Gold Diggers

by Tasmina Perry

  Adding to Summer’s awkwardness was that she was sleeping with Marcus’s best friend. It was impossible for her to relax. Still, thought Summer, taking another sip of claret to anaesthetize herself, at least Marcus seemed a decent enough man. Molly’s boyfriends usually fell into two narrow categories: objectionable and pompous.

  It was a game of Summer’s to guess the background of her mother’s boyfriends. It was easy to spot the playboys, of course, with their perma-tans, extravagant dress-sense and the hungry, hooded lids when they looked at Summer. The inherited money was also obvious; the rebellious sons of old established families, who invariably took the most drugs, and had the worst manners once they had drunk a few glasses of wine. Marcus fell into the third, and rarest category of Molly’s paramours. He had the serious, considered manner of someone who had earned his wealth. He looked at Summer with the respectful interest of someone who wanted to know what she had to say, rather than what she would be like in bed.

  Summer could also tell a lot about Molly’s boyfriends by how her mother behaved around them. Her mother possessed a chameleon-like ability to adapt herself to become any man’s fantasy woman. Her physical appearance, her clothes, hair and her make-up would all alter slightly to fit to the man’s tastes. Robert Cabot, a hedge-fund banker with a wife in Manhattan, had been treated to pencil skirts, kitten heels and a succession of white shirts, unbuttoned just a little too low. Her hair would be lightened a few shades to a buttery blonde and she would talk about her time in New York, when she had partied with Basquiat. With Stavros the son of a Greek shipping heir, Molly wore Cavalli. Skirts were shorter, heels higher, lips as red and juicy as berries. More friendly, flirty, louder, prouder; more Notice-me.

  For Marcus, Molly was definitely a softer, quieter version of herself. Hair in a ponytail, jeans and a Chanel jacket, her conversation was peppered with glamorous people and places. Marcus was a numbers man, who sat behind the desk while Adam wheeled and dealed and travelled and had dinner with the rich and famous. For Marcus, Molly added colour and sophistication to his life.

  ‘Molly tells me you’re doing terribly well with the modelling,’ said Marcus. ‘Apparently brunettes have more fun.’

  Summer tugged at a lock of hair. ‘Well, it does all seem to have taken off after I had my colour done. I suppose I have Karin to thank.’

  ‘Not really Karin, though, honey, was it?’ said Molly quickly. ‘Summer was discovered by Dan Stevens the photographer in Regent Street, would you believe it?’

  ‘Speaking of Karin,’ said Marcus, giving his dessert menu back to the waiter, ‘Adam has invited us to down to the yacht in Capri next week, if you fancy it? I think Karin is in Italy visiting the factories. I’m sure Adam won’t mind you coming along, Summer. Have you been to Capri?’

  ‘Ooh, Capri, darling,’ said Molly, looking over to her daughter and nodding. ‘I’m sure Karin will be glad to see you; after all, it’s your image that’s getting her cash registers ringing right now. And will there be anybody interesting on the yacht for Summer?’ she continued, nudging Marcus gently.

  ‘Mother,’ said Summer sternly, averting her eyes. The thought of standing face to face with Karin filled her with dread. How could they make small talk and say how lovely it was to see her again and pretend that she did not know the taste of her boyfriend’s mouth or the muscular hollow at the top of his thigh, or the tiny mole on the shaft of his cock.

  Marcus laughed, trying to diffuse the tension. ‘Rule number one, Summer. Never let your parents fix you up with anyone. My first date was with the daughter of my father’s boss. She weighed two hundred pounds and had a fascination with newts.’

  ‘It’s a lovely offer, but I can’t,’ said Summer, adding to her acting skills by feigning regret. ‘As you probably know, I’m doing this TV show and we’re doing some filming that weekend.’

  ‘Really?’ said Molly, raising a sceptical eyebrow. ‘What can you be possibly covering of any note next weekend? It’s so quiet in London right now. Everyone’s buggered off on holiday.’

  ‘I think we might be going away,’ said Summer vaguely. ‘I never really know what we’re filming until the production meeting a few days before.’

