Fritz Who?

Tiffany Schuyler was more than a little disgusted with her life lately.  For starters, her boyfriend Rex was such a disappointment. Make that a major disappointment. When she met him he had shared his dream of having his own rock band with him as lead singer, complete with tight leather pants and gruesome tattoos. It hadn't take a very large stretch of Tiffany's somewhat limited imagination to envision an exciting life as the future wife of a rock star. A life filled with plenty of rides in limousines, wild parties after concerts and possibly even a reality show like Tori Spelling's--only Tiffany and Rex wouldn't let the cameras film their fights. Just the wonderful times so that everyone Tiffany had ever gone to school with would be insanely jealousy and regret having ever made fun of her or not picking her to be on their softball team.


But Rex wasn't a rock star. He wasn't any kind of star. The jerk didn't even have a regular job. All he seemed to want to do was sit around their apartment, drink beer, fart and watch The Price is Right--not exactly the dream boyfriend Tiffany longed for.


Then there was her father. Her real father, Tom Hartman, whom she hadn't even known existed until a little while ago. If she had to have a long lost father pop up, why couldn't it be someone with tons of money and a limited interest in parenting. Tom wanted to bond all the time and was constantly asking Tiffany to go on walks with him and take her out for ice cream. She wasn't a three year old! Why didn't he get that? Tiffany didn't want to bond with Tom. She wanted a father who would pay for her wedding, tell her she was beautiful and leave her alone. Was that so much to ask for?


Finally, and worst of all, there was her weight loss. Or her former weight loss. After losing all that weight on Fat Off, Tiffany had gained most of it back. Nothing depressed her more than not being able to fit into the cute clothes she bought when she was skinny. If she could just get her hands on one more can of Fat Off--but how?


"Tiffany? You home?" Rex banged into the apartment, instantly setting Tiffany's fragile nerves on edge. Tiffany was in the bedroom lying down. Maybe she could pretend to be asleep. That way she wouldn't get dragged into another stupid argument with Rex over whose turn it was to go out for carryout. That was another disappointing thing about Rex--he could eat Burger King every single night. What was wrong with Hardee's once in a while or Taco Bell?


"Tiffany?" Tiffany shut her eyes as the bedroom door opened. After a second, Rex left. She heard him flop on the sofa and turn the television set on. Heaven forbid that he should be thoughtful about keeping the house quiet while she was napping. A moment or two later she heard another sound. Rex was talking on his cell phone. She frowned. Who could he be talking to? Although Tiffany wasn't exactly totally in love with Rex, she still didn't want him cheating on her.


Tiffany crept to the door and opened it a crack.


"Yeah, I know," she heard Rex say. "You told me that. I know all that crap. Would you let it drop? I told you that I'd take care of it!" He sounded annoyed and Tiffany instantly felt better. If he was cheating on her, he'd sound a lot nicer to his girlfriend--for awhile at least.


"Look, no one is ever going to be able to trace any of that back to either of us! I told you that I took care of everything."


Tiffany's stomach grumbled. She'd give anything for a Snickers bar. Maybe in a few minutes she'd pretend to wake up and they could go to the store or to Burger King for dinner since she was feeling a little more charitable toward Rex since he wasn't cheating on her.


"In a few months no one is even going to remember Fritz," Rex said. "So forget about it. I have." He ended his call and Tiffany went back to the bed to lie down. That was strange. Fritz who? Her blood suddenly ran cold. Fritz--wasn't that the name of the creepy scientist who got killed?


Why would Rex be talking about him?

A Boss That Makes J.R. Ewing Look Good

Mindy Cooper had worked at Kutrate Kemicals for almost a month. During that time, she’d reached a few conclusions. The first one was that being the administrative assistant for the Big Boss really sucked. The second one was that Bernard Morton, AKA the Big Boss, made J.R. Ewing look like Mother Theresa.

