Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire)

by Rosalind James

  My throat had closed over the words, and I was grateful for the wind that was bringing tears to my eyes. I didn’t let anyone see me cry. I wasn’t going to start with Hemi.

  “She’s lucky,” he said. “And I’ve never thought of it that way, but my Koro’s that for me as well.”

  “If you’ve got one,” I said, “you’re all right.”

  “And you?” he asked. “Who do you have?”

  “Karen,” I said. “I have Karen.”

  You could have called it romantic, under other circumstances. It was hard enough not to call it romantic even now, not when Hemi had booked us into a big old Victorian bed and breakfast inn with a fireplace in the room, a huge four-poster bed heaped with pillows, and a clawfoot tub in the bathroom. But after that, it changed some, because after he took me for an early dinner in the dining room, he left me alone to take a bath and watch a movie in bed.

  “As you’re feeling unwell,” he said, “I may as well get a bit of work done. I’ll do it downstairs so I don’t disturb you.”

  So my movie didn’t disturb him, more likely, but it was polite of him to put it that way.

  “I’d apologize,” I said, “but I don’t think you’d be excited by the alternative.”

  “Excuse me?” He looked startled. Really? He’d never thought of this?

  “That would be pregnancy,” I pointed out. “The normal alternative to having inconvenient periods.”

  “Oh.” I could see that the idea truly hadn’t occurred to him. Must be nice to be a man. “I’ll just go do that work, then.”

  “Fine.” I tried not to be disappointed that he didn’t want to lie on the bed with me and watch a romantic comedy. Of course he didn’t.

  Except that he did end up doing just that. He was back in the room again an hour later, climbing into bed beside me. I reached for the remote, and he said, “Nah. Watch till the end.”

  He actually smiled at the funny parts, and watched the happy ending with me, and didn’t say anything about it. But then, neither did I. I just turned the TV off and did my best to get comfortable, stuffing a pillow under my stomach and not caring too much that I wasn’t exactly appearing irresistible.

  The third time I shifted position, Hemi said, “Hurts, eh.”

  “Just achy, that’s all.” I shifted again. “My belly and my lower back.”

  “What d’you need? What would help?”

  “A heating pad, but I don’t have one.”

  “Mm.” I was turned away from him, my knees drawn up, and he snuggled up behind me, pressed himself against my back, and laid a gentle hand over my belly. “Better?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “Better.”

  The warmth of his big body was so soothing, his touch so comforting. And just for tonight, I decided, I’d let myself believe in that comfort. I’d pretend that the security I felt in his arms was real. Just for tonight.

  Things Go From Bad...

  Hope was still asleep when I woke the next morning, and asleep when I’d pulled on my running clothes, too. Knackered from her rough night, I guessed. Well, I’d let her sleep. We had a long day of flying ahead of us, and a work week ahead that I imagined wasn’t going to be completely pleasant for her.

  She’d never said anything about Martine to me, I thought as I began the run through town, then took the steps that led to the beach. Probably didn’t want to put me in the middle. But I suspected that Martine kept her late more often than not, and that Martine was hard on her, too. I wasn’t sure if Hope was more worried that I’d let Martine sack her, or that I wouldn’t. About not making it on her own, or not making it at all.

  I needed to set her right about that, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. She’d been so insistent that she not get any special treatment, but I had the feeling that she was going to need it. I knew now how much she needed the job, and what a tough spot I’d put her into. Guilt wasn’t an emotion I indulged in, but now, I felt a stab that was surely exactly that.

  I’d ring Henry, my marketing director, I decided, picking up my pace a little in the fresh wind, under scudding gray clouds that told me there’d be rain before the day ended. The hell with not interfering. I’d interfere. Hope had said she was interested in marketing, and she’d be good at it. Putting her in with Martine hadn’t been the best idea, but that had been where the vacancy was.

