The Restaurateur

by Aubrey Parker

  “I thought you only saw in white.”

  He smirks, then goes on.

  “There are things a person desires. Then there are the things that he or she claims to desire. You’re unclear on two things. You don’t know what you want, and you’ve not made peace with what Elizabeth wants.”

  “She wants the mountain.”

  “Clearly not. But she wants you to acknowledge that she might want the mountain and that you should offer it to her without ever actually doing so.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Caspian shrugs. “Women.”

  “You said that I had what I wanted. That you didn’t see the problem.”

  “Because you so clearly don’t. It’s a test, Mateo. If you can’t get clear on this, you deserve nothing — not her, not your silly little endurance challenge. I shouldn’t have to prompt you into answering the question for real, just as Elizabeth shouldn’t have to fight with you over that atrocious green pasta at Al Dente to bring up something you should’ve raised on your own.”

  Funny that he says women have odd psychology. Caspian’s mental twister is far more complicated.

  “I can’t believe I came to you for relationship advice,” I say.

  “But you did.”

  “You treat your wife like a possession.”

  “On the contrary,” Caspian says. “I treat her like a queen.”

  “You’re so full of shit.”

  Caspian glances right and left. Then something happens that I’ve never seen nor even heard of before: his face changes. That cold, hard facade vanishes. He relaxes his always-intimidating posture, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “All right. I’ll tell you a secret. Repeat it, and you’re finished.”

  I ignore the threat but give Caspian my full attention.

  “She’s better than me.”

  I laugh. “No shit.”

  “You don’t understand. I would do anything for Aurora. Now that I have her, I doubt I could function alone. For years, I had a weak spot that I refused to acknowledge. Didn’t even know it was there. She came in and saw it in an instant. Dug in deep. She broke me, Mateo. Then she filled me up. She isn’t dependent on me, but I have become dependent on her. I don’t trust easily, but I have learned to have faith in Aurora. She is my backbone. That is what you’re missing, and why I took this meeting to help you. I have another side. You will never see it, nor will anyone but Aurora. But it exists. Much as yours must. Because right now? You’re stupid. As broken as I was, though not nearly as twisted. Do you think the Syndicate hasn’t been watching all of us? When Anthony vanished, his failed initiative left blood in the water. The Trillionaire Boys’ Club was quiescent before that deal, but now it can think of nothing but finding something new to devour. In small groups that never overlap, the group has watched us all. Evan’s LiveLyfe expansion. All of Ashton’s growth. Cole’s latest film projects. I can see their eyes behind all that I do. And do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because deep down, we are all still primitive. We know the power, whether we know at the level of awareness or not.”

  “What power?”

  “Love.”

  I assume he’s kidding. But he’s leaning forward, boring into me with his icy blue eyes.

  “Each of the members that the Syndicate has been watching has recently found their missing piece. A woman. Each was brilliant before; you have to be to achieve what we have. But with their weak spots filled, as Aurora filled mine, each of us has grown capable of new greatness. Anthony Ross was the only failure. Caitlin didn’t drive him to grow into the deal with Alexa that the Syndicate was so interested in putting all of its money and efforts toward. The Ross app harnessed that primitive power directly. It promised untold new insight into sex. To connection. To love. Alexa wanted to skim data off the top, but now … well, I hear she’s pursuing other avenues that I suspect will pay off big within a few decades. When Anthony’s ‘missing piece’ in Caitlin broke the deal instead of spawning it, that only increased the need to find a new home for all that energy. All that capital. All that wealth, Mateo.”

  I blink at him. This conversation took a strange turn, but now I think I might know why he’s telling me all of this. I’m beginning to see the barest outline of something.

  And it could be amazing.

  “I’m helping you,” Caspian says, “because we’ve all been watching you, slowly getting an idea to top them all. We know about Damon. We know about Elizabeth. There were watchers in the restaurant that night, and other nights you’ve been out in public. The two of you have been babysat, Mateo, because it’s become apparent that you are a fool. You’re so blind; it’s astonishing to think that you walk around all day without tripping. If it were your problem alone, I’d let it go. But your idiocy is costing us all. Every second you refuse to grow and expand is hurting the rest of us.”

  “Who is ‘the rest of us’?”

  “The Syndicate,” Caspian says.

  And with that, I understand. I know what Caspian is getting at. It lights a bulb inside me, but the distance is a chasm in my mind.

  He sits back. Recrosses his legs. Again, he picks at invisible lint on the knee of his immaculate suit.

  “Elizabeth does not want your mountain, Mateo. Make no mistake; it’s your mountain now.”

  “So what does she want?”

  “Your respect. Your time. Your attention. Your mind.”

  “She already has it. But she won’t talk to me. Not in the way we need to.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” Caspian says.

  I wait.

  “And your initiative,” he says after a moment. “Your unflinching refusal to take no for an answer.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ELIZABETH

  DAD LOOKS OVER WHILE I’M driving — first a glance, then with depth. His watching makes me self-conscious, and the feeling deepens. This time I feel warmth on my cheek.

