by Julie Cohen
‘Fine,’ she spluttered, and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Just—a tickly throat.’ She turned her back on him and leaned on her hands on the counter, clearing her throat.
‘This is the second shirt I’ve ironed today.’ He unplugged the iron and pulled on his warm shirt. Not as warm as her skin would be.
‘Let me guess,’ she said, taking down a bowl and pouring cereal in it, her back turned to him. ‘You got bird poop all over the other one.’
‘The pigeon is certainly generous, though I’d rather tangle with that bird than a wounded skunk.’ He began to do up the buttons. ‘The pigeon is better this morning, by the way.’
‘Oh, I am relieved. I didn’t feel like having more than one funeral today.’
She seemed to be taking her time pouring milk and coffee, and Nick wondered if something was wrong. He’d tried to stay out of her way all last evening, partly because he’d thought she’d need the space after reading whatever her great-aunt had to say, partly because she’d looked so incredibly sexy, lying there laughing on the bedroom floor, her eyes bright and her mouth wide, that he’d thought he should remove himself from temptation.
Of course, she could be upset about her great-aunt’s funeral.
The ironing board made a screeching sound as he folded it up, and Zoe turned around. She had an enormous smile on her face.
‘I am so looking forward to this funeral,’ she said.
So much for that idea.
‘Why?’
She brought her breakfast to the table and sat down. ‘You and I, Nicholas Giroux, are two of only five living people who know that Xenia was Xander Drake. Everybody at that funeral is going to be looking around and wondering where Xenia got all her money. Including my family.’ She took a huge spoonful of cereal, smiling as she chewed.
Nick sat across from her. ‘You’re not going to tell them, are you?’
‘Nope.’ She chuckled as she demolished her breakfast. Nick couldn’t help but enjoy watching her eat; her no-nonsense hunger was somehow incredibly sensual.
She was nearly finished when she looked up suddenly. ‘I just thought of something. The letter my great-aunt wrote me was dated the same as her will. April twenty-third.’
‘The same date my father’s letter was mailed. What do you think the connection could be? Do you think they were together that day? Do you think my father had something to do with her will? It’s a very recent will, after all.’
‘Maybe. Then again, if I were taking up skateboarding at age seventy-four I’d write my will, too.’ Her blue eyes met his. ‘It does seem to point to the probability that he’ll be at her funeral, though. Are you ready to meet him?’
‘I’ve been ready to meet him for sixteen years.’ Nick heard his voice had turned grim. Zoe’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at him, as if she were trying to figure something out.
She scraped back her chair. ‘Well, it looks like it’ll be a happy family day all round. Are you ready? I want to get there a couple minutes early to make sure everything’s the way Xenia wanted it.’
And he’d accused her of avoiding responsibility; clearly not with this. He found himself proud of her. ‘Just need to put on a tie.’
‘And I just need to brush my teeth. Meet you at the front door in five.’
When she met him she smelled of toothpaste, but she’d also put on a bit of lip gloss that made her mouth look even more delicious.
He offered his arm. ‘Shall we go, Ms Drake?’
For a split second he thought she was going to take it, and that would be a pleasure, too, but then she raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘I can walk in heels, you know. I’m not that hopeless at being a woman.’
‘No, you’re very good at being a woman.’
She didn’t answer him, just concentrated on opening the door and locking it after them, and he wondered if she’d heard what he said, or understood what he’d meant. He’d never met a woman more reluctant to hear compliments than Zoe Drake.
Or maybe he wasn’t so good at giving them. Maybe he needed to try a little harder.
At the desk, Ralph was wearing a suit instead of his normal uniform, and he nodded sombrely to Zoe’s cheery, ‘See you later!’
‘He’s devastated at losing her,’ Zoe told Nick quietly as they went outside. ‘Says she was his favourite. He couldn’t find anybody to cover for him today but he’s going to come to the funeral for half an hour on his lunch break.’
Nick remembered Ralph’s sudden look of sadness, when he’d first said he was looking for Ms Drake, and despite the fact that the concierge still looked at him as if he were an unwanted piece of gum on his shoe Nick felt a little bit of sympathy for him.
