Page 41 of Sublimate
“She won’t eat,” he told me. “She doesn’t like to consume much food. Her caloric intake is done through alcohol.”
“Doesn’t she get sick?” I wondered.
“She may be a vampire,” Nolan told me. “No, not really. I don’t believe in those.”
I shrugged. Who knew?
“I asked her not to drink while I’m there and I think she’ll be able to control herself better than my father. So, we’ll sit at the table, three of us will eat, and then we’ll go to the study and talk about your paperwork. You and I will sleep at a hotel and tomorrow, we can sightsee. There’s an amazing art museum in Detroit and we could go to Greenfield Village. Or we could just head back home.”
I had never actually been to a museum and was game for anything, which I told him. Then I thought of Kolter again and specifically, the relationship he had with his mother. As far as I knew, he was currently living with her while he licked his wounds and she told him that he was responsible for nothing and that the world owed him a lot. I remembered in particular how angry he got when I’d even inched toward the general area of insulting her and while I didn’t think that Nolan would react that way, I chose my next words carefully.
“Are they going to be nice at this dinner? Will they behave themselves?”
“My parents? No. No is the answer to both of those questions. They may not be nice to me or you, and they certainly won’t be nice to each other. They’ll be horribly rude to the housekeeper as she serves the meal.”
“It will be like a restaurant?”
“I’m sorry to subject you to this,” he said. “I know you want your paperwork problem solved and so do I. It’s one night and then you’ll never have to see them again.”
“I do want it solved but I wasn’t worried about how they’ll treat me. My feelings won’t be hurt no matter what they might say, so don’t think twice if you hear something insulting going in my direction. I won’t ever put sand in their gas tanks or release poisonous snakes in their bedroom.”
“Have you done that?”
“I never touched snakes, and my sister swore that she didn’t know that they were dangerous. How are you going to react to them? I mean your parents and not any reptiles we might find.”
“I’ve always tried to ignore everything. My mom can’t seem to help herself from shooting out what my dad calls her ‘zingers.’ They’re little insults and they don’t seem like much, but she’s really good at picking at someone’s weaknesses and the zingers add up after a while. They’re probably one of the reasons that he drinks so much—no, we’re all in control of ourselves. He could always walk away from the marriage and so could she.”
Maybe. You could get stuck in a relationship, though.
“My dad is disappointed in me and that feels worse than the zingers.” He frowned.
I wanted to resolve my paperwork dilemma but not at his expense. “Nolan, I’m not sure about this.”
“It’s a couple of hours. We’ll get what we need and then go.”
He didn’t seem concerned but I definitely was—again, not for myself. I’d heard all kinds of insults and been called a lot of names, so his mom’s zingers weren’t a threat. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to stand up for me, and I didn’t want to listen to them insult him or act disappointed, either. And who really knew? Maybe he would suddenly side with them and they’d become like Kolter and his mom, defending each other’s bad behavior. I didn’t expect that, but one thing I’d noticed in life was that people were weird about their families.
And yeah, I included myself in that weirdness. I had never gotten along with my sister but we had totally teamed up against my mom. I thought that was only because Patchouli hated her more than she hated me, though.
The car ride from the airport took almost as long as the flight but we did finally arrive at a house that surprised me. It was big, which I expected, but it was totally different from Nolan’s and from the one that his grandparents had owned. It was so modern! It looked like something out of a movie about the future, like our civilization hadn’t reached this level yet.
“They hired an architect from New York to design this before I was born,” he explained when I commented on it. “One of mymom’s favorite topics is how the result was a disaster. It’s been in a few books, though, and no one else seems to agree.”
I thought that it was beautiful—but so, so different from the place that he had chosen for himself and also hundreds of miles away. He had also chosen to live apart from them.
“Ready?” he asked me. “You don’t have to worry.” We walked toward the front door together.
I thought that we might have been met by a guy in a tuxedo, a butler. But the black, metal slab swung open and I saw a man who seemed familiar, although we’d never met. He was obviously Nolan’s dad. They looked so much alike, except this older man was a few inches shorter and he didn’t only look like he had more years on him. It was also the miles. His face sagged and puffed out, but that was what drinking did to you. I had seen it with my mom.
“There you are,” he announced. He frowned and then added, “Right. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you, Dad. This is Vivi. Vivi, this is my father, Brock.”
“Hello,” I said, and he answered that it was a pleasure. That didn’t seem to be true because he was still frowning, but he moved out of the way and let us enter with our bags. They were a matched set and I was borrowing one, since I didn’t have anything besides what most people used for garbage and groceries.
“Follow me,” Brock ordered. He led us down a long hallway. It was all white, almost blinding, and there were some large pictures on the walls. Paintings, I should have said. Wedescended two steps into the huge room at the end of it, which was also almost entirely white. That included the furniture and I could have wept for their cleaning lady when we sat on one of the couches. This type of fabric showed everything, almost even fingerprints.
“I won’t offer you a drink,” Nolan’s dad told him.
