Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
CHASE
Generally, when one was depressed, it was best to stay off rooftops. But yesterday, my phone lit up with a message from Joe, the first one in—I couldn’t remember.
He invited me to brunch on his roof, which was apparently something he and Jemima did every Saturday.
I was late. I was always late these days. It was hard to get out of the house. Time was a suggestion, and what was the worst that could happen if I was behind schedule? The worst had already happened.
It was nearly eleven when my feet hit the spongy artificial grass of the rooftop of Joe’s building.
Instantly, a beaming Jemima Ross looped her arm through mine. “Chase! I’m so glad you came.”
I kissed her cheek mechanically. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t come!”
“Here I am.”
The morning was gray, but New Yorkers needed very little encouragement to gather on a rooftop. Rows and rows of plants decorated the roof, making it look more like a jungle than a rooftop in Manhattan. There were six of us on the roof, but caterers in uniform stood behind a row of barbecues, grilling what smelled like eggplant and mixing what looked like Bloody Marys.
My brother was at one edge of the building, wearing shorts and Ray-Bans, his hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the skyline like a bored god.
“Look who else is here!” Jemima pointed to the bar, where Xan was sipping something green. He raised the glass at me in greeting.
I noticed there still wasn’t an engagement ring on Jemima’s finger, despite what my brother had said at the park, and I made a mental note to ask him about it when she wasn’t around. I’d bring it up gently, nonjudgmentally, to show him I wasn’t going to give him shit for moving too fast. I wasn’t in a position to be passing judgment on that front anymore.
“How do you know Xan?” I asked Jem as she towed me toward him.
“I don’t,” she replied. I faltered a step, but Jem’s arm was still through mine and she tugged me forward. “I wanted you here, and I know you don’t like to be at things with many people—Joe told me about your crowd thing—so I uninvited some of our regulars and called that games place you have—Joe told me about that too—and invited your friend to come. I wanted you to feel safe, and have an ally.”
“Why do I need an ally?”
Instead of answering, she pushed me onto a stool and pressed an Aperol Spritz into my hand. “It’s virgin.”
“So is he, at this point.” Xan joked.
I sighed. “Knock it off, Xan. Virginity is?—”
“A construct,” he and Jemima finished simultaneously.
“We know, Chase,” Xan said. “We’re messing with you.”
I nearly jumped when a hand clapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and saw Joe.
“Long time no see, Fixy. You’ve been keeping a low profile. ”
On my third day back in the city, whispers had spread that Teddy Bircher was an imposter. I couldn’t prove it, but I suspected that Gerry had been responsible. I was flooded by well-meaning callers (and Fiona), all wanting to know what had happened, wanting to talk about what they’d heard about Caroline. On the advice of one of the most expensive PR people in New York, I didn’t engage, not wanting to give the rumors legitimacy. I’d stayed out of the public eye—not a hardship for me—and hoped things would die down. But they hadn’t yet. It felt like trying to swim against the current on a stormy day in Tahiti.
The calls I had taken were from various trustees. As Gerry had calculated, they were panicking about the stability of Joe as an investment and wanted competency measures and other bullshit. I’d talked them down, promising that I had nothing to do with the Teddy Bircher woman anymore, and explaining my stepbrother’s plan to bring Joe and I into disrepute. I stuck to reciting the statement the PR firm had given me. Most importantly, I promised that from now, there wouldn’t be a whiff of a scandal around the Sanford brothers.
“I’ve got Cara Younger from Younger and Sons,” I told Joe. “She’s developed a five-point response plan. Laying low is”—I pictured the dry-erase board in my home office—“phase two.”
Joe snorted. “What was phase one? Go back to living like a monk?”
“One was to distance himself from his pink scammer,” Xan chipped in. He’d seen the board. “But she went back to New Zealand, which took care of that.”
I was trying very hard not to think about Caroline. About the soft hollow where her neck met her shoulder that smelled like roses in the park on a rainy morning, or the way she threw her head back and laughed when people were looking, but snort-laughed when it was just us. The way she licked her lips and dragged her eyes over me when she wanted us to get naked, and the way she couldn’t go to sleep before scrolling through pictures of rabbits .
“You want another virgin drink, Fixy?” My brother asked. “Or something stronger? You look like you need it.”
“No, thanks.”
Something Caroline had said about Joe and I being inept at sharing our feelings came to mind.
Clearing my throat, I looked Joe in the eye and said, “Sorry for being so overbearing, Joe. You’re in charge of your life, and I want to be in it. I’m going to be more understanding.”
Theatrically, Joe stumbled backwards, clutching his chest and feigning some kind of heart episode. “Has hell frozen over?” he asked Jemima, who shrugged. “An apology? From Fixy himself? Damn. Apology accepted, Chase. It’s twenty years overdue, but I’ll take it. And I’m sorry about the recycling comment.” Jemima elbowed him. “Also about breaking your yucca, or whatever.”
