CHAPTER NINE
Despite feeling restless and imprisoned by all the hours he spent inside the glass and steel tower, when Jake gazed out his office window overlooking downtown Dallas, he still got a kick out of being here.
It had been a long painful climb to the top, but this was his reality now—investor meetings, shareholder meetings, video conference calls, lawyers. Plenty of lawyers. If you weren’t creating wealth, you were protecting it. He preferred the days when he was on the way up, not just treading water. It may have been why restoring old buildings like the Regal was his favorite way to blow off steam.
Well, his second favorite.
And now he was thinking about Maggie again. Who’d had an infant on her shoulder and a baby-drunk smile on her face. The kind of women he usually dated didn’t give two fucks about babies. Not one of them would dream of ruining her figure for nine months or risk having spit-up all over her thousand-dollar blouse. He wondered if it was right to pursue a woman who wanted kids so badly, but then dismissed the thought. He was Mr. Right Now, not Mr. Ten Years From Now. Maggie knew that.
The intercom buzzed on his desk. Emma Belcher, his personal assistant, informed him that Carmen had arrived.
“Send her in,” he said.
Carmen entered his office with her usual cool elegance, four-inch heels clicking across the Macassar ebony wood floor. The office was her design, a testament to the creative synergy he had with her. To the right was a full gym, complete with lap pool. To the left, a private conference room that led to a landscaped terrace and his helipad.
“You got the Regal sketches for me, right?” Jake asked, more excited maybe than he should have been. “Because I’m ready to see them.”
“I have a few preliminary sketches,” Carmen said. She tucked her skirt under her and slid into a chair that was positioned across from him. “But I’m also here to talk you out of this ridiculous project.”
Jake expected it. He’d known Carmen since she’d been a junior architect. Now she owned her own firm and was one of the brightest lights in the business. But she didn’t understand his strange hobbies.
He lifted the lid off a Lalique cigarette box on his desk, a gift from the King of Morocco. “I forget. Are you smoking these days?”
Carmen held up her hand. “Not smoking.”
Jake took a cigarette for himself, lit it, and sat back in his big leather chair. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“How far along are you at this point? With the Regal.”
“Richard sent over a letter of intent this morning. Chuck is eager to sell. I don’t foresee any problems.”
Carmen smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her skirt. She looked good today. Pink suited her. He thought about telling her that, but Carmen would only accuse him of trying to butter her up.
“Are you going to order a survey?” she asked. “Or an inspection? Do you even know what the taxes are?”
“Yes. No. And yes.” Jake tapped his cigarette against the cheap plastic ashtray he preferred because it had a crenellated rim. “I don’t need an inspection, Carmen. I already know the place is a nightmare.”
She relaxed. He could tell because her shoulders deflated. “Oh, good,” she said. “You know what you’re walking into then.”
“Did you doubt it?” Jake considered what she’d just said. Should he be offended? “I’m not an amateur, you know. We’ve collaborated on these kinds of projects before.”
“Yes, but Jake, think about it—restoring the Regal could end up costing you upward of thirty million dollars. And you have no guarantee of ever being able to make up the money, not in a town with so few people in it. Even as a multi-purpose performance space—”
“Does everything I do have to be about turning a profit?” With growing irritation, Jake frowned at her across the desk. “Historic renovation of public buildings is a community revitalizer. Fact. I’m creating jobs. Fact. I’m enhancing property values. Fact. I’m also saving a beautiful old building from ruin.”
Carmen stood with an abruptness that surprised him. She walked over to a sideboard and poured herself a glass of water. Jake watched her down the glass as though she were getting ready for Kick the Jake, Round Two. To hell with that.
“Look, Carmen,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette. “Like it or not, I’m moving forward with the project. We’re making a play for the techpark lot, too. I’ll be shuttling back and forth for a while between Cuervo and Dallas, at least in the beginning. You’re either on board or you’re not.”
She turned to face him, her pale skin strangely mottled, her mouth pressed into a firm line. “It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to get lai—”
Carmen’s eyes widened in apparent shock at what she’d almost blurted.
“To get laid?” Jake said coldly. “You must be joking.”
So that was it then. It was nothing but Carmen’s usual judginess about his lifestyle. He’d seen it before. He didn’t know much about Carmen’s private business, but he knew she had a cat, devoted hours to the gym, supposedly dated. She rarely drank, which he approved of. She made smart investments. She read detective novels.
And she had a big fucking mouth. At least now she did. Which he didn’t exactly appreciate. He could feel the veins in his forehead throb.
Carmen must have seen how irritated he was because she almost fell over herself trying to get to him.
“I was out of line,” she said. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I think… Well, it doesn’t matter what I think. I was wrong to imply that you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Jake repressed the urge for another cigarette. “If you don’t want to be a part of the project, Carmen, just tell me.”
“I do. You know I do.” She straightened up, looking more like the Carmen he knew and less like the one he didn’t.
