Dark Intentions, #1

by Charlotte Byrd

  "Oh, wow."

  "Her brother just died a few months ago. So she's going through a lot,” I add.

  "Wow. You know, I wouldn't recommend you start your first serious relationship with someone who's going through so much. Despite how you feel about her.”

  "Why is that?” I ask, nodding.

  "Because you're kind of a fuck-up," Marguerite says a little too quickly. "You have a lot of issues and if you're not ready for something serious with her, then don't keep her waiting. Be honest. Tell her straight up. Tell her you're not interested."

  I push my hands deep into my pockets. She's right. I know that she's right.

  "Are you having some doubts?" she asks.

  I shrug.

  "You are, aren't you?"

  "No, I'm not having doubts about Jacqueline. I'm just…you know, you're right. I haven't really dated anyone that much."

  It was always a rule of mine to not get involved, not be looking for someone, but maybe it was just that I never connected with anyone before.

  We walk a little bit further and the sand gets deeper and more difficult to wade through. When we turn around, the wind immediately dies down and suddenly we don't have to shout to hear each other.

  "You know, I wasn't sure if I wanted to have kids,” Marguerite says, rubbing her hands together to stay warm. “I mean, I love Lincoln and you know that we've been together for ages, but I was always really hesitant about children. I wasn't sure that it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to be a doctor and I am one, but the hours are hard. Seeing all that trauma in the emergency room, it takes a toll on you."

  "I can only imagine," I say.

  "Lincoln works such crazy hours. I just don't know how we're going to make this work."

  "You're just going to have to work less and prioritize your family for a little while. Or you can get help."

  "Help is definitely an option. But I just want us both to be there, you know? Like experience raising our child ourselves. But maybe that's just me talking right now and in six months I'll be running for the hills."

  "Yeah, probably," I say and we both laugh.

  "But this could be a really good bonding experience, not just with a baby, but with us.”

  “Have you talked to him about taking some time off?” I ask.

  “He wants me to take time off, but he doesn't want to take time off himself. He wants to work more hours. He says that I could hire someone. And of course we can hire a nanny, but it wouldn't be a big deal if he cut back to what, sixty hours, just for a little while."

  "Lincoln is a workaholic," I say. "It's kind of like a family curse."

  "Yeah, I know. You guys have all this money and you still just can't stop working. What's that about?"

  Now it's my turn to laugh.

  "Lincoln and I are very different," I say, slowing down and turning to face her.

  "We're really different, but we're also alike. You know? Trying to prove something to people who are no longer here. When you come from a wealthy family, you either sit around, do nothing all the time or you spend all of your hours trying to chase ghosts and show them that you can do just as much as they did. I think that's where he's coming from."

  “Maybe you’re right,” Marguerite says, biting her lower lip. “Or maybe it’s just losing the trust fund money.”

  31

  Dante

  There are lots of Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue women who spend all their time going to lunch and planning parties while their husbands golf and act like masters of the universe on Wall Street, but Marguerite is nothing like that.

  She went to medical school, did internships and a residency, and works crazy hours despite Lincoln making half a million and who knows how much more with bonuses every year.

  They have not been in need of money for a long time. I have known Marguerite long enough to know that she's the least money hungry person out there.

  She doesn't care about brands.

  She doesn't care about designer things.

  She likes things to be nice, but Target-nice. Not Saks Fifth Avenue or Bergdorf Goodman nice.

  The issue with the trust fund isn’t just about the six-million dollars.

  “I talked to Lincoln already, and I know that he's no longer technically eligible for the trust, but the thing about the trusts is that they have to be taken to court and evaluated,” I offer. “All it says is that he has to marry someone from a comparable family. Who knows what that means?"

  "It means that I have to be rich. It means that when we're married, our incomes have to come together and make more money," Marguerite says, tilting her head. "You know that."

  "But it has never been challenged in court, okay? Somebody wrote that decades ago to try to protect us from marrying women who would only be after our money. That is clearly not the case for you.”

  She shrugs and tries to walk away, but I pull her back.

  "Our grandfather was just trying to look out for his fortune. He had no idea that his grandson would marry someone like you with your own career and income.”

  "Are you trying to take a side in all of this?" Marguerite says, folding her arms across her chest.

  "No, not at all. All I'm trying to say is that it is worth pursuing because nothing is set in stone."

  "What about your mom? How would she feel about us suing her for all of that money?”

  "Technically not her, but the estate," I point out. "Yeah, that’s not going to help your relationship. I don't know how she's going to feel, but probably not good, but you know what? You have nothing to prove. And if you did, you already proved it many years ago. You and Lincoln are solid and now you're having a child.”

  She shakes her head, still frustrated and annoyed.

  "You're an established physician. You make your own money. I don't know what there is to prove,” I continue. “I don't know why the trustees wouldn't agree to giving you the trust fund."

