Amarantha McMahon awoke in her bed on a sunny Friday morning with one thing on her mind—stealing her father’s car.
Actually, he wasn’t her father. Vince and Linda McMahon had adopted her when she was seven, pulling her from the foster home in Massachusetts that had been her home since she was born. Her mother “couldn’t deal with the pressures of being a mother” and had dumped her there shortly after her birth. Amarantha bit her lower lip, a nasty habit her father had been trying to break her of for some time. Yeah, she thought bitterly, you can handle the pressures of lying on your back to make fifty bucks, but you can’t handle taking care of your kid. Vince and Linda had kept no secrets from her in the 11 years that she had lived with them. She knew that her mother was a whore, and it didn’t bother her. It only made her determined to never turn out like her mother.
Though Vince and Linda weren’t her natural parents, they had given her everything. They had always treated her like one of their own, and Shane and Stephanie had been the best siblings she could have hoped for, with few exceptions. Stephanie had some animosity toward her when she was younger. They weren’t relatively close in age, a six-year gap making Amarantha the new baby of the family, and Stephanie had been it until Amarantha had come along. Stephanie wasn’t exactly thrilled about sharing her family’s attention with someone new. Those ill feelings had disappeared after the skating accident when Amarantha was 13. The ice beneath Stephanie’s feet had cracked, and Amarantha had pulled her from the freezing water before it was too late. Since then, they were very close. They shared a bedroom for a few years until both girls begged their father to build a wall, splitting the room in half because they were getting on each other’s nerves.
Shane had instantly taken Ama, as he called her, under his wing. He played the protective older brother role perfectly, but more so where Amarantha was concerned. Amarantha adored him, and she was never in need of hearing, “I love you, little sis” from him. He had waited up for her after every date and the three proms that she had attended since starting high school. Shane drove her around like a faithful chauffeur, until she had gotten her license under his teaching. Sometimes his protective tendencies annoyed her, but she was thankful that she had him.
In her vehicular larceny escapades, Amarantha had taken her brother’s BMW first. She knew that he wouldn’t be too upset about it. Her father refused to buy her a car of her own, feeling that she wasn’t experienced enough to have such a big responsibility. She had asked for her dream car, a purple Jeep, for her sixteenth birthday—instead, she got her own computer. The gift was appreciated because she had been using Shane’s for years, but it wasn’t a Jeep. Amarantha asked for the Jeep again when she turned 17—instead, her father had taken her to Europe. The two-week vacation alone with her father had been great, and she had seen so many amazing things, but still, it wasn’t a Jeep. Finally, she had turned 18, the age of passage, and Amarantha was sure that Shane would pick her up from school, and the Jeep would be sitting in the driveway waiting for her when they arrived home. They pulled into the driveway—no Jeep. Instead, she found a plane ticket to Paris for the day to go on a shopping spree with Shane, and she had no credit limit. Of course, she was ecstatic because clothes were one of her passions, but STILL, it wasn’t a damn Jeep.
The day had come to take matters into her own hands. Amarantha climbed out of her purple canopy bed, padding softy across the plush purple carpet to the adjoining bathroom. She slipped out of her purple silk nightgown and let the hot water wash over her, all the time going over her plan in her head.
Vince always came home for lunch at noon. That’s when she would make her move. While he was having lunch with her mother at the far end of the house, Amarantha would come in, kiss him hello, and then proceed out the front door to where her father’s burgundy Jeep Cherokee (dammit, he had a Jeep!) would be sitting in the driveway, keys still in it. The way she looked at it, he was just begging for her to steal it if he always left the keys in the ignition.
She would be home free from there, until her father realized that she had taken the Jeep, and then sent Shane out to find her, or called the police. Vince wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, so she was betting, and hoping, that he would first use the Shane Patrol to locate her before pulling the local law enforcement agency into things. The reprimand that would follow her return in bondage to the Greenwich mansion would be severe, but nothing that she couldn’t handle. She’d been punished before, but this time, her offense would make her father stand up and realize that he needed to buy his daughter a Jeep if he didn’t want her to continue stealing his.
Amarantha jumped out of the shower and wrapped her dripping hair in a purple towel, then wrapped her body in another one. A huge cloud of steam rushed out of the bathroom as she exited, and Amarantha breathed the refreshingly cool air deeply into her lungs until she coughed. She pounded her chest with her fist. Gotta stop smoking, she thought.
