by Joey Bush
I went over and sat down, tugging on my skirt. My feet hurt; I wasn’t used to wearing heels and having to walk long distances, and these shoes were a little tight. My best pair of high heels I’d left over at Brian’s house.
“Well hello there.”
I looked up. It wasn’t Cal, but Levi.
“Oh,” I said. “Hi. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“Levi requested that he be present,” Cal said, walking up behind him. “I hope you don’t mind. He will be taking over his father’s businesses; I don’t know if he told you that or not.”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t.”
Levi smiled and winked at me.
“Why don’t we all go into my office, then,” Cal said.
As we walked past the people sitting at their desks, I could feel their eyes on me. I wondered if they knew. I tried to keep my eyes ahead and watch where I was going so I didn’t end up tripping and falling. Levi strolled next to me.
We stepped into Cal’s office and he closed the door behind us. “Have a seat, Isla,” he said. I sat in one of the plush chairs positioned in front of his desk.
“I had no idea that Alex was going to leave me anything,” I said. “It really came as quite a shock.”
Cal smiled and pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I can imagine it was. But Alex was always very fond of you. Once we initiate the transfer of funds, the money is yours, of course, but I know he felt that you would use it to do something with yourself.” He shot a quick glance at Levi. “The reason that Levi is here is because he’s going to be taking a more active role here at BCM. Seeing as he has virtually no experience in the financial industry, I thought it might be good to start him off here.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine by me.”
“Very good,” Cal said. “There’s a few things we’ll need to go over.”
I slid forward on the chair and rested my forearms on the desk. He had a sheaf of papers that he was shuffling around. I tried to listen to what he was saying, but I was acutely aware of Levi sitting there, his gaze on me, that magnetic pull of his strong as ever. Was he even aware that he had it?
“Now, Daniel mentioned that he recommended you getting a financial advisor. Is that something you’ve done?”
“Huh?” I said. “Sorry, what was that?”
“A financial advisor,” Cal repeated, shooting a dirty look at Levi. “Do you have one?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, let me reiterate what Daniel told you—you should get one. This is a lot of money. We’d be more than happy to discuss your various options here, with us.” Cal smiled. “It would be appropriate, I think, Alex’s money being—”
“It’s Isla’s money now,” Levi interrupted. “And she should be able to do what she wants with it.”
“Yes, of course.” Cal looked beyond annoyed that Levi would interrupt him. “I’m not trying to influence you either way, Isla. But it is a lot of money, and it can be overwhelming if you’re not careful. You’ll have all sorts of people suddenly calling you up, once word of this gets out. And it will, whether you want it to or not. So it’s something to prepare yourself for.”
I nodded, even though I was thinking that I would never be able to spend that much money, not in this lifetime, no matter what I did.
When we had wrapped everything up, Cal walked me back out. I told him I needed some time to think about exactly what it was I wanted to do with all, or some of that money, and that I would get back to him.
I started to walk toward the elevator when I realized that Levi was next to me.
“You were just going to leave without saying goodbye?” he asked.
“Sorry.” I pressed the button for the ground floor. “This whole thing is a little overwhelming.”
“I’ll bet.” The elevator door opened, and he followed me in. “Got any plans right now?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, good. Me neither. We’re going to go shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“Yeah.” He nodded to my purse. “You at least need to get a new purse.”
He ended up taking me to Saks Fifth Avenue, which I’d walked by before, and peered in the windows, but had never gone in. The prices were astronomical. But that didn’t really matter now. But still:
I had never gone into a store and just spent whatever I wanted to.
Perhaps it was my mother’s influence, but I always checked price tags, looked for things that were on sale. I did not go without things during childhood, but we didn’t have a lot of extras and we certainly didn’t spend money on things that we didn’t need. That had carried over into adulthood, and I’d read the weekly circular to get the deals at the grocery store, or buy things when there was a promotion and you could get another one for free.
But now, I was supposed to be able to forget all that.
I could tell Levi was watching me. “So,” he said. “What is it you want? You can have anything, you know.”
Before I could respond, one of the sales people accosted us. “Mr. Bassett,” she said. She was a tall blonde woman, sleek and beautiful, with the sort of figure you’d expect to see walking down the catwalk at Fashion Week. “So nice to see you. I was very sorry to hear about the passing of your father. Are you looking for anything special, today?”
“I’m not, Rebecca,” Levi said, “but Isla here might be.” He gestured to me, and I forced a smile as Rebecca took notice of me for the first time.
“Hello there,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met before?”
“Probably not. I’m Isla. And I, um . . . I’m actually not quite sure what I’m looking for. I guess I’m browsing.”
“Purses?” Levi said. “Could you steer us in the direction of purses, maybe?”
Rebecca smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Right this way.”
