52 Reasons to Hate My Father Page 5

  I take a deep breath and steer my father’s Bentley onto the 10 Freeway. See, I already feel better. How silly it was for me to get riled up like that. Everything will be just fine. It’ll all work out. There’s no need to do anything drastic … like run my father’s car into a cement wall.

  I choose not to return home first. Instead, I proceed straight to the Santa Monica airport, where the Larrabee jets are kept. I can’t deal with the house right now. Or Horatio and anyone else who’s there. I’ll just head to Vegas early, pick up some new clothes when I get there, and try to relax until this blows over.

  I turn to Holly, who has been staring anxiously at me from the passenger seat, and give her head a quick, reassuring scratch. “Don’t worry, baby,” I tell her in the lullaby voice I reserve only for her. “I’m okay. Thanks for your concern though. It’s nice to know someone is looking out for me.”

  She seems to be satisfied with this and her body finally relaxes. She curls into a ball on the seat and closes her eyes.

  Twenty minutes later, I pull up in front of the Larrabee hangar, scoop Holly from the front seat, and toss my bag over my shoulder. A man in a blue uniform comes running out of the hangar, looking extremely nervous as his eyes dart back and forth up the tarmac.

  “Miss Larrabee,” he says apprehensively, as though he has no idea what on earth I’m doing here.

  Great, another annoying newbie I’m going to have to hand-hold.

  “Hi,” I say, trying to sound bright and friendly. I paint on a wide smile. “I’m here for my flight to Vegas.”

  He wrings his hands together and glances behind me at the Bentley, which I’ve left running.

  “The keys are in the ignition,” I inform him stiffly. “Can you fill up the tank before I get back?”

  “But—” he begins, his face twisted in some kind of painful-looking grimace.

  “Yes, I know I’m not supposed to take off until six but there’s been a change of plans and I want to go now.”

  He shakes his head quickly. To be honest, it looks more like a nervous tic than a negation. “B-b-b-ut … you can’t,” he stammers. “I’m … It’s…”

  I roll my eyes and tap my fingers impatiently against the shoulder strap of my bag. What is with this guy? Why is he so jittery? It’s only a stupid schedule change. It happens all the time. It’s not like I’m asking him to call off a war or something.

  He’s still bumbling like an idiot so I decide to take control of the situation. “Look,” I say shortly, “is the plane here?”

  He nods hurriedly.

  “Good. Is there fuel in the tank?”

  “Y-y-y-es.”

  “Is there a pilot here?”

  “Yes, but…”

  I flash him an insincere smile and pat him brusquely on the shoulder. “Well, then there you go. Problem solved.”

  I step past him and strut toward the hangar. A moment later, I hear the patter of hassled footsteps behind me and suddenly the man is at my side again. I stifle a groan. “Oh, God. What now?”

  “It’s just that…” He starts to fumble for words again and it takes every ounce of strength in me not to slap him on the back of the head to try to get him to speak fluidly. “Y-y-your father,” he barely manages to choke out.

  My heart starts to pound in my chest as I narrow my eyes at the squirrelly man in front of me. “What about my father?” I hiss.

  He swallows hard. I can actually see the lump of anxiety move its way down his throat. “He told us you weren’t authorized to fly anywhere.”

  HEDGED IN

  I’m so angry I could scream. Actually I have been screaming. For about the last three hours. I screamed at the brainless worker at the Larrabee airport hangar who wouldn’t let me get on the plane and actually had the nerve to restrain me when I tried to make a run for the jet. I screamed at the ticket agent at the American Airlines counter at LAX who wouldn’t sell me a seat on the next flight to Vegas because she claimed that all my credit cards had been declined. This is after I had swallowed my pride and deigned to fly commercial, something I haven’t done since … well, ever. Then I screamed at the ATM when it spit out a piece of paper declaring that my account had been frozen. I even screamed at some lawyer whose picture was on the back of a bus that happened to stop in front of me at a red light. The ad swore he could help me with my legal problems, but after I phoned him and he’d talked to me for a whole five minutes he said there was no way on earth he was going up against Richard Larrabee, especially in a case I didn’t have the slightest chance of winning. Not to mention how was I expecting to pay a lawyer when my entire source of income originated from my father’s estate? Or did I really expect my father to shell out the very money that would be used to sue him?