The desk phone buzzed, which Emma wouldn’t think of doing unless it was important. Jake suppressed a flare of annoyance and answered. “Yes, Emma, what is it?”
“There’s a man in the front lobby who says he’s your brother and wants to see you. Do you have a brother?”
Jake stood too fast. He had to lean his hands on his desk to steady himself. No, it wasn’t possible. Dillon was in Austin teaching yoga to a bunch of randy housewives. The last time they’d spoken, Dillon had called him a “smug bastard with a superiority complex.” In fact, Jake hadn’t spoken to any member of his family for the better part of eight goddamn years.
So what was Dillon doing here?
“You’re busy,” Carmen said. “Let me get out of your hair.”
Jake sank into his chair again, wondering what this gut-punch of a feeling was called. He didn’t recognize it at first. Was it fear? No, of course not. That was bullshit. He was long past feeling anything but mild contempt for his family.
Carmen pulled an oversized envelope out of her attaché and laid it on the desk “These are the preliminary sketches for your theater,” she said, gathering her things. “I’m still working on the ones for the techpark. When I’m done, I’ll courier them over.”
Jake heard the sharp staccato of Carmen’s heels as she left the room and realized he hadn’t given Emma an answer yet. He passed one hand over his mouth, considering. If Dillon had come all the way here, it must have been because something awful had happened, something that would force Jake to sort through a hornet’s nest of feelings he didn’t have time to deal with right now.
Why did these things happen all at once? He’d gotten up this morning feeling great. Then it had been a shit storm from that moment on—Carmen’s sad lack of faith and now this. A stock market crash would have been easier to deal with.
“Send him in,” Jake told Emma over the intercom.
He stood and raked one hand through his hair. It’s your brother, he told himself. Stop treating this like a visit from the IRS. He was the wronged party here, not Dillon. Dillon was the asshole who’d rejected Jake’s offer to pay for university and then left to go study on some ashram.
At the far end of the room, the big double doors opened. There stood his brother, along with every single memory Jake had worked so hard to get away from.
* * * *
Dillon hadn’t changed much in the eight years since Jake had seen him. He was leaner. His blond hair was a little longer. When they were growing up together, people always said he and Dillon were more like twins than brothers.
But life had left its mark on both of them. There was an asceticism to Dillon’s face that Jake didn’t recognize. As Dillon walked through the office, his gaze roaming over the industrial pipes overhead and the exposed brick, Jake realized that he was limping slightly. That one thing brought it all rushing back, the whole awful mess of their childhood, all the shit that Jake had tried to protect his little brother from.
Dillon still moved gracefully though, like a cat. He parked himself in front of Jake’s desk and held his gaze. Dillon’s eyes were clear and blue. He wore jeans and a gray hoodie that had the yin-yang symbol on it. Jake appreciated the irony of that.
“You’re hurt,” he said, nodding toward Dillon’s limp.
“Bike accident. It’s getting better.”
So Dillon had been in a bike accident, maybe even a serious one. Nobody had bothered to let Jake know. Well, that was typical, wasn’t it? Just another day with the Suttons.
Jake wiped his damp palms on his pants, ready to invite Dillon to sit down. But that didn’t feel right. Desks were for business. Dillon was family, and as uncomfortable as it was to see him, Jake was aware of a tiny spark of gladness. “Let’s go outside,” he suggested. “This high up, you don’t hear the traffic.”
Dillon followed him up to the terrace, which had a rock garden, a pergola covered in scarlet bougainvillea, and a marble fountain. Jake figured this was as Zen a space as he could offer his long-haired, Birkenstock-wearing, vegan brother. He meant it as a kind of peace offering.
“Are you thirsty? Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.
Dillon didn’t say anything for the long minute he gave himself to peruse his surroundings. “Nice place.”
Jake dropped onto a chaise longue, crossed his legs and tucked his hands behind his head. Dillon took the one beside him. Instead of stretching out, he sat cross-legged as though he were meditating, which annoyed Jake.
Yeah, yeah, you’re spiritual and I’m an asshole. I get it.
“So what have you been up to?” Jake asked. “Still doing haiku?”
“It’s called Reiki,” Dillon said. “Haiku is a Japanese poem. And yes, I’m still teaching.”
“Austin, right? Or have you moved?”
“I’ve got three studios in Austin now and one in Bastrop.”
Studios, as in more than one. “Sounds like you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” Jake said, curious. Dillon had always been critical of Jake’s success. Now it seemed as though Dillon were experiencing some of his own.
“I’m here because of Mom,” Dillon finally said.
“I kinda figured that.”
“She’s really sick. Aunt Pearl called and I went down to Palestine to see them.”
Jake leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. At the beginning of May, the Dallas sunshine was already intense, but it felt good after the climate control of the building.
Too bad he couldn’t control the climate inside his own skin. First he ran hot, and then he ran cold. The only cure for that was to remind himself whom he and Dillon were dealing with here.
“Did Mom get drunk and set another house on fire?” Jake said. “Did she get picked up for another DUI?”
