I thanked her, grabbed Onyx’s hand and led her through the hallway, past the larger meeting room, and to the smaller room.
It was almost like a converted closet, just two chairs, a small desk and no windows. The nice thing was it was quiet and no one ever came back here. I pointed to a chair and she sat. I pulled my chair close to hers and sat.
She grinned at me. “So, you charm all the women at the office?”
I rolled my eyes. “Michelle? No. She’s known me since I was 5. She would always give me candies from her desk when I came with my dad.”
“On lunch days?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Just if my mother thought I should be exposed to work life, he’d bring me here and sit me in the lobby with Michelle. She’d give me candy and drawing paper. I think she had a stash for the occasional kid visiting the office.”
Onyx nodded. “So, what did you and Pauly discuss?”
Her payment being my responsibility would have been the simplest answer. I’d negotiated him into giving me a credit of $600k for extra diamonds she’d brought in. I also got him to back off cutting her pay by a $100k, so long as I covered it, which I readily agreed to. Yet, I didn’t really want to talk specifics with her. “Just how much I owed him.”
She frowned. “It wasn’t right of him to try to take my pay out of your cut. I can talk to him,” she assured me. “And if he still insists, I can go back to my original payment. I only need the $150k to cover Lynx’s treatment.”
I shook my head. “You deserve your payment, in full, what Pauly promised you,” I told her. “I talked to him, apologized for the error. That’s all he wanted. A little kowtowing. He’s going to pay you what he promised. And he’s not charging it to me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
She eyed me with skepticism. “I didn’t realize you were such a good negotiator.”
She was right that I wasn’t a great negotiator. But I was trying to be a better person, and a better person wouldn’t let Pauly fleece her, not when she went above and beyond to help when she didn’t have to. I smiled, as if I was a master negotiator. “What Pauly wants is his money, and he’s going to get it,” I said. “Speaking of which, do you mind telling me why you changed the plans and didn’t bother to tell me?
“Because it was a last-minute idea. The more time I spent with you, the more I realized that you had made a big mistake, and that you just needed help getting out of it. I thought I could help you and me at the same time.”
I drummed my fingers on my thigh, a little irritated. “You didn’t think I was able to get out of this myself?”
She shook her head, vigorously. “No,” she blurted out. “I just thought I was in a position to help you, so I would. Haven’t you ever helped someone just because you could?”
I hoped that was a rhetorical question, because the truth was, no. In general, I didn’t just help people because I could. That was more Lily’s thing. That was more anyone else’s thing but mine. Yet, I knew that was going to change. Helping people because you could was something you should do. Something I’d done today when I spoke with Pauly. “On occasion,” I replied.
“Then you understand where I’m coming from?”
I nodded.
“Are you mad? I mean that I didn’t tell you?”
I shook my head. “You did a nice thing.” I looked down at the table. It was small and old and not really up to the standards of Harper Shipping. Things here were supposed to look posh and beautiful. But this one seemed worn, perhaps a little frail. A bit like the way I felt. “So,” I said, looking up at her. “About us.”
She smiled, which seemed like a good sign.
“I’m leaving to go with Lynx, but when I get back, we can see...” she paused, looking at her hands a moment. “See where this leads.” She looked me in the eye.
“I’d like that,” I was saying as the door to the room banged open. I turned to see my father standing there, his face red with anger. He looked at Onyx with pure loathing. She looked surprised to see him, but she stood up, and held out a hand.
“Mr. Harper. It’s good to see you again.”
My father did not reach out his hand to shake hers. Instead he turned to me and said, “I should’ve known.”
“Known what?” I asked.
He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. His voice low, he said. “You were in India. We turned on the locator on your cell phone when we had no idea where you’d gone. And no doubt your trip had something to do with her.” He pointed a finger at Onyx. “After what happened with Lily, how could you go off with her? Do you have any idea what it would do to your mother if she lost you, too?”
I turned to look at Onyx, who had taken a step back, and lowered her eyes to stare at the ground.
“Just stop,” I said to my father. “You have no right to talk to Onyx that way.”
My father shook his head. “Oh my God. What did she do to you, son? I have no idea what this scam artist has done to convince both you and Lily that she’s worth having in your life?”
If I wasn’t so angry at him, I would have been shocked at his candor and rancor toward Onyx. As it were, I just wanted him to stop. “You have no right, dad,” I said. “None. Onyx has done nothing but help me, and help Lily.”
“How did she help Lily? By encouraging her to go to some godforsaken backwaters where she could be killed on the street and die without medical care.”
Onyx closed her eyes, took another step back.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, dad,” I shouted at him. “Onyx was Lily’s best friend. And Lily went to India because she wanted to. What happened to Lily was a freak accident, and the fact that you insist on blaming Onyx is both cruel and cowardly. You spent your life doing bullshit instead of spending time with your daughter, and instead of admit that you fucked up, you want to blame her friend for something that wasn’t her fault.”
My father shook his head, and then turned to Onyx. “You know, he has no money. We cut off his trust fund. He’s been fired from this company. Whatever your game is, there is no money in it.”
