New story draft

‘Are you sure about this? Why can’t we just go to your house again?’
Matt rolled his eyes, but made sure his girlfriend didn’t see. This was the fourth time she had said that in the last half hour. They were holding hands, and with every step they took to her house, the tighter her grip seemed to become. For whatever the reason, she really didn’t seem to want him to see her place. He had tried to distract her by pointing out nice cars, houses or gardens along the way, but this only made her hand clench on his even harder. Well she was hardly going to be impressed with such things if she saw them every day on her way to and from the bus stop. Besides, this was a very wealthy neighbourhood, so nice things were pretty much par the course from what he could see. So he had tried being a little more romantic, pointing out the way the setting sun cast such a beautiful golden light on everything its rays touched, and the long shadows that reached across the redbrick street. But when she asked him those same two questions for the fourth time, he decided it was time to give her the answer he was really thinking.
‘Because, Jen, we’ve been to my house at least three days every week for the last year. Remind me, how many times have we been to your house?’
Jen was silent for a moment.
‘Your mom drove me home once,’ she pointed out.
‘Yeah, and you wouldn’t let her take you farther than the turnoff from the main road. That was three miles ago.’ He put his arm around her. ‘Look, I don’t see what the big deal is. So your family has money. So what? It’s not like I’m some dirt-poor chimney-sweep who doesn’t know if he’s getting a meal this week.’
‘I know, and they’d love you even if you were. That’s not what this is about. Look,’ she said, uncomfortably stuffing her hands into her jeans pockets, ‘I have worked hard to be normal, to not let who my parents are direct my life. That’s why I made them take me out of private school and into East High.’
‘Where you met me,’ he put in, ‘but what does this have to do with me never coming over?’
‘Well, when your father owns over a dozen successful businesses, everybody wants to be your friend, to hang out at your place. None of them are even close to being real friends, though. They stop seeing you as a person, and instead just see you as a means to getting to use all your stuff, or swim in your pool.’
‘So that’s what this is about? You thought that if I saw the life of luxury you have waiting for you at the end of the day, I’d see you differently too?’ Jen didn’t say anything, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes, either. ‘Look at me,’ he said. She hesitantly obliged. He smiled. ‘Now how could I never see the girl I fell in love with as anything but who she truly is?’
He kissed her then, softly, tenderly. It was barely more than a gentle breeze on her lips, but it had the effect he’d been hoping for. Only seconds afterward he could feel the tension leaving her, and she once more became the relaxed and fun-loving girl he’d barely stopped thinking about since the day they met.
‘Now which one of these fine houses is yours?’ Jen paused for a second before pointing to the end of the street, where a strong iron gate and high brick wall separated the fancy, expensive houses from the largest, grandest estate he had ever seen, even in pictures. His girlfriend—this sweet, down-to-earth girl—lived in a mansion. Matt had known for a few months that her family was fairly well off, but he had never imagined anything like this. Though he knew it was important that he not look impressed, his eyes seemed to be glued open as wide as possible, and it took a great deal of willpower to return them to normal. He managed to regain his composure fully by the time they made it the remaining couple of hundred feet to the iron gate.
Jen pulled an electronic key out of her pocket and inserted it into a slot by the gate. Then she input a complex twelve or thirteen-digit code (he lost count) into the keypad by the slot. She looked at Matt, who was smiling as though this were the most ridiculous display of paranoia ever.
‘What?’ she said defensively, ‘Dad cares about security, okay?’
‘Oh I’m just waiting for the thumbprint and retina scanners to pop out of the secret compartment,’ he grinned.
‘Shut up,’ she said, but she was grinning too. ‘Here goes nothing,’ she said as the gate swung open on its own.
‘He’s not going to release the hounds on me, is he?’ he asked as they entered the grounds.
‘Relax, we only have a cat, and the worst she’d do to you is try to purr you to death.’
At first look, the grounds looked nothing short of spectacular. An exquisitely patterned footpath snaked its way across the rolling green lawns to the estate’s front door. Perfectly maintained gardens adorned the land just before the door, including a small maze of hedges and topiaries. And off to the side of the mansion was a hard court tennis court and large rectangular swimming pool. Matt could hear a distant splashing and laughter coming from over there, but he couldn’t quite see the source. All in all, Jen’s house looked like something out of a brochure depicting the unattainable “good life”, which made Matt feel slightly nervous.
