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9.11 - 32. Chapter 32
August 24, 2001
My mind was still whirling as I walked up the steps at Escorial. I was thinking of the people I’d been dealing with. I was seriously pissed off at Ferris, Kyle, and Marie, but that was offset by Erik and John. Erik was being honest with me, and I really appreciated that. He and Kai were starting to restore my hope that men could be truthful, which ironically made Tony pop into my mind, and pissed me off again. I got over that by thinking about John. He was acting like a true friend, and a good cousin. If ever there was a time when I needed someone watching my back, it was now, and he was there, doing just that. I opened the door to find Stef and Grand waiting for me. “A welcoming committee?”
“A convenient coincidence,” Grand said. “We were walking by and saw the car pull up.”
“Cool,” I said, and started to head to the kitchen.
“Your father and Robbie are planning to come visit this weekend. They should be here for dinner,” Stef said.
“What does he want?” I asked, and not all that nicely.
“He evidently felt that he was unable to make progress with you when you were in Malibu, so he wants to come see you up here,” Stef said.
“Progress?”
“It bothers him that you ignore him, and will not talk to him. He values your relationship, and he wants to repair it,” Stef said. Grand looked very uncomfortable, because Stef was once again acting as a conduit between the two of us.
“I was really pissed at you for feeding him info about me, but after I was done being mad, we had a ten minute conversation about it, and we were good. Or at least I thought we were. You haven’t been real nice to me lately,” I said totally changing the subject of our conversation.
“What?” he demanded, seriously pissed off.
“You act aloof around me,” I said. “It’s like you’re mad at me and I don’t know why, or what I did to you.” He had to hear the sadness in my voice when I said that.
“I have been frustrated with you for not trying harder to get along with your father,” he finally admitted.
“Here’s the core,” I said. “You and I do great when you’re not involved in my relationship with Dad. So don’t get involved. Tell him to quit gossiping about me and talking about me, and to talk to me instead. If he had taken five minutes to apologize for being a complete asshole, we’d be over this by now. Only now it’s become an issue between you and me. And that really pisses me off, and now he’s got yet one more thing to say he’s sorry for.” I had to work to keep my voice level. “And so do you.”
“And just like this morning, you make some excellent points,” Grand said to me, giving Stef a frosty look. “I do not think it is appropriate for anyone to be involved in your relationship with your father. And I’m convinced that it’s probably not safe either.”
“Thank you,” I said to him. Stef glared at both of us, while I skipped the kitchen and wandered down to my room to enjoy some peace and quiet before dinner. It said something when tranquility was more important than food.
I heard some sort of bell ringing, and only slowly did it break through to my brain that it was my alarm. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 6:55. I had five minutes to get ready for dinner. I kind of freaked out, jumped out of bed, and spent a little time trying to get my hair back into shape, swapping my shirt out for one that wasn’t all wrinkled, and brushing my teeth. I didn’t get to the dining room until 7:05.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said to Grand, even as I took my seat. “I took a nap and didn’t hear the alarm.”
“You must have had a busy day,” he said.
“I did,” I said, as I sat in the only vacant seat, which was next to Aunt Claire, but across from my father.
“I am very sorry about our unpleasant ride to school today,” she said.
“That turned out to be the best part of my day,” I grumbled, then remembered my father was staring at me.
“What happened?” he asked, almost a demand.
“Nothing,” I said, blowing him off. No way was I going to let him in on all the crap I’d been dealing with.
“Marie was positively awful on the way to school,” Aunt Claire said, evidently assuming that’s what Dad was asking about.
“How are you doing?” I asked Robbie, as much to change the subject as out of any real interest.
“Good. Things are slow for a change,” he said.
“Slow?” Frank asked.
“We just launched Princess Diaries, and we don’t have anything coming out until later in the year, when Harry Potter hits,” he said, then took a bite. Stef had cured him of eating while he was talking.
“Princess Diaries?” I asked, giving him shit.
“Making a lot of money, smartass,” Robbie said with a smile. “All little girls want to be princesses.”
