by Carina Lupo
Trying to avoid having to face my grim reality for a little while longer, I use the excuse that I’m exhausted and decide to take a shower and go immediately to bed for a little rest. It’s not surprising that I’m fast asleep even before my head hit the pillow.
I wake up sometime later, completely disoriented. A bell is ringing somewhere. It takes me a few minutes to figure it out even the most basic things like, where am I? For a moment, I don’t even remember if I was back yet. When I finally understand my location, I figure the bell ringing is someone at my front door. I get up and walk through the living room to get the door. I notice it’s already dark outside now. ‘Holy crap… how long was I asleep?’ I think to myself as I finally open the door and have my first pleasant sight since coming back. Chris standing in front of me, a big, warm smile on his face, fresh flowers in one hand and a bag that smells delicious in the other. He hadn’t shaved in a while and was a little bit rougher around the edges which just made him look even sexier to me, if that was possible!
“Is that food?” Amazingly, that’s the first thing I say to him. The jet leg and the fact that I had not eaten now for what would probably be almost a day, had obviously messed with my priorities!
“Yup,” he answers cheerfully.
“You’re my hero!” I say giving him a huge smile and the tightest hug I could muster. He puts everything he is carrying down on the table and hugs me back so tight he pulls me right off the floor. We share a long hot kiss and bask in the nearness of each other for a moment.
“Sorry Chris. I really meant to call you,” I say immediately feeling guilty. “I decided to take a little rest, then call you and go visit your mom, but I guess my body didn’t agree with that part of my plan. I just woke up now at the sound of the doorbell.”
“It’s okay, I figured as much. That’s why I came bearing supplies, lots of Italian food from that restaurant that we like! We can go visit my mom tomorrow, don’t worry.”
“How’s your mom doing?” I ask him, while he looks around the kitchen hunting for any sort of eating utensils.
“Oh, she’s ok. She’s really recovering well! The doctors said that if she keeps going like that they might be able to let her go home for Christmas even.”
“That’s wonderful news Chris!”
Chris stares at me with a questioning look on his face, as he quickly opens and closes every drawer in my kitchen. “Do you think there is anything we can use to eat in this place?”
“If you haven’t found any there, they will probably be in one of these many boxes over there, that I do not plan to open right now before I eat. I’m starving!”
“Well, I guess we’ll make do.” He laughs, “I’m glad they included a couple of plastic forks and knives with my ‘to go’ order. I’m not really looking forward to finding out what eating saucy pasta with our hands would feel like,” he says mockingly as he puts the food on the glass table and pulls out one of the chrome and white chairs taking a seat.
“Luckily, I do happen to have some wine glasses and wine, courtesy of Hathaway Winery, the only box here that I know what’s inside!” I grab a Cabernet Sauvignon, a couple of glasses and a wine opener from the box and take a sit next to him at the table. When I hand him the glass he sees my hurt fingers. Immediately, the smile vanishes from his face.
“What the heck happened to your fingers?” he asks frowning.
“It’s nothing really,” I say casually trying to sound dismissive. “I played guitar a little too much… just got a bit of raw skin on my fingers.”
“A little? No way! Look at your hand! You don’t get like that unless you played guitar like a complete maniac.”
‘Guilty as charged,’ I think to myself. I couldn’t have described it any better… but I don’t say anything to him I just look away not being able to stand the intensity in his eyes.
“When did this happen?” he asks me angrily.
“I don’t know, the day after you left I guess.”
“It was after I called you that night wasn’t it?”
I don’t answer that question either but I know that he knows the answer to that too. He runs his hands over his hair looking worried. “Please don’t hurt yourself like that anymore Lor,” he says tenderly, intense worry still clouding his eyes.
“How did you know to come to this place by the way? I just found out about it recently myself!” I say casually again, desperately trying to change subjects.
“I called Susan’s assistant to find out.”
“Oh okay.”
“Wait, if this happened that night, then how did you play two more concerts after that? There is no way you could have played guitar like that.” He continues, giving me a look that lets me know he wasn’t going to drop this until he had gotten all his answers.
I let out a heavy, resigned sigh. “I played mostly second guitar parts on the first show and on the next show I played mostly piano.”
“It’s crazy you played at all, I can’t believe Susan let you play like that! It must have been really painful.”
“First of all it was my choice. I did this, so it was all on me. Poor Susan wasn’t at fault. She had no choice. We can’t cancel shows at the last minute...” my voice trails off. “Geez, just give me a break will you? What’s happened, happened, it’s done and gone. Can we please move on? The food is getting cold,” I say, sounding a little bit more defensive than I had wanted to.
