Dear Diary, I'm In Love Page 13

  “Now, before you ask, I was horrified at the deaths of those eight men. All I can say is that they didn’t take the job blindly. They were well informed. They knew the dangers. They were well insured. Their families will be well cared for.” A touch of annoyance tinged his voice. “Cynthia, believe me. I’ve made several fortunes without compromising my principles. I kept away from South African investments during apartheid, long before it became fashionable to do so. As you well know, I’m not involved in tobacco, in land mines, or in any military hardware, for that matter.”

  Cynthia was swayed by the sincerity she was convinced was there, and yet she somehow felt disloyal to the principles that she had so long espoused. Still, she couldn’t resist an answering smile when he asked, “Truce?”

  The following weeks were thoroughly enjoyable. As often as she had an evening free from ESL “homework”, the Lincoln pulled up to the curb in front of her apartment. The same smiling Manley greeted her and whisked her off to restaurants, theaters, ballet, a superb performance of Carmen and, one Friday evening, a startling reggae concert at the Esplanade. And that evening Randall introduced her to Manley’s family, a lovely Cuban wife holding a two-year old girl sound asleep on her shoulder despite the music booming out from the shell.

  The evenings all ended similarly. Randall had progressed to a brief peck on the cheek at parting as he dropped her off at her apartment. The thought, “No commitment” came to her mind each time.

  It was three weeks to the day—during a busy week’s work for her—when she and Randall had arranged a luncheon engagement at the same restaurant in the Tremont building, where they had shared a meal the day of the deposition. “We seem to have come full circle,” Randall commented.

  Cynthia smiled. “I’ll never forget the envelope you handed me that day.”

  A shadow passed across his face. “I have another one for you today. Same request. Don’t open it until you get back to your office. I’m going to be out of town until four tomorrow afternoon. Can you meet me here, again, then?”

  This time, the contents were quite different. Cynthia’s hand shook as she punched in Merilee’s phone number. Before she could do anything more than identify herself, Merilee’s amused voice broke in: “He’s finally broken down and asked you to spend next weekend on that yacht.”

  “It’s more than that. He’s asked me to marry him.”

  “Zowie! I want to be a bridesmaid. Better yet, maid of honor. Did he go down on bended knee?”

  “No. He handed me a pre-nuptial agreement to sign.”

  Merilee’s tone turned immediately to one of disgust. “Talk about romance! So he’s going to put you on a budget. Some men! Well? What does it say? What are the strings?”

  “Just one.”

  “Yes?”

  “I stay married to him for at least one year.”

  “What a crud. So what’s your reward?”

  “Everything.”

  “Everything? What does that mean?”

  “Exactly that. I get everything he owns, and I’m free to dispose of his money after that time as I see fit. I can give it all to ESL if I want to. You saw his net worth. What did you figure it at? Ten-twelve billion dollars? It isn’t specified in the agreement but, whatever he owns, I’m supposed to get it all at the end of that year.”

  “You’re kidding. I want to see that contract. You must have missed the fine print.”

  “I couldn’t believe it either. I went in with it to talk to Phil Gould. We went over it in detail. It’s as simple as that. If I stay married to Randall Carlson for a year, everything he has becomes mine.”

  “What did Phil say about your agreeing?”

  “What could he say? He said it’s up to me. He seemed to be puzzled by the whole matter, but I could see he was thinking what those billions would mean for the League. There are a thousand projects they could underwrite with that money.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds too much like I’m being bought, like I’m some company he’s interested in taking over. It gives me an unpleasant feeling. I just don’t know.”

  “You don’t know??? You’re out of your mind, girl. You are literally sitting on a fortune, and you aren’t willing to take advantage of that fact. Phew! I only wish I were in that position.”

  Cynthia wished her the same but, for Cynthia, there was no simple answer. She didn’t want to consult with anyone else. This was a decision she had to make herself. As with many less crucial ones in the past, she had long ago developed a knack for dealing with important matters and, once having made up her mind, she then had the ability to send the thoughts into exile. And she did decide before going to bed that night.

  She slept soundly.

  When she saw him walk into the restaurant just a few minutes after four, it was evident that Randall hadn’t. There were dark circles under his eyes as he stared at the coffee waiting for him. She began to speak. He held up his hand, his lip twisted into its wryest expression.

  “Me, first. I wrestled with this all night and could barely keep my mind clear enough to settle up the last of my business commitments today. I finally decided that I have to tell you the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  There was no eye contact as he went on. “My original plan was, if you accepted—and I was almost sure you would because I knew how devoted you were to ESL—was for us to go off immediately to City Hall and get the license without my telling you the truth about the pre-nuptial agreement.”

  Cynthia suddenly felt foolish at simply repeating what she had said before, but she said it anyway, “The truth?”

  “Yes. The truth is that the agreement is virtually worthless. It’s just a piece of paper. Months before I met you I had already decided to retire completely and to give everything away. Virtually all of my worldly wealth is now tied up in an irrevocable trust made out to the Earth Survival League. The only stipulation was that the gift not be revealed without my prior permission.” He paused, and a faint smile lifted the edge of his mouth. “I suppose you told Phil about my proposal. He must have had a hard time containing himself.

