Barrett Fuller's Secret Read online

  Sidney used to encourage Barrett to sue until the publisher realized that the more attention these rumours received, the more copies of the Mil Bennett books they sold.

  The Russell Niles intrigue has such a mystique that an aspiring young journalist, Brittany Holmes, started www.whoisrussellniles?.com and created a cult following of her own. Unlike many editors who filter their sources in search of the rare grains of truth with true market value, Brittany encourages the extremists, whack jobs, and fanatics. If you have a theory about who Russell Niles is, she’ll add it to the blog, and if you have a picture she’ll happily post it without any questions. This is about quantity, traffic, and one rumour fueling the next. This is a way of doing business that gets her three hundred thousand hits a week and guest spots on talk radio shows as the Russell Niles aficionado.

  “You really think it’s her?” Barrett asks across a basket of chicken wings.

  “Who has more to gain than that gossip whore?”

  “You’re right, she’s worth a visit.”

  And Sidney doesn’t even stop eating to set up the meeting —he simply texts his personal assistant, who tracks down Brittany Holmes’ personal email and then sends Brittany an email saying that he would like to meet to see if she has any book ideas. And before they finish their food, Brittany agrees to meet that evening at a raw food restaurant in the west end.

  The drive to the raw food restaurant is quiet until Barrett taps the dashboard.

  “Don’t introduce me from marketing this time.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I hate marketing.”

  “So, this time you’ll be an editor.”

  “I don’t like editors either.”

  “Have some fun with it. We’re talking about her book ideas anyway.”

  Barrett thinks about it for a second then nods his approval while lighting a cigarette.

  The raw food restaurant makes Barrett think of rehab centres. Sterile, paranoid, bland places driven by dogma and guilt. He long ago promised himself he would never go to rehab or become a vegetarian, and if there wasn’t so much at stake, he would rather have his arm hairs plucked out one at a time than enter a raw food restaurant.

  They meet Brittany Holmes at a booth adjacent to the juice bar, and Barrett is immediately shocked by her appearance. When he heard journalist, he stamped her as a strong-jawed, stoic woman with her hair in a bun, but Brittany looks more like a model.

  Long brown hair styled with seventies drop curls, mink eyelashes that accentuate hazel eyes, and a collared black dress that reveals a five-times a week at the gym body frame her as a stock character from any one of Barrett’s fantasies. This is a woman destined to take over the Hollywood gossip scene.

  A waiter with receding red hair and a T-shirt with the slogan THINK GREEN approaches. “Good evening, Ms. Holmes, what can I get you?”

  “A pot of chai tea, please.”

  “And for you sir?” he asks Sidney.

  “What are our options in terms of liquor?”

  “We have an organic microbrewery on tap.”

  “How about vodka?” Barrett adds.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t serve hard liquor here.”

  “Two pints will be fine, thank you.”

  “They come in half pints.”

  “Then we’ll have four,” Barrett adds, doing his best to kill the waiter with a glare.

  It’s time for Sidney to do what he does best. Focus the conversation, disarm, flatter. He addresses Brittany. “Thank you for meeting us on such short notice.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Barrett can’t take his eyes off her lips. Forget lipstick, they look like they were born red.

  “I was surprised you’d want to meet with me, considering you represent Russell Niles.”

  “Well, I’m in the business of making money and you get three hundred thousand hits a week, which could translate into a lot of money.”

  She smiles in agreement. “You know I’ll be writing about our meeting on the website.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  The arrogance sparks Barrett. “What do you think of the Russell Niles books?”

  She looks straight into his eyes. “I think they are some of the most inane, immature works ever published.”

  It’s hard to tell whether she’s toying with him or being honest, but he knows to find out he has to keep his composure. “I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I’ll take it a step further. I think it’s a sad reflection of our society that his books sell so many copies.”

  She smiles mischievously and Sidney raises a finger. “Easy. I am the man’s agent, and I don’t care why the books sell, I just care that they do.”

  Brittany pats the top of Sidney’s hand. “Which is why I agreed to this meeting.” Her gold phone vibrates on the table, prompting her to stand up and excuse herself.

  She isn’t fully out of sight when Barrett leans into Sidney. “So what do you think?”

  “I think she’s hot. And innocent.”

  “I don’t know. It feels like she’s fucking with me.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Excuse yourself.”

  “What?”

  “Use the washroom or something.”

  She walks back to the table, and it’s clear that in heels she’s at least six feet. “Sorry, we just had a call from a woman who claims she’s pregnant with Russell Niles’ baby.”

  Even as a figment of someone’s demented mind, the words unnerve Barrett.

  Sidney rises from the table and gestures to the back of the restaurant. “That way to the washroom?”

  “Straight to the back on your left,” she says while thumbing a text message into her cell.

  Barrett waits until she’s finished. “Now that he’s gone, you’ve got to tell me. With all your expertise, who do you think Russell Niles is?”

  “Do you promise you won’t repeat this?”

  “Of course.”

  “Swear on your testicles.”

  “This better be good.”

  “Do it.”

