Emancipated (3 page)

“It's what everyone called me back then. I didn't mind. Back then, I liked being Charlie. I was sad when I had to stop.”

“What about now?” Ariana asked. “Do you wish you were still Charlie?”

“I think . . . I think I wish I'd never been Charlie. ‘Charlie' saw a man drowned.”

“Huh? From what you're saying, we're talking about a dream,” Ariana said. “A dream that got all caught up with what you must have heard afterward. About Tyson Drew.”

“If it was just a dream . . . why am I still dreaming it all these years later?”

“I don't know, honey. Could be many reasons.”

The voice on the other end of the line was barely audible now. “You think it's got anything to do with why I'm . . . you know . . .”

“What?”

“Why I'm acting out?”

Ariana frowned. “You think you're acting out?”

Charlie's response sounded fragile. “Someone does. Why else would they want me to leave my own house?”

“You're leaving home?”

“It looks that way.”

Ariana didn't have to fake her disapproval. “But you're still a kid! Where are you going to live?”

“I'm moving to Los Angeles. Getting emancipated.”

“LA? Damn. But why?”

There was a sour laugh. “Must be ‘cause I'm ‘acting out.' ‘We're not going to be the ones who have to pay for your adolescent misdemeanors.' That's a direct quote from my mom.”

Ariana rolled her eyes. “You saying your folks are actually going to
emancipate
you? Where they let you live on your own, sign legal agreements, have a job—that kind of emancipation?”

“That's it. No parents. No safety net.”

Ariana said, “Heck, I live on my own. My folks haven't given me any cash since I turned seventeen.”

“But Ariana, you're eighteen. You're done with high school. You have a job. Emancipation is different. There's a court order. Makes me responsible for my own business.”

“Sure, baby, I know that; I work in a legal practice. We've handled the paperwork on some emancipation cases. Your folks have to prove to the court that you've got enough cash to live on.”

“That's right. They're gonna set me up with a monthly allowance, enough to pay for me to rent a room somewhere, buy some food, take the bus a few times.”

Ariana found herself nodding. Now that she thought about it, emancipation made a kind of sense for
her friend. “On the other hand, you do get to choose what school you go to.”

There was a sigh. “Oh, that part my parents still want to control. Here or LA—guess when it comes to school, I'm going wherever they send me.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CARLSBAD, MONDAY, DECEMBER 1

“Everything will be okay now, Dad,” John-Michael murmured.

The sight of his father's clenched fist resting on top of the quilt made it hard for John-Michael to concentrate on the task at hand. His dad was rolled over, facing the window. Apart from that single fist, all angry blue veins and tension, he looked peaceful.

John-Michael's eyes closed as he reached for his father's hand, gently relaxed the fingers, and tucked the hand under the covers.

He breathed, “You don't have to worry about me anymore.”

The clock on his father's nightstand had the time at 10:35 p.m. Chunky digits an inch high, white on black; the choice of a man with failing eyesight. John-Michael had always hated that clock. He'd resented any sign of his father's growing age and mortality. It sucked to be the son of an angry widower, even before age had begun to take its toll. He moved to the other side of the bed. His father kept his most treasured mementoes of John-Michael's mother there. When he was a little boy, his father would lay the objects on the bed for him to touch and hold. Sometimes he'd even tell him a story about his mom. It hadn't happened for a very long time.

John-Michael emptied the nightstand drawer onto the bed. For a moment he stared at the collection of handwritten envelopes, the necklace of Chinese pearls, the black-velvet box containing diamond and gold rings from an engagement and a wedding, the metal box of photographs.
I never knew what to keep
, he remembered his father saying.

At first, John-Michael had been pathetically grateful for anything. Resentment only came later. His father should have kept much, much more. There wasn't even one voice recording. No video. It was the twenty-first century, but John-Michael didn't have any digital record of his mother's existence. And his only memories were dim now, faded. He wasn't even sure if they were real, or the memories of dreams.

His eyes went once again to the bulk of his father's body in the bed. Reluctantly, his thoughts returned to the events of the past hour. He couldn't stand to think about them for more than a second or two. The things his father had said—worse than anything he'd heard before from the man. Things that couldn't—
that never would—be taken back.

He rummaged beneath the bed for a shoe box and removed a pair of his father's Italian loafers. He gathered his mother's possessions into the box, covered it with the lid, and placed the box at the bottom of the empty rucksack he'd brought along.

It took another few minutes to collect the papers he'd come for. His father had told him where to find the cash. Not exactly under the mattress, but not far from it. He kept everything he'd saved in Krugerrands and hundred-dollar bills, never less than five thousand at home; the gold and most of the cash was in a safe-deposit box.

There was no point taking anything else. It would only look suspicious. As much as possible, things had to look normal. “Better leave by the back door,” his father had advised with a nasty cackle. “These days, anyone who sees your sorry ass on my porch is gonna get to wondering what the ungrateful little faggot is doing visiting his pa.”

John-Michael felt a stab of pain at the memory of those words. Even now, it still hurt to hear his father call him names. He wanted to tell his dad he was sorry. But the truth was, he wasn't. Not for any of it. He'd done his crying a long time ago. Most of it alone, on rainy nights, trying to find shelter in a phone booth, a doorway, anyplace where he might avoid waking up to feel greedy hands around his throat.

He'd finally freed himself from the misery of Chuck Weller's eternal bile and disappointment. Not tonight, but sometime in the last year. Tonight had merely been the outward expression of a sentiment he'd long ago internalized.

Yet John-Michael's hands still trembled slightly at the memory of his father's words.

You're more like me than you know. Your mother could never have done anything like this
.

