Fucking hell. I pull out a fistful of cash and throw it in the direction of the front seat. “Just fucking go,” I tell him as the crumpled bills fan out over the front seat.
The money must be enough to overcome his doubts because he pulls away from the curb and less than ten minutes later, we roll to a stop outside a tiny yellow house. The house is surrounded by an ugly chain link fence, but inside is a meticulous garden. It is both unexpected and beautiful. It isn’t just filled with colorful flowers, but also with a few rows of tomatoes, leafy greens, and a squat, bulbous light-green pepper I have never seen before.
The garden also has marigolds, and that is where I spot Sylvie. On her knees among the orange flowers, pulling up weeds.
“Wait here,” I tell the driver and get out without waiting for his reply.
I cross the street without looking left or right. Not because I’m reckless, but because I can’t focus on anything but Sylvie. But when I reach the fence, I stop short.
She is humming an upbeat song, one I don’t recognize. And she looks happy…content…more peaceful than I have ever seen her.
That’s the moment when I know the truth.
My father hadn’t lied. Sylvie did leave me up in that penthouse to die. And then she ran right back to her mommy and daddy.
But even after the truth slams into me with the power of a semi, I don’t turn and leave. That decision will me feel more ashamed than anything else in the days, months, and years that follow.
Not only don’t I leave, I stay on the cracked sidewalk outside her fence and make excuses for her, desperately trying to reconcile what she did.
I decide this has to be my fault somehow, as I watch her in the garden, pulling weeds like the boy she’d claimed to love had not OD’d a week ago.
Eventually, she looks up. Not because she senses me there, but because she has to toss the weeds. However, she freezes when she sees me, face so visibly stunned that for a moment hope flares in my chest. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she hadn’t abandoned me like Javon said. Or if she had, maybe it had all been a mistake.
Deluded. This girl has me so deluded. Because I am honestly expecting her to say something nice to me. For her eyes to fill with worry as she asks, “Holt, what is wrong, my friend?”
But her stunned look soon disappears, morphing into something much worse. Fear. She tenses, looking toward the front door of the tiny house like she wants to make a run for it.
“Sylvie,” I call out to her before she can. Don’t run, I think at her. Soul tired. It feels like I have already run a thousand miles chasing after this girl. And between the leaden crushing world feeling and the alcohol, I don’t know that I have it in me to give chase again.
But at the sound of my voice, her face transforms again. This time an ugly anger appears, the type I never thought to see in Sylvie’s beautiful brown eyes.
And instead of bolting for the door, she comes straight at me, her dark face tight with fury as she hisses, “Go away. Go away now, Holt.”
Go away. “What do you mean?” I ask, honestly not understanding how she could turn on a dime like this. I mean, I know overdosing isn’t a good look, but… “You just left me there,” I say to her.
My head is swirling and I feel like I could pass out from being this far away from my building, but I stay on my feet because I want her to explain this to me. Want her to tell me exactly how she could claim to love me and agree to marry me and then leave me to die in my own vomit less than 24 hours later. But my tongue is too thick with emotion and alcohol to translate everything I am feeling. So, I end up yelling, “What the fuck, Sylvie? What the fuck?!!”
Her eyes widen and she looks over her shoulder again, like she is afraid someone might have heard me. Then she lowers her voice to reply, “I’m not going to talk to you about this. I do not want you here. So just go away. Please, go away.”
I am still standing but it feels like the world is tilting on its axis. She can’t be telling me to go away. She can’t be. “Do you understand how much I fucking love you?” I ask her, emotion and alcohol cracking my voice. “I would do anything for you. Just…come home with me. Please, please, Sylvie.”
I am a Calson. There is a long list of entire countries that wish they had a GNP that matches the value of the stock options I received just for being born. But here I am, begging this girl. This nobody who will never make as much in her lifetime as I make in a single day. Here I am, pleading, “I will do anything, Sylvie. Just tell me what to do.”
