The camera changed to a montage of two people taking on various challenges: driving a car off a parking garage and into a pile of cardboard boxes, eating some sort of insect, diving off a cliff in Hawaii.
The ad only lasted for thirty seconds, but I knew it had ruined my plan to just relax. I hadn’t thought about or seen my stepbrother in two years, but a lifetime’s worth of bad memories suddenly came flooding back.
Chapter Two
The first time I saw the Hunt estate, I was absolutely star struck.
I was fourteen years old, in grade nine. For as long as I’d lived, my mother had been single. I didn’t know much about her life before I was born. I knew my father left when I was two, my mom was seventeen when she had me so the fact that he was around at all was already something, and I knew my mom worked a lot, so much that I didn’t see her a lot of the time.
She was a model, and an actress, and worked whatever jobs she could in between to make ends meet. I knew she went to New York City a lot to work. I had at that point grown into my skin enough to know I was never going to look a lot like her. Her grandfather was from Egypt, and she had perfect almond-shaped eyes, black as the night, with perfect olive skin and jet black hair.
I was a brunette, but my skin was a lot paler, and I was a lot more awkward looking. I would look at myself in the mirror at night and pray to God that in my late teens I would grow into my looks, maybe look a little bit more like my mom. I could also stand to lose a bit of weight, maybe ten pounds or so, but I knew that one was up to me and not God, though I did ask Him for the willpower to avoid the corner store between school and home that sold a bunch of cheap candies for 5 cents each.
My mother always told me that I was born with brains, and that I would get my looks soon enough. She was right about one of those things, at least. I was always good at school, I always did my homework, and my grades were pretty good. It helped that I really liked to read. It was a good way to escape the reality that I lived in a pretty poor family.
Then one day, everything changed. My mom told me she was getting married. I had no idea she had even been seeing someone. I just thought she was working more.
“He’s a great man, Tina, he’s going to take care of us. He wants to meet you, and so you’re going to come to dinner with us at his home next week.”
“What? Where is this coming from mom? How long have you been seeing someone? Why didn’t you tell me?”
At fourteen I was definitely a bundle of emotions and finding out that my mom was engaged to some guy I’d never even met was way too much to absorb at once.
“Relax, honey. I wanted to wait until I knew it was really serious before telling you, since I didn’t want you to get your hopes up about anything.”
“Why would I get my hopes up? We’re fine without a man, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are, darling. We get by. But I love this man, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“Fine. When’s the dinner?”
“Next Tuesday. Look, I know you’re probably not the biggest fan of this idea, but it’ll get better. I promise you’ll like him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Elton.”
“Elton? That’s totally an old dude name.”
“I’ll let Elton John know you said that.”
“He’s old. He’s got to be what, sixty?”
“Fine. Maybe not the best example. But Elton Hunt is a very nice man, and I want you to give him a chance.”
“Wait. Hunt?”
“Yes, as in that Hunt. So be on your best behaviour.”
“Holy shit mom, you nabbed yourself a rich dude!”
“Manners, Tina.” My mom frowned at me this time.
“Fine, I’ll be good. I promise.”
“I know you will. Thanks honey. I’m going to go to bed.”
With that she kissed me on the forehead and left me with my thoughts. The Hunt family was one of the most famous in the country. They were basically the Kennedys, two of them were in Congress and the Senate, and none of them had been President. Yet. And my mom was going to marry Elton Hunt? The man was in charge of the entire family fortune, he was known as the dealmaker of the family, the one who made all the money they earned to make more money and get more influence.
Holy shit, I’m going to be able to buy tons of awesome stuff was the first thing that popped into my head. Sure, I didn’t go to the best public school in town or anything, and my mom did her best, but it was pretty rare for me to get actually nice new clothes or things like that. The first thing I’d hoped was that Elton Hunt wouldn’t want his new stepdaughter to dress from stuff she got at the thrift shop. Typical fourteen year old, right?
*
The day of the dinner my mom came home earlier than usual to get ready.