Chapter 13
Annabeth POV
The earliest evidence of the existence of coffee was found to be in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in the 15th century, the trend vastly spreading over the Middle East soon after. As the world became more globalized, the growing desire for coffee became incredibly wide spread, and now, hundreds of years later, my own caffeine addiction suffers as a result. The only good part of this, however, is that it gets me through those tasks which I would otherwise rather not be doing.
I'm currently sitting at the large, modern, glass table in my hotel room. Its covered in various books, scribbled post-it notes, and of course, empty coffee cups.
For the past four hours, I've been scouring the books I checked out from the library on Saturday, each one outlining various city regulations regarding environmental codes and required safety conditions, etc. I've been looking for some clue as to why the files I had found while working in my mom's office were labeled confidential, but so far, I've turned up absolutely nothing.
I look again to the photos I took of the confidential files, which I printed out this morning for safe keeping. The heading of the files reads, OLYMPUS COAST ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS and a large, red confidential stamp runs across the first page. I flip through each of the photos for the millionth time, reading over every test I highlighted or underlined, but nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, no matter how hard I look.
According to the tests in the files, all of Olympus Coast environment's chemical compositions meet what I had read in the books to be the appropriate levels. All of the regulations appear to be up to date, and the construction all perfectly legal. But if that was the case, then why on earth is the file labeled confidential?
I need more coffee.
Leaving everything as is, I get up and make my way over to the kitchen area. I'm already in the middle of pouring myself another cup when my phone buzzes from my back pocket, making me jump. I put down my mug and pull out my phone to see that I have just gotten a text from my mom.
ANNABETH WHAT ON EARTH HAVE YOU DONE NOW?!
I don't get confused about my mom's anger often. It's usually pretty easy to tell what she's mad about, mostly because she has a tendency to be blatant and not sugar coat anything. It's typically, Annabeth you better not look like a slob tonight! Or I swear to Gods Annabeth, if you're late again…
Long story short, while angry orders are certainly my mom's style, vagueness of any sort is not.
WHAT? I type, genuinely curious as to what I did this time. I'm trying, but I really can't recall anything.
The text bubble pops up to tell me that my mom is typing back.
OH DON'T PRETEND LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW YOUNG LADY. GET YOUR ASS TO THE COLOSSEUM NOW.
Frankly, I'm a little scarred. My mom's a scary person to begin with, but she rarely loses her cool. Her reputation and professionalism are too important to her. Whatever I did to make her react this way, it must be bad.
I quickly duck into the bedroom to get dressed.
It's almost 4:00, and I've basically been inside in my pajamas all day. It's the first week day in a while that I haven't had to go intern in the resort office, and Thalia and everyone have work today, resulting in my complete and utter nose dive into the mystery of the confidential files.
Man I need a life.
As soon as I'm dressed, I throw my hair up and grab my skateboard, heading out the door. I move down the walk streets pretty quickly, and even take a couple of the short cuts I've learned over the past two weeks.
I have just pulled up to the front of the resort when all of a sudden, a terrifying thought occurs to me. What if my mom found out about the pictures I took of the confidential files?
Shit.
I have a brief moment where I think I'm going to be sick. What was I thinking? I have no place to be meddling in problems that don't involve me. I'm just a kid, and even if there was an issue, I wouldn't be able to do anything. I swear to gods, sometimes I think my pride is my fatal flaw.
Fatal.
My mom is going to kill me.
I'm about to grab my board and bolt in the other direction, when out of nowhere, the front doors of the resort fly open.
"Annabeth," my mom says sternly. "In. Now."
She looks as powerful as ever, and the fact that she stands a good ten steps above me doesn't exactly shift the power dynamic in my favor. I make my way up the steps, and when I get to the top, I notice that my mom's heels still give her a good six inches on me even though we're basically the same height. From the clench in her jaw, and the familiar twitch in her lip, I can tell that whatever anger frenzy she was in when she texted me earlier is now over and that she has resumed her usual collectedness. However, that most certainly doesn't mean her fury is gone. Lava is just as hot inside the volcano as it is outside of it.
I move past her into the lobby, and we make our way through the guests and hotel staff, my mom's casual strides not hinting in the slightest as to what she is feeling internally. One of my earliest memories of me with my mom quickly pops into my head where I'm about six years old, and I'm about to accompany her into a business meeting. My mom leans down and tilts my chin upwards with her pointer finger. Appearances are everything, she had said. Obviously, this is still her moto.
