A Collateral Attraction (16 page)

A phone rings in the distance and like teen-agers caught kissing on school night, we pull away from each other quickly. Heath hurries towards the horses and searches the saddle bags.

“It’s your phone,” he says, pulling my phone from Pie’s saddlebag and handing it to me, still ringing softly.

It’s Mick.

I get up and press
Answer
, my fingers still trembling from the kiss that should never have happened.

“What’s up?” I ask as calmly as I can.

“Blythe was here earlier today,” he says. “She asked me to let her into the upstairs apartment, and I did.”

“What did she want?”

“She said she needed her birth certificate and her old California ID, before she got herself a New York one — something to prove she’s who she is to some consulate in San Francisco,” Mick replies. “But I thought you guys were in New York.”

“Was she alone?” I ask, my mind racing. Our parents had kept our important documents in the safe, and after their death is kept them there, accompanied now with their death certificates and insurance policies.

“She was alone when she came into the shop but she came into town in some black Escalade, tinted windows and everything.  I had customers in the store so I didn’t see who was with her.”

“Did she get them? Her papers?”

“She couldn’t get into your safe and she was mad as hell at Norah and me, like we’re supposed to know the combination,” Mick says angrily. “What the hell is going on, Billie?”

“I wish I knew, Mick,” I tell him even though I’m lying.

Of course I know what’s going on. It’s just as Heath has been telling me all this time.  Blythe is applying for a new passport to get to Geneva.

I’m so angry at Blythe that I can barely see straight, and even Pie, my horse, gets agitated as we ride back up to the Crawford house. Heath, not wanting to stress the horses any further says nothing even after we thank Lorna and Bob and say good night, not even when we’re inside the car for we’re not alone. Wally is driving the Land Rover, and Fred is sitting in the passenger seat.

But then, if I do start speaking, I’d probably be yelling at Heath for no reason at all other than I feel so stupid for falling into the same role I always play with Blythe — that of the responsible twin while she’s just doing her own thing, with no thought for me or anyone else. Forget that I don’t know what to do next, or that I can’t help but feel so confused over my attraction to Heath despite everything else that’s going on.

And that’s what makes it worse, for it makes me feel so irresponsible — falling for Heath, when I should be doing more to get Blythe out of Santa Barbara. Instead, what do I do but ride horses through the surf and kiss men atop beach blankets.

“Talk to me,” Heath asks in a low voice as I walk into the suite. When I don’t answer, he shuts the door, and takes my arm, turning me around to face him.

“Talk to me,” he says again. “Who called? I can tell it wasn’t Blythe, but you’re still as upset as if it was her who did.”

“It was Mick, the kid minding the shop. Blythe was in Nevada City,” I say numbly, staring straight at the buttons of his denim shirt. “She wanted her papers — birth certificate, a copy of her old California ID card before she moved to New York permanently. They’re all stored in our parents’ safe-”

“She’s going to Geneva then,” Heath says quietly, exhaling. “She needs a valid passport to enter the country, first of all, and to collect the money. And with you holding her documents, she’s probably applying for a new one.”

“She can collect the money for all I care,” I say angrily, walking away from him, past the luxurious living room with a view of the green gardens and the ocean just beyond the double doors. “I’m done protecting her. If she’s so stupid as to let someone give her four million dollars and think it’s all a gift or whatever, then she can stay stupid. I am done with her, Heath. And if she’s guilty, then I’ll just visit her in jail. She’ll just have to get used to the idea that orange will suit her skin tone just fine.”

Heath frowns. “You can’t be done, not when you’re so close-”

“Close to what? A woman who refuses to believe me because I’m with you, that I made my choice and hedged my bets on the losing team? She could be next door for all I care, but I can’t do anything about stupid,” I say, standing in front of the full length window that overlooks the gardens and beyond it, the full moon hanging above the water.

I’m so angry I can’t even see the beauty below me, just as I missed the sunset on the beach earlier that evening. It’s almost eight and all I want to do is take a shower and bury myself under the covers, wishing I could rewind the whole week somehow and do things right for a change. I should have never left Nevada City. At least there, everything is predictable, from the mornings when I wake up to the smell of brewed coffee from my kitchen to the opening of the shop doors the lead out to the balcony and onto Main Street, and then straight on till evening, when I’d close up shop and then meet friends at some restaurant where everyone knew my name.

