by Hayes, Piper
“I guess I am,” I tell her. I say bye and feel like maybe I’ve set at least something right today. But now I have to figure out what my father’s doing in Manhattan after he told me he had nothing but contempt for the place. He used to bring me to that cafe when I was little. We’d go to the museums or go shopping, and then we’d end up at the cafe. My father liked it because it was attached to a private parking lot where his driver could wait for us. I liked it because I got to eat all the macarons I wanted. Something tells me my father isn’t in town for baked goods.
There’s no mistaking the man at the corner table of the cafe. It’s my father. Even through the front window, I can make out his dirty-blond hair, his stiffly starched shirt and his perpetual scowl. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t see me through the window. I wonder if he’d recognize me even if he did. The worn, frustrated look he’d worn the last time he saw me is gone. Instead, he looks almost excited, that is, if a scowl could convey excitement. The look reminds me of a magazine cover he had framed in his office when I was a kid. It was a picture of him looking out over the city skyline, proclaiming him the king of private equity. For the moment at least, the king is holding court again in an East Side bakery.
He’s up to something. That much is clear to anyone who can see him. I try to make out the identity of the man sitting across from him, but it’s impossible from outside. I flip my hood up and step into the bakery, keeping as far from my father as possible, hoping to get a view across the cafe. I take one look and recognize my father’s lunch partner immediately. I freeze in place. I look again to make sure I’m not imagining things, but there’s no mistaking him. It’s Damien, Blake’s fixer. I find the side door of the cafe and duck out into the alley that leads to the private lot. If Damien’s meeting with my father, it means Blake’s in trouble.
I remind myself that the last time I saw Damien meeting with someone, it was on Blake’s behalf. It makes sense that he’d be doing so again, but I can’t help but wonder why he’d meet with my father. There was no other explanation for his meeting with Ben, but Damien knew my father. He worked for him at one point. He might have reasons to go to him behind Blake’s back, even if he is just hedging his bets in case something happens to Blake.
I think through all the possibilities and settle on two. Either Damien is turning on Blake, which would be catastrophic, or Blake is reaching out to my father for help, which would mean he’s run out of all other options. Either way, I know I have to do something. If I tell Blake, he’ll know I’ve been in the city. I don’t want to explain why. If I don’t tell him, he could be blindsided by Damien and my father. It just isn’t worth the risk. I have to tell him, even if it means losing his trust.
CHAPTER 10
CATHERINE
When I get back to the loft, I’m half-convinced Blake will be waiting for me at the door, but he isn’t. Instead, I have to wait. In truth, I’d prefer getting caught in the act. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to play through the scene again and again in my head. At least then it would be over with.
Blake gets back shortly before six. He’s got grocery bags, and he’s smiling. He looks so happy to see me. It almost breaks my heart.
“We have to talk,” I say.
“I know, I know, I’ve kept you cooped up here for too long, but I have good news,” he says. “We can move back to my place in Tribeca in the morning. Everything is almost set. I thought we could make one last dinner here to celebrate our impending return to the land of excess. Then we can have all the thousand-dollar dinners we’d ever want.”
“I saw Damien meeting with my father today,” I blurt out. “I think they’re planning something.”
“Where?” Blake says.
“A café on the Upper East Side.”
“What were you doing there?” Blake asks. “I asked you to stay here.”
“No, you told me to stay here, and I decided that as an adult I could look after myself well enough to go out for a few hours.”
“Did anyone see you?” he asks.
“They didn’t see me,” I tell him. “I ran into an old friend, Felicity, on the street. She’s the one who told me my father was around. It was her party you crashed the first night we met.”
“Okay,” Blake says. “That’s not so bad. I’m sorry, there’s just a lot going on, and even the slightest change in the plan could mess everything up. I don’t want anyone trying to get at me by hurting you.”
“I met with Ben,” I tell him. “I met with him before I ran into Felicity. It’s why I was in the city. I wanted to convince him that you’re innocent. I wanted him to help prove you’ve done nothing wrong.”
Blake drops his bags to the floor. “What did you tell him?” He looks panicked.
“I didn’t tell him about the loft or about your sister or any of that. Relax,” I tell him.
“I need to know everything you told him. You have no idea how much is riding on this.”
“Why don’t you tell me, then?” I ask. “Why don’t you trust me for once?”
Blake’s voice flares as he answers. “Because I don’t know if I can trust you after this.”
“I told Ben you were set up. I told him to look into M-CORE, that it would prove your innocence.”
Blake sighs in exasperation. His shoulders slump and he shakes his head. “You couldn’t have trusted me on this one?” he says.
“What you’re asking for isn’t trust, it’s obedience,” I tell him.
“Come on, Cat,” he says.
I’m too angry to let him change my mind. “No, that’s exactly what it is. You know, for all the time you spend fighting against my father and all his friends, you’re exactly like them. At the end of the day, you just want to be in charge.”
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and takes a step toward the hall.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m trying to fix this,” he says.
“Hang up the phone,” I say. “If you want to fix this, hang it up and talk to me.”
