At Any Price (Gaming The System) (36 page)

I sighed. “Because going back to Anza is going backward.”

“Just think about it. Maybe just get away for a week or two? It would make your mom happy and get her off my back for once.”

“If I take any more time off my job, they are going to fire me.”

“Good riddance, then. There are other jobs you can get. Or you could put more time into the blog and make more money out of it. I’ve got a new template design that allows for more ad space. You could sell more ads that way. Or we could go after a company endorsement. I know you’ve been reluctant, but—”

My chin was on my chest now and I was sniveling miserably. “I’ll think about it.”

And I did. I thought about it all night. Not necessarily the part about going back to Anza, but the whole bizarre sequence with Adam. The calculated action with which he, knowing that I was watching, had slipped his arm around Lindsay’s waist, obviously letting me know that the
woman
whom he’d selected to replace the scared little girl was Lindsay.

After crying out all the tears I thought I had, there was only numbness left. I had to be at work at noon the next day, but I didn’t put on my greens. Instead went down to my supervisor’s office in my jeans and resigned on the spot.

She wasn’t nice about it. But she could tell by my swollen eyes and dark circles that I wasn’t happy to begin with. She made sure to tell me that I’d been a good worker up until the previous month and I agreed with her. Things had been great until they fell apart. Until Adam. Now I had no job. No money in the bank and about a thimbleful of self-respect left to my name.

***

The day before commencement, Alex and Jenna dropped in to give me a graduation gift and beg me to spend the summer in OC with them. They had
such plans!
And they had tickets to San Diego Comic-Con! And…they had costumes for cosplay and needed another “hot chick” to complete their look for “Steampunk Sherlock’s Angels.” Alex’s mom was sewing the costumes for them.

They also wanted to know if I could get Heath to dress as Sherlock Holmes because he was tall, but he’d have to dye his hair dark.

“Come on, Mia, it would be
so fun!
Picture it—brass-plated corsets, fishnet stockings and kick-ass boots,” Alex said breathlessly. “If Heath won’t do it, maybe you could get your yummy man to—he already has dark hair and he’s plenty tall enough.”

Jenna perked up, upon hearing this. “Yeah, when do I get to meet this tasty man, anyway? I’m sick of hearing Alejandra gibber about him and I’ve only seen that long-distance shot she got with her phone—”

“What?” I slapped Alex on her arm. “You took a picture of him?”

Alex shrugged. “What else is a hopeless
chismosa
to do when you won’t give me anything to work with?”

I sighed heavily. “I’m not seeing him anymore and I’d rather not talk about it.”

Alex’s forehead buckled. “This isn’t because of that test, is it? You didn’t break up with him because you want to study or something dumb like that?”

I shot her a heated glare, but Jenna was the one who spoke up, watching me closely. “Alejandra! Don’t be rude.”

“No, it wasn’t because of the test.” My chest tightened. Something about her assumption bothered me. It reminded me of how I’d chosen to give stupid excuses about not going out, not socializing at parties. Throughout my four years of college, I’d huddled inside my comfort zone, spending any spare time that wasn’t consumed by study or work or blog to log on to games and lose myself in them. Because it was safe, known. Because there would be few surprises and anything that could happen, I would be ready for.

I dropped my head against the back of the ripped couch, gazing at the ceiling. Adam was right. I really was a coward.

Chapter Sixteen

When the going gets tough, the tough go running home to Mommy. And after commencement, I did just that. I packed up what I could and I hit the road for Anza—a two-hour drive down some of the most remote stretch of highway through the Inland Empire and beyond. My car twisted along the road upward into the Cahuilla Mountains that overlooked the much more famous Californian resort town of Palm Springs.

And as I wound up that narrow two-lane highway into the hills, a measure of calm settled over me. I grew assured that things would be all right in the end. That this pain was temporary and like the dying sunlight of that day, would fade away to nothing. Someday. Sometime.

