Chapter Sixteen
Cooper
I held my breath for a moment, enjoying the excitement in Emma’s voice as I listened to her chatter about her crazy tip over the phone. I was both excited and nervous as hell. It had been a bit of a risk to do this, and I wasn’t sure if it was actually going to work or not. After my conversation with Emma about her dad, I had come home and talked to Mom about it. I wanted so badly to help her, but I knew for sure that Emma wouldn’t take a donation from me outright.
Mom came up with the idea of leaving Emma an anonymous tip. “She can’t trace it, and I will make sure that she isn’t around when I plant it,” Mom had said, her eyes shining with excitement about helping the girl I was falling in love with. “It will be perfect, Cooper. Just think of how much this will help her and her father.” In the end, though I had some reservations, I had let Mom do it while I had waited on pins and needles, so afraid that she would be caught by Emma and then Emma would hate me forever for what I had hidden from her.
But it seemed as though it had all worked out. “What should I do with it?” Emma was asking, her voice sounding a bit unsure. “There’s no way I can keep this, right?”
“Umm, she did write the checks out to you, right?” I asked, trying to act nonchalant.
“Well, yes, she did,” Emma said slowly. “It’s just, it’s a lot of money.”
“Well, apparently she thought you did a great job,” I remarked, a hint of a smile appearing on my face. “Why wouldn’t you, at least, try to cash them, Emma? Just think of everything it would do for you and your dad. You could pay for is medications and even start back to school next semester.”
She was silent for a bit, and I hoped she was thinking about keeping the money. I didn’t know how else to help her without telling her my secret. “Cooper, why are you pushing me to take this money?” she finally asked.
“Emma, I’m not pushing you,” I tried to assure her, worried that she wasn’t going to accept this gift I had given her, even when I knew she needed it badly. “I just think you should take full advantage of the generosity of this woman and her money. She left it there for a reason, I’m sure of it.”
“I guess you’re right,” Emma sighed into the phone. “I just feel so guilty about this. I mean, what if she didn’t mean to leave me such large checks? What if it was a big mistake?”
I started to panic, racking my brain to figure out how I was going to get her to just cash the checks and feel good about it at the same time. “I’ve got an idea,” I said into the phone. “Travelers checks have serial numbers. Why don’t you just cash the checks and hold onto the money for say a day or two? Then, if the woman really did make a mistake, she will contact the bank and probably be coming back to look for you and then you haven’t spent a dime of it.”
“I could do that,” Emma said slowly as I tried to remain calm about it. “Then, if she doesn’t come around, I would know she meant to write them.”
“Exactly,” I finished, giving myself a mental pat on the back.
“Oh, Cooper, I knew you’d know what to do,” she said, making me feel a bit like a cad for tricking her so. But I had to get her to take the money. She needed it. “Thank you. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll look forward to it,” I said as she ended the call. I slid the phone in my pocket and looked around Aunt Sophie’s living room, turmoil in my gut. Had we done the right thing by doing this for Emma?
“I couldn’t help but overhear Emma’s name. Did she get the check?”
I looked over at the doorway to see my mom standing there, a big smile on her face. “She did.”
Immediately her smile disappeared and she crossed the room, coming before me. “What’s wrong? I was very incognito about it. Did she find out who I am?”
“No, nothing like that,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “She’s got some reservations about bankrupting you to the point that she wasn’t sure if she was going to cash the checks.”
“Oh no, oh dear,” Mom replied, sinking onto the couch. “I didn’t think about that. I told you we should have used cash.”
I shook my head, thinking of the reason I hadn’t thought cash was a good idea. I wanted Emma to have to take control of the money and not think it was stolen or someone’s mistake. Those checks were very personal and directly solely at her and her only. “No,” I finally said. “We did the right thing. I was just stupid to think she would go out immediately and cash them.”
“Why don’t you just tell her the truth, son?” Mom asked gently as I joined her on the couch. “It would make all of this extremely easy. If she’s half the woman you think she is, she will understand your reasons.”
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face, thinking of the repercussions of telling anyone else about the money. I remembered how Felix had totally changed his view of me, seeing nothing but dollar signs as a result of my ‘good’ fortune. All of those people who had bombarded me that day, not seeing the Cooper they might have known, but one that was going to help them get rich quick. It had been very disheartening and I never wanted to see that gleam in Emma’s eyes. I wanted her to like me for me and, so far, I felt like she did and I didn’t want to mess that up. I wanted to be certain the money wouldn’t change how she saw me. “I can’t do that, Mom. Not yet,” I finally said. “I don’t want to lose her and this relationship as it is right now.”
“Well, you can’t hide this money forever,” Mom chided softly as she rose from the couch. “Eventually, she will find out and then her feelings about your secret might be a bit different than they would be if you told her now. Look at how well Sophia and Bill took the news. Everyone is going to take it differently, and you can’t base everyone’s possible reaction off of what happened back home.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said as she walked out of the room, my heart heavy at what Emma’s reaction might be. Emma was a smart girl, an understanding girl. Maybe I was relying too heavily on what had happened in the past by people who hadn’t cared about me. She cared about me, right? I hoped so.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, my heart racing in my chest. Maybe it was Emma again. Looking at the display, I didn’t recognize the number, though the area code was from Atlanta. No one from back home had my new number. With hesitation, I pressed the button to answer. “Hello?”
“Cooper! Dude, you are a hard person to track down!”
“Felix?”