Crowne of Lies

by Reiss, CD

  Silence, except for the music and shot glasses hitting the table.

  “This song sucks,” Irma said, getting up.

  “Don’t put on that merengue shit,” Liddy objected, following her to the living room. Somehow, it was just Logan, Amilcar, and me left.

  “Fance.” Amilcar snapped his fingers between Logan and me, breaking the tether between us. “You cool?”

  “I’m cool.”

  “All right.” He put his hand on Logan’s shoulder as he passed, patting it hard twice.

  We were alone in a crowded house.

  “You cool?” I asked. “Logan? Are you cool or no?”

  “No. I am not cool.”

  True. He was hot. Very hot.

  “You want another shot?” I picked up the bottle, but it was empty.

  “I want to talk,” he said.

  “It’s all still about what you want.”

  “It is. And I want my wife back.”

  “You gotta find her first. The real one. She’s out there somewhere.”

  He got up and turned Irma’s seat to straddle it, facing me while I looked forward. “Her name’s Ella Papillion. Have you seen her?”

  “Don’t know her. Thought I did, but no.”

  “I miss her.” His hand drifted along my arm. “We met up every morning, in the kitchen. She wore fuzzy socks and had her hair up. She called me at lunch to see how my day was. When I got home, she put slippers out for me. I never wore slippers until I lived with her.”

  “It was an act.”

  “When I made her come, her whole body twisted like she was possessed, and one time, she came so hard she cried in my arms. Tell me that was fake and I’ll walk out right now.”

  Lying would have been easy, but I was done with lies.

  “She’s mine,” he said, pressing his finger under my chin and turning me to face him. “And I’m hers.”

  He meant it. Everything in his posture and voice screamed a truth he believed. But it wasn’t a truth I shared. He’d fallen for someone I wasn’t, and I loved who he really was. The imbalance would break us.

  “That’s not who I am. Logan, I was fake with you. You gave me yourself and I gave you a lie. I’m not that way. I was so bored. I fell in love with you, but at the same time, I wanted us to change. It’s all wrong. We’re wrong.” I turned my body in his direction. “I don’t want us back. I love you, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy with you. There’s no point to love if you have to pretend to be someone else to feel it.”

  “I love you when you’re not pretending.” He leaned forward to kiss me, and the anise and musk of him cut through the vodka, setting my skin alight with desire.

  “No.” I pulled back. “Don’t. I just… we’re not ready. Neither of us. We’re a mess.”

  “What do I have to do to prove it?”

  “Drop everything that’s important to you. And I don’t want you to. You’re Logan Crowne. You run it all. You can’t be fully present. The world has to revolve around you or nothing works. Are you willing to give that up?”

  “I can’t.” His hand fell away from me, cutting the connection so abruptly, my body moved forward to get it back. “Byron’s out. And my father…”

  “Is Doreen okay?”

  “She is. Everyone’s okay but us.”

  “You work your ass off and you have crumbs left over,” I said. “That’s who you are. I need more. This is the right decision, and for once in my life, I’m not going to just smash something because I’m mad or run to the wrong man for me because it feels good. I’m going to think about the future and plan and know I can look back and say, ‘Good fucking job, Ella.’”

  He believed me, but I didn’t want him to. As much as I knew I spoke the truth, I also wanted him to speak a different truth. If he’d only say he loved me and that love could conquer our identities, that he could give me everything right now, right then, with his whole heart open.

  But he didn’t.

  “This is what you want?” he asked.

  “No, but it’s what we both need.”

  “All right.”

  He stood and kissed my cheek with a tenderness more real than his name, his dreams, or his acceptance.

  It took him seconds to walk out the door, but it seemed to take the years with him that would never happen.

  34

  LOGAN

  Driving away from that house in Echo Park was the hardest thing I ever did, but if I ran back in for her, I’d be showing her that what she wanted didn’t matter to me.

  It took two weeks to wake up from a nightmare. Fourteen days without her. Half a month of making too much coffee in the morning, an empty bed, a live-in brother who constantly asked me if I was all right—if Ella was around or nah.

  Two weeks at a massive headquarters I’d lost the desire to run, skipping meetings to go home to nothing, delegating fires for someone else to put out so I could get home to a house as empty as my heart.

  What was she doing? Was she happy? Was she laughing with the friends I’d taken her away from? Was she working on the Big Blank? The silver dress? If I went to her, would she let me see it?

  Dad was out of bed in that time. His doctor told him to do something with himself. Jogging. Parasailing. Horseback riding. After a week of recreation, he admitted he only wanted to do one thing.

  Check in at Crowne.

  I didn’t become a workaholic on my own.

  He came in to fight his own boredom, made an effort not to get in my way, and failed. Except that I didn’t care. He could charm the lobbyists over the conference room table where I couldn’t anymore. I was world-weary, living a life with Ella in an imaginary universe filled with laughter and surprise.

  “I’m going,” Dad said, peeking his head into my office. “Don’t stay too late.”

  “I’m leaving too.”

  He looked at his watch. “Really?”

