Dark Intentions, #1

by Charlotte Byrd

  “Of course. What has it been, a month since we saw each other like this?”

  "Yeah, more like two," Lincoln says.

  He's dressed in his usual attire, a nicely tailored gray suit, open collar, no tie. He's tan from his propensity to play tennis, outside regardless of the weather.

  We stopped competing on running miles against each other when I beat him, seven times in a row.

  He's a much faster sprinter than I am, but I have endurance that can outlast him.

  After quickly gobbling up an expensive glass of wine, I pour myself another, while Lincoln still nurses his.

  "Actually, do you mind if we get some Jack Daniel’s?" he asks.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  Jack on the rocks is usually reserved only for a serious discussion in my family.

  "What's going on?" I ask. “Something wrong with you and Marguerite?"

  “No, no. Everything's great.”

  “Work?” He shakes his head no.

  He works at an investment bank downtown and already made it to managing partner, one of the youngest.

  Lincoln plays with his diamond cuff links. I gave those to him for Christmas, and I wonder whether he wore them for this particular occasion, or whether he actually likes them.

  "Do you like wearing those things?" I ask, unable to keep my curiosity to myself.

  "Oh, the cuff links? Of course. They're my favorite. They go with everything.”

  I smile, running my fingers through my hair, which is in bad need of a haircut. The strands are getting so long, they’re falling into my eyes.

  Lincoln looks up, makes a note of this, but says nothing.

  The last time we had a big blow-up fight about nothing in particular, we made an agreement. We were not going to judge each other on things that do not truly matter, and ever since then, our relationship has been much improved.

  "How's work?" I ask.

  Lincoln just shrugs and turns his face away. "You know how it is, tiresome, a little boring."

  "You know you don't have to be there," I say, grabbing a slice of bread and breaking it open with my hands.

  I butter one side and take a big bite as we wait for the appetizers to arrive. "We have more than enough money."

  "We?" Lincoln raises his eyebrow.

  "I'm just saying, you know that there's a trust. You know that the work that you do can be something that you enjoy and not just something that you force yourself into."

  "Listen, you and I both know about the trust and the rules of the trust."

  I nod.

  "Marguerite is not part of it. Listen, I think you could probably take them to court and say that ..."

  "Nope, I can't. Mom pays for the summer house, I couldn't afford any of that, not even on my salary.” He shakes his head.

  "You don't know what it's like to just try to constantly compete with everyone around you, only it's not an even playing field."

  I want to roll my eyes. We're about as privileged as a family can get. Yes, there are some strings attached to a trust that's preventing him from accessing millions of dollars, but he makes over half a million dollars a year and that doesn't include bonuses that can triple that amount.

  "What? You don't agree with me?" Lincoln folds his arms across his chest, pouting.

  I take another bite of the bread. "Listen, all I was saying is that you deserve to do something you enjoy for a living and it doesn't have to be what you currently do."

  "Really?" He leans over, glaring into my eyes. “Do you know that she makes seventy grand as an ER doctor? Can you live on so little?”

  "Yes," I say, "lots of people do."

  "Well, I don't intend to be that person."

  I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. This has always been a thing about Lincoln. He has always had a chip on his shoulder about what he has and what he doesn't in life.

  Yes, we come from an incredibly wealthy family, but there are rules governing that. If you want access to that money, you have to play it by them.

  Him marrying Marguerite was a big no-no. It's laid out in my grandfather's will that the only person that he is allowed to marry is someone from a family of comparable means.

  The definition of comparable means is, of course, open to dispute in court, but merely taking that action would be throwing in the possibility of losing everything.

  Lincoln is the kind of guy who plays things safe. After college, he got an internship at an investment bank, then a job and he started growing through the ranks.

  He puts in insane hours, and I don't think that he has ever given it any consideration whether he even enjoys what he does for a living or whether he even has that right.

  "Look, you act like you're above all of this but you're not.” Lincoln points his finger in my face.

  The glasses of wine and the Jack Daniel’s are going to his head.

  “I'm tired of it, you know? I'm tired of you being this I'm this guy above everything kind of persona,” he says, rounding his words but not slurring them quite yet.

  "I'm not like that at all.”

  “Yes, you are. I mean, that's why you have no relationship, that's why you have no apartment."

  "I have an apartment."

  "Okay, an apartment that you actually use, one you actually live in."

  "Okay, so? I work and fly a lot for work,” I say, slouching in my chair.

  "What does that matter?” Lincoln continues to ramble. “Obviously, you're running away. You have always been running away. And don't pretend that the work that you do, meeting with all of these CEOs and analyzing risk and deciding whether you're going to give them money that they desperately need, that's not some major power trip? What makes you think that you even know what is and what isn't going to work? Yeah, you have some experience but you'd never invest in my company."

  "What was that?" I ask and suddenly, the expression on his face changes.

  "Nothing."

  "You have a company?” I ask.

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  I press some more but he just clams up. He was like this as a kid as well. He'll tell me in his own time and his own time might take a while.

