I get to the limousines frustrated and freezing. “Stefan, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Maybe twenty, adorned in an ill-fitting black suit—a beanpole, with clear blue eyes and white/blond spiked hair peeking from under his black cap. He opens the door of the now first limousine in the long row. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”
“Thank you.” I get in. Apparently Stefan knows where to take me because he doesn’t ask.
The door shuts and I am entombed. Driving through the rolling hills of Kent, the ancient walnuts and aged oaks are black sentries against the matte gray sky. Gets harder and harder to breathe. Try pulling up the tune for The Zone I’d been working on at the grave site, but it’s impossible to hear anything beyond the war in my head. Between the faded memories of living here, aching for home, and Julia, I curse myself all the way to the estate for agreeing to come.
Glimpse the stone turrets of Castlewood through the endless row of Italian spruce and my skin starts to prickle. Then the gravel drive pops and crunches under the tires and my heart pounds so hard it’s reverberating in my throat. I’d walked away from here the day I turned eighteen, leaving behind my father, Ian, and the five years I’d been forced to live with them. That was almost ten years ago. And I’d most likely never have come back had Ian’s overdose not given me an easy excuse to put a few days between me and Julia.
Julia. Flash on my last image of her, standing in the studio doorway in her lavender silk camisole and purple panties, mad as hell that I was still working. I grimace with humor in mock shame. I’ll make it up to her when I get back—take her on a date she swears we never go on.
Limo finally stops. Stefan opens my door. Dread is so pervasive I just sit there, paralyzed. Nothing good can come from this encounter. I shouldn’t have come.
Stefan stands shivering by the door in the cold, wet air and waits. I sit in the car feeling angry and trapped until I can’t take the absurdity another minute. “What are you waiting for?”
“You to get out, sir.”
“Well, what if I don’t?”
“Well, then, I have to wait here, sir, until you do.”
“Any chance you’ll take me back to Heathrow?”
“None, sir. My instructions were to bring you here.”
I figured as much. Edward usually gets what he wants, and it would be unwise of the driver to cross him if he wants to stay employed, anywhere in Britain, at least. No point in arguing. I get out of the car, even manage, “Thank you, Stefan. That will be all for now,” as I cross the gravel drive to the house. Jesus, I can’t wait to get back to L.A. where the people are normal. I hear Stefan slam the door to the limousine and stomp away as I move under the vaulted marble-columned portico. Deep breath, then release it slowly as I come through one of the heavy arched wood doors and onto the checkered floor of the entrance hall gallery. The massive oak-railed marble staircase, like the tongue of a giant mouth, sits across the large, open space and splits in opposite directions onto the second floor landing.
“Your father would like to see you in the study at 6:00p.m. Sharp,” Howard says the moment I set foot in the house. Dressed in his impeccably tailored dark wool suit, he looks virtually the same, except maybe more gray around the temples, perhaps less hair there as well. His thin lips are set in a straight, unreadable line, his gray eyes impassive as ever. He says nothing else, not even, “Good to see you after all these years, James.” He turns away, walks through one of four, double-arched thresholds with that ivy-league stick up his ass.
“Nice seeing you, Harvard,” I call after him as he disappears down a hallway. My father’s personal secretary since their Harvard days, for the five years I lived on the estate, Howard was, if not attentive, at least more available than my father ever was. Perhaps I owed him for that alone. It’s just, well, why did he have to be such a cold prig?
Turn around. Walk away.
Edward can’t stop me from leaving, though it’s past five. Dark. Cold. Wet. And two hundred and thirty acres to the next estate. At this point, only way out’s a taxi.
Check my cell for the tenth time since leaving the church. No connection. Lost it after Ashford and haven’t gotten it back since. No phone in the gallery...or the adjoining parlor...or in the library. Still searching, I go up to my old room, but the phone that used to be on the huge antique Partners desk isn’t there anymore. It’s cold in the cavernous room, even though there’s a fire blazing in the carved marble-mantled fireplace. My travel bag is on the double bed. Several plush, violet bath towels lay next to it. I’m expected to stay.
