Chapter 14 – Charlie

I tap a button on my iPhone, and a familiar cascading chime plays on the apartment’s surround sound speakers. I press another button – this time on a wall console – and a set of shutter blinds descend from the ceiling to block out the lunchtime sunshine.

“Hey, baby, can you hear me?” I ask.

An image of my daughter flashes up on the huge wall-mounted television: kind of, anyway. At the moment she’s as stretched and distorted as an abstract painting. Electronic static crackles through the speakers, causing me to wince.

“Tilly?”

The feed settles down a second later – but my daughter doesn’t. As always, she grabs the iPad, and I go on a little dance with her via the magic of Face Time. I’m half-dizzy by the time she has settled down on the bed, lying on her side.

I don’t mind.

It’s just nice to see her face. This hockey trip to Europe is the longest we’ve ever been apart. I know it’s only seven days, but it feels like seven months – at least to me.

“Hey, daddy!” Tilly says.

She’s still wearing her sports clothes – the striped green and purple bands of her exclusive preparatory school. I notice a streak of mud on her cheek, and I’m forced to hide a smile.

My daughter is one of the most mature eleven-year-olds I’ve ever met – but still, she’s only eleven years old. She’s just coming up on that treacherous age all girls are forced to encounter: a self-conscious time when the last thing they want is for their dad to point out they’ve been walking around for hours with mud on their face!

“What time is it over there?” I ask – even though I know exactly what time it is in England. I’ve been waiting like a hawk, ready to call the moment I knew she’d be back at the hotel.

Tilly glances somewhere off-screen. “Um, like, just past three in the afternoon,” she says. She stifles a yawn with the back of her hand. “I’m still not used to the time zone over here.”

“Are you sleeping okay?” I asked anxiously. “You know what I’ve told you –”

Tilly cracks a long-suffering smile, and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, daddy, I know. Don’t use my iPad before bed, turn off the lights… It’s okay, I’ve been reading.”

I fake a cough, but mainly because my throat’s closing up with emotion. Tilly’s about the most perfect kid that any dad could ask for. Even – no, especially – after everything we’ve been through. I’m only a month shy of my thirtieth birthday – and Tilly’s only a couple of months off her twelfth. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Tilly’s face creases, and her hand darts forward to block out the camera. “Dad –? You still there? Hold on, I think maybe the Internet’s –”

“No,” I croak. I clear my throat. “I think it’s all okay now.”

Tilly frowns, and. “You weren’t tearing up on me, were you daddy?”

I tap my chest with mock-indignation. “Me? Nah, you know I don’t cry. Must’ve been the connection…”

More eye rolling. “Sure thing: don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone; it’s our little secret.”

“How is England, anyway, Tills?” I ask. “Where are you right now, is it Manchester?”

Tilly corrects me. “It’s Man-chester, silly, not Manchester.”

“Tomato, tomato,” I grin, saying both words exactly the same. “All sounds the same to me. But if you’re done making fun of me –?”

“I’m not making fun!” Tilly protests. “Okay, maybe just a little bit…” She winks, but on her little face it’s more of a blink.

“Still can’t wink, huh?” I grin. “Guess your daddy’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve.”

“I can too wink,” Tilly frowns. She tries again. And again, both her eyes scrunch shut.

“That’s just twitching,” I say. “Anyway, I asked you how Man-chester was. Stop beating around the bush!”

Tilly looks away, perhaps out of the window in her hotel room. She scrunches up her nose. “The people are nice,” she allows. “But it hasn’t stopped raining since we got here! I don’t know how they manage like this. They should start growing fins!”

“Fins?”

“You know,” Tilly giggles. “Like fish.”

I laugh along with my daughter, and then go quiet.

“Daddy; are you okay? You’re not going to start crying on me again, are you?”

“I told you already kiddo, daddy doesn’t cry.”

Tilly opens her eyes wide. I stifle a grin. It’s the exact look I get on my face when – infrequently – I tell her off. “I thought we didn’t lie to each other, huh?”

I hold my hands up. “Okay, okay – you got me. Listen, Tills, there’s –There’s something I need to tell you.”

My throat closes up again.

I know it’s not fair to me to be putting issues this heavy on my daughter’s shoulders. But I made a promise to her a long time ago – to treat her like an adult, and I’m going to keep it. There are some things, loads of things, I keep from her. Things Tilly doesn’t need to know.

