Snapshot (29 page)

When Marti came downstairs the next morning, she discovered a couple of passed out party goers in the great room and by the pool. It didn’t stop Rosa from running her noisy vacuum cleaner, which gave Marti a bit of satisfaction.
 

Determined to avoid Courtney and Nigel, Marti stuffed her camera into her shoulder bag and went for a long walk.

She inhaled the fresh air and enjoyed the quiet morning after such an insane night. Marti meandered by one mansion after another. It appeared that no one actually lived in their multi-million dollar homes. The homes were so enormous that barely ten feet separated one monstrosity from the next.
 

She spotted workers everywhere, pruning this or mulching that. Sprinklers kept the lawns lush and green as a golf course. She snuck a few pictures of flowering trees and manicured gardens. Some houses featured marble pillars that stood three stories high. Others were nearly all glass, like her dad’s place.
 

She reminisced about camp. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Marti missed her friends, but knew from a few emails that they were all busy with their jobs, sports, and starting school. She ached for Adam. Marti couldn’t believe they’d been together everyday, and he was back to his life as a rocker. His days were insane, packed with meetings, interviews, and appearances. She now understood why camp meant so much to him. He never got the chance to relax and be a teenager.

Marti walked down Sunset Plaza Drive to a strip of small stores and coffee shops. The day was warming up fast. She decided to go in and order iced coffee with a shot of white chocolate. Marti sat at a bistro table toward the back and watched people come and go.
 

A couple of girls her age came in for an iced coffee and left. She wondered if she’d be going to the same school as they did. And when did school start? She needed to figure that out. It was doubtful her dad gave it any thought; he probably expected Courtney to help her. Marti didn’t see that happening. Maybe Rosa would help.

A young woman with a baby strapped to her front ordered next. The checkout girl oohed over the little one.
 

Marti squirmed. Babies were cute, but she didn’t want one. Not now, maybe not ever, considering her poor excuse for parents. She still hadn’t gotten her period. She swirled her beverage with the straw. The woman sat down, and the baby gurgled and cooed.

Marti couldn’t watch. She grabbed her drink and made for the door. She did not need to be thinking about babies.
 

Outside, she drew a deep breath of smoggy LA air. Reality. But the reality of living in the uncertainty of LA was no better than not knowing if she was pregnant.

A few doors down, she spied a drug store. Before she could overthink it, she went in, bought a few magazines and a pregnancy test. Just in case. She refused eye contact with the clerk. She didn’t need the condemnation she knew would be in the clerk’s eyes.
 

Marti headed back to her dad’s. The proof of her illicit behavior weighed heavy in her bag. How many times had her mother bought a pregnancy test after irresponsible sex? Then Marti remembered hearing her parents fight one time about who should take care of Marti. Her mother screamed that she’d wanted to abort the pregnancy, but her dad had convinced her not to. He loved kids, not that he ever proved it by the way he treated them.
 

Marti had been born to a mother who never wanted her. How many other unwanted pregnancies had her mother ended? Marti shuddered. She did not want to be her mother, but was she already following in her footsteps? She rubbed her lower belly. Still flat. She would wait a few more days before taking the test; she wasn’t ready to know.
 

Normally, Marti didn’t pray, but in this instance she thought a few prayers couldn’t hurt. “Please God, don’t let me be pregnant. If you let me not be pregnant, I promise I’ll never have sex again.” She thought for a moment. “At least not without birth control,” she added, as she didn’t want to lie to God.

As she approached the mansion, a Mercedes convertible sped by with Courtney driving and Nigel in the passenger seat. Courtney pulled in and parked in the circular drive.

Marti stopped.
Crap
. She didn’t want to deal with them. She sat on a stone ledge outside the property next door and waited for the pair to go inside.
 

It wasn’t a minute later that a tow truck pulled in to her dad’s driveway. It turned around in the drive and backed up to the bumper of the little convertible.
 

Marti watched as the driver jumped out of the cab, pulled out some sort of cable and hooked it to the back of the car. Marti fished in her bag for her camera. This guy was stealing Courtney’s car! She couldn’t stop him, but she could at least get a picture of his license plate. By the time she had the lens cover off and the camera turned on, the tow truck pulled the car away. She caught only a couple shots of the getaway tow truck.

She rushed into the house and found her dad lounging on the couch with a cigarette between his fingers and some pawnshop program on the big screen. Courtney sat on the other end of the couch and pulled items out of her shopping bags. Nigel drank a beer.

“Dad! A truck just towed away your convertible!” She doubted Courtney could afford such pricey wheels.

“What!” Courtney shrieked, dropping her latest acquisitions, and bolted for the front door.

Her dad frowned and continued watching his show.

“Fuck!” Courtney yelled from the entry way. “Those bastards took my car!” She stormed back into the living room.
 

“Technically, it was my car, not yours,” Marti’s dad said, his voice devoid of concern. Marti saw him roll his eyes when Courtney wasn’t looking.

Courtney huffed and turned on Marti. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
 

Marti shrank back. “I… I didn’t realize what they were doing until it was too late.”

“Steven! Aren’t you going to do something?” Courtney loomed before him with her long, lacquered fingernails pressing into her hips.
 

“What do you want me to do? You insisted that if I paid the down payment, you’d make the monthly payments.” He leveled his bloodshot eyes on Courtney. “Looks like you missed a payment…or four.” He returned his attention to the TV and a man carrying a life-size mannequin dressed like Elvis.

Courtney knelt on the floor next to him and caressed his thigh. “Oh, baby. I missed a couple payments. I didn’t mean to, but they’re so expensive, and my allowance doesn’t cover everything I need.”
 

Allowance? Seriously?
 

