The Struggle (The Things We Can't Change Book 2) (7 page)

After almost breaking into a sweat during the long, uphill walk, I reach the top of the driveway, where it flattens out into a huge parking area and butts up to the garage and a paved path leads to the front door of the house. Far off to my right, a six car garage is home to what could be an impromptu luxury car show. I count a candy apple red Mercedes coupe, a gleaming black Escalade, a Porsche, Evie’s Lexus and give up in disgust when I see the fully restored vintage Dodger Challenger.

These people are sick-rich, compared to me, at least. I know about Dr. Parker’s practices; they are mainly pediatric clinics, but the two big ones in Columbus are fairly popular because he’d had the idea to combine a pediatric office with an OB-GYN office, so you can meet your child’s pediatrician before they are even born and keep going to the same place life-long. There are also branches in Cleveland and Cincinnati. The man is loaded, and it’s no mystery to me why Evie always walked around school like a queen. With a house like this, anyone would feel like royalty. I have a flash of her wounded violet eyes and then push the image away. Violently.

Shaking my head, I squash down my lingering feelings of nervousness and pull on my emotionless mask. It’s time to get to work. I wipe sweaty palms against my well-worn gym shorts, step up to the front door and ring the bell. I half expect a uniformed butler or maid to answer the door, but it’s the same face and eyes I had imagined just a moment ago that greet me, though now they’re filled with surprise.

We stare at each other for a long moment. We haven’t been alone together like this since the last time she came to the dance studio. Neither of us seems to know what to say. My first reaction to seeing her is… pleasure? No.
No
. Hell no. I shove that aside and dig deeper. Ah, there it is. Anger. Annoyance. Irritation.

I manage to raise an eyebrow at her and gesture vaguely. “Not that you can’t afford it, but you’re letting a lot of cool air leak out right now.”

She starts, then blushes and steps aside, letting me walk inside. I cross the threshold, entering the house and pause to stare around at the large marble foyer. There’s a grand staircase winding along one wall, the cathedral ceiling draws the eyes upward, but I’m too busy staring at the fountain against the far wall and the five-foot wide pool it splashes into.

“I’ll get my dad,” Evie says in a whisper so low I almost don’t catch it. She turns and disappears through a hallway off the foyer.

It only takes a second for Ian Parker himself to come, hand outstretched toward me. “Hello there, Zeke,” he greets, smiling. “I’m glad you came.”

I think about admitting I almost didn’t, but I bite my tongue. Ultimately, I don’t have a choice, and I’m sure he knows that. I settle for returning his firm handshake with one of my own. I refuse to let him think I’m lazy, along with being some kind of vagrant.

“Come along with me, then. For now, you’ll probably just be on your own, laying out the initial landscaping. Evie will help you later, with a bit of the lighter work.” He gestures, and leads me through the house and out a back door.

I can barely keep my mouth from dropping open at the rooms we go through, not just for how opulently they are decorated, but from their sheer size and how many of them there are. Granite countertops and ledges, leather sofas, carpets that look plush enough to sleep on, plasma screen televisions in every room. I feel as though I’m touring a five-star hotel.

And then we reach the backyard and are stepping through a sliding glass door off an enormous kitchen. We’re on a bi-level deck, this one high on the hill, while the level down from us encircles an enormous pool and has dozens of lawn chairs, all capped off by a diving board and massive rock landscaped waterfall along one side of the pool. Rolling green lawns extend past the deck, and I can see a gazebo concealed among a stand of trees and an old, overgrown garden surrounding it all.

I’ve always known places like this exist. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never watched MTV Cribs or anything, but seeing it all in person is completely different. It only makes me more annoyed with and ashamed of my own three bedroom apartment, part of a quad-plex building. The Parkers’ kitchen is probably a few square feet larger than the entire first floor of my own home.

