When It's Real. Erin Watt
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Название: When It's Real
Автор: Erin Watt
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Книги для детей: прочее
isbn: 9781474073103
isbn:
It’s not like my dad is any better. Mom at least remembers to call me. Sometimes. Dustin Ford is too busy being an Academy Award-winning actor to remember he has a son.
“And sweetheart, please don’t bring a date,” Mom is saying. “If you show up with some girl on your arm, all the focus will be on that and not the charity we’re trying to raise money for.”
The charity whose name and purpose she doesn’t even know.
“I’ll get Bitsy to text you the details. I expect at least an hour of your time.”
“Sure, whatever you want, Mom.”
“That’s my boy.” She pauses again. “Have you spoken to your father lately?”
“Not for a few months,” I admit. “Last I heard, he was in Hawaii with Chloe.”
“Which one is Chloe again? The one with the boob job or the one with the botched Botox?”
“I honestly don’t remember.” Ever since my parents’ divorce two years ago, my father’s love life has been a revolving door of surgically enhanced women. Hell, that was his life even before the divorce.
Hence the divorce.
“Well, when you do speak to him, tell him there’s a box of his stuff that’s been sitting in the foyer closet for almost a year, and if he or one of his people doesn’t pick it up soon, I’m going to burn it in the fire pit out back.”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” I grumble.
“Oh, baby, you know your father and I only speak through our lawyers—and mine is out of town at the moment. So be a good boy, Oak, and pass along that message to Dusty.” Her voice goes muffled for a second. “Absolutely not!” she calls to someone who isn’t me. “That paneling must be preserved!” Mom’s voice gets clearer again. “Oakley, baby, I have to go. These contractors are trying to destroy my house! I’ll see you this weekend.”
She hangs up without saying goodbye.
The silence in the house makes my skin itch. Without Luke and his merry band of leeches, the place feels like a museum. I flick on the television again and crank up the sound.
Great. Now I’m pretending I’m not alone by turning the TV volume up. Mindlessly, I watch a bunch of shows about jacking up cars until I can’t stand the stupid manufactured drama. Hits too close to home, I guess. I grab my phone, and my finger hovers over the screen. I could ask Tyrese to call one of those girls who just want to touch Oakley Ford. That’d be good for an hour or two. I could light up a joint. Drink myself into a stupor. Or I could just go to bed. Because if I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, like I promised Jim, none of those other options fit with the plan.
I turn the television off. In the front room, Tyrese is sitting in an oversize armchair, flipping through something on his phone.
“I’m going to bed.”
“You are?” He looks up in surprise. It’s barely ten. “Alone?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to be a good boy now. Can’t be having honeys over when I’m preparing to romance another girl, right?”
Tyrese shrugs. “I guess not. But Big D’s the family man, not me.”
And we both know where Big D is right now. Not out at the club picking up a random chick. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Night, brother.”
“Night.”
HER
I’m up at dawn the next morning despite getting almost no sleep. In the kitchen, Paisley is in her usual zombie-like precaffeinated state with a buttered bagel on the table and a half-filled coffeepot in her hand. I grab the pot from her before she crashes it into the side of the refrigerator. My sister can’t function without her caffeine fix.
After our parents died, I started drinking the foul stuff with her. It’s part of my routine now, but I always dilute it with milk. Paisley calls my coffee half and half. Half coffee, half milk.
“I heard you get up at three,” she mumbles as she takes a seat at the glass-topped breakfast table. “You okay?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” I dump out the tap water and pull a pitcher of water from the fridge. “You seriously think this is the right thing to do?” I ask as I pour the water into the coffeemaker’s reservoir and scoop out fresh grounds into the filter. “I kept obsessing about it last night, and it’s not the fake-dating thing that gets me—” I’m a champion at pretending “—it’s the length of time. An entire year, Paisley?”
I take a seat next to her and rip off a piece of her bagel.
“I know it seems like a long time, but unless it’s a serious relationship, there’s no point in even doing this charade.” She sounds tired, too. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. We’ll be fine without the money.”
Guilt rushes through me when I hear the note of defeat in her voice. Paisley’s held our family together with sheer will and grit. When social services wanted to split us up and send the twins into foster care, Paisley was having none of it. She hustled her way through school, taking more classes than I thought you were allowed to cram into one year, and graduated in three years instead of four. She worked two jobs until she landed this one at Diamond. Meanwhile, I ran the household—cooking, cleaning and making sure the twins’ lives remained as stable as possible.
Despite all our efforts, I know we’re barely treading water.
One year is nothing compared to what Paisley has sacrificed.
“I’m doing it,” I say firmly. “That’s why I got up at three. To sign the papers.” And to sweat about how I’m going to sell this idea to W. I turn to watch the coffee drip into the pot. “I mean, it’s not like I have to eat bugs or poop or something gross. There are way worse things to do for money than fake-date Oakley Ford, right?”
“Right.” She smiles with relief. “And he’s not a bad guy. He can be charming when he wants to, and you’ll get to do so many fun things. I’ll make sure your dates are full of stuff you like to do.”
“Great.” I try to summon up some enthusiasm for Paisley’s sake. It’s obvious that the prospect of all that cash is lifting a huge burden from her shoulders, and I would be a terrible, selfish sister to not want that for her. Still, I can’t stop thinking about how much my life is going to change.
“Something is still bothering you,” she says, breaking off another piece of bagel for me.
I stick it in my mouth and chew for a moment before admitting, “It’s W. I don’t know how I’m going to sell this to him.”
Paisley СКАЧАТЬ