  “I swear on my testicles I won’t repeat what you’re about to say.”

  “You better hope you don’t.”

  The look on her face is convincing, but Barrett knows he needs to move this along before Sidney returns.

  “So? Who do you think he is?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but I know who he isn’t.”

  “Really? And who isn’t he?”

  “He’s not the man this last attention seeker claims impregnated her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because Russell Niles isn’t a man.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because it’s obvious a lesbian writes these stories. The villainizing of materialism, the heroism of mothers and female role models, the bashing of traditional male roles and expectations. When you look at the Mil Bennett books as a collection, it’s clear they’re more than allegorical, they’re ideological.”

  Relief comes to him in the form of a smug smile. “You really think Russell Niles is a lesbian?”

  “I know she is, and soon enough, I’ll prove it.”

  “Amazing.”

  “What’s amazing?” Sidney asks, returning to the table.

  “I’m going out for a cigarette, but you need to hear this,” Barrett says with a gesture to Brittany.

  Once the cigarette touches his lips, the humour dissipates into a stark reality. All Brittany’s innocence proves is that he’s no closer to discovering the extortionist and that there is a website about him devoted to nurturing the most extreme rumours in circulation. And none of that information will bring his yacht back.

  Twelve

  Richard is surprised to see a supply teacher when he arrives at school. He can’t remember Mr. Davis missing a day, and while he can care less about adverbs or hot writing, the eager look on the supply’s face unnerves him.

  The supply looks at the clock and then over to
Richard. He leans into the desk enough that Richard gets a full blast of his coffee breath. “And what’s your name?”

  The attention makes Richard shift his weight in his seat. “Richard.”

  The supply examines him for a moment with an intense look of concentration. “You’re cutting it close today.”

  The man’s presence makes him so uncomfortable that it takes him a moment to realize that he is referring to almost being late. Richard nods, hoping that will get rid of him, and the supply rises and backs up to address the class.

  “Good morning, all. My name is Mr. Phelps and I’ll be your teacher for the next month.” The class groans and Phelps raises an index finger. “Mr. Davis had a fall.” The class now stirs with concern. “He’s okay, but he’s hurt his hip, and he’ll need some time to recover. Which means that I’ll be with you for the next twenty days.”

  Richard looks at Phelps. Short, with little left of his blond hair, his belly hangs over his pants despite perfect posture, and his heavily wrinkled brow droops unusually low over his eyes. This is not a man who projects happiness. He paces from one end of the class to the other, and with each step he snaps the toes of his shoe forward to heighten the click.

  “To begin, we are going to read a poem about family. Please take out your texts and turn to page forty-eight.”

  Richard flips to the page and looks at the title. THE WEB OF LIFE. A flash of his mother’s face the day his father left fills his mind, and while he stares at the poem all he sees is a blank page. He hears Mr. Phelps ask a kid in the front row to read the first stanza, but all he can think about is the afternoon he heard his parents fight over money. The argument happened a good six months before his father left, but he had never heard them so angry with each other, and he wonders if that fight was the start of their ending.

  “Excellent,” Phelps says with spittle spraying from his lips. “Please read the second stanza,” he says, gesturing to a boy at the back of the class with a shaved head and a cut in the middle of his lip. The kid begins to read, and Richard guesses that this is Mr. Phelps’ favourite poem. He looks at his fancy watch, replays the way he pronounces words, and knows he comes from a great family. He is sure that these lines about holiday dinners, tobogganing, with siblings and summer trips to the cottage aren’t just lines for him, they are memories. “Excellent,” Phelps says again. He pivots toward Richard.

  “Richard? Can you read stanza three, please?”

  Richard glances at the first line. The love between ... He would rather chew glass than read the third stanza. “Pass,” he says.

  Phelps stops pacing. “Pass?”

  They stare at each other long enough for Richard to notice all the shades of purple in the bags beneath Phelps’ eyes. Richard nods to confirm his position.

  “Okay. Then I’ll do the honour. The love between them filled the room and they communicated more in that moment of silence than people do in a day’s worth of conversation.” He continues to read, but Richard is too busy wondering if the man has a son to listen. And if he has a son, is he as bad a father as he is a teacher?

  Or is he as passionate about fatherhood as he is about the lines he’s reading? Richard listens to the toes of Phelps’ shoes click on the tile and decides that if the man has a family, he is willing to abandon them.

  “Next, we are going to free-write.”

  Richard waits for a ripple of grumbles or Jayson with ADD to make a farting noise, but Phelps is new and aggressive enough that everyone plays along.

  “I want you to take yourself back to the greatest day of your life, and for the next five minutes you are going to write down every detail you can remember.”

  Richard feels his throat tighten. He clears it twice until the girl next to him looks at him like he’s weird.

