Crazy Old Money

by Kilby Blades

  I’ll say something to her later, he promised himself. She didn’t need another public dressing-down. Biff was already giving her shit about nothing. Marsh pitied Krista for the way she put up with his jackass cousin. But he’d always liked her, despite that; and he’d give her a break for now.

  “Jada’s a gem,” Marsh responded, training the stiffness from his voice. Then, “Hey, do you know what this business is with Maw Maw?”

  Krista shook her head, her brow knitting in concern that echoed Marsh’s worry.

  “You don’t think she’s sick…” he prodded.

  "I hope not,” Krista said, beginning to pile a plate. Like all of the women in his family, Krista didn’t eat much, which meant the plate was for Biff.

  “How’s she been looking at dinner?” Marsh prodded. Maw Maw had been hosting family dinner on Sundays for more than thirty years. All who lived within driving distance were expected to attend. Even after Marsh had been shipped off to Choate and later to Yale, Marsh had been expected to make an appearance. When he’d been too young for a driver’s license of his own, Maw Maw had sent her driver, Curtis. It was Curtis who had taught Marsh to drive. Marsh had been only eleven when, confined to the estate’s private roads, Curtis had first put him behind the wheel of a car.

  “She’s been okay, I guess…” Krista hedged, avoiding Marsh’s eyes.

  Marsh crossed his arms and used his “fess up” voice. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s just…it’s been hard for me to gauge,” she stammered.

  Marsh narrowed his eyes, not liking this at all. It wasn’t like Krista to be so cagey. Not one to pry information through verbal threats, Marsh settled for an unwavering stare. He rarely used courtroom intimidation tactics with family, but the well-being of his beloved Maw Maw was at stake. If she was sick, he needed to know.

  “We’ve…missed a few family dinners,” she admitted.

  “How many is a few?” Marsh processed this news even as he shot back the question. Because nobody missed family dinners, let alone Biff. Biff was the heir apparent to Brewster Textiles—the only one who wanted to run it. He’d been sucking up to Maw Maw since they were kids.

  “Krista!” She actually jumped at the sound of her husband’s bark from across the room. When Marsh darted his eyes toward the sound, Biff wasn’t staring at his wife—he was staring at Marsh. The hallmark trait of all Brewsters—deep blue eyes that had carried through generations—had missed Biff somehow. His eyes were light, arctic blue, and just as cold as ice.

  Marsh held Biff’s stare, even as he saw Krista scurry away through his peripheral vision, even as the room quieted and he felt Jada’s confused gaze. For all the warning he’d given Jada about the epic rivalry between his mother and his Aunt Minnie, he may have understated his own rivalry with Biff.

  He’d tried to convey the extent of it. Easier said than done, with Marsh still loath to drop the bomb about the money. It hadn’t given anything away to tell Jada that Biff was a philanderer and a belligerent drunk. Biff openly cheated on Krista, who waited on him like a servant and never went against him in public, even when he was an enormous dick. When he wasn’t drunk, he had the charisma of a psychopath, which might have served to redeem him if Marsh weren’t convinced that Biff actually was one.

  Marsh hadn’t talked about the other part: how close Biff had been to Paw Paw—how he’d always been a heartless jerk, but a much milder one before Paw Paw died; how, before Krista straightened him out ten years ago, Biff had been halfway to spending his whole inheritance on hookers and blow. Marsh himself barely understood Biff’s inability to let go of Paw Paw, Krista’s inability to let go of her marriage, and Brewster Textiles’ inability to let go of Biff. But all of that fell under things-having-to-do-with-the-company, which would lead to questions about things-having-to-do-with-the-money. Explaining to Jada their battles over company business would tell it all.

  Breaking Biff’s gaze before it got weird, Marsh blinked over at Jada, who now regarded the exchange with mild suspicion.

  “More egg nog, JJ?” He forced a smile as he motioned toward the empty crystal glass in her hand. He’d never understood why egg nog glasses were so small. Marsh might’ve liked a two-foot straw and the longest gulp in the world once he stuck it in the punchbowl. He might need it to survive a hell like this.

