by Joey Bush
I nodded, still trying to wrap my head around everything that Daniel was saying. I’d been back in New York less than twenty-four hours. Basically, the short version of it was: my father had left everything to me, despite our last conversation being about him cutting me off.
“Who did he leave the other billion to?” I asked.
Daniel looked at me as though he disapproved of my question, though I wasn’t asking because I wanted it; I was just curious. I also couldn’t think of anything else to say in regards to the news he’d just told me.
“Isla Lucas,” he said. “Your former stepsister.”
Now that was actually a shock. “Isla? Are you serious?”
“Yes. That’s exactly how it’s been outlined in your father’s will. He was quite clear, in fact.”
“Huh.”
I hadn’t thought of Isla in a really long time. In fact, the last time I thought of her was probably the last time I’d seen her, when her mother and my father finalized their divorce and they moved out of the penthouse. I remembered Isla lugging some duffel bag of stuff down the hallway. She’d been struggling with it, but I hadn’t offered to help.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m a little surprised, I guess. I didn’t even know that my father still talked to her. He never mentioned it to me.”
“Your father tried to mention quite a great number of things to you that you generally had very little interest in hearing about. Perhaps he did try to mention it to you, but you were too busy living your hedonistic lifestyle.”
I smiled. I knew Daniel didn’t like me, I knew Cal wasn’t fond of me, and I could just imagine how they were taking this news that most of what my father owned had been left to me.
10.
Isla
In a way, it was a good time to go to New York.
As I drove away, I let myself imagine that I was driving away from all my problems, that when I returned they would have magically disappeared. When I got into the city, I parked in a nearby parking garage, checked into my hotel, and then looked on Google maps to help me find the address Daniel Frederickson’s office.
It was weird being back in the city. I was not a city girl by any stretch of the imagination, and when I’d first moved here with Mom, I’d been wide-eyed with both awe and shock. Just the sheer amount of people, the height of the towering buildings, the frenetic energy of it all. I’d been away from the city long enough to forget how that felt, and as I walked to the lawyer’s office, I could feel myself getting swept up in all of that again.
I found the office easily and went inside, taking the elevator up. A man in a suit and wire-rimmed glasses was standing there, as though he were waiting for me. I was surprised when he introduced himself as Alex’s lawyer. I figured he would’ve had an assistant have me sit on a couch and wait a few minutes for him.
“Nice to meet you, Isla,” he said, smiling as he held out his hand to me. “I’m Daniel Frederickson.” I shook his hand, hoping my palms weren’t too sweaty. We were on the twenty-seventh floor of a high rise, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of vertigo every time I looked out one of the windows. How did people actually manage to work in a place like this? “Why don’t we go into my office and have a chat.”
I followed him down a short hallway into a corner office with big windows. The walls were adorned with classical paintings in big, gold-gilded frames. The ceiling had fancy crown molding, and the whole place felt more like an art exhibit than a lawyer’s office. I sat in a leather wingback chair and Daniel went around and sat behind his desk.
“So, let’s just get right to it,” he said. “Alex has listed you as a beneficiary. He’s left you quite a large sum of money. One billion dollars, to be exact.”
I blinked, certain that I’d heard him wrong. “Pardon?”
Daniel smiled. “This is the kind of news that I like to deliver. Yes, Alex left you one billion dollars. Congratulations.”
“A billion dollars?”
“A billion dollars. Might I suggest that you hire a financial advisor? It’s quite a bit of money, and if you’re not accustomed to dealing with such a large sum, I can imagine it’s rather overwhelming.”
“I don’t even think I have a thousand dollars in my savings account,” I said. “And now you’re telling me that I have a billion dollars.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. He left it in a living trust, as opposed to a will, so you don’t have to deal with going through probate. The funds can be available to you almost immediately; Alex’s business associate, Cal Illes is the successor trustee, so he is the one with authority to transfer the funds to you. I told him we could arrange another meeting at some point.”
I nodded. “Okay. Sure. That sounds fine.” I kept waiting for someone to deliver the punchline, for Daniel to start laughing and say that it was all a joke. But he didn’t.
After I left Daniel’s office, I stood outside on the sidewalk, trying to get my bearings back. I was glad to be back on the ground floor, that was for sure. I pulled my phone out of my purse and called Sophie.
“So how’d it go? What happened?” she asked.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I said. “In fact, I don’t even think I believe it.” I paused, still unsure I could actually put words to it.
“Well, I won’t if you don’t tell me!” she said.
“He left me money.”
“I knew it.”
“A lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“It’s . . . he left me one billion dollars.”
“A million dollars?! Wow! Isla, that’s awesome, you’ll be able to pay off the gym and maybe do some investing—”
“No, not a million. A billion. With a b.”
Silence. Several seconds of it, which, for Sophie, was definitely saying something.
“Did you just say a billion, with a b?” she finally said.
