by Jean Stone
The difference was that Nikki was not Margaret and the fortune now was gone.
“Shauna,” Nikki said, “I don’t pretend to know how your mother intends to pay for your wedding. But I’ve known her all her life and, believe me, she will find a way. Nothing has ever stood in the way of something my cousin wants.”
Tears rolled down Shauna’s cheeks. “I don’t want this, Aunt Nikki. I don’t want all this … commotion. This is supposed to be a happy time.”
Nikki leaned across the desk. “And it will be, dear. Just let it happen. Let your mother do as she wishes. Then you’ll be married, and from then on you can tell her to go to hell, if that’s what you want.”
Shauna jerked her head up, saw Nikki’s smile, then laughed. “Oh,” she wailed. “Will any of us survive this wedding?”
“Your mother will,” Nikki replied. “Make no doubt about that.” Then she turned to Dee. “As for you, my darling daughter, you were not told about the missing money because I wanted to protect you. I had hoped the money would be found: We have a detective searching for Lester. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you learned from someone other than me.”
Dee would not raise her eyes to look at Nikki. “It’s not as if I need the money, Mother. I mean, Daddy has plenty—” Then her eyelids shot up. “Doesn’t he?”
Nikki winced at the reaction of her material-minded girl. “I’m sure your father will see that you’re provided for,” she said, and could not help it that the words sounded rather cold. “But for now, for Mary Beth’s sake, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let this get around. She’d be devastated if anyone else found out before the wedding. I’m sure both of you understand.”
“I told Jason,” Shauna said. “As well as Dee.” She flicked her gaze to her maid of honor then back to Nikki. “Jason’s cool with it. He even said his parents won’t care. Their money is so old mine wouldn’t have held a candle to it, anyway. But I’m sorry I told Dee, Aunt Nikki. I just assumed she knew—”
“Ha!” Dee snorted.
“I should have been up-front and said that’s why you couldn’t go to China,” Nikki said to her daughter. “In the meantime, however, I do need to speak with your father. Do you know when he plans to arrive for the wedding?”
Dee shrugged. “He’s here already.”
Nikki sat back in the chair. “He is? Where?”
“He’s on the island. In Gay Head, at the inn out there.”
“Aquinnah, Dee,” Shauna interjected and Nikki was glad because it gave her a moment to compose herself. “It’s not called Gay Head anymore.”
“I just saw him the other day,” Nikki said. “He didn’t mention he’d be coming early.”
Dee shrugged again and stood, her attitude back in place, as if she had never been a normal person the way she’d been at lunch with Gabrielle, even if that “normalcy” had simply been a cover-up to her other agenda, which had been to shock Nikki with gossip of Eric and his lover. “Some people have a way of not confiding in others,” Dee commented now, and left the room in a huff.
Nikki watched her daughter depart, then she shut her eyes in exasperation.
Gabrielle made it off the plane with Carla, through immigration, and into the city to the famous Bahnhofstrasse, where the banks were aligned between high-priced, glitzy shops, where the railroad station sat at one end, and the lake shimmered at the other.
Then she made it into FirstBanc Internationale, where she and Carla went into separate boxlike rooms with separate representatives.
She made it thus far without her legs buckling, without breaking down or crying out Oh, God, my mother was murdered and I saw it happen.
She did not know why, but she sensed that Mack would have been proud that she’d maintained her composure. Neither did she know why she had told him she saw her mother jump—a child’s denial? A child’s misunderstanding? She did not know, would perhaps never know the answer to that, but she did know that the truth had erupted with one newspaper clipping.
And it was the truth. She knew it as clearly as she knew that what she was doing now was the absolute right thing.
Twenty million dollars seemed a nice, round figure to transfer into The Rose Foundation. Gabrielle did not waver when she saw the entry in the withdrawal column. She thought of it as catharsis for the years of her despair, for her mother, who had been killed by Lester, and for her aunt Margaret, who had been the one responsible for Gabrielle being turned into an orphan, and for her father, who had allowed it so she would be hurt no more. The twenty million would be Gabrielle’s memorial to all of them, her rite of letting go.