  “Thanks.” Jada said it with that knowing of hers that always scared him a little, with a voice that was perfectly gracious and an eyebrow arch that was perfectly not.

  “I’ll take another one, too,” Aunt Minnie sang. “And make it a double.”

  Marsh ladled out three fresh glasses, downing his own immediately and delivering the other two to Jada and his aunt. He had quietly ignored Minnie’s request for added brandy. She wasn’t three sheets to the wind, but she was at least one-and-a-half and it was only six o’clock.

  On his approach, Minnie chuckled at her own recounting of the story she’d decided to tell, her face molded into what he called “the socialite smile”. Whatever the hell she did to her lips and her cheeks gave her a Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker kind of look.

  Minnie had platinum blonde hair of the bottle variety, a nose that seemed to get tinier every year, and eyebrows that rose permanently in surprise. To save his life, Marsh couldn’t remember the natural color of her hair, nor could he remember her not looking that way. She had that frozen-in-time look that came from having so much plastic surgery, you couldn’t tell her age.

  Relieving Jada of her empty glass, he replaced it with a full one and stepped in to slide his arm around her waist. Holding her gave him respite, even if being home was disorienting and things were getting weird. Minnie resumed what Marsh surmised was intended to be a funny story—something about her doubles partner stepping on the ball during a tennis tournament at her club. He listened with one ear, nodding when he was supposed to and laughing at all the right parts. He tried not to dwell on what a shit show it would be as more people arrived—every aunt, uncle, cousin and ex—at Maw Maw’s peculiar insistence.

  5 The Uncomfortable Smiles

  Jada

  What’s with you and that fake-ass laugh? Jada telepathically asked her boyfriend. When Marsh brought his A-game, his feigned interest was much, much better than this. He’d accompanied her to scores of work functions—boring ones. He’d beamed interest at far less-entertaining stories. He’d given performances worthy of Academy Awards. It scared her a little. The inimitably charismatic Marsh Brewster was so far off of his game that this performance could barely get him nominated for a Razzie.

  That’s Marshall Brewster IV, she reminded herself sardonically, even as she chastised herself again not to judge. He could no sooner change the fact that he was the fourth Marshall as she could change that she was the first Jada. He hadn’t asked to be born to grandparents who were loaded and she could understand why he wouldn’t talk about his own privilege.

  But he could’ve made it so that I didn’t find out half an hour ago.

  "Where do you summer?" Minnie asked brightly, her perma-smile still in place.

  Jada was relieved to be asked a question—anything to get her out of her own head. She was certain she’d still be stewing on this, even later that night. “Don’t go to bed mad” was bad advice for people like Jada—people who needed to cool down and gather their thoughts. Marsh knew this about her. And, tomorrow, they would talk.

  “Summer is sort of an East Coast thing,” Jada replied smoothly. “West coasters vacation throughout the year.”

  Minnie laughed a bit drunkenly and brought the fingers of her free hand up to play at the jewel anchoring her necklace, seeming unable to grasp Jada’s point.

  "What I mean is," Jada said more slowly, “…that the lifestyle in California isn’t really to go to a summer house. People buy houses in Tahoe but even that’s more of a go-there-on-the-weekend kind of thing.”

  "Well, you’ll have to join us in the Vineyard one year. Have you been to Vineyard Haven?" Minnie asked.


  "No. I don't think I have,” Jada said with a polite smile.

  "I think you'll like it," Uncle Steven chimed in. He raised his glass and gave Jada a little wink. "It's becoming very diverse."

  As Jada set her lips in an appropriately-graceful line, Marsh’s arm stiffened around her waist.

  “Why don’t we—” Marsh started, already beginning to guide them away.

  But Steven interrupted Marsh and leaned in toward Jada conspiratorially. “Did Marsh ever tell you about the time I sat next to Morgan Freeman on a plane?”

  Jada didn’t think the soft groan that came from Marsh’s direction was a figment of her imagination.

  “No, he didn’t.” Jada’s voice was laced with practiced delight. Smiling up at Marsh, Jada saw that his face was reddening by the second. She squeezed his bicep reassuringly.

