Big Brother Billionaire (Part One) (6 page)

“Well, dear,” the woman said, “don’t you know that my entire career has been centered on helping people find things? Come with me. We’ll get this figured out.”

We started looking at military boarding schools in the Los Angeles area, then expanded our search when I told her my stepfather’s name.

“My stepbrother always said his dad was trying to get him to follow in his footsteps,” I told the librarian as she pored over a tome. “Maybe he was sent to the same type of institution as his dad.”

“There would be records about a legacy, then,” the librarian said. “We’ll send some inquiries.”

It was a long process, and it never seemed easy, but I felt good with the librarian on my side. She always seemed to have a solution—or at least hope of one—and when the day finally came, nearly two months since the start of my search, that we found Marcus ensconced in a military academy on the West Coast, I knew that I’d never have been able to do it on my own.

Marcus had an address—a physical address—and he was more real to me now than ever before. An address was somewhere I could go, or somewhere I could find. But that was wishful thinking. I didn’t have the money for even a bus ticket to reach the address that the librarian had located. I clutched the information in my fist like someone was going to take it away from me. I could, at the very least, write Marcus a letter, let him know that I was still alive, that I existed—just on the other side of the country.

I bought the cheapest stationary I could find and sat down in my tiny apartment, tapping the top of the pen against the paper. What did you say to someone you hadn’t seen in so long? What combination of words would convey what had happened since he’d left me?

I took a deep breath and pressed the point of the pen onto the page.

Dear Marcus
, I wrote, and bit my lip. It had to start somewhere. Maybe I could just write whatever came to mind. There wasn’t any pressure to send it. I could call this the first draft. The next one would be better.

I bet you didn’t expect to get this letter,
I wrote.
It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? And I’m in a completely new place, just like you. I found your military academy—is that like college?—with the help of a librarian here in Miami. I’m not going to school down here. I’m working, doing whatever I can to make rent.

Was that too desperate? I didn’t want him to worry about me. I could take it out of the second draft, if need be.

I ran away from Los Angeles after you left,
I wrote.
I just couldn’t be there anymore. I know that I’d been there my whole life before meeting you, but the places we explored in the city reminded me of you constantly. I couldn’t walk down a familiar street without feeling your hand in mine. It was like living with a ghost. I had to leave.

I wound up in Miami. I just got on a bus and took it. Things weren’t easy when I first got over here. If I’m being perfectly honest, nothing is easy still. It’s hard to find a job and keep it with my level of education. I can barely afford my apartment. I guess I just finally wanted something good in my life, and that’s why I wanted to find you again.

Ugh, all of that was going to be edited out in the second draft. I didn’t want him to know all of those things. He’d worry terribly. It was the opposite of what I wanted to do.

After many balled up pieces of paper, I finally had a letter I wasn’t too terribly embarrassed by. I sent it off before I could think too hard about it—or else Marcus would never get a letter from me. Then, he would never realize that I’d made it out of Los Angeles and was working toward building a life of my own.

In a couple of weeks, I had a glowing response from him—a letter I read again and again until the paper it’d been written on was fragile, falling apart.

It was strange to hold something that Marcus had created, something that he’d held in his own hands, and it ignited a plethora of feelings inside of me—love, doubt, discomfort, yearning. I wanted to know more. I wanted more from the person I had wanted to spend my entire life with.

What followed was a faithful exchange of letters, more regular than any relationship I’d ever had in my life—my relationship with my mom included. We told each other everything, from ridiculous customers at my minimum wage jobs to ridiculous rules imposed on Marcus from his strict taskmasters. We were leading completely different lives from across the country, but we were leading them together, connected by thin sheets of paper covered with pen markings.

Marcus could never get leave from school. During academic breaks, he often had to complete special projects that he suspected his father signed him up for. And even in the summers, during his breaks from classes, he was controlled by both his academic advisers and the influence our parents still wielded over him.

There was the summer he took a business internship and defied his father and the military teachers, who wanted him to focus more on the Armed Forces. He was thrilled about his small rebellion but regretted still not being able to see me. He wouldn’t have enough time away from his internship to travel, and his father restricted his pocket money.

I tried to be understanding and supportive, writing to him that it was important for him to forget about me, for now, and focus on securing success for his future. If he really wanted to stay away from the military, to dodge the path that his father was trying to direct him toward, he needed to excel at business and avoid any distractions.

I was a major distraction, and it was something that weighed on me.

When Marcus finally graduated his military academy, he entered an MBA program immediately. Just when one degree was achieved, he embarked on another. It was dizzying to try to keep track of what dazzling achievements he was racking up.

And it was disheartening to realize that the only thing I was achieving was barely affording rent with the three jobs I was juggling.

I refused to be jealous of Marcus. Our lives were completely different at that point. However, it was hard to ignore the tiny niggle of envy that worked its way through my veins when he would gush about an amazing opportunity he’d been offered upon completion of what seemed like the thousandth business degree when I was too scared to ask my landlord to fix the roof of my apartment because I’d been late on rent.

