Page 40 of Bad at Love
“Oh, you know. The same old. Listen, I have a favor to ask you.” She got to the point fast, as usual. “Noah has been…hard to manage lately. You know he won’t talk to me and he absolutely refuses to talk to Daryl. So I was wondering if you’d be able to come by and take him out for ice cream or something.”
The way she’s talking about Noah, it makes him sound like he’s an eight-year-old kid, not fourteen. Then again, that’s the way she always talks about him. I know it isn’t easy for stepparents but my mother has been with Daryl for thirteen years now and it’s like Noah and Jane are still Daryl’s kids and not her own.
Then again, I’m my mother’s son and she sent me off to boarding school for most of my life, so being parent of the year isn’t exactly her forte.
“Noah doesn’t mind?” I ask. I get along really well with Noah but I also don’t want to stick my nose in where it’s not welcome and considering how volatile he’s been this lastyear, I don’t want to encourage any teenage angst if I don’t have to.
“He’s lonely,” she says. “He needs a friend. I’m not sure he has any…good ones.”
I automatically pick up on the vibe she’s putting out there and already know what Noah’s problem is. Or rather, their problem with him.
“Okay, tell him I’ll be by in an hour and a half.”
I hang up and get ready. My mother, my stepfather Daryl, and Noah, all live in Santa Clarita, which can take no time at all or all bloody day, depending on the traffic. With it being a Sunday, I get there a bit early which gives me a moment to check in with Marina.
How are you doing?I text her. I thought she would have already texted me this morning like she usually does and now I’m paranoid that maybe our whole dynamic has been turned on its head after what happened last night. The date ended on a good note but even so, the fact that we went out on a date to begin with isn’t the norm for us.
I wait in the car outside the iron front gates of the Murdock household, hoping she’ll respond right away. She’s usually good for a little encouragement before I drive through these gates and into the ninth circle of Hell, but this time I’m on my own.
I put my phone in my pocket, enter the security code and the gates part for me. I drive through the long circular driveway and take the parking spot on the opposite side of the pillars.
My stepfather, Daryl Murdock, is a television producer for CBS. He had a lot of big shows in the late 80’s and 90’s and though any hits have tapered off for him particularly, he’s rolling in the dough.
And it shows. The house is massive, a grand whitebuilding that you’d more likely see in Louisiana instead of southern California. The lawn is wide and expansive framed by tall sycamore and oak and the gardens are overseen by my mother, who pretends to do all the work but really just hires a gardener instead.
I had to live in this house for the first two years I was in America and though it was long ago, it feels like it was just yesterday. At the time, I was eighteen, fresh out of school and with no idea what my future held. It was when I was in boarding school, hours outside of Manchester, that my father left my mother. I would say he left “us” but since I rarely saw them, it doesn’t sound right.
After that my mother decided to see what the USA was all about, leaving me behind in England. She met Daryl in LA—who was recently divorced for the fourth time—and I guess he was blinded by her beauty. My mother’s always been a very attractive woman, like someone out of a gothic Victorian, all dark wavy hair with delicate features and pale skin.
They fell in love and the rest was history. They actually never married legally and Daryl blames it on him having been married too many times before. I actually think it’s because my mother and father never actually got a divorce. He couldn’t be bothered to stick around for that.
I park the Camaro in the guest parking (yes, the place is big enough for guest parking and because Daryl does so much networking, he often has guests over all the time) and make my way up the front steps to the door.
I knock and wait. Even when I lived here I knocked and I waited. I didn’t even have a key. I could tell that Daryl wasn’t that fond of having me live with them and even now that I’ve been out for ten years, he’s still not fond of me. Like my mother, I got the impression that he never wantedany kids, so I wasn’t exactly welcome. But when his ex-wife died, Jane and Noah, came to live with him and my mother. Which makes for one dysfunctional family.
Rosalie, their housekeeper, answers the door and gives me a big smile when she sees it’s me.
“Lazarus,” she says warmly, “come in. So good to see you. Have you gotten taller?”
She says this each time. Rosalie is a middle-aged Thai lady who has been employed by Daryl for as long as I can remember. In a stark, white-walled house where everything is put in its place, cold and sterile, Rosalie is the only source of life. Well, her and Noah.
“I assure you I have not gotten taller,” I tell her, giving her a quick hug. “I’m actually here for Noah.”
She nods. “Miss Sarah told me already. She and Mr. Daryl are out at brunch with friends. Noah is just in his room.”
“How is he?” I ask her, lowering my voice. “Just between you and me, because I don’t think my mother has a good, shall we say,handleon the situation.”
She nods, her expression turning grim. “He’s a good boy. He’s just figuring himself out. Back at home, boys are allowed to be who they want, masculine, feminine, it doesn’t matter. In this city, too, people are open-minded. But his parents…”
She trails off. She’ll never speak ill of her employers, not even around me, but I know how she feels about them.
“I understand,” I tell her. “I’ll probably take him out to see a movie or something.”
“You’re a good soul,” she tells me, patting me on the arm before she hurries off and is swallowed up by the house.
I take in a deep breath and climb the winding staircaseto the second floor, heading down the hall past my old bedroom, Jane’s old bedroom, until I come to Noah’s.
“Noah, it’s Laz,” I say, rapping on his door. I wait a few moments, listening. I don’t want to walk in uninvited in case he’s doing what I was doing all day when I was fourteen, jerking it until my hand was sore.