Never had Mindy met such an egomaniacal, manipulative creep. Her first impression of Bernard—that he was shy and self-effacing—had been replaced by a more lasting impression, one that seemed to be a lot more realistic. Bernard Morton was handsome but had a heart made out of stone. All he seemed to care about was money and the bottom line. Safety, the welfare of his employees, the environment—none of those things seemed to matter to her new boss. If she wasn’t on the verge of breaking a huge story, Mindy knew that she’d have to quit working for Bernard and Kutrate Kemicals. Life was way too short to spend it chained to a desk in a dusty little office working for a lunatic.

“Mindy!” Bernard’s voice barked at her from his office. “Get in here!”

“Yes, sir,” Mindy muttered. Heaving herself to her feet, Mindy remembered how the woman in Human Resources had asked her if she could handle working with difficult personalities. Little had Mindy known just how difficult a personality Bernard Morton was going to turn out to be. “What do you need?” she asked when she got into Bernard’s office.

Bernard studied her through narrowed eyes. “What time did you leave for lunch yesterday?”

“I don’t know—around noon I think.”

“You put 11:45 down on your time sheet.”

“Then that’s when I left.”

“What time did you get back?”

“12:15.”

Bernard shook his head. “I don’t think so. I happened to be looking out the window and I saw you pull into the parking lot at 12:23. Ergo you couldn’t have gotten back to your desk by 12:15. It takes at least four minutes to walk from the parking lot up to our offices.”

Mindy stared at him. “What’s your point?”

“My point, Mindy, is that you owe me 12 minutes on your time sheet. I’ll expect you to stay late today or arrive early tomorrow. I’ll leave the choice up to you.”

Mindy had never truly despised anyone until she’d met this man. She couldn’t believe he was picking at her over a few minutes when there were so many bigger and far more threatening problems going on at his company. “Is that all?”

“No. I’ll take a cup of fresh coffee with two creams and three sugars.”

Leaving Bernard’s office, Mindy stomped over to the coffee pot. She never thought she’d say it, but she could hardly wait to get back to the newspaper. Sure, the pay was crappy and the hours were impossibly long but it was still a better job than working for Bernard Morton. Mindy had to figure out a way to get her scoop so she could get out of working for Kutrate Kemicals. But how?

The office door swung open. “May I help you?” Mindy said automatically. Her mouth dropped open when she saw who was standing there. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

Businesses Should Really Pay More When They Expect You to Do Everything

"There! All done!" Mindy Cooper sat back and surveyed her desk. She'd removed everything that was in it and on it, scrubbed it thoroughly and then rearranged all of her supplies so that now her work space was as neat and as orderly as something fresh out of Office Max. Mindy looked around the rest of the tiny room that  Bernard referred to as her office. What a joke. The humane society had bigger kennels for their dogs than this room.

"How's it going, Mindy?" Bernard Morton came in, a distracted expression on his handsome face. He stopped when he saw Mindy's shining desk. "I see you've been busy."

"No offense but this place is a little on the crummy side. Don't you have a cleaning crew?"

"No, we don't. We believe that it should be up to each individual employee to clean his or her space. I'm glad to see that you already fit in with Kutrate Kemical's corporate philosophy."

Mindy stared at him. "Why don't you have cleaners?"

"We save a ton of money that way. Duh."

"Do you clean your own office?"

"Of course I do."

"What about the factory? Who cleans that?"

"The employees."

Mindy felt like her head was going to start to spin and fall right off her neck. Kutrate Kemicals had to be violating every rule in the EPA's book. "But you manufacture chemicals," she said slowly so that Bernard would understand her. "How can you have the people who make the chemicals be responsible for cleaning up too? I would imagine that keeping this place safe would take a lot of training."

"Oh, we train people. They know what they're doing. Of course," Bernard added reflectively, "we do have a fairly high turnover rate."

"People quit?"

"No, they die. Lots of sicknesses here. Kind of weird."

Mindy couldn't wait for Bernard to leave so she could start taking notes. "Was there something you wanted?"

"What? Oh, right. Yes. I need for you to order lunch for six. I'm having a meeting and we don't want to break for lunch."

