Gap Year - 69. Chapter 69

March 8, 2004

Palo Alto, CA

Will

My phone was ringing and that was dragging me out of a sound sleep. I’d gotten back from meeting with Casey, come back to my room, and crashed. I grabbed my phone, saw that it was Travis, and answered it. “Hey,” I said. I could hear the grogginess in my own voice, and he heard it too.

“Dude, I am sorry I woke you up,” he said.

“I’ll get up for you anytime, big guy,” I said in a sexy way. I heard him chuckling.

“I’d do the same for you,” he said. “So what’s this shit about you being in the hospital.”

I told him all about the big confrontation with Jack at dinner, and how I’d suddenly realized that Darius had almost got on the plane. “It just freaked me out, because the thought of losing him was overwhelming.”

“Sometimes I get really jealous of the relationships you have with your brothers,” he said.

“I don’t think you should be jealous of my relationship with JJ,” I said, making both of us laugh. “So where did you crash last night?”

“Darius was awesome and offered to let me stay in the frat house with him, but I don’t know, it seemed like it would be way too active,” he said.

“You had a really intense day, and you needed some quiet space to mellow out,” I hypothesized.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t keen on going to see either one of my parents, so I crashed in your room in Malibu. Darius said it would be okay.”

“He was right,” I said. “Feel free to use that as your sanctuary. You don’t need keys because the front door has a keypad lock.”

“Darius told me how to use that, and Cody and Kevin were waiting for me,” he said. “They got me all set up, and even gave me a garage door opener.”

“They’re both great guys,” I said. “Most of the time.”

“I got to meet Jeff too,” he said. “Dude, three guys in that house and all of them are on fire.”

“They are,” I agreed. “Jeff try to fuck you?”

He laughed. “He wouldn’t have had to try very hard.” That was funny even though it made me jealous at the same time. “He knew I was with you, so he was polite but distant.”

“With me?” I asked since he’d kind of slipped up on that.

“Whatever,” he said, trying to blow that off.

“Ryan said he is stoked to see you over Spring Break,” I said, changing the subject.

“I have a problem with the trip,” he said nervously. I was trying to rein in my anger, but it was really hard. Was he going to blow me off after all?

“What?” I asked.

“I invited Crawford to go with us,” he said. “I hope that’s cool.” I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a sigh of relief.

“That’s totally fine,” I said. “He’ll have a good time.”

“I’ve been hanging out with him a lot at school, since Craddock and I aren’t on speaking terms,” he said. “Crawford’s cock blocking me this week.”

“He’s cock blocking you?” I asked, trying to figure out what that meant.

“He’s been hanging around with Sierra,” he said. “Nothing official, but it’s almost like they’re together.”

“You should invite her to Maui too,” I said.

He paused for a bit before he spoke. “I’m pretty sure I can trust Crawford, and I know I can trust Sierra, so I’m thinking about letting them know my deal.”

“Your deal?” I asked, teasing him.

“Yeah, the deal where I love to fuck you,” he said, cracking me up. “That deal.”

“I can’t see either one of them spying for your father,” I said, which would be my only fear.

“Especially Sierra,” he said sadly. It was unlikely she’d willingly be in the same building as Curtis Buck, much less spy for him. Besides, her family was rich and she didn’t need the money.

“So invite her,” I said.

“I’ll do that,” he said. I decided to break him out of that funky mood.

“Dude, this is great! We will all have such a good time,” I said.

“I am stoked!” he said, now that he knew I was cool with things. “So when are you coming down here?” It was adorable that he missed me.

“I’ve got that meeting tomorrow, so I’ll try to come down either tomorrow night or on Wednesday,” I said. “Just be flexible, because there’s a lot of shit going on here.”

“What?” he asked.

“Well, my aunt announced last night that she and my uncle are getting a divorce, so I don’t know how bad that fucked up Marie and John,” I told him.

“Shit, when my parents told us that, we wanted to go out and have a party,” he said. The fights between his parents had been loud and mean, but fortunately they hadn’t been physically violent.

