Some Like Them Rich

by Shirley Hailstock

  “Well, I guess there isn’t much more to say or do,” I said.

  “Aren’t you going to stay?”

  “I made my reservation to return tonight. I wasn’t sure how this would go and if it went badly, neither of us would want to be around the other. If it went well, and it did, there’s no need for me to be here.”

  “You have a point. At least let me take you to dinner at a decent restaurant. This is Atlanta. We have the best Southern food in the country.” He opened his arms, proud of his city.

  “I’d like that.”

  Geography didn’t matter. Even the six thousand miles of ocean didn’t keep Amber from invading my thoughts. I wondered what she was doing and if she and Casey had set a wedding date. For all I knew they could be married by now. The thought broke my concentration and I hammered my thumb instead of the baseboard I was tacking to the ballroom wall.

  Dropping the hammer, I folded my thumb in my palm and held the pain in. The hotel in Les Pieux was worse than I’d thought. Everything needed repairing. My father had given me a large budget to do whatever the hotel needed to bring it up to the standard of a St. Romaine. A small army marched in every morning and worked to bring the place into a livable status. From there it was my goal to make it a first-class facility.

  I worked with the men in hopes of keeping thoughts of Amber at bay. It worked during the day. Most of the time. It was the nights that tortured me. She’d invade my dreams or have me waking during the night soaking wet and hungry for her.

  “Mr. St. Romaine, your appointment is here.” Genevieve’s voice broke into my thoughts. She addressed me in English, a language she wanted to practice she’d told me during her own interview.

  “I’ll clean up and be right there. Please have her wait in reception.”

  “She’s already there.”

  Reception was the first room we’d renovated. It needed to provide a calm and inviting place for people who wanted to work in the hotel business. So far I’d had no shortage of applicants. However, most were unacceptable.

  As was the woman sitting in reception waiting for me. She was dressed like someone on her way to the beach, not someone who could handle a group of middle-aged women demanding straitlaced attention. She talked nonstop and I questioned if she was really old enough to drive, let alone work.

  As she left, I noticed her walking toward a car in the small parking lot adjacent to the hotel. I blinked twice as another woman slid out of the driver’s seat. Her back was to me, but her hair was long and dark. My heart stopped, then jerked into jackhammer action. As she turned, my adrenaline levels dropped to zero. For a moment I thought it was Amber. Her skin was the same cinnamon color, but there the resemblance ended.

  Time would heal the ache I felt for her. My father and sister had told me that. But in the two months since I last saw her, the wound was still fresh and new. And it had all started with a laugh. I turned away, almost laughing myself. My father had raised a cut-glass crystal goblet at dinner one night and challenged me to take over the St. Romaine on Martha’s Vineyard without anyone knowing who I was. Without his name and implied influence, he challenged me to turn the property around.

  I took the bet.

  And I would never go undercover again. I was Sheldon St. Romaine. Not Don Randall. He was officially and forever dead. The persona had only ruined my life.

  Jack was coming! I felt like I hadn’t seen her in years, when in actuality it had only been a few weeks. Life was so different now. A few months ago, she, Lila, and I had started out on an adventure. True, it had come to fruition, sort of. But not like we thought and now, my two best friends were hundreds of miles away from me, beginning new lives, while I was back in Brooklyn.

  Life had to change. I knew that. And I accepted it. I didn’t want anything but the best for them. Of course, there was e-mail and the phone, but it wasn’t like meeting in a local restaurant or pigging out in front of the television to talk about sex, men, and how they’d done us wrong.

  We weren’t going to a restaurant today. I’d splurged on lobster tails, one of Jack’s favorite foods. The table was set and the salads crisp in the refrigerator. A bottle of wine cooled in an ice bucket. Jack wasn’t driving, but she couldn’t stay the night either. I wished she could. We never tired of talking, even though we’d known each other since our mothers pushed us in matching strollers.

