Heart and Soul

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  There was very little about the shiny coal-black exterior of the place that spoke of family or domestic comforts. There was an unspoken rule among the building’s board members, of which Magnus was chairman, that people with children or pets, as well as a certain class of foreigner, were subtly discouraged from buying in. The Japanese, of course, were welcome, and several Tokyo banks and brokerage firms had purchased co-ops to house their top executives while on business in the city. A sheikh owned the floor below Magnus, though it seemed to be permanently occupied by a series of mysteriously beautiful and extremely young male models.

  Magnus had moved into the apartment three years before, the month the building was completed, from the Park Avenue town house he had owned with his late wife, Millicent Fairborn, who had been dead now for more than ten years. Fairborn money had helped Magnus get his start, though no one denied that Magnus’s own iron will and brilliant business sense had forged the multibillion-dollar media empire over which he now ruled. Everyone spoke of the fact that Millie’s slow, agonizing wasting away with cancer had been difficult for Vance. They had been an obviously devoted, very socially prominent couple. No one with any class paid credence to the rumors that Vance had been sleeping around for years, throughout their marriage. And not a soul—except Vance Magnus—knew that the reason the Magnus union was childless was because dear, sweet Millie had never been able to drum up enough courage to do “that terrible thing” with her husband. Millie’s guilt over this inadequacy led her to be especially generous with Vance when it came to money … and essentially blind to his relationships with other women.

  Vance Magnus had had his way with so many things for so many years that he had almost forgotten what it was like to find his needs thwarted … to be forced to give in to another dominant personality. In fact, Miranda Darin—beautiful, dangerous, demanding Miranda—had been the first woman since his late adolescence with whom Magnus had been seriously smitten. And it had actually felt like a physical blow, Magnus recalled, as he mechanically greeted the crush of socialites and movie stars, politicians and business leaders, who were putting in an appearance at his reception following Miranda’s funeral.

  Oh, Miranda, Miranda … As Magnus clasped yet another pair of hands between his and flashed yet another sad smile, he thought back to the first time he had ever spoken to her.

  Elevator Number One in the Magnus Media Building was reserved strictly for the transporting of executives. It was an express, luxuriously padded in wine-colored leather, that went directly up to the top four floors of the plate-glass-covered skyscraper. The building was one of several corporate media headquarters that marched like a conservative, gray-suited army up Sixth Avenue. The Magnus Building, taller and more masculine in tone than the rest, was widely recognized as reflecting the personality of its owner to the extent that Elevator Number One was known as the “Magnus Mobile.” Even secretaries who worked on the top executive floors were not allowed on this exclusive elevator; they were forced to take the time-consuming local with the rest of the Magnus Media drones. At first Magnus was surprised when an unknown young woman, a striking platinum blonde, had stepped into the elevator with him one morning nearly fifteen years before.

  “This is the executive elevator,” Magnus informed her abruptly, cracking his Wall Street Journal down the middle to more easily peruse it during the half-minute ride to his penthouse suite.

  “I know,” the blonde replied, her voice sweetened with the seductive vowel tones of the South. The doors swished shut as she added, “That’s where I’m going. To the top.”

  “Personnel is on Fourteen,” Magnus said, pretending to scan the national news but actually letting his glance slide up and down the young woman beside him. She was tall and breathtakingly beautiful. But Magnus was almost bored by most glamorous and available female companionship at this point in his life; what intrigued him about this woman was her composure. She seemed so absolutely sure of herself, so confident of who she was and where she was heading.

  “I know,” she said simply. “I’m going to see Vance Magnus about getting a job here.” He heard himself laughing before he realized that he should be irritated by her attitude. What gall on her part to assume she could just waltz in and demand a position. What balls! He realized that he was strangely taken with her brazenness. Most of the people who worked for Magnus tended to fear him and respect him in about equal measure. Demanding, opinionated, he was a self-made billionaire who had gotten that way by bending everyone’s wishes to fit his own. His employees were the type who always laughed at his jokes … but never felt comfortable kidding him back. And though this was how Magnus had arranged his working relationships, he was growing bored by his own power to manipulate and control.

