Select Few Page 3

  The gold suddenly caught a beam of light, and showers of sparkles shot across the stark white walls. As the gold piece slowly twirled, the lights traveled. I held up one arm to catch the lights and watched them play over the back of my hand. My entire body felt illuminated, all my worries briefly banished.

  “This is still who you are,” John said. I turned to look at him, the lights playing over his cheekbone. “Trust it. You can control it.”

  I had the feeling of déjà vu, that I recognized this moment, that I had been here before.

  I exhaled.

  Gently, I took the necklace from him. The room went plain white again.

  “That’s who I was.” I dangled the necklace over the drawer of my bedside table, lowering it gently, then closing it back in the dark. “I have to stop. It’s too dangerous to be different.”

  “It’s still a part of you. It’s okay to miss them. They’re your family.”

  “I don’t.”

  His phone vibrated on the bed somewhere near my hip. We’d been ignoring his phone that had been blowing up with texts and he’d just missed a call. This time, I picked it up and saw a text from Allie: Where are you?

  John glanced at the text before putting his phone facedown on the bed, knowing I’d seen it.

  “You need to get back to the party,” I said, before he could.

  John stayed silent. He had gone completely still and was studying the room intently, like he was searching for something he’d forgotten. The look on his face unnerved me. I couldn’t help it. I tried to read his mind. Then, as if he felt me doing it, he came to attention, made his mind go blank, and swung his legs over the side of the bed so quickly it surprised me.

  He stood and walked across the room. “You still do that.”

  “How do you…I’m sorry. That’s the hardest thing to control. It feels as natural as breathing.” I saw him look around the room again, unsettled. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m good,” he said, shaking it off with a joke. “Why don’t you read someone else’s mind? Like my brother’s.”

  “That would be ‘tennis, August, tennis, where’s John?, tennis.’ ” I smiled. “No, it’s always been just you,” I said softly and then wished I hadn’t said anything.

  “But why me?” he asked, suddenly serious.

  “I don’t know. Because you’re special,” I teased. Hopefully not as special as my father believed.

  “Are you sure other people from your group can’t read minds?”

  “Not that I know of.” If that had been the case, Angus, my oldest friend who had also been a Lost Kid, would have somehow found out and told me.

  I got off the bed, picked up the packet from Stanford, and walked over to John, noticing for the first time that his eye color had changed, the tiny green flecks had become more prominent.

  John opened the bedroom door. As if he knew exactly who I had just been thinking about, he said over his shoulder, “I keep thinking Angus is going to show up any minute.”

  I followed him from the room, surprised he was worried. “Why would you even think that? He can’t come back here. Everyone has seen the video. He launched himself from a three-story balcony causing an earthquake and a human stampede. He and his parents were lucky to get away from the police.”

  “Everyone everywhere has seen the video. You’re here, and that’s why he’d come back.” In the usual John fashion, he’d told me his feelings and then had started to walk away.

  As soon as we entered the living room, we caught the Fords’ new dog red-handed, lounging on my low-slung couch, one front paw dangling on top of the other. The rescue dog was Taro and Kathleen’s answer to an almost-empty nest. He quickly barreled off the sofa and hurtled around obstacles to reach John before running into his legs.

  “Spirit!” John bent at the waist and lightly wrestled the dog back and forth between his hands, a tactic to avoid talking about Angus more. Spirit’s tail wagged crazily, making a hollow thump as it banged against the glass coffee table.

  “Want to leave Spirit here?” I offered.

  John hesitated. “That’s okay. He’s my cover story. I said I would take him out with me to get ice since he wouldn’t stop barking after the neighbor’s dog went crazy.”

  Spirit was getting hyper, beginning to jump. John scooped up the long, sleek dog and put him over his shoulder like a giant baby. Spirit gave me a doleful look.

  I walked John to the kitchen and set the packet on the counter as I studied my phone, which Stuart had linked to my security system so that I could view the surveillance in and immediately around my apartment. I watched the outside hall, ready to tell John when it looked empty and he could exit unseen.

  “Wait, what else was in there?” John asked, pointing to the envelope.

  I spilled the contents onto the white marble counter. “It’s information on some program I can apply to called the ‘Institute for Progressive Learning.’ ”

  John set Spirit on the ground. “ ‘A learning environment committed to fostering innovation, deeply rooted in Stanford’s pioneering spirit of the West,’ ” John quoted from over my shoulder. “They want you,” he said, suddenly happier. He pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled. Next thing I knew the apartment was shaking with the sounds of “California Love” blaring from the speakers.

  “Hey!” I said, laughing as he sang every single lyric. “Turn it down! Yes, I know you know this song.” I finally had to jump up and grab the phone he held high over his head. I hit pause.

  “Look,” I said, before he got too excited. “I don’t know if they can get over the fact that I’m the daughter of the Oracle of Austin, the billionaire who disappeared off the face of the earth with sixty people and is now wanted by the FBI. That’s not the kind of attention Stanford wants.”

  “All that shit is dying down. I walked in here easily,” John said, putting his phone back in his pocket.

