Born Savages Read online

  We’re turning on each other. Or maybe it’s all me, turning on everyone.

  She shakes her head, catching onto my meaning. “Ren, I didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know.”

  I close my eyes. “Really?”

  “No, I really didn’t! If you want to know how it went down, well, okay. Gary asked. Repeatedly. Like he already knew everything about you and Oscar but was looking for someone to go on record with it. But that someone wasn’t me.”

  “You could have warned me, Brigitte. You could have warned me that his name had come up.”

  “Ren, why did you ever fool yourself into thinking it wouldn’t?” She sighs. “You’re right though. I should have said something. But I thought if I did-“

  “You thought I’d back out of the show.”

  She lowers her head. “Yes.” After a long exhale she swallows and meets my eyes. “I’m sorry, okay? But I swear, the day he showed up I was as shocked to see him as you were.”

  “Oh, I doubt anyone was as shocked to see him as I was.”

  Bree scrunches up her nose and starts to say something before changing her mind and shutting her mouth.

  “What do you want to say?”

  Brigitte slides her lithe body into the chair across from me. “I never even knew exactly what happened between you guys. None of us really did. I mean, we all knew you were together. We knew Lita was simmering to a slow boil over it. But the things she said about him, they couldn’t all have been true, right?”

  The flashback to that night is visceral. The smell of smoke, the feel of Oscar inside of me, my mother’s hand slapping my face hard enough to bring a trickle of blood to my nose. Threats, promises, screaming, desolation. And finally, emptiness.

  “No, Bree,” I assure my sister. “They weren’t all true.”

  But it didn’t matter. Not then, and certainly not now. Lita was pathological about her lies but her promises were another story. She’d left me with the cruelest choice she could think of. But then, that was the idea.

  “I figured as much,” says Brigitte with a wise nod. Funny how I always think of my sisters as very young, even though I’m only a year older than Ava and barely two years older than Brigitte.

  My sister winds the end of her brilliant red hair around a forefinger with a troubled expression. It’s eerie how much she resembles Margaret O’Leary, film goddess from the last century. She has the kind of face loved by the camera. Suddenly her eyebrows knit together. “I should probably tell you something. The other day, that parasite Cate Camp let her guard down and said something about the show having some contact with Lita. She realized right away she’d made a mistake mentioning her and started falling all over herself to cover it up, telling some spontaneous lie about how Lita was demanding that her name be kept out of the show altogether.”

  The sound of my mother’s name is a sour one and I feel my face scrunching up. “I thought that was always the idea. But escaping publicity doesn’t really sound like Lita.”

  “I didn’t think so either but who knows? I haven’t heard from her in over two years, not since I turned eighteen. She didn’t even want to know about it when Ava had her baby. Supposedly she’s holed up in her mansion in Beverly Hills, waiting for her meal ticket to stop breathing so she can enjoy the fruits of California’s community property laws. God, she’s a bitch.”

  I find it hard to picture my mother. The last time I saw her was the morning of my father’s funeral three years ago. We didn’t even speak that day. “Gary and his minions swore from the beginning that there wouldn’t be any Lita. It’s the one condition I had, although now I realize I should have added a few more.”

  “Hmmph,” grunts Brigitte.

  “What’s that mean?”

  She wets her lips and leans across the table. “Did you get an attorney, Ren? One who wasn’t on Gary’s payroll to look over the show contract?”

  I hadn’t. I couldn’t exactly afford to retain an entertainment lawyer so when Gary offered to have his legal team broker the arrangement I didn’t come up with a reason to turn it down. “No,” I admit slowly.

  Brigitte slumps down with a grimace. “Me either.”

  “So what are you worried about exactly?”

  “I don’t know. But I also don’t really know what the hell it is I signed.”

  I can’t really make myself care about the show or the contract or whoever might be listening to us at this point. Once upon a time I used to flatter myself that I was the sensible sister. In reality, I’m just a scabbed wound, so closed off that simple honesty is a foreign language.