And a few hundred thousand for Aunt Dorothy and to help Mary Beth traverse her hurdles.
Sitting in the private room, awaiting the final paperwork, Gabrielle decided not to call Nikki or Mary Beth until after the wedding. Most likely, there was enough chaos on the island with the festivities at hand; she did not want to steal the attention from the bride or the groom.
And then there was Sam. Neither Gabrielle nor Carla knew if he still hunted Lester … the murderer and thief.
When she had finished the paperwork, Gabrielle stepped outside to wait for Carla. She sat on a park bench between Movado and Bulgari, achingly aware of every muscle in her body, realizing how exhausting truth could be. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t faced it before.
And still, she had one more truth to share, to reveal to Stefano, to prepare for his despair.
Carla came out of the bank and walked to her. “I have some news,” she said. “Let’s go down to the lake.”
Gabrielle was too tired to stand and too tired to talk. Yet she got up and walked because it seemed easier than saying no.
“He’s really gone,” Carla said as they approached the water. “His account was closed six months ago.”
Gabrielle stopped. She shielded her eyes against the sun that reflected off the water. “Six months ago?”
Carla nodded. “He transferred the cash by phone.”
“Transferred it where?”
“Into your accounts. Yours. Nikki’s. Mary Beth’s.”
“But why?”
Carla sighed. “Apparently Lester didn’t steal your money. He lost it months ago through simple mismanagement. He used his own money to try to cover his tracks. I guess he thought the stock market would make a grand comeback.”
Gabrielle sat down on the ground, on grass as green as the sweeping green lawn where she’d once sat and played with Barbie and Ken while her mother and her father held hands in Adirondack chairs and where life had been perfect, or had seemed that way.
Zurich, however, was a long, long way from Martha’s Vineyard, and mismanaging funds was the least of Lester Markham’s sins.
“Oh, God,” was all Gabrielle replied, because suddenly she simply wanted to move on with her life and did not want to know or care what happened to the money or why Lester had done all the things he’d done.
But something told her that would not be possible.
26
I’m going to sell the apartment,” Mary Beth said to Sam, the stranger who’d become her friend since she’d brought Molly from the Vineyard. A stranger who wasn’t interested in her money, other than in doing his job to find that jerk Lester.
Monday had flown by.
Mary Beth had gone back to the hospital Sunday night after seeing her mother: She and Sam had shared a toast of chocolate milk when the doctor said “So far, so good,” then they’d taken turns reading to Molly, joking with Molly. Mary Beth tried to braid her hair the way Molly said Gabrielle had done, but she was lousy at it, and they all laughed at that.
She’d fallen asleep in the high-backed chair in Molly’s room and did not wake up until the middle of the night. At first she’d thought a nurse had covered her with a blanket, but later learned it had been Sam, who’d slept on the other side of Molly’s bed on a narrow roll-away.
On Monday morning, the pink returned to Molly’s cheeks. Mary Beth kissed her quickly, ran hom
e, and showered, then traveled to the pawnshop, where she netted another sixteen thousand—not what Phillipe wanted, but sixteen thousand, nonetheless. He could accept it as her “up front” payment, or he and his truffles could go to hell.
After the pawnshop she went up to Saks, where she found a lovely sky-blue sundress and short jacket that would make Dorothy Atkinson feel like the million none of them had. Shoes and a purse, even costume jewelry that looked like diamonds and aquamarine completed the look and added up nicely on the American Express.
Last, Mary Beth met the real estate agent, who set the price at five million three. The “interested party” was, in fact, looking at it that minute, while Mary Beth and Sam sat in the hospital cafeteria, having grilled cheese sandwiches and orange gelatin squares for dinner.