“Some just act like it,” Uncle Jack groused. I was really uncomfortable with them talking about Marie, partly because I was really pissed off at her, and I didn’t want to say something about that in front of my father. The other reason was that it seemed like I was on their side, as if there were a kids vs. adults deal, and I didn’t want to be on their side. I wanted to fight my own battle.
“So Kai called and left me a message thanking me for putting in some binoculars,” I said, my eyes zeroed in on Grand.
“Where did you put binoculars?” Dad asked, making it sound like I was using them to spy on people or something. He probably thought I’d turned into a peeping Tom.
“I didn’t put any binoculars in,” I said to him, and not all that nicely. “But someone did.”
“It was not me,” Stef said, as if worried I’d think he was doing something wrong.
“I noticed when I was talking to Kai’s father that he had a hard time holding up the binoculars when he was watching you and Kai surf,” Grand said. “Kai’s father has muscular dystrophy,” he noted to the group.
“Is it advanced?” Uncle Jack asked.
“It is,” I said sadly.
“That’s too bad,” he said.
“After Will had the Keolani’s house modified to make things easier for him to get around, and bought them a motorized wheelchair and a van that can carry it around, I figured that having some binoculars installed so he could watch Kai surf without having to hold them up was but a small gesture,” Grand said, and looked at me proudly.
“You did that?” Dad asked, as if he was stunned I’d be that thoughtful.
“You didn’t hear about that?” I asked pointedly, staring at Stef. “I did. They took me into their home, fed me dinner damn near every night, and treated me like part of their family. I wanted to do something nice for them in exchange.”
“That was very nice of you,” Aunt Claire said, and patted my knee affectionately.
“Thanks,” I said to her, then looked at Grand. “And that was very nice, and very thoughtful of you.” He just smiled and nodded to thank me for saying that.
“Are you planning to go out tonight?” Stef asked. I wasn’t, but I got the feeling I was being set up for a big conversation with my father.
“I’m supposed to, but I don’t know what my schedule is,” I lied. “When is John leaving?” I asked Aunt Claire.
“He is staying home tonight,” she said.
“He is?” That was surprising, since he’d been planning to go out. “I thought he had plans.”
“They were cancelled,” she said firmly.
“Cancelled?” Grand asked. He really liked John, and usually watched out for him.
“He evidently has a very active libido, and a very active sex life, so we are giving him a break for the evening,” Aunt Claire said. So this was what Marie’s comment had cost him. He would be livid.
“He’s not the only one,” Dad said, looking at me.
“My father was a virgin when he was married,” I told Aunt Claire flippantly. “And the hardest thing he drank in high school was Pepsi, and not the diet kind.”
She chuckled. “That’s quite bold. The kind with real sugar?”
“No, I think by then they’d switched to high fructose corn syrup,” I said.
“Very funny,” Dad snapped. “We need to have a conversation later.”
“I would rather just have dinner,” Robbie said, knowing that Dad was about to pick a fight with me.
“I’m not available,” I told him. “I think I have an open slot in my calendar sometime in October.”
“If you can’t meet with me, then we can meet in front of a judge,” he said. Robbie gave him a nasty look, and Aunt Claire gasped.
I stood up and leaned over the table so I was almost in his face. “Don’t you ever threaten me again. Ever,” I said, so pissed off it took every ounce of restraint to keep my voice down.
There was a sound of silverware clattering slightly as Grand put down his fork and his knife. As soon as he did that, I felt myself automatically sit down, as a sign of respect. “I think that is a reasonable request. It is inappropriate for you to come up here and toss around threats,” he said to Dad.
“It wasn’t a threat,” Dad said to him. “He’s slept with God knows how many people, he’s got a full bar in Hawaii and probably here too, and he’s planning to put a sex room in his house there. He’s fourteen years old. This is not normal behavior.”
“There is a concern that you are acting a bit out of control,” Stef said, trying to back up my father. That really pissed me off.
“How many guys had you had sex with when you were my age?” I asked Stef. He looked surprised and annoyed at my question.
“I do not recall,” he said.
“So many that you can’t even remember?” I taunted. Robbie tried not to chuckle.
“I said I do not recall,” he repeated.