Craning her neck, Mindy could see into Bernard's office. Five people were seated around the conference table. "How did they get in there? I didn't see anyone come in."

"I have a back door that I use for people who prefer to keep their identities anonymous," Bernard explained.

"Why would anyone want to be anonymous?"

"Mindy, this is a highly sensitive industry. Naturally people don't want anyone to know that their associated with it. Now please order three large pizzas--pepperoni--and two liters of diet soda. I'd appreciate it if you'd pick it up to save me the tip." He handed her twenty dollars. "Get them from the gas station. Pizzas are just five bucks there.

"Right away," Mindy said. "I'll bring it in when I get back."

"Don't bother," Bernard said quickly. "I'll come out and get it." Smiling his thanks, Bernard returned to his office and shut the door firmly behind him.

Hmmm. Who is in there that my new boss doesn't want me to see?

Mindy didn't know but she was sure that she'd find out before the day was over. She wasn't an intrepid girl reporter for nothing.

Schuyler Square Day 57 A Kinder, Gentler Mavis...Not

Mavis walked through the kitchen door blindly. A police officer—not Peter—had given her a ride home and while she was sure she had been polite to him, for the life of her she couldn’t remember a single thing he had said to her during the entire ride. Her mind seemed to be frozen and she couldn’t get the image of Ron lying on the black and white tile floor of the Schuyler Square Country Club kitchen out of her mind. Ron was dead! And she was his widow.

His extremely wealthy, still attractive widow a small voice inside her head pointed out. Who will surely be able to find another rich husband--perhaps one who doesn't have the personality of a toad.

True. Once the shock wore off, Mavis was sure that money and her natural good looks were going to do a lot to pull her out of any lingering malaise.

“Mavis!” Rosanne turned from the stove, spatula in her hand. For one brief, mad moment Mavis almost envied Rosanne. Her servant’s life had to be so simple and easy compared to her own. What would Rosanne ever have to worry about? Oh, to have been born of peasant stock! Life would be so much easier. “Sit down,” Rosanne urged. “You look like you’re going to faint.”

Obediently Mavis sank into one of the oak kitchen chairs. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down in the kitchen. Had she ever? Probably not. Kitchens and Mavis didn’t mix well. She shuddered. Ron had been murdered in a kitchen. Why would he have been there in the first place? Ron didn’t like utilitarian places either.

“Can I get you anything?” Rosanne inquired. “I could make some coffee or tea—“

Mavis shook her head. “I’d like a glass of wine,” she said. “White, please.”

Rosanne’s eyebrows shot over the word ‘please.’ Mavis really needed to turn over a new leaf if merely being polite was so shocking to her cleaning lady. Well, perhaps this was the time she could do that. Now that Ron was gone maybe she could begin a new chapter in her life, a warmer, gentler chapter.

Rosanne set a glass of wine down in front of her. Picking it up eagerly, Mavis took an enormous swallow. “Rosanne!” she said angrily. “This isn’t cold enough! Don’t you know that yet that white wine has to be properly chilled? Maybe you don’t do that in your trailer park but here we chill Riesling to 47 degrees exactly! This is at least 52 degrees and it tastes like swill when it's warm.  I’d appreciate it if you’d stop reading your soap opera magazines long enough to remember that fact!”

Wordlessly, Rosanne picked up the wine, carried it to the sink and dumped it down the drain. Then she turned and left the kitchen without another word to Mavis.

Well, Mavis thought, she’d work on the warmer, gentler thing another day. When she wasn’t quite so frazzled.

Schuyler Square Day 40 Mindy Cooper Girl Reporter

"Wow. I think it would make a great story, Kirk!" Mindy grinned at Kirk Channing, her latest roommate and newest boyfriend. It felt weird having a boyfriend at the advanced age of 34. It felt even weirder to have a younger boyfriend but Mindy supposed that the older she got, the younger her boyfriends might get too. Sort of like some kind of sliding geometric scale. Math had never been her strong point but so far Mindy liked having a younger boyfriend. Kirk was a lot more fun and far more energetic than her last boyfriend had been. "A haunted house, complete with a clue made out of marbles that the victim left behind. I can't believe I never heard about all this before. I think we should put it in the paper. Would your mom agree to an interview?"