Heath doesn’t say anything right away but I know it’s coming. He stands next to me before the window, and he gazes up at the dark sky. There are a few stars, but not as much as I usually see from Nevada City, not when the full moon seems almost ablaze with light.

“Ever heard of Orion?” Heath asks.

“Orion’s belt?” I ask, though that’s as far as I know about Orion — three stars in a row in the night sky.

“Legends say he was the son of Poseidon and Euryale, daughter of the king of Minos, the King of Crete. They say because of his father, he could walk on the waves,” he says, looking at the sky, framed by the trees. “He hunted with the goddess Artemis, the great huntress — or Diana as she’s also known — and her mother Leto. One day he bragged that he could kill every animal on earth and of course, Mother Earth wasn’t happy about that. And so she sent a scorpion to sting him.”

“Did he die?”

“Of course,” Heath says, smiling ruefully. “In all versions he dies, whether it’s from the scorpion’s sting, or Diana’s arrow that never missed its mark, even when they were lovers.”

“How’d that happen?”

“That’s another legend — that her twin brother, Apollo, who was against her match with Orion, challenged her to hit a moving target in the water. If she was as great a huntress as they say, then how could she miss, he challenged her. And so she nocked her arrow against her bow and took aim at this faraway circle that was moving towards them in the waves-”

“Orion,” I exclaim, my anger dissipating. Heath has a very calm way of talking that one has to silence everything – even the mind — to listen to what he has to say.

“-and she released her arrow.” He pauses as I frown. “Like I said, she never missed.”

“And so she killed her own lover,” I say, scoffing. “That’s kinda whacked.”

“Most myths are — though he was merely a suitor then. She still held on to her vows of chastity and was considering breaking them for Orion,” Heath says, pointing to the sky above the horizon. “Anyway, it’s too soon to see it, not with all the glare from the city, but Orion’s belt — the three stars in a row — is usually what you see first. Once you spot those three stars, look up about 11 o’clock, and then you’ll see this bright star called Betelgeuse-”

“Like the movie about the afterlife?”

“No,” he says slowly, chuckling. “It’s the armpit of the giant, because it’s a supergiant star. And above Betelgeuse — not the movie — at another 11 o’clock, is the planet Jupiter. You can’t miss it because it’s a planet, not a star, and therefore it’s very bright. But diagonally above Jupiter are the stars Castor and Pollux, representing the heads of the twins.”

“Gemini.”

“Yes, Gemini, though that name came later, after they both died and were set upon the sky as the constellation that we know now,” Heath says, finally turning to look at me. “Did you know that Castor and Pollux married sisters?”

I shake my head.

“The sisters, Phoebe and Hilairia, I think their names were, were betrothed to two other brothers. But Castor and Pollux were determined to have the sisters for themselves so they carted the women off to Sparta and each had a son with them.”

“They basically kidnapped them then.”

“Basically,” Heath says shrugging. “That’s kinda whacked, isn’t it? Just like you said. But then, most everything in history is — and life for that matter. Brothers fighting other brothers, in this case Castor and Pollux fighting Lynceus and Idas of Thebes over the sisters they had kidnapped and raped…” He pauses, his gaze intent on my face. “And then there’s us. Only this time, it’s brother against brother, and sister against sister.”

“Whacked, if you ask me,” I say, looking away from him. “But it is what it is.”

I cross my arms in front of my chest, my gaze outside the window again. We should really just open the doors and step outside, but I can feel the tension building in the air between us, reality settling back in after the respite of Greek and Roman mythology.

“Someone’s feeding Blythe lies about you and everything else, Billie,” he says, his tone turning serious.

“And how do you know that?” I scoff, turning to face him.

“Because I refuse to believe that she hates you so much and for what? For hedging your bets with the wrong brother? Surely it can’t be just that,” Heath says, his hand moving up to my face, gently tilting my chin up so I’m looking at him. “Not when I can see just how much you care for her, and just how much you’re hurt by all this.”

“Try selfish,” I say, “just like your own brother. Isn’t it the same thing? I can’t imagine why he hates you either, other than what you did regarding your mother’s shares.”

