“That’s bullshit, right?” I demanded of Matty. But she didn’t even want to talk about it. She and Jack were both international students with families who sacrificed everything to send them to school. They were terrified of doing anything to jeopardize their futures.
So, I sat alone and watched the story unfold on television. And as I did, I started to fear for my future, too. But for very different reasons than my friends.
In all of the news reports about the girl in the house, they never said her name. She was always just “Weston Silk’s female accomplice.”
Soon the story ceased to be worthy of even an inch of copy space in the local papers and she dropped out of mention all together.
In the weeks following the broadcast, it wasn’t visions of the men who violated me or the terror-stricken expressions on my friends’ faces that haunted me.
It was her face, those terrified eyes of the nameless woman.
She consumed my thoughts.
I wanted to know who she was and how she ended up in that house.
I found her name fairly quickly - it was in the police report. Rebecca Harvey. I found clues about her life - from her Myspace mainly, but she’d seemed like a happy, normal young woman. Not someone you’d expect to find in a place like that. But as I dug deeper, I found more. Her father was an eight-time felon serving a life sentence. Her mother was listed a missing person and had been since the early 90’s.
On paper, Rebecca and I couldn’t have been more different.
Except in one frightening and fundamental way.
I too, could only be distinguished by my relationship to other people. If I had died in that house, my footnote on history would be full of other people’s accomplishments and misdeeds.
I was Remi’s twin, Tina’s daughter, Liam’s granddaughter.
It was like living on the dark side of the moon - invisible, predictable, not worthy of distinction.
In a stroke of genius, I figured out how to save us both from obscurity. With my conviction in place, I went to my two best friends and asked them to take a leap of faith in me.
We were all desperate to find a way to get back some of what was stolen from us that night. And, they both said yes.
We scrapped our individual submissions for the editor position and created a feature called “Herstory” that we would collaborate on under the byline “The Jezebels.”
We would focus on misunderstood, forgotten women in popular culture and traditional history.
We spent weeks preparing our pitch. We were buzzing with excitement the whole time. Working together didn’t just save our friendship, it gave us all a sense of control and purpose.
We felt like revolutionaries - righting past wrongs, giving credit for stolen achievements, adding nuance, and giving a voice to women who had silenced or erased from moments in history that they helped usher forward.
We were going to change the world and knock the editorial staff off their feet.
They rejected our submission.
But we weren’t daunted. They just weren’t ready for us.
We started a blog with the same mission. When we launched The Jezebels, our first story was about women who’d been made accomplices simply because they shared a bed with a criminal.
It gained enough traction to build a following and healed our fractured friendship. We even got matching tattoos that read Jezebel on our lower backs. It didn’t become the cultural zeitgeist we hoped it would.
Practical things like careers, and relationships intruded and by the time we graduated it had become our collective labor of love.
When Rebecca contacted us a few months ago and said it was the blog that helped her find us, it became my most bitter regret.
Under the cloak of darkness, the deserted lobby of the building my grandfather built almost 50 years ago looks like a house of horrors. The plants and light fixtures cast grotesque shadows that crisscross the large ceramic tiled floor. But I’ve got real shadows and fears to fight. My heart seems to beat harder with every step I take toward the door marked “Strictly Forbidden.”
My grandfather, my mother, my brothers and I are the only people who have a copy of the master that unlocks it. That same key gives us access to every floor and office in the Wilde World’s headquarters. If my grandfather finds out that I used it to get my hands on evidence that could incriminate his long time and most trusted employee, he’ll be furious.
But Matty and Jack aren’t just my friends. We walked through fire together. We survived it together. And we wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t led them there. I owe them this.
With that final thought spurring me forward, I hold my breath and say a silent prayer of thanks when the light on the access panel turns green.
I step onto the elevator that is reserved for the exclusive use of my grandfather.
My heart is in my throat by the time the doors open on the 40th floor.
The quiet is eerie. Normally, it’s buzzing with people who are either waiting to see my grandfather or working on something on his behalf.
Dan’s office is to the left of his. As I approach it, I feel like a traitor. I’ve known him my whole life. I know why they think they’re right. But they have to be wrong. Dan couldn’t be involved. He helped my grandfather rescue us.
His laptop is on his desk and I hurry to pick it up.
I’m back at the elevators in less than a minute. Just when the call button signals its arrival, all the lights come on.
The elevator doors open, and I find myself face to face with my grandfather.
One Week Later
HOUSTON, TX
Chapter 8
Anything
Regan
“Come in,” my grandfather’s voice carries out into the hallway outside of his bedroom. He sounds irritated and weary.
I glance at my watch and note that it’s five minutes after we were supposed to meet.
That the most anal-retentive timekeeper on the planet kept me waiting does not bode well.
I plaster a confident smile on my face and straighten my spine as I walk into his room. My heart is beating a mile a minute and the speech I’d spent all morning preparing is now just a jumble of words that sounds idiotic as I start to recall them.