"Are you out of your mind?" Kirk asked, alarmed. "No way would Mom want this in the paper. She's freaking out enough as it is."

"But why? She doesn't own the house and she wasn't there when Mary Austin was murdered. So what's the big deal?"

"I just don't think she'd want to be in the paper. People would come over and want to look at her garage and they'd tell her stuff about the woman who lived there." Kirk shook his head. "Forget it."

Mindy disagreed but she kept her mouth shut. After working for the Schuyler Square Times since getting out of college, she had learned that it was best not to push a reluctant source. She changed the subject. "So when are you going to meet your dad?" Now that would make a good story. She still couldn't believe that her new boyfriend's real father was the vaunted Ron Schuyler. Not that she'd ever put that creep up on a pedastal like the rest of the town had. Everyone in Schuyler Square acted as if the Schuylers were a different breed of humans than everyone else. Not Mindy. If anything, she'd always thought the Schuylers were pretty damn tacky.

Still, the mercenary, materialistic part of her had to admit that it was pretty cool that the guy she was living with had a super rich daddy, even if said daddy was a first class jerk. After trying to scrape by on the salary she got from the paper it was nice to think about Kirk possibly inheriting millions some day.

"Whenever he wants to, I guess. Mom said he doesn't seem to interested."

"Well, his wife did get kidnapped," Mindy pointed out. "He's had other things on his mind."

"I've been in Schuyler Square for a month and his wife was kidnapped last week. He's had plenty of time to get in touch with me."

Mindy felt sorry for Kirk. It had to suck to have a dad who didn't want to see you. Maybe she could do something about that. Maybe she should pay a visit on Ron Schuyler, let him know what she knew and then get the father and son reunion ball rolling. Mindy was planning on talking to the Schuyler's anyway as a follow-up to Mavis's kidnapping. Not that any of them would be cooperative but it would be the perfect time to get ol' Ron alone and tell him congratulations on his new son.

She smiled to herself a touch wickedly. It was about time the high and mighty Ron Schuyler had a reality check and she was just the one to make it happen.

Schuyler Square Day 39 Mavis Is Nervous

A week had passed since Mavis Schuyler had been unceremoniously grabbed at the County Line Inn and then dumped in a ratty tool shed on the wrong side of Schuyler Square. Since her homecoming, Mavis had come to realize two things: 1) no one seemed to have really missed her but her son Tyler, and 2) someone would like to see her dead.

They were both chilling thoughts, especially the second one. Still, it hurt to discover how little the rest of her family and friends seemed to care about her abduction. Even Peter was pretty blase about the whole thing and he was a police officer, for heaven's sake! It seemed to Mavis that no one really cared about her.

A tear ran down her cheek and Mavis tried to wipe it away before the manicurist at We Dye For You noticed. No such luck. "Are you all right, Mrs. Schuyler?"

"I'm fine," Mavis assured her. She peered at the girl a little more closely. Mavis thought her name was Candi but she wasn't sure. It might have been Ginger. "Just tired, I suppose. After all I've been through, you know."

Candi/Ginger continued to buff Mavis's nails. "Yeah, I heard you got snatched. Bummer. Who did it? Do you know?"

"I have no idea."

"They just grabbed you off the street?"

Mavis squirmed slightly in her chair. "I can't remember anything about the whole ordeal," she lied. The door of We Dye For You opened and Chelsea Van Husen stepped in. Mavis stared at Peter's wife, wondering if Chelsea would recognize her. She probably would. Even if people didn't like Mavis, everyone in Schuyler Square knew who she was.

"That's so unreal to me," Candi/Ginger commented. "What--were you just sitting in your car and someone knocked you over the head and then stuffed you in a tool shed?"

"I told you that I don't remember," Mavis snapped.