  Then he laughed and I screamed some more.

  I screech into my driveway, throw the Bentley into park with the car halfway on the pavement and halfway on the grass, and storm into the house. I toss the keys haphazardly on the table in the foyer. They make a loud clanking sound against the polished stone surface. Good. The more noise I can make the better.

  “Kingston!” I call at the top of my lungs. My voice echoes across the marble floors and up the spiral staircase.

  Kingston appears a moment later. “Yes, Miss Larrabee,” he says obligingly.

  “Oh good, you’re here,” I say breathlessly as I start trudging up the stairs. Holly follows closely behind. She requires the momentum of her entire body to make it up each step. After about five, I bend down to pick her up and tuck her under my arm. “I’m just throwing a few things into a bag,” I tell him. “Then I need you to drive me to Vegas.”

  There’s a silence at the bottom of the stairs and it takes me a moment to realize that Kingston’s usual swift response, “Of course, miss, I’ll be waiting out front,” has not yet been verbalized.

  I slow to a stop but don’t turn around. I keep my eyes straight ahead as I say, in a measured tone, “Kingston, did you not hear me?”

  “I did, miss,” comes his response, followed by another sickening lull.

  “Then why are you just standing there?” I ask. I still haven’t dared look behind me but I know that he hasn’t moved an inch. I can hear him breathing.

  “Well…” he begins, his voice wavering. “You see, your father has instructed me not to drive you anywhere.”

  Now I turn around. My eyes cold and piercing. “What?” I growl.

  He winces against my stare and drops his head, avoiding my gaze.

  “Look,” I continue when he doesn’t answer me, “I don’t care what my father told you, Kingston. You work for me too. And I am telling you to drive me to Vegas.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Larrabee,” he replies sheepishly, “but your father told me he’d fire me if I drove you anywhere.”

  I can’t breathe. My lungs feel like they’re trapped inside a box. Then I watch wide-eyed as Kingston sidles up to the foyer table and proceeds to slide the keys to the Bentley off the surface and drop them into the pocket of his suit pants.

  “What are you doing?” I ask anxiously.

  He still refuses to meet my eye. “Your father has also asked me to collect the keys to any vehicle registered to the Larrabee estate.” His voice is pained, indicating that he’s clearly troubled by the message he’s been asked to relay. But I could really care less about his agony right now. It can’t even begin to compare to my own.

  “Horatio!” I call out. I’m so furious, my body is actually shaking. Like in convulsions. I have to set Holly back down in fear that I might drop her.

  Horatio appears from the kitchen. He saunters calmly toward the foot of the stairs, his pace neither quickened nor slowed by my evident impatience. He, on the other hand, has no problem meeting my eye. He stops in front of the banister and looks directly up at me.

  “Can you please tell me what is going on here?”

  His face registers no emotion. Not a smile. Not a scowl. “Your father called,” he pronounces slowly in his silky Argenti
nean accent. “He regrets to inform you that your credit cards have been canceled, your bank account frozen, and your allowance suspended.” Then with a slight nod of his head he adds, “Until further notice.”

  “Further notice?” I scream back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  How he can be so gosh-darn calm in the face of such catastrophe is beyond me. “It means,” he replies smoothly, his tone unaffected by my outbursts, “Mr. Larrabee is cutting you off until you agree to his arrangement.”

  * * *

  I’m about this close to calling my shrink and suggesting he have my father committed because he’s clearly lost his mind. It must be the old age. He’s going to be fifty in a few years and the senility is obviously already starting to settle in. But really, how unfair is it that I have to be the one to experience the wrath of his lunacy? Just because I’m the youngest. RJ and Harrison and Hudson never had to deal with this kind of madness. Or even Cooper! The world is a very cruel place.

