Come As You Are (4 page)

Ian dropped down at the table across from the lawyer. Wow. It was going to take some time to wrap his head around all of this. The will alone had taken him totally by surprise, but the girl… The crazy girl. His half sister? Good God. And what had she meant about him being a perv just like his dad?

He’d let her think they’d fucked just because she was being such a cruel bitch, but maybe he was being too hard on her. Her dad had just died. But the will. What the hell was that all about? She and her old man obviously had a bad relationship. So bad that he’d pretty much cut her from his will. What a blow.

He meant what he said about the house. He didn’t want to kick her out on the street. And if they were related… Guess he should help her even though blood wasn’t thicker than water. He sure as hell knew that.

The lawyer was talking, filling him in on the details, explaining how the $500.00 had been left to the girl so she couldn’t contest the will. Guess that was a thing.

“So you don’t have to worry about that aspect of it,” Stinson said.

“I wasn’t worried. I haven’t had a chance to worry.”

“I want to go over property and liquid assets. The house is valued at about $700,000.00 due to its proximity to the university.” He passed some papers across the table. “This is the most up-to-date information on Professor Young’s investments and savings. He lived a quiet life, didn’t travel, didn’t go out much, and he invested wisely. Everything together—his savings, retirement funds, mutual funds—come to just a bit over two million dollars. That’s not including the house.”

“What?” Ian couldn’t have heard right.

Stinson nodded. “Two million.”

Ian fell back in his chair, arms limp. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The past few days seemed like a dream, beginning with the phone call from the lawyer to inform him of his birth father’s death and to tell him he would want to be present at the reading of the will.

Ian had grown up hating his birth father even though he’d never known him. All he knew was that he’d left his mother for another woman when Ian was a baby. He and his mom spent years scraping by and had even been homeless off and on. And all the while his father could have helped them.

“I don’t want his help,” Ian’s mother used to say. “I don’t want him to have anything to do with us or our lives.”

Ian’s mother had been dead four years now. Ian wondered what she’d think of this. Would she give every dime to charity? Probably. Maybe. No, she’d send Ian back to college. To grad school and maybe on for a PhD. After her death he’d put himself through four years of classes and he’d graduated this spring with a degree, but he was thinking about continuing on to get a master’s. He’d gotten some grant offers from Berkeley but decided to take a year off to save up money so he didn’t have to work so many hours during the school year. But now…

“It’s a lot to take in,” Stinson said. “How long are you going to be in town? We could get together again after you’ve digested this. You’ll need to meet with Professor Young’s accountant who can fill you in on all of the banking details. I’ll file the will at the courthouse, and once that’s taken care of you can begin the process of getting the house in your name.”

This guy didn’t know the half of it. Ian had so many emotions to process. And the girl. The thing with the girl.

He couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel another night. “How long before I have access to the money?” He didn’t want to seem greedy, but until a few minutes ago he’d been a starving college student living in a house with friends, surviving on Ramen noodles. He’d only gotten a hotel room because he’d driven straight through from California to Minnesota and he’d wanted to shower and sleep in a clean bed before the funeral, which he ended up not going to. Just couldn’t make himself do it.

Instead, he’d wandered around campus to eventually find himself watching a girl with shiny dark hair and pale skin throwing up in an alley. And he’d been mesmerized by those shapely legs, flowered dress, black boots. As sick as that had seemed at the time, admiring a girl who was throwing up, it wasn’t nearly as sick as it actually turned out to be.

His sister. Well, half sister. That was so messed up.

“You should have access to the bank account within a few days. Everything else will take longer. Here. I have some other items to give you.” The lawyer dug around in a leather briefcase and pulled out an accordion file. He untied the string and starting lining things up on the table, mostly keys.

“This is a key to a storage box at the bank.”

The key was taped to a piece of paper with the name of the bank.

“Here are house keys. Professor Young didn’t have a car,” he explained. “Walked or took public transit. And here is a letter with instructions you might find useful. About the house and various mundane things.” He passed a white business envelope to Ian. “That’s the address of the residence.” He tapped the envelope. “Do you need directions?”

“I can enter it in my GPS app.”

“Okay, then.” The lawyer put everything back in the container, fastened the string, then gave it to Ian before standing to extend his hand. “Very nice meeting you, young man. Let me know if you need anything. Call my secretary to schedule another appointment so we can tie up any loose ends.”

