The Predator [1] Page 4

But back to Chamberlain. I’m not sure if it was him or the guy who I flipped over my back who jarred me more. There was something more than just my body’s natural reaction to his player attitude. It happened after I fell into him. Something changed and sparked in him, not just me. I’ll never know, though. It’s rare for me to see anyone there outside of the volunteers, staff, and my girls.

  Shaking my head, I focus on driving through the snow rather than a good looking, muscle-bound flirt.

  XOXO

  I FINALLY MAKE it home with only a few minutes to spare before teatime starts. My mother and her friends, a loose term since none of them really truly cares for one another, meet every month at each other’s homes. This month, it is here, making my mother more uptight than normal. I rush in the front door, something I don’t normally do, and almost run into my mother. She’s holding her yipping little devil, who she loves more than she loves me.

  “Dear God, Katherine!” She glides backward because leaping is something she would never do. She brushes off the snow that has fallen on her bare arms off after setting the biting terror I’ve nicknamed Lucifer on the ground, where my boots become his chew toy. “What have you been doing?” She raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows at me with shame, like usual.

  “It’s snowing out, heavily,” I answer when I really want to say that I was out building a snowman.

  “Yes, I can see that; it is all over you.” She gives me the once-over, and her disapproving gaze morphs into horror when she locks in on my hair. “Do you know what an umbrella is, Katherine?” She looks down at her watch. “We don’t have the time to deal with your issues today. Timothy will be here at any moment.” She looks away from me and points at the staircase. “Go get yourself cleaned up and presentable. I don’t need Timothy looking at you like you are filth or have you embarrass me again.”

  With that, she sends me away. I want to purposely trudge snow all the way up the stairs and to my room, but that would mean the housekeeper would have to clean everything up, not my mother. When I get to my room, I unlock it, drop my bags on the bed, and rush into my bathroom to quickly settle the wild mess I call hair into a low bun. Before I leave, I dig into my vanity drawer to see if I have any hidden tubes of ChapStick and come up empty.

  I spray myself with my coconut and vanilla body spray, and since my day has already been filled with such grace, I carefully make my way down to the sunroom. The chatter grows as I draw closer. Clinking china and the soft voices of my mother’s companions are like the drums of war to me.

  I take a single step into the doorway and look around at the harpies masquerading as ladies of society sitting around the brightly lit room. The first one to notice I’m here is Timothy.

  So much for beating him down here.

  He stands from his seat next to my sister, buttons his suit jacket, and makes his way to me. Dear old Tim has been a friend since we were in diapers, if you want to call it a friendship. He yells at me more often than not. His father is in politics with mine, and they have tried to turn their dynasties into us. He prides himself on that honor. Tim has grown up to be a good-looking man; his jet-black hair is always perfect, his three piece suits are always perfect, and even his nails, eyebrows, and face are perfect. Which makes all of it boring to me.

  Where I have gone against the grooming my mother gave me growing up, Timothy has ‘perfected’ his mother’s direction. His flaws are hidden. One is his temper, especially toward me. He can be unpredictable and violent. I prefer mine to always be on display; people leave me alone because of them. I don’t talk properly enough, I don’t use separate forks for different foods, I lack all grace except when I dance, and I’m nice to others.

  “You look lovely, Katherine Carrie.” He bends down and kisses me on the cheek before taking my elbow and directing me to my seat next to him. I force a smile at Zoey as she watches Timothy be the perfect gentleman by pulling out my seat and pushing me in with complete admiration. I would be extremely happy to hand him off to her. He’s everything Zoey wants - rich and perfectly good looking.

  “Thank you,” I murmur as I place my napkin on my lap and turn to listen to my mother and Mrs. McGarth, Timothy’s mother, talk about something that neither really cares about.

  “Did you hear about the Livingston girl?” Mrs. McGarth doesn’t even attempt to be discreet with her question. She doesn’t care that the Livingston girl, also known as Charlotte, is one of their supposed good friend’s daughter. And Mrs. Livingston’s mother is in the room sitting over with my grandmother and some of the older women.

