by Becky Turner
Yet his eyes never lost their steely, determined look. I paused, knowing that I should refuse, but tempted nonetheless. What could be the harm, really? I’d get a free dinner, maybe some tips on how to run a bar, and if he started in on trying to get me to sell I could bail.
“Please, Ms. Pitch,” he said, though to be honest his “please” sounded a lot more like a command than pleading. I still didn’t like the way he was looking at me, or his seeming determination to get his way. But…
“Okay. As long as you promise not to try and get me to sell again. It’s not going to happen, and it’ll just be a waste of both of our time,” I said. He didn’t smile or seem to even care that I’d agreed. He simply nodded.
“Expect me at 7,” he said gruffly, rising to leave. He towered over me when he stood up all the way.
“Oh, I can just meet you…”
“7. I have your address,” he said, interrupting me. I flinched; how did he know my address? That was too weird. He must have seen the look on my face and known exactly what it meant because he gave me a condescending smile. “It’s business, Ms. Pitch. Just business.”
I immediately regretted agreeing to dinner but he was halfway out the door. I stood there, looking rather stupidly after him, thinking about the money he’d just offered me…it finally hit me just what I’d turned down.
A part of me screamed bloody murder; that could set me up for life, put me through college, hell, put my kids and grandkids through college. I watched as David was ushered into the limo by the driver, who looked back at me with mild interest.
I shook my head slowly, still reeling from the entire incident. The driver cracked a small smile and winked at me. I had to smile back, but as soon as the limo peeled away from the curb and out of view, I collapsed back into the chair, head buzzing as it all became real. And I’d agreed to dinner? What the hell is wrong with me?
Well, at least he’d probably take me somewhere really, really nice, I thought.
I was right. About him taking me someplace really, really, nice, that is. At exactly 7pm I watched a long, black limousine pull up outside my little house. I bit my lip, somewhat nervous that my neighbors would see me getting into such a luxurious and out-of-place vehicle. I gave myself a last glance in the mirror.
I knew I was being silly; it was just a business dinner, and he was probably just going to try and coax me into selling the bar again, but there was a part of me that wanted to wow this strange, rich man who had just plowed into my life.
So I’d picked out a low-cut, form-fitting black dress. My go-to “little black dress” had seen a few years of wear, but it still looked amazing on me. The v-shaped top accentuated my generous chest, while the bottom hid my belly while showing off my hips. I’d chosen to wear my blonde hair in a long, loose braid and had even put on a little make-up; in fact, I’d had to go out and buy new mascara because it had been so long since I wore make-up that my old mascara was hardened into a gunky paste.
With a little bit of eye shadow to bring out my deep green eyes, I knew I looked amazing by Ohio standards. By New York City standards, probably not so much, but we all make do with what we can. I could feel knots in my stomach, and tried to nerve them away by reminding myself that this guy was a jerk and that his opinion of me didn’t matter one bit. Taking a deep breath, I walked out and allowed myself to be escorted into the back of the elevator by the same driver who had winked at me outside the coffee shop.
David sat in the back, not smiling but also not looking quite as stern as he had earlier that day. In fact, I saw his eyebrows raise slightly when he saw me in the dress. The look of awe was short lived, soon replaced by a stoic look that said nothing actually ever impressed him, but I had to smile, glad I’d caught him off-guard.
He was wearing a very expensive-looking suit and a black silk tie that made his cold, blue eyes seem to pop out of his head.
“Evening,” he said, his voice unreadable.
“Where are we going?” I asked, determined to show that I wasn’t intimidated by his wealth or status. Which I wasn’t…at least, not entirely intimidated. His eyes flashed at my question, though I couldn’t tell if it was with rage or amusement.
“You’ll see,” he said, turning his gaze towards a bar that had been set up in the middle of the limo. “Care for a drink?”
I considered for a moment, then nodded. One drink couldn’t hurt, and it would definitely help me get the edge I needed to keep up pretending that I was totally unmoved by him; it wasn’t even the money, per say, that was so overwhelming to me.
It was him, the way he looked, his eyes. They were so clear and piercing, like he could see right through you. It was his voice too, the way every word sounded like a command. He was so unlike the nice, gentle, absolutely boring guys I knew. He made me want to take risks, step outside myself, explore feelings that I had always pushed to the side…
This realization came to me as I watched him pouring whiskey into two tumblers. He hadn’t asked me what I’d wanted, and he didn’t ask if I wanted ice, he just handed me the tumbler wordlessly. Chasing the thoughts from my brain, I stared into the drink and then up at him.
“You know, I don’t really drink whiskey, and when I do I like it over ice,” I said pointedly.
“This is Glennfidditch, barrel aged whiskey. You don’t drink this with ice. You don’t complain when someone pours you a glass of this. Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass with mine. I looked at him, unable to hide the shock on my face. No one ever spoke to me that way.
I took a sip of the whiskey, knowing I’d need a lot of this liquid courage to get through the night. Even while I felt stung by the harsh way he had spoken to me, I had to admit that his attitude was attractive, in a very macho way. What are you even thinking! He just talked to you like a disobedient child! My brain screamed at me. And yet, I felt more embarrassed than infuriated.