He placed a gloved hand on the handle of the back door. As instructed, he turned the key in its lock and then replaced it in the hanging basket of geraniums. He crossed the backyard, vaulted the wooden fence, and strolled across the brown field of undeveloped land at the back of his father's house. He'd used exactly the same escape route a thousand times at least, ever since he was twelve.

There was something cold and ominous in the idea that this time would be his very last.

John-Michael turned to gaze one last time at his father's house silhouetted in the neon streetlights from the front. The two-story building cast a long shadow, intensely black. For a moment that darkness seemed to stretch toward him. A little closer and it might swallow him up. He took a step backward. His heart was pounding, hammering so hard that it rattled the bones in his chest.

“Good-bye, Dad,” he whispered.

It was scary to be out in the city, alone, carrying several thousand dollars in cash. John-Michael wished he could just take his dad's car right away. But his Dad's instructions had been clear.
Hold your horses. Be cool; wait it out
.

He'd be safe soon enough. The money would buy him a night in a comfortable bed and a big breakfast; the first time in weeks he'd manage to find that without having to get some guy off first. Not that he always minded—some of the guys who'd picked him up over the past year had been pretty hot. Some of them had wanted to see him again. But the idea of being anyone's boy toy didn't appeal to John-Michael. He wanted a guy his own age, someone who was still in high school. Maybe even someone a little younger. If he couldn't have a relationship on equal footing, then he wanted to be the one with the upper hand.

So far, life kept handing him the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Tonight had been John-Michael's chance to
change that. His father's exact words had been, “You're a screwup, son. For once, I want to see something different. Prove to me that you inherited some balls.”

Now John-Michael would finally have the opportunity, maybe even for the upper hand. Freedom had come at last. The price had been high.

But then, wasn't it always?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CULVER STUDIOS, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5

“Didn't they say they wanted blondes?”

Finally, the moment had arrived, the part of any casting call that Candace most dreaded: walking into the waiting area to be surrounded by a gaggle of identical girls. Same age, same slender bodies, same loose blond hair. Any idea of your own uniqueness went right out the window.

To her surprise, this time was totally different. There were at least a dozen or so blondes, brunettes, black girls, white girls, Latinas, and Asian girls.

Candace chose a seat and then Grace sat beside her, giving her an encouraging smile. She and Grace had arrived in California just four days ago after a month of packing and paperwork. Two days before, they'd taken a trip to court to pick up the permission for Candace to live as a legally emancipated individual. Grace's emancipation had been arranged in Texas before they'd left. Now they were able to enter into legal contracts, to choose their own school, and most important to Candace—to keep all the money they earned.

Candace turned to a stunning Filipino girl who was flicking through pages of the script. “Is this the right place for auditions for ‘Gina' in
Downtowners
?”

The girl nodded and smiled. “My agent told me: ‘Age seventeen to twenty-three, fresh-faced, athletic build, stage combat training essential, previous screen experience preferred. Wear clothing suitable for physical training.'”

“So you don't have to be blond?”

“I think the character's head is shaved, so it doesn't really matter.”

“Her head is shaved . . . ?” broke in Grace, but Candace silenced her, eyes flashing a warning.

Candace's mother, Katelyn, strode into the room, trailing an oriental-floral scent that had been personally blended for her by one of the noses at Guerlain. Katelyn swept an appraising glace across the dozen or so other girls before sitting down next to her daughter.

Doubtfully, she glanced around, then placed her Chanel handbag on her lap. “Darling, this looks like a
crapshoot.”

Candace didn't reply. She rolled her eyes at Grace, who suppressed a grin.

The two stepsisters had been lucky enough to get along from the day they'd first been introduced to each other about six years prior. The girls immediately discovered that they shared a sardonic sense of the ridiculous. There was something surreal about seeing your parent dating someone else's parent. One pointed this out to the other and the chemistry was instant.

Candace was nervous, staring at the script. There were only two lines—the pages were just somewhere to focus her attention, somewhere she might escape for a few minutes from her mother's incessant, unsolicited advice.

Candace had wanted only Grace at the audition, but Katelyn was going to drive the two girls to the Venice Beach house right after. Then they were going to pick up the car Candace's mom had leased on her behalf—a Prius. Katelyn had insisted. “It's that or you can use a bicycle. Bad enough we have to increase the family's overall carbon footprint by having you live apart from me, but you know how it is with Jarvis. His work demands such intense privacy.”

Grace was counting the minutes until she and Candace moved out of Jarvis and Katelyn's Malibu house and into a place of their own. They'd been staying with Candace's mother and the Dope Fiend since their whirlwind move from San Antonio. Katelyn had insisted on doing everything by the book: “In my Venice house, you're my tenant, not my daughter. Legally responsible for keeping the place in order. You'd better remember that.”

There was definitely a weird atmosphere at the Malibu house. Candace could see that it wasn't easy on Grace. Katelyn hated Grace's mother, Tina. She blamed her for the failure of her own marriage to Candace's father, even though it had actually been Candace's mother who'd done the dumping. But mainly, Katelyn resented Tina's obsession with Candace's career. It made her own relative disinterest seem distinctly unmotherly.

Luckily, all the bad vibes would soon be a thing of the past. Katelyn's recent generosity more than made up for her helplessly supercilious manner. She'd decided, without any prompting from Candace, to let them live in her own house on Venice Beach. She'd even lined up the first of four other people that she'd insisted had to share the house. He was a guy named Paolo King, a sophomore who coached tennis at Katelyn's country club.

Candace and Grace had already checked him out online. They'd agreed that he was a total hottie. Katelyn had mentioned that she'd heard Paolo was going out with some rich girl that he coached, a college student.

“No hookup potential for you then,” Grace had told Candace.

“Eww, I don't do younger guys, thanks,” had been Candace's response. “I don't care if he goes out with college girls. Even if he
is
cute.”