  “Yes, can you believe she got herself pregnant by some hoodlum?” my mother responds, her own voice laced with disgust.

  “It’s all about parenting. Obviously, her parents didn’t do well when teaching her to stay away from those kinds of men.” I shake my head. Paul and Amy are wonderful people. Hence, why Amy and Charlotte are not here. My mother detests how kind and simple they are and refuses to have them around. Which makes me wonder why they bother with me.

  And that hoodlum they are talking about is Charlotte’s longtime boyfriend. So what if he doesn’t have the pedigree that she has? They really care about each other. Yes, Charlotte can be a snob and isn’t the nicest to me, but I think it has more to do with my mother and sister than me personally.

  “How was your morning, Katherine?” It is astounding how one question can turn everyone’s attention to me. I glance around the room at some of the other women who are dining with us, and they all have the look of amusement on their painted-up fake faces, including my sister. I look at my mother; her face screams do not disappoint me.

  “Wonderful,” I reply quietly as I fix my napkin across my lap and fixate on it, hoping that I will disappear.

  “I think it is a great thing that you are doing for those poor girls, Katherine.” I look up to see Mrs. McGarth smiling at me. It’s a smile of disdain, laced with falsehood. She doesn’t want me as her daughter-in-law. I don’t fit her plans for her son. She looks at said son, and her smile warms. “Don’t you agree, Timothy?”

  “Of course, Mother.” He pats my hand settled on the table between us. “She is being so kind by giving opportunities to children who might not otherwise have any.” And there is his other flaw he is a complete momma’s boy, and he will do anything and everything for his mother.

  “Opportunities.” My mother huffs in a lady-like manner. “Most of those girls will get nowhere but an abusive marriage with half a dozen children they can’t even feed.” I want to question her about the abusive marriage part. Because isn’t that what she’s pushing me to?

  I roll my eyes with them closed so she can’t see me do it. Those girls have every opportunity they want. It’s up to them to reach out for it and take the help when it is offered. Not everyone turns out bad because they don’t have a six-digit income.

  “I couldn’t agree more, Katherine.” Mrs. Harth, an older woman who was friends with my Grandmother Cunningham before she passed, speaks up. She has always been kinder than most of the other women in the family circle. She was more grandmotherly than my own was. She also came from a blue-collar family before she met her husband, Phillip. “They are hardworking people who value what they have.” Her eyes are set on my mother, who has never lifted a finger in her life, and that includes when it came to changing a diaper or bathing Zoey and myself. “I’d like to see any of you do the work that those girls’ families put in every day. My mother, God rest her soul, worked every day taking in work to aid our family while my father was at war. She taught me that a little hard work and a strong love for family and God can get you far.”

  I can’t help but smile as silence overtakes the room. I love Mrs. Harth; she always knows the right way to put my mother and her friends in their place. If the world ended tomorrow, they wouldn’t survive.

  Small conversations break out after a moment or two of silence. Timothy turns to Zoey and me to start talking animated about something he is doing in school. He is only a year older th
an I am and two and a half more than Zoey. He is in his second year of college at Cambridge. His parents are so proud and lecture my parents about how they shouldn’t have let me take a year off. I will be heading to Princeton for my law degree like my father soon enough.

  I ignore both of them as I push my garden salad around my plate and take sips of my tea, acting like I belong when I know I don’t. “Isn’t that right, Katherine?”

  “Hmmm?” A Cheshire cat grin graces Zoey’s face as I look up.

  “I was just telling Timothy how excited you are for this year’s gala at the end of February. Only a few weeks away,” she sings while I frown. I would call it more of a fundraiser for our father; it’s not a gala for anything important like charities.

  Our father has more than enough money to fund his own campaigns for the rest of his life. If anyone is excited about it, it would be Zoey. She’s been dress shopping since last year, trying to find the perfect dress that will finally steal Timothy away from me. Zoey doesn’t even wait for my answer before she turns to start chatting with Mrs. McGarth. Her ideal future daughter-in-law.

