But I just stand here and wait. I am not going to let him off the hook so easily.
“Fine, fine,” he finally relents. A little smile dances on my lips, but I try to keep most of it at bay.
“My mother is fifteen years younger than my father. They are not a good couple. They have hardly anything in common except for their obsession with this company and their family. No, let me correct that, the family name.”
“Were you two ever close?” I ask.
“You mean when I was a baby?”
I nod. He thinks about it for a moment. His eyes smile, but his face remains steadfast, unemotional. Some memories are creeping up, but he won’t share them with me.
“It’s complicated. Maybe when I was really young, but I don’t really remember. Most of my memories are of my nanny. We were really close.”
Now his face relaxes entirely.
“I called her Abuelita when no one else was around. It was our little secret.”
“Abuelita?” The word sounds familiar.
“It means grandmother in Spanish. I had to call her Ms. Isabel when my parents were around, but when they weren’t around, she was my grandmother. She taught me everything I know. She taught me how to cook and how to clean up after myself. She taught me about patience and honesty and integrity.”
Suddenly, Gatsby’s eyes tear up. He looks away trying to hide his feelings from me. I go over to him and wrap my arms around him. It’s not that I want to see him cry or want him to be in pain, but I’ve been waiting to see this side to him for a long time.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
“Nothing.” He turns away from me, rejecting my embrace. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not. Your Abuelita was important to you.”
He shakes his head, and I feel him breaking down a little inside. His shoulders slag and his head bows down.
31
The door slams and a deep, thick voice startles me.
“Oh, Christ! Are you still on that?” A tall man with cruel eyes looks at me. Gatsby gathers himself so quickly I start to doubt whether what I just experienced actually occurred.
“It’s nice to see you again, father.” Gatsby walks over to him and shakes his hand as if they are strangers. I’ve seen Gatsby give warmer handshakes to his business enemies.
“I see that you’re still dwelling on the past, Gatsby.” The man laughs and smiles at me.
“I’m Dr. William H. Wild.” He extends his hand to me and gives me a firm handshake. “You must be Annabelle York.”
I nod.
“Very pretty, as always,” Dr. Wild says to Gatsby. “Some things don’t change, I see.”
Gatsby doesn’t say a word. He hides behind a blanket of coldness, which I fear I will not be able to penetrate again.
“You see, Annabelle, when Gatsby was young, Mrs. Wild and I got him a nanny from Mexico. Isabel was a nice older woman who took care of him well. Her problem was that she didn’t know how to set up boundaries. She didn’t know how to create distance.”
“And distance is the most important thing in the Wild family,” Gatsby explains sarcastically.
“Yes, it is. Distance creates decorum, a state of politeness,” Dr. Wild says.
“Without decorum, we are without civilization. And without civilization we are beasts,” Gatsby adds sarcastically.
“Yes, you are right,” Dr. Wild nods. He is deliberately ignoring Gatsby’s anger.
“Well, when Mrs. Wild and I found out that Isabel let Gatsby call her Abuelita, we couldn’t just let that slide.”
“So what did you do, father?” Gatsby narrows his eyes, challenging his father.
“We sent her back to Mexico, of course,” Dr. Wild says without a tinge of remorse.
“Why?” I gasp. “Just because of a word?”
“Words are very important. Words are thoughts. I couldn’t have my son thinking or believing that this peasant woman from some god-forsaken village in northern Mexico was his grandmother.”
“No, no, no.” Gatsby shakes his head. “You couldn’t have me loving her as my grandmother. You couldn’t stand the fact that I loved her more than I loved any of you. Especially you.”
“Oh, please.” Dr. Wild waves his hand as if what Gatsby said was beneath his consideration. “I don’t care about love. Love is just an invented sentimentality. It means nothing.”
I stare at Dr. Wild, dumbfounded. It’s as if he’s from some other world. I have never seen a man like this, and I didn’t know that people like him even existed. The coldness emanating from him could freeze over hell.