  The greatest day of his life. He thinks of his ninth birthday party, when his mother arranged for a dunk tank and a trampoline, the time he stayed up twenty-four hours playing video games, and the night his dad took him to a bar to watch a boxing fight on the big screen in a room full of men that swore, yelled, and treated him like he was just another guy. But none of those memories are the greatest days of his life. That designation goes to the day his mom and dad took sick days to take him to a water park north of the city. His mother convinced him to go on the thirty-foot free-fall slide by going first, and his dad joined him in the wave pool, even though he can’t swim. He felt different about life that day, and the feeling lasted for a few weeks. They were supposed to go to the park again the next summer, but then his dad left. He hasn’t mentioned the water park to his mother since.

  “Okay,” Phelps said with a smack of his lips. “Let’s hear some samples. Richard, start us off, please.”

  “Pass.”

  “You just passed. And my guess is with that attitude, you pass every day.”

  Richard locks eyes with him. “Pass.”

  The class now oohs and the buzz causes Phelps’ face to flush. “Look,” he says, putting a hand on Richard’s desk, just above the paper. “If you’re going to be a member of this class then you have to contribute. Now, read us what’s on the page.”

  Richard stares through him in defiance.

  Phelps taps the desk with an index finger. “You must have written something, and I’d like to hear it.”

  Richard grabs his paper and raises it slowly to reveal FUCK YOU written in block capitals. Phelps breaks into a weird smile.

  “That seems about right. You’re out of here. Straight to the principal.”

  Defeat leaves Richard too weak to do anything but rise from his desk in compliance. He wants to shove the free-write paper down Phelp’s throat. He wants to hit the man with a book and erase that awkward smile. He wants to punch him in the balls and remind him that he’s not God, but he doesn’t do anything.

  At home, Richard sits on a couch in the living room and waits for his mother to get off the phone. He knows what the principal is saying, he knows how bad it sounds, and worst of all, he knows his mother will never understand how he felt when he told Mr. Phelps to fuck off. She hangs, pivots toward him, and he palms the armrest to brace himself.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “He was picking on me.”

  “Asking you to participate in class is picking on you?”

  “It was how he was doing it.”

  “That’s lame. You swore at a teacher and you know that’s wrong. And not long ago you hit a kid. And you knew that was wrong. I’m making an appointment with a therapist. And ...”

  “But ...” Before he can get out the next word her volume silences him.

  “And I know you don’t want to go, but I love you and I won’t let this self-destructive behaviour continue, and I’ll do anything I have to that gets you to a positive place. That’s what you do when you love someone, and when you grow up I know you’ll be willing to do the same for your family.”

  He drops his head until she leaves the room and thinks about her words. He knows she wants the words to help him reflect and mature, but all they do is reinforce his fear that wherever he is, his father doesn’t love him anymore.

  The next day he sits beside his mother in Dr. Burns’ office. The layout is different than he expected. Both he and his mother sit in leather armchairs instead of a couch, and the doctor is perched on a long-legged wooden stool. Richard looks at Dr. Burns and thinks the man seems pleased with himself. He is tall and angular with large white teeth and a smile that is too big to be natural. With thick brown hair just long enough to run his hands through and thin-rimmed glasses, he is handsome.

  Dr. Burns leans forward to make it clear his attention is on Richard. “You should know before we begin that your mother selected me because of my reputation for innovative techniques, so I won’t be asking you about your feelings and quietly taking notes while you pour your heart out. This will be intensely interactive.”

  Richard’s face shows he can care less.

  “Your mother said you’ve been having
some problems at school. Do you want to talk about them?”

  Richard stares past him to the eggshell-coloured wall and wonders what outer space would look like if it was white.

  “It’s been eleven months since your father left, correct?”

  “Twelve in a week,” his mother adds.

  Burns’ eyes are still locked on Richard. “Feeling sad and stressed is expected when there is a change in the family structure. Sometimes those feelings take a while to surface, and sometimes those feelings come out in our behaviour. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about what happened at school?”

  Richard’s mind is still on a white outer space with black stars, so his mother taps his knee.

  “Go ahead. Dr. Burns is here to help us.”

  “No need to rush,” the doctor says. He passes Richard an empty journal with a generic yellow happy face on the cover. “I want you to start writing down your feelings. The simple act of putting your stress on paper helps release the anxiety that’s upsetting you.”

  Richard looks at the happy face, and for a moment he’s sure it winked at him.

  Burns turns to Richard’s mother. “I’m going to start him on Ritalin to help with the anxious energy.”

  “Okay.” Her tone is positive, but she can’t hide the concern in her eyes.

  The doctor opens a folder, removes a brochure, and passes it to her. She looks at the picture of a Chinese boy sitting with an overweight redheaded kid at a round table.

  They appear to be looking at a textbook and both faces are full of purpose. The title reads: A PARENT’S GUIDE TO MEDICAL THERAPY.

  “Ritalin has a high rate of success, but you should be aware of the side effects.”

  “What’s a side effect?” Richard asks.

  “Nothing to worry about,” his mother says.

  Burns looks at Richard until he has the kid’s attention. “Side effects are things that can happen to your body when you take a certain medication. They shouldn’t be hidden from you because of your age. You have the right to know.”

  The image of blood running from his ears flashes in Richard’s mind. “Like what?”