Esme and the Money Grab: (A Very Dark Romantic Comedy) (6 page)

  Rich people have so much Champagne in their lives. It was first thing the driver mentioned to me after packing my bags away in the trunk, “Can I offer you a glass of Champagne?” It was five in the morning. I declined.

  It goes without saying that I used Mr. Galloway’s luggage. Louis Vuitton, a matching set. He even had a kitty travel bag for Mila. Who knows why he even had it. The man hadn’t left his estate on the top of the hill in over a decade.

  I took Mila out of her carrier, cuddled up to her and fell asleep on the drive to the airport. The driver gently shook me awake and walked me to the first class check-in counter. I was very happy he did that. I wouldn’t have been able to figure it on my own.

  The check-in attendant practically genuflected as I showed her my itinerary and identification. This is where the driver and I parted ways. I tried to offer him a tip, but he refused, saying it had been taken care of by the travel agency.

  Mila and I were quickly led through the security checkpoint. I thought I would be on my own after that, but no, the attendant walked me to the Premiere Club of the airline I was flying on. Guess what they offered me as soon as I entered their reception area? Did you guess Champagne? Then you would be correct.

  Being in the Premiere Lounge was as comfortable as being in Mr. Galloway’s home. I could have spent the day there, happily contented. But alas, my flight was called. I don’t have to tell you what was offered to me as soon as I sat down in my plush and spacious first class seat, do I?

  Just imagine being waited on hand and foot while being fed exotic delicacies for five hours. That was my flight. They even let me take Mila out of her case to hold her.

  At the airport in Honolulu I was greeted by my driver with a glass of Champagne. The concierge at the hotel also greeted me with a glass of Champagne. In my cottage overlooking the sea, next to the overwhelming large complimentary basket filled with exotic fruits, stood a bottle of Champagne.

  I would have been having a very different vacation if I had drunk every glass offered to me.

  Mila and I settled into the hammock in front our cottage after unpacking my mix of Mr. Galloway’s sporty ensembles and my pretty dresses from Barney’s. And that’s what we did for the remainder of the day, rocked back and forth and stared out into the sea. The peaceful breeze and swooshing sound of the waves left me overly relaxed. I felt as if I had been drugged.

  I thought about Mr. Galloway as we swung in the light wind. The island was so tranquil, I wondered if living here would have made him a different person, less hateful. I didn’t see how anyone could be negative in the splendor of the island.

  I really didn’t know that much about him. His money had come from real estate. I knew he still owned a few office buildings around Los Angeles, but he had told me once that he sold most of them off at the top of the market. I believe the phrase he had used, “I screwed the buyers over, and they lost everything in the crash.”

  Yeah… maybe even the halcyon power of the beauty of the islands wouldn’t have lightened his dark heart.

  As the sun went down, I found myself missing him, both states of him. The once living Mr. Galloway and the now dead Mr. Galloway. Had I grown used to living with a corpse? “Enough with that line of thinking, Mila. Time to go inside and order room service,” I laughed to her and carried her back inside the cottage with me.

…

  I opened the door for room service and guess who was standing there? I know you, dear reader, have already figured it out, but I couldn’t have been more surprised, happily surprised. Landon, he wore a tuxedo and his tousled hair was swept up with gel. Around his neck he wore a lei of plumeria, so sweetly fragrant.

  He thrust a bouquet of pale pink roses into my hands, “You’re not ready, Esme. I told I would be here to pick you up at eight o’clock.” He impishly smiled, and my heart exploded in my chest.

  “Come in, Landon,” I opened the door and waved my hand across the room, “I thought you were joking. I’m not used to dating men rich enough to fly across the world at a moment’s notice.”

  “It’s not across the world,” he stepped into the room but didn’t go further, “Just across the Pacific. If you were going to China or Zimbabwe, I probably would have been a little late for our date.”

  “I guess I’m happy I didn’t book my vacation to one of those far off places.” I suddenly became aware of my appearance. Of course I was in Mr. Galloway’s Paul Smith pinstripe pajamas, and my hair was up in a tight ponytail. I wasn’t dressed for the most romantic moment of my life at all.

