Exit Strategies

by Catherine Todd

  I knew what he was saying. He meant that he wanted to be liked for himself. Since he apparently liked me in spite of all the things he knew about me, that put us on an equal footing. Sort of. “Who lives here?” I asked him. I almost hoped he didn’t. All the opulence was a bit much.

  He read my mind. “Not me,” he said, laughing. “The house is available to anybody in the family who wants to use it. There’s a year-round staff. Uncle Harry has a place in New York; he’s not here all the time. As I said, that’s why he needs someone to help direct the operations, particularly now that we’ll be adding Granny’s money too. The primary foundation offices are here, so this is where you’d be working. That is, if…Well, anyway, the house is Uncle Harry’s hommage to the sea, or something like that. You get used to it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I told him.

  “Can you forgive me for lying to you?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yes,” I said seriously.

  He reached out and touched my cheek with his finger. “Thank you,” he said.

  “This isn’t exactly what I thought you were lying about,” I said when I’d recovered my equilibrium. “I thought you might be hiding a polygamous history or a secret passion for Wayne Newton,” I said. “I was all ready to be extremely compassionate and understanding.”

  “About Wayne Newton? That is broad-minded.”

  “Luckily we won’t have to put it to the test,” I told him. “I—”

  A very attractive dark-haired woman about my age stuck her head around the door. I recognized her at once as the woman from the grocery store.

  Mark beamed. “Here’s my sister,” he said. “Mary, come in and meet Becky.”

  My cup overflowed. “Hi,” I said, extending my hand.

  She clasped it warmly and flashed me a grin. “Mark”—she said it so carefully I knew she usually called him Marky—“has told me a lot about you. Are you going to work for Uncle Harry? You’ll adore him, I promise you.”

  “We were just discussing it,” I told her. “I’m still sort of stunned.”

  “If you hang out with Mark, you’ll get over that fast,” she said with a sisterly lack of reverence. We were both busy looking each other over while pretending to talk about other things. I liked what I saw.

  “There is one thing,” I said.

  “What?” they both asked at once.

  “Your uncle. Mr. Sutton. If he’s interested in hiring me, doesn’t he want to meet me first?”

  “Oh, he had you checked out already,” Mary said.

  “Mary!” Mark exclaimed.

  “Well, it’s true,” she said.

  “He had me checked out?” I inquired.

  “On the Internet,” she said.

  Mark winked at me.

  “Ah, well,” I said, hiding a smile. This was not the moment to confess my misgivings about the accuracy of an Internet search.

  “And anyway,” she said, “he said he already knew enough about you to be sure you were right for the job. Something about a mouse in a bottle or something like that? Does that make any sense?”

  They both looked at me. “It’s a legal term,” I said, trying to look serious.

  Mary looked at her brother. “I know you two have things to talk about. It was great meeting you, Becky, but if you’ll excuse me, I have a rhinoceros beetle to dissect.”

  “What an exit line,” I said to Mark when she had gone.

  He looked into my eyes. “I hope you’ll be very good friends,” he said.

  “So do I,” I told him.

  He put his hands down on the desk with his fingertips resting about one inch from mine, but he didn’t touch me. Still, I could almost feel the electric current flowing between us. “So you’ll really consider taking the job?” he asked softly.

  “The job?” All this honesty in the atmosphere was like too much oxygen. I was finding it hard to think.

  “You’d work for the foundation? Help expand the giving, set up new programs, that sort of thing?”

  “Will I have a contract?”

  “Of course. I think you’ll find the salary and benefits are generous. Uncle Harry insists on treating his employees well.”

  “Then sure, I’ll consider it.” I said.

  “You will?” He seemed surprised.

  I grinned at him. “Are you having second thoughts already?”

  His hands closed over mine. “There are no strings attached, of course, but I think I should warn you there’s every possibility it could turn out to be a package deal.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I told him.

  Taylor marched into my office and scooted a client chair up to my desk. “I’d like to talk to you,” he said.

  The temperature around the office had turned frosty after I told Jamison Roth I would be leaving the firm at the end of the week. Even nice old Jamison was distinctly cool. “Whatever happened to firm loyalty?” he muttered. I might have asked the same thing about Taylor’s hanging me out to dry with Carole and Bobbie, but bitterness was the last impression I wanted to leave. I told him how grateful I’d been for the chance they’d given me, and I meant it.

  “Fine,” I said to Taylor. In fact, I’d been avoiding him since I made my announcement to the partners. If the ax (in the form of the auditors) was about to fall on him, I didn’t want to tip him off by anything I might say.

  “Seriously.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at me. “I know you’ve been exceptionally close-mouthed about where you’re going when you leave here, but—”

  “That’s because I didn’t know for sure myself until a couple of days ago,” I said, interrupting him.

  “But the word is out,” he insisted. He named the Newport Beach firm that had solicited me through the headhunter.

  I waited to see what he would say next.

  He rested his elbows on the armrests and studied me from under his perfect eyelashes. “Before you embarrass yourself, there’s something you should know,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked in an interested tone, letting out the rope a little.

