by E. D. Brady
“This is not good,” she muttered, her voice breaking. “What did they do?”
“We didn’t have the high tech security we have in the basement now, only a set of regular keys. At any rate, we started noticing that the containers that we kept the water in looked like they’d been tampered with. There were other tell-tale signs also. But within four years, we knew that James and William had figured out our secret and were dipping into our supplies,” Ben explained.
“Wait!” Layla bellowed. “Are you trying to tell me that my father is not thirty-seven?”
“Your father hasn’t really been thirty-seven since around 1980,” Jay said regretfully. “He would naturally be around seventy at this point.”
“That can’t be!” she squealed. Her face drained of color, and her hands began to shake slightly.
“I’m sorry, Layla, but it’s the truth,” he answered, feeling terrible for having to admit that to her.
“When we confronted them, they tried to deny it, naturally,” Ben said. “But we had their fingerprints on the containers. I fired them both that day. When I arrived in the basement the following morning, I noticed that two of the containers were missing.”
“So, if my calculations are correct, their supply of water is about to run out in the next few years,” Joey added in. “Which is probably the reason that James hired those thugs, Manuel and Robert, to steal what we have left. We believe that James had put Manuel up to working for us in the first place, that Manuel was always doing James’ bidding, which is part of the reason Ben fired him. We caught him snooping in places that he wouldn’t have known to look in unless someone tipped him off.”
“And we also suspect that their small pharmaceutical company is just a ruse, only a front for the research they were performing. Research that they got an eyeful of from us,” Issy added.
“But if that’s true, then what was my father doing in Afghanistan?” Layla countered, trying to throw a spanner in the works of their theory.
“When Christopher Columbus first discovered the new world, he thought he had landed in India, hence the name he gave to the natives,” Jay explained. “Originally, the fountain legends came from somewhere around the Himalayas, or so we’ve been led to believe. We have a theory that when the settlers landed in the new world, somehow, someone must have assumed that the fountain of youth was somewhere nearby, which in fact it was, but that doesn’t discount the original legends. It may be possible that there is another somewhere on one of those many mountain ranges. This is only a guess, but we think your father may have been looking in that region for it. It was a perfect time to do so. With so many foreign contractors in that area now, no one would pay any mind to another American businessman scouring the area. From what we’ve been led to believe, the parts of the Himalayas in India and Tibet have already been thoroughly searched by explorers over the years, and more than likely China, Nepal, Bhutan, which is a moot point, since your father had access to helicopters anyway. I don’t know what ties he had, and whether or not he would have been able to get permission to fly over certain borders, but I don’t doubt that he would have had access to other aircrafts. ”
“And just because those areas have been searched, doesn’t mean that if there was another fountain, it hasn’t been overlooked. Mount Everest alone is a serious feat to climb and covered in ice. Then there’s the K-12 and various other ranges,” Joey piped in. “Which is the reason we discarded the idea to look there. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Layla took a sip of diet coke and placed the glass on the coffee table. “I…I think I need to lie down for a while. This is all just too much to take in.”
“I’m sorry,” Jay said, reaching over to take her hand.
She pulled back from him and shook her head, to upset to speak.
“Go on back up to our guest room,” Issy coaxed. “Take all the time you need. I know how hard this must be for you, and you’ve taken it all very well.”
Layla stood up, took one last look at them despairingly, and stormed out of the room.
Jay ran his fingers through his hair and walked to the window. Looking out at the vast ocean, he wondered if he’d made a mistake by telling Layla everything. Losing her now would hurt, but sooner or later, she would have to know the truth. Maybe it was better now than a year from now. By then, he most likely would have been in too deep to recover from the loss. He bit his lip, trying to squelch the anxiety that was pumping through him.
“Are you alright?” Ben asked.
Without looking back, Jay shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s better that she knows everything,” Joey said sympathetically.
“Not everything,” Jay replied, watching a seagull skim the ocean. “I left out one very important piece of information!”
Layla
Chapter 23
Layla walked up the stairs in a sickening daze. How could she ever come to grips with what they had just told her? How could her handsome father have been so many years older than what he led her and her mother to believe? She walked into the guest room and lay down on the bed, rolling everything around in her head.
She thought of Jay and swallowed hard. Where did this leave their relationship? She knew she loved him, but enough to continue seeing him? The fact that he was Arthur Vallen already seemed to make that impossible, regardless of what Issy thought, but this just added a whole other layer to the dilemma. She rolled over and hugged the pillow.
How long she had slept, she didn’t know. A gentle knocking on the door roused her from a disturbing dream. She sat up and tried to make sense of the unfamiliar surroundings. Instantly, the bizarre news that Jay told her came back, and she threw her hand over her face. “Come in,” she called out.
Issy walked through the door holding another can of Diet Coke and a glass of ice. “I came to see how you’re doing,” she said softly. “I brought you a drink.”
“Thank you,” Layla said, taking the soda and glass from Issy. “As far as how I’m doing, I have no idea.”
