So close, p.2
So Close, page 2
Against all odds, he succeeded – brilliantly.
I turn and set his breakfast on the black marble-topped island, positioning it perfectly between the silverware already set out. Eggs, bacon, fresh fruit – his staples. “Yes, Ms Ferrari left while you were in the shower.”
One dark brow lifts. “Ferrari? Really?”
I’m not surprised that he never asked for her name, only saddened. Who the women are means nothing; only that they bring Lily to his mind.
I have never seen him show genuine affection to any woman but his sister, Rosana. He is polite to paramours, always. Attentive when in pursuit. But liaisons are limited to a single evening. He has never sent flowers to a lover, never indulged in a flirtatious phone call, nor invited or escorted a woman to dinner. I’ve no knowledge of how he treats a lady with whom he is intimately entangled. It is a gap in my understanding of him that may never be filled.
He reaches for the coffee I set in front of him, his mind clearly running through his agenda for the day, his latest lover dismissed from his thoughts for ever. He rarely sleeps and works far too much. Deep grooves on either side of his mouth shouldn’t be there on one so young. I’ve seen him smile and have even heard him laugh, but the amusement never reaches his eyes. He suffers life; he does not live it.
I have urged him to take a moment to enjoy his accomplishments. He tells me he’ll enjoy life better when he’s dead. Reuniting with Lily is his only true aspiration. Everything else is simply killing time.
“You did an excellent job with the party last night, Witte,” he says, rather absent-mindedly. “You always do, but still. Never hurts to say I appreciate you, does it?”
“No. Thank you.”
I leave him to eat and read the day’s paper, heading down a long hallway with its mirrored walls to the private side of the residence he shares with no one. The lovely Ms Ferrari spent the night in a bedroom on the opposite end of the penthouse, in a starkly white and sterile suite methodically designed to be nothing like the rest of the home. It’s a space Lily would not favour, as if that alone would be enough to prevent her spectre from watching and knowing.
Shortly after hiring me, Mr Black purchased the penthouse while the tower was still under construction. He oversaw the design of the raw interior minutely, from the positioning of the walls and doors to the selection of materials. Yet, I can’t say the space reflects his personal style. He chose every piece of furniture and accessory with his beloved Lily’s tastes in mind. He didn’t want a fresh start, free of her memory; he simply wanted a residence in the city, and he made certain to include his late wife. There are reminders of her everywhere, on nearly everything. In that respect, I feel I know her.
Elegant. Dramatic. Sensual. Dark, always dark.
I pause on the threshold of Mr Black’s bedroom, sensing the lingering humidity of his recent shower. The his-and-her suites occupy one entire side of the residence, with walkthrough wardrobes, matching marble-slab bathrooms and a shared sitting room.
The lady’s suite has a view of Billionaires’ Row and the Hudson from the foot of the wide, deep bed and of Lower Manhattan to the right. Sunsets spread fire through the sumptuously appointed and lavishly furnished room, warming the subaqueous decor that I refresh with exuberant bouquets every few days at my employer’s request. Her room is ever in readiness, waiting for a woman who was gone before it became hers. Her LRB monogram is embossed or embroidered on nearly everything as if to assure Lily that the space belongs only to her. Her garments fill the wardrobe and drawers. Her private bathroom is fully stocked.
By rights, the empty echo of abandonment should mar the beautiful suite, yet there is a strange energy here, a precursor to life itself.
Lily lingers, unseen but felt.
The master suite is spare in comparison. Mr Black sleeps atop a slender platform chosen to diminish any possible distractions from the immense image commanding the wall directly across from where he rests his head at night. Fleurs-de-lis decorate his drawer pulls and are embroidered on his sheets. New York is laid out like a gift at his feet beyond the windows, but he’s positioned his bed with the view behind him and Lily’s picture in front of him. It’s emblematic of how he lives his life: indifferent to the world and possessed by a woman long departed.
Mr Black ends his days with Lily. Her portrait is the last thing he sees, and he wakes to the sight of her. Unlike her room, his is tomblike, cool and eerily quiet, devoid of animation.