I mean it. I will do anything. Give her anything.
But she looks at me like I am worse than the weeds she’s been pulling out of the ground. Then she answers, “I don’t want to be with you. I don’t know why you are so obsessed with me. But I do not want you. I do not love you. I just needed the job and a roof over my head, so I did what I had to do. Said what I had to say. But my parents have forgiven me, so please go away and leave me in peace.”
Leave me in peace, she says. Like I’m a menace. Like the happiest summer of my life was the worst of hers. I search her face for even a little bit of remorse and find nothing. Only contempt.
And then a voice says, “Who is that you speaking to, daughter?”
I look beyond Sylvie’s shoulder to see a woman. Stout and short with the same wide nose and high round cheeks as Sylvie.
“Nobody, Mommy,” Sylvie answers, backing away from me. “He is asking after someone I do not know.”
I can hear the click of the woman’s tongue all the way from where I’m standing. “Oh, these college boys get worse and worse by the year with them drugs. Boy! You get out this neighborhood now. Go back to your books. Education only thing you need, child. Go’on now! Go on before I call the police come get you!”
Is she serious? I wonder through my Goose haze. Does she not realize who I am? How easily I could ruin her daughter’s life, and hers, if she crosses me?
But…Sylvie’s angry eyes are burning a hole through my heart, and the hopelessness that should have hit me as soon as I woke up in that hospital bed suddenly crashes down with the force of a tsunami.
In the end, I do go’on, stumbling back to the cab like I stumbled to the phone in my mother’s bedroom after she jumped off the balcony. I’m told I called 9-1-1 and there’s even a tape of it floating around that got played on a few new shows when they reported my mother’s death. I’d called 9-1-1 even though I knew she was already dead. The Calson bias toward action…
The last thing I hear as I turn and head back to the cab is Sylvie’s mother still tutting about the “state of dem college boys dese days.”
“These women ain’t no good sometimes,” the driver says when I get back in the cab. “We all been there, brother.”
His tone is friendlier now. Commiserating. But I can barely hear him over all the feedback in my head.
A fool. I had made a fool of myself over her.
That’s all I can think about on the drive back to New Haven.
Javon is waiting curbside when I arrive at my building, and if he’s surprised to see me come home hours after I left in a cab, it doesn’t show.
But just in case I still had any doubts that my new phone doesn’t have a tracking device installed, he asks, “How was Hartford?”
“Tell me what happened that night,” I answer.
“The night you OD’d?” he asks, raising thick eyebrows. Probably because I cut him off before he was even a few sentences into the story the first and last time he tried to tell me.
“Yeah,” I answer, needing to know now in a way I didn’t want to know then.
“She came running down here at, like, 4:00 AM and she told me something was up with her family and she was going to catch the first bus out.”
“And she didn’t send you up to get me?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“Nah, sure didn’t. She just cut out.” Javon answers. “But I didn’t like the look in her eyes, so I came to check on you just in case…”
Javon
trails off with a frown before he asks, “Did she tell the story different?”
I don’t answer, just breathe through my nose as I force myself to rewrite what I thought had happened between Sylvie and me this summer.
“You want to get inside?” Javon asks, his voice sounding as close as I have ever heard it to concerned.
You want to get inside?
I look around, and that’s when I notice it. The crushing feeling that has been plaguing me for months whenever I go outside. It’s gone. My legs don’t feel leaden, my mind isn’t screaming at me. And this time, it’s not due to a couple of popped or snorted pills, or the alcohol that steadily wore off on the trip back to New Haven.
You want to get inside?
The answer to that question is no, I decide. And despite the hot temperature outside, an icy chill settles over my heart as I say, “No, bring around the car.”
Proving he is worth every zero of his annual six-figure salary, Javon recalibrates without so much as a blink.
“Sure,” he says. “Where we going?”
“New York,” I answer.
