Family Trust

by Amanda Brown

  Checking her watch, Becca wound down the treadmill. She kept her exercise clothes on, tugged an Armani pantsuit from her closet, and folded it in a tight sleeping-bag roll. The pantsuit went into her shoulder bag along with shoes, stockings, and an underwear set that would have surprised any of her fellow board members with its sexy, lacy femininity. She intended to shower and change at the airport’s VIP lounge.

  She combed her hair with her fingers in the small mirror on the office wall, not the least bit aware of the way the sunlight picked up the red tones, all natural, in her dark, glossy hair.

  A dab of lipstick and she was off.

  “Becca—your mother is on the phone,” Philippe said over the intercom.

  That was strange. Her mother never called without reason. She sighed—she was already behind schedule.

  “Mom?” She cradled the phone on her shoulder and flipped through the messages in her in-box.

  “Honey”—her mother jumped right in as though they were in the middle of a conversation—and perhaps they were—a marathon lifelong exchange of ideas and feelings. Becca never understood the problems other women had with their mothers.

  “Yes, Mom—what’s up?”

  “I don’t mean to be nosy.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Okay—so I am. But you don’t sound exactly right. Is something making you nervous?”

  Only a mother—or maybe only Arlene Reinhart—could look straight through all the froufrou and braggadocio into her daughter’s soul.

  “Well, not that it’s bothering me too much. But the owner of the London company is not a great supporter of women arbitrageurs. And he doesn’t know how old I am.”

  “You mean how young.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Listen to me, Becca Reinhart. Remember whenever you feel nervous anywhere, anytime, you just turn around and look back to who you come from all the way up the Reinhart line.”

  “You say that all the time.”

  “So it works every time, am I right?”

  Becca’s dark eyes shone with the electric heat of her intelligence and joie de vivre. “You got me there, Mom—”

  “Okay. So maybe you’ll call from there?”

  Grrr. Her mother was fabulous—she was also a scholar of those lessons mothers learned from the Secret Mother Rules they all seemed to follow.

  “Love you, Mom,” Becca blew her a kiss and left her office seemingly while her feet, in their Diesel running shoes, were in midair.

  Becca hurried past Sam Wattenberg’s office. Sam’s door was open.

  “Becca,” he called, leaping from his desk chair.

  She kept moving. Sam followed her.

  “Sam, I’ve got a meeting at the airport at three and a flight at six,” she told him over her shoulder.

  “I’ve got a press conference in ten minutes. Any recessionary expectations?”

  Stepping sideways toward the elevator, Becca ticked off a few suggestions.

  “Venezuela, Peru, and Columbia plunge this year. Russia’s always in recession, so throw it in. Egypt looks bad, Czech Republic is slipping. Japan may make it, but I’d put it in the slide category. Argentina probably goes with Peru. I’ve got to go, Sam!”

  Becca blew Philippe a little kiss. The elevator doors closed, and she smiled broadly, taking a deep breath as she dug her hand in her Hogan bag to check for her Palm, her phone, her ticket confirmation, and her wallet.

  She could feel her heart beating rapidly as she thought ahead to the meeting in London. Sexist issues aside, the offer for her British company was likely to get approved; Becca would recommend accepting it and she thought she had the votes on her side. She had always liked that company, and she had a good feeling about this deal. It was proving to be a smart investment. She could bet on getting tapped for a spot on the holding company’s board of directors, if she wanted one.

  She smiled, looking forward to the manicure she would get from the Davis Capital’s in-flight spa therapist. Becca felt a surge of enthusiasm as the elevator doors opened in the lobby. The Davis car was waiting to take her to the airport. She could start calling the American directors right away and get a count of their votes. She had assumed the board was accepting proxies, but she should get that into the minutes of the meeting. She’d move for that at once; she’d have to make sure to have a second to back her up. Who should she call? Who had the next largest investment? Her mind began to race: She had little time and much to do.

