Chapter 15: Give Us Dirty Laundry

San Luis Obispo, California

July 9, 2004

The front door opened just as Sharon Archer was pouring water into the serving pitcher. It was 5:55 PM, only five minutes until dinner, and something strange was going on in her normally ordered household.

Tif and Bill were missing, both, according to Kelvin, who had delivered to her a forensic and chronological report on the goings on at the judge’s house three doors down, dealing with some situation over there involving police cars. Kelvin’s speculation was that Tif had been caught up in some kind of social malfeasance. He had no details beyond that except that his father had walked over to investigate the issue. She had looked out the window several minutes before and had seen four black and white police vehicles and her husband talking to the boy that lived with the judge—presumably his son—and a police officer on the porch. The police officer had then gone inside. Bill and the boy had remained outside.

And then she had to step away to get Aurora ready for dinner and to carve the roasted chickens since Bill was not here to do it for her. And then Tif came home, her body flushed, her hair in disarray, her yellow dress (one of her least revealing outfits, actually) rumpled. Sharon had tried to get Tif to tell her what was going on, but she had put her off, saying she totally needed to take a shower before dinner.

What in the name of Amadeus Mozart and Rupert Neve was going on?

She heard the front door open and the soft shuffle of shoes approaching. She turned toward the entryway with practiced calm and saw her husband walk in with the young man he’d been speaking to on the porch. The boy was carrying a duffel bag and a laptop case, looking like he very much wanted to disappear.

Kelvin, already seated at the dining table with his napkin neatly folded in his lap, glanced up. “I see you brought home the offspring of the judge,” he said. “Were you able to rectify the situation across the street?”

“For the time being,” Bill said. “I fear there may be some backlash from the incident, however. The judge was quite upset.”

Sharon blinked. “Bill ... is this the judge’s son?”

“It is,” Nerdly confirmed. “This is Owen Olson. He’ll be staying with us for a little while.”

Sharon’s eyes moved slowly between the boy and her husband. Then back again.

“Excuse me?”

“He is, in fact, the epicenter of the incident Kelvin observed earlier.”

“The one responsible for all the black-and-whites parked outside?”

“The very same.”

Sharon turned to Owen, her eyes a little wider than usual.

“Hi,” Owen said shyly. “Thank you for letting me stay with you.”

“Uh ... I didn’t really invite you,” she said. Then to her husband: “Bill. What is going on here?”

“Were Tif and Owen fornicating?” Kelvin asked.

All three adults snapped their heads toward him. Bill and Sharon really should not have been surprised—this was Kelvin, after all—but Owen looked like he’d just been electrocuted.

Only Aurora remained unfazed. She sat in her high chair methodically dropping Cheerios to the floor just to watch them bounce. Every so often, she crunched one in her teeth with the serenity of a Buddha.

“Uh ... what makes you say that, sweetie?” Sharon asked, aghast.

“Tif passed me in the hall on her way to her room,” Kelvin said. “She smelled the way you and Father do after what you refer to as ‘private time’ in your bedroom—which I have long since deduced involves copulation.” He paused. “Although I still don’t understand why you engage in it when you’re not currently attempting to procreate.”

Neither Sharon nor Bill wanted to tackle this subject at the moment. Owen looked like he wanted to melt through the floor.

“In any case,” Kelvin continued. “Tif and the judge’s offspring are not married. Therefore, the smell must be the result of fornication rather than legally sanctioned copulation. Correct?”

Even Bill was momentarily at a loss for words. He finally defaulted to his standard parenting style: ruthless honesty in all things.

“Yes,” he said. “That is a correct definition of fornication. And that is, in fact, what led to the incident in question.”

“I thought you said fornication was not against the law,” Kelvin said.

“It’s not,” Bill began. “But you see—”

He stopped talking, because Sharon had reached over and put her hand gently but firmly over his mouth.

She generally supported their philosophy of factual parenting. But there was, as she’d reminded him more than once, such a thing as too much information.

“Why don’t we discuss this in the living room, William,” she told her husband, using his given name—something she only did when she was pissed off. And Bill, of course, had long since deduced that.

“Uh ... sure, dear,” he said, using the placeholder term of endearment he reserved for moments like this. Normally, he called her my resonant frequency or, when feeling particularly affectionate, simply Rez.

