by Julia Kent
“I was his wife. Or was I? Apparently, I wasn’t, but I was, so I spent all those years as his closest associate. That's what the investigators stressed. I shared a bed with him. Not enough,” I huff, making Mom’s face turn red. “The asshole didn’t even sleep with me for the last year that we were together, but I observed our wedding vows. Wedding vows that didn’t even exist. But they did, because we have video of it. So who is the sucker, Will? I think if anyone's the sucker, it’s me!” I slam my hand on the table, making the sugar spoon leap off the saucer Mom put it on, the thunk on the table like a guillotine slice.
Why am I doing this?
I’m falling apart, in front of the people who are most likely to…
To what? To hurt me? If I can’t fall apart with my mom and dad, and my sister and my future brother-in-law, who can I fall apart in front of?
“And, Dad?” This is the part I'm most ashamed of. It wasn't my fault, at all, but I have to tell him, and it's killing me.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“I, um… they took Great-grandma's ring.”
Mom gasps. Mallory's eyes go to my left hand.
“The Feds did? I thought you could keep wedding and engagement rings, even if they take other stuff,” he says, shocked.
“I wasn't wearing it. Burke asked for it a couple of weeks before, to get it cleaned and re-appraised, and make sure the insurance was up to date.”
Dad's eyes narrow, a cold anger coming over him that terrifies me. “I carry the insurance on that ring. He never said a word.”
All I can do is blink, as I process what Dad's saying.
“Do you have a complete inventory of all of the assets they seized?” Will asks firmly.
“Not yet.”
“I suspect that cheating son of a bitch took it,” Dad says, face turning red in anger. “Not the Feds.”
“Oh, my God,” I gasp, then sob, my sounds turning atavistic as I hang my head, feeling even more shame than I thought possible. Not only is a family heirloom gone, what I thought happened to it, didn't.
Yet another way Burke screwed me over.
Only this time, he hurt my poor dad.
“I gave that ring to him when he told me he planned to propose. Said it was sentimental and highly valuable.”
“He only heard the last part.” I look at Mallory. “I'm so sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing to me?”
“Because I would have given it to you. You're the one who's about to have an intact marriage.”
Mal just blinks.
Bzzzzzz
I look at my phone. It’s Ian, yet again. I don’t read the text.
“Look,” I say, in the silence I’ve created around us. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Sorry for getting emotional.”
As I wipe my eyes, Mallory makes a face. “You never have to apologize for having feelings, Hasty.”
“Don't call me that,” I snap.
“Of course.” Mom stands. “Take your coffee up to your room.” She chuckles. “You’re a grown-up now, so you’re allowed to eat in your room.”
Something in me dies a little. She sees my face.
“You’re allowed to do whatever you want in your room. Of course. It’s your room. It’s your space. You can eat in there. You can redecorate. We can help you out, sweetie. We can give you a budget so you can go to Bed Bath & Beyond, and—”
“Mom.” Mallory stops her. “This isn’t helping.”
“You can even bring men home if you want.”
“Mom! Stop!”
“Or women,” Mom rushes to say, making Dad start coughing in surprise.
“MOM!” Mal and I say in unison.
“I… did I say something offensive?”
Mallory stands and physically puts her hand over our mother’s mouth. Dad just blinks. It’s Will who finally cuts through my moment of unreal shame.
“You’re not a loser,” he says to me. “You’re the victim of a con man who operated on the level of Bernie Madoff. Plenty of very smart people got taken in by him. You're Burke's victim.”
I flinch.
“Lots of people are. We have a system that allowed him to operate the way that he did for as long as he did. Parker is working on some legislation that will help make it so that financial criminals like Burke can’t get away with this.” His eyebrows go up and he reconsiders. “Or at least can’t do it as easily.”
The mention of Parker jolts me. Parker Campbell is an up-and-coming member of the House of Representatives from Texas, who happens also to be partnered with my sister’s best friend, Persephone. It feels like forever ago that I was in Boston and we rubbed elbows. He’s smart, charming, and comes from money.
For the last month, I’ve been aided by a team of legal experts, attorneys sent in who refused to tell me the name of the person funding their work. Given the countless hours they’ve put in, and their hourly rate, it has to be someone with serious money.
Either that, or my parents mortgaged the house to the hilt.
I knew this moment would come. Might as well get it over with.
“Thank you,” I say, making eye contact with Mom, Dad, and Will. “I don’t know which one of you has been paying for my lawyers and consultants, but they’ve done an extraordinary job, and I really appreciate it.”
The words I’ll pay you back stick in my throat because, of course, I can’t.
I can’t even pay for a manicure right now.
Confusion radiates from all of them. “What do you mean?” Dad asks.
“Uh, I mean, thank you to all of you. The lawyers. The consultants. The financial experts. The forensic accountants who’ve been helping me with everything. They won’t tell me who’s funding it, but I just assumed it had to be you.”
All around the table, heads shake.
“Will? No?” It dawns on me. “Parker? Could Parker be doing this?”
Will shakes his head firmly. “Absolutely not. Frankly, it would look bad for him to have the taint of this scandal attached to him.”