Ian got to his feet and shook Stinson’s hand. Then Ian left with the bundle of papers and keys and a sealed letter under his arm.

He remembered passing a bar on the way in, and on a hunch he stepped inside the cool darkness. Brick walls, real flowers on the tables, black booths and black stools. At first he thought his hunch had been wrong, but he moved deeper into the space and spotted her sitting in a booth, two empty beer glasses in front of her, her face hidden by shiny hair as she focused on the cell phone in her hand.

He slid into the seat across from her.

She looked up, and his heart took a little dive. She was beautiful even with the dark circles under her eyes. That skin. That shiny straight hair. Lips that were full, and soft, a bit of cleavage showing above the black lace of her dress…

Cleavage that belongs to your sister.

She stuck her phone into her messenger bag, and now he noticed she had a dimple in one cheek. It apparently showed up when she frowned.

“Just like old times,” she said.

Her voice was husky, but that could be from throwing up.

“Listen,” he said, gesturing a little too much with both hands. “I just want to talk to you. First of all—”

“Can I get you anything?”

A waitress. Female. Blonde. Pen in hand.

“Another beer for me,” Molly said.

“I’ll have iced tea.”

“Anything to eat?”

“Yeah.” He picked up the menu from its place against the wall and almost had a heart attack when he saw the prices. “Hummus platter.” He shut the menu and put it back. The waitress gave him a smile and spun away.

“I’m just going to go.” Molly tossed a twenty on the table. “I have to be at work in a couple of hours. You can have my beer if you want it.”

She was getting up. She was leaving. He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Wait.”

She pulled her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I meant what I said about the house. You can stay as long as you want.”

“I don’t live there. It doesn’t matter.”

“But you probably have stuff that you need to get?” He rushed on, thinking as he went. “Or keep it there. Until I decide what I’m going to do with the place.”

“Sell it. I don’t care.”

She was so hard. Why was she so hard?

“I have to tell you something,” he said. “Please. Sit back down.”

The waitress brought the drinks and removed the empty glasses, then left.

Molly sat back down. “Okay. What?”

“I lied. Back there in the bathroom.”

She took a drink of beer, watching him over the foam, her eyebrows raised in expectation.

“You don’t remember last night, do you?”

“Oh, my God.” She put the glass down and beer sloshed over her hand onto the table. She had foam on her upper lip. “You roofied me.”

“What? No! God, no.”

“Then what?”

He made a wiping motion with his fingers above his own lip. Her frown deepened and she mimicked the gesture. “Foam. On your mouth,” he said.

Understanding reached her eyes and she wiped off the foam with the back of her hand. “Not that I really care if I have beer on my mouth,” she said, letting him know that he made no difference to her.

“We didn’t do anything last night.” He sat back and waited for her response.

For a while he wondered if she’d heard him at all, and then she said, “I woke up in your bed, and my panties were on the floor.”

“Yeah, but…”

The platter of hummus appeared. “Anything else I can get you?” the waitress asked with a smile that was all for Ian.

“Thanks. We’re fine,” he said.

She left.

“I remember a few things,” Molly said.

“You do?”

“I do.”

He swallowed. “Okay. What?”

She leaned forward, glanced over her shoulder, and whispered loudly, “I remember what your cock looks like, and I remember what it felt like. So I really doubt nothing happened. Brother.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Well, you are, right?”

“Nothing happened. Okay, I didn’t want to get into this, but you pretty much ripped my clothes off. You wanted it. I stopped you.”

She let out a scoffing laugh. “You expect me to believe that? You took me to your hotel room…and then you
stopped
me?”

“It was all too fast for me.”

“Don’t you like sex?”

“Not that kind of sex.”

“Then what kind?”

“I’m not into casual sex. It doesn’t do anything for me. I know that’s kind of weird for a dude my age, but that’s how I am. Here—” He pushed the plate closer to her, picked up a triangle of pita bread, spread some hummus and black olives on it, and took a bite.

She was watching him. Like he was some strange specimen. He’d gotten that look before.

She loaded hummus onto a piece of bread. “So why did you take me to your room?”

“I was drunk. And you were really drunk. I thought you might need a place to crash. Which you did. I guess I thought I was looking out for you.”

“That’s sweet, but I don’t need anybody to look out for me.”

“Whatever you say.”

The conversation stopped completely for a bit while they attacked the food.

“What do you do?” she asked, wiping a napkin across her lips.