“This time it’s sad,” I said. “So I want to help them out if they need me.”

“I can totally see that,” he said. “If you can’t make it down before Friday, I’ll understand, but I’m still gonna sleep in your bed.”

“You are always welcome in my bed,” I said. “I played the tape of you singing at the diner for everyone last night.”

“Terrific,” he said sarcastically.

“Everyone was impressed. I told Ryan and John not to try to recruit you into their band.”

“Yeah, I’m not seeing that,” he said. “Hey, class is about to start. I have to run.”

“See you in a few days,” I said, then ended the call. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 5:30, so I took a quick shower, worked to get my hair just right, then put on some casual clothes for dinner. I was ready by 6:15 and was about to go up and see if Grand was in his office when there was a knock at my door. “Come in!” I said.

Marie, John, and Ryan came in, all of them wearing different expressions. Marie looked very upset, but was hiding it well, while John looked like he was on the edge of being a basket case. Ryan looked mildly annoyed by everything, but Marie and John were so fucked up they probably couldn’t tell. “Sorry to interrupt you,” Marie said, then wiped a tear out of her eye.

“You can interrupt me whenever you want.” I walked up and gave her a massive hug, then got them sodas and led them over to my seating area. “What’s going on?”

“Mom told us what happened,” John said. “She told us how dad started fucking this 27-year-old doctor. How he cheated on her.” There was no way he could hide his rage.

“Then she agreed that it was okay for them to mess around with other people,” Marie said. “Things were going along pretty well, she says, but she finally couldn’t take it anymore.”

“What’d your father say?” I asked.

“He said he apologized to her for cheating, but he doesn’t think she can ever forgive him,” Marie said. “He says he feels like there’s no hope now.”

“No wonder he’s been acting so weird,” I said.

“Well it’s his fault,” John said. “He’s the one who fucked some other chick. I don’t get why people are feeling so fucking sorry for him.”

“Dude, this is not your battle,” I said to him. “You don’t have to pick sides.”

“He fucked up our whole family,” John said, almost yelling. “Why isn’t it his fault?”

“Have you talked to him about this?” I asked.

“I don’t want to talk to him,” John said petulantly.

“What I’m saying is that hating your father isn’t going to do your mother any good; it’s just going to make things harder,” I said. Then looked at Marie, who was much more in her father’s corner. “Or hating your mother to make your father happy,” I said to her.

“So I’m just supposed to pretend like nothing happened?” John demanded.

“If they’re getting divorced, you have to build your own relationships with each of them, and you should be happy that you have parents that are worth doing that with,” Ryan said bitterly, reminding us that he’d been a victim of a very nasty divorce.

I looked hard at Marie and John. “How long until you two start arguing with each other about this?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John asked.

“It means that you seem more in your mother’s corner, while Marie seems more sympathetic to your father,” I said.

“You have dad’s back on this?” John demanded of Marie.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ryan snapped.

“See,” I said, sounding snarky like Casey. “It’s already happening. So you two are going to fight a proxy war over this, and then you won’t even have each other. How fucking stupid is that?”

“Pretty fucking stupid,” Ryan said. He gave both John and Marie dirty looks, then walked out of the room.

“And it damages other relationships too,” I said.

“It’s not that easy,” John said, but more reasonably now.

“It’s not, especially in the beginning,” I said.

“You act like you were so calm about this when your dad broke it off with Robbie,” Marie pointed out. “And you weren’t any better when he was fighting with Jake.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “It was really hard to see my father going through all that shit.”

“So didn’t you take sides?” John asked.

“I’m not saying I handled that well, but hopefully I learned from it,” I said, annoyed at him. “I tried not to get involved in their battles, but more importantly, Darius, JJ, and I didn’t let it become an issue between us.”

Marie nodded, then reached over and held John’s hand. “He’s saying that even if they’re destroying our family, we have to stick together.”

He sighed. “I get your point.”

“I still don’t understand what sparked this whole divorce thing,” I said. “I mean, it sounded like things were working.”

“Working?” John challenged.

