Mind + Body, Aaron Dunlap [smart books to read TXT] 📗
- Author: Aaron Dunlap
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Book online «Mind + Body, Aaron Dunlap [smart books to read TXT] 📗». Author Aaron Dunlap
The office, the walls, the books, the desks, the legal terms, it was all so boring, however, that once I’d been in the office for a few minutes I’d returned to walking-zombie status until my attention was pulled by a very large number and a slight gasp from my mother.
“He did what?” She asked.
The lawyer across the desk from us fidgeted slightly, adjusted his glasses, and returned his eyes to the stack of documents in front of him.
“Almost a month ago,” he said, “he changed his personal life insurance policy from a coverage value of $250,000 to $750,000.”
“He didn’t say anything about that to me,” my mom said, confused. “Are you sure this is his paperwork.”
“That’s not all,” the lawyer said, pulling a new document to the top of the stack. “Soon after, he updated his will with our office and changed the beneficiary details. The original total, $250,000 is to go to the closest surviving relative, like usual. This would be you, Mrs. Baker.”
The lawyer paused and re-read a few sentences to himself. “The remainder, $500,000,” he continued, “is to go directly to Christopher Daniel Baker.” He looked at me, and said, “You.”
My mother and I sat in silence for an extended moment.
I’d heard of families receiving a nice payout like this after a death, but that was always for crazy-rich people. Wasn’t a life insurance policy meant to make up for how much money the person would have made if he were alive and working? We definitely aren’t a $750,000 household. More importantly, how did I just go from having $112 dollars to my name to having $500,112 in seven seconds?
“In a trust, you mean?” my mom asked.
The lawyer shook his head. “Usually, that’s what would be done in the case of a minor. Money is set aside in an escrow or trust until the person turns eighteen or twenty-one or graduates college or gets married, whatever the estate-holder specifies. Not here, though. Daniel specifically stated that the money is to go to Chris, in full, regardless of age.”
I could have sworn there was a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Half a million dollars.
My mother turned to me, her face a product of shock and denial. “Did he say anything about this to you?”
I shook my head slowly. “A few— a few months ago I asked him how much apartments cost in DC. I don’t remember the conversation very well.”
Her eyes went to the left, in thought.
“You’re almost eighteen,” the lawyer said to me, interrupting the silent contemplating across the desk. “Were you accepted at any colleges?”
“I haven’t decided about college,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, looking disappointed.
“College doesn’t cost five-hundred thousand, does it?” I asked.
Both adults shook their heads, slowly. “Maybe if you were planning on becoming a doctor,” the lawyer said. I was surprised he didn’t include, “or a lawyer.”
I wasn’t planning on becoming anything. I guess I figured I was going to try for a few months to get a job at a newspaper or something in data processing, fail, then go to a community college until I was sufficiently numbed to the idea of college and then transfer to a university to give myself an extra four years to figure my life out.
With $500,000, assuming this was for real, things would be quite different. I could buy a house or apartment, paying cash, and only need to work for enough money to cover food, clothes, taxes, and utilities. I could buy a plot of land on one of the Caribbean islands and build a nice little villa, earn money teaching rich tourists to make bead necklaces or maybe write some bad novels on an antique desk looking out a window at the ocean.
I could spend my whole life trying to figure out why the hell my dad had left me that much money.
Did you know that you don’t pay any taxes on life insurance death benefits?
When the papers were signed and we went home, my mom began to investigate my dad’s financial records and found that after my dad increased his life insurance payout from $250,000 to $750,000, the increased premiums nearly ate through my dad’s entire paycheck. There was no way we could have stayed afloat with him paying that much to the insurance company every month.
It seemed like either my dad was expecting a very serious raise, or he knew that he was going to die.
Not even a death in the family can keep you from public school for as long as you’d like.
One week after my net worth increased by something like thirty zillion percent I was back in school, back to reality. To be honest, I was starting to look forward to going back. Somehow, sinking into familiar routines seemed like the most amazing thing I could have done. Sitting around the house or walking around the neighborhood was doing me no good, not with the compounding mysteries seeping into my life.
Monday morning, I walked those halls again and let myself slip into the empty anonymity provided by a crowd of peers. Freshmen with their stupid-huge backpacks, sophomores telling inside jokes so satisfied that they’re cooler than at least one group of people, juniors walking with their noses in books and looking distraught over all the stress they’re under, and seniors leaning against locker doors, their backpacks long since abandoned and only carrying few things absolutely necessary to get through the day. Life seems so much easier when peer groups are categorized so rigidly.
Anonymity went out the window when I entered my first class and sat down. From the second I walked in the door, hushed conversations were severed as 40 eyes dug into me and trailed me as I slumped into the first empty desk I saw. I darted my eyes around, everybody avoided eye contact. I lined my pencils up on my desktop while the room sat in a still, thick silence.
