Family Trust

by Amanda Brown

  “You mean, accessible, like a Teletubby?”

  “A what?” His hand flew to cover his head. Was this a bald joke?

  Becca slumped in her seat. “Or funny, like a Muppet?”

  “A puppet? I’m no puppet,” he retorted. “CEO, CFO, and Can’t Say No! That’s Barry. Total control. Why? You got a thing for puppets?”

  Becca eyed him carefully, unsure if he knew the line between humor and idiocy.

  “Any kids from the first marriage?”

  “Whoa,” said Barry, waving her off with his hands. “Don’t remind me. Selfish little shits. All they do is take.”

  Becca dropped her head into the palm of her hand.

  “I’m not for you, Barry,” she told him simply. She wrote forty-four on her page and marked an X through it. Becca pointed her thumb toward the curtain.

  “Out.”

  “Your loss,” he said in a huff, standing to leave. He poked his head back into the curtain, scowling. “I’ll do better than you will, with that attitude.”

  Becca breathed deeply, checking her watch to see how much time she had wasted with Barry. She looked at her Fatherhood sheet. Seemed perfectly fair. Her attitude was fine. She was here to buy as much as to sell.

  A head poked meekly into her curtain.

  “Mind if I sit down?” number sixteen asked her. “I’m a minute early, but I sort of abandoned the last one. Not my style, you know?”

  Becca, smiling warmly, nodded at the poor lamb.

  “I’m Mark,” he said, keeping within regulations and concealing his last name. He crossed his legs at the ankle, bumped into Becca’s legs under the table, and nearly jumped out of his skin. “Sorry,” he said quickly, pulling his legs under his chair. His face was pale.

  “I don’t know how I got mixed up in this, really. My friends put me up to it, I guess. But in the end it was my decision. I hoped I might meet somebody special.”

  “I’m Becca,” she said, offering her hand. He shook it limply.

  “What do you do, Mark?”

  He sighed. “I organize eco-friendly tours. It’s fun, I guess, if you like to travel. But I sort of thought there’d be more travel. I guess you could say I’m like a desk jockey with a lot of hope.”

  Becca felt like crying. This guy needed a mother!

  She turned to her sheet.

  “Do you like to read, Mark?”

  “Sure,” he said, brightening. “I have lots of time. I sit and read and look at these pictures of the Galapagos and Costa Rica, you know, and I just think: Wow. What an awesome world.”

  Becca nodded. “Okay, Mark. Who’s your favorite character from children’s literature?”

  He paused, rubbing his soft cheeks a little as he thought about it.

  “Oh yeah,” he said, a light in his eyes. “Ichabod Crane.”

  Becca stifled a laugh with her hand. She looked at him in disbelief. “Ichabod Crane? The skinny bald guy in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?”

  He nodded, his eyes wide and sincere.

  “Why?”

  Mark shrugged his shoulders. “He was always running from something, you know? First out of town, then on the road, from that pumpkin-headed ghost? I guess I feel sort of like that too. I’ve always been running. From jobs, from roots, from respectability. From relationships.”

  Becca caught her breath. This guy was no father figure.

  “I’m sorry, Mark,” she said, scarcely able to hold back tears for him. “You’re a dear heart, really, I can see that.” She stretched her hand across the table again, and gave his hand an affectionate little rub. “Why don’t you just go home? I don’t think this game is for you.”

  “I think you’re right,” he said, standing. His arms swung loosely, like a monkey’s. His shoulders drooped as he turned toward her. “Thanks, Becca. You’re a straight shooter. Good luck,” he said, and trudged through the curtain.

  Becca rubbed her temples, breathing deeply. She was on the verge of leaving to go check on poor little eco-friendly Mark when the whistle blew and her curtain flew back once more.

  A stocky, muscular man, who looked to be in his late fifties, entered with a firm step. He lowered himself carefully into his seat: Becca had the idea that he might have broken a few chairs that he sat on with less caution. He had powerful arms, with an anchor tattooed on his forearm. He was covered with hair; she could see the hair bristling around his neck, curling against his collar. He wore a hat with the initials U.S.N.A., so she could not verify whether he also remained hairy at the top of his head.

