Simon

“Are you okay?” I ask Penny as we walk down the hallway. She put the laptop in the office and we’re walking together to the dining room where Simpson is waiting for us.

It’s a ridiculous question. I can see she’s not okay. I can see I have put her in the worst possible position to see her father again. She feels weak and used and abandoned and that’s all my fault.

I have never hated myself more.

“I haven’t seen my father in eight years,” she says. “And before that it was…not regular. He treated us like we were a problem he kept forgetting to deal with.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can say. I’ve hurt her so much and there’s nothing I can do to make any of it better. Except be here. Except not leave. Even though she keeps telling me to go.

“Check-in is in two hours,” Megan says. She’s walking behind us. “Guests are arriving soon.”

“I know,” Penny says. “I’ll handle this. He won’t be here long. I promise.”

That seems to satisfy Megan and she peels off towards the front desk. Penny and I keep walking until we’re at the closed barn doors of the dining room.

“You need to leave,” she says. She looks, somehow, smaller than she did before. But harder. Like the pressure has squeezed her into a diamond.

“I’m not letting you go in there by yourself.”

“I don’t believe that you care,” she says, blinking up at me. “I think you just want a story.”

“I have the story and I’m still not letting you go in there alone.”

She bows her head, looking down at her feet. The beaten-up tennis shoes she wore last night.

God. Was that just last night?

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Her eyes are pools of hurt. They are endless pain. “You’re a little late for that,” she says and pushes open the door.

The dining room is set for tonight’s dinner. Elegant tables with flowers and crystal. Beautiful plates. It’s all so lovely. And Simpson, the cancerous garbage fire of a human, stands looking out the window.

I remember, with a brain-clearing, heart-stopping clarity, being seventeen and wanting him dead.

Beside me, Penny stiffens and makes a small gasp of pain at the sight of this man and I want to kill him all over again.

Simpson turns. He’s gotten bigger over the years. Soft and flabby. His tailored suits can’t quite hide it. His overcoat looks like a deflated balloon over his jacket.

“Tina,” he says and it’s impossible to read emotions off him. Impossible to know what he’s thinking. But I can guess none of it is good.

“Hello, Father.”

“Who is he?” he asks, referencing me but barely looking my way.

“An interested party,” I say when Penny is speechless.

“What?” He laughs. “Like a boyfriend?”

Penny is bright red. “No —”

“Exactly like a boyfriend,” I say. Because it’s not worth a fight and that’s how I feel.

“Well, nice to meet you,” he says, reaching forward with his hand out. “I’m —”

“I know who you are.” And I make no move to shake his hand. His jaw hardens at the insult.

“So, Tina, this is where you’ve been hiding?” He doesn’t say it like he’s been missing her. Like he’s been searching for his long-lost daughter out of grief and guilt. He says it like she’s a thief who took something from him and ran off into the night. “The picture in the Los Angeles Times made it look bigger.”

That’s how he found her. I glance at Penny and I can tell she’s thinking the same thing.

“I wouldn’t call it hiding,” she says.

“No?” He smiles, but it’s not kind. “I suppose you call it a business? A career?” He’s all but sneering.

“It’s a life,” she says, showing some spark. “And it’s mine.”

“Well.” He narrows his eyes. “That’s a stretch, isn’t it? That it’s yours. You’ve been using the trust fund —”

“What do you want?” she asks.

“A father can’t take interest in his daughter’s ventures? Seems rather un-American, if you ask me.”

Color is rising on her cheeks. “You’re not interested. Don’t pretend. You’re terrible at it.”

The swipe gets him angry and I see all over again what a shallow, bombastic man he is. One cutting remark and he’s ready for war.

There’s a knock at the door and Penny jumps. I put a hand out to steady her, but she flinches away from me.

“Who the hell is that?” Simpson yells. “Get rid of them, Tina!”

“I’m sorry,” Megan says, cracking open the door. Her face is pale. “But there’s another guest here to see you. He…he says you’re expecting him.”

