Over Her Dead Body(39)
“Calm down, Charlie,” Winnie said. “Nathan said he’ll talk to her. It’s not like Mom gave her fortune to some rando she met in the street, which—let’s be honest—would have been even more catastrophic and completely in character.”
“How does Mom even know her?” I asked, still not grasping how Nathan’s girlfriend could have swooped in to steal our money. “Did you introduce them?”
“No!” Nathan insisted. “They’re neighbors. Your mom and I met her at the same time. She’s an actress; they just hit it off, I guess.”
“She pushed us aside in favor of an actress?” Winnie said, oozing fake surprise. “Well, that’s the first time she’s ever done that!” Her sarcasm was on point. My sister and I spent the entirety of our childhoods competing with actresses for our mom’s attention; it was downright predictable that her final act would be to choose one over us.
Winnie pressed the button for the elevator. The doors dinged open, and she stepped inside. “Are you coming?”
“I need to talk to the lawyer,” Nathan said. “I’ll meet you guys at the house.” If I’d thought Nathan had strong-armed my mother into leaving her money to his new flame, I might have been angry at him. But no one manipulated my mother. Nathan was the sheep to her wolf, as we all were.
Winnie and I rode down to the garage in silence. I could smell the alcohol seeping out of her pores. I knew she traveled with a flask and took nips of whiskey, or whatever hard alcohol she could get her hands on, when she thought no one was looking—she’d been doing it for years. I’d tried to call her on it in the past and it never ended well. So I avoided discussing it . . . and avoided her, to a large extent. A devoted brother might have forced the issue, and maybe someday I would. But I was too chickenshit to confront her, and now we had more pressing disasters to tackle than her long-gestating drinking problem.
We got in my car and drove to the exit. When it was time to pay the thirty dollars to park, she handed me her credit card.
“It’s fine,” I said, waving it away.
“Just take it.”
We exited the garage into the over-the-top opulence of downtown Beverly Hills. The sky was as dark as my mood. Rain fell like sheets, walling us off both metaphorically and literally from the sleek storefronts and unattainable luxuries beckoning from inside. Driving in, I had felt like a kid in a candy store, salivating over the crisp white shirts from Barneys, pens from Montblanc, and Prada for the Mrs.—not that we needed those things; it was just fun to imagine spoiling ourselves a little after so many years of struggle. But now the sight of it all made me want to gouge my eyes out. I know it sounds like I was an entitled little shit, but I had mouths to feed, and a wife who married me expecting I would provide for them. Mom had raised me to believe that giving up was for losers, so I tried to put those guitar lessons to good use by starting a band—an “occupation” that cost me more than I earned doing it. The credit cards my mom had cosigned for were maxed out, and we were literally living on the edge. I may have been irresponsible, but Mom had enabled me, instructing me to pursue an “enviable” life. When I told her my version of an enviable life didn’t include running a casting agency, she told me I was a fool but didn’t force the issue. For her to cut me off like this was a complete and utter betrayal. She had left me tumbling toward the hard earth without a parachute. I was terrified. But I was also pissed.
“How are you not livid?” I asked my sister, who was maddeningly jocular.
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Charlie, quit the self-righteous bullshit. It was Mom’s money. If she didn’t want to give it to us, there’s no rule she had to.”
“So you’re fine with Nathan’s girlfriend getting everything?”
“We let her die.”
“I have a wife and kids; it wasn’t just about me.”
“Fine. I let her die.”
“Stop!” I shouted. “None of us let her die. She pushed us away. It didn’t have to be like this.”
Winnie didn’t respond. I glanced over at her. She was crying. And suddenly I felt like a first-class prick.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “This is such a fucking piece-of-shit day.”
She waved off my apology. There were wet wipes in the center divider. I opened it and handed her one.
“I don’t have Kleenex,” I said. “There’s alcohol in them, so don’t use it to wipe your eyes.”
She took the wipe from my outstretched hand and blew her nose into it.
“I know I’m too emotional,” I said. “I just . . . I can’t believe she did this.”
“Let’s just see how it plays out,” my sister offered.
Like always, Winnie was the calm and reasonable one—Beauty to my Beast. Maybe Nathan was right and Ashley Brooks would do the right thing. Or at least take pity on us and throw us a bone. Hopefully a few million of them. I suddenly felt grateful Nathan had stopped me from saying anything I couldn’t take back.
I tried to imagine what I would do if I were in Ashley’s shoes. Would I share the money with the family? Or keep it for myself like the dead woman wanted? I wondered what Mom had told her about us. Did she tell her we were awful and selfish and not worthy? Whatever this woman thought she knew, it wasn’t the whole story. Nobody knew that but Winnie and me. Maybe the solution was to sit her down and tell her. Not just about that terrible day that our mother asked us to save her life. But the shameful reasons we’d both had to say no.