Gap Year - 68. Chapter 68

March 8, 2004

Palo Alto, CA

Will

I walked out of the television room with Casey then paused in the foyer to chat. “That was an interesting evening,” he said, shaking his head.

I laughed. “Marie’s favorite line about me is this: Drama, everywhere you go.” Casey laughed with me, then got serious.

“How are you doing?” he asked. I gave him an annoyed look. “I’m asking because I want to go home and get some sleep, but to do that I need to make sure you’ve dealt with all of this, at least for tonight.”

“If I say no, will you spend the night with me?” I flirted.

“No,” he said, then shook his head. “I feel like I’m dealing with Matt all over again.” I wondered if he still worked with Matt, and if he’d seen how big of a Stepford wife he’d become.

“Didn’t you sleep with him?” I asked, just to bug him.

“No,” he said emphatically, being all defensive.

I just stood there smiling at him, while he frowned at me. “Then I don’t want you to feel like you’re dealing with Matt all over again.” He just shook his head at me.

“You’ve got an appointment to see me tomorrow at 1,” he instructed me. “In the meantime, I need a ride home.”

My father and Jake came up to us and my father put his arm around my shoulder in an affectionate way. I returned his gesture by putting my arm around his waist. “I have to drive Casey back to Stanford.”

“Your car is gone,” Dad said. I just stared at him showing him how annoyed I was.

“Who has my car?” I asked, and not all that nicely.

“Tony brought Mason up here to stay for a few days, then they were going to go up to the City, and maybe to Santa Cruz,” Dad said. “I told him he could take the Ferrari. I figured you’d want to help them have a romantic break.”

“That was a really good idea,” I said, and squeezed his waist with my hand. “How were they?”

“In love,” Jake said, and got that blissful look on his own face. Sometimes he and my father were just gross. He quickly got his act together. “You’ve had a long day. I’ll take Casey back.”

“Thanks,” I said to Jake, and broke away from my father to give him a hug. I turned to Casey. “And thank you.” I gave him a hug too, and to prove it was genuine I didn’t even try to perve on him when I did it.

We watched them leave then my father and I started walking down the hall to my room. “I really am sorry about tracking you and your brothers.”

“I know,” I said. “Darius asked me if I was going to lose my shit at dinner over this, and I told him that my reaction would probably hinge on how you handled it.”

“Did I do alright?” he asked curiously.

“I told him that if you owned up to it and apologized, we’d be good, and that’s just what you did,” I told him. “You handled that really well.”

I opened my door and we walked into my room, and he stopped me and gave me a big hug. “Thanks.”

“Did Jake help you figure out how to handle it?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Some of it,” he grumbled.

“I think that’s pretty awesome,” I said. He looked at me strangely, non-verbally demanding that I explain that. “You’re not only asking for his help, you’re listening to what he says.”

“I will forever be in your debt for convincing him to stay here and not rejoin the army,” he said. “I have never loved anyone like I love him.” We walked over to my sitting area and I grabbed both of us sodas and turned on the fire.

“I’m so happy for you,” I said sincerely.

“You’ve missed a bunch of drama about the foundation,” he said, changing the subject.

“I have?”

He nodded. “On Friday, Craig Arundel put in his notice. He got a job at a different family foundation in New York.”

“He did that on his own?” I asked.

“Stef had a talk with him a few days before that, and I think Craig saw the writing on the wall,” Dad said. “He told Stef that he’d been thinking about this opportunity for a while and decided that he wanted to do something different in a new city.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?” I asked, wondering how this worked.

“Probably,” he said. “After Stef asked him a bunch of questions, I’m guessing that he realized the culture we wanted wasn’t one that he could build.”

“Well that worked out pretty well,” I said. “So who’s going to run the Foundation?”

“That will probably be the main thing on the agenda this Tuesday,” he said. “Stef’s thinking that Jake may be a good candidate.”

“Interesting,” I said, even as my mind tackled this new dilemma.

“You don’t think Jake would do well?” my father asked defensively. He was acting worried and nervous that I’d try to kill that idea, when in his mind this was probably the ideal thing for Jake to do. It would keep him busy, and it would keep him here. He’d probably spent a good amount of time planning this out and convincing Stef it was the right thing to do.

“It’s not that,” I said, frustrated. If shit like this kept coming up, where it seemed like I had no confidence in Jake, Jake would end up hating me. “With shit like this, I just need a little time to think about it.”

“I can see that,” he agreed, since he was like that too.

