by Hazel Kelly
“I will.”
“And if you change your mind about wanting me to come out ther-”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “It was just a little heart attack. He’ll be back to his old self in no time.”
I nodded.
“It’s amazing what the heart can take, you know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thank god for that.”
Chapter 8: Ben
“Over my dead body.”
I swallowed, hoping he’d simply developed Tourette’s and wasn’t about to shoot down my idea.
“What are you really going to call it?” he asked.
“Club Abbott,” I said, keeping my eyes on him, determined not to back down.
Will sighed and shook his head. “Sorry.”
I swear the way he was looking at me made me feel about nine years old.
He leaned back in his chair. “Why would you go and do a thing like that?”
“Cause I know it can be a great success,” I said. “And I’m going to use what you’ve taught me about hospitality and business coupled with my experience-”
“Your experience what? Clubbing?”
“Yeah.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t have you sullying my brand with some tacky club full of underage binge drinkers.”
“It’s not going to be that kind of club.”
He furrowed his brow. “I thought it was going to be based on your clubbing experience.”
“It is, and I think knowing what kind of club I don’t want it to be will be an asset going forward.”
“So paint the picture for me,” he said. “What kind of place is it going to be?”
“It’s going to be a club for elite New Yorkers with exquisite taste, the same kind of people that would stay in your hotel.”
“You’re serious?”
I straightened my back against the chair. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”
“That wouldn’t be hard to believe.”
My chest tightened. I couldn’t believe how bad it felt to hear him make a joke of it. It was like I hadn’t realized how bad I wanted to go through with it until that moment.
“And when were you going to tell me this?”
“I’ve been waiting until I could sort out a location.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I finally found one.”
“Where?”
“In the meat packing district.”
“You can’t afford a property there. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Actually I can.”
“Not with what was in your trust fund when you turned eighteen you can’t.”
“I invested it.”
He squinted at me. “Your mom said you blew it.”
“That’s cause she’s terrible with money and doesn’t know the difference.”
He nodded. “That is true.” He picked up a slick black pen and rolled it between his fingers. “I can’t tell you how many times I told her handbags are not a good investment.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. At least they hold their value.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Which is more than I can say for your Bentley.”
“Fair point.”
“Anyway, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve got more money than she does now.”
Will scoffed so hard he nearly snorted. “How do you figure?”
“For one thing, I own half a dozen luxury apartments in London.”
The whites of his eyes nearly swallowed his pupils.
“And not only are they appreciating in terms of their market value, but ever since I started renting them out with Airbnb, I’m pulling in an extra three thousand pounds a day on average.”
“You’re making a million pounds a year in rental fees?”
I nodded. “Give or take.”
Will clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“How did you even think to do that?”
“I don’t know. I was worried I would run out of beer money in college so I bought property during the crash with my trust fund.”
He pointed at himself. “And how the hell did I not know that?”
I squinted. “Cause you didn’t care?”
“Shit.”
“I’ll take that as a well done.”
He nodded. “And here I thought you were just a pretty face.”
“I get that a lot.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands on his desk. “So let me get this straight. You’re telling me you want to put all that profit into running your own club?”
“Yeah. Why not? From what I can tell, the entertainment business is basically recession proof as long as you target the right clientele.”
“And where did you say you wanted it to be?”
“411 West 13th Street.”
“That’s specific.”
“That’s cause I already bought the space.”
“What the fuck, Ben?! Why the hell would you go buy a place without showing it to me first?”
I craned my neck forward. “Because I’ve done it a bunch of times.”
“Still.”
“Because you don’t know shit about clubbing.”
“I’ll have you know that when I get my hands on a glow stick-”
I smiled. “I think you’ve proved my point there, and it’s not going to be that kind of place.”
“So you bought it already?”
I nodded.
“I respect that you’re obviously smarter than you look to have come up with the money-”
I furrowed my brow. “Thanks?”
“But I still think it’s a terrible idea.”
“Why?”
“Cause your attention span is too short,” he said, waving his hands in the air. “With women, with business, with sports-”
I rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense. I don’t quit on women first of all. You can’t quit on something you don’t start with seriously.”
“Not getting started is even worse.”
“And I played hockey for twelve years.”
“But you quit everything else.”
I gripped the armrests of my chair. “So I could play hockey at a national level! Can you even hear yourself right now?”
“You’ve only been working in this city for a year.”
“That may be true, but I’ve never quit a business idea, and this is the first one I’ve ever had that I’m actually excited about.”
“My point exactly!” He lifted his palms in the air like he was the statue of a saint. “You have to think on this for a while to decide whether it’s what you really want.”
“I’ve already thought about it.”
“And what if it’s a phase?”
“It’s not.”
“Is this about meeting women?”
“No, Will.” I scratched the back of my head, wondering how I could’ve been so unprepared for his reaction. “It’s not about meeting women. I don’t need to go to all this trouble just to meet women, as you well know.”
“Did that arrogant twit you hang out with put you up to this?”
“Christophe?”
“Yeah.”
“No, but he’s been a lot more supportive about it than you have.”
He hung his head. “Damnit, Ben. Why wouldn’t you at least discuss this with me before you went and pulled the trigger?”
I leaned an ear towards him. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe cause I never discussed anything with you for twenty years.”
He sighed. “I know.” He clasped his hands on his desk. “And I blame myself for that. I do. But I thought we’d been making progress.”
“We have been. That’s why I want you to be part of this with me. You’re the first person I wanted to tell-”
“Even before your Mom?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He stuck his bottom lip out. �
�Okay. Maybe we have made progress.”
“Of course we have. Are you kidding? We never even used to talk, and now I let you beat me at tennis.”