  “Mel has the quarterlies.” I pulled my jacket off the back of the chair. “She’ll brief me in the morning.”

  Instead of walking out, he closed the door behind him. “Son. It’s six o’clock. Are you sick?”

  “I’m fine, Dad.” I put my jacket on, in no mood for a discussion about my feelings or anything else.

  “You haven’t been yourself.” He sat down on the other side of the desk.

  “You’re right. Maybe I’m sick.”

  “Where’s Ella?”

  “That’s over. I told you.”

  “You did.”

  “I’ll be back to normal soon. I can’t put in the hours right now. It’s covered. Don’t worry.”

  He crossed one leg over the other. “You get it now.”

  “Get what?”

  “What’s important. You finally got it.”

  “Okay.” I sat down across from him. “I’m sitting. You got me where you want me. Again.”

  He nodded, accepting the jab he didn’t deserve but not retreating either. “Has anything exploded this week?”

  “No.”

  “Has your team done anything you wouldn’t have done yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Major fuckups? Bankruptcies? Anybody dead?”

  “What’s the point, Dad?”

  “You can run the show and still have a life. That’s the point. That was always the point.”

  “What if I don’t want to run it anymore?” The words left my lips before my brain could put the brakes on, and with that failure, more spilled out. “What if I leave it? But not to go be happy or get married. What if I was a bum like Colton? Or just did my own thing?”

  “What thing?”

  “Whatever. Like Byron. What if I asked for my One Big Thing and went off and built shit? Or made sculptures out of tin cans? What’s the difference? I wouldn’t be here. There wouldn’t be a Crowne at the helm and then what?”

  “I guess we’d all survive.” He shrugged. “Would you?”

  I’d live. My blood would flow and my lungs would fill with air. But that wasn’
t what he was asking me. Obviously, I’d survive, but without Ella, I wouldn’t be alive.

  “Logan,” Dad said, leaning forward. “Son. You’re a Crowne, but you aren’t Crowne Industries. Do you understand me? Piping oil to customers isn’t the whole of who you are. It’s not enough.”

  Was that how he saw what we did? Just getting fuel to people who needed it?

  No. That wasn’t what he was saying. He’d made this point before, but for the first time in my life, I heard it. He wasn’t talking about the company or the Crowne legacy.

  He was talking about me, and the family, and what held us all together.

  Love. History. The stories we told and the mountains we climbed together. Ella was a part of that, and when I’d chased her out of the room, she’d been shut out of more than my life.

  “I’m ready,” I said. “For my One Big Thing.”

  “What’s that?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “It’s not money, or an object.” I cleared my throat. “I want you and Mom to forgive Ella. I don’t care if you ever forgive me, but she loves you guys, and I want you to bring her back into the family, no questions asked.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I know a big check would be easier, but the OBT is guaranteed, and it’s what I want.”

  “I’ll have to talk to your mother.”

  Mom didn’t need any convincing, but he wouldn’t agree on her behalf any more than admit he was the one holding a grudge.

  “You do that.”

  He stood and stopped before turning to leave. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve never been so sure about anything.”

  * * *

  My father hadn’t cleared the miasma that hung over my mood. I didn’t go home with a spring in my step or cheerfully concoct a life plan from his encouragement. But after we spoke, I rubbed some of the fog from the mirror.

  My cleaning lady left my mail on the table by the front door. A manila envelope had been sent by courier. I opened it and slid out the document.

  Divorce papers.

  Ella Papillion wanted to divorce Logan Crowne, and suddenly—with those two names in front of me—I knew what I had to do.

  35

  ELLA

  “Isn’t this what you wanted?” Bianca asked, exasperated.

  In the showroom, with Papillion’s most expensive pieces displayed before me and Bianca offering me everything, I was at a loss to explain why it wasn’t enough.

  “You’ll have full creative control,” she reiterated. “If it’s money you’re after, just say it.”

  The brand had completely lost its reputation for innovation. Profits flowed from discounters and licensing, but it had plateaued before taking a nosedive last quarter. I had to give my stepmother credit for not only seeing the writing on the wall, but for swallowing her pride and coming to me for help.

  “It’s not money.”

  “What is it then?” She sat across from me. “Shares? If you want me gone, you can put that out of your mind.”

  I didn’t want her out. She knew the business, and despite everything—or because of everything—I trusted her. If Logan and I had gone through with the buyout, I would have been stuck without a partner who knew the company like she did.

  She wanted to make me president of design. Creative direction put back in the hands of a Papillion, with no responsibility for the cheaper side of the business. She wasn’t just willing to give it all to me, she was eager, and I could have gotten her to agree to anything.

  “I’m not in a place to negotiate this right now,” I said.

  “When will you be?” The impatience in her voice was lined with control, and the seams were ripping.

  I looked at my watch. My meeting with Logan and his lawyers was in an hour. Would I be ready after that? I couldn’t promise I’d be able to function, much less weave a path through her offer. “Look, Bianca, here’s the deal. Straight up. Daughter to mother.”