He glances up and there is a storm in his eyes that calls to mind the way lightning crackles before thunder shakes the world. I remember how he’d comfort me during the hurricanes and tropical storms that are ubiquitous with life on the Gulf of Mexico. “Don’t worry about the thunder, baby. It’s just noise. It’s the lightning that’ll kill you.”
All of the questions I’ve had during the week of silence between us are answered by that look.
There will be no forgiveness.
“Pops, I am so sorry.”
“I don’t want you to say another word, just sit down.” I do as he says but can’t meet his gaze.
“Your friends won’t be getting the courtesy of a meeting. The least you can do is look at me.”
His voice is a machete that slices through the last strands of my control and a tear rolls down my cheek. I wipe it away hastily and lift my head. I flinch at the complete lack of emotion in his eyes. He’s never looked at me with anything but tenderness, even when he was angry with me. I can’t bear to see the warmth extinguished in those wild blue eyes that used to be my refuge.
“I tried to help you all out of the mess you found yourselves in all of those years ago. I gave you jobs, I protected you from scrutiny and I helped you all move on. This betrayal cuts too deep. The consequences will, too.”
My stomach lurches and I have to swallow the dread clogging my throat before I can speak. “What—what’s going to happen?”
“As we speak, your office is being emptied. Your keycards have been deactivated and if I have any say over it, you will never work for Wilde World again.”
My eyes bulge at his words. “Pops, you can’t mean that.”
“I do. You chose your side, and now you will st
ay there.”
Panic assails me and I stand, my hands pressed together, I bow my head in supplication. “I had to help them. They’re my friends.”
“And we’re your family. First it was that Rivers boy. Now, this. It’s too much,” he responds.
I gape at him “You know about Stone? How?” I’m reeling and the dread that was in the pit of my stomach flows, concentrated and unchecked until my entire body is weighed down by it.
“I know everything Regan. Those people are our enemies. And you welcomed him into our place of business for months.”
“He’s only a boy,” I exclaim, that crazy instinct to protect Stone flares before my sense of self-preservation can stop me.
He snorts in disgust. “A boy who’s smarter than most men twice his age and a Rivers. That negates anything else he might be.” he grates, his cheeks flush with anger.
Tears stream down my cheeks. I brush them away furiously. If there is one thing he hates more than disloyalty, it’s crying.
My entire body is quaking with fear and my legs are unsteady as I walk over to his side of the bed.
I drop onto my knees, barely noticing the bite of the hardwood against them, and grasp his hand and press it to my face. It’s soft, covered in a sea of age spots, and gnarled. But it’s still strong and big as it had been when I was a little girl. This is the hands that checked my brow for fevers, held handlebars, bandaged my knees, and wiped away my tears. Now, it sits limply in my grasp and the man it’s attached to is looking at me with a dispassion that reaches the center of my greatest fear - losing his love.
“Pops, please. I’m sorry. I love you. Forgive me.” I beg numb with shock. He can’t mean it.
Who am I, if not his? Who will love me, if he doesn’t? Despair, the likes of which I’ve never known casts a shadow over my heart. I tighten my grip on his hand. “I’ll do anything.”
There’s no affection, or indulgence in his pale blue eyes when he looks pointedly at my left hand. “Marcel Landel is coming to dinner on Saturday. Look pretty.”
Two Years Later
Two Year Later
Chapter 9
An Echo In Time
Regan
When I met him, Marcel was a larger than life public persona. From his wife’s sudden death, to his brother’s arrest for solicitation to his ascendancy to head of his family’s business empire - his name was constantly in the news. And he was ready to get married again.
He’s brilliant, rich, successful and was considered a most eligible bachelor - by women closer to my mother’s age than mine. But I was who he wanted.
The night we met, he made his intentions clear. “When I look across the table and see an old face, it reminds me that I’m old, too. I want to gaze at youth and be reminded that I’m as young as I feel.”
My husband may have inherited his good fortune, but he was no brainless, wasteful heir. He’d been working as his father’s right hand for years and had already helped transform Landel into one of the largest multimedia companies in the world. They own film studios, television networks, Cable and satellite channels, radio stations, restaurant chains and luxury resorts all over the world.
Marcel was a shrewd and pragmatic businessman. He treated the negotiation of our prenuptial agreement no differently and had a checklist that he wouldn’t stray from.
He wanted a woman who was well educated, but not too well. No younger than twenty-one, but no older than twenty-five. She must have wealth of her own and no criminal ties, and most importantly, she must be fertile. And he wanted proof of all of those things before he’d sign anything.
For a woman who had decided that marriage and children were not in my future, it was a very bitter pill to swallow.
But, I did. I slept with him until a blood test showed I was pregnant. And then, we set a date. My grandfather called me the morning the announcement was made and invited me to lunch.
