by Kyra Davis
I make my first hundred-thousand-dollar sale after three weeks.
And I get commission. It’s a good gig.
Plus, as it turns out, Jessica isn’t as cautious about her security as Travis is (not that his precautions are going to do him a lot of good in the end). She doesn’t change the passwords for her email after I leave her employ. So I check it regularly, looking for any hints that there might be trouble in the Gable household—new trouble, that is. But I also look at her invitations to events. And when she declines an invitation to an art opening at one of New York’s premier galleries, I crash that party.
It’s so easy. I just put on a cocktail dress—not too flashy but just sexy enough to sweet-talk the guy at the door into believing that I belong there. And really, what does he care anyway? It’s just a gallery showing.
Blending in is easy, I’ve been studying the ways of New York’s elite for years. So I just stand back, position myself perfectly, exchange a few words with one guest, then another, kind of like a jaguar gently tapping the surface of the water, luring the fish to come to her. And they do come. Perhaps it’s not a surprise, but it turns out I’m very good at engaging people, pulling them in, gaining their trust, making them want the things I want them to want.
And what I want is for them to enhance their lives by purchasing very rare books.
Within a week of that event three of the men I spoke to and one of the women come in to Callow’s. The woman ends up spending more than a thousand dollars. Two of the men spend over ten thousand dollars each. The third man asks me to help him build a collection of literature and letters from the Napoleonic era.
It’s sort of amazing. It honestly never occurred to me that I might be able to use the skills I’ve been cultivating toward a legitimate business endeavor!
Mandy is ecstatic.
By the second month of employment I decide that it’s time to put down a first and last on a new apartment. Still in Harlem, but in the nice part of Harlem. And the place is cute. It’s a small, sunny one-bedroom that I fill with decent used furniture along with a few Ikea bookcases. I frame the picture of my mother and me. I actually hang things on the walls. One poster is a picture made up of the words of Jane Eyre. Brontë’s words are used to create the outline of the book’s protagonists, locked in an embrace.
Another poster is of the Roman goddess Bellona, goddess of war.
I really like my new place.
All the good things in my life, they’re almost enough to distract me from the fact that my enemies are unwittingly getting closer and closer to their downfall.
But it’s nowhere near enough to distract me from thinking about Lander. Every day I wait for him to come into the bookstore. I wait for him to call, email, reach out to me in some way. But for the first month there’s nothing. Then another week passes, then another month. Each day that passes without him adds an element of tension to my otherwise tranquil new life, a drop of longing to balance out whatever satisfactions my employment may bestow on me.
I miss him. I miss him in a way that I didn’t think possible. I miss him almost as much as I miss my mother.
After fourteen weeks I can’t stand it anymore. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of my apartment I call his cell, yearning to just hear him say my name.
I get his voice mail.
And my heart drops.
Still, I close my eyes tight and listen to his voice telling me he is unavailable, thinking about the times when that same voice was whispering in my ear, telling me something quite different. When the beep finally comes, I’m discombobulated and unprepared. “Hi . . .” I say awkwardly as I try to figure out what’s safe to say and what’s forbidden. “I . . . I just wanted to tell you . . . I wanted you to know . . .”
I want you.
“. . . that Callow’s has a new collection of letters by Winston Churchill . . .”
I love you.
“. . . they’re in beautiful condition, each signed by his own hand. If you would like to make an appointment to see them, I’ll be at the store every day this week except Thursday . . .”
Please come back to me.
“. . . Of course, if Thursday’s the only day you’re available, I can come in. We can make a private appointment for you to peruse the collection.”
I just want you back.
When I hang up my hand is shaking.
It’s pathetic really, almost inexplicable. After all, I should be used to being alone. Why is it so difficult now? Why has he done this to me? Living with anger had been motivating. But living with unrequited love? That’s devastating.
And now, how can I not believe that it’s unrequited? How else could he walk away so easily?
He had warned me: There has never been a woman who has loved a Gable man who hasn’t lived to regret it. Even when we don’t mean to, we always end up crushing whatever heart has been handed to us.
If only I had been able to hear him. If only I hadn’t handed him my heart.
It’s not until the next day that I finally get a response to my call. I’m at Callow’s; the store is empty as it often is. We’re not a high-traffic place. I’m sitting at a table, letting my fingers dangle over the handwritten words of Napoléon, trying to understand his power to mesmerize and destroy by the slant of his cursive, when Mandy approaches me, a broad smile on her face.
“I have a call for you,” she says, “from the office of Mr. Lander Gable.”
In a second I’m on my feet, gladly abandoning a dictator for my captain of industry. I snatch up the phone and press it to my ear. “Lander?”
“Um, no, this is Darlene Simon, Mr. Gable’s personal assistant. Is this Adoncia Jiménez?”
I can’t move. It’s like someone has poured ice-cold water down my throat. It’s freezing my insides so that everything shivers and aches. “His personal assistant?” I repeat.
“Yes, Mr. Gable received your call that you have a few new original letters of Winston Churchill? Mr. Gable is quite interested. Will these be sold as a collection or individually?”