  She brightened a little. Softened a little more. She’d never be warm and fuzzy, but she wasn’t ice and steel all the way through. “Go on then.”

  “You know about Logan. That the marriage was fake, right?”

  The news hadn’t made it to the press, but in circles where people whispered over cocktails, people knew.

  “I suspected as much,” she said. “It’s been talked about. Not by me, of course.”

  “We’re signing divorce papers in a few hours.” I cleared my throat when the word “divorce” created a lump right where my voice was. “And it’s complicated. More complicated than I thought it would be.”

  “Is he trying to screw you?” She pushed her index finger into the table. “Because when Janet Bolivar’s husband left her, she got a lawyer who ate him for breakfast. I can get you the number.”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “I love him.” My face scrunched, tightening to hold back tears.

  “Oh, darling.” She rushed around the table to sit next to me. “Don’t you dare cry.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  She put her arms around me and I leaned into her, letting the sobs come.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.” She stroked my hair. “If he can’t love you back, then… well, all his money’s worthless. I mean, what the point of it if he can’t see what a gift you are? How smart, principled, loyal… your spirit is so strong. Any man would be lucky to be loved by you.”

  “He thinks he loves me.”

  “Then what… wait.” She shrugged me off to look in my eyes. “He does or he doesn’t?”

  “He wants, like, this helpmate wife, and I’ve been that just to keep up appearances. But he doesn’t know me and if he did? I’m not the person he always wanted. We’ll only break up for real and then I’ll be alone again.”

  Again? What did I mean by again?

  Mom left me, then Daddy. Left behind like a dinghy on the ocean with nothing to navigate by but memories. How could I wake up from that pain again?

  “Estella,” Bianca said, shaking her head.

  “What?”

  She shifted straight in her seat. “I hate this business.” She waved at the roomful of samples. “Just despise it. It’s taken all the fun out of clothing for me.”

  “Really? Why are you here?”

  “Because I met your father halfway. He needed me, and I was there. Now, I admit when he passed, I could have sold it. I kept it up because money, you know. And when I needed him… did you know he went quite literally broke paying off my father’s gambling debts?”

  I didn’t know a damn thing, except that this business meeting had taken an off-ramp to deeply personal and set the road behind it on fire. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I thought I could take care of it, so I didn’t tell him until after we were married. He was an absolute saint about it. Took you out of that school to save money.”

  “I thought you pulled me.” I was down to sniffling over Logan.

  “We both knew it had to be done. There were men—bad men—who were going to use my kneecaps to make a point.” She rubbed a wet trail from my cheek with her thumb. “Can you imagine?”

  “I can’t actually.”

  “When people tell you marriage is about sacrifice and compromise… well, you should believe them. I mean, you have to draw lines, of course. Cheating’s right out. And I’m assuming he hasn’t raised a hand to you?”

  I remembered his spankings and decided that wasn’t what she meant. “He’d pull back a bloody stump.”

  “Indeed. Does he make you feel good?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Not like that. My God, Estella. Get your mind out of the gutter. This is all quite simple. Do you like who you are around him? Are you happy with yourself?”

  I looked at my hands. I did, and I was. When I thought of living without him, the way I felt around him was what I was going to miss the most.

  “Does he say nice things or hurtful
things?” Bianca added, brushing my hair away from my face the way my real mother used to.

  “He’s good to me.”

  “Can you meet him in the middle?”

  “I don’t know if he’ll take the middle.”

  “Can you ask him?”

  I nodded, intending to ask but not knowing if I’d have the courage to hear the answer.

  * * *

  Logan Crowne looked magnificent in his navy suit, strong hands folded in front of him, standing next to his lawyer, a red-haired woman in her fifties wearing a lavender pantsuit under an armor of confident impatience. They stood when I entered the conference room with the lawyer Mandy had found for me. He had warm brown eyes and a nose textured like cauliflower, and he’d promised he’d get it over quickly.

  Logan checked his watch. I hadn’t thought about that leather strap on his wrist in a long time. When I first saw it, I thought it hinted at a little darkness. A touch of the wild in him. In the daily grind of marriage, I’d let myself forget about that first impression.

  I’d missed an opportunity. I should have arrived earlier, without the lawyer. I should have texted him before and asked if he could meet me halfway. I should have called the whole thing off to give myself a moment to think about what Bianca had told me.

  But there we were, sitting on opposite sides of a shiny table, flanked by lawyers looking out for our best interests without knowing what our best interests were.

  Not that I knew either, but did he know?

  I couldn’t look at Logan’s face, so I kept my gaze on his hands and their reflection on the glossy tabletop, his gold wedding ring bouncing as his fingertips tapped one after the other. Nerves? Impatience?

  “My client agrees to all the terms set out in the consent decree,” his lawyer said, taking out a folder.

  I meant to look at my lawyer to gauge his reaction, but I looked at Logan instead.

  Blue eyes fixed on me, lush mouth twitching as if he held back a smile. Shoulders relaxed. Not uneasy or anxious. He was happy to be there. Enthusiastic even. That was what the drumming fingers were about. He wasn’t nervous or impatient. He was excited.