Strings Attached

by Nick Nolan

  “What trust?”

  “What trust? Good Lord, that woman! She’s kept you in the dark about everything, hasn’t she?”

  “I guess…”

  “I’ll explain the Tyler Trust to you with the assistance of the family attorneys at a later time. Suffice to say that this coming March you will be a wealthy young man. But please allow me to finish my story.”

  The waitress returned to deliver Katharine’s wine and to refill his tea. Jeremy watched his aunt skewer a plump pink shrimp with her fork, swirl it in some dressing, and pop it in her mouth without a sound, chewing noiselessly while dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the end of the napkin that she kept anchored on her lap with her other hand. And suddenly, he felt far away, as if he were watching this event on television. A wealthy young man, she had just said. A wealthy young man. Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Overcooked,” she remarked, then threw back a swig of her freshened wine.

  “As I was saying, the divorce proceedings began, and the custody battle ensued. Because your father had gallantly opposed a prenuptial, your mother was entitled to half his assets. Fortunately, your father’s financial advisors had invested his share of the trust well before the marriage, and the dissolution of these numerous investments would have taken considerable time. Our attorneys astutely suggested your mother might be happier with a cash settlement, which could be dispensed immediately.

  “Of course, she opted for the payoff, which at the time was in the neighborhood of $200,000. Little had she known that if she’d waited three months for even a partial dissolution, she would have been set for the rest of her life—although with the way she ran through money, she would’ve eventually become destitute. It was like she was determined to make a shambles out of her life.

  “And with the property having been settled, the only battle left was over the custody of you, my dear. Our private investigator had dredged up some interesting facts about your mother—about her indiscretions and such, which I won’t embarrass you with. There even seemed to be some question as to whether or not you were Jonathan’s son, but one look at you told your lineage better than a blood test. You had just turned two and were the spitting image of your father at the same age, just as you are now at seventeen.

  “Our attorneys felt that they had the case against your mother sewn up tight, and the final court date to grant custody was set.

  “What happened next was terrible; it took me years to stop blaming myself. I should have demanded that he not go see her that night, and I’ve asked myself a thousand times why I did not.”

  “The accident?” asked Jeremy.

  “Yes, the accident, only it wasn’t. On the Friday night before the court date, your father went up to our chalet in Lake Estrella to try to work things out one last time with Tiffany. And don’t ask me why, because his life finally seemed to be in order; he’d been accepted to Harvard and was dating this beautiful girl from a good family that lived down the road in Castellamare, Kimberly Van-Something. And it looked as if the courts would agree that I should raise you as I had Jonathan, at least until he could finish college and set himself up professionally. For the first time since throwing his life away on a girl who was so beneath him, the vision we’d had for Jonathan’s life appeared to be materializing.

  “There were no witnesses to the crash. It was late, and he’d just left Tiffany after visiting with her. The police concluded that his mishap was unfortunate, but rather routine for that infamous stretch of road. He had, the report stated, lost control around a curve and had gone over the edge of the mountainside, having narrowly missed the stretch of guardrail that might have saved his life. Your father was killed instantly, of course. Only…” her voice caught suddenly, her composure shattered by a burst of emotion. “…only I used to lie awake at night imagining what thoughts must have gone through his head as the car went over the side. Poor Jonathan, orphaned as a boy and then sailing over the edge into blackness to his own death. Dying all alone on that mountainside. It just devastates me even now to think of it!”

  Jeremy looked away as she used the ends of her napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes then blow her nose. He fidgeted in his chair, gathering the courage to ask the question he dreaded hearing the answer to.

  “So what makes you think his death…was my mother’s fault?”

  Moments passed before she answered. “Your father kept that car, that black Porsche, in perfect order, and he was an exceptional driver. In fact, I sent him to driving school. It was the only way I’d let him drive something so powerful. And the weather was clear—no rain, no fog, no snow.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “Of course, a deer might’ve jumped in front of him, and it would’ve been in keeping with his nature to avoid hitting a defenseless animal. The police offered that as a probable cause, because there were no tire tracks of another vehicle or any other evidence that pointed to his having had contact with another car. It’s just my intuition, and the timing of it all, that tells me he was murdered. That and the look on your mother’s face at Jonathan’s memorial.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tiffany had the same look on her face that Donna had at my brother’s funeral. The very picture of guilt, of regret, of deep grief for a man whose life she’d single-handedly ruined, all because of lust. It was evident to me that Tiffany had experienced all too clearly the consequences of her filthy greed: that beautiful young man who’d once loved her, or more correctly had once made love to her, was dead. And it wrecked her; you’ve seen the proof of it yourself all these years. Only, and you’ll forgive me for saying this, she hadn’t the strength of character to redeem herself the way Donna did, at least not as quickly or efficiently.”

  She paused, sighed, then pushed the virtually unmolested salad away from her and replaced it with her nearly empty glass of wine, which she stared at for a moment then drained unceremoniously.

