25. Money and Power
Summer
If this had been a movie, the next scene would have been Delilah and me driving away with a jaunty soundtrack playing. Possibly in a convertible. Here in my real life, Roman drove the half-hour back to the house with his jaw set, and I sat beside him and felt bad. Finally, when we were getting close, I said, hearing how stiff I sounded, “Obviously, I went overboard there. You’ve been incredibly kind to Delilah and me. If part of that was how I look—well, pretty privilege is real, I’m ashamed to have it, and blaming you for wanting to help me because of it is just ungrateful. Nothing about the spot I’m in now was your fault, and I could have turned you down more gracefully. It’s just—” I shut my mouth on my justification, because qualified apologies weren’t really apologies at all.
“You shared your opinion,” Roman said, pulling into the drive. “Don’t back off now. That’s a weak look.” After which he climbed out of the car and stalked toward the house, while I scrambled out behind him with the kind of dignity you’d expect from a sweaty, muddy, embarrassed-by-her-frankness woman. In other words, none.
“Wait,” I said, and he turned at the door, no softness in his face. “I need to make sure we’re clear before we get in there with Delilah. Let’s move the rugs back, and then I’ll …”
“No,” Roman said.
“No? No?” I was over my contrition.
“Take a shower first,” he said.
“I don’t need to—” I began.
He said, “I don’t want mud on my carpets. Go take a shower.” And opened the door.
Delilah, I saw as soon as we were through the kitchen, was still on her stomach on the couch with an icepack on her tailbone. She was also asleep.
“Shower,” Roman said, and stalked off toward the back of the house. Toward, presumably, his own bathroom. I vacillated a minute, and then I went into the bedroom, stripped off my sweaty, muddy clothes, thought about how many times I’d been muddy here, threw on my robe, gathered up the laundry, and went to stuff it in the washing machine. Holding the moral high ground was all very well until you were down to a few outfits and they were all dirty.
When I passed by the living room, Delilah said, “Wha-?” She tried to sit up, yelped, and lay down again.
“Hey,” I said, stopping beside her and putting a hand on her back. “Still hurts a lot?”
“Only when I laugh,” she said. “Or cough. Or move.”
The tent wasn’t going to work. Just getting into and out of a sleeping bag would hurt her. But I’d burned my bridges. My stupid pride, getting in the way. Why couldn’t I just have said, “No,” and had a mature conversation, negotiated an exit plan? Why had I panicked like the walls were closing in?
Wait. Motel. Duh. We’d do that. We’d just …
“Four weeks to heal,” Matiu Te Mana had told us. “It’ll hurt much less after a week or two, though.” Delilah wouldn’t be able to work for at least two weeks, and she sure didn’t look able to camp. Weeks in a motel, on one waitressing salary? And in a week, I needed to make the next payment on the ute.
Oh, no. The ute. Had I been just totally wrong? Had I …
Delilah said, “Your standing there like a statue is freaking me out. What?”
“Oh,” I said. “Uh … nothing. I’ll just—I need to take a shower.” You got good ideas in the shower, right? I needed some good ideas.
The good news was—it worked. Well, I got an idea, anyway. Of course, I couldn’t pursue it immediately, since Roman had clearly taken about a five-minute shower and was switching out Delilah’s ice pack when I came out. Which didn’t make me feel bad much at all.
He didn’t say anything about what had happened, just looked at me, his dark gaze unreadable, and said, “If you want to help me move the carpets, let’s do it.”
Seven wool rugs. Seven rooms. Seven sets of furniture to move, with Roman holding up the ends of couches and beds while I crawled on the floor and dragged mats and rugs into place, and our conversation consisted of, “Hang on,” and “Now.” By the time we were doing the last room, his office, I felt both ungrateful and overdramatic. He was holding up the corner of his desk when I said from my spot on the floor as I dragged a corner of the rug into place, “It was probably stupid of me to get so insulted about the idea of sleeping with you, when I’m obviously attracted to you, too.”
“I’d say what you objected to was being treated like a prostitute.”
The word was a jolt. “Well, yeah,” I said, backing out from under the desk and trying for a smile that wouldn’t hold. “That was how it came across. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way. I just?—”
He said, “Holding up the other end of the desk now,” and did it, so I did some more crawling under his splayed legs and then some more backing out. When I was done, he set down the end of the desk and I tried not to look at his arms and shoulders and chest in his T-shirt, pumped up by all the effort. Was I as bad as he was?
“Money and attraction make things hard,” I decided to say, leaning against the desk to catch my breath, my muscles like jelly after the day. “But I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for us. It’s just—money is power. There’s no way around it. The person who pays has the power.”
“Really?” he said. “Always? How about partners? People who have kids together?”
“Well, yes. In lots of cases, the person who pays still has the power. It shouldn’t be that way if you’re a team, but it so often is. Why do you think I insisted on getting a job when I was married to a guy making tens of millions of pounds a year?”
“Did that give you power, then?” Roman asked.
“Not exactly,” I admitted. “Not to Felipe, not when my salary was a drop in the bucket and all I was paying for was my car. It made me feel less powerless, though.”
“Fine,” Roman said. “Do what you have to do.” And walked out of the room.
No partof my next conversation was any easier.
I almost couldn’t find the number at all, but finally discovered it after searching through all of our hospital paperwork. There, on the last page of Delilah’s initial discharge instructions.
“Hi,” I said when the woman’s voice answered. “This is, uh, Summer Adair. From the hospital? My cousin was a patient? You gave me your number the first time we were in there, when she had a concussion and I’d cut myself.”
“I remember,” Daisy said, sounding cool, competent, and efficient, making all my leaky, messy emotions seem even more ridiculous.