Shane didn’t bother her about many things, but her smoking was something that he hated. Of course, he didn’t back up his position very well because he had been the one to give her a steady supply of cigarettes until she had turned old enough to buy them for herself. (He, himself, was fond of a cigar every now and then to make matters worse.) He always gave in when she stuck out her lower lip and made her eyes water so she could cry crocodile tears. There was nothing that he could deny her when she pulled that “finisher” on him.
Amarantha crossed the room to her vanity and immediately contradicted her earlier resolution by fishing her cigarettes out of her purse and pulling the hidden ashtray (purple, of course) out from the bottom drawer of the vanity. She lit the cigarette with a silver lighter she had “borrowed” from Shane, took a drag off the cigarette, then put it in the ashtray just as there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” she demanded, ready to hide the incriminating evidence if necessary.
“It’s Shane, Ama, open up,” her older brother’s voice called from the other side of the door.
“It’s open, Shay,” she answered, turning back to her vanity. The door opened as she pulled out her purple glitter make-up case.
Shane entered the room and shut the door behind him. He looked at the cigarette burning in the ashtray and shook his head. “Ama, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
Amarantha was in mid-foundation application (not purple.) “I know.”
“Promise me you’ll quit soon,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I promise,” she responded dryly.
He stepped forward, the pinky finger of his right hand extended. She looked at it reluctantly. “Shay…” she whined.
He stood firm. “Come on, Amarantha. You know you have to do it. Give me your finger.”
Amarantha sighed, resigning to the fate she had bee accustomed to since she was little. The pinky-swear was the most sacred promise between them, and refusal to accept a proffered pinky was a fate worse then death. She had made countless pinky swears with Shane, and not once had she ever broken one. They took the childish agreement seriously.
She extended her pinky and locked it up with her brother’s. “Why do you have to torture me like this?”
Shane withdrew his hand and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “Because I don’t want to keep a bed- side vigil when you are 80 and in the hospital, dying of lung cancer.”
Amarantha shook her head. “Shay, when I’m 80, you’ll be 92, so I’ll be sitting beside your bed. Besides, you smoke cigars. You’ll be dying of lung cancer, too.”
Shane smiled, gently kneading the tense muscles of her neck. Shane had always given the best backrubs. “Nope. I plan on living forever.”
“Just like Dad,” she replied, reaching for her eye-pencil. “Honestly, Shane, with an ego like that, it’s a wonder the two of you can get through the door.”
Shane pinched her on the side of the arm. She yelped and drove her elbow into his stomach. “Don’t start what you can’t finish, little girl,” he warned.
Amarantha stood up from the vanity and disappeared behind an authentic Chinese dressing screen that her mother had picked up on her last trip overseas. Quickly, she shed the towel, leaving it in a pile on the floor, and pulled on the black stretch pants and purple three-quarter sleeve top that she had laid out the night before so she wouldn’t spend an hour in front of her closet, trying to select the perfect outfit in which to steal her father’s beloved Jeep.
As soon as she was dressed, she returned from behind the screen and leaped at Shane, who was ready for her attack. The two rolled around the floor like they had done for years, trying to get the other to tap out as quickly as possible. Amarantha’s technique was to squeeze Shane around the ribs, a particularly sensitive spot after many a battle in the ring. She usually failed miserably because he knew just where to tickle her, in the spot just beneath her arm. It was only a few seconds before she was pounding the floor, seized by an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
Shane released her and collapsed back on to the floor. “I’m getting too old for this, Ama.”
She smiled, sitting up and releasing her wet hair from the towel that had fallen during the scuffle. “Ha, Old Man. You’ll never be too old. It will just be easier for me to kick your ass.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, I do believe that your record is zero wins and about a million losses. You couldn’t even beat me when I had one hand tied behind my back.”
Amarantha crossed her arms over her chest, pouting. “Well, that will change soon. I’ve been formulating a new plan of attack.”
“We’ll see,” he scoffed.
Amarantha pushed herself up from the floor and slid back into the vanity chair, mashing out the remains of the wasted cigarette. Perhaps that had been Shane’s plan all along…She continued to apply the rest of her make-up before Shane had the chance to distract her any further.
“So, what are your plans for this fine day?” Shane asked, propping himself up on his hands.
