by Joey Bush
And here she was now, ten feet away and closing the distance with those long-legged strides of hers, a big smile on her face.
“Isla!” she said, coming over like we were long lost sisters or something. “I almost didn’t recognize you! You look great.” She leaned down to give me a half hug; I started to get up to hug her back but ended up awkwardly half-standing as her arm went around me.
“Hi, Ella,” I said as she pulled away. I sat back down.
“Oh hey,” Levi said. He looked at Ella, then at me. “Sorry I’m late. I am in serious need of some food.” And he sat down like we had made plans with him or something.
His gaze went to Sophie. “Hey,” he said. “You’re Sophie, right? How are you?”
Sophie gave him a cold look. “What—are you stalking us or something?” she asked.
I felt my face flush. “Sophie,” I said. I took a big sip of my mimosa.
“No, this was pre-stalking,” Levi said, trying to make a joke. Sophie stared at him stonily. I still couldn’t look at him. “I was planning to get something to eat and then maybe stop by your hotel, Isla. I wanted to apologize.” He sat down before either of us could say anything.
I looked at Ella. “You can sit, too,” I said, even though I didn’t really want to sit with her. Was I just being immature? Should I be adult enough now to be able to sit next to someone who I found completely intimidating?
“Thanks,” Ella said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d mind or not. I’ll just get a latte, though; I already had breakfast.”
Great. Was it too late to cancel my order of eggs benedict?
“We actually do mind,” Sophie said.
“She’s just kidding,” I said loudly. “Ella, this is my best friend, Sophie. Sophie, this is Ella, she’s one of Levi’s . . . friends.” Still to this day, I wasn’t sure what exactly they were. I knew they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend back when we were teenagers, but they were certainly more than just friends. I snuck a glance at Levi, who was stretched back in the chair, looking completely at ease. Our waitress hurried over when she saw him.
“I think I’m going to have to go with the pancakes,” he said. “I was thinking Belgian waffle on the way over, but now pancakes sound good.”
The waitress looked at him eagerly. “Did you want the blueberry buttermilk pancakes, or the banana walnut?”
“Hmm.” He looked at the three of us as though expecting our input. “I guess I’ll have the blueberry buttermilk.”
The waitress grinned. “Excellent choice. Those are my favorite.”
Sophie oogled her eyes at me, trying to bite back her laughter. Ella ordered her latte, and the waitress left, though not before giving Levi another flustered, shit-eating grin.
“Are girls just constantly falling all over themselves when you’re around?” Sophie asked him, an accusing note in her voice.
“Huh?” he said, as if he had no idea what she was talking about. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe for people like him and Ella, they were just so used to it that it seemed normal. Maybe they thought that was how people actually acted, not just to them, but all the time.
Ella nudged him with her elbow. “You should’ve ordered a coffee, too,” she said. “You look like you need it!”
She laughed, and then I started to laugh too, because it seemed like she was trying to make a joke, even though it wasn’t really that funny.
“He had a rough day yesterday,” Sophie said.
“I know.” Ella nodded and squeezed his hand. “I’ve only been to a few funerals, but they’ve all been incredibly difficult.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Sophie said. I tried to kick her under the table but ended up kicking Levi.
“We playing footsies?” he asked, an amused smile flickering across his face.
I flushed and looked down. “That wasn’t me,” I said.
“What are you talking about then?” Ella said.
“Oh, I’m talking about the fact that he threw up all over Isla’s purse.”
Instead of looking completely mortified, as I would have, Levi just looked mildly chagrinned. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “About that . . .”
Ella laughed. “Oh, Levi, you didn’t,” she said. “Let me guess—you were drinking scotch. This very thing happened the last time you tried to drink scotch. You know you can’t handle your liquor.” She gave me and Sophie a conspiratorial look. “He can handle all sorts of other things, but he and alcohol just don’t seem to mix.”
“Hey, hey, now, we don’t need to go spilling all of my secrets,” Levi said. “And to be fair, I didn’t have anything to eat beforehand and no, I’m not really that big of a drinker. So it was a bit of a shock to the system.”
“Ah,” Ella said. “I love a good scotch.” She looked at me. “Did you have some?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
The whole situation felt completely surreal. You’d have thought I’d be used to surrealness at this point, but this was probably stranger than finding out I’d inherited money, then running into Levi again, then being back in the penthouse, him barfing on my bag. I felt like Sophie and I were spectators, watching Levi and Ella out on a date.
Things didn’t get much better when our food came. The eggs benedict was saturated in a thick, creamy Hollandaise sauce that was probably no less than two thousand calories. It looked delicious, but I wasn’t hungry, especially not with Ella right next to me, delicately sipping a latte out of a cup that was big enough to be a soup bowl.
Sophie had gotten stuffed French toast with a side of bacon, and she started eating, almost in defiance of Ella. The plate of pancakes the waitress brought out for Levi though, was the most impressive: four fluffy pancakes the size of Frisbees, stacked atop each other, butter dripping down the sides. He still had his sunglasses on but I could imagine his eyes lighting up as the waitress slid the plate in front of him, her arm brushing against his shoulder as she drew it back and straightened up.