My father doesn’t pay Luca six figures a year, so he looks a lot more surprised than Javon when I show up at his place on the Upper West Side.
Surprised and wary…
”Hey, Holt. What’s what?” he says carefully when he opens the door. Like a pitbull’s come for a visit.
He looks like shit, even more so when he angles his head into the hallway light. The entire right side of his face is mottled yellow and there is a dark purple bruise under one eye.
“Some dude catch you with his girlfriend?” I ask.
His brow lowers, eyes flickering with confusion. “No, some dude named Holt got pissed and hit me when I asked a few too many questions about the Jamaican girl he’d suddenly decided to keep at his apartment.”
And just when I thought I could not feel any more stupid about being duped by Sylvie.
But I don’t apologize. Don’t cry or make excuses either. That’s not the Calson way. And as of two hours ago, I have decided it is better to be a Calson than some fragile head case whose heart can easily be shattered by a girl who is only pretending to give two shits about him.
“Tell you what,” I say, instead of apologizing. “You take me to your tailor and I’ll buy you a new suit, too. Two if you let me stay here for a couple of weeks.”
Luca’s sleepy eyes become even more hooded. “You need a new suit? And a place to stay? For what?”
“For work,” I answer. “I’m starting at the Cal-Mart New York offices on Monday, so I’ll need to look the part.”
Ixtapa
Chapter Ten
Ten Years Later, New York
HOLT
“Mr. Calson?”
I look up from the text I’m sending to Zahir who’s in town tonight. Della, the PR consultant we hired when I was named acting CEO of Cal-Mart, stands in front of my office’s drop-down screen looking back at me expectantly.
“Do you have any initial thoughts?” she asks. Then she steps back so I have an unobstructed view of the screen which displays the headshots of nine beautiful women, tiled in a three-by-three square.
Della has done a good job, I decide, even though I hadn’t listened to a word of her presentation. Looking like a hopeful new crop of Bachelor contestants, the women on the screen offer fetching smiles. They’re all beautiful and just a few years north of twenty-five. Babymakers who Della believes will provide me with a second heir and merge well into my carefully crafted brand: Holt Calson, Trustworthy Billionaire of the People.
“I’d like to narrow the number of candidates down to six, then we can reach out to the top three for in-person meet and greets.”
So, all I need to do is eliminate six in total. Should be easy enough, but turns out it’s not. I study the square that makes up the final slide in Della’s Power Point deck. There are five blondes, three brunettes, and one redhead. But they’re so interchangeable that they remind me of one of those fashion avatar apps that lets users change everything but the underlying body. I feel the same about their bios. Nine women from good families who became doctors, lawyers, professional dancers, and nonprofit associates just like Mommy and Daddy wanted. Not a single disappointment in the bunch—I know this for certain because Della made sure each woman underwent a discreet background check—which means the chances of any of them smashing through a guardrail while loaded up with valium and alcohol is pretty damn slim. Unlike what happened with my first wife two years ago.
Each of Della’s candidates is a perfect specimen of womanhood. And I know every last one of them would be thrilled at the opportunity of marrying a guy like me after the prequisite year or two of dating in the spotlight is over. I should feel relief and the faint stirrings of anticipation. Instead, I want to yawn.
My phone buzzes, loudly vibrating on the glass table in front of me. I pull my eyes from the giant square of female perfection and see the green bubble of an incoming text. It’s Zahir, replying to the text I sent earlier.
Me: “Luca says you’re in town? Meet up?”
Zahir: “Yes. Drinks at Luca’s club tonight?”
It’s been a while since I saw either of my former Beaumont suitemates. And though none of us swing that way, I’m a hell of a lot more excited about spending time with Zahir and Luca than I am about taking any of Della’s candidates out on a date.
“Holt?” Della asks again.
