What I Did for Love

by Tessa Dane

  I found my phone when I got back to my apartment, not having missed it while I was with Robin. I was always forgetting or leaving it. Somehow I had escaped the compulsion that sent my generation into a digital day, electronics for every task. Still, I was grateful for the instant connection my phone gave me to Bredon and all who mattered to me.

  I started to press the quick dial for Bredon but saw a text waiting. Clicking on it, I read, “Tomorrow night, Darling. R.” I was feeling joyful. Rand would be back, and this afternoon I would run to get my hair streaked some more, to look fashionably brown-and-blonde, and maybe indulge in a whole spa treatment. I called Bredon, who quickly agreed to dinner at seven thirty, late for me, but I had to leave time for the spa. I told him I would come get him at his office, since the spa was nearby. He seemed distracted, but there was that major deal going on that undoubtedly had his attention.

  Tomorrow I would go looking for what I never bought: the sexy-frilly underwire bras with matching panties that set fantasies in motion. I hoped Rand would be even more excited when he saw them. On Monday night I had on only the basic white underclothing I always wore, nothing fancy, very comfortable. Now I had a reason to buy at the store most famed for sexy underwear – and I would look for the thigh-high stockings that would leave my panties free to be pulled away easily. I sighed, thinking of it, growing warmer, thinking maybe it was time to buy some sex toys to satisfy me when I started thinking of Rand, and giggled to myself at the thought. Tonight I would have to pleasure myself into sleep, images of Rand to drive all my desires.

  V

  By seven-thirty when I arrived at Bredon’s office, I was glowing from a facial, my nails and toes were done, my hair sleekly shaped and falling freely for a change. I was wearing a chic dress and matching sweater-shawl in a pale green that favored my hazel eyes. Bredon had our mother’s dark hair and eyes, while I had our father’s brown hair and lighter eyes. Yet our faces were similar. No one could doubt that we were brother and sister, and people often commented on how much we looked alike.

  I anticipated a compliment, a twinkle, some happiness when Bredon saw that I had made myself glamorous. But all my happy humor faded as I walked out of the elevator and saw Mrs. Andrews standing there, waiting for me.

  Her tension was obvious to me even through her habitual formal posture. She gave me that special look that I had first seen three years before, the look that great-souled, loving women give to motherless girls. That look could undo me at first, so that I had to teach myself the painful control that little boys learned, not to cry. The first time I did it, the pain wracked my body, and I understood what so many boys forgot as they grew into men, they forgot the pain of suppressing their tears. For men, the disappearance of that memory seemed unimportant, since the important thing was not to cry, not to be weak, not to be a girl.

  That control over my tears had become autonomic, where the body seems to act on its own. I felt that reaction now, steeling myself as I saw Mrs. Andrews’ loving and concerned look. But drawing closer to her, I also saw a concern larger than her compassion for me. Bredon. When our parents were lost, she had turned herself into his mother too. This never-married woman, very private, very formal and businesslike, the perfect front desk person for Bredon’s office, was transformed by our profound despair, her love for us hidden except to our discerning eyes.

  The look on her face had to mean that Bredon was facing trouble. I had never seen this look before, but I sure did know it now, seeing it this first time. I felt a shudder and my stomach felt queasy. Oh God, I prayed, my brother, my brother. Those were the only words of prayer I could think of, but I was sure that God was listening with a compassion infinitely beyond even that of the loving Mrs. Andrews.

  Bredon came out of his office with a crisp step, his posture erect, his appearance impeccable. He kissed my cheek and gave me a quick look of admiring appraisal, but I could see that he had much on his mind. When I saw his face, I realized that we should have met at his apartment or mine, to have a serious talk.

  “Thanks so much for staying, Mrs. Andrews,” my brother told her, his warm tone seeming to ease her heart a bit.

  “Yes, thank you,” I added, smiling at her, pretending I realized nothing.

