Chapter 18

Merie wasn’t at school on Monday and Brock was noticeably worried.

“Call her,” Jen suggested. “Or maybe I should call her. If she’s mad at you it’s because of me.”

“I was there, too,” he told her. “If she’s mad at me it’s because of me. I could have stopped but I didn’t. Don’t blame yourself.”

Easier said than done, Jen thought to herself. Her guilt was magnified tenfold when Brock sat down forlornly at lunch.

“I called,” he said simply. “She doesn’t want to speak to me. I don’t know if she meant just then or ever again. I really screwed up.”

Sam was waiting for Brock when he left school that afternoon.

“Take a ride with me,” Sam ordered.

Great, Brock thought. I already feel like a bastard now her dad is going to drive me somewhere and beat the fuck out of me. I guess I deserve at least that.

“I’d like to talk to you for a little while,” Sam said. “I’m not sure where to begin so I guess I’ll start at the beginning.”

He killed a man in Reno just to watch him die, Brock thought.

“I worked in an ad agency four years ago,” Sam told Brock. “Jean and I had been married for 15 years and we had two beautiful daughters.”

Sam looked across at Brock who appeared confused.

“That’s what I said, son,” Sam continued. “Two beautiful daughters. Well, the PowerBall was running at about $400 million so on a lark I bought a ticket on my way home from work. To be completely honest, I didn’t really think much about it--even when the news broke that someone in our town had won the prize.

“I remembered the ticket a couple of days later and sure enough it was The One. From that day forward my life has been nothing like I dreamed it would be.

“I’ve always joked that money can’t buy happiness but it can make being miserable a hell of a lot easier. In a way that’s true. But money does something to people. It makes them think they’re someone they’re not.

“I told you my wife and I had been married for almost 15 years when I bought that ticket. Within 6 months I was thinking about divorcing her. Not because she was going crazy about the money. No, because she wouldn’t let me go crazy with the money. She insisted we try to stay the same as we always were. To hell with that. I wanted something different. That’s why I bought the ticket, after all.

“Meredith was just like her mom. She still wanted to keep the same friends and go to the same places and do the same things. My older daughter, Leah, was more like me. She wanted to go to new places and meet new people and do new things.

“Well, things turned out a lot different for all of us than what we wanted. Meredith found out that people who had known her for years suddenly didn’t want to be her friend anymore and people who didn’t know her name a week before suddenly acted as though she walked on water. Jean’s bosses started to treat her like shit--she’s a dental assistant of all things. Every time I used to greet her it was an Oral Hi Jean.”

Brock chuckled. This wasn’t what he expected and he wondered if there was a point coming.

“Anyway, Jean had worked for the same doctors for about 10 years and they convinced themselves she was going to quit to live the good life. Hell, she practically ran the office for them. They pretty much made her a glorified receptionist and started training people to do her job right under her nose.

“I eventually wised up. I probably had the highest expectations of what money could do of all us and I’m the one who changed the least. About the only thing I did was strike out on my own.

“Which brings us to Leah. Leah was 15 when everything happened. She was convinced she knew more than we did and she rebelled against anything we tried to teach her. She found new friends but they weren’t the kind of friends you’re used to. They were more like the kind of people you were around for a couple of years, if you get my meaning.

“She started running with a fast crowd--trust fund kids with new cars and tons of money--and there seemed to be nothing we could do to stop her. She was into anything she could try: sex, alcohol, drugs. She started to ditch school and she ran away from the private school we sent her to. She was just a little older than 16 when she ran away. Six months later she was found under a bridge near San Clemente. She had OD’ed on heroin.

“The doctors managed to pull her through but she was in a lot of trouble. She and some of her friends had robbed a store a few weeks earlier and they had taken to mugging old women to score drug money. The day we thought we were taking her home from the hospital she was arrested. The first Sunday of every month is visiting day at Great Harbor Rehab Center near Crestview.

“That’s where we all went Sunday. Meredith grew up idolizing her big sister. She used to dress like her, listen to the same music as her, cut her hair the same way. It was like Leah had her own living doll to play with. And Leah was a pretty good sister, too. Don’t get me wrong.

“When Meredith saw what happened to Leah, she closed herself off. She had a couple of close friends but she never dated. She dated one boy one time and that was it. I don’t know what happened or why she didn’t go out with him again but that’s the way it was.

“Then you came along. Meredith started talking about you a few weeks ago--before all the shit hit the fan in your life around here. Leah had to have some reconstructive surgery done so we were gone for a few weeks. I guess we missed the shit storm that surrounded you because the first thing I knew Meredith was stopping at every channel on the television to watch the news. Then she sat down and cried. Don’t let the past couple of days fool you. Meredith hardly ever cries. But she was saddened by what you had gone through.

