You spent a summer here and left shortly after the death of your adopted mother.”

“Yes.”

Cate Camp shows me her un-Botoxed frown lines. She’s displeased with me. “From what I hear you left under bad circumstances.”

“Yes.”

Cate Camp goes for the throat.  “And all the trouble was due to an inappropriate relationship with one or more members of the family.”

Now I’m done answering her questions.

Cate Camp gets suddenly maternal, patting my arm lightly and lowering her voice even as she silently signals the nearest Camera Creep to get ready.  “It has something to do with Loren, is that right?   The tension was obvious between you two.  She wasn’t exactly dancing for joy when she saw you, now was she?  No, she looked at you like you were the last man on earth she wanted to see.  Oh Oz, nobody could blame you for whatever happened.  You were just a kid.  And they threw you out into the world like you were nothing, didn’t they?  After all, you’re not really one of them.  You’re not; you know that.  So tell us.  Tell us how that makes you feel.” 

What a fucking joke.  She’s going to have to be a lot more cunning than that to get a rise out of me.  I act like she didn’t say anything.  I grab my duffel bag out of the truck and look around.

“So what are the sleeping arrangements here, boss?”

Frown lines etch themselves deeper into other frown lines.  Cate Camp isn’t good at her job.  She has no patience for anyone who doesn’t immediately cooperate with her.   The frown lines would dissolve if I would punch a fist into my palm and spill my guts about everything that happened but I’m about as likely to do that as I am to start square dancing.

She points to a run down trailer-like structure.  “Your remember your old quarters?”

“Yeah.”  I give no hint that I’m surprised.  Of course they already know the details of that summer, all the details.

Cate Camp snaps her fingers at the Camera Creep so he’ll follow me as I trudge off in the direction of the brothel, toward the little house that still sits behind it.

Gary Vogel has a hell of a lot of money backing him up.  He could have set the show in posh California quarters.  Or at the very least he could have sprinkled some of those resources over Atlantis Star to make the place slightly less dilapidated.  But what the hell would be the fun in that?  I have a bad feeling it’s all intentional.  Of course it is.  There’s nothing more American than a sordid tale of celebrity ruin.

The structure that squats behind the brothel is the old caretaker’s house. It was all right when I stayed here.  The air conditioner wasn’t really enough to deal with the thin walls and living with Monty was like rooming with a wolverine.  But other than that, it was fine.  It actually doesn’t look much different and a wave of nostalgia sweeps over me.  I’ve passed through dozens of places in my life and rarely thought of any of them as home.  Something about being back here leaves me feeling a little out of sorts though.  I suppose I knew that would happen all along.  If this place didn’t mean a thing to me I wouldn’t have come.

No one answers my polite knocks.  There’s a camera trained on me, of course, but I’ve already decided not to even think about that.  After all, I have no intention of watching whatever kind of strange brew they turn into a so-called show.

The doorknob turns in my hand and since I don’t feel like standing out here in the heat all day I have no qualms about going inside.

“Hello?”  I call.

Someone spiffed up the inside of the place.  I know Spencer lives at Atlantis full time but the leather couch, hipster wall prints and turquoise accents don’t seem like things he would choose.

No one answers me but in a few seconds I can see I’m not alone.  Well, I’m never alone now.  The Camera Creep comes slithering through the doorway after me and I know there are fixed cameras installed all over the place.  I was told that the crew tails us in shifts for about twelve hours a day and the fixed cameras pick up anything else that might be exciting.  Maybe I should have asked Cate Camp if they’re everywhere, even in the bathrooms, but then again maybe I’d rather not know.  If someone really finds it interesting to watch me brushing my teeth and taking a shit, then we as a people have probably fallen off the evolutionary abyss.

It’s not just the Camera Creep keeping me company.  Not six feet in front of me is Montgomery Savage.    He’s sprawled in a chair.  He’s got no shirt on, a web of dark ink on his body and his pants are open.  His bleary eyes try to shift into focus.  Then they widen.  “The fuck are you doin’ here?”