“I don’t have time for this,” he says. “We can talk about it later.”
I walk straight past him to the door. “I’m serious,” I say.
“So am I,” Blake replies. He keeps the phone to his ear, and I wait for him to put it down. He doesn’t. “Give me five minutes,” he says.
I’m not giving him a second. I’m not going to be part of a relationship where I’m not a priority. I’m not going to wait around when he won’t even tell me what’s going on. I step out into the stairway, expecting Blake to follow, but he doesn’t.
Soon, I’m out of the building and walking through Brooklyn by myself, wondering what just happened. I keep wondering why Blake doesn’t respect me. I wonder why no one respects me. I wonder if I even respect myself.
As I keep walking, I waver. I should just trust him, I tell myself. I should trust him if I want him to trust me. Maybe I should stop deluding myself and face the truth. Maybe this fight is my fault. After all, I only ever skated by on my family name, trading notoriety and social power for friendship. Maybe I’m the one incapable of a real relationship.
I run through everything in my mind: my relationship with Blake, with my father, with Felicity, with Ben. I reassure myself that I have changed for the better. I wasn’t acting out of self-interest when I went to Ben. I was only trying to help Blake, and instead I threw everything into disarray.
I’m so preoccupied that I don’t notice how dark it’s gotten or how cold. I have nowhere to go, and I don’t even know for sure where I am. I’m in a residential neighborhood, and I see couples and college students walking around. In my hoodie and jeans, I fit right in. I pull out my phone. No missed calls. I flip through my contacts and take a deep breath. This is what you have to do, I tell myself. I press send.
“Hey, can we meet up?” I ask. “I really need to talk.”
CHAPTER 11
CATHERINE
Ben’s apartment is a small third-floor walk-up. It’s clean
and sparsely furnished. Aside from the pile of papers on the table, it looks barely lived in. It’s a shoebox of a place compared to what I’m used to, but it’s clean and bright and has working heat. The heat works so well that half of the windows are open to cool the place down. “You want something to drink?” Ben calls from the fluorescent-lit kitchen.
I mumble something in reply as I fumble with my phone. I turned it off partway into my walk. I didn’t want to hear any excuses from Blake, but now that it’s on again, I can’t believe he didn’t call. I have terrible service in Ben’s building, so I guess it’s possible he did call and I’m just not getting anything through. I don’t know why I feel like I need to hide my phone, but I do. I feel like it’s a betrayal of the kindness Ben has shown me by letting me come over.
I tuck the phone into my pocket as Ben returns with two bottles of beer. He hands one to me. It’s already starting to bead with condensation, and I start picking at the corner of the label with my thumb. I’m not normally a beer drinker, but then again not much has been normal for the past few months. I take a long sip and let the beer roll down my throat. “This place suits you,” I say. “It’s straightforward and unpretentious.”
He grins and knocks back a sip. “Are you buttering me up?” he asks. “If so, continue.”
“No, not at all. I just think you’re the only person I know who isn’t trying to be something else.”
“Blake?” is Ben’s only response.
“Blake, my father, even me to some extent. I never know where I stand anymore. One minute you think you’ve got things figured out and then you realize you’ve been lying to yourself the whole time. It’s like I keep setting myself up for disappointment.” I slump back into the couch.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know how else to say it,” I say.
“Then don’t say anything,” Ben says. I worry for a second that I’m giving him the wrong idea, coming over like this, having a drink, but he isn’t making a move. “Do you still like old movies?” he asks. “I was going to get together with a few friends tonight to see one. Maybe you’d like to come. It’s a standing thing. There’s a movie theater a few blocks away that does screenings of classics. You look like you could use a distraction for a few hours.”
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t,” I say.
“It’s not a date, Cat. It’s just a chance to get out of your head for a little while. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Blake, but unless it involves white-collar crime, it’s not really my business.”
“It’s just strange being here with you,” I say. “Were you and I ever a couple? Looking back on it, I don’t even know, but after you, I stopped taking anyone seriously. Blake changed that. I tried to be uninterested and detached, but it didn’t work. I fell for him, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Let’s start with why you’re here,” Ben says.
“We got in a fight,” I tell him.
“Because you met with me?” he asks.
“In part,” I say, “but it was about trust and respect and probably a hundred other things that neither of us mentioned.”
“Like what?” Ben asks.
“Where we’re headed as a couple?” I say as if it’s a question. “You know, how serious we are. Everything is so chaotic right now, and it’s kind of thrilling to be so close to danger and chaos and I’m worried that when things settle down we’ll find that we don’t want the same things.”
“What do you want?” Ben asks. “The Catherine Carlisle I fell for in high school didn’t give a crap about money or what people thought about her. The one I met a few months back certainly did. I guess it was there in some form long ago, but it never seemed like the real you. It seemed like something you put up with, if that makes sense.”
He gets it, or he gets me. I don’t know. “Why is it so much easier to talk to you about this stuff?” I ask. “Anytime it comes up with Blake we end up fighting.”
