AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, but I’m going now. Thanks for a great party.” I had to force myself to smile as I said it.
“Sorry to miss your sister. Tell her I said it was nice to meet her, okay?”
“Of course. I’m sure I’ll talk to her later tonight.”
If only I’d known how hollow those words were.
4
Now
ON MONDAY MORNING I’M AT GRAND CENTRAL BY 7:10 FOR A7:42 train to Scarsdale, far earlier than I need to be, but it’s better than sitting at home trying not to jump out of my skin.
I’m wearing the exact same outfit I put together for my first meeting with Josh, the gallery owner—a long black faux-silk shirt, black leggings, and stacked black suede ankle boots, along with my camel-colored sweater coat. Maybe I should have chosen something dressier, but I don’thaveanything fancier, and if the so-called inheritance has anything to do with me being an artist, I figure it’s fine to look the part.
Most of my stress today is about the meeting with Bradley Kane, about finally being able to learn—after two days of constant ruminating—what this inheritance thing is all about. But I’m also still agitated about my mother’s upcoming tag sale, silly as it feels. I keep deliberating whether I should call or text her to wish her luck with it—just to be nice—but she might think I’m being passive-aggressive, that I’m letting her know that I’m onto the fact she hadn’t included me in the preparation or the actual sale itself.
It’s always so hard to read her. Sometimes I think I’m not paying enough attention to her cues and other times that I’m paying too much.
After trudging up the stairs from the subway, I make my way to the dining concourse on the lower level and treat myself to a coffee for the train. From there I head up the wide marble staircase to the main part of the terminal. When I travel a few times a year to Hartford to visit my family—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a weekend in the summer—I take the Amtrak train from Penn Station, so it’s been ages since I’ve been in Grand Central, and the noise and crowd are overwhelming. Commuters are darting in every direction, many glued to their phones, and in imminent danger of a collision.
Miraculously, the track number for my train has already been posted. Since I’ve bought a ticket online, I hurry to the platform, where I board a car and grab a seat in an empty row. I help myself to a few sips of coffee, but then rest the cup on the floor, sensing that additional caffeine will make me even more wired.
The train begins to fill up quickly, so I shift my bag from between my feet to the space beside me. It’s obnoxious, yes, but the seats are small and close together, and I don’t want anyone pressed against me right now. A couple of passengers eye my bag with disapproval as they snake down the aisle, but I hear them sliding into seats behind me. It’s not like I’m making anyone stand.
A minute behind schedule, the train jerks to a start, and we move through the dank, gritty tunnel beneath Park Avenue, until we emerge aboveground in Harlem. The knot in my stomach tightens with each block we pass heading north. What in the world am I getting myself into? Should I have tried to convince Bradley Kane to explain more over the phone?
A small part of me still wonders if this is all a crazy scam, that I’ll get to Kane’s office and find out his team is trying to sell me a time-share in Key West or lure me into some kind of cult, like theone a few years ago that promised to empower women but ended up branding them on the ass instead.
Or maybe Kane has it all wrong; perhaps Christopher Whaley intended to leave an inheritance to someone named Skyler Moore, just notthisSkyler Moore.
And yet despite my lingering doubts, every couple of minutes I’m almost knocked over by a swell of giddiness again. What if Whaley reallywassome kind of patron of the arts, a guy who decided on his deathbed to sponsor starving artists? I did additional calculations over the weekend and realized that with a gift of, say, twenty thousand dollars, and the sale of even a few of my collages at the show, I’d be able to kick off a schedule of IUIs and get on the road to motherhood.
The trip is only scheduled to take forty minutes, but it feels interminable, thanks in large part to the asshole a few rows ahead, barking into his phone about a deal in Hong Kong that’s about to blow up on him. If there’s any justice in the world, it will. Finally, an automated voice announces, “The next station stop will be Scarsdale.” I grab my bag and, holding on to a few headrests for balance, make my way to the door. I’m finally here, about to learn my fate.
I order an Uber as soon as I step off the train, and by the time I exit the mock Tudor-style station, the gray Honda Accord is already waiting for me. According to Google, the firm is only a short distance away, but it’s a long enough drive to give me a taste of Scarsdale. Almost every structure in the town center is mock Tudor, too, though when we reach Kane’s building, it’s actually a sleek glass and steel tower, about eight stories high. I’m so tense that I scramble out of the car without remembering to thank the driver.
Abood, Kane, Harrison, and Wong is on the fifth floor, and as I press the button for the elevator, I notice that my palm is wet with sweat. I wipe my hand on a tissue and pray there really will be only two other people at the meeting.
Though the building is super modern, the door to the law office turns out to be made of a heavy dark walnut, and as soon as I push it open, my worries about a scam begin to fade. Everything about the reception area—furniture, carpeting, window treatments—looks expensive and classy, and it seems pretty obvious I’m in a legit law firm office.
Even the middle-aged receptionist is elegant. She’s wearing a white satin blouse with a pussy bow, and her grayish-blond hair is coifed into a perfect French twist. This is not a woman who’s going to be snacking on a big bag of Cheetos at her desk while you stand there trying to grab her attention.
“Have a seat and I’ll tell Mr. Kane you’re here,” she says pleasantly after I give my name. “He’s expecting you.”
I’ve barely made my way to a chair when I hear carpet-hushed footsteps, and seconds later, a man steps into the reception area, wearing a navy suit and carrying a tan folder.
“Ms. Moore? Good morning, I’m Bradley Kane.”
He looks exactly like the picture on the website, as if it was taken yesterday.
“Hello,” I say, offering a wan smile and thankful he doesn’t attempt to shake my hand—because it’s already sweaty again.I can handle this, I tell myself. The very worst that could happen is that I’ve come all this way for nothing.
“Why don’t you follow me?” he says in a neutral tone, then leads me down a long, quiet hallway. Though he’d kept his eyes on my face in the reception area, I catch him giving me a discreet head-to-toe once-over as we walk. And why wouldn’t he? He’s apparently as clueless as I am about how I ended up here.
Halfway down the hall, he directs me into a conference room, with a sleek long table surrounded by about a dozen butterscotch-colored leather chairs, the ergonomically correct kind. After closing the door behind us, he pulls out a chair for me, and then he takes aseat at the end of the table, diagonally across from mine. He sets the folder in front of him on the table along with an expensive-looking fountain pen, making sure they are perfectly aligned. I slip out of my sweater coat, scrunching it onto my lap along with my purse.
“How was your trip from the city?” he asks. His high, smooth forehead overhangs his eyes a bit, giving the false impression that he’s the tiniest bit cross-eyed.