But unfortunately, Penny isn’t one of those subjects. Since Tilly’s going to return to New York in a couple of days, my new wife is definitely “need to know” – and Tilly needs to know.

“Daddy?”

“Sorry.”

“What is it?”

“Promise you won’t get mad?” I say. I feel like the kid, right now, not Tilly!

Tilly nods.

“There’s going to be someone here when you get back: at the apartment.”

“You mean,” Tilly says, scrunching her nose, “like a new chef, or something? What happened to Francisco?”

I shake my head. “No, not like a new chef. Don’t worry, Frankie’s not going anywhere.”

“Good. Then what?”

I tip my head back and let out a small, frustrated sigh. I know what it sounds like – that I’m dragging the revelation out, but I simply can’t find the words. I’m coming up against a wall of resistance. I don’t want to see the look on my daughter’s face when I tell her I’m shacking up with a girl only eight years older than she is!

Tilly has always looked up to me, loved me like a brother as well as a father. I don’t want to see judgment written on her innocent face.

I hear a bustling noise on the other end of the line: then a knocking; next the faint sound of a woman’s voice. Tilly looks away again, and the camera fills up with a view of her neck.

“Daddy, Mrs. Noble just called, we’ve got to go to dinner, and I need to shower, and –.”

I smile sadly and blow my daughter a kiss. She catches it, and then throws it right back. “It’s all fine, baby, this can wait. You do you.”

“Bye daddy,” Tilly says as she kills the video call. “I miss you.”

“I miss you more,” I whisper.

The television on the other side of the room goes black as the call ends. I’m lost in darkness – the window blinds block out every last scrap of light. I sink into the gray suede couch and cover my face with my hands. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Tilly. She’s got two days left in England, and after that she’ll get on a flight back home.

How am I supposed to tell her that she’s got a new mom?

A sound behind me startles me. I flinch and spin.

Penny clears her throat. “Hey, Charlie.”

I’m instantly rocked back on my heels. How much of that did she hear? I don’t know why, but I don’t want Penny to have heard that conversation. It’s almost as though I consider it an intrusion. For so long, this apartment was our space – Tilly’s and mine.

“How long have you been here?” I ask. I don’t like the sound of my voice – it comes out harsh and inquisitive.

“Not long,” Penny replies. She bites her lip. “Was that –”

“My daughter,” I growl.

Fuck, I shouldn’t take this out on Penny. It’s not her fault I got lost in my own thoughts. It’s not her fault that I was happy to go along with this marriage ruse when I could have shut it down: should have shut it down.

“She’s beautiful,” Penny says. She smiles with such a disarming honesty that it’s hard to stay angry with her.

That’s the thing about being a parent that I never understood before I had Tilly. It’s not just okay for you to love your kids; you feel a need to show them off every second of every day, because you made this thing, this perfect, precious, sweet little thing.

That’s the way it is for me, anyway.

I let out a sigh, and my shoulders relax. “She is,” I agree. “I don’t know who she takes after, because it sure as hell isn’t me.”

Penny frowns. “What happened to her mom?”

I grimace, and Penny flinches. “You don’t have to tell me anything, not if you don’t want –”

I wave my hand. “No, it’s fine. I guess if we’re going to live together for the next year, I better tell you a little about me.”

I don’t know if I’m overthinking things, but I swear Penny closes her eyes when I say that. She sucks in a breath.

I shake my head. I’m probably reading too much into it; too much into her. Penny has that effect on me whenever she’s around: I can’t stop drinking in every inch of her skin; or studying her like she’s an exquisite painting in a gallery.

I slump back down on the couch and gesture for Penny to join me.

“I had Tilly young,” I say. “But I guess you already figured that.”

Penny curls up on her legs, but keeps a short distance between us. I can’t rid myself of the lingering suspicion that something’s on her mind. But now that I’ve started talking, I don’t want to stop. I’m not the kind of guy who does therapy – but I’m sure there’s a whole river of shit in my mind just waiting for an excuse to escape.

“Yeah.”

“How much do you know about me?” I ask. I narrow my eyes and study Penny’s reaction.

Penny’s voice jumps an entire range of octaves. “About you? What do you mean?”

I smile to put her at ease. I realize how I must be coming across – almost like I’m pumping her for information. That’s not what I want – nothing could be further from the truth.

