Most Eligible Billionaire

by Annika Martin

  A nurse comes in just then, entering stealthily. She spots Smuckers before I can flick the sheet over him like I usually manage to do. “You can’t have a dog in here!”

  I shamble on a surprised face. “The other nurses didn’t say anything about the dog…” Since they didn’t see the dog.

  “You need to remove the animal.”

  “Get out,” Bernadette says hoarsely.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse says. “Animals not allowed.”

  I go over. “Please,” I say under my breath. “The dog’s all she has. You need to give her a break.”

  “Hospital regulations.”

  I look back over at Bernadette, who is doing a nervous clutching thing on Smuckers’s fur, something Smuckers won’t tolerate too long. I go back over and put a protective hand on Bernadette’s to get her to stop it.

  “A few more minutes,” I say. “If he was a service animal you’d let him in here. Can’t you just pretend he’s a service animal? I mean, he pretty much is one.”

  “You’ll have to remove the animal.”

  “A few more minutes,” I say.

  “I’m getting security.” She spins and leaves. Security.

  I turn to Bernadette. “The animal,” I say. “Please.”

  She’s only paying attention to Smuckers, though. Her breathing is erratic. She’s upset.

  Security will throw us out, and I probably won’t get Smuckers in here again. Which means this is the last time Bernadette sees Smuckers, and maybe she knows it.

  I feel sad and helpless, but also like everything is important now. Like I have an important job to do as fake pet whisperer.

  That’s when I make up the story.

  “Smuckers has something to tell you, Bernadette,” I say. “He has something to say that he never told you before, and he needs to say it.”

  She moves her lips. Nothing comes out, but I know what it is.

  Tell me.

  That’s what she always says when I announce that Smuckers has something important to communicate.

  Whenever I channel Smuckers’s thoughts, I use the curious listening face and also change my voice just a tiny bit. I hate it when my water bowl is dry, Bernadette. Sometimes I get so very thirsty! Or, You shouldn’t let that sketchy building handyman in anymore, Bernadette, unless somebody you trust is with you. I don’t like him very much. The food in the refrigerator smells very yucky. Maybe it’s old.

  Smuckers uses the word very a lot.

  In addition to household matters, Smuckers is a good one for morale and encouragement. Your flowered shirts are very pretty. Please open the curtains, Bernadette, I love watching the birds. I feel very happy when you sing.

  The sound of Bernadette’s singing was a major passion of Smuckers’s, according to me. And Bernadette was actually kind of a good singer, as it turned out, from the bits I heard over the three years I’ve been at it.

  “This is very important. Are you listening? Smuckers wants you to know that he has a brother. A twin.”

  Bernadette seems to still. She’s listening.

  “It’s painful for Smuckers to remember. Smuckers’s twin brother died as a puppy. His name is Licky Lickardo.” Bernadette’s lips quirk.

  Does she like that name? She was a huge I Love Lucy fan in her day.

  “What dimwit named him that?” she croaks.

  Oh. “Umm…that’s not important. Licky Lickardo lives on the other side. He looks just like Smuckers. Smuckers has told Licky all about you. Licky needs a friend so badly, and he’s waiting for you on the other side. Just beyond the light. And he’s just like Smuckers. You’ll totally think it’s Smuckers. And you’ll know his thoughts. You won’t need me.”

  I once read about this ancient island tribe once where if a king died, he’d have his queen and servants and pets killed and buried with him, believing that they would then accompany him to the afterlife.

  This Licky Lickardo thing kind of delivers on that, but in a less psycho way—she’s getting the pet and the special whisperer services in the afterlife or whatever she believes in, but the whisperer and pet get to stay in Manhattan.

  In fact, Bernadette’s breathing seems to calm.

  “So here’s the deal. I’ll take care of Smuckers, like I promised, but Smuckers needs a promise from you. Are you listening?”

  She moves her lips. Tell me.

