Page 12 of Strictly Pretend

“Ah, yeah. Your moms want to know when you’ll be at Misty Lakes next,” he says.

Misty Lakes is my father’s estate in Virginia. My brothers and I all have cabins around the lake, and my father, his wife, andhis two ex-wives, who are all friends, stay in the big house on the hill.

My family is beyond complicated. And it’s put me off having one of my own for life, which is a good thing.

“I’m not sure,” I tell him. “I’m very busy.”

“They miss you.” He clears his throat. “Your brothers do, too.”

That almost makes me smile because I’m pretty sure my brothers are all too busy juggling their jobs, their relationships, and their army of kids to notice I’m not there. I’m the only brother unattached and without children.

And for some reason I start to think about last year. About the bridesmaid who howled at the moon. I blink, trying to ignore the memory of her mouth against mine.

For about five minutes I thought about tracking her down. And then I remembered that I’m not interested in relationships. Sure, I hope she’s happy, but that’s it.

My dad’s phone beeps and it feels like a relief. Growing up, we barely saw him. He was too busy building his empire to notice he had six boys from two different marriages who were all desperate for his attention.

It was our mothers who raised us. My mom was his second wife, well technically his third, but we don’t talk about the first wife. Four of my brothers were from his marriage before my mom. Myself and my brother Lincoln are from my mom, and we have a little sister, Francie, from his current marriage to Julia.

As I said,complicated.

“Ah, I’m supposed to be meeting Julia at the club for brunch,” he says, his nose wrinkling as he looks around the office. “I could tell her I’m busy,” he says hopefully.

“No,” I say firmly, because the last thing I need is him poking through all the work we’re doing. “I have everything under control. You have a good time.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” I nod. “You don’t need to worry about anything. I’ll sort the Redfern Building this week.”

He gives me a quick smile as he stands. He’s lost a little height in the past few years. He no longer looks like the scary patriarch he was when I was growing up.

Now I look in the mirror and I’m almost a carbon copy of the man he used to be.

“Goodbye, son,” he says, patting my shoulder. “And call your mother. She misses you.”

“Sure,” I tell him, watching as he leaves the office, his gait slow, lying through my teeth. “I will.”

CHAPTER

FOUR

EMMA

I’m searching through a shelf of our most expensive books at the back of the shop, looking for a first edition we have ofOf Mice And Men. It’s worth five thousand dollars and I love it because underneath John Steinbeck’s name it has the words ‘the author ofTortilla Flat’ a book most people have never heard of. I find it halfway down the shelf, and carefully unzip it from its protective clear packaging.

The cover is old and pretty. There’s a big tree on the left and two men walking halfway down a road that’s yellow with dust. One big, one small.

I put it on the desk and switch on my laptop so I can reply to the enquiry we had from a library in Australia. If they buy it, it’ll give our cash flow a nice boost.

As the laptop screen flickers to life, the bell above the shop door rings and Mark the therapist walks in, along with Rita who owns the dress shop on the other side. She goes through fashion phases. Or rather decades. Right now she’s in her seventies era and she’s wearing the most impressive kaftan, with a psychedelic print. Her dark hair is curled in Farrah Fawcett like waves and her lipstick is bright red.

Mark wears chinos and a blue-collared shirt every day. He says his clients like the familiarity, but I suspect he just doesn’t enjoy shopping. Two years ago, Rita tried to make him over and he hid away for a week.

“Hi,” I say, pushing the laptop screen down again. “You two okay?”

We get together sometimes. Usually when it’s one of our birthdays, or at Christmastime when we hold a party in Mark’s office, because there are no products to damage in there. Last year we played Twister – Grandpa spun the wheel – and Mark pulled a muscle in his back.

“Yeah, didn’t you get the email?” Mark asks. “We have a meeting in half an hour.”

---