Dirty Scoundrel(5)

     



 

I have to admit, the present isn't exactly my favorite, either.

Back then he was world-famous, rich, and popular. Now he's just a senile  old guy with a too-young daughter and a mountain of bills. I glance at  the overflowing inbox on my desk, tucked into the corner of the kitchen,  and try not to shudder. I'll look at them later. Maybe.

I make three dozen oatmeal-walnut cookies-the Chap Weston favorite-for  the gift shop and wrap them with colorful Saran wrap and stickers of my  dad's face from a black-and-white Western movie, Big Sky Callin'. I put  them in a basket, take them to the front parlor (which has been  completely revamped as the gift shop) and then begin the process of  cleaning up our large ranch since tour groups will be coming in starting  at ten in the morning. There's a lot to do between now and then. I move  through the twenty rooms of our twenty-five-room ranch that have been  designated as the "Chap Weston museum tour" and begin picking up trash  from the night before. There's always crap that guests have left  behind-gum stuck to antique furniture, candy wrappers tucked away in  corners, cigarette butts . . . I even found a used condom in a bedroom  once.

People are freaks.

I continue on, dusting props, vacuuming, straighten up the velvet  cordoned ropes that guide the guests through the home, and make sure  that none of the movie props been moved to the wrong room. Each of the  rooms is set up with a theme from one of Dad's biggest movies, complete  with cardboard cutouts of my dad in the appropriate costumes. It's corny  as hell but people get a kick out of it. As I pass through each room, I  turn on the music from each of the movies. Big Sky Callin's soundtrack  in the Western parlor, Little Tiki Princess in the hula room, Ahoy, My  Lady in the submarine room, and so on. Even the guest restrooms have a  theme-The Adventures of Roy Danger, another cowboy movie musical that  made my dad a star. Unfortunately, the restrooms also have leaky toilets  and tend to get clogged, and so I spend a good portion of the morning  scrubbing the horseshoe-pattern tiles on the floors before heading  upstairs to change into my work uniform.

Oh, the work uniform. How I hate it. It's humiliating to have to dress  like Loretta Paige from Roy Danger, but it sells tickets and makes  people open their wallets in the gift shop more than the regular dumpy,  too-young daughter of Chap Weston does. And these days, everything I do  is designed to bring money in. So I suck up my pride and dress like the  redneck cousin of Elly May Clampett, because that's what makes people  really enjoy the "experience."

I have to do all of this to pay for my father's medical bills. Because  even though he was a huge star in the fifties and sixties, my dad also  lived like a movie star all his life. Before his stroke, he had a  constant entourage of at least five to six people at all  times-accountants, agents, assistants, publicists, you name it. There  were lavish vacations to private islands and endless gifts for wives,  ex-wives, girlfriends, and anyone else Chap Weston wanted to impress.  After a string of questionable life choices and a string of even more  questionable ex-wives, he's flat broke, senile, and has to rely on his  daughter turning his home into a museum in order to keep the lights on.

It's not exactly how I envisioned my dynamic father's twilight years.

For a moment, I stare into the mirror at my reflection-the brunette in a  shirt that looks like a cross between a fringe explosion and a pink  sausage casing-and I feel so much older and far more tired than I should  be. Sometimes I just want to get up and run out the door and never look  back. I can't, though. I'm trapped. My skin prickles and I feel hot.

Trapped. Twenty-five years old and trapped. There's no escaping the crap-fest my life has become.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then exhale, calming myself.  There's nothing I can do. My dad doesn't have anyone else to lean on.  Managers, agents-those people disappeared when the money did. All he's  got left are a few ex-wives that call once a month for their support  checks-and his lonely, lonely daughter.

So I suck it up and take care of things the best I can. Chap Weston's got no one else.

Every now and then, I think about the life I might have had if my dad  hadn't had his stroke that night and everything came crashing down. If  Johanna hadn't run for the hills and left me with an elderly, ailing  father, and his accountants hadn't called to inquire about the mountain  of debt that was slowly crushing my father's legacy. I'd been blissfully  unaware of such things. Johanna would have stayed, maybe. I would have  gone to Stanford and pursued a career in psychology or anthropology.         