“I’m not here,” I say, dropping my bag.  “You’re dreaming.”

Monty utters a grumpy string of curses and rolls out of the chair, finally straightening up and glaring at me like he’s an angry bull and I’m standing here with a red blanket screaming ‘Toro!’   He’s pretty ripped, more than he used to be, and it’s obvious he’s been roughed up by life.   But I would bet that I could take him down if I needed to.  I’d rather not though.  We’re not fucking teenagers anymore.

Luckily, Monty seems to settle down after a few seconds.  He pats his pockets and finds a pack of cigarettes there, lighting up and looking me over coolly.

“Jesus,” he says with a short, humorless laugh, “I wonder who else will come crawling out of the fucking woodwork.”

“Yeah, I’m glad to see you too, Monty.”

He puffs on his cigarette while I look around.  Monty probably isn’t going to make things any easier, or more pleasant.  I’d rather just stay out of his way.

“So is there anyone else home?”

Monty shrugs.  “Spence is jerking off in the creosote somewhere.  The girls are probably in the big house.”

“I saw them already.”

He raises an eyebrow.  “Is that so?”

I look him in the eye.  “It is.”

The last time I spoke to Monty Savage we had a difference of opinion.  I thought he ought to mind his own goddamn business and he thought I needed to get acquainted with his fists.  I wasn’t about to be taken down by some Hollywood pretty boy no matter whose brother he was so I gave it right back to him, like I usually did.  We both came out of the scuffle rather worse for the wear with no clear winner.  He’d gotten in the last parting shot though.

“You go near my sister again and I’ll fucking kill you.” 

A few hours after that all hell broke loose and whatever I’d thought I was to these people didn’t matter.  They were more than ready to toss me in the dumpster.  Even Ren.  Maybe she had her reasons but I’ve never understood how they could have led her to do what she did.  People didn’t connect the way we’d connected and then lose it all just like that.

Anyway, whatever else I have to say about Monty, he cares about his family in his own way.  That’s why I decide to hold my tongue and not fire back some snappy retort that would piss him off.  If I’d ever had a sister I probably wouldn’t like any guy who messed around with her either.

“I guess you can take the back room,” Monty says, turning his back to me as he runs a hand through his black hair.  “I wondered why someone got it all cleaned up.  I guess I should have known.”

“Thanks,” I mutter and start to head down the narrow hallway.

“Hey, Oscar.”

I turn around.

Monty Savage is giving me his best and most dangerous scowl.  I have to admit it is effective. “If you’re here to cause any trouble for her, you and me are gonna throw down.”

I’m not in the mood to cave to him.  Or to give any assurances.  Let him stew for a while and wonder what I’m up to.  So all I say is, “I expect we will.”

It’s the same room I stayed in five years ago.  It’s small and square and someone decorated it in retro southwestern style.  I close the door in the face of the Camera Creep but I’m sure they have other ways to watch me.

Even though it’s hotter outside than it is inside I crack open a window.  There is all kinds of nervous energy running through me even though I get nervous about as often as I turn my head and cough.

Ren was obviously shaken by the sight of me.  Part of me wants to go barreling into the big house right this minute and make her even more uncomfortable.  Another part of me feels kind of sorry for the way her face paled and her hands trembled.  I’ll give her a little space, for now.  But only for a little while.

Because I’m here.  And she’s going to have to deal with me whether she likes it or not.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

REN

Ava chatters away about the gourmet spaghetti she’s going to make for dinner even though dinner is hours away.  She grabs mismatched pots out of the kitchen cabinets and let Alden smack them against the terra cotta tiles.

There is no mention of the fact that Oscar Savage has materialized.  It should be a subject worth discussing even if she knows nothing about what happened between me and Oscar five years ago.  And I’m sure she knows something.  She’s trying to distract me from the full tilt freak out that threatens to erupt.

“That sounds good,” I tell my sister when she mentions driving into town for a bottle of wine. When I look up, Ava catches my eye and gives me a tiny smile of sympathy.  She opens her mouth to say something but then glances at the nearby camera and shuts it.

