Inheritance (54 page)

"You're very quiet," Currier said as the wine captain decanted the rare burgundy he had ordered. The airy room was like a garden, its trelliswork, white colunms, and palms in brass pots bringing thoughts of sununer rather than the raw February night held at bay by the high dome above. The diners spoke in low voices, the waiters moved efficiently and murmui^ as they discussed menu and degustation items, but as quiet as the room was, Laura's silence was noticeable, and

Judith Michael

Currier studied her when the wine captain left them. "What happened to the excitement you had when we bought the Chicago hotel?"

"It sank in a sea of reality," she said with a small smile. *This time I know how much work is ahead."

And how much money.

"I've been thinking about the woric," Currier said. "I have a heavy schedule coming up, and I won't be able to get as involved as I'd like. I'll be in town as often as I can, but the more we get done this month, the better. Those architects we interviewed, for example . . ."

/ owe three million dollars to the three investors who came in this week.

"I liked Simons best, but I think we ought to see him and Brewer again; see how they react to your idea of making the hotel all suites."

And I already owed Wesfive million dollars.

"It hasn't been done in mid-Manhattan, but it's the perfect town for it and probably the perfect time, with the swing back to older buildings."

And to get the three million this week I had to give up control of OWL Development; the three investors could outvote Wes and me. And I used my stock in OWL as collateral for that loan; if the hotels do badly, if I miss a payment on my loans, I lose it all.

"If we choose an architect in the next couple of weeks, there's a good possibility we can open around Christmas, just as we did in Chicago. We might be starting a tradition—part of your good luck."

Wes warned me; he told me not to think about the other hotels, not to give up control. He wouldn't have gone along if I hadn't insisted. But I can't stop now. If I'm risking everything, then that's how it has to be. I'm halfway there, and nothing's going to keep me from finishing what I've started.

"On the other hand, your good luck could be finding a dinner companion who's willing to carry on a monologue while you're so wrapped up in your thoughts you don't hear a thing he says."

Laura's look focused on him. She gave a small laugh. "But I did hear you. You want to interview Simons and Brewer

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again, and old buildings arc coming back. And you want to open a new hotel every Christmas."

"God forbid. And what about my idea for a restaurant on the top floor of the New York Beacon Hill?"

She frowned uncertainly. "I don't ... did you talk about that? I'm sorry, Wes, I didn't hear it."

He smiled and shook his head. "I didn't. Somehow, and amazingly, you got most of what I said." He put his hand under her chin. "What are you worried about?"

"Money."

"Good. Smart businesspeople always worry when the numbers are large and the chances for success significandy smaller. It doesn't stop them; it just keeps them somewhat realistic. You're off to a good start." He lifted his glass and waited for her to do the same. "To the past and the future," he said.

A little startled, she shook her head. "I never drink to the past; I thought you knew that."

"Not the distant past," he agreed, "but the nearer one. The Chicago Beacon Hill, our partnership, our friendship . . ." He raised an eyebrow. "Not worth a toast?"

"Of course," she said and drank some of the smooth wine. But once again her thoughts intruded, and when the waiter handed them menus, she held hers absently, half listening as he and Wes discussed the chef's specials. She was thinking about Ben.

Ben was the distant past, and the near past, too. Because he had written to her months ago, a few months after he arrived in Boston and was married.

"I wish you'd been there," he wrote in his letter.

/ thought of inviting you, but from what Allison told me, I figured you wouldn't want to be part of a small Salinger family gathering, and I'm afraid they wouldn't have made you welcome. They've got to change their minds about you — I'm going to make damn sure they do — but it'll take a while, and I have to be careful because they don't know I have a sister, much less who she is, and I can't do anything to make them suspicious. I hope you understand that: I really can't take a chance and make