  Bree seems to sense my thoughts. “He could have been colluding with Gary from the beginning. Who knows, maybe it was even Oscar who started feeling around to see if there was any tabloid interest in the half-forgotten Savage family. I imagine there must have been something there, a desire for revenge or whatever. I know it’s been a long time and you guys were just kids but time does funny things to people.”

  Of course I’d thought of that the minute he showed up. Oscar hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about the circumstances surrounding his sudden arrival. He danced around difficult questions with course teasing and watched me with those dark, inscrutable eyes. And then tonight…

  No, it’s too fresh. I can’t stand thinking about the feel of him all over me. I can’t even bear to examine what led me to stubbornly climb into his truck as soon as I heard he would be leaving.

  Sooner or later I’ll have to come to terms with how Oscar and I crashed together, fucked like enemies and ultimately resolved nothing. We just used each other as a way to forever kill what we once had.

  Yet whoever Oscar’s become, there was once a sense of honor in him. I won’t let myself believe that’s a quality that just disappears completely. He was right. I don’t despise him at all. I don’t even know why I said otherwise.

  “No,” I finally say. “If he was out to humiliate me and make a few dollars in the process, he had his chance and he threw it away.”

  “So Monty wasn’t just talking out of his ass? Oscar really left?”

  “He did.”

  “Oh,” Bree frowns. “Better that way I guess, although I’m going to predict Gary and company will be shitting bricks tomorrow.”

  “Gary can suck it.”

  Brigitte smiles. “He doesn’t have to. I hear Cate Camp does it for him.” She raises her voice, yelling at the air. “Did you catch that? Did you?” She winks at me. “Not wearing my mic.”

  I look at my sister. She isn’t perfect. But I love her and she loves me. We both need as much of that in our lives right now as we can get. “I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I’m sorry.”

  She gives me a faint smile. “I suppose I’ve done a few things to deserve it.” She loses her smile. “Look, I know all of this isn’t your idea of success. I know you’re here because we asked you to be. And I’m not sure I ever thanked you for that. Or for the fact that you’ve always been more of a mother to all of us than Lita ever was.”

  I swallow. There’s a bitter taste in the back of my throat that won’t disappear. “I’m not going to pretend like anyone’s twisting my arm. It’s my choice to be here, Bree.”

  “Fair enough. But I’ll only forgive your worst assumptions about me if you quit using that wretched nickname. It reminds me of childhood.”

  A small, rueful grin creeps across my face. “Not a chance. Habits die hard, or in my case, never. It’s my chief flaw.”

  “Oh, Ren. We’re all flawed.” Brigitte rises from the table, heads toward the door and then spins suddenly, dropping a graceful curtsy. “Terribly, savagely flawed.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Five Years Ago: The End

  Mina Savage is dead.

  A week ago Ren stood right beside Oscar as they learned the news together. Her father was the one to say the words. August had summoned her to the house along with Oscar and for a defiant moment Ren was sure it was because August planned on confronting the
m about being together.

  She was ready.

  With Oscar next to her she could be brave enough to face the censure of her parents, even if it meant she lost them. She didn’t care a bit how it would look to the world, or that they were only seventeen or that her family would have hysterics. No one would take Oscar away from her.

  But when they reached the paneled study where her father spent most of his days he sat there alone, looking far older than he had just that morning when she’d caught a fleeting glimpse of him. Then, in a halting, sorrowful voice he told them what he’d learned an hour earlier over the phone.

  “Her heart was weak. So many years¸ so many pills. I don’t have the whole story but she’d apparently been stealing another patient’s meds and she took them all at once. It was a full cardiac arrest. Very quick. There will be no funeral. She’d arranged to be cremated immediately upon death. Oscar, you hear what I’m telling you? Do you hear me?”

  “Yes. I hear you, sir.”

  Oscar hadn’t cried at all until much later. And then he cried only to her.

