Chapter 4
4
Cat
I ’m home studying when Blair calls me to cover for her that Sunday. Blair got me the job at Sylvia’s when I first fled my parents’ house at Rockwood six months ago. Sylvia, the grizzled owner of the bar, doesn’t care who’s working, as long someone’s on shift, so I cover Blair’s night shifts when she’s at practice or performances, and she covers me when I’m in class.
“You want to work?” Blair asks. “Bar will be dead because there’s no game, so you can study once we get the prep work done. Tips will be shit, though.”
“How can I resist?”
I could use the distraction of work from the slow-motion train wreck of my life, and I’m way too desperate right now to turn down any amount in tips.
Blair puffs a breath into the phone. “Wear something cute. Maybe you’ll make a little more.”
“Yuck. Yeah, I’ll do it. Thanks, B.”
“See you soon. And hurry up. We need to cut like seven hundred fucking limes before Monday. ”
I hustle down to the bar on 33 rd Street and push open the door into the beer-scented dark.
Blair’s head jerks up. “Thank fuck,” she mutters. “I thought you were a customer. I was going to scream.”
I flip the lock on the front door and shuck my coat as I make my way to the back of the bar. It’s long, about twenty seats, and there are numerous high-top tables scattered throughout the space, meaning one person can’t handle it on a busy day. And as the number-one Royals hockey bar in Manhattan, game days, like Friday night, are brutal. But non-game days are basically dead.
I stow my purse in the cubby where Blair puts her bag. Close enough to grab the illegal taser she keeps in there for late nights and my phone, if by some miracle, I get an internship offer. Blair is looking at me with a question on her face, even as her hands move through the motions of decanting vodka from one nearly empty bottle into another.
“It’s a no.” I shake my head. “Still no husband. Still no internship.”
“Fuck.” Blair’s curse is blistering. “What are you going to do?”
“No idea. I’ll talk to my professor next week. Maybe he’ll cut me some slack.”
“I meant with your whole marriage thing.”
“Don’t remind me. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past fifty-one weeks.” My head is halfway inside the fridge where we keep the produce. Limes, oranges, lemons, some mint, though no one in their right mind would order a mojito in this bar. I don’t even know how to make one. I stand with the bucket of limes and thump it down on the bar. I look at my best friend, who is biting her lip. Her dark eyes are uncertain.
“I’ll figure it out, B,” I reassure her. “Look at you. You never thought you’d make any money, and now you’re following your dreams. You’re killing it.” I grab the paring knife from the drawer.
“Sure.” She snorts. “Second understudy. Bartender in what has to be Manhattan’s worst bar.” She cocks her head at the sticky floor and the dim lighting.
“Lead bartender,” I remind her. “And this is how it starts.” I’ve told her this a hundred times. “Don’t sell yourself short. Understudy to the lead in one of the biggest plays on Broadway right now.”
“You’d rather die than see a play,” she responds, but she’s smiling.
“That I would,” I agree. “But I’ll totally go see yours. Blair Wang, lead actress or whatever you dorks call it.” I grin at her. “You’re an inspiration.”
She snorts, but she seems lighter as we work our way through the bucket of limes. Daryl, our barback, breezes in at 4:29, right before the bar opens. He’s a backup dancer that Blair knows from her shows, and his personality is a one-eighty from his appearance. He’s six foot four and blond with an eyebrow ring, but he’s got the sweetest personality and a breathy voice. Blair calls him her son.
“What’s up, babes? Ready to make some money?” Daryl stows his bag with ours and goes to the basement door, where we keep the kegs and extra liquor.
“Yeah, a whole ninety dollars in tips,” I mutter, and Blair laughs. The Sunday customers when there’s no game are cheap, and they never order food.
“You need help with your stuff tomorrow?” she asks.
“That would be great.” I shoot my friend a grateful smile. “I shoved everything into two suitcases, but taking the train with them last time was brutal. I’ll bring you the last bottle of wine from the townhouse in exchange.”
“I still can’t believe you’re losing it,” she says. By it , she means the lovely old townhouse my grandma owned, where I’ve been living for the past six months.
“I know. My dad’s sending my cousin to do his dirty work. He’ll be there at nine a.m. sharp to kick me out.”
“Assholes,” Blair responds.
“Amen.”
“Maybe you can totally wreck the inside as payback. Cause them a few thousand dollars’ worth of damage. See how they like it.”
Blair’s ruthlessness warms me. “Nah. Most of the interior is original. My grandma lived there when she was our age. She married my grandfather scandalously late in life. She used to throw parties there in her twenties. I found ashtrays piled in the closet when I moved in.” I smile at the memory of discovering my grandma’s old jewelry and dried-up perfume bottles mixed in with art deco ashtrays.
“And she’s the one who required you to be married to inherit?” Blair sounds skeptical.
“Believe me, if I could go back and ask her one thing, it would be that.” Grandma Peterson was intense in life, but kind, but I still don’t know what to make of the marriage requirement in her will.
“It just seems so out of character.” Blair frowns. She met Grandma Peterson once while she was in the retirement home. She hated it there. I remember her complaining to Blair about the wine they served.
“I know. She always seemed so modern to me. Ahead of her time. But she really loved my grandpa. He died when I was young, but I remember her having a happy marriage.”
