Page 16 of The Thorne at My Side
"She's beautiful, there's no arguing that. But she's so," I pause looking for the right word to describe how I wanted to be near to her while at the same time wanted to yell at her for her naiveté. How I had to get close enough to smell her perfume while feeling the wall of resistance between us. "Frustrating."
"Frustrating?" Elle repeats around a mouth of popcorn.
"Yeah, she's incredibly smart, I've read some of her speeches and the op-eds she's written in every publication but ours, but she barely engaged with me on the podcast and afterwa-"
"What happened afterwards?" Elle asks, leaning closer to me with interest in her tone.
"We argued on the sidewalk but she didn't say much so I was basically arguing with her facial expressions which can't hide her thoughts at all. I hope she never plays poker."
"Interesting," Elle says as she leans back into the corner.
"Tell me about your day." I ask in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject.
"Smooth,” she laughs and then sighs, “Dad introduced me to Carly, his latest girlfriend. He asked me to meet him for dinner and I should have known she was coming because he said to,” she develops a mocking baritone, “wear something suitable and not your hippie dippy costume.”"
"Aww, but I like you in sustainably farmed organic hemp.” I whine. She throws a handful of popcorn at me and we share a laugh. Elle spent her first two years after college in the Peace Corps in Cambodia. Then a year teaching English in Japan. Then she decided to spend another two years traveling through Eastern and Western Asia where she joined a non profitorganization that was monitoring textile factories. Her “hippie dippy costume” as Dad called it, is actually a collection of ethically made pieces that she doesn’t buy too many of. She still carries around designer handbags though because, as she says, nothing beats Italian leather.
Last year, she called me after being off the grid for three months to say that she just landed at Dulles. While I was still trying to wrap my head around her sudden arrival she asked if she could crash for a night or two.
It was a wild time, the first few days all she wanted was to eat American junk food. Then the switch flipped. She woke me up at 5:00 am and told me she was going to yoga.
She has been working as a yoga instructor and using her business degree to help them manage the studio. I’m not in a rush to push her out because it’s been fun to have her around but the early wake ups and forced introspection is getting old.
“So, how’d it go? Do you think Carly is going to be our new step-mother?” I ask as I pick up the kernels she tossed at me and eat them.
"Well, considering she's the right age to be my step-sister, I hope not. But who knows. Who cares really? It's like Dad's hobby is marrying women."
I laugh because she's not wrong. Elle is five years younger than me. My mother was Dad's second wife, who got pregnant with me while he was still married to his first wife. Elle is the daughter of my nanny, Laura, and my mom figured she'd be as good as anyone to raise me so she got her settlement and left. She moved out to LA and we exchange emails twice a year on her birthday and mine to stay in contact.
Elle's mom, Laura, who I also call Mom, raised both of us. For about four years it was as Dad’s wife and then itwas as his ex-wife but she never left us kids. Laura still lives in the Colonial she shared with Dad in Spring Valley and hosts us for brunch every so often.
Dad has gone through a few more wives in the twenty years since they split. The longest stretch was when he married the daughter of his business rival, then bought her father’s company. Without that acquisition we wouldn't have expanded into video and podcast production which is now our most profitable media sector. Well, for now. The January earnings report will include AI Media’s profits and I’m expecting to impress Dad and hear his succession announcement in the same meeting. Maybe he’ll marry this new girl and start his retirement.
"He does seem to try and collect them all doesn't he," I say.
Elle picks some lint off the knee of her sweat pants. "Do you think we'll be like that?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno, it's not like he's a commitmentphobe, he will marry anyone with legs, but he doesn't seem to be long term focused."
"Because he also wants to fuck anyone with legs," I mumble into my beer bottle.
"Right? And he’s not ugly, but he’s old! Do these women go for him because he's rich and influential and sort of famous?"
"Yeah," I trail off because I've been pursued by women thinking I'm going to offer them the same thing as my dad. But when they find out that I don't inform the media when I'm headed to an event, they tend to lose interest. Or when they find out that I won't buy them their own apartment, like Dad has been known to do for his mistresses, they back away.
"So, do you think we're like him?"
I look over at Elle who is still pulling at the loose string,. I can see the vulnerability clear as day on her face even though she refuses to turn and face me.
Dad doesn’t keep marriage as an investment opportunity to himself. No, he's always making strategic introductions. I think that is part of why she disappeared for three years.
"The fact that you're even asking tells me that you're not. I know I'm not. Otherwise I would be on my third wife by now, not rooming with my sister." I reach over and punch her in the thigh. She lets her legs fall over and then laughs.
"I promise to get a place soon, I just don't know where I want to settle yet."
"You can stay as long as you want."
