Dirty Little Secret Read online

  I had to read the words three times before they made any kind of sense.

  Paternity test for Melissa Hanover, confirmed.

  My first instinct was utter puzzlement. And maybe a small bit of disgust. Had my mom had an affair? Because if she had, then…Eww.

  But the final page made things much more…I don’t want to say worse. Interesting seems like too broad a descriptor. Maybe the most accurate thing to say is that the words on that page made things much more daytime-talk-show-worthy.

  My sister – the long, lean, cheering machine, the super-mom with the hand-sewn Halloween costumes and the easy smile – was my mom. My dad was some guy named Andrew Linozzo.

  To say the bomb dropped doesn’t accurately describe my feelings. My knees gave way, and I landed with a thump in my mom’s marble foyer. (No, wait. She was my grandmother, wasn’t she? How was I going to adjust to that? Ever?)

  It took me several long minutes to pull myself together, and when I at last made my way back to the living room on shaking legs, and shoved the paperwork in her face, she just sipped her cappuccino and asked me to pass the sugar.

  “What is this?” I choked out.

  “Exactly what it looks like.”

  “It looks like I just walked into a soap opera.”

  For one second, my mom was speechless. It was probably the most rebellious, sarcastic thing I’d ever said. But I didn’t take it back or apologize. I just waited.

  My mom sighed. “It’s not as sordid as you think. It was a practical decision intended to protect everyone’s best interests.”

  I tried to come up with a fair question. One that wouldn’t challenge her logic. Which was irrefutable as always. I settled on the most obvious line of inquiry.

  “Who is Andrew Linozzo?”

  “Who was Andrew Linozzo,” she corrected. “He’s dead.”

  “My father is dead?”

  I don’t know why that revelation hit me the way it did. He was a man I had never met. He was a man I never even knew existed.

  Still, I slumped down onto the couch, and my mom finally seemed to notice that I wasn’t quite as blasé about the whole thing as she was.

  “He was not a father,” she told me. “He was a deadbeat who seduced your sister when she was in her junior year of high school. He went to jail, where he unceremoniously died.”

  “That’s…” I trailed off, unable to find an appropriate word. “Sad.”

  “It’s not sad in the way you’re implying.” Her patience, always in short supply, was growing even thinner. “It’s sad that I had to order that DNA test to prove something we already knew.”

  “You ordered it?”

  “Yes. The lawyers wanted some concrete evidence before they handed over the insurance check owed to you on your twenty-first birthday. I gave them a sample, they tested it, it was positive. You’ll see an increase in your bank statement over the next week.”

  I opened my mouth. I don’t know what I was going to ask, or say. How much of an increaser? I don’t want it, send it back. Or maybe just…What that hell?! But she cut me off with a cool smile.

  “Let’s move on, shall we? The eggs are getting cold and you have an exam.”

  That was it. No screaming, no crying, no shaming. Don’t tell your brother (uncle) or your sister’s (other) kids because it will be upsetting for everyone.

  I should’ve flipped out. I should’ve asked questions, demanded answers, done…Something. Instead, I passed the sugar and bit into my rubbery eggs.

  Because I was the good girl, the one who did as I was told, without question. And the tiny matter of who was my mom and who wasn’t…It wasn’t going to change that. Nothing was going to change that.

  Until the chai. And of course, the truck.

  CUTTER

  Time to insert the very skinny piece of meat into the shit sandwich.

  Friday.

  It was a bonus day. One that let me have both the day off work, and also off my otherwise housebound life to pursue something I actually cared about.

  Which meant I was nervous as hell.

  I should spend more time talking about this. About the meat. About walking in to the college I’d once attended, and handing over the work sample, and watching as the Dean of Some-Important-Shit paused, gave me a solid once over, then stuck out his hand, and said, “Sold.”

  After all, I’d finally accomplished something worthwhile. In three weeks, they’d be cutting me a check for five grand. I had the five hundred dollar deposit in my greedy fist, right then. That was nothing to shake a stick at. The best news about it? I’d done it all on my fucking own. In my own fucking way, too.