  “Are you sure?” I asked for probably the fifth time, changing the subject. “No one recognized you?”

  “Seriously, it was fine. It’s UT graduation. Downtown’s packed. Let’s go out tomorrow night. I am so sick of pretending that we’re not together.” He reached out and stroked my hair. “I want to make it up to you about the party.”

  “We can’t.”

  John shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yes, we can. So what if someone takes our picture and finds out we’re a couple? Is it me you’re ashamed of?”

  He’d said it flippantly, almost like he was joking, but there it was. It was John’s only vulnerability as far as I could tell—his fear that I would lose interest, that he wasn’t good enough compared to the Puris. Angus, specifically. He couldn’t forget how I’d unceremoniously dumped him last year while Angus looked on. At the time, I’d wanted my family to take me back more than anything. But in the end, I’d wanted John to take me back more.

  “It’s not you. It’s me.” I hoped he knew I meant it. “You and your family’s privacy is way too important.” It wasn’t just that, though I wouldn’t tell him. I didn’t care if pictures were taken. It was that I was worried my father would see them.

  “We’ll be careful.”

  I didn’t want to say no to him this time. Fuck the paparazzi. I didn’t want Novak to know I had a boyfriend, to even put John on his radar, but maybe I was wrong to think Novak was watching me. He had much bigger things to worry about than to closely keep track of the daughter who’d always been a thorn in his side.

  “If I pick the place?” I finally said.

  “Okay, but you’re not paying.”

  John made a move to go, but I reached for him again, bringing my lips to his. The kiss deepened, and I wound my arms around his neck as his hands wandered my back, down to my lower hips. He set me onto the barstool and stood between my legs, leaning into me. Spirit started barking.

  Breat
hless, I pulled away. I put my hand under his shirt. I never wanted to stop touching him. It was addictive, his broad shoulders, the definition of his chest from all that tennis. John captured my hand to stop it.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Not if I need to go.”

  “Stay,” I said, accidentally, wanting to take it back immediately.

  “Come with me,” John said, matter-of-factly, like it was so easy. He kissed the side of my neck.

  “I can’t,” I whispered, reluctantly. John let go of me. “We’re going to California soon. And before that, I’m going on tour with you. No matter what, that’s not going to change.”

  A minute later, I was alone again, and the apartment was too quiet. Seeing the papers splayed on the counter, I gathered them all and dropped them into the tall, silver trash.

  Back in my bedroom, I leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, trying to look at it from John’s perspective. What in this room had been bothering him? Maybe he was just restless in my luxurious and empty apartment since it was the only place we spent time together.

  I turned and walked back to the kitchen. Every day I told myself I wouldn’t do it, but then I did. Like cheating on a diet. Without touching the trash can, I focused and raised the metal lid. Ahhhh. Before the guilt set in, the rush felt fantastic. Then I began to sift through the papers at the top of the trash, retrieving every page from Stanford.

  AUGUST, two months later

  JOHN

  Three broken hairbrushes. A shattered terra-cotta rabbit’s head. Really, Julia? Broken shit everywhere. When you asked me to open that drawer to read the Stanford packet, I thought you wanted me to see that you were using your abilities. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?

  I love you. I notice everything…

  JUNE

  Chapter Three

  Southwest Regions Private Wealth Management wasn’t located in a downtown high rise in a high-end office suite. It was in the suburbs, tucked into a nondescript limestone building behind a store that made knockoff mid-century furniture.

  “Donna?” I called as I stood in the entryway. No one was in the office because it was Sunday, but the front door had been left unlocked for me.

  “Hi, honey!” The singsong voice came from her office. I followed it, walking on the industrial carpet through the abandoned cubicle center to meet Donna at her door.

  “Hey! How’s it going?” Donna gave me her big wave, holding her hand high in the air.

  If she wasn’t six feet tall, she was close, even when wearing flat, clean, white sneakers as she was today, paired with pristine white jeans instead of her usual workweek business suit. When I’d first met her in the chaotic weeks after my family’s departure, when she’d come to the hotel room where I’d shut myself in, she’d been wearing black pumps that made her thrillingly tall like my stepmother and sister.

  She had appeared immediately when I’d finally called the number on the business card paper-clipped to the stack of legal documents I found in my bedroom the night my family left. The card had read, DONNA WILLIAMS, VICE PRESIDENT, SOUTHWEST REGIONS PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT. I had been scared to call the number at first. I felt besieged by the press and had been relentlessly questioned by the FBI about my father’s possible whereabouts and finances. The estate was being held in contention and likely would be for years. For a while I’d lived off the cash that had been left with the documents, but I soon needed more money from the large trust fund my father and stepmother, Victoria, had set up for me to access at age eighteen. Because it had been set up a decade ago, the FBI couldn’t touch it. Donna had mentioned that there wasn’t any evidence of a similar trust for Liv, only me. Apparently my separation from the family had always been a consideration.