  He tipped his hat slightly as he sat down. He had a composed smile, confident and affable, like one might use with a neighbor. She had to admit that he put her at ease, as he carried himself with sincerity.

  “Stu Kornheiser,” he spoke, with a coarse kindness. “Served in Korea; picked the right war. Union organizer,” he added, “for the past twenty-four years.”

  He described himself with the simplicity typical of fanatics.

  Becca paused.

  “What’s a pretty girl like you doing here?” he asked her, grinning.

  Becca shrugged, holding her cards. “I don’t know, Stu. Scoping, I guess.”

  “Cute,” the navy man said, picking up her joke.

  Becca studied him carefully. Would he work? More a grandfather figure than a father figure, but he passed the straight arrow test. He reminded her of dozens of neighbors she had known back in Brooklyn.

  “What’s your interest here, Stu?”

  “Marriage,” he said, simply. “My cooking is worse than the mess hall. I’m widowed: lost a good one. But I don’t dwell on the past. You look like a nice kid,” he said, his smile friendly.

  Becca shrugged. “Tell me about what you do.”

  “I’ve organized everybody I can get to,” he said. “A lifelong commitment. I’ve always had it in me to stick it to the big guy, you know?”

  Becca nodded. She could listen, even if she didn’t identify.

  “Any kids?”

  “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at his pants. “Some problems in that department. But I work with them all the time. I talk about unions in schools.”

  “You do?” she brightened. Maybe Stu was her man.

  “They won’t let me up the avenue anymore,” he said. “Made a big stink in Park when I organized the second grade.”

  Becca gulped.

  “Those Upper East Siders think they’re untouchable,” he said, his voice growing hostile. “You’ve got to break them from within. They have their illegals under lock and key: tough conditions; no benefits—vicious people. The power imbalance is incredible. But their kids, they have no control over. You should see what I had those kids asking for! A choice of juice and entrée at breakfast; or they won’t dress for school. A computer in their room and an hour of unrestricted access; or they won’t do their homework. One elective credit for every foreign language those UN-lovers make them speak!” He had stood and was pacing, gripping his hands into fists as he barked angrily.

  Becca, trembling, put her hand over the emergency bell.

  “To see those parents quivering in front of the grievance committee!” he recalled, brightening at his triumph. “It was beautiful. Here they were, with their neighbors and their neighbors’ kids on the committee, evaluating every grievance before they could even think about punishment. I’ll break ’em, I know I will. They send guys like me to fight for their freedom, and then they don’t think of the little guy. Well, with Stu Kornheiser against them—”

  Becca’s hand slammed against the bell.

  For the remainder of the session, she met entering dates with her questions right off the bat. The mortician left right away, declaring that she was a “bag and tag.” The lawyer tried to turn her questions back against her and trap her with an admission, but she rang the bell on him quickly. The neocon governor’s aide lingered, insistent that he could persuade her to boycott Teletubbies on the certainty that the purple, purse-carrying Tinky Winky w
as gay, but Becca was not interested in the politics of childhood, or the symbolism of learning. As the time wore on, she was not interested in much at all.

  Edward felt the sting of Becca’s absence. Her sudden work distractions were not coincidental to his engagement—they were responsive to it, and he felt the reproach of her departure in the hollow, echoing halls of the Stearnses’ apartment. He ached to see her.

  For the second time that week he rose from bed when he heard Emily shouting Becca’s name. Becca was an early bird, and Emily naturally had learned to turn to her first in the mornings. Becca was always smiling and awake; she had cool things to see on the computer, she hugged Emily and talked loud and fast and excited, and tickled her and poked her and rolled her around. Edward in the morning was different.

  For two days she had dragged her pudgy feet down the hall to the master bedroom, expecting to find Becca, and for two days the bed had been empty. Her cherished morning ritual had been stolen from her, abruptly and without explanation. Feeling uncertain of herself, confused and worried that someone special might leave her again, she became a bit ornery.