The taint of this scandal.
The words echo in my head. That’s all I am now. I’m just a scandal to be avoided.
“If it’s not Parker, and it’s not Mom and Dad or Will,” Mallory says, perplexed, “then who is it?”
“Perky? She's rich. Could Perky be the one?” I ask Mallory.
“God, no. Perky hates your guts.”
“Mallory!” Mom chides.
I look at her. “I'm not offended, Mom. It's true. I can't stand her, either.”
Bzzzzzzz
I look at my phone.
Ian.
Another text from Ian.
“Oh, nooooooooo,” I groan, elbows on the table, fingers lacing their way into my unwashed hair. “Nooooooooo.”
“What’s wrong?” Mom asks.
“I think I know who’s been funding everything.”
“Who? It has to be someone with significant resources, Hastings, because what you’ve been describing to us… we wondered, but we didn’t want to pry.”
Mallory cocks one eyebrow. “Who is it?” A smirk of amusement plays at her lips. I’d almost think it was catty, if I didn’t know my sister better.
I finally look at the string of texts that have been coming in steadily from Ian McCrory:
* * *
Talk to me.
Call me back.
Answer your messages.
* * *
These are orders. Commands.
They’re not requests.
I’ve been ignoring them all along.
“Will you excuse me?” I say to everyone, standing abruptly. I march down the hall, turning to the left, padding my way up the carpeted stairs and back into my bedroom, where I slam the door like the fourteen-year-old I am on the inside right now.
“Ian paid for my team?” I hiss in the privacy of my ten-by-twelve bedroom. “How dare he? Who does he think he is? I never asked for anything from him! Why is he doing this?”
Ima
ges from the last month wash over me.
Sitting in a holding cell with my arms behind my back. The press of my bladder and realizing I had no control over when I could even go to the bathroom. Being restricted from taking a sip of water. Having a schedule for food I didn't choose and couldn’t eat.
The lawyer who showed up wearing a suit that cost more than my entire net worth–now, at least.
How quickly and swiftly he was able to get me out. Ian is well connected. He would know people.
“Oh, no,” I groan, pounding my fists into a pillow. “How could I be so stupid?”
The group of security guards who came for me, not for the authorities cleaning out my home but to protect me. The financial consultants. The forensic accountants, all of them combing through my personal and corporate records, explaining exactly what I could and could not keep.
It was a short list.
All of that was funded by Ian McCrory.
My phone rings. I stare at it. I have to answer it, don’t I? I have to get down on bended knee, hands up in prayer, staring into the wide brown eyes of Ian goddamn McCrory and thank him profusely for everything he’s just done for me.
I let the phone go to voicemail and contemplate.
A good person would do that. Gratitude is the appropriate human emotion, but he’s the last man on Earth I want to subjugate myself to.
Why would he do this? Why would he spend so much money on me, rescue me, mitigate the damage that my husband—not-husband, ex-husband, never-husband, whatever word you use for that snake, Burke—did? What leverage is Ian trying to gain by helping me?
And what the hell does he expect as payment for this?
Fine. I pick up the phone and just do it. I go into Contacts and hit the number, and it rings… and rings… and rings.
Finally, his voicemail kicks in.
“Ian. Hastings Monahan here. I want to thank you. I’ve just discovered that you’re the one behind all of the funding for the help that I’ve received. The legal team, the forensic accounting, all of it. I appreciate it. Thank you. Goodbye.” Pressing the button to end the call feels clean.
Done.
There’s no subtlety in my words. I’ve met the letter of the law in acknowledging what he’s done for me and thanking him. Now I would like to have a date with a bottle of Tito’s vodka and the first season of The Witcher.
Date. The word date makes me laugh.
And then it makes me cry. Because today, everything makes me cry, right?
It’s in the middle of that crying that the phone rings, the display with the words Ian McCrory in big letters making me choke-sob.
Might as well answer it, right? What do I have to lose?
Nothing. I have absolutely nothing to lose.
Literally, nothing.
“Yes?” I say, wishing for that Tito’s bottle.
“Hastings?”
“Ian?”
“What’s wrong?” he asks, picking up on my distress.
“What’s wrong? You’re asking me what’s wrong? The Tesla dealership put the wrong floor mats in my new delivery.” I laugh through the tears. “What the hell do you think is wrong, Ian? Everything. Everything is wrong.”
“I got your message.”
“Was it a good enough thank you? You’ve critiqued me on that before.”
“I could feel your pain in your words.”
I drop the phone like it’s a poisonous animal. I haven’t set it to speaker, so his voice is tinny as he says, “Thank you for finally contacting me. I wanted to see how you’re doing.”
I grab it and click Speaker. “You know how I’m doing. You have all of these people working for you, telling you how I’m doing. I’m sure they’re sending field reports.”
“They tell me the operational aspects of your case. Only you can tell me about your emotional state.”
“Why would I share that with you?”
“Because you sound like someone who needs a friend right now.”
“Friend? I saw the news last week, Ian. You stole the deal from me.”
“Hold on, now–”
“I can read the newspapers.”
“The newspapers can’t be trusted on this.”
