Forbidden French, page 30
Less than half an hour has passed since I was last out here, and yet now, I’m a newlywed. A laugh bursts out of me like champagne fizz. This is insane. Truly.
“So what now?” I ask in disbelief.
“Tell your parents they’ll receive a wire transfer by the end of the day. They should be able to pay off the bulk of their debts as we discussed.”
Jesus. Does he have to be so frank about all of this? It’s like the weirdness of marrying a stranger doesn’t even register with him.
He heads straight toward a black Escalade parked near the curb. Mason is standing beside the door. When he spots Walt, he quickly opens it for him and moves back to allow him to step inside. Before Walt does, he looks back at me.
“My assistant will be in contact with you soon.”
I want to demand details, but it occurs to me that I’ve been the one chasing after him for answers all morning and I’m tired of acting like a lost puppy. I’d rather be left in the dark than continue to look like a fool in front of him.
I nod. “Sounds good. Have a nice…” I falter on the unit of time to end the parting sentiment with. Day? Week? Month?
Walt recognizes my confusion and tips his head in response, answering for me with “Have a nice life” before stepping into the Escalade and shutting the door hard behind him.
I don’t realize I’m scowling until his SUV turns the corner and leaves me standing alone on the sidewalk.
Chapter Three
I walk back to my hotel from the courthouse expecting people to look at me weird for what I’ve just done. In my head, they all know. I bet that man in the bowler hat walking his dog is just being kind by averting his eyes. That woman in the bright red parka is dying to tell me what an idiot I am for going through with this marriage. But not a single pedestrian stops me on my walk. No fireworks explode in the sky. There’s not even wedding cake waiting for me back at my hotel room. Everything is normal, and somehow that’s worse.
I should call down to reception and ask if they can swap me over to a honeymoon suite just for the hell of it, but I don’t think this budget-friendly Radisson with its peeling maroon wallpaper caters to the newlywed crowd.
I plop down on the bed in a heap of useless muscles and bones. I stare up at the ceiling for .2 seconds before giving in to the urge to check my bank account balance on my phone. I already did it once this morning before leaving for the courthouse, but I do it again, just to confirm nothing has changed. I’m relieved to see there’s still enough money in there to keep me afloat for a month or two if I play my cards right. It’s a point of pride for me considering how much my mom loves to threaten to cut off my funds. She thinks that would be the end of the world, but little does she know that for the last few years, I’ve hoarded cash like the U.S. Treasury was going to stop printing it. My emergency fund isn’t much, which makes sense considering I’ve been finishing my degree at Rhode Island School of Design, but it’s probably more money than my parents currently have. I smile at the thought and then immediately feel bad for it.
I wish I could stop wavering back and forth, swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other. I envy the truly evil sociopaths of the world. The sort of coldhearted animals that would leave their family destitute without batting an eye. The villains in the movies that walk away from an explosion without looking back.
I’m too weak, too susceptible to the plight of human suffering. How boring.
After closing out of my banking app, I call my older sister to check in. We aren’t exactly pen pals, but we talk every now and then. After the revelations of last night, I’m dying to know what she’s up to.
Charlotte answers after an endless drone of rings, and she sounds out of breath. “Lizzie?!”
Ah yes, the nickname she’s used my entire life even though it grates on my nerves.
“Hey, Charlotte. Do you have a second to talk, or are you busy?”
I cringe at how I sound, as if I never want to put her out for even a second even though I’m the one who’s just stepped up to the plate for our family. I’m the one with a new last name.
“Oh, I think I have a few minutes. I just finished up a ski run and I’m waiting for the others to catch up to me before we go for breakfast.”
“Are you in Aspen?”
“God no. Vail. Aspen can be so…pedestrian this time of year. Every celebrity worth two cents shows up with a snowboard and expects to fit in.”
I offer what I hope is an empathetic groan as she continues to enlighten me about the differences between the two mountain towns.
“Not to mention it’s so easy to fly private here versus Aspen. The airport there gets so backed up with these Instagrammers posing on the tarmac in front of their rented planes. It’s sad, truly.”
I think she’ll continue on forever if I don’t cut her off, so I do, quickly and in a high-pitched nervous voice.
“And what about your driver? Jack, right? Is he there with you as well?”
“Who?”
“Jack,” I say again, louder this time. “Your driver. Aren’t you two…”
I give her the chance to fill in the rest for me, but she doesn’t reply right away, and in fact, I think the call has dropped altogether. I shift the phone away from my ear, look down at it, then press it back in place just in time to catch her raucous laughter that cuts straight through me.
“Oh god, is that the story I gave Mom? That I ran away with my driver or something? Hilarious. No, Jesus, Lizzie, surely you didn’t buy that. Don’t you know me at all?”
I feel like the floor of the hotel room is falling out from underneath me. My vision narrows as my heart beats a rhythm so fast it’s like a hummingbird is about to take flight out of my chest.
“Charlotte, what do you mean?”
My words are careful and measured, but she doesn’t catch on.
She’s still laughing, so amused she can barely contain herself.
