Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
OLIVER
I pull my feet up to sit cross-legged in the cozy egg-shaped chair that has the prime view of the Empire State and smile at today’s photo of Kirsty and her dad on their trip to see the polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba.
The daily pictures, forwarded by the hospice foundation’s executive assistant, are giving me life. Only a monster would not feel good when looking at these joy-filled faces.
It makes me realize that things like this are the only good thing to come out of me being who I am—that I get to represent a charity that makes a legitimate difference in people’s lives when they’re at their lowest ebb dealing with a seriously sick child.
And that it’s given me the resources to make this one-off gift to this incredibly close father and daughter.
But now my main money-earning plan is gone, those resources are going to diminish by the day.
Once my memoir was shelved, the streaming service canceled plans for the companion documentary. They figured that without being able to piggyback on the publicity of what would hopefully have been a bestselling book, they might not get the viewership to make it worthwhile.
So now the only income I have is from my investments. Thank God my dad made me put money into those as soon as my business started to make a profit.
It might sound pathetic to say that that income is all I have when it is, by any measure, not an insubstantial amount. But my expenses are huge and eat up a significant percentage of it.
A text from my sister pops up over the Canadian tundra.
SOFIA
Want to chat tomorrow? Now we’re settled back at home after the honeymoon, we can tell you all about it. Thought it might cheer up that sad face of yours.
Sofia and Jeremy went to the Seychelles to stay on a private island some rich media mogul lent them. It’s true what Lexi said—the richer you are, the more people give you things for free.
I tried my hardest to look jolly when Sofia video called me while they were there, but she told me my eyes looked sad.
Isn’t there a saying that eyes are the windows to your soul?
In which case I guess I have no control over my soul, because all it wants is what, or rather who, it can’t have.
I’ve been wandering around in a daze these last few weeks, hoping and hoping that time will do that thing that everyone says it does—heal.
Every time my phone’s beeped, I’ve snatched it up just in case it’s a message from Lexi. I can’t blame her for not contacting me again. I sent her one of the most cowardly non-breakup breakup messages of all time.
But ending it was the best thing I could do for her. It got her career back on track and away from me and a family she would never have wanted to be tangled up with.
I’ve spent countless sleepless nights sitting in bed in the dark, writing texts I’ve never sent to her.
It always seems like a good idea when I start them, but they always end up long and convoluted, and, in the end, I always come to the same conclusion—it would be selfish to send it, selfish to get back in touch, because she’s better off not associated with me.
The only thing being with me ever brought her was the trouble I always knew it would.
I need to keep my poisonous existence to myself and leave her free to live and enjoy her life uninfected by mine.
Maybe the current life project that I’m embroiled in—searching for a new home—will eat up a whole bunch of time and be a good distraction from the aching chasm inside me.
The owner wants to sell this place and I have to be out in a couple of weeks. I’ve yet to find something I like that’s also reasonably secure, but I’m going to see a bunch more places tomorrow and a couple of them look hopeful.
All this means I have to start paying for a roof over my head. Which means I either need to figure out a new path to making a living or move out of New York City to somewhere where rent isn’t equivalent to the GDP of a medium-sized country.
I totally get that these are rich people problems. Oh, poor me that I have to pay for security to protect me.
Poor me that I have to live at the top of a tall building so strangers who think I’ve betrayed my family or that I’ve been sending them messages in their dreams can’t get to me.
Poor me that I had connections to only one multibillionaire with a lavish penthouse I could live in rent-free for a few years.
I get that these are not the regular normalities of life. But they are the normalities of my life. And they are what I have to live with and cope with on the daily. And for forever.
But looking at these two joy-filled faces on my phone, their noses red from the cold, all bundled up in thick parkas and hats, standing on the viewing deck of a large white truck high above the snow with two polar bears going about their day behind them, gives me a buzz of satisfaction that there is at least one upside to my privilege.
A message from Chase appears up at the top of my screen.
CHASE
Seen this?
He’s included a link to an Instagram post.
When I click, it opens up a video from The Sentinel magazine’s account.
The camera pans across the rubble of a large building in a dusty brown landscape below a clear blue sky before landing on a woman wearing a flak jacket and a headscarf.
She’s walking toward the camera, saying, “Almost forty percent of Yemeni children are not in school. Years of civil war have forced them out…”
My heart jumps at the sound of Lexi’s voice. I don’t hear what she says after that because the only thing my brain can do is wonder how risky it is there, where she’s sleeping, what she’s eating, and how long she’s there for.
Of course I know this is everything she’s always wanted, and I’m damn happy my dad was good to his word and made this happen. But the sight of her there, in the scorching heat, a touch of sunburn visible on her nose now she’s closer to the camera, sickens me with worry.
Is Yemen dangerous? I don’t even know. Wow, how many awful things like these are going on in the world right now that I know nothing about and that millions of other people know nothing about either?
And here I am worrying about which penthouse I might live in next.
Just exactly how fucked up is my existence?
ME
Thanks. No, hadn’t seen it. Wow.
CHASE
She’s good, huh?
ME
Didn’t hear anything after the first sentence. Too busy picturing every worst-case scenario.
Can’t shake it off. But she’s out there doing her thing, and that’s all she ever wanted. So I’m pleased there was some way I could make her happy.
Did you know it was that bad in Yemen? That almost half the kids can’t go to school cos the buildings have been bombed?
CHASE
Had no idea.
And Chase watches way more news than I do.
So Lexi is definitely doing a good thing by getting these stories out into the world. How is a country supposed to rebuild and get better if it can’t educate the next generation?
I stare down at her face, frozen mid-word where I paused the video. Before I know it, I’m running my finger over her cheek.
Fuck.
What are you supposed to do when you want to be with someone but can’t? When a simple picture of them makes you feel like your insides are being sucked into a black hole? When all you want to do is fly to the other side of the world, scoop her into your arms, and keep her safe?
I drop my phone onto the sofa and walk over to the windows.
Watching the hustle and bustle of the street below, with people going about their lives, somehow always calms me.
My building is only twelve floors, so even though I’m on the top one, I’m not on such a high perch that I’m disconnected from reality or that I can’t see what’s going on around me.
On the other side of the street are a couple of people who look like they might not be sure where they’re sleeping tonight. One has a shopping cart piled high with bags of cans and bottles, collecting them for the refunds, I assume.
A few feet away, a man pulls a crumpled pizza box from a trash can, opens it, and pulls out an abandoned crust. He munches on it while rummaging deeper in the rubbish with his other hand.
This is real fucking life.
The real fucking life my parents never give a second thought to. Real fucking life most people don’t give a second thought to.
Christ, if Lexi can put herself in harm’s way to try to raise awareness of the plight of desperate, forgotten people, there must be some good I can do with my globally high profile, some good that can come from the skills I learned in my business running lavish, wasteful, consumerist events for all those years.
I must be able to help more than sending the occasional person on vacation to see polar bears. There has to be a bigger impact that my otherwise completely useless life can make.
I straighten, blood rushing to my brain, which is now firing on all cylinders, ideas inspired by the woman I cannot get out of my head or my heart forming themselves into mental bullet point lists.
I cross the apartment to the sofa, more purpose in my stride than I’ve felt in a long time, possibly ever, and pick up my phone.
Still there on the screen is the paused image of Lexi staring back at me.
“I really do fucking love you, you know,” I say to the image before closing the video and calling the guy from the streaming service who canceled my documentary.