  “Smuckers very much needs to know if you’ll take care of his brother. Licky is just like Smuckers, Bernadette. Smuckers can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  The way her hand changes, grasping Smuckers’s neck, I think she likes it.

  I keep on.

  “Smuckers says you’re going to love Licky so much. Oh, wow! Smuckers says that Licky is wagging his tail right now—he totally can’t wait. He’s wagging up a storm, just like Smuckers does when he sees you coming.”

  Bernadette’s face is definitely softening. Is this wrong? I don’t know. But then again, I’ve gone a long way down the road of wrong already with this thing.

  “Smuckers has something else important to tell you. Instructions! He says you should sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow the minute you get to the other side. Smuckers says to follow the light and you’ll see Licky Lickardo wagging his tail. And you’re to immediately sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  I sit up, a rabbit in the headlights—or more like a virgin sacrifice, pinned by the furious gaze of a man in a perfectly tailored suit, a prince of a power broker currently standing in the doorway, though the word standing doesn’t quite cover it. He’s owning it. Dominating it. Lording over all the world from it like an entitled god.

  His brown hair is impossibly lustrous, touched with gold where the light hits. There’s something charmed about him, but more like wickedly charmed. His eyes are cobalt blue. Icy daggers, aimed to kill.

  Kill me.

  How long has he been standing there?

  “What the hell—?”

  Bernadette begins again to clutch at Smuckers.

  “Shhh,” I whisper, putting a finger to my lips.

  He straightens, as though shhh is a strange command to his ears, and I suppose it probably is. This is not the kind of guy you say shhh to. “What are you filling my mother’s head with?”

  Mother? This straightens me right up. This is the son?

  “Well…” I cross my arms. “About time you visited.”

  He scowls and strides commandingly across the room.

  He reminds me of a vengeful god in one of those ancient paintings that hang in the Met. Current mood: destroy the earth. But this god wears a suit instead of flowing robes. Vengeful god 2.0: the hot-but-scary Wall Street edition—born hard, deadly, and dressed to kill it in the boardroom.

  It seems impossible that this man was ever that lost little boy in the photo on Bernadette’s mantel.

  He sets a disposable cup on a table next to a small stack of empty cups. There are several iThings there next to a man’s cashmere coat slung over the arm.

  So he’s been here. For a while.

  He turns back to me. “Smuckers says to follow the light? He says to sing Over the Rainbow? A brother named Licky Lickardo on the other side? Care to explain any of that?”

  Definitely not, I think.

  I turn to Bernadette, like maybe she might care to explain for me, but her eyes are closed. Is she faking sleeping? That would be so Bernadette. “Bernadette,” I say. “Hey, tell your son—”

  My words die as he nears, looming over her on the other side of her bed. He gazes down at her with an expression I can’t read.

  I wait, cowering in my sensible pumps.

  “Was she…awake?”

  “Well, yeah,” I whisper.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’s silent for a long time, still with that unreadable expression, but a small dent forms between his brows, like he’s working something out in his mind—something troubling or distres
sing. It’s here I see a flash of that boy in the photo.

  “She wanted to see Smuckers,” I explain. “I was just…trying to help.”

  When he looks up at me a second later, the boy is gone. Maybe the whole thing was an illusion. “Help,” he bites out with emphasis, “is a funny name for trying to make a dying woman believe you’re communicating with her dog. Giving her bizarre messages from her dog.” He pulls out his phone. “Maybe you can explain your help to the police.”

  My heart pounds. Communicating with her dog, bizarre messages from her dog—that is what I was doing.

  “She just wanted to see him.”

  He gives me a disgusted look. “And you’re happy to accommodate. If there’s something in it for you.”

  I raise myself up straight as possible because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  “She likes to interact with Smuckers.” I swallow. “She doesn’t want to be alone.”

  “Harry,” he says, strolling out into the hall and speaking in soft tones. Is Harry the police?

  “Bernadette.” I touch her hand. “I have to go, Bernadette.”

  She stirs. Did she even hear?