It was a knife in my heart when he had a stroke an hour after he called me. It left him paralyzed and robbed him of his speech. But the die was cast. We’d signed a prenuptial agreement, I was pregnant. There was no turning back.
I smiled through every fitting, every thinly veiled insult from his mother, and did what I knew my grandfather’s love was conditioned on. I never complained or hinted at my unhappiness.
Until the week before our wedding when he announced that we would be living in Paris. In a house we would share with his fork-tongued mother.
It was the drop that made the well of rage inside me overflow. I threatened to call off the wedding. I’d sobbed and screamed and drained that emotional well dry. Then, I did my duty.
Marcel jokes that he pulled off the heist of the century getting me down the aisle. Everyone laughs but me. It’s no joke at all I gave him everything he wanted in a bid to regain my grandfather’s trust and affection and never knew if I’d been successful.
That phone call inviting me over was the last time I heard his voice. I like to think I saw approval in his eyes when I sat by his bed in the months followed his stroke. But when he died, my banishment from employment at Wilde World was still in effect.
Yesterday, we laid him to rest. Burying my grandfather without making amends is something I’ll never recover from and it was one of the worst days of my life.
Somehow, the glutton for punishment in me decided that meeting Matty for lunch today, would be a good idea.
It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since the day we all got fired.
Jack married her college sweetheart and moved to California and we haven’t been in touch since.
Matty stayed in Houston, but I know she’s struggled to find work. Nerves, excitement, and hope lighten my stomach as I stop at the valet stand.
“Welcome to Ruggles on the Green, Mrs. Landel.” The young man who opens my door, leans down. I return his obliging smile and accept the hand he’s offering and let him help me from the car. After a whole year of marriage, I’m still getting used to my last name and the deference it brings.
I follow the hostess through the restaurant and stop every few feet to respond to greetings from people I don’t know.
By the time I reach the table where Matty is already waiting, I’m desperate for a familiar face and give a giddy wave when we make eye contact.
Her less than lackluster smile is more of a grimace and dashes my hopes that I’ll be able to relax with her.
She looks different. It’s not just the close crop of curly hair that’s replaced her ever present box braids. She looks…older and tired
“So, how’s married life?” she asks as soon as I sit down. Her voice is expectant and snide.
“It’s fine, thanks. How are you.”
She ignores me and nods at the waiter who drops menus off and picks one up, opening it so that it completely obscures her face “So, have you told your husband about Weston?”
Her question catches me off guard and I frown at the back of the menu.
“No, of course not. And can you put the menu down?”
After a long-suffering sigh, she closes it, and eyes me with disdain.
“Well, as selective as your memory has become, I couldn’t be sure if you’d forgotten the promise we made. You certainly forgot that we were supposed to be “sisters” when you sold us out.”
I can’t hide my shock, but quickly school my expression. With a pleasant smile in place, I lean close enough so that she can hear my harsh whisper.
“I sold you out? You lied to me for months.”
Her expression remains completely emotionless. But her fingers curl to form fists on the tabletop and her chest heaves with several deep breaths.
“You know what? I’m gonna go.” She puts her menu down and stands up in one smooth movement. Without another word, she turns and strides away.
I’m stunned and by the time I’ve managed to collect myself and stand to follow her, she’s already at the door. I ignore the people who call after me, I don’t think about the gossip that will su
rely follow, and I storm out the door after her.
She’s standing at the valet stand, handing over her keys. I step into her line of sight and cross my arms. She looks over my shoulder as if I’m not even there.
“Why are you leaving?” I snap.
She shrugs, still not looking at me. “I’m tired.”
“You asked to meet for lunch. I just got here. We haven’t seen each other for almost two years. I’m married. I have a baby. We’ve missed so much…. don’t you want to catch up?”
She laughs and finally deigns to meet my gaze. Her dark gaze is blazing with anger that belies the careless smile on her face.
“Yeah, sorry my unemployment check didn’t stretch far enough to allow me to attend your fancy ass wedding. Oops sorry, I forgot you didn’t invite me.”
“I couldn’t, Matty. You know that.” I search her face for a hint of the friend I love, the one who loves me too. From the flat lifeless dark eyes, to the scorn that curls her lips, there’s nothing of her here.
“Well, while you were getting married, I was just trying to figure out how to stay alive.”
“I was doing the same, Matty.”
Her indifferent mask cracks and her eyes flare anger, grief, and damning disappointment. “No, you weren’t. You turned your back on everything you swore you believed in to protect your precious family.”
“That’s not true,” I take an involuntary step back.
“Yes, it is, you didn’t even try to help her,” she bellows, her control gone, tears stream down her face.
A cough from beside us draws my eyes to the group of people watching us with voyeuristic relish.
I grab her arm and pull her away from the waiting area and into a covered walkway leading to a parking garage. I stop and whirl to face her mutinous glare. “I paid her legal fees; I wrote to the parole board. What else could I do?” I remind her.
The Rivals Page 71