  So I should’ve been in a good mood, and stayed that way, celebrating the fact that I wasn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy after all. Giving myself a hundred mental high-fives.

  Unfortunately, that was what I was doing as I walked out of the dean’s office.

  Maybe if I’d been my normal, tinged-with-bitterness self, things would’ve been fine. Nope. I had to be a cheery-ass motherfucker. Grinning and sipping on the spiced tea the dean’s secretary had popped into a to-go cup and insisted I take with me, while struggling to not drop my work samples.

  Which is why by the time I spotted the blonde, it was too late. I crashed into her and her holier-than-thou self.

  Yes, I made that judgment about her before she even spoke, and I’m not even ashamed of it.

  Everything in my arms went flying, and so did I, and I caught a glimpse of her as my legs kicked out in front of me.

  This is what she looked like on the outside. Sunshine and spring. Glossy, hair-commercial locks, slicked back into a perfect ponytail. Wide, blue eyes that brought to mind gingham and clear sky. Red cheeks and a horrified expression on her face as barely-warm tea splashed over her enticingly ample chest.

  Yes, she was fucking beautiful.

  When my gaze sought hers, though, it was like I wasn’t even there. Like I was dirt on the floor instead of a human being. She just stared down at her pink, fuzzy sweater with her pink-frosted lips turned down.

  I opened my mouth, not to apologize, but to tell her what she could do with that stupid-ass sweater. She beat me to it.

  “My sweater! It’s garbage.”

  “Yep.” I smirked.

  She didn’t notice. In fact, she answered me as if I had apologized.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  Her eyes finally found me, but they didn’t linger long, and I wondered irritably what she saw that made her dismiss me so easily. What kinds of things turned her off? My too-long hair, maybe. It should’ve been cut weeks ago, and she was the kind of girl who dug preppy, I could tell. The rough look of my skin, definitely. I worked for a living. I didn’t sit behind a desk or manicure my hands or go to…the man-spa or wherever the fuck it was that pretty-boys went to get groomed. She would want everything I wasn't. Everything I didn't want to be.

  I wasn’t even sure why it pissed me off so badly. After all, it's not like anyone else had put me in my current position. I was the one who landed myself in jail instead in my father’s law firm. I was the one with something to prove. I’d walked away from that life on purpose.

  I shoved myself to my feet, bent down to grab my belongings, and stood up again, prepared to tell her to go fuck herself. Except she was already gone. So was my good mood.

  I stormed out to my truck, cursing the girl for wrecking my goddamned day, taking me from feeling good about my life, straight back to remembering everything I’d failed at. All from a single, disdainful look in those fucking blue eyes.

  I tossed everything into the back, stepped on the gas, and peeled out of my parking spot.

  And there she was. Again.

  Standing there in those ridiculous, hideously dull shoes that are supposed to somehow miraculously feed starving children, and her tits popping out of a low cut sparkly top. My disgust level rose to an all-time high.
/>   She was the most beautiful, heart-stopping piece of perfection I’d ever seen.

  My resentment spiked, and I had to do something. Anything.

  I stepped on the gas, and my brute of a truck lurched forward on a straight line toward her. I was a little surprised at the depth of my fury.

  After five, long, shitty-ass years of dealing with the emotional fall-out of my own bad decisions, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I could make another giant-sized, ill-informed one. Then again, my own special brand of douche-baggery sometimes did startle even me.

  My dad’s voice dug at me. You always did have a shitty learning curve, son. Should’ve stuck with the family business. You owed it to us.

  Did he learn that in law school? Fuck him and fuck that, I didn’t owe anybody anything.

  So my foot pushed down, and my truck slammed forward through the mud, right toward the pretty blonde princess.

  At the last second, I finally got a hold of myself, and hit the brakes.

  What came next was priceless.