  “You won’t be taking Crystol Enterprises with you,” he said.

  I told him that was scarcely news to me, but he clearly didn’t believe me.

  “Bobbie asked me to handle her legal affairs some time ago,” he said. “We had a long talk about it, and everything was finalized.” He could scarcely suppress a smirk. “So you see, you won’t have much to sell to your new firm. It’s tough luck, Becky, but that’s what happens when you try to play in the big leagues.”

  I looked at him. “Have you discussed this with her recently?” I asked.

  He looked startled. “There’s been no need.”

  “I think you may find otherwise,” I said.

  He reddened. “You mean you’ve been trying to undermine me with Bobbie the way you did with Melissa,” he said. “Well, I promise you, you won’t succeed.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” I asked reasonably.

  He glared at me. “Don’t think I can’t do your career a lot of damage, even at this point,” he said.

  I ignored the threat. “Look, Taylor, no one needs to undermine you with anyone else. You do that all on your own. And your boring personal life is of no interest to me whatsoever.” I spread my hands. “As for Bobbie, she no longer interests me either. I’ve fired her as a client.”

  “That’s absurd,” he said coldly. “They won’t take you without Crystol Enterprises. And neither will anyone else.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not taking them. And you’re wrong about everybody else. It’s a whole new world out there, Taylor. I’ve already had three other offers.”

  “Then what firm are you going to?” he asked, in a tone that suggested Prove it.

  “I’m not planning to go to another firm,” I said.

  “You’re not?” he asked, surprised.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not even in
the sandlot. I’m not going to practice corporate law.”

  “You won’t be practicing corporate law?” he repeated, as if I’d announced an intention to spend eternity in an iron lung.

  “No,” I said.

  Taylor frowned. “I had you figured all wrong,” he said.

  “Good,” I told him. “Want to hear my parting wisdom?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Here it is anyway: What goes around, comes around. Remember that.” I hoped he would when the time came.

  He made a face. “What is it you said you were going to do after you leave here?”

  “Have fun, I hope,” I said.

  He looked uncertain, as if he couldn’t tell whether I was joking or not.

  Wendy grabbed me on my way to the ladies’ room. “Did you get canned?” she said. The staff, in theory at least, was not yet privy to my departure plans.

  “No way,” I told her. “I quit.”

  She let out her breath. “Good for you,” she said firmly.

  “How did you know I was leaving?” I asked.

  “Ryan told me.”

  I smiled. “Of course.”

  “He says Melissa’s leaving too.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not going off together?”

  “No,” I said, still smiling.

  “Becky?”

  “Yes?”

  “Take me with you?”

  I remembered how she had tried to warn me about Taylor. “Anywhere?” I asked.

  “Anywhere.”

  “Deal,” I told her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I was straddling the flower bed clutching a fistful of spurge when I heard the car pull into the driveway. Burdick, whose assistance in the garden usually took the form of rolling on his back in the dirt, straightened up and bolted for the side of the house.

  I turned. Carole emerged from the Lexus and went around to the backseat, where she opened the door and unfastened Andrew’s seat belt. Then she grabbed him firmly by the hand and headed for my front door.

  Oh, shit.

  “Hi,” I said, coming out from behind the junipers, where, if I could have managed it, I would have remained in cowardly seclusion. I knew what was coming. Carole had never, in all the years I had known her, come to my house, though I wouldn’t have put it past her to drive by and crow a little. Andrew’s presence was as clear an admission of guilt as I could wish for. She never would have risked the contamination otherwise. Maybe I should have relished the encounter, but even the Count of Monte Cristo had his limits.

  Carole regarded my muddy hands with distaste, so I didn’t extend one. “I’ve been weeding,” I said unnecessarily. “Won’t you come in?”

  I opened the front door and they trailed in after me, careful not to touch the handle where I had opened it. “Allie,” I called. “Are you here?”

  My daughter came into the living room and stopped dead. “Hello,” she said in a wooden voice. I knew what the effort at civility cost her. I was making it myself.

  “Andrew,” I said to the child. “You remember your sister, Alicia, don’t you?” He saw her so seldom I couldn’t be sure.

  He nodded solemnly.

  “She’s going to take you across the street to the park and show you where the squirrels live,” I said. “Okay?” I said to Carole.

  “I would prefer he not leave the house,” she said sourly.

  “And I would prefer not to have this discussion in front of him,” I told her. “It’s just across the street. It’s tiny. You can see him out the window.”

  “All right,” she said. “Thank you, Alicia,” she added, barely moving her lips.

  “You can trust her. She’s a good kid,” I said when they had gone. I hoped it made her feel guilty. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “I’d rather stand,” she said. She folded her arms and looked at me. “What have you done to us?”

  “That isn’t the appropriate way to frame the question,” I told her. “You’re not some victim here. I’ve asked for a court-supervised accounting of the trust.”

  “I’ve been suspended as trustee,” she said.