  “Right.” I look back down at my plate and then over at my mother. “May I be dismissed, please?” The longer I sit here, the more likely I will fall asleep in my salad or accidentally dump tea down the front of me.

  My mother takes a few moments to examine me then stiffly nods her head.

  She doesn’t want me here either.

  I get up from my chair before Timothy can get up and pull it out for me. “It was nice seeing you.” I nod politely at him and everyone else before dashing out as fast as I can and heading back up to my room.

  I change into my winter running clothes, grab my iPod, and head out the back door from the kitchen to run a few laps around the grounds. I already ran this morning, but from everything I encountered today, I need to burn more.

  Turning up the volume on Katy Perry’s “Part of Me,” I start with a light jog and slowly work my way up to a flat-out run. I need to clear my head from my run-in with Chamberlain and his friend, the piercing looks of the one who left my body feeling more alive than ever and the hurtfulness I feel each time I’m near my family and their friends.

  Chapter Three

  MY BODY IS A complete contrast to the chilly temperatures outside. My lungs burn while the rest of my body is a raging inferno. Today, I ran harder and longer than I have in the past. I pondered a great deal during my run. I thought about how I didn’t ask to be born into my place in this world. If I didn’t look so much like my late Grandmother Cunningham, I would have thought I was adopted or switched at birth.

  I used to pretend that being switched was the truth. That somewhere out there, a lucky girl got a happy, loving family that I should have gotten, and she was ungrateful for it. That she was out there thinking the same about me with all this money and a life of privilege.

  Oh, how I wish this were all true, but sadly, it isn’t. I’m blood, and therefore, a random anomaly born into this family. I’ve gone over everything in my head, and I’ve come to realize more as I’ve gotten older than I did when I was younger.

  I’m tired of all of it. I want something outside of these walls, this gated community. I want something that is just mine. As far back as I can remember, I have always done as my parents have asked and fulfilled the expectations they placed upon me. And where has that gotten me?

  Nowhere. I still manage to disappoint them in one form or another, leaving me feeling hated in my own home.

  That’s about to change.

  The one thing I decided during my run is that from now on, I’m taking more chances at things I want when they come up. I’m tired of my parents dictating and controlling me. I’m taking over my life from now on. I won’t go to school for law. Instead, I will continue to pursue an elementary education. I have been keeping that a secret, but I will let it be known to everyone. Not just Fiona.

  I will dress how I want no more A-line dresses and conservative heels. If I want to wear sweats and sneakers, then that’s what I’m going to wear. I’ll even put myself out there more to try to make normal friends. People who will know the real me and not judge me by my last name.

  The days of being controlled are over.

  Douglas and Carol Cunningham no longer own me.

  With this new resolve, I wander back into the house from the same door I exited from and find Fiona humming about the kitchen, preparing dinner.

  “Hey there, baby doll,” she sings in her deep cadence. Her voice has always soothed me when I cried.

  “Hi, Fiona.” I smile sweetly at her as I take a seat across from her and watch as she mixes different spices into a bowl of chili.

  I love this woman. I think of her as my mother. She’s a little older than my mother is and rounder too, which she says just means more of her to love. She has the most beautiful milk chocolate complexion, and her long black hair is always in a braid that reaches down to her lower back. Her eyes have crow’s feet in the corners, but she brushes them off as laugh lines.

  She makes me feel happy.

  And loved.

  Fiona has worked here since I was five. I was a little scared of her at first because of her lively talk and the fact that every adult scared me. It kept me quiet and away.

  The day I knew she was an amazing person, the person I would cling to, was the day I was outside playing with Timothy and a few other children. A couple of the girls had shoved me right in front of my mother. I fell and bloodied my knee. My mother just took another sip of her martini and looked away, and the girls’ mothers did nothing to scold them.