“I know,” Issy said kindly, sitting on the corner of the bed. “You’re the first person that we’ve ever told our secret to. I can only imagine how overwhelmed you are.”
“Why me?” Layla huffed.
“Because…” Issy replied, putting her hand on Layla’s shoulder, “you’re the first person that has ever meant anything to Jay, besides Ben, Joey and me.”
“But how can that be?” Layla asked. “Do you mean to tell me that in over five hundred years, Jay has never been close to another girl? He’s never had a girlfriend?”
“Nope, never,” Issy confirmed.
“How is that possible?” Layla questioned.
“Well, first of all, dating is a relatively new concept, as far as human history goes,” Issy began. “Like Jay said, women or girls were not at liberty to choose what men they wanted to become involved with. Marriages were arranged and more times than not, when the girl was still very young. Then he had the added pressure of taking care of us three to a certain degree. Even though he’s the youngest out of all of us, he was the heir to his father’s estate, a nobleman of sorts. He was the one that dealt with the general public on our behalf, and in some ways, we’ve always looked up to him to make the decisions for us. His first responsibility was to us alone, not that we expected that from him. It was more like a position he placed himself in. When we finally settled in North Carolina after the Civil War, there were many men who showed interest in him, no doubt lining their daughters up to meet the handsome and well educated bachelor who just happened to be extremely wealthy.”
“But he wasn’t interested?” Layla questioned.
“What would have been the point?” Issy replied. “He couldn’t very well commit to a marriage knowing that his wife would grow old, but he wouldn’t. How would he even begin to explain that?”
“Makes sense,” Layla muttered.
“And besides, Jay was never the kind of person who wanted a ‘yes’ wife, a
woman who acted inferior to him. He was always so far ahead of his time in that regard. Jay is the kind of guy who wants a partner, a friend, someone to share every aspect of his life with. It’s only in recent years that society has caught up to his ideals.”
“Really?” Layla asked.
“Jay doesn’t have, or ever had, a male chauvinist bone in his body,” Issy responded, nodding. “In a remarkable way, he was really far ahead of his time even fifty years ago.”
“Why?” Layla questioned.
“I guess in some ways it was because of Lucia’s influence,” Issy replied. “She and her husband really had an unusual relationship. He listened to her, took her ideas and opinions into account, which was an extremely rare thing in those days. We grew up seeing that first hand. We grew up seeing a woman that was never treated inferior in any way. The boys watched that from the time they were infants. Every day when we were really little, Lucia and Maria would take the four of us into the garden to play and run around for hours. I was always treated equal to the boys, played the same rough games, was allowed to do whatever they were doing. When we grew a little older, I was given the same lessons, taught to read and write along with them. Lucia wouldn’t hear of having it any other way. In some ways, I was more fortunate than other girls of my time were. Jay adored his mother. He would never be happy with any woman who didn’t have her spunk. Like I said, it’s only recently that women have become somewhat interesting to him.”
Layla raised her eyebrows and nodded, but then she thought of her father and her lip quivered involuntarily.
“What?” Issy asked, noticing the pained look on Layla’s face.
“My father and James…” she trailed off, too upset to continue speaking.
“I can’t really blame them for what they did,” Issy responded. “It was a mighty temptation. They were men of science, after all. It would have gone against their very nature not to investigate what was dangling in front of them. The four of us succumbed to the temptation without giving it a second thought. Try not to think too unkindly of your father. Apart from that little transgression, he was always a very nice man, not to mention, brilliant.”
Issy’s words washed over Layla like a lifeline, giving her something solid to hold on to. “Thank you,” she said, smiling sadly.
“You’re welcome, and it’s the truth,” Issy stated.
“What’s it like to be in love with the same man for over half a millennia?” Layla questioned, attempting to steer the conversation in a more positive direction. “I can’t even begin to imagine that.”
Issy folded her hands together and placed them over her heart. “I’m a very lucky girl to have Sebastian,” she replied with an adoring look. “He makes me feel like the most important person in the universe…always has. There isn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do for me and vice versa. Sometimes it’s as though his only mission in life is to find new and exciting ways to make me happy.”
“That’s so beautiful,” Layla butted in.
“You have no idea,” Issy replied, smiling nostalgically.
“And you’ve loved him since you were a little kid,” Layla added.
“Oh, no,” Issy responded, shaking her head. “I hated him when I was a little kid.”
“Really?”
“Well, not hated him exactly. I suppose I loved him in a certain way, but he annoyed the crap out of me; like a typical little brother whom you can’t stand, but you love regardless, y’know?”
Layla laughed. “Why?”
“He followed me around everywhere for as long as I remember,” Issy replied. “Always acting so goofy, throwing things at me or pulling my hair, generally doing anything to get under my skin.”
“Trying to get your attention,” Layla concluded.
Issy nodded. “I suppose, but he irritated the crap out of me for years.”
“So how did you guys…y’know?”
