Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Eight
The funeral passes in a blur, I don't speak when asked but my mother does. She tells the story of Jack's family, his rise up through business, his love of a dirty joke, his pleasure even at his most wealthy of eating a piece of battered cod. She tells of their first parent fight; I was a month old and he wanted to take me for a swim in the ocean, she won that argument they compromised on an extra big bath, but it wasn't long before Jack got his way. He loved the water, was most at home near it, it's a love that he has passed onto his son. A love that will forever be a connection point between the two of us. When she's back next to me I take her hand and squeeze, I'm glad she gave my Dad and the room with all its people, an insight into his humanity.
I'm standing next to her when everyone comes to give their condolences, Donna, David, Andrea I introduce them to my mother and brush past their words of apology to me. Kelly's with them, and after telling me she is sorry and that she really liked Jack she takes to standing next to me, that is after awkwardly saying hi to my mother. Brandon's not awkward he comes over and immediately hugs Iris offering his condolences. Jim and Cindy are next, the latter holds her for a while when they pull back my mother quickly wipes her eyes. Steve and Samantha follow, my mum greets Samantha as an old friend and quickly thanks her for helping Brenda track her down.
"Iris I didn't do anything really, Brenda knew you were going to a retreat in Honolulu rather than straight back to Maui, my assistant just phoned around until she got lucky. I'm sorry Abigail told you. Brenda didn't want you being told that way, she just wanted to get the right number to Dylan."
"No need for an apology, as I told Brenda on the way here from the airport it was fortuitous that I was walking past the reception at the time, it was the universe working it's magic. I'd never had got here in time otherwise."
Kelly from her place hovering next to me whispers, "Brenda picked up your mother from the airport?"
Her discontent is noticeable even if she attempted to hide it, and her whisper not as discreet as she thought as both Iris and Samantha turn and look at her. They both wear matching pleasant smiles that lack any warmth. It's my mother who responds before I can side step this line of questioning. "Yes, even though Brenda has been running around helping Cindy and Christine make the arrangements for today, she didn't want me to arrive to no one at the airport, especially after she rang and heard how late the plane was delayed. She knew I would be worried I wouldn't get here on time."
I look at Mum. I knew about the flowers and the printing, even the lift after her stone sham; "Brenda spoke to Christine?"
Samantha is the one that responds, "yes, she needed a picture for the order of service, Cindy gave her Christine's number. Christine came over to our house yesterday, they spent most of the morning together discussing what Jack would have liked to be included for today, going through pictures of him while Christine told her stories. I think it helped Christine."
"It did. I spoke to Christine yesterday, she rang the Walsh's she said she had spent the day remembering Jack and all the good times they had."
Mum looks at me, "speaking of Christine does she have the address for the Walsh's?"
"I know Christine well, I can go check on her and make sure she knows where she is going." The question was barely out, before she had answered with a little too much enthusiasm for the day.
"Thank you Kelly, that is very kind of you." When she's moved away I look at my Mother and lift an eyebrow, "what Darling it was very kind."
I roll my eyes, I don't need this today. Kelly's jealousy my mother's disapproval of her I don't need any of it. "Excuse me I'm just going to get some air."
I'm hiding out in the small family room where Jack was an hour ago, I'm hiding wanting to be anywhere but here, anywhere from this pain. It's in there that a guy I have never met finds me, a guy that calls the house hours later pretending to be my uncle. When I walk back into the Walsh's Kitchen that night it's to an anxious house. B let me borrow the car, but I was gone a lot longer than I'm sure he thought I'd be, though the mood in the house feels tenser than just him.
He answers my silent query, "when you weren't back in an hour Mum mentioned you getting a call from an uncle. Iris, well she's your mum she knows you don't have an uncle. She has been in a panic ever since. Dad tried to calm her, Mum too, though it just led to Iris saying why she was so worried; I think she confirmed all Dad's fears about some of the Mafia connections and reinforced his belief that he was right to keep Brenda away from that party for her own safety." I'm never going to support Jim's interference, though considering what I just heard maybe that party had the potential to be more dangerous than I assumed.
"Shit. I should get in there show them I'm fine, more than fine." I move past the bench but turnaround. "B, he was doing good, in the end he was helping the FBI had been for a year while in prison. It's why he was released, it's why they killed him. He was trying to put the bad guys away. He was trying to change."
My brother smiles at me, he understands what that would mean to me; that I wasn't wrong in trusting him. "You should get in there man, and I need to make a phone call." She knows? Fuck, she'd be worried. "Iris rang her, she hoped you had gone there, when she realised you hadn't your Mum… anyway I should ring, make sure she knows you are safe, and you should stop Iris from panicking."