“I’m not saying it was ideal. It just seems that something must have happened to make them decide to get divorced,” I said.

“I asked her the same question, and got some bullshit answer about them growing apart,” Marie said. “Maybe we’ll get more answers at dinner.”

“That should be fun,” I said, thinking about another drama-laden dinner.

“Drama, everywhere you go,” Marie said, making me laugh.

“Let’s go,” I said, noting that it was time to head to the dining room. We all stood up but John didn’t move.

“I get what you guys are saying,” he said to Marie. “This is still so new, it’s just fucking with my mind.”

“I know,” she said, and smiled at him lovingly. “I’m dealing with the same thing.”

He stepped closer and put his hand on her shoulder. “No matter how bad they fuck things up, we’re in this together, you and me.”

Marie pulled him into a big hug. “We’re a team.” It was so poignant, I had to wipe tears out of my eyes. “Now let’s go see what mom has to say.”

“I do not see why you think I am required to divulge details about my personal life,” John said, doing his hilarious imitation of his mother. I couldn’t stop laughing at that, so we got to the dining room in what appeared to be really good moods. The others frowned at us since they were pretty somber.

“Good evening,” I said cheerfully, just to annoy them. Ryan smirked at me but got up to hold Marie’s chair for her as she sat down. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, whispered something in his ear, then focused on the table. Our antics hadn’t changed anything, and the tension in the air was palpable. I looked at Grand who had a glacial expression on his face, one I couldn’t read.

“I had been concerned that our board meeting tomorrow would be a bit intense,” Stef said, “but since I have received and accepted Craig Arundel’s resignation, I think we can focus on moving forward.”

“I suppose we will find out then who is going to run the Foundation?” Grandmaman asked.

“I have asked Jake to consider taking on that role, and am hoping that the board will agree with my decision,” Stef said.

“This member will,” I said, smiling at Jake.

There was some clattering of silverware, and that caused us to focus on Claire, who looked really distraught. “You asked me what caused us to suddenly decide to get divorced,” she said to Marie. “You wanted to know what the catalyst was.”

Marie was dumbfounded, because none of us had ever seen Claire go off the rails like this. “I think that we all had that question in mind,” Grand said calmly.

“Well now you know,” she said. “This is what caused it.”

“I don’t understand,” Dad said, and was as confused as the rest of us.

She gave him a withering look. “You all drive my boyfriend away, then give the job to your husband.” My mind was reeling at this, and it seemed like everyone else was confused as well, except for my father.

“You were having an affair with Craig Arundel?” my father asked.

“I prefer to call it a relationship,” she said. “You didn’t even give him a chance to change to meet your demands; you just forced him to quit.”

“The problems we discovered with Craig were based on his management style, and it would have been impossible for him to change that,” Stef said. He was furious at having his decision challenged like this. He could handle opposition to his ideas, but not when it was irrational.

“Yet you didn’t talk to him and give him an opportunity to do that,” Claire reiterated.

“Claire, it wasn’t so much that he couldn’t change,” Dad said, jumping in where he probably shouldn’t. “Even if he did, he had poisoned the employees against him and it would have been almost impossible to fix that.”

“Almost,” she challenged.

“All but certain,” he corrected. “I’m also wondering why you didn’t tell us you were seeing him?”

“Because I didn’t want to have a microscope turned on my relationship with him or my relationship with Jack,” she said succinctly.

“Yet as a board member, you had an undisclosed relationship with the director of the company,” Stef pointed out. “That is inappropriate.”

“Then I’ll atone for my error by submitting my resignation from the board,” Claire said, in a way that for her was the same as saying ‘fuck you’.

“I would hope you would not make hasty decisions right now,” Grandmaman said supportively. No one really paid attention to that, as the floor shifted to Grand.

“Are you still involved with Mr. Arundel?” Grand asked. It looked like she was going to go off on him, but that would have required more courage than she probably had right now.

“I am,” she answered.

“My understanding was that he was moving to New York to take another job,” Stef observed.

