Secret Keeper

by Harlan, Christopher

  I don’t know what my face looks like, but inside I’m screaming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy for them, but I’m also really disappointed that I’ll be losing the best job I’ve ever had. How many people get to be a personal assistant to one of the richest and most powerful men in the city? I don’t even have any real qualifications, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the kind of job that you go to school for.

  What got me hired were my wits, the quickness of my mind, and how good I am with people, but I guess none of that matters anymore. “I have to be straight with you, Graham, I hate hearing this.”

  “Of course you do. You’re making a lot of money and you’re a better assistant than any I’ve ever had before. I’d hate hearing that I lost a job like that, too.”

  “There’s no chance that I could. . .”

  He cuts me off before I can even finish. “Come with us? Move to the east end of Long Island? No, that won’t work. You have greater things to accomplish than being our assistant. Just like we’ve outgrown this place, you’ve also outgrown us.”

  “Is that one of those things you say to cushion the blow of firing me? It’s not me, it’s you?”

  He laughs at that one. “I’m not breaking up with you, Dylan, trust me. You’re way too good of a catch. And it’s not either of us. Sometimes it really is just the wrong timing. If we were staying in the city to raise the baby then trust me, you’d have job security for as long as you wanted it.”

  This is a really bittersweet moment for me. I take a deep breath that just comes out as a huge sigh. That’s it. I’m not one for feeling sorry for myself. After my dramatic exhale, I just extend my hand.

  “What’s this for?” he asks, tentatively taking it before shaking it firmly.

  “Most importantly, it’s a congrats on the baby. That matters more than any job or any move. That’s really fucking great news, man. I’m psyched for the both of you.”

  “That means a lot, Dylan, thank you. And you’re taking this about as well as someone can.”

  “What other choice is there?” I ask. “Complain? Dwell on the negative? Not my style, you know that, and even if it was it wouldn’t change anything, would it?”

  “No,” Graham says. “No, it wouldn’t. You know, what I really should have hired you to do was make motivational speeches — there are a lot of people in my line of work who could use a refresher in what it means to have an attitude like yours.”

  “Well feel free to hire me for any speaking engagements you’d like, Graham. I’m gainfully unemployed now.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  He makes that face. I haven’t known him long enough to read all of his expressions, but I know that face. It’s the expression he makes when he’s scheming—when there’s some master plan swirling around his head.

  “Meaning what?” I ask. “Because unless I’m losing it completely, it sounds very much like I just lost my job about five minutes ago.”

  “You lost your job with me. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t others who would want—no, forget that, who would need the services you provide. I know a few people, remember.”

  “Wait. You mean, like, you’ll give me a reference or a letter?”

  “No, Dylan. I don’t do letters. I mean, that I’ll set you up with another person who needs your skills as an assistant. As much as I hate to make this admission out loud, I’m not the only rich and powerful man in this city—far from it. I know many, many more, and most of them are good friends. There’s a business associate right here in the building, actually.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I just lost my job, but I think, maybe, I just got another one. Sort of. I’m not exactly sure what’s happening. “Who do you know who needs my services?” I ask. I’m playing coy because I think I already know, but I want to hear him say it.

  And there it is again—that devious smile.

  Something tells me that things are just starting to get interesting.

  4

  Penelope

  Sometimes the best and worst day of your life can be the same twenty-four hours.

  At eight o’clock this morning I got a call from my fiancé, Chandler, telling me that the media company founded by his father—of which Chandler was now the CEO, had finally been purchased by the largest media conglomerate on the East Coast. I didn’t need a degree from the Wharton Business School to understand the kind of wealth that came from a deal like that. He’d been working on that deal for months, and now he finally had it done.

  We were already rich, but with a single agreement we became the kind of wealthy I didn’t even really understand. Money didn’t matter anymore. We had so much of it that it wasn’t real. Things were just paid for, and paid for for generations. Our great grandchildren would never have to do anything that they didn’t want to do.

  For a girl like me, someone who grew up in subsidized housing, moving into the world of the rich and powerful was nothing short of surreal. I didn’t understand those people—not the places they spent time, or the attitudes they held, or even the kind of experiences they were used to. I was through the looking glass the second I started seriously dating Chandler.

  When we first met, I didn’t even know he was from a rich family. I got my first inclination when he came to pick me up for our second date in a Lamborghini, like it was nothing. I finally just asked, straight up, if he was rich, and when I did he used that expression all rich people do when they don’t want to say that they’re rich—he told me that he and his family were very comfortable. I knew what that meant from movies and tv shows—it translated roughly to we’re filthy rich.

  He was the stereotypical guy from the movies—handsome, tall, entitled, and more than a little bit arrogant. I saw what he was, even back then, but I ignored those traits because I was really attracted to him. And he didn’t come across like a rich kid at first. He wasn’t wearing some thousand-dollar suit and sipping the finest, most expensive drinks surrounded by body guards. It wasn’t like that. He was wearing a wrinkled polo shirt and jeans, sitting with two of his friends.

