The Deal Breaker

by Cat Carmine

  Someday, maybe I could come back for her. Someday, I’d earn enough that I’d never have to worry about what kind of car I drove or what kind of suit I bought or where I was going to find dinner. Someday I’d be the kind of man that she deserved. Someday, I’d come back for her.

  And all I could do was pray that she didn’t hate me. Pray that whatever we had could stand the time and the distance between now and then. Pray that this hole in my heart doesn’t completely consume me. Pray that my future was one with Rori in it.

  I couldn’t imagine not loving her. I just had to become the man she deserved first.

  Thirty-Seven

  On Thursday, Mom, Dad and Blake all pile into the car to drop Emma and I off at the train station. It’s been nice hiding out at my parents’ for a few days, and Kyla’s been great about letting me work remotely, but it’s time for Emma and I to get back to our own apartment and the rest of our lives. Even if it seems like I barely have any idea what my real life is anymore.

  It’s still early in the day so the train is busy with long-haul commuters who live out here but work in New York City. We look out of place amidst the suits and briefcases, since we’re dressed like we just rolled out of bed. Which, to be fair, we did.

  I haven’t slept much since I’ve been out here though. I spend most nights staring at the bedroom ceiling and listening to Emma breathe as she slept in the other twin bed, her breath coming in short quiet little puffs. No snoring for Emma The Perfect, of course. Why couldn’t I be more like her?

  My eyes are burning this morning and I have a queasy feeling in my stomach. I don’t know if it’s from too many nights of not enough sleep or if it’s the thought of going back to the city. I’ve lived in New York for over seven years, but the city feels like Wes’s domain now. After all, he’s had a hand in half of Manhattan’s development projects over the last ten years. Wes is building the city — I just live there.

  I keep replaying the conversation at the wedding over and over in my head, especially when I’m laying awake in bed at night. The look on Wes’s face when I figured out what he was doing. The way he didn’t even try to deny any of it. The literal shattering sound as my heart broke into a thousand pieces.

  And when my mental viewing station gets bored of that channel, it switches to the other one. The one where I’m having dinner with my family and finding out that Wes had grown up in foster care. That I’d never really known him the way I thought I did. That one comes complete with the sound of the shattered pieces of my heart getting ground down into a fine powder.

  At the station, I give my parents and Blake tight hugs and then Emma and I board the train. We find seats and slump down into them. I put my earbuds in right away, because I’m not in the mood to make chitchat with my sister for the next two hours. Luckily she does the same. I stare out the window and she leans her head back and closes her eyes and we pass the ride in silence.

  At some point later, I’m jolted out of my trance by the feel of Emma’s hand on my wrist. I look over at her and see her holding out a tissue to me. I blink in confusion and she points to my face. When I reach up and touch my cheek I find it wet with tears. I hadn’t even noticed I was crying.

  I take the tissue and dab at my eyes, wiping up the mess that my face has become.

  “Do you want to talk?” Emma says. I can barely hear her through my headphones. I think about ignoring her, but then I sigh and slip the buds out of my ears and pause the music.

  “This is about Wes, right?”

  I nod.

  “And not just the stuff Mom told us at dinner, right?”

  I shake my head this time. Twist my hands in my lap. Run my thumb over the smooth screen of my phone. Let out a shaky sigh.

  “Wes and I have been ... seeing each other? I guess? I know it was stupid and I don’t think we meant for it to happen but we just ...” I trail off and shrug. I brace myself for the inevitable Miss Emma lecture, but my sister’s face stays soft and open.

  “I kinda thought so,” she admits.

  “You did?”

  She nods. “You had that look about you.”

  “How did I look?” I ask suspiciously.

  “Happy.”

  “Oh.” My stomach bottoms out for a second, like I’m free falling. Then I hit the ground. Hard. “Well, look how well that worked out.”

  “So ... do you want to tell me about it?”

  I shrug. I look out the window again and watch the trees go by in a blur outside. The train passes right through Bridgeport and Stamford and I imagine all the people in their little houses, living their lives and doing their thing. It’s weird to think about that sometimes, that everyone in the world is out there, just like you, trying to live their lives and be happy. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you get a happy ending and sometimes you get … this.

  “Rori?” Emma touches my wrist again. I brush away another stray tear.

  I turn to face her again. Her brown hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and even without make-up on, her face looks perfect. Her skin is flawless, her eyebrows perfectly plucked. I’m sure in comparison I must look like a Troll Doll.

  But she’s my sister and the way she’s looking at me now is with nothing but compassion. None of the judgement I was bracing myself for. This is the Emma that people write to, not the one who dishes out bitchy advice. And who knows, maybe this is the real Emma, the one underneath the polished exterior. The one with the heart big enough for strangers and all their weird and wonderful problems. The one with the heart big enough for her screw-up of a sister.

  So I do something that surprises both of us. I lean my head on her shoulder.

  She hesitates for a second and then pets my hair.

  “You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”

  I sniffle. “I’m not sure I ever fell out of love with him,” I admit.

  “Oh Rori.”