“Shall we start with business, or pleasure?” David asked, fixing me in his cold gaze. I started slightly.
“What?”
“Well, I don’t imagine you want to spend the entire limo ride and dinner just talking finances. We could talk about other things. If you wanted to,” he said with a shrug. I couldn’t see much out of the limo’s tinted windows, but I could tell that we had already left the town limits. Turning to David, whose eyes I had been able to feel on the back of my head while I’d been looking out the window, I shrugged.
“What sort of things would you want to talk about?” I asked, not sure what I could possibly have in common with a Manhattan billionaire.
“We could talk about you,” he said, more of a command than a suggestion. I had to laugh.
“I’m not very interesting. Especially…well, I’d say especially compared to the girls you’re probably used to,” I replied, blushing as the last bit, which had kind of flew out of my mouth without me thinking it. I looked down at the glass of whiskey and saw that it was half-empty already. Time to slow down, Jenny, I thought to myself.
“I think you are very interesting,” he said with his piercing stare. I blushed even harder. To hell with it, I thought and took another gulp of whiskey.
The drink made me feel light-headed and careless, but my mind still swam with questions. What the hell is this? What is going on? Why is he…interested in me? Is he just trying to woo me into selling the bar to him? Pretending to be interested in my life, getting me liquored up, hoping that I drunkenly sign away the bar?
That seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a one-horse town, when there were surely thousands of other little towns on the East Coast that could work just as well. But for all I knew, that was just how billionaires got their kicks: filling little girls’ heads with promises of the finer things, just to take advantage of them in the end. I decided to play it safe.
“Let’s start with business,” I said, aware that my words were coming out a little bit slurred. Right at that moment, the limo stopped. I heard the driver exiting, but I opened the door myself, wanti
ng to show just how unfazed I was by David’s enormous wealth. When I saw where we were, I looked back at him, confused.
We weren’t at a restaurant; we were at a dock. I recognized it, of course, as the docks a few towns over, where all the people who actually had money kept their boats. The docks back home were full of rusty fishing boats and dinghies; these boats were gorgeous yachts that towered over you as you walked down the pier. I remembered my parents had taken me here once, a long time ago, on a nice summer day, just to look at the sailboats on the water.
“Nice to visit, but a pain in the ass to live here,” my father had said, gesturing to the large houses dotting the shoreline. That was so typical of Dad; humble to a fault.
David didn’t say anything to answer my quizzical look, just motioned for me to exit the limo. I did, accepting the driver’s outstretched hand only because I wasn’t sure I was quite sober enough to keep my dress from sliding up as I slid out.
I wobbled slightly as I stood on the wooden dock. David exited the limo and began striding down the pier without a word. The driver winked at me again and closed the door to the backseat before returning to the driver’s side door. There wasn’t anything for me to do but follow.
“Where are we going?” I called out from behind. David did not look back or slow down.
“There aren’t any restaurants worth a damn out here. If you’d let me buy your bar, I could change that. But since you are so adamant in your refusal, I thought I would at least show you what you’re missing out on. I won’t press you, but this is something you could have whenever you wanted it,” he called back over his shoulder. I felt my irritation flare up at the mention of selling the bar, but my curiosity was too strong to keep quiet.
“What do you mean? What is this?” I was walking quickly to try and catch up to him, and when I finally did he did not acknowledge me in the slightest.
“I had my chef flown in. I rented us a yacht. We will eat on the lake,” he said calmly.
“You expect me to just get on a boat with you? I just met you,” I protested. From the strong whiskey to his “interest” in me to the proposal to go out, alone, into the middle of the lake with him, I was beginning to feel a little like prey. David turned to me, and for once his eyes showed something other than coldness for more than a few moments. He looked sincere.
“We won’t be alone. You can trust me, Ms. Pitch. I am a man with a lot to lose. I do not do things that could cost me. If you don’t feel comfortable, though, we can go to one of the ‘restaurants’ in this town. You will be missing out on quite a meal, though,” he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice when he said the word “restaurant”. I bristled slightly at that, but I was also captivated by the way he was looking at me.
He looked like a real human for the first time since I’d met him. I felt a little silly about my worries; after all, he was right. He could have a lot to lose if he were to do something improper, something that I could use against him. And if we wouldn’t be alone, and if he’d gone through all that trouble, and if there was more of that very, very good whiskey on the boat…
“I’m sorry. Okay. Thank you, that was very sweet of you, to arrange this, even though I’m not budging on the bar,” I said. He began walking again, and I followed, taking two steps for each of his. I remembered again just how tall he was as I looked up at his face. Finally, we reached a brightly-lit boat hung with small, yellow lights.
There was a man waiting at the bow and once we came into view underneath the boat he disappeared, only to reappear through a doorway built into the side of the yacht. Offering me his hand, he helped me walk over the wide gap between the dock and the staircase that led up to the deck. David followed, nodding to the man, who was wearing a tuxedo and white gloves. I couldn’t help but shake my head in wonder.
