♦
I went back to my room after breakfast. I lay down on the bed and just didn’t do anything but breathe and think. I had to go out and see if any other kids were around, but not yet. I wanted to relax. Things were happening pretty quickly, and I hadn’t really digested everything yet. No, digested was wrong. Assimilated! That was the word.
I’d gone from one coast to the other, one ocean to another, with no preparation. Dad just said, “Grab some clothes for tomorrow and let’s go. Five minutes.”
That was it. I hadn’t even bothered with the clothes, just took what I was wearing. Now, I was living with my half-brother Clay, whom I didn’t really know.
Oh, before I go any further with this, I’d better explain. You see that ‘whom’ above? And remember some of the words I’ve used before? I know what you’re thinking: no 12-year old writes like that. They use simpler words, write shorter sentences when they write at all, and always write ‘who’ and not ‘whom’ without giving it another thought. Well, not me. I’ve been writing stories since I was eight and then having my tutor correct them. I paid attention to the what and why of the problems he found. I liked writing, and I wanted to be better at it than any other kid my age. I’m competitive! When you’re a kid, especially a boy kid, you’d better develop a competitive edge or you’ll be walked over. Anyway, that’s my explanation, so don’t get your knickers in a twist if the words get too highfalutin’ for you.
I read a lot, too—I’d even read Clay’s book—and had read that knickers comment somewhere. I’d needed to look up ‘knickers’. I could imagine the twist part.
Back to what I was thinking about. Moving out here, being told someone wanted to kidnap me and I was now in hiding—that was all pretty big news that I hadn’t really had time to get a grip on. But where all this was down on my level so I could come to terms with it was: I was here, didn’t know anyone, didn’t know how things worked, and had no idea how long I’d be here. That’s a lot to wrap your gray cells around.
I liked what I’d seen so far. Of all my kin who were halfs, Clay was far and away the most interesting. He was younger than the rest, and it sure looked like he had more money, too. Plus, he wrote! And I was interested in that. Made me wonder if genetics was involved. If he could do it, did it mean I had a chance, too?
But if I was going to be here for only a couple of days, I didn’t think I should get too happy. Going back would bum me out; going to Australia would be even worse; I didn’t know a soul there, and those guys talked funny. But if I was going to stay here, I’d need some things. If returning to Connecticut was still on the horizon, though, there was no reason to buy anything.
You can see why I was a little unsettled. I didn’t really want to ask Clay about it. He might think I was a bother if I did that and realize it was going to be a nuisance having a kid around.
But I couldn’t hide my true self. That wouldn’t be fair to any of us. Damn! Denying myself, losing my personality, would be almost as bad as the life I was happy to have left behind me.
I lay there for a while but then got antsy. Just lying there wasn’t accomplishing anything but making me fret. I decided to talk to Julia. If I bothered her, it wouldn’t be the same as bothering Clay. And I needed some answers.
I left my room and found she was gone. I checked all the rooms, which took under a minute, then found a note. Shopping. Back by 12:30, 1:00-ish. We’ll go out for lunch then. J
It was closing in on noon. I decided to go outside, check out the neighborhood and see if there were any kids my age around. I remembered to take the key Julia had given me, locked the house, and took off.
It was a beautiful neighborhood of houses and condos of all sizes and shapes, decent-sized trees with greener than green leaves and tended lawns and gardens. The trees weren’t palm trees; I’d say they were deciduous ones, but you’d think I was putting on airs, so I won‘t. I had seen some palm trees when we drove here.
The properties were all small with not that much space between the houses and postage-stamp front and back yards. But everything was shipshape. No messy lawns, no kids’ toys or bicycles on lawns, no thumping of basketballs on driveways, no shouts claiming fouls, not even any music could be heard. I did see a couple of basketball backboards mounted on garages, but no kids using them.
The only people I encountered were people doing yard work: mowing, weeding flower beds, trimming hedges and using blowers to clean up any leaves or green mess. They all looked like Mexicans. Well, in New Haven we had a lot of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, but these guys had a somewhat different appearance, and we were a lot closer to Mexico here, so my guess was probably correct. They were all hard at work, and that explained why the whole place looked so neat. A couple of them waved at me. Friendly!
Farther away I could hear some voices that sounded like kids playing, but I glanced at my watch and decided I needed to go back. Julia should be home or on her way. And we needed to talk again.
I got back just as she was taking the last bag in from the car. Perfect timing! I helped her put things away in the kitchen, then told her we needed to talk again.
