Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,36
zinger that was thankfully caught on film. I don’t know why I said that. It was like some comic persona inside of me had taken control of my tongue and made me say it. Normally, I would just stay out of conflicts of any sort. An argument between a store manger and a customer: I’d leave the store. Between two drivers over a parking space? I’d hit the gas and peel out of there. I guess my growing fame was making me fearless. Or, it was making me crave attention. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. Maybe I was just getting in touch with my inner asshole.
No matter how you looked at it, the gloves were off early today.
“I have something to say,” Keith announced with great importance, like he was going to drop a bomb, but considering all the manufactured drama on this show, I was skeptical. “I am Ian’s son.”
Okay, it was a bomb. A big one.
No one knew what to say for the longest time, but I could guess the two main thoughts that were going through everyone’s head: I just lost out on $350 million, and Ian screwed his own son. Ewwwww!
Ian sat silently, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a Winnebago. No one immediately challenged Keith as to the truth to his story, so he launched an explanation of his own. Me, I was just interested. The guys, however, wanted to know if it was true. After all, it might give Keith a claim to Ian’s fortune in some twisted way or, even worse, Ian might get all touchy-feely over the prospect of a son and give him a big piece of the action out of deference to a bloodline.
Keith took a big breath, then commenced with his story. “My mother, Ena, was married to Ian a long time ago in Scotland. They both started a small hair salon in Glasgow that became somewhat successful. Ena and Ian had no children for a long time. As time went on, my mother was unable to control her drinking, and Ian eventually forced her out of the business, which Ian eventually sold before he divorced Ena and moved to America. What my father”—he pointed to Ian as if it was an accepted fact—“didn’t know was that my mother was pregnant with me at about the time Ian left her. Ena, fearing the stigma of being a single mother, kept the truth about me quiet as long as she could. By the time I was born, Ian had left the country for Los Angeles. For years, my mother struggled with her addiction and tried to earn a living in a hair salon, but eventually she succumbed to liver cancer and died when I was eight years old. I then went to live with relatives of my mother until I was eighteen. All the time, my mother had drilled into my head her various plans for revenge on my father for abandoning the two of us. I grew up being taught how to use people, manipulate them, and how to find Ian and get close to him. Well, I made my way to the U.S. and wormed my way into Ian’s life by working on my body and buffing up, showing up at clubs Ian was likely to visit, and the plan worked. But there, I changed direction from the plans that my mother laid. Instead of killing him or trying to ruin him, I fell in love with him. So here I am. I confess.”
“I must disagree wiss that story,” Gilles chimed in.
“How so?” Keith countered.
“You said you work on the body. Buffing up. That is where I disagree. To me, you are a sack of rocks.”
“Salope.”
I was impressed. Keith knew French.
Aurora, feeling the need to referee a bit, stepped in.
“Ian, is Keith telling the truth?”
“It could be. Oh, what’s the big deal? I barely touched him.”
Aurora again, “You were married?”
“Yes, to Ena. What Keith is saying is true. That was a long time ago.”
“About how long ago?”
“Twenty . . . um,” Ian said, stopping himself once the numbers added up. Yes, Keith is probably my son.”
“But wait a minute,” I said, jumping in, not wanting to be out of the limelight too much. After all, I wanted to stay on the show . . . I had bills to pay. “You don’t have the same surnames.”
“My last name was Forbes. I had it changed before I left for America so that