Get What You Need – Exclusive Book Excerpt
ABBEY
“You shouldn’t give your mother and Adrian such a hard time, you know.”
“Me? What about them?” I flopped back against the padded backrest of the booth and folded my arms across my chest. “If they’d stop smothering me with a new rule like every other day, it would make my life a lot easier.”
Uncle Luke and I had spent a pretty good day together — the entire day, just the two of us. Now he had to go and mess it all up by mentioning my mom and stepfather.
“A little trust goes a long way,” he commented, wincing as our server plunked down what looked to be a size 12 glittery ruby-red stiletto onto the table.
“Enjoy your evening, my pretties — thank you!”
Uncle Luke plucked our bill out of the shoe. He examined the numbers profusely so he wouldn’t have to watch our server, a stunning redhead in traditional Dorothy gingham with an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball, buss our table suggestively. My uncle was gay and out, but this place was clearly not his scene.
Campy and over the top, Rainbow! screamed loud and proud. Meals were served by drag Dorothys and every half hour, one of them would climb up on the bar and belt out an Oz tune for everyone to sing along. Signs for after-hours drag shows and Dirty Bingo plastered the walls. The entire place was emerald green and glitzy. If the Wizard and Elton John ever got married, Rainbow! would be the perfect place for the reception.
It was certainly the perfect spot to avoid a lecture, which was why I chose it for dinner in the first place. Had we been there in time for their Sunday karaoke brunch, which I’ve heard is total flaming chaos, we probably wouldn’t have been able to talk or hear each other at all.
“Even if I ‘gain trust’ back, they’ll still care way too much about where I’m going and who I’m hanging out with,” I pointed out with a sigh. “So annoying.”
Uncle Luke slipped a fifty and a twenty into the shoe and looked at me point-blank. “True, because they care about you, Abbey. You wouldn’t want the alternative, trust me.” His eyes were deep brown and seemed to swallow me, just like my real father’s eyes did when I looked at old pictures of him. I concentrated on picking the stuffing from a burst seam in the sparkly green vinyl of my seat.
I didn’t like being swallowed up by anyone’s eyes, alive or dead.
We waited for our server to return and my uncle checked his phone. I instinctively reached for mine, but then remembered it was sitting at the bottom of the Upper New York Bay. My boyfriend Varick did stupid, reckless things sometimes that even I didn’t understand. My six-year-old brother would probably have a phone of his own before my parents would even think of trusting me with one again.
“Do you need anything else? Can I make some change happen for you?” Our ginger Dorothy sashayed over once again, questions oozing with double meaning.
“Nope, we’re actually all set,” Uncle Luke decided, thumbing his keypad once more before slipping his phone into his pocket and sneaking one last look at me. “Keep the change. Let’s get going, Abbey. Okay?”
I zipped my new Oso fleece hoodie and led the way out. Like magical clockwork, Manhattan temps dropped as we had flipped the calendar page. I snuggled deeper into my fleece and allowed my uncle to cup the small of my back with his palm as we threaded through the crowds on Bleeker Street.
“It was a good day, huh?”
“Yeah.” Despite the chill, we had spent part of the day taking pictures in Central Park. Uncle Luke and I had some of our best conversations when he was behind the camera and I was his subject. When I didn’t have to answer to those big brown eyes, just to the hollow Cyclops of a lens. Anonymous-like. We had thawed out with an afternoon at the Frick, my second favorite museum after The Cloisters. And then we had hopped trains down to Greenwich Village in search of food.
He gave me a squeeze as we rounded Sixth Avenue. The sidewalks were still spattered with multi-colored confetti from the Village Halloween Parade. Hard to believe fifty thousand people had been clogging up this very street on foot and in floats just two nights ago. Now there was just the bumblebee drone of yellow cabs and stealth black limousines.
Halloween seemed like a lifetime ago.
“There’s an open cab,” I said, turning in surprise as my uncle waved it on. “Unkie, what?”
Only silliness and fear let my childhood nickname for him slip. And neither of us were laughing at the moment. Dread iced through me. It was like a movie, it was in slow motion. A limo, slowing down. Window, door opening.
“Get in the car.”