  The smile. I’ll never forget it.

  It was the smile that got me.

  That was all it took to get my guard down, and when he walked over to me and my friends he already knew that I’d be his. I loved his confidence. I even loved his arrogance. Before I knew it, I was his girlfriend, and now I’m his fiancé.

  But, like I said, sometimes the best and worst days of our lives can share the same space.

  It was a month ago when everything changed forever.

  I knew that he was thinking of proposing before he actually did it—I think every woman knows, but I didn’t know when it was going to happen. Visiting his family in the Hamptons wasn’t anything new—we went at least once a week in the summers, mostly spending time at his parents’ beach house.

  Those days lasted forever. We’d start late Friday evening after he got home, making the long drive from the city to the east end of Long Island. Then we’d stay the night, and all day Saturday. But that Saturday everything just felt. . . different. He was acting weird, and so was his whole family. I felt it right away, but I told myself that I was just being paranoid.

  We spent the day on the beach, and after a cook out he dropped to one knee in front of his entire family and asked me to marry him. I cried. Like, a lot. Everyone cheered as he put the biggest diamond I’d ever seen on my ring finger, and for the rest of that night my life was set. I was going to be Mrs. Chandler Daniels, wife of who was soon to be one of the richest men in the country.

  It was two weeks later that I saw the text.

  He told me I was being paranoid—asked why I was looking at his phone to begin with, but it was really just an innocent look over while he was in the shower. His phone kept beeping, and when I looked over I saw the name Teresa—a name I’ll never forget no matter how long I live. When he came out, he got super defensive, and that’s when I knew something was up. She’s no one, he’d said, a new hire
at the office. I chose to believe him—or at least I chose to ignore the voice in my head telling me that there was something else going on.

  The last thing I wanted to do was think that something was happening behind my back. So I did what anyone in my position would do—what I saw all the women who suspected their husbands do—I told my inner voice to shut up and I ignored all the obvious signs.

  But the texts kept on coming, and the more he spent ‘late nights’ at the office the more suspicious I got. I chose to ignore them all, until I reached a point that I couldn’t delude myself any longer, my suspicions festering for two weeks.

  After Chandler’s call about the buyout this morning, my head was spinning with everything that had happened over the last month. I had to get out of the apartment to clear my head.

  I just came back from the gym—with a pounding heart from an hour of Pilates and a head full of doubt. As the elevator door opens to our floor, I think about finally confronting Chandler—of letting him know that I know something is up, but part of me is afraid to jeopardize everything that I have—everything that we have. Ughh… I sound like one of those women, the kind I always used to judge. The ones who would stay in bad situations because it was comfortable, but I’m just not sure what to do.

  I step out of the elevator, headphones still in my ears, and when I turn to my right I see something that I don’t even believe. I tap my AirPods to mute them, and that’s when I hear the noise this woman is making right outside of my apartment door.

  5

  Dylan

  There are a lot of places in Manhattan that you’ll hear screaming, but this building shouldn’t be one of them. Rich people like their quiet, and they’re willing to pay top dollar for it. Imagine my surprise, then, when I get off at the 4th floor after talking to Graham and hear the sounds of screaming women in the hallway.

  My first thought—the one I had before fixing my eyes on the two women—was that someone had thoughtlessly left their TV on at full volume to a Real Housewives reunion show or something. That’s the only plausible explanation as to why I’d be hearing female voices so loud in a building like this. But once my eyes fixed on the two women about to go to blows right in front of me, I realized it wasn’t an Andy Cohen reunion show I was hearing, it was actual drama.

  “Get the hell away from my door!”

  Once I get a good look at the situation I realize who one of the women is. I run down the hallway to see what’s going on.

  “Penelope? What’s going on?”

  “This crazy woman won’t leave.”

  Then, as if on cue, said crazy woman commences to act even crazier than I thought possible. “I’m not going anywhere until I see Chandler!”

  I have no idea what this is all about—all I know is that I need to make it stop, one way or another. The yelling woman is crying and pounding on the very door that I came to this floor to knock on—but my business here doesn’t matter right now.

  “Miss,” I say. “I need you to calm down right now.”

  “Shut up. I need to see Chandler.”

  Before I can get off a second sentence, Penelope jumps right into the fray, looking slightly less confused than I am.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demands. “What are you doing at my door? Are you Teresa?”

  Does she know this woman? Now I’m really confused. Who the hell is Teresa? Maybe I read this situation wrong.

  The woman who might be Teresa stops pounding on the door long enough to turn around, shocked at the sound of her name being spoken. “How do you know who I am?”

  “I have a better question. Why the hell are you here, pounding on my door, screaming for my fiancé? Answer me that first, unless you think it’s normal to show up at someone’s place screaming.”

  “Fiancé,” the crying woman repeats. When she repeats the word it’s not in the form of a question—it almost sounds like she’s mocking the use of the word. The smile that comes right after confirms what I was thinking. “That’s hilarious.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I’ve been standing here a few minutes, watching them go back and forth, but they’re so into their fight that they didn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m still there. “Ladies?” I ask. “What’s the problem?”