  “That’s not even the worst part.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I take a deep breath and then I tell her the rest of it — about the GoldLake project and Wes’s real reason for contacting me last month. Emma doesn’t say a word while I’m telling the story and she’s quiet when I’m done too.

  “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

  “No, not at all! Rori, no.” She actually sounds surprised at the thought.

  “But he’s a jackass,” I sniffle, trying to smile.

  “Well, yes. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  She shrugs. “I saw you guys together at the wedding. Blake and I were both talking about it. It certainly didn’t look like any of that was pretend for him. And knowing what he went through in the past — I don’t know, Rori. It makes me think about things differently, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Emma pauses, as if considering her words.

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from doing this advice column for the last few years, it’s that people never really escape their past,” she says. “You can grow up and you can change but you’ve always got a piece of your past self with you. It’s like a scar, you know? And for some people, that scar is tiny, like a little knick on your knee that you barely ever even think about. But for other people, the scar is deep and disfiguring, and it’s all they see when they look in the mirror.”

  I try to take in her words, but they make my chest ache. I dab at my eyes with the tissue again, and then try to smile at Emma.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re really smart?”

  She laughs. “Sometimes. Most of the time they just send me emails telling me that I’m a bitch and that I don’t understand their super special circumstances and that they can’t stop doing whatever it is I told them to stop doing because of reasons.”

  I giggle at that. “Well, I won’t tell you that. But even if you’re right about Wes, how can I be with someone who would do something like that?” I huff, flopping back against my seat. “This whole project,
which he pretended to be so passionate about, was actually just a PR spin so that he could tear down a community center without getting shit all over. That’s slimy. And being in foster care or whatever doesn’t excuse that.”

  “No, you’re right, it doesn’t,” she admits, but she still seems hesitant.

  “But...?” I prompt.

  “But it just doesn’t seem like Wes, that’s all. It doesn’t seem like he would intentionally hurt you. I’m not even sure he intentionally hurt you back then, and trust me, I never thought I’d say that.”

  I lean back and sigh. “Well, I think the lesson here is none of us really know Wes at all. That was made pretty clear this weekend. Over and over, in fact.“

  I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. Emma doesn’t say anything this time, and we pass the rest of the ride in silence.

  When we get back to the city, we go our separate ways. Emma goes back to the apartment to catch up on some work, but I go straight into the office. I know if I go home, I’ll spend the entire time moping around. At least if I’m at the office, I’ll have Kyla and work to distract me.

  I climb the stairs to our office with my suitcase clunking up the stairs behind me, feeling the temperature rise with every step. Buttercup rumbles under my feet as I climb.

  By the time I get to the top floor, I’m already drenched in sweat.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I mutter, collapsing into one of the chairs at the poker table.

  Kyla spins around in her chair. “You scared me! I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

  “I decided to come in anyway. Figured I might as well try to catch up on what I missed this week.”

  “So how was the wedding?”

  I weigh my answer. I’m not ready to tell Kyla about Wes — especially since that would mean admitting that I’ve been sleeping with client — so I plaster a smile on my face. “Really beautiful,” I say. That’s true at least. The wedding itself was beautiful.

  “Do you have pictures? I bet Celia looked amazing.”

  I dig out my phone and she pulls her chair over, and we spend the next little while going through every picture I took this weekend. Luckily I hadn’t snapped any of Wes. The only tense moment comes when I spot him in the background of the picture I took of the buffet, but Kyla doesn’t seem to notice, because she skims past the photo without saying anything.

  We only stop when my phone rings in Kyla’s hand. She hands it to me and I press it to my ear.

  “Rori Holloway.”

  “Hi Rori. It’s Mary Ellen Bishop.”

  “Hi.” I blank for a moment and have no clue who she is.

  “From Bulldog Rescue NYC.”

  Fuck. Right. Apparently this situation with Wes is making me braindead.

  “Of course,” I say, trying to sound smooth. “Hi Mary Ellen. What can I help you with?”

  “Oh, nothing today. I’m just calling to tell you you can come pick up your keychain anytime.”

  “My keychain?”

  “I heart bulldogs. From the sealed auction the other day.”

  Right. I smile. “Sorry, I think there must have been a mistake. I only bid on the paw print yoga mat. Did I win it?”

  “Sorry, no.” She chuckles. “But your friend Wes was the winner of the keychain and he said it was for you. Do you want to come pick it up? If you want I can hang on to it and give it to you next time we meet.”

  I rub my eyes. I’m too sleep-deprived for this.

  “Wes … won the keychain?”

  She laughs again. “Yes. Not that it was much of a competition. Fifty thousand dollars for a keychain is a first for us, I’ll tell you that. But, oh, Rori, that money is going to be such a help for us and the dogs. If you can think of anything we can do to thank him, please tell me.”

  “I will,” I stammer, even though my mind is cartwheeling. Fifty thousand dollars? Wes hadn’t let me see his bid, but never in my wildest dreams had I imagined he would bid that much. That’s …

  Incredibly generous, my brain whispers. I tell it to shush and go back to sleep.