“More than twenty?” I asked. Dad made to interrupt but I stopped him. “I didn’t ask you. You were probably too lame to get laid.” I just stared at Stef, until he answered.
“I would imagine,” he said.
I turned to my father. “You drank in high school, you smoked pot in high school, and you even did mushrooms and cocaine in high school.”
“You forgot acid,” Robbie said, then looked at Dad, with a slightly amused expression. “You dropped acid too.”
“Thanks,” Dad said to him sarcastically.
“So let me spell this out for you two,” I said to Stef and Dad. “You’re both hypocrites. Big, fucking, hypocrites. So save your breath. And stay out of my life.”
“I do not think I deserve that kind of disrespect,” Stef said.
“You made a pact with the devil,” I said, gesturing to my father. “Life without a soul isn’t fun. That’s what you signed up for.”
“In any event, it is not reasonable for Will to feel uncomfortable in his own home. I will not tolerate you coming up here and threatening him,” Grand said to Dad, with a sideways glance at Stef.
“Well then maybe this being his home wasn’t such a good idea,” Dad said in a smarmy, illogical way. “Maybe this environment is too permissive, and that’s why he’s a sex addict with a drinking problem.” I looked at Stef, who looked really uncomfortable. They thought I was a sex addict with a drinking problem? Seriously?
I stood up. “Excuse me,” I said politely to Grand, and then looked at my father. “You and I still have a relationship, barely. You ever do this to me again, come in here and threaten me, or try to take control of my life, and you will be dead to me. This is your final warning.” I started to walk out of the room and stopped to look at Stef. “I expected better from you,” I said to him coldly, then I walked out the door.
I walked out of the dining room and went to the garage, where I found Pedro shining up Stef’s Porsche. “I need a ride,” I said to him, trying to sound cheerful.
“Sure,” he said.
“Take the Ferrari,” I said.
“You sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” I told him. He got the keys, and hopped into the car with a smile. He fired it up, and drove slowly down the driveway. “You drive like a pussy.”
“This car probably costs more than I’ll make in ten years of work,” he said.
“That pedal on the right, that’s called the accelerator,” I told him.
“Fine,” he said, and kicked it a little bit. “Where are we going?”
“IN-N-OUT,” I said. “I need something for dinner.”
“That’s in Mountain View,” he said. I knew that, so I just nodded. My phone rang, and I saw it was Dad, so I answered it.
“What?”
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“I hear there’s a bath house up in San Francisco. I’m going to go up there and see if I can double my count of guys in one night,” I said.
“Let me talk to Pedro,” he ordered. I hung up the phone.
“We’re going to a bath house in the City?” Pedro asked me, chuckling.
“After we go to IN-N-OUT,” I said. We were by the Stanford Shopping Center when Pedro’s phone rang. He talked on it nervously, and then hung up.
“I have to go back,” he said. So Dad had called and ordered him to take me home.
I nodded. “Pull in there,” I said, pointing to the mall. “You can turn around there.”
“OK,” he said. He pulled into the drive, and then turned around, where he got stuck at a traffic light.
“See you later,” I said, and jumped out of the car.
“Wait! You’re supposed to go back with me!”
“I’ll go back there when my father is gone,” I said. “Have Grand call me when he leaves.” Then I walked away from him. As soon as I was out of sight, I tore off running, even as I saw him talking on the phone.
August 24, 2013
There was silence around the table as Will walked out the door. I was staring at Stef who was floundering at Will’s simple words for him. His eyes met mine, and I knew mine were ice cold, like steel. “I expected better from you as well.”
“I’d tell you that you really messed that up,” Jack said, “but we’re not doing any better.”
“Will probably could have shed even more light on your issues, but he was too busy fighting off attacks to talk,” I said to Jack.
“What do you mean?” Brad asked. I ignored him, but in a way that told him I was not going to answer his question. “What’s he done wrong now?”
“I am not going to have conversations with you about Will,” I said to him. “I value my relationship with him, and nothing will destroy that faster than telling you anything that he does, or thinks.” I gave Stef a withering look. “As we have just witnessed.”