Of all the things I had ever expected to happen in my life, this is the one thing I could never have predicted: to be helped onto a yacht by a butler. What’s more, I was being helped onto a yacht that had been rented out just for me to eat a personally cooked dinner with a Manhattan billionaire. These were not things that should be happening to little Jenny Pitch of Cuyahaga High School, president of the yearbook, homecoming court regular, baseball-star-dating, small-town Ohioan. I was good at being Jenny Pitch. I wasn’t sure I could ever be good at being rich.
As I walked up the stairs onto the deck, I was struck by the view. The Oneonik Lake looked beautiful with the stars and moon reflected on its still waters. The homes around the lake were like strings of Christmas lights hung around the landscape, a garland of warmth in the dark night. It was cool, but not chilly, and the gentle breezes caused my dress to flap slightly around my legs.
As I stood, admiring everything, I heard David speaking to the butler. Before I even knew it, I was being handed another glass of the fine whiskey we had been drinking in the limo. David came and stood next to me as the yacht began to pull away from the dock. He didn’t look at me, but at the landscape.
“This town is called Rochester, is it not?” He said, still not looking at me.
“Yeah, this town is Rochester. It’s the wealthiest in the county,” I said absently.
“All the other towns have Native American names. Not this one,” he said, taking a long sip of his whiskey. I turned to him, surprised that he might actually be interested in the area.
“Yes, that’s because Rochester was settled by the English. They did not like to borrow from the indigenous people like the Dutch did. The Dutch, they are the ones who settled the other towns around here,” I said, calling up my impressive history of the Cuyahaga region.
“Local History” was my favorite elective in high school. Because I was good at it, largely, because my family had been there so long, and been such huge influences on the area. The Pitches were very proud of their impact on the community, and tales told at holidays and at bedtime often centered around the history of the region.
“Most people don’t know much about where they are from. It’s impressive, your dedication. People do not know that Manhattan was once Native American land. They do not know that the Hamptons were once Native American land. They just think it’s always been full of rich Anglo-Saxons. The history is really much richer,” David mused. It seemed like he was just thinking aloud.
“My family is very invested in our town, and the whole area. That’s why I won’t sell you the bar. It’s too important to turn into a tourist draw,” I said, taking a long sip from my own glass.
“You know, Ms. Pitch, I could just build my own bar. It wouldn’t be hard. It would be cheaper, even, than buying yours. I was hoping that by buying yours that I could preserve it. Will there be room, do you think, for a local dive, if the town does, in fact, become a destination?”
“I thought you weren’t going to press me. If this whole night is going to be about…”
“No, no, I won’t speak of it anymore. I just wanted you to consider that. And to know my intentions were not wholly selfish. If I decide to move forward with my plans, I won’t need The Leaky Lifeboat. It will happen regardless of what you want,” he said, turning me for the first time and fixing me in his stare.
“So, you’re saying that no matter what I do, you’re just going to go ahead and turn my town into a fucking tourist trap? Why would you tell me that? What do you think you’ll gain? We’ll fight you tooth and nail, by the way. Just because you’ve got all this money doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. We like our town the way it is,” I said, getting riled up.
This was exactly what I should have known would happen: he wasn’t interested in me at all! He didn’t want to help me, he just wanted to throw it in my face that I couldn’t do anything to stop him. He wanted to try and convince me that the best thing I could do for myself and for the town was to sell him the bar.
“Maybe you should turn this boat around, David. I get it now. I get your angle. I’m not having it,” I said, nearly spitting my words at him.
“Alright, alright, we won’
t discuss it anymore. I don’t know, yet, whether or not I will move forward, anyway. You might just convince me otherwise. I really am impressed by your dedication. It’s truly…eye-opening. But you’re right, this is not the conversation we should be having. I said I would help you keep the bar afloat. So let’s talk about business, Ms. Pitch. What do you know?” He said, looking at me.
I saw again that genuine look in his eye that had convinced me to get on the yacht on the first place, but this time I wasn’t sure I could really trust it. He noticed my hesitation and his brow wrinkled slightly. “If you truly want to go back, we can. I will just take you home.”
I sighed. There wasn’t much point in that. I already had a stomach full of whiskey, and I was hungry. That might sound like a really dumb excuse, but what woman hasn’t agreed to go out on a date just because she was kind of hungry? But the question remained: how honest should I be?
I looked at him and decided I didn’t have much to lose by telling him the whole truth. What could he do with the knowledge that I actually knew nothing about running a bar? Campaign against me around town? As if anyone in the town would actually side with some New York City hotshot over one of their down-home dolls.
“Not much. I don’t know how to run a bar,” I said, but quickly added “but I’m doing okay so far.”
David nodded, as though it was the answer he was expecting.
“What does ‘doing okay’ mean, exactly?”
“It means I’m still turning a profit,” I said, with a hint of pride. After all, for someone who had just been thrown into a situation I couldn’t really handle, I was proud of not running the place into the ground.
“What is your staff like?” The question threw me off guard a bit.
“Uhm, we have two bartenders and the chef. Bartenders alternate nights, both of them on weekends. And I help out everywhere,” I said.