  Life stayed quiet for a few days. The girls were unusually somber, Spencer kept on being Spencer, August closed himself in his study and even Monty stopped hassling Oscar, giving him space to mourn.

  Ren spent every moment with Oscar, even climbing through his window to lie in his arms for a few hours while the rest of Atlantis slept. She worried about the watchful glare of her mother. Sometimes it seemed Lita was everywhere – haunting the front porch of the big house, lingering by the staircase of the brothel. Always with the same impassive mask and never saying a word. The fact that her mother had stopped speaking to her was no great loss to Ren, but she’d spent seventeen years learning to mistrust the woman. The flat, dead-eyed look in her mother’s eyes chilled her more than she could admit.

  Now, every day she wakes up to a growing fear of a threat she can’t name but is sure draws closer to her with each stolen moment.

  Oscar just kisses her worries away and promises that soon they will leave Atlantis behind. He pointedly ignores the ominous Lita menace. Whenever and wherever she appears, he just stares right through her.

  This morning a sleek BMW coasted through the rusty gates of Atlantis and parked in front of the big house. The grey-suited man who exited the vehicle was expected by her father. August shook the man’s hand and led him into the house while Lita trailed after them. Ren had watched it all from the shadows of the brothel where she was sprawled with Oscar, smoking some of Monty’s cigarettes.

  “He’s a lawyer,” Brigitte is now saying with snotty authority when Ren enters the bedroom where her sisters are trying on clothes and admiring their bodies in the closet mirror. Bree smiles at her reflection and twists sideways. “He’s here because Mina made such a shit show out of her life and now there’s some housekeeping to be done.”

  Of course a man like that would have to be a lawyer but it annoys Ren that Brigitte seems to have all the information already.

  “How would you know?” Ren grumbles, flopping on her own unmade bed.

  “If you climb over all the antique crap in the den and stand underneath the air vent you can hear every word that’s said in Daddy’s study.”

  “And I suppose that’s what you did.” Ren rolls over on her stomach and despite herself, hopes Bree will share whatever else she learned, especially if it involves Oscar’s mother.

  “Naturally. It’s not like August and Lita ever tell us anything.”

  Ren sits up. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So what’s this garbage about Aunt Mina?”

  Brigitte preens and rolls the side of her shirt down, exposing a shoulder. She sucks her cheeks in and offers the mirror her most provocative pose. “You’re always yelling at me for gossiping, Loren. I should probably try to turn over a new leaf for your sake. Starting now. So I don’t think I should say a word about Aunt Mina and the disaster she made.”

  Ren jumps to her feet and gets between her sister and the mirror. “Bree! You better tell me whatever you know right now.”

  “You shouldn’t threaten people, Ren. You sound preposterous.”

  “What threat? That was a threat?”

  Brigitte pouts. “Your tone was negative. It startled me.”

  Ava finishes smearing a thick layer of lipstick on herself and joins the conversation. “Come on, spill it. I want to know too. Do we have another hot blooded cousin stashed somewhere?”

  “Nope,” Bree smiles. “In fact we don’t even really have one.”

  Ren shakes her head. “Quit speaking in riddles.”

  “I’m not. Mina never went through with Oscar’s adoption. She paid off a stack of important people for that kid and then didn’t even bother to finish the basic paperwork. So Oscar Anonymous is no Savage.”

  Ren mulls this over. It sounds just like everything she’s ever heard about the chronically irresponsible Mina. It might be a pain in the ass for Oscar, but not the end of the world. “Is that all?”

  “Hmmm,” Bree taps a fuchsia fingernail against her teeth. “Almost. Apparently the great globetrotting basket case didn’t leave a will either so Oscar doesn’t get anything, which actually doesn’t matter since she didn’t own shit except a pile of debt and eight trunks full of the tackiest designer labels her bad credit would buy her.”

  Ava stops examining a turquoise necklace and looks at Ren. “What does all that mean exactly? What does it mean for Oscar?”

  It means he’s nameless and penniless.