"Thanks man, and thank her for today. Tell her… tell her I felt her all day, that she gave me everything I needed to get through it." It wasn't a lie, it wasn't a line. She did even without wanting to, meaning to, her presence was felt in every way. She hasn't abandon me completely she hasn't stopped being my family even if maybe she could have been justified to.
Iris has decided to stay for a few weeks. Stay until I'm not sure when, she just says when I'm ready she'll go. I spend the night of the funeral at the Walsh's on the fold out, Iris take's Bren's room. In the morning we go back to the Bungalow and Mum makes me tackle the mess of the second room. It's been my dumping ground for eighteen month's. It's full of everything from boxes that Jack's lawyers sent after his trial, to violin concert and theatre programs. Things I didn't think should be thrown away at the time, things even now I can't seem to get rid of.
The bungalow is quiet, Iris as much as she resented Jack still seems sad. She has taken on the responsibility of finalising his affairs with the lawyer's, she just wants to concentrate on giving me time to heal. The gang at school tries, the guy's are the best. David, Brandon, and even Steve who is no longer avoiding me in the hallway, they don't ask about it but their presence is I guess supportive. Donna and Andrea, ask daily very intentionally how I'm doing just to make sure I'm okay, it's a ridiculous question I'm not okay but they don't want to hear that.
Kelly stays by my side, though she is awkward around dark emotions. She hears me complain about not wanting to be there, she tries to make it better, today's idea was to picture us somewhere else, like it's the location I have issue with. I would feel his loss on a beach too, actually I'd feel it more; he loved the water, taught me to swim and jump the waves. She would know that if she had been listening, if she was really hearing, trying to understand me and Jack she'd never have suggested a place that would make me recall Jack so vividly.
Brandon on Thursday invites me and mum over for dinner, and because Kelly's next to me extends the invite; Cindy wants to make sure we are both eating. I know she won't be there, I knew even before Brandon invited Kelly. She's still hidden behind the football team, she never walks the halls alone. Andrea clarified on Wednesday why that is, when we were sitting in our usual lunch spot and I heard someone say her name, I turned but I couldn't see her. A junior I didn't know and a senior on the basketball team, actually I think they are both on the team, were blocking her from view.
"She has different lunchtimes now, Mrs T asked her to help some students who are struggling with organisation. She spends her old lunchtime and afternoons now working with students, coaching them. It's mainly helping them find study time in their weekly routines, organising their notes, prioritising which tasks need to get done first, breaking down how to tackle an assignment. From what Gil says the faculty and parents are loving the support, there's a waiting list even for her after school group sessions. Parents have even rang to offer payments for private session's- Bren's declined that."
She was a master organiser, a master planner. "It sounds perfect for her, she'd be great at it."
"Yeah, though it means she now never gets a minute alone. Students are always coming up to show her that they've done what she's asked or give an excuse of why they haven't. She has lunch in her study periods behind a closed door in the student centre just to get some peace and stay on top of her own work."
The conversation stopped after that as Kelly and Donna arrived.
Over dinner, Cindy checks in doing her usual mothering of us all, even to Kelly. Kelly doesn't know that they don't know about the summer, but she seemed fine being there, not worried that they would think less of us. Once she realised Brenda wouldn't be there she was even more relaxed, well as relaxed as she ever is in front of my mother.
It's over dessert that she is brought up, over Cindy's homemade apple pie.
"Kelly you aren't eating pie?"
"No Mrs Walsh I'm on a diet."
"You don't need to be on one of those-"
"That's what I keep saying." Kelly looks over when I say that and smiles. I feel bad it's probably the nicest thing I've said to her in days.
"I swear Iris, I can't remember girls this young in the sixties being on diet's. The society pressure is ridiculous now, and because of that as a parent of a female teenager you have to always be aware of. I got such a scare the other night, Brenda came home from her defence class and took off her jacket, she thought I was out at a client dinner with Jim. She's practically skin and bones, thankfully she's not dieting she's just running herself ragged with too much on, and her doctor said her iron level is too low. She's on fortnightly injections for the next six weeks to see if that helps-"
"Mum." It was Brandon's third time saying it, third time to try and stop Cindy from sharing too much. Cindy was so used to us knowing everything about each other, Kelly included, she didn't realise Bren wouldn't want Kelly to know this. On the third Mum, she looked over. He gives her a look, but before it becomes an awkward moment my Mum tries to move the conversation along.
"How are the defence lessons going? Have they found the guy who attacked that woman yet?"
My fork is dropping and hitting the plate before I realise it, my glare is firmly on Brandon. I should have known this.