“So, uh …” I said, “I was wondering—” Get it together. “Whether the caravan you mentioned is still an option for us.” I went on, as briskly as I could manage. “I can pay rent, whatever’s a fair price. For just a few days until I get a job, or until late May, or whatever works for you. I’ll find work in Dunedin, and I’ll pay the first two weeks in advance and sign a contract, of course. But I have to tell you—” There I was, trailing off again.
“Yes?” she asked. Still cool.
“The reason I’m asking you,” I said, “and not looking for a flat or staying in a tent is—well, first, Delilah. The tailbone.”
“Very sore,” Daisy agreed.
“Yes. And second, uh … you may have been right about depending on strangers. Not that Roman’s done anything wrong. He’s been incredibly generous. Wait—I don’t mean he’s offered charity.” Could this get any more awkward? I was sweating. “Or maybe he has, because he sold me a ute for way too cheap, but otherwise, we cleaned his flooded house for him. Not that that was enough to do in exchange for staying here, but I don’t—I pay my way. The ute was over the top, though. I’ll pay him back the full value when I can and make it not as much of a favor, but?—”
“Because you don’t like favors,” Daisy said. “And there was a price to pay. That always seemed likely.”
“It did? He acted like he hated me!”
“But he was there,” Daisy said. “And he stayed when he didn’t have to. Got to be a reason for that, and I know what the usual reason is.”
“Yes.” I wiped my forehead and plunged on. “And I need to tell you the other thing before you decide. I declared bankruptcy recently. My husband—in the UK, my husband in the UK—well, my ex—he went to prison for tax fraud. I was put on trial, too, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict me. I still had to file for bankruptcy, because I couldn’t pay the mortgage and his other debts, and they were a lot. I can tell you that I didn’t know what he was doing, that he was extremely wealthy and what he did makes no sense to me, which was whyI never suspected, but I realize that’s hard to believe. That’s why I’m not sure about renting a regular apartment, though. Nobody wants to hear that story when they can rent to people who haven’t been on trial for fraud or gone bankrupt, and who’d believe it anyway?”
“Oh, I dunno.” For some reason, Daisy sounded amused. “I might believe it. You’re not the only one with a story. Got a name for me? Something I could look up online, check out?”
I swallowed. “My ex is Felipe Moyano. The footballer.”
“Ah,” Daisy said. “You were a WAG.” Again, sounding like nothing could surprise her.
“Well, yes,” I said. “But I had a job, too. I can give you a work reference. And like I said, I can pay in advance. How much would the rent be, if it still works for you?”
I felt shaky, waiting for the answer. It couldn’t be as much as an apartment, could it? This was the only good solution I could think of. If it didn’t work, it would have to be the motel, but that would cost?—
“Hang on,” Daisy said. “Let me check with Gray. My husband. Could take a few minutes.”
“Oh. Sure.” I hadn’t thought about that, and my heart sank. How many men would be excited about their wives inviting random lost souls to move in? Random lost souls with backstory and baggage? She’d also be looking me up, seeing pictures of me wearing too much hair product and some very short skirts and possibly drinking champagne, not looking one bit like a responsible, serious person.
A few long minutes, and she came back. “All good. Up to four months is fine. Two hundred a week, including the electric and wifi and all. Not that we need it so much, but it feels better when you pay your way.”
“Yes,” I said fervently. “It does. That’d be—it’d be great. We’ll stay out of your way, I promise. And keep it clean, too.”
“Cleaning sounds good, but you don’t have to be that invisible. You’ll want to do your washing in the yurt, for one thing.”
The yurt? “Oh, no,” I said. “I wouldn’t?—”
“Two of my sisters in there,” Daisy said. “One in university and the other in high school. Company for your cousin, maybe. Another one lives with us in the house, but nobody’s in the caravan at the moment, so no worries, we have space. And no men other than Gray, which may be a plus for you just now.”
“Is it a … commune?” I asked. “Or something?”
Daisy said, “That’d be funny, if you knew. No. It’s my family. How soon are we talking about?”
“Uh …” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “Tonight.”
“Not that soon,” I said. “I’m doing some waitressing here, and I need to work today and tomorrow, but … Monday?” Delilah would be a little less fragile by then, I hoped, at least able to ride in the back seat on her stomach. “This came up suddenly.”
“Blew up suddenly, you mean,” she said. “No worries. We’ll have it ready for you.”
“Another thing,” I said, and hesitated again.
“You really are in a spot, aren’t you?” she said. “Tell me.”
“You’re good friends with Matiu. Dr. Te Mana. I saw that yesterday at the hospital. And Roman—you remember how he was?—”
“Arrogant?” she asked. “With a temper? That’s the bloke I remember.”
“Oh. He’s normally nicer than that. Like I said—selling me the ute and all. He was just a little—surprised—at the time.”
“Because you rolled your campervan down his hillside,” Daisy said.
“Yes. That. But now it turns out he’s Matiu’s cousin. Surprise,” I added weakly.
“He’s Maori, though,” Daisy said. “Nobody has cousins like Maori.”
“Yes, but he’s a new cousin,” I said. “Previously unknown. There could be some bad feelings.”
“Oh?”
“His dad is Matiu’s uncle, and his half-brother is Hemi Te Mana. The designer. Things could get awkward.”
“I’ve heard of him, of course,” Daisy said. “Are you saying Hemi Te Mana is going to be coming round the caravan? No worries. We could use the style tips. My sisters and I have had heaps of catching up to do on that front.”
“Oh, no. I’m sure he won’t. I don’t think there’s going to be any … any real relationship. I just wanted to tell you, in case there’s any drama with Matiu.”
“There’s never any drama with Matiu,” Daisy said. “Matiu is a drama-free zone. That’s why we’re friends. Because I don’t need him, but I like him. My happy place. And maybe yours, too.”