  They both finally look at me, and when they do I get a chill. I feel like someone who just got between two wild animals and the kill they’re fighting over, but I can’t let this drama go on like this.

  “Who the hell are you?” Teresa yells at me.

  That’s when the Queens in me starts to come out. Who am I? Who the fuck are you? My internal dialogue is in the old neighborhood’s voice, but in reality, I need to remember who I am and who I’m dealing with, so I decide to answer in a polite tone.

  “I’m Dylan,” I tell her. “I’m an associate of Graham Morgan.” When I say his name, I get a reaction—a small kernel of recognition that I’m not just some random guy trying to break up a fight. “I also work in the building and, as such, I can’t let this go on. Now, I don’t care if you’re here to see Penelope’s fiancé, you can’t. . .”

  Before I can finish, she interrupts me. “Well he won’t be her fiancé for long, not after she finds out.”

  I don’t know who this lady is or what’s going on, but that statement she made gave me anxiety. I can only imagine what the next words out of her mouth. . .

  “Finds out what, you crazy bitch?” Penelope demands.

  “I might be crazy,” she says. “But that so-called fiancé of yours is also the father of my baby.”

  Oh. Shit.

  “Miss,” I say to the screaming lady.

  “My name’s Teresa!”

  “Well, Teresa, I still need you to walk away from the door until we have this figured out.”

  “I have it all figured out. The man who lives here—Chandler Daniels— got me pregnant, and now I’m here to let him know he can’t just brush his responsibilities aside!”

  The whole time I’m talking to Teresa, Penelope just stands there, silent, like she’s living some dream. If what this Teresa character just said is true, I can only imagine what’s going through her mind.

  “Penelope?” I ask. “Are you alright?”

  No response. She’s just staring at Teresa intensely, and I remember that look from when I was growing up in Queens. That’s the look one girl gave another girl on the school yard right before a fight broke out. I haven’t seen that look in a while, but it’s unmistakable. I try to step in, but it’s too late. “Penelope. . .”

  Before I know it, Penelope is lunging towards Teresa, and I move as fast as I can to stop her.

  6

  Dylan

  “Get your hands off of me!”

  That’s me the crazy woman is yelling at, probably because I’m restraining her to stop this craziness from going even further than it has already. “Trust me, lady, holding onto you is the last thing I want to be doing right now, but I have to make sure you’re not going to hurt yourself or anyone else.”

  “I’m not. I just want to go inside. I have to talk to Chandler!”

  “I don’t think that’s happening right now.” I look over and see Penelope fighting to hold back tears. I try to speak to her, but before I can, she runs inside her apartment and slams the door.

  “This isn’t over, bitch!” Teresa yells.

  “Hey!” I yell back. “Lower your voice or I’m going to drag you out of here.”

  “Yeah, right,” she says defiantly. “Like you’d drag out a pregnant woman. Nice try.” She pulls out of my grasp and starts pounding on the door again. “Now let me in!”

  I’m starting to panic. This needs to end right now. This whole thing is a bad look for all parties involved, and I can’t let this escalate any further.

  “You want Chandler, right?”

  That gets her attention. Her whole energy drops and she looks right at me for the first time like I matter. “Yes, do you know him?”

  “I do, actually, very w
ell.” I’m a great liar when I need to be. “So well, in fact, that he hired me to be his personal assistant just the other day.”

  I get an eyebrow raise, but in a good way. “You’re his assistant? What was your name again?”

  “Dylan Murphy. I’m new. And look, I’d be happy to contact Chandler for you and let him know that he needs to contact you, but he’s not going to take your call if you come here, to his home, and harass him in plain sight. You know as well as I do that he values discretion. You need to quiet down and come with me right now.”

  “Where?” she asks.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  Teresa may not fully believe me right now, but she wants so badly to believe I can connect her with Chandler that she follows my every instruction. She doesn’t need to know that I’ve never really interacted with Chandler outside of a few ‘hellos’ here and there, or that I’m in no way, shape, or form his personal assistant—at least not yet. The truth is, I’m no one’s assistant right now. All she needs to know is screaming that he’s the father of her baby at his place of residence is just not going to fly. It doesn’t take much more convincing, other than promising her something that I have absolutely no ability to follow through with—but it’s all I can think of to end this quickly and quietly.

  I take her into the elevator, then downstairs into the lobby, and then gently out to the street, where I try to hail her a cab as she asks me a million questions that I can’t answer. “When is he going to call? Or will he text me? Tell him I was just kidding about going to the press, okay? Promise me you’ll tell him that part.”

  Go to the press? What is she talking about?

  I wave my hand frantically, trying to hail whatever cab will pull over. I look down at Teresa, who’s giving me these doe eyes. I know what she wants to hear, and I’ll do anything right now to avoid another confrontation. “I’ll tell him, and I’ll also make sure that he contacts you, okay?”