8.
Isla
In terms of business, I was fucked; that was the simple, succinct way of putting it.
Even if Wes paid back all the money he’d “borrowed” from the business account tomorrow, we’d only just have to enough to pay Tim and take care of getting the gym back ready to open. We wouldn’t be able to cover salaries or the mortgage and utilities. And in the long-term, there was no way we could compete with Fitness Universe, anyway.
“So the only option is to close,” I told Sophie. I was sitting in the chair at the salon she worked at, getting a trim. I didn’t really need a haircut, but I wanted to talk to her in person and she had a client cancel at the last minute so she told me to come and take her spot.
“The whole thing really sucks.” She ran the comb through my damp hair and made a few snips with her scissors. “I’m really surprised about Kelly. Well, wait, maybe not. She was always a little too boy crazy, so of course she’d do something like that for a fuck stick like Wes.”
“Sophie.” I looked around, but the chairs closest to me were empty, and the only other person in the salon was sitting under one of the big domed hair dryers.
“What?” Sophie said. She looked at me in the mirror. “You know I’m right.”
Sophie, Kelly, and I had all grown up here in Bel-Air. We met in kindergarten, and remained friends throughout middle school and high school, even when I moved away sophomore year to live with my mom’s new husband. I’d lucked out with them; they were popular and beautiful and were definitely part of the “in” crowd at school, but they were also my two best friends, and I knew I could count on them for anything. Well, except for not draining the bank account because of a hot new boyfriend, apparently.
“So here I am, twenty-eight and basically unemployed,” I said. “At least my hair will look good.”
“Your hair is going to look more than good. And if you’re really going to close . . . I don’t know, maybe you could work at Fitness Universe.”
“Do you really think I’d
want to work at a place like that?”
Sophie shrugged. “You might? You won’t know if you don’t give it a chance.”
I scowled. “Okay, Mom.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to
make you feel better. And you really might not mind it. You’d still be able to
help people stay healthy and get in shape, which I know is important. It might
be nice to just be an employee, too. You won’t have all that added
responsibility that comes with owning a business.”
“I guess I’m just not cut out of that sort of thing. I mean, if I were,
wouldn’t I have made certain all my bases were covered? Wouldn’t I have had
flood insurance? Wouldn’t I have called the plumber the second I noticed
something wasn’t right in the bathroom?”
“Don’t beat yourself up over things that have already happened, Isla.”
I watched my reflection in the mirror. I knew she was right and I couldn’t change the past, but that didn’t make it any easier of a pill to swallow.
After I left Sophie’s, I went home. I was getting changed into my clothes to go for a nice long run when the phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I picked it up anyway. “Hello?”
“Is this Isla Lucas?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t recognize the voice, but he sounded rather serious,
whoever it was. “Who’s this?”
“My name’s Daniel Frederickson; I’m Alex Bassett’s attorney.”
“Alex?” I said. Why was
my stepfather’s—I mean, ex-stepfather’s—attorney calling me? “Is everything all
right?”
“Alex was your stepfather, correct?”
“He and my mom were married, but they got divorced. It was a while ago. But yeah, he was my stepfather.”
“Well, I’m sorry to have to be the one to inform you of this, but Alex passed away on Monday.”
“Oh no,” I said. There
was a sinking feeling in my chest. It had been a while since I’d last talked to
Alex, maybe six months or so, but we’d still kept in touch all these years,
even after he and Mom had gone their separate ways. “What happened?”
“Heart attack. He was under a lot of stress.”
“I’m sure he was. Well, thank you for calling to let me know. I’d like to go to the funeral.”
“Yes, I assumed. The funeral will be held at St. Ignatius Loyola on Saturday. Since you’ll be in the area, would you be able to come by my office for a brief meeting?”
“A meeting?” I said. “Is that really necessary?”