“I just got a degree from Berkeley. How about you? I imagine you’ve got quite the college resume.”

“I’m a waitress.”

He let that sink in. “But your father… Our father. “ God, he wasn’t going to get used to that. He didn’t want to get used to it. “I’d think with his academic career…”

“Oh, he tried.” She shrugged, and for some reason he got the feeling that attempt at nonchalance was an act. “I wasn’t interested. And I really didn’t have the grades for it. Or the brain.”

“Where do you work?”

She produced a tube of lip balm and rubbed it across her mouth. “A place called Mean Waitress in Uptown.”

He laughed.

She recapped the balm and dropped it in her bag. “Doesn’t surprise you, does it?”

“Not at all.”

“I have to go.” This time he could see there’d be no stopping her.

“We have to talk again,” he said. “We have to sort this out.”

She slid from the booth and ducked under her messenger bag. “There’s nothing to talk about.” She adjusted the wide strap across her chest. “Nice meeting you, Ian.”

“I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“Your dad. I’m sorry he died, and I’m sorry about the will.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

She left, taking a cloud of melancholy with her.

I lied to Ian about having to work. I had the day off, but thinking about having to go back to Mean Waitress tomorrow, and thinking about having to catch up on the classes I’d already missed… I felt overwhelmed.

Maybe I should just leave. Go somewhere completely new, somewhere I’d never been before, somewhere with winters that didn’t reach forty-below zero.

Back in my car I turned the key to that awful sound of silence. I tried again. Nothing. Should have ridden my bike. Now what?

What I wanted to do was just walk away. Just get out of the car and walk back to the duplex. But I was parked at a meter. I couldn’t just leave it. And then I remembered I had towing included with my insurance. I dug out the card and called the number.

Fifteen minutes later the tow truck arrived. And in five more minutes my Toyota was on the back of the truck, and I’d clambered into the passenger seat.

“Where to?” the driver asked. “Repair shop?” He was young, with slicked back black hair and a lot of male perfume, the kind that wafted out of those guy shops at the mall. The same scent every frat boy on campus wore.

When I didn’t immediately answer, he said, “I can take it to a repair shop or take it to your house, but once I take it to your house your tow will be used up. You can’t get another tow to a garage.”

I gave him my address. Not much choice since I had no money to pay for a repair.

“So, what you got going on this beautiful fall day?” he asked.

Was it beautiful?

I looked through the windshield as we pulled away from a red light. Blue sky, trees with red and orange leaves. People sitting outside at corner cafés, talking and laughing and drinking coffee.

Yes. It was.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” I said.

“Good day for a breakdown then. It usually happens when you’ve got someplace important to go.”

“No place important for me.”

“You a student?”

I so didn’t want to have this fake conversation. On one hand, I thought it would serve him right if I unloaded the truth of my life on him, but he was just making small talk. He didn’t know. But that was the thing. Nobody ever knew when they asked about your day. Not the clerk at Target, or the barista at Starbucks. So many times I’d been tempted to tell the barista that I was on my way to kill somebody, but I always stopped myself at the last minute.

They didn’t know. None of them knew. And the unforgivable part was that they didn’t give a shit to begin with. They didn’t
want
to know what you were doing. I made it a point to never get personal with customers at Mean Waitress. It’s just not cool.

“I’m not a student,” I said. And then I remembered my father’s TA, and how he was waiting to hear back from me about course material.

“It’s a waste of money.” My driver nodded at the lie I’d told. And maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe I would withdraw. “I’m never gonna go to college.”

I didn’t need to struggle for a response because we were pulling up in front of the duplex. Once there, he had the car unloaded in a matter of minutes. I signed some papers and he was gone.

Rose came out to meet me. “Car trouble, I see.”

“I hope it doesn’t end up towed because I have no idea when I’ll be able to afford to get it fixed.”

“Maybe being towed would be a good thing. Just let them take it. It’s been one thing after the other the past year.” She was dressed for work in all black— fitted crop pants, ballet flats, and a tank top, her hair pulled into a ponytail. She’d recently gotten some new tattoos, and both of her arms were covered in pale blues, reds, and pinks. She unchained her bike from the porch and swung her leg over the seat. “What’d the lawyer say?”

“Long story,” I said. “Tell you later.”

“Okay, gotta go.” She was always late. Always. “Bye, sweetie!” She waved and I waved, watching her pedal down the street looking cool and beautiful and carefree.