“Kelvin, would you stand sentinel over your female sibling while your mother and I discuss this latest development in the dynamic of the household?”

“I will do so, Father,” Kelvin said.

“You are a good offspring,” Bill told him. “Come with us, Owen.”

“What?” Sharon asked, brow lifting. “He can stay in here while we talk this over.”

“But this concerns him,” Bill said, firm. “He should be included in the discussion.”

“Uh ... I can stay in here,” Owen offered quickly. “Honestly, I’d prefer it.”

“Nonsense,” Bill said. “This should be a collaborative conversation involving all relevant parties. It will reduce or possibly even eliminate miscommunication.”

Sharon sighed. She hated it when Bill was right.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go in the living room.”

They made the short walk.

“Now,” Sharon said, “please brief me on the situation.”

Bill then told him the most improbable tale.

When he finished, she turned to Owen.

“And you accepted it when she told you this treatment was medically necessary?”

Owen shrugged helplessly. “Well... accept might be generous,” he said. “She already had the idea in her head when she came to me. She said her first agent told her that semen helps vocal performance. I didn’t argue. I just ... went with it.”

“I’m aware of how she came to that conclusion,” Sharon said. “You are absolved of authorship. You are not absolved of participation.”

“My resonance frequency,” Bill said, “the boy is nineteen years old. Let us be realistic. No healthy, heterosexual male of Owen’s age and limited experience would be capable of resisting what Tif was offering. That would be the equivalent of the world ocean attempting to resist the tidal bulge caused by the gravitational pull of Earth’s natural satellite.”

“Wow,” Owen said, impressed. “Good analogy.”

“Thank you,” Bill said.

That was when the stairs creaked.

Tif came halfway down, still towel-damp, freshly scrubbed, and radiating that post-shower glow that, in her case, somehow managed to look both innocent and obscene. She wore a pink tank top and tiny cotton sleep shorts—one of her classic bedtime looks that covered the bare minimum and advertised the rest.

She saw Owen, lit up like a cartoon, and bounded down the remaining steps. “Oh my God, you’re here!”

Owen opened his mouth to speak but didn’t manage it before she threw her arms around him in a full, hip-pressing hug.

“I didn’t know you were coming over!” she said. “That’s so cool. I was gonna text you after dinner, but this is even better.”

Sharon raised one hand, palm outward. “Tif.”

Tif turned, still smiling, utterly unbothered. “Yes, Sharon?”

“He’s not here for dinner. He’s staying.”

Tif blinked. “Like ... the night?”

Sharon nodded. “Possibly longer.”

“Oh my God, yay!” she said. “That is such a relief. I was worried his dad was gonna be all judgmental and fire-and-brimstoney about everything.”

Bill cleared his throat gently. “He was. Which is why Owen is now a temporary resident of this house.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Tif flopped into the armchair and swung one leg over the armrest.

Sharon was fairly certain she could see just the edge of the girl’s mons peeking from the left side of her shorts. It was hard to tell, given how smoothly she kept herself shaved. Sharon had long since given up trying to chastise her for these unwitting displays of feminine charm. It was like trying to get a cat to stop knocking things off shelves.

Bill, at least, had the decency not to look—or at least not when his wife was within observational range. Owen, however, locked onto the sight like an infrared-guided missile.

“Honestly,” Tif went on, the fingers of her right hand idly playing with her belly button ring, “I’m kinda glad it happened. Now he doesn’t have to sneak around or lie or skip church or anything in order to give me my ointment when I need it.”

Owen made a tiny noise in his throat.

Sharon took a deep breath and looked at her husband, then back at the duo now occupying her formal sitting space like two oddly dressed squatter nymphs.

“Well,” she said, “since you’re already fornicating—and apparently plan to continue—I see no need to pretend otherwise.”

Tif tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Sharon said, “you two will be sharing a room. The one you’re already in, Tif.”

Tif lit up again. “Yay! Just like at home with Mama. This is so grown-up.”

Sharon turned slightly away, folded her hands in her lap, and kept her face neutral.

Inside, she thought: I love her. I do. I even trust her. But it calms me knowing she’s sexually occupied. I’d rather have her blissed out and happy than bored and looking for excitement in the form of someone else’s husband.

Bill cleared his throat. “That is an excellent idea. Should we define expectations to prevent misalignment of values and roles in the relationship?”