  As I added the wineglasses to the table, the doorbell rang. I tripped over my own feet and nearly fell getting to it. I swung the door open and screamed her name. Both of us threw our arms in the air and we hugged like long-lost friends.

  “Come in,” I said, pulling her through the door. “You look great.” She did. Her skin glowed. And she must have been twenty pounds lighter. Her smile was wide and she’d had her hair braided in an elaborate style. “I like it,” I said, walking all the way around her so I could see the full effect.

  “When did you have this done?”

  “A week ago. Several sisters from Vanderbilt created this in less than two hours.” She put her hands up and touched her hair.

  “It looks great. What were you doing at Vanderbilt?”

  “I went there looking for a job, but I don’t think I’m the academic type.”

  “I thought you were going to take some time off,” I said. “Get used to living in the South. Find a church to attend and become a belle.”

  Jack laughed. “Me, a belle. That’ll be the day.”

  “Well, come on and tell me what’s happened. I feel like I haven’t talked to anyone in years.”

  “Girl, I have a ton of things to tell you.”

  “Wonderful. I want to hear everything.”

  Jack dropped her jacket on the sofa and followed me to the kitchen. This was our sanctuary. We always ended up here. It was the heart of the house, a place where you could talk, eat, and enjoy. I’d redone some of it since my parents moved, refacing the cabinets and staining them a rich cherry. The appliances must have been World War II originals. I scrapped them for new versions. Then I ran out of money and had to live with what was left. I still had plans to do the rest, but for the time being, the status quo was serving me.

  Jack stopped at the door. “Amber, you cooked.” She sniffed the air. “It smells delicious.”

  “I can cook, you know.”

  “Yes, I know, but you rarely do it.”

  “I’ve turned over a new leaf. You and Lila have major changes in your life. It’s time for me to think about what’s happening in mine.”

  “You wanna talk about it?” Jack asked. I knew she meant talk about him, but I shook my head. There was really nothing to say that would change the situation. Better to get on with the things I could control. And Don Randall was not one of them. I couldn’t call him Sheldon. I didn’t know Sheldon. It was Don that secreted himself into my dreams.

  “Sit down,” I told Jack.

  She took the seat she favored. I considered it hers since she always sat there. Getting the salads out, I sat one in front of Jack and the other one opposite her.

  “I hear Lila is learning to cook,” Jack said. “Shane is her teacher.”

  We both laughed. “I wonder how much food gets burned.”

  “Shane is a good cook,” I said. I remembered the delicious smells that came from the kitchen on the Vineyard the night I walked in on them.

  “Yeah, but Lila can be a distraction.”

  We both laughed again. Mental pictures of Lila trying to fry or bake something with Shane right behind her in various states of undress entered my head. I knew that if Don was behind me, we’d never eat—never eat food, that is.

  “So tell me,” I began. “How was Barbardos?”

  “Girl, I have never seen water so blue and trees so green. The place was fantastic, and the men …”

  “Men?” I admonished. “Jack, you were on your honeymoon.”

  “I know that, but apparently the men in the islands didn’t think it was a big deal. I had more propositions than I could count.
Shane had to practically beat them away. But secretly,” Jack leaned toward me, “I loved it. And to see Shane jealous, girl, that was priceless.” Her hands went up in the air and waved a little.

  Jack was happy. She was smiling and her conversation was exciting. I was so glad for her. She went on to tell me about the beautiful hotel room they stayed in, and about shopping on the island. She mentioned the huge swimming pool and how I would have loved it.

  “To think,” she said as I served the lobster. “I had barely been farther than the Brooklyn Bridge, and here in one year I’ve been to Martha’s Vineyard, gotten married, and spent two glorious sex-filled weeks in an island kingdom.”

  “And don’t forget you’re moving out of the state.”

  Jack sat up straight as if she’d been propelled from behind. “You have got to come and see the house.”

  I relaxed. Her sudden movement scared me. I thought something was wrong.

  “I thought Shane lived in an apartment,” I said.