I felt so old. But I also felt too young to be dealing with this crap. Lawyers and wills and the weird dude from California. A dead dad. Especially the dead dad.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Not much after two. Would the day ever end? But then drinking at noon hadn’t helped much. I remembered the voicemail from the TA. Sabal Malik was his name.

Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, I called him back. When he answered I told him I could meet him at my dad’s house and we could look for the course files.

“It would probably be easier for you to spot them,” I told him. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

He said okay, and I gave him the address. “Meet you in half an hour?” I asked.

“I’ll be there.”

Instead of going into the duplex, I unchained my bike from the front porch, bounced it down the steps, and headed across I-94 through the U of M campus to my dad’s house in the Marcy Holmes neighborhood. The ride was about three miles, and I got there before I really wanted to.

Would I miss this place? I wondered as I walked through the house, seeing it with the eyes of someone who’d already told it goodbye. It held some good memories, but most were bad. No, I wouldn’t miss it. I wouldn’t miss it at all.

The doorbell rang and I answered it to find an earnest-looking guy standing there in jeans and a button-down shirt. Brown skin, black hair, black eyes. Someone who would truly be called handsome.

“You must be Sabal.”

We shook hands, and I led him into my father’s study, turning on the overhead light along with the desk lamp. The space was cramped with ceiling-to-floor bookshelves. Chairs overflowed with stacks of papers, folders, and binders.

“I never come in here,” I told Sabal. “It was kind of his sacred place.”

“Wow.” He looked overwhelmed. “I don’t know where to start.”

“I guess maybe we should tackle the most obvious—the stacks with the least amount of dust.”

An hour into our search, me sitting on the floor, Sabal in my father’s desk chair, Sabal said, “I’m really sorry about your dad.”

“Thanks.”

“He’ll be missed. He was an amazing man.”

“He was.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. Again. I wanted to slit my wrists and take a bunch of pills and jump off the bridge.

I kept my head down, sifting through papers that I no longer saw. I would have left that very second. I would have made some excuse, but I couldn’t leave Sabal alone in the house. What if Ian showed up to claim his prize? And found a stranger in his house? And look where running away had gotten me yesterday.

I changed the conversation. “Did you notice that on the way here the air smelled like fall?”

“Like fall?”

“Yeah, like…” I gave it some thought. “Apples. And pumpkins. And leaves. And coffee. And the shadows…they were really black and long. Like the shadow of my bike just went on forever.”

“That’s beautiful.”

I looked up to see him staring at me across the stacks of paper. And he wanted me. I thought about it for a bit. I saw myself taking him by the hand, leading him up the stairs to my old room where we would strip and tumble into my bed. I shrugged. “Just an observation.”

“I think I found it.” He began riffling through a fresh file of papers. “Or at least part of it.”

I put my stack aside, glad this was over but wondering what I would do now. There was still a lot of day left. And after today there would be another day. And another.

“Yeah, this is it.” He sounded so happy, so relieved. I was glad I didn’t delete his message.

He gathered up everything and stuffed it into his backpack. “This is my first year as a TA. I couldn’t believe they wanted me to take over the class.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, especially now that you have the syllabus.”

“I don’t know. I’m trying not to freak out about it. But it’s Psychology 101. I should be able to handle it.”

We were both standing. I was waiting for him to leave. Either leave or come upstairs. Upstairs was not a good idea. Or maybe it was.

“Okay, I better go. Thanks.” He offered his hand. It was supposed to be a shake, but instead he just kept holding on while he stared at my face. I think I smiled. I might have smiled. “I wish I’d visited before now,” he said breathlessly.

“I don’t live here,” I told him.

“Oh.”

I could tell he was disappointed, because now he wouldn’t know where to put me in his mind. He was one of those shy guys, a bit naïve, a bit of a geek, all things I found attractive.

The longest I’d had a boyfriend was six months. I think because I find a relationship too intimate. Not the sex, but once the guy starts wanting to understand me and get into my head I’ve had enough. I begin to feel smothered, and I begin looking for a way out. I begin finding fault in all the little things he does, all things that had attracted me in the first place. But naïve guys tended to take a girl at face value. To Sabal, I would be a pretty and quirky and sad girl whose cool father just died. He might not look any deeper.

He smiled, and his smile made me feel better than I’d felt in days.