We step into the elevator, and the doors shut close behind us.
It's an awkward ride up. Neither of us say anything. My mom's stance is totally casual though, so to an outsider, we'd probably just look like a couple of strangers. That is, if you were to ignore the fact that I basically look like a miniature version of her.
My palms are sweating, and I can't help but be terrified. If my mom really did find out that I took those photos of her confidential files, I'd be in all kinds of trouble.
When we get out, we walk towards my mom's office, my heart rate increasing with every step. I pause in front of her door, glancing sideways for permission.
"Open it," my mom says with a shrug.
I do. And whatever I had been scared of seeing immediately vanishes from my mind, a whole new fear of its own taking over. I glance back at my mom for reassurance, but her face says it all. This is your problem…
I swallow, turning away from my mom, and back towards the office. "Wha- What are you doing here?" I ask.
The woman before me has her long, dark hair curled in ringlets, and I can see that she has added some subtle red highlights in at the ends. She wears a red skirt suit with these tall red pumps to match-probably trying to make up for her own lack of height. As she turns around, I'm suddenly taken over by a most unsettling feeling.
But unsettling is simply a word that has always been synonymous with my stepmother.
"Hello Annabeth," Helen says with a smile that's too pretty and too perfect to be any sort of genuine. Her smile reminds me almost of a press on nail, only able to be unchipped because it's fake. She certainly wears her smile like one would wear a manicure. Like a smile is just another accessory to enhance your appearance. I suddenly wonder again how Helen and my mom can be so alike and hate each other so much at the same time.
My mom grits her teeth. "Helen here says that you told her your whole family is welcome to stay here free of charge, Annabeth. Isn't that wonderful?"
"I- I didn't," I start, but Helen cuts me off.
"Your father will be arriving in a half an hour. He's flying in from Denver-had some business to attend to." Then she looks at my mom. "You know how that can be."
My mom clenches her fists. "Helen we really don't have any availability-" My mom starts to say.
"Nonsense," Helen replies. "We're family." Then the edge of her lips pull up into a sneer. "I'm sure it would reflect very badly on the Resort if its facilities were really so subpar that they couldn't even accommodate the architect's family."
And that's when I know we've lost the battle. Like I said, appearances are everything to my mom.
"You know what Helen, you're right," my mom says, forcing a smile. "I'm sure we can figure something out. Why don't you head down to the concierge, and I'll make some calls."
Helen smiles, looking at my mom with feigned pleasantry. "Thank you so much, Athena." She then turns her attention to me. "Come on Annabeth, let's go."
"M-me?" I say, surprised.
Helen looks at me as though it should be obvious that I'm supposed to be coming down with her.
"Your father will be here in a little bit. It would be disrespectful if his only daughter didn't think it worth her time to come and see him."
I look to my mom. "But legally, the summer is my mom's time—"
My mom shoots me a pitying glance. "Go Annabeth. I'll see you tonight if you want."
I feel a sudden anger boiling deep in my chest, and find myself wishing that I really had been caught for taking photos of the confidential files. Any punishment for that would be better than this.
Helen begins to make her way out the door and down the hall.
My mom leans in closely to me and whispers in my ear. "I'm sorry that I was taking my anger out on you earlier. That wasn't fair of me. But this is something we have to deal with now, okay, so just put on a strong face." She gives my hand a squeeze, and I honest to gods think it's probably the second time she's even touched me since my first arriving here.
My mom heads over to her desk without a second glance back at me, and I find myself following Helen down the hall, her heels clicking with every step she takes. I'm caught between two mothers, both of whom have their backs towards me, and both of whom need me to do something for them. It makes me sick to my stomach.
I follow Helen into the elevator.
Where my mom upholds her appearance being closed doors, Helen does not. As soon as the elevator doors slide shut behind us, she leans on the wall, sinking into herself, and starting to clean her nails. I roll my eyes. Helen couldn't be more fake. At least my mom's composure is genuine.
Helen doesn't say a word to me the whole ride down, nor I a word to her, and when the doors finally open, she snaps back to attention like a soldier, replaces her press-on smile, and heads over to the concierge. I sit on the nearest chair and put my head in my hands.