  Brigitte is staring at her and looks slightly mournful. “It means Lita is already making the case to toss him out on his ass.”

  Hearing it out loud is unsettling but Ren and Oscar have already talked about what they would do, where they would go. Of course they were counting on having a few more resources at their disposal but Ren isn’t bothered by the idea of working hard, doing without. As long as she gets to keep Oscar nothing else matters.

  “Well,” she says lightly. “Lita never did waste an opportunity to be a bitch.”

  Ava’s eyes are wide. “You’d better watch out for her, Ren. There’s something off between her and Oscar. It’s like she hates him or something.”

  “The feeling is likely mutual.”

  Ava swallows and sinks down on the edge of her bed. “Sometimes I think she hates you too.”

  “Again, mutual.”

  Bree pulls her shirt over her head and cups her breasts, pushing them together. “Did you guys do it?”

  “Who? Do what?”

  She grins sweetly. “You’re such a shitty liar. You fucked him, didn’t you?”

  “Brigitte!” Ava squeals.

  “What? She can do it but I can’t even say it? I am surprised, Loren. I kind of thought you’d die a knee-locked virgin.”

  Ren doesn’t react. Bree’s just fishing like she always does. She knows nothing.

  “We haven’t done anything. We’re friends. And to hell with you and your filthy mind, Brigitte.”

  “Don’t be pissed at me. I just repeat what I hear. Although it would be better if it wasn’t true, especially given all the circumstances.”

  “All what circumstances? So he’s not rolling in cash and his last name is a question mark. So what?”

  “I meant in light of who else he might have fucked since he got here. Although if that’s true, his standards are disgustingly low. Oh my god, would you stop with the face of shock every time I drop the F bomb? Let’s all say it! Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!”

  “Fuck,” says Ava with a weak smile.

  Ren feels slightly dizzy. “Brigitte, you’re not making any sense. You have not messed around with Oscar.”

  “God no. Not me. And you can’t point the finger at Ava either.”

  “Then what in the hell are you babbling about?”

  Bree starts to talk, then seems to change her mind. She glances out the window and sighs. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  Ren’s had enough. If she hangs out in he
re for much longer trying to dodge Brigitte’s outlandish crap there might be blood. She rushes out of the room and ignores Ava when she tries to call her back.

  When she reaches the hallway where her father’s study is, she hears voices and the sound of a slowly opening door. She feels slightly idiotic ducking into the den and flattening herself against the wall but further family communication isn’t appealing right now.

  The den is densely packed with the possessions of the dead. Every once in a while August mentions clearing it out and letting Ren have it as a bedroom but that day will likely never come. Ren finds herself wedged between an empty curio cabinet and the mounted head of an antlered creature that was probably felled by Rex Savage.

  There are footsteps in the hallway and the murmuring of men. And one woman.

  Murmur murmur “of course” murmur murmur “rotten publicity” murmur murmur “good thing he isn’t a child” murmur murmur. Then, nothing.

  Once the men’s voices recede, Ren peeks out from behind the bristly animal head and sees Lita there alone, standing in the hallway, examining her reflection before a giant round mirror in a manner reminiscent of a gothic evil fairy tale queen.

  But Ren’s stomach grows queasy when she sees the wide smile on Lita’s face. On Lita, a smile is as natural as blue jeans on a cat. She waits for Lita to quit admiring herself and move on before stealthily heading for the back door. She wants out of this house. She wants away from these people. She just wants Oscar.

  She finds him with Spence. They are spaced about twenty yards apart, clutching shotguns and scanning the desert brush beyond the fake church. Oscar has his shirt off and in Ren’s utterly unbiased opinion he is the hottest guy in the solar system. He glances up as her shadow approaches and immediately breaks into a grin. She’s so lucky. What girl doesn’t pray to be smiled at like this? Lita can issue threats until her face melts off. Every lawyer in the country can drive their suits and phony concern to hell and back. Nothing is going to pull them apart.