  “It was a condo, and we’re selling it. Luckily we already found a buyer and we close at the end of the month.”

  I noticed that already Jack referred to the two of them as we. Was it that easy to go from being single to being married? To think of yourself as a couple and no longer an individual?

  I’d had boyfriends and male companions before. I thought I was going to marry Emile. Yet I can’t say that I’d ever thought of any of them as connected to me so strongly that I only thought of us as a twosome. Not even with Don did I think of an us.

  “What happens then?” I asked, mentally shaking thoughts of Don out of my head.

  “Oh, Amber, you will love the house we found.”

  “That was fast,” I said. “Are you pregnant, too?”

  “No, I am not pregnant,” Jack stated as if offended.

  “Jack, it was a joke. You just seem to be moving faster than ever.”

  “Wasn’t it you who’s always telling me to make a decision and stop mulling over everything to death?”

  “Not exactly in those words. And why do you pick now to start taking my advice?”

  “Shane had a little to do with it.”

  Jack smiled, cutting the meat from her lobster tail.

  “What?” I asked after a moment.

  “I’m glad you’re sitting down.”

  Jack had my full attention. She’d already said she wasn’t pregnant. So what could it be?

  “You know how you talked me into going to the Vineyard with you, saying that if I was lucky I could marry my life savings?”

  I nodded. “And I remember how you cut your eyes at me as if I’d set you up.”

  “And of course you had,” Jack said.

  We both smiled at the memory. It was only a few months ago, and life was so different now.

  “Well, I did.”

  I chewed my food, waiting for her to explain. She said nothing. After a moment I looked at her. An impish smile curved her lips.

  “You did what?”

  “I married him.”

  She wasn’t making sense. “You married Shane.”

  “Yeah, my life savings.”

  I thought hard, but I wasn’t getting whatever it was Jack was trying to say.

  “I’m saying it worked, Amber. I found my young black millionaire on Martha’s Vineyard.”

  A short beat passed before it sunk it. “Shane! Shane is a millionaire?”

  “A few times over.” Jack nodded. “It came as a complete surprise to me, but he makes good money in the band and he invests it wisely. Not like those Hollywood stars who lose theirs by allowing some untrustworthy firm to manage it. He manages it himself.”

  “Oh, Jack, I am so happy for you.” I felt the tears misting in my eyes. “It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.”

  “It could have happened to you,” Jack said.

  “Wait a minute.” I stopped her. She was about to embark on the Don train and I wasn’t going there. “Why were you looking for a job at Vanderbilt if Shane has that much money? You can travel with him until you actually do get pregnant.”

  I’d given her double openings. We could talk about her job search or we could talk about future children. I hoped she’d take one of them and forget Don.

  “I need something to do. I’m not cut out for the country club crowd or the Bible thumpers. Shane says that if I want to work, he’s all for it.”

  I was glad to hear that the two of them were on the same page. It was how I imagined marriage would be.

  “That’s enough about me. What have you been up to since I left?”

  My life wasn’t nearly as exciting as Jack’s, at least not from what I had to say compared to her. A husband, a new house, moving to a new town, and being in love. I envied her. She’d accomplished everything we’d talked about.

  “Amber, what about that book you started … last summer?”

  I stared at my plate as if the meat didn’t cut easily. Jack had hesitated. I knew she was going to mention the Vineyard. And thoughts of the Vineyard meant bringing up Don.

  “I put it in a drawer, or rather it’s buried in a computer file and not likely to see light for a while. “If ever, I thought.

  “Why? I thought you liked it.”

  “I did, but somewhere along the way I lost interest.”

  “Did you finish it?”

  I shook my head. It didn’t have an ending. Or it could have many endings. I couldn’t decide if it was a comedy that would end with an absurd twist of conditions the way our lives had. I could make it a tragedy and kill off the hero, send him out to sea and let him drown. Or I could give the book the complete fantasy ending with a fictional happily ever after. As it was, it languished in my computer, hanging from a tree with no feet to reach the ground.

