Beauty

by Louise Mensch

‘Here. Sit. Eat,’ he said, laying it out on the table before her and fetching them both water. He pushed forward the cartons, just handing her a fork.

  She ate, mechanically at first, not appearing to taste anything. He wolfed his down – he was starving – and, after a few moments, Dina began to eat properly, too, and to sip at her water.

  Gaines was relieved. She was not likely to kill herself, after all, not once she started to treat herself properly.

  The doorbell rang again. Dina started, but he held out his hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it in a second. It’s a grocery delivery.’

  ‘I didn’t order any.’

  ‘I did. I’m not having you use depression as an excuse not to eat. Your brother is dead, but you’re not. And you need to go on.’

  ‘For what?’ she said. ‘I don’t have Johnny. I don’t have a job.’ She sobbed. ‘I don’t have you.’

  Gaines rose, opened the door and brought the bags in. There were a lot of them – all gourmet. Cinnamon and vanilla coffee beans. Zabar’s smoked salmon. Stoneground bread. Artisanal cheeses and honey. Sugar, milk and farm-fresh eggs. Bottles of squeezed orange juice, and an elegant fruit basket, nicely wrapped. It went on and on. Filet mignon steaks, packets of Cheerios, steel-cut oatmeal, Greek yoghurt, smoked almonds, Charbonnel et Walker chocolates.

  He unpacked them as she stared. She was almost licking her lips, now, he saw; the taste of food had triggered her suppressed appetite.

  ‘I’ll fix us some ice cream,’ he said, as he packed away the Twinings tea. ‘You will be getting the call that your brother’s body is ready, after the autopsy; I want you to let me know. You can text me. Will your mother want to arrange the funeral?’

  Dina shook her head. ‘Ellen – Mom – she was embarrassed of Johnny by the end. He was her pride and joy, her favourite, but when he came out as gay, she just withdrew. She said she accepted him, but she didn’t. I don’t think she visited him in the city even one time.’

  ‘And she never switched her affections back to you?’

  ‘She had a new man by then. Somebody who would overlook the past. My mom never really loved either of us. She just covered it a little better with Johnny. But she dropped him like a stone at the first sign of trouble.’ Dina’s face hardened, a burst of anger surging through the lethargy of her sadness. ‘You know, maybe that was worst of all. At least I knew I wasn’t loved by the time I left home. She tricked Johnny. She made him believe she cared. And when he needed her most, he found out she didn’t. She just loved the idea of a son, not the son she got.’ Dina shook her head. ‘No, she won’t take care of the arrangements; why should she? She’ll expect me to do that.’

  ‘Will she attend?’

  ‘She’ll come along – not because she gives a damn – to look respectable.’

  ‘Very well.’ Gaines paused, to take that in. Whatever sympathy he felt, he couldn’t express; Dina would fall apart again. The best thing he could do for her was to take over the situation, lift the burden off her back. That part was easy, and he ploughed ahead. ‘I will arrange the embalming and the funeral, in a couple of days. Do you have a preferred cemetery?’

  Dina wiped her eyes. ‘Somewhere green – in Westchester.’

  ‘Done. Will you come to the funeral mass?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Then you need to eat, sleep, exercise. Be there for your brother.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

  He finished with the groceries, and put out two small bowls of vanilla ice cream. Watching her eat it was unbearably erotic. He needed to get the hell out of here.

  ‘I should go,’ he said, as she finished and stood up to clear the table. ‘You’ll call me when you hear?’

  Dina nodded.

  ‘OK then.’ He stood to leave, and his legs were as heavy as iron. This felt wrong, walking out on her. But he had no more excuses to stay.

  ‘Joel, I want to thank you – for trying to help Johnny, for finding him and . . . and giving him dignity. I don’t think I could organise anything well right now.’

  ‘It’s fine, Dina.’

  ‘And for helping me. For coming here and . . . all this.’

  ‘We were friends.’

  Tears sprang fresh to her eyes. ‘Please don’t say that. Don’t say were. Say are.’