  “So, I’m in First Class on Air France from De Gaulle to Kennedy and I meet this nice-looking gentleman—you know, very well-spoken, very educated…” Steven started in.

  As Steven went on about how impressive the man was and how interesting it was to hear his life story as they ate off of china crossing the Atlantic, Marsh looked increasingly miffed and mortified. Because being the only black girl at a party and people jumping at the chance to tell you black people stories was kind of a thing. A thing Jada bitched about, and therefore a thing that Marsh knew she hated. Presumably, the exact kind of thing Marsh had apologized in advance about in the car.

  “…so the flight’s about to land,” Steven went on, “…and I finally ask the guy what he does for a living. He tells me he’s an actor. So I say, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t recognize you. What’s your name and what might I have seen you in?’ So he mentions this movie I’ve never heard of. The Dinner Guest?”

  Steven looked to Minnie for help.

  Oh, lord.

  “I think you mean Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?,” Marsh offered miserably.

  “Oh, yes—Marsh has it—that was the name. Anyway…” Steven swung his gaze back to Jada. “He says he’s in this movie called Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?…says his name is Sydney Poitier.”

  Minnie giggled at the same time Marsh shook his head. Jada took her cue.

  “Wait—didn’t you say you were sitting next to Morgan Freeman?”

  Minnie set a manicured hand on Steven’s forearm, catching the telling of the punch line so well Jada was sure that Steven had volleyed it to her dozens of times before.

  “Oh, girlfriend, it was—but Steven didn’t know it until a year later when he saw The Shawshank Redemption.”

  Steven and Minnie howled with laughter. It may have been the alcohol. It was irony and not alcohol that made it even mildly amusing to Jada. Anyone who lived in a cave so deep they couldn’t tell Sydney Poitier from Morgan Freeman in the first place probably shouldn’t be bragging about it. Neither should anyone who didn’t realize how royally they’d been punked.

  Jada blinked up at Marsh. His eyes were closed and his bent head shook in shame. He opened his eyes at the same time he took what appeared to be a deep, measured breath.

  “I’m sorry”, he mouthed at the very same moment she mouthed, “Girlfriend?”

  “That’s, like, two strikes in two minutes,” he breathed into her ear before pressing a kiss into her hair.

  The first had been the story, of course. What her friend Nichole called “blacking it up” was the second. It was bizarre psychology and strange baggage that came with these kinds of things. Some people peacocked worse than pick-up artists—shaking their feathers and doing their dance—trying to convince you they were woke.

  Jada would’ve normally thrown out a “three strikes and they’re out” kind of joke, but these weren’t strangers at a party—this was Marsh’s actual family. It didn’t excuse what he hadn’t told her, but it explained why he’d stayed away.

  “Teflon, remember?” she whispered instead.

  Because, until that day, she’d never seen him look ashamed. And she was beginning to feel sorrier for him than she felt for herself.

  6 The Diversion

  Marsh

  If twenty minutes with Aunt Minnie and Uncle Steven reminded Marsh why he’d never brought Jada home, Jada’s grace in dealing with them reminded him why he was proposing. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so much relief that this was no longer his life. But there had been good parts to growing up like this. Fond memories. People who he loved and who loved him despite leading different lives. People who he was happy to see today.

  Marsh didn’t want to face what it would mean if there were really something wrong with Maw Maw. Because if there was, he’d feel guilty for having shunned this place, for having spent so many Thanksgivings and Christmases away. It was reconciling that, and still knowing nothing about Maw Maw’s emergency, that was messing him up.

  After rescuing Jada from yet another celebrity story—one about Minnie meeting Oprah at a luncheon—Marsh steered them toward a new conversation. It put him on edge that this one had only a fifty-fifty shot at being better. His cousin Jason was congenial enough on the surface of things, but Marsh had warned Jada not to scratch too far beneath.

  Jason’s claim that he worked in real estate misrepresented his true profession. Jason’s “real estate” holdings were tenement buildings in Manhattan. Marsh still remembered the day he’d gotten the call from his angry cousin, who’d wanted Marsh’s help in suing the Daily News over a smear piece that had just come out. As Jason had launched a diatribe, throwing out words like “libel” and “slander” and other legal terms that he didn’t fully understand, Marsh had done a Google search for “Jason Brewster slumlord” and felt sick when the search yielded an astonishing number of results.