“Yes. There’s a few things I’d like to go over with you, concerning Alex’s living trust.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I said. “Like I said, Alex used to be my stepfather, but he’s not anymore. And besides, he never talked to me about that sort of stuff, anyway. I’m not even sure what a living trust is, to be totally honest.”
“Would you be able to meet on Friday afternoon?”
“Um, sure, I guess,” I said. What day was it? Wednesday?
“Great. We’re on 5th and W 44th Street. Does two o’clock work?”
“Okay,” I said, even though my head was spinning. What was he talking about? Why was I going to a meeting with him?
“All right then, Ms. Lucas, I look forward to our meeting. Goodbye.”
And then the line went dead.
I stood there for a moment, just staring at the phone. Everything seemed to be happening too quickly for my brain to process. Alex was dead? I took a deep breath and called my mom.
“I have some bad news,” I said when she answered.
“Brian broke up with you?” she said immediately.
“What? No! Well, yes, but that’s not the bad news. And actually, no, he didn’t break up with me—I broke up with him.”
“Why? When? What
happened? He was such a nice—”
“Mom! That’s not why I’m calling! That has nothing to do with the bad news.
Alex is dead.”
“Alex?”
“Yes, Alex Bassett, your
ex-husband. Remember him?”
“Of course,” Mom snapped. “I was the one married to him, after all.” She took a
deep breath. “What happened?”
“He had a heart attack.”
“Who told you? Did Levi
call you?”
“No,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked to Levi, which was
just fine in my book. I’d been overweight as a teenager and he’d taken special
delight in making fun of me whenever he got the chance. “Alex’s lawyer called.”
“His lawyer?” I could
hear the suspicion in Mom’s voice. “Why was his lawyer calling you?”
“I don’t know. To tell me, I guess? I told him that I wanted to go to the
funeral, which is this Saturday. But he said that he wanted me to meet with him
at his office on Friday afternoon. Something about a living trust.”
“Hmm.” Mom was quiet for a minute. “I don’t know if I like the sound of all this, Isla. Why would Alex’s lawyer want to go over something with you about that? Unless of course he left you something. Which I suppose wouldn’t surprise me.”
“I doubt he left me anything,” I said. “Why would he? I’m sure there’s plenty of other people he could have left things to.”
“I can’t think of another reason why you’d need to go have a meeting with his lawyer.” Mom took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “I guess you’re just going to have to go to this meeting to find out.”
9.
Levi
“Aside from BCM, which your father has left to you,” Daniel said, “he had about three billion dollars in additional assets, in the form of stocks, bonds, equity securities, rental properties, land, and cash. He’s left two billion of it to you.”
I nodded, still trying to wrap my head around everything that Daniel was saying. I’d been back in New York less than twenty-four hours. Basically, the short version of it was: my father had left everything to me, despite our last conversation being about him cutting me off.
“Who did he leave the other billion to?” I asked.
Daniel looked at me as though he disapproved of my question, though I wasn’t asking because I wanted it; I was just curious. I also couldn’t think of anything else to say in regards to the news he’d just told me.
“Isla Lucas,” he said. “Your former stepsister.”
Now that was actually a
shock. “Isla? Are you serious?”
“Yes. That’s exactly how it’s been outlined in your father’s will. He was quite
clear, in fact.”
“Huh.”
I hadn’t thought of Isla in a really long time. In fact, the last time I thought of her was probably the last time I’d seen her, when her mother and my father finalized their divorce and they moved out of the penthouse. I remembered Isla lugging some duffel bag of stuff down the hallway. She’d been struggling with it, but I hadn’t offered to help.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m a little surprised, I guess. I didn’t even know that my father still talked to her. He never mentioned it to me.”
“Your father tried to mention quite a great number of things to you that you generally had very little interest in hearing about. Perhaps he did try to mention it to you, but you were too busy living your hedonistic lifestyle.”
I smiled. I knew Daniel didn’t like me, I knew Cal wasn’t fond of me, and I could just imagine how they were taking this news that most of what my father owned had been left to me.