  She took her cue, nodded her “good-nights,” and disappeared into the elevator. Once the doors had closed I asked Bredon, “Would you rather we just went home and talked?” It would be his choice of “home.”

  “No, Dray, it’s all right. I’ve made reservations; the car is downstairs, let’s get something to eat.”

  We said little to each other on the way to the restaurant, except for Bredon’s compliments for what the spa had managed to do to make me shine. The worst of the traffic had passed and we got to the restaurant quickly.

  Happily it was a week night, and although Bredon’s was a known face among the city’s financial and cultural notables, this little restaurant knew how to arrange quiet, private seating, keeping the lights low. Bredon also favored this place because he – and I too – hated the banging about of dishes and doors in busy, less exclusive kitchens. In this restaurant, clatter and noise could get a bus boy or any staff member fired, and tips were too good to let carelessness cost them their jobs. The restaurant was called “La Reine Tranquille,” The Tranquil Queen, for a reason. It was a place for quiet dining, low voices, and almost invisible table service.

  Bredon’s appearance at the restaurant caused the usual quiet stir among the staff, the chef peeking out to wave at him, an order quickly given, wine ordered and poured. Once done, the staff disappeared, knowing not to keep coming to the table while we were talking. No asking, “Is everything all right?” or the other nonsensical and interfering things that wait staff were taught to do in most restaurants. One of the staff always kept an eye on Bredon, but from a respectful distance. If something was not right, Bredon’s expression would tell them soon enough.

  I was almost afraid to start our conversation, feeling my brother’s preoccupation with what had to be heavy news about his big gamble. When I made the dinner date, I had wanted to tell Bredon that I was mad about Rand, that I was going to see him tomorrow, that I had seen Robin, and all my large and small news. Instead I focused on Bredon, his air of distraction stirring fear in my heart.

  “Bredon…” I began, and my questions did not need to be asked.

  “Well, Dray, you were right in so many ways,” he said quietly, with a stoicism so different from anything I had seen before.

  “Rand?” I said his name as a question.

  “He’s coming back from India in the morning.” My brother looked at me with sadness and seriousness. “I know you like him, Dray, but he and I have been in the worst possible arguments. His family had a major scare with their investments in India, but he got things set right again.”

  I waited, taking a token sip of my wine, watching my brother as he seemed to think out loud, talking without really seeing me. “Rand is always pulling rabbits out of hats for them,” Bredon told me. “His family takes it for granted that he will fix anything that goes wrong.” My brother gave me a sour smile. “That’s what financial geniuses are supposed to do. But this time, they were pretty shaken by how close they came to losing a major fortune.” Bredon looked full at me. “He wants to withdraw completely from our deal, and if he leaves, a good part of the partnership will collapse, I know it. I have to find new partners, or it will be the end for me.”

  My heart felt like a lump of ice, frozen by fear, aching for my brother’s quiet suffering over making such a wrong call. “There’s my money, Bredon…”

  “Never!” He did not raise his voice. He did not have to. There was no compromise on this, I could see by his eyes, by the set of his face.

  “Bredon, we’re family, we have only each other, whatever I have is yours too, please…”

  “No, Dray, I won’t do that. I have until next Monday to finalize everything. I may still be able to pull it out. I have a lot of work to do, contacting people a
nd trying to re-work this deal. But whatever happens, the money our parents left to you is for you, for your future, for your life.”

  “You are my future and my life, Bredon. I don’t think I could have gone on…” I stopped, having to control myself, to look calm. But my brother’s urgency and sadness and peril made me want to cry, to hug him. My struggle for control had to be obvious to him.

  Bredon’s eyes softened. “There’s still an outside chance, Dray. I haven’t given up. Don’t worry until you have to.” He smiled. “Don’t worry even then.”

  “How could Rand just back out like that,” I said bitterly, feeling all my love and desire for him suffocated by my anxiety over my brother.

  “That’s why we’ve been arguing,” Bredon said with a matching bitterness. Then he gave me an intense look. “But you spent time with him that day you met him.”