“Yes, to a place where they will appreciate him,” she said, being petulant. “That is what caused the problem, because I decided to move to New York with him.”

“You’re leaving?” John asked, horrified.

She mellowed at being confronted by her son, who completely adored her. “Marie will be going to Harvard in August and you’ll be touring with your band. I don’t think that my being in New York instead of being here will make much difference.”

“You’ll be closer to us in Boston,” I said, smiling to make sure she knew that was a positive comment.

“That is another benefit,” she said. “I’ll also be able to spend more time with JJ.”

“He would love that,” I said.

I made eye contact with Marie, just as her temper flared up. It was fascinating because it was like watching a volcano erupt. “This is bullshit!” she said. It was funny that even though she was loud, she stayed within Grand’s volume limit. She accented that by glaring at her mother.

No one said anything, as if they didn’t want to cause Marie to totally lose it, until Stef finally spoke up. “Why do you say that?” he asked gently.

“We have no fucking clue she’s even seeing someone, then she announces she’s divorcing Daddy and she’s moving to New York with this other dude,” she spat out. “We haven’t even met him. What are we, just some afterthought?”

“I didn’t expect things to happen so quickly,” Claire said, in full retreat mode.

“You are so fucking closed up, so afraid you’ll actually reveal a real emotion or let us know what you’re thinking, what’s going on in your life. You live this secret life, and then dump this crap on us,” Marie said.

“Marie,” John said to try and calm her down, since he could see the impact this was having on Claire.

“Have you met this guy?” Marie asked John. He said nothing because he hadn’t. She turned to Grand. “Don’t you think it is reasonable to at least find out if your kids even like this guy?”

He said nothing, which was so cowardly that it pissed me off. “You won’t answer Marie because she’s right. It is totally reasonable to find out if everyone gets along.”

“You didn’t care what John and I thought about this. You didn’t care what we thought about this dude. You didn’t care about us at all,” she said, her volume level rising. “I am done with you.” She stood up, tossed her napkin on her plate, and started walking toward the door.

“Marie!” Claire called, but her plea was meaningless to Marie, and she kept on walking.

“She makes some very good points,” I said to my aunt, and then left the room to go track Marie down. It was a nice evening, so I guessed that she went outside. I exited the house just in time to see her walking toward the gazebo, so I ran to catch up with her.

“What?” Marie asked me. She was still pissed off and was throwing that at me now, which was actually kind of funny but I managed not to laugh.

“I thought you could use some company,” I said, falling in step next to her.

“Well I don’t, so you can just go back in there and eat.”

“I said I thought that,” I teased, and nudged her with my shoulder. “I didn’t say that I cared whether I was right or not.”

She gave me a dirty look, then smiled, then put her arm around my waist, so I put mine on her shoulder and led her to the gazebo. “It’s just so obvious that she doesn’t give a shit about any of us. How do you handle that kind of rejection.”

“It’s not easy,” I said. She was about to ask me what the fuck I knew about this, then realized that I’d been through this a number of times. “I think that in the end, you have to realize that it's not about you. In this case, it’s about your mother.”

“I already know that,” she said petulantly.

“I’m not defending her, because this was bullshit, and I said so,” I said. “But things must have moved much faster than she planned. I’ll bet in her mind, this was a major crisis. She must really like this Craig guy, then suddenly they're being ripped apart. She was probably feeling pretty alone and embattled.”

“That’s what I was trying to say,” Marie said. “She’s alone because that’s how she operates. When it’s crunch time, she made the decision without thinking about anyone else.”

“She did,” I agreed.

“So when I go back in there, she’ll sit down and set up a time when we can meet this dude,” she said. “It’s going to be hard to like him.”

“It’s really hard for me to say, but it’s tough to blame him for any of this unless you get to know him,” I said.

“He was so awful that you all but campaigned to fire him,” she said in an accusatory way.

“I did not do that,” I said firmly, and had to work hard to not get pissed off at her. “Mike told me about his investigation of the foundation, and Jake followed up and found out that most of the shit was true. He wasn’t stealing money or doing anything awful; he was just a really sucky manager.”

