Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Ben
As Bray drives us from Boston to the land he wants to look at, I stare out of the window thinking about Avril.
She seemed nervous in the helicopter and a little off at lunch.
I wanted to ask her if she was okay. But I resisted.
And it took everything I had to put her in the car to take her back to New York.
It was so good to see her. I wanted to draw out our time together and hang out, but that’s not going to happen.
I’m emotionally impotent and she’s focused on the Boston hotel.
It’s easier in the long run to stay away from her. It’s what’s best.
Bray stops the rented SUV in front of large black iron gates. Either side is just trees and greenery. The gates seem a little over the top.
“Where are you taking me?” I say it as a joke, but by the end of the question, my mind flips to gambling and whether he’s involved with some dodgy stuff. Gambling brings visions of mobsters and heavies. Machine guns and drug dealing.
I glance across at him.
“No idea,” he says. “This is where the pin was dropped.”
The gates slide open and Bray shoots me a glance.
“I guess we’re going in.”
“It feels a little weird,” I say.
We make our way up a gravel track to an empty square lot surrounded by woodland on one side and a lake on the other. Is this a parking lot? Maybe it’s where the bodies are buried.
“Is this where you’re meant to be? There’s no one here.”
“I think—”
Bray doesn’t finish his sentence as another SUV comes up the gravel track toward us.
“Are you meeting the owner or a realtor?” I ask. I’m glad I’ve come today. This is the kind of place people could disappear.
“Both apparently.”
The car parks alongside ours and a woman in her fifties in a dark green pantsuit and glasses pushed back onto her head gets out, alongside a man in jeans and a plaid shirt.
“Good morning,” the woman says, beaming. “So good to be out in this early spring sunshine.”
We all greet each other. Turns out Kaya is the realtor, and Erick is her dad and the owner of the land we’re standing on.
“You don’t have a realtor yet?” Kaya asks.
“Not yet,” Bray replies. “Just got told about this piece of land that was up for sale and thought I’d come take a look.”
Kaya smiles. “We’re happy that you did. The plot runs all the way to the ocean in the east, includes this entire lake, and goes back here about three miles. It’s a total of just over twenty-two hundred acres of land.”
I don’t know much about much, but that sounds like a lot. Surely that kind of land around here would be expensive.
“I love that it goes all the way to the ocean,” Bray replies. “And you said you had some planning permits?”
Kaya nods. “That’s right. We’re standing on the footprint of the house that was going to be here.”
That makes sense now. Not a parking lot but foundations of a house.
“You were going to live here?” Bray asks Erick.
“I thought so. Before my wife died. She always wanted to live in the middle of nowhere with views of the water. I thought this was where we’d retire.”
“She died two summers ago,” Kaya says.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Bray says.
I can’t speak. He bought this for his wife and she never got to see it. It feels so inexplicably sad. I don’t know these people—I’ve never even met this man’s wife—and all I can think about is that he had a future planned out with her and never got to live it.
Panic rises in my stomach and I don’t know why.
I take a deep breath in as I struggle to breathe, panic clawing at my throat.
My heart is racing and adrenaline flows through my muscles.
I get a sudden urge to run, to take action, to do something.
It feels like the future is coming like a tidal wave and I’m not going to be able to escape.
“You okay?” Bray whispers.
I nod, my breathing labored. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I want to call my mum. Maybe I’ll arrange to go home. I could even go this weekend. “When’s the last time you spoke to Mum?”
“I call her every week like clockwork, but maybe I’ll give her a call tonight. Or on the way home from Boston.”
Bray narrows his eyes, and I swallow and manage to pull myself together enough to tell Kaya and Erick how much I like the view over the lake.
Bray asks questions about access and the planning permits. I don’t hear the answers, because my mind is racing.
“I’ll drive up the track across to the north side now. But I’m happy to hike the entire perimeter of the land with you if you want?” Kaya asks.
Bray glances at me, a worried look on his face. I hope I’m not fucking this up for him. “I’m not really wearing the right shoes,” Bray says. “But I’d like to arrange another visit and bring up some of my team. Next week maybe?”
Kaya smiles. “Sure. You both want to hop in with me? Don’t think your rental insurance will cover you to drive offroad where we’re going.”
Bray gets in the front and Erick and I get in the back. I wonder what Bray is looking for. Is it views? I’m not sure why I’m here, or even if I should be. I belong in New York. I should have gone back with Avril.
