Haywire

Chapter 1

I can’t really pinpoint the exact point where I realised that my brother changed. Maybe it was when he started talking with those boys. Mother swears it’s their fault for corrupting him. Father’s only response is that “ boys will always be boys...”. I want to know why, but I can’t say that I’m that worried. He may have changed, and the horrible truth is that I don’t actually have anything to say to that. I just nod and hum at the dinner table when Mother goes on and on. Another tirade. It seems to be a common guest on our table. Mark just stares at me occasionally and the tiniest smirks appears. I can only guess what he’s thinking. I send the smallest smirks his way. It’s your turn to be the bad son, brother of mine.

A little background on the Courvier household. A very average family, probably one of those families that will come to mind when you think of the word “neighbours”. The whole clean-cut image of an American perfect family. I guess we are in a way. We’re all screwed up, but we give out that idea.

Mother loves to brag about Father’s extremely well-paid job, her family’s ancestry, Father’s ancestry, summer houses, dinner parties, designer outfits. Mother is to simply put, a proud bragger. Tacky, but the simple truth. I don’t believe she ever cooked in her life. She takes credit for the Cook’s meals, without an ounce of shame and she pulls that lie off with extreme ease. She is the quintessential perfect hostess. It’s expected of her, and I would believe she would never disappoint, simply because she’s comfortable and doesn’t think too much about ethics when the whole picture is ultimately achieved. It’s all for the greater good. One of Mother’s favourite quotes...

Father is the respected family man. The image he portraits is one of confidence and authority. A certain nonchalance is also included, because arrogance always follows. He wear’s Mother on his arm like the piece of candy she is. Always proud of his trophy wife, his perfect blond wife. He married her for her money, and of course status. No one can say that our Father is anything but a business man. There was no love then, and I don’t believe there ever will be any. It’s a business deal, clean and simple: Mother needs a respectable husband that will provide her with a house, the children and all the money and status she needs. All the status she was promised growing up and she expected nothing less. He wants the trophy wife.

They met in my Mother’s home town in the south of France, where she was brought up by our grandmother, a widow in charge of an empire of vineyards and her late husband name. She groomed my mother to be the perfect wife and to move up in the social ladder. My Father “accidentally” heard about a opportunity to make a deal for his friend, and off they went to the widow’s, and his friend got a good deal for a parcel of the vineyards business. He got to meet his future wife.

I know that the only reason my grandmother even considered him as a possible suitor was perhaps his name. The Courvier name carries a certain power in circles in ancient families in France.
She saw what my mother was only too happy to enter into: a perfect marriage into one of the oldest families, and security in society. It was done before she knew it.

A few years after their marriage, Father sold the vineyards and got into the pharmaceutical business and became a billionaire. Money is never enough, but father doesn’t seem too concerned in continuing to work. It gets him away from the house, and mother. It goes without being said that it doesn’t matter to Mother. She only smiles reassuringly when he tells her again of another trip across the country, Europe or wherever. His part, and her part. The perfect play.

They moved to America right after father got into the business, since Samantha our oldest sister was due to arrive in a couple of months. That was 20 years ago.

Samantha is the perfect copy of our mother. As shallow as they come, and perfectly content in following Mother’s footsteps. As soon as she graduated high-school she married one of Father’s associates son, and moved across the country to raise little perfect blond children. She will of course demand an army of nanny’s and if it wasn’t for her husband’s demands of wanting to have his wife pregnant with his children, I would bet she would also try not to endanger her figure and hire a surrogate. Me and Mark have a bet on if she will still do it. He says after the first, I say she won’t even get pregnant, she will twist Eric until he breaks down and agrees on it. She does have a good thing on it: he does want her to be the trophy wife he married as well, so she might get off successful from that deal.

Then there’s Mark and I, the twins. We share the same traits: our mother’s green eyes and our father’s chocolate coloured hair. We’re the only children who got the colour, the other siblings are all blond, and Mark and I often joke about the possibility of a experimental surrogate, where dad had to “sample the goods” first and hit jackpot. We’re twisted like that.

My hair has always been Mark’s favourite plaything since we were born. I can’t seem to control it and Mark has a field day teasing me about it. I have waist length slightly curly hair, and he loves to tangle it up, pull it or simply suck on it when we were babies. I tease him back saying that he has way too pretty hair for a guy. Hey, he does! He can also pull it off.

We’re 17 at the moment and we just moved from NY, to Huntington Beach, CA. I was always the bad daughter and Mark has always somewhat escaped by having Mother blame it all on me and claiming that I was the one pushing her only poor son to behave like an outlaw. Psshh, yeah right!

Then there is the youngest of us all, Isabella. She is only turned 3 and her nanny is only too happy to praise ever single spoiled brat tantrum she excels in. Mother thinks it’s adorable and that her beautiful daughter is showing an extreme quality in getting her point across to the help. Yes, the help. See how it is? Disrespect is something that is only involved when talking with our equals, that’s what Mother always says. The help! Unbelievable...

So I guess that the Courvier household is perfect. There’s Father, Mother, Isabella, Elaine the Nanny, Mark and I. See? Perfect isn’t it? Not so much, especially when the heir is going haywire and we just moved here. I’m cackling inside...