  An arc of muddy water enveloped her, coating her smug little face and her too-tight pants.

  Serves her right.

  At the same time, though, I couldn’t help thinking about how I wouldn’t mind throwing her down in that mud and fucking the cute little pout right off her face.

  MELISSA

  I looked down in horror at the muddy devastation. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes, then spilled out onto my cheeks. Crying didn’t equal weakness, or imperfection. It was just a girl thing. After all, bitches don’t cry. They scream and yell. Nice girls, however, are perfectly happy to let a little bit of constructive emotion out via their tear ducts.

  The truck loomed in front of me, looking mean. Like it had done it on purpose. It was one of those jacked up deals, clearly meant to compensate for something. It was noisy and dirty, and generally asshole-ic in proportion to the Beemer my Danny drove.

  I stared at it incredulously.

  Fifteen seconds earlier, I’d been rolling my eyes as the monstrosity tore through the parking, windows down as the driver blared some rock n roll garbage that should’ve gone out with the eighties.

  Ten seconds earlier, my mouth had dropped open as it skidded past a row of cars, straight for me.

  Five seconds earlier, I’d been thinking, There is no way that thing is hitting me. No. Way.

  Because I was wearing skinny white jeans that looked like they were painted on. And I was carrying a designer purse worth as much as a mortgage payment on a not-too-shitty townhouse. Oh, and because I was me. Melissa Hanover. And how dare he try to mess me up? I put good things into the world, and they came back at me. Good girl karma.

  And of course, I’d already had my one bit of bad luck for the day, when some doofus had dumped an entire chai out onto my favorite angora sweater. (In retrospect, maybe I should’ve known. The chai should’ve been an omen. A chai-men.) In fact, that had upset me as much as the splattering of mud.

  I was forced to strip off the sweater, tuck it into my backpack, and shiver through the halls in my spaghetti strapped tank top. Even with my arms crossed delicately across my breasts to avoid exposure, I felt cheap.

  I got madder and madder with each chilly step.

  My point is…I was standing on the edge of the grass between a fire hydrant and flower bed, already tense and angry when the truck pulled up.

  The truck actually didn't hit me, of course, or I might not have lived to tell the tale. But it did do something worse. It hit the puddle, which was a big, stupid one, caused by poor drainage. It hadn't even rained in a week, and it was still there, mucky and deep. In slow motion, the wheels spun, hit the goo, and flung it all over me.

  Bear in mind that nice-girl-me didn’t get mad. Not just then, but like, ever. And I wanted to cling to nice-girl-me. But as I waited for the driver to climb out and offer me an explanation and an apology, I was seething. Twitching with unexpressed anger.

  Instead, he rolled down the window, tossed back his shaggy blonde hair, and flashed me a grin. A grin! As if it was a joke. As if I was joke.

  A trickle of unfamiliar fury bubbled under the surface of my innocent psyche.

  "I'm not a joke," I muttered.

  "What's that, sweetheart?"

  It took me a long second to realize the clown was talking to me.

  "I'm not a joke," I said loudly. "And I'm not your sweetheart."

  "You’re right. You don’t look much like anyone’s sweetheart.”

  “I do have a boyfriend!”

  I don’t know why I yelled it. I sounded like a five-year old, even to my own ears. But it was too late to take it back.

  The amused look didn't leave his face. In fact, his smile widened. It took up his whole face, spreading out his rocker-iffic beard into ten-day stubble. It was as overblown as his goddamned truck. I wanted to shrink it down to the size of his inevitably tiny manhood.

  “Does he call you sweetheart?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Ah-ha.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Don’t worry.” He winked. Winked! “With those crocodile tears and that pull-me ponytail…I’m thinking you’re more of a baby-doll than a sweetheart, anyway.”

  Now here's another important thing to know about the carefully crafted, Grade ‘A’, good girl image. It doesn't include room for cuss words anywhere but in your head. It doesn't include losing your temper, especially in a public place. It definitely doesn't include literal mud-slinging at a beer-for-brains loser like the one in the truck.

