Always

by Sophie Lark

  Midway through the show, a handsome young man came striding down their aisle to tap Dominic on the shoulder. Dominic followed the young man off to the side, and the two engaged in a brief, intense argument. The boy was very handsome—dark wavy hair, slim and romantic looking. But Anika had immediately disliked him for being so disagreeable toward the gentle and lighthearted Dominic.

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic said when he came back. “That’s my son. He’s come to visit me. He lives in Palermo with his mother.”

  Dominic hadn’t explained what the argument had been about, and of course Anika didn’t ask.

  Perhaps it was unfair of her to hold a grudge against Marco after all this time. He was so young then—it was probably just a petty squabble over borrowing his father’s car, or something equally childish. Or maybe they hadn’t been arguing at all—Anika had been to Italy, so she knew how the most commonplace discussion between two Italians might appear as if they were about to come to blows.

  Still, it amused her to see Stella so besotted. Her sister had engaged in any number of flings over the years, without bothering to bestow so much as the title of “boyfriend.” But she was thirty-four now—maybe she had decided it was finally time to settle down. Marco was an obvious choice—if they lived a hundred years earlier, it was a match both families would have orchestrated. The scions of two noble houses. What could be more perfect?

  Anika was relieved to hear that Stella had dinner plans with friends, and Bennet wasn’t expected home from work until eight or nine p.m. at the earliest. After a hectic day, she welcomed the quiet.

  The cook had left a variety of prepared meals in the fridge. Anika took a plate of fruit, cheese, hummus, and crackers to her room. It was quickly becoming a favorite place to her, sheltered and distant as it was from the rest of the apartment. She had only half unpacked, still thinking that it might be best to find lodging somewhere else. But she’d taken out some of her favorite books and stacked them on the shelf under the window and laid her old blanket across the bed—worn blue velvet, with a pattern of moons and stars.

  As she ate, sitting up on the bed with her back to the brick wall, she opened her laptop to check her email.

  Right at the top was a message from Liam Doyle:

  My dear Ms. Knight, it read. Your aunt Molly has given me your email address. I would like first of all to tell you how much I’ve been enjoying your beautiful house. Molly told me how painful it was for you to leave it, so I won’t go on about all its wonderful features of which you are well aware. I’ll only tell you that I’m taking very good care of it, most especially your four-legged friends in the stables. Tom would like you to know that Domino is completely recovered from whatever was bothering her hoof, and Monte, Goliath, and Fargo are likewise in perfect health and spirits.

  Now onto my main point: as Molly may have told you already, she’s been rending my heart with tales of your impoverished students and the salubrious effects of your educational program. Like most people in my position, I spent the early years of my adulthood being selfish and aggrandizing, and now that I’m too old to be useful or interesting, I would like to make myself feel better by dumping my ill-gotten loot into all the good works I can find. If we can’t quite buy our way into heaven, we can at least improve the Philanthropic Efforts section of our Wikipedia page, don’t you think?

  I’ve already written Molly a check, which is the easy part, but I’d like to offer you my help in any other way that you need. I know what you’re thinking, what good is this old man way out on the other end of the peninsula? Well, to start with, I will send you a very useful assistant. One of my old colleagues is coming to the city for a few months, and as Molly has roped me in, so I’ve done the same to him. I told him to come by your office so he can make himself useful - he just sold his company and he’s got time and money on his hands. Take as much of both as you can from him! His name is James Dawson. He should be dropping by next week.

  The email went on a few more lines, but Anika had stopped reading. Her heart was hammering away in her chest as if she had sprinted a mile. With shaking hands, she pushed away her plate of unfinished dinner and re-read those twelve words.

  His name is James Dawson. He should be dropping by next week.

  Anika knew James Dawson. She had known him very well eight years ago.

  Actually she’d been completely in love with him.