  He twisted. ‘Look, it’s not the time to talk about it. If you’re grateful to me, don’t make me talk about it now. I want you better. I want you healthy and well.’

  ‘You can’t forgive me? Let me tell you the story – the whole story. Everything that happened.’ Her voice cracked, and she looked at him, openly pleading, imploring him. ‘Joel, I can take it if you don’t love me and you don’t want to be with me. But I can’t bear it that you should think so ill of me. I know what I did was wrong. But you need to understand what happened, why it all happened. I beg you, Joel; I beg you.’

  ‘Who gives a damn what I think? Just live your life, Dina; be well.’

  ‘I give a damn. Right now it means everything to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m in love with you.’ She shrugged. ‘I just don’t care anymore; I can’t hide it anymore. Even though I know there’s no point, I need you to like me – I need that at least.’

  ‘I do like you.’ God help me. ‘I like you very much.’

  ‘Then you’ll let me talk to you? And, if you feel the same after that, I’ll accept it. I won’t bother you again.’

  He nodded. ‘OK, Dina Kane. Here’s the deal: if I see you at your brother’s funeral, and you look well, and strong, and put-together, we will go someplace quiet for coffee afterwards, and you can tell me everything. Enough?’

  She breathed out – a long, ragged sigh of relief. ‘Enough.’

  He leaned forwards and, with incredible restraint, kissed her on the cheek. Then he let himself out of her apartment, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The funeral was two days later, on a warm day, in a beautiful church in Bronxville. Dina wore black. She stood with her mother and Ellen’s new husband, Oliver. Joel Gaines was the only other mourner.

  Nobody had been able to track Brad down. Gaines was struck by the smallness and loneliness of it all. Ellen Kane never put her arm round Dina; she cried a little, but her daughter seemed destroyed.

  The priest was sensitive, and kept the mass short. Johnny’s corpse was beautifully embalmed and dressed, giving him a serenity he never had in life. But Joel had ordered the casket closed; he wanted Dina’s last memory of her brother to be of a warm, living body – a young man getting better.

  Oliver, the stepfather, seemed disengaged. He patted his wife’s back and shook Dina’s hand. Gaines could not see him attempting to make conversation. What a lonely, sad little family they were.

  He stood at the back. There were limousines waiting outside the church: one for the casket, one for the family and the priest, and a third for him. He had ensured everything would be done perfectly. There were white and yellow roses atop the casket, and beautiful displays in various colours, labelled with love from Dina, from Ellen, from Oliver, and from himself. As the priest finished the final words, Gaines slipped out of the church to double check everything was ready. He wanted it to be seamless.

  Immediately, he saw it. Leaning up against the old brick walls, the extra floral arrangement – a heart – stuck out like a sore thumb. It was made up of garish red and orange carnations, ridiculously huge; clearly designed to be noticed.

  Gaines quickly walked over and checked the label.

  So glad to have met Johnny. Dina, you deserved him. Love and kisses, Edward Johnson.

  His heart thudded. She was right.

  His driver had come out of the limo and walked over to him. ‘Everything OK, Mr Gaines? Some goons got here just a minute ago and brought this thing up. Took two of them to carry it.’

  ‘Get rid of it, Carlos. Now.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Gaines ripped of
f the label, and Carlos hefted the huge arrangement up and hauled it away, round the back of the church; he heard him stamping on it.

  At that moment, the church doors opened and the pallbearers came out with the coffin; the priest followed, and the three family members walked behind. Dina lifted her head, looking for him; tears had streaked her face and make-up, but she smiled at him, gratefully.

  Gaines crunched the card in his pocket as they climbed into the limousines. His driver came back; he was ex-Special Forces, like all Gaines’ personal employees.

  ‘It’s in a trash can. Anything else?’

  ‘No. Thanks. Just take me to the cemetery.’

  They buried Johnny Kane with final honours in the best plot money could buy, under a spreading oak tree, in the quietest part of the grounds. Gaines had ordered a simple gravestone, with a cross, and the name and dates. Dina threw earth on to the coffin, and a white rose Gaines had made available for her. The priest said prayers, and then they all walked back, quietly, towards the cars.

