Esme and the Money Grab: (A Very Dark Romantic Comedy) (7 page)

  I was wrong about earthquakes. The one we experienced had only been a 4.0. It hadn’t damaged the city, but it had ended Jack’s life. He was the only recorded fatality. The story of the Jack and Mr. Galloway hadn’t made more than a blip in the local papers.

  The detective called me the next day. He didn’t ask me for my version of events, just confirming what Landon had told them. I mumbled yes, and the phone call was over in a few minutes. They seemed eager to put the case behind them.

  Mr. Galloway had died from a heart attack. He was a very old man, and the attack was always a matter of when not if. The time of death could not be confirmed, but it wasn’t a concern.

  The police believed Landon’s story. He was one of the Aldridges, what reason would he have to lie? He didn’t stand to gain anything from the death of Mr. Galloway.

  Jack, in their minds, was unrelated to Mr. Galloway’s death. He was just another petty criminal, a methhead, wanted for a liquor store robbery. His appearance at Mr. Galloway’s house, a bizarre coincidence to the actual death. His wrapping up of the body was written off to drug-induced psychosis.

  If he had lived, they would have arrested him. But he was dead. Open and shut case for the detectives. The end.

  Landon called to check on me a few times while I lay in bed, Mila by my side, in the small hotel room. His voice was cold, matter of fact. I understood. I stopped answering his calls.

  My final quarter at UCLA started in a few days. I would be a college graduate soon. The first in my family. It felt empty. My parents wouldn’t have been proud of the choices I made in the previous few months.

  I called Belinda and Mara to see if I get my old room back. They had rented it out. I thought of moving into the dorms at UCLA. I could finally afford it with my magical bag of money. I decided against it. Communal living in my frame of mind would have frightened the fresh and hopeful young students.

  I decided to go back to where I came from, back to Sun Valley. Live among my people. The rent would be inexpensive and the long bus trips back and forth to the campus would be a good start in terms of penance.

  Class didn’t start for another week. I decided to sleep the time away. I could find a new apartment later. I pulled Mila close to me and fell asleep.

…

  The hotel phone not my cellphone woke me up a few hours later, “Hello,” I groaned into the mouthpiece.

  “Ms. Perez, you have a visitor, Mr. Serge Richmond. May I send him up to your room?”

  “I think you have the wrong room.”

  “He says that he’s Mr. Galloway’s attorney.”

  “Huh? Why? Okay, send him up.” I hung up the phone.

  I didn’t know whether to be worried. If I were in trouble, they would have sent the police, right? I couldn’t work up the energy to care either way. If I had to spend the rest of my life in prison, then that’s the way it would be. I was sure Landon would take care of Mila.

  I fluffed up the bed as best as I could and opened the window to let in fresh air. The room was a mess, clothes all over the floor, and room service trays I hadn’t put outside the door. Again, I couldn’t get worked up over it.

  A knock at the door, I got up to answer it. Mr. Serge Richmond was blindingly handsome with his glossy dark hair and well-tailored suit. I’m just stating facts, dear reader, I didn’t really care.

  “Ms. Perez,” He held out his hand. “Serge Richmond, attorney at Goldman, Reiner and Levis. We represented Mr. Edward Galloway, your former employer. We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  I stared at his extended hand for a long time before shaking it, “Thank you.”

  “May I come in?” He asked

  “Okay,” I wanted to ask why but couldn’t summon the words.

  I stepped aside. He confidentially strode across the tiny room, opened his briefcase and placed several file folders on the small table. “Ms. Perez?” He looked to where I was still standing in the doorway with a slight smile.

  “Esme, call me Esme.” I managed to join him at the table.

  “Esme, pretty name… I don’t know why…” He shuffled through a sheaf of papers.

  “Why what?” I asked.

  “We’ll get to that in a moment.” He smiled and lightly nodded his head as he found what he was looking for. I almost laughed. “Esme, you’re a very rich woman.”

  “What?” I asked with an abundant amount of paranoia screeching through my voice.

  Did they know about the watch? Were they taking pity on me by sending Mr. Richmond instead of the police? Thoughts flew through my mind. Did he have a plan for me to work the debt off? 40,000 dollars, I would be paying it off for the rest my life.

  I deserved much worse, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “Mr. Galloway left you the entirety of his estate. Two caveats, but I don’t think they’ll be a problem.”

  “What?” I couldn’t have been more shocked, “The man hated me, taunted me everyday.”

  “He was worth roughly eighty million dollars, and he left it all to you. He may have taunted you, I would imagine that he did based upon one of the requirements, but he didn’t hate you. He left you a note…” He shuffled through the papers and handed me a sealed envelope.

  I didn’t take, “Could you read it to me?” My numb emotional state was growing surreal, with a fuzzy edge. I wasn’t quite sure I was awake.

  “Of course,” He painstakingly opened the envelope, as if trying to preserve its original condition. This made me smile.

  Esme,

  You were one of the good ones, but I never liked your name. Esmeralda Perez is the heir to my fortune. I suggest you sign the name change document the lawyer sitting across from you should be holding in his hands right now. If he isn’t holding it out to you, have him fired.

  What kind of a man wouldn’t abide by an elderly man’s dying wish? That’s not someone you want on you team. Fire them all, Esmeralda.

  Take care of Mila.

  Best, Edward Galloway

  Serge had reached across the table as he was reading the letter to me. In his extended hand was the name change form. I signed it.

  And broke down into a waterfall of hysterical tears, happy, sad, every emotion poured from me. Serge held me paternally in his arms. I soaked the shoulder of his suit.

  “He was such a horrible man,” I lifted my head and laughed through my sobs, “So mean… The things he would say… You have no idea.”