Brad got up and walked outside, leaving the rest of us to finish dinner. He came back a few minutes later. “He’s gone! He got one of the guys to take him out in my Ferrari.”
“Looks like you drove him away. Again,” Robbie said, shaking his head. Brad gave him an evil look, and then went back outside to make some phone calls. After a brief respite during which we focused on our main course, Brad came back in, all in a huff.
“He says he’s going to a bathhouse in San Francisco,” he said, chuckling as if it were a big joke. “Like he’ll get in.”
“I suspect he would get in without any problems,” Stef opined, the first thing he’d said since Will left.
“With his fake ID?” Brad asked, shaking his head.
“I am not sure, if you are as young and handsome as Will, that they will ask too many questions,” Stef noted. He was probably right.
“Once again your brilliant plans have backfired,” I said to them. “Once again, you have driven Will away, and while he’s gone, there is no telling what he will do. If you had just left him alone, he would probably be in his room, doing something productive.” Or masturbating, but I didn’t say that.
“Dr. Crampton,” one of the staff members said. “Pedro is on the phone for you. He says it is urgent.”
“Certainly,” I said, and walked over to pick up the phone.
“Dr. Crampton, I turned around to bring Will home, like Mr. Brad said, but then he jumped out of the car. He said he would not return while Mr. Brad was there.” Pedro sounded frantic.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I am at the Stanford Shopping Center,” he said.
“I would like you to park the car, and then go join him for dinner. When he is done, you can bring him home,” I told Pedro calmly.
“How will I find him?” he asked me.
“He will find you,” I said. He agreed to do what I said, and as soon as we hung up, I called Will. “And just where are you?” I asked when he answered.
“I’m at the Stanford Shopping Center, but if my dad asks, tell him I’m at a bathhouse in San Francisco,” he said playfully.
“I will consider it,” I said, chuckling a bit.
“I told Pedro to have you call me when Dad leaves. I know I can trust you to tell me the truth. When he’s gone, I’ll come back. When he’s there, I’m gone.”
“What if he is here during the week?” I asked, more to find out his backup plan, and to see if he’d thought this through.
“That’s what they have hotels for,” he said.
“I will convey your message. In the interim, I have asked Pedro to park the car near where he left you, and to join you for dinner. I am hoping you will indulge me and take him with you, and buy him dinner.” I knew that he would feel compelled to do as I asked, if only to make sure Pedro was taken care of. “When you have finished eating, you can return here.”
“What about Dad?” he asked.
“He will be gone by the time you return,” I said.
“Alright,” he agreed. I hung up the phone and went back to the table.
“Where is he?” Brad demanded.
“He is having dinner, and then he will be coming home. You will be gone by the time he returns,” I said firmly. Claire and Jack stared at us, stunned.
“You’re throwing me out?” Brad demanded.
“With the way you have been acting, I was worried that clear thought was beyond your capabilities,” I told him sarcastically. He had annoyed me enough that I let my feelings show through my shields. “I am pleased to see that you still can grasp basic concepts.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this. This explains so much. I’m fighting to try and save my son from becoming a total delinquent, and you’re up here, encouraging him,” Brad said loudly, but quiet enough to stay below my required volume threshold.
“Will is not a delinquent, he is a teenager,” I said evenly. “He is testing boundaries, not for you, but for himself.”
“Well when he’s drinking like a fish and having sex with everyone he meets, that’s a little dangerous,” Brad replied. “What happens when he goes back to Hawaii, has his room all finished, takes some guy there, and the guy ties him up and really hurts him?”
“I am more confident in Will’s judgment than that, and he has probably drawn the same conclusion that I have. He probably finds your lack of faith in him the most insulting thing of all,” I told Brad.
“It’s not a lack of faith,” he insisted, “its concern.” None of us believed that.
“And what he was saying to both of you,” I said, leveling my eyes on Stef, “was that you are demanding behavior from him that neither one of you can do even now.”
“I’m not sleeping with half of the Bay Area,” Brad said.
“Right now,” Robbie said, and then looked uncomfortable for bringing up their own problems, and Brad’s tendency to become sluttier than Will when they had them.