  “Pull over,” he says.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Pull over, Elizabeth. I mean it.”

  Overprotective fathers. Like I’ve never driven while crying.

  “What are you doing?” he asks as I move to the side of the road.

  “You just told me to pull over.”

  “Not on the damn berm.” He points. “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not even a little.”

  “Daddy …”

  But he’s giving me that look, and I know my father; if I refuse, he’ll push me out of the way and take the wheel. I’ve spent years wrapping him around my little finger — but in some ways, it’s very much the other way around. I loved my mother with all my heart, but I was always my daddy’s little girl.

  I pull into the lot and put it in park. Then I wait, but nothing happens.

  “Well, let’s go,” he says.

  “I’m not going in there.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then you can just watch me eat pizza. I’m serious, girl. Supposedly a PEZA opens every day somewhere in America. I am not going to let you spend the rest of your life afraid to look at one.”

  “I’m not afraid of—”

  “Out of the car.”

  I sigh and do as I’m told. As we cross the parking lot to the little restaurant — in a strip plaza right beside a candy store, like every single one of them — he puts his arm around my shoulders.

  “I know he hurt you. Lord knows he called me often enough to tell me all about it. But honey, it’s been four months. That’s long enough to mourn.”

  “I’m not mourning.”

  “So, pizza places always make you cry? Is it the carbs?”

  I laugh and wipe away a freshly falling tear.

  “I thought you were good together. I think you should have called him.”

  “We talked plenty.”

  “Uh-huh. I heard how you talked to him. You’re just like your mother. She coul
dn’t lose; either. She wanted me to fight and fight and fight for her. A man shouldn’t have to work so hard.”

  “I don’t want him to work, Daddy. It just needed to be over.”

  “You could still call him, you know.”

  “Dad …”

  “Okay, then. Why? Why did it need to be over?”

  “Why does it matter to you?”

  He stops me just short of the PEZA front door, then sighs. I hear honesty coming. Usually, when it comes from my father, it’s not the honesty I like.

  “Because when you were together, I saw my girl again. After your mom, kiddo? You got so distant. Like you’d given up. Mateo made you bloom.”

  I look away, slowly shaking my head. “It never would have worked.”

  “Why?”

  “Our personalities didn’t match. We’re both too strong-willed. That was your mom and me, too. A pair of rams in the pasture, constantly bashing our horns. But in time? Yes, we knew it was right.”

  I sigh, then give him a look that says, What do you want from me?

  “Okay. Fine; I’ll leave you alone. Now get in there and buy me some pizza.”

  A half-hour later, I’m glad he forced me inside. I’ll never admit it, but he was right about me needing the exposure. Ever since we broke up — if that’s what it was — anything that triggers memories of my time with Mateo makes me well up. I don’t know why, and I hate it.

  After each of his calls — after I’d held the facade of “cold bitch” for anywhere from two minutes to ten — I’d always break down. I’d lie on the bed and wait for the feelings to pass. Every time, I’d want to pick up my phone and call him back, to admit that we wanted the same thing — another chance.

  I barely managed to hold my resolve. This had to end, and prolonging it would only worsen the inevitable. It wasn’t what Mateo said to me that night, about choosing the mountain over me. I know he said it in anger. But it cut me to the bone, and the cut was the kind that can’t be explained away. Mateo may not have meant to hurt me, but he did.

  But with my PEZA cherry broken, I have a new memory to accompany seeing the signs all over town. Now it’s a place where my father and I had a lovely little lunch — though, despite his insistence that they were awesome, I picked the gummy bears off of my half.

  I drop Dad off at his home in the suburbs. He looks like he wants to say something in parting, but he just sighs. We both look up. We can see our mountain from here, and ever since the deal closed, we’ve been watching the distant specks of Mateo’s construction crew building his new lodge.

  “Bye, Daddy,” is all I say.

  “Take care of yourself.”

  I get back in my car. There’s an oppressive sadness. It’s not heavy like grief or loss, and it doesn’t make me want to cry like before. This is a knife with a duller blade. It merely presses against me like a weight, not quite sharp enough to cut me. It’s as if the sky has dimmed. As if someone has turned down the saturation on the world’s color. I’m boxed in despite the wide mountain sky, like someone has packed me in a crate and nailed the lid.

  My phone rings.

  “Is this Elizabeth Frasier?”

  “Yes.” I glance at the screen. I recognize the area code, though not the number itself. “Who is this?”

  “My name is Aurora White. I work at Clifftop?”

  She says it like it’s a name I should recognize, but I haven’t a clue. “What’s Clifftop?”

  “Sorry. I thought someone had been in touch with you already. We’re a lodge and endurance camp on Lookout Mountain.”

  My lips curl into an involuntary frown. Lookout Mountain. I knew the state called it that, but to my family, it was just “the mountain.” This is Mateo’s doing.

