Too Good to Be True, page 14
I knew right away that Andy, Scott, and their friends would work just fine. They’ll need to spruce themselves up a bit and commit to being on their A games for the wedding weekend, but my options are limited, and you’ve got to work with what you have, Dr. K.
So, in addition to Skye’s brother, there you have my groomsmen: Andy and Scott, my “childhood friends from growing up in Phoenix”; Dave and Brandon, my “closest buddies from NYU”; Wally, my “only male cousin.” They’ve each promised to bring their wives and act presentable and thoroughly believable in their roles for the weekend of September 21. Wally, who Andy assures me is the most articulate of the bunch, will serve as the best man, toast and all.
This arrangement comes at a cost. In addition to providing accommodations for all five men and their dates, I’ve promised them each $1,500 to see this thing through ($1,700 for Wally). They get half the money up front, and the rest after the wedding.
Andy was really into the whole thing and impressed with my plan in general; he said he genuinely understood the logic behind it, and that he would do anything to save his marriage with Shelly. It was nice to talk to someone about it, Dr. K, especially a guy like Andy from my side of the tracks, someone who knows where I’m coming from. Andy even offered to secure a couple of “older guests” to play my aunt and uncle from Phoenix. For a small fee, with a cut for himself. Life isn’t cheap, Dr. K. But you know that. It’s why you charge such a whopping hourly rate.
But I’m looking at this as an investment. Paying off the groomsmen and a couple of wedding guests is going to be chump change in relation to the final payout. And in the meantime, I just have to keep my eye on the prize.
That’s another issue I’m bumping up against. The millions of dollars I stand to make when all of this is said and done. I’ve spent so much time thinking through every elaborate piece of this plan; I don’t know how I missed something so vital.
Here’s what happened. When I was home in New Haven earlier last month, visiting my family for the first time since I left in October, Heather asked me why I hadn’t been transferring payments to our Chase account from my new bank account in Dubai. My new bank account in Dubai—it took me a couple of moments to understand what she could even be referring to. I swear, Dr. K, in my new life as a domestic criminal, there’s a hell of a lot to keep track of. Thank God for this fucking diary.
So, right. My fake bank account in Dubai where I’m receiving a salary from my fake job in the United Arab Emirates. That bank account.
I promised Heather I would get right on transferring the money as soon as I got back to Dubai, and she said that I’d better because the balance in our Chase account was getting low.
Now, this is the part I hadn’t adequately formulated. In keeping my eye so firmly rooted on the prize, I’d forgotten that the prize would not actually be available until several months after my marriage to Skye in September. Possibly longer than that, because we all know legal shit takes forever. And in the meantime, I’d promised my wife steady payments from my new and improved salary.
I don’t know what I was thinking, promising Heather those payments so far in advance. I’d nearly forgotten about it until yesterday, when I got back to my motel room after being at Andy Raymond’s and saw a text message from Heather that froze my blood.
Where the HELL is the money you said you’d transfer? It’s been over a month and nothing is coming in. Our refrigerator broke and I had to pay the guy to fix it and there’s currently $71 in our Chase account.
I’m telling you, Doc, I can’t catch a break. I barely slept last night, but somewhere between three and four in the morning I came to what I believe will be a solid solution.
Now that Skye and I are engaged, we have every reason to open a joint checking account. Couples do it all the time; presenting the idea certainly wouldn’t be cause for suspicion. I’ve already been honest with Skye that I haven’t had the greatest year financially. So, what I’ll do is, I’ll tell her I’m still waiting on several payments to come in from clients, but that in the meantime I’m short on change to cover the cost of the groomsmen’s custom tuxes along with some other wedding-related expenses. I’ll explain that that’s what made me think of proposing a joint bank account, which we’ll probably want soon anyway.
I’ll call Skye on my drive back to New York later today and present the idea. She’s too crazy for me to question it.