“At lunch?” she asked. “You must be hungry.”
“Okay; at lunch. We’re going out?”
“We eat a lot of meals out. Both Clay and I can cook a little, but neither of us delights in it. There are hundreds of places to eat around here. A lot of Angelinos don’t cook at all.”
Something else to get used to. We went to a place pretty close to the house where we got a table on an outdoor patio. I supposed there are some of those where I lived before, but I never ate at a restaurant sitting outdoors there.
Of course, I didn’t eat much anyplace but at home. Dad had a chef and said it was a waste of money to have a full-time cook and not use him. Wasting money was one of Dad’s taboos.
I had a cheeseburger. Between bites, I told Julia what I wanted to talk to her about. It was awkward, and I felt like I was complaining, which I wasn’t, but still . . . “Julia, I’m, well, I’m uncomfortable. I like everything I’ve seen here. The weather’s perfect—a little warm, but not too much. I like you and Clay. Like, a lot. I want to stay here with you guys. But I don’t know whether that’ll happen or not. I don’t have any of my things here. Books, clothes, friends, though I didn’t have many of those since I was being home-schooled.”
I hoped I wasn’t sounding whiney. No one likes a 12-year-old who whines and bitches and finds fault with everything. But that thought brought up another thing. If I sounded whiney, if I complained about anything, would they send me away? No wonder I was uncomfortable.
“I’m sort of in limbo. I guess I wasn’t supposed to know what’s going to happen to me, but I want to. I want to know! But I know it’s not fair to Clay to tell him to shit or get off the pot with respect to me.”
I blushed. I actually blushed. I wasn’t used to talking to adults I didn’t know, and that wasn’t an expression I should have used. But maybe she’d understand how upset I was, using an expression like that.
She laughed. She did that a lot. Nothing seemed to bother her. But she laughed and said, “You have a perfect right to express your feelings, and what you’re feeling makes a lot of sense. We’ll get it settled. I want you to stay. You add something that we haven’t had here. A new life, a change of atmosphere in the house. New dynamics. More energy. Clay is rather quiet—introspective, undemonstrative. But he’s a good guy—very good, actually. He’ll see your predicament, and he’ll do something about it. I’d say it’s 80-20 you’ll be staying. Maybe 90-10.
“But just to put pressure on him, subtle pressure, let’s go shopping this afternoon. Buy you some things. Just seeing you in new clothes will make him realize how new all this is for you, and he has to remember how upsetting uncertainty is for a kid your age. He has to realize that we need to get your situation settled.”
Damn, she was nice! If I stayed, I was going to be very fond of her. Then a thought hit me. What if Clay said yeah, we can’t send him back. But maybe a boarding school somewhere would be a good choice.
No! I didn’t want a boarding school. I wanted a family that cared about me. I’d never had one. Now one seemed possible. That’s what I wanted.
What did Clay want?
I was going to find out, but that would come a little later. As I was putting groceries away with Julia, I couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t much there. If this was grocery shopping, where was all the food?
“I see what you mean when you say you two go out to eat a lot,” I said. I must have sounded just a wee bit sarcastic because she gave me a look, one of those that wasn’t difficult to interpret.
“You got a complaint? You want to cook?”
Hah, she thought she had me; she didn’t. “Yeah, I’ll cook. But we have to go back to the store first. You forgot to buy any food.”
I hoped she’d laugh again, but she simply smiled and said, “Let’s go. This I want to see.”
It was a huge grocery store, and they had everything. I grabbed a package of chicken breasts, a bag of mixed salad greens and one of croutons, a couple of lemons, a pound of butter, a jar of capers, a bottle of sauvignon blanc wine, some extra- virgin olive oil, some Parmesan cheese and some parsley. Always good to have a pretty presentation. I threw a couple of other things, mostly seasonings, in the cart as well.
As we were walking toward the checkout stands, I made sure she had some flour and asked what salad dressing they liked. I shouldn‘t have been surprised—they didn’t have any bottled stuff on hand. But when she said they both like bleu-cheese dressing, I added some crumbled bleu cheese and a couple other ingredients as well. The stuff she didn’t have at home was truly amazing.
After that, we hit the mall and she bought me some clothes, enough for a week. Underwear, a few tees, four pairs of shorts, and a couple of polo shirts, socks and a new pair of sneaks. Even swimming trunks. I had to try on some of the things to make sure the fit was right. She asked me if I needed pajamas. I told her I didn’t. I thought she’d smile, but she didn’t react at all. Adults didn’t seem to think about some things the same way we kids did.
