Chapter 32
“What the hell was that for!” Ian held the cold pack to his face, dried blood caking his upper lip. Kathryn told him to shut up if he wanted her to clean up the mess Zack had left behind. “Did you come next door to punch me in the face? You’re lucky I ain’t a lawsuit kinda guy, Feldman.”
Zack shook out his fist one more time for emphasis. Yeah, that probably wasn’t the best idea if he really wanted to borrow the Mathers’ plane. Zack couldn’t say that he regretted it, though. “That was for Sadie, you piece of tree piss.”
“The hell is tree piss?”
“Both of you shut the hell up.” Kathryn pulled away the cold pack and poked her boyfriend’s nose. After he was done whining about it, she said, “It’s not broken. Thank you for not breaking my boyfriend’s nose, Zack.”
“Who the fuck is Sadie?”
“Indeed.” Kathryn placed her hands on her hips. “Who is Sadie, dear?”
“I have no idea!”
“Sadie was my girlfriend in college,” Zack muttered. “Your future husband here slept with her as part of my hazing.”
“Really?” Kathryn’s blue eyes grew big. “Stealing girlfriends, Ian? I knew you were a shitty rebel in college, but that would’ve been low, even for you.”
“I don’t even remember this. I swear.”
“Don’t know how things went in sororities,” Zack had seen the memorabilia around Kathryn’s apartment, “but in our frat, the seniors went out of their ways to make our lives hell when we rushed.”
Kathryn scoffed – at her boyfriend. “Let me guess who was a senior when you rushed.”
“I’m not proud of a lot of things I did when I was younger…”
“Says the man with an old DUI.”
“…But I definitely do not remember stealing someone’s girlfriend.”
“You should ask me how many women I procured for him to sleep with at those frat parties, Kathryn. The number might shock you.” Zack had already counted up at least thirteen in his head. “A lot of them drunk out of their minds.” He left out the part where everyone participating in sexual revelry had been drunk out of their minds. “If we were good prospies, we got the sloppy seconds.”
“I have no doubt that college frats were cesspools of immature depravity, my boyfriend’s included.” Kathryn spat on a tissue and rubbed dried blood off Ian’s upper lip. “Is that how your girlfriend ended up in his bed?”
“Seriously, it must’ve been a mistake if that actually happened.”
“Cut the crap, Mathers. You knew exactly what you were doing. It wasn’t an accident that Merange made sure I walked in on you two. One of the juniors that year said the same thing had happened to him the year before.” Zack glanced at Kathryn. “Different guy did it, obviously. The point is that it was another shitty tradition.”
Ian sighed. “I swear to God that I do not recall this. But, assuming that things played out like you say they did… I’m… sorry?”
Zack’s arms tensed across his chest.
“I’m guessing he’s been pissed about this for a few years, Ian. You’re going to have to do better than I’m sorry.”
Ian flung his arms out wide, cold pack almost falling to the floor. “What do you want from me? That shit was years ago. I was an asshole in my early twenties. You know that.”
“Yes, yes, and you’re a totally changed man at thirty-one.”
Ian snorted – or at least he tried to. “Ever since you turned thirty, you’ve been acting more and more like somebody’s mom.”
“Point is, hon, you all need to figure this shit out before either of you leave. Because I’m now realizing that the reason Zack has been hitting on me forever is because sleeping with me would be getting back at you.” She glared at Zack. “Gross, by the way.”
“You’ll be stoked to know that Sadie was a lovely blonde like you.”
“Every woman Ian’s been attracted to since we first met has been blonde. He and I have hashed this out already. It’s why we’re soulmates. Because I would be soulmates with some dumb heir who got DUIs, snorted coke, and stole girlfriends in college.” She said it with such banality that Zack almost couldn’t take her seriously.
Meanwhile, the look Zack received from Ian screamed denial. “I’m sorry, Feldman. That was a shitty thing to do. I swear that I do not remember what you’re talking about, but it obviously happened if you’re still angry about it. I’m sorry. Now, do you actually want to borrow my family’s plane, or was this all an elaborate setup to punch my fucking lights out?”
Right. Zack had come here for different reasons. “I do need to borrow it, actually.” He turned to Kathryn. “Do you remember Rachel?”
“Vaguely. The brunette, right?”
“Yes, that’s the one. She’s my girlfriend. Except she’s run off to bumfuck Japan to become an English teacher without telling me.”