APRIL 10, 2019
Dear Dr. K,
Ta-da! This morning, Skye and I officially opened a joint account at Bank of America.
I knew she’d be fully on board, and she is, so long as I promise to update the new direct-deposit information on our Con Ed, Spectrum, and National Grid accounts. Skye hates dealing with bills and bank accounts and numbers in general, which is perfect, because now she won’t have to. I completed most of the paperwork while Skye scrolled through Instagram, oblivious. Once everything was finalized and I saw the numbers—the amount of money in my own checking account—I nearly collapsed in front of the teller.
After we left the bank, Skye headed home and I made my way to the “WeWork” I supposedly work from, actually a coffee shop on the Upper West Side called JoJo’s with Wi-Fi and free refills. I don’t always come to JoJo’s—sometimes I opt for a different cafe. Sometimes I go to a museum or to the movies or take the subway to Brooklyn and walk until it’s time to head home to Skye. But today I sit in JoJo’s thinking about the numbers in my bank account and how I made that happen, and it’s really something, Dr. K. I think about how I’m going to proceed from here.
Now, I can’t exactly transfer money to Heather’s account from mine and Skye’s; I doubt Skye would notice, but still, it’s too risky to keep a paper trail. So I’ll opt for another route. If I space out my withdrawals, if I take out just $1,750 every week, that means I can manually deposit $3,500 into Heather’s Chase account twice a month. That’s more than double what I was bringing in at PK Adamson, and it’ll be plenty to tide Heather over until the real money hits.
Even if at some point Skye does notice the withdrawals, I can say it’s wedding related. I can say it’s money I used to buy her a wedding present, and that I’d paid in cash to ensure a surprise. But trust me, she’s not going to notice. With the magnitude of our account balance and all the wildly extravagant transactions being made in advance of the wedding and honeymoon, Skye would have to be looking for something to notice an extra seven grand a month.
Off to the bank now. Wish me luck.
APRIL 12, 2019
Dear Dr. K,
In the words of Beyoncé, I’m feeling myself.
I was just at Chase, where I successfully deposited the first biweekly payment of $3,500 for Heather. I immediately texted her to let her know that after a few hiccups with my UAE bank, the money had finally gone through and that there would be lots more where it came from. When she replied a few moments later with a single heart emoji, my own heart skipped a beat.
After all she’s been through, Heather deserves this, Dr. K. She’s the love of my life and the mother of my children, and something about providing for my family makes me feel almost whole again, makes me know the insanity of the past seven months is well worth it. Life hasn’t been fair to our family, so why should we be fair to life? That’s how I see it. You can argue that this outlook fuels the problem, that the most important thing in this world is having integrity, but I’ll tell you something, Dr. K—I’m doing what I’m doing with integrity, with my heart behind my every step.
Chapter Twenty-One
Heather
JUNE 1990
Peter was wrapping up his project, and he and Libby and the kids were slated to leave Langs Valley at the end of June. For me, their departure was a ticking time bomb, and I wanted nothing more than to zip Gus and me inside one of Libby’s oversize suitcases. The prospect of getting through senior year in Langs Valley without Burke or Libby was a daunting nightmare. But as Libby reminded me, a year is short in the scheme of things; all I had to do was keep my head down, continue to ace my classes, and nail my college applications. After that, the world would be my oyster.
My second-semester grades had come in even better than first semester’s. A’s in physics, pre-calculus, and U.S. history and A-minuses in English and Spanish. To top it off, I’d gotten into three APs for the first semester of senior year. Freshman and sophomore years I’d never gotten anything above a B. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you stop partying and lose all your friends.
In addition to my near-perfect grades, I’d also gotten my first round of SAT scores back and had scored in the ninetieth percentile. I’d triple-checked the envelope to make sure the results had been sent to the correct person. Libby said my score was so good that I didn’t even need to take the test again, unless I wanted to aim even higher.