  “I’m not completely penniless, though,” he went on before she could comment. “I did keep out enough for that oilrig settlement—and the cottage on the Cape. But that’s about all. So you see, I deceived you.”

  Cynthia stood up.

  For the first time he looked into her eyes. “Please. Won’t you sit back down and at least finish your coffee?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No! There isn’t time. As it is, we’ll just barely make it to City Hall before they close.”

  ______________________

  FOR LOVE OF MONEY

  “There’s still time to change your mind. The lawyers won’t be arriving with all their paperwork for another hour.” Barry Gordon’s voice registered obvious concern—a concern which brought a smile to his partner’s face.

  “It took me almost two years to get my mind changed to this point, I’m not about to change it back on the spur of the moment.”

  “It’s still seems strange for anyone to turn their back on what they’ve worked on and made a success of for the past dozen years.”

  Richard Smith smiled at his partner’s intensity. “You make it sound like I’m going to strip down to a loin cloth and live in a cave. I’m not giving up a cent. The billions will be safe in a revocable trust, and I can always come back to the business world if I change my mind. Start up something else.” He grinned. “Maybe start up a rival software company. Who knows?”

  “OK. No more pushing. But do me a favor.”

  “Ask.”

  “Explain to me the real reason you’re leaving. I won’t buy this business of you just being tired of the rat race. These last couple of years have been easier than any of the ones that went before. We have a great management team. They do most of the work, and I know how much you enjoy programming. So you’ve been able to do what you want to do whenever you
wanted to do it. And after the merger with Montgomery Miladrovich’s corporation, we’ll be sitting on top of the world—running the world’s top hardware-software company.”

  Richard broke into his characteristic raucous laugh. “Maybe we need a press release. ‘CEO Richard Smith has decided to retire at age thirty-two. According to him he wants to spend more time with his family.’”

  Barry joined in the laugh, which he had always found to be contagious. “That would be great media material if you happened to have a family.”

  “I don’t. That’s part of the reason I’m leaving.”

  “So marry and start one.”

  “That’s the rest of the reason. I can’t marry again while I’m still a multi-billionaire CEO. You lucked out by marrying your high school sweetheart. I screwed up by being so busy making a fortune that I didn’t start looking for a wife until after I’d made a fortune. Then I got Anne.”

  There wasn’t much more that needed saying on that topic. Anne Gilmore had been a gold digger in the symbolic and most traditional sense. Beautiful, seductive—she had landed Richard on her first cast. The marriage had ended with Anne considerably richer than before, though Richard’s battery of lawyers had managed to keep her settlement down to eight figures.

  “What’s to prevent your ending up with another Anne?” Barry asked.

  “Now you’re getting it. Suppose plain old Dick Smith goes out into the world and gets an ordinary job and finds himself a woman who’s willing to settle for Dick Smith and not for the billions he has?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. And I’ve already got the job picked out. Over the years, as you know, I’ve developed some skills at being a gourmet cook. Well, I’m going to move to the East Coast, find a fairly decent restaurant looking for kitchen help, and I’ll start in at wherever they’ll let me. I’ve never been much in the public eye, so no one should recognize me, especially with the beard I’ve started on.” He stroked his cheeks and chin.

  “With that and a tall chef’s hat, I should be able to mingle unnoticed with the hoi polloi. Then maybe I’ll find myself a woman who will like Dick Smith for what he is—a fairly reasonable person, who can turn out a magnificent crab quiche—and not for what he has. Meantime you can have all the fun of dickering with Miladrovich, joining up with him and becoming number one in the Fortune 500.”

  ***

  Off with the old was easy, mainly because Richard had never invested very heavily in worldly goods. No yacht. No fleet of jets. A relatively inexpensive house to dispose of, and that was about it. The six-year old Datsun, he decided to keep—at least long enough to get him across the country—and that was going to be a lengthy, leisurely drive.

  On with the new was more difficult, although not much more so than he’d anticipated. Arriving at his destination, he found that busboys and dishwashers were in great demand. Kitchen helpers further up the scale, especially when applying without credentials, were less welcome. Three restaurants in three months, but all involved some upward mobility. Collin’s Steak House, not exactly a five-star Michelin, but still with some pretensions to fine dining, had an emergency opening for a salad chef. It seemed a small sacrifice to meet the requirement that he shave off his beard, since the tall white hat had finally been achieved.

  The search for reasonable employment had so occupied Richard’s time that he had given only occasional thought to the main object of his new world-view aimed at finding a suitable and, hopefully, lifelong companion. Since he was virtually a non-drinker, singles bars had little appeal. Church? Hardly. He had a feeling that somehow he had a built in incompatibility with anyone truly devout. Kitchen work had its own drawbacks as a search area, since the work crew around the stoves, refrigerators and sinks were few, and the number of women in that crew even more so. Of course, there was Evalie Thatcher. Richard smiled to himself at the thought as he tore the oak leaf lettuce.

