18.
Isla
I was in the middle of telling Sophie that maybe the plan to seduce Levi wasn’t such a good idea when all of a sudden, there he was. Like he had just appeared out of thin air.
Of course, walking next to him was a tall, gorgeous woman I recognized immediately. Ella. His girlfriend who wasn’t really his girlfriend.
“Oh my fucking god,” I said, ducking my head.
“What?” Sophie asked.
“It’s Levi.”
“Where?”
“Right behind you. Don’t turn around—”
But it was too late. She
turned, and then turned back. “What the fuck is he doing here? And who is that
giraffe with him?”
My eyes widened. “Shut up!” I hissed. “They’re coming over here.”
For a fleeting second, I hoped that they were just going to walk right by, that they hadn’t actually noticed us, despite Levi having just waved to me moments ago. I’d only been around Ella a few times when my mom and Alex had still been together, but a few times had been more than enough. She was one of those women who was just so stunningly gorgeous that you couldn’t help but stare at her and try to figure out just how she managed to pull it off.
And here she was now, ten feet away and closing the distance with those long-legged strides of hers, a big smile on her face.
“Isla!” she said, coming over like we were long lost sisters or something. “I almost didn’t recognize you! You look great.” She leaned down to give me a half hug; I started to get up to hug her back but ended up awkwardly half-standing as her arm went around me.
“Hi, Ella,” I said as she pulled away. I sat back down.
“Oh hey,” Levi said. He
looked at Ella, then at me. “Sorry I’m late. I am in serious need of some
food.” And he sat down like we had made plans with him or something.
His gaze went to Sophie. “Hey,” he said. “You’re Sophie, right? How are you?”
Sophie gave him a cold look. “What—are you stalking us or something?” she asked.
I felt my face flush. “Sophie,” I said. I took a big sip of my mimosa.
“No, this was pre-stalking,” Levi said, trying to make a joke. Sophie stared at him stonily. I still couldn’t look at him. “I was planning to get something to eat and then maybe stop by your hotel, Isla. I wanted to apologize.” He sat down before either of us could say anything.
I looked at Ella. “You can sit, too,” I said, even though I didn’t really want to sit with her. Was I just being immature? Should I be adult enough now to be able to sit next to someone who I found completely intimidating?
“Thanks,” Ella said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d mind or not. I’ll just get a latte, though; I already had breakfast.”
Great. Was it too late to cancel my order of eggs benedict?
“We actually do mind,” Sophie said.
“She’s just kidding,” I said loudly. “Ella, this is my best friend, Sophie. Sophie, this is Ella, she’s one of Levi’s . . . friends.” Still to this day, I wasn’t sure what exactly they were. I knew they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend back when we were teenagers, but they were certainly more than just friends. I snuck a glance at Levi, who was stretched back in the chair, looking completely at ease. Our waitress hurried over when she saw him.
“I think I’m going to have to go with the pancakes,” he said. “I was thinking Belgian waffle on the way over, but now pancakes sound good.”
The waitress looked at him eagerly. “Did you want the blueberry buttermilk pancakes, or the banana walnut?”
“Hmm.” He looked at the three of us as though expecting our input. “I guess I’ll have the blueberry buttermilk.”
The waitress grinned. “Excellent choice. Those are my favorite.”
Sophie oogled her eyes at me, trying to bite back her laughter. Ella ordered her latte, and the waitress left, though not before giving Levi another flustered, shit-eating grin.
“Are girls just constantly falling all over themselves when you’re around?” Sophie asked him, an accusing note in her voice.
“Huh?” he said, as if he had no idea what she was talking about. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe for people like him and Ella, they were just so used to it that it seemed normal. Maybe they thought that was how people actually acted, not just to them, but all the time.
Ella nudged him with her elbow. “You should’ve ordered a coffee, too,” she said. “You look like you need it!”
She laughed, and then I started to laugh too, because it seemed like she was trying to make a joke, even though it wasn’t really that funny.
“He had a rough day yesterday,” Sophie said.
“I know.” Ella nodded and squeezed his hand. “I’ve only been to a few funerals, but they’ve all been incredibly difficult.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Sophie said. I tried to kick her under the table but ended up kicking Levi.
“We playing footsies?” he asked, an amused smile flickering across his face.
I flushed and looked down. “That wasn’t me,” I said.
“What are you talking about then?” Ella said.