"Well, it sure seems like somebody doesn't like you. I'd be watching my back pretty closely if I were you. Maybe next time they won't put you in a tool shed. Maybe next time they'll finish you off."

Was it Mavis's imagination or did Candi/Ginger sound a little hopeful? She can forget a tip today! Mavis glanced at her diamond rimmed watch. Candi/Ginger was taking forever.

Mavis watched in the mirror as Chelsea was led across the room to one of the stylist's chairs. Chelsea was a large woman with a plain, friendly-looking face. She reminded Mavis of the kind of woman who only wore make up to weddings and funerals. So what was she doing at We Dye For You?

Was she following Mavis?

At that moment, Mavis's eyes met Chelsea's in the mirror and Mavis felt suddenly nervous. It could have been Chelsea Van Husen who had broken into her room at the County Line Inn, knocked her out and kidnapped her. Chelsea was big enough and strong enough to overtake someone as svelte as Mavis. But why would Chelsea want to do that?

Duh. Because you're bopping her husband, that's why.


Maybe but Chelsea didn't know that. Did she? Mavis looked away from Chelsea and then looked back a few moments later. Chelsea was still watching her, her cool gray gaze as unreadable as a newspaper written in Latin. Mavis gave Chelsea a tiny smile, the kind she bestowed on people she considered beneath her; the checkout clerk at the grocery store, Rosanne, the mailman, her hairdresser--well, really just about everyone else on the planet.

Chelsea nodded back and smiled too, a wide, open smile that couldn't possible belong to a deranged kidnapper. Could it?

Schuyler Square Day 38 Kirk Wants Mom to Move

Veronica leaned closer to the back wall of the garage to peer at the tiny figure. “It looks like a man,” she said.

“With blond hair. I have blond hair.”

Veronica straightened and smiled at her only child. “You and a few other million men,” she told him. “Did you think that you and Robert Redford had a lock on blond hair?”

“No, but that’s my favorite shade of blue too.”

Great. Now her weirdness was rubbing off on Kirk. “So?” she asked. “Mary Austin made this mural when you were still running around in Pull-Ups. What’s your point?”

“I don’t know but this whole mural makes me feel strange all of the sudden.”

Veronica knew the feeling. “How does it make you feel strange?” she asked.

“Like it’s telling a story about me or us. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it either,” Veronica admitted. Kirk was feeling exactly how she felt—like Mary Austin had somehow known about Veronica and Kirk and Ron. Well, it was possible that she had. After all, Mary had apparently been Ron’s new mistress after Veronica had fled from Schuyler Square. She probably knew a lot of things—possibly something that had gotten her murdered.

“So why don’t you leave it alone? Move to a different house or find an apartment but don’t mess with this stuff, Mom. It’s like how Grandma always said never to play with a Ouija board because you don’t know what you’re opening a door for.”

“Kirk, I’d love to move but there doesn’t seem to be anything else available at the moment. Unless you and Mindy want to let me sleep on the couch at your place.”

“You know you're always welcome but I don't think you'd like living with us, Mom. Mindy's pretty fussy and her apartment is tiny. Are you sure there’s nothing available?”

Veronica shook her head. She should know. She’d been combing the classifies and had already asked Ron if he could find her another house to rent but had come up empty. Ron pointed out that he was already charging her next to nothing for the house she was currently living in. The only other option was staying in a corporate condo that was way too accessible to Ron for Veronica's taste. Until she could find an apartment or a house to rent on her own she was stuck and as much as that didn't thrill her, it wasn't something she wanted to burden Kirk with. “Nothing I can afford at the moment. Look, we’re both making a big deal out of this when I’m sure it’s really nothing. Mary Austin was probably a little on the kooky side—she’d have to be to make a mural like this. I mean, can you imagine breaking all those bottles up and then gluing them onto the back of the garage? It’s borderline nuts.”

“It’s completely nuts,” Kirk replied. “There’s nothing borderline about it. Have you talked this over with…Ron?”