  Rubbing her sleepy eyes as she clutched her velvety cotton blanket, Emily stood in place and hollered toward the shower. “Becca! I’m awake!”

  Pulling a robe over his pajama bottoms, Edward hurried down the hallway. He greeted her with the best smile he could manage, but he was fighting his own sullen face. He woke in a cloud, feeling the pressure of his reclusiveness, feeling a grudge against everything. He was as out of sorts as she was. Both felt Becca’s abandonment keenly, and she had only slept at home for two nights now.

  CHAPTER 26

  Bunny Digs In

  Fresh from a rejuvenating morning facial and mud treatment at Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Salon, Bunny stepped into a cab and purred the address of the Sherry-Netherland. She was pleased with herself for turning to her friend at Weil, Gotshal & Manges for ideas on how to dispense with Emily. He had drafted a waiver right in front of her eyes, like a magic act, and the draft, reproduced in triplicate, sat tucked in her Fendi bag like a crown jewel. It was smart to see a lawyer, she thought with satisfaction. She hadn’t even anticipated a prenuptial agreement, but the lawyer assured her that even someone as old-school as Catherine Kirkland would drop one in her lap before too long.

  Catherine had invited her to the city residence again that afternoon, presumably to go over some last minute changes to the invitation list. If Bunny got hit with a prenup in that situation, her lawyer advised, as long as she was alone with Catherine, she had a silver bullet. She should receive the document in a posture of overflowing generosity. She should not even read it, assuring Catherine, with a look straight in the eye, that she trusted her completely. She would insist that anything Catherine requested of her, would be as noble and fair as the great lady herself. Then she should make a great show of signing her name, and hand it to Catherine with a scoff at the ugly world of lawyers that made them reduce these reasonable family understandings to a piece of paper. Marriage to a Kirkland, she would then assert, is an honor no matter what the terms.

  His guess was that Catherine, in that situation, would find it unseemly to look at Bunny’s signature. And the signature, which she was to pen next to an accurate date, was very important. She would sign it Bunny Kirkland, a false name in advance of the wedding, and one without legal effect. If Catherine did see it, she would only see Bunny’s sweet loving eagerness: She would be charmed by her youth. For security he recommended that she sign with her left hand, to ensure that the signature would not look like hers.

  The lawyer was pleased with himself. A marriage that started on this footing would soon explode, and he would naturally get Bunny as a client out of the breakup. For that reason he drafted the waiver without charge, thinking of it as a loss leader in advance of Bunny’s big divorce bills.

  But Bunny Stirrup had no thoughts of divorce. She fairly floated out of the cab, feeling invincible: Every detail was done. You hire a snake to do the work of a snake, she thought, beaming as she approached the grand Sherry-Netherland, and you hire a peacock to do your wedding.

  She saw the flamboyant wedding coordinator and called out to him. “Adrian! Darling!”

  Adrian, flipping through the pages of his Franklin planner, was stumbling into passersby like a pinball as he hurried toward the hotel’s entrance. Bunny sailed to meet him with the grace that her dreamlike success imparted to her every glorious move. Though she had only met Adrian once before, at the Bow Wow Luau in the Hamptons, she had followed the pictures captured of him in the society pages for as long as she could remember, and greeted him as if he were her old friend. At any rate, Adrian would be hard to miss. He always dressed in feathers.

  Adrian’s neck, poking out of a Versace suit jacket whose Nehru collar was adorned with shock-dyed feathers, whipped around at the sound of his name, and his eyes lit to sparkling at the sight of his next moneybag, Bunny. She took his arm and led him through the doors to Doubles, where they had scheduled their first planning meeting over lunch.

  I can’t lose, she laughed to herself, recalling that she had dreamed of hiring Adrian Parish to do her wedding even longer than she had dreamed of marrying Edward Kirkland. He was simply it: a peacock, she thought again, smiling at the feathers that flounced with each of his hasty steps. His weddings were exorbitant affairs: lavish, unembarrassed events that appealed to her vanity with their lush, dazzling scale, sparing no expense for perfect luxury. There had been extensive press coverage of the wedding he designed that recreated New York City for a homesick bride marrying at a Los Angeles hotel, complete with a quaint Central Park including a manmade pond, and a Brooklyn Bridge, which was a float made from ten thousand imported black orchids. He had even taken the trouble to fashion a little Harlem in the corner where they threw their trash.