“Oh, I’m talking about the fact that he threw up all over Isla’s purse.”
Instead of looking completely mortified, as I would have, Levi just looked mildly chagrinned. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “About that . . .”
Ella laughed. “Oh, Levi, you didn’t,” she said. “Let me guess—you were drinking scotch. This very thing happened the last time you tried to drink scotch. You know you can’t handle your liquor.” She gave me and Sophie a conspiratorial look. “He can handle all sorts of other things, but he and alcohol just don’t seem to mix.”
“Hey, hey, now, we don’t need to go spilling all of my secrets,” Levi said. “And to be fair, I didn’t have anything to eat beforehand and no, I’m not really that big of a drinker. So it was a bit of a shock to the system.”
“Ah,” Ella said. “I love
a good scotch.” She looked at me. “Did you have some?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
The whole situation felt completely surreal. You’d have thought I’d be used to surrealness at this point, but this was probably stranger than finding out I’d inherited money, then running into Levi again, then being back in the penthouse, him barfing on my bag. I felt like Sophie and I were spectators, watching Levi and Ella out on a date.
Things didn’t get much better when our food came. The eggs benedict was saturated in a thick, creamy Hollandaise sauce that was probably no less than two thousand calories. It looked delicious, but I wasn’t hungry, especially not with Ella right next to me, delicately sipping a latte out of a cup that was big enough to be a soup bowl.
Sophie had gotten stuffed French toast with a side of bacon, and she started eating, almost in defiance of Ella. The plate of pancakes the waitress brought out for Levi though, was the most impressive: four fluffy pancakes the size of Frisbees, stacked atop each other, butter dripping down the sides. He still had his sunglasses on but I could imagine his eyes lighting up as the waitress slid the plate in front of him, her arm brushing against his shoulder as she drew it back and straightened up.
“Well, you have just made my day,” he said, reaching for the maple syrup.
The waitress couldn’t hide her grin. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked him.
“I think I’m good for now,” he said. She lingered a moment but then left, not bothering to ask anyone else if they needed anything. Levi got to work drowning the pancakes in syrup and then he picked up his fork and happily dug in.
“I see your appetite hasn’t changed any,” Ella said, sipping her drink as she watched him eat. Sophie crunched loudly on a piece of bacon. I took my time cutting up the eggs benedict, the runny, bright yellow yolk exploding out from under the knife.
Levi was too focused on eating to be able to hold any conversation, so Ella turned to me.
“So,” she said. “How have you been? It’s probably been almost a decade since I last saw you.”
I wasn’t sure if she knew that Alex had left me money or not. It seemed like something Levi would’ve told her, but maybe he didn’t. Ella, I knew, had found success as a fashion designer; I knew this because I had happened to pick up an issue of Vogue the last time I’d been sitting in the waiting room at my OB-GYN’s, and there was her picture. It was a small picture, and just a quick blurb, but there she was. My stomach had tightened and I was overcome with an urge to look her up online, but I didn’t. She’d never been mean to me; she’d just viewed me as someone who didn’t travel in the same social circles as she did.
“She’s doing great,” Sophie said, before I could respond. “She’s just come into a considerable sum of money, in fact.”
“Oh?” Ella glanced at Levi, who was still eating.
“Yes. It’s really just me who’s the only plebeian sitting here, so you can wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your face.”
My jaw dropped, though probably I shouldn’t have been surprised. Sophie was never one who was afraid to speak her mind. And she had never been star-struck, never had any crushes on celebrities when we were younger, had a major dislike for people who thought they were better than others just because they were good-looking or had money.
“Sophie!” I said.
But Ella looked unfazed. She took one more sip of her latte and then set it down on the table. “I should get going,” she said. She stood up, then reached across the table to brush her fingertips across Levi’s shoulder. She had to reach in front of Sophie to do so, and she took her time straightening back up.
“Call me,” she said to Levi.
He had almost finished eating. He set his fork down. “I will,” he said. He watched her walk away and then he looked over at Sophie. “You just chased one of my oldest friends off.”
“Maybe you should go with her.”
He and Sophie stared at each other for several long seconds, and then he burst out laughing.
“All right,” he said. “Look. I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s day, okay? Isla, I’ll give you a call later. I’ll let you two finish your meal in peace. And hey, Isla, I really am sorry about the whole purse thing. You’ll have to let me make it up to you.”
He stood up, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. He rifled through it and extracted a hundred dollar bill and a fifty, which he placed down on the table.