‘How are we getting to—?’ he started, but Zoe had already raised her arm and let out a piercing whistle. A yellow cab swerved up to them and stopped, engine rattling. The side window rolled down and a loud, unmistakable wolf-whistle came out.
Nick frowned and leaned towards the driver, who was staring at Zoe with lascivious eyes. ‘Hey, buddy, there’s no need for—’
Zoe gently but firmly pushed Nick out of the way and stuck her head in the open window. ‘Hey, José, how’s it hanging, man?’
‘Zoe, dude, you are looking H-O-T hot!’ The driver licked his finger and pressed it to an imaginary surface, making a hissing sound.
Zoe laughed and opened the back door to get into the cab. Nick followed, knowing he shouldn’t be bothered by Zoe’s friend ogling her but being bothered anyway. He’d forgotten that Zoe drove a cab for a living, and forgetting this fact annoyed him, too.
‘You going to your great-aunt’s funeral, right?’ José said, pulling the cab into traffic. ‘I gotta radio the boys and tell them my man Zoe is wearing a skirt.’
‘I’ll never live this down,’ Zoe said to Nick, sitting back with a huge grin.
‘Are you going to keep driving a cab?’ he asked her, quietly in case she hadn’t told her colleagues yet.
‘Of course.’
‘Even though you’re worth fifty million dollars? Do you like the job that much?’
‘I’m not in love with it, but it’s my job. I don’t want to depend on my great-aunt for the rest of my life.’
That was an interesting way of thinking of it. ‘Surely she willed her estate to you because she wanted you to have it. That doesn’t mean you’re dependent on her.’
‘And what else would you call it if I stopped working and lived off money that she earned?’
Nick paused, remembering a conversation he’d had with his mother years ago. Sue Giroux worked in a vet’s office as a receptionist, a job she loved but that didn’t pay much. When money was especially tight when they were kids, around Christmas or when a big bill came in, and before Nick and Kitty were old enough to be able to help out by getting part-time jobs, Sue used to work extra night and weekend shifts in a warehouse, packing magazines.
She never complained; Nick had never heard his mother complain in his life. But he remembered her getting home from the vet’s office only to grab a quick dinner and then go out again to work until midnight. After a few days her face would look weary. After a few weeks she’d be walking like an old woman, her skin pale, even her hair duller. The only part of her that hadn’t changed was the spark and fighting spirit in her eyes.
‘Why don’t you find him?’ he asked her, when he was about fourteen years old. A couple of his friends at school had divorced parents; he’d heard about child support. ‘He has to give you money, it’s the law, right?’
His mother put down her cup of tea and stroked his hair back with a hand that was tired yet strong.
‘Nicky, honey, you’re right, it is the law. But we stopped depending on Daddy the minute he walked away from us, and he stopped depending on us, too. Being a father isn’t about money, and nothing he could ever put in a bank account would bring him back.’
‘But it’s unfair,’ he said, and, though his mother tried to argue and tease him out of it, he felt the unfairn
ess too much to put it aside.
He still felt it now, though he understood his mother’s pride, and he could understand Zoe’s, too.
‘What are you going to do with all of the money, then?’ he asked. ‘Keep it in a bank account somewhere? Will you live in your great-aunt’s apartment?’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘That’s hers. And I don’t know what I’m going to do with the money. I haven’t thought about it yet.’
‘Here we are, chica,’ José said, pulling up in front of the biggest church Nick had ever seen. Although some of it was covered in scaffolding, he could still see that the front was crowded with carved statues and Gothic filigreed arches. He didn’t get a chance to look at it closely because he saw José’s eyes watching Zoe’s bare legs in the rear-view mirror as she slid out of the cab.
‘Thanks,’ he said to José, knowing his voice held more than a little possessiveness as he held out a ten-dollar bill for the driver to take.
‘Oh, no, it’s only a few blocks, I wouldn’t charge Zoe,’ José said, holding up his hand to ward off the money.