  After our appetizers of Ahi tuna and macadamia nut cream cheese arrive, he grabs his tumbler of Jack Daniel’s and I lift up my glass.

  "Sorry that this started off on some kind of a tepid note," Lincoln says, "but I actually have some news to share."

  "Okay.” I nod.

  "Marguerite is having a baby."

  "Oh my God," I say, after a long pause.

  "Wow, I'm so excited for you," I force the words out of my mouth even though I'm stuck more in disbelief than excitement. Luckily, he doesn't seem to notice.

  We clink our glasses and he finishes his and asks the waiter for another. He's celebrating, right? Of course he is, I say to myself.

  "I'm so happy for you. How far along is she?"

  “Fifteen weeks. She's been kind of sick so that's why she didn't want to meet up with Mom the few times that she invited us over."

  I nod. He doesn’t have to say it out loud since we both know perfectly well what Mom thinks about Marguerite.

  "Look, she's going to come around. You're going to give her her first grandchild," I say.

  "Yeah, not so sure about that but it will be her first grandchild, maybe her only one."

  I laugh, knowing exactly what he’s referring to.

  “Marguerite is over the moon. She's always wanted kids,” Lincoln says.

  "And what about you?"

  "I'm happy, of course." And yet I hear a little bit of disappointment in his voice.

  "You know, it's okay if you're scared or unsure. I mean, this is a major life change."

  "I'm fine. You know me, just got to put in those hours and ..."

  "Well, what's going to happen when the baby comes?” I ask.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, aren't you going to help take care of it?"

  "Uh, of course, I'm th
e father.” Lincoln rolls his eyes.

  "Okay, good." I nod.

  Lincoln bites the inside of his mouth, looking up at me in that way that makes me convinced of the fact that he's lying. "Marguerite will need your help, you know?"

  "Look, she and I, we have a certain way of doing things. We have a division of labor."

  "Okay, now," I say, "but you haven't had a child before. You can't expect her to do everything."

  "Of course not, that's why we're going to get a nanny."

  I shake my head.

  "What? You don't approve of nannies now?"

  "No, I'm not saying that. But you’ll need to connect with this baby, otherwise, you're just going to be like ..."

  "Like who?" Lincoln leans over the table trying to intimidate me. I shouldn’t finish the sentence, but suddenly, I can't make myself stop.

  "You know who,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

  "You mean like our dad?"

  "Of course, like our dad."

  "I'm not going to be anything like him," Lincoln snaps.

  He rushes to his feet, slamming his knee into the table. The glasses rattle, making a loud clinking sound that makes everyone in our vicinity turn to look at us.

  I ask him to sit down, but he just throws his napkin on his food and walks away.

  Our entrees haven't arrived yet and I hope that he hasn't left for good. A few moments later, I see Lincoln disappear into the bathroom.

  21

  Dante

  I don't want to follow him, and I'm not intending on apologizing. Of course, I shouldn't tell him what kind of father he should be since I have no intentions of ever being one myself.

  Surprisingly, given our mom's propensity to marry, Lincoln and I share the same asshole, who we call dad.

  He's arrogant, self-important, spoiled, life of the party, and everyone loves him. New York society worships at his feet, and if he is invited to a dinner party, you know it's going to be a good one.

  Our father is the famous Archibald Tanner, a playboy, a womanizer, part owner of Playboy magazine, and a critically renowned and lauded novelist.

  Unlike Mom, he came from extreme poverty, grew up on a farm in Ohio, spent all of his youth reading books and studying, to make sure that he never stepped foot or had to work hard in his life again.

  There was an article in Vanity Fair a few years back, which said that he lived many lifetimes in one, and that his adventures, and his novels, and his life were something to be admired. I don't know whether the writer of that article was a friend of his, or just an admiring, aspiring novelist with stars in his eyes.

  But the article even made his years of drug and alcohol addiction sound like something glamorous and fun to experience. I was pissed and fuming with anger when I read that and saw the cover at all the newspaper stands at the airports.

  The managing editor wanted nothing to do with it because he had a big falling out with Dad. Apparently, Archibald Tanner threw a fit after the editor cut out some parts of the article that he’d submitted, called him names, and got himself fired.

  When the editor came into the office the following morning, he found little disposable cups filled with urine right outside his door.

  As it turned out, Mom had more sway with the owners of the magazine than the editor because, I later found out, that she was the one who got that story about Archibald published in order to improve his image.

  Of course, there was no proof that my father had anything to do with the cups, but he was seen in the building, and he had just gone on a loud, obnoxious, entitled rant, trying to get that editor fired.

  These are the kinds of stories that never make it into the light of day because they're not glamorous and they're not fun. And no one wants to discuss the depths to which addiction will often lead you, and how little you will care, when you’re down there, about your reputation or anything as consequential.

  None of this is, of course, an excuse, and I'm not excusing him at all. I'm just trying to offer different facets of his personality, and explain why Lincoln got so mad at me when I compared him at all to our father.

