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“Just stop it!” I shout. “Stop pretending like this is anything other than you trying to inch a millimeter ahead in your fucking career.” I rub my eyes, willing myself to calm down. “I don’t know why I thought you were different. You’re just another one of Mother’s worker drones, doing her bidding with zero thought to the consequences.”
Liz looks like I slapped her. Her eyes flash dangerously. “Well you’re just a spoiled rich kid who has zero idea what it’s like to have to hold a job down.”
“I’m telling Bill, whether you want me to or not. I’m not sure why you’re even upset. Now at least you won’t have to worry about me running the bank into the ground,” I snap.
Liz hesitates but only for a moment. “I didn’t have to worry about it either way,” she says. Then she stops and actually, in the middle of this unforgiving fight, Liz looks guilty.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, dangerously softly.
“Marie only agreed to switch banks if you were fired,” she says. She at least as the decency to share this news softly, uncomfortably.
I, for one, feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest. Fired? The barrage of emotions threaten to stagger me. I’d dreamed of saying goodbye to the bank for so long. But all those years of trying to fit the mold Mother wanted for me, of sitting through board meetings, and staring glassy-eyed at spreadsheets, all of the effort that I put into trying to conform, all of that just tossed out the window to close a deal? And this is how I’m finding out?
“So all this time,” I say slowly, “that I’ve been talking about the future, you’ve been sitting on this?”
Liz nods slightly. She looks like she’s about to cry. I don’t care. I turn and pace, my hands on my hips, wrestling with questions, with anger and with immense, overwhelming betrayal.
“And how long did it take my mother to come up with an answer?” I ask finally.
“How long?” I repeat when she looks down instead of responding.
“A day,” she mutters.
A day. A day for Mother to realize that I’m not worthy of the Westing name. And the most painful part is that I know she’s right. And all the while I was making plans, dreaming impossible dreams that I wanted more than anything to come true, Liz was laughing at me. Actually no, even worse she was pitying me.
I’ve never felt so ashamed, and I realize at that moment that I’m standing in the room with a stranger. An employee of my mother’s with a great ass and a manipulative, scheming brain. Well fuck her. And I suppose fuck me too.
“I thought you were different,” I say again, barely audibly. Then I turn around and leave.
I barely notice the changing scenery. I walk in a focused haze through the house, down the drive, all the way to the airstrip until I find a pilot to take me back to New Orleans.
I’m vaguely aware that I’m finally, simply, walking away. From the bank, from Mother, from the man I was supposed to be but could never live up to. It’s freeing. It’s terrifying. It’s right.
But all the same, even as the island becomes a distant speck behind me, I don’t feel happy. Because I can’t seem to shake that last image of Liz’s face. It’s seared into my mind as if by a brand; she’s left her mark on me. And I know already, with a deep certainty, that it will stay with me for a long, long time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LIZ
Six Months Later
“Do I sound like I give a shit?” I bark into my phone. “Sell them. And don’t call this number after I leave the office. Send me an e-mail.”
I end the call with a jab of my finger. I miss the days when you could violently snap your cell phone shut. Touch screens are much less satisfying.
But then little satisfies me these days.
Moments after I hang up on Katie the elevator doors slide open, waiting to take me up to my new condo on the forty-fifth floor of a luxurious Midtown apartment building.
I curse at the terrible reception in the elevator as it shoots me upward. I’ve calculated, late at night in my bed when I’m exhausted but also can’t seem to sleep, that I would gain twenty-five minutes a week if I could send out e-mails when I’m trapped in here every day.
In hindsight I should have gotten something closer to the ground. A panoramic NYC view seemed like a good idea when I bought the place; the reality is that I only use the condo for sleep.
Oh well. I suppose I have to keep up some appearances. My massive office could fit a fold-out couch but would it really be worth the raised eyebrows?
On the other hand, how many minutes would I save if I didn’t have to commute? I’ll have to schedule in time to do that math.
After all, why the fuck should I care about what anyone else thinks? My clients are the only ones I need to keep satisfied.