I was overjoyed and slightly shocked, but I knew I deserved every bit of what I was getting. Aside from babysitting duties and hanging out with Libby, I’d done nothing but study for the past seven months. I’d spent countless Saturday nights poring over my SAT prep book while Burke and Kyla and all my other ex-friends smoked crack and took Ecstasy and rolled their brains out. I was going to go to college, and they weren’t.
One evening after leaving Libby’s, I dropped Gus at the Carsons’ and drove to the A&P to pick up some groceries. It was past eight o’clock when I got to the grocery store, the light still long and soft. June was always my favorite time of year, partly because of the longer days and late sunsets, but also because my birthday fell on the seventeenth. I don’t know why I liked my birthday so much—my parents never gave me presents as a kid, and I don’t remember ever having a party. I guess I’d always loved that there was this one day—of all the calendar days in the whole year—that was just for me.
As I wrangled a shopping cart free from the stack, Burke walked out of the A&P. He nearly stumbled right into me, and we made eye contact that lasted a beat too long for either of us to pretend we hadn’t seen the other.
It was easy enough for us to avoid each other at school. We didn’t have any classes together, and whenever I did see him, he was always surrounded by his pack of buddies. A few times I caught him staring at me across the cafeteria or during an assembly, but he never approached me, not after my radio silence in response to the heartfelt letters he’d sent in January.
I kept my hands on the handle of the shopping cart—a buffer between us—and studied Burke, the way he stood tall with his weight on one foot, plastic grocery bag slung under his elbow. He wore broken-in jeans and a worn Boston Red Sox T-shirt that I’d yanked over his head too many times to count. For a moment I forgot that we hadn’t spoken in almost six months and I nearly blurted out the news about my SAT scores. Burke had been more than my boyfriend—he’d been my best friend, my go-to confidant.
But then I remembered that everything was different now, and I held my tongue. Burke shifted his weight to the other leg and gave me that adorably awkward grin where he blew air into his cheeks—the grin that meant he was uncomfortable. The part of me that just wanted to grab his face and kiss him was quickly bubbling to the surface.
“Hi,” I said finally.
“Hey, Bones. You look great.” His voice sounded soft and the same, and it was so good to hear it that I knew I was going to cry.
“So do you, Burke.” He did look great. He always looked great, except when he was high out of his mind, which I had to remind myself was an awful lot. But sober, Burke made my knees weak. He had that lean, strong build I knew every inch of, those shocking blue eyes, and that thick head of glossy black hair. He looked as handsome as ever, and I couldn’t imagine how many girls had raced to jump into his bed since we broke up. My stomach curdled at the thought.
“How are things?” he asked.
“Things are okay. I—I’m sorry we haven’t talked.” I felt my voice crack and knew I had to get out of there before the tears broke loose. “Let’s try to catch up sometime this summer?”
“I’d love that. Have you been—”
“I’m sorry but I’ve got to get these groceries, Burke,” I blurted. “It’s late and I haven’t made Gus’s dinner yet.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His smile was sad, but those telltale dimples still formed on either cheek. “Hey, tell the Gus man I said hi, will ya? Tell him I miss him.”
“I’ll tell him.” I bit my bottom lip, tightening my grip on the handle of the cart and heading toward the store’s entrance.
“Hey, Bones,” he called behind me, and I couldn’t stand how much I loved that he still called me that. I forced myself to turn. “If I don’t see ya beforehand, I hope you have a really happy birthday.”