“My treat, okay?”
“You don’t have to go—” I started to say, but Sophie shot me a look. She’d keep
up with the endless onslaught of giving him shit if he stayed.
“You’re going to have to
meet up with Cal at some point,” Levi said. “I’ve got to give him a call soon,
too. Why I don’t I plan on seeing you there? Down at the office?”
“Sure,” I said.
He smiled and winked at me, and then strolled off. In the opposite direction that Ella had gone.
Sophie rolled her eyes.
“Did that just really happen?” she asked. “God, what pretentious assholes! Both
of them!”
“They weren’t being that bad,” I said.
“You better not become one of them. I know you won’t, Isla, but still, you better not.”
“I can’t believe you said that to Ella.”
“Seriously? She’s coming
over here, acting all fake nice to you. You couldn’t see through that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. And Levi
wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Considering he managed to not puke on anything, yeah, I guess so far he’s having a pretty good day.” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction he’d walked off in. “He does look good,” she finally said grudgingly. “But who the fuck cares what he looks like? He’s still a douche.”
“He did really seem sorry. Don’t you think?”
“I guess so, but it’s probably just because he’s embarrassed.”
“He doesn’t really strike
me as the type to get embarrassed. I don’t think he was.”
Sophie shrugged. “He is clearly
interested in trying to get on your good side. Which, of course, you can
totally use to your advantage.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I still think you still need to put him in his place. Teach him a lesson.”
“Really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Didn’t I just try to do that and it ended with me getting puked on?”
“Your purse got puked on and he probably doesn’t even remember anything from it. Yeah, I know to the outside observer it might sound like it’s juvenile, but as someone who was there and talked to you like every night on the phone about all the awful things he said to you, you are more than justified in doing something to hurt him. And the beautiful thing is, it will totally work. Because I saw the way he was looking at you. And I also saw the way Ella was looking at him. She still wants him, he wants you, so that puts you in control. It’s a beautiful thing. You have more power than you realize.”
I laughed. “You sound crazy.”
“Except I’m not! I can’t stand people like him, who think they can get away with whatever it is they want just because they’re good-looking, wealthy, or in his case, both. Well, guess what, Isla? Now you’re also good-looking and wealthy, and I hope that’s not going to turn you into some condescending, entitled asshole. I know it won’t, because I’ve known you basically our whole lives. But seriously, are you forgetting the horrible thing he’d say to you in front of his friends? How shitty you felt about it? What a fucking dickhead he was?”
I sat there for a minute, thinking about what she was saying. There was no way I’d ever be able to forget about those things; they were as indelible on my psyche as scars. Hell, the whole reason that I now looked the way I did was because I never wanted to have someone make fun of me the way he had. It’s not even that the things he said were particularly cruel or clever; rather, it was that feeling of other people looking at me, thinking I’m glad I’m not that girl.
“Listen,” Sophie said, “you know I’m not one to dwell on the past. I’m glad you’re not just sitting around, thinking about all the shitty things that Levi has said to you. But you’re in a great position now to do something to get back at him, something that will maybe make him think twice the next time he’s about to treat someone like they’re completely dispensable and only there for the amusement of him and his friends.”
And I could, all of a sudden, remember exactly how it felt to hear him make some wisecrack about my weight, and the way his friends would burst out laughing. The way I felt the first time I’d seen Ella. They were going out, but she’d come over first, and they were all in the living room, and Alex was talking to her about skiing in Davos. I stopped short when I saw Ella, because up until that point, I’d never seen anyone so beautiful in person before. And it wasn’t just that she was physically attractive: I could just tell by the way she was sitting there, the way she could hold her own in a conversation, how confident she was.
Alex had asked me to join them in the living room, and I did, only because I couldn’t think of an excuse not to. It was summer, so it wasn’t like I could say that I needed to get back to my homework. So I sat there on the couch, feeling my waist pushing against the elastic of the pants that I was wearing. I was wearing yoga pants back before they were a trend, not because I was interested in doing yoga, but because pants like jeans that required you to button them were too uncomfortable. Even with the elastic waist, I could remember exactly how my fat bulged over the top, despite my trying to further disguise it with a loose-fitting top.