“I’m still not sure if I’m going to get another purse,” I whispered as we followed her through the store.
“You really want to use a purse that someone puked on?”
“I love this bag. And I cleaned it.”
He grinned. “Well, I’m glad to hear you at least cleaned it.”
When we got to the handbag section, Rebecca asked me what type of bag I was looking for.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think I’m just going to browse.”
I expected her to leave then, but she lingered, talking with Levi, so I started to look at the bags on display, none of them really catching my eye as anything I’d want to actually use.
I looked at the price tag on the bag closest to me. The bag was a tiny thing, a black leather clutch with some gems on the outside. I gasped.
“What?” Levi said as he walked over next to me.
“This bag is almost two thousand dollars!” I hissed. The thing was literally the size of a large wallet. “It’s not even cute! It doesn’t feel any different than something I could get at TJ Maxx!”
“Where?”
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
There were some nice looking bags there, but every time I looked at the price tag, I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. It was insane to think that anyone would pay that much money for a purse. Thousands and thousands of dollars. And there were so many choices that even if I wanted to pick something out, there was no way I’d be able to decide.
“I need to get out of here,” I said.
I ran out of the store before Levi could try to convince me to stay. I hurried away from the building, even though I could hear him behind me, calling my name. He caught up with me in a few strides.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“I just needed to get out of there. It was a little overwhelming.”
He smiled. “If you keep wanting to use a purse that someone puked on, that’s fine. It’s your choice. I just thought that you might like to get something different.”
I stopped walking and looked at him. “It�
�s not that I’m totally attached to this idea of having a purse that still smells vaguely like barf,” I said, “that’s actually not it at all. I just . . . I don’t think you can understand.”
“Try me.”
“There were too many choices in there. And those purses were all way too expensive anyway.”
“You know, you can afford it,” he said. “Would you rather I get it for you?”
“No! That’s not the point. That would be completely stupid, anyway. It’s not about the money, obviously.”
“I think it is about the money, actually. It’s just the opposite problem of what most people have. You feel like you have too much of it, and since you’re not used to that feeling, you’re letting it paralyze you. Don’t think of it like that, though. Think of it like . . . you need to buy something. Say it’s a purse. Now, you can tell yourself, I can get any purse I want, which, understandably, could make you feel really overwhelmed, because there’s so many different options. Or, you could tell yourself, I’m going to get a new purse that is the same color as the one I have now, it’s just my new one isn’t going to smell like vomit. That’s a much more palatable way of dealing with things. Sometimes, you have to break it down into a more manageable size. The general population believes that it would be a dream come true to be able to get whatever they wanted, but the thing they don’t realize it how fucking overwhelming that can be, when you are thinking in gigantic terms like that. The thing is, most of those people will never be in the position to really be able to get whatever they want—there will always be some sort of limitation. You don’t really have that limitation, which can be a little frightening, especially if it’s not something you were expecting, or wanted.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. How’d you know?”
“I’ve always kind of felt this way. I mean, I know my upbringing was a lot different than many people’s, and I’ve always been used to things being a certain way, but I had to deal with limitations too, as a kid; those were the limitations my dad set forth. I didn’t just get whatever I wanted when I wanted it. I certainly got more than a lot of kids my age did, but it wasn’t just some free for all, despite how it may seem.”
“I did always think you were a spoiled brat.”
He smiled. “I was, a little. But not as much as I could’ve been. And then when I turned eighteen, I got access to my trust fund, so I was the one in charge. I could spend that money on whatever I wanted. And I did buy some stupid shit, but spending money just for the sake of spending it got old. I did buy one thing though, that I really love.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“You got any plans the next couple of days?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Well then I can show you. I just have to call Anders.”
“Who?”
“My pilot.”
He said it so nonchalantly, like it was totally normal to have your own pilot. “Where are we going?”
“It’ll be a surprise,” he said. “But we’ll have to go to a store so you can get a bathing suit. I assume you didn’t bring one with you.”
“I wasn’t planning on going swimming.”
“I know. But where we’re going, you’ll want to swim. You could go skinny dipping.”
“I’m not going skinny dipping.”
“Then let’s go get you a bathing suit.” He grinned. “I’ll help you pick it out.”
Levi still wouldn’t tell me where we were going, other than we needed a plane to get there, and I needed my passport, and it would be someplace like I’d never been before. There was a tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that I was being irresponsible, that I was supposed to be going back to Bel Air after I checked out of my hotel, not getting onto a private jet headed to who knew where, but a larger part of me felt excited by this new development, by the possibilities that suddenly seemed to open up.