“And you know where everything went right up to the time you left our house Sunday afternoon. On the way up, Meredith was still rattling on about you--about the classes you were taking, about football, about college. It’s almost a two-hour drive to Crestview and she probably didn’t shut up for 10 minutes of the trip.

“Everything seemed perfectly normal until about a minute before we were supposed to leave. Jean asked Meredith if she had told Leah about her new boyfriend and Leah got really mad. She has some issues with the male of the species. Her mom says it’s justified after what she went through but I have little patience because she put herself in that situation. But that’s another story.

“Meredith and Leah went off by themselves for a while and when they came back Meredith was a whole different person. She was silent the whole way home and wouldn’t even tell us if she wanted to stop for a Coke or something. When she saw you in the driveway she started crying. She really hasn’t stopped since. I don’t know what happened or what was said between Leah and Meredith. I don’t know if you might have said or done something that she misunderstood.

“But I know how miserable you sounded on the phone this afternoon when I told you she didn’t want to talk to you. I like you, Brock. You’re young but you’re not young, if that makes sense. What you said about the money really hit home with me. If I could have my daughter back, I’d give every penny of it back.

“I don’t make any promises. I’m smart enough to know that Meredith has her own mind and her own ideas and I can’t change them. I guess Leah can change them, though. But I thought you should have an explanation for having your world turned upside down again. I know you like Meredith. I know that at 3:30 pm Sunday, Meredith was crazy about you. Between 3:30 and 4, she just went crazy, I think.

“I know it’s not fair to ask you but I’m going to anyway. I don’t doubt that there are a host of girls lining up to take Meredith’s spot. Please give her a little time. I think it scares her how she feels about you. And I think Leah told her a bunch of horror stories about what happened in her life. I don’t know if there is a common reference other than a Y chromosome and I’m not sure I want to know. I really don’t think things will work out with you and Meredith. You’re both young and have a lot of life ahead of you. I hope they work out because you seem like a nice young man. But if they don’t you can still help her in the long run by sticking beside her until she sorts through her feelings.”

Brock sighed deeply and bowed his head. He thought about what Sam was asking him to do. It really wasn’t a difficult decision.

“Tell her, from me if you would, that she can have all the time she needs to figure things out,” Brock said. “I’ll wait for her and consider myself her boyfriend until I hear, directly from her, that I’m not. I’ll stay away from her at school until she approaches me. I won’t call or write or visit until she lets me know it’s OK. I’m not sure what else I can offer.”

It was Thursday before Merie returned to school. She avoided Brock completely during the day and didn’t speak to him when she passed him on the way to the parking lot.

Friday passed the same way before Brock skipped out during lunch to head to Wilkins to pick up Melanie.

“I can’t believe you’re going down and I’m not,” Jen groaned. “I have to sit through boring classes while you get an exciting afternoon with my sister.”

Of course, Merie was within hearing distance of Jen’s comment.

“I knew it,” Merie screamed. “My sister was right. You promised me that you would let me figure things out. But, no. A few days later you’re off to screw another of the neighborhood whores.”

Brock had kept his composure throughout the week. But the tension had been rising each time Merie would snub him or turn away from him.

“You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about, psycho,” he yelled back. “I’m taking a U-Haul to pick her up from college so her Mom doesn’t have to miss work. If you would have so much as nodded in my direction at all this week I would have told you because you were expressly invited to join me. But you’ve got your head so far up your ass you wouldn’t have heard the invitation anyway.”

“And from the way I hear it, whores run in your family, not Jen’s,” he said as he moved to where only Merie could hear. “May I assume from your outburst that you’ve made your decision? If you have, good riddance. If you haven’t, I look forward to having you completely ignore me next week.”

Brock fumed the whole drive to Wilkins and half of the way back. He roughly tossed Mel’s belongings into the U-Haul while she gave him a wide berth.

He alternated between snapping at Melanie and ignoring her until she was finally as fed up with him as he was with Merie.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Mel snapped back after one of his outbursts, “but I’d have rather Mom came to get me. At least I knew why she was pissed off at me on the way home.”

Brock signaled and pulled off the next exit. Mel braced herself for another tirade but it didn’t materialize.

“Why don’t you drive for a while,” he said as he tossed her his keys. “I’m sure your Mom doesn’t allow that so maybe I can redeem myself. Oh, and I humbly apologize for being a complete and total dick for the past eight hours.”

“You only picked me up two hours ago,” she said.

“Yeah, I only had myself to bitch about on the way down--well me and the other assholes on the road,” Brock said with a wry smile. “I’ll give you a rundown while you get us the hell home.”

Brock relayed the past week’s events as Mel concentrated on the road. She rarely commented but nodded her head occasionally to let him know she was listening.

Of course there were a few things she couldn’t let go by.

“You finger fucked my sister after a date with another girl?” she exclaimed. “Jesus Christ, Brock.”