I kept looking at my watch. I needed time to fix the dinner.
Clothes are expensive, and I told her I didn’t need that much and that she was spending a fortune, but she said they never even thought about money. Nice way to be, I thought. Dad thought about money all the time.
Back at the house, Julia watched as I prepared my chicken piccata. Cutting the breasts into thin cutlets and then pounding them thinner after seasoning them should have been simple, but she didn’t have a very sharp knife or a meat mallet. It was hard to cut the slices uniformly with a dull knife, and I had to use the bottom of a heavy glass tumbler for the pounding, but I managed.
While I was slamming away with the glass, making the cutlets a uniform thickness so they’d all cook through at the same time and quickly, making what our chef had called paillards and I called thin cutlets, Julia asked me, “How do you know how to do all this?” She was holding a glass tumbler, too, but hers contained scotch and soda.
“As I said, we had a chef, and the two of us became good friends. I loved watching him work, and he ended up teaching me how to do stuff like he did in the kitchen. This is one of my favorite dishes, both to make and to eat.”
“And you’d rather go to all this work than go out?”
“Wait till you taste this. Plus, I need to talk to Clay, and it’s more private here. Eating here, just the three of us, it seems to me he’ll be more likely to pay attention and not spend his time ogling all the cute men in the restaurant.”
Now she did laugh. “And eating there, you might be similarly distracted!”
“Well, maybe.”
) 0 (
My dinner went well, food-wise. In fact, both of them kept praising what I’d done while shoveling it in. Chicken piccata, farfalle pasta drenched in the thickened butter-rich piccata sauce with capers and lemon, spinach lightly sautéed in butter and minced garlic and served with lemon wedges, tossed salad with homemade bleu-cheese dressing and for dessert, coffee and a cheesecake I’d purchased. I could have made one; I know a great recipe, but I didn’t have enough time.
When there was a pause in the conversation, I took my chance. It was a chance, because when I broached the subject, Clay could have just taken the opportunity to turn me down.
“I’ve talked to Julia about this,” I said. “I want to stay here, live with you guys. I know you told Dad this was very temporary, that you’d have to see how we all fit together. But the thing is, if you run off to work every day, then we go out to eat every evening, you won’t have much chance to get to know me. I want a fair chance at this. Plus, I don’t have any of my things here, mostly my books. But clothes, too. So what I told Julia was, I feel I’m in limbo. She agreed, she’s on my side, and she’ll be pissed at you if you just send me away without giving me a real shot.”
I grinned at him, showing him the last part was pure me, pure impudent cheekiness, just my tongue in my cheek. That was me being me, showing one of my characteristics, hopefully one he liked.
Clay stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. He hesitated, opened it to respond, then glanced at the fork and put it in his mouth instead. I waited while he chewed.
“That was too good not to get eaten,” he said. “And I admit, you do have a point, and I don’t want to be unfair or dismissive. So, what about this? Come to work with me tomorrow. We can talk on the way in and back, and maybe I’ll even find some time during the day. We could have lunch together at the canteen. Would you like that?”
“I’d love it! Uh, Julia told me you’re part of the writing team for Holly’s Outfit. I love that show! I’ve had a crush on Hunter since it started. Will he be there? Can I meet him?”
Clay chuckled. “In real life, he’s nothing like Hunter. We write the part and he acts it. He’s a good actor; lots of kids are. We have some very fine kid actors on the show. We write Hunter’s part so he’s both adorable and mature but still a kid. Glad we’ve got your attention!”
“More than his attention,” Julia said. I managed not to blush.
“But he gets more fan mail than anyone else on the show,” Clay said. “Much of it is from teenage girls, of course, but from boys, too, and adults saying they’d like a signed picture for their child. I’m not sure all of them even have a child.”
“I want to meet him!”
“Okay. I can make that happen. So tomorrow, you ride into work with me. I leave at eight-thirty. Pete is my driver’s name. He works for the studio, part of their security team, and this way Julia can have the car here and watch the house. I generally don’t eat breakfast here—or at all, really. I have a few cups of coffee while we’re working.
“You can eat breakfast at the canteen, or you can make something for yourself here as long as you’re ready to go when Pete gets here.”
I gave that a quick thought, then said, “I think it’s best if I get to see the studio lot with someone who’s been there and is known before just walking into this canteen like I belong there. Will someone be able to show me around?”
He thought for a moment, then grinned. “I know just who can do that.” He looked at Julia and winked. Her eyes opened a bit.
