Girl Meets Billionaire

by Brenna Aubrey et al.

  “Don’t want to tap that.”

  Dad sucks down his drink. That’s his third since I arrived an hour ago.

  “Good. Because if I get enough liquid courage in me, I think I’ll give it a try.”

  I do a double-take. “If she’s thirty I’ll be surprised.”

  “If she’s thirty I’ll be disappointed.” Dad shoots me a leer that’s meant to be shared, a sexual conspirator’s smile. I keep my face neutral on purpose. Shannon made a troubling comment a long time ago about my dad dating women her age, and it’s stuck. She was right. They call him The Silver Wolf. Not fox. There’s a difference.

  Dad’s the stereotype of the uber-rich old dude sticking it in anything born after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

  And he’s proud of it.

  Shannon’s theory is a pretty wretched one: after my mom died, Dad couldn’t deal with his emotions and funneled them into rage at me. He’s angry with me for not saving mom when she and Andrew were stung and we had only one EpiPen. I was the person who literally had to choose which one lived. Dad can’t process his grief for Mom without sublimating it into anger.

  And I’m the convenient target.

  I think Shannon’s been watching a little too much Dr. Phil.

  Dad’s dealt with those feelings with overachieving pushes toward Andrew to become CEO, and abandonment of Terry, who’s always been the black sheep of the family.

  Dipping his wick in women under thirty became a way of keeping his emotional distance, too.

  I think the truth is much simpler:

  He’s just a sexist asshole.

  Or just an asshole. Period.

  But he’s my father, and my boss, so I roll with it. It’s none of my business who he chooses to bed. Until he declares he’s marrying again and the will’s being changed, his private life is none of my business.

  My sex life, on the other hand, is about to go public.

  Again.

  Because once you propose to a woman, you’re pretty much declaring to the world your intention to fuck her. A lot.

  Impregnate her, even.

  The thought of Shannon pregnant, belly swollen, body glowing with new life makes me lose focus. A warm feeling of protectiveness and gratitude fills me. Either that, or my second scotch is kicking in. No, it’s not alcohol. It’s a feeling only Shannon can bring out in me.

  “You’ve got it all planned out? The perfect proposal?” Dad asks with a smile. He’s sincere. No sarcasm. That’s a surprise. Maybe it’s the alcohol.

  “I do.” Those two words have new meaning.

  “And you’re not telling anyone a damn thing.”

  “No.” Dad juts his chin up and waves to someone in the distance. Andrew walks into the lounge like he owns the place. Technically, Dad does, but who’s keeping track?

  Technically, Dad is...

  The server looks up and gives Andrew a suggestive smile. Dad scowls.

  “You know her?” Dad asks Andrew, competition flaring in his eyes. Dad’s got that whole Most Interesting Man in the World schtick going for him, with the greying hair, attractive features, and the billionaire mystique, but Andrew’s got youth on his side. Some women want George Clooney.

  Others want Jamie Dornan.

  And Dad hates that.

  “I’ve known her. Biblically,” Andrew says in an undertone.

  Dad just sighs. Being the old lion must be tough. Even Clooney just got married.

  Andrew turns to me and taps my arm. “Speaking of knowing people biblically, you’re about to propose. Got the ring?”

  “Yep.” Andrew doesn’t know Dad gave me Mom’s ring. I’m going to keep it that way until it’s on Shannon’s finger.

  Competition works in a lot of different ways in our family.

  “And the proposal’s planned?” The server brings our drinks over, obviously memorizing Andrew’s preference. Dad gives her a dazzling smile and she returns a polite one. Give it up, Dad.

  “Yep,” I say, impatient now. The testosterone level at the table has reached Titanic drowning levels. I need a door to hang on to. Talking about proposing to my sweet, warm, loving girlfriend while drowning in the toxic wasteland of my brother and dad’s masculine one-upmanship feels like I am stuck with one foot each on two tectonic plates that are shifting. Fast.

  And my balls are about to take the kinetic hit.