  Molly flashed her a look that clearly said, we’ll talk about this later. Marcus, however, was hardly distraught. Summer appreciated the gesture, but it had clearly been for appearances’ sake. As he paid the bill and they walked down the steps, it was just going dark. The streets of Covent Garden were unusually still.

  ‘Do you want to wait here while I go and pick up the car?’ asked Marcus, rattling his keys.

  Molly shook her head. ‘This is really a night out with my daughter. You’re just tagging along, Marcus, my dear,’ she teased, turning to kiss him lightly on the lips. ‘I’m going to see if I can tempt her with a nightcap at the Light Bar,’ she said, pointing over the road in the direction of the St Martin’s Lane Hotel. ‘And I will see you tomorrow,’ she said, purring into Marcus’s ear.

  ‘Please come for a drink,’ said Molly, as Marcus disappeared around a corner. ‘I only had a couple of glasses at dinner. Marcus hates me drinking too much.’

  ‘He knows what you’re like, that’s why,’ said Summer cynically. ‘No. I’m going home,’ she said with finality, sticking her arm out to hail a taxi. Summer rarely stood up to her mother, but the last thing she needed just then was more cocktails and self-pity.

  Molly just shrugged and they climbed into the back of a black cab, trundling round Trafalgar Square past the National Gallery, lit up and stately, and watched impassively as lovers walked round the fountains.

  ‘You aren’t filming next weekend, are you?’ said Molly finally. She had seen the look of fear and confusion on her daughter’s face at the mention of Adam, and her instincts for intrigue told her something was wrong. ‘Why don’t you want to go on the yacht?’

  Summer stared out of the window. The yacht. Where Adam had promised to take her. Since they had first made love, anchored in the Solent, Adam and Summer had barely been apart, their passion swelling in ferocity with each meeting. Now they had arranged to meet on The Pledge at Porto Ercole on the Wednesday before Adam went on to Capri. Just the two of them, alone, together, entwined. How could Summer then reboard their love nest two days later, with his girlfriend playing hostess? How could she sleep on the boat, knowing that forty-eight hours earlier she had been lying next to Adam, kissing him, feeling him inside her?

  She knew what she was doing was wrong. Selfish, immoral. Many times, over the years, Summer had criticized her mother for willingly being ‘the other woman’, but now she was doing exactly the same. Even worse, she knew Karin; she owed her success to her. She hated herself for it, but the feelings she felt for Adam were too strong to deny – and, in truth, Summer felt she deserved this small ray of happiness.

  She had never let anyone get this close before, and she didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell her that her fear of intimacy and abandonment lay with Molly. What Summer had seen as a child. What she had heard at night. It was why, when all her friends in Toyko were out at clubs and going on dinner dates with rich businessmen, Summer had kept her distance and always gone home alone. It was why at twenty-four she had never had a proper relationship, regardless of her beauty. It was why she needed Adam so badly now.

  ‘Come to Capri,’ said Molly softly. ‘Bring a friend if you want to. Marcus will ask Adam. Someone pretty. Pretty girls are always welcome on yachts,’ she said, smiling slightly.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ said Summer, beginning to sob, the guilt, shame and sadness overcoming her unexpectedly.

  Molly put her arm on her shoulder. ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she said softly.

  Summer looked at her through misty eyes. She was going to tell her. She had to. The burden of what she was doing was too heavy to bear alone. And out of anybody she knew, Molly would know that feeling, of being the other woman and its sweet burden.

  ‘I am seeing Adam,’ said Summer simply, hoping for
a second that her mother might not have heard her. ‘I don’t want to go because I’m already going. A few days beforehand. I’m meeting him in Porto Ercole.’

  She held her breath and she looked at her mother, knowing that Molly wouldn’t judge her for sleeping with somebody else’s partner, but wondering for one moment if she would be angry for encroaching on her new wonderland, by bagging its prize.