  That night we’d met, Donna had arrived at my hotel room and spoke in financial lingo with such a knowing and confident tone that I’d signed with her immediately. She’d talked about how she would sort out my complicated finances, but that, first things first, she’d make sure I had an income going into a checking account. She went above and beyond and arranged for my apartment at the W, the right credit card, and most importantly, a lawyer to push back against the FBI. John excluded, Donna was the first outsider to gain a large amount of my trust. A cynical part of me knew she was gifted at making her clients feel like they were friends, but I also wanted to believe that maybe we were.

  “Look at you!” Donna said. “You are a beautiful sight, but you need some sun. How was it out there? Anyone harass you?”

  I followed Donna into her corner office that, in contrast to the firm bland exterior, was impressively upscale with a Damien Hirst piece hanging on the wall. Her desk was also a work of art—a large piece of glass on two steel sawhorses. From what Donna had told me, the contrast was intentional. She had a lot of clients who preferred a discreet, low-profile firm. She said my father must have heard of her through word of mouth and that was why she received an email invitation to a Dropbox account that dated back to the day my family left.

  I cleared my throat. “No. I didn’t run into anyone. The parking lot was empty. Thanks for meeting me so early.”

  Donna began sifting through a file. “Okay, I have some papers for you to sign—shifting money from savings to the distillery investment we talked about.”

  I got busy on the paper-signing train. When I was done, I leaned back, flexing my right hand, feeling comfortable in this office and with Donna. She didn’t know much about me personally, but she made my life run smoothly, which was by nature pretty personal. I liked letting her boss me around and, once in a while, pretending I was being mothered.

  “Let’s talk logistics for California.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, smiling.

  “All your bills and credit card statements will still be sent here. You have your car. You’re going to need somewhere to live. I’m thinking you’re not going to live in a dorm if they accept you.”

  “Correct.”

  “Ready to get out of here, huh?” she smiled. “Okay, so would you like an apartment or a house?”

  “I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought too much about what California would be like. I’d been waiting on Stanford for some reason.

  “Anything in Silicon Valley is going to be an investment. Just think on it.” Donna gently removed her Gucci reading glasses.

  It seemed like we’d completed business for the day, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet just to go back to the hotel. I got up and wandered around the room, looking at the many tchotchkes around her office, all interesting and perfectly displayed.

  Donna stood up and joined me. “You like these?” She picked up one of the small ceramic windmills from a collection. “They were my dad’s.”

  “I love them,” I said, thinking again of my necklace, my only sentimental item.

  There was a pregnant pause. The meeting was obviously over. Maybe because I just didn’t want it to be or maybe because I knew it was time to understand my own finances, I said, “Donna, can I have hard copies of my account statements?”

  There was a momentary surprise in her eyes. “Of course. You’ve got your laptop. I’ll send you a Dropbox invite.”

  “Do you mind if I look at the hard copies? I’m still paranoid about the FBI breaking into my stuff.”

  “Sure. I’ll have them messengered to the hotel. But remember what your lawyer told us? It’s extremely hard for them to put a US citizen under that kind of surveillance. That said, they’re smart. They’re probably still watching you to see if your friend contacts you. The good news is that means Agent Kelly is still around!” She laughed.

  “I can’t believe you like him. Aren’t you dating a player from the Spurs?”

  “Nah. That ended. I told you what I found out about Agent Kelly? All that Iron Man stuff?”

  “You should ask him out.”

  “To him, I’m the enemy. Your lawyer and me. A
ll we do is try to block him.”

  “You can tell he’s annoyed he was ever assigned to my case,” I laughed, feeling good, joking around with Donna.

  “Oh yeah, he’s annoyed. He was an accountant. He’s just interested in the money. He doesn’t strike me as someone who believes in all the voodoo shit they were saying about your dad. Or the rumors about your friend and what he did to that bar.” Donna paused for a moment, and then said, “Well, if you have any questions, just shoot me an email. Better yet, call me. I’ll miss seeing you so often once you move. You’ll be all caught up in that Silicon Valley lifestyle. Those California boys! Or girls. Sorry, I don’t mean to presume. When do you take off?”

  “I’ll probably be there by late July.”

  “I can line up places for you to look at then if you’d like?”

  “Sounds good. Thank you so much, Donna.”

  “A little free advice: you’re on your way now. If your friend tries to contact you, ignore him and forget that he ever tried. Do not get pulled back in.”

  “He won’t contact me. But yes, I hear what you’re saying.” I then realized Donna was looking at me strangely and I was standing in front of the suddenly open office door. It dawned on me that I may have screwed up and opened the door without touching it.

  Like a true professional, she calmed her expression in a split second. Amazingly, she only said, “Be safe, Julia. I’ll be in touch.”

  AUGUST, two months later

  JOHN

  I was really looking forward to our date even if we were in a private room. It had been so long. I was also planning on surprising you and taking you to a show at Stubbs later in the night if I could convince you. I didn’t know if I should get you flowers. I actually asked my brother if I looked okay. Of course in his opinion, I didn’t. He and August started making fun of me because of how nervous I was, which made me even more nervous…