  I kept running, and gradually, my thoughts turned to the idea that had begun to take shape yesterday. The gray of sky and sea, the white-flecked waves...gray and white. Scalloped white borders on gray shot with blue. Tweeds. The texture of woven flax. Creams and browns and seafoam green.

  And then the contrast. Lingerie-look slip dresses in that same seafoam green, in the vibrant orange of Asiatic lilies, in the variegated shades of blue of the New Zealand sky and sea. In a shimmering fabric that would change color, the same way Hope’s eyes did in different lights, in different moods. And over it...leather. Hard and soft, sweet and tough. Motorcycle boots and softly distressed jackets. On those curvy Polynesian girls...yeh. So much better than on the usual skeletal runway models. The perfect launch. The perfect look.

  I turned back at last not so much because it was time to think about packing up and beginning the journey back to New York, but because my fingers itched for a sketch pad. It wasn’t that I was afraid I would forget. It was that I had to get the ideas down now, because once they started coming, the flow would be unstoppable, a river nothing could dam. It was the one place I could let myself go, could allow myself to be carried away, and I couldn’t wait to start.

  Well, there and with Hope. Two places, maybe. But this one was profitable. This one would lead nowhere but up. And maybe that had been my problem. That was why I’d been vulnerable in a way I never was, in a way I didn’t allow. Because there’d been that vacuum, that restlessness I always experienced just before the good ideas came. Once I got into it, I wouldn’t have time to think about her. I wouldn’t have energy to worry about her, or about whatever this was. I’d get my groove back, would slip into the familiar zone that was power and progress, would leave behind the discomfort and uncertainty of a personal relationship I had no business pursuing. I’d get back onto the footing I’d outlined with her from the start, the spot where I was secure and she could be, too, because we’d both know what the rules were. No more sitting on the couch watching movies with Karen. I’d be too busy for that. Dinner, and sex, and done.

  I was nearly back to town and the inn when my phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and checked for the caller, then slowed to a walk as I answered.

  “Eh, Koro,” I said. “How you goin’?”

  “Fine, mate.” His voice was still as strong as ever, even though it came from a man who’d turned 81 on his last birthday. “You’re out of breath.”

  “I was running on the beach. And it’s, what? Five in the morning there? Everything all right?”

  “No worries. Old men don’t sleep, that’s all. And I knew I’d best ring you early if I wanted to catch you. On the beach? What beach?”

  “Outside San Francisco.” I climbed the wooden steps from the sand, beginning to feel the cold a bit now that I wasn’t moving fast. “Out here for a meeting, then a bit of a holiday.”

  “You don’t take holidays. Who is she?”

  “Maybe I’m having a break for inspiration.”

  “Nah. Somebody special, eh.”

  “No,” I said automatically. “Or maybe a bit. But...no.”

  “I like the sound of ‘maybe a bit.’ Time you gave me some mokopuna.”

  “You’ve got two from Ana alone. And going to have another as well. That’s going to have to do you.” I pulled open the back gate to the B&B’s garden, and didn’t slam it behind me, because I was in control. No matter what.

  “I heard,” he said, “but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’d like to see you happy, my son. No chance you’ll be bringing her home to meet me this winter?”

  Every time. Every bloody time. “No,” I said. “
No. I won’t be bringing her home to meet you. That isn’t what this is, and it’s never going to be. No point in asking.”

  “Just because your mum left,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard, “doesn’t mean every woman would. Not if you choose the right one. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a good woman for you, and I reckon it’s time for you to find her. You like this one enough to take a holiday at the beach with her. That’s new, and that’s good. Take another one, maybe. Take some time and see. More to life than work, eh.”

  First Hope and now this? I opened the door the least bit, and look what happened. The thing I’d known would happen. I’d heard that I wasn’t enough, that what I could offer wasn’t enough. All of a sudden, it was more than I could take. I was going to say this, and then I was done. Once and for all.