  She barely noticed the sharp, quick, sad, prescient pull at her heart. Later she would understand. Becca Reinhart breathed deeply. She loved her job.

  CHAPTER 2

  Accept with Pleasure

  Edward Kirkland shaved, splashed his cheeks with 4711, and dashed across Park Avenue from the Racquet Club to the quiet, antique-strewn office of the Kirkland Philanthropic Foundation. If he took care of things at the office in an hour or so, he thought, he might get another squash game together in the afternoon.

  A towering stack of unanswered invitations filled the cherry wood “in-box” on the hand-carved mahogany desk in Edward’s office. The Tiffany lamp on his desk cast its tinted shadows over the envelopes, spotting them with shapes of blue, green, and purple. An additional pile of envelopes sat in a neat stack on the leather blotter, beside the brass-plated holder for his Montblanc pen and pencil set. The piles of current invitations sat next to a tiny, outdated globe that was of no earthly use to anyone. Where it had come from, he couldn’t exactly say. Probably it adorned one of his father’s old desks, like so much else in his office.

  Edward’s desk was usually organized and clear, as he had little to do.

  Still standing, with his back to his work, he looked across the street where the flag of the Racquet Club waved in the crisp, early September sun.

  Alice Carter, his private secretary, had entered without his noticing. She sniffed the air critically.

  “Is it raining aftershave?”

  She welcomed him with bright hazel eyes. As was her practice, she took the leather armchair that sat across from his desk, pulled it around carefully so as not to drag the tassels on the Persian area rug, with its rich hues of red and violet that darkened the cozy room, and sat down next to Edward’s chair.

  “Sit, sit, Edward,” she said. “Labor Day’s on us already. You have a big weekend.”

  Edward grinned. “Labor Day! The Union Club opens its private stock this Sunday.”

  She pointed at the envelopes, which he surveyed with visible deflation.

  “Don’t tell me I have plans on Sunday?”

  “Likely,” Alice responded.

  “No CPs, I hope.”

  CPs were command performances—charitable events that involved The Family. They could not be avoided. But everyone would be at the Union Club, he told himself, beaming with anticipation of the great chef’s dinner that the club put on twice a year when it dipped into the private stock of wines.

  Alice smiled to look at him. What joie de vivre! Edward’s fine, clean-shaven face expressed so much. He had such a well-developed instinct for pleasure. His blazing blue eyes shone at the thought of a glass of wine, as the eyes of a schoolboy would shine at a fire engine. And as impetuously as anticipation moved him to happiness, the thought that a prescheduled event would keep him away from his luxury drew a dark cloud of disappointment across his face.

  A hopeful flash lit his expression again: Alice knew from experience that Edward would conceive of a method to have it both ways.

  “You know, Edward, if you married, you could send your wife to some of these things,” she teased him. “Then you could go to the club every Sunday.”

  “Let’s not ruin a good day talking about my death.” Edward grinned, shaking his finger at Alice.

  “Edward!” she said, laughing warmly. “I’m married. It’s not death. Marriage would be good for you. Your mother has been frantic to see you happy since you turned thirty. The only…”

  “Alice,” Edward interrupte
d her, straightening quickly in his chair. “Have I ever struck you as unhappy?”

  The question was rhetorical. She shook her head no, glancing at the ground lest she display too much admiration in the way she looked at him. Edward Kirkland had a limitless capacity to enjoy.

  “I still think you’d spend more time at the club,” she said, “if you had a wife attending these things in your stead.” The morning sun glinted on her modest clear nail polish as she gathered some invitations from the desk. Her hand was stopped by Edward’s, who turned her amused face to face his.

  He squinted at her like a police investigator. “Alice,” he said gruffly, “I’ll have to go through your accounts. I’m worried about financial irregularities.”

  “In my accounts?” she asked, catching the bait.

  “Absolutely.” He let go of her hand. “Anyone who could convince me that I should get married so I can spend more time at the club has got to be on Bunny Stirrup’s payroll.”