I sat there, mostly, silent, while Alex and Ella talked; from what I could gather, Ella’s dad owned a house in Davos, which I later looked up and found out was in Switzerland. I snuck a glance or two over at Levi, who was sprawled on the other couch, flipping through the TV stations, looking bored. Finally, he turned the TV off, tossed the remote down, and asked Ella if she was ready to go. She stood up and stretched, exposing her perfectly flat, tanned belly.
“Why don’t you take Isla with you?” Alex asked, giving me a smile.
I could remember that perfectly the way he smiled, as though he couldn’t believe no one else had thought of the idea first. Alex was one of the smartest guys that I knew; shouldn’t he have been able to tell that someone like me was not going to be going out with people like Levi and Isla?
I also remembered the look of disgust that flashed across both of their faces. It was gone in a second, but it had been there.
“Sure,” Ella had said. “We’re going to—”
“No, that’s all right.”
There was a part of me that wanted to go with them, that wanted to see what
they did, that also just wanted to be seen with
them, but I already knew how I wouldn’t fit in. “I’ve kind of got a headache.”
Levi and Ella both looked visibly relieved. “Hey, I’ll bring some food back for
you,” Levi said. “Whatever you want.”
Then they both stood there, waiting, and I realized he wanted me to tell him what I wanted to eat. It looked like he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
“That’s all right,” I had said. “I’m not that hungry.”
Now, I looked back to Sophie, the memory of that day still as fresh in my mind as if it had just happened.
“You’re right,” I said. “They’re both the type of person who thinks they can do whatever they want and get away with it.”
Sophie grinned. “And now you can actually do something about it.”
Sophie and I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, poking into stores when we felt like it, stopping to get coffee when we needed a pick-me-up. Then, Sophie wanted to go to a spa, so we went and sat in a steam room, got massages, and then got facial masks just for the fun of it. We went and saw a movie, had dinner at a fancy bistro, and then got a few drinks before going back to the hotel room and falling asleep.
Sophie left after breakfast the next morning, making me promise to keep her posted on Project Revenge, as she had termed it.
“I will,” I said, giving
her a hug. “And thanks again for coming up here. I’ll be coming back to Bel Air
soon, so I’ll let you know when I’m in town, okay?”
“Sounds good, sweetie.”
After she was gone, I called Cal, who had left a few messages for me yesterday. I was supposed to go to down the BCM offices and meet with him.
“Are you available this afternoon?” he asked. “Could you swing by the office then? It shouldn’t take too much of your time.”
“Sure,” I said.
“How does one-thirty sound? I’ve got a lunch meeting, but that should be wrapped up by one and that’ll give me time to get back there.”
“One-thirty is fine,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
Bassett Capital Management was in the Financial District, in a skyscraper, surrounded by other skyscrapers, with people bustling in and out, talking on their phones, looking like they were in a rush, late to get somewhere very important.
I took the elevator up and told the receptionist who I was there to see.
“Of course. Cal will be with you in just a moment. Make yourself comfortable,” she said, gesturing to the waiting area, which was furnished with a leather couch and two matching chairs.
I went over and sat down, tugging on my skirt. My feet hurt; I wasn’t used to wearing heels and having to walk long distances, and these shoes were a little tight. My best pair of high heels I’d left over at Brian’s house.
“Well hello there.”
I looked up. It wasn’t Cal, but Levi.
“Oh,” I said. “Hi. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“Levi requested that he be present,” Cal said, walking up behind him. “I hope you don’t mind. He will be taking over his father’s businesses; I don’t know if he told you that or not.”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t.”
Levi smiled and winked at me.
“Why don’t we all go into my office, then,” Cal said.
As we walked past the people sitting at their desks, I could feel their eyes on me. I wondered if they knew. I tried to keep my eyes ahead and watch where I was going so I didn’t end up tripping and falling. Levi strolled next to me.
We stepped into Cal’s office and he closed the door behind us. “Have a seat, Isla,” he said. I sat in one of the plush chairs positioned in front of his desk.
“I had no idea that Alex was going to leave me anything,” I said. “It really came as quite a shock.”
Cal smiled and pushed his
wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I can imagine it was. But Alex
was always very fond of you. Once we initiate the transfer of funds, the money
is yours, of course, but I know he felt that you would use it to do something
with yourself.” He shot a quick glance at Levi. “The reason that Levi is here
is because he’s going to be taking a more active role here at BCM. Seeing as he
has virtually no experience in the financial industry, I thought it might be
good to start him off here.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine by me.”
“Very good,” Cal said. “There’s a few things we’ll need to go over.”