Amarantha nearly gasped. Does he know something? For some reason, she had never been able to lie to her brother. He always saw through the fantastic lies she cooked up that always fooled her parents and Stephanie. Amarantha was sure he was a mind reader.
“Nothing in particular,” she responded, calmly. Did her voice sound guilty? Was she giving away something inadvertently? She could never be too careful around Shane.
“Why don’t I believe you?” he asked, standing up behind her.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she answered, keeping her eyes on her reflection. If he got her to look him in the eyes, it would only be a matter of time until she spilled the whole thing to him.
“Amarantha, look at me,” he intoned gravely.
Damn! It’s over now. Amarantha raised her dark eyes reluctantly. “I thought that I would do a little sightseeing around town. Maybe go for a little drive.” Shane paused, studying her. “Ama, you can’t steal Dad’s car.”
Amarantha pounded her fist against the vanity, rattling the assortment of personal hygiene products assembled there. “Dammit, how do you always know?”
“It’s a gift, and don’t curse,” he answered, shaking his head at her. “I’m serious, Ama. You can’t steal the Jeep. You won’t see the light of day for months when he finds out about it.”
“I don’t care, Shay,” she snapped, dragging a brush through her slowly drying locks. “He won’t get me the damn Jeep that I want, so I’ll just have to take his.”
“That’s your master plan?” he laughed, arching his eyebrows at her. “You think that will prove to him that you are responsible enough to have your own car? Oh, Ama, you should know him better than that.”
“I’m going to do it, Shay, and you can either hinder or help me by keeping your mouth shut,” she responded, her pride hurt by his jokes.
He squeezed the bridge of his nose, chuckling. “Fine. Do what you want. I won’t say a word, but believe me, I will enjoy seeing him punish you.”
Amarantha turned around to face him. “Thank you, Shay.”
“Don’t say that I didn’t warn you,” he replied.
She rolled her eyes, and turned back around to the vanity. Ignoring Shane’s groan of disapproval, she lit another cigarette, flipping the lighter to him. “I got this for you.”
He peered quizzically at the lighter before looking up at her. She took a drag off the cigarette before putting it into the ashtray for safekeeping.
“Hey, this is mine! You little thief!”
This time, Amarantha was ready for his attack.
~~**~~
Half an hour later, Amarantha emerged from her bedroom, her long dark brown hair perfectly styled and her make- up flawlessly applied. She paused to check her reflection in the mirror in the hall, sighing at the girl who stared back at her.
She looked nothing like the rest of the McMahon family. Shane was as pale as a ghost, while she had dark, naturally tanned skin. Stephanie had natural beauty, and the make-up she wore in the ring only made her look like the two-dollar slut that everyone said she was. She didn’t need make-up. She was thin and petite, while Amarantha had to watch what she ate to keep off those extra ten pounds that made her run in fear when bikini season rolled around—it was steadily approaching.
Amarantha shook her head and continued down the hall, slinging her Gucci purse over her shoulder. She descended the front stairs, spying her father’s Jeep parked in the driveway. She took a deep breath. Here goes nothing, she thought.
On her trip toward the veranda at the far end of the house where her mother and father ate both breakfast and lunch, she passed Shane, slumped in a chair and flipping channels on the television disinterestedly. He shook his head as she passed and blew her a kiss. Shane really was a pal. He understood her need to rebel against their father, the way he never had. Rebellion was just in Amarantha’s nature.
Amarantha breezed through the kitchen, placing her purse on the counter so her mother and father wouldn’t think anything was amiss. Vince smiled as he saw his youngest daughter coming through the veranda doors.
“Good afternoon, Princess,” he said cheerily.
Amarantha kissed her mother on the cheek and then walked to her father, kissing him on the cheek as well. The smell of his cologne greeted her, and Amarantha smiled. That was her father’s smell, Polo cologne, and whenever she was in the mall, she always stopped by the men’s counter in the perfume section to spray the scent onto a complimentary card that she kept tucked into her purse. She remembered Shane spraying it onto her pillow when her father had to be away on business for days at a time. It always comforted her and made her feel better when she missed him. Shane still did that, even though she was grown.
“Good afternoon, Daddy. How is everything at Titan?” she asked, pretending to be interested. Nothing about the family business held any interest to her, except the thought of actually being inside the ring, commanding the attention of the audience the way all McMahons did. Vince would hear nothing of it. Shane and Stephanie were already deeply involved in the company, and he didn’t feel that his youngest daughter needed to join the ranks of them. Amarantha had no doubt from where Shane’s protective nature had come.