  Of course Bredon knew what had happened. Information is the coin of the realm among people like Bredon, to prevent being blindsided by opponents, by financial enemies, by competing bidders. Financial success depends on many kinds of informants, as well as a good reading of markets, and strong nerves when there are big risks. I wondered how much he knew.

  “I went to the Balthus show with Rand, and then we went to dinner,” I told my brother, who nodded, pretending to be not-too-interested, pretending to eat, as I was pretending to eat.

  “He got a phone call, and sent me home in his car,” I continued.

  My brother nodded, and I realized that Marilisa had told him everything she had seen.

  “I was a bit mussed up,” I said with pretend primness, “but I was home by midnight.” Finally I had got a smile from my brother.

  “He sent me roses,” I added, since he already knew that too.

  Bredon seemed to concentrate on his meal, not looking at me. I think he was considering asking me if I intended to see Rand again. How could I? I would be going out with a man who had caused my brother such grief. I knew that Bredon was torn, as I was. He did not want to interfere with my happiness, yet it must have been difficult for him to think of me with Rand. I was not going to cause my brother more suffering. We had had too much of that.

  “I won’t be seeing him any more anyway,” I said, using a careless tone. “I still haven’t got myself organized now that the semester is over, and then I wanted to vacation with Robin.” I sipped my wine and tried to look empty-headed and indifferent. “If Robin’s family is okay, I want us to go exploring Paris. Just for a couple of weeks.” I shook my napkin over my lap for no reason, just to have somewhere to look as I invented these plans. In reality, trekking around a foreign city was the kind of thing I had done in the past, going off with a friend, growing familiar with a new place. It was an escape for me after our parents died, and I had explored Rome with a high school classmate and her mother, and the next vacation time the three of us had gone to Florence for two weeks.

  Bredon studied me, probably wondering if I was being truthful. But one thing I can always do is act. My mother loved it when I would pretend to be someone else, making her laugh with my airs and my imitations of other people. My father would just look perplexed. Where did this daughter come from?

  I looked at Bredon with a warm, steady smile, not a care in the world, happy just to be here, at this moment. It worked. To my great relief. I hardly knew what I had eaten, having pushed most of it around on my plate. Generally a high-end restaurant chef will take offense at such behavior, but Bredon was golden, and if this pair of Cooper children had not eaten a meal, not even half a Gallic eyebrow would be raised. My brother’s generosity, and quiet separate gratuities to the youngest and poorest of the staff, the immigrant boys sending money home to their families, had them adoring him. Bredon’s special feeling for these young men, alone in a new world, resonated to our own orphaned status, a world without mother and father. I loved my brother’s compassion. It was also the reason he suffered so much at loss and betrayal. It was the reason for the steeliness of his exterior, to conceal a tenderness his competitors would gladly have used. To the world, Bredon seemed armored against all hurt, able to taken on any challenge, and in the world of high finance this was key for success.

  “Do you want to come to my place for some coffee?” I asked Bredon.

  “No, Dray, thanks, but I’m kind of wiped. I need to get some sleep before I start phoning Indonesia.” He grinned. “I figure a couple of hours’ sleep, and then I’ll make my first calls.”

  “I’m going to be praying very hard,” I said. I meant it.

  “I appreciate that, kiddo. I hope heaven is listening.” He grinned again, but this time there was the sadness over two people in heaven who would for sure be listening. I just hoped our parents were not sad for us, though I did not see how they could not be sad while we were all apart like this. I missed my parents so much, and I believed in my heart that they missed us too.

  As we left the restaurant, murmurs of “Good-night, Monsieur Cooper, Mademoiselle,” accompanied us out the door of the restaurant and into the waiting car. We were at my building within ten minutes. I kissed my brother several times, punctuating his cheeks with “good-night,” “I love you, Bredon,” and his “Love you too, Baby Sister” and a parting smile.