Judith Michael

them suspicious of me. I wish I could move faster and do this for you, Laura, but I can't. So far they've all been cool but civilized to me, except for Leni, who's mostly friendly and warm, and Felix, who's a cold, fish-eyed son of a bitch I wouldn't trust for a minute. He acts like he doesn't trust me, either, which makes it kind of tense around the office. I'm vice president for security for Salinger Hotels — not a bad start, wouldn't you say? — with a fancy office down the hall from Felix's. It's a good job and I like it; the company is so big there's always a crisis going on somewhere and it's like solving a different puzzle every day, and that keeps me on my toes. The only problem is money, but I'm figuring out ways around that. No, there is another problem: you. I want to see you, Laura; I miss you a hell of a lot. Everything's changed in our lives, and I guess we have, too, but I don't know how much. When I got here at Christmas, and we went to the Beacon Hill house — you probably noticed from my stationery, thafs where we're living; Felix and Leni gave it to us as a wedding present — and when I saw the rooms you'd lived in, I couldn't believe how beautiful you'd made them. Remember when you used to say you wanted a place of your own away from me and Clay? You really got it; when I saw your rooms I knew why you never wanted to come back to live with me. But I wanted to cry, because they weren't yours anymore, and that's when I knew somehow I'd get you back here. Not to live, of course; you've made a new life, the way I did a few years ago, and you probably have another beautiful home now; but you ought to be able to come and go in this house and not feel you couldn't ever see it again, with all its memories. What I'm trying to say is, I could tell from those rooms how much you've changed, and your life has changed, but I don't have any idea how you feel about me now. Maybe you've changed enough to change your mind about never wanting to see me again. I've changed, too; I'd like to talk to you about it. Maybe we've changed in the same ways. There's a lot I'd like to explain and talk to you about; it's very strange being here, and I need somebody from outside, especially somebody I care

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about. Laura, we loved each other once, and that doesn't ever really disappear, does it? Could we get together and see if we still do? Or could again? I wouldn't ask you to come to Boston; I'd come to Chicago (I read about you in Hotels Today; it sounds like you've got a good job, and I'd like to hear more about it). Please write to me; I really want to see you. And Clay, too, of course, if he wants to.

The Beacon Hill house. Laura turned back to the first page of the letter. The imprinted address on the stationery was Owen's, and it had been hers. Staring at it, she began to tremble.

Everything she had loved and dreamed of and lost, Ben had won. He was living in the Beacon Hill house. He owned it. He had married into the Salinger family. He was an executive in the Salinger hotel chain.

He had destroyed her chances for all of that, and then he had grabbed it all for himself.

Get together with you? And have you invite me to your house? It's my house! Owen left it to me! If you think I'll ever go there and have you greet me as its owner . . .

She crammed the letter into a comer of her briefcase and carried it with her, thinking someday she might think of something to say and answer it. But every time she thought about it, she remembered a different part. "/ need somebody from outside" . . . Who the hell does he think he is, to remind me I'm an outsider there?

Finally, on a golden day in early fall, when she'd taken a weekend off to hike at Starved Rock, she sat under an oak tree and read Ben's letter one last time.

We loved each other once, and that doesn't ever really disappear, does it?

She rested her head against the rough baric of the oak tree and let herself remember Ben when she had adored him and counted on him to take care of her in a frightening world. And she knew that no matter how angry she might be, somewhere inside her she would always love him because he was so much a part of her, no matter how high the walls between them seemed. And then, as smoothly as one wave following an-

Judith Michael

other, she thought of Paul; she could hear his voice and see his smile and the way his eyes darkened when he looked at her, and remember the feeling of belonging she always had when they were together,

No. That doesn't ever disappear.

She tore Ben's letter into small pieces and dug a small hole in the moist earth, burying the pieces as deep as she could. Black soil was under her pohshed nails; she thought of Clay working in the greenhouse on Cape Cod, and wondered if she \ could ever escape from her memories. Then she filled in the small hole, brushed off her hands, and went home.

"I'll drink to the future," she said to Currier. It was February, now, more than a year after the Chicago Beacon Hill had opened, more than a year since Ben had married Allison. It was time to look ahead. The waiter had just left; Currier had ordered for both of them—he liked to do that. Laura lifted her glass. "To our past and the future."