But it didn’t feel temporary. I felt changed, somehow, as if my life, my heart would never be the same. They say life’s experiences change you—that your brain grows new neural pathways in response to trauma and new lessons learned. I wondered how many pathways I was going to get from this. If I was ever going to learn my way around it. And in this moment, I felt more resolved than ever to protect myself—keep myself dependent on only myself. Because I was the only person in this world I could be sure of. I could be sure of Heath, until he met someone new and could hardly be prevailed upon to fix my eternal string of scrapes. I could depend on my mom, but as the experiences of the previous few years had shown me, she might not always be around. Her near-death had shaken me to my core and showed me that nothing was permanent.

But one thing was permanent. Me. My ambition. My drive. The fortress wall I’d built around my heart and kept vigilant watch over. And I’d spend this time reinforcing, repairing the weak spots that had allowed Adam inside to do his damage.

I had no idea how much Heath had told Mom while they’d sat together at commencement. I know she had no knowledge of the auction, but Heath could have couched his description of my time with Adam as a relationship without mentioning all the ways it was sick and twisted between us. Mom had known I was seeing someone, but she had no details, like the fact that her daughter had willfully sought a way to prostitute herself.

Our little ranch sat on fifteen acres of high desert scrubland. The main house, which my mother called the homestead, had many guest rooms on the top floor. There were also three matching little cabins that shouldered up to the homestead for guests who wanted more privacy. The main dining room in the home was huge, to accommodate the Bed and Breakfast crowd. Until her illness, Mom had run a fairly successful business, with many regular repeat guests coming up to spend time away from civilization, go hiking or ride our horses. My mood relaxed, as I looked down over our spread in the pale light of early evening under a golden high desert moon.

Mom didn’t question me too closely when I got home. She snatched me up in a big hug and made my favorite dinner—kabobs and hummus and baklava for dessert. Mom instructed me to get an early night’s sleep and warned me that we had a lot to discuss in the morning. Relieved, I fell into my bed, exhausted.

The next morning, I was out in the stables saying hello to my favorite four-legged friends. My horse, Snowball, greeted me with an excited whicker. He’d been my best friend since the fourth grade and his muzzle was aging and gray now, but he still snapped up the carrots I offered him with all due enthusiasm.

At lunch, I munched my garden-fresh cucumber and tomato sandwich on rustic bread as my mom tossed furtive glances my way. I knew she was dying to ask me about my relationship status with the mystery guy and trying to find ways to bring it up, so I decided to head her off.

“So you said you had some surprises for me. Do they have anything to do with the restoration of the cabins?”

Mom gave me an expectant look. “So you noticed?”

“I’d have to be blind not to. Did you win the lottery and not tell me?”

She laughed. “Kind of. If getting cancer could be considered a lottery.”

I sobered, suddenly my heart raced with fear and I could feel the blood drain from my face. “What? Is it back?”

Mom’s mouth dropped and she reached across the table to put her hand over mine. “Oh no. No, sweet pea. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

She got up and went over to the desk where she kept her mail and business papers and pulled out a manila file folder from its stand. She placed it on the table next to my lunch plate. “Early this year, I got this in the mail. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It sounded too good to be true.

I opened the folder and quickly read the letter, which was printed on generic letterhead. It was from a charity institution that helped out adult cancer patients who had fallen on hard times because of the disease. It
did
sound too good to be true—like a “Make a Wish” foundation for adults. Generously, the institution—called “The Golden Shield Group”—had offered to foot half the balance of my mom’s mortgage and fund the other half as an interest-free loan to be paid back over the next twenty years.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, scouring the letter and flipping it over to read the papers beneath it. “This is—”

“Incredible, I know. I didn’t believe it either. But I checked them out online and went to Pohlman’s Law Office here in town and had him work with their attorneys. He assured me it was all legitimate.”

“Damn, Mom. This is better than the freakin’ lottery.”

She smiled. “Yep, see? Here’s the paperwork from my attorney. It gets better, though. One of the entrepreneurs behind the group, finding out about my setup, offered to front me some money as a silent partner. We’ve come up with a joint business plan and profit sharing—”

I took the papers from her. “Holy crap! So this is what you are using to pay for the renovation?”