“I’m nervous,” she said to Sam, “and excited, too. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but for once that’s okay.” She picked up her spoon and jiggled the gelatin. “I have no idea why it seems okay now.”
Sam laughed.
Around them, the clatter of trays and utensils and the ching-ching of the cash register continued undisturbed, life in its ever-forward motion, despite the pain that some were in, despite the loss some were enduring, or were expected to endure. Mary Beth thought of her mother and knew that, while the situation was sad, it was nothing like Molly’s, who was just a child. “I don’t know how you do it,” Mary Beth added quietly, and they both seemed to know what it was she meant.
“I do it because I have to,” Sam said. “I do it because I love her.”
Yes. Love. Whatever that was. She set down her spoon and took a bite of her sandwich.
“Can you sell the apartment without your husband’s permission?” Sam’s question came so fast it took her quite off guard.
“My husband’s name is on nothing,” she said defensively. They had, after all, been married before prenuptial agreements were fashionable, and greedy Eric had never complained, for even though his name was nowhere, he probably figured he’d be entitled to something if they divorced. She hadn’t considered that. “His name is not on the real estate, not on the furnishings. Not on the crystal or the art collection we’ve amassed over the years.” But even as she spoke she began to worry.
“Oh, God,” she suddenly said and returned the grilled cheese to her plate. “Will he be entitled to half of the equity?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“But the apartment’s mine. It was my mother’s.” A whine had crawled into her voice, a whine she unfortunately recognized because it came from her. She balled her fists and tried to think of Molly; she tried to think of the other kids and to remember that her problems were shit compared to theirs.
He reached out and touched her arm. “You need to see a lawyer, Mary Beth.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“You can if you sell the house.”
“I won’t sell the house if he’ll get half.”
“You may not have a choice.”
“He’s committing adultery.”
“This is the twenty-first century. I think the rules are different.”
“I don’t have to divorce him. I can drag this on for years.”
Sam seemed to think about that a moment. “Why would you want to?” he asked. “If you don’t want to be married to him anymore, why would you want to drag it out?”
“To make him suffer.”
He let go of her arm. “Then it seems you’ll suffer, too. Why would you want to do that?”
She took a sip of lukewarm coffee. “Because I’m an Atkinson,” she said. “And suffering is what we do.”
“To make up for being rich?”
She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask my cousin Nikki. That would pertain to her.”
On the way back to Molly’s room Mary Beth stopped at a pay phone and checked her messages, damn the fact that she had left the cell phone in the Lincoln. There was one message from the agent: The interested party had offered four million nine.
“Take it,” the agent recommended. “She won’t bother with a counteroffer.” She, Mary Beth thought. Probably one of those new double-breasted Wall Street types who operated with a palm pilot and had split custody of the kids; who had amassed a portfolio that would have made Mary Beth’s trust fund measly by comparison, if there were anything to compare. “Also,” the woman added, “she might be interested in some of your furnishings.”
Mary Beth perked up. Could this mean cash before the Sotheby’s auction? Money for the wedding? “You can discuss that directly with her once a deal is made.”
Four million nine. Four nine, less a million-dollar mortgage that she’d needed not long ago, in part to do the renovations when she’d converted Dorothy’s suite into a playroom of her own.
Four million nine, less a million. Would she be willing to give half of it to Eric?
“The sooner we know, the better. It helps that the buyer is familiar with the place. You might recognize her name: it’s Roxanne LaMonde.”
It had been a long, tiring day at camp, the kind of day that made muscles and bones and everything ache, but felt so damn good you couldn’t wait to do it again tomorrow. The kind of day that had reinforced for Nikki the choice that she’d made.
Help is help, Alice had reminded her. We get it when we can.
Shifting on the driver’s seat, Nikki looked out at the landscape as it slowly changed from beach scrubs and flatland to thick, dense trees that lined the road and hugged the curves and hills, over twenty miles from its farthest tip-to-tip.