“No.” Veronica hadn’t had a decent conversation with Ron since moving back to Schuyler Square. Other than their brief encounter at the coffee shop, the rest of the times she’d spoken to Ron had been either completely businesslike or totally over-the-top emotional. The man exhausted her, pure and simple.


"So I take it he's not planning on taking me on a father-son camping trip?"


"Not yet. Kirk, I shouldn't have shown you this mural. It really has nothing to do with you." Veronica shook her head. "I probably never should have come back to Schuyler Square. It's too late to settle old debts."


"I don't know about that, Mom," Kirk replied. "Ron Schuyler is always going to be my dad. Personally, I think that's a debt that's way overdue."


Veronica felt chilled when she heard the anger in Kirk's voice. It had been a mistake to come back and she was afraid that her son was going to be the one who might end up paying for it.

Schuyler Square Day 31 Tyler Reports Mavis Missing

Tyler should have called instead of showing up at the Schuyler Square Police Department in person. He realized his mistake about three seconds into walking through the front door and being confronted by a policewoman who was approximately the same size as a Sherman tank. She reminded him somewhat unfortunately of his first grade teacher, Mrs. Welsch, who had intimidated him so much that Tyler spent most of the year going home at lunch time to change into dry pants.

"May I help you?" the policewoman growled at him.

Forcing himself to man up, after all he was there to report that his mother was missing, not some penny ante crime spree, Tyler walked to the desk where the woman sat hulking. Up close the resemblance to Mrs. Welsch was uncanny. Tyler swallowed. It was Mrs. Welsch! "Mrs. Welsch! What are you doing here? When did you stop teaching?"

Mrs. Welsch squinted at Tyler through her bifocals. "Is that you? Tyler Schuyler? Well! You're all grown up now!" She shook her head and chuckled. "I guess everyone grows up sooner or later. You don't have much of a choice, do you?"

Tyler wasn't sure, but that sounded like an insult. Mrs. Welsch had always been on the sarcastic side, always making kids redo their finger paintings because they weren't up to her artistic standards. It was a good thing the woman got out of teaching. Working with hardened criminals was really much more up her alley. "I'm here to report a missing person."

Mrs. Welsch raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

"Why would I joke about a thing like that?"

"It's just that we don't get all that many missing people in Schuyler Square. The people who are MIA usually want to be that way, if you know what I mean."

"Not really," Tyler admitted.

"I mean they leave Schuyler Square of their own free will," Mrs. Welsch said in the same overly patient tone that Tyler still had nightmares about. She spoke slowly and clearly. "They choose to leave, Tyler. I'm sure that whomever you are reporting as missing also chose to leave. Who is it?"

"My mother."

Now both of Mrs. Welsch's eyebrows shot up. "Your mother is missing? Mavis Schuyler?"

"Yes."

"How long has she been gone?"

"No one's seen her since yesterday."

"What time yesterday?"

Tyler had to think about that one. The last time he'd seen his mother had been around lunchtime. Tiffany claimed she hadn't seen her aunt all day, Brad didn't either and of course his father hadn't seen his wife since getting out of bed the day before. It made Tyler sad to think that he had been the last one to see his mother and he also seemed to be the only one who cared that she was gone. "Around noon."

Mrs. Welsch sighed. "OK, it's been over twenty-four hours so I guess she does qualify as a missing person--barely. No one's heard from her? No messages, phone calls, nothing?"

Tyler shook his head. "Nothing. That's why I'm here. It isn't like her to vanish."

"Any chance she ran off with someone? I know that isn't something a child would like to think about his mother, but do you suppose she might have a boyfriend on the side?"

"No!" Tyler said quickly, pushing all thoughts of Peter Van Husen out of his head. There was no way his mother would leave would Officer Van Husen, even if something was going on between the two of them.

"All right, all right, calm down. We have to ask. I'm going to hook you up with an officer who will take a more detailed report. It will be just a moment, Tyler. Go have a seat."