  “You see, without Jonathan around, the courts had no choice but to award sole custody to her. So she took you and her settlement money to Fresno, claiming she wanted to bring you up in a more wholesome environment. I learned later that she’d followed some man there whom she had designs on, the son of some Armenian dairy owner, if memory serves. But Jeremy, dear, what I think…what I know is this: your mother is in some way responsible for your father’s death, for his murder. Don’t you see? It was she who murdered my son and stole my grandson, then made off with $200,000 of my money. Now you tell me who should hate whom!”

  No. His mother was a lot of things, and nobody knew this better than he did, but this was too much. How could it be true what Katharine was alleging? If she had been responsible, wouldn’t she have been found out? It made no sense to think that his mother, all by herself, could have pulled off the perfect murder.

  Jeremy saw his inebriated aunt sitting in the blazing afternoon sun, her tipsy mind reliving the details of devastating events nearly two decades past. And in spite of her weakened state, he saw a powerful woman righteously angry about having someone stolen from her whom she still dearly loved, a man she had just referred to as her son even though he was not, just as he himself was not her grandson. And he felt, deep within himself, the first great connection he’d ever felt with anyone: his aunt and he had both suffered deeply for the loss of his father. And now they could grieve together.

  “Aunt Katharine, let’s go home.”

  She nodded sluggishly, fished her phone from her purse, and then handed it over. “Press number two to call Arthur. Tell him we are at Jeffrey’s and that I am in no condition to drive. He’ll know what to do.”

  Chapter Ten

  A gang of belligerent seagulls on the balcony startled Jeremy from his afternoon nap; for a moment he didn’t know where he was, and it took a concerted effort to reorient himself and calm his pounding heart. And after his panic melted and it all started making sense again, he swung his feet to the floor and pushed himself up from the bed to stand before the windows, looking w
est. He saw that the October sun’s reflection on the western sea made twin fiery pumpkins: one hovering above, the other shimmering on the water. He turned and glanced at the clock.

  Good, he hadn’t missed dinner.

  He then left his room, having been drawn to the faraway drone of a vacuum cleaner. He followed the sound down a labyrinth of halls until he found Arthur propping up one corner of a delicate-looking antique sofa with his left shoulder as he shoved the complaining machine under it with his right hand.

  “Hey!” Jeremy shouted.

  “Hey,” Arthur replied, his concentration focused on a stubborn piece of lint.

  “When’s dinner?”

  “Hold on a minute.” He switched off the appliance and stared, doing his best to mask his amazement, at Jeremy from head to toe and back.

  Jonathan, back from the grave.

  “Well, I guess it’s true what they say about diamonds,” was what he said.

  “That they’re a girl’s best friend?” Jeremy asked.

  “No. That the rough ones polish up—and rather nicely I might add.” He reached down and unplugged the machine, then re-coiled the cord. “Really, Jeremy, you look great. You’ll do more than just fit right in with the young Ballena Beach elite, and I imagine you’ll turn more than a few heads.”

  “I’m used to that, only usually for the wrong reasons.”

  “You sell yourself short, young man. Certain things are always visible to the discerning eye—like intelligence, poise…and a swimmer’s build. But there’s no substitute for a decent haircut and tasteful clothes. Speaking of, how did that stuff fit that I picked out for you?”

  “Like, perfectly so far, but I haven’t tried on everything. How’d you know my sizes?”

  “I am a keen observer of the male form. Plus, I apprenticed as a tailor in one of my stabs at an earlier career.”

  “Before you were a butler?”

  “Yes, before I became a butler.”

  “What made you change?”

  “I fell in love, but that’s another opera. You’re too young.”

  “Yeah, like I’ll be eighteen in five months,” he declared. “Anyway, when’s dinner? I’m already starving. Aunt Katharine only ordered me some fish for lunch. It was stinky, so I didn’t eat it all.”

  “She ordered for you? Please tell me you were in the restroom when the waiter came.”

  “No, she said she wants to make sure I eat the right stuff. And she even wanted to have my hair cut a certain way and ordered a bunch of stuff for me from Banana, and she corrects the way I walk and the way I talk. It’s kind of driving me crazy.”

  “Figures.” Arthur nodded. “You have to understand that she wants to carve you into her vision of the man she thinks you should become, which means she probably wants you to be as much like your father as possible. And I can’t say I blame her. Your dad was quite a guy.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Not the way I wanted to, believe me,” he said, then smiled. “Just from afar. He was one of those amazing people with everything going for him, and I mean everything. He was smart, rich, gorgeous, athletic, popular, and the nicest guy you ever met. Everyone wanted to be his girlfriend or his…buddy. The swim meets were standing room only when he competed, and when he got his black Porsche for graduation, five other kids from Ballena Beach High traded in their cars for black Porsches. I graduated a couple of years ahead of him, but I heard about it when the whole scandal took place with Tiffany, with your mom getting pregnant, I mean. By the way, I’m sorry she’s in the hospital again.”

  “I’m not, but thanks anyway. So, can I get myself something to eat?”

  “Sure, but one more thing. Your aunt needs to remember that one of the best things about your dad was that he was nobody’s puppet—he made up his own mind about everything he did. Unfortunately, that became his downfall too. No pun intended.”

  “Huh?”