I force my gaze away from my phone screen and try hard to refocus on the task at hand. But, shit…these women look like younger versions of my late wife, Tish. The same late wife who’d been celebrating our upcoming divorce proceedings when she made a wrong turn on a winding mountain road. And I had only married Tish because she was the complete opposite of…
I clamp down on my memories before I can finish the thought. Ten years have passed. By now, I should be past wanting to compare women to her. She doesn’t matter, and hasn’t mattered for a very long time.
“You know what? I trust your judgement,” I tell Della. “Go ahead and narrow down the candidates and then work with Allie to get them on my calendar.”
“Got it!” Della says with a huge smile that signals she already has a list in mind—and no doubt it’s better than any I would have come up with.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I trust Della completely. When I was named acting CEO of a then flagging Cal-Mart, she came up with my current “JFK CEO” branding. She also helped me craft a message and set up interviews and stories about my dedication to serving honest, hardworking Americans, right along with making sure I was in the right media spot at the right time. Because of Della, I was named “Sexiest CEO Alive” by a popular magazine at the exact same time I rolled out a well-received worker’s benefit program. Because of Della, America was easily distracted from the series of articles the New York Herald wrote up about how, under his father’s leadership, Holt Calson cut worker pay and hours until many of Cal-Mart’s employees were forced to apply for food stamps to get by. As of now, I enjoy a higher approval rating than JFK himself.
So yeah, if Della is as good a matchmaker as she is a brand consultant, I know her latest strategy will work. Dating the a young, talented, and attractive heiress a respectful two years after my first wife’s death will definitely send my Q score into a stratosphere the board wouldn’t be able to contend with—even if many of our shareholders, including my father, don’t love my plans to start taking on full-time employees and increase worker compensation.
“I won’t let you down,” Della promises as she gathers up her things.
“I know you won’t,” I answer, flashing her a perfunctory smile as I grab my phone to text Zahir back.
But before I’ve typed two words, Allie rushes in with her phone in both hands. “Holt, there’s something you need to see.”
“I’ll get out of your way,” Della says, starting toward the door.
But Allie stops her with a, “No, you should probably stay…” Then she
bends down to my eye level and presses play on what turns out to be a recently posted YouTube video.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!??!!” a familiar voice screams.
He is so loud that both Allie and Della wince. However, I keep my expression impassive as I watch my eight-year-old son kick over a table filled with art supplies, ignoring the gasps and cries of the other children as he shouts, “I will kill you! My father will buy all of you and kill your parents!”
The rant continues with a sobbing Wes throwing paint bottles and other craft supplies at anyone who tries to approach him, including a kind-faced man in a manager’s button-down shirt who attempts to talk to Wes in his faintly accented English. He gets a bottle of red paint straight to the chest for his efforts. After a tick of shocked disbelief, the man calls out in Spanish, “Alguien llame a Vee! ¡Ahora mismo!!”
Then noticing the camera for the first time, he says, “No, no, Señor. You must put that away…”
The picture tilts and then the screen goes dark as YouTube offers a repeat showing of “Richie Rich Cal-Mart Heir Loses His Sh*t.”
So, yeah…I can see why Allie told Della to stay.
With only three months to go until the Cal-Mart board decides whether or not to make my position permanent, my son’s epic meltdown ending up on YouTube a mere eight weeks after he was kicked out of his latest private school is not good.
I am definitely going to need some solid damage control after this.
Chapter Eleven
SYLVIE
That morning instead of my alarm, I’m awoken by the happy trilling of birds. Sun shines through my bedroom’s gauzy employee-issue curtains. It’s not often that the sun is up to greet me. It’s usually dark out when I leave my bungalow for my job as the director of the three different Kinder Clubs at our vacation village.
At first, I panic. Did I sleep through the alarm? What time is it? Where should I be?
But no, that’s not it. I spot the readout on my Samsung. It’s Sunday, my one day off every week. And unlike when I worked off-property in Jamaica, there aren’t any relatives at my front door wondering if I will be going to church with them. Taking the place of my mother who left me in Jamaica after Lydia’s funeral… and never came back.
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