"Fine. Fine. Everything's great,” she says a little too quickly.
I was asking about the pregnancy, of course, but trying not to be too obvious.
"How's work?" I ask.
"Busy, tiring, but very rewarding," Marguerite says.
"So what kind of things do you usually do at the ER?" Mom asks after a cool hello.
She pours herself a glass of lemonade and offers us some as well, but we all decline.
She ushers us to the sitting room that's rarely used except for occasions like these and sits down in her grand white linen chair with a big oil painting of herself in a ravishing red gown. There’s a little black dog by her feet who belonged to a neighbor, but whom Mom loved.
She loved him so much that she included him in the painting instead of us, who were just kids then.
You can read into that as much as you like, but I choose not to.
Marguerite sits right next to Lincoln, placing her hands on the edge of her knees. She actually watched a number of YouTube videos about how to be a lady in order to make a better impression on our mom.
She learned not to cross her legs at the knees, but rather at the ankles, sit up straight, wear nude nail polish. In my opinion, she basically learned how to get rid of every part of her personality just to appease some person that honestly could never be appeased.
Lincoln exchanges looks with his wife, and I take a sip of my beer knowing that it's about to begin.
After a little bit of chitchat, he launches into it.
“Mom, we wanted to tell you that we have some great news."
She sits up a little straighter and raises one eyebrow.
"Oh, yes?"
"Yes, Marguerite and I are expecting a baby,” he says and her face falls. With her lips tensing up, forming a slim straight line across her face, she looks like she's about to say something incredibly mean.
Glancing over at me, I give her a smile of encouragement, but when I realize that she's a little bit slow on the reaction time, I stand up and embrace both of them with a big bear hug.
"Oh my God! I’m so happy for you guys. When are you due?” I ask, pretending that I don’t already know.
“October,” they say, beaming.
I hug and congratulate them again and again, trying to fill the room with my own happiness to make up for my mom's lack thereof.
It takes Mom a few moments to recover her composure. She quickly paints a smile on her face and gives both of them a hug.
I hope that they can't tell, but I sense some hesitation. Still, there's only so much they can do and so much that they can expect from her.
For now, it seems to be enough.
Right before dinner is served, my phone rings and I have to take it.
"We're going to be sitting down," Mom scolds me like a child.
"Listen, this is work. I'll make it quick. I promise."
"Hey, how's it going, Cedar?" I ask.
"How's it going?” he roars into the phone. “I talked to Vasko again and he said that you never called him back.”
My jaw tightens up.
"Listen, I went over the financials, taking out what I thought about Vasko personally, and that company just doesn't make sense. There's so much money going out and then a bunch coming in from unusual sources.”
"So what are you trying to say?" Cedar asks.
His voice sounds gruff on the phone and I can practically hear him sucking down a cigarette and smell the bourbon on his lips.
"I don't want the investors to put their money with Vasko. I'm not going to make that recommendation,” I say, standing firm. "I wasn't lying when I said that I went over the financials again and there were a lot of red flags. It's almost as if the entire company is some sort of shell organization."
"Listen, you don't have a choice on this one,” Cedar says, moving in his chair as I hear that loud creaking sound of oak and leather underneath his substantial mass. "This is going to happen. We're going to invest with Vasko.”
I pause for a moment. I've walked into another room, the library with old leather bound editions, many of them quite rare and signed by authors.
Cedar has never talked to me this way. I was always the one in charge of the investors that I brought in and the ones that were assigned to me. My entire job is to use what I know and my own intuition to decide whether or not to trust a certain company with our money.
This is very subjective work, but I've become quite good at it over the years. Often investing in businesses that are fledgling, but had the type of CEOs who would go to the ends of the earth to grow their sales and to become successful.
I saw none of that in Vasko. He is lazy and bored.
It's almost as if he was handed the company by someone else and told to run it and he has no idea what he's doing.
I go over all of this with Cedar.
He listens as I pace around the lacquered, hardwood floors, feeling the material of the twelve-foot French imported curtains sewn with silk thread.
This is part of the house that retained its original charm. There's a large oak desk in the corner, looking out onto the pond outside. This is the place where I would sit as a kid and read every Isaac Asimov book I could find, imagining worlds filled with spaceships, aliens, and large intergalactic battle scenes.
"Listen, I know that you and I have not had any problems up until this point, but I'm not budging on this. Dante, you either call Vasko back and tell him that we're going to be starting the onboarding sequence or I'm going to find someone else who can do it. And then I can't make you any promises about keeping your job.”
I press my hand so hard on the table that my knuckles turn white.
This is an ultimatum. It's either invest five million of investors’ money who trusted me with it or get fired.
“You have twenty-four hours to decide,” Cedar says and hangs up.
I stare at the phone for a few moments, looking out onto the pond. Two ducks float around on the partially frozen lake, one following the other without a care in the world.