“Ok,” he gives in now, seeing that the matter is stressing me out. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just don’t like to see you hurt that’s all,” he says. “But you are right it’s over now, we are together again and that’s what matters,” he continues, finally giving me a smile again and immediately melting away my resentment. I pour us some wine and start scarfing the delicious food so quickly you would think I was worried it might be taken away from me if I didn’t. Eventually I notice Chris is watching me with an amused look.
“Oh stop judging me,” I say my mouth full of pasta, “I’m freaking starving here.”
“No, I couldn’t tell that at all,” he says laughing at my less than dignified eating style.
After we scarf all the food, we take our wine glasses to the living room and sit on the couch enjoying the view and catching up on the happenings of the days we were apart.
Once we run out of updates, my mind wanders to a different subject. “Hey Chris, do remember Anne that friend of ours from Stanford on her senior year of law school?”
“You mean Anne Scheiffer? The one everyone mocked because she wanted to work mostly pro bono?”
“Yeah that’s the one. Do you still have her phone number?”
He looks at me intrigued by the request. “Yeah I think I do, why?”
“I would like to meet up with her. Maybe you can call her and see if she can join me for lunch tomorrow?”
“Yeah sure. Why?” He says not all that interested in the answer as he leaning in against me for a kiss.
“I’ll explain it to you later.” I say as my interest is now definitely wandering elsewhere.
I feel his body over mine his hand slowly running over my body. We’re both a bit tipsy from the wine, kissing with abandon. It feels so good I can hardly stand it.
“When are you going to give me the tour of the bedroom?” he asks grinning, desire burning in his eyes.
“Oh how rude of me, let me rectify this impoliteness right now.” I say smiling as I pull him with me towards the bedroom.
**************
The next day at lunch time I drive to a restaurant downtown to meet with Anne. When I get there, she is already at a table waiting. She hadn’t changed much from when I had seen her last in college. She still have a young looking face and long brown hair that she always puts in a ponytail and glasses that give her a very studious look.
“Hi Anne, I’m Lorelai, I don’t know if you remember me from college? I say as I greet her and take a seat.
“Yes of course. I do remember you from school but even if I d
idn’t… I don’t think you require introductions anymore.”
“Fair enough,” I say smiling. “It has been a while since college… How are you doing?”
“I’m good,” she answers with a puzzled look in her face. I could tell she was wondering why she was here in the first place.
“I’m sure you want to know what this is all about,” I say, putting her out of her misery.
“Yes, no offense, not that I’m not having fun sitting in a fancy restaurant having lunch with a celebrity while other people steal glances at us, but yeah, I’m intrigued.”
“Well consider it a business meeting. Where are you working now?”
She raises her eyebrow surprised at where this conversation is going. “I’m working at a small law office close to the financial district. We mostly handle cases ‘pro bono’ helping people who need a lawyer but can’t afford one… Most of the time we only get paid if we win the case.”
“So why did you choose to go that route? With a Stanford law degree, I’m sure you could have gotten a job as an Associate at a big fancy firm, probably making more in a week than you make now in a year?
“Did my dad send you or something?” she asks me half-jokingly.
I laugh. “No, sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I’m questioning your choice, I’m just curious as to what made you choose that. I take it your dad is not thrilled at your choice?”
“No, believe me, I hear about it every day! He is still hoping it’s just a phase that I’ll grow out of it eventually and get a “real job”. But it’s what I like doing. I wanted to become a layer so I could help ordinary people. I did an internship for one of those big law firms before. Most of the time, in a law office like that, you don’t get to help the average person and even worse, a lot of times you end up defending some asshole against the person you should be helping. That’s not what I want. So I decided to go to a small firm instead. Sure the pay sucks and I get mocked for my choice, but at least every day I can do what I believe in, instead of slowly negotiating away who I am.” She finishes and takes at bite of the bruschetta appetizers we ordered. “Well that’s me in a nutshell,” she says in between bites. “But you still haven’t really said why we are here. I imagine it’s not to chit chat.”
“I’m thinking about offering you a job,” I say plainly.
She looks at me a bit shocked, “Wow, okay, I did not see that coming!” She gives me a nervous laugh. “So, what is this job? What can I possibly do for a rock band?” she asks, intrigued.
“Not for my band but for myself to be more specific. I’ll cut to the chase. I’m making a lot of money with the band and our music right now. You may or may not know this but I was already well off before the band started to get famous. My family’s business and investments generate quite a bit of income. So basically I have way more money than I need. I have no family to take care of or share with, so I would like to start donating quite a bit towards charity.”
“Well that is very nice of you but I still don’t understand what can I do to help you?”
“I’m planning to donate fairly large amounts each year. When you deal with that kind of money things need to be done properly otherwise not only it can go to waste but your name can get dragged into a mess as well. That’s why I want a lawyer to take care of it for me.