He gives me his now standard look, the one that screams it's no longer my business, but when I don't back down and in lieu of making a scene he answers anyway. "There was an attack three weeks ago around the corner in broad daylight, Mum took Brenda that night to a self-defence class, well Andrea and Brenda. They both have continued to go ever since. Bren says it's helpful because they both take public transport or walk more than most as neither has a car."
"It's also helping her feel more secure after the hold up last year, well that's what she said when we met for tea on Monday." I focus on my pie. I will my face to stay on my pie. Mum knew that she's scared to walk the streets, knew a guy was out there. Brandon knew, and yet neither of them told me. She was petrified after the holdup, I was petrified; Brandon knew that a guy on the lose could stir up that and still he never told me. I was the only one to get through to her last time, the only one she finally let her fears out with, she may need me now and I'm not there to help.
When Cindy and Iris start discussing the police investigation, Kelly politely interrupts.
"I'm sorry Mrs Walsh but my Mum wanted me home early."
It's news to me, but I put my spoon down and thank her for dinner. I apologise for not helping with the dishes, it's what we do here. Mum says she'll stay and help, having driven over separately in her rental.
When I'm driving Kelly home and she leans over and begins to kiss my neck, suggesting while my mum's out we should go back to my house, I gently push her away.
"I thought you had to get home?"
"That's just what I told Mrs Walsh. We haven't been alone in age's, come on."
Seriously? The woman spends hours making us dinner, being nice, and then Kelly just blows her off. Blows her off when I'm trying to hear about the police investigation. "No thanks Kel I'm not in the mood."
"You are never in the mood." She doesn't try and mask her annoyance.
Is she fucking serious? My Dad just died. "How can you even say that, you know what's going on?"
"Sorry I just… my boyfriend doesn't want to be alone with me anymore doesn't want to touch me."
"Yeah sex isn't high on my priority list, sorry it's an inconvenience for you. I didn't know that's all you wanted from me."
"All I want? You barely talk to me, barely look at me. I know I don't know what to say I'm not perfect at handling this like Brenda-"
"What the hell. How are you bringing Brenda into this? She hasn't been around, she didn't even go to the funeral, hasn't been home when I'm even there-"
"But it is your home, right? Her home is your home. Hell even Cindy said that to you, your welcome anytime that it's always your home too."
"Are you serious? People are trying to be supportive make me feel like I'm not alone-"
"You aren't alone, you have me. Just everyone including you keeps forgetting I exist, that you choose me."
"I don't think anyones forgotten, they all walk on eggshells about it, all look at me like I'm lying scum-"
"And what about me? No one even wants to talk about us, asks if I'm happy; Steve and Andrea can barely hold a conversation outside of school things, Brandon just stays quiet when I mention anything about us or much of anything at all, only Donna listens and is sympathetic that your Mother hates me."
"Kelly what did you expect? We lied to them for over half a year, made them think we innocently got together only once Brenda broke up with me. They are hurt for her and because we disrespected their friendship by being dishonest."
"It wasn't like that. We stopped when Brenda got back, we did everything we could to fight it."
"You turning up to my house late at night to drop random tools off and me letting you in, that was us doing everything to fight it?"
"Oh so it's my fault, I'm the one who came over… don't forget who started it this summer. I'm the one who pushed you away, you are the one who didn't care about her not me."
I'm at the top of her driveway putting the car in park before I look at her. "You're right it was me who started it, but we both continued it. Look you can't blame everyone for not being thrilled about us."
"No, but I'd like you to at least be. I'd like my boyfriend to be thrilled."
Thrilled that we cheated, that I hurt someone I love; ruined her friendships. That I lost the closest person to me in my life, that I'm stuck getting information about her through others. I've seen her for less than five minutes in over three weeks. I've never had that little contact with her, and to go through the loss of Jack without her when she knows understands our complex relationship. For her to be worried and not feel like she can turn to me.
I don't say any of that it will just continue this fight, a fight I have no energy or desire for.
"Kel, Jack just blew up in front of my eyes I'm not sure if I know how to be happy or thrilled about anything ever again."
She looks at me, "Dylan I understand but I've lost my best friend and it feels like I've lost my boyfriend too." That's her response to me admitting I'm battling, she wants sympathy from me for not prioritising us right now.
"I'm sorry Jack's death was such an inconvenience for you."
"I didn't say that. You know I'm not saying that, I'm just trying to tell you how I feel."
"Yeah well I'm a little bit overwhelmed with how I feel at the moment, trying to get though this oppressive grief. Sorry I don't have space to worry about how my father's death impacts your love life."
She gets out of the car and slams the door, "yeah but not too overwhelmed to worry about Brenda's safety and her need to take self defence classes, and don't deny it I'm not as oblivious as you think I am."
She's storms away before I can even try and mount a defence. Fuck!