29
Dante
The sun has been hidden behind clouds all day and when sunset comes, very little changes, except it gets slightly darker. Someone clears their throat behind me and when I turn around, I see that it's Lina, my mom's faithful housekeeper, who has been with her since I was a little kid. She's older now, but still wears her hair in a tight bun and has the same no-nonsense expression on her face.
She has worked here since moving from Brazil in her early thirties, leaving behind her baby with her parents and sending the majority of her paycheck back to give them a better life.
"Your mom is asking for you,” Lina says in a very slight accent.
In addition to speaking Portuguese, she's also fluent in German, English, and Spanish, having studied linguistics at university.
Someone from the outside might wonder why she has been a housekeeper for so many years, but I think it’s because Mom is very generous and loyal.
When it comes to people she likes, Mom likes to provide. She doesn’t expect her to work long hours and she isn’t particularly picky. Plus Lina gets to live in the one-bedroom cottage just across the meadow for free, and that kind of accommodations would go for about three grand a month in the winter, and who knows how much during the high season.
Over the years, Lina and Mom have become close friends. They even have an informal book club on Thursday nights, discussing the latest Oprah recommendations.
I give Lina a smile and a hug when I approach her and ask her about Tanya, her daughter, who's now living in New York City and trying to be an actress.
Lina rolls her eyes, slightly annoyed.
"I did not come to this country to have my daughter try to become a Broadway star. She's not even in Los Angeles, trying to get onto a soap opera, which would have steady work."
“Well, you remember you took her to all those plays and musicals when she was a kid?”
“Yes, to show her culture,” she says, throwing her
hands in the air, "not to encourage her to become an artist or, God forbid, an actress.”
I laugh and she laughs as well. She's only half serious.
Secretly, I think that she's proud that her daughter would risk so much in pursuit of her dreams. It reminds me a lot of what her mother did coming all the way to New England from a small, poor village in Brazil, but it’s not my place to point this out.
I return back to the dining room where Mom has had more than a few cocktails and is suddenly acting very friendly with Marguerite.
"You know you're going to have to get a bigger apartment. I mean, one bedroom with a baby? That's pretty much as close to hell as you can get.”
Marguerite smiles and laughs. “Actually it's a two bedroom.”
Mom narrows her eyes.
"No, it's not. The other is Lincoln's office.”
"Well, yes, but technically we have a bedroom and another bedroom that we've converted to his office, but it's not going to be that way for long.”
"And where's Lincoln going to work when he's home?" Mom asks.
”We are hoping that he can take some time off and you know, really be there for the baby the first year.”
Mom glares at Lincoln who shrugs his shoulders and looks away.
"And you're okay with this?” she asks.
Lincoln looks torn and needs a way out.
"Listen, Mom, we can talk about all of this later, let's just celebrate,” I say. “There’s going to be a baby in the family, a little grandchild. I mean, how exciting is that? I can't wait to meet my niece or nephew. Do you know what it's going to be yet?"
They shake their heads.
"What does that mean?" I ask. "Do you know and not telling, or do you actually not know?"
"We don't know,” Lincoln says. "We want it to be a surprise.”
Mom rolls her eyes and drinks the last of her wine quickly filling it back up. "You know, in my day we couldn't wait to figure out what we would have in order to decorate the rooms properly and everything else that goes into setting up for the baby’s arrival. And now you have all of these medical tests at your service and you could find out the sex at like what… ten weeks? Twelve weeks? Who knows? And you're not taking advantage. That's just... I don't know.”
"Isn't it a little romantic?" Marguerite asks. "I mean, there are so few surprises left in the world.”
Mom leans over the table, just a little bit, holding her fork and knife properly in each hand. She looks like she's about to say something nice. I hold my breath.
And she says, “In 1968, my husband went out to get a pack of cigarettes and some milk and he never came home. How about that for a surprise?”
Silence falls over the table.
Mom cuts a little piece of salmon, drizzles it with lemon and pops it into her mouth.
The three of us sit still, trying to figure out how to respond or whether a response is needed at all.
Later that night, long after Mom goes to sleep, and after Lincoln and I have a few more cocktails and talk about old times, I head up to the guest room two doors down from the main bedroom and open my laptop.
I want to go through Vasko's financials again more thoroughly. I've had a few drinks and the numbers all blend together. Despite that the returns are paltry, they seem to be going around through various rounds of investment, just trying to raise money.
But where's the money going? I can't find out exactly.
The expenses are very vague.
The companies that the money's paid to seem shady as well, more like shell companies than anything else.
To get to the bottom of this would require the work of a private financial investigator.
But I have until tomorrow to decide.
Cedar has never made that kind of threat to me before. I have worked at this company for years. I have brought in a number of investors and the companies that we invested in have sold for millions and millions, bringing us massive profits along with a number of happy angel investors and their friends.