Damn.
No phone. No taxi. I can take one of the horses to Hythe, find a ride from there. Fat droplets of rain hit the long French windows. Don’t have a clue how to navigate a horse, through mud, at night. I can try bribing Stefan to get me out of here. Probably cost a lot, if he’ll do it at all, which he’s already indicated he won’t. Smart dude. No way out until morning. I shiver at the notion.
I glance around the opulent room, the coffered ceiling now sporting halogen lights in every other square, highlighting the polished antique Renaissance furniture in surreal blue/white. I’m trapped in the seventeenth century, except for the custom Hiwatt 100 watt amp, the Fender electric and an Ibanez bass I never liked the sound of, and left here the day I moved out.
Inhale deeply, exhale slowly to chill. An hour with my old man in ten years probably won’t be near the deal I’m making it out to be. Crashing from all the Adderall and Didrex I’ve been doing lately is making me edgy. Julia’s right. Been using too much for too long now. Gonna have to knock it off, even if it means working less.
The digital clock on the Louis XV writing table displays 5:55 in deep red LED. I grab a towel and take a hot shower, then shave. Stow my black suit in my bag then put on worn jeans and a hoodie.
Screw formality.
I pull my tablet and sit on the bed with it, turn it on and input the chord progression I’d created earlier. It’s close to 6:30 by the time I finally make my way down to Edward’s study.
My father sits at his mahogany desk, focused on his laptop. He’s wearing glasses but takes them off and stands as I come in, though he does not extend his hand. He’s still in the black suit he wore to the funeral. He looks exactly the same as a decade ago, hasn’t lost one hair from the mass of thick peppered gray that sweeps across his forehead, still cropped short on the sides. Remarkably, he’s retained his tall, imposing stature, and even more remarkably, he is still trim and looks fit. Though he’s almost eighty, he can easily be mistaken for early sixties. He hasn’t changed one iota in ten years. Perhaps he sold his soul to the devil.
Edward walks over to the bar, pulls a dark brown bottle from the fifty or more terraced along the smoked mirrored wall. “Would you care for a whiskey, James?” The puppeteer is still orchestrating the scene.
“No.”
Back off. Keep it light.
“Thank you.” I stand a few feet from his desk, caught in one of the many circles of recessed lights. About the last thing I need to add to my messed up chemistry is alcohol. I tuck my hands under my arms, shifting from one hip to the other, edgy to the extreme.
My father opens the beveled glass cabinet, selects a crystal tumbler, and pours himself a drink. Neither of us speak, and the silence between us becomes the rhino in the room. I cram my hands into my hoodie pocket, wander over to the walnut bookshelves that line the walls and randomly scan titles.
Pillars of the Earth. The Principles of Mechanics. The Prince.
Okay. Breathe.
Relax.
Loosen your shoulders. Say something. Say anything.
“I’m really sorry about Ian,” is the best I come up with.
“It is your loss too, James. It would serve you to recognize that.”
Here we go.
“Yes sir. It is my loss, too. I’m sorry Ian’s dead. It’s really a tragic waste.”
“Yes. It is.” Edward speaks as if to himself. He leans against the bar and takes a sip of his whiskey. “A tragic death—a tragic waste of a life. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“As you know, Ian and I weren’t that close. I’m not in any position to judge how he lived his life.”
Edward takes another drink. “It’s unfortunate that you and your brother were never able to cultivate a relationship. Perhaps by your example, Ian could have developed some focus, some self-discipline.”
“I doubt I could have provided the influence that would have saved Ian, sir.”
“Of course not.” A sardonic laugh. “Ian’s issue was not a lack of discipline, but a lack of self. Most assuredly, neither of which are your issues.”
Like you have a clue what my issues might be.
“What is it you want to talk with me about, father?”
Edward swirls the whiskey in his glass and takes another sip of his drink. “It is time to discuss your upcoming role in our family’s future.”
