Eighteen

“Don’t be mad at me. You know I can’t take it.”

David leaned down close to Brandy as they left her father's building. She jerked away from him, her eyes on the crowd that had gathered on the street outside the park.

"I'm not mad at you, David," she said coldly. "You just tried to rape me. Without my consent, I might add."

"I didn't." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Please, I don't want you to be mad at me."

"I said I'm not mad." Brandy shrugged off the hand. She was thinking about her father's stash in the old cookie jar that her grandmother had bought for her when she was a little girl. The cookie jar was one of the few things he'd salvaged from the marriage. The pot was first-class and there was a lot of it.

Brandy never saw him put the stash in the cookie jar because she never saw him do much of anything these days. She hadn't spent one single night in the room he'd had decorated for her over the summer. He was really pissed at her. Really pissed. He hadn't come to see her at camp. He'd told her he had business meetings that weekend. And after she got back he kept breaking dates on her. They'd only been together once, not that she cared that much. He'd been a drag ever since the divorce. The one time they had dinner, he'd raised the subject of the pot. They'd been in a restaurant. He'd ordered a bottle of wine and let her have a glass. Brandy lost herself in the memory of that evening with her father.

"How's your mom?" he'd asked, busy looking around at other people, not at her.

"Great. She's lost about ten pounds, and she's getting her face lifted as soon as the apartment is finished," she'd told him.

He turned to look at her for the first time, his eyes popping with surprise. "Really?"

She nodded. "Do you think she's going to marry Aston?"

His lips went together in a thin tight line, his jaws worked, and she heard the noise he made whenever he was upset. His teeth grinding metal. "Whatever makes her happy," he said. But he didn't look like he meant it.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Dad?"

Seymour Fabman lifted his chin and glanced over at the waitress, a girl with a great body and short black hair. "Nah, would I do that to you, baby? You're my girl." But he wasn't looking at her when he said it. Then, he'd raised the other subject, the thing that was on his mind. The pot.

"Hey Bran, I want to know the truth about something."

"Sure, Dad." She finished her glass of wine. He poured her more, then added some water from the Evian bottle.

"You ever try any drugs?"

She gave him that wide-eyed innocent look she was always perfecting in the mirror. "Me? What kind of drugs do you mean, anti-depressants like Mom takes?"

"Your mother takes anti-depressants?" That was another new one for him. "Really?" He almost fell off the chair. Brandy loved freaking her parents out.

"Yeah, something like that; it makes her calm down."

His face screwed up some more. "I guess your mom isn't doing so well." Then he flashed her a mean smile. "No, I was talking about other kinds of pills, the kind you use to get high, and pot-alcohol, that kind of thing. You ever do it?"

Brandy giggled. "Where would I get something like that, Dad?"

"Maybe your mother," he said slyly.

"Nah, Mom doesn't do that."

"I guess her thing is men," he said bitterly.

"Aston's terrible, Daddy. I hate it there. Can I come and live with you?" She couldn't help herself. The suggestion just came out. A trial balloon to see what he would do.

"What's wrong with him?" Seymour lifted his chin again, the way he did when he was all dressed up, checking himself out in the mirror, and thinking he looked pretty good.

"He's, like, disgusting and Mom is all over him. Dad, do you use those kinds of drugs?" She flapped her eyelashes at him, knowing exactly what was on his mind. The pot in the cookie jar. He was concerned that either his source was shorting him, or she was coming over and stealing it. It wasn't a hard one. But parents were dumb and Brandy was a very good liar. She stole things all the time, and he never knew they were missing.

"I have some friends who do," he said smoothly. "You know what happened? Somebody left stuff at my place, and some of it was missing later. Do you know anything about that?" He didn't exactly ask if she came over on her own when he wasn't there. He'd know for sure if he asked the doorman. If he didn't ask, it wasn't her fault. He was probably afraid to ask. So fucking passive.

"You never invite me over, Dad. Maybe the maid took it."

That got him thinking and shut him up. But that was three weeks ago, the last time she'd seen him until yesterday. And he'd lied to her. He had gotten a girlfriend to replace her. She couldn't believe her eyes last night.

Her dad going down on some blond bimbo almost as young as they were. Really gross. And now David wanted to try it.

Returning to the present Brandy hopped off the sidewalk into the street. "Wow, this is wild," she said about the news vans all around them. "I hope they find him soon. Maybe we should help them look."

Still on the subject of his feelings about her rape contention, David followed her like a big shambling dog. "You know I'm not supposed to get upset."

"Who says?" Brandy muttered, disgusted with him.

"My doctor. Look at me, Brandy, it's just because I love you. You made me like that. You tease me, then I want to be inside you. It's not my fault. You promised."

"So what. Maybe you didn't get the job done. Maybe he's not really dead."

"Oh, Jesus!"

"Well, how do you know? How many dead people have you ever seen?"

"I saw my grandfather."

"In a coffin? That doesn't count. Maybe we should try another one. The first one happened too fast."

"Shut up, Brandy!"

A vaguely familiar-looking woman wheeling a grocery cart full of plastic bags looked inquiringly at Brandy. Brandy gave her the finger.

"You promised after one, Brandy. You got your one," he said angrily. "You're not coming through."

"But I didn't promise today," Brandy snapped.

"What do you think I cut school for, huh? Why do you think I did that?" He tugged on the edge of her fuzzy sweater. She tugged back. He punched her lightly in the arm. She recoiled.

"Ow! Don't piss me off. You hate school. You wanted to see what would happen. It has nothing to do with me." She was getting really annoyed at him, wasn't sure she wanted to fuck him at all. She rubbed her arm, oblivious to the people looking at them.

"Fuck you, Brandy. This whole thing was your idea. If my mom found out, I'd never get the Beamer."

"You'd go to fucking jail," she muttered under her breath, skirting a bunch of people who had stopped to gab in the middle of the blocked-off street.

"What for?" he whined.

"What fucking for? I'm only fifteen," she reminded him.

"Hey! I'm not supposed to get upset. My ulcer will start bleeding, and I'll have to go to the hospital again. I don't want to get mad at you, okay?" His face was red and his hand was bunched into a fist. He looked a little scary.

"Okay, okay, don't be upset," Brandy placated him.

"You do this to me. This is your fault. You wiggle around, and I can't help myself."

"I don't wiggle." She shut out his whining, then cheered up as they headed north. "Look at this. The whole world is watching that asshole dog running around the park. He's got to be one shit tracker. Isn't this great?" she said excitedly.

"Yeah, it's pretty good," David had to admit.