  Andrew cocks an eyebrow and looks exactly like pictures of Dad thirty years ago. “Why the secrecy?”

  “He doesn’t want Marie to know when and where,” Dad says with a wistful tone. Among the stranger aspects of my relationship with Shannon I have to include this fact: Dad and Marie dated many years ago, before he met my mom. Which means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still a little disturbing.

  The rehearsal dinner is going to be so much fun.

  Andrew snorts. “Smart man,” he says to me. “I can understand why. What’s her deal? She have a head injury in her past?”

  “No. That’s just how Marie is.”

  “You must love Shannon very much to accept that kind of mother-in-law,” Andrew adds with a smirk.

  Dad’s looking ill at ease. The fact that he and Marie have a past is a vulnerability he’d rather not possess.

  A sudden wave of nerves hits me. I don’t do nervous, so it’s doubly disturbing. Andrew swallows half his drink and gives me a speculative look.

  “What? Spit it out?”

  “You’ll be my best man?” Those words: Best Man. Holy shit. This is real. Really real. Not that getting the ring, having it secretly sized for Shannon, calling Greg and arranging a fake mystery shop, and calling Le Portmanteau to have the perfect proposal setting in place wasn’t real.

  But those words. Best and Man. Best Man.

  I’m getting married.

  Married.

  Is the room spinning suddenly? Perhaps Boston is experiencing an earthquake. Maybe someone slipped a roofie in my drink. Because one minute I’m upright and the next I’m on the ground, head between my knees, with Dad mumbling, “Jesus Christ” far above me.

  I’ve died and gone to hell, haven’t I?

  “Dude, you are going to be the worst groom ever if you’re passing out at the simple thought of proposing,” Andrew says from five miles out into space. “We’ll need an oxygen mask and a defibrillator to get you through the ceremony.” Andrew helps pull me up on my chair. “And yes, of course I’ll be your best man.” He smirks. “Take that, Terry.”

  See? Competitive.

  “You don’t have to marry her if you don’t want to,” Dad grouses.

  That makes me sit up more.

  “What? No.” I snap, still feeling a bit off. “Of course I want to marry her. What the hell’s wrong with you, Dad?” I spit out.

  “I, unlike you, am upright and conscious.”

  “Two more drinks and that won’t be true, Dad.”

  He just shrugs, drains his glass, and signals the server for another round. He’s a walking self-fulfilling prophecy with a bank account big enough to make himself immune to consequences.

  Suddenly, I can’t be here. Can’t keep doing this. Watching Dad be a lech, talking with Andrew about my future wedding like it’s a cage, I just...I’m done. I need someone who can listen to me without judgment. Without sarcasm.

  Without looking at everything in the room that has a vagina like it’s eye candy.

  I stand up, head clear now. “Gotta go.”

  “Where?” Dad asks, but he’s not really paying attention. His eyes are using x-ray vision to see through the server’s skirt.

  “An appointment with someone very important.”

  Chapter Eight

  The drive from Dad’s hotel out into the suburbs is frustrating, filled with a traffic jam caused by the flood of college students going back to school. Car after car overloaded with suitcases, pillows, household goods and lamps clutters the route I normally take.

  Finally, the off-ramp clears and I am on the side road, winding through
a small town center to get to my destination. At a red light, a car to my right honks, a light tap that indicates someone’s trying to get your attention. I look.

  It’s Marie.

  She waves wildly, a big smile on her face. It’s infectious. I smile back and wave, wondering if this means I really have forgiven her. What’s she doing in this town? It’s not one of her normal haunts.

  A flurry of hard honks follows. I look up and realize my light’s turned green. Gunning the engine, I take off, feeling a bit foolish, but the smile lingers.

  The long, twisting country road outside of Concord always fills me with a sense of foreboding. A sick chunk of concrete settles into my stomach, and it’s not because the New Zealand project looks like it’s one of my few failures.

