This was nothing. Jen registered for a full roster of classes for the winter without any further hesitation. The balance due posted to her account nearly made her lungs seize.
This was the right thing to do, she reminded herself. She logged out, then went downstairs to negotiate a loan from her mother.
She might be living here, paying it back in increments, for twenty years, but Jen didn’t care. She had a purpose. She had a dream. And she was going after it.
It must just have been human nature that made her want to call Zach and tell him so.
Or maybe do something truly mature, like say ‘nyahhhhh’ into the phone and hang up on him. That would impress him. Guys went for that behavior all the time.
When they were six.
Which, she reminded herself, didn’t exactly put Zach out of the picture.
Did six-year-olds kiss like he did? Jen didn’t want to know.
Chapter Ten
Jen had hit a nerve. It wasn’t strictly true that Zach didn’t have a dream or a goal, but it was true that he hadn’t visibly done much about pursuing his objective. He had never even named it, for fear of his father’s decimation of it.
Zach wondered whether his father would have risen from the grave to destroy the notion of his son becoming an ‘artsy-fartsy liberal’. If sheer willpower was the only credential necessary to haunt someone from the great beyond, Zach figured he could count on his father showing anytime now.
There hadn’t been room for Zach’s dreams in his father’s universe: Robert Coxwell’s children were supposed to want what Robert Coxwell had decided would be best. The only possible choice was to become younger versions of Robert Coxwell: to get good enough grades to go to law school, to graduate with honors and ace the bar exam, to practice criminal law, and thus amass fame and fortune. Especially the fortune bit.
But Zach had never been that wild for money.
Even so, the fate of Zach and his two older brothers had been decided when they had made their first yells and the particular shape of their genital equipment had been noted.
Zach had hated law school. He had hated it so much that it had been impossible for him to put up and shut up, as he expected his brother Matt had done, to just get through it and do something else afterward.
He sat on the floor and liked that photo from Venice more with every passing minute. He could remember now how he’d spent hours as a kid with National Geographic magazines, not reading the articles but looking at the pictures. He’d ‘borrowed’ money from his mother’s purse to buy every issue.
Come to think of it, they must be stored at Gray Gables somewhere. It was such a big house that nothing ever got dumped or given away: it just got nudged aside. The attic was an amazing place and had been another haunt of his as a child.
Maybe he should get the magazines back. Matt, who had bought out his siblings’ shares in the house after Robert’s death and moved in with his family, wouldn’t care. If anything, Matt would probably be glad to be rid of them. Zach could put them in a bookcase, right over there.
Of course, in order to do that, he’d have to go to Gray Gables to ask for them and to pick them up, and that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Gray Gables was where his father had been when Zach had called from New Orleans. Gray Gables was where his father had died.
Zach decided not to think about that.
He certainly wasn’t going to think about Jen’s kiss melting his Jockeys and how things could have proceeded in a really interesting way from there.
If he’d had a bed.
He thought about photography instead. He could remember now how he’d always been framing views in his mind’s eye, always composing things for a better effect. It was intuitive and it was the only thing that made him feel connected to the world.
It made him feel alive. The impulse to quit school, become a photographer and go to Europe to learn his craft had been a good one. Like most intuitive choices in Zach’s life, he had found a truth about himself without really looking for it. Maybe that was the only way to find the great truths in life: to guess, to follow instinct and see where it took you. Zach didn’t know. He did know that he liked the sense of adventure.
The less happy truth was that he’d chickened out of his big adventure. His grand tour hadn’t lasted nearly long enough, and he could attribute that to his own weakness. It’s hard to be the life of the party when there’s a language barrier. No one in Italy or France had gotten his jokes. That had given him more time to think than he’d been used to having.
