One Step Closer(12)

“Um… I don’t like to eat in front of my mother.”

Unexpected anger rushed over Caleb and it showed on his handsome face. “Why not? My dad’s rich enough to feed her, too.”

Wren shook her head, picking up another cracker. “She doesn’t want me to be fat.”

“Fat?” Caleb was incredulous. “She’s got more meat on her than you do, though, I guess not much.”

The girl shrugged. “She was a model by the time she was my age, and so I think she’s just trying to help me.”

“Are you into it? My mother was a model, too. She was always watching everything she ate. I think never being able to eat has to be depressing as hell.”

Even in the low light, Caleb could see the hollows in her cheeks, the dark circles under her eyes, and the frailty of the delicate bones of her hands and wrists she had exposed. She was painfully thin.

She stopped mid-chew and then continued, emptying her mouth before she answered. “I don’t know.” A slender shoulder rose in a shrug and the oversized neck of the shirt fell off down her arm. “I’d like to be a dancer.”

Caleb was taken aback. “What, like a stripper?”

Wren laughed softly, the sound strangely pleasing to Caleb.

“Why do guys always think all dancers are strippers? No. Like a ballerina or on Broadway. I had classes until I was eleven, but then I had to stop. I don’t think we had the money for me to keep going.”

“Wow. Were you any good?”

Wren nodded. “Yeah. I was in the Nutcracker with the Colorado Ballet for two years. Only one other girl from my ballet school was asked to perform with them. We were part of the studio competition team, too.”

Caleb’s eyes widened. He didn’t know much about dance teams and such, but it sounded impressive. “Holy shit! You must be really good.”

Wren nodded sadly. “Pretty good. I wish…” She let her regretful words trail off.

“I can speak to the * and ask him to cough up the dough,” Caleb offered.

Wren quickly shook her head. “Oh, no. Please don’t. I couldn’t.”

“Sure you could.”

“No, please. I’d be punished for even speaking about it.”

Caleb downed the last of his cereal bar, and then asked, “Where’s your dad?”

“I don’t remember him. I’ve had a couple of stepdads. Off and on.”

Caleb’s lips thinned as he pressed them together. “Rich stepdads?” he asked knowingly. If that were the case, though, Wren should have been able to remain in dance. Her mother had no issues spending his father’s money, so he decided Veronica was a worse bitch than he thought.

“Part of the time, I… I guess?” Wren made it sound like a question. “Where’s your mom?”

“She died when I was twelve. Cancer.”

She gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I thought they were divorced.”

He waved a hand to silence her. He didn’t talk about his mom with anyone. He didn’t share how his father had become a coldhearted bastard. The conversation was about to turn down a path he didn’t want it to. “Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna go to bed.” He pushed back from the table, picking up his bottle of water. “Can you put shit away? I may want to piss off my dad, but Jonesy’s another story.”

“Jonesy? You mean Mrs. Jones?”

Caleb hadn’t called the housekeeper Mrs. Jones since forever, and no one did. “Yeah. She’s a cool old lady. Unless you call her Mrs. Jones, that is.”

“Caleb, can you wait for me to go? I mean, sure, I can put stuff away, but, um…”

“What?” He was getting impatient. This was more interaction than he’d wanted to have with her, but she looked so frail and scared, the protective instinct in him made him hesitate.

“I don’t want my mom to come down here and see me with this food. If you’re here, you can say you’re the one eating.”

In that conversation Caleb got the first glimpse of Wren’s true relationship with Veronica, and it would soon become even clearer.

When the cab pulled up to the gate of his family home, Caleb had to lean out of the window to talk to the security guards to get them to open the gate. The house was enormous, the grounds still perfectly manicured, and just as he remembered, like a fortress. As the cab drove up the lane to the front, the sun was dipping to hide behind the low clouds over the mountains, making the late afternoon seem like twilight.

“Here you go,” the cabby said, and then informed Caleb of the fare total.

Caleb took a roll of cash out of his front jean pocket and peeled off two bills. “Thanks, man. Keep the rest.”

“Thank you, son. Again, sorry about your dad.”

“Yeah,” Caleb answered as he pulled on the door handle. “So am I.”

The cabby was unaware of the double meaning behind Caleb’s words.





THE HUGE HOUSE felt like a tomb.


How fitting, Caleb thought. He wasn’t sure what to expect out of the day or week in front of him. The house was empty when he arrived late yesterday afternoon, and he’d spent the evening in his mother’s old room, laying on her bed and watching TV. Surprisingly, it was still untouched; though he wondered how his father managed that all these years… he thought for sure the hag would have won out eventually. It still held the faint scent of Celine’s favorite perfume, which was one of his father’s first formulas for Lux. Caleb lived in that house until he left for college, but his mother’s rooms were the only places he felt at ease.