If I were to invest in Vasko, I would put my reputation on the line. In this business, my reputation is all I have.
But Cedar is my boss, the owner, and if he says that we need to invest and that he'll fire me if we don't, then I don't exactly have a choice.
I don't want to talk loudly on the phone and I have a hard time modulating the sound of my voice after a little bit of alcohol.
I take my phone out for some fresh air.
I haven't been to the coast in ages and the walk is only a quarter of a mile away. I make my way through the meadow, past the weeping willows, and finally onto the rugged coastline of Cape Cod, filled with swaying grasses and dunes of sand. The stars are out and the sky is clear for once. But an arctic blast chills me to my bones even though I'm wearing a hefty winter jacket.
I scramble over the dunes, trying to find the path which had been swept over with sand and snow. When I finally get to the shoreline and see a figure walking in the distance.
Who could that be?
This isn't a private beach, but about as close to being private as you can get. The nearest house is five acres away and no one is usually around this time of year, except for my mom and a few other locals.
I pick up my feet.
Gaining ground, she hears me and when she turns back to look at me, moonlight hits her face and I see that it’s Marguerite.
30
Dante
"Hey, what's up? Is everything okay?" I break into a jog to catch up even though she averts her face and speeds up.
“What’s wrong?” I ask when I get to her.
Marguerite’s nose is a little runny, but she doesn't look like she's been crying.
"Why are you all the way out here? It's so cold. I thought you went to bed."
"I can go on a walk if I want. I don’t need your permission," she snaps.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by…” My voice trails off.
She is right, of course. It’s none of my business.
I take a few steps back and let her get ahead, but she turns back on her heels.
"Listen, I'm sorry for snapping. I just needed to leave that house. Your mom is very difficult to deal with."
Marguerite and I were pretty close when they first started dating, but over the years, we sort of drifted apart. The only time we ever saw each other was when they were a couple doing couple things. If I were ever alone with one of them, it was always my brother. Talking to her like this feels a little odd.
"Thanks for coming out…to Cape Cod, I mean,” she says, gesturing for me to keep walking. “This whole announcement would have been so much harder if you weren’t here.”
I nod.
“You like to go out on walks in freezing cold weather?” I ask.
“I need some fresh air and to get my steps in, especially when I'm having a hard day and I can't have alcohol.” Marguerite checks her Apple Watch.
"I just realized this was probably the first time that you've interacted with her without being properly lubricated and that can be quite challenging.” I laugh.
"You have no idea. Plus with the pregnancy hormones, I'm just really out of whack."
We walk for a little bit listening to the sound of our footsteps against the wet sand.
"What are you doing here?” she asks.
“I need to make this phone call that I'm really dreading. Had a little bit too much to drink, so just trying to, you know, freshen up."
"Yeah. That sucks.” She nods.
"Listen, I'm really happy for you," I say, putting my hand on her forearm.
She's dressed in multiple layers and a thick puffy coat, but she still looks small and a lot like the girl I met in college: a little too studious, a little nerdy, perfect for my brother, but not exactly the pristine daughter-in-law that my mom was always hoping for.
"I wouldn't let you do this alone," I say. "I hope that you two remember that when it's my turn."
"Your turn for what?"
> "Well, you know, if I ever meet anyone."
"Oh my God," Marguerite says sarcastically, throwing her mittened hand on her chest. "Dante Langston has met someone special?”
"No, I'm not saying that."
I add quickly.
"You have to tell me about her!”
"I don't know what you're talking about," I backtrack, but not too well.
"I've known you long enough. You're like this George Clooney bachelor-type. So to have you even mention that there might be someone that you might bring home and subject to your mother…That’s, God, I feel bad for her," she adds.
We both crack up laughing.
"Okay, maybe I like her too much to do that to her,” I say.
”No, seriously, tell me about her," Marguerite says after a moment.
"She's very nice, sweet. We met at a club. Had this thing where neither of us were really making any long-term plans.”
”Oh, really? You, not wanting something serious? I’m shocked,” she says, her voice dripping in sarcasm.
“I’ll ignore that,” I say with a coy smile, returning to the story. “I ran into her again and we started spending time together. I don't know, I just feel different about her. Like I'm waiting for her to call. I want to text her. I feel like an idiot most of the time.”
”You know what this means, right?” Marguerite says, just as a strong gust of wind collides with our faces. “You’re in love!”
She pulls her scarf up a little bit and I can barely hear her over the howls. I bend my body into the wind to keep it from toppling me over.
Despite what Marguerite might think, I don't think I'd be able to have this conversation anywhere else. Somehow the wind and the noise and all of the physical obstacles make me feel comfortable about talking to her about something so private.
If we were back home with a cup of tea and her eyes were on mine the whole time, I wouldn't be able to be as honest.
"Her mom is really sick,” I finally say, “Cancer. They're trying experimental treatments in Minnesota, but I've read about them and chances aren't great."
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