“It’s almost done. And I’ve already been working with Heath to get the website redesigned and updated. He’s coming up next weekend to take new pictures. Isn’t it exciting?”

I sat back, marveling at how luminous and animated my mother was. She hadn’t been like this for years, since before the cancer. There was color in her cheeks and she had put on some weight and she actually, for the first time since she’d begun chemo, looked
healthy.

My mom noticed me staring. Her smile faded. “What?”

I shook my head. “You’re doing awesome, Mom. I’m so glad.” I smiled, happy for her, still trying to ignore that ache at the back of all conscious thought. Trying to erase the image of Adam with his arm around Lindsay’s waist. A sharp pang pierced me whenever I thought of it—which was, it seemed, all the time.

Mom, keen as ever, picked up on it immediately. She collected the papers from the table and filed them again. “Now let’s talk about what’s going on with
you.
”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

She shot me a curious glance and she rubbed her index finger along her bottom lip like she always did when she was hesitating. “You were dating someone.”

I glanced away, fidgeting in my seat. I’d allow five more minutes of prodding and then I’d excuse myself. “I was. It was nothing. It’s over.” All the truth. Just not the whole truth. But I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell her that so much had changed along the way. That I’d lost something—a vital piece of me that felt like a gaping hole right at the center of my being. And that it might take a while to learn how to fill that up.

“What happened?” she asked in a quiet voice as if she might startle me out of my uncharacteristic forthrightness by speaking any louder.

I shrugged. “I had to study and my jobs. He had to work. There was no time.”

“Do you want to talk about him?”

I leaned forward, rubbing my forehead with my hand. “No. Not really.”

She sat silent for several minutes and I closed my eyes, preparing to make an excuse to go. She surprised me by dropping the subject and reaching for my half-empty plate, standing to take it to the sink.

“Mom—” I stopped her when she would have walked away. She halted, looking at me expectantly. “The Biological Sperm Donor…” I began shakily. “I think I’m ready to find out more about him.”

My mother sank back to the chair across from me, setting the plates down. I studied her for a moment. She was a lovely woman. She had the olive skin and dark coloring of her Greek ancestors and had been quite the stunning woman in her youth—had taken a turn at modeling as a teen. In her early forties, she was still striking, and before the cancer, she’d looked at least a decade younger than her actual age, with hardly a line marring her skin. But that harrowing ordeal had etched lines at her mouth and a few into her forehead.

We held each other’s gaze for a long, silent moment. She straightened, squaring her shoulders. “Okay.” She nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“What’s his name? Who is he?”

And so she told me. Patiently, evenly, she answered all of my questions. I kept my inquiries away from the private details of her life with him. I already knew he’d completely won her over at first before casting her aside like garbage. I didn’t need to know anything more about that. But he had a name, now. He was a person. Not just some anonymous figure upon which I could focus all my hatred. His name was Gerard Dempsey. He was of Irish and English descent. He was a successful real estate entrepreneur and had gained his millions that way. He had one sister, no brothers and three other children, all much older than me.

I also learned that he had never contacted my mom after I was born. Never written her a letter or made a phone call, though he knew exactly where we lived. She told me I had her eyes and hair color, but that my skin, jaw and nose were his.

She offered to show me a picture—the one picture she had of him—of them together, but I declined. I didn’t want to see them together, happy. Her young face full of bright ideals, unaware that he was stacking lie upon lie on top of their relationship like a house of cards.

“Did you love him?” I finally asked.

Her eyes drifted away to focus off into the distance. They took on a dreamy quality. “I did. Or rather…I loved who I thought he was, when I thought I knew everything about him.”

I breathed in slowly. “Love is dangerous. Deceptive.” I shook my head. “No offense, but I think it’s for fools.”

When she returned her gaze to me, her eyes were hard. “Mia, you are far too young to be talking like that. You sound like a bitter and lonely old lady.”