“We’ll feed you lunch every day, give you time for a good hour long break,” Dr. Parker is saying as he begins down the steps of the deck. “The shed there should have everything you need. Anything you end up missing, start a list, and at the end of the week, we can go get everything. We’ve already gotten a load of dirt, mulch, and crushed shells. That’s what this week will mostly consist of. We’re re-working the entire garden and landscaping around the gazebo there. Or at least, you and Evie are.” He glances sharply at me, as if to check if I’m still paying attention. “Any questions?”

I spread my arms out. “What the hell am I supposed to do to start?”

Dr. Parker grins good naturedly and hands me a stack of papers, all stapled together. “I believe this would be phase one of Evie’s plan. Although, tearing out all the old plants will probably be the first order of business.”

I accept the papers and examine them. My first thought is that Evie really sucks at drawing. The papers are a combination of a lot of things; her own sketches, computer print outs of garden blueprints, plants, different materials, gazebo restorations, but the top few papers are mainly about the general layout. My second thought is,
oh shit
. Because at first, I’d wondered how I was supposed to stay occupied with one landscaping project all summer. Now, I’m starting to understand. It’s not so much a landscaping project as a total backyard revamp.

“A pond?” I ask incredulously.

I look up to see Dr. Parker smiling, and he shrugs when he catches my eye. “I’ve been in contact with a company that will install the filtering system and such, so that part is taken care of, but as for the digging of the hole and initial placement preparations, that will fall on you. Like I said, tools are in the shed. Gloves too.”

A flicker of annoyance flashes through me, at the thought of being a slave to this man, and Evie, all summer.

All your own fault!
My dad’s voice echoes through my head, and I shake it off angrily. I’ll just do my time at the Parkers every day without talking to any of them and get the hell out. I get to leave at four every day, and most of my friends don’t even wake up until two in the afternoon anyway. My own sleep is the one thing that will suffer the most from this arrangement.

“Any other questions?” Dr. Parker’s voice cuts through my thoughts, and I shrug at him.

“Looks like I have what I need to get started.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.” Dr. Parker walks back to the house, and I watch him go. It’s hard to be rude to Ian Parker, even for me. He seems like a decent enough guy, all told. I can clearly see all the richness he has in his life, what he’s risen up to, but somehow I get the feeling that his origins might have been just as humble as my own.

The sun is high overhead and my shirt is already soaked in sweat when Dr. Parker comes out onto the deck and yells that lunch is ready. I suppose the bright side of this is a free meal every day, and with the excuse of hard labor, I can stuff myself without anyone batting an eye.

I stomp up the steps, past the pool to the upper deck and pause to remove my now-muddy boots, glad I had the foresight to wear the oldest of my old shoes. I enter the kitchen, blinking away the brightness of the sun that has finally come out and take in the dark kitchen with its sterile stainless steel appliances, dark granite countertops and cherry wood cabinets.

Dr. Parker and Evie are both standing at the huge island in the middle of the kitchen, setting out a variety of sandwich makings. There are even foot-long sub buns. I feel my stomach growl and my mouth begin to water. There seems to be more food sitting out on the counter than we usually have in our house at one time.

I take a plate and proceed to stuff two foot-longs with everything I see. I watch in envy as Dr. Parker takes a long pull on a Bud Light, and have to settle for a bottle of water, sitting down at the kitchen table, which can still seat six people with plenty of room. Evie and Dr. Parker seem willing to give me my space, eating while standing at the island and continuing their conversation.

“Going to need you at the office, Evie,” Parker is telling his daughter. I eavesdrop on their conversation, my back turned toward them as I eat. “The new receptionist still isn’t filling out the log book right and the accounts aren’t matching up. She’s still having trouble with the phone system too.”

Evie snorts. “Do you even interview these girls before you hire them? Or are you just closing your eyes and picking an application at random?”

Parker laughs quietly and I can picture him shaking his head with a self-indulgent smile. “When will you stop setting up such a high standard for them to follow?”