  “Esme… Esmeralda… I do know, stories of Mr. Galloway are legendary, mythical at our firm. The partner’s have been putting the rookies on his affairs for the past ten years. It’s a rite of passage.”

  “Was he always that way? Did something happen to him?” I continued crying my mixed emotion of tears.

  “No, as far as know from the partners in my firm, he was always this way. No sad story behind him. Some people are just born that way.”

  “Jack was born good…” I mumbled into his arms and cried forever more.

   A year later…

  I did move back into a very small apartment in Sun Valley. I didn’t stay there long. It felt martyrish after a few months. There were other ways to atone for my sins.

  I bought the apartment building across the street from the Catholic School Jack and I had attended as kids. It was a wreck, but I had a lot of money. The architect I had hired wanted to raze it and build anew.

  I think he wanted to build a world-class cultural center with the money from his new client. I just wanted the neighborhood kids to feel safe and at home. We compromised.

  We kept the original bones of the crumbly two-story building, which even I could see wasn’t worth keeping, and rebuilt it with quality materials. Gorgeous reclaimed wood, shiny steel beams with sweeping windows that spanned the front of the superstructure.

  What was once a barren front yard, was filled with a maze of tunneled play structures. The modest backyard was a vegetable garden with towering stalks of corn. At our first Halloween we turned into a haunted garden.

  The afterschool center opened at noon for the kindergarten class that got out early. We stayed opened until 9:00 for the few parents that worked late shifts. Our staff was top-tier and well paid by my inheritance from the man who took a special dislike to this particular community.

  Never would the thought of that not make me laugh.

  I named the comprehensive afterschool center J.A.C.K. It was difficult to turn his name into an acronym, so don’t laugh, dear reader. J.A.C.K stood for Juvenile Activity Center of Knowledge. If you can come up with a better one, please feel free to send me an email. I would love to change it to something more dignified.

  Mila and I spent our time at the center overseeing the day-to-day operations. I was thinking of going back to school to get a masters degree in child development. I had definitely found the passion for work that I had worried would elude me in life.

  Mila and I would go home to our rental house in the foothills of Studio City at the end of the long days. Jack and Mr. Galloway would greet us from the urns their earthly remains were contained in. I’m joking, they didn’t greet us, I would greet them.

  Their eternal jars were from Tiffany’s. I thought they would like that. They were firmly affixed on the ledge above the fireplace with industrial grade earthquake putty. The shaking earth would not be disturbing my two friends.

  Living with a corpse for months on end, can warp your senses.  I did feel their spirits around me, and I know Mila did too. She would take her catnaps on the tiny space on the shelf next to Mr. Galloway.

  I sent all the remaining pre-Colombian bowls back to their respective home countries. They were scattered through museums throughout Latin and South America. Most of them were in Peru. Maybe one day I would take a vacation again and visit them all.

  I sensed my parents would be proud of me. This brought me great comfort. My life had meaning and was lived in service of others.

  You know what though? It wasn’t enough. I was tremendously lonely and thought about Landon all the time. If the price for everything I had was him… I didn’t know if it was worth it.

  There wasn’t anything I could do about it. What kind of man would want to be with a woman who had done the things I had done? In some ways, living with a carefully packed dead body was the least of my bad decisions.

  “Esme,” Eloise, my assistant knocked on the door of my office in the J.A.C.K. center, “Somebody is here to see you.”

  My name was legally Esmeralda, but everyone called me Esme. Did Mr. Galloway really think it would be any different? Such a funny man. Such a silly victory for him.

  “Send them in.” I sat up high in my chair expecting to see one of the parent’s of the children in my care come through the door. It was not one of the parents.

  It was Landon.

  I jumped up out of my seat and banged my leg very hard on the desk in the process. The pure joy in seeing him again blocked out the pain. I felt as if I were floating.

  “Landon,” I squealed in a higher tone than my voice had ever reached before.

  “Esme… I’ve missed you… You’re absolutely nuts, and I missed you.”

  I hobbled around my desk at lightening speed and threw myself into his arms, “I’m not nuts anymore… All better now, no more dead bodies hiding in sheds. I’ve missed you so much too.” I clung to him and he returned my heartfelt embrace.

  “Can you keep it that way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you accept that not all of “my kind” doesn’t see you as lazy or a criminal or whatever you said that day?”

  “I can accept that not all of your kind see my people that way, but some do.” I wanted to hit myself in the head for not just agreeing with him. No, that would have been wrong. I never wanted to lie to Landon ever again.

  “Okay, I can deal with that. Is there anything about me you would like address right now before we go any further?”

  “No, you’re the perfect man.”

  “Pretty close to perfect,” He laughed, “But not perfect. Do you think you’re capable of addressing any problems we may have in the future head on and not metaphorically burying them, or in your case literally burying them?”

  “I’m never going to live that down, am I?” I laughed, which felt dark and wrong. I couldn’t help it, sorry, dear reader.

  “Not for awhile…” He kissed the top of my head, “Is that okay with you?”

  “Do I have a choice? Don’t answer that. The answer is yes, a little teasing isn’t going to hurt me. That’s all it will be, right?”

  “Yes,” He released me from his arms and looked lovingly into my eyes, “Well then, I think it’s time we start the business of spending the rest of our lives together.”

  “Oh, Landon…” I sighed heavily, never more happy.

  “I love you, Esme.”

  “I love you, Landon.”

  And we lived happily ever after.

About the Author

Paloma Meir lives with her family by the beach in Los Angeles. When she's not taking long walks she likes to writes sordid and tortured stories of people in love. You can find out more about her on her blog www.palomameir.com. She loves her family, writing books, reading books, dresses and Twitter.