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The phone rings a fourth time. Standing up, I excuse myself and amble out of the restaurant’s door and to the balcony overlooking the harbor. I swipe the green button.
“What?”I spit out.
“Arsène?” a voice asks. It is old, male, and vaguely familiar.
“Unfortunately. Who’s this?”
“It’s Bernard, your father’s assistant.”
I check the time on my watch. It is four in the afternoon in New York. What can my father possibly want from me? We rarely talk. I make the trip to Scarsdale a few times a year to show my face and discuss family business—his idea of bonding, I suppose—but other than that, we’re virtual strangers. I don’t exactly hate him, but I don’t like him either. The feeling, or lack of it, I’m sure, is mutual.
“Yes, Bernard?” I ask impatiently, parking my elbows on the railings.
“I don’t know how to say this ...” He trails off.
“Fast and without mincing words would be my preferable method,” I suggest. “What is it? Is the old man getting hitched again?”
Ever since divorcing Miranda, my father has been making it a point to have another woman on his arm every couple of years. He doesn’t make any promises anymore. Never settles down. An affair with a Langston woman is the fastest cure to believing in the notion of love.
“Arsène ...” Bernard gulps. “Your father ... he’s dead.”
The world continues spinning. People around me are laughing, smoking, drinking, enjoying a perfectly mild Italian summer night. A plane passes in the sky, penetrating a fat white cloud. Humanity is completely unfazed by the news that Douglas Corbin, the fifth-richest man in the USA, has passed away. And why should it be? Mortality is only an insult to rich people. Most accept it with sad resignation.
“Is he, now?” I hear myself say.
“He had a stroke this morning. The housekeeper found him unresponsive at about ten thirty, after knocking on his door several times. I know it’s a lot to digest, and I probably should’ve waited until you got here to tell you—”
“It’s fine.” I cut him off, running my palm over my face. I’m trying to figure out what I’m feeling right now. But the truth is ... I don’t feel anything at all. Some oddness, yes. The same sensation you get when something you’ve been used to—a piece of furniture—is suddenly gone, leaving an empty space. But there is no agony, no gut-piercing sorrow. Nothing to indicate I’ve just lost the only living relative I have in this world.
“I should head back,” I hear myself say. “Cut the trip short.”
“That would be ideal.” Bernard exhales. “I know it’s very sudden. Again, I’m sorry.”
I put him on speaker and withdraw the phone from my ear, scrolling through the next available flights. There is one two hours from now. I can still make it.
“I’ll text you my flight details. Send someone over to pick us up.”
“Of course,” he says. “Will MissLangston be joining you?”
“Yes,” I say. “She’ll want to be there.”
She’s closer to Dad than I am, the little suck-up. Visits him every other weekend. The fact that Bernard knows that she is with me tells me everything I need to know—Dad knew damn well that I was screwing my stepsister and gossiped about it with the help. Funny, he never mentioned this to me. Then again, the Langston women have been a sore subject for us since he kicked me out to attend boarding school.
I make a pit stop in the unisex restroom before getting into the restaurant. Unzip and take a leak. When I get out of the cubicle, I hear a faint voice coming from behind one of the doors. A bone-chilling, feral cry. Like someone is wounded in there.
Not your problem,I remind myself.
I roll my sleeves up, wash my hands, as the wails grow louder, more erratic.
I can’t just leave now. What if someone gave birth to a baby and left it to drown in the toilet? While no one could accuse me of having a conscience, drowning newborns isn’t a thing I’m happy to get behind.
I turn off the faucet and make my way back to the cubicle.
“Hello?” I lean a shoulder against it. “Who’s there?”
The weeping, which turns into little hiccups, does not subside, but there is no answer either.
“Hey,” I try, softer now. “Are you okay? Should I call someone?”