  “Should I tell everybody who comes to me with their hand out that there’s more to life than work, and I’ve decided to ease off, then?” I asked, taking care to keep my voice down. “How about all those people who depend on me for their paycheck? Or just two people. We’ll start with them. We could ask my mum and Ana if they’d rather I’d stayed in En Zed, that I hadn’t pushed it all these years, had left myself some of that balance so I could’ve been ‘happy,’ but I reckon I know what they’d say. I wouldn’t be paying anybody’s rent with happiness, and no worries, I’m all clear that that’s what matters most to them.”

  It wasn’t getting better, saying it. It was worse, the pent-up frustration of years spilling over, and I was pacing the garden now. “And yeh,” I went on, cutting off his answer, which wasn’t like me at all, not with Koro. “I’m alone, and I’ll stay alone, because as far as I can see, I’m happier that way as well. Least I won’t be going on the piss, deciding I can’t cope with my job, that I can’t take care of all those people who depend on me, just because a woman’s left me. Just because I’m taking that as one more excuse to fail at my sorry life. So, no. I won’t be doing that. I won’t be taking another holiday with her, because I’m not looking for a woman, not the way you mean. I’ll come to visit you, but I won’t be bringing her to meet you, or bringing anybody else, either. It isn’t love, and it won’t be the next time, either. It’s sex, and that’s where it’s going to stay. She isn’t the mother of your grandchildren. She’s an arrangement I have for now for sex, and that’s all.”

  “Hemi.”

  Just those two syllables, and I stopped, breathed, and sighed. “Sorry,” I muttered. “But—no. No more. Tell me why you rang.”

  A pause, then, “Your dad needs some help again. And before you say anything—yeh. Got my hand out now, haven’t I, and I know it isn’t fair. He wasn’t the best dad, and he still isn’t. Should know that, shouldn’t I, as he isn’t the best son, either. But he’s still my son, and he’s still your dad, and you don’t desert your dad. No matter what he’s done. Just like you haven’t deserted me.”

  All the excitement, all the inspiration of my new ideas were gone. I sank into a wooden chair in the garden, put my head in my hand, and said, “What now?”

  I heard the sigh, the disappointment and the pain, and guilt sliced through me again. Guilt, and shame, too, that I’d hurt my grandfather, that he didn’t think he could ask this of me. That he thought I’d been talking about him, when he was the only one who’d been there. The one person, just like Hope had said. The person I’d been able to count on, always.

  “He’s lost that job in the mattress factory,” he said now, his own shame coming through so clearly. “For the drink, or worse, I’m thinking, though he’s not telling. He says he wants to go into a program, that he’s ready to get help. Maybe he just wants a place to stay, who knows, but if he wants to try, he should try. And I’m sorry to ask you. I’d shout him the money for it if I could, but—”

  “Yeh. I know.” Not that I believed. You could only have your hopes dashed so many times before you stopped hoping, and I’d stopped hoping a long, long time ago. “No worries. I’ll take care of it. If it’s a program, if he actually does it, send me their bank info and I’ll pay them. Directly. But I won’t pay him.”

  “No,” Koro said. “Course. We’ll see if he actually does it. And I’ll let you know.”

  “Right,” I said. “And...I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are.”

  He rang off, and I wouldn’t say it was the best moment I’d had that weekend. But it didn’t turn out to be the worst, either.

  To Worse

  I woke up and Hemi wasn’t there, so I got dressed, made myself a cup of tea, and then, because this was my last day in California, took a blanket and a book and opened the French doors into the courtyard. I tucked myself up into a rustic wooden chair in a corner under an arbor, got cozy under my blanket, and set out to enjoy the last tiny bit of my vacation.

  When I saw Hemi coming through the gate in running shorts and a sweat-soaked T-shirt, I started to get up before I realized he was on the phone and sat down again. And then I heard it. I heard it all. All the pain in his voice, all the things he hadn’t told me. And the thing that cut me deepest of all.

  “It isn’t love, and it won’t be the next time, either. It’s sex, and that’s where it’s going to stay. She isn’t the mother of your grandchildren. She’s an arrangement I have for now for sex, and that’s all.”