In a strange way, he’d missed the relentless disapproval of his father. At least when Robert was chewing him out, Zach could be sure that the man knew Zach was alive. It had, in fact, been the only way he could get Robert’s attention. James had excelled at following in Robert’s footsteps, Matt had done so well in English classes—both lit and lang—that even though Robert hadn’t valued the humanities much, he’d been compelled to express approval. With those two options spoken for, Zach had gone with making trouble as a way to get noticed.
It had worked like a charm. Jen had nailed it in one.
In fact, marijuana had been the best charm of all. Robert had been convinced that the downfall of American society could be traced to the growing prevalence of recreational use of marijuana in the 1960’s, so Zach had figured that selling pot would be the best way to guarantee that his father’s eye was on him. It had taken a surprisingly long interval for his father to associate the demon weed with his youngest son, and that blind eye had led Zach to be more daring all the time in his exploits.
He wouldn’t think about the last one, not now.
He wouldn’t think about finally pushing his father too far.
He wouldn’t think about his stupid prank being the straw that had broken the camel’s back.
Zach looked at the Bridge of Sighs, captured in all its moody splendor. He thought then about traveling with Jen, how it would be fun to discover a place with her and to talk about it. They would get each other’s jokes. He would take pictures. They would, he was sure of it, be cheap about the same things and expansive about the same things.
Of course, that would only work if she started talking to him again which didn’t seem to be particularly probable at this point in time. He had a nasty feeling that there was only one way out of this mess, only one way back into Jen’s universe.
He was going to have to tell her the truth.
All of it.
Zach hated when that happened.
His whole future hinged on the answer to one question: was it possible for a son of Robert Coxwell to do something other than what Robert Coxwell had determined was the ideal and thus sole possibility for that child’s future?
The evidence was scant. Eldest son, James, was still a lawyer, albeit one practicing in the District Attorney’s office. But number two son, Matt, had cast all of that aside. He’d written a book, from what Zach had heard, not just the one on Boston’s history that he’d been pecking at for years, but a novel.
If anything smacked of being artsy-fartsy, it would have to be writing fiction.
Of course, the last time Zach had seen his brother, Matt—other than at his father’s funeral—had been when Matt had refused to help him get out of jail in New Orleans, if not for free then at least at a minimal charge. They’d come close to a fight then, for the first time ever, and Matt had given Zach a dose of hard truth.
Kind of like Jen. There seemed to be a lot of that going around.
He shied away from the prospect of confronting Matt, of facing whatever truth Matt would see fit to deal out this time.
Matt would be found at Gray Gables, and Zach wasn’t going there anytime soon. At least not voluntarily.
Then he had a thought. His baby sister, Philippa, had never finished law school but had started a successful landscaping business instead. Maybe Robert Coxwell’s rules had been different for girls.
Zach didn’t think so, though. His father had really given Phil a h
ard time, especially about her choice of partner. Nick Sullivan had been condemned without a hearing by Zach’s father. Maybe he and Nick, who were contemporaries but had never been friends, had more in common than Zach had realized. Maybe Philippa could give him some pointers about charting his own course.
Maybe it was time he found out.
Roxie sighed and stretched, putting her chin on Zach’s knee. He rubbed the back of her neck, liking her warmth against him. “We never took Phil and Nick a gift for their new baby’s arrival,” he told the dog, who didn’t appear to be inclined to discuss the matter.
In fact, her only reply was a long whisper of a dog fart.
Zach sipped his champagne, wishing Jen had stayed to drink some of it with him. It didn’t taste that good to him in her absence. “Jen would have told me that I was wrong,” he told Roxie. “Just the way Matt told me what was wrong and I told him he was wrong even though he was right. Jen would have told me to apologize, to straighten up and treat my family the way I’d like them to treat me.”
He eyed the framed photo, then put his half-empty glass aside. He remembered Jen’s defense of her family and their idiosyncrasies, on her insistence upon their mutual respect. Maybe his family wasn’t close because none of them ever bothered to say they were sorry. Maybe they weren’t close because they didn’t treat each other with any tolerance and respect. Zach suspected that Jen would have said that apologizing, especially when he had to admit he’d been wrong, was something an adult would do.