Currier smiled at her seriousness. Whatever had suddenly preoccupied her was gone, and once again she had turned to him. That always would be their pattern, he thought; she really had no one but him. Ginny Starrett was only a friend, though she seemed to be giving Laura more attention than she gave her other friends, and no one could call Clay someone Laura could count on: he seemed to be having a good deal of trouble deciding to grow up. "To our past and our future," Currier said, changing one word, and their glasses touched with a singing tone of perfect crystal.

And then, as they drank, Laura's seriousness was replaced by a smile of self-mockery, almost as if she were chastising herself for what she was about to say—worried as she was about money—but she couldn't help it, she couldn't stop. "Speaking of the future, Wes: about those other two Salinger hotels, in Washington and Philadelphia . . ."

A drenching May thunderstorm was blowing against the office windows the day Felix learned that Laura Fairchild was a major shareholder in OWL Development. It was reported to him by his Realtor in Philadelphia, who had called with OWL'S offer for the Philadelphia Salinger. "I heard it from a friend in Chicago; he's pretty sure it's true."

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"She's the manager of the Chicago hotel," Felix said tightly. He'd known it for over a year, ever since stories on the Chicago Beacon Hill began appearing in hotel trade magazines, but however much he detested it, he'd known there was nothing he could do but ignore it. The bitch was determined to claw her way into a Salinger hotel, just to get back at him, even if it didn't belong to the family anymore, but it had nothing to do with him. She could rot in Chicago forever; he wouldn't lose any sleep over it. That was what he had thought for the past year.

"She did manage it when it opened," the Realtor said. "I assume someone else is doing it now. All I know for sure is what I heard: that she and Currier started OWL Development, and she owns a good chunk of the stock. Does it matter?" he asked when Felix was silent. "They've made the only respectable offer we've had in two years. I'd like your permission to counter with eleven million and settle at ten. It's not what we'd hoped for, but the Philadelphia market isn't hot right •now. I guarantee you they'll pay ten; we can have the whole thing wrapped up in an hour."

"Find another buyer." Felix could barely speak through the rage that was sweeping through him like the rain that swept his windows. He'd called her insignificant; he'd almost forgotten about her. And now, to hear that she was a major stockholder in a corporation with which he'd done business! He couldn't tolerate it; it destroyed the orderly pattern of his thoughts—as if a person he'd been told was dead had been seen shopping at Copley Plaza. He prided himself on being in command of information and knowing exactly what to do with it; his fury was greatest when he had to admit he'd been mistaken or kept in the dark. "Go back to the other offers we've had. Negotiate with the best of them. Don't argue with me,'* I he snarled when the Realtor began to protest. "Get back to me in a week. I want that hotel sold."

In the conference room at the other end of the corridor, the board members were waiting for him to begin their monthly meeting. Let them wait; he couldn't go in yet. Rage weakened him, and he had to be in control. He sat still, willing himself to calm down. It was getting harder to control his rages, especially when he had to hide them from others. And he knew he

Judith Michael

would have to defend his actions calmly and reasonably whei he told the board about the offer for the Philadelphia hotel.

**T\imed it d-d-d-down?" Asa said at the end of the meeting when Felix reached the last item on his agenda. "Ttimed down a t-t-t-ten million dollar offer for that d-d-d-d-dumpT*

*They haven*t made it yet."

"But your Realtor said they would," Cole Hatton said. One of three board members who was not a member of the Salin^ ger family, he was the most outspoken and difficult to intimidate. "Who else came close to ten? Anybody?*

"Not yet," said Asa. "Right?" he asked Felix. "Nobody' came c-c-c-close to ten? One was as low as seven. Right?"

"We aren't talking to the one who offered seven." Felix sat rigidly in his leather chair and let his look slide around the table, from Asa on his left to Cole Hatton and the two other outsiders, then to Thomas Janssen, who retained his seat on the board though he no longer worked for the company, and finally to Ben Gardner, his son-in-law, still there, still married to Allison, and showing no signs of leaving. "We'll push the others higher and get as close to ten as we can."