“I’m supposed to take your word for it? Is that how this works? Look, I really appreciate everything that you’ve done for me over the last month. But that doesn’t mean that your slimy little trick is something you can get away with.”
“It’s not like they were going to work with you after the arrest,” he says, the words rolling out of his mouth as if he doesn’t want to say them.
But he does.
“I know that.”
“Someone had to get the deal, Hastings. And it couldn’t be you. Don’t begrudge the fact that it was me. It's purely business.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel. Don’t tell me what to think. Don’t tell me who to believe. In fact, Ian McCrory, thank you very much for all of your help, but don’t tell me anything ever again.”
I hit the red button.
Silence.
3
It’s my wedding day. The gown is soft and stiff against my skin, stretching down, the train ten feet long. Every part of me feels clothed, cloaked in love. My hair is swept up in a twist that leaves the back of my neck exposed to the wind, which kisses me in delight.
A breeze flies, the wisps that didn’t make it into my tight knot rising up until I’m looking at the sky, laughing. I take a deep breath. It’s like inhaling goodness.
Love has a scent, and on my wedding day, it perfumes everything.
The minister’s at the front of the church, and I’m far in the back, my shoes on the slate floor. The bouquet is in my right hand, my left hanging loose by my side. The church is completely full, the ceiling soaring up, up, up, impossibly high, until I realize that this isn’t my wedding.
I’m not the bride. But I’m wearing the dress.
Why am I wearing the dress?
Faces turn backward, all of them the same.
Burke.
It’s the old Burke, the one who charmed me when I met him on the docked yacht of an up-and-coming social media titan in the Bay Area. Ten years ago, I was a mere babe, just finished with my MBA. His wild, overgrown curls captivated me as the ocean breeze swept them to one side, our hands holding our cocktails, our eyes meeting, mouths dimpling with a grin of shared connection.
Five hundred–five thousand–faces, all of them Burke, stare at me as I look out into the crowd, the aisle to the altar telescoping.
“You don’t have to do this,” my father whispers in my ear, suddenly standing beside me, gripping my arm with an intensity that is unlike him. Dad looks so good in a tux, but as I reach up to touch the unfamiliar bowtie at his neck, he turns into a penguin and waddles away.
“Mom!” I cry out, searching the crowd for her.
“The florist is late!” I hear her call from one side. “I’m getting the pew flowers ready right now.”
It’s too late, I think, my mouth opening to say the words, when suddenly, five greased pigs come running down the aisle, straight for me. They crawl under the crinoline of my skirt, quickly forming a circle that spins around my calves, the slick oil that covers their bodies making my skin warm.
I squeal with them, too.
All of the Burkes in the audience laugh, their chins tipped up, broad chests wracked with mocking amusement. That’s all I am.
Something to laugh at.
The scent of love turns sour as I twist in place to find a door to escape. The only door is the door to my childhood bedroom.
I grab the doorknob and pull hard, the pigs still whirling around at my feet, thousands of Burkes laughing, my mom shouting about lily of the valley from one side of the church.
When I open the door, a giant squid appears. Tentacles reach all over my body, sucking onto my arms, my legs, the pigs long gone.
The squid’s face turns into Burke.
I look down at my body. Thousands of leeche
s cover it as Burke’s eyes bore into mine and he says, “Don't tell them anything.”
* * *
Beep beep beep
I wake up to the sound of a trash truck backing up in my parents’ driveway.
I stand and run to my window, looking out. A guy with a tape recorder is chatting with what looks like Tommy, if I remember the guy's name correctly. He’s been collecting garbage from our side of the town since I was in middle school. The guy with the tape recorder looks up and sees me in the window, his mouth shifting to an O of surprise. Waving wildly, he tries to get my attention.
I turn away.
“Don't tell them anything,” I mutter in a snarky tone, still stung by the end of my dream. I hear someone run quickly down the stairs of the house, flinging open our front door, and then my dad is yelling.
Yelling.
Roy Monahan doesn’t yell.
“You get out of here and you leave her alone!” Dad shouts.
“I was trying to tell him, Roy,” Tom says, a certain quality in his voice making it clear I need to watch this.
Unable to help myself, I peek out the window. The sight of two late-fifty-something guys intimidating the newshound doesn’t give me the pleasure it should. Thirty-three days ago, the appearance of a journalist would have filled me with glee. Being covered in the news represented success, attention, discoverability, visibility.
When you’re seen, you can be known.
And when you’re known, people want you.
But I don't want to be wanted this way.
The media attention has been atrocious. Especially when even Saoirse Cannon hunts me down for a quote. The woman was fired from the region's biggest newspaper and cable news channel after a few back-door whispers from Parker and Perky took care of that when they learned she was behind the release of Perky's famous two-dogs-humping photo.
Now she works for a snarky online gossip site, her interviews on a YouTube channel that hasn't even cracked 1,000 subscribers.
The front door slams shut. Dad doesn’t come upstairs. I crawl back into bed and close my eyes, willing my heart to slow down.
I look at my phone. It’s not the same one I owned a month ago; that’s been taken into custody. I was warned by one of my lawyers that there was no way I’d ever get the same hardware back.
