Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DOLLAR SIGNS
LOLA
I’m in my office between clients, eating a sad lunch of pieced-together leftovers. I dumped a little bit of this, a little bit of that in one bowl, and it’s not terrible, but not great.
I get a FaceTime call from Wade—or, as I have him named in my phone, Pedro Pascal—right as I’m deciding not to eat the last piece of indistinguishable meat, and I answer.
“Hi, Lola.” His voice is warm but businesslike.
“Hi, Wade.”
“I’m trying to get Tully on here too. One sec.”
Tully picks up and grins wide when he sees me. He’s in a hotel room in St. Louis, I believe, sitting on the edge of a bed in a T-shirt and sweats, hair still damp from what I assume is a post-practice shower. I drink him in.
“Hey, Trouble,” he says.
“Hey,” Wade says, and there’s a pause. “Oh, wait, was that not meant for me?”
We all laugh.
“Hello, Wade,” Tully says.
“Hello. Thank you for making time, guys,” Wade says. “I want to be clear about a few things before I share what I’ve found. Nothing moves forward without your explicit agreement, and you are not obligated to do anything with this information.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I started where Tully asked me to start,” Wade says.
“Property holdings and LLC registrations connected to Daniel in the New York metro area going back seven years.” He pauses.
“It’s taken several days to work this out.
The two buildings Lola was displaced from several years back were owned by different property management groups.
” He looks up from whatever he’s reading.
“Different names. Different registered agents. Different addresses.”
“But?” Tully says, because there is very clearly a but coming.
“But they have the same parent company,” Wade says. “A holding company called Crestline Asset Management, registered in Delaware…and a secondary address in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”
I stare at the screen.
“Fuck. Is it him?” Tully says.
“Well, his name isn’t showing up on this yet. But the address, the firm, and several of the associated investors have connections to a name that keeps appearing.”
He says the name. I’ve never heard it. But Tully freezes.
“You recognize that name,” I say.
His head falls back as he stares up at the ceiling and groans. Then he looks at me again.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.”
Wade looks between us. “I don’t have the full picture yet. But it feels like a good start. Should I keep digging?”
“Absolutely,” Tully says. No hesitation.
Wade nods and looks at me.
“Yes, please,” I say.
“There have also been an exorbitant number of log-in attempts on your accounts, Lola. I think we’re shaking him up.”
After we hang up, my mind is swimming a bit, but I get to work, relieved that Tully and Wade and Marcus have my back.
I’ve kept Isla updated about Tully, and she’s happy for me. Really happy.
“I think it’s beautiful that you never stopped loving each other,” she said. “I’ll miss you at Thanksgiving, but I’m happy you’re going. But, you’ve gotta take more pictures than you took at the charity event.”
She texts before I start with my next appointment.
Isla
Have you told Mom and Dad about Thanksgiving yet?
I’m going to see if we can do a FaceTime tonight.
Isla
You’re cutting it to the last minute. You leave the DAY AFTER TOMORROW.
I groan.
I know. I know.
Everyone is up for the call, but they look a little worried once we’re all on. I can’t remember when we last had a family FaceTime. If ever.
My mom wears a silk blouse at the kitchen table, and my father appears in the corner square, smaller, seated in his armchair. Luca’s eating something. And Isla is in her old bedroom in our parents’ house, folding laundry.
Four faces blink at me from four squares on my screen. I take a breath.
“Hi, everyone,” I say awkwardly.
“What’s going on, Lola? You look like you haven’t slept in days,” Mom says.
“Thanks, Mom. I’m…great. I’m seeing Tully again,” I say. “And this is why I wanted to talk tonight—he’s invited me to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, and I said yes.”
The silence lasts exactly one and a half seconds.
Then everyone talks at once.
My mother’s voice is the loudest by a significant margin, which is both predictable and impressive. “Tully Whitman? Oh Lola. Why would you go down that path again? And Thanksgiving? That’s just a few days away. Why would you wait so long to tell me?”
“It just came together this past weekend.”
“But we do Thanksgiving together, we always do.” Mom looks at Isla and Luca. “Did the two of you know about this?”
“I literally just found out,” Luca says, pointing at the screen with whatever he’s eating. He looks hurt. “Same time as you, Mom.”
“I knew about it,” Isla says. “And it seems sudden, but they’ve loved each other all this time. I honestly didn’t know how to feel about Tully until I saw the way he looked at Lola. He looked at her like she was his sun and moon and stars.”
I press my fingers to my lips, trying to contain my smile, and Isla smiles back at me.
“I’m excited for you,” she says.
“Thank you.” I blow her a kiss. “He wants to meet all of you. He knows you’re not super hip on the hockey thing, but he said to tell you he has good manners.” I laugh.
My mother stares at me with pinched lips. “Why would you tell him we’re not”—she holds up her fingers in quotes—“‘hip on the hockey thing’?”