  Fiona had just come out with sandwiches and had watched the whole thing. She wasn’t scared of my mom, so she came over to where I was sitting, crying, picked me up, and took me inside to clean me up.

  “No more tears, baby doll. Those girls know no better than their mommas.” She had wiped my tears away. “You have a good soul, girl. Keep it shining and don’t be like them.” She washed her hands and then kissed me on the forehead.

  From that day on, I spent more time in the kitchen with Fiona, learning different dishes to cook, and less time with the kids my own age. Her help came in the form of homework to aiding me in staying the true me no matter how hard my mother pushed me to change. She kept me from turning into all the others. She was also the only one who knew my secrets.

  So the news I am about to tell her is going to send her over the moon.

  “What’s on our mind, baby?” She looks up, grins, and sprinkles a little extra chili powder into the mixture. I giggle at that. I love spicy foods, but the others in my family do not. She is always doing little things like that to make me feel better. To make me feel wanted.

  “I’ve decided to tell my parents about getting a degree in elementary education at the University of Massachusetts. And …” I take a long drink of water from the glass she had placed on the counter when I walked in. “I’m NOT going to marry Timothy.”

  “Oh!” She slaps the counter. “Praise the Lord! It’s about time, K.C.!” She rushes around the counter and gives me a hug. “What started this change?” She kisses the top of my head before going back to making dinner.

  I shrug. “I’m not completely sure. I’m just tired of it all.” I gesture around at the huge kitchen. Fiona is our only cook, and we really don’t need all this space. We don’t even use half the space that our house takes up. “I want a different life. Something that is mine and not where I will be just another member of the Cunningham legacy or the future Mrs. Timothy McGarth.” My lip curls up in disgust.

  She sets her wooden spoon down and looks me straight in the eye. I used to find it unnerving, but now, I’m used to it. She rolls her lips into her mouth and slowly releases them on a breath.

  “You met a boy, didn’t you?”

  “What?” I feel the blush instantly hit my face while my eyes widen. “How … What? No.” I shake my head.

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, K.C.” She picks her spoon back up an
d starts to stir again, more vigorously this time. “Start talkin’.”

  “I really didn’t talk to him, Fiona.” I toy with my empty glass. “Plus, he seemed kind of full of himself.” I try to brush off the body-shattering encounter.

  “Well, since you’ve never talked about a boy before … that Timothy doesn’t count - his hands are too soft, and neither do those two boys you went to coffee with – so this boy must have made some sort of impression on you.”

  True.

  “He made my body feel … strange.” She’s smiling at me now. “It was super aware. My breathing changed and places … tightened.”

  “What did he look like?” Her voice is light and filled with curiosity and excitement.

  “Tall, really tall, and muscles everywhere, Fiona.” I stretch my arms out. “His arms were covered in tattoos.” I lean on my hand as my elbow rests on the counter. “He had dark blond hair that was cut close but just long enough to know what color it was. And his eyes oh - his eyes, Fiona - were amazingly beautiful. The deepest blue I’ve ever seen.” I sigh, caught up in the memory of him. I tried not to think of his looks before now.

  “Girl, you’ve got it bad. It’s about time, too.” I snap out of my dreamlike state and look at her as if she is crazy. “That feeling you got is called chemistry, baby doll. The best kind of love comes from it.” She smiles fondly at me. “That’s the kind you rarely find, and when you do, you fight your hardest to get it and hold on to it.”

  “I’ve only seen this guy once, Fiona. And he didn’t look like the type to settle for one girl, let alone someone like me.”

  “And what the hell is the meaning of that?” she shouts at me. “Listen here, young lady. You are beautiful, smart, talented, and have a huge heart! Any guy worth his two cents would love to have you.”

  She moves around the kitchen to get the table in the dining room ready for our meal. No matter how many times I try to eat dinner with her in her little apartment below the kitchen, she refuses to let me. I am left to face the parents and their spawn. Thankfully, tonight it is just my mother and Zoey.