  They met at NYU. She was an Art History major, he was in Computer Science, but he’d taken “Renaissance Sculpture” as an elective. They sat together by chance their first lecture, and by choice every lecture thereafter. After a few weeks, he asked her out for a drink. They sat talking until the bar closed, then talked for three hours more walking around Washington Square Park.

  He was skinny, slightly nerdy, but warm, funny, charming, fascinating. He wanted to know everything about her—where did she come from, what was her family like, what were her favorite books, movies, music, classes, foods, places to travel? What did she think about Kierkegaard and string theory, and why was Michelangelo such an ass to DaVinci?

  Maybe it was only typical student chatter, but to Anika, whose opinion was always least wanted and least regarded at home, it was absolutely irresistible.

  James’s thoughtfulness amazed her. Though he was completely broke, on scholarship at the university and scraping by with a part-time tutoring job, he was always turning up with little gifts for her—a bag of her favorite chocolate cinnamon bears, or a perfect origami flower he’d folded as he listened to his last lecture.

  He was honest—he would answer absolutely any question she asked of him, without hesitation. If the answer was unflattering to himself, so be it. He was unafraid to show her exactly who he was, and that allowed Anika to do the same, to tell him things she had never imagined telling anyone.

  He was brave, braver than Anika had been then. She was shy, fragile, barely recovered from her mother’s passing. But James was bold, clever. He could persuade anyone to his point of view or diffuse a disagreement with a well-timed quip. He had all kinds of plans. He made Anika feel that a world of possibilities lay open to them both.

  And the sex—her face flushed just remembering it. He worshipped her body with the same intensity and interest he brought to everything. He was mechanically-inclined, he had these incredible hands that could fix or build anything—what they could do when they touched her, it hardly seemed legal.

  They dated for two years; they were madly in love. But once they were set to graduate, they came to a crossroads.

  James was moving to California. He had a hundred ideas for things he wanted to create, and he needed to be in Silicon Valley. He begged Anika to come with him.

  Anika was torn. Of course she wanted to go, but her father had made it clear that if she didn’t come home to take over the Red Line immediately, he would dissolve it.

  While embroiled in debate with herself, James was pushing to come to the Hamptons to meet her family. She’d met his parents and brothers over a few holidays, but he hadn’t met anyone on her side, not even Aunt Molly.

  He thought she was embarrassed of him, of his parents being schoolteachers. Of course the opposite was true—the people who actually embarrassed her were Bennet and Stella. She knew exactly how they’d behave.

  James insisted, and, reluctantly, she agreed.

  The trip was disastrous.

  Bennet treated James with absolute coldness and sarcasm. Having never attended higher education himself, he had a particular animosity in that direction. Upon learning that half of James’s family were teachers, he made several cutting remarks about the education system and the fools that served it. He questioned James about his future plans, openly sneering at the idea that there was any money left to be made in Silicon Valley.

  “It’s all who you know there,” Bennet said. “And who do you know, exactly?”

  Stella was even worse. She interrupted James whenever he spoke, and mockingly enquired if his watch was a Rolex?

&n
bsp; “It’s a Seiko,” James said stiffly. “My mother gave it to me at my high school graduation.”

  “I’m sure those are very popular where you’re from,” Stella said.

  Anika was in agony until Aunt Molly arrived, but even Molly failed to be her usual welcoming and effusive self. Anika had mentioned the possibility of moving across the country with James, and that had prejudiced Molly against him. Still mourning her sister, she didn’t want to lose her favorite niece. She was polite to James, but not warm, not kind.

  When James returned to the dorms, two days early and without Anika, Bennet and Stella made their low opinion of her boyfriend perfectly clear, as if they hadn’t already.

  She could have ignored them, but at that time she relied very heavily on Aunt Molly for support. She asked Molly what she thought about the move to California.

  “I think it’s a terrible idea,” Aunt Molly said bluntly.

  “What?” Anika was surprised.