  “You have a cat,” He went to Mila who was curled up under the teak desk and ran his hand across her back, ‘Time for you to get ready, cute as you look, I don’t think they’ll let us into the Pa’Akai dining room with you dressed for bed.” Mila raised her back to take in his attentions, “You have a very unique style, like my grandfather, but it looks better on you,” He blinded me with his smile.

  “Thank you… I’ll get ready.” The budding criminal mastermind inside me knew I should send him away, tell him he had invaded my personal space, get angry about the whole thing. Nothing good could come from him getting to know me. Any relationship we developed would be more dangerous to me than the dreaded paper trail. Landon knowing that I lived in Mr. Galloway’s house was bad enough.

  The problem was, I was new to be a criminal mastermind, and I had crush. Leave me alone. My heart was aflutter.

  I took the silky, droopy, frilly Thakoon dress I had bought at Barney’s from the closet and went into the bathroom to change. I had never heard of the designer before my shopping binge. It was as if the rich had this whole secret world of luxury that they didn’t want the poors to know about.

  I can’t say I blame them. Thakoon was worth having a class war over. (I’m joking, dear reader)

  “Wow,” Landon comically threw his hand to his forehead when I came out of the bathroom, dressed and made-up as best as I could under such short notice. Could he have been cuter? “I was expecting to see you in the tuxedo pants you like so much. This is even better. You’re lovelier than the sunset outside, Esme.”

  “Landon…” I sighed, “Nobody has ever spoken to me as sweetly as you…” Jack had always been sweet to me before his Jekyll and Hyde-like twist of personality, but our relationship, though romantic at times, was more the gentle teasing of brother and sister.

  “You like that? Noted. I’ll be keeping it up.” He extended his hand, “Now, tell me everything about yourself, you fascinate me.”

  I took his hand, “My sainted parents…” I carried on with everything you’ve already read, dear reader. Every word I told him was the truth, up until the day before Mr. Galloway and I had our falling out, which may or may not have killed him.

  I thought fast and spoke faster when the story of my life reached present day. I had never had an argument with Mr. Galloway, instead he had gone fishing in Canada and left me to housesit. I worried even as the words came out of mouth that this untruth would be what did me in should Landon ever hear of the elderly man who died alone in his house next to the one he had rented for a few months.

  Jack was addressed, but I downplayed his level of his harassment of me. I didn’t want him to think I was too much to take on. I put my best face forward. I probably shouldn’t have done that…

  Landon was entranced by my story. He rested his chin on his hand and stared deeply into my eyes. Swoon.

  I was out of breath by the time the dessert trolley was rolled to our small table by the window that overlooked the pounding sea. “Now you know everything. Am I still fascinating?”

  “You’re not only fascinating, you’re an inspiration. My life has been embarrassingly easy…” He held a forkful of bread pudding up to my mouth.

  “Opposites attract,” I took the bite as delicately as possible, “Your turn, I want to know everything. It’s only fair."

  “After the story you just told? No, another time,” He laughed, “I will tell you about the summer I spent in Colombia a few years ago…”

  I was a little bit embarrassed about how much more he knew about my parent’s homeland than I did… Of course I knew of the day-to-day life of your average Colombian. My parents had grown up in a small village outside of Bogota and emigrated when they were teens. The country had been a war zone with FARC and their daily terrorist activities. They fled.

  Still, the customs carried on in our small apartment. They would speak wistfully of the country they could never return to. And believe me I was eating quinoa decades before he it had crept into the hipster vegan culture.

  But, did you know that Colombia was second in biodiversity on EARTH? It followed Brazil on that list, and Brazil was like ten times larger. It was number one in bird species too. Can you believe that?

  I couldn’t have been more excited as he told all of these facts.

  And do you know why he had spent the summer of his senior year in high school in Colombia? To watch the birds. Landon was a bird watcher. I really thought that had fallen out fashion somewhere in the mid-twentieth century.

  I held my hand against his cheek at one point at dinner. I couldn’t believe he was real. Landon Aldridge, the perfect man.

…

   Have you ever seen a romance movie? You know how those films cut to a montage of the couple falling in love? It almost always happens in New York, and they always take a carriage ride through Central Park. When I was a little girl, I worried that I would never fall in love because we didn’t have carriage rides in Los Angeles. I shouldn’t have worried.