I slid forward on the chair and rested my forearms on the desk. He had a sheaf of papers that he was shuffling around. I tried to listen to what he was saying, but I was acutely aware of Levi sitting there, his gaze on me, that magnetic pull of his strong as ever. Was he even aware that he had it?
“Now, Daniel mentioned
that he recommended you getting a financial advisor. Is that something you’ve
done?”
“Huh?” I said. “Sorry, what was that?”
“A financial advisor,” Cal repeated, shooting a dirty look at Levi. “Do you
have one?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, let me reiterate what Daniel told you—you should get one. This is a lot of money. We’d be more than happy to discuss your various options here, with us.” Cal smiled. “It would be appropriate, I think, Alex’s money being—”
“It’s Isla’s money now,” Levi interrupted. “And she should be able to do what she wants with it.”
“Yes, of course.” Cal
looked beyond annoyed that Levi would interrupt him. “I’m not trying to
influence you either way, Isla. But it is a lot of money, and it can be
overwhelming if you’re not careful. You’ll have all sorts of people suddenly
calling you up, once word of this gets out. And it will, whether you want it to
or not. So it’s something to prepare yourself for.”
I nodded, even though I was thinking that I would never be able to spend that
much money, not in this lifetime, no matter what I did.
When we had wrapped everything up, Cal walked me back out. I told him I needed some time to think about exactly what it was I wanted to do with all, or some of that money, and that I would get back to him.
I started to walk toward the elevator when I realized that Levi was next to me.
“You were just going to leave without saying goodbye?” he asked.
“Sorry.” I pressed the button for the ground floor. “This whole thing is a little overwhelming.”
“I’ll bet.” The elevator
door opened, and he followed me in. “Got any plans right now?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, good. Me neither.
We’re going to go shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“Yeah.” He nodded to my purse. “You at least need to get a new purse.”
He ended up taking me to Saks Fifth Avenue, which I’d walked by before, and peered in the windows, but had never gone in. The prices were astronomical. But that didn’t really matter now. But still:
I had never gone into a store and just spent whatever I wanted to.
Perhaps it was my mother’s influence, but I always checked price tags, looked for things that were on sale. I did not go without things during childhood, but we didn’t have a lot of extras and we certainly didn’t spend money on things that we didn’t need. That had carried over into adulthood, and I’d read the weekly circular to get the deals at the grocery store, or buy things when there was a promotion and you could get another one for free.
But now, I was supposed to be able to forget all that.
I could tell Levi was watching me. “So,” he said. “What is it you want? You can have anything, you know.”
Before I could respond,
one of the sales people accosted us. “Mr. Bassett,” she said. She was a tall
blonde woman, sleek and beautiful, with the sort of figure you’d expect to see
walking down the catwalk at Fashion Week. “So nice to see you. I was very sorry
to hear about the passing of your father. Are you looking for anything special,
today?”
“I’m not, Rebecca,” Levi said, “but Isla here might be.” He gestured to me, and
I forced a smile as Rebecca took notice of me for the first time.
“Hello there,” she said.
“I don’t think we’ve met before?”
“Probably not. I’m Isla. And I, um . . . I’m actually not quite sure what I’m
looking for. I guess I’m browsing.”
“Purses?” Levi said.
“Could you steer us in the direction of purses, maybe?”
Rebecca smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Right this way.”
“I’m still not sure if I’m going to get another purse,” I whispered as we followed her through the store.
“You really want to use a purse that someone puked on?”
“I love this bag. And I cleaned it.”
He grinned. “Well, I’m glad to hear you at least cleaned it.”
When we got to the handbag section, Rebecca asked me what type of bag I was looking for.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think I’m just going to browse.”
I expected her to leave then, but she lingered, talking with Levi, so I started to look at the bags on display, none of them really catching my eye as anything I’d want to actually use.
I looked at the price tag on the bag closest to me. The bag was a tiny thing, a black leather clutch with some gems on the outside. I gasped.
“What?” Levi said as he walked over next to me.
“This bag is almost two thousand dollars!” I hissed. The thing was literally the size of a large wallet. “It’s not even cute! It doesn’t feel any different than something I could get at TJ Maxx!”
“Where?”
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
There were some nice looking bags there, but every time I looked at the price tag, I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. It was insane to think that anyone would pay that much money for a purse. Thousands and thousands of dollars. And there were so many choices that even if I wanted to pick something out, there was no way I’d be able to decide.