He squinted at me. “You didn’t let me beat you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Cause you serve like a girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just messing with you, Will. But make no mistake. I’m like the Djokovic to your Federer. It’s only a matter of time.”
He laughed. “Djokovic will never be Federer. That’s a joke.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Does that mean he shouldn’t even try?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“I just want your blessing,” I said. “I don’t need it or anything. Lord knows I got this far without it, but it would mean a lot to me.”
He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “Do you have any idea how much work goes into something like this?”
I swallowed.
“How time consuming and energy sucking it is to start something from the ground up? With nothing? Cause that’s all you’ve got, you know?”
“I don’t have nothing. I have a name.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. This is your baby, and if you’re going to give birth to it against my wishes, I can’t stop you.”
My heart sank in my chest.
“But I won’t have you naming it after me.”
“But-”
“Sorry, Ben. My decision is final.”
Chapter 9: Carrie
I couldn’t believe he hadn’t come crawling back yet.
Maybe he did want to break up? Maybe getting caught was just his cowardly way of breaking things off.
Ugh.
Not that I would’ve let him in if he showed up, but he could’ve at least knocked on the door and begged for forgiveness. Surely I deserved that much.
Unfortunately, the scale of my hatred wasn’t nullifying with the passing days. If anything, it was only getting thicker and heavier. I swear I could feel it weighing me down, like my veins were filled with led.
The first few days, my personal hygiene went to shit. But now I was over compensating, over blushing. As if looking less unlovable made me feel it.
Which it didn’t.
But when I realized that was what Barbie must feel like- always grooming herself to within an inch of her life even though she couldn’t possibly believe Ken wasn’t looking at all the other Barbies- I sank even lower.
So I kept washing my face just in case Simon showed up, but I eased off on the blush a bit.
God forbid he came to ask if I would take him back and changed his mind because I’d sprouted pepperonis from my forehead in his absence.
And yet his absence wasn’t enough.
I mean, there was little I could do to erase his negative, deceitful energy from my private space, but it wasn’t long before I began to loathe the way his personal effects taunted me.
Which gave me an idea, a lovely charitable idea that made me feel better as soon as I thought of it.
It only took about fifteen minutes to put his stuff in a box. He didn’t have much. A lot of it was still in his parents’ across town where he was storing it while he sold his apartment. Or maybe some of it was at hers. I shuddered at the thought.
Twenty minutes later, I was down the street from my office, waiting at the 54a bus stop- not for the bus, but for Woody.
I didn’t have to wait long.
“Carrie,” he said, approaching me. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Hi Woody,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “How are you?”
He shrugged. “No sense in complaining.”
“Are the nights getting cold?”
“Not too bad yet,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “What brings you to mine?”
I moved to the inner edge of the sidewalk. “I brought you a few things.”
“That’s nice of you,” he said. “Did I thank you for those Mcdonald’s coupons you gave me last week?”
“You did,” I said, setting the box down. “Did you already go through them?”
“Every last one,” he said, a smile spreading across his furry face. “Except for the Filet o’ Fish meal.”
“Do you not like that one?”
“No, I do,” he said. “But it gives me weird dreams.”
I cocked my head.
“So I’m saving it for a special occasion.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said, reaching in the box. “Well, you don’t have to keep anything you don’t want, but I wanted this stuff to go to a good home-” My face scrunched. “Sorry, poor choice of words-”
“Don’t worry about it. What have you got for me?”
“A jumbo bag of beef jerky.”
He took it in his hands and admired it like it was a Christmas ham. “What a wonderful treat! I could kiss you!”
I smiled.
“I won’t, though, cause I haven’t brushed my teeth in a week and a half.”
I hid my flinch by bending back towards the box. “And I’ve got three new sweaters for you and a puffy vest.”
His eyebrows jumped up his face. “Holy cow! What have I done to deserve this?” He grabbed one of the sweaters and rubbed it between his dirty fingers.
“Unfortunately, it would be more accurate to ask what somebody else did to deserve this.”
He cocked his head. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Carrie.”
I sighed. “It means Simon and I broke up.”
He pulled me into a hug, crushing me against his chest.
I held my breath.
“What happened?” he asked after he released me.
I shrugged. “I caught him with someone else.”
“Bastard.”
“I know.”
He squinted. “So now you’re giving me his stuff?”
“Only what’s mine to give,” I said, trying to determine how severe of a lie it was.
“Is he going to come looking for it? Cause I’m really under enough stress.”
“He won’t. I promise.”
He pursed his lips.
“What’s got you so stressed, though?” I asked. “Besides the usual?”
“Some new guy is begging on my block.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And he doesn’t even sing or recite poems like I do. He just sits there begging.”
I shook my head.
“I feel like I could compete if I had some new material, but-” He hung his head.
I craned my neck forward. “But what?”
“The library won’t give me a card since I don’t have an address.”
“Seriously?”
“And I know this other guy that has one, and he says it’s nice to go in there and read in the winter cause they keep it really warm.”
Sometimes it was hard not to feel bad for him, but he responded much better to charity than he did to pity. “I’ll get you a library card, Woody, if you’ll promise to return the books on time.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You will?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering if it was a bad idea. I mean, he might be able to figure out my home address, but I’d never felt threatened by him before. Plus, I didn’t see how I could enjoy quality time with my kindle knowing he couldn’t get his hands on a nice book when he wanted one. “It doesn’t seem fair that you shouldn’t be able to get one.”
“That would be amazing, Carrie, but if you change your mind-”
“It’s fine. Just remind me so I don’t forget cause I’m a bit all over the place lately with work and-”