  The son returns a moment later. “They’re coming.” His steely glare twists through my belly like a corkscrew.

  I won’t let him cow me. Years ago I swore I’d never let a rich asshole scare me or bully me ever again—not ever again.

  So I glare right back.

  It comes to me at this point that there’s something oddly familiar about him. He’s got that classic Hollywood-leading-man look—at least, if your Hollywood movie was about a darkly mesmerizing titan of industry. If your movie was about a friendly cowpoke this guy probably wouldn’t work out, unless you wanted him to turn dangerous at the end and take over the whole town.

  “Good,” I say. “Let them come.” I don’t mean it. The last thing I need is the cops.

  He scowls. “Mom,” he says, looking down at her.

  There’s this awkward silence where she doesn’t reply, and I think I should go, but I don’t want to rip Smuckers away.

  “You’re telling me she seemed…conscious before?” He asks it remotely and without looking up.

  “She was talking,” I say. “Petting Smuckers.”

  Just then, a beefy bald-headed guy in a security uniform comes in, followed by two nurses. “You’re going to have to take the animal out. Now,” the security guard growls.

  Bernadette’s hand is over Smuckers’s fuzzy little back.

  “Leave him,” I plead. “She’ll be so upset.”

  Nobody’s listening to me; their attention riveted on the son who has chosen this moment to turn the harsh light of his wrath onto the guard and the nurses flanking him.

  I take a deep breath. I feel like I haven’t breathed since he entered the room.

  Calmly, the son cocks his head. He and the security guard are about the same size—the security guard might even be a bit beefier, but if it came to a fight, my money would be on the son. He has an aura of power and confidence. He crackles with it.

  The security guard is no wimp, though. He stares right back, all testosterone. It’s like watching Animal Kingdom, Midtown Manhattan Edition.

  “If my mother wants the dog by her side,” he says calmly, “my mother gets the dog by her side.”

  “Rule’s a rule,” the security guy growls. “You’ll remove the animal or I’ll remove it and hand it over to animal control.”

  Animal control? It?

  The son’s blue eyes sparkle with humor, as if the security guard’s threats are mere clownish whispers in a world constructed for him and him alone.

  He addresses the assembled staff as a group. “Do you all understand who this is?”

  It’s Smuckers, biotches! I think.

  The complaining nurse folds her arms. “I don’t care. This is a pet-free facility.”

  I rivet my attention to the son. I didn’t like him when he was turning his hard-ass Blue Magnum gaze on me, but now his asshole power is on my side, or at least Smuckers’s side.

  “This is Bernadette Locke, head of the Locke Foundation, the entity that funded this wing, the medical teaching and research facility on the other side of that skyway, and probably your paychecks.”

  I straighten. What?

  More people come into the room, among them, a woman who seems to be some kind of administrator. “Henry Locke,” she says, grasping his hand. She apologizes for the mix-up, uttering words of empathy, admiration, gratitude. If he had a ring, she’d kiss it. She’d make out with it.

  “…and of course Mrs. Locke can have her dog stay with her as long as she pleases,” she continues. “With our sincerest apologies—we had no idea that the swing shift was not informed…” She mumbles on, all excuses.

  “Thanks,” I say. “It means a lot.”

  They all look at me, like you’re still here?

  The son points at me. “You. Out.”

  “Wait. I promised Bernadette—I promised her I’d care for Smuckers. She asked me specifically to care for him, you know, when…”

  He huffs out an exasperated breath and holds out his hand. “Card.”

  I grab my wallet, and hand over my Etsy business card, quickly drawing away from the brush of his hand, the sizzle of his orbit.

  The card has a photo of a tough-looking German shepherd wearing a pink-sequined bow tie.

  He scowls down at it for a long time. Really scowls.

  I’m imagining that he’s thinking of all the things he’d do if somebody tried to put a bow tie dog collar on him. And I’m guessing none of his scenarios end with the bow tie dog collar being in any way recognizable as a bow tie dog collar.