Avril.
Avril.
Avril.
Just thinking about her is soothing.
The off-roading is bumpy, but it takes my mind off the thoughts running through my head and all the questions I have.
My breathing and heart rate settle down to normal and I start to enjoy just staring out of the window.
There’s no doubt the land is beautiful. We can’t see it all, but there’s not a person or a building to be seen.
Spring is showing in the shimmer of green on the trees and the dashes of color here and there.
It’s an escape from the high-octane pace of Manhattan. Is that what Bray wants? An escape?
Is that what I want?
When we’ve finished our tour, we say our goodbyes and get back into the SUV. I wait until we’re through the iron gates before I say anything. “I think I had a panic attack back there.”
“I think you did too,” Bray says. “What’s going on?”
“Everything needs to change.”
Bray acts like I’ve just told him we’re expecting rain. He just stares straight ahead at the road.
“What do you want to start with?” he asks.
I’ve always said that I don’t want to mix the personal and the professional, but Bray is my brother. My brother who I see regularly but don’t really know.
I want to change that.
I want to change everything.
I want to know my brother.
“Do you want a business partner?” I ask.
He bursts out laughing.
“An investor,” I clarify.
“For this place? The place that made you lose your considerable cool?”
“I can’t think of a better place,” I reply. Time is precious. I don’t want to run out of time to have a different life. I don’t want to turn around and realize at fifty that I’m still the most powerful guy in New York and the guy who doesn’t have a clue who his brother is.
“You don’t even know my plans here yet. I might not even buy it.”
I sigh. “Right. I think maybe there’s a lot about you that I don’t know. But I want to.” I glance across at my brother. He’s looking back at me, a softness in his eyes that I’m not used to. It’s almost like he’s relieved at what I’m telling him.
He nods. “I’d like that. But you don’t have to blindly invest in this business to do that. We could start by just talking.”
I laugh, and some of the tension in my body seeps away. How have I become the rash, impulsive brother to Bray’s constant calm? “Yeah. Maybe we should talk more. And talk about this place and what you’re trying to do and why.”
“Sounds good to me,” Bray says. He’s right. Offering to partner with him in this business venture was a knee-jerk reaction. But I’ve realized that I want to really know Bray and going into business with him would bind us together immediately. Why wait?
“You’re a wealthy guy, Ben,” he says. “You’re obviously successful. Do you like what you do?”
“I like what it gives me,” I reply. “Or at least I did for a long time.”
“Money provides security.”
“Right,” I reply. “But it’s more than that. What I have is power. I know people. I can help people. I don’t need anyone. They need me.”
Silence fills the car as I think about what I’ve just said.
“My entire life has been a reaction to Dad losing his restaurant. He didn’t have any money or connections.
He thought he was renting the place from his friend.
He was poor but had a dream, and he pursued his passion to the point where it made him vulnerable.
I’ve worked hard so it could never happen to me, so no one would have the power to take my home and business away from me.
And no one ever has. They never will. I’m safe now.
And I know it. Maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling so unsettled recently. ”
“Unsettled?” Bray asks.
“I just haven’t been feeling the same kind of rush that I’ve always gotten from making the connections and facilitating the introductions, by smoothing out problems and oiling negotiations.
I can do it all with my eyes closed, and it used to be so thrilling.
I used to feel like the puppet master, engineering all these things and making everyone do what I needed them to do, but now that feels… empty.”
“Do you think it’s because you don’t need the money anymore?”
“I think it’s because I need more than that now. It might sound ridiculous, but having Avril stay with me for eight days…it made me understand the difference between knowing a lot of people and really knowing someone.”
“Right,” Bray says.
“I’ve been keeping people out.”
“Yes,” he says. “So you and I can change that. But what about you and Avril?”
I let out a low groan. Avril is much more complicated. “I don’t know if there’s a me and Avril.”
“You could pick up the phone. Ask her to dinner and find out.”
I hum a low hum of disagreement. “I don’t know if I’m the right man for her.”
But I want to be. I do know that much.
“I need to learn who I want to be.” Panic starts to rise again and I take a deep breath.
I know that if I continue how I am now, I risk losing her—even if I’m not sure whether I had her in the first place.
If I don’t figure my shit out, we won’t work in the long run.
And I’ve learned that Avril is not a woman I want to be casual with.
I want her to be my future, and if I get a shot with her, I don’t want to fuck it up.