“Have you given up drinking and drugs as well?” I asked him pointedly.
“I am an adult,” he said.
“Who does not act like one,” I countered. I forced myself to calm down. Brad was one of the few people able to get me to lose my cool if I was not careful. “One of the most irritating things for me is to see someone who has ample proof in front of him, and still cannot accept the basic facts that proof validates.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brad asked, squaring off with me.
“It means that every time you step in and try to take control of Will’s life, you just make things worse. Everyone is different, and it has been clearly evident that this is his weakest point, the one where he will react the most violently. Yet you continue to push that button,” I said.
“I’m not trying to take control of his life,” he said. “I’m trying to give him some structure, some boundaries. I’ve tried letting him handle things on his own, and all I see is him careening out of control. This isn’t working, so for his own good, we have to try something else.”
“You are trying to take control of his life, he is not careening out of control, and the only thing you will succeed in doing with this latest scheme of yours is to completely destroy your relationship with him,” I said.
“I’d rather have him hate me and be alive, than like me and be dead,” he said.
“Then I think you will achieve your goal. I think you may well convince him to hate you,” I told him. “I am wondering what Darius and JJ think of your approach?”
Brad said nothing, even as Robbie stared at him. “You’re not going to tell them?” Robbie asked.
“Darius isn’t going to worry about Will sleeping with everyone since he’s doing the same thing,” Brad snapped.
“Darius told you that you were acting like an idiot,” Robbie said. “He said that Will is doing fine, and that you should leave him the fuck alone.”
“Darius isn’t the only one with an over-active libido,” Jack said, clearly dealing with his own issues. “But I got to spend a lot of time with him when he was with Ella. He always impressed me with his common sense.” Claire nodded in agreement.
“So you think he’s right?” Brad asked Jack.
“I am reluctant to give you advice or commentary when I certainly have my own hands full,” Claire said, “but since you asked, I think that he is.”
“I was asking Jack,” Brad said, one of the few times he’d spoken rudely to Claire. He seemed to regret it immediately, and that was evident in his eyes, probably the only thing that saved him from being flayed alive by her.
“You are not in a position to dictate who can and cannot voice an opinion at this table,” she said to him coldly.
“No you are not,” I said, because she raised a key point, and I felt like I was a moderator of sorts and had to point out rules of order.
“Regardless, I agree with my wife,” Jack said.
“You two get together and talk about all this stuff Will is supposedly doing,” Robbie said to Stef and Brad. “You decide that he’s out of control, and that you have to do something. You both act like you have the corner on morals and judgment. And so you start poking at him, until you really piss him off. You do this over and over again, and the same damn thing happens. You never learn. You just keep making the same dumbass mistakes. He called you both hypocrites. I think he’s right, but I think it’s worse than that. You’re both idiots.”
“I do not appreciate being insulted,” Stef said pompously. He was fighting back now because he figured he might be able to win an argument with Robbie, or at least browbeat him into backing down.
“You do not appreciate that he is right,” I corrected Stef. “I think he summed things up quite well.”
“So I’m supposed to just watch while he flies off the deep end?” Brad asked, referring to Will.
“I will summarize things for you again,” I told him acidly. “Will is doing fine. He makes mistakes, but generally learns from them. You could stand some improvement in that area. But the most annoying thing about this is that you are not doing this, going overboard with your histrionics, because you’re worried about him.”
“That’s exactly why I’m doing this,” he said firmly.
“No it is not. You are acting like this because you are mad that Will is not communicating with you. And he is not communicating with you because he doesn’t trust you, and because you are holding yourself up as the exemplar of moral authority, a status he is not willing to grant you. And so, to get him to pay attention to you, you hit him in the place that you know will get a reaction. And you got one.” I paused after I said that, knowing that everyone else understood what I was saying, but Brad probably did not. “Unfortunately for you, the price for that reaction is very high.”
“You’ll be lucky if he talks to you at all,” Robbie said. “And I’m going to say I told you so on this one.”
Brad said nothing for a bit, and then stood up. “I’m going back to LA.”