  He doubted he had ever encountered a shyer person than Evalie, one of the waitresses who came on for the evening shift. She was a plain-looking, petite woman, with troubled grey eyes that contrasted sharply with her black hair and dark complexion, perhaps in her early twenties, though she might have been younger. She had a passable figure, but was not someone who would turn men’s heads. When he’d first encountered her as she came through the swinging doors into the kitchen, he’d smiled and had received what might have been an answering smile, but then again might have been a trace of panic.

  They hadn’t really exchanged words of any kind until her third night on duty, when she came in to explain that a diner had claimed that Roquefort dressing couldn’t be made without sugar. Unwilling to make eye contact, she still managed to convey the absurdity of the request across the salad platter the customer had insisted on sending back to the chef.

  With no such intention on his part, the spoken relationship soon progressed to the point where Evalie actually mentioned the weather. The whirlwind relationship moved, within two weeks, to where Richard found himself eating his midnight snack with her at one of the many empty tables before the crew moved in to clear up the day’s debris.

  Eye contact was now at least occasional, and Richard did his best not to smile at the extraordinary reticence of the young waitress. Conversation was difficult.

  “Been a waitress long?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What did you do before that?”

  “College.”

  There wasn’t much need to ask. College cost money. Money runs out. You have to get a job. Hopefully you’ll make enough to go back.

  “What d’you major in?”

  “English.”

  “That’s not much preparation for a job.”

  A ghost of a smile and enough words to reveal a southern accent. “One of my teachers said a bachelor’s degree in English and three dollars will buy you a cappuccino at Starbucks.”

  Wow! A whole sentence. A grin to acknowledge the ghost. “That shows the difference in our ages. When I heard it, it was a dollar, and the degree will buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “Did you major in English?”

  “Nope. Didn’t even finish college. Barely began it, in fact. Computers caught my attention.”

  “Computers? But there’s so much money in that. Why aren’t you doing that instead of kitchen work?”

  A shrug. “I like to cook. Maybe I’ll get to be head chef some day.”

  A heavy-set woman with a wet mop and a determined expression put an end to what had almost progressed to the level of a conversation.

  Richard thought only briefly about Evalie as he backed his Datsun out of the parking space and headed for his miniscule apartment. He hadn’t asked if she had finished college. She very likely hadn’t. He toyed briefly with somehow getting her the money to do so, then went back to his daydream of finding a woman who could fill in the blank space in his life.

  Several days intervened including his day off before Richard, coming out of the kitchen with his midnight snack, saw Evalie at an empty table. She looked up and actually smiled. Richard was struck by how much the smile did to make up for the plainness. He joined her.

  After mutual “Hi’s” she asked, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  That kind of question always precedes a question that’s impossible to answer, thought Richard. “You can always ask.”

  The question was one he could answer. “What’s your real name?”

  The laugh, Barry Gordon had once remarked as belonging to a hyena, turned several heads among the crew stacking chairs on tables. “That is my real name. Some people call me Dick Smith. Others call me Richard Smith.”

  An answering shrug and an expression of disbelief. The question and answer did lead to some further sharing of background. Richard was chary with the information, but there were no outright lies.

  “I was born in a small town in Washington State, up in timber country,” he told her.

  “Dad was a bull-of-the-woods. Before yo
u ask, that’s kind of a foreman who runs a logging crew. I was an only child, and Dad says he lucked out on that score because any more like me would have been too much. Mom died while I was still in high school. Somehow I managed to get through that much schooling. Went to the University of Washington, and skipped so many classes while working part time across the Lake at Microsoft that there wasn’t much point in keeping on. Then I gypped around for a lot of years, fooling with computers.”

  The thought occurred to him that “gypping around” was exactly what he’d done. That the gypping had been incredibly successful was, of course, something that had—in retrospect—been truly surprising, as much to him as to anyone else. “Your turn,” he said, in order to avoid any further probing.

  If anything, Evalie was even more reluctant when it came to revealing her background, but Richard had no problem filling in the blanks. A small town in Washington State was undoubtedly a luxury community when compared to a small Texas town. A father—undefined occupation—but probably white collar, was perhaps a step up the social ladder from a logger, but undoubtedly a rung lower economically. It would have taken substantial effort to put a daughter through college, even if Evalie had very likely made it through waiting on tables there as well—especially since there were two younger brothers who would undoubtedly occasion the same or greater demands on the paternal pocketbook.

  The wet mop showed up about then, interrupting further speculation concerning Evalie’s background, and this time Richard felt a diffuse annoyance at the interruption. Behind the wheel of his Datsun, that evening, he decided there was much to be said for Evalie. In other words, he was interested. And he was almost certain she was also interested. Then he wondered if perhaps she had somehow recognized him for who he actually was. The same doubts he’d felt when single women drifted in his direction at cocktail parties returned to plague him. There was one way to find out, and that was to go beyond fifteen minutes snatched at the end of a busy evening. A real date and lots of time to talk should be especially revealing.