I rub my eyes and see a medley of rainbow color.  When I stop rubbing, I see his face.  He’s no longer just a painful memory spasm.

He’s here.

He’s right out in the yard talking to Cate fucking Camp, likely plotting the next shocking plot twist.  At least it doesn’t look like he’s going to follow me into the house.  For the time being anyway.

If Oscar had wanted to find me he could have found me long ago.  I was never hiding.

Why now?

Of course I already know the answer.  Oscar is here for the show.  He’s here because someone thought this would be a nice unseemly addition to the story.  I’m sure he’s being paid handsomely for showing up.   With some bitterness, I think about how his arrival could not have been scripted better.

“Shit,” I whisper, so softly it could be mistaken for a sigh.

Alden scurries over and drops a stainless steel pot in my lap.  He offers me a delightfully impish toddler grin and announces, rather oddly, “Imma bat!”

Ava’s still gathering kitchen implements and trying to hide the fact that she’s furtively looking over my shoulder to see what’s going on outside.  Meanwhile, I’m at war with myself.

On one hand I want nothing so desperately as for Oscar Savage, Oz, or whatever he’s decided to call himself now, to climb right back in his pickup truck and return to whatever pocket of the world burped him out.  But then the other hand holds out a big stop sign.  Because the second I saw him, some shriveled, long dormant piece of my heart swelled.

This is something I can’t help.  This is something that happens despite the fact that I know very well he’s been paid off.

Ava’s watching me worriedly and trying to corral her son as he starts galloping around the kitchen island carrying a wooden spoon.  She looks like she’s scouring her mind for something to say to me and I wish I could let her off the hook.  Really though, we’re not the sort of sisters who pour our hearts out to one another.    And even if we were, I simply have nothing to say at the moment.

Then the heavy wooden front door swings open and a second later Brigitte comes flouncing in, all apple-cheeked and bright-eyed.   Even though I know I shouldn’t, even though I can see myself in my mind’s eye already in a television promo clip grabbing my sister’s arm in a vice-like grip and hissing in her face, I do it anyway.   It’s all I can do not to slap her when I demand, “What the hell have you done?”

She’s startled, her face frozen in angelic innocence.  If a cartoon balloon materialized above her head it would read “Who, me??” 

“I haven’t done anything, Ren,” she pouts and lets her soft blue eyes fill with tears.  She looks down at my fingers clamped on her arm, likely wondering what kind of mark will emerge on her delicate skin and how she can capitalize on it.

I let her go.

“Damn you,” I choke out.

“Ren,” whispers Ava with hurt bewilderment.  She always has and always will defend Brigitte.  Ava is not a good judge of character.   Beyond her reputation as a hardcore party girl, she’s really flighty and naive.  But she doesn’t have the kind of self-serving nature that our little sister does.  She wouldn’t have sold me out in exchange for a few close ups.   And the boys wouldn’t have blabbed about me and Oscar, not for any amount of money.

But all bets were off when it came to Bree.  She might have inherited a little too much of Lita.

I stalk back to my bedroom, ducking in there only long enough to grab my keys and purse.  My sisters are exactly where I left them in the kitchen.  Bree is traumatized by the way I manhandled her and Ava is patting her injured arm with maternal comfort.  It makes me want to scream.

“Imma bat!”  Alden announces winningly when he sees me.

Even though I’m not feeling especially cheerful I’d have to be heartless not to smile at him.  None of this is his fault.  He was just born in the middle of it. I smile at the little boy.  “You sure are, buddy.”

“Where are you going?” Ava calls as I head toward the door.

“Town.”

Bree practically knocks the kid over as she lunges in my direction.  “Wait, Loren,” she calls a little too loudly.  “We need to talk. I’ll come with you.”

“No, you won’t, Brijeeet.”  I slam the door without looking to see if she’s got her fingers on the doorjamb.  I need some time with no sisters and no brothers and no wronged, angry ex-lovers.