Zoe leaned in the window again. ‘Don’t be stupid, José; you’ve got to earn a living like we all do. Here. Take it or I’ll have to kick your ass.’ She held out her own ten-dollar bill.
‘It would be a pleasure to have my ass kicked by you,’ said José, but he took Zoe’s money, ignoring Nick’s.
‘I was paying for the cab,’ he said to her when he got out, frowning.
‘Hey, as you say, I’m a multimillionaire,’ she said breezily, and climbed the steps with him to the church’s grand entrance.
She certainly did know how to walk in high heels. With every step her hips had an extra sway that was one of the most seductive things he’d ever seen, all the more so for being unconscious. He wanted to put his hands on her hips and feel her movement, as well as see it.
Instead he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. It was a church. A funeral. No time for lustful thoughts.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CHURCH WAS huge. Inside its vast echoing space, Nick felt as small as a child.
‘I can see why Xenia wanted to have her funeral here,’ Zoe said, gazing at the enormous stained-glass windows, the elaborately carved stone, the soaring ceiling and the immense gleaming organ. Scaffolding spider-webbed up the inside walls, too. ‘It’s straight out of The Addams Family.’
‘And that would make me Lurch,’ said a voice from their left. Nick felt rather than saw Zoe start beside him as a man came out of the shadows.
He wasn’t really kidding about the Lurch reference, Nick thought; he was very tall, very thin, and sunken-cheeked, dressed in the black of a clergyman. But his eyes were glittering with humour.
‘Well, if you’re Lurch, I’m Pugsley and this is Uncle Fester,’ said Zoe cheerfully, going up to him with her hand outstretched.
Uncle Fester? Nick ran his hand over his head to make sure he wasn’t suddenly bald as Zoe and the man of God got acquainted. From their conversation he could tell they had met before at one of Xenia’s birthday parties, which were apparently famous all over Manhattan for their eclectic mix of people and the quality of the champagne. His name wasn’t Lurch, it was John, and as he guided them through the church into a gilded side chapel set up for the funeral, Nick began to search his surroundings for a maybe-familiar figure.
He and Zoe had agreed: if Nick’s father was in New York, he could be at this funeral. Xenia had expected well over a hundred guests.
Nick had been bang-awake since four this morning, an urgent feeling he couldn’t quite name making his heart beat fast and his stomach feel queasy, his mind spinning on the idea that he might be seeing his father again. Zoe had distracted him before, but now the feeling intensified.
He peered around him. There were plenty of people in the church, strolling around, kneeling in prayer, sitting in the pews, and about a third of them were male. He stared at every man who was close to his father’s age, questioning and weighing probabilities.
What colour would his hair be—grey or still dark? Would he even have any hair? Would he have gained weight, lost it, be healthy or sickly?
Nick remembered his father as tall and broad, a very big man—but then again Nick had been ten years old, and now he was over six feet himself. His mother and Kitty told him he resembled his father. Would it be like looking in a mirror, or stepping into a time machine?
He couldn’t remember Eric Giroux’s voice at all, although Nick remembered hearing it, could even remember some of the words his father had said. But the pitch of it, the timbre and the accent, was gone from his mind. He didn’t think it had lasted much beyond his twelfth birthday.
Mostly, he remembered his father’s hands. They were always rough and reddened from working outside. They were good at tying knots, chopping wood, creating flies for fishing, fixing things.
He looked down at his own hands, rough from working outside, good at catching animals, treating them, building shelters and paths, planting trees. Would this be how he knew his father, not from his face or his voice but from his hands?
Or maybe there would be an instant connection, not a recognition of features but something more basic. As if he saw an aspect of himself standing in front of him.
Nick frowned. None of the men he could see in the church was the least bit familiar, either to his mind or to his feelings. But hardly any guests had arrived for the funeral yet. He shifted his attention back to Zoe.
She had shaken hands with John again and had turned into the side chapel. At the front was Xenia’s gleaming mahogany coffin, surrounded by fountains of lilies and white roses. Nearby, Zoe’s parents and three sisters stood with assorted men and children who he assumed were the sisters’ partners and the young beneficiaries of Xenia’s will.
