Discretion

Copyright © 2013 David Balzarini

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher

For my wife

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer

German philosopher

PROLOGUE

ONE
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TWO
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THREE
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FOUR
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FIVE
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SIX
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SEVEN
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EIGHT
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NINE
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TEN
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ELEVEN
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TWELVE
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THIRTEEN
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FOURTEEN
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FIFTEEN
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SIXTEEN
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SEVENTEEN
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EIGHTEEN
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NINETEEN
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TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE
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TWENTY-TWO
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TWENTY-THREE
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TWENTY-FOUR
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TWENTY-FIVE
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TWENTY-SIX
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TWENTY-SEVEN
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TWENTY-EIGHT
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TWENTY-NINE
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THIRTY
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THIRTY-ONE
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THIRTY-TWO
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THIRTY-THREE
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THIRTY-FOUR
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THIRTY-FIVE
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THIRTY-SIX
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THIRTY-SEVEN
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THIRTY-EIGHT
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THIRTY-NINE
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FORTY

FORTY-ONE
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FORTY-TWO
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FORTY-THREE
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FORTY-FOUR
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FORTY-FIVE
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FORTY-SIX
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FORTY-SEVEN
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FORTY-EIGHT
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FORTY-NINE
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FIFTY
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FIFTY-ONE
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FIFTY-TWO
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FIFTY-THREE
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FIFTY-FOUR
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FIFTY-FIVE
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FIFTY-SIX
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FIFTY-SEVEN
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FIFTY-EIGHT
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FIFTY-NINE
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SIXTY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I
t’s Labor Day at Apache Lake when Natalie Merian climbs the ladder of the massive cabin cruiser. The noise level on board is like a concert. Most of the people, by her guess, are college age, a few years older than her at least. She tries not to be intimidated. Her friends, Mayra and Mike, follow close behind, the deck of the white and brown vessel is anchored near the north shore. The sun is shining on a cloudless day, a scorching one hundred degrees—and the alcohol seems endless, with four coolers open, frosted cans and bottles passed around with jovial acclaim.

A tall blond guy takes Natalie’s hand, helping her to the bow and she notices it’s an unnecessary gesture and knows better than to feel flattered. He says his name, Riley, and she introduces herself to be polite. Natalie gets attention from well-built, boyish, good-looking men like him—and she knows not to be trusting. But this one, he seems uneasy in a way that’s foreboding. This makes her self-conscious, and she wonders why she got on this boat in the first place.

The party is engaging. The distinctly attractive Riley hands a margarita can to Natalie, and she takes hold of it, planning not to drink it, as she figures it’s less resistance to accept and leave it unopened. She tries to have a good time, as people are dancing to the beat, the music louder than sin. Surrounding boats move close to join in, a party of easily fifty strong.

It’s then she realizes—she didn’t say something to her boyfriend Colin before leaving his boat. He’ll worry about her.

What was I thinking? She asks herself.

Natalie just wanted to hang around with Mayra, who she’s been friends with since the first grade—that awkward first day with a room full of strangers. She didn’t plan to be gone long.

Mike, Mayra’s boyfriend, is a trustworthy villain, as Natalie refers to him in the privacy of her head.

Time passes and Natalie forgets where she is and stops wondering when she’ll head back to her boyfriend and his father, on the boat she left behind.

Then the crowd suddenly erupts as Riley brings out a tray with small glasses and begins pouring. He insists that it’s ladies first, and hands the clear liquid shots to a trio of the bikini-clad. Then the fourth one is handed to Natalie, which she doesn’t want. Mayra comes to her rescue and downs the drink, only to have another poured for Natalie a moment later, and the pressure returns.

Natalie figures it won’t kill her, so she takes the liquor down in a gulp, only to regret it as the world starts to spin; language becomes slurred, incoherent.

When she comes to, the crowd is gone, the music no more, and all that remains is stillness, as if nothing is around her at all. Blackness is all she can see, yet she senses something is close to her face. A firm structure of some sort. It’s then she realizes she can’t move her arms, as her wrists are bound, and she cries out without thinking. But she can’t hear it—her own voice makes no sound. And the blackness is not nightfall at all; it’s a blindfold. And she’s lying flat on her back on a soft surface, much like a bed.

I
sigh heavy into my hands, fretting over calling Natalie Merian, a girl I’ve seen countless times, but she’s never laid eyes on me—that I know of. My hands are pressed to my face for what feels like moments, sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the phone through my gapped fingers. This failure is admission to a phobia, among many that I have and it’s verifiable now to my baseball team, too.

I can’t even call a girl.

I look to the matted and framed posters on my bedroom wall of basketball’s greatest players. Did they have such trouble? Probably not. So why can’t I pick up the phone and call her? She’s going to…what? Maybe she won’t be home; then I can just hang up. Yeah. Great idea. Colin Wyle, you’re a hero. Call her up and talk about physics or calculus—that’s the ticket. Natalie will be counting down the days until the first date.

I set aside the phone from my lap, placing it on the bedside table and toss the crumpled piece of notebook paper with Natalie’s bubbly handwriting.

Jamal is not going to let me off easy and the look on his face will be…disappointed. No, that’s not quite right. He might pick up the phone and call her, and then hand me the phone. Okay…don’t be near Jamal and a phone at the same time.