  “You ever been out to Ojai?” Jason was asking Jada after they’d made their way to his corner of the room. He’d been in the same place since they’d come in, not eating, barely drinking, but always on his phone. He was so bad at peeling his eyes off of the screen during Board meetings that Maw Maw had implemented a ban preventing cell phones from entering the room. From the rhythmic thumb-swiping, Marsh surmised that Jason spent an alarming amount of time on Tinder.

  “Yeah, it’s beautiful out there. Marsh and I went to the resort a couple of times. It’s not too far from where my parents live.”

  “Nice area.” Jason said in an approving way. “A buddy of mine got married out there. A kid Marsh used to know. Marsh, you remember Alan Burbeck?”

  He wished that he didn’t. That guy was a tool. Still, Marsh nodded his affirmation.

  “Did they graduate Stanford at the same time?”

  Jason motioned toward Jada at the mention of Alan but kept his eyes on Marsh, who didn’t like that Jason didn’t ask her directly. How hard would it have been for his cousin to turn to her and inquire? Marsh also didn’t like that Jason was grilling her on her stats. He’d grilled Marsh on her pedigree before, but already forgotten. He’d told Jason that Jada had gone to Berkeley at least five times.

  “Jada went to Cal.”

  Jason blinked. “Like a state school?”

  As Marsh gritted his teeth, Jada’s lips melted into a Mona Lisa smile. “Yes, UC Berkeley is in the state university system. Marsh tells me you went to UConn,” she lied.

  Jason blinked again. “I went to Yale. I was a senior when Marsh was a freshman. Marsh, you didn’t tell her we were in school together?”

  Marsh was too busy throwing Jada a ‘Well played, Madame’ eyebrow raise to formulate an immediate answer. Jada saved him from having to when she threw Jason a sheepish smile and murmured, “My mistake.”

  All right, Marsh thought. Time to move on. Once again, he excused them politely. They were running out of options and Marsh wasn’t sure where to go next. The room was a minefield of bad conversations, just waiting for one to be stepped on. And Biff was a powder keg, just waiting to blow up.

  Jada had tried to pry a little out of Marsh here and there as they’d worked the room—small questions asked in mom
ents of reprieve. But it was too big of a can of worms to open then and there. Even Krista didn’t know that Biff had cost the company tens of millions in sexual harassment law suit settlements, and that most of what Marsh did on the Brewster Textiles board was to protect the company from his own cousin. Only in a world that operated like his would sheer nepotism have installed someone so irresponsible as the COO of a multi-billion-dollar global enterprise.

  Technically, Biff was qualified. He’d earned a solid MBA, and had worked in the company all his life. Few people understood the nuts and bolts as well as he did, and, in his soberer days, he’d done a decent job. It had been Paw Paw’s last order of business before he’d gotten sick to promote Biff into his own position. Maw Maw hadn’t liked it, but she hadn’t forbidden it either. For reasons unexplained, it had been Paw Paw’s dying wish.

  Biff buying shares from his sister Lizzie only complicated things. More shares meant more voting power for Biff. His vision for the company—to lay off employees locally and transition support functions to an offshoring model—would never be implemented while Maw Maw was still alive. But if she split up her shares among her grandchildren in her will, the new shares he’d bought from Lizzie would make Biff the majority shareholder when she died.

  Marsh didn’t like that Biff was setting himself up to ruin Maw Maw’s legacy. He also didn’t like that telling the truth about how much risk Biff posed to the company meant throwing his own cousin under the bus. But he would have liked it less if protecting a cousin who didn’t deserve it hurt the grandmother he loved. The tension from that made the air thick between them every time they shared a room.

  Before the night was over, Marsh knew that Biff would start something with him. The fact that he hadn’t already done so meant that Biff was winding up for something particularly vicious. The fact that he hadn’t spoken a word to Jada probably meant that he would say something offensive to her, too.