Oscar accepts the glass, his hand briefly brushing against hers.  The fine crystal was likely born to hold things more sophisticated than water.  He takes a long drink and fills the glass again while Loren leans against the counter.  Besides her flowing shirt she wears cutoff shorts and her tanned, bare legs end in scarred turquoise cowboy boots.  Oscar finishes the lukewarm water and raises an eyebrow at her.

“No,” she says.  She’s smiling again.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking a few things though, Oscar.”  She sighs and shakes her head, her wavy black hair falling forward and brushing over the tops of her breasts. “You boys, you amaze me.  You never even try to hide it.”

“Didn’t know the Savages were telepathic.”

“We’re not.  You’re just transparent.”

The accusation bugs him.  It bugs him enough to mess with her a little.  He stands toe to toe with her.

“What am I thinking about, Ren?”

She blushes and looks at her boots. “S-sex.”  She stumbles over the word.

Oscar laughs out loud.  He laughs so hard he nearly drops the glass.  “With who?”

Now she’s flushing crimson.  Her self-assurance evaporates and she shifts uncomfortably.

“Well, weren’t you?” she demands with irritation.

This is the most fun he’s had in days.   He drops the laughter and assumes a look of utter solemnity. “Nope.  Right hand to god it hasn’t crossed my mind.  Not even for a second.”

She believes the lie.  She bites her lip.  “Dammit, I’m sorry.”

“I guess I can forgive you for your obscene assumptions.”

“Seriously, I’m sorry.”

Oscar is studying her.  She crosses her arms over her breasts and refuses to look him in the eye now.  He can’t picture her in the glittering world of the rich and famous, but then she doesn’t quite seem as if she belongs here in desert exile either.  She might not completely belong anywhere.

Like me.

“How long have you been out here?” he asks.  “I mean, I know you guys haven’t always lived out here.  Mina said you used to live in a mansion in California.”

She answers slowly. “Fourteen months.  The estate was foreclosed by the bank.  An investor from China lives there now.  I’m sure you know my dad’s career is long over and little by little he’s lost his inheritance.  Lita’s never earned an honest penny in her life but she’s long dreamed of pushing us into the business.”  Ren makes a face.  “I took a ton of screen tests and hated it.  The lights, the cameras.  It was awful.  But Ava’s had some bit parts in sitcoms and Brigitte landed a role in a kids’ movie.  That’s when August woke up and pulled the plug.”

“You mean that’s when he moved you to the middle of nowhere for some reason?”

She nods vaguely and skirts around the question.  “My dad’s always had this thing about dynasties.  He’s a student of history, obsessed with it really.  If you ever want to know about which family ruled England during the fifteen hundreds you can ask him.”

“The Tudors,” interrupts Oscar.

Ren shrugs.  “I’ll take your word for it.  Anyway, my dad loves to point out that every dynasty ends, figuratively at least.  It doesn’t mean everyone drops dead, but there comes a time when the sun stops shining on them and that might be a blessing.”  Ren frowns and lets out a short, pained cough. “He didn’t want us in the business.  He said it had to end, that we had to be given a chance at other choices.”  She looks around with a wry expression.  “Of course, there was also the fact that we were virtually destitute.  August has gradually sold off whatever remained.  Lita just about crapped out steel nails when he moved us out here, but it’s probably the only fight August ever won.”  She looks at him and gives out a little crooked grin.  “You get all that?  That’s the history of the modern Savages.”

“There are worse histories to have.”

“I know.  I’m not complaining.  It’s not terrible.  It just is.”

“True.  And, if August is ever in really dire straights, I’m sure my mother would help him out.”

A cloud passes over Ren’s face.  “Mina-“ she starts to say, and then stops.

Oscar wants to hear it.  “What?”

She shakes her head.  “Nothing.”

He drops the subject.  “Hey, you sleep up in the big house?”

She nods.  “Yeah.  This place is small and I don’t really want a front row seat to my brother’s many conquests.  Where Monty digs up all these trashy girls I’ll never know.  Anyway, August still needs to clear out some rooms where a bunch of my grandparents’ junk is stuffed.  As soon as he gets around to doing that I won’t have to share with Ava and Brigitte anymore.  My sisters have their good points but sometimes inhabiting the same space with them is indescribably awful.”

“I’ll bet.  So I imagine Mina isn’t staying in the brothel.  She’ll be bunking up with you?”

Ren gives him a strange look.  “No, that’s not the plan.”

“Care to clue me in what the plan actually is?  Seeing as how Mina yanked me out of school, hauled me to another continent and then dissolves into weeping or weird reminiscing whenever I ask her about it.”

“Oscar,” she says.

A weird sense of foreboding rolls through him.  He’d heard a noise.  Not now, about ten minutes ago, as soon as they’d come through the front door.  He hadn’t even registered it at the time.  He registers it now.

“Fuck,” he spits and heads for the door.

Even before he’s outside, before he rounds the corner of the building and looks out at the gravel clearing, he knows.  The sounds could have been just the driver of the car departing.  But it wasn’t.

The rest of the Savages are nowhere in sight but August is still there.  August is ready to tell him what he doesn’t even need to hear.

“Your mother,” August says.

“I know,” Oscar answers in a hollow voice.

“She left.”

“I know,” Oscar repeats.

It seems that August wants to explain.  He shifts and runs a palm over his sweaty forehead.  Oscar notices that he suffers from a slight tremor in his right hand. “Mina’s exhausted.  She went somewhere she can get some rest.  Somewhere she can get some help.  She wants you to spend the summer here, among family.”  August moves to pat Oscar’s shoulder but his hand falls away as soon as his palm brushes Oscar’s shirt.

“She’s coming back,” says Oscar.  He says it because he really wants it to be true.

“Of course she is,” August nods.  “She’ll be back at the end of the summer.  In the meantime, you have a home here with us.”  He gives Oscar a curious, pitying look before turning away and disappearing into the house.

Oscar stares at a cloud of dust in the distance.  It gathers particles of the desert floor to its side and spins for a few seconds in a perfect funnel formation.  Then, just as abruptly, it widens and evaporates.

“You hungry?”

It’s Ren.  She followed him and she’s standing at his side.

Exhaustion, August had said.  Addiction. Anguish.  Mental breakdown.  Oscar has never spent too much time trying to puzzle out Mina Savage.  It’s always been impossible.  She’s been running from herself for so long.  Why did she drag him into her world in the first place? Maybe he filled some lonely spot in her heart.  Maybe she needed another human being who needed her in some way.

Ren moves closer to him.  He can hear the kind sympathy in her voice. “Lita can’t cook for shit.  I’m making barbecued chicken wings.” She touches his elbow.  Gently, like she’s unsure whether it’ll crack like eggshells between her fingertips.

He looks down at her and has no thoughts about how good it would feel to get her naked.  He only thinks what a relief it is to drop the fucking façade of Oscar Savage.  The tough guy, the callous heartbreaker, the owner of a name he didn’t earn.

“I’ll help you,” he says.

She raises her eyebrows.  She’s pleased though.  “You can cook?”