I laughed the kind of self-effacing laugh that was expected of me. “Tycoon? Me? Ha! Unfortunately, I’m not Warren Buffett.”
Tully slapped my back again. “You’re still young. Give it time.”
I looked into Tully’s eyes. He believed I had the capability to be everything I pretended to be.
Telling all this to Laurel is strangely heartening. She’s amused I could actually converse with her father, but then she flicks on the switch that controls the fluorescent wall lamp above her bed. Her expression hardens. “Jimmy. You should know something about my father. He’s a viper. He honestly is. Beware of him. I’m not joking.”
I get that there’s bad blood between the two, but I try to make light of it. “Bah! How bad could Tully be if he helped create a wonderful woman like you?”
Laurel takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, and I feel more than foolish, for it’s not often my effort to put people in better spirits fails so miserably. “Jimmy. You don’t understand. He’s not a man to be messed with.”
“Fine. Okay.”
“I don’t want anything bad happening to you, okay?”
“Sure. I get it.” I have no idea why she’s making such a big deal over this. “Listen, I don’t know why we’re arguing, but let’s brighten things up. This tension’s not good for either of us.”
It takes a moment, but Laurel eases up. I imagined the days she’d spend in the hospital after the birth to be a form of quarantine, severe and cut off from all the normal comforts of home. I’d stuffed her suitcase with things designed to make her stay more endurable: extra pairs of slippers and nightgowns, toiletries, and spare pillows. To this, I added a box of Debauve et Gallais chocolates. I wanted her to enjoy something sweet, a reward for bearing our child, especially since she’d otherwise eat nothing but hospital food.
Laurel reaches over and touches the spot on my suit jacket where Anne Elise did her reflux spit-up thing. A crust has formed over the dollop, which smells rank, like spoiled milk. Next time I pick Anne Elise up, I ought to drape a towel or something similar over myself as a precaution. “I’m surprised you didn’t go apeshit mad when she did that,” Laurel says.
“What’s a dry-cleaning bill compared to the love of a baby?”
Laurel laughs. She thinks I’m sweet and gentle, and for the most part, I am. “Actually, I’m glad my parents are gone because there are a couple of things we should discuss. How did you feel when I introduced you as my fiancé?”
A woman who introduces me to her family as her fiancé is not someone who’s going to jettison me out of her life (and my baby’s life) anytime soon—so I was actually glad to hear it. And yet her pronouncement raises inevitable complications. The screws are tightening on me. One way or another, Laurel and Trish are both trying to corner me into making a decision I ultimately would rather not make. “Laurel—I understand why you did it. You needed to say something to your parents to explain who I was. But please, don’t go around telling other people we’re engaged, okay?”
“Why?”
I shake my head in disbelief. Discretion, apparently, is not part of Laurel’s vocabulary. I can’t believe she doesn’t understand why a married man might object to having someone going around saying he’s about to marry someone else. “Laurel, please. What do you think will happen if, god forbid, my wife’s friends hear that we’re engaged? How will that look? That’ll only make Trish dig her heels in deeper when it comes time for the alimony negotiations. Think about my wife.”
“Your wife? Why are you still worried about her?” Laurel says, her face pale, her emotions cold. I think of Tully’s crude cobra tattoo, the snake’s forked tongue darting out of its mouth, its fangs exposed, ready to attack. It chills me, thinking this part of his personality might have rubbed off on Laurel. “You told me you were going to get Tricia out of your life. Out of our lives. The sooner it happens, the better.”
“These things take time,” I say. I used to believe my best thinking was done while standing up—under the pulsing warm water of my morning shower or while working at my standing desk—but now I plop down on the recliner. As young as Laurel is, she has no idea how hard it is to break away from a long-term relationship. “Are you aware of what one wrong mistake could mean? These things take time.”
“You’ve had, like, nine months to figure out how to disentangle yourself from Tricia. How much more time do you need? No more chillaxing. It’s time you bailed on her.”
My life’s as complicated as it’s ever been. I owe Trish millions of dollars. Literally, millions. Each time Trish covers my investment losses, she summons me upstairs to the same secret second-floor study her father used as his little hideaway nook. Inside, ornately carved wooden filing cabinets contain old communiqués from the decades when the world’s financial elites communicated with each other via transatlantic cables and wireless telegraphy. Dusty bank ledgers dating back to the nineteenth century line the shelves. The first time I saw them, I mistook the bank ledgers for the kind of thick leather-bound Bibles that are passed down through the generations, the kind that if you open the front flap, you’ll find handwritten genealogical notes detailing the begots and begats of an entire clan. I’ve tried to get Trish to tell me how she activates the hallway bookshelf that swings back and retracts into the wall to reveal this nook, but she’s never divulged the secret. Instead, she sits me down at her father’s old desk and makes me sign papers her lawyers draw up in which I pledge repayment of the money should, as the documents spell out, anything ever happen to our union. The legalese in Trish’s documents is impeccable, yet over the years, it never occurred to me that someday, the union of our marriage would falter and that I’d be accountable for the money.
“Honey. Dear. Do you know the adage about a woman scorned? Do you know why men lose entire fortunes during divorce proceedings? Anne Elise needs us to be on a solid financial footing. Precautions are needed. I can’t have Tricia fleece me for every penny I’m worth in divorce court. Do you understand that, honey? I’m trying to do what’s best for us. What’s best for Anne Elise. Give me time—that’s all I’m asking. You’ve got to trust me.”
Laurel crosses her arms. “Do you remember me saying I’ll make sure you’ll never see our baby if you don’t divorce Tricia? So help me god, I’m serious about that.”
Our argument is interrupted when someone steps into our room with a huge bouquet of pink roses in a cobalt-blue vase. The flowers are stupendously fragrant; seated in the recliner, I smell them. Laurel brightens immediately upon seeing them. The delivery person looks at the card that’s attached to the vase and then looks at Laurel and asks, “Are you Laurel Bloom?”
“Yes!” Laurel says. And then she turns to me and says, “Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you! I was hoping someone would send me flowers.”
I tip the delivery person a couple of dollars and walk the flowers to Laurel, who brings them to her face and inhales lustily. The flowers are beautiful, the pink tips of their petals dark and vivid, but something’s wrong: it’s not me who bought the flowers for Laurel. My thoughts turn to her parents, but Tully doesn’t strike me as someone who’d splurge for what must be a seventy-five-dollar bouquet. As far as I know, Laurel doesn’t have another close friend in the city. I’m the center of her world. Or so I thought. Certainly, she must have other people who’d send a congratulatory bouquet. But who?
“Open the card,” I say.
Laurel, all smiles, does exactly that. I can tell she expects the card to contain some bold declaration of love from me, but because she’s sitting with her back to the wall, I can’t peer over her shoulder at what she’s reading. At a certain point while she reads, her eyes narrow. She looks up from the card, confused.
“Well? Who sent it?”