I want Penny to understand why I’m the way I am: intensely private, ambitious, and protective over my daughter: maybe too protective. So protective that marrying a woman I’ve never met to save Tilly from CPS’s clutches made sense at the time.

“Relax,” I smile. “You ever read an interview with me? In Time Magazine or the New York Times?”

Penny shakes her head. Her face is still drawn and tense. “No,” she admits.

“That’s because there aren’t any,” I reply. “I like it that way. I don’t see why people out there need to know anything about my life. I’m just a guy – a guy who works extremely hard, and a guy who’s been very, very lucky.”

Penny’s expression shifts. It’s a tiny change, and one that I only pick up because I’m losing myself in her eyes. A second ago, I thought I saw distrust on her face. Now it’s interest.

“Lucky?” She whispers. “That’s interesting. Not a lot of men in your position would admit that, I don’t think.”

“What?” I chuckle. “Like Landon Winchester? I swear, in that guy’s mind he’s the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit all rolled up into one blonde haired, blue-eyed model’s body.”

“He’s an asshole,” Penny spits with surprising venom.

“I’m glad you agree. The way Landon sees it, every bit of success he’s had is his right. It’s not about luck with him, it’s that he’s worked hard, and that the people he ground into dust beneath him deserved to fail.”

“And you?” Penny asks.

I shrug. “I’ve been lucky,” I say freely. “I’ll admit that to anyone who asks. You don’t make it to where I am in the world without more than a ladle-full of luck. I’ve had more than enough for a hundred men.”

Penny relaxes a little. “So, tell me about yourself, Mr. Lucky.”

I do. I don’t know why, but I do. I open myself up in a way I’ve never done before – not with anyone. When you get to where I have in the world, you have to close yourself off, or open yourself up for attack.

“I was a wild child,” I say. “I grew up on the streets of New York. My mom and dad didn’t check in on me much. They died in a car wreck when I was about twelve years old, but I wasn’t upset.”

Penny flinches.

I hold my hand up, thinking I know why. “We weren’t close,” I say. “They didn’t care much about me, not beyond the checks they got from the state, anyway.”

“It’s your family, I guess,” Penny says doubtfully.

“So this foster family took me in – an Irish couple, as Catholic as they were generous. They raised me from twelve to eighteen.”

“And they changed you? Helped you settle down?”

I let out a deep, booming laugh. “No way. I swear; I tested mom’s patience to the limit. My foster mom, I mean. She was in and out of the principal’s office more than his damn secretary!”

“Then … what?” Penny frowns. “How did an orphan kid from the streets of New York end up as one of its most powerful men?”

I close my eyes. “There was this girl,” I say. “Molly. God, for a troubled kid like me, she was like cocaine. She had tattoos all down her side, a lip piercing, silver bars through both nipples –.”

Penny clears her throat.

“Sorry –,” I say hurriedly. “But you get the picture.”

“I think so,” Penny smiles uncertainly.

“Anyway,” I said. “Molly Jones was the business. Let me tell you, I’ve rarely met a girl like her.”

Penny’s eyes cloud over, but I wave the thought away. “I wouldn’t worry,” I say. “She was off the rails. We drank together, smoked together, fucked all over town. She was the last thing a kid like me needed. We played hooky, we rode the subway without paying, shoplifted, drank some more. You get the picture.”

“You already said that…” Penny says, but she can’t hide the interest in her eyes. She shifts her weight forward.

“And then…” I say, losing myself in the memory.

“Molly disappeared. Just like that,” I click my fingers. “She was gone. Fuck, I’ve never missed a girl like I missed her. I didn’t see her for seven months. I got a job – dead-end kind of thing, behind a register, but it didn’t last long. None of them did. I started messing about with computers. Didn’t try hard, but goddamn I was good.”

“And then?” Penny whispers. I can tell she’s figured out – most of it, anyway.

“I never did see Molly again. But one day mom rang me, told me I needed to swing by the house. I’ve never heard her voice like that. Let me tell you, you don’t mess with an Irish lady going through the menopause…”

“And that’s when you found Tilly,” Penny whispers.

I nod. “She was wrapped up in some ratty old thrift-shop baby clothes. Molly dropped her off with mom and dad; then she ran. But I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as Tilly’s face in my entire life.”

I look up. Penny’s face is suddenly just inches from mine. She looks entranced by the story, spellbound by my words. She bites her lip.

Then I do something I don’t regret one little bit.