Turning away from the north-eastern views over Central Park, the woman whose immortal perfection dominates one’s attention draws my gaze. It’s an intimate, earthy picture. A life-size Lily reclines across a dishevelled bed; her torso draped in a white sheet and her slender limbs tangled in her long black hair. Her lips are swollen from kisses, her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire and possessiveness. Against the ashen wall colour, she beckons with a siren’s song of beauty, obsession and destruction.
I’ve caught myself staring more than once, arrested by her flawless face and potent sensuality. Some women entrap men in webs by the simple act of existing.
She was so young, barely in her twenties, yet she left a profound impression on everyone who met her. And she left her husband in torment, destroyed by doubt, guilt and heart-breaking questions … the answers to which she took to her watery grave.
3
WITTE
As I merge the Range Rover into the traffic, Mr Black relays clipped orders into his mobile. It’s barely eight in the morning, and he’s already deep into managing the various aspects of his growing dynasty.
Manhattan overflows around us, brimming with streams of cars and people rushing in every direction. In places, bags of rubbish are piled several feet high on the pavements, waiting to be hauled away. The sight put me off when I first came to New York, but now it’s just part of the tableau.
I’ve come to enjoy this city, which is so different from the rolling green dales of my homeland. There’s nothing one can’t find. The energy, diversity and complexity of the people here are unrivalled.
My gaze darts back and forth from the traffic to the pedestrians. Ahead of us, a delivery lorry blocks the one-way street. On the left pavement, a bearded man takes a group of excited canines on their morning walk, deftly handling a half-dozen leashes. On the right, a mother dressed for a run pushes a jogging pram ahead of her towards the park. The sun is shining, but the towering buildings and thickly leafed trees choke out the light.
The traffic delay stretches.
Mr Black continues his business dealings with self-assured ease, his voice calm and assertive. The cars begin to creep forward, then pick up speed. We head downtown. For a short time, we’re blessed with green lights in succession. Then our luck runs out just before we reach our destination and a red light stops me.
A flood of people rushes by in front of us, most with heads down and a few with ear buds that I suppose offer some respite from the cacophony of the busy city. I glance at the time, making sure we’re on schedule.
A sudden pained noise sends ice through my veins. It’s a half-strangled moan that is vaguely inhuman. Turning my head swiftly, I glance at the back seat, alarmed.
Mr Black sits still and silent, his eyes dark as coal, his face drained of colour. His gaze is sliding along the pedestrian crossing, following. I look that way, seeking.
A statuesque brunette hurries away from us. Her hair is short and sleek, cut into a bob that skims her sculpted jaw. It’s not Lily’s luxuriant mane, not at all. But when she turns to walk down the pavement, I think it might be her incomparable face.
The back door swings open violently. The cab driver behind us yells obscenities out of his lowered window.
“Lily!”
That my employer should go so far as to shout out his wife’s name staggers me like the crack of gunfire. My lungs seize with shock.
The woman’s gaze darts towards us. She stumbles. Freezes in place.
The resemblance is uncanny. Eerie. Impossible to comprehend.
Mr Black leaps out just as the light turns green. His response is instinctual; mine is arrested by confusion. I know only that my employer is beside himself, and I am trapped behind the wheel of the Range Rover while the madness of New York City’s morning commute rages on all sides.
Her face, already pale as porcelain, turns bloodless. I read the movement of her lushly red lips. Kane.
Her astonished recognition is intimate and unmistakable.
So is the fear.
Mr Black glances towards traffic, then lunges between moving cars in an explosion of powerful physicality. The barrage of honking becomes deafening.
The harsh sounds visibly jolt her. She surges into a run, pushing her way through the throng on the pavement, her emerald-hued dress a beacon in the crowd.
My employer, a man who attains without pursuit, gives chase. A black town car reaches her first, driving too fast.
One moment Lily is a streak of green in the urban jungle’s unrelenting grey. The next, she is a jewel-bright puddle on the dirty New York street.