“When did I fall in love with him?” Issy questioned. “I remember the exact moment. It was about a month before we found the healing water, before we set out on that journey. I was in my garden, tending to my flower beds. Arturo had gotten me a beautiful lemon tree, and Sebastian was digging a hole to plant it. I spent so many years telling Sebastian to get away from me that I guess I hadn’t really noticed that he finally did. I looked over at him at one point and had to smother a gasp. I remember thinking ‘when did he get such strong arms and shoulders?’ The way the sun bounced off his hair causing the copper highlights to sparkle, and the faint sunburn on his cheeks made his blue eyes luminous, at that exact moment, I swear I’d never seen a more beautiful human in my life. I stared at him for ages, overcome by the glorious young man he’d grown into right before my eyes without me noticing. He looked over at me at one point and nodded with a strange look on his face, probably wondering what the heck I was staring at. I stood up and walked over to him, started teasing him a little, flirting. He just gave me a cold smile and turned away. And then it hit me that he’d been avoiding me for several weeks.
“This pattern continued for another week or so, me trying to get his attention, and him basically ignoring me. It was like the tables had turned, and I was not liking it one bit. The more he ignored me, the more desperate I was for his attention until I was acting like a love-sick idiot. Finally, one afternoon, I asked him to walk me to the beach. As we walked along, he pulled a leaf from a bush and kept wrapping it around his finger, saying nothing. At that point, I had enough of his aloof attitude and tried to grab his hand. He pulled away from me and gave me a disgusted look. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. When I explained that I wanted to hold his hand, he became furious and told me to stop playing silly games. At that point, I felt my heart shatter, and before I knew it, one stupid tear escaped my eye. He turned his head sharply and demanded that I tell him what was wrong. And then I said, ‘don’t you love me anymore?’ At that point he was seething, his face turning red with rage. ‘What’s the point?’ he yelled. ‘So you don’t?’ I pushed. ‘Isabella, what are you playing at?’ he demanded. When I said nothing, he grew even madder, practically shaking with fury. ‘I have loved you for as long as I can remember,’ he yelled. ‘And to answer your stupid question, yes, I still love you, but what good does it do me? You have never—’ Not really interested in letting him finish his rant, I jumped up on him and kissed him to shut him up. And before I knew it, he was kissing me back and basically hasn’t stopped for the last five hundred years or so.”
“That is so romantic,” Layla gushed. “So you really have been married for a very long time.”
“Actually, not in the grand scheme of things,” Issy replied. “Ben and I were not legally married until 1968. While our union would have been perfectly legal in the state of New York, where we were living at the time, in other places it wouldn’t have been. And besides, it was only a formality to me, only a piece of paper. Ben and I had been spiritually married for hundreds of years at that point. And I firmly believed that God blessed our union regardless of what others thought.”
“How ironic that you were married more than fifty times longer than the average marriage lasts, yet some people would have deemed it illegal,” Layla butted in, shaking her head.
“Human irony has never ceased to amaze me, believe me,” Issy replied sarcastically. “At any rate, after Loving vs. Virginia, interracial marriages were popping up all over the place, and Ben kind of got caught up in the whole thing. Maria raised him to be a good Catholic boy, so while it mattered little to me, it mattered greatly to him that our union was blessed by a priest, that we performed the sacrament. It made him happy, so…” she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why people care who other people marry,” Layla said solemnly. “And I can’t believe how romantic it is that Ben wanted to marry you so badly after already being with you for a couple of hundred years.”
“I’m a very lucky girl,” Issy admitted. “But, through all that, I’ve often missed h
aving a girlfriend. I’ve never had a friend to go shopping with or do girly things with.”
“You never struck me as the girly type,” Layla replied. “That’s not to say you’re not feminine because you are, it’s just that you seem so comfortable hanging out with the guys all the time.”
“I’ve never really had much of a choice,” Issy answered. “There have been times when I’ve seen movies with girls doing the sleep-over thing, and generally just being silly together, and I’ve felt that I’ve missed out.”
“We could go get our nails done together,” Layla replied, smirking.
“Could we?” Issy asked. “I’d really like that, I think.”
Layla giggled. “Of course.”
“Goodie,” Issy squealed, clapping her hands.
“I have a question,” Layla stated.
“Only one?” Issy replied, laughing. “What is it?”
“What do the employees at Vallen Enterprises think of you?” Layla asked. “I met Margaret today, and I was just curious what conclusions she’s drawn for your lack of aging.”
“Most of our employees generally think we’re the most vain and narcissistic people alive. They think that we spend fortunes on expensive and rare cosmetic surgery, facial injections and whatnot.”
“Really?” Layla said, laughing at the irony.
“Well, truth be told, we sort of lead them in that direction,” Issy admitted. “Every so often, one of us will pass some comment in a crowded elevator, or some other place with many people within ear-shot, about having a doctor’s appointment. Then, when asked the reason for the appointment, we’ll put on a good show of being awkward and close-lipped, acting like we don’t want to discuss the matter any further.”
“And naturally, because you all look so young, that’s their first thought.”
“Correct,” Issy confirmed. “But that can only work for so long. Every second decade or so, we have to disappear for a few years until the oldest employees have retired.”
