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Mika
My gut is churning behind the demure navy linen of my simple shift dress. Not only am I about to meet my best friend’s beloved older brother, but I’m going to find out what crazy, hair-brained, anxiety-inducing thing she wants me to do to honor her last wishes.
I promised.
That’s what I remind myself as I stand outside the office building in the small but bustling business district of Destiny Bay. The building isn’t locked, but my knees are. I don’t know why I’m hyperventilating — I’ve known this day was coming for the last year. Longer really, since Caitlyn was already sick when I met her on the first day of our freshman year in college. She warned me later, with glee and excitement from her hospital bed, that she had big plans to finally get me out of my shell.
I’m fully expecting something like having to audition for one of the big televised talent shows (news flash, I have no talents that would qualify) or worse, that she’s already arranged for me to make a guest appearance. Oh God, she would do that, wouldn’t she?
“I promised,” I whisper to myself as I tug on the long vertical steel bar that forms the handle of the main door. I’m already a minute late for my appointment and I don’t want to take her brother away from his job for longer than necessary.
His instructions were to simply go up to the reception desk on the nineteenth floor and tell whoever is there my name. So I do. But not before silently gaping at the thick pile of the gray-blue carpet that makes my approach absolutely soundless.
The woman behind the desk is also wearing a navy shift dress. But hers is silk and shows off her absolutely perfect size two figure. Her black hair is equally flawless, swept up in a chignon that sets off her dainty chin. But her smile is warm and her voice kind when she gestures to the door behind her and tells me, “You can go right in, he’s expecting you.”
I gulp and give her a weak smile in response. Then I sigh and force my feet forward, pushing open the opaque glass doors as I go.
The room on the other side is a spacious office with floor to ceiling windows that showcase the bay and the craggy mountain range beyond. There’s a seating area to one side and a large desk positioned to face the door but also take in the view. It’s the occupant of the desk that grabs my attention and has me swiveling back the way I came because surely I’m hallucinating.
“Mika?” a deep male voice calls after me with puzzlement. I stop in my tracks and turn back.
“Everything okay?” The man I’ve idolized since my first class in cultural-economic development asks with a quizzical expression.
“Um. You’re Tanner Finlay. I’m supposed to be meeting with Dan?”
“Ah, so Caitlyn never explained that?” He must be asking himself because I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.
He stands and my mouth goes dry. I knew he was gorgeous. Hard not to when I had his Time Magazine cover under my pillow for at least six months (until I ironed it flat and put it away for safekeeping). But when he moves around the desk with deliberate grace, I’m transfixed.
He appears mildly amused and gestures towards the white leather seating area in the back corner. “Mika? Why don’t you have a seat? I think we might both need a soothing cup of tea for this.”
I’m shocked out of my stupor by one of the world’s wealthiest men saying something so… so ordinary. Something my grandma would say before going over my near perfect report card, knowing I was beating myself up for not meeting my self-imposed standard of perfection.
Tanner Finlay waits for me to be seated and then vanishes through the narrow door in the back with a soft click of the latch. He must be worried I’m going to flake out on him, but my brain is too busy trying to figure out what he has to do with Caitlyn. She knew I hero-worshipped him freshman year and just rolled her eyes. I moved on to slightly more realistic crushes by the time we roomed together our sophomore year and she never brought it up. Did she remember?
Tanner
God, she’s achingly gorgeous. And terrified. Of me or Caitlyn’s plot to terrorize the world from beyond is hard to tell. I need a minute to get myself under control. This is the last of my baby sister’s bequests I have to handle and she insisted on that order and this specific date, probably so as not to interfere with Mika’s graduation.
Fuck, graduation! She’s practically a kid. Possibly even younger than Caitlyn, who had to slow her schoolwork because of her heart condition.
I stare blindly down at my hands while waiting on the electric kettle. It’s not right that someone as full of life as Cait should get so little of it. But fuck, she crammed as much teasing and joy into what she had as ten people. When she got the crazy idea that she could build all these plots that would kick off after her death, she lit up like a firecracker. I blame the hospital chaplain.
Caitlyn couldn’t be bothered worrying about her soul or what came after death. She’d been sick as long as she could remember. But when that man asked her about last wishes and final bequests, she started interrogating him. I’m just hoping she didn’t send him into a crisis of his own after that. He’d probably been thinking along the lines of a scholarship fund or something.
Most of her plots were relatively simple. Some required my money, which was a no brainer. She sent her favorite nurse on a cruise through the Mediterranean along with a trunk full of trashy romances and a computer. And sent the struggling medical resident to cooking school — the hard part was convincing everyone to give him a month off. But Cait was right, and he left for Paris and is still there as far as I know.
I’m not sure what she has in store for Mika, but it’s probably big. Cait loved her like the sister she never had. Carrying the two cups of tea into my office, I can see Mika is frozen on the couch, every muscle tight like she’s fighting fleeing out the door.
“Here, this should help. I’ll get the paperwork.” I gently set the tea down on the coffee table, the smell of the chamomile wafting through the air, before hurrying to my desk. I’m more than convinced if I handed it to her, the hot liquid would end up in her lap. She’s that tense. She gives me a slight nod. I figure the best thing I can do now is put her out of her misery.
The sealed envelope is waiting in my top drawer. I hand it to Mika before sitting down in the adjacent chair. She’s frowning as she slits the envelope and takes out the single sheet of folded paper with Cait’s familiar crabbed handwriting. A brief smile hovers over Mika’s face before she blanches white and then flushes red. She briefly glances up to meet my gaze with horrified eyes and then hurriedly looks away again.
“How bad is it?” I inquire as casually as I can manage. My little sis loved stepping right over everyone’s boundaries. But she did it so cheerfully and with so much love, she almost always got away with it.
“Oh, um. I… I mean I want to, but I wouldn’t even know where to start!” she wails in a faint whisper, her cheeks going pink again.