4
AMY
I smile at the waiter, a slow, easy curving of my lips. “I’ll take another manhattan.”
“Oh God,” Suzanne moans dramatically, rubbing at her temples. Her tightly coiled glossy black curls dance with the movement. “I don’t know how you do it. If I drank alcohol at this time of day, I’d have to take a nap.”
I cast a longing glance at her cocktail fork and imagine stabbing her in the eye with it. I use words to the same effect. “How’s the book coming?”
She winces, and I hide my smile. She’s going to start blathering about organic creativeness and refilling the well, and I’m going to picture her pretty face with a gaping hole where her eyeball once was and the dark void behind it where a brain should be.
“I’m such a huge fan,” Erika Ferrari gushes.
Is she fucking kidding? I had to work quickly to connect with Erika and invite her to lunch before Kane dragged her away from last night’s party to shove his cock into her. To realize Erika accepted my invitation solely to gain access to Suzanne makes me livid. The stupid cunt used me!
Erika leans forward as she kisses Suzanne’s ass for greater emphasis.
And just like that, Suzanne’s anxiety is gone, replaced with a bright smile. She has the most beautiful lips – plush and naturally darker around the edges and softly pink within, like natural lip liner. “Oh, thank you! I’m so happy you enjoy my work.”
My gaze skips across crowded tables to find the bar, hoping to spot the bartender making my drink. Another gulp, and I’ll be staring at the bottom of an empty glass. I cannot sit through a single minute of the Suzanne and Erika Mutual Appreciation Show without alcohol. Thank God I have a gift for deleting inanity from my memory banks. With any luck, I’ll consign this lunch to oblivion by dinnertime.
You know what you need, Amy? my mother-in-law once told me with her signature backhanded sweetness. Culture. Try finding some friends who can elevate you. Writers, artists, musicians ... People who can teach you something.
As if I don’t know anything. Yeah, I went to public school and did a two-year stint at a junior college before finishing my marketing degree at a university. True, I hadn’t known my water glass was to my right or that you set forks on the left. None of that makes me worthless.
Aliyah thinks I’m not good enough for her precious Darius. If only she knew – I’ve fucked all three of her sons.
So, Suzanne – who was born just plain Susan – is my dash of literary sophistication. She writes trashy romance novels about billionaires who fuck like champs and the women who tame them. She’s the perfect middle-finger response to my bitch of a mother-in-law.
Because of Aliyah – and Kane – I’m wasting two hours of my life with two women I can’t stand. Erika and Suzanne are presently discussing the sexual exploits of fictional people with the kind of excitement I reserve for reality. It’s obvious Ms. Ferrari is secretly recalling being fucked senseless by Kane and imagining she’d lived a scene out of a book. She tries to be discreet about checking her phone, no doubt having left her number behind before Witte showed her out the door with his oh-so-British aplomb.
How that scene would’ve played out is etched in my mind. The polite rap on the door. The perfectly polished silver tray resplendent with an elegant coffee service and a single white rose. A white silk robe waiting in a bathroom stocked with anything a woman might need to disguise the inevitable walk of shame. And when Erika returned to the bedroom after her shower, she would’ve found the clothes Kane had peeled off her body neatly laid out on the white velvet bench and her hastily kicked-off shoes next to the foot of the already stripped and remade bed.
Witte is nothing if not faultlessly efficient.
And Kane. So predictable. I’d known the minute Erika showed up that he’d nail her. She looks like his dead wife and me. She doesn’t know it, but she’s the latest subject in the exhaustive study I affectionately call Women Kane Black Screwed and Screwed Over.
So far, superficial resemblance seems to be all Kane requires to nail a woman six ways to Sunday. He’s a total headcase. Suzanne needs to write a book about him. In fact, I’d give her the title of my study for her next novel. I can be generous when I’m not sitting next to a lookalike who’s glowing, puffy-lipped and sleepy-eyed.
God, I’m in a foul mood.
Erika Ferrari. That stupid name must be fake.