However, then he started to notice the little human touches that were carefully hidden in between all the perfection. Some were subtle, such as the little dips and divots that were strewn here and there across the lawn, as though in addition to looking nice it also served as an amateur golf course. Then there were the more obvious ones; chief among them being the basketball hoop and backboard someone had crookedly nailed over one of the four garage doors. This eased his nerves somewhat—Jen’s family might be rich, but they were people too.
Jen started to lead him towards the large swimming pool.
‘Let’s go say hi,’ she suggested, also sounding a little nervous.
Up close, the pool did not disappoint. Its four corners were smoothly curved instead of pointed, and the sides were plated with slick turquoise tiles. There were two diving boards, one at ground level and the other roughly ten feet higher. Atop this higher board stood a young man with fairly long blonde hair, wearing a pair of board shorts and a fearless grin.
‘INCOMING!!!’ he bellowed, before launching himself off the diving board, rolling over in a sloppy somersault before hitting the water on his back. The splash reached far enough to make Matt and Jen jump back a little for fear of getting wet.
‘That’s Sammy, my older brother,’ Jen explained. ‘He’s twenty, but he acts about half that.’
‘Great role model,’ said Matt. ‘What about these two?’
He was referring to the two bikini-clad girls nearby; one was swimming elegant lengths of the pool, while the other lounged in a deck chair, strumming quietly on an acoustic guitar. Matt suddenly noticed—and he dearly hoped Jen didn’t notice him noticing—that both of these girls were absolutely stunning.
‘These are my sisters. That’s Vera in the pool and the blonde one with the guitar is Anna.’
Vera—the dark-haired goddess of the deep, as Matt guiltily thought of her—suddenly appeared from under the water before them, her cheeky smile every bit as alluring as her tiny bathing costume.
‘Uh, hi,’ said Matt, clearing his throat uncomfortably. He wouldn’t be surprised if these sisters were the real reason Jen hadn’t ever invited him over.
‘Hi yourself,’ Vera replied, sizing him up with her gorgeous brown eyes. ‘So you’re the one Jen’s told us so little about. We haven’t even got so much as a name out of her.’
‘Uhm, Matt,’ he answered, his leg trembling ever so slightly with an unwelcome adrenaline rush, ‘Matt Green.’
‘Green is right,’ Vera laughed, attributing his jitters to nausea. ‘Hey Jen,’ she whispered as loudly as possible, so everyone could hear, ‘I think your boy here is in heaven.’
‘Well you better watch out, Matt,’ put in Anna, who was walking up to them, leaving her guitar behind on the deck chair. ‘Jen is a sweet girl, but there are some things she isn’t willing to share.’
‘Fair enough,’ he coughed, feeling as though he might have to jump in the pool himself to cool off. But then he noticed something, as both of Jen’s sisters stood before him. Apart from Anna’s lighter hair color, they were almost dead ringers. Vera noticed him looking back and forth between them, and answered his question before he’d even thought how to ask it.
‘Yep, we’re twins,’ she said.
‘I dye my hair so people can tell us apart,’ added Anna. Matt didn’t know what to say, so he unwisely chose to say the first thing that came into his head.
‘I think I’ve actually had this dream,’ he said, and in a flash Jen had clobbered him over the head with her book bag. The twins laughed and jumped back into the pool, racing Sammy to the other end. Matt turned tentatively to Jen, who couldn’t seem to decide whether she was angry or amused. Matt held his hands up as if to protect himself from further attacks.
‘In my defence, you could have warned me your sisters are supermodels.’
‘So what am I?’ she asked hotly. He could almost feel a hole expanding beneath his feet.
‘You are…everything I could ever want.’ His hesitation in saying this was only to make sure he said it right. He had to convince her that he really meant that. He loved everything about her, from the top of her long, chocolate brown hair to the tips of her dainty little pinkie toes. He even loved her slightly weird fascination with jeans—she rarely wore anything else on her legs.