*****
I’d been on planes before, but it was always a commercial flight, always flying coach, and usually there was a crying child within a row or two of me. The private jet that Alex had owned, and that had now passed down to Levi, was like a luxury hotel room with wings. That’s how it felt when I stepped onboard. Everything was upholstered in rich, butter-soft leather, the seats were all recliners, there were two couches, a huge TV, marble countertop in the bathroom.
“Um,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t want to come across as totally blown away by it, but I was. I had never been in anything this nice before, never even close, and now here I was.
“Welcome,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“So . . . are you going to give me any hints as to where we’re going?” I asked as I sat in one of the plush leather recliners.
“I’ll tell you exactly where we’re going. We’re going to paradise.”
“Paradise can be a rather subjective thing, you know.”
“Just one question,” he said. “Do you like to dance?”
19.
Levi
I swear, Alfie had a sixth sense about when I was coming to Ibiza.
Isla and I had only been at the villa for about an hour when there was a knock at the door. That bum ba dum dum that meant it was Alfie.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
I actually did need to talk to Alfie, though it certainly wasn’t the time for it right now. I was going to suspend my involvement in the little side business we had going on here. If he wanted to keep on doing it, that was certainly fine with me, but now that I was going to be taking over BCM, I knew I needed to sever ties. But that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with Isla present.
She was out on the terrace, talking on the phone with her mother, who had called, wanting to know when Isla was going to be back in Bel Air. Alfie kept looking at her and I was overcome with a very strong urge to punch him in the face and tell him to fuck off.
“How’d you know we were here?” I said. “I wasn’t actually planning on coming back out here until next week.”
“Yet here you are,” he said mildly. “No, Rasheed saw you guys getting out of the cab here and mentioned it to me; thought I’d come over and surprise you. Also, I need a check.”
“Sure,” I said. “But listen, man. Just keep it quiet about the business, okay? Isla doesn’t know anything about it and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Alfie nodded. “Yeah, yeah, of course, mate,” he said. “I won’t say a word.” He glanced back over at Isla. “She’s certainly a looker. You’re a lucky man. I don’t think I’ve seen her before. You hit that yet?”
“Not yet.”
Alfie laughed. “Maybe not so lucky. Mind if I give it a go?”
“Uh, yeah, bro, I do. Just because I haven’t yet doesn’t mean I’m not going to.”
“Fair enough. Listen, I’ll be on my way so you can get to it; I’m just going to need a check before I go.”
I glanced over at Isla, whose back was to us. God, she had a nice ass. I’d have to have the chat with Alfie later. I didn’t want her to be around for it.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll get you the check.”
I wrote the check to Alfie, who would go to my bank and cash it. We’d experimented in the past with giving him a debit card with access to the account, but he was partial to using it as his own personal bank account, so I either had to go down there and make the withdrawal myself, or give him a check, though I supposed this would be one of the last times that I’d be writing one to him. Really, I knew I should just put the account in his name.
“Thanks, mate,” he said.
“No problem. I’ll be in touch.”
He left, and a few minutes later Isla got off the phone. “Was someone here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “My friend Alfie. He was just stopping in to say hi.”
“Oh. He didn’t have to run off like that.”
“I’m sure we’ll run into him later. You okay?” She was frowning
slightly as she set her phone down on the coffee table.
“Yeah, everything’s okay,” she said. “My mom was . . . well, not too pleased to hear that I was out here.”
“Really? How come? Did you tell her where you were?”
“I did, and I think she was expecting me to come back to Bel Air, and I made the mistake of mentioning that we took your private jet over here, and I just don’t think she approves of that sort of thing.”
“I guess it seems like it doesn’t matter what we do; parents are going to find something to disapprove of anyway. But hey,” I said. I went over and stood in front of her, put my hands on her shoulders. Her skin was warm and smooth. “You’re officially on vacation right now, here to decompress and relax and try to take your mind off of everything that has happened the past week. I am, too. We can deal with all that other shit when we go back.”
She looked at me skeptically. “You’re dealing with shit, too?”
“I’ve got to dust off the old collared shirt and find a tie and go to work with Cal! Pity me.”
She laughed. “I definitely do not pity you.”
“But I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. Come on, get your bathing suit on; we’re going to the beach.”
20.
Isla
We spent the afternoon at the beach, soaking up the sun while lying out on lounge chairs, swimming in the warm, turquoise-blue water. Every person I saw was tanned, smiling, beautiful, and I tried not to feel self-conscious in the pink bikini that Levi had helped me pick out before we’d left New York.
Only after the sun had started to set did we head back to his place, stopping first to get some food at one of the cafes that was right there overlooking the water.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked when we were leaving the restaurant. “Do you agree with me now that this is truly paradise?”
“It’s pretty great,” I said. The skin on my face and shoulders felt warm and tight, and I knew I’d probably gotten a bit of a sunburn despite the suntan lotion I’d slathered on. I didn’t care though; it felt good.