  I didn’t really hear the rest of the conversation, because I wasn’t listening. I was sitting frozen, wishing I could rewind the tape and forget what I’d heard.

  Hemi hung up, stood and put the phone back in his pocket, and walked toward the room. And then he saw me and stopped.

  “Morning,” he said, his face at its most expressionless.

  “Morning.” I got up and began to fold my blanket as if it mattered that I get the corners straight, unable to look at him. Not yet. Not for a minute.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you. What time do we have to leave for the airport?”

  I had the blanket folded at last, so I led the way into the room, and he followed me.

  “Hour or so,” he said. “We have time for breakfast before we go. Uh...that was my grandfather.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeh.” He stood in the middle of the room, sighed, and ran a hand over the back of his head. “And I’m thinking you heard that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry. I was feeling a bit...pressed.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled out my suitcase and started to pack. “I heard. Do you mind if we don’t talk about this? I got it yesterday, I’m pretty sure. And I get it better now.”

  “Right. Fine.” He went to take a shower, and we headed downstairs for breakfast.

  You could call it awkward. Or you could call it awful. Either one worked.

  We began the hour-long drive back to the city in silence, and I sat in the passenger seat and looked out at the ocean. It had started to rain while we were at breakfast. Gusts of wind shook the car, and the swells were higher now, the waves angrier. Coming in and going out the way they’d been doing for thousands of years, the way they’d be coming in and going out for thousands more.

  This was sad. Yes, it was. Sad for Hemi, and sad for me. That I couldn’t help him, and that he couldn’t be there for me, not in the way I needed him. He didn’t have it in him, not anymore. There was too much pain there, and it cut too deep. He couldn’t allow me to help him heal it, and he couldn’t help me heal my own pain, either, because we were too similar for that. We weren’t going to be each other’s salvation. It was what I’d always known, and what I’d let myself forget. Another fairy tale that wasn’t going to come true.

  So, yes, it was sad. It wasn’t the saddest thing that had ever happened to me, though, no matter how it felt right now. Sometime down the road, in a week or a month or a year, it wouldn’t even hurt. It would just be a mistake, something I’d tried that hadn’t worked out. At least I hoped that was what it would be, because that sure wasn’t how it felt right now.

  All the same, it wasn’t until we wer
e crossing the Golden Gate Bridge again that I decided. The soaring span had represented what this trip had meant to me, all those foolish hopes and dreams. And even then, “decided” was the wrong word. The words were coming out of my mouth as if I’d thought them up, but I hadn’t. It was more that those few sentences Hemi had spoken had settled something inside me, had shifted the unruly pieces of our non-relationship into a pattern that was too clear to ignore anymore.

  “I can’t do this,” I said.

  “Pardon?” He glanced quickly across at me, then back at the rain-slicked road.

  I reached over and turned off the car radio. “This keeps happening, doesn’t it? I have to ask myself why, and the answer’s pretty obvious. We keep having what’s basically the same conversation, and I keep walking out on you. Running away, more like. And then I change my mind and come back. And I’m doing that because I keep hoping, in some stupid place deep down inside me that still believes in fairy tales, that I’m wrong. That there’s more to this than I know there really is. That you care more than you’re saying, or that I care less, so it’s all right, and it’s enough. But it isn’t all right, and isn’t enough, and that’s why I keep leaving.”

  “I know you want more,” he said. “But—”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t need to hear him say it again. “I get it. You can’t. It’s what I said all the way back in the rose garden. The person sending mixed messages isn’t you. It’s me. And it’s time to stop. I can’t afford to...to wallow in drama like some college girl who doesn’t have enough real problems in her life. And I can’t believe you want that either, or that you’re enjoying this. You don’t want drama, and this is too much drama for either of us. You’ve told me what you want, and it isn’t a girlfriend. It’s a mistress, and I can’t be a mistress.”