“Young man, you are getting above yourself. The money I earn—”
Eli did some quick calculations in his head. He always knew to the penny how much money his mother had in her checking account—there was no savings account—and how much was in her purse, even to the change. “Two hundred dollars,” he said. “You gave him a check for two hundred dollars.” That was the maximum she could afford and still pay the mortgage and groceries.
When Miranda remained tight-lipped in silence, he knew he’d hit the amount exactly on the head. Later, he’d tell Chelsea and allow her to congratulate him on his insight.
Eli uttered a curse word under his breath.
“Eli!” Miranda said sternly. “I will not allow you to call your father such names.” Her face softened. “Sweetheart, you’re too young to be so cynical. You must believe in people. I worry that you’ve been traumatized by your father leaving you without male guidance. And I know you’re hiding your true feelings: I know you miss him very much.”
Eli, looking very much like an old man, said, “You must be watching TV talk shows again. I do not miss him; I never saw him when you were married to him. My father is a self-centered, selfish bastard.”
Miranda’s mouth tightened into a line that was a mirror of her son’s. “Whether that is true or not is irrelevant. He is your father.”
Eli’s expression didn’t change. “I’m sure it is too much to hope that you were unfaithful to him and that my real father is actually the king of a small but rich European country.”
As always, Miranda’s face lost its stern look and she laughed. She was as unable to remain angry with Eli as she was to resist the whining and pleading of her ex-husband. She knew Eli would hate for her to say this, but he was very much like his father. Both of them always went after whatever they wanted and allowed nothing to stop them.
No, Eli wouldn’t appreciate such an observation in the least.
Eli was so annoyed with his mother for once again allowing Leslie Harcourt to con her out of paying the child support that he couldn’t say another word, but turned away and went to his room. At this moment his father owed six months in back child support. Instead of paying it, he’d come to Miranda and shed a few tears, telling her how broke he was, knowing he could get Miranda to give him money. Eli knew that his father liked to test his ability to sell at every opportunity. Seeing if he could con Miranda was an exercise in salesmanship.
The truth—a truth Miranda didn’t know—was that Leslie had recently purchased a sixty-thousand-dollar Mercedes, and the payments on that car were indeed stretching him financially. (Eli and Chelsea had been able to tap into a few credit-report data banks and find out all sorts of “confidential” information about people.)
Eli spent thirty minutes in his room, stewing over the perfidy of his father, but when he saw that his mother was outside tending her roses, he went back to the living room and called the man who was his father.
Eli didn’t waste time with greetings. “If you don’t pay three months’ support within twenty-four hours and another three months’ within thirty days, I’ll put sugar in the gas tank of your new car.” He then hung up the phone.
Twenty-two hours later, Leslie appeared at the door of Miranda’s house with the money. As Eli stood behind his mother, he had to listen to his father give a long, syrupy speech about the goodness of people, about how some people were willing to believe in others, while others had no loyalty in their souls.
Eli stood it for a few minutes, then he looked around his mother and glared at his father until the man quickly left, after loudly telling Miranda that he’d have the other three months’ support within thirty days. Eli restrained himself from calling out that within thirty days he’d owe not three months’ support but four.
When Leslie was gone, Miranda turned to her son and smiled. “See, Eli, honey, you must believe in people. I told you your father would come through, and he did. Now, where shall we go for dinner?”
Ten minutes later, Eli was on the phone to Chelsea. “I cannot go to Princeton,” he said softly. “I cannot leave my mother unprotected.”
Chelsea didn’t hesitate. “Get here fast! We’ll meet in Sherwood Forest.”
“What are we going to do?” Chelsea whispered. They were sitting side by side on a swing glider in the garden on her parents’ twenty-acre estate. It was prime real estate, close to the heart of Denver. Her father had bought four houses and torn down three of them to give himself the acreage. Not that he was ever there to enjoy the land, but he got a lot of joy out of telling people he had twenty acres in the city of Denver.
“I don’t know,” Eli said. “I can’t leave her. I know that. If I weren’t there
to protect her, she’d give everything she owned to my father.”
After the story Eli had just told her, Chelsea had no doubt of this. And this wasn’t the first time Leslie Harcourt had pulled a scam on his sweet ex-wife. “I wish . . .” She trailed off, then stood up and looked down at Eli. His head was bent low as he contemplated what he was giving up by not taking this offer from Princeton. She knew he hated the idea of high school almost as much as he loved the idea of getting on with his computer research.
“I wish we could find a husband for her.”
Eli gave a snort. “We’ve tried, remember? She only likes men like my father, the ones she says ‘need’ her. They need her tendency to forgive them for everything they do.”
“I know, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could make one of those books she loves so much come true? She would meet a tall, dark billionaire, and he’d—”
“A billionaire?”
“Yes,” Chelsea said sagely. “My father says that, what with inflation as it is, a millionaire—even a multimillionaire—isn’t worth very much.”
Sometimes Eli was vividly reminded of how he and Chelsea differed on money. To him and his mother two hundred dollars was a great deal, but the woman who cut Chelsea’s hair charged three hundred dollars a visit.
Chelsea smiled. “You don’t happen to know any single billionaires, do you?”