It was almost imperceptible, but Nick saw Zoe straighten her spine and set her shoulders before she walked down the aisle to join them. Deciding he’d look for his father again in a few minutes, he followed her without waiting for an invitation.
‘Zoe,’ Mrs Drake said, stepping forward and giving her daughter a light hug and kiss on the cheek, ‘are you all right? You ran out so quickly at the lawyer’s.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’ve done a wonderful job arranging the funeral. And you look lovely.’
‘Thanks.’ Zoe’s voice was cold.
From where he stood, Nick could see the expressions on both mother and daughter’s faces: Zoe’s smile had become strained, an imitation of her usual self-confident grin, and Mrs Drake’s face showed pain at her daughter’s rebuff before schooling itself back into a smile.
‘Did you go shopping?’ she asked.
This time, Nick could see the pain on Zoe’s face, too—only for a split second—and he could tell she was catching a sub-text in her mother’s words.
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t blow the fifty million dollars yet.’
When Zoe turned away neither one of them looked happy. Their disappointed expressions, unguarded for a moment, were exactly the same.
He remembered what she’d said the two days before, after the reading of the will: I guess I can never disappoint them if I confirm their worst suspicions, right?
It looked as if he wasn’t the only one who had some issues with a parent.
And he could see that Zoe’s defensiveness, her inability to accept a compliment, didn’t just apply to her relationship with him. It seemed as if her defences were something she’d learned a long time ago.
‘Nicholas, was it?’ Mr Drake had noticed him, and was regarding him with a wary eye. Nick nodded and put out his hand to shake.
‘I’m sorry I had to leave without saying goodbye the other day, sir,’ Nick said, ‘or thanking you for allowing me to listen to the reading of Ms Drake’s will.’
He nodded, and Nick had the impression his apology had fallen distinctly flat. ‘I can’t blame you for chasing after Zoe, of course. Especially after the news of her inheritance.’
<
br /> Nick was catching some sub-text of his own. He chose to ignore it. ‘It was a very emotional moment for her—’ he began, but Zoe interrupted him.
‘You’re right, Dad, I’m bound to have all the men chasing after me now,’ Zoe said loudly and cheerfully. ‘Gosh, I must be the most eligible bachelorette in NewYork now that Aunt Xenia has died.’
‘I wasn’t expecting you to run out,’ the eldest sister, Jade, said. ‘I mean, it couldn’t have been a surprise to you that she left you all your money. You were staying in her apartment already, weren’t you?’
Zoe’s smile got broader. ‘Oh, Aunt Xenia’s still full of surprises, believe me.’
‘Do you have any idea of why she left everything to you?’ the youngest sister asked. From the eager way she asked and the expressions in the rest of the family’s eyes, Nick could tell it was a question that the Drakes had been discussing quite a bit over the past two days.
‘I don’t know,’ Zoe said. Unlike her other answers, it was said without any defensiveness, and of course Nick knew that Zoe had been wondering as much as the rest of her family.
‘I mean, it was such a shock,’ Cindy continued. ‘I just thought she would’ve left it to somebody more—’
‘Cindy,’ rebuked Jade.
The guardedness returned to Zoe’s face.
‘Responsible? Worthy? Someone who deserved it?’ she said.
‘Not that,’ the middle sister chimed in quickly, ‘just someone who wasn’t quite so—’
‘Quite so what, Diana?’
Zoe was still smiling, but only with her mouth.
‘I mean,’ Di said, ‘you’ve always been a little on the wild side, haven’t you?’
Her mother stepped in. ‘Di and Cynthia are just curious, Zoe, they don’t mean—’
‘No, Mom, they’re exactly right,’ Zoe said, and her voice was bright again. ‘Excuse me, I’ve got to talk to the undertaker about the funeral I arranged.’
She turned and walked back down the aisle. Nick went after her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked softly, touching her velvet-covered arm.