Obediently, Tyler walked to a wooden bench and sat down, feeling like Mrs. Welsch was going to tell him it was snack time at any second. Mrs. Welsch mumbled into the phone. After hanging it up, she looked at Tyler again. For the first time ever, he thought he saw a small flicker of sympathy behind her tan eyes. "I'm sure your mom is all right, Tyler."

Tyler wasn't so sure if scary Mrs. Welsch was feeling sorry for him. Uncomfortably, he shuffled his feet across the tiled floor in lieu of a response. He wanted to get out of the police station in the worst kind of way.

"Tyler Schuyler?" a deep voice asked. "How can I help you?"

Tyler looked up and gulped. The officer who was offering his assistance was none other than Peter Van  Husen.

Schuyler Square, Day Three

Schuyler Square
Day Three
Number One Son

Sometimes, quite often actually, Brad Schuyler fantasized about being born in a normal family. A family where lying, deception and secrecy weren't the norm. A family that had members who liked each other and enjoyed hanging around with each other and who spent Christmas and Easter and birthdays together because they wanted to, not because they saw those occasions as good opportunities to spy on each other and make sure the will hadn't changed. Brad had friends with families like that and he envied them just as much as they envied him. They envied him because he was rich. He envied them because they were happy.

But Brad, at age 28, was coming to accept that the Schuyler family was never going to be normal. The deck had been stacked against them from the very beginning, way back when Great-Grandpa Schuyler had opened Schuyler Enterprises. It was a totally unglam business but it had begun to hemorrhage money almost immediately. Being wealthy in a small town had its high points and being rich was always better than being poor but all that money had created character flaws in the Schuylers that seemed to get deeper and deeper with every passing generation, kind of like fissures in the walls of a valley.

Take his father, for example. Brad had grown up being scared of his father and his hair trigger temper but that fear had eventually been replaced with a kind of apathy and later a resentment that he knew he'd never be able to shake. Ron--he no longer thought of his father as "Dad"--was such a cliche. A middle-aged  businessman who burped antacid, fell asleep over his brandy and never, ever had an original idea. What was so scary about that?

Then there was Mommy Not So Dearest. Mavis Jenson Schuyler, a woman of a certain age who lived for Dr. Phil and sales at Macy's. A woman who wanted to be mistaken for a cougar or a Real Housewife of Atlanta. Brad loved his mother, he supposed, but he would be the first to admit that Mavis Schuyler wasn't what anyone would call lively. How had he sprung from such dried up wells? Brad did his best to avoid his mother. And his father. And his twit of a brother, Tyler.

Good Lord, Tyler Schuyler! Maybe his parents did have a sense of humor but in the 20 years since Tyler had been born not once had Brad heard Ron or Mavis comment on the fact that their youngest son's first name rhymed with his last. It was very possible that they'd never noticed.

Brad was making himself sick and that wasn't a good idea. He had to get to work and nausea and management seldom went hand in hand. Putting his neurotic family out of his mind, Brad parked his car next to his father's and walked into the grey concrete building that was someday going to belong to him and the twit. He wanted to stop in his father's office and have a drink. He had a meeting with HR in half an hour and those kinds of meetings always required a little extra lubricating.

Brad had almost reached his father's office when he heard voices coming from the waiting room. That was odd; his father seldom had anyone see him at work, probably because Ron was rarely at work. Peering through the half opened door, Brad saw a tall blonde who had a pissed expression on her face. Following her gaze, Brad saw she was looking at his father, who looked like he was on the verge of stroking out.

"...a long time," he heard Ron say.

"Too long," the blonde said. "I've been putting this off for a long time, Ron, but it can't wait any longer."

Brad took a step back and strained his ears. Hopefully he'd hear something useful, something that might enable him to convince his father to spring for a vacation in the West Indies. Crouching in the hallway, it occurred to Brad that he was just as rotten as the rest of his family, always looking for the easy way out , the chance to blackmail a relative. Yes, he was definitely a Schuyler.

Shrugging, Brad leaned his head closer to the open door. It was really pointless to fight genetics.