“If he’s bad with people, don’t you think that’s important to John and me? There is no way this guy is going to have shit to say about how I run my life.”

I laughed. “If he does, he’s not only an asshole, he’s stupid.”

“True that,” she said, then sighed. “I’m going to go see my father.”

“Better call first,” I said, suggesting that he might be with his chick. She frowned at me and said nothing. I walked her over to her car, gave her a big hug, then watched her drive off. I walked back into the dining room and conversation stopped, but I just took my seat.

“Where did Marie go?” John asked.

“She went to see your father,” I said. I saw that Claire was really struggling to maintain her composure. I remembered all the times that my father had done completely stupid shit and I’d had to sit there and watch him try to grapple with everyone being pissed off at him. His normal mode of defense was to attack, but with Claire, she just withdrew further into her shell.

My comment sparked John to think about Jack. “What did Dad say about all of this?” John asked.

“I didn’t ask his opinion; I merely informed him,” she said, exposing her own bitterness.

“Kind of like the same way you treated Marie and me,” he snapped. “That’s why Marie lost it. It seems like you’re not divorcing just dad, you’re divorcing us too.”

“I am not doing that,” she insisted strongly.

“No?” he challenged. “Prove it. Explain how you’re not doing that.”

“Things just moved so quickly,” she said plaintively.

“Well maybe we’ll decide to divorce you instead,” he said with real venom, then he left too.

“I have messed this up so badly,” she said to us, and started sobbing. “I don’t even know if I can fix it.”

“I think that you have damaged your relationship with your children, but I do not think it is beyond salvage,” Grand pronounced.

“I don’t know how to do that, how to fix it,” she said.

“You slow this down,” I said to her. “You apologize to both of them and admit that they’re right.” She gave me an unpleasant look. “They are right,” I emphasized.

“If you cannot even acknowledge that,” Grandmaman said, “then you are wasting your time even trying to repair things.”

Claire nodded. “How do I slow things down?”

“You tell Craig that you can’t move to New York until the summer,” I said. “In the meantime, you tell him how important your kids are, and how before you make that move you want to give him a chance to get to know them, and vice-versa. Then you do that. You get him to come out and spend some weekends and you take them to New York to do the same thing.”

“I’m not sure how that will work with his new position,” she said. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to travel that much.”

“Then this dude isn’t the guy for you,” I said. “If he can’t understand the importance of family to you, you are wasting your time with him.”

“Is family important to you?” Ryan asked a little callously. I think we’d all forgotten he was even here.

“It is,” she vowed.

“Then do what John said,” I told her. “Prove it.”

She nodded, then without saying anything she stood up and left the room.

There was a very uncomfortable silence, so after a couple of minutes, I decided to break it. I looked at Ryan. “Crawford is going to Maui with us,” I said.

“No kidding?” he said and got pretty happy about that.

“He is,” I confirmed. “And so is Sierra Gardner.” We both got angry, remembering the CD from last night.

“We’ll make sure she has a good time too,” he said. “Going to be a good group.”

“When are you planning to leave for Maui?” Stef asked Ryan.

“I’m trying to get Marie to agree to leave after lunch on Friday,” Ryan said. He didn’t mention John because he’d be an easy sell on bailing out of school early. “I guess we could probably be ready by 1.”

“Especially if you skipped lunch and ate on the plane,” I said.

“I have an idea,” Stef said. We all looked at him expectantly. “I thought that, since you have a big crowd, you could take my plane.” Ryan and I looked at each other and got huge grins on our faces.

“That would be the bomb!” I said.

He gave me a patronizing smile. “I was thinking the plane could leave here then stop in LA to pick up you and your contingent,” he said.

“That would probably end up being around 5,” I said, doing the math. “That would be awesome. Thank you so much!”

“I am glad to put a little joy into your lives,” Stef said sadly, reminding us of the disaster that our dinner had been. That served to end our dinner. I escaped back to my room and sent Kiki an email with our updated guest list, then went to bed early to try and catch up on my sleep.