“So she decided to force you into one? That makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me either. I looked for a diary or a note before I left, but I didn’t find anything. I can’t even go back to Rockwood to check her house on the property.” My grandma died 359 days ago. Her will was read shortly after. And I was forced out of the family estate at Rockwood 175 days later.
“I just can’t believe it. It’s like the 1700s all over again.” Blair shakes her head as she screws the top back onto our cheapest tequila.
“I know.” I mirror her motions with a bottle of bourbon. I’m going to reek of liquor when this is done. “You know what the worst part is?”
“Other than your family disowning you, taking all your money and your inheritance, and putting you out on the street?” Blair raises a brow, and I make a face.
“Other than all that. Peterson International was supposed to be my legacy. It was my mom’s family company. The townhouse was my grandma’s. My father has ruined everything else about our family. Those were the last two good things left.”
Isn’t that so like a man? To come stampeding in, plant his flag, and proceed to decimate everything? Peterson International is the company my mom’s grandfather started. I can’t save it from my father, as much as I want to.
“I would love to see you show him up.” Blair grabs another tequila bottle. “Success is the best revenge. You can have any job you want after you get your degree.”
“I don’t want just any job. I want Peterson International.”
“I still don’t understand that.” She slides me a look. “You really want to work with your father and his business partners. Isn’t one of their sons still there? The one your dad tried to marry you to?”
“Yeah. Arnold Worth the Fourth.” Blair snorts. Arnold’s name is stupid. My dad did try to marry me to Arnold, and I ran as fast as I could in the other direction. Arnold is petty, cruel, and completely under my father’s control. “I wouldn’t be working with them. If I took control, my first actions as CEO would be firing my father and all his cronies. I’d hire back the women they let go after the harassment complaints, and I’d institute six months of paid maternity leave.”
“You might just convince me to go corporate,” Blair says.
“Yeah, well. It’ll never happen.” In the movies, the villain doesn’t get away with ruining everything, but this is real life. My father is going to win, and the thousands of employees at Peterson International will be collateral damage.
“I’m sorry, babe.”
My mouth twists as I look at Blair. She’s always relentlessly supported me, ever since that night in college when I told her ex-boyfriend to fuck off or I’d key his car.
“I’m supposed to be running Peterson International,” I say. “It should have been me getting an MBA at twenty-two and an internship at twenty-three. I should be the CFO, not Arnold Worth the Fourth.” It’s what Grandma wanted, anyway. It’s why she left me the shares. Well, I imagine that and because my father is such an overbearing prick.
“But because you’re a woman…” Blair tosses the rag on the counter as I replace the bourbon bottle.
“Exactly. I don’t get to run a company. It’s easier to control me through a marriage. My grandma dropped enough hints over the years. My dad knew I was going to inherit the shares. He just didn’t realize it would be her full 40 percent.” Watching my father’s head nearly explode had been deeply satisfying. Sweet justice after all those years of him brushing me aside and telling me that “little girls don’t belong in the boardroom.”
Tequila glugs into the nearly full bottle as Blair watches it carefully. “And now that you’re not marrying?”
I wince. I’d held out hope for the last year, but it’s time to admit that my plan to find a husband didn’t work. My shoulders lower. “He gets all the shares. And then he sucks the company dry. I’d say they have about two years left. There are thousands of employees.” Every time I think about it, I feel sick, so I try to focus on what I can do to fix things.
“That sucks,” she says bluntly. “Your dad isn’t even a Peterson.”
“I know. And maybe it’s dumb, but part of me wanted to take it back for my mom.” I force the words out around the lump in my throat. My mom’s been gone since I was eight, and it never gets easier talking about her. “She never seemed interested in running Peterson International, but now I know it’s because she was never encouraged to try.” The diary I found three years ago said as much, and it changed everything for me.
“So that’s it? A few more days, and this is all just…done?” Blair looks at me unhappily. She’s watched me fight against my family since the will was read. It’s like fighting the tide.
“I think so.” I blink away the heat gathering behind my eyes. “I’ve asked so many people to marry me, B. My father has gotten to all of them. Each of them has told me they’ll give the shares up to him.”
“You should walk out onto 7 th Avenue right now and ask the first person you see.” My best friend crosses her arms. “Hell, I’d marry you.”
“I know you would.” I smile gratefully at Blair. “I don’t think Donny would appreciate that.” She doesn’t know it, but her boyfriend is planning to propose this summer. I can’t do that to them. Donny is madly in love with her, and if I let her, she’d definitely marry me and tell Donny to get in line .
“So get out there on the street. There’s a construction site on 37 th Street. I saw lots of hot guys in hardhats there last week. Find someone and ask.” She gestures wildly. I love her for how angry she is on my behalf.
“I don’t think so.” I swallow. “Look how it turned out for my mom. She barely knew my dad when they got married, and he took everything .” She died when I was eight, but my dad started sucking her inheritance dry long before that. I learned the full extent of it in her diary.
“Not everyone is bad,” Blair protests. “In fact, most people are nice if you give them a chance.”
“I can’t do it.” I shake my head. “I can’t marry a total stranger.”
Blair gives me a look. I can’t. But before I can respond, I hear, “What’s this about marriage?”
Theo.