“We’re not expecting anyone!” Simpson yells.

And then Bates walks in the door.

* * *

I pull in slow, deep breaths. Trying to get myself together. To gather the frayed bits of myself close enough so I can figure out a plan. A move.

My father is going to go ballistic. And for the whole of my childhood, I would just take it. I would stand there and let him rage. Let him howl. I would find little rebellions to pull me out of his way, but they were few and far between.

Because I was too young to stop him. Too powerless to change anything.

I don’t want to be that person anymore. It’s one thing to lie and make up some kind of alternate history. A lie to make myself feel stronger. More loved.

But that lie only landed me right back where I started.

Staring down my father’s evil anger.

The new man who walks in makes Simon stiffen. Makes Simon actually look afraid. He steps in front of me like he can protect me from this new man and it’s all the information I need.

Bad guy. Got it.

“This is a beautiful inn,” the new man says, looking directly at me with icy gray eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not here under more pleasant circumstances.”

“Th-thank you.”

“Bates!” my father cries. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I followed you,” he says calmly. Like it’s no big deal. Like he follows my father all the time.

“Why?” Dad asks.

“To make sure you don’t do anything stupid,” he says. “Like hurt your daughter.”

“Why would I hurt —”

“Or my colleague,” Bates says, turning to include Simon in this conversation. “I believe you know Simon Malik.”

“Tina’s boyfriend?”

Bates lifts his eyebrow at Simon, who only shrugs. “I was referencing his work as a journalist with the Los Angeles Times. He’s caused you some trouble over the years.”

“Jesus,” Dad says with an incredulous laugh. “That’s you? Tina, I hate to break your heart but this boy isn’t after you. He’s after me. He’s been after me for eight years.”

“And now I have the files,” Simon says in a voice so chilling I shiver.

“You got them,” Bates asks and Simon nods. “Excellent.”

“Wait.” Dad asks. “What files?”

“What files do you think?” Bates asks Dad like he’s the class dummy. And the tension in the room — already so high — goes higher.

Dad’s face gets florid. “Marianna’s files?”

“Dad —” I put my hands up to placate him and I realize how stupid this is. How it’s never worked. My father can never be placated. His rage is just something that has to be endured.

“You just gave him your family’s business?” Dad spits. “Jesus, what did he do, Tina? You always were so fucking desperate for attention. Did he tell you he loved you?” It’s so painfully true I feel a sob rise up in my throat. I can’t look at him. I can’t look at anyone. I close my eyes and want to sink into the floor. “Did you spread your legs —”

There’s a thunk and crash and I open my eyes to see a beautiful table knocked over and my father on his ass.

Simon standing over him.

“Say one more word and I’ll kill you,” he says.

“There is another way we could handle this,” Bates says and he holds up the gun, drawing everyone’s attention to it. “It solves a lot of problems. Marianna will be safe. Justice will be served. You can still win that Pulitzer. Seems win/win to me.”

“Put the gun away!” I yell, but Bates ignores me. Looks at Simon. “Simon. Tell him to put that away.”

But Simon doesn’t say it. He’s looking at my father with pure bloodlust in his eyes.

“You were going to kill him once before,” Bates says to Simon.

“What?” I ask, my lips numb. My body frozen. “What is he talking about, Simon?”

“We met before.” Simon says. His face unrecognizable to me. He’s not the man I spent the week with. He’s not the man I had in my bed last night. I don’t know him at all. “Eight years ago. Outside the courthouse in San Francisco. Your mother had just been sentenced —”

“And my father had been exonerated,” I say. The memory bright and clear because I walked away from the courthouse that day and started my new life.

My new lie.

“You were there?” I ask.

“Standing beside you when you threw the rock.”

I remember him. The short kid with the hoodie. He’d been crying. He started that chant. My heart, already so broken, finds a new way to feel pain.

“You said he killed your mom.”

“My mother died of a brain tumor. His medicine could have saved her but we couldn’t afford it.”

