The Will

by Kristen Ashley

Not that there even was a time when that would be a possibility. He had models and actresses on his arm (and in his bed). And I’d lost count how many times I’d seen him smile his lazy smile at unbelievably gorgeous waitresses, tourists or the like and fifteen minutes later, I’d be finishing my coffee alone or heading to a park with a free few hours because Henry was away to our hotel to enjoy those hours a different way.

  There was no way Henry Gagnon would turn his beautiful eyes to me.

  Not then.

  Definitely not now, with me forty-five, way past my prime. Even if Henry was forty-nine.

  Then again, Henry’s last two lovers had been thirty-nine and forty-two respectively.

  In fact, thinking on this, it occurred to me his lovers had aged as he had. He hadn’t had a twenty-something since, well…he was twenty-something (or, at latest, he was early thirty-something).

  “Josephine?”

  I blinked myself out of my reverie and came back to the conversation.

  “I’ll meet you in Rome. Or in Paris,” I told him. “I just have to go to the reading of the will tomorrow and see to things here once I know what’s what. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Why I said this, I had no idea except it was my job to make Henry’s life aggravation-free and I’d lived and breathed that for so long, I didn’t know how to do anything else.

  The truth of the matter was Gran had a home and it was packed to the gills. I had no idea what I was going to do with it all.

  However, I could easily hire an estate agency to deal with an auction and I didn’t need to be present for that. Nor did I need to be present for a sale of the property.

  I felt acute pain in my midsection at these thoughts so I put them aside and returned to Henry.

  “A week, at most two,” I said.

  “If it’s over a week, I’m there,” he replied.

  “Henry—”

  “Josephine, no. Not sure you could miss the fact that you’ve been taking care of me for twenty-three years. I figure this once, once in twenty-three years, I can do whatever I need to do to look after you.”

  “That’s very kind,” I said softly.

  There was a brief pause before he returned, just as softly, “That’s me looking after my Josephine.”

  This was one of the reasons I stood by Henry all these years.

  And it was one of many.

  First, it wasn’t that difficult to do my job. Henry was not a male diva, even if his talent meant he could be. He was pretty no-nonsense. I wasn’t rushing around picking up dry cleaning (well, not all the time) and trying to find a coffee shop that made lattes with unpasteurized milk.

  Second, he paid me well. Very well. Actually extremely well. Not to mention he gave bonuses. And presents (one of these being the Manolos I wore to the funeral, another being the diamond tennis bracelet I had on my wrist at that moment).

  Third, we traveled widely and he didn’t make me sit in coach when he was up in first class. No, I sat next to him. Always. Further, it wasn’t hard being the places we’d go. It was true I didn’t exactly enjoy that time in Venezuela (nor the one Cambodia, the one in Haiti or the other one in Kosovo) but only because he wasn’t doing a fashion spread but instead taking other kinds of pictures and thus we weren’t exactly staying at the Ritz.

  Henry liked adventure. Me, that was a different story. But I was always at Henry’s side.

  Always.

  Except now.

  And last, and maybe most important, he could be very sweet and he was this way often.

  “I want you calling every day,” he demanded. “Check in. Let me know you’re okay.”

  “You’re too busy for me to call you every day,” I told him something I should know, since, even though Tisimo magazine had given him a young man named Daniel to take my place temporarily, I still knew his schedule like the back of my hand.

  “How about you let me decide what I’m too busy for, sweetheart. But I would hope you know by now, one of those things is not and never will be you.”

  Oh my.

  Yes.

  So very sweet.

  “Henry—” I started on a whisper.

  “Now, do something good. Like go out, buy a great bottle of wine, and drink it watching some ridiculous TV show you would normally hate so you can tell me all the reasons you hate it. Do not sit around, drinking your tea and doing something worthy. Like emailing Daniel to make certain he’s on his game or trying to read War and Peace for the seven millionth time.”

  “I’m going to finish that book someday,” I vowed on a mutter.

  “Let’s not make today that day,” he replied and I smiled.

  “All right. Reality TV and a good bottle of wine it is,” I murmured.

  “Good girl,” he murmured back and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Tomorrow, I want to know all the ways the housewives of wherever get on your nerves.”

  I smiled again before I asked, “Would you like me to take notes?”

  “Seeing as they’ll probably get on your nerves in so many ways even you’ll forget a lot of them, yeah.”

  “Then consider it done.”

  “Right.” I could still hear the smile in his voice. “Now go. Wine. TV. And while you’re at it, buy something good to eat. And I don’t mean an excellent wedge of brie. I mean something like a bucket of chicken.”

  I made a face that he hopefully could not hear in my voice when I lied, “Consider that done too.”

  “Liar,” he muttered and I smiled again.

  Then I said, “I should let you go.”

  “For now, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, Henry.”

  “Be bad,” he said quietly.

  “I’ll try,” I replied and both of us knew that was a lie too.

  There was another pause before he whispered, “Chin up, Josephine. Always.”

  “It’s up, Henry. Always.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “’Bye, Henry.”

  “Later, honey.”

  I disconnected and threw my phone on the cushion in front of me.

  Then I looked out to the sea.

