Page 22 of Terms Of Un-Endearment
Even the word sounds gross, but I don’t want things to drag on any longer than they have to and...well, I still need a place to stay. Mom and Malcolm have agreed to the house as a settlement. We are so close to being done—and Archie is the person standing in the way.
I take a breath, return the settings on my AirPods so that I can listen to some Billie Eilish while I draw, and consider what’s ahead.
A few minutes later, when Archie slides open the back door, I’m at the kitchen table, my leg pulled up on the chair, arm wrapped around my knee, my chin resting against it as I use a tangerine orange color to add dimension to my design. I’m as relaxed as a cat stretched out in a block of sunlight.
At least on the outside.
Inside, I’m a cat with tape stuck to its paw.
He drops into his seat and grabs his fork, sending me a quick smile. “Dad’s been on the phone with your mum’s lawyer. I guess we're sharing this place for the next two weeks.”
“Really?”
Archie doesn’t look at me. “Dad realized I needed more time to wrap things up here, but he didn’t want to throw you out.”
I scoff.Thatdoesn’t sound like Malcolm. Both would require empathy, and Malcolm lacks that chip. Archie’s done something to convince Malcolm to give him more timeandlet me stay.
I should be grateful. If I believed Archie was doing it from the goodness of his heart, I would be. But he’s angling for something—I just don’t know what. I do know that spending two weeks with Archie sounds as appetizing as the cold eggs on his plate.
I push up my glasses and look him square in the eye. “Two weeks? Or longer? Because you were supposed to be out yesterday.”
Archie’s self-satisfied smile disappears. “Two weeks. Everything will be settled for good by then.”
Settled? Can I trust that he means the original settlement, or is he still pushing a different agenda?
Archie shovels toast into his mouth while I pick out a darker shade of orange for some texturing.
I’m relieved I don’t have tosquat—gross—but as long as the house stays in Archie’s name, nothing is “settled.” Malcolm has been toying with Mom since the minute they met, and now Archie is playing his own version of the game. It sounded like Malcolm shot down his idea, but that could change at any time, and I didn’t hear the full conversation. If Malcolm changes his mind about giving Mom the house, I’m out of a place to live and Mom’s back in court.
Over the grating sound of Archie’s metal fork scraping across his plate, all I can think isI have to make Archie want to leavebefore the two weeks.Then an idea washes over me. Not just an idea, a plan.
I’m not powerless here. I won’t be tossed around by the whims of these narcissistic men. I know more than they think I do, and I’m smarter than either of them has ever given me credit for.
What I have planned for Archie will make himactuallyfeel sorry about the Vegemite…and so much more.
Chapter 10
Archie
Sunday morning I wake up with a start to a foghorn blaring. I'm an early riser, but five a.m. is ridiculous on a Sunday. I put a pillow over my face, which barely muffles the sound. The blaring continues steadily—the same pace, the same volume level—for about a thousand years before I toss the pillow aside and sit up.
The foghorn isn’t coming from outside. It's somewhere in the house, but it's not an alarm I’ve heard before. This sound is loud and deep, like a nonstop tugboat parade, with each boat blaring its horn in succession. I kick off the covers and slip on my trackies—no wandering around pants-less with Piper in the house—and follow the sound of the horn to her bedroom.
I knock and wait. There's no answer, so I crack the door open and peek inside. Her bed is empty. I push open the door a little wider—still no Piper. But I find the source of the sound next to the bed. An old school alarm clock. I switch it off, then scroll through the settings until I find the volume level. Yep, it's at ten.
I’m about to turn it down, then stop. If Piper needs an alarm this loud to get her up in the mornings, I probably shouldn’t mess with it the day before her internship starts; although she obviously didn’t need it this morning.
There's no way I'm going back to sleep now, so I wander downstairs, checking my phone messages on the way, just in case Dad has changed his mind since our convo yesterday, which didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I wanted to avoid a confrontation, so instead of refusing to sign so that I can sell the house, I came up with a plan that would benefit everyone, including Piper and Cynthia.
I told Dad he should give Cynthia ten million dollars instead of the house. I sold the idea as a less expensive option for him—the house is worth at least twelve million. In reality, Cynthia would come out the winner. She’d have plenty of money to buy Piper a house and still have cash left over to live on herself. On the flip side, if she keeps this house, she’s going to have a massive tax bill come next year and won’t have money to pay it.
Dad’s adamant, though, about not negotiating with her lawyers anymore. Not only is he confident Cynthia would only demand more money, he’s also confident that my idea to sell the house to fund my surf wear company—Bombora—is, to quote him, “daft” when I don’t even have a business plan.
“Then give me time to create one,” I’d told him. “Two weeks to prove I know what I’m doing. If you don’t like the plan, I’ll come home. If you do like it, give me access to my trust, and I’ll use the money there to fund it. Cynthia can keep the house. You don’t have to deal with her lawyers.”
Dad was quiet long enough, I thought he might be considering my idea until he’d said, “I don’t think so, Archibald. Let’s stick to our plan for you to come home Monday.”
I was so surprised that, for a second, my mind went blank. Then everything went black, and I heard someone say, “No!”