  Once in my apartment I switched on the “do not disturb” switch, a little orange light that sat under a small flap by the front door where only Marilisa knew to look. I wanted to cry, to scream, feeling pain for Bredon, feeling my head pounding in fear for my brother, and a loss of what I thought would have been the most fantastic love.

  My needs had to be put aside now. Rand could no longer be my preoccupation. I had thoughts to think, plans to make, to help Bredon despite his determined refusal of my help. Outwardly, the best I could do for him was to love him and be present for him. But I could also make secret plans, to help him financially. I was determined, however I could manage it, whatever it required, that I was not going to let my brother go under.

  Bredon knew all the significant people in the financial world. But he did not know all of them personally, and there were still, thankfully, many ethical financiers. Among the best of these were the parents of my friend and classmate Dina. Her parents were financial wizards in their own right, an investment team, and they could be trusted to keep the confidences that financial advisors were supposed to keep. I knew instinctively that I could plan with them to hide investments in Bredon’s venture under dummy names.

  I thought of them because of the way we had met. By the time our college winter break had started this past December, Dina had been cut off by her friends. She had been part of a fashion-conscious, status conscious clique; had we been in high school, her group would be called “the mean girls.” After their break with her, they treated Dina as a pariah, and it was all because of a boy whom I thought was worthless and horrid. He had been the boyfriend of that group’s “leader,” a viper of a girl who probably found him to be her perfect mate. My parents had known that boy’s family, and I remembered how my parents had exchanged glances of distaste when they were mentioned in a conversation.

  The semester had officially ended the day before, giving us a free ten days before Christmas. We would not return to school until late in January. Women of the various class years were milling about in front of the main hall of the College and spilling through the iron gates, all of us leaving for the long holidays. Dina stood there in despair as her friends said their good-byes to each other, walking past her and looking the other way, going to their waiting families, friends, cars, taxis. Her frantic sense of loss and abandonment struck a too-familiar chord in me, and I went to stand next to her.

  She was surprised but grateful to have one classmate beside her, even though we had not really been friends during the semester. The women in her group socialized only with each other. Being close friends with someone outside their group was seen as contemptible betrayal. I found their attitudes and exclusivity appalling, and undoubtedly they regarded me and Robin as hopeless and beyond he
lp. Even though Bredon was considered one of the most “eligible” men in the city, I was dismissed by them, I think, as an aberration, yet another unfortunate relative in an important family. They seemed oblivious to the known bond I shared with Bredon, and they certainly thought me odd to spend so much time with Robin. These “mean girls” were certainly bright academically, but they were impossible snobs and narcissists. And just as they had demanded total commitment and involvement while Dina was one of their group, they were equally ruthless in ignoring her after she fell for that terrible boy. And so, at the term’s end and amid the many holiday good-byes, there she stood as the crowd slowly thinned, trying not to look at the women whom she thought would be her lifelong friends.

  A couple of women from that circle were still waiting to leave when Bredon’s car pulled up at the college gates and he came rushing to find me, all camel-colored cashmere coat and white silk scarf, looking tall and wonderful, causing the murmurs that usually occurred when he appeared. He embraced me happily, a quick kiss on the cheek, making me feel so reassured and safe. I put my hand on Dina’s arm.

  “Bredon, this is my friend Dina,” I told him, to her grateful surprise.

  “Merry Christmas, Dina,” Bredon said, bending to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “Have a good holiday.”

  “You too…” and she was afraid to call him by his first name, which made me smile at her, and I saw her parents coming up behind her. She saw my look and turned to see them, so happy and relieved as they put their arms around her, smiling at us, her father giving her a peck on the cheek.

  “Mother, Daddy, this is Dray Cooper, and her brother Bredon. My parents…” she began, but Bredon stopped her with a smile, saying, “I recognized you, Mr. and Mrs. Ayers,” and they quickly said together, “Rae and Bobby.” They had not either needed an introduction to my brother.

  “So nice meeting you,” Bredon said, none of us shaking hands because arms were wrapped around each other, I and Bredon, Dina and her parents. We began moving toward Bredon’s car.