“I’m really glad you told me about it,” I said. “That way I won’t look like a deer in headlights when it comes up.”

“Always good,” he said, chuckling.

“What happened with Claire and Jack?” I asked. “I mean they’ve both been acting weird for a while now.”

“Yeah, they have,” he said sadly. “This is so hard to deal with.” He actually wiped a tear out of his eye.

“Jack’s been your brother-in-law and your friend for a really long time,” I said, more to prod him. He nodded.

“We were the best men in each other’s weddings, and I’ve fought for him and Claire ever since high school,” he said. “He’s been a real positive force in my life, and when things got tough, I knew he’d be in my corner.”

“So what went wrong?” I asked. He said nothing, which made my anger grow, because I wasn’t willing to put up with him deflecting me. This was too big of a deal.

He was spacing out, and when he came back to earth he noticed my furrowed eyebrows and that alarmed him. “I was just collecting my thoughts.”

“It’s cool,” I said. “Remember that I haven’t slept much for the past two days, so I’m a little bitchy.” He chuckled at that, then got serious.

“It started with Jack, or at least that’s how I’m reading it,” Dad said. “There was a doctor who had just finished her residency or whatever they have to do to finish up their education, and she started working at Stanford. Jack was basically her mentor, helping her fit in.”

“Is she smoking hot?” I asked, unable to hide my anger that my uncle was a cheating prick.

“She is,” he said. “They started to bond over work, and then it became personal. Claire noticed that his hours were longer, that he was distracted when he was at home, and that he barely noticed her when he was.”

“Ouch,” I said, visualizing how tough that would be, especially for her. She was a very proud and stoic person, so to have him all but blow her off would be not only a tough ego blow, but it would be hard for her to deal with since she probably wouldn’t talk to anyone about it.

“I can understand her pain, because it was a lot like what I went through when Robbie was all into Carson,” he said bitterly. That he was still so visibly angry and upset about that, even after both Robbie and Carson were dead, told me how devastatingly painful that whole episode was to him. I’d told Jake that when that whole deal had gone down, that’s when my father had changed and turned into this extreme control freak. I was looking at him now, and his shields were down, so I could see how right I was, and how that really was the cause of his meltdown.

“That sucked,” I said. He rolled his eyes because that was a major understatement.

“She confronted him. He admitted it and apologized, and told her he’d give up his friend, but he’d rather try to have a more open relationship,” he said.

“This is like a fucking replay of what you and Robbie did,” I said. “I guess people can’t learn from the mistakes other people make.”

“They both actually talked to me about that and pissed me off by suggesting that it may worked for them because they weren’t as fucked up as Robbie and weren’t as controlling as I was,” he said. That made me laugh and got a wry grin from him.

“I mean, it can work for some people, so maybe it could have worked for them,” I said.

“Well obviously it didn’t,” he said in a slightly bitchy way. “I actually thought it might though.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “Jack was fucking his friend, and Claire evidently found a man to be with.”

“She’s really attractive,” I said to him. “That wouldn’t be tough.”

“No, it wouldn’t be,” he agreed. “Jack was the first and only guy she’d ever been with, so I think for her it was a whole new world that opened up. I think she is really enjoying her freedom.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?” I asked.

“I think so, but she won’t talk about him,” Dad said.

“Maybe it’s another woman,” I suggested, making him chuckle.

“Nope, I know whoever she’s dating has a penis,” he said. I didn’t bother to ask him how he knew that.

“So what went wrong?”

“I think that the same thing that happened to Robbie happened to Jack,” he said. “Which makes sense since Jack is probably grappling with his own mid-life crisis.”

“What happened to Robbie and Jack?” I asked, not following his reasoning.

“Robbie thought it was a great idea for us to see other people when he was doing it, but he didn’t think it was such a great idea when I started seeing other people,” he said, shaking his head at how stupid Robbie had been.

“Jack’s a lot more logical than Robbie was,” I said.

“He is,” he agreed. “It’s made me wonder if Robbie’s actions were less about him being flawed and more about the influence of the mid-life crisis experience.”

“I don’t know,” I said, unwilling to be drawn into a philosophical discussion this late in the evening.

“I think Jack slowly began to realize how awesome Claire really was,” Dad said. “He tried to rekindle the romance, but she just blew him off.”

“I mean, didn’t Robbie try to do that with you? And didn’t you make him grovel like crazy?” I asked. It was hilarious to see him get irritated about that.