  It’s because I remember driving down this very road eleven years ago to bury my mother. Tree-lined and lush with the bloom of late August, the memorial park could be a town center with wide walking paths, save for the gravestones sprinkled everywhere. My throat tightens as I maneuver the SUV through the iron gates to the sprawling cemetery where my mother’s family is buried.

  I park and walk to a small hill, an enormous beech tree covering half of it, the tree like an elephant’s foot, only ten times greater in diameter. Mom’s stone is under the shade of the tree, though not directly under it.

  Grey marble. A simple message. Her name, her birth and death dates, and an inscription:

  Loving wife to James, mother to Terrance, Declan, and Andrew

  More than ten years ago I rode in a black limousine behind an oversized black hearse that carried my mother’s body. Dad had delayed the funeral until Andrew was out of the hospital, and Terry had come home from college.

  You couldn’t talk to Dad. His secretary fielded questions from the three of us. An impenetrable fortress closed around our father, and he was all surface, no depths. At the time, he seemed so shallow, so insincere, like he was playing the part of the wealthy, grieving widower and we were just props. The three boys. Elena’s beloved sons.

  If anyone got us through the emotional nightmare of mom’s death, the credit really does go to Dad’s secretary.

  Grace.

  Mom and Dad were only children, so we had no passel of aunts and uncles to descend and help. Mom’s father was dead, and her mother was in a nursing home back near Buffalo, New York. Dad had broken off all contact with his own parents years ago for reasons he still won’t share. About five years back I learned they were dead.

  That big, happy family wasn’t us. Never had been. Mom was the glue.

  When you lose the thing that keeps you together, everything falls apart.

  Grace’s arms are the ones I remember reaching around me as I stood for hours after the burial, refusing to get in the limo, incurring the hissed wrath of Dad but not giving a shit. Andrew and Terry had complied with Dad’s order to get in the fucking car or else.

  I chose or else.

  No one except Dad cared that I stayed. They all went back in a long line of more than one hundred cars under police escort, headed for the Farmington Country Club for the sedate, tasteful gathering where appetizers would be served and wine and spirits would flow and we’d all have some closure.

  That was Dad’s word.

  Closure.

  I’d stood staring at the mounded dirt over the hole in the world where someone had dropped my mom. Her body wasn’t just in there. My future was, too. Leaving her wasn’t an option. Once I walked away, once I got into that black machine and drove off and left her like everyone else, it sealed the fate of truth for me.

  I’d killed her.

  Dad had said that to me the day we’d gone to the hospital, the day he learned her throat had closed, swollen so far that no amount of love or drugs could pry it open. Andrew was hanging on in another room but Mom was dead.

  Dead.

  All we have are memories of the dead. No more kisses. No more arguments. No more forgiveness.

  You can’t forgive a corpse.

  Or, in Dad’s case, a son.

  A wave of shame covers my body, a feeling I haven’t experienced in eleven years. Suddenly, Marie seems wise. Maybe she has a point. When you love someone, part of that loving involves digging deep inside yourself to a truth that is only yours. Whatever hurt and pain and grief resides inside you, that truth needs to be reached. Pulled out. Held up to the light of day and reconciled with the love you feel for someone who you feel did you wrong.

  I was barely eighteen. In an impossible Catch-22. Saving my brother meant losing my mom. Saving my mom meant losing my brother and defying her panicked plea.

  No way out.

  Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....

  Mom helped me deconstruct that Yeats poem right before she died. It’s about WWI and the terrible ravages of a war that changed all the rules of brutality. All the rules of what was expected when things fall apart.

  The ceremony of innocence is drowned...

  How could Dad blame me? How could he not? I suppose I understand and yet I don’t. My gut twists every time I think about those wretched moments when she and Andrew were stung and the weight of the world was placed in my hands. Every time Dad makes a snide comment.

  Every time a bee floats past Shannon.

  Am I crazy to marry a woman who could die the same way my mother did? I must be. A little. Two EpiPens can’t hold back the danger and the risk. My wealth means I can buy all the EpiPens in the world and sprinkle them liberally in every corner of every place where Shannon and our future children will be.