“I’m staying here,” Robbie said. “I’ll be back on Monday.”
“I see,” Brad said. He looked at Stef for support, but Stef was visibly upset by all of this, and in no position to back him up.
I walked over and buzzed the garage, then came back to the table. “They will be bringing the car around for you,” I told Brad. “I told them you would be out front shortly.”
He looked around, nodded, and then left. No one said anything for a few minutes as we tried to enjoy our dessert. “What is going on with Will at school?” Claire asked. “Is everything alright?”
“I don’t know what is going on,” I told her. “There is something bothering him, but he hasn’t talked about it. And I doubt that he will.” I could not resist giving Stef a contemptuous look. I was really angry with him at how he’d handled this, and how he’d helped this situation get completely out of control.
“I think he will ultimately explain things,” Stef said.
“Nope,” Robbie said. “He’s not going to say anything to anyone, except maybe you,” he said to me.
“And why is that?” Stef demanded.
“Because he doesn’t trust you. He knows that you tell Brad damn near everything he says, so he’ll cut you off. And he’ll assume I’ll do the same thing, even though I don’t,” Robbie said. I got the feeling that after all the drama we’d had last year, where everyone, especially Stef, had jumped all over him for being an asshole, Robbie was relishing this opportunity for payback.
“He probably does not trust me, either,” Claire said sadly.
“I think it is not that he does not trust you,” I said to her encouragingly, “I think that he does not want to get you in the middle of his problems with Marie.”
“How is that different?” Jack asked. He usually got pretty defensive when his daughter came up as an issue.
“He doesn’t want to put us in a position where we feel we have to take her side because she is our daughter, or to take his side against her because he’s got legitimate issues,” Claire said. “He got very uncomfortable when she came up in conversation at dinner.”
“I don’t get that,” Jack said.
“It’s because you’re so old,” Robbie said, teasing him. “If we were mad at each other in high school, over some crap happening at school, would we have wanted to talk about it in front of them?” he asked, gesturing at Stef and me.
“Brad might have,” Jack joked, getting it. “What are you going to do while you’re up here?” he asked Robbie.
“I’m going to enjoy some peace and quiet,” he said.
“Here?” Claire asked, making us all chuckle.
“Better than at home,” Robbie said.
“I’m golfing in the morning. We could use a fourth,” Jack said.
“Been a while since I’ve been on the course,” Robbie said. “Sounds like fun.” And that seemed to end our dinner, so I withdrew to my study. I immersed myself in my work, something I often did when I was upset, so I was somewhat surprised to hear a knock on the door.
“Enter,” I said, my usual response. I expected it to be Stefan, to come in and grovel, but he probably hadn’t developed that kind of courage yet. He’d have to work things out in his mind first, and then we could have a civil conversation. Instead, it was Will. “Good evening,” I said.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry I ruined yet another dinner.”
“I do not think you ruined that dinner,” I told him. “I am not a fan of some of the language you used, but I thought that it was a wise move to leave before you lost control of your emotions.” I found that most language did not bother me, but the use of the term ‘fuck’ at the dinner table was beyond my tolerance levels, and I wanted to remind him of that.
“Thanks,” he said, and sat down with a thud. “So what do I do when Monday rolls around and I get a summons to appear in court?”
“I do not think that will happen, but if it does, we will grapple with it,” I told him. “Besides, there is a Ferrari in the garage you can beat up.” He laughed at that, as I knew he would.
“Nope, this time I’m using lighter fluid,” he said. I pondered how such a destructive incident could now become a source of humor. “So Dad left?”
“He did. Robbie stayed up here, and plans to golf with Jack tomorrow.”
“I should probably go talk to him,” he said, but didn’t sound very enthused.
“I think he will be fine if you wait until morning. You have had a long day,” I said, sensing his emotional, if not physical, exhaustion.
He nodded. “I need to talk to you about what’s been going on at school. Can we do that tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I said. He got up and I did as well, and he gave me a hug, and all but clung to me. He was a strong guy, but these battles took their toll on him. Perhaps they hardened him too. Claire had called it guerilla warfare training, and I tended to agree with her.
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