  “Bad joke. Just learn what you need to from her, and when the time’s right to stand on your own two feet, you’ll do it. So, what’re you hungry for?”

  “Can you make me a peanut butter and Fritos sandwich?”

  “No, but I can make one for you. Just go change your clothes before you spill on them; I’ll have your disgusting sandwich ready downstairs in five minutes—your wish is my command.”

  Arthur was arranging a corn chip happy face on one slice of the peanut-butter-smeared bread when Jeremy entered the kitchen wearing stiff new jeans, and a T-shirt with the packaging creases visible in a large grid across his torso.

  “I’m back, Arthur.”

  “I can see that.”

  “After I eat, could you show me around the house? I don’t want to get lost or walk in somewhere I shouldn’t. Maybe you could even show me the guesthouse where my parents lived.” He remembered what his aunt had alleged about his mom; maybe Arthur had an opinion on the matter. “And I have a lot of questions for you, when you have time.”

  “Sure. I don’t think your aunt would object to my showing you around, and it’ll be a while before she’s up, probably not until dinnertime. But only after you sit down and eat.” He slid the plate in front of the boy.

  Jeremy devoured the sandwich. “There. Should we start on the first floor?”

  “Drink your milk first.”

  They ambled from room to room while Arthur explained to Jeremy the proper names for everything. They visited the Grand Foyer with its flying staircase, Carrera marble floor, and Louis XVI chandelier; the drawing room with its green velvet drapes, gloomy portraits, and elegantly carved Baroque settees; and the formal dining room with the Inquisition-size table flanked by rows of Italian Renaissance chairs. Eventually, they made their way to the conservatory, a kind of room that Jeremy had never seen before.

  The structure was attached to the western end of the house in order, Arthur explained, to catch the fog-dimmed rays from the afternoon sun. The walls and even the ceiling were constructed almost entirely of glass panes, which rose up two stories to a point in the middle that formed a glass pyramid through which the drifting clouds were visible beyond the crystal chandelier hanging at its apex. The glass room had been crammed with exotic plants and trees sprouting chartreuse and emerald-green leaves, from which drooped the most delicate and intricate flowers Jeremy had ever seen, with petals of pink, orange, purple, and yellow. The furniture in the room consisted of a battered Victorian chaise and a few crumbling armchairs gathered in a circle around an ottoman; the other pieces included some mismatched English bamboo side tables and a moldy wall fountain that drooled water from the mouth of an angry stone chimpanzee.

  Arthur explained that Katharine had shipped the items over from England one summer after nodding hello to an old friend at an auction and inadvertently outbidding a famous designer known for her chic and “shabby” interiors. Upon arrival from her trip, she’d had the conservatory built to house the pieces which, she explained, were too expensive to be put out by the curb, yet too ratty to be seen by polite company in the rest of her home. Ironically, Arthur had discovered since then that if he could not find his employer in her office working, she was usually reading or asleep on the chaise in the conservatory, a cold cup of tea on the table by her side.

  Jeremy stood in the doorway of the room, quite taken with the magic of the place. The air even smelled differently than in the rest of the house—it was velvety and sweet, like a warm bubble bath.

  “Come sit down with me and watch the sunset.” Arthur pointed to an armchair.

  They sat and watched the sky before them as if from the first row of a movie theater, heads tilted back.

  For Jeremy, this felt like the first sunset of his life. He watched as the cobalt sky dimmed to lavender and the silhouetted clouds before him rose up like ragged mountains, while the amber sun kissed the watery horizon and gilded the whitecaps.

  “People say they move to Ballena Beach to be near the water, but the real reason is the sunsets,” stated Arthur, breaking their silence at
last. “I always like to watch a good one with someone who’s not from around here, it’s like seeing it through their eyes again for the first time. Makes it fresh.”

  “I can see what you mean. We didn’t have sunsets in Fresno,” Jeremy said, then paused in thought. “At least not that I remember—it just gets dark all of a sudden.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Fresno, like all places, has sunsets. It just sounds like you didn’t have the time to enjoy them.”

  “You’re right about that, I guess,” the boy replied. “Anyway, how do you know so much about me?”

  “I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that I’ve overheard conversations between your aunt and uncle. This house may be big, but it doesn’t keep secrets well.”

  “I guess not.” Jeremy paused, noticing that the moon had slid up into easy view now, illuminating the jungle of plants enveloping them, as well as their two figures, with silver light. “So how much do you know…about my situation?”

  “I guess I know everything your aunt and uncle know, at least about your ‘circumstances.’ But I can’t say that any of us here knows the real Jeremy Tyler.”

  “Except me.”

  “Of course, except for you,” the man said, then smiled.

  Jeremy sighed. “Well, maybe that’s not even true.”

  “How is that so?” asked Arthur cautiously.

  “Do you remember what it’s like to be seventeen?”

  “Of course I do, although parts of the memory grow dimmer with each year. But some parts seem like they happened yesterday.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Like graduating from high school, starting my first job, my first kiss—all the really important events. The first time I knew I had fallen in love.”

  “So how do you know when you’re in love?”

  “Just like you know when you’re hungry and then you know when you’re full.”

  “It’s that easy?”