  ‘Thank you so much, Father,’ Dina said, when they had come to a stop by the limousines.

  ‘God bless you, my child.’

  She turned to her mother. ‘Momma, I’m not riding back with you and Oliver. Mr Gaines is taking me to the city.’

  ‘Suit yourself, Dina. It was certainly a beautiful ceremony, Father.’ Ellen presented one gloved hand, as though she wanted it kissed.

  Dina walked with Gaines to his waiting car. He opened the door, and she slid in, on to the seat.

  ‘Take us to the office,’ Gaines said.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ Carlos replied.

  Joel pressed a button, and a soundproof, bullet-proof security screen slid up between them and the driver. Now they were as good as alone.

  Dina kissed him on the cheek. ‘Joel, thank you so much. That was an incredible relief for me. Thank you for arranging it all. I am in your debt forever.’

  He shrugged. ‘Least I could do. I’m sorry.’

  She leant back against the soft pewter leather of his limousine seats. ‘I feel like I could sleep for days. Emotion – it’s exhausting.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘My poor Johnny.’

  ‘Maybe you should see somebody – a counsellor. Grief hits you in waves, that’s what they say.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think there’s any shortcut. I’ll be mourning Johnny for the rest of my life. But I still have to live it out.’

  Gaines looked her over. He was truly done now; the brother was buried, and he couldn’t hide behind the Good Samaritan schtick any longer. She was still thin, but clearly had been eating healthily. Her hair was washed and she had simple make-up on. Dina was back from the dead.

  Now he had to decide where he was, in her life. If anywhere.

  ‘You’re looking at me.’ Dina stared back at him, boldly. ‘I’m not the mess I was a couple of days ago. Thank you for that, too.’

  He nodded.

  ‘But we also had a deal. You told me that, if I kept it together, you’d at least give me the chance to explain.’

  His voice was cold. ‘Slept with a rich man to blackmail him? An older man? A man my age? I don’t think there’s an explanation in the world that can take that away.’

  ‘Joel – you said you’d hear me out. Over coffee.’

  ‘This car is completely private. He can’t hear a thing. Tell me now, Dina, because I don’t think I can take any more game playing. My life has been on hold for you – because of the past, pity, whatever reason – but I’m nobody’s sucker, girl, not even yours. So, if you have something to say, tell me right fucking now.’

  She was taken aback by his anger. All the care, all the comfort – she had got used to it. But now that he saw she was well – coping – he was turning that fire back on her.

  Dina responded. It was good; it felt good to be challenged. Gaines was treating her like a person, not a patient. Sympathy and kindness weakened her; aggression, a fight, she knew how to rise to.

  ‘When I was growing up, it was rough. My dad died early, and my mom . . . My mom didn’t really care for me.’

  He nodded, said nothing.

  ‘At school, the boys would try to feel me up and kiss me and stuff, and the girls didn’t really like me, so basically nobody hung out with me. Except Johnny. He was my only friend. He couldn’t stand up to Mom, though; he was always weak. I don’t blame him; it was his way.’

  She swallowed. She wanted this to come out just right, just well enough to convince Joel Gaines that she was serious, not guilty, that she was still worth his love, his lust, his patronage – whatever was going; whatever tiny part of him could be hers.

  ‘My mom started drinking when she got a little older. And men started to come around at night. Different men, in cars, from the Family.’

  ‘The Family?’

  ‘My dad worked a Mafia construction site. They provided for the widow; it’s good for morale. Anyway, I knew these guys were using my mom, turning her into some sort of hooker. They were all married.’

  I’m married. The unspoken fact hung in the air.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Everybody knew the local Don, where he lived. I got a bus; I went to see him. At his gatehouse, his bodyguards felt me up when they patted me down. Really groped me – touched me. I was fifteen and they made me feel like meat.’

  He digested that. ‘And the capo?’