“Well, you have just made my day,” he said, reaching for the maple syrup.
The waitress couldn’t hide her grin. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked him.
“I think I’m good for now,” he said. She lingered a moment but then left, not bothering to ask anyone else if they needed anything. Levi got to work drowning the pancakes in syrup and then he picked up his fork and happily dug in.
“I see your appetite hasn’t changed any,” Ella said, sipping her drink as she watched him eat. Sophie crunched loudly on a piece of bacon. I took my time cutting up the eggs benedict, the runny, bright yellow yolk exploding out from under the knife.
Levi was too focused on eating to be able to hold any conversation, so Ella turned to me.
“So,” she said. “How have you been? It’s probably been almost a decade since I last saw you.”
I wasn’t sure if she knew that Alex had left me money or not. It seemed like something Levi would’ve told her, but maybe he didn’t. Ella, I knew, had found success as a fashion designer; I knew this because I had happened to pick up an issue of Vogue the last time I’d been sitting in the waiting room at my OB-GYN’s, and there was her picture. It was a small picture, and just a quick blurb, but there she was. My stomach had tightened and I was overcome with an urge to look her up online, but I didn’t. She’d never been mean to me; she’d just viewed me as someone who didn’t travel in the same social circles as she did.
“She’s doing great,” Sophie said, before I could respond. “She’s just come into a considerable sum of money, in fact.”
“Oh?” Ella glanced at Levi, who was still eating.
“Yes. It’s really just me who’s the only plebeian sitting here, so you can wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your face.”
My jaw dropped, though probably I shouldn’t have been surprised. Sophie was never one who was afraid to speak her mind. And she had never been star-struck, never had any crushes on celebrities when we were younger, had a major dislike for people who thought
they were better than others just because they were good-looking or had money.
“Sophie!” I said.
But Ella looked unfazed. She took one more sip of her latte and then set it down on the table. “I should get going,” she said. She stood up, then reached across the table to brush her fingertips across Levi’s shoulder. She had to reach in front of Sophie to do so, and she took her time straightening back up.
“Call me,” she said to Levi.
He had almost finished eating. He set his fork down. “I will,” he said. He watched her walk away and then he looked over at Sophie. “You just chased one of my oldest friends off.”
“Maybe you should go with her.”
He and Sophie stared at each other for several long seconds, and then he burst out laughing.
“All right,” he said. “Look. I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s day, okay? Isla, I’ll give you a call later. I’ll let you two finish your meal in peace. And hey, Isla, I really am sorry about the whole purse thing. You’ll have to let me make it up to you.”
He stood up, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. He rifled through it and extracted a hundred dollar bill and a fifty, which he placed down on the table.
“My treat, okay?”
“You don’t have to go—” I started to say, but Sophie shot me a look. She’d keep up with the endless onslaught of giving him shit if he stayed.
“You’re going to have to meet up with Cal at some point,” Levi said. “I’ve got to give him a call soon, too. Why I don’t I plan on seeing you there? Down at the office?”
“Sure,” I said.
He smiled and winked at me, and then strolled off. In the opposite direction that Ella had gone.
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Did that just really happen?” she asked. “God, what pretentious assholes! Both of them!”
“They weren’t being that bad,” I said.
“You better not become one of them. I know you won’t, Isla, but still, you better not.”
“I can’t believe you said that to Ella.”
“Seriously? She’s coming over here, acting all fake nice to you. You couldn’t see through that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. And Levi wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Considering he managed to not puke on anything, yeah, I guess so far he’s having a pretty good day.” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction he’d walked off in. “He does look good,” she finally said grudgingly. “But who the fuck cares what he looks like? He’s still a douche.”
“He did really seem sorry. Don’t you think?”
“I guess so, but it’s probably just because he’s embarrassed.”
“He doesn’t really strike me as the type to get embarrassed. I don’t think he was.”
Sophie shrugged. “He is clearly interested in trying to get on your good side. Which, of course, you can totally use to your advantage.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I still think you still need to put him in his place. Teach him a lesson.”
“Really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Didn’t I just try to do that and it ended with me getting puked on?”
“Your purse got puked on and he probably doesn’t even remember anything from it. Yeah, I know to the outside observer it might sound like it’s juvenile, but as someone who was there and talked to you like every night on the phone about all the awful things he said to you, you are more than justified in doing something to hurt him. And the beautiful thing is, it will totally work. Because I saw the way he was looking at you. And I also saw the way Ella was looking at him. She still wants him, he wants you, so that puts you in control. It’s a beautiful thing. You have more power than you realize.”
I laughed. “You sound crazy.”
“Except I’m not! I can’t stand people like him, who think they can get away with whatever it is they want just because they’re good-looking, wealthy, or in his case, both. Well, guess what, Isla? Now you’re also good-looking and wealthy, and I hope that’s not going to turn you into some condescending, entitled asshole. I know it won’t, because I’ve known you basically our whole lives. But seriously, are you forgetting the horrible thing he’d say to you in front of his friends? How shitty you felt about it? What a fucking dickhead he was?”