  “She wants to know Smuckers has a home and—”

  “I comprehend the meaning of care for Smuckers,” he says. “We’ll send Smuckers in a car.”

  A car. That’s how Mrs. Locke would always say it. Send a car. I thought she meant an Uber or a cab all this time.

  But it comes to me, standing there, that Bernadette Locke belongs in an entirely different world than I belong to, and that in her world a car is a limo.

  Two

  Two Weeks Later

  Vicky

  * * *

  I almost don’t answer the buzzer. I’m not expecting anyone. And who just shows up and buzzes? A drunk or a freak, that’s who.

  My sister, Carly, is busy fulfilling her duty as a sixteen-year-old girl to make us late due to hair styling operations that are more complex than a Space-X mission.

  The buzzer sounds again and again. Smuckers barks.

  I pick him up. “Shhh!” We’re not technically supposed to have dogs in the building.

  Carly answers it. “For you,” she says.

  I go and push the intercom button. “This is Vicky.”

  “Certified letter for Smuckers care of Vicky Nelson.”

  “A letter for Smuckers?”

  “Yes. Care of Vicky Nelson.”

  A Venn diagram forms in my mind.

  The circle that contains people I know who would think of such a moronic joke does not touch the circle that contains friends who would be up this early. “No, thanks,” I say.

  Buzzzzz.

  “Reading the envelope,” comes the voice. “Smuckers care of Vicky Nelson. From the law offices of Malcomb, Malcomb, and Miller.”

  It occurs to me then that maybe Bernadette remembered her promise to help pay for Smuckers’s upkeep, after all.

  She’d mentioned it when she was asking me to care for him, once the diagnosis was in. Take care of my baby. I’ll see you’re compensated, she’d said.

  I never thought she’d actually follow through. Bernadette made a lot of promises and vows in her life. She liked making them way more than fulfilling them.

  I didn’t offer to care for Smuckers to earn any kind of allowance. The little dog had grown on Carly and me over the years. I couldn’t bear to let him go to a home that would
n’t love his fuzzy little face.

  But what if?

  “Coming down,” I say.

  I spin and eye Carly. She’s not ready yet. “I’ll take Smuck down and we’ll handle this and wait. Five minutes.” I look over at the corner where Buddy the parrot eyes me. “And feed Buddy!”

  I carry Smuckers down all six flights. Smuckers is for shit on stairs.

  I never saw Bernadette after that day in the hospital with Henry Locke. She died soon after and Henry’s assistant called me with an alert that Smuckers was being sent over, and it was indeed in a limo. Carly and I just laughed, seeing his furry little snout in the backseat window of the sleek, black, mad-money ride.

  Instagram!

  I didn’t go to Bernadette’s funeral. Nobody invited me—not that I expected it after meeting jerky hard-ass Henry Locke.

  Carly’s been telling me all along to track down Henry and make him follow through on Bernadette’s promise to defray Smuckers’s upkeep. I told Carly I’d take a job as a gloryhole attendant at the Glory Daze massage parlor before I’d approach Henry for money. The Glory Daze is an actual place in the shitty Bronx neighborhood where we used to live before we got our very sweet long-term apartment-and-parrot sitting gig. And it’s what you think.

  I will never ask Henry for anything.

  Henry is exactly the kind of rich, entitled asshole I’ve constructed my life around avoiding.

  I find a courier waiting outside the doorway. He hands over a large envelope and gets my signature.

  I thank him and put Smuckers on the green leash that goes with today’s green bow tie.

  I open the envelope while he poops next to his favorite light pole with its graffiti-covered base. My heart sinks when I see there are only some letters inside. No check.

  Oh well. I walk Smuckers up to the block to throw the poop bag in the trash. He smells the small fence around the scrubby little tree, investigates a sticky dark puddle with yellow bits in it that I’m hoping is a smashed ice cream cone, and noses a crumpled coffee cup.

  That done, we sit on the top step of the stoop, just outside of the stream of people rushing back and forth, and I get to reading.