“It’s . . . it’s a collection. A correspondence between him and the postwar Lord Chancellor of Britain.” She sounds old. Is she old? Maybe over sixty?
“I see. And which chancellor would that be exactly? Oh, and can you tell me how many letters there are in the collection?”
“Twelve, six from Churchill, and six replies by the chancellor.” She sounds ugly too. Old and ugly.
“Wonderful, would you mind sending some more information about the pieces over to me? Do include the chancellor’s name. He’ll be needing that. And please include a photo and pricing information. Mr. Gable may not be able to make it into your establishment, but he feels confident that anything you would sell him will be of the highest quality and live up to its description. He thinks very highly of you, Ms. Jiménez.”
I feel like the world is eroding under my feet, like I’m about to fall and be buried in bits of rubble and dust.
On my dinner break I wander the streets of the city, letting the sound of rush-hour traffic wash over me, hoping that the chaos of horns and curses of frustrated drivers will somehow distract me from the chaos inside. There are things I have to think about, and it’s not just my heart.
I’ve heard nothing about an investigation into HGVB. Not one article. Not one word.
My mind travels back to the first night that Lander gained my trust. I was on the verge of killing him, literally. I had clawed at his skin, pounded his flesh. I was ready for violence.
And then Lander told me a story. A story about his saintly mother, about his evil father and brother, a story about his own desire for revenge and a story about his desire to seek it with me.
It was a good story. Every bit as good as the fairy tales my mother told me when I was little. I believed in those stories. A big part of me still does. I believe . . . or at least I want to believe, that there are people who really do live the fairy tale. It’s just that those people aren’t me. My path is differ
ent.
The story Lander told me had fit me better. It’s a good story.
I stand in front of a movie theater, staring blankly at the poster for an upcoming horror flick. When I was a teen I saw The Sixth Sense. I spent the first 90 percent of the film thinking that Bruce Willis’s character was an idiot. What kind of psychiatrist follows his patient around? He was practically stalking him! And then the movie ended with a twist, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know Bruce Willis’s character at all. I hadn’t even understood the true nature of the movie I had been watching. Nothing was as I thought it was at all.
Odd, that I should think of that now.
chapter twenty-seven
* * *
When I get back to Callow’s, Mandy gets up from her desk, clearly excited. “Oh good, you’re back! A gentleman is here to see you; he just went back to look at some of our framed letters and photos.”
My stomach does a little flip, but then I realize, if the gentleman was Lander, Mandy would have said so. It must be one of the other clients I’ve been working with. Disappointed, I make my way to the back room . . .
. . . and then stop short as I see who it is.
Micah turns to me with a giant, welcoming grin and wide-open arms. “Sweet! It’s been too long!”
“Micah,” I say, stretching out the name. He pulls me into a bear hug, giving me a hard pat on the back.
“This place is brilliant!” he says excitedly. “You have documents of Thomas Cromwell, the Kangxi Emperor, and King George here! You have an actual letter written by Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia! The real-life inspiration for Count Dracula! All kept in exquisite condition. Pristine! And look at this! A personal letter and signed photo of Albert Einstein! The creator of the theory of relativity! The father of modern physics! That,” he says, pointing dramatically at Einstein, “is one smart motherfucker.”
“What are you doing here, Micah?” I whisper, looking over my shoulder to make sure that Mandy isn’t within hearing distance.
“I missed you, Sweet. I haven’t talked to you since you abruptly left Travis’s employ and started to use your real name. Bit of a switch for you, isn’t it?” he notes as he continues to peruse the room with his eyes. “Although, I can see why after working for Travis you might long to be surrounded by the work of Vlad the Impaler.”
“I just had enough,” I say quietly. “Travis was awful to work for and Lander . . . Well, you were right about him.”
“What, you mean in regards to his being like his brother?” he asks distractedly as he pulls out a book from the shelf.
“In a way, yes, that’s basically what I mean.”
“Well, they’re both Edmund’s sons, aren’t they? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and all that.” He holds up the book he’s currently looking at. “Maya Angelou. Now there’s a woman who knew how to write! Beautiful, aching prose that will rip you to shreds. If those elitist pricks over at Columbia didn’t have their heads shoved up their own arseholes she’d have been given at least three Pulitzers before she died.”
“Are you in the market for a book?”
He shrugs, puts the book back, and pulls out another. “One never knows. I really wish you had spoken to me before you quit your last job.”
I straighten my posture and clasp my hands behind my back. “Was that necessary?”
“Necessary? Maybe not. It would have been polite, though. You knew I was counting on you to keep an eye on your boss. For you to just up and quit without so much as giving me fair warning, well, it hurt my feelings, Sweet. I expect my friends to show me a little more consideration than that.”
“I . . . I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No, no, of course you didn’t,” he says with a big smile. “It’s funny, though. Travis swears up and down that he didn’t meet with Javier and Edmund without me. Edmund swears to it too.”
“Oh?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady, which is hard because I’m beginning to realize that I may be on very shaky ground.