“I need to get out of here,” I said.
I ran out of the store before Levi could try to convince me to stay. I hurried away from the building, even though I could hear him behind me, calling my name. He caught up with me in a few strides.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s
going on? Are you all right?”
“I just needed to get out of there. It was a little overwhelming.”
He smiled. “If you keep wanting to use a purse that someone puked on, that’s
fine. It’s your choice. I just thought that you might like to get something
different.”
I stopped walking and looked at him. “It’s not that I’m totally attached to this idea of having a purse that still smells vaguely like barf,” I said, “that’s actually not it at all. I just . . . I don’t think you can understand.”
“Try me.”
“There were too many choices in there. And those purses were all way too expensive anyway.”
“You know, you can afford it,” he said. “Would you
rather I get it for you?”
“No! That’s not the point. That would be completely stupid, anyway. It’s not
about the money, obviously.”
“I think it is about the money, actually. It’s just the opposite problem of what most people have. You feel like you have too much of it, and since you’re not used to that feeling, you’re letting it paralyze you. Don’t think of it like that, though. Think of it like . . . you need to buy something. Say it’s a purse. Now, you can tell yourself, I can get any purse I want, which, understandably, could make you feel really overwhelmed, because there’s so many different options. Or, you could tell yourself, I’m going to get a new purse that is the same color as the one I have now, it’s just my new one isn’t going to smell like vomit. That’s a much more palatable way of dealing with things. Sometimes, you have to break it down into a more manageable size. The general population believes that it would be a dream come true to be able to get whatever they wanted, but the thing they don’t realize it how fucking overwhelming that can be, when you are thinking in gigantic terms like that. The thing is, most of those people will never be in the position to really be able to get whatever they want—there will always be some sort of limitation. You don’t really have that limitation, which can be a little frightening, especially if it’s not something you were expecting, or wanted.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. How’d you know?”
“I’ve always kind of felt this way. I mean, I know my upbringing was a lot different than many people’s, and I’ve always been used to things being a certain way, but I had to deal with limitations too, as a kid; those were the limitations my dad set forth. I didn’t just get whatever I wanted when I wanted it. I certainly got more than a lot of kids my age did, but it wasn’t just some free for all, despite how it may seem.”
“I did always think you were a spoiled brat.”
He smiled. “I was, a
little. But not as much as I could’ve been. And then when I turned eighteen, I
got access to my trust fund, so I was the one in charge. I could spend that
money on whatever I wanted. And I did buy some stupid shit, but spending money
just for the sake of spending it got old. I did buy one thing though, that I
really love.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“You got any plans the next couple of days?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Well then I can show you. I just have to call Anders.”
“Who?”
“My pilot.”
He said it so nonchalantly, like it was totally normal to have your own pilot.
“Where are we going?”
“It’ll be a surprise,” he said. “But we’ll have to go to a store so you can get
a bathing suit. I assume you didn’t bring one with you.”
“I wasn’t planning on going swimming.”
“I know. But where we’re going, you’ll want to swim. You could go skinny dipping.”
“I’m not going skinny dipping.”
“Then let’s go get you a bathing suit.” He grinned. “I’ll help you pick it out.”
Levi still wouldn’t tell me where we were going, other than we needed a plane to get there, and I needed my passport, and it would be someplace like I’d never been before. There was a tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that I was being irresponsible, that I was supposed to be going back to Bel Air after I checked out of my hotel, not getting onto a private jet headed to who knew where, but a larger part of me felt excited by this new development, by the possibilities that suddenly seemed to open up.
*****
I’d been on planes before, but it was always a commercial flight, always flying coach, and usually there was a crying child within a row or two of me. The private jet that Alex had owned, and that had now passed down to Levi, was like a luxury hotel room with wings. That’s how it felt when I stepped onboard. Everything was upholstered in rich, butter-soft leather, the seats were all recliners, there were two couches, a huge TV, marble countertop in the bathroom.
“Um,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t want to come across as totally blown away by it, but I was. I had never been in anything this nice before, never even close, and now here I was.
“Welcome,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“So . . . are you going to give me any hints as to where we’re going?” I asked as I sat in one of the plush leather recliners.
“I’ll tell you exactly where we’re going. We’re going to paradise.”
“Paradise can be a rather subjective thing, you know.”
“Just one question,” he said. “Do you like to dance?”