  Alice smiled. She was on Edward’s payroll, and had grown accustomed to living the details of his fortunate life. She was a knight of the Kirkland table, one of the family’s collection of devoted servants. But Alice knew better than to complain. A social secretary accepts the bounds of a modest life lived at the perimeter of a great one.

  She found it hard to describe her position precisely to people who did not already understand it. For a social secretary was no more a secretary than the Secretary of State. A lady-in-waiting, a trusted messenger, a well-schooled practitioner of etiquette, a confidante, a conscience, and a person of extraordinary discretion and fine penmanship capable of delivering, when appropriate, unwelcome truths, to an indulged personality, were some of the qualities that fell under the title of social secretary. By and large, they worked in the homes of women who did not work outside of their homes.

  Alice came from the Pavilion agency. She had fastidious manners and a clean, polished preppiness. Like the other women who finished with her at Pavilion, Alice had attended private schools and counted among her personal friends several of the well-heeled. She held faithfully to the Social Register crowd, with the knowledge, sealed by her quiet superiority, that she was among them without being of them. Altogether, Alice was a charming accessory: tactful, dependable, and unthreatening.

  She juggled, on Edward’s behalf, a busy black-tie life divided between homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons, England, and Bermuda, with parties in season, knotted and proper or shockingly dissolute, depending on the crowd. Technically speaking Alice was the confidential secretary to the Chairman of the Kirkland Philanthropic Foundation. This position gave her the first experience she had known of working in a formal office. Now on her lunch hour instead of being cast into the service kitchen to eat with the maids, she was able to get out and enjoy the city. Frankly, the Philanthropic Foundation was nothing more than a corporate personality thrown like a coat over Edward’s shoulders. He was the sun around which Alice revolved, and she treasured him dearly. Ten years her junior, Alice could not help considering Edward like she might a nephew or a younger friend.

  Edward Kirkland was a genteel, considerate, and enjoyable young man, a step up from her former employer, Leslie Davis, she of the Standard Oil fortune and advantageous marriage to the founder of the profitable investment house. Leslie’s husband, Dick Davis, had hired Alice after his own secretary had threatened to quit due to Leslie’s demands. Quite fairly, Alice’s predecessor in the Davis employ claimed it was demeaning for him to have to interview and hire kitchen maids for Leslie and even worse to have to visit St. Bart’s ahead of the Davis family to make sure they were on the guest lists for the A-list parties. Leslie had unquenchable needs.

  Leslie had set Alice up in her home and was satisfied with the secretary’s modest diligence until she heard, from her tennis partner, that a famous founder of a Fortune 500 firm had married his third wife’s social secretary. She raced home and fired Alice that day: standing right there in her Fila tennis skirt, her arm outstretched and her finger pointing to the door, she actually fired her, which is simply never done. But Alice had landed on her feet.

  Edward considered Alice to be indispensable, and trusted her with a confidence that inspired her to care for him.

  “Bunny Stirrup has not paid me a nickel,” Alice corrected Edward with a wide smile. “And you know it. We’ll have to agree to disagree, young Edward. I think you are in need of a wife.”

  “And I think you are in need of a reminder,” Edward said, returning her smile, “that I am perfectly happy to remain as I am.”

  They laughed together as she directed him to the business at hand.

  “Let’s get to work,” she said, lifting the roof from the tower of envelopes, a move that sent much of the pile sliding across the aged, leather blotter that covered his desk.

  They were practiced, and after their first cup of coffee they had moved into an efficient process of invitation review.

  “Okay. How about Golfing for Glaucoma. Benefactor, sponsor, or patron?” she asked, holding the engraved card in the air.

  “Family on the board?”

  “No.”

  “Did we do it last year?”

  “Yes. It’s Muffy London’s pet charity, remember? Her great-uncle died of glaucoma.”

  Edward stopped himself from laughing out loud, but couldn’t repress his smile.