No wonder Gatsby has so many issues expressing his feelings. The one person whom he loved and cared for was taken away from him. I look at Gatsby. I yearn to see the vulnerability that he shared with me earlier, but it’s too dangerous now. Dr. Wild is here, and he’s remorseless and cruel. He has absolutely no feelings. He doesn’t even believe in love!
“But of course, I’m not here to talk about Isabel, am I, Gatsby? There’s no secret intervention that you’ve set up for me with some half-witted shrink who’s supposed to bring me to my senses. Oh, you should’ve been there, Annabelle. It was quite a sight. Gatsby actually thought that this shrink, with some community college degree, would make me admit that I was sorry about sending Isabel away. That I understood how much I hurt my son. He thought he would make me admit to all the other supposedly un-fatherly and insensitive things that I’ve done.”
Dr. Wild tilts his head back and laughs. But neither Gatsby nor I find any of it funny. I can’t stand it any longer. Dr. Wild’s mocking him, and Gatsby is just standing there like a stone. Taking it. All of it.
“Oh you should’ve seen this ludicrous display, Annabelle,” Dr. Wild laughs and put his arm around my shoulder. I hate how familiar he is allowing himself to be with me. We have just met, and he is using me for approval!
“He couldn’t even get any of his siblings to come.”
“Why?” I whisper, clearing my throat.
“Ha,” he laughs, sending shivers up my spine. “Because they all knew better than to show up. Isn’t that right, Gatsby?”
Gatsby ignores him, continuing to stare into space. The expression on his face is entirely blank. As if he has checked out of this conversation long ago.
“Only O showed up,” Gatsby finally says. “She was always braver than my brothers.”
“Braver? Oh, please.” Dr. Wild waves his hand mockingly. He’s still holding me by the shoulder, and I finally pry free.
“Maybe he was just trying to show you how he felt.” I jump to Gatsby’s defense. “Isabel took care of Gatsby for a long time—”
“Yes, ten years.” Dr. Wild narrows his eyes. All of his hatred and contempt now focused on me. Bring it on, asshole!
“She broke the rules. Actually, both of them broke the rules. Gatsby was thirteen at this point. Old enough to make his own decisions. Old enough to live with the consequences of those decisions.”
I turn to Gatsby. I feel like he’s actually turning into stone now, as if he’s calcifying. I have to look closely just to see that he’s still breathing.
“So you just sent her away after ten years?” I shake my head. “Why?”
“He didn’t just send her away, Annabelle,” Gatsby finally says. “He put her on a plane and sent her away while I was gone for a weekend. And he refused to tell me where he had sent her. I didn’t even get the chance to say good-bye.”
“So you don’t know what happened to her?” I whisper.
He shakes his head. His eyes are dry, but I feel like I’m about to burst into tears.
“Isabel lived with us for ten years. She had family in East Los Angeles. But she’s not there.”
“Really?” Dr. Wild chuckles to himself. “I thought she would’ve made her way back eventually.”
“She was an old woman. You broke her heart.”
“Oh, please, don’t be so dramatic, Gatsby.”
Gatsby turns to me. “I could ne
ver find her. I talked to every one of her family members in East LA, and none of them know what happened to her. When I was in college, I even went down to Copper Canyon area, where her family hails from. But none of them know what happened to her. Where did she go, father?”
“I don’t know.”
“A seventy-year-old Mexican woman doesn’t just vanish from the face of the earth unless she vanished off the face of the earth.”
Finally, something gets a rise out of Dr. Wild. His eyes narrow and his lips purse. He looks as if he has just seen a ghost.
“I will never stop looking for her, father,” Gatsby says quietly. “And I will get to the bottom of this.”
Dr. Wild meets Gatsby’s gaze and takes a step forward. “Is that a threat, son?”
“Just a statement of fact.”
