by Lund, S. E.
John had read up on some of the technical issues that astronauts faced while at the ISS and better communications was always at the top of the list. He figured we could research how to solve those problems and while he would work on the technical aspects of the project, I would do the funding side of things. It was nice to be working together on a new project. We could work on anything we wanted. When the sky is the limit in terms of money and ideas, why not go for something big like the space industry?
If we could work on this project together, we could sell the technology to NASA and that would give us cred in among industry insiders. John had the technical skills, while I was the money guy. Eventually, I wanted to become involved in building and sending rockets to the asteroid belt that would mine them for precious metals that were rare on earth. I figured that would be a solid business to get into. It was a long way off, but you had to start somewhere.
I thought of it as my legacy. If I could start a company dedicated to getting there, my children and future generations could take over and make it happen. That would be a great way for my company to live on.
"Hey," I said when he walked up, looking like he used to back when we were students. It really felt like back in the day when we were both college students and had big dreams of creating a billion-dollar business.
"Hey," he said and plopped down across from me. The waitress came right over and took his order, pouring a cup of coffee for him. She refilled my cup as well.
When we were alone, he leaned forward. "I was almost going to cancel. I had a date last night."
"Oh, yeah? What lucky young woman was graced by your company?"
I smiled while he stirred some cream into his cup.
"Felicia," he said and wagged his eyebrows.
I laughed out loud. "So, Harrison finally got to you, did he? Or was it my mother?"
"I think both of them, actually."
"You always had your eye on her," I said and gave him a grin.
"I always did," he said. "I recall telling you I'd be happy to take her off your hands when you weren't quite as interested as you should have been. She's actually very pretty and very smart, you know."
"She is, but there was no chemistry between us -- at least on my part."
"On her part, too, but her mother was pushing you as the best candidate and so was Harrison. She just went along with them to keep them off her back."
I stirred my own coffee thoughtfully. "Why can't people leave us alone to find our own partners? It was you two who should have been dating, not us."
"Agreed. Anyway, we get along like two peas in a pod. I tell her about something I like, and she completes my sentence and tells me about it, and vice versa. We laugh about it all the time. There's nothing I like that she hasn't already liked or considered. I feel really relaxed around her."
"Good," I said and took a sip of my coffee. "I'm glad. Now Harrison will be off my back. All his focus on marrying off his sister will be on you. You're almost as rich as me so..."
"What do you mean, almost? I am. Last I heard, we split the profits from the sale of Chatter..."
"I have whatever I get from the Marshalls when they die."
"Yeah, but you don't really have that money, do you? At least, not yet. You only inherit when they die, right?"
I nodded, thinking of how my parents had arranged their wills so that Dana and I didn't inherit the bulk of their shares of the company they had founded. Their shares went right back into the company on their deaths. Dana and I each got a lump sum at age eighteen of several million dollars from their life insurance, but the bulk of the estate went back into the company or to charity.
At the time, I didn't care, thinking that the money I did get at eighteen was more than enough to take care of me for life. I was right. I had used that lump sum to start Chatter with John, but most of the wealth my father grew, and my mother inherited did not go to either Dana or me.
My father's idea was that we had to find our own way in life and that he and my mother would provide us with the very healthy and nurturing start in life, but it was up to us. In other words, Dana and I didn't inherit their shares of the company. It was a publicly traded corporation and the shares all went back to the corporation on his death.
That was why the Marshalls, my father's business partner, adopted us. They were old money and didn't have their own children. They didn't want their money to go to their own siblings, because both had died and only their step children would inherit their wealth. They must have figured it would be better to give their fortunes to someone they chose who might carry on the family name, rather than divide it up and give it away to charity. So, other than the lump sum from the insurance we received at eighteen, we would only inherit through the Marshalls, not through our own biological parents.
I never cared, because I never knew about it until much later when I went to business school and learned about finance. It was then that I understood that my father wasn’t a great businessman and had no idea how big his company would become. He didn't think that the Marshalls would one day get it all. He didn't think that anything would happen to him and my mother and that they would be there to look after us while we grew up.
They were both wrong, of course.
The fiery crash on the interstate, caused when a drunk driver entered the highway the wrong way, took their lives and that of several other innocents. Dana and I were left orphaned and it seemed natural that the Marshalls took us in.
I didn't really care about the Marshall family fortune, but my adoptive mother and father certainly did. They were old money and wanted to make sure it stayed in the family. Although Dana and I weren't biologically related to them, we were related through marriage as Mrs. Marshall's brother was my mother's sister's husband. It was a convoluted relationship, but not one of blood.
That was why my adoptive mother and father were so determined to match me and Dana up with old money so that the fortunes would be merged and perpetuated. Unlike my nouveau riche father, who didn't think the same way.
We turned the discussion back to our business and for the rest of the morning, we went over numbers and plans, upcoming meetings and strategy.