“If you’re missing some notes, let me know. We can look more.” I didn’t know how much longer I’d have access to the house, but I got the impression Ian wouldn’t care since he’d invited me to stay. Wouldn’t that be weird? To stay? I almost shuddered.

I heard the sound of a key in the front door. I dropped Sabal’s hand as if stung. My chest tightened, and heat rushed to my face. It took me a moment to rearrange my brain.

The sound of the key in the door. The time of day… My response was purely a conditioned reaction—I thought my father was coming home.

And even though I realized that wasn’t the case, I still expected to see him step inside, put down his briefcase, and hang his coat and hat on the rack.

Muffled footsteps. “Hello? Anybody home?”

I closed and opened my eyes slowly while taking a stabilizing breath. Ian. My new brother.

My weird reaction had triggered an equally weird one in Sabal. He was blushing and gathering his stuff, slipping out of the office and hurrying through the living room, stopping when he came face-to-face with the new owner.

I followed, composing myself as I went. “Sabal, this is my stepbrother, Ian.” I would work this stepbrother thing as long as possible because Ian bugged the hell out of me and I needed to torment him.

They did the normal awkward stuff.
Hello. Nice to meet you.
And then Sabal ducked out, leaving me with Ian.

“He was my dad’s TA.” I felt the need to explain why I was in the house, and why another person was in the house.

“That’s okay. This place isn’t really mine yet anyway. And like I said, stay as long as you want.” But his backpack was near the door, so he must have been planning to spend some time here himself.

“Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”

“I don’t know.” He remained glued to the living room floor. “I thought the house would be empty. You said you were going to work. I’ll come back some other time.”

“No problem. I’m leaving soon, and I was lying about work.”

He nodded, as if that didn’t surprise him.

I showed him around, but after the tour started I thought:
How stupid. He doesn’t need me leading him around, pointing to the kitchen.
“And here’s the refrigerator.” I opened it. The fucking ham was still there, and it looked like there was more of it now. Christ, there was another whole one next to the platter of slices. I slammed the door.

“And there’s the sink.”

I reached around a corner, groping blindly for a switch. “Basement is down here. Washer and dryer, plus a shower and toilet.” I turned off the light because I saw no reason to go downstairs.

Back through the living room. And why wasn’t he talking? At the bar I just wanted him to shut up, but now, with him in my house—correction,
his
house—things felt even weirder, and I didn’t think that was possible.

He’d already seen the living room and dining room and office. He followed me upstairs, our boots way too loud on the wooden steps. I wished I’d put on some music because I seemed to be picking up sounds I didn’t want to hear, like my stomach making noises. Not hungry noises, but nervous and abused noises.

“You know, Iceland has an app that will tell you if two people are related,” I said as I turned the corner at the landing, my hand on the square post the way my hand had touched it ever since I was tall enough to reach. “That would have come in handy last night, huh? So if you’re out drinking and you meet somebody you…” My words trailed off. “How does it know? I mean, you can’t put a drop of your blood on the iPhone screen.”

“Maybe you enter your personal info. Like age and date-of-birth. Maybe the names of your parents and grandparents.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “That might be.”

Once again I wanted to run. I pictured myself pushing him aside, tearing down the stairs, jumping on my bike, and pedaling away.

“Three bedrooms.” I sounded like a real estate agent. “Bathroom at the end of the hall. We had it redone about five years ago so it’s pretty nice. And up there?” I pointed above our heads to the square door in the ceiling. “That’s a crawl space. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve never been in it. Too creepy, and I don’t like dark, tight spaces. But you might want to check it out. Not sure if there’s anything stored there. Kind of doubt it.”

And then we reached my room.

Purple walls. India print bedspread from a head shop in Dinkytown. Incense burners and candles and band posters, mostly bands from the sixties, but later ones too.

“Kurt Cobain,” Ian said.

It was the signature headshot of him with the mussed hair and black eyeliner and striped shirt. As if to justify the poster, I said, “I was born on September 24, 1991, the day
Nevermind
came out.”

“Oh, wow.”

“And I haven’t used this room in years. Just so you know.” But then I instantly felt bad about denying my relationship and obsession with Kurt. “I’m signed up for a pop culture class,” I told him. “Nirvana and the Life and Death of Kurt Cobain.”

“That sounds cool.”

“Well, I’m not sure if I’m going to go back this semester. Trying to decide.”

“You could always ask for a deferment.”