  “It’s nothing to laugh about, I assure you,” she said with a sniff. He loved the dismissive look she shot him! “I’m superbly qualified. I’ve just graduated from Columbia Journalism with some of the highest marks ever given. Fred Friendly himself will give me a personal recommendation. I think Mr. Magnus will be impressed.”

  “I doubt it,” he told her. “There are hundreds of people—just as qualified as you, just as eager—who’d be willing to do anything to get a foot in the door around here.”

  “But I’m better than anyone else,” she assured him. “I’m brilliant. I’m hardworking. I’m photogenic. And I’m determined. Magnus is my first choice. But if I don’t get a start here, I will get one somewhere else. Believe me, Magnus will see the light in due time.”

  The amazing thing was that she had been right. He hadn’t hired her that day simply because there were no positions open. But Magnus, first and foremost a businessman, had kept an eye on her. Within a year of their first meeting, he read that she had been promoted from newswriter to assistant producer at CBS News. A few years after that he had watched as her occasional general assignment reports for the local CBS affiliate became increasingly more polished and professional.

  He could tell just by looking at her that she was self-made: the hair, the voice, the whole image was something she was carefully honing into a “look.” The year Millie died, Miranda was promoted to local news anchor at CBS, and he found himself looking forward to the eleven o’clock slot with something bordering adolescent puppy love. He told no one of his innocent infatuation, watching the competitive show from behind the locked doors of his oak-lined study. But when one of his executive producers suggested an exposé news hour for the Magnus network based loosely on 60 Minutes, Miranda’s was the first—and only—name Magnus dropped in the hat for head anchor.

  He had never told her the truth about why she was hired. He had let the president of the news division handle the negotiations. Though he had worked almost obsessively on helping to craft the Breaking News format, he kept his distance from her. He was terrified that she would see straight through him. He knew that she was smart and proud enough to walk away cold if she learned she’d been lured to Magnus for less-than-professional reasons. His care had cost him dearly. Two months after the premiere of Breaking News, she met Jason Darin at a Democratic fund-raiser; six months later they were married.

  He thought back on that earlier heartbreak and what had followed as he moved now through the crowd that packed his usually commodious duplex. Two different film crews, lights ablaze, roamed through the rooms as well, interviewing friends and associates for the video tribute the Magnus News division was furiously pulling together. Miranda’s network of acquaintances had been wide indeed: besides the crème de la crème, there were the usual media luminaries, Broadway producers, some high-visibility literary types, an opera star, a smattering of the more presentable actors and artists, a select group of liberal politicians, several well-known fashion designers, even a rock star. There were only a few faces that gossip columnists Suzy and Liz Smith wouldn’t recognize. Stopping to greet guests along the way, Magnus now approached one such unfamiliar face.

  “Cassie,” he said, coming up behind her. She stood alone a
t a floor-to-ceiling window that faced west toward a dramatically setting sun. “You’re all alone? Didn’t Jason come?”

  She turned to face him, and he could tell by the state of her eyes and lips that she had been crying. It struck him suddenly that in all the years he had known her, he had never once seen Miranda cry.

  “No,” she said, “he … just couldn’t. He felt he should be with Heather. This has all been so hard on him.” Cassie was not about to tell Magnus that Jason had said he’d “rather be boiled in oil” than attend the reception.

  “It hasn’t exactly been easy on you either,” Magnus said. “And I can imagine how Jason reacted when he saw the reporters at the church. He no doubt blamed me. I’ve acted as his scapegoat for so many years.”

  “You? The entire news industry. The whole world,” Cassie replied. “He’s like a wounded animal right now. Lashing out at everything near him. Even those who are trying to help.” It was terrible to be so close to him—just inches away in the backseat of the limousine—and feel so closed off from him. Cassie knew all too well what it was like to lose people she loved. She had lived for years in a gray fugue of depression after her parents died. She, too, grieved for Miranda. But never had she seen someone act with such unforgiving fury in the face of death as Jason.