  And it still might not be enough.

  Love doesn’t care about randomness. Love embodies it, in fact. Embraces it. Knows that the random is the vehicle for spreading joy.

  And pain.

  So much pain.

  Surely some revelation is at hand...

  My father focused on the pain, never the joy. I followed in his footsteps. That serendipitous moment in the bagel store. Finding Shannon with her hand down the toilet. Having her walk into that meeting at my office and taking her to dinner...

  Falling for her.

  Loving her. Loving her so much I’ll risk letting my heart fall apart for the profound honor of her willingness to be mine. And to love me back.

  The joy of being with her outweighs the potential pain. It’s a gamble of the heart that I’ll just have to take, hoping the odds are on my side.

  “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,” I say aloud to my mom.

  God, I love Shannon so fucking much I’m standing here in front of a gravestone muttering Yeats to a dead woman.

  I’ve brought Shannon here before to “introduce” her and Mom, and we visited on Mom’s birthday and her death day. “Death Day” is one of the most macabre terms ever invented, but there isn’t a better term. Death Day it is. Shannon’s watched me cry here, seen me rage here, and we’ve also enjoyed a glass of Mom’s favorite wine while sitting on the afghan my grandmother knitted for Mom when she was pregnant with Terry.

  Mom’s had a reasonable chance, to the extent that one can while dead, to form an opinion of Shannon.

  It’s time to hear what the woman who owns the ring thinks.

  Am I a little crazy to be doing this? That’s a rhetorical question, right? Because no. Fuck anyone who thinks so. When you decide to propose to someone you talk to your parents, their parents, your siblings and friends and your secretary and the mailman and the barista where you get your macchiatos, right?

  Why wouldn’t I have a lengthy conversation with a gravestone, too?

  Loving wife to James, mother to Terrance, Declan, and Andrew

  How does a life sum up in one sentence carved in stone? She was blonde sweetness and light. Firm disciplinarian and kisser of boo boos. She taught us how to “read” an original painting, and why white space is important in art and life. Elena McCormick found a gentle peace in handwriting letters on fine stationery.
She loved to walk in creeks barefoot and jump into the ocean before sunrise, freezing and laughing as Dad watched from the balcony of the beach house, cup of coffee in hand, shaking his head at her antics.

  She was the sigh as she kissed me goodnight when I was little. The brush of hair against my cheek when she forced a hug from my teenage loner self. The scent of expensive perfume as she walked through the room on her way to a black tie fundraising dinner with Dad. The gleeful eyes as I brought my first girlfriend home to meet her.

  The only person in the world who told me that being Declan was my job. That finding out who I am was more important than being who everyone else wanted me to be.

  Mom would have really, really loved Shannon. I came here a few weeks after I met Shannon and told the story of how we met. If she were alive, Mom would have been horrified, then laughed so hard she’d have waved her hands in front of her eyes, begging for mercy because her mascara was running.

  She’d have insisted I bring Shannon home to meet her, and the two would have hit it off. Mom may have been Boston blueblood, but she was authentic, too. Polished and refined, but genuine.

  Shannon is anything but polished and refined. In fact, she’s the very definition of rough around the edges. But she’s real and authentic, raw and mine—and I am so fucking angry that Mom never got the chance to see how happy we are.

  Life really, really isn’t fair.

  The only thing I can think to do right now is punch the tree. Eleven years ago, after all the cars were gone, the last red taillights rounding the corner to exit the cemetery, that’s exactly what I did.

  Punched the tree until my knuckles bled so much they dyed the tree bark. Grace had stopped me, hugged me, and just held me, sobbing.

  My hand must have been in better shape when I was eighteen, because one sickening thud and I’m all punched out, with bones that are screaming at me in glorious pain.

  “Declan?” says a woman’s voice, older and smoother than Shannon’s. A light breeze tickles the leaves on the trees and I choke up, spooked.

  “Mom?” I say, jumping like a ghost just appeared, my voice cracking like I’m going through puberty.