  Adrian would attract acres of paparazzi to Bunny on her wedding day, and if there was one thing she had always hoped to achieve on the day she married, it was splashy publicity. She could trust only someone as accomplished as Adrian to provide a stage worthy of her. It would be easy to make Catherine think her people were in charge. And by the time the staff began to revolt, it would be too late. And anyway, no matter how furious she was, Catherine would never make a scene.

  Doubles was the perfect place to meet, Bunny thought, casting air kisses left and right as she waltzed past the jeweled and manicured socialites who filled the deep red club like canned goods fill a pantry.

  “Pathetic bag of hopefuls,” she whispered through the clenched teeth of her smile. This club was so Junior League, she thought, recalling her meetings with Lily Pulitzer’s advisory committee here, over hors d’oeuvres and tales of promising dates with investment bankers. Those days were already as stale as the memory of her high school prom, thought Bunny, though just a year ago the meetings had been rather a highlight of her social life. She couldn’t resist appearing here, one last time, with the wedding coordinator that everyone wanted.

  Bunny’s white Cerruti suit shone over her silver bustier. Into her cleavage dropped a whimsical rhinestone necklace, its heart-shaped pendant chirping “I Do, I Do!” in pink script lettering.

  “Love the necklace, darling,” Adrian said as he kissed her. Forgetting that Adrian was a professional flatterer, Bunny threw her head back in a laugh of careless vanity. She told him that she hadn’t seen him since the doggy luau, and they commenced an opening round of name dropping.

  Bunny could tell in a glance that Adrian was vibrating with possibilities. She ordered champagne at once, eager for it to arrive so she could drink it left-handed. Unable to wait, she finally dropped her left hand with an obvious thump on the table, waiting for him to comment on her massive diamond.

  The ring, which she had not of course chosen, was an heirloom presented to her by Edward’s mother the day she agreed to the text of the wedding announcement. Bunny had known she would be stuck with an heirloom: Really rich WASPs never bought their engagement rings. Still, t
he 10.3 carat oval diamond set in a platinum, diamond-studded band was impressive. Ten carats. She grew giddy just thinking about it. She needed to work out the muscles of her ring finger to support its weight.

  “Waiter, she’s wounded!” Adrian shrieked, shielding himself from the ring. “Somebody get that sharp rock off her hand!”

  He was even more obsequious today than was typical for him. In the exhaustion that followed the Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones affair, he had escaped to Bali for two months, and needed Bunny’s big score to get back on top. He had started to work with some branding executives about marketing “his” weddings a little more aggressively, capitalizing on the inevitable publicity that always followed one of his affairs. The marketing people were talking about a ready-for-production line of the wacky-shaped made-up animal dolls now popular among the wee Barney set, licensed original table settings, and a signature line of honeymoon clothes.

  Bunny brought him back to earth when she told him she wanted it done in two weeks.

  He attracted laughs and winks from the ladies at lunch when he screamed the word no! at Bunny’s face.

  “I said it would be in October,” she told him evenly, smiling at the waiter who arrived with their champagne. Without consulting Adrian, she ordered two shrimp salads and a fruit plate, then scatted the waiter away with her hands.

  “I assumed you meant next October,” he said, mopping his forehead. “Bun-Bun, I’ve got to get a set designer, a florist, a name-brand diva, a tent man to raise the Venetian palace, a caterer, my fireworks team, and a few dozen Asian drag queens, sweetie. Two weeks?”

  She didn’t budge. “Ten days, actually. What’s with the drag queens? It’s a blueblood affair.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Let Adrian be Adrian, sweetie. My queens blow kisses in the receiving line: They get things moving, call them my spirit leaders. Right? And I know about Edward. I’d do a club corner, with single malt scotch and cigars. Distressed leather recliners, foot massages, and a jazz combo that would make Billie Holiday blush.”