  “What about your job?”

  “You know I’m still there.”

  “But,” Jack prompted.

  “But what?”

  “But you hate it.”

  “I don’t hate it,” I defended. “At least not totally. It pays the bills and I’m good at it. I get to work from home. What’s not to like?”

  “Do you still want to be writing greeting cards when you’re fifty?”

  “They’ll all be totally electronic by then. The computer will write them. The computer will ask several questions and produce a menu of suggestions. The sender will select her own sentiment from a pull-down window.” I was trying for lightness, but Jack’s face didn’t show the hint of a smile.

  “I’m worried about you, Amber,” she said after a moment.

  “Why?”

  “You don’t seem like yourself. The sureness you always had has dimmed a little.”

  I started to say something, although I didn’t know what. Jack stopped me with her next comment.

  “When Emile left you were hurt, but determined to go on.”

  “That’s how we ended up on Martha’s Vineyard,” I reminded Jack.

  She ignored me. “Now that you and Don have split, you look a little lost. Like you don’t know which way to turn.”

  “I know which way to turn,” I told her, the strength of my voice more sure than reality. “Don was just a summer diversion,” I said, using Casey’s term. “I guess my lost feeling is because of the changes that are going on with the three of us. We’ve been friends a long time. Now things are different, changing. For the better, of course.

  ““Not totally,” Jack said.

  “I know. But I won’t be able to run over to your apartment and force you to do things you don’t want to. I won’t meet Lila for drinks in some trendy place in the Village. But this is the natural progression of living.”

  “Amber, you’ll find someone. Just like you found Emile and Don.”

  “Well, let’s hope they aren’t exactly like Emile and Don.” We both laughed. “But you’re right. I know how to get back on the horse and go for another ride.”

  Jack knew how I felt about horses. I rode only once while we were on
the Vineyard. The comment, however, brought another image to mind. I could see myself riding Don on the chair in his kitchen. I covered my reaction by drinking from my wineglass.

  “So, when are you coming to see me?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know. You and Shane need time to be alone. I’d feel like a third wheel.”

  “So, when are you coming to visit me?” Jack asked again.

  “As soon as you get the boxes unpacked in your new house.” I knew that could buy me some time. When Jack had packed up to move her things to storage before we left for the Vineyard, she still had boxes she had yet to unpack since she’d moved into that building nine years ago.

  “Three weeks at the most,” Jack said. “The truck with my things left this morning. Shane’s already packed his condo. I’ll give Lila a call and see if we can make it a reunion.”

  Chapter 25

  I felt like a five-year-old, unable to muster an attention span longer than fifteen minutes. If it weren’t for deadlines, I wouldn’t know what day of the week it was. Having to send my work in every Tuesday and attend meetings on Friday kept me cognizant of the days. It was the nights that lingered minute by minute, sliding by at a pace so slow it seemed to move backward.

  Fridays were the best days. They were the ones when I interacted with other people. At least I tried. Today was Friday, and I was on my way home from the in-person meeting in Manhattan.

  Jack had gone back to Nashville and Lila had called to say she was back and looking forward to meeting us all at Jack’s house. I was secretly looking forward to it, too. I wished I’d be able to tell them that I’d found someone new, but that wasn’t the case. There was a man at the office who often looked at me with admiration in his eyes. I noticed that he managed to angle himself close to me at every meeting. I hadn’t been interested in him before the summer, and he stirred nothing in me now.

  At my door I stopped and pulled the mail from the box. There were the usual bills and advertisements, letters addressed to occupant. I sorted through the stack as I walked into the foyer and on to the kitchen where I dropped my purse and stepped out of my shoes. As I flipped the last envelope I stopped, as if I’d suddenly been flash frozen. I stared, holding my breath, feeling my heartbeat accelerate to the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. The return address said the letter was from the St. Romaine on Martha’s Vineyard. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the envelope was addressed to me.