     



 

That girl would have texted Clay back and asked him not to leave. She  would have told him she needed him, and she didn't want Stanford nearly  as much as she wanted him.

But that girl's dead and gone, I guess. All that's left is Howdy Doody's  more garish cousin, Pinky Doody. Or something. I make a face at my  reflection.

A riding lawnmower roars to life outside, which means that there's no  more time to fart around. I finish putting my dark hair into the Loretta  pigtails, stuff on my pink cowboy hat, and head downstairs. Time to  kick things into high gear. I grab another cup of coffee for myself and a  bottle of Gatorade, heading out onto the porch just in time to see Old  Jimmy, our neighbor, wave as he mows the sculpted lawns of Weston  Ranch's twenty-five acres. Well, kind of mows. More like he drives the  mower over the lawn and cuts most of the grass. Not all of it. I like to  think that it looks a bit like a cinnamon roll. Or zebra stripes.

Or like a nearsighted ninety-year-old mowed it, which is the case.

It's too much yard for anyone to tackle, but Old Jimmy's a fan. He's the  sweetest man and a great neighbor, and it's not something I can handle  on my own. When he volunteered, I took him up on it, no questions asked.  I can't even complain, really. He loves doing the yards just for a  chance to come and have dinner with us once a week. He's not very good  at them, but he tries. He tries really, really hard.

Story of my life. Seems like that's what'll be written on my tombstone.  Natalie Weston-she's not very good, but she tries really hard. I trot  outside to greet Old Jimmy and hold out the sports drink, yelling over  the sound of the motor. "Morning, Jimmy."

He flips the mower off and beams at me, his lined face crinkling. His  glasses are already sliding down his nose-no surprise, since the lenses  are thicker than magnifying glasses. "Morning, Miss Nat. How's your dad  today?"

I put a smile on my face. "It's not gonna be a great day, but he might  perk up by the time it's autograph time." Dad loves having his picture  taken, even to this day, and manages to have a few lucid hours for his  fans most of the time. "Gonna be a hot one. Stay hydrated, okay?" I hand  him the drink.

"Of course. You fix that leaky faucet upstairs yet? Want me to come take a look at it?"

"It's fixed," I lie, giving him a cheery expression. "Called the plumber  last week." There's no money for a plumber, but there's also no money  to pay Jimmy, and I feel bad enough abusing his goodwill as it is. I'd  do the lawns myself but there's absolutely no way I could do the yards  and the cleaning and the museum on my own. Plus, I have to stay close  enough to Dad in case he trips and falls.

Plus, if he fixes it half as well as he mows the yard . . . well.

"Got a few loose shingles on the roof," Jimmy comments, unscrewing the  lid on the Gatorade and taking a gulp. "You got someone to look at it  for you?"

"I know a guy. I'll call him." I pat Jimmy on the shoulder. "Don't you  worry about it. Anyhow, I need to get inside. It's almost opening time."



Clay

When the limo comes to a stop, a surge of memories comes over me at the sight of the sprawling Western ranch ahead of us.

"What in fresh hell is this shit?" Knox asks, rubbing his beard as he stares out the window. "Bonanza Land?"

"Chap Weston Land, more like it. Supposed to be a museum now." I tip my  baseball cap back and gaze out the window on his side. He's not wrong  about this place being a bit like a movie set-the ranch is sprawling but  . . . man, is it ugly as fuck. The lawns look like they've been mowed  by a three-year-old, and the main house itself looks like a reject from a  Western movie. A really old, cheap one. There's a red Spanish-tile roof  over a bright yellow exterior, and a big weather-aged sign shows a  picture of the black-and-white movie star Chap Weston welcoming visitors  to his home. There's a gravel parking lot and a few wood cutouts of  horses in the distance. It looks different than I remember it from back  when I was dating Natalie.

Didn't remember it being quite so . . . garish. So very . . . Chap  Weston – y. I should have expected this, given that I remember coming to  this place as a teenager . . . but still, seeing it again is strange as  hell. Knox is right-this place is garish as fuck and it looks like it's  gotten worse over time.