I sat there for a minute, thinking about what she was saying. There was no way I’d ever be able to forget about those things; they were as indelible on my psyche as scars. Hell, the whole reason that I now looked the way I did was because I never wanted to have someone make fun of me the way he had. It’s not even that the things he said were particularly cruel or clever; rather, it was that feeling of other people looking at me, thinking I’m glad I’m not that girl.
“Listen,” Sophie said, “you know I’m not one to dwell on the past. I’m glad you’re not just sitting around, thinking about all the shitty things that Levi has said to you. But you’re in a great position now to do something to get back at him, something that will maybe make him think twice the next time he’s about to treat someone like they’re completely dispensable and only there for the amusement of him and his friends.”
And I could, all of a sudden, remember exactly how it felt to hear him make some wisecrack about my weight, and the way his friends would burst out laughing. The way I felt the first time I’d seen Ella. They were going out, but she’d come over first, and they were all in the living room, and Alex was talking to her about skiing in Davos. I stopped short when I saw Ella, because up until that point, I’d never seen anyone so beautiful in person before. And it wasn’t just that she was physically attractive: I could just tell by the way she was sitting there, the way she could hold her own in a conversation, how confident she was.
Alex had asked me to join them in the living room, and I did, only because I couldn’t think of an excuse not to. It was summer, so it wasn’t like I could say that I needed to get back to my homework. So I sat there on the couch, feeling my waist pushing against the elastic of the pants that I was wearing. I was wearing yoga pants back before they were a trend, not because I was interested in doing yoga, but because pants like jeans that required you to button them were too uncomfortable. Even with the elastic waist, I could remember exactly how my fat bulged over the top, despite my trying to further disguise it with a loose-fitting top.
I sat there, mostly, silent, while Alex and Ella talked; from what I could gather, Ella’s dad owned a house in Davos, which I later looked up and found out was in Switzerland. I snuck a glance or two over at Levi, who was sprawled on the other couch, flipping through the TV stations, looking bored. Finally, he turned the TV off, tossed the remote down, and asked Ella if she was ready to go. She stood up and stretched, exposing her perfectly flat, tanned belly.
“Why don’t you take Isla with you?” Alex asked, giving me a smile.
I could remember that perfectly the way he smiled, as though he couldn’t believe no one else had thought of the idea first. Alex was one of the smartest guys that I knew; shouldn’t he have been able to tell that someone like me was not going to be going out with people like Levi and Isla?
I also remembered the look of disgust that flashed across both of their faces. It was gone in a second, but it had been there.
“Sure,” Ella had said. “We’re going to—”
“No, that’s all right.” There was a part of me that wanted to go with them, that wanted to see what they did, that also just wanted to be seen with them, but I already knew how I wouldn’t fit in. “I’ve kind of got a headache.”
Levi and Ella both looked visibly relieved. “Hey, I’ll bring some food back for you,” Levi said. “Whatever you want.”
Then they both stood there, waiting, and I realized he wanted me to tell him what I wanted to eat. It looked like he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
“That’s all right,” I had said. “I’m not that hungry.”
Now, I looked back to Sophie, the m
emory of that day still as fresh in my mind as if it had just happened.
“You’re right,” I said. “They’re both the type of person who thinks they can do whatever they want and get away with it.”
Sophie grinned. “And now you can actually do something about it.”
Sophie and I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, poking into stores when we felt like it, stopping to get coffee when we needed a pick-me-up. Then, Sophie wanted to go to a spa, so we went and sat in a steam room, got massages, and then got facial masks just for the fun of it. We went and saw a movie, had dinner at a fancy bistro, and then got a few drinks before going back to the hotel room and falling asleep.
Sophie left after breakfast the next morning, making me promise to keep her posted on Project Revenge, as she had termed it.
“I will,” I said, giving her a hug. “And thanks again for coming up here. I’ll be coming back to Bel Air soon, so I’ll let you know when I’m in town, okay?”
“Sounds good, sweetie.”
After she was gone, I called Cal, who had left a few messages for me yesterday. I was supposed to go to down the BCM offices and meet with him.
“Are you available this afternoon?” he asked. “Could you swing by the office then? It shouldn’t take too much of your time.”
“Sure,” I said.
“How does one-thirty sound? I’ve got a lunch meeting, but that should be wrapped up by one and that’ll give me time to get back there.”
“One-thirty is fine,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
Bassett Capital Management was in the Financial District, in a skyscraper, surrounded by other skyscrapers, with people bustling in and out, talking on their phones, looking like they were in a rush, late to get somewhere very important.
I took the elevator up and told the receptionist who I was there to see.
“Of course. Cal will be with you in just a moment. Make yourself comfortable,” she said, gesturing to the waiting area, which was furnished with a leather couch and two matching chairs.