“Uh, because you didn’t want to meet him when we dated before?”
“That should’ve never left this family.” She sniffs.
“You’re right, Mom. But he wasn’t offended by it. I’ve done a lot worse, and he’s forgiven me.”
My mother redirects at me like a heat-seeking missile. “You haven’t spoken to this boy in years.”
“I’m aware.”
“And now you’re going to his house for Thanksgiving.”
“His family’s house, yes.”
“Just like that.”
“Not just like that,” I say. “It’s been—there’s been a process.”
“What process? You didn’t tell me about any process. Did anyone know about a process?” She looks around at the other squares.
Luca shakes his head. My father says nothing.
“Isla knew,” my mother concludes, with the tone of someone adding evidence to a case she’s been building for years. “Isla always knows.”
“Isla is very trustworthy,” Isla agrees pleasantly.
“Lola.” My mother takes a breath, and when she speaks again, her voice has shifted into the register she uses when she’s decided to be reasonable, which is somehow more alarming than when she’s just reacting.
“I remember when you and this boy broke up. You were devastated. Every time I turned around, you were moving—”
“Because my rent kept getting jacked up,” I say. “Not my fault.”
“You were not yourself for a very long time. I’m your mother, and I had to see you go through that, and now you’re telling me you’re just”—she flings her arm—“going to Minnesota.”
“I—”
“I just want to understand what’s different now.”
What’s different now? So much. I think about Wade’s call this morning. I think about years of waiting for the floor to drop out and the dawning possibility that maybe it doesn’t have to.
“Everything is different now,” I say. “Everything but our feelings for each other.”
She looks at me for a long moment.
“How serious did you say this hockey player is?” she asks. “Financially, I mean.”
“Mom—”
“I’m asking a practical question.”
“I looked at it again, and I’d say it’s closer to twenty-five million, counting his endorsements,” Luca says.
Dead silence.
My mother blinks.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I really don’t see why this factors into our conversation.”
My mother has gone quiet. I see her recalibrating. She’s a woman of convictions, but I think the dollar signs are winning out the more she hears those numbers.
“I still think that you need to be careful,” she says primly. “A man like that. These athletes, Lola, they have a certain kind of life—”
“He’s not like that,” I say. “He never was.”
“Then why did he break your heart?” She looks at me pointedly.
“I’m the one who ended things,” I say.
The call goes still.
“You never told me you were the one who ended it,” she says quietly.
“What?” Luca says.
“I always assumed he—” My mother stops and looks at me more carefully. “But you’re saying you left him.”
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“Lola—”
“It was complicated,” I say, more firmly. “And I don’t want to get into all of it right now. But it wasn’t what it looked like from the outside. It wasn’t what I wanted at all. And now I have a chance to—” I stop. Breathe. “I’d like to have your support. That’s all I’m asking for.”
Mom’s expression softens a little.
“Fine,” she says. “But you call me from Minnesota.”
“I will.”
“And you tell this boy that your mother expects to meet him.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him.”
“Twenty-five million,” she says, almost to herself, and Isla makes a sound that she changes to a cough.
“I have questions,” Luca says. “Not bad questions. You’re my sister, and this is a big deal.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away,” I tell him.
“You’re forgiven. Is he good to you?”
“So good.”
Luca nods. “Okay.” He holds his hand up. “For now. I reserve the right to change my mind if our meeting doesn’t go well…which I expect to happen soon.”
“Deal.”
My dad has been quiet this whole time.
“Dad. You okay over there?”
“Are you sure about this?” he asks carefully. “Are you sure he’s not messed up in any…shady dealings?”
“Dad,” I say quietly. “No, he is not. But really, in a roundabout way, you should be thanking him.”
We share a look, and I know he understands exactly what I’m saying. His jaw tightens and he nods slightly, not saying another word.
“So,” Isla says, moving the call forward. “Tell us about his family.”
And just like that, the call shifts. I talk about meeting them and how warm they all were. We laugh about the dachshund race, and eventually hang up, one by one, until it’s just me and my dad left.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Lola,” he says. “And I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
I look at this man I have loved my whole life, who has cost me things he doesn’t even fully know he cost me. I think he’s always understood that the money I gave him came with a huge price that he ultimately did not have to pay. But I did.
I nod. “Thanks, Dad.”
I text Tully before bed.
My mother wants to meet you. Consider yourself warned.
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Tully
Should I be terrified?
I have a feeling you’re going to wrap her around your little finger the way you have me.
Tully
Is that right?
I smile at the phone, and a FaceTime call comes in.
I accept it and he’s there, smiling back at me.
“Tell me more about the way I’ve wrapped you around my little finger?”
I laugh. “Did I say that? I’m not sure—”
“I have it in writing!”