He gave them more details while Ian begrudgingly texted the flight crew his family kept on standby. Knowing how the Mathers spent money – even more than the Feldmans could – the crew was used to going everywhere around the world in a second’s notice.
Kathryn looked between her boyfriend and the nosy neighbor. “You want to borrow a plane to go all the way to Japan to stop her from… what? Living her life?”
“I want to stop her from making a mistake.”
“Is she making a mistake?” Kathryn narrowed her eyes. “Or are you going to make things worse?”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh my God. I’m surrounded by idiot losers who are trapped in their college selves.” Kathryn threw out the blood-covered tissue and lightly smacked Zack upside the head. “That’s for punching my boyfriend.” She smacked the other side, her touch a stinging reminder that heiresses packed heat in their hands too. “And that’s for being an idiot.”
“How?”
That exasperated sigh could be heard clear on the other side of town. Maybe even all the way in Japan. “Rachel said she was overwhelmed, right? She’s got a lot on her plate. She’s feeling insecure. Then you, Mr. Big Bad Billionaire Heir, come swooping in and promise to change her whole life. Maybe you even said that you love her. Don’t know. Can’t hear you having sex like you apparently hear us having sex all the time.”
“He can what? How shitty are these walls?”
They both ignored Ian. “What’s your point?” Zack barked.
Kathryn was unfazed. “My point is that you are going to make shit worse if you saunter up to wherever she is on the other side of the world. She wants space. You need to give it to her.”“But…!”
“I’m telling you, Zack. I’m trying to give you my honest advice here, both as a woman and as someone who has known a shitton of women in her life. For God’s sake, it’s something my own mother would do. And God also knows that I’ve wanted to do it multiple times.”
Ian didn’t say anything to express shock or refute that. All he could do was give Zack a sympathetic look, his first one in years.
“If you go to her right now… if you track her down and show up on her doorstep or place of work in, you’re going to spook the shit out of her. You might ruin everything.”
“Then what do I do? Wait for her?”
She gave him a look of utter disbelief. “Yes?”
“She’s right.” Ian didn’t want to admit that, did he? “I know I’m the last person you want advice from, but you’ll freak her out if you go after her without warning. She sounds like she’s a normal girl, right?” Normal was code for a woman who wasn’t an heiress, so Zack didn’t refute it. “She’s not used to men like us. Hell, heiresses aren’t used to men like us, but at least they’re not shocked if we show up halfway around the world literally a day after they left.”
“If Rachel either gets this out of her system or realizes she’s made a mistake,” Kathryn interjected, “then she’ll contact you. Trust me. That’s better than you gallivanting off to look like a fucking stalker who can’t handle being alone. We’ve got enough of those in this city.”
“You’ve dated some of them, huh, Katie?”
“Watch it, or I’ll be the one punching you next.”
Zack didn’t want to hear this advice, of course. But he took some of it to heart. He agreed to call off taking the Mathers’ private plane and instead keep his standby on the commercial airline. Maybe a night’s rest would give him some perspective.
After begrudgingly thanking them for their help, Zack went to his own apartment two doors down.
A letter had been taped to his door. It had Rachel’s handwriting plastered all over it.
Zack snapped the letter off his door and hurried inside to read it with a bottle of beer. He hoped to God that it had some answers.
“Zack,”
He was already choking up.
“I’m sorry. I know this is really shitty of me to do, but I don’t know what else TO do. I feel like I’m drowning, and I’m not even in the water. But it’s the same kind of phobia pressing in on me. Like when you took me to the dock that first time. I never once touched the water, but I felt like I was going to drown at any moment.
If you’re reading this, I’m already gone. If you haven’t held Parvati at knife-point yet, I’ve taken a job in Japan. My contract is six months with an automatic extension for a year.
It’s not that I need the money. The nursing home told me that some generous benefactor had paid for my mother’s care for the next year. I know it was you. Thank you, Zack. It means a lot to me that I only have to worry about paying my student loans and my taxes. In truth, I could have easily lived in the city without the nursing home bills to pay. But I couldn’t’ stay there. Like I said, I was drowning.
You were pressing in all around me. I couldn’t believe that you really loved someone like me. When I saw you flirting with that girl in the bar, and when I saw all that stuff about us in the tabloids… I couldn’t handle it. I was suffocating. I had to go somewhere. I need to be alone for a while.”