Prickling rush sweeps through me, like the kind that follows just barely missing the Mack truck. “Let’s not go down that road again, Edward. I told you I wasn’t interested ten years ago. I’m still not.”
“We’re meeting to discuss obligation, responsibility, not choice, James.”
“Not a choice for Ian, maybe, but it is for me. I’m just lucky, I guess, that I wasn’t your first born, or legitimate.”
Watch out.
I’m letting him get to me.
Edward’s eyes narrow. “Your arrogance is only surpassed by your ignorance.” He shakes his head slowly, then takes a gulp of his drink, moves from the bar and begins circling me. It’s unnerving. “Your brother was a lazy, spoiled, contentious, undisciplined brat. I had no expectations of him managing the family estate since he could not manage his own behavior.” Edward stops a few feet in front of me, close enough to smell his sour breath.
Every part of me tenses. It takes considerable effort to relax my balled fists. Flex my fingers discreetly. We’re the same height. I’m almost fifty years younger, and in good shape. But I’m still afraid of him. “Why am I here, Edward? What do you want?”
“An easy transition.” Edward takes another sip of whiskey, “Though that seems unlikely.” He drains his glass in one final gulp. “James, did you honestly expect to walk away and sever all ties to your family? If you did, I’m afraid you were sadly mistaken.”
“What ties?” He has to be kidding. “We have no ties. We haven’t spoken in a decade. You know nothing about me. When you had the opportunity the five years I lived here, you chose your constituents, your agenda, other commitments.”
“I had two sons.” Edward almost shouts. “Now I have one.” He goes back to the bar and pours himself another drink, then takes a long, slow draw and looks at me. “Am I to expect the same petty contempt from you as from your brother?”
My heart’s coming through my chest again. All I want to do is get out of here, away from him. “What do you want me to say? What are you looking to hear from me, father?” It suddenly strikes me what Edward wants. I have to laugh. “I can’t give you what you want, Edward. I won’t. I’m about the last person to grant you absolution.”
Edward laughs heartily. “Absolution?” He shakes his head with a twisted grin. “You are young, and naive, so you are forgiven.” Then raises his glass to me, brings it to his lips and drains it, goes back to the bar and pours himself another.
“I don't need your forgiveness, Edward.”
I need to get out of here.
Edward stands at the bar studying me, then finishes his drink and places the glass down gently. Never seen my father drink so much. Worries me. I’ve never got on with drunks. Anxiety suddenly consumes me. This could turn into a very bad scene.
“Please, sit down, James.” Edward indicates the steel and leather chairs in front of his desk as he goes behind it and stands waiting.
I glance at the door then look back at my father.
“Please.” Edward is casual, somehow making the command sound like a request, and again he motions to the Van Der Rohe chairs with a sweep of his hand.
I don’t sit until he does.
He presses a few keys on his laptop and closes it, arranges some papers on his desk then folds his huge hands casually in his lap and looks at me.
“With Ian’s passing, you will become the sole heir to the family estate upon my death. The estate is currently valued at over two billion in assets. Most of it is tied up in real estate holdings, though a good percentage is incorporated into a variety of business ventures, some of which—”
“I can’t believe you are insisting on this conversation.” I stand abruptly and my chair slides back silently over the polished oak floors. I back away from the desk, move behind the chair and grip its steel bar with both hands. “I told you I’m not interested. I don’t want any of your money. If this is all you wanted to talk to me about, then we’re done, Edward.”
“This isn’t about money, James.”
“Well, excuse me for being vulgar, father, but whatever it’s about I’m not interested in any part of your estate. This is absurd. You can’t honestly expect me to walk away from everything I’ve established, worked for my entire life.”
“I’ve not suggested you abandon anything. I am expecting you to absorb your additional obligations, and invest the time necessary to become effective at overseeing our collective assets—not overnight, of course, over time. You have lived a lifestyle known only to the privileged few. Do not minimize the role your heritage has played in your accomplishments.”