“Let’s go on a twenty-mile trip,” Mack had said to Nikki more often than she could recall. It was his way of saying “Let’s go up-island to Philbin Beach where we can be alone with the tide.”
Would he leave the island now that she had to reject him?
Was she prepared for that?
The thick trees gave way to the berry bushes and the low brambles of Aquinnah: Up ahead, the redbrick lighthouse stood on the cliffs, framed by the sun, which was lighting the sky with its day’s end of orange and pink, and by the piece of the shore melting into the dusk.
Nikki was surprised Connor had chosen to stay out there: Perhaps he felt more comfortable “away” from the family that was no longer his; perhaps he wanted to work and make deals and be the business guru that he was in solitude for a change.
She turned down the dirt driveway of the up-island inn, and wondered how he would react to her proposition, and what he would expect in return.
“Nicole?”
She jumped at the sound of her name, because suddenly Nikki felt vulnerable, standing as she was in the welcoming, open foyer of the charming inn. The last time she had been there had been with Mack. They’d come for dinner in the fall, and sat next to the fireplace by the wide windows that overlooked the cliffs.
“What’s wrong?” Connor asked, and of course he would, because why would he think otherwise?
“Nothing,” she said and tried to smile. “Dee said you’d arrived. I wondered if we could talk.”
He guided her through the oak-floored reception room to the flagstone terrace on the back lawn. She thought of the many times she and Mack had walked along the beach and Mack had looked up at the inn and entertained her with made-up biographies of those who stayed there.
“Newlyweds from New Hampshire,” he’d say of a young couple standing on the terrace, holding hands and gazing at the water. “They were given a four-day, three-night package by some well-meaning friends.”
Or, “A doctor and his long-suffering wife.” Mack would somberly nod toward an older couple who sat outside sipping morning coffee, he reading the newspaper, she cutting a wedge of melon into bite-size pieces. “They’re down from Boston. She forces him to take a vacation every eight weeks, and he hates every minute of it.”
They had watched and he had invented stories as they strolled along the beach, because there was no harm and because it amused them in their sequestered little world.
“Coffee?” Connor asked. Out in Aquinnah, serving alcohol was against the ancient town law.
Nikki shook her head. She wondered what kind of story Mack would make up about her and Connor, two people nearing middle age if not already there, sitting with civility on the terrace as if they hadn’t been divorced for fifteen years. Would Mack think they were getting back together?
“So,” Connor said, after he signaled a waitress and ordered a cup of hazelnut coffee, “this is unexpected.”
“Is it?” she asked. “You know this is where I live.” She’d once heard of a theory about the first thirty seconds of an encounter setting the tone, the mood, the air between people for the duration of the scene or the date or the meeting. She wondered if she’d been sarcastic and if the tone would thus be tense. She wished she’d ordered coffee to take her mind off other things. “Connor,” she said, her eyes traveling out to sea. “I’ll get to the point. You already know that my trust fund’s gone.”
He nodded in that way he had of neither commenting nor criticizing, which was most unnerving, because it meant she had to keep talking.
And then she thought of Molly.
And her commitment to the kids, and the fact that she would make it happen, even if it meant going back to Connor, and to the life they’d had.
His coffee arrived.
She watched him stir in half a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of milk. She remembered how that habit had made her insane, that he practically counted each grain of sugar as if one too many or too few simply would not be acceptable. It was not a major flaw, yet still, it had almost driven her mad.
She shook her head and told herself milk and sugar didn’t matter. Then she took a deep breath of cool evening salt air, and said, “I’ve come to take you up on your offer to help.”
Before he had time to respond, she launched into her story. She told him of her goals for The Rose Foundation, how she wanted to establish corporate sponsorship to take her work worldwide. “If Atkinson Enterprises is at the head of the list, it would set us up as a viable organization. And help us gain international recognition and contributions. Romania alone has nearly nine thousand AIDS kids, Connor. Imagine the good we can do with enough money behind us.”