The rest of the letter more or less confirmed what Kathryn had been saying next door. It also confirmed that the best thing Zack could do was give his girlfriend some much needed space, even if he thought she went about it in a completely stupid and selfish way.
Nevertheless, he canceled his flight the next morning.
***
Instead of wrapping himself up in a bubble of pain and despair, Zack reached out to his friends and family for some much-needed recuperation.
His father suggested Bell Jar’s for an early lunch. It so happened to be one of Seth’s favorite places, and even Uncle Roy managed to drag himself off his yacht in a show of solidarity to his favorite nephew.
“You’re kidding,” Seth said once they all sat down. “She left? For Japan? Without telling you? Wow.”
Isaiah shook his head. “Shame. She seemed like she could’ve been the one for you, son.”
Zack glared at his father. “Thanks, Dad. I feel so much better now.”
“Now hang on,” Uncle Roy slammed his elbow on the table. Apparently, his years at a boys’ boarding school hadn’t taught him any rich people manners. “No one is saying you two have broken up. You’re taking a break, son. You’ll be happy that you did in the end.”
“You sure about that?”
“Trust me. It’s how I handle all four of my ladies.”
The whole table fell silent while Roy continued to peruse the menu, acting as if he had no idea what the hell a cobb salad was. “What was that?” Zack asked. “Four ladies? Since when do you even have one girlfriend?”
Uncle Roy shrugged. “I prefer to think of them as my seasonal companions. There’s Estrella in Barbados, Claudia in the Spanish Mediterranean, and Nicola on the Greek side. Oh, and there’s Mary Marie here in America, but she’s down in Florida. I really need to go see her soon before she forgets I exist and goes and gets her another husband. She’s flighty like that.”
The whole table stared at him. “This is the first I’ve heard about any of these women,” Zack said.
“Because I don’t talk about them. Who cares?”
Isaiah held his hand up in confusion. “All these women know about each other, right? How many illegitimate children do you have out there, Roy?”
Seth nudged his best friend. “You hear that? I’m not the biggest polyamorous freak that you know.”
“They all know about each other. That’s the point. I ain’t serious with any of them.” Roy turned to his little brother. “And I don’t have any kids. All of these women I’m talking about are of a certain age. I already told you that I plan on leaving my share of the inheritance to Lorelei’s kids. If I had any kids? Eh, I’d give them some too, but nobody’s come forward in fifty years, so who gives a crap?”
“Jesus, Roy. What other secrets are you keeping?”
“Who says it’s a secret? Just because I never talk about them doesn’t mean they’re secrets. Anyway, the point is that the women I get along with the most are those who like their space. I only see them once, twice a year at the most. It’s a good arrangement for all of us. Maybe that’s what Zack is dealing with here.”
“I don’t think Rachel is that kind of space-hogger, Uncle Roy. I think she’s freaked the fuck out and me going after her is only going to make things worse.”
“Now that I agree with,” Seth said. “I know those romance novels and shit tell us that we gotta hunt down our women like cavemen, but it doesn’t work that way in reality.”
“Says the man sharing his girlfriend with a Monegasque billionaire.”
“So I know what I’m talking about?”
“That… no. That is not what I meant.”
“Gentlemen,” Isaiah interjected, “I believe the best course of action for our man here is to get lightly buzzed and possibly blackout drunk later. Everything else will fall into place afterward.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“I’m in.”
“Do they have anything that’s not French here?”
Zack was grateful to have these level heads around him, because every time he thought of Rachel, he once again resisted the urge to go chasing after her, wherever she was. Where is she right now? In Japan? What city? Is she thinking of me right now? I wish she would at least Skype me. She has my email!
Roy got up to use the bathroom and Isaiah received a call from his wife that took him away from the table. Zack looked to his best friend beside him and asked, “Do you really think I’m doing the right thing by letting her go for now?”
Seth clasped his hand on Zack’s shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be forever. Like everyone is saying, give her the space she’s asked for. You’ll see her again.”
“What the fuck do I do in the meantime? I’m going to go crazy without her!”
Seth leveled a hard gaze on his friend’s face. “You’re one of the greatest artists I regularly hang out with, and you’re asking me what to do until you see her again? What the fuck do you think you should do?”
As if spurred by magic, Zack’s agent called him, asking when the Japanese buyer could come by the studio to check out what he had available.
After that day, nobody heard from Zack for days at a time. He was too busy channeling his energy into more productive ventures, while keeping his thoughts of Rachel to the long hours of his sleepless nights.
Soon.