  “It isn’t what your mother would have wanted for you—tagging along with some boy, chasing after his dream. You’re too young to latch yourself on to someone like that. There’s too many things you still need to do for yourself.”

  Maybe Anika could have withstood this too, but Aunt Molly went further. She said that it wouldn’t be fair to James. He needed to focus on his work, his goals. Programmer’s hours were insanity—how could he put the time in if he knew Anika was at home waiting for him? Not to mention the financial stress. James didn’t have two dimes to rub together, and neither would Anika if she went with him. Bennet would cut her off, and her mother’s trust didn’t come due for another five years.

  If Anika would have gone back to the city before making her decision, she would have seen James’ handsome face, his beautiful smile, felt the warmth of his arms around her. She would have been flooded with strength and confidence as she always was in his presence. But she didn’t carry any of that inside of herself at that time. Without James directly in front of her, she was weak and too easily persuaded by her aunt, who looked very much like Eleanor, and felt like the last real family left to her.

  Anika broke up with James over the phone. It was the pull of her mother’s charity, it was the desire to seem reasonable and responsible in Aunt Molly’s eyes, and the belief that she was doing what was best for James as well. But it was mostly fear. She could admit that now, looking back. She had been so scared and so distrustful of her own judgement. Tied to her mother’s house and her mother’s job, afraid to leave it and lose Eleanor all over again.

  She would have wanted to keep in touch, maybe even try some kind of long distance relationship, but James was furious. He didn’t believe that any of this was for his benefit. He thought Anika had been swayed by her family’s obvious dislike of him.

  James was a person of iron resolve. He couldn’t tolerate her weakness. He disappeared from social media and blocked her on his phone.

  Many times since then, she’d considered contacting him. She could have used a different number to call, or sent an email, through his work if need be. But when it came down to it, she always stopped herself. She had shown her unworthiness and there wasn’t any way to make up for it.

  So needless to say, the thought of seeing James again on Monday, after eight years of silence, filled her with dread.

  Worst of all, it would be humiliating. Now that she knew who this protege was of whom Aunt Molly had spoken, this former colleague of Liam Doyle, she knew the full story of his success. She’d been unable to avoid following it through the years, it had been so publicized.

  Everything that James had dreamed had indeed come to pass. He founded several successful start-ups, culminating in his most recent venture, a block-chain technology that allowed foreign currencies to be exchanged instantly and painlessly. His company had gone public to record-breaking stock prices and had recently been acquired by Citibank for 1.4 billion dollars.

  She’d seen James’s face on the cover of more than one magazine. He was handsomer than ever. He had benefited from the tech-sector makeover, the expensive haircuts and custom clothes provided for the CEOs who would be photographed and interviewed as the face of the company. Besides that, he had simply grown up. His jaw had broadened, his frame had filled out. The face that had always been animated and charming was now also strong, confident, masculine.

  While she had stagnated here, allowing herself to be drained of joy and vitality, he had soaked up every measure of his well-deserved success and radiated it back out to the world.

  If Anika could have been assured that she would be swallowed up in the depths of the earth before Monday, she would have felt nothing but relief.

  5

  Despite her dread, Anika couldn’t help dressing with more than her usual care on Monday. She washed and blow-dried her hair and tried on several outfits before deciding on a pencil skirt and a blue silk blouse that Stella had discarded after being photographed wearing it.

  Anika spent the whole day in her office, nauseated with anxiety and snapping at Calvin when he poked his head in her door to ask asinine questions about the social media metrics for their last newsletter.

  But James didn’t come on Monday, and he didn’t come on Tuesday either. By Wednesday, Anika had begun to hope he wouldn’t come at all. Maybe after Mr. Doyle’s email, James had explained the awkwardness of their history and backed out of his promise to help. Or perhaps Aunt Molly had realized the identity of Mr. Doyle’s protege and had sorted it out on her end.