“Yes, with a b. A billion.” I didn’t know if I was going to jump for joy or burst into tears. Maybe both. I leaned against the side of the building. “I’m having a hard time believing it myself.”
Sophie let out a yell, so loud that I had to pull the phone away from my ear. When I put it back up, the yell had transformed into laughter. “Oh my god!” she was saying. “I can’t believe this! You lucky bitch! This is like out of a movie or something! Holy shit, Isla. Your ex-stepfather has just made you a billionaire. Wow. Does your mom know?”
“No, I haven’t told her yet. Well, she knew I was coming here and having a meeting with one of Alex’s lawyers, but she didn’t know.”
“Holy shit. She’s going to freak.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
My mother had met Alex when I was fourteen; our ninth grade class had taken a three-day trip to New York City and she’d been a chaperone. She was coming out of a bagel shop and he was leaving (or vice versa, the story changed) and one bumped into the other, and it was very Hollywood movie.
So was the fact that he was a billionaire, this CEO on Wall Street, though you wouldn’t have known it that day, because he was wearing a golf shirt and shorts, nothing flashy. And Mom was a secretary, back when they still called it secretary and not administrative assistant. She worked for the town hall, in the building department, which was a decent enough job but there wasn’t a lot of money left over for extras.
And then there was their whirlwind romance, which meant Mom and I moved from our two-bedroom ranch into Alex’s penthouse on the Upper East Side. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before and I felt as though I were visiting a foreign country.
“I’ll call you a little later, okay?” I said to Sophie. I wanted to go back to my hotel room and have some seclusion so I could absorb this news.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “I’m so excited for you!”
I put the phone in my purse and was about to start walking when I saw him. My former stepbrother, Levi, strolling down the sidewalk like he owned the thing. I almost didn’t say an
ything, because I thought he was just going to walk by—and he certainly wouldn’t recognize me—but then he turned at last second and headed for the building. He must be going to meet with Daniel. I wondered if he knew yet that his father had left some of the money for me.
His hand was on the door, pushing it open, but then he stopped in his tracks, his head swiveling toward me. Someone was right behind him, but he didn’t move, he just stood there, looking at me.
“Excuse me,” the man behind him said.
Levi didn’t appear to hear him. A smile broke out onto his face. “Well, I’ll be,” he said.
“Could you get the hell out of the way?” the man said. Levi turned and looked at the man, who must’ve recognized him as Alex Bassett’s son, because he flinched and all the color drained from his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was you,” he mumbled. “I’m late for a meeting.” He skirted around Levi and scurried inside.
Levi had that effect on people, even lawyers who were twice his age. He still looked as handsome as I remembered him, and part of me wanted to hug him, but another part of me just wanted to run the other direction. Levi had been both kind to me and incredibly cruel. When Mom and I first moved in, he’d been welcoming and showed me around. The place was massive, and it was easy to get lost; more than once I’d end up in a different room than the one I was looking for. One night, I was sitting in the living room (there were two of them, plus a more casually-appointed family room), trying to figure out how to get the TV to turn on. Well, the TV was on, but it was just a blue screen, and I was panicking, thinking I’d broken it somehow, because I’d knocked the remote onto the floor. Levi sat down on the couch next to me, showed me the right button to push to get the channels to come on. The Shining was playing, and we discovered that we shared a love for both Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King. We stayed up long after the movie was over, talking, and that still remained one of my favorite memories of all time. I began to feel a little better about this whole moving thing, about suddenly being uprooted from where I’d grown up my whole life and transplanted to this completely different world.
But then a few days later, I got home from school to find that Levi had some friends over, and they were in the den, watching a movie. Without even really thinking about it, I went in and started to sit down on the couch, next to a boy I didn’t recognize. Levi was in the recliner, next to the couch. I was about to say hi and ask what movie they were watching when Levi spoke.
“Yeah, I don’t know if that couch is going to be strong enough.”
I froze; it felt like blood had turned to ice. I could still remember exactly how it felt, and the smirks and laughter from his friends. If he’d said I don’t know if the couch is going to be big enough, I could’ve let it go, I could’ve believed that he meant there were just too many people on it for someone else to be able to fit comfortably, but he hadn’t chosen that adjective. One of the kids made a snorting sound, like a pig, and the others laughed, including Levi. I was too stunned to cry; I just left without saying a word.
It happened like that over the years, until our parents divorced when I was nineteen. Levi would be kind to me when it was just the two of us, but whenever his friends were around, he was the class clown, always with a sharp insult on the tip of his tongue, just for me. When Mom and I moved back to Maryland, I figured that I’d never see Levi again, and I was fine with that.
But now here he was. He was tan, he looked incredibly healthy, his thick, light-brown hair was tousled, as though he’d just blew in from some big adventure. I was aware of the looks women threw in his direction as they walked past us, like they couldn’t help but be magnetically drawn to him. It was like there was something in aura that just drew people to him, like moths to a light.