“Mom has been on my case for years about my supposed betrothal to Walt Jennings. Did you know about that? Good grief. There was no way I was going to go through with it. I mean, I have eyes so I can see that he’s good-looking and he comes from a good family and all, but he’s such a bore. All he does is work. Take now, for instance—everyone who’s anyone is here in Vail—no offense—and where is he? Probably in some stuffy boardroom. No thank you. That is not what I want for my life. There are plenty of cute wealthy men who know how to let loose.”
“So you didn’t run away with your driver because you were madly in love?” I ask one more time, just to clarify.
“No, Lizzie. Absolutely not.”
I let the phone drop from my hand, and it thumps softly against the bed.
I can faintly hear her calling my name, mildly annoyed, and then the call cuts off and there’s silence in that hotel room like I’ve never heard before. I feel absolutely hollow.
I’m not sure how to process this news, the last piece of straw liable to break the camel’s back. Up until this moment, I was proud of myself for what I did. My family was between a rock and a hard place, and I was their last hope. I thought I was playing the hero, but in fact, I was playing the fool. My sister would have never done what I did today. She would never have sacrificed herself. Maybe that makes her selfish, or maybe it just makes her smart. Either way, I feel sick.
I roll off the bed and go into the hotel’s small bathroom to splash water on my face. I glance up at myself in the mirror, taking in the dark circles under my eyes. I didn’t sleep much last night, and it shows in my appearance. I brush back my dark brown hair and then, still annoyed with it, I twist it around my hand and loop it up into a ballerina bun. Better, but only marginally. From my green eyes to my achingly high cheekbones, I look just like my mom, a person I can’t stand to think about right now.
I turn away from the mirror and spot my suitcases on the floor. The one with my art supplies is what I’m after. I tear into it, yanking on the zipper until I can flip it open and spill the contents out around me.
I pilfer through the mess, gathering what supplies I need so I can set up shop on the table in the corner. All the while, I try to convince myself that what I did today isn’t that big of a deal. My day-to-day life will not change. My hopes and dreams for myself don’t have to disappear. Sure, legally I’m married, but who cares?
I open my box of pastels, blowing off some of the residual dust and surveying the short stubs, trying to determine how much more use I can get out of them before I need to purchase a new set. I like to order them straight from a boutique company called La Maison du Pastel in Paris, and it’s incredibly expensive to ship them over to the States. I could find cheaper pastels at any art supply store in New York City, but I prefer working with natural handmade pastels from a company that’s been around since the 1700s. Every great impressionist from Degas to Renoir used pastels from La Maison du Pastel, so I do too.
I reach for the newspaper I picked up on my way home from the courthouse and then dump it out onto the bed. I toss aside sections that bore me until I land on business and smile, knowing the story about booming stock markets will be the perfect backdrop to the ethereal dancers I plan to overlay on top of it. My pastels are extremely pigmented, so I’m careful as I press them down onto the newspaper. I don’t want the drawing completely opaque. I want to see the newsprint through the color so the two worlds collide. My hands move fast. Over the years, I’ve trained them well. One hand draws with the pastels, and the other turns the paper, smudges the pigments, brushes away the dust.
I draw on sheets of newspaper for the rest of the morning and through the early part of the afternoon until I have to leave for an appointment with my realtor. I hired Lisa to help me find an apartment in the city. It was always my plan to finish up my combined degree at RISD a semester early and then move to New York City to begin my career, and I arrived here a week ago after selling off most of my possessions in Rhode Island. It wasn’t much. Most of my furniture was secondhand and worn down, not worth the cost to ship it all across state lines.
Yesterday, Lisa emailed me about an apartment she thinks could work. It’s in Inwood, a neighborhood located on the northernmost tip of Manhattan. When I arrive after an hour-long subway commute, Lisa is waiting for me outside. This is the first time we’ve met in person, and right away, I can tell she’s someone who spends a lot of time on her appearance: spray tan, bottle-blonde hair, long glitter nails, and thick pink lipstick. She waves enthusiastically as she sees me walking up the street, then she points to the structure beside her as if to say, Check it out! It’s an old brick building on the corner of an intersection with a combined deli and grocery store on the bottom floor.
“I know it’s not much on the outside, but give it a chance. The unit is up on seven,” she tells me as she leads me inside and up the stairs. I’m embarrassed to show that I’m already winded by the fourth floor, so I do the thing where you sip in secret shallow breaths instead of great heaving mouthfuls. I fool no one. She glances back at me with an amused grin.
“There’s no elevator, but you’ll get a great butt from walking up and down all these flights every day.”
Right, well, there is that.
Outside apartment 703, she retrieves a set of keys from her purse and unlocks the door, pushing it open wide with a game-show-host flourish.
“Your humble abode.”
Humble is right. I’m not as prissy as the rest of my family, but this is a dreary place to live by anyone’s standards. Chipping paint, stale air, water damage on the ceiling. Still, I look for the silver linings: there’s a large window in the living room, the bedroom is big enough that I could fit a queen bed, and the last tenant left a hulking beast of an armoire in the living room that I could never manage to lift and remove on my own but would be the perfect spot to house all of my art supplies.
I turn back to Lisa, who’s still hovering near the door and giving me space to look over the apartment on my own.