  The sun is starting to set now and I’m physically and mentally exhausted. My voice is hoarse from the screaming, my feet hurt from shuffling around Los Angeles all day, and my spirit is beyond broken. I walk alone in the darkening gardens behind the house. It’s a breathtaking five-thousand-square-foot labyrinth of flawlessly groomed hedges and bright and vibrant blankets of flowers. My mother designed the gardens to be smaller replicas of the ones found at the Château de Villandry in France. Before she died, of course. They’ve been featured at least a dozen times in a variety of home-and-garden magazines. Always pictured with my father posing somewhere in the middle. As though he were personally responsible for the maintenance of such an elaborate landscape, when in reality he’s barely around long enough to appreciate the place, let alone trim hedges. There’s a staff of about ten gardeners who come twice a week to do that. My father just sits back and takes the credit. Nothing new, I suppose.

  When I was little, I used to love to play out here. I made Horatio play countless rounds of hide-and-seek and freeze tag and any other game I could think of. That’s when I was short enough to be concealed by the sheer height of the hedges and Horatio would have to squat down and crawl on hands and knees to avoid being spotted. After about five minutes of breathless pursuit, his head would inevitably pop up over a shrub somewhere and I would giggle in delight and run to capture him. He would fall prey to my attack and then convincingly complain that he was simply too tall for this game and that it was unfair because I had the clear advantage. I remember how special that made me feel. How lucky I was to be little.

  It wasn’t until years later that I realized Horatio would reveal himself on purpose. The moment he grew weary or had other business inside the house to attend to, he would stand up and surrender and the game would be over. And ever since that realization, I’ve always wondered if a real parent—not a paid replacement—would have given up so easily.

  The waist-high walls of the garden hedges don’t conceal me now. Nor do they do anything to appease me. I’ve been pacing along them for nearly an hour and I still feel sick to my stomach. Holly got tired and gave up trying to follow me half an hour ago. She’s curled up on a lounge chair by the pool, waiting for me to finish whatever it is I’m doing so we can go back inside.

  As I walk, navigating the various twists and turns of the complicated network of sculpted shrubs, gurgling fountains, and heart-shaped flower beds, I mentally work through my options. Trying desperately to find one that doesn’t result in a dead end.

  But even though I’ve been walking this garden for nearly fifteen years, even though I know this green maze like the back of my hand, I still feel trapped at every turn. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No matter which direction I choose, my father always wins.

  I’m not sure why I ever thought I could go up against Richard Larrabee and succeed. No one else ever has. Why should I be any different? In this game, my father is the one who holds the advantage. In every game he plays, actually. It’s simply the way it is. The way it’s always been. And it’s pretty clear to me now—with a wallet full of canceled credit cards and a bank account as frozen as the arctic circle—that he isn’t going to just change his mind. He isn’t going to reconsider.

  This time, I’m the one who’s going to have to surrender.

  So with a hollow feeling in my chest and a bitter taste in my mouth, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and call Bruce.

  THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

  I lie on my bed, staring out through the small slit in the curtain canopy that I’ve drawn closed around me like a cocoon. I wish I could stay in here forever. Hidden away from this cruel world that I inhabit. But my life is like a ticking clock now. Like a bomb waiting to explode. Because in less than twenty-four hours, everything will change. Nothing will be the same.

  Bruce said on the phone that he was proud of me for making the decision to go along with my father’s plan. I snorted in response. For one, his choice of words annoyed me. He’s proud of me? Please. How many times do I have to remind this man that he is not my father? And second, since when was there ever a “decision” to be made here? When was I ever given a choice in this matter? The answer is … never.

  My father doesn’t give choices. He doesn’t leave options.