It felt like old times when we were first brainstorming about how to get Chatter off the ground. I loved it. This was what I lived for. Nothing made me happier than planning for the future, imagining how to create a company and then seeing it come to fruition. Luckily, John and I were like two sides of the same coin and we each had the skills needed to take care of business.
"The first and most important question is this: what will we name our new company?"
I laughed. "That's not the most important thing, John," I said and pushed my plate away. "Concept is more important."
"Oh, pish posh. The company name is the most important. It will be our calling card. Since we plan on mining the asteroid belt, we should have some name that refers to the stars or space."
"Astra is star in Latin. Something with Astra in it."
"Astra Ventures. Astra Industries. Astra Investments."
I made a face, not sure about any of them. "Good start. We can play around and see if we can come up with something that fits."
"Astra should be in there, somewhere." He held his coffee cup up and we toasted each other.
"To Astra Industries. Or Investments. Or whatever we end up choosing. To our next future billion-dollar company."
"To the stars."
We each drank down our coffee and smiled.
Life was good.
Then, life wasn't so good.
I sent a text to Alexa, hoping to keep riding the good feelings after my meeting with John.
LUKE: Hey beautiful love of my life. Wanna meet me at O'Toole's for a beer and some good old Irish food?
ALEXA: I'm not feeling up to it.
LUKE: Should I bring some takeout-Korean and some cold Korean beer?
ALEXA: Nah. My stomach’s kind of off.
LUKE: Is everything okay? You’re n
ot sick, are you?"
ALEXA: No. I’m just tired.
LUKE: How did your meeting with Dragon Lady go? I'm all ears...
ALEXA: *sigh*
LUKE: That bad? Tell me...
ALEXA: We'll talk later, okay? Suffice to say that I got the feeling she was not all that happy with having me as a future daughter-in-law.
LUKE: Tell me what she said, and I'll go and have a little chat with her.
ALEXA: It wasn't so much what she said. I mean, she didn't say that we couldn't get married, but let's just say that she was trying really hard to show me why it was a mistake.
LUKE: It's not a mistake. You and I both know it's the absolutely fucking perfect idea. We belong together, Alexa. You know that. You feel it. I know you do.
ALEXA: I know but we do come from different backgrounds, social classes... You're from money and you have money. I'm lower white collar / upper blue collar.
LUKE: That doesn't matter to me. What matters is that we're compatible and we love each other. Do you love me?
ALEXA: Of course, I do, but...
LUKE: Yes or no. There is no but.
I hoped that my Yoda reference would lighten the mood, but it didn't seem to work.
ALEXA: Your mother said love is never enough.
LUKE: No, it isn't enough, but we have more than 'just' love. We have intellectual compatibility. We have clear sexual chemistry. We have the same sense of humor. The love part just cements the decision. It makes everything else support the idea of getting married.
ALEXA: We'll talk about this later, okay?
LUKE: Okay, but I want you to tell that brain of yours that my mother is just trying to undermine your sense of confidence in our relationship. She's trying to make you feel inadequate but you're not. You are more than adequate. You're perfect for me.
ALEXA: I'm not perfect...
LUKE: You are to me. You are for me. I love you with all my heart and I can't wait for us to be married. I want you to erase everything my mother said to you about whether you're adequate, okay? Seriously...
ALEXA: *sigh* I'll try.
LUKE: Okay. We'll talk when I get home. I love you.
ALEXA: I love you.
I exhaled, trying to calm my beating heart. I was furious at my mother for trying to make Alexa doubt her adequacy for me as a wife.
She was more than adequate, and I’d be happy to spend the rest of my life showing her exactly that.
Chapter Twelve
Luke
I went back up to the hotel and when I got to our room, there was Alexa, sitting at the desk, working on her computer.
"There you are," I said and went over behind her, squeezing her shoulders and giving her a kiss on her cheek.
She turned to me and smiled softly. "Here I am."
"Tell me, " I said. “Tell me what my mother said to make you so upset. Tell me everything.”
She shrugged while I sat on the sofa and pulled her over with me. "Your family home is beautiful. Eleven bedrooms and eleven bathrooms? That rooftop patio is amazing. I loved the view."
She sat on my lap, her arms around my neck.
"It is pretty nice, I guess," I said, trying to assess her state of mind. "How was my mother?"
"She was the perfect hostess. We had a lovely lunch with cream of asparagus soup, lemon shrimp linguine and lemon strawberry chiffon cake. And the Vinho Verde was amazing and paired very well with the shellfish."
I frowned, because she still wasn't telling me what I wanted to know. "That's nice. Tell me what my mother said to upset you. "
She shrugged like it didn’t matter, but I knew she was upset. "She was a very pleasant conversationalist, asking me questions about my childhood and upbringing. I saw a lovely Steinway grand piano in the apartment. You took lessons for five years?"
