36.
Isla
I could tell Levi was stressed out when he got home that night. “How was your day?” I asked.
He was shrugging his shoulders out of his jacket, which he flung on the back of the chair. “My day fucking sucked,” he said. “Frank is leaving.”
“Frank?”
“Ella’s father. As in one of BCM’s biggest clients.”
“Oh,” I said. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
I went over and kneaded his shoulders, which were tight and tense. “It’s going to be all right,” I said. “Let him take his money and go somewhere else. One person isn’t going to make or break your company—I know it won’t.”
“Well Cal is freaking the fuck out about Frank walking. I’m kind of relieved though, to be honest. I don’t want to have to keep dealing with him.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“It is a lot of money, though. My father never would’ve let something like that happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, though. I mean, my dad basically offered me up as collateral for Frank’s money in the first place.” He rubbed one of his hands over his eyes. “The whole thing is so fucked up.”
“Come sit down.” We went over and sat down on the couch. “Everything is going to be okay,” I said.
Levi was yanking at the
tie, trying to get it off. He finally got it loosened enough so he could pull
it over his head. “You know, I’d like to believe that, but sometimes things
feel so completely fucked that I have a hard time believing it. I’m just going
to tell you what Frank told me today. There’s no point in hiding it.”
I reached over and took his hand and squeezed it. “Okay,” I said. “What
happened? Aside from Frank deciding to take his money elsewhere because you
didn’t want to do exactly what he wanted?”
“It doesn’t even really have anything to do with Westport,” Levi said. “What it
has to do with is Ella. And apparently, her father and my father made some deal
a long ass time ago that Ella and I were going to get married. They didn’t give
a shit if we actually liked each
other or not—they were more concerned about keeping the wealth within the
family. Or families, I guess I should say. So, I basically told him to fuck
off. If I had agreed about that, he wouldn’t have left like he did, regardless
of what happened with Westport. Can you believe that shit?”
“Wow,” I said, though in a way, I actually could believe it. “That’s crazy.”
“You’re telling me.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
“That’s not true. Things aren’t always going to go perfectly smoothly, but that
doesn’t mean you aren’t cut out for it.”
We sat there for a few minutes, neither of us saying anything, Levi pressing on his temples. I didn’t know exactly how much money Frank had with BCM, but I knew it was a lot. “Hey,” I said. I touched his arm. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. See, I’ve got some extra money that I’m just not so sure what to do with. Do you have any ideas?” He stopped rubbing his temples and looked at me. “It’s about a billion dollars,” I continued, “give or take a couple hundred thousand. But I was advised when I first found out about the money that I should get someone who knows how to handle it.”
“Then you’re looking at the wrong guy.”
I pushed him gently. “I don’t think so.”
He stopped rubbing his
temples and looked at me. “You really want to do that?”
“Of course I do.”
A slow smile spread across his face, and I could see the relief in his eyes. “You’re amazing,” he said. “You really are.”
He leaned over and we started to kiss.
That weekend, we drove down to Bel Air. I called Sophie on the way down and asked if she was going to be around; we hadn’t seen each other since we’d gotten into that fight over sushi. She wasn’t working, and she said she’d meet me over at my house.
She showed up a little while after we arrived and we stood on the front step, hugging.
“I never want to fight with you like that again,” I said. “That was awful.”
“I know. It really was. I’m so sorry. Listen, what I’d really like to do is go get a latte, but is Levi here? I wanted to talk with him for a second.”
“Sure,” I said. “Come on inside.”
Levi was in the living room, but he stood up when Sophie came in. I saw her eyes go to his face, which looked so much better, but it was still definitely noticeable that something had happened.
“Hey, Levi,” she said.
“Hey, how are you?”
“Well, I’ve been missing the shit out of this one, that’s for sure,” she said,
nodding at me. “But . . . I’ve been good. I do feel like I owe you an apology.”
He grinned. “Project
Revenge?”
She winced. “Uh . . . yeah. I’m really sorry about all that. It was childish.
And I’m also sorry that I wasn’t more supportive about you and Isla being
together to begin with. I’m not trying to make excuses for my vile behavior or
anything but . . . I just didn’t want to see her get hurt again. So . . . I’m
sorry, and I’ll try to be better behaved. You two seem like you’re very happy
together—I’ve only been here a few minutes and I can see that.”
I smiled as the two of them hugged quickly. Sophie had never been one who was quick with the apologies, so I knew she had been thinking about this for a while, and, more importantly, that she really meant it.
We all hung out for a while, and then Sophie said she wanted to go get a latte.
“Why don’t the two of you go,” Levi said. “I’m happy to be reunited with my couch here.”
“You want me to bring
anything back?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
I nodded and went over
and gave him a kiss. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll see you in a little while.” I
looked at Sophie. “Want to take my car?”
“Only if I can drive it.”
I got my purse and tossed her the keys. “Have at it.”
“Drive carefully, ladies!” Levi called as we were walking out the door.
Sophie didn’t even wait until we had pulled out of the driveway before she asked. “What happened to Levi’s face?”
I hadn’t told her about any of the shit that had happened with Alfie, but I decided to tell her.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said when I finished with the story.
“It’s done and over with now.”
“You were taken as a
hostage and you’re just telling me about this now? I mean, that’s a pretty big fucking deal, Isla. You could call
the cops and have that guy put in jail.”
“We’re not going to do that. It’s done over with. There’s no reason to take it
any further.”
“Um, yes there is. What
if this guy decides that he needs more money? What if he comes after you?”
“I don’t think he will. Levi gave him what he wanted.”
“But Isla—you just told me that this guy essentially kidnapped you, held you for ransom, and cut Levi’s face! He’s
obviously a little unhinged.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know where we are out here. I don’t think he ever went to New York. And he sure as hell doesn’t know anything about Bel Air. I’m not too worried about it.”
Sophie gave me a quizzical look. “Okay,” she said, though she still sounded doubtful. “Whose life are you living now, anyway?”
“I know,” I said. “It’s kind of crazy. Sometimes I wonder that, too. But then part of me also feels exactly the same, like I was before all this. So, I don’t know. I guess this is who I am now. But really, Soph, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about with Alfie.”
“You could always pay for security detail.”
“Yeah, no. I’m not that
important.”
“You guys do make a good-looking couple, I’ll give you that much.” The car in
front of us turned and the road was open in front of us. Sophie stepped on the
gas and the car surged. The windows were down and our hair was blowing
everywhere, and we both laughed as we drove along. I couldn’t help but thinking
that this was as much fun as anything that I’d done recently, just being out
with one of my very best friends.
The next day, I called my mother. I felt as though I was going down the list of people I had to make amends with; the last time we’d talked had been when we’d gotten into the argument at her house.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said. “I’d like to come over for a visit, if that’s okay. I wanted to call first, though; I didn’t just want to drop by unannounced.”
“Are you in Bel Air?”
“Yes. Levi and I got here yesterday.”
“I see. I’ll be around
this afternoon if you’d like to come by. I should be home after three.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come over around quarter past three then. It’ll just be
me. I think it’d be good if we had the chance to talk.”
“You’re probably right,” Mom said, though she didn’t sound entirely thrilled about that prospect.
When I got to her house later, though, she came to the door with a smile, which I took as a good sign.
“Why don’t we go sit out on the deck,” she said. “It’s a nice day. And I just made some iced tea.”
“Sure,” I said as I followed her through the house. “That sounds good.” She stopped in the kitchen to get the pitcher out of the fridge and some glasses, and then we went and sat outside.
“Here you go,” she said, handing me a glass of iced tea.
“Thanks,” I said. I took
a sip and then set it down on the table. “Listen, Mom I don’t want to fight
with you. It’s felt really weird, fighting with both you and Sophie. I’ve hated
it, and I just want it to stop, okay? Things are all good between her and me
now. We’ve talked and worked everything out. So I’d like to get back on track
with you, too.”
Mom swirled the ice around in her glass and took a sip of her iced tea.
“There’s nothing more I’d like than for that to happen, too,” she said. She
smiled. “So I’m more than willing to put all this behind us. I want you to be
happy, Isla. Even if that ends up looking different than how I might have
pictured it. It’s your life, not mine. It can be hard for a parent to take a
step back, sometimes, regardless of how old their child is.”
“I know, Mom. I know you were just doing this because you didn’t want to see me
get hurt.”
“So I’ll try to mind my
own business from now on. I want to hear about what you’ve been up to. How has
everything been going? What have you been doing?”
“Well . . .” Even though I had told Sophie what had happened with Alfie, there
was no way in hell I was going to tell my mother about that. “Things have been
. . . interesting,” I said. “We went over to Ibiza for a little while.”
“Levi seems to like it
over there.”
“It’s a beautiful place. But there’s a lot of other beautiful places I’d like
to visit. Eventually. I’m not in any huge rush to run off somewhere right now.
I’m actually quite happy to be back here in Bel Air. I’ve decided that I’m
going to invest most of the money with BCM. That was one of the first things
the lawyer, I think, said to me when he told me that Alex had left me money.