“Everything is fine, Princess,” he answered, smiling up at her. “How is everything with you?”
“Good,” she replied, crouching down beside him. “I just got my final grade report. Thankfully, I did well.”
“Of course you did. You’re a McMahon. And besides, they wouldn’t have let you graduate if you hadn’t,” he said, getting defensive.
Linda looked up from the book she was reading. “That reminds me. You need to get those thank you notes written and addressed by the end of the week, young lady.”
Amarantha groaned inwardly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you have any plans tonight, Princess?” her father asked, taking a bite of the salad he was having for lunch.
I won’t once you ground me for what I’m about to do. “No, Daddy. Why?”
“Well, I’ve got my schedule cleared out, and I thought that maybe you and your brother would like to take in a game of golf,” he answered. “Steph has plans tonight.”
Amarantha smiled. She and Shane had been playing miniature golf with their father since they were old enough to hold clubs. Shane had gotten pretty good over the years, but Amarantha hadn’t improved one bit. She still loved to play.
“That sounds great, Daddy,” she cooed, knowing that he would be in no mood for golfing when she saw him next.
“Wonderful. Be ready to go at 6:30,” Vince replied, turning back to his salad.
That signaled that the conversation was over between them. Amarantha rose to her feet. “Well, I’ll be inside working on those thank you notes,” she said dryly.
“That’s my girl,” her mother said, paying little attention to her.
Casually, Amarantha went back through the doors and scooped her purse up off of the counter. She had to stay calm if her plan was going to work. She passed the den again, and she saw that Shane had fallen asleep, remote control still in hand. She smiled, shaking her head at the sight of her older brother. With careful steps, she passed by and headed out the front door, closing it behind her silently.
There it was—the forbidden fruit in the garden of McMahon—her father’s Jeep. It was his favorite of all the vehicles that he owned. He kept it immaculately clean, and there wasn’t a nick or scrape on it, though he had recently been involved in a fender-bender. Thankfully, the Vince-mobile hadn’t been damaged. Amarantha didn’t want to imagine the consequences for the poor fool who had hit her father.
She stealthily padded over to the Jeep, the heels of her shoes clicking softly on the blacktop. She opened the door holding her breath, afraid that if she breathed, it might set off some silent internal alarm that would alert her father to her devious deed.
Amarantha slid into the driver’s seat. It felt as though it had been made especially to hug the curves of her body. The keys were dangling from the ignition, her father’s favorite key chain reading “The Boss” on it still swinging from its last use only a few moments before Amarantha turned the key. The Jeep started up almost without sound. She thanked the heavens for her father’s obsessive-compulsive need to have the Jeep sent into the shop for fine- tuning every three weeks.
Music from the radio blared for only a second before Amarantha leaned over and turned off the sound. The music would be loud soon enough, but for now, absolute silence was imperative. Carefully, she put the Jeep into reverse, taking care to edge it down directly in the center of the driveway. As soon as she hit the street, she shifted to drive and hit the gas. Mercifully, the tires didn’t squall, and seconds later she was coasting down the “mean streets” of Greenwich.
Amarantha leaned over and fished her CD case from its hiding place in her purse. She selected the one she wanted and popped it into the player, turning the volume to the maximum. The sounds of the new Bon Jovi record (Bon Jovi was her absolute favorite) filtered through the speakers moments later, and Amarantha sang at the top of her lungs as she sped away from the McMahon estate…
It’s my life and it’s now or never I ain’t gonna live forever I just wanna live while I’m alive It’s my life, my heart is like an open highway Like Frankie said, I did it my way I just wanna live while I’m alive It’s my life…
~~**~~
Amarantha drove past her old high school, a cigarette between her fingers. Just the sight of the building made her stomach turn. Freshman year had been miserable for her. Being a McMahon wasn’t the best thing in the world, especially where teenagers were concerned. They hated her for her last name. It was jealousy and spite, plain and simple, but the feeling of having people hate her for something she couldn’t control was distressing to her.
After the first day, Amarantha had come home sobbing after a particularly taxing bus ride. They called her “Silver Spoon” and “Little Rich Girl,” and Amarantha had burst into tears on the spot. She ran up the driveway into Shane’s open arms. He had been sitting on the front porch waiting for her to congratulate her on her first day and to ask her how it had gone, but instead, he wound up comforting her on the couch. From that day on, he had taken her to school and picked her up each day.