  “I hope that doesn’t mean you as well,” Magnus told her. “He has a bad temper. Quick to judge.”

  “Oh, I’m getting my share,” Cassie said caustically. She sounded so like Miranda at that instant, Magnus realized, that he felt momentarily confused … and oddly comforted. She was as tall as her sister and, like her, she possessed a kind of coiled suppleness. But while Miranda’s body always seemed ready to spring, Cassie’s was reined back, held in check. Miranda’s beauty had been something that dazzled people instantly—like a mirror flashing in the sun. Cassie’s was less obvious. Her face was not conventionally pretty; but the full lips, the arching brows, the angular cut of her cheekbones, the almost invisible dusting of freckles across the brow of her nose, were definitely appealing. By the time Magnus took all this in, he realized Cassie was blushing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, unconsciously taking a step back. “You do remind me of her. You can’t help it, I know.”

  “I find it so odd that people think we’re alike … or were alike.” Cassie hesitated a second before she added, “She was always so far ahead of me. She was always the one to lead the way. The place to be. Losing her … it’s like losing my direction.”

  “Any idea where you might be heading?” Magnus asked. “Miranda mentioned you were interested in the newswriter job we have. Are you thinking of moving to New York?”

  “I wasn’t. But I don’t know…” Her first thought was of Jason. Not the way he was now but of the slightly sardonic man who had haunted her dreams up until the moment of Miranda’s death. The fiery explosion that took her sister’s life had obliterated the sweet longing she had had for Jason as well. It was not that she wasn’t still drawn to him; oh, she was, all too strongly. It was just that there were too many dark forces swirling between them, too much unfathomable emotion, for Cassie to know what she was feeling. The only thing she knew for sure was the extent of her confusion.

  “Think about it,” Magnus told her. “I’ll tell my people to keep it open for another week. Judging from what Miranda told me, you’d be perfect for the job.”

  “I know,” Cassie said. “She told me the same thing. I’ve got to tell you that I’m not half as sure about that as Miranda was. She sprung the whole thing on me the last morning I was up here at Easter. It was the oddest conversation…”

  “Yes, you mentioned something to me on the phone,” Magnus said, “when I called to tell you the news. Do you remember? You said you realized now that Miranda wanted you to help her. What did you mean by that, Cassie?”

  “Her very insistence about me taking this job was strange. She’d never tried to help me before, or even shown particular interest in my career. Then that morning she was so persistent … almost demanding. When I asked her why she suddenly wanted to help me out she said, maybe I had it backward.”

  “But she told you nothing specific?” Magnus asked.

  “Specific? No. About what? What do you mean?”

  “Nothing … I just thought maybe something was bothering her that she didn’t tell me about. You can’t help but feel guilty when someone dies … so suddenly. I keep worrying that I could have stopped it … could have done something.”

  “I know what you mean,” Cassie replied. But something in his tone bothered her. Magnus didn’t give her much of a chance to linger on that concern. Taking her by the elbow, he steered her into the crowd of celebrities. For nearly an hour he stayed at her side, introducing her to a rising film star one moment, a bestselling author the next.

  “So like Miranda,” an opera impresario murmured as he kissed her hand.

  “We must have lunch,” Lucinda Phipps, one of Miranda’s society friends, said after they’d been introduced. “And have a long, long talk about poor dear Miranda.”

