Opposites Attract (2 page)

‘Anyway, you live here so you know what we have. I rest my case. We’ve seen the best of America.’ Alexis took another bite. She loved the sidewalk eateries of Manhattan. When the weather was nice, like this fine spring afternoon, it was as close to heaven as she was likely to get. The breeze was a little cool, carrying with it the smells of the garden next to the Southwestern Grill, and she was so glad she wore her new black cashmere sweater. She bought it to go with the jeans. How could she not? They looked too cute together.

‘You’re telling me a cross-country trip doesn’t interest you in the least?’ Susan persisted.

Alexis rolled her eyes. She was sure pointing out how grand New York was would’ve changed Susan’s mind. Maybe she needed to take a different approach. ‘Do we even know who this guy is? Or do we just take Ted’s dad’s uncle’s cousin’s nephew’s word that he’s not a psychopathic killer or a junkie or a . . . parolee?’

‘Ted’s friend’s cousin’s dad’s best friend’s
son
,’ Susan corrected.

‘Thank you, schoolmistress Susan,’ Alexis drawled sarcastically.

‘Sorry, taking work home with me again. Now, I believe you were saying something about being an overly judgemental, paranoid –’

‘Oh!’ Alexis laughed, knowing Susan only teased. ‘And you are too easy-going for your own good. It wouldn’t hurt you to be more suspicious of people.’

‘My easy-goingness goes well with your many eccentricities.’ Susan winked.

‘I come from money, so I’m pretty sure that entitles me to a few eccentricities.’ Alexis laughed, as she lanced another tomato.

‘Like not being able to hold down a steady job?’ Susan took a sip of her lemon water. ‘Care to tell me what happened this morning with Mr Turner?’

‘Uh, you know, same thing.’ Alexis shrugged delicately.

‘So basically you told him you didn’t feel like getting out of bed before noon because you went to another nightclub opening to make an appearance.’

‘Yeah, basically. As if I’d really miss an invitation to Bella’s opening? That would be like committing social suicide.’ Alexis made a face, unashamed. ‘Don’t worry about it. Employment is overrated. Besides, if I had to work, we wouldn’t be sitting here enjoying this fine spring day at our favourite little sidewalk café. Which, I might add, is another wonderful thing about our city.’

‘Alexis?’ Susan asked, leaning forwards. ‘You’re avoiding, aren’t you?’

‘Avoiding what?’ Alexis took another bite of salad, angling her arm so her diamond tennis bracelet wouldn’t fall into her low-carb dressing.

‘Do you want to go to California?’ Susan sat back in her chair. ‘You’re always talking about moving there.’

‘I talk about a lot of things that I don’t really mean. Besides, honestly, why would you want to move anywhere? New York is the centre of the universe. Aliens could land and this is where they’d come to hang out.’

‘Aliens?’ Susan chuckled. ‘Your defence is that New York now might attract aliens? Does our television talk to you? Are you hearing voices in your head?’

‘Shut up, you know what I mean.’ Alexis waved her fork lightly to dismiss the alien comment. ‘Why do you want to move? We have a great apartment –’

‘In your mother’s hotel,’ Susan interjected.

‘Ah, my mother’s five-star, Upper East Side hotel,’ Alexis said. ‘We have room service. We never cook.’

‘Which your mother pays for.’

‘Maids.’

‘Your mother’s.’

‘Hey, why you getting down on my mother all of a sudden?’ Alexis asked, frowning. This worried her. She couldn’t lose Susan. She was the only person Alexis could stand being around for long periods of time. ‘Are you saying you’re unhappy?’

‘No, it’s just . . .’ Susan frowned. ‘Ted thinks that maybe it’s time we did things on our own.’

‘Oh, Ted thinks?’ Alexis dropped her fork, losing her appetite.

‘Well, your mother’s not always going to be there to support us.’

‘Oh, she doesn’t support you.’ Alexis reached to pat Susan’s hand. ‘You pay your own way, sweetie.’

‘Fine.’ Susan looked away. ‘You won’t be able to live off your mother forever.’

‘I see.’ Alexis hardened her expression. ‘I don’t think nmy life is any of Ted’s business. I can’t help it that he’s jealous. I can’t help that I was born with money. Does he think my life’s a bed of roses? It’s hard being rich. People think it’s easy because I have money, but they’re wrong. I’m always being looked at and I have it twice as bad because I’m pretty. I have to deal with jealousy all the time. In fact, just this morning, some scrubby little nobody, with that black gothic whatever make-up, was staring at me as I –’

‘No, Alexis,’ Susan tried to interrupt. ‘I –’

Alexis’s cell phone rang, cutting Susan off. Alexis held up her finger and reached down into her pink rabbit-fur handbag for her phone. Flipping it open, she said cheerfully, ‘
Buon giorno
.’

Alexis felt the blood rush from her face, as her mother’s butler spoke in a rush from the other end. His stiff accent made the words all the more surreal. ‘Mrs Grant . . . arrested . . . embezzlement . . . agents . . .’ She felt dizzy, sure she didn’t hear him right.

‘Wait,’ Alexis said, stopping him mid-sentence. ‘What do you mean my mother has –’ she lowered her tone, covering the mouthpiece ‘– been arrested?’

‘Alexis?’ Susan asked. ‘Lexy, what’s wrong?’

Alexis’s eyes widened. She felt as if she were drowning. Everything moved in slow motion. She blinked, looking at the waiter, who was suddenly at their table. She focused on his black vest and matching apron. The red rose on the breast pocket caught her eye and she stared at it. The waiter waved his hand in front of her face, drawing her attention back up.

‘Miss? Miss?’ She saw the waiter’s lips moving, but couldn’t hear his voice.

‘All right, I’m coming home.’ Alexis blinked rapidly, looking around. She felt faint, like she was falling. She heard Susan scream, before everything went black.

‘Alexis?’ Susan jumped up from the table, as the waiter caught her friend. She ran to the cell phone, picking it up. ‘Hello? Who is this? What did you say?’

Susan listened, but no one was there.

‘Miss,’ the waiter said.

Looking at the man, she said, ