CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ELIZABETH
BLAKE’S STUPID SUGGESTION STICKS INSIDE my brain like a virus.
I’m not remotely considering asking Mateo to back out, but I know how my mind works, and if I don’t fully explore a notion in the safety of my own skull, it’ll never let me go.
I don’t have to say anything, but my gray matter turns the question, studying its many edges and sides. It wants to know. And understand.
“How do you like your pasta?” Mateo asks.
“It’s gross.”
Mateo looks down. My plate is filled with what look like miniature green footballs. This isn’t pasta, and we both know it. I’m sure the kitchen is messing with us. Fancy restaurants always do that. How else did eating snails and fish eggs become a thing?
“Oh …” Mateo says.
My eyes click into focus, my brain back from its field trip. I’ve been mulling again, and Mateo’s caught me not paying attention.
“I mean, it’s just a little strange,” I say, trying to recover. In the weeks I’ve known Mateo, I’ve discovered him to be oddly sensitive. He puts on a great badass front, but more than once, I’ve seen his softer side. This is a quirk I’ve discovered; he takes responsibility for things he buys for me or leads me into. If he suggests a movie to watch in his screening room and I don’t like it, he’s bothered. Or when we go to a nice restaurant and he’s paying, he wants me to love the food. But what the hell; he didn’t make these miniature monstrosities.
“You could order something else.” He raises a hand as if to summon our waiter.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Come on. I’ll bring him back over and you can yell at him, at least.”
I return his playful smile. Somehow, Mateo making fun of me about the waitress incident at our first lunch has helped with some self-work of my own. I was in a thin temper that day, and rude as all hell. I felt terrible. Mateo making light of my foibles makes them easier to address.
Maybe what I told Blake was wrong. Maybe we do make a good couple.
I look at Mateo and wonder if I love him. Then I banish the thought.
“Let me try.” He reaches across the table and uses his fork to bisect one of the pasta balls. It’s solid dough in the middle. He eats it with some of the sauce, then smiles and nods.
“Just as I figured.”
“What, my palate isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate this dish?”
“No. The chef is fucking with you. Like they fuck with people when they serve sweetbreads.”
I laugh. But this strange mood is still dogging me.
Just ask him not to buy the mountain.
I’d never do that. It wouldn’t be fair. We’ve exhausted the topic. Turned it upside-down and inside out. When I told Mateo about my mother, her legacy, and The Pike, he seemed intrigued. He’s become a believer. He understands, truly gets its many tangled pieces. Mateo said what I’d been thinking, about how it was an Anthony Ross sort of plan. And so together — on and off our many dates, in and out of bed — we’ve lamented that there seems to be no real way to make it happen. There isn’t the money. Or the direct connection to all the change-makers and thinkers we’d need to pull it off.
But is Blake right? Technically speaking, was there always the mountain?
I try to push the questions from my head, just as I’ve done a hundred times over the past few days and nights.
The mountain doesn’t matter. Even if you could build The Pike on your father’s mountain, you don’t have the resources to execute the plan.
Blake’s voice: If Mateo wanted to kill this deal, he could.
“Let’s get you a steak. I told you, the steak here is amazing.”
“I don’t want a steak.”
Mateo raises his hands. He’s trying to get our waiter’s attention, almost as if he intends to start snapping.
“If he’d just look over here …”
“Seriously. I don’t want a steak.”
Still waving. “It’s no big deal. I want you to eat something you enjoy.”
“I’m not even hungry anymore.”
“Then we can take it home.”
“Please. No. Put your hand down.”
“I know the owner. They can be quick.”
“I don’t want steak, Mateo.”
“Another pasta, then.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, Elizabeth. I know you want—”
“How are you so sure about what I want?”
It came out too harsh. He stops waving his arm, and it lowers slowly. He’s watching me, clear that there’s more here than steak and pasta.
Looking into his eyes, I realize: Yes, I’m going to do this. Not all the way, but just enough to put the lingering questions that have been bothering me to rest.
“The deal for the mountain,” I say. “It’s finished, isn’t it?”
“Why are you asking about that now?”
“I’m just curious. We’ve gotten so wrapped up in our own stuff that I’ve lost track of the deal that started it all. But it’s done, right? You own the land?”
His face squirms as he searches for subtext. It’s clear that I’m not asking what it sounds like. It looks like he can’t quite figure out where this is headed, or where the landmines might be lying.
“I don’t own it quite yet.”
I act fake-surprised. “Oh.I thought it was signed, sealed, and delivered.”
“Not until the 18th.”
“I see.”
“Why are you asking?”
“Like I said. Curious.”
He’s squinting, trying to figure me out. I’ve been off all evening. This thing is a splinter, and damn Blake for putting it there. She didn’t make me want to ask Mateo for charity or a favor but she made me consider something I hadn’t: that we could have talked through one final possibility and rendered it useless. But he never so much as raised it.
“What is this, Elizabeth? Your mind is a steel trap. You remember the day of the week you first tried beef jerky. You know it’s the 18th.”
“So, two more weeks. Two more weeks until you actually own it.”
My tone is unfair, and I hate it.
“Officially, yes,” he says.
“Hmm.”
There’s a long silence at our table. The waiter comes toward us, then turns around and walks the other way.
“What? Jesus!”
“Could you kill the deal, Mateo? Could you call it off if you wanted to?”
His mouth opens, surprised. His eyebrows bunch. “No. We have a contract.”
“There must be an inspection contingency.”
“Are you asking me to call it off?”
“No. I just want to know if you could.”
His jaw slides to one side. His eyes have hardened. “The inspection contingency expired three weeks ago.”
“Financing contingency?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“What if you just walked away? Said you didn’t want to do it? Called the bank and told them you no longer wanted the loan?”
“Why would I do that?”
“What’s the answer, Mateo?”
There is no sound at this table. Or, I’d swear, in the entire restaurant.
“Okay, yes. If I had any reason to cancel a big deal I’ve been planning toward for years — if I wanted to welsh on your father and leave him high and dry with a ton of expenses and only my earnest money to pay for it — I could walk away.”
“And then my father could sue you.”
“You started this game, Elizabeth.” His voice finally matches my confrontational tone. “So, let’s consider that one, too. Fine; your father sues me. He wouldn’t have a chance against my lawyers, and he’d spend a fortune trying. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I don’t want to hear any of this. I’m just—”
“Just what? Accusing me of keeping it from you?”
“All the time we spent talking about what we both want, it never came up. I just find that interesting.”
“Ah. Okay. You are accusing me. So now what? I call your dad and say, ‘Sorry, Damon. No longer interested. Call your lawyers and good luck, ha-ha’?”
“I told you, I don’t want you to do anything. It’s just that we never—”
“This is all academic? You just wanted to poke me.” Mateo shakes his head. “Why the hell did you think I didn’t mention it, Elizabeth? Because it’s ridiculous. People don’t walk out on stuff like this. Not at this stage. Sure, it’s possible, but technically, I could also walk into the chef and smack him around, so we don’t have to pay for our dinner. What do you think, El? Should I go in there and do it?”
“You’re overreacting. I was only asking a question.”
Mateo nods. “Uh-huh. A question with a really sharp edge. Tell me something, since we’re suddenly being so honest. You said you trusted me with your family’s property. I was an honorable and worthy successor. Did you ever believe that, or was it just more of your bullshit?”
“What do you mean, ‘more of my bullshit’? What other bullshit are you referring to, Mateo?”
I hear the clank of silverware, then look over to see that the two tables to the right have stopped eating and are looking at us. They see me watching, and their eyes dart back to their meals.
“Lower your voice,” he says.
“Answer my question.”
“Please. You didn’t trust me from the start. When all of …” He searches, frustrated, for a word, then simply throws his arms up to indicate our table, our meal, me, “… this began, we just pushed some obvious truths aside. The deal was on the table, and we had a fun thing going. We could shove all the other shit into the corner, but it never stopped lurking there. You think I’m an arrogant cock. You think I’m bulldozing my way past Damon, and that I pulled a fast one on you. I’m a rich prick, come to steal your homestead. And if you need more proof, now there’s this: I didn’t lay out the incredibly complicated, costly, illegal, and downright rude option of killing the deal at the eleventh hour. Is that about right?”
“I just wanted to know!”
“What do you say, Sherlock? Now that you’ve gotten me to rat out my evil plan, should I do it? Give you what you want?”
“This isn’t what I want!”
Damn you, Blake.
Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat. It got the cat into a big-ass fight for no reason.
“Right,” he says.
That single word kills the round. Mateo crosses his arms and waits.
But my blood is pumping. I don’t like to be accused. Fuck him if he thinks I’m going to let him bury me with a judgmental final word.
“What about you, then?” I ask. “It sure must be easy for you to judge me and my motives, way up there on your high horse. Do I want you to cancel anything? No, I don’t. A deal is a deal, and it’s what my father wants. But did you ever even consider it? Was it ever an option to back out of the deal and let us keep the mountain? Obviously, it’s the wrong choice. But was it on your radar, even for a second?”
“Of course, it wasn’t an option! We have a contract, Elizabeth!”
“You had escape clauses when we first got together!” I blurt. “Contingencies you could have used to stop it!”
Blood drains from my face. I stop my hand from moving, but it wants to rise to cover my mouth — a futile attempt to keep words already spoken from leaving me. I shouldn’t have said that. Not in a million years.
Quieter — almost sinister — he says, “So this is about you.”
“Well? What of it? Maybe I want to know! Maybe it bothers me!”
“Maybe what bothers you?”
I stand up, furious. Diners turn to look again, and this time nobody is hiding their stares. “That you’ve made your choice! That you made it from Day One, and never even remotely considered changing it!”
“Sit down.”
“Well?” I demand, not sitting.
I get a look of pure scorn. It’s the look Mateo used to give me before we hooked up. If he’s accusing me of never changing my mind about him, he’s got some nerve. Because I see that stare and can almost read: Bitch. Deep down, that’s how he must think of me.
“What the crazy everloving fuck are you talking about, Elizabeth?”
“You’d choose the mountain over me, wouldn’t you? If you could only have one, you’d pick that goddamn rock!”
He squints as if I’m speaking Chinese. He rises to meet me, and in his eyes, I see defensiveness. Hurt. The anger I’ve provoked, now at its boiling point.
“I’ve been trying to buy that mountain for three years. It helps me instead of just bitching, bitching, bitching! Of course I’d pick it over you!”
I hear his words. I know I’m at fault. I know that I’ve just picked a big old ugly fight, and all Mateo has done was to lash back. I swatted a lion and he swatted me. But his words, whether they’re my fault or not, cut me to the bone.
I want to take it back. I want to take everything back. Let him buy the land. Let him keep whatever secrets he wants to keep. If he wants to lie, cheat, and steal right in front of my face, then let him do that, too. Just please let me unhear what I’ve just heard.
But he hasn’t backed away. His face hasn’t softened. He’s just staring at me, daring me to reply. I pushed him too far, and now I’m going to pay.
I try to hold my dignity. I say, “You don’t mean that.”
And Mateo, furious, says, “Which one am I sticking with?”
At the next table, an old woman puts her hand to her mouth. Everyone is watching. Everyone is listening. I want to stand strong, but I’m breaking inside. I was the bitch here; I started this fight. But he must see what this is doing to me. I’m not all cast iron. He knows, doesn’t he? He’ll back down, seeing how much this hurts?
“I’m sorry,” I say. It comes out simpering. Disgusting. Weak. But I was wrong and now I want out. No matter what, I want this to end.
A man whispers to his wife nearby. Probably saying how pathetic I am.
“At this point, Elizabeth,” Mateo says, “I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry. I’m sick your selfish, childish attitude – sick of you and this whole goddamned thing!”
I feel my eyes moisten. I don’t want to feel what’s already become a dagger in my chest, but damn this emotion; I’m feeling it anyway.
I watch Mateo for long enough to see his face change, as he realizes what he’s just said. How I truly feel, and what he’s done to me.
Then he reaches for me and says my name, but screw him.
I’m already gone.