“Because you’re not in love with me. Couples fight all the time,” Ben says. “In part, I assume it’s because you have something worth fighting for.”
“You seem to be changing your tune about him,” I say. “Is there anything I should know about?”
Ben takes a long sip of his beer. “I really shouldn’t talk about the case, Cat.”
“How fucked up is it that my only real friend is trying to put my boyfriend in jail?”
“That answer is going to require another drink,” Ben says. “And yes, that is my way of avoiding the question. Do you want another?” He gets up and heads into the kitchen. As he rummages through the fridge, he adds, “It’s good to know you think of me as a friend. Do you want to go to this movie thing, or should we just blow it off? I can offer some more armchair psychoanalysis if you want.”
At this point, my phone starts buzzing. I wasn’t even sure if it was still on. I pull it out and look. Blake’s calling. I know I should take his call, but I’m still mad at him for not listening to me. I’m still mad that he didn’t even try to follow when I walked out. I ignore the call. “You should go out with your friends. I’ll figure something out. I’ve already imposed too much,” I tell him. I see two messages pop up. I wonder if they’re new or if I just didn’t get them before.
“Nonsense,” he says. “You can stay here for the night. The couch is free, and it will give you a chance to see how the other ninety-nine point nine percent lives.”
“Not offering me your bed?” I ask. The phone buzzes again, and I reject the call. I turn the phone back off.
“I thought it would send mixed signals. Besides, the couch is more comfortable,” Ben says. “If you ever want me to make that offer, just let me know. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m heading out of town tomorrow afternoon. If you need a place to stay, you could crash here. Then you’d have your pick of the bed or the couch.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. I wonder what I’ve done to deserve his kindness. I know the answer is that I haven’t done anything and that I don’t deserve this at all. I guess there’s the chance he thinks I could help him with the case against Blake, but that doesn’t seem like the reason he’s helping me. Maybe he really does just want to help a friend. “I don’t know how to thank you,” I say.
“Come along to the movie. We’re getting drinks after. I think one of the girls in the group likes me. Maybe you can help me figure out if it’s all in my head.”
“Here I was thinking you still held a flame for me.”
“Always,” he says, “but a guy has to know when he’s beat.”
“I have to get changed out of my work clothes,” he says. “If I wear a suit to this thing, I’ll never hear the end of it.” Ben disappears into his bedroom and shuts the door behind him. I get up and pace around while I decide whether or not to stay. That’s when I notice the stack of files on the table. I noticed them before, but I didn’t give them any thought. Now I can make out the name at the top of a sheet of paper: Blake Bennett.
The paper is under another file, and only the top of it is visible. There are a few typed sentences of jargon, but the real interesting thing is handwritten. Blake’s name is circled, and there’s a line leading to “R.C.” I wonder if the initials are for my father. I know I shouldn’t look, but I nudge the file a little bit lower. I see a few more names. Petersen, Damien, then Alex with a question mark. My heart skips a beat, and I wonder how much Ben knows. I start to wonder if I somehow led Ben to Alex or if he even knows who she is. I know I can’t ask him without revealing that I was snooping in his files. I wonder what Blake would do if he found out.
I reach out to nudge the file a bit lower when I hear the bedroom door opening again. I spin around and force a smile. Ben takes a look at me, and then down at the table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave those out,” he says. “I treat this whole place like it’s my office sometimes. Usually the files are spread out across the coffee table too.” He pushes the papers back into the file, picks them up
and carries them away. “Are you ready to go?” he asks as he comes back into the room.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I tell him. Something tells me I’m not the least bit prepared for what lies ahead, but for at least one night, I’m not going to worry about it. For one night, I’m going to be fine.
CHAPTER 12
CATHERINE
Ben and I get back late. It’s three, maybe four in the morning when we get back from the movie and the bar. It was a strange experience playing Ben’s wingman for the night, but it was kind of fun. And it was a relief in some way to know he wasn’t pining over me. I was glad to spend a few hours watching a game of will-they-or-won’t-they unfold. It was so much simpler than anything I’ve dealt with in ages.
It also was the first time in a while that I was dealing with people my own age. Getting caught up in Blake’s world was enough to make me feel older, but I was still barely out of school, and being around graduate students and unemployed slackers was kind of nice. In some ways, I fit the group better than Ben did. After all, he was a few years older, and he had a career and all of the pressure that went along with it.
I think all of this over as I lie on Ben’s couch, unable to sleep. I’m pretty sure I can hear him snoring in the other room. I stare at the ceiling and wonder how much different my life would be if I hadn’t been born wealthy. I wonder if I’d be better off if I hadn’t met Blake, if he hadn’t offered me a ladder back into my life of fortune and privilege.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn it back on. The room glows with the soft blue/white light of the screen. I have three texts and eight missed calls. I can’t bring myself to listen to the calls, so I flip through the messages. I see the last one first. Just let me know you’re safe. I can’t sleep without knowing you’re okay. I was wrong, and I was stupid and just let me know you’re okay, and I’ll leave you alone. If you want me to get you, just tell me the address, and I’ll be there.