  There was no buttery yellow in the sky, the peachy pink was fading and the lavender was taking over.

  It was stunning and it made me wish that Henry was, indeed, here with me. He’d take a fabulous picture of it.

  I was in the light room at Lavender House, the house Gran inherited from her mom and dad when they died which was thankfully after she’d divorced her husband.

  The house that had this room, five stories up a spiral staircase. A circular room that was curved windows all around so you could see everything. The sea. The outcroppings of rock and beaches along Magdalene Cove. The centuries old, tiny town of Magdalene. And the landscape beyond.

  This room with the window seats all around. The big desk in the middle where I knew Gran always wrote her letters to me. Where she sometimes took and made her phone calls to me. Where she paid bills. Where she wrote out recipes. Where she opened my letters to her and she probably read them right here too.

  The room that had the half-circle couch she found and bought because it was, “just too perfect to pass up, buttercup.”

  And it was. That couch was perfect. It had taken seven men, a pulley and who knew how much money to get it up there through a window. But Gran had seen it done.

  She loved it up here.

  I loved it up here.

  And I sat in this very spot years ago after I became well enough to move around a bit after she saved me from my father. I also sat in this very spot after I called her and told her I had to get away, I just had to get away, and she flew me here.

  Here. Home.

  Here was where I put my father behind me.

  Here was where I put my world behind me.

  Here was where I got the call from a girlfriend who had moved to New York to do something in the fashion world (anything, she didn’t care, and she succeeded and wa
s then working as a minion for flash-in-the-pan diva designer who thought he was everything who had recently been fired from his job designing clothes for discount department stores).

  A girlfriend who told me Henry Gagnon was looking for an assistant and she knew I loved clothes, I was an admirer of his photos and she could talk to someone who could talk to someone who could maybe get me a meeting with him.

  And here was where I took the next call when I learned she got me a meeting with him.

  Here was where my life ended…twice, even as it started again…twice.

  It still smelled like Gran here even though it had been years since she could get up to this room.

  She was everywhere in Lavender House.

  But mostly she was here.

  And now she was gone.

  And on that thought, it happened.

  I knew it would happen. I was just glad it didn’t happen at her graveside, in front of people.

  It happened there, the safest place I could be, the safest place I ever had, with Gran all around me.

  The first time in over two decades when I let emotion overwhelm me and I wept loud, abhorrent tears that wracked my body and caused deep, abiding pain to every inch of me rather than releasing any.

  I didn’t go out and buy a bottle of wine.

  I certainly didn’t get a bucket of chicken (not that I was going to anyway).

  And I didn’t watch the real housewives of anywhere on TV.

  I fell asleep on that window seat with tears still wet on my face and with Gran all around me.

  The safest place I could be.

  Chapter Two

  My Most Precious Possession

  “Ah, Josephine Malone. I’m Terry Baginski.”

  I stood from my chair in the waiting room and took Terry Baginski’s outstretched hand, noting her hair was pulled severely back from her face and secured in the back in a girlish ponytail.

  I noted this thinking that there were many women in the world with strong or delicate enough features to be able to wear that hairstyle at any age.

  She just wasn’t one of them.

  This thought wasn’t kind. However, it was true and I caught myself wishing I could explain this to her as well as share that she may wish to use a less heavy hand with makeup and perhaps buy a suit that didn’t scream power! but instead implied femininity, which, if done right, was much more powerful.

  Then I didn’t think anything at all except wishing she’d release my hand for when she took it, she squeezed it so hard my hand was forced to curl unnaturally into itself and this caused pain.

  Fortunately, she released my hand only an instant after she grasped it in that absurdly firm grip.

  She kept talking and what she said confused me.

  “Mr. Spear is late, which isn’t a surprise. But I’ll show you to my office and we’ll have someone get you a coffee.”

  She then turned and walked away without giving me a chance to utter a word.

  I had no choice but to follow her.

  As I did, I asked her back, “Where is Mr. Weaver?”

  Arnold Weaver was my grandmother’s attorney. I knew him. He was a nice man. His wife was a nice woman. On the occasion I was there for Christmas, we always went to their Christmas party. This meant I’d been to a goodly number of Weaver Christmas parties and therefore I knew Arnie and Eliza Weaver were nice people, my grandmother liked them a great deal and I thought they were lovely.

  “Oh, sorry,” she threw over her shoulder as she turned into an open door and I followed her. “Arnie is on a leave of absence,” she stated, stopped and turned to me. “His wife is ill. Cancer. It’s not looking good.”

  I let the shock of learning the sweet, kind Elizabeth Weaver had cancer and it was “not looking good” score through me, the feeling intensely unpleasant, but Ms. Baginski didn’t notice.

  She waved a hand to a chair in front of a colossal desk that was part of an arrangement of furniture that was far too big and too grand for the smallish office. She also kept speaking.

  “I’ll send someone in to get you some coffee. But as Mr. Spear is late, and I’m quite busy, if you don’t’ mind, I’ll take this opportunity to speak to a few colleagues about some important issues that need to be discussed.”

  I did mind.