  Molly stared open-mouthed at her daughter, the glimmer of fury immediately softening as she realized with startling clarity the opportunity that had presented itself; wondering why she had not thought of it sooner. If Adam Gold was proving stubborn to her own advances, then having him as her son-in-law would be the perfect compromise. She smiled at Summer, one strap of her silk, crocus-yellow sundress falling off one shoulder, the curve of her rosy lips, slightly downturned with unease, and thought that she had never looked more beautiful.

  She took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it lightly. ‘That’s perfect. It really is perfect. You and Adam are perfect for each other.’

  ‘Perfect. If it wasn’t for Karin,’ said Summer, a teardrop running down her cheek.

  ‘Give it time, honey,’ she said stroking her fingertips. ‘Hang on in there and just give it time.’

  Erin was hiding in a toilet cubicle at the Midas Corporation, her face buried in her hands, thick sobs welling in her throat. Her worst suspicions had been confirmed and the last few days all began to make sense as the pieces of the awful jigsaw fell together. It was part of Erin’s daily routine to go through the trade papers for Adam: Estates Gazette, the property section of the New York Times, Construction News. In one building industry journal she had seen, to her horror, a news story about Julian. There, smiling at her, taunting her, was a head-shot of ‘renowned architect Julian Sewell’, accompanying a story that Julian had just been taken onto the board of Dreamscape Construction as vice president. She had known immediately how Dreamscape had got the information that had sabotaged the Midas pitch for the London Gallery. Every pitch, every development had its own file on her computer. Anybody accessing her computer would know exactly what Midas Corporation was doing – which developments they were pitching for, who they had been commissioned by and the intimate details of their costs and designs.

  Erin tore off a piece of loo roll to blot her eyes and blow her nose. He’d used her, then discarded her. Had he ever really felt anything for her? When he whispered to her in bed, was it just his ambition talking? When his naked body pressed against hers was he simply going through the motions until he could get the information he wanted? Her mind flashed around every possibility – for all she knew, he might have manipulated that first meeting in the Piccadilly wine bar; hadn’t he been waiting for a friend that never showed up? Their entire relationship was a sham. A knot of pain stabbed in her belly.

  Erin took a deep breath and sat in the Eames chair in front of Adam. The sun was shining in through the window and making her squint. She felt nervous and pressured.

  ‘What is it, Erin? I’m very busy today,’ said Adam with impatience.

  ‘I’ve got something, well, something bad to tell you.’

  Adam glanced up. ‘It can’t be any worse than the news I’ve already had this week,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I think you should know that I’ve been dating Julian Sewell.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said Adam, looking up from a pile of contracts. ‘I hope he’s a better lover than he is an architect.’

  He saw her crestfallen look and backtracked hastily. ‘Sorry Erin, uncalled for. I’ve just been in a bad mood all week after the London Gallery fiasco.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m here,’ said Erin, her voice wavering. She had his full attention now.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  She put a copy of the magazine in front of him, the page of the story folded back.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ he said softly after he’d read it. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s happened, does it?’ He looked up and gave Erin a cold stare. ‘What did you tell him?’

  Any trace of a smile had gone from his face and the tone of his voice made Erin shiver. It would have been safer to have kept quiet.

  ‘Honestly Adam, absolutely nothing,’ she said, ‘I promise. I swear on my life, I haven’t told him anything about any of the projects the company is involved in.’

  ‘Well, he’s fucking found out something, hasn’t he?’ said Adam, getting up from behind his desk and walking to the window, rolling the magazine up in his hands.

  ‘I told him nothing,’ begged Erin. ‘He’s never been in the office unattended. All I can think is that …’ she paused, feeling her cheeks flush. ‘He’s stayed at my flat a few times. Maybe he’s accessed my Blackberry or my laptop.’

  Adam turned and threw the magazine across the room, its pages fluttering. ‘Do you have any idea how valuable this contract was to the company?’ he yelled.

  Erin nodded, unable to stop a tear sliding down her face.

  ‘I should fucking fire you.’

  That was it. All it took to make Erin crumble. She bent forward, sobs jerking from her mouth like machine-gun fire. She was going to lose everything. Julian, her job, Adam. Even Belvedere Road. Everything.

  ‘Alright, alright, just stop it okay?’ said Adam, his voice calmer. ‘You, my dear, have been well and truly played.’