  “Are you in town?” the woman asks.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t mean to trouble you, but would you be able to come up here sometime in the next few days? We have a survey team up here now, and they ran into some caverns that nobody realized were there. There’s a path to them, though, so …”

  “The ones to the east of the old lodge house? About a half mile?”

  “Yes, those are the ones.”

  “I know the caves you’re talking about. My grandfather had them surveyed once. We checked on them every few years for evidence of shifting. They’re supposedly stable, and there are some official records on file at—”

  “I was hoping you could help me directly, as the former owner.”

  “My father is the former owner, not me. I can give you his number.”

  “I know. But I was hoping you could help me instead. I need your thoughts on more than their stability.”

  “What do you need to know?”

  “How spacious they are. If they’d be suitable for living quarters.”

  “Hey, if a bunch of climber cavemen want to camp out in the caves, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant. It’s easier if I show you. Do you mind?”

  Unbelievable. I look through my car’s window, shaking my head.

  “Honestly, yes. It’s not a short drive up there, and I have things I need to do. With all due respect, Mateo Saint bought the land, so he can be the one to answer questions about his challenge.”

  “This isn’t about the challenge,” Aurora says.

  “Well, then, about whatever.”

  “I don’t need much of your time. We’re happy to pay a consulting fee.”

  “I’m not in the consulting business. I don’t mean to be rude, but whatever’s happening up there is your problem, not mine.”

  There’s a shuffle on the other end. I hear her talking to someone who must have just walked up, or perhaps who’s been there all along, staying silent. Aurora says something to someone else with her face away from the phone that I don’t catch, although it sounds dismissive — a go over there for a second sort of thing. Then I hear her footsteps hustle away. Her voice is less formal when it returns. I realize that she’s been putting on a customer service voice, but with her watcher distracted, she can whisper as herself.

  “Elizabeth? Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t suppose by any chance you know who I am. Maybe Mateo mentioned me?”

  “Aurora White?”

  “Or maybe my husband. Caspian.”

  It takes three seconds for rusty wires to connect. Then it’s fireworks. I know Caspian White. Who doesn’t? Blake and the others have been pointing me to articles about the reclusive billionaire because there are rumors he’s working behind the scenes to change education through his GameStorming app. I even remember Aurora’s name, now, from those same articles. They’re painted as a dream team with two members that shouldn’t fit, yet somehow do.

  Why is Caspian’s wife working at Mateo’s dumb rock climbing camp?

  “Yes,” I stammer. I know who Caspian is.”

  “He doesn’t want me to say anything. Neither do the others. But you know how those guys are. It’s all chest-puffing with them. And they say women are dramatic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can you come up to the mountain? I just need to know.”

  “Well, maybe …”

  Another shuffle. “He’s coming back. Just tell me fast. Forget whether it’s convenient or not. Can you come up here? Is it physically possible?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then just do it. You need to trust me on this. Come up today, if you can.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  When Aurora is being herself, it’s whispery and melodic, like spoken song. “Oh, no,” she says, with a smile I can hear. “And believe me, you have no idea just how right this is. Or, how long it’s been coming.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ELIZABETH

  MATEO IS CALLING HIS ENDURANCE challenge The Edge.

  There’s a subtle sign beside an enormous gate that wasn’t here when my father owned the land. The gate and sign both hit me out of the bl
ue as I’m winding up the familiar mountain road. There’s nothing behind to indicate a fence is coming and as far as I can see through the bars, nothing beyond. I’m still near the base. Farther up, it looks as if the wilderness is entirely untouched.

  I pull up to the gate, but it doesn’t open. I’m about to start bitching to my empty car about what Mateo has already done to this place when my passenger side door opens.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re—”

  It’s Mateo. He’s grown a beard. He’s wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt with his impressive arms and shoulders on full display. He’s gone native. Shed his suit like an old skin, and become a man of the land.

  “Mateo?”

  “The gate isn’t working yet.” He pulls a remote from his pocket and presses a button. “And despite what I told them, the sign that came in is wrong.”

  “Which sign?”

  He points. “That sign.”

  “Is it too small or something?”

  “No. I changed the name of the place. Months ago.”

  “To what?”

  “The Pike.”

  A great name, if he hadn’t stolen it. “Are you serious?”

  “You don’t mind giving me a ride to the top, right? It was a long hike down.”

  “I know how long the hike is,” I say, irritated. “I grew up here, remember?”

  “Oh yeah. Right.”

  “Why is there a gate?”

  “To keep people out who shouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s a bit much for a climbing camp, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” he agrees. “It is a bit much for a climbing camp.”

  I wait for more.

  “You remember where the old lodge used to be, right?”

  “Of course I remember. My father and I watched your cranes tear it down.”

  “That’s where you’re going.”

  A moment passes. Then Mateo turns to look at me. “Gas is on the right.”