  ‘He listened to me. After that, somebody came by the house and spoke to my mom. No men came by ever again, and she never drank another drop. I think he told her he would kill her. Anyway, she never gave me another affectionate word after that.’ Dina smiled slightly. ‘There hadn’t been too many before. I mean, she almost hated me; maybe she did hate me. She thought I had ruined her life – no parties; no fun. Before I had even turned eighteen she was ready to throw me right out of the house.’

  He could no longer keep up the cold shoulder. ‘Goddamn. That’s hard.’

  ‘She gave everything to Johnny – paid for his Catholic schooling, his college. I had to go to public school; there was no money for me to go to college, although I had the grades. She wouldn’t take a loan on the house or anything. Swore she needed it all. I had to threaten her, too, to give me some cash for a deposit on my first rental.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That I would go back to the Don. After that, she ponied up. I would have gone to thank Don Angelo personally, except his guards probably wouldn’t have stopped at feeling my ass.’

  ‘No. Probably not.’

  ‘They have this fucked up code. Kids get immunity – mostly.’

  ‘So then what?’

  ‘I moved to the city. No college; high-school diploma; small pot of money. I worked round the clock, waitressing. I got very good at it, helped my diner out by bringing in new customers, but, you see, all the men mostly leered at me. They’d proposition me. They’d offer me money to fuck them. I never had a boyfriend at school. I was eighteen and I didn’t know how to date.’ She paused. ‘I started hating men, I guess.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I flung myself into work – I wanted to, and I had to. This guy who runs a coffee chain gave me a break, made me a junior manager of a café. It was uptown, near Columbia. I always wanted to study there; even though I was running the books at the café, it wasn’t college-level stuff. I’d serve coffee to kids my own age, just a little older, and it felt like I’d be serving them all my life. All these rich, preppy kids. And the boys were the worst. It was exactly the same as the diner, except they didn’t just leer, they laughed at me – took bets on who would be first to bang me. This one bastard – he totally humiliated me, and I poured coffee on him.’

  Gaines laughed. He was gripped. ‘I bet you did.’

  ‘And, just when I was feeling sick, this guy, Edward, came up to me. Only he’d given himself a fake name: Edward Fielding. He acted really disgusted and sympathetic. He treated me with respect.’ She choked back tears. ‘It was the first time
any boy had treated me with respect. We dated, and eventually I went to bed with him. Then he ditched his cellphone number and his fake name, and he vanished – completely vanished. I gave my virginity to a guy who just screwed me and walked out.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing – until he turned up at the coffee shop, with his friends. You see, he wanted to prove to them he’d fucked me. I was a bet.’

  Gaines was starting to understand.

  ‘I laughed it off, told the boys Edward had been drunk – too drunk to get it up. He denied it, of course; they argued; we argued. I heard one of them say his name – Johnson. That made me see red and I threw coffee on all of them. The café fired me, right away. So, then I had no job, no money left, and some guy – the first guy I’d ever trusted – had used me like a tissue. It was so funny to him, Joel, so goddamned amusing. That’s when I started looking him up, finding out how I could hurt him. He’s an only child; Mommy is a society queen; Daddy is this banker who wants to be a politician and who’s buying his seat. Edward Johnson hurt me with sex, and I wanted to hurt him back. I wanted to humiliate him, like he did me. When the father was ready to jump me, I took full advantage: I screwed him; I photographed him; I sent his wife the pictures. Maybe it was whorish. I sold myself – not for money, but revenge. You’ve got to understand, Edward had already made me feel like a whore. So what was the fucking difference?’

  The bitterness and anger in her tone was thick with regret.

  Gaines asked a question to which he didn’t want to know the answer: ‘Money, Dina? You were out of a job, so you asked them for money?’

  She shook her head. ‘God – not that kind of whore. I wanted to put Edward Johnson in my position, let him see how that other half lived.’

  ‘You’re saying you didn’t demand any money?’

  ‘Hell, no. I told Shelby to step down from the campaign, and Edward was to drop out of college. Beyond that, I didn’t give a damn. I just wanted to take from him that life that made him so smug, so entitled. So, it was blackmail, if you like, but not for money. For justice. As I saw it, back then.’

  Gaines took a full breath in, like he could drain all the oxygen from the world.