I had really thought that I’d never see him again. Except here was, right in front of me.
11.
Levi
I pulled my hand back from the door and stepped to the side so the other people behind me could go in.
“Isla,” I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. I squinted. “Is that you?”
She looked completely different. I wouldn’t have recognized her if I’d passed her on the street; in fact, I would’ve done a double take just because she was damn fine. But that wasn’t the stepsister I remembered; the stepsister I remembered was a pudgy sixteen-year-old with zits and greasy hair that she was forever trying to get into one of those messy buns and always failing miserably. But she’d finally figured it out, and a whole lot more. “Wow,” I said.
The expression on her face stayed the same. “Levi,” she said. I couldn’t tell if she was glad to see me or not. Probably not. “I’m really sorry about your father. I was very sad when I heard the news.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for coming up here. I know that would’ve meant a lot to Dad. What are you doing right now?”
“I was just getting off the phone with a friend,” she said. “I wasn’t planning on being up here, but then . . . I got a call from your dad’s lawyer. Which is why I’m here.” She looked at me closely, and I could tell she was trying to figure out if I knew or not. I kept my face neutral, waiting to see if she’d say anything. She didn’t.
“Well, what are you up to now? Want to go get a drink? I could use a drink.”
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s get a drink.”
We walked a few blocks to Artemis and went inside and sat at the long mahogany bar. Holy fuck, I could not get over how different she looked! Not just that she’d lost a bunch of weight, but her whole demeanor seemed different. Did she know how good she looked?
I ordered a whiskey and coke and she got a martini. When the bartender brought our glasses over, we held them up and toasted Dad.
“So . . .” I said. “How’s everything been with you? It’s really been a long time since we last saw each other.”
“I know. Things have been going all right.”
“You’re back in Maryland?”
“Yeah. And you? You’re still living here?”
“I’m kind of all over the place. I was actually in Ibiza when I got the call that Dad had died. So I got on the next flight I could and came back here.”
She nodded. “You look like you just got back from someplace tropical.”
“You ever been?”
“No.”
“We should go sometime. I think you’d like it. I’ve got a place out there and everything. But we can talk about that later. What have you been up to?”
“My friend and I opened a gym.”
Ah-ha. That explained it. “Well, you look great.”
She took a sip of her drink and gave a tiny smile. “Not the fat girl you remember, huh.”
“You weren’t fat. A little . . . on the heavier side, maybe, but—”
Her eyes flashed angrily. “Do you think you’re being kind right now? Do you think you’re actually saying anything anyone wants to hear?”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you—I’m saying that you look amazing. I’m trying to give you a compliment, actually.”
“I appreciate the compliment, however late it might be.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is I was totally content with never having to see you again, unless it was in some magazine I was browsing through at the grocery checkout.”
I cringed. “Yeah, well, the only reason I ever end up in those magazines is because I hook up with the wrong person.”
“You can hook up with whoever you want, for all I care,” she said. “But I’m really not interested in hearing anything you think about how I look.”
“Even if it’s to tell you that I think you look incredible?”
That was a little hard to believe; what girl didn’t want to hear she looked good?
“You’re an ass,” she snapped, and then she picked up her drink and splashed it on me. She slammed the glass down on the bar and stormed out.
I sat there, feeling the cold liquid seep i
nto my clothes and run down my face. Believe it or not, such a thing had never happened to me before, and now I could only sit there in surprise. I wasn’t even mad; just incredulous that it had happened in the first place.
12.
Isla
I ran out of the bar before I could break down into tears. What the hell was wrong with me? Had I just thrown my drink on him?
I hurried along the sidewalk, hoping that he wasn’t going to chase after me. I glanced over my shoulder and didn’t see him, but I took the next left and then another right just in case. I didn’t know where I was going, only that everything that had happened in the past week was too much for my brain to handle. I kept walking and didn’t stop until I’d arrived at Central Park.
It was a nice day out and most of the benches were occupied, but I walked until I found a free one. I sat down and pulled my phone out of my purse and called Sophie back.
“You’re not going to believe what just happened after I got off the phone with you,” I said.
“What?” she asked. “Did you find out that Alex left you his penthouse, too?”
“No. Worse than that. I just ran into Levi.”
“Ew.”
“And he asked if I wanted to go out and get a drink with him, and I said yes.”
“Ugh, double ew! Why, Isla? Why would you hang out with him?”
“So I could throw my drink in his face?”
“Did you?”
“I might have.”
“Well then I take back what I just said and I totally applaud you for doing that! You really did that?”
I thought back to the expression on his face after I had, which was actually not as shocked as one might’ve expected. Maybe he knew he had it coming. Maybe he knew he deserved it.
“I truly wish I could’ve been there to see it,” Sophie said. “He was such an ass to you. So . . . what are you going to do now? You could go anywhere, you know. It’s like you’ve won the lottery. Except better, because I don’t think anyone’s actually ever won that much in the lottery.”