  Marguerite inhales and exhales very slowly. "I don't either, except Lincoln is pretty sure that we are never going to get it."

  "And if you don’t?" I ask.

  She glares at me and it feels like bullets hitting my body.

  "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant… what if you don't get the six-million dollars, what then? Lincoln makes good money. You do as well. You have a career. You have the house in the Hamptons.”

  “Which your mom pays for,” she adds. "That's the thing. Your mom is always trying to pull all these strings. It's like, we're her puppets. He makes his own money, so do I, but we couldn’t afford that house in the Hamptons for the summer weekends. But why shouldn’t we use it?”

  It’s more of a rhetorical question but she answers it before I can.

  “Should we not use it just out of pride when your mom bought it in our names? She’s paying the mortgage. Still, every time I'm there, I feel like I owe her something.”

  Marguerite sighs and I wish there were something I could say besides ‘I’m sorry.’

  "She's using money to control us and I fall for it every time,” she says. “I'm trying to make peace so that my husband is happy, but it just makes me more angry.”

  Suddenly, she gets overwhelmed. Her nose turns red and a few tears roll down her cheeks.

  I lean over and pull her close to me and wrap my arms around her shoulders as she sobs.

  "I'm so sorry.” Marguerite tries to push me away, but I just hold her close. "I'm not trying to make any trouble. I'm just pregnant."

  "No," I say, pulling her away and looking straight into her eyes. "You have very legitimate concerns and Mom is being awful. She has always used money to manipulate the people around her.”

  She nods, continuing to sob.

  "She loves us on some level, but that doesn't stop her from trying to control us,” I say. “She thinks that if she didn't have money, and she didn't have houses, and she didn't have connections, then we wouldn't be there. But what she's really doing is just pushing us away."

  “Is it ev
er going to change?” Marguerite nods.

  “One of these days I'm going to reach my breaking point and it's going to be enough.”

  The following morning, I decide to stop wasting time and call Vasko. He answers on the second ring and I dive right in. I tell him about his financials and the fact that I do not agree with this investment.

  He listens carefully and waits. He doesn't try to convince me of anything.

  I tell him that the companies look like they are shell companies used to only funnel money from one place to another, and ones that produce nothing.

  “So, why are you calling me?" Vasko asks after a long pause. "If everything about this company is so bad and you have no interest in investing, why are we having this conversation?"

  What I don't tell him is that I think that Cedar has made some sort of back door deal with him and he thought that he could get it past me, but he can't.

  "I don't have a choice. My boss said that we're going to invest, so I'm here to tell you that you're going to get a $5 million infusion of our investors’ money."

  "Oh, good. Good, good, good," Vasko says quickly.

  I can hear him tapping his pen on the table, almost rushing me off the phone.

  The fact that he's not more excited about the news just confirms my suspicions.

  "What I'm going to tell you now is that you are going to spend every last cent of this money in the legal and appropriate way. Cedar may not take his job very seriously, but I do. The investors depend on my recommendation and I'm going to make sure that the decisions that you make with this money aren't wrong.”

  32

  Jacqueline

  My mom’s surgery doesn't go as planned, there are complications, and a lot of blood loss.

  Dr. Ellis tells me the news in an overly lit hallway, tilting her head to one side.

  "So what's going to happen now? What does this mean?” I ask, burying my hands in my pockets.

  "It's a wait and see kind of situation," she says. “We have her sedated, but it's going to take time.”

  How can this be happening? I shake my head. No, no, no, no, no, this isn't right. I want to stomp my feet, throw a punch, hurt someone, so that someone hurts as much as I do.

  Later that afternoon, they show me to her room, machines and plugs are everywhere.

  Sedated, asleep, trapped somewhere between here and another world.

  I tell her I love her. I tell her that I'm here and I sit in the chair next to the bed for hours until they tell me I can't stay any longer.

  Darkness falls. I return to the hotel apartment and look around at my mom's clothes. I was supposed to be here tonight, alone, but tomorrow, or maybe the day after, she was supposed to come back with me.

  The surgery was going to make everything better; remove the cancer, extend her life, not make her a vegetable.

  Don't think like that, I say to myself over and over again, as I pace around the living room.

  My legs start to feel incredibly heavy, impossible to lift. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I pull them up to my chest and hug myself as tightly as possible.

  What am I going to do now? I wonder as my body begins to shake.

  My income is running out.

  The little bit of savings that I had is practically gone.

  I was going to start looking for work after we got back. But staying here longer? That never occurred to either of us. I can’t even afford this apartment for another week and our flights back are booked for Friday.

  I hate how selfish and narcissistic I am being, thinking about nothing but my own problems.

  But the truth is that's what I have to do; not think about the possibility of her not coming out of that sedated state. If I let my mind go there, if I think about even the slightest possibility of her not coming back to me, I just don't know what I'll do.

  The following day is just like the one before and the one before that. There are updates on oxygen levels.