The air is stale in my bedroom and a dark wood fan circulates my stench. A well-loved blue sheet and three-day-old boxers cover me. My brown curly hair is like a well-used mop and in dire need of a cut. Today is Sunday. Trigonometry is devouring my brain. If my head doesn’t explode between math and physics, then chemistry will do the job. Trig is my appetizer. Calculus, the entrée. I keep hoping that Natalie Merian is my dessert, but I think she’s a fantasy—I can’t let go, regardless of how I may try. Perhaps it’s a dream I cling to, needing something or someone to long for. To love and be loved back?

Go take a shower, loser.

I stumble to the bathroom. A scalding, hard pressure shower brings me out of sleep. I wipe the steam from the glass enclosure and look at the mountains in the distance for a moment. A thud at the door disrupts my tranquility. Approaching shoes clack against the polished marble floor. Then I see Jamal’s smug grin through the beads of water, suspended on the glass as if immune to gravity.

“Colin Wyle! Are you coming?” Jamal Laake will let himself in any door if left unlocked, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. If an entryway is not an option, he will scale the wall and use a window.

“I’m here!” I yell back, over the blasting water.

“We’re waiting for you downstairs. Mom and Dad are taking us out.”

Jamal refers to his parents as if I belong to them too.

“Give me five minutes.”

“You’re going to need more than five minutes to clean up that stench. I walked past your room and nearly fell over. I’ll need a gas mask to go back.”

“Thanks Mom.”

“Oh and I talked with Natalie yesterday.” He lets the silence linger.

“And?” I’m tempted to turn off the water so I can hear better.

“And she said she’ll provide a picture for your jerking off needs for a small fee,” Jamal says, struggling to get the words out without laughing.

“Stop being a dick and go downstairs.”

“Just make sure you wash it all down the drain. No one should have to clean up after you.”

“Can you help me out with that? My hands are too small.”

Jamal’s laughter is boisterous on his exit from the bathroom. An ache begins in the back of my head. Too much time studying? Junior year is going to be killer. Jamal is a senior and he’s got less work—but at the public schools.

Calling Natalie weighs on my mind, like a tick that’s in a cozy home and has no plans to leave. I bugged Jamal for her number, which he got with the understanding that I would call her—leaving Jamal to do the heavy lifting for me. If I can’t step up for a slow lob over the plate, what good am I?

Chelsie was tougher than me. If she were here, she’d make me call Natalie; like a battalion commander, she’d drive me to the task.

I turn the stereo on, and the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” fills the room. Chelsie, my younger sister, would listen to this song incessantly. The song plays, and for seven minutes and ten seconds, all is right in the world. It’s as if Chelsie’s back and her irritating mannerisms and nicknames for me return. Good times, fighting and playing, building a fort that we know won’t hold us. Ragging at each other over whatever comes to mind just because—as if fighting is our profession.

I entered the world a minute earlier than her, and while I knew she was the most important person in my life, my twin, it wasn’t until she was gone that I believed it.

When Chelsie died, my life changed fast. Chelsie, my only sibling, died at ten years old of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It was debatable whether the disease or the treatment killed her in the end. The cancer came quickly, with no real warning. It felt like she was here one day, laughing and playing and being a silly girl who annoyed me with constant questions about boys, fretting about her hair, and arguing over her rights to makeup, and then she was gone. Forever.

For the first month, when I’d hear a knock at the door, I’d imagine she was there, coming back home. It took me about a year to accept she wasn’t coming back but it felt like five. My father took about the same time as me and got especially cynical, which is unusual for him. I deduced at Chelsie’s funeral that my mother would never heal, but remain in some level of torment, lamenting over the loss of her baby girl for the rest of her existence. My mother escaped to New Mexico and remarried. My father remarried, divorced, and then remarried again. I consider what he’s going through to be a midlife crisis. My mother insists he’s a shit head. I remind her he’s living up to his celebrity status of short marriages and equally bitter divorces. I’m stuck in Phoenix with him and his third wife, Brooke, who’s hardly older than me and likes to wear revealing clothes, making the stepmother relationship awkward.

I dress in my favorite black golf shorts, cerulean polo shirt from Pebble Beach, and a black leather belt, and then realize that I’m running behind again. The Laake family stands in the foyer, waiting on me.

“What took you so long?” Jamal pauses a moment. “Did you call Natalie?” He tries to keep a straight face, but it’s no use. Neon green bands are the latest accessory for his braces.

I’d like to go back to my room and hide right now. Instead, I shake my head and look to Jamal’s parents, who are waiting patiently, dressed for Sunday. “Ready. So where are we off to?” I say, even though I know the answer. I walk quickly toward the door, in the interest of self-preservation.

Jamal is five foot eight with short hair, a small oval face, round glasses, and a dark mole near his mouth, which he gets teased about. He wears a cream, loose-fit buttoned-down shirt. He’s light on the aftershave today. On occasion, he smells like the bottle broke.

“Breakfast.” Jamal opens the massive wood front door, and I can’t help staring at the grime on the marble floor.

We get in the Lincoln Navigator and Kwame Laake takes it slow getting off the drive and past the gate. The air conditioner is at max to fight the ninety-degree heat.

“So how’s my second born?” Kwame jokes, his accent distinct to his African heritage. His English is fantastic, from years of classes and practice.

“Good. And how are my ’rents?” The Laake family’s “adoption” of me is an ongoing joke that feels as old as time. They are more my family than the one I was born into.

“Fantastic. A beautiful Sunday mornin’.” He flashes a wide smile in the rearview mirror, gazing back at me.

Leilani, Jamal’s mother, as is her habit, looks at me with a smile that says so much more. “I’m blessed, Colin. So blessed. It’s going to be a great day, today.”