Ever since I was little, other than school, the summer has always been my only escape from Helen. She hates me. I think it's because I'm a constant reminder that my dad doesn't belong 100% to her, that his world doesn't revolve entirely around her and her family. But I guess that Helen's desire to stay at one of the most expensive and acclaimed resorts in the world must be pretty big, if she's willing to put up with me for it.
I sit in that chair for at least fifteen minutes, and when Helen heads back over in my direction, she leaves no room for sentiment.
"Let's go," she says, and heads down one of the halls. We walk for a little bit, passing everything I have become so accustomed to over these past couple weeks. We pass the library, the teen area, the restaurants, the gift shops. I feel invaded, almost, having Helen walk down these halls. I feel like she's stomping all over a place that has become a personal escape to me, dragging all of our baggage with her and littering the resort's halls with it.
Helen comes to a stop in front of the resort's restaurants. It has big, glass windows and looks down over the pool in the center of the Colosseum, as most of the restaurants here do. It's incredibly fancy. Everyone in the restaurant is dressed in business suits and pencil skirts. Helen smiles sweetly at the woman behind the podium.
"Table for five."
"Right this way," the woman says.
I grab Helen's arm. "We can't go here, I'm way too underdressed!"
She just shrugs out of my grasp and follows the maitre'd.
As we walk, I feel incredibly self-conscious. I can feel people's eyes on me as we walk past, looking dismissively at my flip-flops and t-shirt. I hate Helen for subjecting me to this. It's like she only chose this restaurant because she knew it would lead to the most embarrassment on my part. My dad doesn't even like fancy restaurants.
"Thank you," Helen says sweetly to the maitre'd when we arrive at the table. She then sits down with all the grace of a princess. My dad makes good money, so Helen is used to having the best, but even despite that, I can already feel the resort going to her head.
I pick up a menu and pretend to read it over, but I can't focus on the words.
"Where are Bobby and Matthew?" I ask.
Helen doesn't look at me when she responds.
"They're in a tennis lesson. Frederick will pick them up on his way here."
I roll my eyes. A tennis lesson? Really?
"How long are you planning on staying here?" I ask Helen. She pretends not to hear me.
We order our drinks, and sit in silence for several minutes afterwards.
I look out the window to try to pass the time. As soon as I do though, I immediately feel like the world's biggest stalker.
Along with all the families playing in the pool, and the couples dining at the poolside restaurant, I spot none other than Percy. He sits in his lifeguard's chair, crossing his legs and looking official. I feel a tug in the bottom of my stomach.
His hair is slightly wet, and he smiles at a group of kids who are playing nearby him. The tug in my stomach grows, expanding to my chest and my arms and the tips of my fingers.
It almost hurts to look at him.
I know its ridiculous, but I almost feel like Rapunzel, locked in a tower, looking down at my freedom from a high window.
But this isn't a fairytale. The window is glass, and my captor sits across from me, sipping a martini.
I continue to sneak glances at Percy as the next couple of minutes go by. He holds all of my attention, preventing me from going insane with anger and boredom, that is until a certain tall man with sandy hair steps into the restaurant.
My dad heads over to our table with an air of confidence. My stepbrothers Bobby and Matthew stalk behind him in tow, both of whom happen to be wearing button downs, despite the fact that they just came from a tennis lesson. I glare at Helen.
She and I stand up, and as soon as my dad reaches us, he gives Helen a slight peck on the cheek. I flash a smile at Bobby and Matthew, which they return casually. When my dad pulls away from Helen, he makes an awkward move to hug me.
"Hi Annabeth," he says slightly.
"Hi dad," I reply. He pulls away, and we all take our seats.
My dad was on a business trip when I left San Fran, and it's been at least a month since I last saw him. He feels like a total stranger to me, like he's some distant relative I'm required to say hello to and hug at family functions, but who I don't really know despite that.
It's amazing to me how Helen's demeanor completely shifts when my dad is around. She stops ignoring me and starts looking at me in the same way she looks at Bobby and Matthew, like I'm another one of her children.
"So, Annabeth," my dad starts, awkwardly, trying to make conversation. "How's school been?"
I just stare at him. It's ridiculous that he's even asking me that. I literally live at his house throughout the school year.
But I just say, "Good," and proceed to take a sip of water.