“Help me out this one time and pay off my back payments,” she cooed into his ear, letting him look at her ample cleavage. “I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.” Courtney’s hand slid between his legs. She sucked on his earlobe.

Marti cringed and turned away. Nigel shot her a suggestive leer. Marti wanted to run, but held her ground.

“No. The bank’s closed.” Her dad pushed Courtney away, aimed his remote at the TV, and cranked the volume.

Courtney turned on Marti. “This is all your fault!”

“What did I do?”
 

“For one, you little bitch, you could have stopped the tow truck from taking my car!” she yelled, her sexy allure gone.

Marti didn’t know what to say. Her dad didn’t flinch, zoned in on the TV. No reaction.
Great
. The guy with the tow truck had moved so fast he wasn’t parked for more than twenty seconds. By the time she figured out what was happening, he was on his way.

“Secondly, you’re here! What the fuck are you doing here anyway? Steven and I are perfect together, and now you’re ruining everything!” For a small woman she had a lot of volume. “We never get to be alone anymore!” Courtney’s face turned an angry hue of red.

“But Nigel is always here,” Marti pointed out.

“Of course he’s here. He’s my brother, I told you that! Are you stupid?” she bellowed.

“Sorry.” Marti backed away.

“Courtney?” Her dad reached out and patted her butt. “The band is coming over in a couple hours. Did you get everything ordered?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “But I don’t know why I do everything for you. What have you done for me lately?”

Marti’s dad raised an eyebrow and eyed Courtney in a way that made Marti even more ill at ease.

Courtney’s personality flipped like a dime. “Oh baby, you know I’m teasing. I love you so much. You know I’d do anything for you.” She took his hand and kissed it. “In fact, I better go check on some things.”

As Courtney turned away, Marti saw her shoot a look at Nigel. Courtney left the room, and a moment later Nigel followed. He stepped close to Marti as he passed. So close that he would have brushed against her if she hadn’t stepped back.

Marti stood in the room with the TV blaring and her dad totally ignoring the scene that just took place.

“Well… I guess I’ll go upstairs and email some friends.” She waited, but her dad didn’t seem to hear, so she backed away until she neared the stairs. When she arrived at her room, the door stood ajar.
 

Shit. She knew she closed it before leaving. “Kahlua!” She discovered the cat curled up in the sun on top of a t-shirt Marti had left on the floor. Marti scanned her room for anything missing or out of place. Her dad could care less what she had in her room, but Courtney or Nigel might be nosey.
 

Her blood boiled at the thought of either of them nosing around her stuff. And if it was Nigel, well, that gave her the creeps even more.

She tossed her shoulder bag on the desk, and it fell open revealing the bag from the drug store. Her pregnancy test. She stared at the bag. It stared back, mocking her. She closed the bag so she wouldn’t have to look at it.
 

She wasn’t ready to take that test. Maybe she’d get her period tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. If she was pregnant, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. At least not yet.
 

Everything felt so messed up. Why couldn’t anything be simple anymore? Her mind wandered to Adam again. He hadn’t asked her if they were safe yet. Had he forgotten all the unprotected sex they had? Did he really care about her anymore or was it all in her mind?

She picked up her phone and checked it. No messages, no texts. What did he say he had going today? Was it the meeting with the New Year’s Eve Planning Committee about performing in Times Square on New Years?

“How’s NYC?” she texted. That seemed generic enough. No pressure, not pushy. If he wanted to answer, it couldn’t be that hard to sneak a text back. She waited and watched.

The phone screen remained blank. It didn’t ding with a new message. It didn’t light up. She sighed. The empty screen mirrored the feeling in her heart. Empty. Silent. Dark. Why did she always feel so alone?
 

Because she was.

Chapter 17

A couple hours later, Marti paged through the last of her magazines. Losing herself in the latest fashions and Hollywood gossip helped distract from her own world. Nothing like useless news items to soothe the mind.

Through her open patio door, Marti heard the comings and goings of people downstairs. Sounded like another troop of caterers bringing in food for tonight’s big bash. She heard loud talking and laughing. She sighed.

A click sounded, and Marti looked up to see Courtney, the size zero psycho, barge in. Her hot pink spandex top left little to the imagination. The fabric squeezed so tight, it wouldn’t hide a freckle. Did she really think that made her attractive?
 

“You knock much?” Marti said.

Courtney sauntered in, showing off her leather pants. They laced up the side, exposing skin from waist to ankle. No panties on her tonight.
 

“I see you’ve made yourself at home.” She perused the room with haughty disdain.

“Not nearly as much as you have.” Marti wondered how the woman walked in her sky-high platform heels. Courtney wandered around the room and stopped at the desk. She glanced at the jewelry and lotion bottles strewn about, then she poked at Marti’s handbag so it fell open.

Marti leapt off the bed, knocking her magazines to the floor as Courtney opened the drug store bag containing the pregnancy test. She arched an eyebrow and an evil smile curled on her lips. Marti snatched the bag from Courtney’s reach. “Keep your hands off my stuff!”

“My, my, my! Someone’s got a little problem,” she tsked. “Who’s the unlucky boy?”

“None of your damn business!” Marti wanted to knock Courtney off her six-inch heels.

“Some pimply faced Midwest farm boy, I’m sure.”
 

Wouldn’t Courtney be shocked to hear it was Adam Jamieson, a rocker at the top of his game? Unlike her dad, who hoped to rekindle the dream.

“Is there a reason you barged in here?”
 

“Your dad wants you to come down and meet the band. He wants to show you off like a new toy.” Courtney flicked a speck of lint off her top.

“I’ve already met the band! I’ve known them since I was a baby.” Marti set her bag on the bedside table and turned to face Satan’s spawn. “I was around here long before you, and I’ll be around long after you’re gone.”