“You can’t do this…I won’t, no! You can’t make me.”
“Get in the goddamned car, Abbey.” Adrian growled from the backseat.
My uncle’s strong fingers clamped my arms from behind in a vice grip. Foot stomp, elbow strike…In my head, I heard the voices of every karate Sensei I’d ever had. But in my heart, I couldn’t react. Betrayal by the closest flesh and blood to the father I never knew was a blow even I couldn’t soften.
He pushed and Adrian pulled. And the rest of Manhattan paid no attention.
“You’re dead to me!” I screamed toward those deep brown eyes, as the window rose up to form a tinted barrier. “Dead like my father!” I hope he’d heard me. I hoped the words wounded him more than any physical defense would have.
The limo glided uptown, but I knew we weren’t going home.
“At least let me stop home and get my stuff. I want my journals, my things.”
Adrian was infuriatingly quiet. I felt my throat closing, like the beginning of an allergic reaction. Everything was the same: the sting, the shock, and the fear. “You guys went through my room, didn’t you?”
If paranoia could cause an anaphylactic reaction, I was having one.
“It’s done, Abbey.”
“I hate you!” Tears, salty and insulting, burst through and I could breathe again. I choked harsh, raggedy gasps which didn’t even sound like mine.
“Don’t waste too much of your time on that emotion.”
That was pretty ironic, coming from a guy whose every gold record in the 1980s was based on fear and loathing.
“I want to stay in the city…I’ll do anything,” I begged. “Please!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Deep inside his leather jacket, his phone began to peal. All of my stepfather’s ringtones were from songs he had written. Except the one for his ex-wife, which was the Wicked Witch of the West music. I recognized this particular ring, it was his daughter, Natalie’s.
“You can’t keep me from him, you know. Varick will find me. He loves me.”
“Whatever you think he feels for you, it will pass.” Adrian’s phone fell silent. I had never known him not to pick up a “Transatlantic Wake Up Call” call. It had to be the middle fo the night in England. I wondered why she was calling now, of all times.
“I can’t believe you are taking me away from all my friends and uprooting all of us, just because of one stupid thing that, trust me, won’t ever happen again!”
His phone came to life once again; this time it was “Cat with the Emerald Eyes.” Otherwise known as his partner in crime, my mother. “Tell her moving to North Bajeezus is going to do more damage to me than Manhattan ever will,” I spat.
“Yes, she just rang, but I…you what? Cripes, Kat. I thought we were going to discuss…no, no, it’s just that I — true, okay. Let’s talk about it when I get there…Yes. As expected. We’re on the Saw Mill River Parkway now. Alright, luv.”
I watched as Adrian disconnected the call, then brought his hand still holding the phone up to support his forehead. His shaggy hair hid most of his face, but I could hear his sharp intake of breath and pictured the way his nostrils flared and eyes widened when he was totally stressed out.
“It’s so not fair, my grades are probably gonna tank changing schools and when I’m —”
“SHUT the FUCK up!” he roared, turning on me with fury I hadn’t seen coming. “Bloody hell, everything is NOT always about you, alright?”
I hiccuped one last sob and swallowed painfully. I was quiet-crying now; it was the worst kind of crying, when your eyes stream and your nose just runs like a faucet. Freaking limo, no tissues in sight.
I glanced at the mini-bar, looking for at least a cocktail napkin. If Varick were here, he’d probably help himself to a drink. Adrian would kill me if I did. He grabbed two tiny black-and-white bottles of Jack Daniels. I watched as he downed one, his ringed fingers like a giant’s clutching the bottle’s neck. Then he poured the other into a glass, and cracked a Coke from the mini-bar. After adding a splash to the glass, he offered the soda can to me. I took it and we both sipped our drinks, riding in silence. Grass and trees began to replace concrete and street-lamps in the cool moonlight.
“He’s my soulmate,” I sniffed.
“Maybe he is.” Adrian took a long haul off his drink before continuing. “In some alternate reality where you’ve sold your soul. But currently, this is your reality.” He knocked the window as we passed the big sign in town, welcoming us to Lauder Lake, population 5,670. “Welcome to it.”
Excerpt From: Jessica Topper. “Get What You Need.”
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