  I knock on the stall door and tell him to open it.

  "Go away."

  "Look, I wasn't comparing you to him as a man, not at all. I shouldn't have said that,” I say, knowingly. “Okay. But you and I both know that he was a shitty father who worked all the time and eventually partied all the time."

  "I don't party," Lincoln says.

  He slams the stall door open so quickly that I practically jump out of the way.

  "Do you know how many times the firm actually hired hookers to come to our floor and keep all of us entertained, so to speak? Just so that we're happy putting in a hundred hour weeks,” Lincoln demands to know. “Do you know what that's like to be the only guy there who says no?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “It’s not about that. I’m not like that. I have my wife at home and I don't want to cheat on her. Do you know that they don't invite me out anymore? Do you know how much harder it is for me to make my career? You don't fucking know anything.”

  He points his finger in my face. I can't remember the last time I've seen him this angry.

  "So, don't tell me that I'll be anything like our father. He's the scum of the earth. He never gave a shit about either of us. We could have been the kids of his housekeeper for all he cared. In fact, he probably treated them a little nicer."

  "Look, I'm sorry," I say, shaking my head, suddenly filled with regret and contempt for what I said. “I know you're a good man, and I know that you're a good husband. And I know that you love Marguerite. But I also know that, just like me, you have something to prove. Marguerite made you ineligible for the money in that trust.

  “There's six million dollars and I know that the reason why you're working so hard right now is try to make as much money as possible to prove our mom, our grandfather, everyone wrong. You're trying to make that money for yourself, but you don't need to. You have a beautiful wife. She loves you. She has loved you for years. You're going to have this child. You don't want to miss out on time with them just because you're trying to prove something to a ghost.”

  The rest of dinner is pretty uneventful. We chitchat about nothing in particular and don't talk about our father again.

  I get into a cab after saying goodbye and promise to meet up with him this weekend for their baby announcement get-together. It's just going to be them, me, and our mom. I'm there as a buffer to keep her being cordial and nice.

  I promise that I'll be there, and I hope that my presence will be enough, but I'm not sure.

  When I sit down in the back of the cab, suddenly the quietness washes over me.

  I give the driver the address and he drops me off in front of my building. I haven't been to this apartment in some time.

  The last time I was in New York my client was near the private airport in the Hamptons, so I stayed in a hotel there. Walking back into this place I feel a little bit lost, and incredibly lonely.

  On the outside, I like to pretend that I'm a man made of stone, steel, something indestructible.

  But it's only because I'm trying to keep all the dysfunction of my family so tightly within myself and I'm about to explode.

  There's glass everywhere. Mom had insisted that I get this condo because the building was just being built and it was going to be an architectural marvel, now it just feels like an aquarium if there were another building anywhere in sight.

  There's only one real wall in the whole apartment and that's when you walk in, everything else is glass.

  It's a corner unit and I had to have specially installed blackout curtains just so I could sleep in the mornings. I'm above the cloud cover, deep within it, and it's generally the case almost every time I'm here. This building is too tall.

  I don't like this place. I don't like the fact that it doesn't have room service and I don't like the empty refrigerator that has to stay empty because I'm never here long enough to
fill it up.

  It's not that I particularly love being catered to, it's more that it makes me feel like I have a place I belong. I can go down to the lobby, I can chitchat with the front staff. I can meet someone at a bar.

  There's a gym and a pool and a restaurant downstairs. The restaurant is undergoing some renovations and hasn't been open for a while.

  I plop down on the bed, dress clothes and all, and consider my options for the evening.

  I could go out on the town, a club maybe, call a few friends, none who are probably available on such short notice, but at least I can give it a try.

  Or I could go to Redemption.

  Hmm, now there's an idea.

  I feel my eyebrow rising, even considering the concept. The last time I was there, wasn't particularly great, but I'm tempted to give it another shot.

  Jacqueline has been haunting me a little bit less and less as I've been trying to put her out of my mind.

  What if I were to just go, get really drunk, and not really pay attention to who I meet in the dark?

  22

  Jacqueline

  I see him from across the room. He walks in, broad shoulders, casual gray suit, no tie, starched white shirt, unbuttoned at the top, tan olive skin, looks good in the faint light.

  He grabs a drink at the bar and then assesses the room. I'm sitting all the way in the corner, shrouded in darkness. He won't be able to see me unless he walks all the way over here.

  My heart skips a beat when I see him.

  He's here, he's here, I say excitedly to myself, but he doesn't know that I am here, and suddenly everything sinks to the pit of my stomach.

  Dante’s here to pick up someone else.

  He's not here for me, of course not.

  Why would he be? I feel like a fool, and that's just fine.

  I'm used to feeling this way around guys, but something about him ... Suddenly, I feel nauseated.

  I watch him walk around the room.

  First, he swivels on the chair to survey the perimeter. He looks at faces. He watches bodies. He assesses his options, and then he moves casually to the lounge, walking slowly enough to start up a conversation with someone, but not pausing for anyone in particular.