I managed a strained smile before turning back around and pushing my cart through the sliding doors of the A&P, the tears already dripping down my face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Skye
OCTOBER 2019
Our wedding was a dream. From the idyllic weather to the flowers to the stunning sailcloth tent erected on my grandparents’ property overlooking the ocean, the physical details couldn’t have been more perfect. I felt more beautiful than I had all my life, and it wasn’t because I was so busy and stressed leading up to the wedding that I forgot to eat and finally lost five stubborn pounds. And it wasn’t because I was wearing a satin Carolina Herrera dress or because the makeup lady made every blemish on my face disappear while simultaneously brightening and sharpening each of my features. It was because during the momentum of the weekend I stopped being afraid of the happiness pulsating from every inch of me, and instead I let it envelop me, let it fill me up to the brim. Moments before the ceremony Andie fastened my mother’s sapphire bracelet around my wrist—my somethings borrowed and blue—and I knew then that Mom was with me, I felt her in the marrow of my bones. I remembered how she used to say that beauty radiates from within, and for the first time I finally understood that it hadn’t worked out with Max LaPointe or anyone else because it was meant to work out with Burke.
“You deserve all this, Skye,” Andie had whispered as she fastened the clasp of the bracelet. And I’d felt it, the relief of knowing how right she was.
The honeymoon was magical, too. October 2 marked the eighteenth anniversary of my mom’s death, but for the first time––being in another country with my new husband, my partner forever––the day came and went without the crushing sadness I’ve come to expect. We flew home last night, and now even though I should be doing edits for Jan—I was too exhausted to work on the plane—I can’t stop looking through our wedding pictures. Andie started a shared album and invited my family and friends to contribute, and the photographer just sent a few teaser shots by email this morning. There we are at the altar, the moment we became Mr. and Mrs. Burke Michaels; there we are running out of the church, ginormous smiles plastered on both our faces as white rose petals rain over our heads. There are too many perfect shots, and I can’t wait for Burke to see them. There are some nice family photos, too. My favorite is the one without Nancy, Aidan, and Harry—the one that’s just my brother, Brooke, my dad, Burke, and me. The one where Mom should’ve been standing beside us.
There’s Andie giving her toast, looking stunning in her maid-of-honor dress—a blush Rachel Zoe column—her long hair loose around her shoulders. I smile remembering Andie’s toast, which was heartfelt and touching and, in the best possible way, not at all what I expected.
I keep flipping through the photos. There’s my brother looking handsome in his groomsman suit, the ranunculus boutonniere pinned to his left lapel. There’s Burke’s cousin Wally, the overserved best man, slurring his toast—the one hiccup of the night. Then there’s Burke’s friend Andy—insert sigh of relief—after he took over for Wally and ended up giving a phenomenal toast on the spot. There’s Burke and me during our unforgettable first dance to “September.” There’s a beautiful shot of my father and me during our dance to “She’s Got a Way,” which I chose because it was my parents’ wedding song. Mom got our family crazy about Billy Joel. In the picture the skirt of my dress is a billowy cloud of satin, and my dad’s arm is hooked under the small of my back as he dips me, his smile wide, even though I know tears were in his eyes. I can nearly hear the words, the perfect way the band played the song my parents used to dance to in the kitchen when I was little.
She’s got a light around her
And everywhere she goes
A million dreams of love surround her
I’m still trying to choose the best photos for Instagram––Lexy is astounded that I haven’t posted yet—when my phone buzzes. Andie.
“Hi!” I press the button for speakerphone so I can continue my photo browsing while we talk.
“Hey, Skye.” Andie’s voice is flat, and I can tell right away that something is wrong. “Get home safe?”
“Yeah. We got back late last night. What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something in your voice is weird. What’s going on?”
Andie exhales audibly, and I know I’m right. “What are you doing right now? Is Burke home?”
“He’s out running some errands. What’s going on, Andie? Tell me.”
“I really need to talk to you.” Her voice has a grave edge that makes my stomach sink. “But it needs to be in person. Can you come over here?”
“Right now? What is it, Andie?”
“I can’t talk about this on the phone. I’m serious.”
“You’re really freaking me out.” I close my laptop. My fingers are trembling.
“I’m sorry, Skye, but this is something I need to talk to you about in person, and it needs to be now. Catch a cab and get over here.”
“Andie, wait. I’m panicked. Please just tell me—did—did someone die?”