“I could have worked for you this summer,” Evie grumbles, and I sense a disappointed note in her voice. “I’m fine. Fine enough for that, at least.”

“One step at a time. Maybe, if Amy doesn’t work out, next month…” he trails off, and then picks up again. “Anyway, I’m going in tonight if you want to come and help with the books. I can’t find anything.”

“Organization is the key to success,” Evie sings, and it’s my turn to snort.

I feel both of them turn to look at me, and I duck my head so I don’t meet either of their eyes. After a moment, they resume talking and I go back to inhaling my sandwiches. Only a moment later, a woman breezes into the kitchen, filling even the large area with the overpowering scent of dry, expensive perfume.

“I’m off to the club,” she announces grandly. “Some of the girls and I are doing lunch before the benefit tonight.”

With those words, I realize its Parker’s Stepford wife, Evie’s stepmom and mother of that ass, Hunter. They are possibly my two least favorite members of the club, after Tony Stull and his family, of course.
Entitled
is a good word for Clarissa Parker. So is
snob, stuck up,
and even
self-absorbed bitch.
I can’t help but wonder how someone as laid back and decent as Ian Parker had ended up with someone as uptight and downright nasty as Clarissa.

“Want to come along, Evie?”

Unless I totally miss my guess, there is a snide note to Clarissa’s voice, as though the invitation isn’t real, just a joke at Evie’s expense. She has to know the treatment Evie is getting at the club, so it must be a spiteful move, disguised as a polite gesture.

“No, thank you,” Evie replies demurely. “I’m going to the office with Dad this evening. The books are messed up.”

Clarissa’s face falls and from the corners of my eyes, I watch as she cozies up to Parker, backing him up against a counter. “So, you won’t be coming to the club later?”

I hope not. I’m supposed to work tonight and I really don’t want to see any of the Parkers more than I have to.

“Sorry, babe, but the receptionist still isn’t into the swing of things. Evie will need my help and the staff will be running around like crazy trying to close up. They need me there.” Parker, to my disbelieving gaze, as I’ve turned slightly so I don’t miss the show, gives Clarissa a pat on the ass and gently breaks from her hold. Clearly,
that
is what is holding this marriage together.

I see Evie turn away with a gagging expression, and just manage to catch myself before I smile too. I don’t want to find any common ground with these people. I just want to serve my time with as little speaking as possible and move the hell on with my life.

Clarissa leaves the kitchen, but not before sending a venomous glance at Evie’s back. There is definitely some animosity between that stepmother-daughter relationship. At least my lunch breaks promise to show some entertainment, even if it feels like a soap opera.

With Clarissa gone, the tension in the room eases considerably, and Evie and Parker continue their conversation about the office, talking books and accounts and appointments and filing systems. Finally, when I’m bored and ready to leave, I stuff the last of my sandwich into my mouth, grab a second water and head back outside.

Four hours later, I’ve completely torn up all the old, dead weeds and plants and am raking them all into a pile to toss out before I finally leave. I’m sweating like a pig and can’t wait to get home, even if I do have to walk the whole way there. I’ve just gotten it all into one pile when I hear someone clearing their throat behind me.

I turn and see Evie standing there, phone in one hand, a bottle of water held out to me in the other. It’s humid and almost ninety degrees outside, yet she’s still wearing jeans for some reason, but she’s barefoot and I can see her toes are painted a dark navy blue. I find myself remembering when they were painted neon, and miss the bright color on her feet. We stare at each other for a long moment and I don’t say anything. I don’t want to talk to her, don’t even want her around me. She makes me feel, yes, somehow brings out emotions that I only ever had toward Cindy, but then there is also that underlying resentment, the simmering anger that she’s alive and Cindy isn’t.

Evie finally clears her throat, looking a little uncomfortable. “I thought you might be thirsty,” she says, gesturing with the bottle of water. “And my dad wanted me to let you know that it’s four and you can leave, he wasn’t sure-”