“And your dad?”

“Committed suicide four days later in front of the Simpson Pharma headquarters.”

“Jesus,” my Dad says. “That crack pot was your father?”

“Don’t-“ I snap. “Just…shut up, Dad.”

“That day in front of the courthouse, I had a knife in my hoodie,” Simon says. “I was going to rush the steps and stab him.”

“But you didn’t,” I say, stupidly.

“No.” His laugh is coarse and awful. I flinch from the sound of it. “I got blamed for the rock and tackled by the police. They found the knife.”

“Simon, I’m so sorry. I’m so —”

“Tell her the rest of it,” Bates says, still holding that gun. We’re all frozen in time. Even my father is sitting there, his eyes darting from Simon to Bates like he isn’t sure who is going to cause him the most damage.

“That’s when I was sent to that foster home.”

My mouth opens, but I can’t breathe.

“It’s not your fault,” Simon says quickly. But I don’t know how he can think that. It’s all my fault. Everything, right now, feels directly my fault.

“Simon,” Bates says, holding the gun out to him. “You doing this or not?”

“The files are yours, Simon,” I say. “You’ll avenge your parents. They…they wouldn’t want you to do this. Your dad who made his grandfather’s mutton biryani, that was true, right?”

He nods.

“He wouldn’t want you to do this. And your mom, the firebrand who played bad cricket on purpose just so she could read in the shade, that was true, wasn’t it?”

He nods again and I’m comforted that not everything was a lie.

“She wouldn’t want you to do this.”

Still, he’s silent. Still, the gun is there, a threat and a promise.

“You don’t want to do this, do you?” I ask and I step up next to Simon. My father, on the ground, is crying now, beaten for the moment. “You have a life to live. I spent years under the threat and shadow of this man. Hating him and fearing him ruled my life, Simon. And then when I got free of it. When I changed my name and made up a new story, I was…was so happy. I was free. You need to experience that, Simon. You need to experience life after Dale Simpson and if you shoot him, you’ll never be free.”

The moment is never-ending. Stretched on a wire and I want to vomit from the tension.

“Put the gun away,” Simon says and I’m lightheaded with relief. I nearly fall sideways but I catch myself against a chair.

Oh, my God. Guests. Dinner. Even if everyone leaves right now, I’m not sure I can salvage this night.

My business.

My home.

Ruin. Ruin. Ruin.

Bates slips the gun under his jacket.

“Tina,” my father says, his voice calm but shaking. He knows he’s going down. “Listen to me. I didn’t frame your mother. She was working with some bad people and if those people find out the files are in the wrong hands, your mom could be hurt.”

“Don’t believe that, Penny,” Simon says.

“I don’t believe any of you,” I say. “And I want you all out of my home. Right now.”

Bates leans over and pull my father to his feet. There’s some kind of struggle, but Bates does something to my dad’s arm that makes my dad go white.

“You’ll regret this,” my dad says to me.

“I already do.” I laugh and it sounds a little too scary so I swallow it back. I’m hanging on by my fingernails.

“Penny,” Bates says. “Look at me.”

I do, empty and void, I do what he tells me to do.

“Your father won’t hurt you,” he says. “I’ll make sure of it.” He turns to Simon, standing beside me. “Send me the files and I’ll pass them on the SFPD. They’ll have a warrant for his arrest by the time I get him back to San Francisco.”

Simon nods.

“What — What about my mom?” I ask through a dry throat.

“I’ll do what I can,” Bates says and, somehow, I believe him. Somehow, I’m comforted.

“Simon,” Bates says, walking towards the door with my father in front of him. Wincing and sweating. “You’ll be in touch.”

It’s not a question.

“Yeah,” Simon says, then Bates and my father are gone. And the silence…is loud. It booms then I realize that’s my heart.

“Penny?” Simon asks, he’s approaching me like I’m a wild animal. “Are you okay?”

I nod, shaky and far from okay.

“You want a drink or —”

“I want you to leave.”