Zach was ready to be an adult.
Let the rest of the champagne go flat.
“C’mon, Roxie, let’s go for a ride in the car.” The dog bounded to her feet, instantly awake at the prospect of one of her favorite activities. Zach was sure that she’d learned ‘ride in the car’ immediately after ‘out’ and ‘walk’. He was still working on ‘no’ and had a feeling he always would be.
He picked up her leash and his keys, a combination that never failed to delight her. “We’re going to score a baby gift, then we’re going to Rosemount. Not Gray Gables. The other side of town where the troublemakers are. Who knows? Maybe it’s where I really belong.”
* * *
Something was wrong with this picture.
Nick Sullivan opened the front door to find his brother-in-law standing on the porch with a gift and a large wagging dog.
Nick looked Zach up and down, in no mood to cut him any slack. “Got the wrong address?” he asked.
It sounded almost as irritated as he felt, having spent the night bouncing a screaming baby, trying to ensure that Phil got some sleep so that she could prep today for her big presentation tomorrow. This morning, his grandmother, Lucia, who actually owned the house, had insisted that it was time to repaint the kitchen, that it had to be done today and that it had to be chartreuse, although she couldn’t decide upon the precise shade of limey green. Michael, Nick’s four-year-old son had woken up with a messy cold that precluded his going to nursery school and Phil had been on the phone all morning.
Nick was not in the mood to entertain his trouble making brother-in-law and he was not in the mood to be hoodwinked, blackmailed or otherwise bamboozled into anything he might regret. He stood on the threshold, barricading entry. The dog sat down, apparently understanding from Nick’s attitude that it should stay put.
“I don’t think so,” Zach said with his usual easy charm. “Doesn’t my sister live here?”
“She’s out,” Nick lied. He made to shut the door. “You’ll have to come back another time.”
“Then why is her truck here?” Zach asked. He gestured to the pickup in the driveway emblazoned with the logo of Phil’s landscaping company. He grinned with familiar confidence. “Or are you just not that happy to see me, Nick?”
“How irrational that would be,” Nick said wryly.
“Okay, so we didn’t get along when we were teenagers…”
“There’s the understatement of the century.”
“But we’re family now…”
“Don’t remind me.”
“And I’d like to patch it up.” Zach jiggled the box as if it would tempt Nick. “I even brought a present.”
Nick eyed the pink bow atop it. “Presumably not for me.”
“I’m not sure the terry jumpsuit would fit,” Zach said with some solemnity. “And you probably don’t need the snaps in the crotch these days.” He winced. “At least I’m hoping so.”
“Thank you for that.”
“But the sales clerk assured me that it was just the thing for a baby girl.”
Beverly Lucia screamed right on cue, then began to wail. Nick passed a hand over his forehead in exhaustion as Michael began a hiccupping cry for attention.
“That’s some duet you’ve got going,” Zach said.
“I don’t have time for your games today, whatever they are.” Nick started to close the door, but Zach stopped him with one hand on the knob.
“I’m not bad with kids,” Zach said, to Nick’s astonishment. “Maralys even says so. You want a hand?”
It was tempting to shut the door in Zach’s face, especially as this would traditionally have been a set-up to a joke that led to further inconvenience and frustration. Nick hesitated. Maralys had been saying lately that Zach had a special touch with Zoë. “Why are you offering to do this?” he demanded, knowing his eyes were narrowed with suspicion. “We both know that playing nice isn’t your game.”
Zach looked away, then glanced back at Nick with a rueful smile. “But I’m trying to be an adult. I have to say that it’s not as easy as it looks.”
“Why now?”
Zach shrugged, so obviously and uncharacteristically awkward that Nick was intrigued. “It’s kind of past due, wouldn’t you say?”
“Why do you need to see Phil?”