‘Come on,’ she said as she took his hand, apparently forgiving his idiocy, ‘you still haven’t met my parents.’
As she led him inside, Matt got his first taste of the interior. The room they were in looked like a living room, as it had a sofa, two reclining armchairs, a large LCD TV and a piano next to a doorway that appeared to lead into the kitchen. The furnishings and decorations were expensive without seeming pretentious. For example, the rug that covered a fair portion of the hardwood floor was very nice, but not so unbelievably precious that it needed to be nailed to the wall as a display, rather than serving its function. Then again, this probably said more about the people who arranged the furnishings, rather than the objects themselves.
A cough awoke Matt from his stupor of admiration. He spotted the source immediately; a dark-haired youth had just entered the room and planted himself on the sofa. He was as casually dressed as Matt and Jen themselves, which somehow still seemed odd to Matt, even with the twins walking around outside practically naked.
‘Jackson,’ said Jen, ‘my younger brother.’
‘Oh hey, I recognize you,’ said Jackson, looking at Matt, ‘You’re Matt Richards, captain of the debate team, right?’
‘Keep it down; I’m trying to look cool,’ joked Matt. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m a sophomore this semester. Hey, only three more years to go, right?’
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by Sammy’s entrance, dripping wet, into the room. He spotted Jackson and dropped down onto the seat beside him.
‘Hey, little man. What’s up, JJ?’
‘Why do you always call me that?’ said Jackson, annoyed, ‘It is NEVER going to catch on!’ Matt and Jen spotted a cat slinking towards the gap behind the piano and she promptly snatched it up, holding the orange cat in her arms.
‘Tiger,’ she said to the furry face, ‘this is Matt. Say hello.’ She shook one of Tiger’s forelimbs in a mock wave.
‘Tiger?’ he repeated, ‘but she doesn’t have any stripes.’
Sammy thumped his fist down hard on the table.
‘YES! Thank you!’ he shouted at their startled guest, as Jen and Jackson groaned.
‘He’s been saying that about her for years,’ Jen explained.
‘And he finally shut up about it just over a month ago,’ added Jackson.
‘Well now that I have a lieutenant to aid me in this crusade against the poor naming of pets, who where it’ll end!’ Sammy exclaimed happily.
‘I’m hoping it’s right now,’ said Jackson dryly. ‘Go, you’re done here.’
Sammy grinned as he turned to leave.
‘You’ll see,’ he said, pointing at each of them in turn, ‘You’ll all see!’ and with that he ran back outside, a loud splash telling them he’d wasted no time in returning to the water.
Matt looked at Jen with a raised eyebrow.
‘Is he always like that?’ he asked, half-laughing.
‘Pretty much,’ she replied. ‘Before we got Tiger he had us locked in a long-standing debate over the lyrics to “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”’
‘And he’ll swear to the ends of the Earth that there are four people in a pair of twins,’ put in Jackson. ‘I don’t think he really cares; he just likes to argue.’
‘Might make a good politician someday,’ suggested Matt as a joke.
‘Oh God, that’s all we need,’ said Jackson as he lifted himself off the couch. ‘I’m going to get a soda. You want one?’ he asked Matt.
‘No thanks,’ he politely refused. Jackson shrugged and headed for the kitchen.
‘Hey, what about me?’ Jen called after him indignantly. He turned around.
‘What am I, the butler?’ he said with a teasing smirk. ‘Get it yourself.’
Jen smiled and rolled her eyes.
‘Charming. Thank God I only have two brothers.’
Next they met Crystal, Jen’s mother, in the kitchen fixing dinner. Now Matt knew where Jen and the twins’ good looks came from. Even more amazing was the fact that she had given birth at least four times (Matt was anxiously uncertain about just how many siblings Jen had) and raised them all, and still kept her figure. But there was something else about her… something familiar. Matt helped to set the table knowing that this unexplained familiarity would nag in the back of his mind like a bad headache until he eventually figured it out.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Jen asked.
‘On the phone, in his office. Where else would he be at this time of day?’
‘You mean any time of day,’ muttered Jen a little sulkily. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said to Matt, ‘you’ll meet him eventually.’
‘That’s what worries me.’