  Our meeting was at eight thirty. I’d arrived at eight twenty-five. She’d come to meet me in reception at eight thirty-nine. She was already late and that had nothing to do with the unknown Mr. Spear. Now she was leaving me alone and I had not one thing to do for the unknown period of time she’d be gone.

  And last, I still did not know who Mr. Spear was.

  “I’m sorry, I’m confused,” I shared as she was walking to the door. She stopped, looked at me and lifted her brows, unsuccessfully attempting to hide her impatience. “Who is Mr. Spear?”

  Her head cocked to the side sharply and she replied, “He’s the other person mentioned in your grandmother’s will.”

  I stared at her, knowing I was showing I was nonplussed mostly because I made no attempt to hide it.

  “I’ll be back,” she said to me, giving me no information to clear my confusion, and she disappeared out the door.

  Therefore, I stood there staring at the door.

  And doing so, I thought on meager information she imparted on me.

  What I thought was that my grandmother was well-known and well loved. I would not have been surprised if there were a dozen or more people at the reading of her will. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she willed parcels of money and trinkets to half the town.

  What surprised me was that the only other person that was supposed to be there was a person whose name I’d never heard in my life.

  Without anyone to ask further questions, I moved to the chair she’d indicated, took my handbag off my shoulder and tucked it at my side.

  A few minutes later, a young woman came and asked me my coffee preference. I gave it to her. When she left, I emailed Daniel on my phone to remind him to charge Henry’s iPod before they got on the plane for Rome the next day. He’d need to do this since Henry liked to listen to music all the time but especially on long haul flights and LA to Rome was definitely long haul. The young woman brought my coffee. By the time Ms. Baginski returned, I was half finished with it, it was nine o’clock, I’d sat there for twenty minutes with nothing to do and I was fuming.

  “He’s not here yet?” she asked without greeting, entering the office while surveying it with unconcealed annoyance.

  “Ms. Baginski—” I started just as the young woman who brought my coffee appeared in the door.

  “Terry, Mr. Spear phoned. He said he’s been held up but he’s five minutes from the offices,” she announced.

  “That means he’s twenty minutes away,” Terry Baginski murmured strangely as well as irately and reached out to the phone. “Thanks, Michelle,” she called and her eyes moved through me. “As I have a bit more time, I hope you don’t mind if I make a phone call.”

  Actually, I again did mind and I opened my mouth to tell her that but she hit one button and a quick succession of tones filled the air. Before I could make a sound, she grabbed the handset, put it to her ear and swiveled her large, pretentious chair slightly away so I had her side.

  I felt my mouth get tight, turned my eyes to my foot and started tapping my toe.

  I felt slightly mollified looking at my shoes.

  They were beautiful shoes.

  Indeed, all I had were beautiful shoes. I didn’t own a pair of sneakers or flip-flops and I hoped to God I never would.

  Handbags and shoes were my passion.

  Actually, apparel on the whole was my passion.

  But I couldn’t take comfort in viewing my garments as I couldn’t see my outfit though I was again wearing black. I’d donned my outfit because I felt it was apropos for the occasion. A black pencil skirt that fit like a glove all the way down to my knees. The hem fell further, to mid-calf and it fit so snug to my hips and legs, the only
reason I could walk was that there was a slit that went up to the top of the backs of my knees.

  My blouse was also black, and it was silk. It looked from the front like a simple blouse (though, with a fabulous high collar that hugged my jaw and had an equally fabulous wide strip of matching cloth that I tied in a big bow at my throat). The back, however, had a cutout that exposed skin from the base of the neck, and from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, the rest of my back was covered.

  It, too, fit me perfectly.

  The outfit (outside the extraordinary fit, simplicity, excellent quality fabrics and that cutout) was quite unremarkable. Elegant (I thought), but unremarkable.

  My shoes, however, were very remarkable

  Dove gray patent leather slingbacks with a pencil-slim four-inch stiletto heel and a pointed toe. The toe was black patent leather. The heel and sole, however, were bright fuchsia.

  They were divine.

  My hair, as it always was, was pulled loosely back in an elegant chignon. This one I’d teased a hint to give it volume but it sat smooth and full along the length of the base of my skull.

  My makeup, as ever, was superb.

  And I usually didn’t give way to these thoughts as Gran had taught me there were pointless (not to mention unkind). But in that moment, staring at Terry Baginski’s profile, taking in her arrogant, dismissive demeanor along with her hair, her harsh makeup and her clothing that had been bought off the rack, which wasn’t bad except for the fact it was the wrong rack, I allowed myself to feel smug.

  Gran would be disappointed but I couldn’t help but admit these thoughts made me feel better.

  She murmured into the phone.

  I leaned forward and took another sip of coffee.

  I was replacing the cup in its saucer on Ms. Baginski’s desk when, from behind me, I heard, “Mr. Spear has arrived.”

  Apparently, as Ms. Baginski alluded, he had not lied. It wasn’t twenty minutes. It was five.

  I looked around my chair to see the young woman standing there.

  One second later, my back shot straight in shock when the man who had been staring at me at the funeral strode into the room.

  Today, he was wearing a superbly cut black blazer, a tailored black shirt, blue jeans and black boots.