“I’ll take it,” I say, matter-of-factly.
Her brows shoot up in shock. I bet she assumed I was going to run out of here like my pants were on fire, but nope, I’ll happily sign on the dotted line, and I tell her so.
“Great!” she says, walking toward me with a spring in her step. “Here’s the application. If you fill it out now, I can scan it in when I get back to the office. Then the landlord will need first and last month’s rent up-front as well as a security deposit. I’m not sure of the exact dollar amount, but I’ll get that info and email you ASAP.”
I nod, trying to tally up what that total could be in my head. Hopefully, I’m good for it.
“Then there’s the background check,” she continues, after handing me the application. “And a credit check. They’ll also want to see your W-2s from the last two years.”
What?
“Why do they need W-2s?”
She looks confused by the question, like she doesn’t usually have to explain this part to her clients. “Oh, just to confirm your salary meets the minimum threshold. There’s an algorithm landlords like to use. Usually they just want to ensure that the proposed rent falls well beneath your monthly income. You know the drill.”
I don’t, actually. I lived in the dorms at RISD, and my scholarship paid for that. Before college, I was at home in my parents’ sprawling mansion in Connecticut—a mansion they haven’t paid the mortgage on for years, apparently.
“What if I don’t have a credit history or any W-2s?” I ask gently. “I could probably pay for a few months’ rent up-front instead?”
She frowns. “I’m afraid that’s not an option. It’s surprisingly hard to evict someone from an apartment once they’ve moved in. There’re all sorts of protections in place for tenants, so landlords want to ensure the person is going to be able to pay rent for the full term of the lease, not just a few months. I can’t say I blame them.”
I nod, and she must be able to see my distress because she continues, “What about getting a cosigner? Tenants your age usually have a parent or guardian cosign on a lease. That way you and the landlord are both happy.”
Right. Sure. If I had someone who could cosign, I’d happily take that option. Unfortunately, my parents are good for absolutely nothing considering how much debt they’re in, and my siblings can’t help either. Only two of them are over eighteen. Charlotte doesn’t have a job, and Jacob is still in college. I have an uncle in Minnesota—my mom’s brother—but I’ve only ever seen him a handful of times, and not once since I was twelve, so it’s not like I can just call him up and ask for help with my lease either.
“Is there any way you could ask the landlord if he’d make an exception just this once?” I ask with a pleading smile. “Like I said, I’m probably good for three months’ rent up-front, and if I sell some of my pieces then I can continue prepaying on the lease.”
Her brows scrunch together. “Pieces?”
“My art.”
That really tips her over the edge. “So you work on commission only, I’m assuming? That’ll make it even harder. Any landlord in the city will want you to have a cosigner.”
“But could you just ask? Please?”
She nods as if she’s going to do it, but I can tell she’s already writing me off.
Outside on the sidewalk, we say our farewells, and as I walk away, I feel hopeless.
I just might have to make it work at the hotel for a while instead of finding an apartment, which sucks considering even though it’s a budget-friendly place, it’s still draining my funds faster than I’d like and it’s absolutely tiny.
For the second time today, I feel like a complete idiot. I graduated from RISD with a half-baked plan to move to New York City, and I’m embarrassed to admit I thought it would be a little bit easier than this. A part of me wants to blame my parents for not preparing me for the real world. I lived an incredibly sheltered life until I moved away for college, and that’s coming back to bite me in the ass. What kind of idiot doesn’t know you need some kind of credit history and past income statements if you want to be able to lease an apartment? Apparently, this idiot.
My phone rings when I’m on the subway platform waiting on the train, still beating myself up. My first hope is that it’s Lisa calling me back already with good news, but it’s an unknown number. Usually, I’d let it go to voicemail, but I answer instead, just in case Lisa is calling me from her office line or something.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Am I speaking with Elizabeth?” a female voice asks.
“Uh, yes.” A train screeches to a halt behind me, and I press my finger to my exposed ear so I can hear the person on the other end better. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“This is April, Mr. Jennings’ assistant,” she replies, all business with her prim-and-proper tone.
“Walt’s assistant?”
“Yes. Mr. Walter Jennings II.”
Good grief, what a mouthful.
“Oh, okay.”
“Yes, sorry if I’ve caught you at a bad time, but I have a few things to go over with you.”
“Wait, I’m confused. I thought Mason was Walt’s assistant.”
“Yes, that’s correct. Mason is Mr. Jennings’ first assistant. I’m the one who handles his grunt work.”
I think she meant her statement to be self-deprecating, but there’s a heavy pause as we both realize she’s just referred to me as grunt work. I can’t help it. After the day I’ve had, I actually laugh.
“Is there any way we could pretend I didn’t just say that?” she asks, sounding thoroughly embarrassed and much less professional than she did at the start of the phone call. I think we’ve both decided to drop pretense.
“Sure, yeah. It’s fine. What did you say you’re calling about again? I’m waiting on my train so I’m worried the call might drop at any second.”
“Oh! I’ll be brief then. I have a packet of information to email over to you from Mr. Jennings’ lawyer. They need you to review it, sign, and email it back as soon as possible.”
“What’s in the packet?”
