Playground (31 page)

he knows about my affair with Kendall.

“Well, since we’re being honest, a relationship has sort of de-

veloped.”

“What, are you seeing another guy?”

“No . . .”

“Then what?”

“Kendall,” I say blankly.

“Kendall? What are you a fucking lesbo now?”

Clearly, it wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.

“Let me get this right—you can fuck whomever but I’m ex-

pected to stay monogamous?” I retaliate.

“I was trying to reach you for weeks!” he screams.

“Next time try picking up a phone, it might work better!” I

shout.

“Get the fuck out of my house! By the way, since we’re being

honest, I’ve been fucking Austin,” Hayden yells, his eyes full of hate

as he grabs my arm and shoves me out the door. He slams it inches

from my face and I twitch as though I’ve been slapped. Tears slide

down my face and there is nothing I can do to stop them.

The house is a disaster area by the time I get home. Phones

have been taken apart and opened. Men are installing surveillance

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cameras and from the windows in the living room you can see po-

lice cars driving by. Dad passes right by me with a bodyguard trail-

ing behind.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“This is my new bodyguard,” he says, introducing me to a man

in a suit.

“We are checking the house for bugs. I think the phones are

tapped.”

“Why?” I ask, staring at the various workmen.

“I’m being watched,” Dad insists.

“By who?”

I have a sudden sick feeling in my stomach.

“We’re not sure. That’s why I’m upgrading our security system.

It’s for our protection.” Dad and the bodyguard wave something

that resembles a metal detector along the walls.

“Is that why there are people trying to break in late at night?”

Neither one of them answers me. There seems to be a lot Dad isn’t

telling me these days. They continue checking corners of each room.

“How was your day?” Dad asks in the midst of chaos.

“Terrible. Hayden’s an asshole. I hate him.” I wipe my sore, red

eyes. Dad strokes the back of my head affectionately.

“Did he hit you? If he did, he made a big mistake,” Dad intones,

truly concerned.

“No, but he’s completely irrational. He threatened me and

threw me out.”

“I’m sorry you’re upset. I promise you, honey, I will take care of

him later,” Dad says as he rubs my back, peering into a mysterious

hole in the wall.

“No. It’s fine. I can deal with Hayden on my own,” I tell him,

hoping he heard me.

Filled with despair, I walk upstairs and close my bedroom

door. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I no longer have any

secrets, privacy, or personal space. I pick up the phone and call

Kendall at the Mansion.

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“Is Kendall there, please? It’s Jennifer Saginor.”

A few seconds later Kendall picks up.

“Hello?” her voice is soft and sexy.

“Hey” is all I can get out.

“Hey, kiddo. What’s wrong?”

Tears form in my eyes. “Things are so fucked up around here,”

I cry.

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“What happened? Wait, I hear Hef, I gotta go,” she whispers,

cutting me off midsentence as the phone goes dead.

I then decide to drive over to my mother’s house. I’m in a hys-

terical frenzy, cigarettes falling between my fingers.

She answers the door and doesn’t seem overly thrilled to see

me. My defenses immediately go up out of habit. I find myself

standing in the doorway wishing she would embrace me in her

arms and never let go in order to shield me from a man and the

demons that follow him. At this point, I’d rather live in a Dumpster

than have to bear another sleepless night in his house. I want so

much to move back in with Mom so I can hide, but I’m afraid she

isn’t strong enough to tackle him. And when Dad does find us, he

will hurt us. My grandfather’s alliances are with my father.

I have nowhere to turn.

“I need to talk to you,” I plead. She lets me in and we move into

the living room and take seats across from each other. There’s a

glass table between us.

“I need to get out of there,” I tell her.

“Why do you say that?” my mother asks.

“Because Dad and Vicki are partying and fighting, and all this

weird shit is going on,” I say.

“Partying meaning drugs?” she asks blankly as we are speaking

a foreign language.

“Of course drugs!” I scream, pissed off that she’s so naive. I’m

still in shock over the past twenty-four hours and furious at my

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mother for not being able to read my mind and comfort me. Sad-

ness fills me up because I know she is not tough enough to fight

this battle. I want to cry with the intention of self-pity, yet the longer

I cry it turns to anger and then vengeance. It is clear her animosity

toward my father has now been transferred to me. I begin to teach

myself to define what I really feel toward my mother—an uncon-

trollable anger over her letting me go.

