Cosworth estates? That's where they said we were heading. I had "estates", whatever that meant. I sighed and hoped there would be food there. And a bed. And a long, quiet shower.
Chapter 10
I had estates.
Estates are huge houses and the "grounds" around them. I argued that it was the same ground as everywhere else on the planet. Ralph gave up trying to explain.
The "manor" is enormous. It's as big as the buildings we walked by in New York. And it's got the Cosworth name on everything. My father's initials, my father's father's initials, his father's initials... Every time I turned around in the place there was something claiming ownership rights. It was annoying. Of course it belonged to my father. It was in his house. I laughed when I saw that even the towels had my father's initials on them.
"Were they all afraid someone would steal everything?"
Ralph smiled back and shook his head. "Just a rich thing, kiddo. They all do it."
I shook my head and took the longest, hottest, most wonderful shower of my life, behind a glass door that was also initialed. A towel could be tucked under a coat and stolen easily enough, I suppose. But the door? It's insane.
"I think it started a long time ago when people wanted to be sure everyone knew how rich they were," Ralph said from a sofa at the other end of the enormous bathroom.
I didn't like that my family ever thought like that. I toweled my hair dry and was frowning.
"Hey. Your dad wasn't like that, Jake."
"But these are his initials on this towel, right? This is his towel. And he wants everyone to know it." I threw the towel across the room in disgust. What kind of conceited asshole flaunts their money like that when so many people don't have any?
Ralph sighed heavily and got up off the large couch in the room. He walked over and picked up the towel, then held it open for me to look at. "Gold lettering. Big as day. Look at this and tell me this is something your father actually had any choice about." He was right. It didn't look like Dad at all. "Flowers. Cursive." He shook his head, then threw the towel to me. "Don't be pissed at your dad because his family was stuck in tradition. He couldn't help it any more than you could help being born in a tin can in space." He sat back down and took up his drink. "But damn I'm glad they kept the scotch." He grinned at me. "We must have been fourteen? Fifteen, maybe when we found your grandfather's secret stash. Aged, ripe, so smooth. You should have seen the look on your grandfather's face when he found us."
I knew they were friends, Ralph and Dad. I knew it went back a long time. But neither of them really talked about childhood. I think I understand. It's like how I felt every time I tried to talk about Laak'sa. It hurt so bad because I knew I wouldn't see it again. I think it was like that for Ralph and Dad out in space, so far away from their homeworld.
"God the memories in this house, kid. You know where he found us?" I shook my head. "C'mon." He pushed himself up and walked out of the room I was using for a bedroom. We went down a long hall, then up a curved case of stairs and into a dark room. He flicked on the lights and we were in some sort of library. The walls were lined with books. Not holos, real books. With pages of paper filled with words, crammed full on shelves that reached the high ceilings. Everything else in the room was covered in sheets.
"They didn't get to airing this room out yet," he said, tugging one of the sheets off. Fine dust filled the room. Dusting, I thought as I watched the motes float and resettle on the surfaces around me. I finally got what "dusting" was all about.
He pulled the sheet and it fell to the floor leaving...something. I was staring at some sort of animal. It was taller than me by almost double, and had huge...things coming out of its head. I jumped back and pressed my back to the door in case I had to escape, but Ralph's loud laugh made me feel stupid. "It's dead, Jake." He thumped it and it stayed firm. "It's stuffed. It's called a moose. They're animals that live up north. Some hunter bagged it a long time ago and they took out all the guts and..."
I felt sick. Why would anyone do that to something that was dead? Sure, Mother had samples in preserving liquids, but that was completely different. That was science. Someone killed this great animal and then kept a dead body around. And holy crap, Ralph was climbing on it! "What are you doing?!" I shouted, which made Ralph laugh even harder.
"Oh, the look on your face is priceless!" He swung his leg over and the thing creaked and cracked, but held. He sighed with a contented smile. "Right here, me and your dad. We sat up here and pretended we were charging through a village about to conquer it for our kingdom and..." He stopped and really looked at me then. I suppose I was frowning. He sighed heavily, then coughed in the cloud of dust. "I guess...I guess you have to be from here to understand." He patted the dead animal like it was a friend. "Another time, Sir Albert of The North." He swung his leg back over and hopped off the beast, grimacing when he hit the floor. "Oof! I was a lot younger the last time."
I was still eyeballing the dead thing. "That is disgusting."
Ralph shrugged. "It's custom."
"Like the initials."
"Yep, something like that."
I shook my head. "I will never stuff a dead animal."
Ralph laughed and guided me out. "No, I suppose not."
"Or put my initials on stuff."
"Er, about that..."
My initials were on things. Someone "on staff" had taken it upon themselves to have all new plates and forks and spoons and even glasses made with my initials on them. I sat there at our first dinner in my estate and stared at the gold lettered J.E.C.
"What's the E. stand for?" asked Lynette in a whispered. She whispered everything in my estate. It annoyed me all evening, and was especially frustrating at the table.
"Earnest," I said. "After Ralph. And stop whispering."
"Earnest?" said Marlon, hooting with laughter. "Yeah, Lynnie. Ernie there says to stop whispering."
Lynette glared at him. "Fine, I'll stop whispering, Marlon Carlotta Donnely!"
Marlon stopped laughing and his face turned red. "It's a family name!"
"Stop." Christophe walked into the room and took a seat. That's all he said. That's all he had to say. It was a long day for everyone and the last thing anyone wanted to hear was bickering. He took a sip of the wine in the glass. "Lynette, you do not need to whisper in this house. Marlon, you should. Now, let us begin the service."
"I don't want to eat on these plates," I said.
"Why not? They're lovely plates," said Reginald, looking them over carefully.
I didn't say anything else about the plate. The staff, "my staff", apparently, began to serve. Someone told them I liked tartare and they served that along with a bunch of other food.
"I'll give this to you, money bags," said Marlon with his mouth full. "You put on a good spread."
It was a compliment, I guess. It didn't feel like a compliment. I had nothing to do with the meal in any way. "You paid for it," was Ralph's explanation later. We had a large meal. We had a large dessert, which I liked far better than most of the meal. Jillian chatted it up with Reginald and Ralph most of the time, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the manor. I had a swimming pool, whatever that was. I had tennis courts, whatever those were. I had manicured gardens and a theater and eleven, count them, eleven bathrooms and an east wing and a west wing and she went on and on until I no longer cared.
Marlon ate and belched and asked if I had any terminals he could use.
"I don't know."
Marlon sneered at me and shook his head. "So rich you don't even know what you own."