They had to have heard about my dad’s death, but I hoped the word hadn’t gotten about regarding my ill-gotten gains. It shouldn’t have; I didn’t tell anybody. Still, if everybody knows, I’d need to hire a bodyguard just to hold off the ironic requests for loans. I tried to imagine how much bodyguards cost; I remembered reading somewhere that a legitimate executive security firm charges about a thousand dollars per day. I could get a bodyguard for 500 days, and then I wouldn’t need one anymore. Spending all your money to keep people from getting your money — that should have been a Twilight Zone episode. Hell, it probably was. By the hundredth episode they had to have been repeating their hubris-related ironies.
I decided it’d be cheaper to fly to New Zealand and start my life over and surround myself with people who don’t know or care about whether I have a father or what insane amount of money he may or may not have left me. Actually, it’d probably be cheaper to have anybody who knows about the money assassinated. I pondered the options for a moment, I could spend a lot of time trying to track down an actual hit squad, or I could just float the notion around gang neighborhoods and wait until something catches. And there’s always the Yakuza.
The teacher walked in the classroom with his coffee cup freshly warmed up, finally drawing some of the attention off of me and pulling me from my daydreaming. He started to begin the typical class-opening procedures when he noticed everybody’s silence, and followed the sight-lines and finally saw me. He, too, stared at me in silence for a moment.
Maybe I could just start passing out hundred dollar bills for people to pretend they aren’t so freaking uncomfortable around me. I drew a breath and prepared to say something when the door opened again. A girl took a step in and read my name from a piece of paper. She was an office aide, and had a summons for me to come to the counseling office at my earliest convenience.
Oh, God.
I’d been to the counseling office twice before, a customary meeting in freshman year so I’d know who my counselor was and for her to find out if I had any brain problems I’d like to talk about, then again in junior year to talk about colleges and application deadlines. I still couldn’t figure out if the counselors are supposed to be academic or social counselors. I can’t imagine there’s a path of psychology education that includes recommending colleges.
Her chair was uncomfortable, and there was a bowl of mixed hard candies positioned on the desk square between me and her.
“I heard about your father, of course,” she started, “First, I’d like to offer my sincere condolences.”
I grinned weakly. I’d already had a week and a half of sincere condolences.
“I’ve notified all your teachers,” she continued, “so they’ll be understanding and will be able to work with you regarding assignments and such.”
“I’m sure gossip did the job before you got there,” I said, glancing out the window into the parking lot. She smiled.
“Yes, people talk.” Her face quickly transformed to a too-sincere look of empathy, quite a talent; “Is anybody making you uncomfortable or hurting your feelings regarding it?”
I looked back and forth between her and the candy. “No.”
“Oh. Okay, good. Well just understand that people, teenagers and children specifically, tend to focus their attention through inappropriate avenues when they’re actually just uncomfortable or intimidated. If someone gives you trouble or makes you feel bad or worse, you can let me or an administrator know. Or a teacher.”
I really wanted to leave. “Okay,” I said, simply.
There was a slight pause.
“So, were you and your father close?” she asked finally.
Oh, God.
After I was through with that mess, I slipped out of the counseling office was trying to decide whether I should return to class or just go home when my own name pulled me from my thoughts.
“Chris?” a girl’s voice said from behind me. Someone my age was talking to me? I turned around; it was Amy Westbourne — a girl I’d known slightly for a few years. We’d had a few classes together and talked occasionally. She was about fifty feet away, walking toward me.
“Yeah?” I said loud enough to cover the distance.
“You’re back,” she said, now a bit closer. She was speaking like I’d just gotten back from Disney World.
Amy was my age, thin, and borderline punk-trendy. She had neck-length dark blonde hair with streaks or lines, whatever you call them, of reddish and… darkish. I never understand girls and their hair, but whatever it was, she looked good. When I first met her she dressed rather clean-cut, but over the years she transitioned to worn punk-style thrift store-style shirts that probably cost $28, jeans, and those cloth wrist things that punky girls always wear. Looking at her, you’d know she’d never done a rebellious thing in her life, but she carried herself well enough that you’d never consider her a poser.
Not that I ever paid a lot of attention to her or anything…
“Yeah, I’m back,” I said, now standing in the middle of the hallway.
“That’s good,” she said, stopping just a few feet from me.
“Coming from C.O.?” she asked after a pause, looking at the door to the counseling office.
I looked down at the floor, not wanting to direct the conversation to its inevitable climax of awkward condolences and uncomfortable silence. “Yeah,” I finally said, letting my voice trail off.
She nodded, interested. “Oh, because of your dad and everything?” she asked, also interested.
She wasn’t patronizing me. That was new. “Yeah,” I said,
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