“He did, but I think that Jack was happy with the more open relationship; he was just upset with the result that he had no relationship with Claire at all, or at least not a romantic one,” he said. I stared at him blankly, and he sighed. “Even when Robbie and I were mad at each other, the sexual component and the intimacy we shared were still there.”

“So she cut him off,” I concluded.

“I guess you could put it that way,” he said. “I think that Jack likes this doctor and, according to him, the sex is unbelievable, but I know he didn’t want a divorce and he didn’t want to marry her.”

“That sounds pretty shallow,” I said.

“It was for Robbie too,” he said. I felt bad for him because not only was this churning up old memories, he was also watching his sister and brother-in-law do the same stupid thing.

“So Claire must have fallen pretty hard for this guy, whoever he is,” I mused.

“She must have,” he said. “I mean, the last I heard the arrangement was working for them, even though Jack was unhappy about her being distant, just like I mentioned. I just don’t know what spark caused things to change.”

“Maybe she got closer to this other dude, and she decided to be with him instead,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Maybe,” he said skeptically.

“You know, Claire is like you in one way,” I said.

“How?” he demanded defensively.

“You’re both very proud people,” I said.

“And you’re not?” he challenged. I raised an eyebrow and gave him an annoyed look to calm him down.

“I am,” I admitted. “I remember that you talked a lot about how pissed off you were about being rejected for someone else.”

“I was pissed off,” he said angrily, making me laugh.

“Maybe the same thing is happening to Claire,” I hypothesized.

He stopped to think about what I said. “I can see her deciding that if Jack wanted to be with his doctor friend, that was fine, but that didn’t mean she still had to sleep with him.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I said, then yawned.

“Anyway, we both need to get some sleep,” Dad said, getting the hint. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I got up and we hugged, one of those long meaningful embraces that we used to symbolize that everything was alright between us. “Night Dad.”

I ushered him out of my room and thought about calling Travis, but it was too late for that, so instead I crashed.

March 8, 2004

Palo Alto, CA

Will

I was riding Psyche across the land where the helipad was supposed to go, chuckling to myself that there was still no construction going on. Despite being up almost all night, I’d ended up waking up around 9, and decided to start my day off with a ride. I noticed it was 10am now, so I pulled out my phone and called Travis. He didn’t answer his regular phone, so I tried the cheap one that wasn’t tracked.

“Hey, I’m between classes,” he said. I was surprised he was in a pretty good mood.

“I’m riding my horse across a field,” I said just as pleasantly.

He started laughing. “I just pictured you as one of those dudes on the cover of a romance novel, where you’re shirtless and your long hair is blowing in the wind.”

I laughed hysterically at that. “Not quite.”

“How are things?” he asked.

“Kind of freaky,” I said. He waited for me to go on so I did. “I kind of lost it at dinner and ended up passing out. They dragged me to the hospital.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. His concern was really touching.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it when I see you. How are you doing?”

“I’m alright,” he said. It was like we were having fun in our own little world, then I’d killed his buzz by reminding him of the assholes in our lives. “I talked to my mom about all this shit. She says there’s no way my father would try to kill me. I don’t believe her.”

“Neither do I,” I said, “but there’s a decent chance we’ll be able to find out if that’s true or not. Are the pilots alright?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “The pilot was in the terminal working on filing his flight plan, and the copilot was on the tarmac. He got a few burns, but nothing too horrible.”

“I’m glad,” I said, even though I thought those dudes were dicks.

“Dude, I have to go. Not all of us have a semester off and I have to get to class,” he said.

“Gotcha,” I said. “Call me later?”

“I’ll do that,” he promised. We ended our call and I started to wonder if he’d do that, or if this would be one of those times where he said he’d do something then he’d blow me off. I was about to fall into a pity party about that when I spotted Jake riding up. He was getting to be a decent rider, but wasn’t even close to me yet, much less on a level with Grand. That explained why he was riding one of the mares.

He got up to me and I smiled at him. “Look at you. You’re damn near a cowboy.”

He laughed. “Hardly.”

“Are you stalking me?” I asked.

“I kind of am,” he admitted. “I wanted to get some advice from you?”

“From me?” I asked, since I figured that he had other people who were smarter than I was.

“From you,” he said firmly. “I heard that you had a really nice talk with your father.”

“I did,” I said. “He was telling me about Jack and Claire, and it was easy to see how much this ripped him up.”

“Because he went through it?” Jake asked.