  By Thursday morning, Anika had become almost relaxed. As she prepared for work, she was distracted by a blow-up between Stella and Danita. Stella was shouting at Danita for smashing an expensive vase.

  “Well I’m sorry!” Danita cried. “But I was somewhat surprised to find that the vase was full of VOMIT!”

  “That’s no excuse!” Stella said. “You’re clumsy! Do you have any idea what that costs—Milanese hand blown glass like that?”

  “What’s going on?” Anika said, coming out of her room. Bennet came stumbling out in his dressing gown as well, yawning and grumpy at being woken some four hours earlier than he liked to get up.

  “The maid broke our vase,” Stella said.

  “Don’t call her the maid,” Anika said angrily.

  “The vase was full of vomit,” Danita said coolly. “I’m sorry I dropped it, but it surprised me.”

  “Whose vomit is in the vase?” Anika asked Stella.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Stella said airily, by which Anika knew it was Stella’s vomit, most likely after another evening of too many martinis.

  “Who cares,” said Bennet grouchily. “That hideous thing. Danita did us all a favor. Now if she could only do something about that awful Mondrian in the living room.”

  If it had only been the broken vase, Anika could have smoothed it all over, but by maligning Stella’s decorating Bennet had done something that few people could manage: he hurt Stella’s feelings. Unable to snap at her father, Stella rounded on Danita.

  “That’s coming out of your paycheck!” she cried. “And if you so much as sneeze on the furniture, you’re fired!”

  “You won’t have to worry about it,” Danita said calmly, “because I quit.” She took off her apron and folded it neatly over the back of a kitchen chair.

  Anika followed Danita as she gathered up her purse and coat.

  “I suppose I can’t convince you to stay?” Anika asked. “I’m so sorry. Of course you don’t have to pay for the vase. And I’ll give you a perfect reference either way.”

  Danita took Anika’s hand. She was stout, kind, and freckled. She’d worked for them for six years, accomplishing in an hour what would have taken anyone else three.

  “I wish you all the best, Anika,” she said, “but I’d rather jump off the Brooklyn Bridge than spend another day around your sister.”

  “Sometimes I feel exactly the same,” Anika sighed. “Wait a moment so I can write you a check.”

  She gave Danita a month�
��s pay as severance, plus a generous bonus. She knew Danita had been taking night classes to become a radiologist. Though she had no doubt their housekeeper would be immediately snapped up by someone else, she felt that anyone who had to clean up after Stella deserved hazard pay.

  Bennet had already fallen asleep again on the couch, and Stella had stalked off to her room before she could hear anything reproachful from Anika. Anika noticed she had left the vomit-splattered glass shards all over the kitchen floor.

  By the time she cleaned that up, Anika hardly had time to dress and drag a brush through her hair before she had to run to the subway station. She arrived at work a half hour late, flushed and damp, without benefit of breakfast or coffee.

  As she pushed through the double doors of the office, she heard Gwen and Hannah laughing.

  “You can’t be serious!” Hannah cried.

  “It’s true, I’m afraid,” a voice said. A voice that she instantly recognized.

  They all broke off at the sight of her.

  James Dawson was standing next to Gwen and Hannah’s desks. Gwen stood next to him, as close as could reasonably be allowed, and Hannah perched on the edge of her desk, her legs folded prettily beneath the skirt of her flowered sun dress, so that her strappy sandals and fresh pink pedicure showed to best advantage. Calvin sprawled in his own chair close by, but even he looked less curmudgeonly than usual—in fact, he seemed to be smiling despite himself, almost as interested in their guest’s anecdote as the girls obviously were.

  James glanced up as Anika entered, looking into her eyes. For a moment, just the briefest second in time, she thought that he would smile at her in the way he used to, the way that showed that there was a singular understanding between them, that no matter what was happening or what the topic of conversation, the two of them were happier than anyone else in the room because they were both there together, in each other’s presence, and nothing could dampen their pleasure in that fact.