  The following week with Landon reached highs higher than any film I had ever seen. We snorkeled, we surfed, the two of us lay on the beach hand in hand, talking. Every night we would get dressed up and go to dinner. One night we even drove into Honolulu.

  On Christmas morning, we took leis down to the beach and threw them into the ocean in honor of my sainted parents. I broke down in tears as I recited a prayer in Spanish. Landon held me tight, while stroking my hair and telling me everything would be okay. And in his strong arms, it was all right again.

  I pretended I had left something behind on the beach as we walked back to the hotel. I ran back to the shore and tossed a single Plumeria in for Mr. Galloway. I didn’t have time to say a prayer for him, but I don’t he would have minded.

  He was an atheist, one of those long-winded ones too. He might as well have been an evangelical with the way he spoke about his lack of faith. He was more of a zealot about his lack of belief, than I was in my belief.

  At the end of our days and nights together Landon would walk me back to my cottage and kiss me tenderly at the door. And no, I didn’t let him come inside. This is not that kind of story. I’m a nice Catholic Colombian girl.

  All too soon, the vacation was over. He changed his airline ticket, and we flew home together on the same flight. We drank Champagne on the redeye flight and quickly fell asleep.

  You know what happens in those romance films after the montage? Strife. We were walking right into it.

  The driver dropped us off a little after sunrise. The two of us were sleepy, and Mila was meowing. I worried her ears ached from the flight’s descent. She clawed at her case, fighting to get out.

  Landon wanted to carry my luggage into the house. I said no. He was insistent. I was too tired to shoo him away. My stomach clenched as we trudged up the driveway to the front door.

  The odds of there having been a problem with the air-conditioning while we were away were low. Still, it wasn’t a chance I wanted to take. Having Landon, or anybody in the house seemed like a bad idea to me.

  I opened the door and turned to Landon, ‘Well, thank you. I can take it from here.” I put Mila’s carrier down and tried to take my suitcase from his hand.

  “I’ll bring it in. You have your hands full with Mila and your handbag.” He walked past me. I felt like I was going to vomit. I walked in behind him resigned to my fate.

  I took a deep breath as if I were tired, not searching for noxious scents. The room stunk, but not of a dead body. I had been around several before with caretaking. A few of my patients had passed on.

  Death had an unsettling sweet odor. The smell of Mr. Galloway’s home was more human, a dirty sweaty human, like Hollywood Blvd. on a hot summer day.

  “What is that?” Landon jerked his head back and his nostrils flared.

  “I don’t know but—

  “Esme,” Mr. Galloway’s recliner swung around to face us. Jack jumped out of the chair, lunging for me, as if he were attempting to fly across the room.

  Suddenly the earth beneath us shook with a tremendous force. Mila screeched in her carrier. The sound of rattling filled the air, and the objects on Mr. Galloway’s shelves bounced.

  “You thought you could get away from me?” Jack was within grabbing distance of me. Landon threw himself between the two of us, holding his arm out, his body stooped as if he were trying to find his center of balance with which to hold Jack off.

  He didn’t need to, the largest of the pre-Colombian bowls flew off the high shelf, hitting Jack against the side of his head. He tumbled to the ground, unmoving.

  The sound of the art objects crashing to the floor filled the room. The largest bashing sound coming from the garage. I knew it was Mr. Galloway, but I couldn’t care. Jack looked dead, and I had seen the dead many times. I knew he was gone.

  “Jack, no, no,” I ran to his side, and held his head in my lap, “ No, no, no,” I kept saying over and over again as I rocked my oldest friend in my lap, tears streaming down my face until I couldn’t see.

  “Esme,” Landon placed his hand on my shoulder as the earth returned to its previous stillness, “I’m going outside to call an ambulance. My phone isn’t getting reception here.”

  “No, no, no…” Was all I could say.

  Jack had aged ten years since I had last seen him a few months before. He was skeletal, the stink of the room was from his unwashed body. His bright blue eyes were in a cloud of yellow instead of white. Three of his bottom teeth were missing.

  What had happened to him? Where had my Jack gone? I couldn’t see him anywhere within the lifeless body in my arms.

  “Esme…” Landon said to me through a veil of echoes, “I’ll be right back, I’m going to call 911. I’ll go check the garage too, make sure that noise wasn’t the water heater. We wouldn’t want a gas leak.”