Zach looked around himself, so uncomfortable that Nick expected either a bald lie or the truth. Zach met Nick’s gaze abruptly and he put his dime on the second option. “I need to ask her how a Coxwell can not be a lawyer.”
“With difficulty,” Nick said quickly.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Maybe it’s easier now that your father is gone.”
Zach shoved a hand through his hair, looking and sounding considerably more human than Nick had ever remembered him being. “I’d like to think so, but Phil will know better.”
Nick tried to fight his impulse to agree. “Why wouldn’t you want to be a lawyer?” Nick leaned in the door. “You did a great job with that contract to take care of Beverly. Phil said it was a masterpiece and that you didn’t even ask for help from any of them.”
“As if I would!” Zach said with a shake of his head. “Wouldn’t they have all loved it if I’d admitted failure?” He straightened before Nick could say anything. “No, I had to do it myself. I was glad everyone agreed that it was the right thing to do.”
There was a glint in Zach’s eye that was new, new to Nick anyway. That document rejigging the distribution of Robert’s assets had been a surprise, not just because it was an admirable legal document but in the thoughtful impetus that had driven it. Was Zach changing? Finding his conscience? Thinking about other people for a change?
But Nick wouldn’t be suckered, not by Zach anyway. “I shouldn’t let you in here. You’re a bad influence. My kids could learn things from you that I’d rather they didn’t know.”
Zach leaned closer, his manner confidential. “Then I’ll make you a deal. Let me talk to Phil today and I promise that I won’t teach Michael how to drive.” Zach looked serious.
Nick considered this. “You’re the one who taught Phil to drive,” he remembered, speaking with some caution. He’d seen his life pass before his eyes far too many times when Phil was at the wheel. It was the only time she was aggressive and devil-may-care.
Not a big surprise, when you considered who had taught her how.
Zach nodded, mischief in his eyes. “We turned donuts on the ice on Mary Lake in the winter. She
was my star pupil.”
“And you taught her to pass.”
“You bet.” Zach nodded. “Gotta gear down for the acceleration and just go for it. You gotta know what your machine can do.”
“And if you’re wrong, you use up a life.”
“You learn the limitations before you use up a life.”
Nick thought for one heartbeat about Michael driving like Phil and his decision was made. “Deal,” he said abruptly and flung open the door. “Come on in. Phil’s in the conservatory with Annette.”
Zach paused. “What’s Matt’s daughter doing here?”
“Homework. Studying the operation of a small business.” Nick grimaced as he strode down the hall, leading the way. “She could babysit, or paint the kitchen, but no. She’s doodling in the margins of Phil’s landscaping plans instead, making more work for Phil, who is too nice to say anything.”
“Bad day,” Zach asked lightly.
“It’s in the running for the worst day of the century.”
“The century’s young yet.”
“I’ll still put my money on this one.” Nick heard Phil’s voice more clearly as they approached the kitchen. She was on the phone again, probably trying to finalize details for her presentation the next day.
“Nick!” His grandmother called as they stepped into that room. “This green or the darker one? I think I prefer the lemon tones of this one. It’s more scrumptious, in a way…”
“I’ll be right with you, Lucia.” Nick pointed Zach in the direction of his sister and niece as Michael’s wail gained in volume. The dog bounded into the conservatory and Annette squealed with delight.
“This must be Roxanne!” she cried and immediately made a fuss over the dog.
Phil frowned and put a finger in her other ear as she leaned away from the noise to talk urgently into the phone. Nick shrugged an apology and she smiled a little.
He headed back for the stairs and a very unhappy toddler. “I knew that nap was too good to be true,” he muttered.
“What a voice,” Lucia said with approval as she listened to Michael wail. She nodded confidently to Zach. “He gets it from me, you know. It’s in his blood.” As she began to sing some part in Italian from an old opera, adding to the household concerto in her own way, Nick fought the urge to yell for silence.
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