Things had improved when she made the cheerleading squad because the majority of the school’s popular girls were rich, too. Emerald Jackson, the captain of the squad and the only senior, immediately adopted Amarantha as her little sister and had shown her the ropes of the school. Emerald made her popular, by association, and when she graduated at the end of the year, Amarantha was heart broken. She had lost her best friend, though she and Emerald had kept up correspondence over the years.
Emerald may have been gone, but her teaching had stayed with Amarantha, and when she started school as a sophomore, she was suddenly the girl to know. She had people she didn’t even know coming up to her and asking to sit with her at lunch. Popularity was wonderful—superficial and shallow, but still wonderful. She had been the only sophomore to attend the Senior Prom, and it was a thrilling victory when she was crowned Homecoming Queen three years in a row, with her family watching from the front row.
Her graduation party had been the one to attend, mainly because the guest list was comprised of mostly wrestlers and other big names in the business. Amarantha’s friends had gotten the biggest thrill of their lives when they walked in and found themselves seated next The Rock, Triple H, and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Being a McMahon wasn’t always bad, either.
Amarantha rounded the corner that led to her favorite place in the world. It was a large pond about ten minutes from the house, and she and Shane had discovered a secluded road that lead to the far side of the lake, away from everything and everyone else. She went there when things at home were too much, or when she needed to clear her mind and think. It was the most perfect place in the universe, and only she and Shane knew about it. It was their special place. Stephanie had begged to be shown this secret world, and Shane had driven her to the center of town and convinced her that the town square was the “special place.” Stephanie was content to believe it, and Amarantha and Shane always laughed about it behind their sister’s back.
Amarantha swiped the hair out of her face as she drove slowly down the road. Her father was probably just realizing that his precious Jeep was missing as was his daughter, and it wouldn’t be long before Shane would be sent after her. The momentary peace that she had found would be disrupted, and she could do nothing about it. Shane was disgustingly loyal to Vince, and he wouldn’t disobey him if it meant his life. Amarantha guessed it was the bond between father and son, or maybe Shane was afraid that if he pissed Vince off, he would be written out of the will and would be the heir apparent no longer.
She reached the end of the road and turned off the Jeep. Amarantha swung her legs out the door and hopped out, walking around the Jeep to sit down on the rock where she and Shane had spent many an afternoon talking about nothing.
Amarantha sighed deeply, looking out on the still water. The last few weeks had been stressful ones at the McMahon household. Her graduation had been a huge ordeal, for she was the last of the McMahon children to pass through high school. Amarantha would have been content to just grab her diploma and go home, skipping all the ceremony. Vince had made a big deal out of the whole thing. It could have been worse. Some parents didn’t even show up to see their children graduate.
Her graduation had come in the middle of a big deal going down at Titan, concerning two of the company’s biggest sponsors. Vince, Linda, and Shane had all been putting in long workdays, leading to tense nights at home when the three of them came home in foul moods. To make matters worse, her mother and father hadn’t been getting along very well. The damage done by the affair years ago was still present, and Linda seemed to be growing sick of being Mrs. McMahon. Divorce was a horror that Amarantha didn’t want to imagine. Shane and Marissa had been split up for almost six months, he had moved back into the house, and he was still having a hard time letting it go. If her parents divorced, the end of the world was sure to follow.
Now that she had graduated, Amarantha wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her life. She knew she would end up attending Boston University just like her brother and sister, but she didn’t know what she wanted to do in college. Nothing besides being in the ring with her family interested her. She couldn’t go through four years of school just to come out with a degree in Communications like Shane and Stephanie had, only to get a job at the reception desk of Titan. She wanted to be in the action now, to skip all the years of working her way up the ladder. If Vince had his way, her father would see to it that Amarantha never saw the inside of the ring. He was adamant, even going as far to rarely let her come to a taping or a live event. Something about the business scared him when it came to his youngest daughter.
The desire to be a part of the action was growing stronger every day. She couldn’t deny it any longer, and she couldn’t stand the thought of suppressing it with years of school. Amarantha had enough of school, and she would have to do something about it if she ever hoped to get her chance—something more drastic then stealing her father’s Jeep.
~~**~~
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