  “That’s normal,” I told her. “It’s part of the review. Do you have a lawyer?”

  “Taylor—”

  “Not Taylor,” I told her. “You should get one.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Look,” she said, “I know it must be costing you a lot of money to bring this kind of motion…”

  “It is,” I told her. “I might be selling the house.”

  Her eyes flicked around the room. “I thought you were worried about money for your kids,” she said.

  “I am,” I told her. “That’s why I’d sell it. To make sure the money is there for their educations.”

  She balled her hands into little fists. “Maybe we could come to some kind of arrangement,” she said.

  “I doubt it,” I told her.

  “I know I wasn’t always fair about the payments. I could make up for it now. We…I…could even settle some money on Alicia and David. Right now, so there would be no question of an inheritance or money for school.”

  If I’d had any doubts that she’d been fiddling with the trust funds, they vanished with her offer. “Don’t go on with this,” I said. “It’s demeaning.”

  “You could withdraw the motion,” she said. “Before things go any further.”

  “I couldn’t stop it now even if I wanted to. David and Allie are the beneficiaries. The motion is on their behalf. If…if there is something to come out, it will come out. It’s too late for anything else.”

  She looked desperate. In spite of everything she’d done to us, I managed to feel a little sorry for her. “People could get hurt. Andrew. Your children even,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Carole. What did you expect? You have only yourself to blame. You can’t buy me off, not with threats, not with guilt, and certainly not with money. And anyway, I don’t want to go back to worrying about getting the money we need from somebody else. I didn’t like it with Richard, and needless to say I haven’t liked it with you. I won’t live like that again.”

  She leaned against the back of an armchair, her diamond tennis bracelet cutting into the edge of the fabric. “I could lose everything,” she said in a hoarse voice.

  I was starting to lose patience. “Know what? I’ve been there. Sometimes everything isn’t everything after all. So here’s my advice, and then I’d like you to go. Get a lawyer, the best one you can afford with Richard’s money. Then do what you have to do to make things right. For your own sake, not just for ours. After that, get a job.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she said petulantly. “You’re a professional. What am I going to do?”

  The words Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn came to mind, but they’d already been used. I thought of something else.

  “Start over,” I told her. “It worked for me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It’s May, and the breeze is blowing off the ocean, stirring things up. It’s a little chilly, but Allie is taking no chances on wrecking the line of her dress with some superfluous wrap. She drapes a stole over her arm for later, after she’s been seen. She holds it away from her wrist corsage, as if she’s been managing formal wear all her life. She is fifteen going on twenty-five.

  The limo has pulled up in front of the house and her date emerges. She turns nervously to the mirror and then to me. Okay? her eyes ask.

  “You look incredible,” I tell her. She does.

  She smiles.

  Mark comes out of the kitchen with the camera.

  The doorbell rings. The curtain rises.

  I open the door, and her date is standing there wondering what to say. He is not Leo DiCaprio; he’s just a boy with longish hair and a face I like. I start to relax. “Hi,” I say encouragingly. “I’m Alicia’s mother, Becky Weston.”

  He steps into the house, smiling awkwardly.

 
Allie sweeps forward to rescue him. “Mom, Mark, this is Jeff,” she says.

  “I’m Jeff Jennings,” he says, extending his hand to Mark. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Weston, Mrs. Weston.”

  My heart stops for a minute, but Allie giggles. “No, Jeff, I told you, remember? This is Dr. Lawrence. He’s a friend of my mom’s.”

  “Sorry,” Jeff mutters.

  “No problem,” Mark and I say together.

  Jeff is staring at my daughter with something akin to awe. “You look great,” he says softly.

  She blushes. “Thanks. So do you.” Her voice is scarcely more than a whisper, but I hear the emotion in it. I can hardly bear it, but the pain is sweet.

  “Picture?” Mark inquires gently.

  Jeff and Allie look at each other in resignation. Parents, the look says. What can you expect?

  “Sure,” Jeff says, touching her arm. She moves next to him, floating.

  They pose obligingly—three or four shots—but their thoughts are out the door already. Soon enough they are moving down the path toward the waiting car.

  I look at Mark as the door closes behind them.

  There is so much to say and never enough time, but I want to tell him what I’ve learned:

  That sometimes having it all doesn’t mean what you think it does.

  That pibals are useless. All the planning in the world won’t keep your balloon aloft if the thermals aren’t going your way.

  That love means having to accept the necessity of putting your heart into the care of somebody ultimately unknowable, not just once, but over and over again.

  That that’s the fun of it.

  EVERMORE: THE VOICE OF THE LONGEVITY MOVEMENT

  “People in the News,” February 16, 2—

  Longevity superstar Bobbie Crystol announced yesterday that she is temporarily moving the base of her operations to Moscow, with the intention of establishing a chain of life-extension clinics throughout the former Soviet Union. Crystol, the author of You Don’t Have to Die, is closing her clinics in the United States. “I have to concentrate my energies on this important new project,” she stated. “Russia needs me.” Crystol says she has no plans to return to the United States for at least two years.