She sneaks a peek down into her Chanel tote, where her phone lies face up. Suzanne gives me a sidelong, knowing glance.
I look desperately around the packed restaurant, searching for my drink. Most of the men are dapper. The women have great hair and designer ensembles – but those wearing makeup are a rarity. Why they think that’s acceptable is beyond me. Why go to the trouble of doing your hair if you can’t be bothered to put cosmetics on your face? Nothing is worse than half-assing it.
“How did you meet Darius?” Erika asks me, reaching for another roll from the breadbasket.
“Kane introduced us.”
She perks right up at the mention of his name. “And how did you meet Kane?”
I give it a second for effect, then, “I was leaving a restaurant, and he stopped me on the street. I look like his wife. That’s his kink. Dark hair and green eyes. Red lipstick really works for him, too.”
Erika’s smile wavers a bit. “Well, some men have a distinct type.”
Her hand lifts self-consciously to her hair, which falls in dark waves that would touch her bra band if she wore a bra. She isn’t and doesn’t need to; she’s small-breasted, like me. And like Kane’s wife, who had him by the balls and never let go.
Kane doesn’t care about anyone. If you’re not standing directly in front of him, he’s already forgotten you. If there is anyone who could be said to live in the moment, it’s Kane. He’s already discarded yesterday, doesn’t give a flying fuck about tomorrow, and has just enough interest to stroll through today. But he’s psychotically hanging on to Lily’s memory.
Which makes zero sense to me.
He’s not the type of guy who suffers willingly, so I have to believe that reminding himself she’s dead gives him pleasure somehow. Or it’s a gimmick to attract women, like a hot guy with an adorable puppy. How sick is that?
“We hit it off,” I go on, keeping my tone light. More like we hit it, period. All night long. “Then, we ran into each other a couple of times.” I stalked him. “On one occasion, Darius happened to be with him.”
And my now-husband had stepped right up as a replacement body in my bed. It should’ve ended there, but Aliyah ensured her middle son got what he wanted – his ring on my finger. And that she got what she wanted – my social media management company, Social Creamery. She regrets me now. That’s my sole comfort.
“What was she like?” Erika asks. “His wife.”
“In the writing world, we’d call her a Mary Sue,” Suzanne says with a giggle. “Amy prefers calling her Mary Poppins.”
Confusion crosses Erika’s face.
A humorless laugh escapes me. “Practically perfect in every way.”
“Oh.”
“At least that’s what the people who knew her would have you believe. None of the family ever met her because they’d had an estrangement from Kane for years. Her friends will tell you she was gorgeous, smart, glamorous, the perfect hostess, great at everything, so on and so forth, yada yada …” I tell her caustically. “Everyone loved her.”
“No one likes to speak ill of the dead,” she says primly, her gaze full of judgment.
“Waxing poetic doesn’t make them any less dead. And, weirdly, Kane won’t talk about her at all. As in don’t even mention her name within earshot because he turns glacial.”
“Yes, well … Maybe he’s ready to move on,” she says, with a smug smile that makes me want to yank her out of the chair by her hair and punch her in the mouth. I fight the urge to show her the selfies I’ve taken with all the women who could be our lookalikes, only because I don’t want her to think I’m insane.
I mirror her stuck-up smile. “I’m sure that’s why he still wears his wedding ring. Didn’t you notice the pattern on the china? The flower arrangements? Her name was Lily, and everything he owns has lilies on it.”
She gives a microscopic shrug. Right. Those critical details had escaped her. I don’t know why no one else sees what I do. Just mindlessly ignorant people fucking up the world. When I mentioned the explosion of lilies all over Kane’s shit, Darius told me I was reaching. He’s got girly taste, so what?
Erika’s smugness evaporates. By the time we finish lunch, she won’t be glowing anymore. She’ll feel used and a lot less special. Her self-confidence will carry a dent in it for a long time, maybe forever. I hate that she slept with Kane, but it’s nice to know I’m not the only one self-destructive enough to fall for his charm.