I grabbed his arm, and he turned back to look at me. I spoke low, but clear. “Guess what, dad? She knows. She knows, because she asked me. She knows because she cares, and she knows because she accepts me for who I am, and she agrees to help no strings attached, which is more than I can say for you.”
His eyebrows squished together and his dyed hair pulled at the edges of his scalp. “What are you talking about?”
“You know how you decided you’d cut me off because I was behaving recklessly.”
He stared at me wordlessly.
“Well, that morning you cut me off, I came to tell you that I’d messed up, that I needed help, because I was in hock to a mobster for a million dollars.”
My father’s eyes widened and he mouthed one million.
“Yes, a million dollars that I did not have, a million dollars I was planning to get as an advance from on my trust fund. Only, you read me such the riot act, that I couldn’t’ ask. So, I decided to go to this mobster and ask for an extension. He told me he’d give it to me—six whole months — if I convinced Onyx to do a job for him.”
He looked at Onyx, then back at me. “She’s involved with mobsters?”
“No, dad, I’m involved with mobsters. She knew a mobster who wanted her to do help him steal diamonds, and she said no.”
He breathed out, looked between us. “That’s good I suppose. But son, why were you in India?”
“Because I convinced her to do it, to help me, by helping this mobster steal diamonds. And the diamonds were in India. And I went there with her and I helped her steal diamonds and when I came back, we gave those diamonds to a mobster and he’s giving me six months to get my act together. And she did that to help me, because I asked her. Because she said if Lily had asked her to help me, she would have done it. Because she was Lily’s friend, even though you want to pretend it�
��s not true. Even though you want to pretend she somehow stole Lily from you. Lily was there for you all along, but you ignored her, and she gravitated to people who truly were her friends, towards people who truly cared.”
My father was staring at me wide eyed. Finally, he said, “Are you drunk?”
I laughed. Of course. That would be his thought. That would be where he went. I shook my head. “No, I’m sober. Sober because for the first time in my life I’ve had to work to try to clean up a mess I made. I’ve had to do it myself. And doing something yourself doesn’t mean you can’t ask for assistance. I asked for help and Onyx gladly gave it. But it does mean you have to roll up your sleeves and put in some work and take responsibility if it doesn’t go right. And I’ve done that. For the first time in my life, I’ve done that. I suppose I have you to thank for that. So, thank you. But you have no right to come in here and yell at the one person who has helped both of your children immensely.”
“By killing one and turning the other into a jewel thief”
I huffed incredulously, and took a step toward Onyx, holding out my hand to her. She hesitated a second and then took it. I felt a thrill in her touch, a confidence that she had trusted me just now. No questions asked. I turned back to my father. “We’re leaving, and I don’t want you to talk to her, or me again unless you have something kind to say.”
I brushed past my father, opening the door with my free hand and tugged Onyx through it.
Chapter 23 – Growing Up is Hard to Do
Ryan Harper was full of surprises. I hadn’t expected him to stick up for me to his father. Nor had I expected him to come clean with his dad about the diamond heist. Though, who would his father tell? Richard Harper was not the kind to get his children in trouble.
Ryan was a bit at a loss for where to go after the confrontation with his father, so I took him back to my place. I’m not sure he’d ever ridden the subway before as the entire process seemed to both amaze and disgust him.
When we got back to my place, my bag in tow, Lynx was sitting on the sofa watching television. He turned toward me, a smile on his face, but was surprised to see Ryan with me. He gave me a “what the hell?” look, but stood up and walked over to greet us.
“Lynx, this is Ryan,” I said. “Ryan, my brother Lynx.”
I set my bag on the ground next to the chair, and closed the door.
“Good to meet you,” Ryan said, holding out a hand, and Lynx shook it.
“It was really nice of you to hire my sister to go on that trip at you and Lily’s old school.”
Ryan looked at me a second, and then back at Lynx. “I was glad she could go on such short notice.”
I needed to cut this off. I didn’t intend on telling Lynx the entire truth, but I didn’t want to compound the lie.
“If you don’t mind, Ryan and I are going to go talk a little bit. Debrief about the trip.”
He stared at me again, as if he was confused. “Umm, okay,” he said after a minute.
I waved Ryan toward my room. We walked inside to find my queen-sized bed, a dresser, a flat screen mounted to the wall, and a night stand. There were some paintings on the wall. One depicted a scene at a Baptist church. The other was a collage of several Hindi gods. There was an old soft chair in the corner. It had been my mother’s. It seemed the obvious place to sit but I still thought of it as my mother’s chair, so I directed Ryan to the bed.
He grinned at me lasciviously. “You’re a naughty girl,” he whispered.
I plopped down next to him. “No, I’m not,” I said. “I just don’t sit in that chair.”
“Sacred chair?”
“My mom’s chair,” I said. “I like to just look at it, imagine her sitting in it, helping me when I’m worried.”
He put an arm around me. “That’s nice.”
“I didn’t bring you here to talk about that,” I said. “I just wanted to thank you for sticking up for me with your father.”
He shrugged. “It’s the least I could’ve done”
“The least you could’ve done would’ve been to say nothing.”