I think we all feel that that's enough forced conversation for one day, and Helen takes over now, telling Frederick all about the resort, and how nice it was for my mom to let us stay here. She drones on about the facilities and how Bobby and Matthew can get better at Tennis so that they'll be on the varsity team when they start at some prestigious private school next year. My dad just nods his head.
I'm used to meals like this, where Helen pretends we're all one big happy family in front of my father, boasting about Bobby and Matthew, smiling, and holding my dad's hand. And he's almost no better than her. My dad pretends like he was never gone in the first place, nodding along, and leaning his elbow on the back of her chair.
He has no idea that we only have meals like this on the rare occasion that he's home. He has no idea that, despite the fact that I live in his house for nine months out of the year, I'm never even there. He has no idea that I spend almost two hours on the bus getting to school everyday and that I do a million extracurriculars and that I'm so tired by the end of the day that sometimes I stay at a friend's house and don't even bother coming home because it's just easier that way. He has no idea that anytime I do that, Helen doesn't even notice, or if she does notice, she doesn't care. He's ignorant to it all.
Or maybe he isn't. Maybe he knows that we have problems, and like Helen, and my mom, and everyone else in my life, he just pretends.
Sometimes I feel like nothing in my life is really real. Like everything I know could vanish in the blink of an eye.
All I want in my life is something real. Something that I know would last through thick and thin. Something permanent.
But this isn't a fairytale.
We order our food, and everything goes on just as it has for the past seventeen years of my life. I sit there, I use my manners, and I listen to Helen drone on. I watch as my dad nods his head to her words, like he cares what she has to say. I watch as Bobby and Matthew shift uncomfortably in their button downs, not complaining.
Never complaining.
And when we've finished our meal, and paid the bill, I hug my dad goodbye, and I tell him that I hope he likes the resort, because that's what I'm supposed to do.
I pretend that I'm okay with them being here. I pretend like I don't feel they have violated my privacy by coming to the resort while it's my time with my mom. I pretend that everything is fine. I pretend, I pretend, I pretend.
It's dark out when I finally get back to my room. I'm exhausted and ready to go to bed early, but when I open the door and see all of the books and photocopies of files I left lying out, I know that I won't be so lucky. I need to finish what I was doing.
I begin working at 7:00, and I'm still going strong at 11:00. I spend hours reading every single book and researching the dates of every single environmental law and statistic they encompass. At this point, I probably know more about Olympus Cove environmental standards than the person who created the laws in the first place. The clock on the wall reads 11:30 when I figure that it's probably time that I stop.
I've got to admit, I'm pretty mad. How is it that I wasn't able to find anything telling me why those files were labeled confidential? Maybe it was a mistake, I try to reason with myself, but I know I don't believe it.
I have to be missing something.
I begin to close all of the books and stack all of the papers into neat piles. Once I've put my pens back in the drawer and closed up my laptop, the only thing left on the table are the photocopies of the files themselves.
Against my better judgement, I pick up the photos, and head over to the couch, where I begin reading through everything one last time. I scan every line, I analyze every graph, but when I finally reach the last page, I simply stare at it, unsurprised that I didn't find anything. In my frustration, I keep staring at the last page, scanning it over. I run my eyes over the lines and the citations.
Nothing.
I'm just about to set the file down and retire for the night, when all of a sudden, though, I see something that catches my eye.
Down in the right hand corner of the page is a tiny symbol that I hadn't noticed before. It looks like an upside down ancient greek omega symbol.
I quickly pull my phone out of my pocket to look it up.
It takes me a couple of minutes, but I finally find a link that leads me to some fire-wall blocked company website that has the very same logo that is in the file. I can't do much within the website because of the fire-wall, but from what is displayed on the website's homepage, I read over the given information.
And when I finally finish, everything makes sense.
The logo belongs to a company that creates forgeries of important environmental studies. They create fake environmental test results for corporations that aren't following government environmental policy and regulation, so that the corporations don't get caught.
The Olympus Coast Environmental Statistics file I found in my mom's office must be a forgery, then. The file was only labeled confidential to hide that logo, so that no one would find out the information was fake. The reason I couldn't find anything wrong with the information and test results inside it is because that information is all false, created for the purpose of appearances.
Just like everything else in my life, the information in that file is pretend. It is simply lies that people are putting out to make it seem like everything is good and fine.
But life isn't a fairytale.