“Javier says he’s so offended by my lack of trust he now doesn’t trust me, like I’m trying to hide something by distracting him with accusations . . . Of course, they could all be lying.”
“I can’t imagine any of them are known for their honesty,” I say with a forced laugh.
“Good point.” He pulls out yet another book. Every move is so casual and nonchalant it’s terrifying. “Faulkner,” he notes. “This philandering piss-artist gets two Pulitzers and my girl Maya gets none. What kind of fucked-up world do we live in?”
“Are you still worried about what Javier’s up to? I mean . . . his pharmacy?” Should I have responded to his comment about Faulkner? Am I playing this right?
“Hmm?” He flips through the Faulkner before putting it back in apparent disgust. “No, no. I haven’t seen any evidence of that so far. No evidence of that and no evidence that he met with the Gables without me. Except of course your word on that, right, Sweet? You are swearing to that, aren’t you?” He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and cocks his head to the side. “You wouldn’t lie to an old friend, would you?”
“No.” The word comes out as a whisper.
“That’s what I figured,” he says, his smile returning as he again turns his attention back to the room. “I can see why you’d want to work here. You know, if you had called me I would have helped you make up some work experience.”
“Thank you, but, um, it wasn’t necessary.”
“They didn’t have a problem with your lack of an education?” he asks, now studying an engraved portrait of Ulysses S. Grant. “The fact that you don’t have a four-year degree . . . You don’t, right? Just junior college if I remember correctly.”
“They decided to take a chance on me.” I hate that he’s handling these books. Hate that someone I fear is touching something I love.
“Did they? Well, that’s generous of them. I like that.” He moves to the next framed photo. “The person who does the hiring, she’s a woman, yes?”
“Yes, it’s . . .” My voice trails off as I rethink the wisdom of telling him that the person who hired me is actually sitting in the front portion of the store, ready to be interrogated. “It was a woman,” I finally finish.
“She a lesbian?”
“I’m capable of getting a job without sleeping with my employer,” I say tersely. Yes, Micah, make me angry. Give me some rage to get me through this.
“Uh-huh. So, not a lesbian.” He moves on to the next frame. “Bloody hell, is that really a letter from Thomas Jefferson?” He leans in closer. “Well, for forty-eight thousand dollars I believe it is.” He looks at me. “Or at least the price tag makes the lie more believable.”
I step forward, resting my weight on the back of a wooden chair near the center of the room, and look at the frame myself. “I didn’t know you were so interested in American history and literature.”
“No? It’s interesting how there are so many things we don’t know about each other, isn’t it?”
He turns, locks me in his gaze. “I did tell you that I have some legitimate business with the Gables, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I say softly. “You did.”
“And I told you not to interfere with that.”
I nod, no longer able to speak. Where is my anger? Where is my strength? How the fuck do I get out of this?
“Did you interfere with it, Sweet?”
“Micah, I’m here because I’m done with the Gables. I don’t want anything to do with them at all. I know they didn’t hurt my mother now and—”
“You know what I find fascinating about people?” he asks, cutting me off.
I shake my head. I want to sit down in the chair but I know I can’t afford to look any weaker than I already do.
“I find it fascinating that when people don’t want to say something they almost always end up saying too much. They never embrace the right to stay silent, they just keep talking around the answer to the question they’ve been
asked in a rather transparent attempt to distract the person asking the question.”
“I didn’t interfere with your business, or Travis’s business,” I say steadily. “The Gables are no longer on my radar.”
“Uh-huh. How’d you get this job?”
“I . . .” But I falter. The lies aren’t coming as easily these days. I’m out of practice. Outside the room I hear approaching footsteps. Mandy? A customer? One of Micah’s men? I’m too scared to even turn around and look.
“Am I interrupting?”
The sound of that voice is almost enough to make me lose my balance entirely.
It’s the voice of Lander.
My first impulse is to literally throw myself into his arms, press my lips against his, and give him a welcome suitable for a soldier returning from war. But I manage to hold myself back. And then, slowly, the full implications and complications of the timing of his appearance weigh on me. I don’t know how to react. I just told Micah that I didn’t want anything to do with Lander. On the other hand, I certainly don’t want Mandy to see me being rude to the man she hired me to serve. I feel backed into a corner and there’s literally no graceful way out of this.
And yet, it’s Lander. To have him right here and not be able to tell him off for abandoning me for so long, or question him about the ugly suspicions that have been dancing in my mind of late . . .
. . . to not be able to hold him.
It’s not fair. None of this is fair.
And it’s also very dangerous.
My eyes slide to Micah, who is now in my peripheral vision. His hands are back in his pockets as if he’s relaxed, casual.
But he’s not. He jaw is tense and he’s leaning forward just slightly, as if he is on the verge of an attack.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” Micah says slowly.
In response, Lander looks at Micah. “Hello. I don’t believe we’ve ever been introduced.” Lander’s wearing a gray suit with a lighter gray shirt; the tie he must have been wearing earlier has already been discarded. The look is expensive, and yet something about how he wears it, how he carries himself, is not quite civilized.