It didn’t end up mattering. Paul wanted something from me, but it wasn’t my condolences.
“Yeah, you’re talking to one of Los Angeles magazine’s most eligible bachelors,” he went on, oblivious. “Of course my parents aren’t too happy about it. They had the nerve to take me to court to contest the will, can you believe that?”
“Uh . . . yes?”
“Funny. But justice prevailed, and I’m now the president and CEO of Slater Industries. I’ve got a home on both coasts and a private jet to fly between them, but—as the magazine put it—no one special with whom to share them.” I could hear the mocking tone in his voice. “Interested in being that special someone, Suze?”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” I said coolly. “Especially since you can’t think of anything more creative to do with your new fortune than knock down other people’s houses. Which I don’t think you can even do legally. Mine’s nearly two hundred years old. It’s still got the original carved newel post on the staircase from when it was built in 1850. It has stained-glass windows. It’s a historic landmark.”
“Actually, it isn’t. Oh, it’s quaintly charming in its own way, I suppose, but nothing historic ever occurred there. Well, except for what happened between you and me,” he smirked, “and considering the way you’ve been avoiding me these past few years, I guess I’m not the only one who remembers that as being historically significant.”
“Nothing ever happened between us, Paul,” I said. He was only trying to get under my skin, the same way he’d tried to get under my bra at graduation. That’s how he operated, much like a chigger, or various other bloodsucking parasites. “Nothing good, anyway.”
“Ouch, Simon! You sure know how to hurt a guy. I distinctly recall one afternoon in my bedroom when you did not seem at all repulsed by my advances. Why, you even—”
“—walked out on you, remember? And no one can tear down a house that old. That has to be a violation of some kind of city code.”
“You slip enough money to the right politicians, Simon, you can get permits to do anything you want in the great state of California. That’s why they call it the land of opportunity. Congratulations, by the way, on your stepfather’s success. Who would have thought that little home-improvement show of Andy Ackerman’s would become an international sensation. Where’d your parents move to with all the money he’s raking in from the syndication rights? Bel Air? Or the Hills? Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. I’m sure they haven’t let fame go to their heads. Your mother is a lovely woman with such gracious manners, which is more than I can say for her only daughter—”
“You say one more word about my mother,” I snarled, “and I will end you, Paul, like I should have done years ago. I will find you, wherever you are, remove your head from your body, and stuff it up your—”
“You already used that one,” Paul reminded me. “So I take it that you do have a sentimental side, Suze. How surprising. I always knew you had a soft spot for that undead boyfriend of yours, of course, but I never expected it to extend to real estate. Oh, wait—Jesse must be more than just a boyfriend now that you managed to reunite his body with his soul. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit out of the loop lately—and who has time to read their alumni newsletter anyway? Have you two tied the knot? Wait, silly me—of course you have. It’s been six years since high school! I know a love as passionate as the one you and that necromantic cholo shared couldn’t possibly wait six years to be consummated. And from what I remember, Hector ‘Jesse’ de Silva respected you far too much ever to try to get into your pants without the sanctity of holy matrimony.”
I felt my cheeks begin to burn. I told myself it was indignation at his racism—necromantic cholo? Really?—but I knew some of it was due to a different emotion entirely. I was happy Paul wasn’t in the same room with me, or he’d surely have noticed. He’d always been discomfortingly sharp-eyed.
“Jesse and I are engaged,” I said, controlling—with an effort—my impulse to swear at him some more. In the past, anytime Paul was able to evoke any kind of emotion from me at all—even a negative one—it pleased him.
And the last thing I’d ever wanted to do was please Paul Slater.
“Engaged?” Paul crowed. “What is this, the 1950s? People still get engaged? Do people even get married? I mean, straight people?”
I really should have thought before I acted and never called him in the first place, I thought miserably, eyeing a poster Ms. Diaz, the Mission Academy guidance counselor, had stuck on the wall over by the entrance to her office. It was one of those posters ubiquitous to the profession, a blown-up photo of a kitten struggling to hang on to a tree branch emblazoned with the words Aim High!
Too late, I realized I ought to have aimed high and approached Paul with cool dispassion, not let my emotions get in the way. That was the only way to handle him.
But he’d always been good at pushing my buttons.