“He did,” I answered. “Remember how I told you that he was this strong, confident person that was pretty together before Robbie fucked him up with his affair?”

“Yeah,” he said cautiously.

“When he was talking about Jack and Claire, I saw the sadness, the anger, and the bitterness come surging from his brain,” I said. “I’d always chalked his change from being just a regular control freak to being a maniacal control freak to that whole issue.”

“And you don’t think so now?” he asked me curiously.

“It was like I could see into his mind, more than normally,” I said, making him laugh because we both knew how much my father hated it when I guessed what he was thinking. “When I did, I saw that my guess was spot on, and that whole event was what first sent him spinning off into weirdness.”

Jake nodded. “I wonder if he’ll ever get over that.” There was bitterness and jealousy in his tone.

“Dude, do not be a fucking idiot,” I said, and not real nicely. He glared at me. “He’s not obsessing over Robbie; he’s just remembering the pain he felt.”

“Oh,” he said, shaking his head. “I should have known that. I think sometimes my own insecurities kind of override my mind and I say stupid shit.”

I laughed. “Join the club.”

“He told me that if Robbie had lived, he didn’t think they’d be together now anyway,” he said.

“Really?” I asked, surprised. I mean, I was glad he’d gotten over Robbie, but I didn’t think he’d conjure up some alternate reality and convince himself they’d be divorced.

He nodded. “He said that he thought Robbie’s need for some new, younger dick would have been a recurring thing. It would have meant that as soon as they got over his affair with one idiot, it would only be a matter of time before Robbie did it again. He said that he’d have gotten tired of worrying that Robbie was out looking for his replacement.”

I thought about that for a while, and realized how spot on that was. “That was the roller coaster from hell he’s tried to describe to me.”

“That’s it,” Jake said. “I hope that doesn’t happen to us.”

“Why would that happen to you?” I asked. “Are you happy?”

He looked at me strangely. “The happiest I’ve ever been.”

“If you saw a hot young dude, would you fuck him?” I asked.

“No,” he said, and with such sincerity it surprised both of us.

“I can’t see Dad doing that either,” I said. “So unless you guys freak out like you both did a couple of weeks ago, it won’t happen to you.”

He thought about that and smiled. “You’re right. Thanks for helping me see that.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Didn’t you want my advice on something?”

He nodded. “Stef and your father cornered me and are trying to convince me that I should take over the Foundation.”

“Is that something you want to do?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun,” he said. “I’ve spent so much time diving into it I feel like I already know the organization. Your friend Mike’s report turned out to be completely spot on.”

“I guess that’s good news,” I said, even though I felt sad about how things had been run.

“It is,” he said, “because now we know what needs to be fixed, and I think I can do that.”

“I mean, there are a lot of other people there that have more experience with foundations than you do,” I said. He gave me a dirty look for pointing that out. “How are you going to handle that?”

“I’m going to have to work with them,” he said. I rolled my eyes, because that was obvious. “Look, I know I can’t go in there and start telling them what to do, and that’s not my style anyway. What I meant is that the ideas are going to have to come from them. I’m just there to facilitate and organize those plans.”

I thought about that for a bit, then smiled. “Dad asked me what I thought about you taking over the Foundation last night.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I wanted to think about it,” I said.

“You don’t think I can do the job?” he asked, seriously annoyed. “I’m starting to wonder if you have confidence in me at all.” It was ironic that my fears had almost come true.

“That is not it at all,” I snapped. “I just wanted to think about it. I don’t like having things like this dropped on me where I don’t have time to ponder them.”

“So what did you decide?” he asked. He was still pretty pissed at me.

“I wasn’t sure until now,” I said. He looked at me with this weird combination of annoyance, surprise, and curiosity. “But now I’m sure you can do it.”

“Why?”

“Because of how you said you’d deal with running it,” I said. “I think that’s exactly what you have to do, so when you said that it became a no brainer. You should do it.”

“You really think I can?” he asked. His insecurities were about to drive me fucking insane.

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” I said. We rode on without saying anything for a couple of minutes.

“So who did you fuck when you were in LA?” he asked. I started laughing then I told him all about Cam Squires. It was so fun to be able to go into all the details with him. “You gonna fuck him again?”

I shrugged. “If I’m not with Travis, and the opportunity presents itself, I’m going to rip his fucking clothes off.”

“Sounds like a fun time. So how was Travis?” It seemed like that was our cue to head back to the stables.