  “Thanks Mary Ellen. I will. You can hold on to it for now, if you don’t mind. I think we’re meeting in a couple of weeks anyway.”

  “We sure are,” she says cheerfully. “Looking forward to it.”

  “Me too.” I hurry her off the phone and flop down into my chair.

  “What was that about?” Kyla asks.

  “Er, nothing.” Brilliant lie, Rori. Kyla is looking at me strangely now, but there’s too much to get into with her. Instead of answering, I pull my chair up to my computer and open my email. I have tons to catch up on, and an afternoon of throwing myself into work is exactly what I need right now.

  Thirty-Eight

  I force myself to watch the video again. And again. And again.

  It’s the video Rori and Kyla made for their GoldLake presentation. It has Rori written all over it. Her compassion, her empathy, her … goodness. Right now, it feels like the only thing I have left of her.

  But it’s Maria’s story that makes my throat feel tight. Each time her words come through the screen, I feel shittier. And I keep watching it, just to torture myself. Because I deserve to feel like shit. I’ve made a complete fucking mess of this whole situation.

  Rori hasn’t spoken to me since the wedding. I’ve called, left messages, sent texts, but she hasn’t returned a single one of them. I even stopped by her office, but Kyla told me she was spending a few days with her parents in Connecticut. That really drove home how much I’d hurt her. The woman couldn’t even stand to be in the same state as me.

  I scrub the video timeline back to the part where Maria talks about her husband’s death, how she struggled to go on after his loss. I think about Rori and what an ass I’ve been. Here I have the most perfect woman on the planet, alive and well and willing to work her ass off on a project she was passionate about — and I screw everything up.

  And for what? Money? What do I need more money for? I have enough money to live a hundred lifetimes. I have more money than I could have ever dreamed of, back when I was a dumb eighteen-year-old kid, sleeping in the back of my car. All I wanted back then was enough to not have to worry anymore. I wanted a comfortable life. I wanted to be able to provide for the woman I loved.

  Well, I had that and more after I’d earned my first million. Everything beyond that was greed. Ego. Something to prove to myself — or maybe everyone else — that I had made it. That I was really someone.

  But what’s the point of being someone if you don’t have anyone?

  That’s the thought that keeps rolling around in my head. That’s the reason I keep watching Maria’s video, listening to the way her voice cracks when she says her husband’s name. When she talks about her son Bruno, about wanting the best for him while watching him go to a public school that’s practically crumbling to the ground around him.

  “What the fuck are you watching?”

  Levi appears at my doorway, rolling his eyes at the tinkling piano music coming out of my laptop.

  “It’s a video Marigold made. To promote the hiring initiative.”

  “Oh?” He perks up. “Is it any good?”

  “It’s great.”

  “Let’s see.”

  I hesitate then reluctantly spin the laptop around. The last thing I want is for Levi to shit all over the video. I think I might punch him if he does.

  Levi slips into the chair opposite me as I start the video back at the beginning and hit play. He watches in silence, then chuckles when it gets to the emotional part where Maria talks about her husband.

  “Laying it on a bit thick, huh?” He shakes his head. “Good. People eat that shit up.”

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. At least he shuts up. I watch him as the rest of the video plays. A frown comes over his face and he looks up at me.

  “Is that the community center? The one we’re going to be tearing down?”

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  “That’s hilariou
s!” Levi slaps his thigh. “So this woman we hired to distract people from our development project actually lives and works in the place we’re going to be tearing down.”

  “Yeah.” I shift in my seat.

  Levi is nearly doubled over now. “Oh my God. You can’t make this stuff up. That is priceless.”

  “Priceless? That isn’t the word I would use. It’s a fucking disaster.”

  He sits up, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. “Oh, come on, Wes. Have a sense of humor. This is dramatic irony at its finest.”

  My fists are clenching, but I keep them buried in my lap on the other side of the desk. Restrained. “Then you have a pretty sick sense of humor. I think this is what I’d call a clusterfuck.”

  Levi waves his hand dismissively. “Wes, this is not a big deal.”

  “It’s not?” That’s news to me.

  “Of course not. We’ll just fire her.”

  I sit up straight. “What?”

  “Come on. We can’t have her working here. You said yourself it’s bad.”

  “Yes, but the solution isn’t to fire her.”

  “Why not? She’s only been here a couple of weeks. I’m sure she’ll find something else.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  He leans back in his chair, studying me. “I’m not going to.”

  “Good.” I start to relax , before he speaks again.

  “You are.”

  My stomach bottoms out. I’m already shaking my head. “No. Not happening.”

  “Wes.”

  “We’ll find a way to make this work.”

  Levi and I have never really argued about a business decision before. We’ve disagreed before, but never for long. We’ve both always had the same vision for the company — that the deal is the thing. We do whatever it takes to seal the deal, to succeed. It didn’t matter what that entailed. There was no cost — financial or human or otherwise — that was too great, as long as it meant it got us closer to our goals. The business was ruthless and we thrived on that. We were the most cutthroat in the industry and everyone knew it.