  But.

  I. Did. It. All.

  "You scumbag, douchebag, shitbag loser!" I hollered.

  "Me?"

  "What the fuck! Yes, you. I don't see any other assholes around here."

  In fact, a crowd was growing, and most of them were probably assholes, too. Only assholes stare at, rather than help, a nice girl in distress.

  The need-a-haircut trucker noticed them too and looked around pointedly. Which pissed me off even more. So I stomped - in my hideous but eco-friendly canvas shoes - to the mud puddle, reached down, grabbed a handful, and tossed it as hard as I could at the offending vehicle.

  I should add, here that my squeaky-clean self-played all-girls' softball for thirteen years before joining the cheer squad. And admit that my favored position was pitcher. And maybe also confess that I was an All-Star.

  However, that being said, my eyes were closed when I threw the mud. Where it landed was nothing more than a happy coincidence.

  Though maybe outta-buy-a-razor dude didn't think so.

  With a sludge-caked, incredulous stare – yes, it hit him right in the dirty-ass mouth - he tossed the truck door open so hard I thought it might snap off, and leaped out.

  Wasn't he wearing a seatbelt? I wondered absently.

  It was his turn to stomp. His army boots slapped the mud emphatically as he made his way towards me. I stood my ground, bracing for my first ever fist fight. Which was going to be with a man. A six foot, six inch, perfect specimen of well-muscled man. With a vein popping out of his dirty forehead and mud stuck to his beard which was in turn stuck to his chin. He stopped, right in front of me, sky blue eyes blazing, hands clenched at his sides. If he was shorter, and I could've reached, I would've slapped the self-righteous look right off his face.

  But a lady doesn’t strike first.

  "Hit me," I hissed.

  “What?”

  “Hit me, you fucker.”

  "I am not going to hit you."

  "Either hit me, or apologize," I commanded.

  He took a step closer.

  Yes! I did mental fist pump. He's gonna do it. He’s going to fucking hit me.

  For some reason, this thought sent a desire-filled shiver through my body.

  Here, I wish I had a pause button. A way to stop life in that absurd moment, then rewind it, slow it down, and analyze it frame by stupid frame. Because I was not a girl who had ever glorified violence.

  So
why, in God's name, did the idea of this caveman yanking back my hair and laying the smack down, turn me on?

  He smirked, like he knew what I was thinking.

  "Still not going to do it," he said.

  His statement infuriated me. And I had already slung mud.

  "Are you always such a dipshit?" I demanded.

  He put his hands on his knees and bent down to my level. I shook with indignation. How dare he treat me like a child?

  And it got worse.

  He leaned forward, so his lips were right beside my ear and whispered, "Only when dealing with a cunt like you."

  When he dropped the c-word, I should've punched him. I should've spat in his face. I should've taken a step back and given him a look that put him in his Neanderthal place. What happened instead is this.

  My knees got weak. My heart rate increased quicker than it does during a Zumba class. I had to take a shallow breath to steady myself, and very nearly reached for the daddy-of-all-douchebags to hold me up.

  With that smirk still in place, he put one hand his hip, and pinched my chin with the other.

  "See you later. Baby-doll."

  "Fuck you!” I yelled. “Later."

  It wasn't until he was back in his truck and speeding away that I realized exactly how that had sounded.

  CUTTER

  I had to get out of there before I put her in her place. Or put her against my truck and myself in her place, so to speak.

  I jumped back into my truck, and hit the gas as hard as I could.

  She’d looked even better close up.

  Except, of course, for the glare in her eyes.

  Then she started with the crap about hitting her.

  And fuck me if I didn’t want to.

  Hit her. Tap her. And every other euphemism for fucking her I could come up with.

  As soon as there was some space between us, a surge of dark adrenaline raced through me, and I had a sudden, intense vision of the girl, spread-eagle on silk sheets. As if I owned silk sheets.