It isn’t him.
I’m glad. And then I’m not.
We’d been out here for over a year when he arrived, full of attitude and sexual confidence that fascinated me from the start. What happened between us was beautiful.
But how it ended was sad and so terribly painful. I haven’t seen him since then and I don’t know where he is.
Two years ago I scrounged up enough cash to hire a cheap private detective who worked out of a hotel room. Oscar has good reason to hate me and I had no intention of showing up in his life to ruin whatever peace of mind he’s managed to find, but I wanted to know that he was all right. The detective was unable to find any trace of him.
Of course I wasn’t really surprised.
Oscar was always the most independent person I’ve ever known. If he wanted to shed his name and disappear he could have. And apparently he did.
Rash has returned the camera to my face. I set the car in park and notice that I am already being watched stealthily from yet another lens. My grandmother was wrong, very wrong. Every second those mechanical eyes are trained on me, I will know it.
“Welcome!” hails a woman. She’s a bottle blond and has obviously been under the knife a few times. I’d guess her to be around forty but she’s been smoothed out so much it’s tough to tell. This is Cate Camp, the so-called ‘right hand’ of Gary Vogel. I’ve talked to her before and it usually leaves me feeling tired. Luckily, for now she backs off after a quick greeting.
I scan the scene for my brothers and sisters. Of course Brigitte is easy to spot. She’s about twenty yards away, leaning against a rotting wooden horse post. She’s deliberately failing to notice my arrival, lost in her own vision of herself flipping her red hair behind one shoulder and gazing pensively in the direction of the stubby Harquehala Mountains as the hot wind lifts the hem of her skirt. It’s the sort of pose one might see on the cover of a romance novel. I have no doubt that’s exactly her intention.
“Ren!”
Ava bounds out of the house. She moves pretty quickly considering she’s balanced on ridiculous heels with a toddler on her hip. I catch Bree shooting a quick frown of annoyance that her calculated non-greeting has been disturbed.
Ava sets the little boy down and tries to nudge him forward but he balks and clings to her legs. I wouldn’t expect him to come to me. He turned two this past March and I hadn’t seen him since December.
My sister looks tired, older than her twenty-one years would indicate. That wasn’t always the case. Years of hard partying, a bad relationship and unexpected early motherhood have taken a toll. She is still pretty, always pretty. Her face holds the round contours and wide eyes of innocence. The blonde hair doesn’t suit her complexion though. It never did. She smiles at me and opens her arms. I hug her and pat my nephew, Alden, on the head. For the first time I am happy that I agreed to this lunacy.
Our younger sister abandons her thoughtful perch. She pauses long enough to allow a faint breeze to ripple through her short dress and then careens toward us as if it’s been a decade since our last encounter.
“Loren!” Bree shouts and then collides in a whirlwind of limbs and hair. She manages to produce a few tears, overkill even for her. Still, for a moment I clutch my sisters without a care for cameras or spectators.
“Where are the boys?” I ask as Bree fusses at her hair and Ava hoists the baby back onto her hip.
“Boys,” answers Brigitte with a sigh. She flounces ten feet in the opposite direction and peers toward the mountains, shading her eyes, clucking her tongue. She talks more loudly than she needs to. “I’ve scarcely seen our wayward brothers at all.”
“Spence is out riding,” Ava explains. Little Alden squats her at feet before tipping over as he pokes a curious finger into the dust.
“Figures.” My bare arms prickle in the heat and I absently run my fingertips across my skin. The cameras are watching. Silently, morbidly. That’s how things will be now. Even movements so inconsequential as swatting an insect away and answering my sister become something of interest to be captured, broadcasted, dissected. I’m not complaining. After all, I’m not here against my will. But I’d grown used to a blissful lack of attention. I feel it shattering by the second.
“Spence never minded the heat. Don’t you remember? Keeping him indoors was always kind of like caging a coyote.” Ava says this with a smile.
She and Spence are twins but as different as fire and water. Yet somewhere in the forgotten era of floating side by side in dense amniotic fluid, they formed a resolute bond. Spence had always been strangely hell bent on keeping Atlantis, either because of his own love of the place or as a posthumous honor to our father. But he is as proud as he is steadfast. Even though I do not expect to hear the words from him, I’m sure Ava’s hardships have something to do with his decision to play along with this show.
As I glance around I notice that the barn has been renovated. Knowing Spencer, he probably did most of the work himself. The unpainted wood is appropriately rustic and although not large, the low-roofed structure appears serviceable for at least a half dozen animals. Beyond it I can see the sturdy metal posts of the corral to the east.
During our family’s life in Atlantis the only horse on the grounds was an old mare named Pet that August had acquired from a local rescue organization. She was a bad-tempered animal with no patience for anyone other than Spence. And perhaps old Pet was perceptive enough to pick up on the tension between her loyal caregiver and his older brother. She tossed Monty like a ragdoll any time he tried to sit on her.
“What about Monty?” I ask suddenly. “I thought he was supposed to be here already.”
“He’s here,” frowns Ava and then bends over to prevent Alden from ingesting a sizeable rock.
Brigitte has had enough of staring pensively at the distant mountains. She flicks her lion’s mane of startling red hair over one shoulder and sashays up to me.
“Monty is being antisocial,” she says airily and tosses a glance of disdain toward the brothel, which looks more woeful and neglected than it did the last time I saw it. Spence must have thought restoring the brothel was of little practical value. Tucked behind the fading building is the cozy former caretaker’s quarters where my brothers used to sleep.
“He’s in there?” I ask.
“Yup.”
“Is he alone?”
“I guess. See that semi-hot cameraman checking out the stable? He and Montgomery haven’t really hit it off. Elton, that’s the camera guy’s name, got a little too close early this morning when Monty was bidding farewell to yesterday night’s entertainment.”
The incident doesn’t sound unlike Monty but I’m still a little startled. “He brought a woman out here with him?”
“No. He drove to Consequences last night and somewhere along the way found some sorry little piece of low self-esteem to keep him company for a few hours. You know Monty, he’s not above using the Savage name to get something he wants. For all I know he promised her a starring role.” Bree makes a sweeping gesture. “Anyway, he pushed her into a cab this morning and she was kind of upset about it. Monty and his notorious impatience were already on edge and poor Elton trying to do his job didn’t improve matters.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It wasn’t. Luckily Elton knows when to stay quiet or he might have gotten his head clubbed.”
A groan escapes me as all the misgivings I’ve nursed about this project bubble to the surface. Montgomery and his defiant volatility. No matter what the reward is, how the hell is he going to make it through several months of being observed and recorded like an Animal Planet subject? How will any of us make it?