At times, he seemed full of excuses. Once he was finished amassing business degrees, he went on a tour of working for firms I couldn’t begin to keep track of, always saying that it wouldn’t look good for a fresh employee to ask for time off.

I always wanted to ask him why he couldn’t find these big businesses to work for in Miami. The city was full of tall buildings, and I was sure they housed important people and companies. However, most of his work kept him on the West Coast, and he was too busy focusing on his future to focus on me—the very bit of advice I’d given him.

The letters were nice, but they ushered whole years by without us seeing each other, and my self-doubt grew with each fat envelope that arrived in my mailbox. Maybe it was easier for Marcus to keep me at arm’s length, away from the glaring eye of the success he was enjoying. It wouldn’t do for any of his new friends and coworkers and bosses to learn that the woman he loved was actually his stepsister, living in squalor in Miami. It was easier for him to keep me here, caged in his letters, than to see me in person.

I started to use my letters to push him away, to make him feel what I felt.

Finally, one day, after nearly a year of arguing back and forth via writing, a knock sounded on my door, as I cleaned up from my waitressing job and got ready for my new retail job at a secondhand store not too far from my apartment.

I didn’t answer the knock on my door. Unless I expected someone—and I rarely did—I never answered. I didn’t have time for bill collectors or salespeople or, what was most often the case, people as poor as I was trying to sell things to make ends meet.

But the knocking persisted—first on the door, then on my one window, then on the door again. It seemed whoever was out there wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

I sighed and yanked open the door, ready to give whatever persistent jerk was out there a piece of my mind, and was shocked to see Marcus.

“Hi,” he said, looking sheepish but as handsome as ever.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out. “You’re supposed to be at that job.”

“I took a break from it,” he said, shrugging. “I wanted to see you.”

Part of me glowed with excitement—that Marcus would make me a priority over all of his business dealings—but the rest of me resented the fact that he made me feel guilty for being chosen. Couldn’t there even be happiness at just the fact that he was here?

“Aren’t you going to hug me?” he asked, pouting prettily, and I sighed.

It was good to have his arms around me. I couldn’t discount that. And it was good to have physical contact with somebody, anybody. When was the last time I’d touched someone and it hadn’t been an accident, like giving change back to a customer or handing a full glass to someone at the restaurant? Was my life really that pathetic?

“You’ve actually kind of caught me at a bad time,” I said, breaking the hug and stepping away. “I have to get to my other job.”

“Your other job?” He frowned. “How many jobs do you have?”

“I waitress at a breakfast spot in the mornings, and now I have this retail job at a secondhand store,” I said. “At night, I cocktail waitress at a club downtown. That’s the best money, but I need everything else, too.”

“You need to get your GED,” Marcus said. “Honestly, Parker, education is the only way forward.”

I was quiet for a long time, stung at this whip-fast assessment of my life.

“Here’s the thing, Marcus,” I said slowly. “You can’t make your way forward until you can keep yourself afloat, and that’s the point I’m at. I’m just trying not to drown. I’m trying to keep this apartment. I’m trying to keep food in the refrigerator.”

“All I’m saying is that you would be able to find a single, better paying job if you had your GED,” he said. “Or you should’ve stuck it out in L.A. until you graduated high school. Things would be better. Think about enrolling in a community college. Give up one of your jobs.”

“Do you know what it’s like to sleep on the streets?” I demanded, feeling my face go hot with rage. “Do you know what it’s like to sleep in a bunk bed dormitory full of homeless women? Are you ever afraid of not eating, of not being able to find your next meal? I’m pretty sure the cafeterias you enjoyed in school were always very well stocked, and that your bed was warm and comfortable. How dare you come all the way here just to insult me about my life? I haven’t once questioned you about yours. Don’t insert yourself into mine until I’ve asked for your help.”

I could see that I’d wounded Marcus, and I regretted it a lot less than I thought I would. We’d never fought before, and this was turning out to be a doozy.

“I wouldn’t question your life if I didn’t see solutions to it,” he said, his dark eyes smoldering. “I don’t want to see you struggle, Parker. I hate to see it. You’re obviously struggling, and I don’t care if you don’t want my help. You’re getting it.”

My eyes widened as he plucked his wallet out of his pocket and thumbed through the bills within it.

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed. “I’ll never take a handout, and certainly not from you. I have jobs. I’m getting by.”

“Use this money to float for a while as you get your GED,” he said, laying the bills on the table. “Then look for better jobs. They’re out there. I promise you.”

“I have to get to work,” I grumbled, turning and leaving him in my apartment.

It wasn’t any surprise that he wasn’t there when I got back, my feet and back aching, and the knowledge that another shift was still in front of me before I could go to bed. Years and years of not seeing each other was ruined by my pride—and his condescension.

All that was left of that fight was a neat stack of bills on my coffee table that I was supposed to use to get my GED, to further myself in the way pompous Marcus saw fit.

I used the money instead to pay last month’s rent, get the water turned back on, and buy myself a fat cheeseburger for dinner.

It tasted like ash in my mouth, and it was a long time before I returned another of Marcus’ letters. And it would be many more years before I saw him again.

~ To be continued ~

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