“No, Bill,” Sharon said. “Let them misalign on their own like people in the real world.”

Tif turned to Owen and whispered something in his ear. His neck flushed red to the collarbone.

Sharon pretended not to see it.

She stood. “Dinner is ready. How about we go eat?”

At Kingsley Manor, a few hours later, the sun was melting into the Pacific—a glowing ember sinking into waves as the sky flared gold and violet. Jake sat on the couch in the entertainment room, limbs loose, eyelids drifting, his body finally convinced it could relax for the day.

From the deck came the soft, steady sound of Caydee’s guitar—her ritual sunset offering to the crows. Pa-Ho perched on the railing, unmoving, head tilted toward her. Another fifteen or twenty of his flock—sorry, his murder, according to Caydee and her internet research—watched from the trees, their voices silent, respectful. Kira sat next to Caydee in one of the reclining chairs, saying ‘Pa-Hooo ... Pa-Hooo’ in a near whisper, like she was practicing for the day she had a crow of her own.

Inside, Cap was asleep. Out cold after his usual post-bath rampage, his final act of consciousness a determined attempt to kick himself in the back of his own head.

His first birthday was today, but the official party wouldn’t be held until Sunday—the night Mama and Papa Valdez traditionally came over for dinner. Grandma and Grandpa Kingsley would be driving down from Cypress and arriving tomorrow afternoon, just before dinner. They’d get to meet the Ramirez family, who typically came over that night.

It was shaping up to be a full weekend ... and then right back to the studio grind on Monday morning.

At least there was no crisis to deal with since the end of the Holy Bongwater debacle.

Celia sipped a glass of red wine with her legs flung across Jake and Laura’s laps. Laura was curled against Jake’s side, a picture of domestic contentment, her hands absently massaging Celia’s bare feet.

“Once Caydee’s down, we’re going in,” Celia said, stretching. “It’s naked hot tub time, peeps. And I want some of that Purple Tokalicious when we go out there.”

“I already reserved the cliffside tub for the evening,” Jake said. “And I am all in for the naked hour and the Tokalicious.”

“I want to drink wine straight from the bottle and make out under the stars,” Laura sighed. “That’s not a request, that’s an itinerary item.”

“You want to snog, huh?” Celia asked, her eyes shining. “Which one of us?”

“Both,” she said. “I’ll sit in the middle.”

“That’s a good plan,” Jake said, feeling a little pre-game stirring down below.

“Fuckin’ A,” said Celia with enthusiasm. Girly snogging was one of her favorite parts about being blessed with bisexuality.

Jake opened his mouth to respond—something about how life really was sweet—when his phone buzzed.

He frowned. “If that’s Pauline, I’m pretending to be in the hot tub already. There is nothing that woman could possibly call us about at 8:30 that I want to hear.”

Celia, who was nearest the end table where his phone was currently sitting, picked up the infernal device. She glanced at the screen. Paused. “It’s Nerdly.”

“Bill?” Laura asked. “He never calls.”

Jake nodded slowly. “Yeah. That’s weird.” He took the phone from her hands, unsure of how he should even feel about this situation—it was that rare. He punched the button and put the phone to his ear. “Yo, Nerdly. What’s up?”

Nerdly didn’t waste time with chit-chat—a trait that Jake truly appreciated about him. “I’ve identified the source of Tiffany’s ointment.”

Jake straightened slightly. “Wait. Seriously?”

“You asked me to inform you. I’m informing you.”

They knew about Tiffany’s singing ointment delusion—had known about it since she’d been using Massa Wu as her source during Jake’s Millennial Tour, back before he and Meghan had become an official thing. There had been some worry about who she’d select for her new supplier when she joined the group for this session.

Massa was off the table now—married, and on the Do Not Suck list, along with Jake, Nerdly, Coop, and several members of the crew. She had apparently put Charlie and Matt on the list herself, finding Charlie too weird and unpredictable (he spent a little more than half his life gay and appalled by the thought of a woman sucking his dick) and Matt too old, judging him by his apparent age rather than his actual one.

It had been obvious that she’d found a source somewhere, but it wasn’t anyone in the immediate circle. Of that, they were sure. And that was not the sort of thing you brought up in conversation. So, Tif, have you found a dude who will let you suck his dick once a week yet?