  Bruce told me to come into his office first thing tomorrow morning so we could get started. I mumbled some kind of agreement and hung up the phone, anxious to end that particular call as quickly as possible.

  Now all I can do is wait. And imagine how horrible my life is going to be for the next … wait for it … year. This is by far the worst birthday in the history of the world.

  The second phone call I’ve been dreading comes at eight p.m., an hour after I’m supposed to have arrived at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I don’t really want to answer. I don’t want to have to tell my friends about everything I’ve been through today. It’s too humiliating. Too heartbreaking. Too horrific. But I know I have to answer. I can’t just not show up to my eighteenth birthday party without an explanation.

  “Hey Ji,” I say into the phone. My voice sounds far away and defeated.

  “Hey sweetness,” Jia drawls. “What’s taking you so long? Is there traffic? You’re going to die when you see what we’ve done with this club. You won’t even recognize it! T had this awesome idea to—”

  “Jia,” I interrupt her before she has a chance to tell me about all the other fabulous things that I’ll never be able to see because my idiot father decided to schedule a tornado to strike on my eighteenth birthday. “I’m not coming.”

  I wait through the stunned silence before she finally replies, “What are you talking about? I thought you scheduled the jet for six?”

  “My flight was canceled.”

  At this she laughs. “That’s ridiculous. Private planes don’t get canceled unless there’s bad weather. And there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky.”

  “Oh, there have been plenty of clouds here. Dark ones.”

  More silence and then, “Lex, are you screwing with me? Are you going to like jump out of a closet somewhere and try to get me to scream?” I can hear the shuffle of movement and I assume that’s Jia glancing around her, pulling back curtains, and opening doors, looking for evidence of my practical joke.

  I sigh gravely. “I wish this was a joke. I really do. All day, the only thing I’ve been able to do is wish that it’s one big, stupid, not-funny joke.”

  Her voice softens. She knows I’m serious now. “Okay, talk to me. What happened?”

  I tell her everything. I talk until my throat is sore and the tears are streaming down my face. She listens quietly and doesn’t say anything except for the occasional gasp and sigh when I get to a particularly atrocious part. When I finally finish, I expect her to get all lecture-y on me, ranting about the injustice of the whole thing and how my father should never be able to get away with this. But she doesn’t say that. Like a good friend, she bypasses all that unhelpful dribble that is certain to only rile me up again
and gets right to the solution. “Stay where you are,” she instructs me. “I’m sending someone to pick you up.”

  I’m a little surprised by her response, which is why it takes me a second to say, “Huh? Ji, what are you talking about?”

  She makes a small pfff sound. “What do you think I’m talking about, Lex? If there were ever a night to party, it’s tonight. Before you’re forced to do God-knows-what tomorrow. Tonight may be the last chance you have to do anything fun. I don’t care what your stupid father says. He can empty your bank account and cancel your credit cards, but he can’t cancel mine. It’s your eighteenth birthday and I’m bringing you to Vegas.”

  After I hang up the phone, I start sprinting around my room, throwing items into a bag. Jia told me not to worry about clothes. That she and T will take care of everything I need, but I’m packing a few essentials just in case.

  God, I love my friends. I love them more than anything. How amazing are they? Seriously!

  Holly gives me a strange look from the bed as she watches me scramble to get ready.

  I run over to her and scoop her up under my arm. “I know you hate Vegas, baby,” I tell her. “So don’t worry. I’ll leave you with Horatio. He’ll take good care of you.”

  Then, with Holly in one hand and my hastily packed overnight bag in the other, I scurry out my bedroom door.

  I try not to think about where I have to be at nine tomorrow morning or what I’m going to have to endure for the next fifty-two weeks of my life. The only thing on my mind as the hired limo pulls out of my driveway is that Jia is absolutely right. If there were ever a night to party, it’s tonight. Tonight has to be huge. The hugest. I have to make it count. Every other night has to pale in comparison to the festivities that lie ahead. There will be no sleeping. No resting. I am prepared to go all night.