Not that I should leave it with BCM specifically, but that I should have
someone who was experienced help me handle it.”
She nodded, looking a bit
relieved. “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said. “It’s too much money for a
regular person to have to deal with.”
“You keep acting like we’re this different species or something,” I said.
“We’re not, you know. Money doesn’t make someone better than anyone else.”
“I know that, Isla. But it does change people.”
“Well, I want to do good things with it. And I think you’ll see over time that that’s the case. I would like to take you on a vacation, though. You deserve that. Would you let me do that? We could all go. It’d be fun.”
Mom smiled. “You might want to wait to hear where it is I want to go before you volunteer to come along.”
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
“Yeah? Like this winter, to go skiing? That would be fun. I’ve never been to
Colorado before.”
“No, I mean before the snow starts. They have ranches out there, where you can go and stay and work on the ranch. Ride horses, participate in cattle drives, all sorts of stuff.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So
you’re telling me that the vacation you want to go on involves doing ranch
work?”
“I’m not the sort of person who would be happy just lying around on the beach
all day. That’s just not my cup of tea. I’d be antsy after a couple of hours.
Plus, it’s a new experience. I’d get to try something I’ve never done before.”
“If that’s what you want to do, then I think that sounds great. It might not be my first vacation pick, but it actually does sound kind of interesting. Why don’t you figure out when you want to go and arrange it and let me know and I’ll pay for it?”
“I’ll look into it,” she said. “So how are things going with Levi? You said that he’d come down here with you.”
“He did. He likes it here a lot, which I think is kind of funny. Considering he’s been all over the world.”
“That is interesting,” Mom said. “I’d think somewhere like this would seem pretty boring to him.”
“I think that’s part of what he likes—that it’s slow and laid back and everything is just pretty . . . regular, I guess.”
“But things between the two of you are still going okay?”
The way she was asking, it was as if she knew something, or was expecting me to say that things were awful.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I just . . .” She paused and looked into her empty glass. Then she looked at me. “I know you’re an adult. And you can make your own decisions about who it is you date. And I hope you can understand that, as your mother, I only want what’s best for you, and that means seeing you with someone who deserves to be with you. Now, this might sound somewhat hard to believe but . . . part of the reason that I don’t think Levi is right for you in the long run is because he’s supposed to be with someone else.”
A surprised look crossed my face, though not because of what she just said, but because she knew about that at all.
“I know that probably sounds rather far-fetched,” Mom continued, “but it’s true.”
“It does sound far-fetched,” I said. “But I knew about that. Levi told me.”
“He did?”
“Yes. He didn’t even know himself until recently. How did you know?”
“I had made some comment one night when Alex and I were still married, about
how Ella and Levi made a good couple. They’d just been over and then had gone
out for the rest of the evening. Alex had had a few drinks in him, and he said
something to the effect of it being a happy coincidence that the two of them
were hitting it off so well. I asked him what he meant, and he told me.”
“Oh,” I said. It was strange to think that my mother knew this all along.
“At first I thought Alex was joking, because the idea is just so strange sounding. But then he started to tell me about it, and it sort of made sense. I mean, it’s not something I agree with, but I could see why he’d done it and how it made sense in his mind. I guess that’s sort of what I mean when I say that they’re different from us.”
“Alex must’ve told you
that Levi had no idea, though, right?”
Mom frowned. “You know, I can’t remember. I just assumed that Levi knew; it
seems like the sort of thing that you would tell someone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Honestly, Isla, I didn’t think you would give him the time of day. I know he
used to make fun of you. I know how hurt you were over it, even though you
tried to hide it. I wasn’t sure what his motives were, though; part of me
thought that maybe he was going to try to get back the money that Alex had left
for you, and then once he had that, go marry Ella. I just didn’t want to see
you get hurt again, especially not by him. And I didn’t tell you because part
of me thought you’d accuse me of making it up, and the other part of me thought
you’d never get involved with him like that in the first place.”
“It certainly wasn’t my plan to. Well, it kind of was, but it was supposed to be for revenge.” I laughed, thinking back to when Sophie had first suggested it. “It was Sophie’s idea. Project Revenge she called it.”
Mom laughed, too. “That sounds just like something Sophie would suggest. She’s always been a good friend to you.”
“I know,” I said. “And you’ve always been a good parent. I’ve been pretty fortunate in that regard.”
“As long as you’re happy with Levi, then that’s all I care about,” Mom said. “I know I’ve been hard on you in the past, and I know that we haven’t always agreed on things, but if you’re happy, then that’s what’s most important to me.”
I looked at her and smiled. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “And you know what? I am.”