That grin was unsettling. The wink didn’t help, either. I didn’t like being set up for anything or being played with. I don’t know about other almost-teens, but I know my sense of myself was such that, while I had more than my share of self-confidence, I wasn’t immune from becoming upset when confronted with teasing.
I’d have to see what he was grinning about the next day and hope I could keep my composure.
I got up at seven-thirty, took a long shower, washed my hair twice, and put on a dark-blue polo shirt and white trousers, white socks and my new sneaks. I spent some time on my hair. Hey, I was going to meet Hunter—or whatever his name was; it rolled by when they ran the credits at the end of each episode but who bothers to read the credits?—and I wanted to look good!
I didn’t feel like cooking breakfast. I sometimes did at home rather than eat from the warming containers in the dining room, but today I was nervous and just got some cereal, toast and milk. I was ready to go when Clay came down, looked out the front window, and said, “Pete’s here.”
It was a limo! I guess for some people, the studio spared no expense to keep them happy, and Clay must have been one of those people. We sat in the back, and Clay pressed a button that brought a transparent window up between the driver Pete and us so we could talk in private. I liked that! Just Clay and me. That’s what I wanted.
“Okay,” he said, turned so he was looking at me. “Julia sort of read the riot act to me last night. Said I had to make an effort, that you were a great kid, in fact a really great kid, but that you felt sort of lost here. The thing is, I’m kind of out in left field here, too! I don’t really know kids or how to deal with kids.”
He was going to continue, but I broke into his monologue. “Bullshit! You know exactly what kids are like. The show you’re helping write nails how they think and act and talk. What they want, what they need. What gets them upset, what makes them happy. All that. Unless someone else is the main writer, and Julia said that it’s mostly you, you do know kids.”
“Well, maybe. I don’t know you, and, well, maybe, honestly, I’m a little worried about attachment. I never dealt with family. Dad turned me off to that. Now I have a brother, and you’d be my responsibility. That’s what I don’t know about, and I might fuck it all up. I’m doing fine now with a job, with Julia, and this . . . this will be a big change. Yet I’m already feeling responsible—responsible for you not being kidnapped. All this is as new to me as it must be to you. But Kiki, everything I’ve seen you do, it’s been great. I’m fond of you already and getting more so all the time. And this is just the beginning. But this new responsibility . . .”
“You’re an adult, Clay! Adults are supposed to be responsible for the people in their lives who, for one reason or another, can’t be responsible for themselves. Isn’t that what being an adult is all about?”
“Well, yeah. How’d you get so smart, anyway? That’s just one quality you have that engages me. But I haven’t had to be responsible like this before. Now, with no time to get used to the idea, this has been dumped on me quite suddenly. How am I supposed to feel about that?”
I gave him a look, a long, steady, steely eyed look, then said, “You sound awfully defensive to me. It almost sounds like you’re writing a script in your head. And you know, I have this sense, just a feeling, just reading between the lines, that you’re making it all up. Because you have no need to be defensive. If you’re unsettled about this, all you have to do is call Dad and get rid of me. Yet you’re not doing that. I think you’ve already made up your mind. And this, what you’re doing now, it’s just a power trip. You’re buying yourself some leverage.”
I saw in his eyes I’d probably hit on what he’d been doing. I smiled then. “Yeah, I’m right, huh? If you can make me think I’m on eggshells here, that you could get rid of me at any moment when any problem occurs, you’d have a lot more control over me, over the situation. Probably the situation more than me because you’re not mean. But, anyway, I’m calling bullshit on you. You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”
He didn’t answer, just stared at me with the same intensity I was glaring at him. Then, slowly, he began to smile. “You’re incredible, Kiki. I think I’ll put you on the writing team. No salary, of course. You’re just a kid, and what do kids know about anything? But for you to figure that out. And then explain it so clearly. Well, wow!”
My stomach had stopped churning, finally. “When did you decide it was okay for me to stay?” I asked.
“Riding home last night, in the car, I was watching you. Thinking what I’d have been like in your situation at your age. And you know what? I realized I’d have acted just as you were. Calm, no fears, just acceptance and looking forward to making the best of it. That’s what you were doing, and I thought, this kid is just like I was. He’s me, and I’m not going to make him live like I lived when I have some say in the matter.
“So, yeah. No equivocation. I want you to stay for as long as you want or can put up with us. Julia and me. You and I might squabble a bit; we’re both strong minded. But I think you’ll like it out here. And I know I’ll like having you.”
♦
Posted 4 February 2026