From the way that Gatsby is staring at his father, I can tell that there is more to this story than what’s been said. Does Gatsby think that Dr. Wild has done something bad to Isabel? Why would he? I have no idea. All I know is that after being in the same room with Dr. Wild for a few minutes, I know that he’s a man capable of pretty much anything.
“Okay then.” Dr. Wild claps his hands, flashing a big white smile. “So why am I here again, Gatsby? Don’t we have something more important to discuss than your supposed childhood traumas and grievances.”
“Yes, in fact, we do.” Gatsby turns to him, challenging him with his gaze. “Your son, Atticus, is committing fraud. Has committed fraud.”
32
Alone in my office with the privacy screen up all around me, I bury my head in my knees. Dr. Wild is a monster. He looks like a respectable and well-meaning man, but in reality he’s manipulative and narcissistic. I can see how much he loves inflicting pain on Gatsby about Isabel all these years later. I saw how he loved throwing it in his face. He wasn’t sorry one bit. In fact, all of these years later, he seems to be almost proud of it. He doesn’t care that Gatsby lost someone so close to him without an explanation, without a goodbye. In fact, it’s as if he almost enjoys it.
How can there be people like this in the world? I’ve seen them on the news, but I never thought that I would end up face to face with one. Oh, how I hate the sight of Dr. Wild. I hate the sound of his voice. I hate the contempt that he has for Gatsby. All of his children really.
I feel the button below my desk. If I click on it, then I will hear everything that’s going on in Gatsby’s office. I’d be a spy. I shouldn’t do it. It’s wrong. I know that, but I can’t stop myself. Gatsby needs help. It’s not that he’s not strong enough to stand up to his father. He just needs reinforcements. I could be that for him.
“…the IPO still has to go through,” Dr. Wild says. His voice is rushed and urgent. He’s no longer calm and mocking the way that he was with Gatsby earlier.
“Shareholders and the board can’t be alerted. What are you thinking, Gatsby?!” Dr. Wild’s voice booms, and I would probably hear even if I weren’t spying.
But Gatsby remains calm and collected.
“But if we don’t alert them, then it’s fraud. And I’m part of it,” Gatsby says calmly.
“So what?”
“So what, father? Are you really asking me that? I’m the fuckin’ CEO. I’m not bending over for Atticus, especially since he’s doing all this behind my back. Besides, this is all your fault anyway.”
“My fault?” Dr. Wild shouts.
“Yes, if you hadn’t put all of his money in a trust, then none of this would be happening. But you were so worried about him spending it all that you left him with barely anything!”
“Oh, poor, poor Atticus. I will not apologize for trying to protect Atticus’ money despite his best efforts to squander it all.”
“Yes, I know.” Gatsby laughs. Now it’s his turn to be mocking. “You will not apologize for anything you do wrong. Your gigantic ego won’t let you.”
“You better think long and hard about this, Gatsby,” Dr. Wild says. His voice is getting smaller with each word – he must be heading for the door. “You may be implicated in this either way. So you best think about this decision and make sure you’re making the right one.”
“The right one? And what kind of decision would that be? The one that protects the family above all else?”
“Yes!” Dr. Wild roars and leaves the room.
I resist the urge to walk over to Gatsby and wrap my arms around him. He is stewing, an unsettling mix of anger and detachment is on his face. I give him space. An hour later, we finally talk.
“I just hate him so much, Annabelle. You don’t even know. He’s such a pitiful and manipulative person. He has been that way all my life.”
I nod. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he brushes me away. Gatsby needs space to rant, and I give it to him.
“Despite the fact that he has always had a difficult relationship with Atticus, like he did with pretty much all of his kids, despite all that, he still wants me to protect him. Protect him despite me. I have no idea what kind of shit Atticus is in. He didn’t even ask me for him. I have no idea what I’m walking into.”
“You can’t.” I shake my head. “You can get into a lot of trouble for this. You’re the CEO. What would happen if the shareholders ever found it?”
“It would be fraud. Major fraud, if all of this is as bad as it appears to be. And knowing Atticus, it’s probably way worse.”