“I couldn’t say nothing after all you’ve done for me.”
I patted his leg. “Well, I just wanted to make sure you’d be alright, and you had a plan. You said your father cut you off. Do you have a place to stay?”
“For about a week,” he said. “After that, I’m homeless.”
“Then I have a proposition for you,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Anytime a woman as beautiful as you says, ‘I have a proposition for you,’ the right answer is yes.”
I laughed. “Good, then I’ll get your first-born son.”
“Should I be concerned you keep coming back to that?”
“Nah,” I teased. “I just don’t know many jokes. I have to recycle them.”
“Good to know,” he said, easing into seriousness. “So, what is your proposition?”
“We’re going to be gone a month and I was going to have Mrs. Argon check on the apartment, but if you need a place to stay as you get settled, you can stay here for a month. Lynx and I are leaving next week.”
He scrunched his mouth to the side in thought. “And when you get back,” he said. “I’m out on my keister.”
“Only as much as you are now.”
“Good point,” he said.
“Alright,” I told him. “You should head home. I’ll explain to Lynx about you house sitting for us.”
“House sitting. Hmmm. Any rules?”
“Don’t go in Lynx’s room,” I said, knowing that would be a problem for Lynx. “I looked around the room. “Don’t sit in that chair. Other than that, we’re good.”
AFTER I LEFT ONYX, I knew what I had to do.
Actually, I’d known what I had to do since I’d been in India. Since I’d had to be involved with Pauly’s little operation, I knew what I had to do. I had to grow up. The first step had been making an effort to fix my own mess.
And that had worked, somewhat. I had the extension, and part of my debt knocked down by Onyx. I smiled. She’d tried to rescue me even as I’d tried to rescue myself. Only, I’d turned the tables on her. Or at least evened things out. I agreed to Pauly’s terms. She’d get her full payment, but the difference would come out of what I owed him, so I’m up to owing roughly half a million dollars. However, I did get him to agree to making an anonymous donation of 50 grand to Onyx’s summer program. That was the least I could do for her, and something he seemed surprised as hell I’d asked about but also willing to do. “You got cojones, kid, so yeah, I’ll help those kids.”
Now I just had to earn half a million dollars in six months. And it wouldn’t be by gambling, either. That was how I got myself into this hole.
I had taken the subway back to my apartment. I’d known there was a line here, but I tended to Uber or cab. My parents never took the subway. Even with New York traffic, they thought it was something beneath them. I’d gotten into the habit, despite my abhorrence for their standoffishness. But, I figured it out after a couple of mistaken line switches. I went home and made the first of what would be dozens of calls to friends I’d gone to college with. I needed a job, and I would catch up first, lay out feelers, and hopefully someone would bite.
I went to bed, having had five calls with people I knew, though none had job opportunities. They may have all simply disliked me. Or if not dislike, at least still seen me as the spoiled brat I was then. Didn’t matter. I would be deterred.
I went to bed, and the next day, I made half a dozen more calls. One guy told me he thought he’d heard about an opening. He’d let me know more and said I should email him my resume. I did. This led me to the second thing I needed to do. I called my parents and asked if I could come over. My mother said yes. I wasn’t sure if my father agreed with her, after the way I’d treated him. Though, he’d deserved it, so maybe he understood.
When I got to the apartment, the housekeeper, let me in. I found my paren
ts in the living room. My father was in the Eames chair and my mother was seated cattycorner on the sofa.
My father stared at me, his brown eyes watching me curiously. My mother looked at me, too, but hers was the face of weariness in expectation of disappointment. She expected very little from me. It always hurt that she had no faith in my abilities.
I kept my chin up, though as I walked over and stood so that I could see them both. “I have a proposition for you,” I said.
My mother, crossed her legs, leaned forward. “One involving mobsters?”
I blew out, rubbed at my temple. “I made a mistake,” I said. “A terrible mistake, one probably fueled by a combination of grief and recklessness. And I’m owning up that mistake.”
“What is your proposition, son?” my father aske, his voice curt.
“I’d like a loan from my trust fund of $500,000. I will pay it back in monthly installments once I have a job.”
“A job where?” my mother asked. “You know you’ve been fired.”
“I know,” I told her, curbing the urge to snipe. Calmly, I said, “I’ve put out some feelers to people I went to school with. I think with the right calls, I can get a job in a few weeks.”
“Because jobs grow on trees?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, they don’t,” I admitted. “But, I’m putting in the work, and I think I can get it done.”
“Or if a loan is not alright, how about an advance. I’m entitled to full access to the remainder of the trust when I’m 30.”
My mother scoffed. “Ryan, you got access to $100,000 when you turned 21. You got access to $200,000 at 25. And it’s all gone. I don’t even know what you’ve spent it on.”
“Junk,” I said. “I’ve wasted it, alright. But that’s not me anymore. The me of now has finally learned from my mistakes, and I don’t want to be $500,000 in debt to a mobster, so I’d like a loan, which I will pay back. But I’d like a loan to be out from under the thumb of a dangerous man.”
My father scrunched his nose to the side. “What about the thing you did for him?”
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