“Like what?” she asks, in a level voice, still unable to compre-

hend the severity of it all. She peers at me skeptically like she

doesn’t believe me, which really annoys me. She seems to have to-

tal disregard for my feelings or what I am going through.

“All this stuff is happening and I can’t tell anyone, and I want to

leave but I can’t because he’ll never let me go,” I say, sounding just as

paranoid as my father. I shiver. My legs are light and I can’t move my

toes. I begin to have that nervous feeling again, the butterflies in my

stomach. I’m in danger. My days are numbered, but where will I go?

Who can I turn to?

“Do you think I can move back home?” I ask, even though the

thought of defying my father terrifies me to death. I think of how

fun-loving he used to be and now I’m never quite sure what state

of mind he’ll be in, or who I am when I’m alone in his house, or

how I’d be if I left him.

“Your father has legal custody of you and did a damn good job

of making a mockery of this family. If you want to move back in,

then you’ll have to get his permission. He is too stubborn and I’m

tired of fighting,” she states matter-of-factly.

“He’s not going to let me move out.” My hands tremble. She re-

arranges her plastic expression of vague concern into one of smug-

ness. She looks at me as if I am now a stranger, but maybe I always

was and never knew it.

“I guess you should’ve thought of that before you decided to

move in with him,” she says, clear and in control, like a good psy-

chologist. Her eyes are hollow; I do not see myself in them.

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It’s as if I’m not really her daughter after all.

My eyes lock on to hers and I can almost see hers fill with bit-

terness and resentment. It’s not always the person who harms you

that you’re angry at, but the person who let it happen.

“I can’t believe I tried to talk to you,” I say, feeling the blackness

of betrayal swirl around me. I walk out, convinced I am the daugh-

ter she hopes will disappear.

Years later, she decides to hear that my cry for help was real.

My father’s house has become a war zone. Things have gone from

bad to worse.

Vicki and Dad stay up late screaming, knocking and banging.

Dad stalks around his room enraged. My insomnia is no longer

from anxiety or depression: it is because I am too petrified to

shut my eyes. Each night I think of ways to avoid sleeping. I am

petrified someone will come in and do something. What, I’m not

sure, but just seeing Dad and Vicki both on drugs, their unpre-

dictable behavior and words, is enough to terrorize me into

hysterics.

I peek through my bedroom door, which is slightly ajar. Dad is

dragging Vicki on her knees, while she’s clinging on to him, as he

storms down the hallway with hypodermic needles protruding

from the pockets of his open terry-cloth robe. The expression on

her face is childlike, and so vulnerable, that for a second I actually

feel sorry for her.

She glances up at him with a look of pain. He dismisses her

with complete disdain as she begs him to stop. Her pleading makes

it worse. His voice never registers any emotion; it is harsh and con-

temptuous. He grabs her hard, wrestles her shoulders to the

ground, and turns her over. She is completely helpless, trapped be-

neath him, unable to move. When Dad sees me standing in the

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doorway, he winks while dragging Vicki across the carpet. It’s as if

he is giving me lessons on how to treat dumb whores.

Dad was always on the verge of splitting up or getting back to-

gether with some young girl, especially Vicki. They each looked

different, but in the end, the story was always the same. According

to him, they all had “agendas” and “serious psychological prob-

lems.” They played mind games. His thrill in life was finding out

information people didn’t want him to know. I was always amazed

at the effect he had on these women. He convinced them that they

deserved to be treated like shit.

He never got close to anyone—except me of course.

“I respect
you,
that’s all that matters,” he would say.

Sometimes he’d throw Vicki’s clothes off the balcony and kick

her out of the house, making her stumble around outside naked,

begging to be let back in. His dead eyes would come alive for an

instant.

They were the eyes of a man without a conscience.

On a few different occasions, I hear the sound of people in the

backyard. I move to the bathroom, where I turn off the lights and

look out. I’m petrified because I’m home alone and there are

moving shadows underneath the lights on the tennis court. I run

back into my room, grab the gun, and hide underneath the bed.

The phone rings. I reach for the spiral cord and pull, yanking it

off the nightstand.

“Hello,” I answer in a whisper, worried it’s someone from

outside.

“Hey, it’s Hunter. We need to talk.”

“I can’t. The Mafia’s after me,” I whisper before hanging up.

My hands tremble as I grip my gun, ready to shoot anyone

who enters through my bedroom door.

The next morning, I’m still half asleep with my gun in hand.

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