  “No, no, no,” I continued, unable to tell him to stay out of the garage.

  “Jack, I’ll be back in a moment…" I kissed his forehead and laid him gently on the ground.

  “Landon…” I called out as I heaved my unwilling body towards the garage.

  He screamed. I was too late. He had found Mr. Galloway.

…

  “Esme,” Landon came to me as I entered the garage, “You don’t want to see this. I don’t know what’s going on but—

  “It’s Mr. Galloway. I did it—

  “What do you mean you did it? The man is wrapped in some sort of particle rock—

  “It’s kitty litter. Let me explain…”

  The numbness I felt when my parents had died fell over me as I told Landon part two of the story of my life, the part I had altered, okay, straight up lied about in Hawaii. His expression was blank as I told him the story but his were piercingly cold as it went on.

  “Why do you think you killed him? He was old. Was he not strong enough to bend down and pick up the pills?”

  “He was mobile, he didn’t have those kind of problems… Didn’t you hear me? I wished him dead and then he was dead.” I looked over his shoulder to see Mr. Galloway’s partially unwrapped body. He looked as fresh as the day I had wrapped him up.

  “Are you magic, Esme? Wishing someone dead doesn’t kill them.”

  “I don’t know,” I yanked at my hair in hopes of waking myself up from this nightmare. “I’m a glorified Latina housekeeper. What do you think the police would have thought?”

  “I think they would have thought very old man died after arguing with his much put upon caretaker.”

  “You don’t know how the world works Landon. People, your kind of people, see me and think poor, desperate, lazy, criminal.”

  “My kind of people?” He asked with a trace of sarcasm.

  “Not your kind of people. I didn’t mean that. It’s just the way this city, maybe the world works.”

  “I would love to have spent my life with you, showing you how wrong your thinking is… but now…”

  “But now, what?”

  “It’s not important anymore.” He rubbed the top of his head, “In the living room, that’s Jack? The one who wasn’t taking the breakup well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, well, that was an understatement. The way it looks now, is damaging. I’m going to call 911. When they get here, you’re not going to say a word, but you will listen to what I’m saying and when they eventually interview you, you will parrot back what I said to them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m risking my law degree, and possibly my freedom on you. Are you sure you can do this?"

  “Yes, but you don’t need—

  “Esme, you weren’t the cause of this, but what happened after? It doesn’t look good. I’m going to say some things about your maniac old boyfriend, who tried to kill you. It might get rough. Can you handle it?”

  I was going to say, no, you can’t do that, but I suddenly felt the spirit of Jack propelling me to say, yes. I swear I heard laughter from Mr. Galloway too. I blocked out the voices of my parents. My head was too busy with people no longer alive.

  “Yes,” I went back to Jack, sat down next to him and held his hand in mine. Within a few minutes paramedics and police swarmed around us. I couldn’t quite hear what Landon was saying to them, but I figured it out.

  Jack had been stalking and terrorizing me. Mr. Galloway, out of the goodness of his heart had let me stay with him, for my protection. Landon and I had gone away for a vacation and come back to this scene. We were just as baffled as to what had gone on while we were away as the police were.

  The paramedics told Landon that it looked at as if Mr. Galloway had died a natural death. They didn’t understand why Jack had wrapped him up. One of them muttered, drugs, as they carried Jack’s body away to the ambulance to take him to the morgue for an autopsy.

  The police tried to talk to me, to get my version of events. Landon told them they could do it another time, that I was clearly in shock to have two people who had meant so much to me die so suddenly. He was correct.

  The police left a few hours later after giving me their card and telling me they would like to speak to me the next day, if I were up to it. I think Landon had scared them with his lawyerly talk. And then it was just the two of us.

  “You okay, Esme?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He stared at me as if I were a stranger. If I weren’t so numb, it would have broken my heart. I looked away.

  “I’m going to go home now…”

  “I understand.”

  “Yeah… If you need me—

  “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  I called a cab a few minutes after he left and took it to a small boutique hotel next to Whole Foods on Crescent Dr. I paid for the room with my ill-gotten money in the golden satchel. I had an impulse to give the bag of cash away to the bell-hop.

  I didn’t though. I’m a survivor.