  “My dear.” Senator Haas leaned over to kiss her cheek but missed. His dry lips brushed her nose; he reeked of after-shave and alcohol. “I can’t tell you how terribly, terribly sorry we all are…”

  It wasn’t until much later, while lying awake in the guest room of the huge, darkened house, that Cassie was able to sort through the events of the difficult day behind her. She thought about the funeral. The lost look on Heather’s face as they made their way out of the church. Jason’s frigid manner as the limousine dropped her off at Magnus’s residence. The overly bright and jam-packed reception. The host of luminaries she had met. In the end her thoughts kept returning to Magnus. His tantalizing job offer. His obvious interest in and protective attitude toward her. And yet, behind everything, the feeling that there was a great deal about Magnus and the world that surrounded him that Cassie couldn’t begin to understand. Half-lies seemed to linger in the air. So many of the smiles that greeted her that night seemed forced, perhaps even false. She was tired, she told herself, emotionally beat. And yet she couldn’t help the childish fear that some unspecified danger hovered … just beyond her range of vision.

  Eight

  Derek Hattery, a senior partner in Hattery, Hattery & Sloan, was clearly uncomfortable. He shuffled through the papers in front of him on the spotlessly clean antique rosewood desk.

  “Shall we begin?” Jason asked, crossing his arms and tipping back in the sturdy leather armchair facing the lawyer’s desk. Cassie sat next to him, silent and composed, dressed in the same gray suit she had worn the first time Jason had ever seen her. It seemed like years … and yet it was less than a month ago that he had opened the front door for her. He had known immediately who she was because she reminded him so vividly of Miranda when they had first met. Before the fame. Before Magnus. During those fleeting first weeks when everything had been so dreamlike and sweet. Amazing, but he remembered that he had actually felt protective of Miranda in those early days. Actually believed that she had needed him.

  “Yes … well, uh, I thought it best to have the will read with Mrs. Darin’s sister in attendance,” the lawyer said, nodding toward Cassie while looking at Jason, “just in case there is any, uh, problem.”

  “Why should there be, Derek?” Jason asked. “I believe I’m familiar with the terms of Miranda’s will. We both rewrote ours when we married.”

  “Yes, well.” Hattery swallowed again and reshuffled the papers. “Mrs. Darin rewrote it again. Recently, as a matter of fact.”

  “How recently?” Jason asked, his tone suddenly wary.

  “Uh, two weeks ago,” the lawyer said, not meeting Jason’s gaze. “Most unusual. I asked her at the time if she was absolutely sure, not acting in haste. I tried everything, but … you know, she could be quite determined.” The law firm of Hattery, Hattery & Sloan had handled Jason Darin’s extensive and increasingly lucrative business affairs for over twenty years
. When the outcome of Miranda’s meeting with Derek Hattery had been made known to the firm’s executive committee, mayhem had ensued. Partner was pitched against partner in the argument over whether or not Jason should be informed of the drastic changes in the dispensation of his wife’s extensive personal fortune. Lawyerly wisdom—to do nothing until absolutely necessary—prevailed. Unfortunately necessity had reared its ugly head far sooner than anyone had suspected.

  “And you didn’t tell me, Derek?”

  “I, we … didn’t think it particularly prudent at the time. Lawyer-client privilege and all that. But we urged her to reconsider. We hoped she might at some future date change her mind.”

  “I see.” Jason sighed. “Well. Let’s get it over with, then.” She had cut him out. Totally. It was hardly that he needed the money; her comfortable fortune was less than a twentieth of what he was worth. It was far more than that: it was he, after all, who had helped her invest part of her salary … taken pride when the stocks he’d chosen for her took off … advised her when to sell … saw her savings swell into a substantial nest egg … urged her to reinvest. It was he who had made her savvy about money in general, forced her to keep her own checking and savings accounts, and invest through her own broker. Like so much else, he’d given her everything he could, and she had taken … and then taken some more. Now she had taken him one last time. She left everything she owned—clothes, jewelry, cars, houses, investments, bank accounts—to her only sibling, her half sister Cassandra Hartley. Half of the estate would be turned over to her daughter, Heather Darin, when she reached twenty-one; all of it would revert to Heather upon Cassie’s death. There were numerous clauses and subclauses, but the gist of the will remained the same: Jason’s name was not mentioned once.