  The pulse ox level is at 87%. Her condition is now considered critical, but stable, but she's still sedated.

  I want Dante to be in touch, but I don't expect him to be. We texted a lot initially, but I keep waiting for him to leave me hanging, especially after I tell him that the surgery didn't go well.

  When I called him that night after I came home alone from the hospital, when I cried and I cried, I knew that I was burning bridges. I was overwhelming him with too much drama and he had every right to never talk to me again.

  And then I didn't answer any of his calls the next day. I ignored him for three days.

  I pushed him away, and yet he kept coming around.

  It's like there was nothing I could do to scare him off, and that's exactly what scared me.

  During those first few days of waiting in the hospital room, every minute was like an hour and every hour was like a day.

  I sit alone in the hospital room where nothing changes except for the numbers on the monitors that are hooked up to my mom.

  But being alone isn't good for me. I reach out to a few friends. The only one that calls back is Allison.

  We video chat and I relay all the statistics and the information that I know, and I feel like I’m talking about sports.

  "She's going to get better. She's going to get better.” Allison keeps promising me.

  These are empty promises, just like the ones that I made to myself. But I’ll take any prayers, good vibes, and well wishes that I can get at this point.

  When the conversation reaches a lull, I ask Allison about her boyfriend. Sitting on the couch, she props her phone up higher on her knee and rolls her eyes.

  "What's going on? Did I hit a sore subject?" I ask.

  She makes another face.

  "Okay, now you have to tell me.” I smile.

  "No, I'm not going to tell you."

  "Come on."

  "Well, he doesn't exactly agree with my lifestyle choice, if you want to call it that."

  "What's the problem, exactly? Does he want to join you or is he being jealous?”

  I like talking about this; it’s a nice distraction.

  "Well, for one, I don't think he has a say at all since I wouldn't call whatever we have an official relationship."

  “I guess…” I force myself to agree.

  "I just don't understand why he's so upset about it."

  "Which part again?" I lean over closer to the phone, taking a sip of my water. It feels good to talk like this.

  "He's jealous, and of course he wants to come."

  "And you don't want him to come?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.

  "I don't know if I'm ready for that."

  I can't help but laugh.

  "Look, it's a serious problem," Allison says. "I think I'm going to break up with him. I kind of like this one guy I met at Redemption."

  I smile, considering the irony of the situation. "You know, you're not supposed to date people you meet there."

  “Yeah, it’s probably a mistake."

  "Tell me that this guy at least doesn't have a…” I’m not sure if I should say girlfriend or wife so I settle on, “partner.”

  "No, he doesn't.” Allison shakes her head. "I'm certain of it."

  I have told her a little bit about Dante, but suddenly I'm tempted to tell her more.

  "He keeps calling me," I say.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “No, but ... I cried so much when I told him about my mom."

  “What does that matter?”

  "I feel like an idiot. I mean, I literally sobbed into the phone and just told him everything that was going on, and I haven't talked to him since."

  "How long has it been?"

  "Like three days."

  "Oh my God, Jacqueline, c’mon. He clearly likes you. I mean, he's hanging around even though you're acting so ridiculously desperate."

  "That's what I'm talking about,” I snap at her. “Why is he so interested?”

  "I was joking, you moron,” Allison says, tilting her head
to one side and propping it up with her hand. "Look, maybe he actually likes you.”

  33

  Jacqueline

  The following evening, after another day of avoiding taking his calls and just replying casually over text, but saying nothing in particular, I order some food from the Denny's at the corner and take a walk over to Main Street to pick it up.

  I window shop, looking into all the little boutiques and even venture in the one that sells cool vintage items found in nice flea markets; artistic glass bowls and unusual clothing that only people in New York City and independent films seem to wear. In the back, I find shelves of novels. Most are paperbacks, but there are a few hard covers as well.

  I've always loved the smell of a used bookstore. There’s something about the paper that has been touched by hundreds of people before me and the stories that have been loved.

  The thing about fiction is that it's not the books that you're forced to read in school that you really make a connection with. It's not the ones that need explanations and analysis, but it's really the ones that you read for pleasure. It’s all about the ones that you re-read over and over again, because you happen to love the characters or because the characters on some level, despite all of their obstacles and problems, resemble you.

  That's what I've always tried to find in fiction. I've looked for books that were basically about me. I wanted to read about girls who are not particularly confident at first, gaining in that strength and growing into proud, competent women.

  "May I help you with anything?" An older woman with bright purple nails and a shaved head walks up to me.

  She has a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt on and the kind of fire in her eyes that's difficult to describe.

  "No, I'm good. I'm just browsing."

  "You're new around here?" she asks.

  "I'm not from here."

  "Oh, you have a family member in the hospital?"

  I nod again, not really wanting to talk about it.

  "We have people coming in here trying to pass the time while they wait. How is your family member doing?"