“Cape blanco succulent,” Jemima said. “ Sedum spathulifolium .”
Joe grinned at her. “Stop it, you’ll get yourself excited.”
“I’m glad you invited me here, Joe,” I said. “Caroline leaving New York has been difficult. I’m not handling it well”—Xan made a no-shit face—“and it’s nice to have the people I love around me. That’s you too, Xan. I appreciate you all. A lot.”
Xan put a hand over his heart, almost overbalancing from his stool. “I appreciate you too, man. That’s why I’m drunk at eleven on a Saturday. I’ve been here since nine and that wood elf there,” he jabbed a finger at Jem, “makes Bloody Marys appear like magik.”
“Chef is working on eggplant steaks right now,” Jem soothed. “They’ll soak everything up. Tell me more about wood elves.”
As Xan started explaining the finer details of the game he loved, Joe sat down beside me.
“Now that you’ve also been seduced by a bad influence and derailed your life, you know how I felt when Teddy—the real one—left me.”
“You loved her?”
Joe’s eyes widened. “What? Hell no. No, I just didn’t appreciate my older brother rubbing my face in my mistakes. You mean you love Fake Teddy?”
“I told you, her name is Caroline.”
“You love Caroline?”
“Yes.”
Joe stared. “Then why are you here and not with her?”
“She’s in New Zealand.”
“And?” Joe said, not getting it.
“She didn’t want me.” The words tasted like a mouthful of salt water.
Joe eyed me knowingly. “Did you try and tell her what to do with her life based on what you would do, disregarding her wildly different circumstances, outlook, and feelings?”
“Pretty much.”
“Typical.” My brother was silent for a second, turning something over in his head. “Chase, I’ve never seen you like you were with her. Yeah, you were overbearing and smug, as usual, but also weirdly cheerful. Not to mention how obvious it was you were thinking X-rated stuff every time you looked at her, thirsting like a man lost in the Sahara. I’ve never seen that side of you.”
I took a sip of Jem’s virgin drink and winced. It was bitter, like the tea Caroline had made in my apartment.
I tried to explain. “With her, it was all these different feelings all at the same time, and she gave it straight back. I could be all of me. Not just Austin’s son or a morality blogger or someone who panics in crowds. I was me.”
Joe was gazing at Jemima. “I get that.”
“With her, I never knew what was coming. I couldn’t predict her or plan a good reaction. She shocked me and baited me and there was no restraining her. I just felt lucky to be in her orbit. Who wouldn’t stop and stare when Caroline was in the room? She lit it up.”
“Brother, you’ve got it bad.”
“I know. But she doesn’t feel the same. Plus, there’s the thing with Gerry. ”
“Oh yeah. I read your lawyer’s emails about that. Next time, just call me. I’ll unblock your number.”
“You blocked?—”
He waved a hand. “Bygones. What are we going to do about our greedy little stepbrother? Should we have him killed?” Joe joked. I hoped it was a joke.
“Actually…” Caroline’s face was in my head. “I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve decided to sell some shares in the Sanford Group. I plan to give him 3 percent. You’ll get another 20 percent and I’ll keep the rest, but I’ve been working with legal on shareholder agreements to codify our ethical, environmental and social-good practices. I want to be able to step down in five years and focus on philanthropy. They say give until it hurts—well, you and I could stand to hurt a little more. Gerry’s a dick, but Dad was a nightmare for him, too. He lived in the same town house, he experienced a lot of the same hurt. If I do this, maybe he can move on. And Caroline liked his clubs—attempted fraud aside, he’s built something great. It’s not the worst thing if he has more capital to scale up.”
Joe blinked at me. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell your scammer that.”
“What?”
“Chase, you’ve spent the better part of your life trying to convince people you’re not like dad, but I don’t know if you believe it. It’s painfully obvious. You’re a one-woman kind of guy. This Kiwi dancer? Don’t let her go.”
“I can’t fix things for her. She specifically told me not to.”
Joe sighed. “This isn’t about fixing stuff for her, Fixy. You just need to make a grand gesture. A declaration.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Repeat the end of her favorite movie. Get a boom box and stand under her window. Or pull a Jack and give her the door while you drown, even though there’s clearly room for two. You’ll figure it out. ”
At the end of Ziegfeld Girl , Hedy’s character gives up her career because her husband is an insecure Neanderthal, and Lana’s character dies of alcoholism men drove her to. It’s a devastating film; the glitter and the feathers are very misleading. But Judy? At the end of the film, Judy is the star of the follies, performing to an adoring audience. Her father, whose feelings she once spared at the expense of her career, is there too as her supporting act.
I’d made a career out of dispensing advice. I always knew what to do when faced with a moral conundrum or quandary. And now, even though I couldn’t generate it, I knew good advice when I heard it.
My brother was right.
I needed to make a grand gesture.