As much as I was here for a reason, my curiosity about my father and his history poked at me. “Did you like New York?” I asked. I wasn’t looking to embarrass him. I wanted to know. He was half my DNA and I was curious about which parts of me, apart from my cheekbones and eyes, had come from him.
“I haven’t been in a long time, but I enjoy city life—although I think I’m more suited to the country.”
I didn’t know anything but city life. That was okay. I loved New York. I knew every crack in the sidewalk, every scuffed fire hydrant, every Duane Reade from the Apollo to Battery Park.
“We have a place in Scotland,” Evan said. “We go in the summer.”
Summer in New York was a challenge. Over the past few years, I’d spent the odd few days on the Jersey shore with Natalie, but because of jobs and studying, for the most part my summers were spent in the searing humidity of the city. Like the rest of New York, I’d try to hop between air-conditioned buildings in order to avoid the feeling of being bathed in the drunk breath of an old man staggering out of a dive bar at three in the afternoon. I imagined Scotland was a little different.
“And sometimes at Easter,” Bella said. “I like horses.”
“We all like horses,” Bryony said, speaking for the first time.
“Do you like horses?” Bella asked.
It was a simple question and one I imagined most of Bella’s circle would easily answer. The problem was the question and my answer betrayed much more than equine preferences.
“I don’t not like horses,” I replied.
Before the confused frown on Bella’s face could be translated into further questioning, Evan interrupted. “I have a few friends who’ve done their MBAs at Columbia. It’s a very good course, I hear.”
“I enjoyed it a lot.” For the first time in my life, being surrounded by the other students at Columbia, I’d felt like I’d been rubbing shoulders with the elite. Sure, I still felt like an outsider, but I knew I wasn’t dumber than the people around me. Just poorer. It had fired my ambition and given me a dose of confidence I’d sorely needed. “It’s exciting to be able to face my future with that kind of qualification. It feels like a world of possibilities opened up for me.”
I glanced at my father, who looked away. It seemed there was nothing I could say that was both authentic to who I was and comfortable for my father. My mother’s answer for most things was to be myself. She prized honesty over most things. “Non ho peli sulla lingua,” she would say, after telling me some truth I didn’t want to hear. The problem was, I didn’t know how to be myself sitting around a table with my biological father’s family. The situation was so alien to me. Everything from their sofa to their napkins felt like it came from a different world. Where did I fit in?
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” Evan said. “I’d be extremely proud if Bella or Bryony ever went to Columbia to get their MBA.”
A grateful smile curled around my lips and I nodded. She hadn’t needed to be so kind.
“You have to work hard,” Evan said, addressing her daughters. “Your sister has blazed a trail for you. This is why you have to do your homework. Isn’t that right, Sofia?”
“Homework’s definitely important.” Evan’s obvious effort at including me in Bella and Bryony’s world and addressing me as their sister was touching. It gave me hope that despite my father’s discomfort, he might want to continue to build our relationship. And that maybe Evan, Bella, and Bryony might just prove to be a lovely perk of my deception.
Ten
Andrew
I’d not made it to a night out with my close circle of friends for weeks. When I was in the midst of a turnaround, things were often far too busy and demanded enough focus and dedication that I couldn’t do anything but work and sleep. So I’d been looking forward to tonight.
“Tristan,” I said, taking a seat at the Mayfair pub we always ended up in when it was Beck’s turn to choose our venue. “Gabriel.”
“Do you want me to get you a drink?” Gabriel asked.
I shook my head. The barmaid here knew my order. She’d bring my drink.
“So you’re here but not drinking?” Tristan asked. “What use is that?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t drinking.”
On cue, the barmaid approached and put down a pint in front of me. “The Benediktiner Helles,” she said.
She’d remembered.
“Thanks,” I said, picking it up and taking a sip.
“How do you do that?” Tristan asked. “How do you get people to do what you want them to do without even asking? Are you a wizard in your spare time?”
“I don’t have spare time,” I replied.
“That doesn’t answer my question—”
“What’s happening?” Dexter said as he took a seat. “What’s Tristan moaning about? Beck, can you get me a Guinness please, mate?”
And like so often with Tristan, he never got an answer to my question because he was too impatient and way too easy to distract.
As everyone gathered around our table, I cleared my throat. “So, I need your help.”
Silence skirted around the group. It was rare that I came to our nights out with a problem to solve or an issue to mull over. I liked to be the one solving problems. Generally, I didn’t like a committee to weigh in on my dilemmas. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. The ball of lust that had gathered in my gut when Sofia came into my office with her blouse undone was proof of that. I’d had iron-clad walls between my life in the office and my life outside the office since I’d been fired at twenty-five from my first job. Back then, I’d let my personal life and my professional life collide. I’d made sure it hadn’t even come close to happening since. The fact that I’d even noticed Sofia as anything more than bread was a sure sign I wasn’t my usual, focused self. Listening to her on Friday sounding off about me in Noble Rot had made me realize I had a real problem. Far from smothering the desire I’d felt earlier that day, her smart mouth had reignited it. My iron walls were rusty. I needed a reset from my best friends. They would help me regain my laser focus on Verity.
“As you all know, my grandmother died just before Christmas and it’s brought things to a head for me.”
“With Verity?” Gabriel asked.
I nodded. “It’s never been easy for me to watch it morph into such a worthless publication but now, with my grandmother gone, all that’s left of her is her legacy. And her legacy is Verity. I can’t stand by and watch it warp and corrupt.”
“It’s like they’ve slapped some emulsion on the Mona Lisa and started drawing stick men on it,” Tristan said. He was nothing if not passionate on my behalf, which I appreciated.
“So, I need to do something about it.”
“Great idea,” said Tristan. “You’re going to buy it?”
Why did he leap to the wrong conclusions so often? Precisely because he leapt. The man needed to learn patience. “No, of course I’m not going to buy it. It’s not my skill set. I don’t run companies. I restructure them. I want to find someone else to buy it. Someone with the same kind of skill and passion and determination that she had. I need someone with an investigative journalist’s background to build Verity back into what it was.