  “You can’t die of glaucoma. I remember Pepper London. He was about two hundred years old. He just fell out of bed, spilled his last glass of brandy, and that was that.”

  “Muffy said it was the glaucoma that killed him. He wouldn’t have fallen out of bed, she said, if he could see.”

  “He could see, all right. I think he was in bed with Sharon Leland at the time.”

  Alice smiled too, remembering old Pepper.

  “Well it makes it all the more important to Muffy, you know, to put the emphasis on the glaucoma,” she pointed out.

  “I see.” He paused, considering the sponsoring group and Muffy’s interest in the matter. It seemed harmless enough, except that it took an entire day and evening. First the golf, eighteen holes, then the dinner.

  He tried to remember anything special about the event, for better or for worse. Last year’s gift bags included sterling silver golf club swizzle sticks from Tiffany, designer sunglasses by Gucci, and a Lucite eye chart from the Zapper Laser Eye Clinic.

  The Zapper Clinic, which sponsored last year’s event, also provided neon orange and blue golf shirts decorated in the style of a Union 76 sign, with the Zapper letters in silver glitter. It was obvious that they were designed with the vision-impaired in mind. You could see the shirts from a mile away.

  “What level did we do last year?”

  “Benefactor.”

  “Any reason to change?”

  “No.”

  Edward pushed his Windsor-blue coffee cup, which was empty, out of his sight. The joy of eating and drinking was manifest in him, but he had inherited the patrician’s distaste for viewing, even momentarily, the evidence of a well-enjoyed feast.

  “How much is benefactor?”

  “Ten thousand, twenty for a table.”

  Alice stood to clear Edward’s coffee cup without being asked. She read his facial expression, the quick flash of aversion that Edward reserved for old plates and dates who stayed for breakfast.

  “Where is it?”

  “Piping Rock,” she answered, her back to him as she rinsed the cup.

  “Do a table.”

  She met his order with a nod, trotting back to her seat.

  “Eight to a table,” she said, with her pen ready.

  Edward leaned back in his chair, stretching.

  “Eight. All right. Call George and Bonnie Whelan, Clifford and Susie Marks, Arthur Stearns and Amy Kolasky, and…for me…”

  He paused. This was an all-day event.

  “I don’t know. How about Cricket Quinn?”

  Alice wrinkled her brow. “Well, she’s on the LPGA tour. Do you think
you can bring professionals?”

  “Why not?”

  Edward Kirkland’s job as chairman of his family’s charitable foundation had two elements, separated by a little shuffle of other people’s steps. He decided what events to sponsor or attend, and with whom; and he showed up appropriately dressed and accompanied.

  Between the decision and the attendance, Alice got to work. She would handle the acceptance, and she would call to invite the women he chose to accompany him. She would select the table, invite his guests, select the meals, if she thought it necessary, she would direct the event staff as to the proper order of table service, forms of address for dignitaries, or matters of concern in left-handed and right-handed seating arrangements.

  Alice would forward the payment instructions to Milton Korrick, Edward’s banker at Morgan Stanley, who handled all his financial obligations and balanced the books. She would call Edward’s driver, James, who would put the event on his schedule, and promptly report it to Edward’s mother, who insisted on knowing his whereabouts at all times. And finally, before he dashed out the door, Alice would tuck a folded briefing paper into Edward’s free hand.

  The paper would supply useful information about the charity, and more importantly, talking points for any guests with whom Edward might not be instantly familiar. As a special courtesy, Alice included information that he might find useful about his own date: her place of birth, for example, or food preferences. Edward had a reputation for being extraordinarily thoughtful, a tribute that Alice secretly attributed to her own research skills.

  They had moved on to the Tango for Teeth, which would be catered by La Paella, a popular tapas restaurant. Alice was pressing him to name a date.

  “Who’s on for the night before?” Edward asked, waiting for her to consult his schedule, which she derived by poking a few buttons on some handheld piece of digital equipment. Edward learned of his schedule by poking the buttons of his telephone to call Alice.