He lowers his hand but I keep my face turned up towards him, waiting for his answer.

“We’re just different,” Heath says, clenching his jaw as he continues. “He’s the golden child while I’m someone else’s son.”

“But he didn’t know that then,” I say slowly, “or did he?”

Heath shrugs. “Whether he knew it then or just recently, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t take a genius to know whom father favored above all his children, and whom he hated. Did you know she got carted to a mental institution because of me, not because she wanted to file for divorce?”

I shake my head, remembering when he first talked about his mother, noticing the way his body tenses as he speaks.

“That night when I overheard them, after she told him she wanted a divorce, he gave her two choices. Expose me as her bastard or get institutionalized. He was old-fashioned, my father. While he may not have believed that women had a say in many things, he believed in giving them choices, even if they were his choices.”

“If it weren’t for my Aunt Lorna rallying all the Ettingers to what was really happening behind closed doors, my mother would have lost everything — her mind, her access to her children, and every penny her grandfather made. But because of the trust funds her father had set up to benefit mostly her heirs, it was as good as untouchable for my father.”

The pain in his voice is so raw it makes my own throat tighten, threatening to steal the very air inside the room. “Why do you still call him your father?”

“Because old habits die hard,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. He takes a deep breath and looks back out at the garden and the ocean.

“Aren’t you even curious who your real father is? Ethan said you were in those letters, too.”

“If my father really cared for me, then he would have come out of the woodwork by now,” he says, not looking at me. “But he hasn’t, has he? Not even after Edgar Kheiron died. So why should I bother?”

“You mean, you’re not the least bit curious?”

He exhales. “Of course, I am, but I have things to do, companies to run, a mother to care for. There’s even someone’s twin sister to get out of the way because she’s just an expendable pawn on someone’s else’s chess board.”

This time, he turns to look at me again, his brow furrowing. “You told me earlier that you’re done, that if Blythe really is guilty, you’ll just visit her in prison. But what if someone is using her, Billie? What if they’re taking advantage of her love for Ethan?  After all, love is blind, isn’t it? Are you really going to say you’re done and leave — just like that, all because she went to Nevada City demanding the combination to the safe that holds her documents? Who then is throwing Blythe under the bus, Billie? Because it’s not me, and it’s certainly not Tyler,” I wince when he says Tyler’s name, remembering the words I said to her, about throwing Blythe under the corporate bus.

His phone beeps and he pulls it from his pocket, glancing at the message.

“That was Fred,” Heath says. “Blythe, Jackson and Charlene are back.”

“So she wasn’t hungover, like Richard said,” I say.

“Does it matter?” He shrugs. “Hungover or not, if she’s looking for her birth certificate and her old driver’s license, then she’s applying for a new passport to fly to Geneva. Maybe she could get away with your documents in Saint Lucia and California, just like you did with her documents, but not if she needs to get that money.”

“Or she could just ask me.”

Heath’s eyes narrow. “And will you give her back her passport and ID, Billie? Knowing what you know, and the possibility that she’s going to now commit an act of fraud by withdrawing the money?  Will you still do it and then walk away? Done, like you said you were earlier?”

As if in answer to his question, my own phone rings and I snatch it from my pocket, my heart beating hard against my chest, my pulse thundering between my temples for it’s Blythe.  I look up at Heath, panic written all over my face, but his expression has turned hard, far from the softness I had seen earlier.

“You’re either still in the game, Billie, or you’re not,” he says in a low voice. “Make your choice.”

“But if she’s guilty-”

“If she’s guilty, she goes to jail, plain and simple,” he says. “I can’t stop the law, but I can delay the charges. It’s not ethical nor legal, but sometimes, even those have to be put aside.”

The ringing stops, but then it rings again.

“Why are you helping me?” I ask.

“Do you have to ask?” he asks softly and the memory of his kiss on the beach returns, the butterflies in my belly starting up again.

I click
Answer
and turn away from Heath, my hands trembling. Whether Blythe is guilty or not, she’s still my twin sister, the Phoebe to my Hilairia.  And I’ll buy her time, even if it ends up with a prison sentence, not just for her, but for both of us.