Dillon gave him a long look, but not an unkind one. After all, there was nothing Dillon could say to defend her. They’d been through hell on the fast pass together, and Jake had always run interference between Dill and their drunk, belligerent mother.
Dad had split years ago. Jake couldn’t even remember what he looked like.
“You still carry around so much rage,” Dillon said sadly. “I don’t know how you live with it.”
“Oh, and you don’t, I suppose.” Jake undid a few more buttons of his shirt. Fucking hot up here. “What, are you seven or eight enlightenment levels up now? Are there belt divisions, like in karate? Maybe you scored the belt that saves you from having to feel any normal human resentment toward a woman who was never fucking there for us.”
“How I feel about Mom doesn’t matter,” Dillon said softly. “And you can say whatever you want about my life or me or how I look at things. But Mom’s got end-stage cirrhosis of the liver. She doesn’t have more than a few months to live.”
Jake couldn’t sit still any longer. He launched himself out of the deck chair and went to the overlook. At seventy stories up, the view was unnerving. Today, he barely felt it. Traffic was little more than a whisper, mostly drowned out by wind.
Away from Dillon’s gaze, Jake pressed a fist against his chest. Some dark, lonely thing in there had just been shoved loose. Now it was floating around inside him. Everything it touched, it burned—every memory, every drunken scornful word she’d ever spat at him. How did you get grief to stop?
If Loretta died, he’d never be able to see her any differently than he did now. They would never have a chance to fix things between them. She would remain for all time a bitter, disillusioned bitch without hope of redemption.
Loretta wasn’t a theater he could renovate. She wasn’t a project. And even if he could get her on an organ transplant list, she would never stop drinking. Never. His mother had thrown her life away. She’d almost thrown their lives away, too. But Jake knew with a terrible certainty that he would never stop wishing he could go back and change the past. Renovate it. Make it new.
He stared down at his hands. They were shaking. He was standing outside on his terrace, and his hands were shaking, all because that horror show of a woman who’d told him he was stupid and would never amount to anything might die.
“Jake.”
He turned around. Dillon came up behind him, hands shoved in his pockets, looking a lot like the little tow-headed boy Jake had “cooked” cereal for as a kid—their name for pouring bowls of Frosted Flakes for supper. Jake had raised him, defended him, fought his battles. They were strangers now.
“Come to Palestine with me,” Dillon said. “Aunt Pearl and Uncle Marty are staying with her. She’s pretty swollen now and it’s hard for her to get around. But you should see her before she goes.”
“And do what?” Jake asked. “Pretend it’s all okay between us because Loretta finally killed her liver and she’s fucking dying now?”
Dillon didn’t say anything. He had no trouble maintaining that infuriating Zen-ness, did he? If Dillon were any more enlightened, he would float away like one of those balloons from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
“Did she even ask to see me?” Jake asked.
“No,” Dillon said. “I’m asking. For you, not for her.”
“For me?” Jake leaned against the pergola and crossed his arms. “So this is for me, is it? The big trek out to Dallas after eight years of nothing? Because you had an attack of brotherly love?”
“You didn’t exactly reach out to me either, you know,” Dillon said, but he finally sounded defensive, which gave Jake a sense of sharp satisfaction.
“Yeah, well, before you turned into Gandhi, you had some pretty shitty things to say to me,” Jake reminded him. “Funny how you don’t necessarily want to pick up the phone after being called a money-sucking success whore.”
There. Jake could see the flicker in Dillon’s eyes when the arrow hit its mark. The truth always did. Maybe Dillon could go back and tell his yoga class what a motherfucker his billionaire brother was. How money ruined people.
Poor Dillon. Sorry about your brother, man. Here, have another kale water.
“I know you’re going through a lot of shit right now,” Dillon said. “I know because I’m going through it, too.”
Jake shook his head. “Nope. I’m not going to see her. Loretta made her bed a long time ago. Too late to go down there and start fluffing the covers now.”
He needed a cigarette. No, he needed two cigarettes, one for each hand. Maybe Dillon would be so disgusted, he would go away and they could return to their mutual seething resentment.
Jake went back inside. He pried a cigarette out of the case, shoved it between his lips and lit it. As the smoke drifted over him, so did a measure of calm. But not enough to make the shaking stop.
Dillon followed him. He almost smiled. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but sometimes you remind me a lot of Mom.”
Both of Jake’s eyebrows went up. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”
“I mean, look at this place.” Dillon opened his arms as though to embrace the water wall, the Rothko paintings, the 1920s Corbusier furniture.” Look what you’ve managed to achieve.”
“Oh, so success is a good thing now? I thought you hated me for it.”
Dillon took a deep breath and shook his head. “I don’t hate you, man. I worry about you. Because if you can’t make your peace with Mom, you got no chance of ever having a healthy relationship. Not with me, not with anyone. If you can’t make things right, Jake, you’re going to die alone, just like she is.”
We all die alone, Jake thought bitterly. You just haven’t figured that out yet