However, apparently I can’t have some time without cameras.  At least it’s just Rash who trails after me.  If Cate Camp shows her face right now I just might gouge her artificially inflated boobs with my ignition key.

I get behind the wheel and wait for Rash to follow me in there.  He has stopped though.  He’s standing about ten feet away from the car and he’s got his camera off his shoulder and stares down at it with a frown.  He looks up and winks, then jerks his head briefly in what seems to be a ‘Get out of here,’ gesture.

I get it now.  He’s actually being decent, pretending to have technical difficulties.  He’s trying to do me a favor.   Rash does point to the dashboard though and I notice the tiny camera now mounted to it.  I give him a thumbs up and get the car pointed toward Consequences.   I think about tearing the camera off the dashboard and chucking it to the side of the road but I don’t.   In the end I just crank up Katy Perry tunes and sing in a very loud off key voice, feeling perversely gleeful that someone is going to be forced to sit through the footage of my rotten performance.

It’s good to be out alone.   The ever-present feeling of slow suffocation relaxes a little.  Mercifully, Oscar was nowhere in sight when I pulled away from Atlantis.  His truck, however, was just where he’d left it in the large clearing between the house and the brothel.  So he isn’t gone, just hidden.

The Consequences Convenience Store is just as I remember it.  Beside the door they have the same air freshener carousel with probably the exact same merchandise that was hanging there five years ago.  An older man wearing a red smock and a tag that says ‘Kenny’ is dusting off a shelf of fishing gear, which doesn’t make any sense because there’s no fishable water within a hundred miles.  He doesn’t look up when I enter.

The booze is still in the back, exactly where it’s always been.  Monty used to make raiding the CCS, as we called the store, something of a hobby.  He was always brazen and foolish about it so I don’t know how he managed to never get caught.

The pickings are rather slim here.  I’d meant to bring back some wine but even I know a seven-dollar bottle probably isn’t go win over anyone.  I grab a bottle of red anyway and snagged a six-pack of beer on my way to the cashier.

Once I’m done at the CCS, I drop the bags off in the car and take my time, dawdling around Consequences even though there’s little to see.  It’s not that it’s the crappiest place on earth.  It’s just kind of a dull void.  One that’s been loosely sprinkled with people who seem half asleep.

There’s too many memories here though.  That’s the whole damn problem with this godforsaken wrinkle in the state.  It was hard enough to keep Oscar at bay and out of my head when he was somewhere unknown.   But now he’s lurking back at Atlantis, waiting to assume whatever role in the Savage comedy he plans on playing.  If there was ever a good reason for me to ditch this whole project and drive in the opposite direction until I can’t drive anymore, this is it.  Gary couldn’t physically force me to return.  Whatever kind of power Vogel Productions has, they still might run into some legal trouble if they try to drag me back to Atlantis by my hair.

My fingernails are digging into my palms.  No, I won’t do it.  I won’t run. There must be some feisty blood left in me somewhere.  Maybe I can call on the spirit of Margaret O’Leary to spare some of what made her so hot-tempered and indomitable.  If I’m weak enough to be chased away by a ghost of old heartbreak, then I’ll never really make much out of myself.  I’ll be another sad drifter, perhaps like Aunt Mina, always confusedly searching and always coming up short.

Let Oscar Savage do his worst.  Whatever scripted part he means to play can’t be any more painful than what we’ve already done to each other.

No.  Lie.  What I did to him. 

Oscar walked away from me because I told him to.  And as I watched him disappear, a boy alone cast out like garbage, I silently pleaded for the world to be kind to him.  I begged him to forgive me, to forgive all of us for being too flawed and cowardly to stand up for anything.  My own father had stood by with vague confusion and didn’t say a word because he was too drained to notice anyone else.  And then Oscar was gone.

It’s too late now.  I don’t even know who he is anymore.  I don’t know what kind of revenge he has in mind.  I just know that I’ll be taking at least a few cans of that six-pack to bed tonight.  I need the edges to be numbed just a little.  Hopefully it will be enough.  I need it to be enough so that when I close my eyes I don’t dream of him, that I don’t dream at all.