  ‘He’s a bloody shit,’ said Erin, wiping her eyes with the corner of her sleeve.

  ‘I won’t argue with you there. That “bloody shit” has cost me a fortune in architect fees alone.’

  ‘That’s only the half of it.’

  ‘If it’s a broken heart, sugar, you’ll get over it,’ replied Adam curtly.

  She took a deep breath and began to tell him about Belvedere Road and her dream of turning it into flats. How Julian had offered to do the drawings and put in the paperwork to secure planning permission. How he was now refusing to contact her and the clock was ticking for her to begin the conversion of the building while every month she was paying mortgage repayments through the nose.

  ‘You’re developing eight apartments?’ said Adam, beginning to show the hint of a smile.

  ‘With every penny I own,’ she whispered.

  ‘Initiative. I like that,’ he mused, the smile growing on his face. ‘That’s the reason why I hired you.’

  Erin wondered momentarily if Adam would be so encouraging if he knew she had exploited her position at Midas to buy Belvedere Road and tried to shake away the thought immediately. She was in enough trouble as it was.

  ‘Will you at least give me a reference?’ she said, biting her lip, trying to salvage something from the rubble. ‘I’ll find it hard to get another job otherwise and I have mortgage payments of over two thousand pounds a month. If I don’t pay I’ll lose the building. Lose my deposit. It was an inheritance from my dad.’ At the thought of her family, Erin felt a little flutter of pride and resilience. She wouldn’t let that bastard Julian Sewell ruin everything.

  Adam was rubbing his mouth with his hand. Finally he puffed his cheeks and sighed. ‘I’m not going to give you a reference,’ he said slowly as Erin’s heart plummeted. ‘Because I want you to stay working for me.’

  She stared at him, genuinely stunned. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Let’s go talk to a few people in the residential department and see if we can find you an architect who can whip you up some drawings. I’m sure we must know somebody in the planning department too who can give us some advice. Where did you say it was?’

  Suddenly, the departure of Julian Sewell from her life didn’t seem quite so terrible. She looked at Adam Gold and laughed at his sudden enthusiasm for her project.

  ‘Thanks Adam,’ she sniffed.

  ‘Okay. Enough of the pity already. Now, have you thought about how you’re going to market the property …?’

  Erin was carried along by Adam’s energy as he swept her out of the office, a wide grin on her face. Sh
e felt grateful, flabbergasted and more happy than she could have hoped only minutes ago. Turning to take a quick peep at Adam, she felt a warm, fuzzy feeling rear up in her tummy that she didn’t want to go away.

  Having spent three hours in a bar in Old Street, Julian Sewell was too drunk to notice he was being followed home. Even if he had been sober on the walk back to his flat in Hoxton, he would not have heard the purr of the prestige vehicle following two hundred feet behind him. Julian’s mind was too full of other things. He was still celebrating his new position at Dreamscape Construction. He had the world at his feet and the phone numbers of two pretty girls in his pockets. He had no intention of calling either of them, even though he had accepted the offer of oral sex in the toilet. He had no intention of bringing her home. He didn’t like women coming back to his flat. It was too intrusive, personal. He had allowed it once with Erin, but that was necessary. Ah, Erin. She had been a pretty good shag, he thought with a smirk. No, that little project hadn’t been at all unpleasant. Almost a shame when she had to go.

  The quickest journey back to his flat off Hoxton Square was to nip up the dark, deserted backstreets that ran north from Old Street itself. For one of the most fashionable areas of London, he thought, some of these alleyways wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Jack the Ripper movie; you could almost smell the fog. There were a few spots of rain and Julian tutted as the droplets of water stained his tan leather jacket. He was still brushing at the drops when the footsteps caught up with him. Quickly, silently, an arm fastened itself around his neck, while a heavy boot kicked away his knees. Lying on the floor, the boot slammed into his face, again and again and again. The new vice president of Dreamscape Construction drifted out of consciousness, a trickle of blood oozing from his head onto the damp street. Quietly a Midas Corporation vehicle drove down the side street, turned into traffic and disappeared.