Twelve Rooms with a View. Theresa Rebeck

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      “’They’ being…”

      “Me and my sisters.”

      “Right, there are several of you,” Doug reminded himself. “Four of you?”

      “Three. Me and Alison and Lucy. And Daniel, he’s Alison’s husband. But no kids. None of us managed to, I guess.”

      “Fascinating,” Doug nodded. “And someone told you…”

      “This lawyer, he said he was my mom’s lawyer.”

      “That idiot Long,” stated Pete. He was lying on the couch now, spread out the whole length of it, so now there was nowhere else for anyone to sit in this dreary little room. He had the little jewelry box on his lap, the one that had Mom’s perfume bottle in it. In fact he was actually looking at the perfume bottle. “And he said you inherited our apartment. You inherit all my mom’s stuff, too?

      “That was my mom’s,” I said. I wanted him to give it back.

      “That was not your mother’s,” Doug informed me, cold. He was just considering me now, like he was trying to decide what to do with me, like maybe he was thinking he could just lock me in a closet and leave me there. I started to wonder if maybe he was not the nice brother at all; maybe he was just a little less sparky than the other guy.

      “Yeah it was too,” I said. “She had it her whole life. So I just, that’s why I was looking through their stuff, I knew it was in there and I wanted to have it.” I set my drink down and walked over to the couch, reached out my hand to take it from asshole Pete. He closed his fingers over it and dropped it back into the jewelry box and shut it.

      “Everything’s up for grabs though, isn’t it? Isn’t that what Long told you?”

      “No, that’s not what he told me. What he told me was everything was ours.”

      “Everything of ours is yours, that’s what he told you?”

      “He told me, he told everybody—”

      “Oh, look at this!” Pete found the little tarnished silver box, with all the keys in it; he had been lying on it, on the couch. “You take a fancy to this too?”

      “I wasn’t stealing anything!” I said.

      “Except our home,” said Doug. He leaned up against the wall, looked out the window.

      “Oh look, my mom’s wedding ring,” Pete observed, picking it out of that silver box. “Glad to know you weren’t stealing that.”

      “Look, you guys are mad. Okay, I get it,” I said.

      “Like her mother, a regular rocket scientist,” Pete murmured.

      “My point being I’m not the one who fucked up this situation. That would be your dad, right? Didn’t he tell you he was leaving the apartment to my mom? Didn’t he even tell you that?”

      “Who are you again?” said Pete, really pissed now. “Have we met? Do I know you? Then what the fuck are you doing here in my apartment? I grew up here, with my family, and my mother. My father was happily married to my mother for twenty years, not two years, twenty years. This is our apartment! What the fuck are you doing here, sleeping in my bed? What the fuck gives you rights?”

      “Well, apparently some document that your father signed gives me rights.”

      “He was a fucking drunk!”

      “Yes, that’s real news. I was here for fifteen minutes I figured that out.”

      “Because booze was the first thing you went looking for.”

      “No—”

      “Just like your mother.”

      “Go tell the judge. Go tell Stuart Long. What are you yelling at me for? You think I’m making this up? You think I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t given me the keys?” I snapped back at him. “Go yell at your father. Oh, sorry. Guess you missed that chance.”

      That shut old Pete up. He glanced at Doug, who looked at him for a second then looked out the window. It was pretty fast but there was no question.

      “Holy shit, he did tell you, didn’t he?” I said. “You knew. That he was leaving her the apartment. He told you. That’s why you’re so mad. Because you knew.” They both looked at me real surprised for a second, like it hadn’t occurred to either of them that I might actually put that together.

      “You don’t know anything,” said Pete, deflated as hell all of a sudden.

      “Well, I don’t know a ton, but I’m learning as we go,” I retorted. “What’d you do, piss him off? That’s just a wild guess.”

      “Don’t push your luck,” he said, but he was tired now.

      “I don’t think we should be talking about this,” Doug observed, instantaneously cool as a cat. Seriously, these two were a mixed set, they were like salt and pepper shakers. They maybe fit together? But they were not alike. Both of them knocked back their vodka at the same time, but I could see it wasn’t going to bring either of them any peace. Oh well, like vodka brings anybody peace, ever.

      “Let’s get out of here,” said Doug.

      “What, we’re just going to let her stay?” Pete asked, offended by my very existence now.

      “Unless you want to take her home with you, I don’t know what to do with her,” Doug said, shrugging.

      “You know, you guys don’t actually get to decide what to do with me,” I said, all snarky and defiant again.

      “Don’t count on that,” said Doug, rapidly moving into first place in the asshole competition that we all had going on by this point. “And don’t get too comfortable.” He set his empty drink down on the kitchen counter and headed for the black hallway. Pete slammed back the rest of his drink, and picked up the jewelry box as he stood.

      “Listen,” I said.

      “What?” He looked at me. There would be no listening tonight.

      “Nothing,” I said.

      He nodded and turned, following his brother down the hallway, taking my mother’s little black bottle of perfume with him as he went.

       CHAPTER THREE

      I called Lucy first thing. She was not in the least bit impressed with my story about Tina and the night visitors.

      “They were going to show up eventually, that was a given, she announced.

      “They were pretty pissed,” I told her.

      “Did you think they were going to be delighted to hear that they’ve been disinherited? I didn’t.”

      “Man, СКАЧАТЬ