"I did," I said and stroked her cheek. "Tell me. I need to know what she said that made you doubt us."
She sighed, and I could sense the reluctance in her. She smiled finally, but the smile didn't really reach her eyes. She seemed sad.
"Tell me," I said and held her eyes. "She said something or did something that upset you."
When she didn't answer, I took her face in my hands and she finally had to look me in the eyes.
"Tell me," I said firmly. "What did the bitch say to upset you?"
She glanced away. "It's just that I realized how different our upbringings were, seeing the house where you grew up. Everything was marble and expensive wood and gilded fixtures in the bathroom. Your family is so rich, and I grew up with my parents often raiding the piggy bank when it got close to payday."
"Alexa..." I said, shaking my head. "The money means nothing to me. It's just a means to an end. You should know that by now."
I stroked her hair and lifted her chin.
"It doesn't mean I'm better than anyone or worse than anyone. That's all money has ever been to me. A means to an end. Besides, despite all her pretensions, my mother did nothing -- nothing -- to earn any of the money she has. She married well. That's all. She thinks it's because she deserves to be rich, but no one deserves to be born rich or poor. It's all accidental. It's what you do with your circumstances that matters. She was beautiful and caught my father's eye. He had money from his father. So, neither of them actually did anything to be so wealthy other than invest wisely."
"He built the company with your father," Alexa said. "That counts for something."
"He was the money man. It was my father who took the idea and built up the company. And it was my biological mother's inheritance that helped fund things. These people had money and used it to make more money. There's nothing wrong with that -- it's the way of capitalism. But it doesn't make them any better than your father and mother and you. It doesn't."
"Still, our lives growing up were so different..."
"They were similar enough so that we both went to grad school at Columbia. That makes us even, in my view. Besides, I never wanted to just inherit money and be rich by birth. I wanted to make my own. I respected my biological father because he built a company from scratch, repaying the money he borrowed and building the company up until it was a Fortune 500 company. I wanted my own money and not to rely on either of the Marshalls. I'm my own man now. Every ounce of debt I went into to create Chatter has been paid off and I now have my nest egg so I can build even more. Through my own hard work. That's what matters to me. Every person of modest means who gets scholarships or student loans and goes to college? They're self-made people, too. That's what I respect. I'm not like my adopted mother."
She smiled. "What if you were disinherited from the Marshall family fortune?"
I frowned. "Why would you ask that?"
She didn't say anything, so I lifted her chin once more and stared into her eyes.
"What did she say to you?"
She shrugged, avoiding my eyes. "She said if we married, you'd be disinherited."
"What?" A shock went through me at that. That fucking bitch... "She said that to you? What did you do?"
Alexa nodded, and finally met my eyes again. "I thanked her for the lovely lunch and left."
I sat there and fumed for about thirty seconds, feeling like the top of my head would blow. Finally, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.
"It doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't need their money. They can give it all to Dana. They can donate it to their favorite charity. I have all the money I'll ever need."
She cupped my cheek with her hand and made me look in her eyes. "Do you really feel that way? She said you would regret losing out on the inheritance one day when you wanted to build your rocket to Mars..."
"She's full of shit," I said a little too harshly. "I never expected to see any of their money anyway. I just never factored it in to any of my plans and from now on, I won't even consider it."
"Are you sure about that? It's a lot of money, Luke. It would buy a lot of rockets."
"Fuck her," I said, trying hard to get my anger under control. "She'
s not going to manipulate us and break us up using threats of disinheriting me. It won't work and all it will do is drive me farther apart from her."
"I don't want to be the cause of your family feud."
"Look, my love," I said finally, getting control over my emotions. “The only person I truly consider family is Dana and her children. Not my adoptive mother or my adoptive father. Not Eric. John is more my family than either of my parents. Hell, John's parents are like the family I wish had adopted me."
"How is Mrs. Andrews?" Alexa asked. "Her chemo was successful, from what he said."
"She's good. She has to be checked every three months, but so far, so good."
"I hope everything works out for the best. John is a sweet man."
"He's the best," I said and nodded. "She's all he's got now. I know he's worried about her. So am I, but luckily, she has the best care money can buy."
"She's lucky."
"And very rich."
Alexa sighed at that. "You rich people really are different. Never having to worry about paying bills, or where your next meal will come from. If you got cancer..."
"We are," I said and kissed her. "When you're my wife, you will be rich, too. None of your family will ever have to worry about medical bills or anything. When I marry you, we become family and your parents will be mine. You don't know how happy that makes me. I love your parents."
She smiled finally, her eyes crinkling in the corners. "I'm so glad," she said, her voice catching from emotion. "They're wonderful."
"They are."
We kissed. She exhaled when the kiss ended and laid her head on my shoulder.