“Can you talk to him? Find out what’s going on? Tell him that you know.”
“I have to,” Gatsby says decidedly. “But it’s not just Atticus. He’s…he’s always been this way, really. It’s something to be expected. My father knows this, but he still wants me to protect him.”
“I think your father is just thinking about the family,” I try to explain. I realize that this was exactly the reason why Dr. Wild protected Gatsby after he shot his cousin.
“He cares about some abstract notion of family above all else. Did you know that Atticus almost killed my mom when he was born? All his childhood he has tried to please my parents, especially my dad, to no avail. Then when he grew up and realized that our father can’t be pleased, he started to get self-destructive. The thing that Atticus didn’t get was that what father hates most are people pleasers. And yet, that’s what he wants us all to be. At least, as far as he’s concerned.”
33
Gatsby doesn’t want me to stay over tonight, so I go home in a foul mood. I want to help him, but I don’t know how. Everything is suddenly getting very complicated and complex. We haven’t been together long, I don’t even know if we’re ‘together’, and now there’re all of this business and family matters to deal with. I need a break, but I can’t take one. I don’t really want to either.
I go home, disenchanted. I’ve been staying over at Gatsby’s house a lot, and I know that I’ve been neglecting Maggie Mae. I don’t care and want to stay over another night. But he’s shutting me out, and I feel myself growing more clingy.
“Hey there,” Maggie says.
I find her sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine.
“I didn’t think I was going to see you today,” she says. She’s a little drunk, and I dread talking about this right now. I try to go straight to my room.
“Hey, listen, I’m really tired.”
“So you’re actually staying here tonight?” she asks.
“Yes, of course.” I nod.
She’s leaning back in the chair, glaring at me.
“Listen, I’m sorry I haven’t been here that much. I promise we’ll catch up tomorrow. I’m just really tired right now.”
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes and stands up. “I don’t need your insincere apology.”
“Insincere?”
“Yeah, insincere!” Maggie Mae’s slurring her words. She’s drunker than I realized.
“If you’re not going to be here, if you don’t want to be here, then don’t. Then just go over there and move in with him!”
She gets up and starts stumbling ar
ound the kitchen. I walk over to try to hold her up, but she pushes me away. I didn’t realize that she was this mad.
“I don’t need you, Annabelle. You know that? You were the one that needed me!”
She smashes her body into the kitchen counter, knocking over a half-empty bottle of red wine. The bottle shatters, and the wine goes everywhere.
“Oh, shit!” I run to her to make sure that she’s okay. But Maggie Mae simply steps over the glass and walks to the bathroom.
She doesn’t close the door, and I hear her throwing up into the toilet. I leave the mess and go to her. With her head buried in the toilet, she begins to sob and utter something. But I can’t make out what she’s saying.
“What?” I ask over and over, holding up her hair.
“We broke up!”
“Who?”
“Me and Elliot,” she says through her sobs.
I have no idea who she’s talking about. Oh, my god, I’ve been more absent and self-absorbed over the last two weeks than I even realized!
“He dumped me. He said he didn’t want to see me anymore.”
I pull hair out of her face and wrap my arms around her. I feel so sorry for her. And I hate myself for not being here for her.
“You don’t even know who Elliot is,” she says accusingly.
“I know, and I’m sorry. I’ve been so distracted. With all the work—”
“Oh, please.” She gets up and runs her mouth under a stream of water. “You’ve just been too busy fucking your boss to pay any attention to anything else that has been going on.”
“You’re right. You’re totally right.” I nod. “There’s no excuse for any of this. How can I make it up to you?”
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head.
In her room, I help her change into her pajamas.
“I’m really sorry, Maggie Mae. But I’ll be there for you more in the future. It’ll be just like before. I promise.”
Maggie Mae finally relents. She lets me pull the covers over her and whispers, “Okay.”
Auctioned to Him Page 38