I want to start a non-profit organization, The Hathaway Family Foundation, and I would like to hire you to run it, should you be interested of course. Your job would be to search for causes and charities you think are worth donating the money to. Then you would vet the chosen organizations by closely inspecting each charity before any money is handed over to them. Once you feel you are ready to donate to a charity, you would then contact me and tell me all about it. I’ll okay it and you can handle the paperwork and donations. After donations are made I want you to also make sure that the money is going where it’s supposed to go. The Foundation itself will also go through audits that will be conducted by my personal lawyer to make sure everything is in order in our end.
I would like you to be the spokesperson for the Foundation, taking most of the engagements that come along with these things. I’ll let you be the judge when you think I should attend.” I look at her face to try to get a sense of what she is feeling about my proposal. I see I’m obviously overwhelming her with this flood of information so I stop talking for a while to give her a moment to process it all.
“Wow, I am a little bit speechless,” she admits, truly looking a bit stunned at what I had just told her.
“Of course, you would be handsomely compensated for the work, paid through the Foundation also all expenses relating to trips to inspect charities and all, would be covered. You will be given a budget to startup an office for the Foundation. I took the liberty to have my lawyer draft a job offer for you.” I hand her the paperwork. “It’s all in there. You can go through it later more extensively and take up any questions you may have directly with him. Basically, I’m offering you the best job in the world. It’ll be perfect for you. You wanted to do good and I’m giving you the means to do a lot of good to a lot of people, or animals if you want…we can help animals too” I say with a laugh, “ I’ll leave that up to you.” She looks at me in disbelief and laughs too.
“This is amazing,” she finally says a big smile on her face. “I don’t even know what to say!”
I take one of the bruschetta’s and start eating as she looks at the paperwork I just handed her.
“This is probably a bad question and I should just keep my mouth shut,” she says in a more serious tone, “but I have to ask, why me?”
“I thought you would be good fit and from what I have just heard it sounds like I was right. I want someone with a law degree to be taking care of all this and you obviously have the good credentials as a Stanford grad. But credentials alone are not all I’m looking for. My own lawyers offered me several candidates, far more qualified, experienced lawyers that would have killed to get the job. But I’m looking for someone who would truly appreciate doing what they will get to do. You have the right combination of qualification plus an almost naïve desire to do good and help others. That desire made you go against your family, your friends and significant money. How many lawyers you think I can find with such determination?”
“That is flattering…” she says, blushing. “This is really incredible. I am honored at your offer. Truly, thank you. I’ll make sure I’ll give my all to it. I won’t let you down!”
“I’m glad to have you on board. You will find the contact information for my lawyer listed in the paperwork. Once you have signed on he’ll give you some more details about starting the Foundation, he will also be at your disposal for any help you may need at first.”
“Okay, I’ll get started right away. I’ll have to wrap a few things up at my old job but it should not interfere with this.”
“Yeah that will be fine.” I pause for a moment before addressing her again in a more serious tone. “Anne, this Foundation will carry my family name so this is not only extremely important to me but something very dear to my heart.”
“I understand,” she says to me honestly. “Don’t worry. I’ll put my heart and soul into this. Really… you just offered me my dream in a silver platter. I’ll make sure to make you proud.”
“Thanks,” I say to her smiling relieved as I truly believe my project is in good hands.
Anne is looking at me with a funny gleam in her eyes. “Can I ask you a very personal question?” she finally says coyly.
“Yeah sure, if I dislike it I just won’t answer it,” I say truthfully with a laugh.
“I hope it doesn’t sound rude, but why are you being so altruistic about your money? I mean don’t get me wrong, but most people our age with this kind of money would tend to be more self-centered and just be enjoying themselves instead of thinking about donating to causes… at least not in the scale you are talking about.”
“It’s a fair question... “I take a moment to reflect on
it, “I guess I have always had money. I like having money, not saying that I don’t. It always made my life easier and I appreciate that immensely… I had it hard as it was. But even donating at this level I will still have more than I need, enough for any material thing I want…. I guess due to the circumstances of my life I’m looking for more in life than just material things. I suppose, when the thing your heart desires the most, can’t be bought, that makes you feel very differently about it.”
“What is that?”
“Having my family back. No money in the world can fix that.” I look away as my words dissipate into the air.
My honesty catches her off guard. “Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I didn’t realize…” She says embarrassed.
“No, it’s okay. I haven’t said anything I didn’t want to… believe me in my particular line of work, I’ve gotten quite good at dodging prying questions! I say laughing lightening the mood. “Now enough taking, how about we order some good food and start celebrating our new enterprise!”
By the time we finish our meal and say goodbye, Anne and I had connected in a very deep way. It felt like we’ve been best’s friends for a very long time.
Chapter 20
It’s Christmas Eve morning and I am seriously dreading facing the next two days… as usual. Ever since the death of my parents, the holidays have been a struggle but after my sister’s passing, this time of year became literally unbearable.