I smiled, and as much shit as I’d internally given him for looking all in love last night, I knew I had to look the same way now. “He’s so different from other guys I’ve been with. I spend most of the time we’re together either laughing or having an orgasm.”

“That sounds pretty ideal,” he said. “So the sex is good?” I told him all about how we’d shot douche water out of our asses at each other, and how I’d shown him the sex room. We were laughing so hard by the time we got back, it was all I could do not to fall off the horse. The stablehands were there to take the horses. We walked into the tack room to change and he stopped me. “Thanks.”

“For what?” I asked.

“It’s really nice to have a good friend I can talk to about shit like this,” he said. I went to object but he stopped me. “I know your father is there, and we talk about things, but sometimes it’s good to get the perspective from someone who isn’t fucking you.” I laughed again, then we changed clothes and headed into the house.

Just as we were about to go in the door, Aunt Claire came out, dressed quite formally. “You look nice today,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling slightly, then seemed to get annoyed by our presence and, to the degree that she could or would do it, she all but stomped away from us.

“What’s she mad about?” I asked. “Is it me?”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t know what’s bugging her, but she’s been treating me that way all weekend.”

“Good,” I said, and sighed with relief. “Maybe she’s just pissed at you.”

“Terrific,” he said. I gave him a big hug, then went to my room to shower and change. I managed to wolf down some food without running into anyone else, then borrowed Stef’s Porsche to go see Casey. He had a nice office, even though it was sterile like all medical practices seemed to be.

I walked confidently up to the receptionist. “I’m here to see Casey,” I said. “I’m Will Schluter.”

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” she said. I wandered over and looked out the windows where I could see Stanford off in the distance. In just a few months I’d be starting college in Boston. I was both excited and nervous about that, and ultimately decided that’s how most people must feel about leaving home to start their freshman year.

“Will?” Casey asked, pulling me out of my fog.

“Hey,” I said, and shook his hand. He led me back to his office. He spent a lot of time going over my past month or so, which got kind of old, then he finally sat back in his chair and gave me a patronizing look. I rolled my eyes at him.

“Has Travis ever been in love?” he asked.

I thought about that for a bit. “I don’t know. I mean, he’s not into women, so I’m going to guess that he hasn’t.”

“Yet he told you he was falling in love with you,” he said. I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face.

“He did,” I confirmed.

“I want you to consider something,” he said. I looked at him curiously, wondering if he was going to tell me to dump Travis. “Remember I’m just speculating here.”

“Go on,” I said cautiously.

“You’ve gotten upset with him a few times, and those times seem to happen when you’re mad that he blew you off when you had plans together,” he said.

“That’s about right,” I said. I was unable to hide my anger over that.

“You mentioned that’s how you felt the night he was going to leave to go see Zach, who had lied to you and told you he had to study. From the way you described it, it seemed like that really ripped you up,” he said.

“It did,” I agreed. “It was like we had this totally euphoric day, then he was going to blow me off to go fuck someone else.” I paused, then went on. “Only it was more than that. He was going to blow me off to go fuck the dude who had just lied to me on the phone.”

“Then you were upset when he didn’t go to New York with you, even though he said he would.”

“I was,” I agreed. “It was made worse since he was letting Zach manipulate him.”

“You know, there’s another potential reason for this other than Zach fucking with his mind,” he said.

“There is?” I asked curiously. I’d looked at those situations as objectively as I could, and the common denominator in both of them was Zach, so I’d pinned the blame on him. It was hard to change course and think that wasn’t the case.

“If he’s never been in love, and he has no one close to him, no one he can trust, this is probably a pretty scary experience,” he said. I stared at him, not understanding what he was saying. “When he blows you off, he may be running away, not from you, but from the feelings you spark in him.”

“He’s a very private person, and has built a very big wall around himself,” I noted.

“And when he’s around you, or thinks about you, it’s possible that the emotions blow those walls out and make him feel vulnerable,” Casey said. I could see Travis totally doing that, which in turn totally spazzed me out because I had to reorient my mind around a new paradigm.

“How do I deal with that?” I asked. “Don’t my feelings matter too?”

“They do,” he said. “That’s not the issue. If he breaks a commitment, and that hurts you, you have every right to be upset. But I also think that, if I’m right about this, his rejection of you is as solid as if he were embracing you.”

“Because when he rejects me he’s doing it because he loves me?” I asked, still unsure about his theory. This was kind of like the deal with Jake last night, in that I needed time to let that bang around in my brain for a while. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that,” he said in his snarky way, being Casey.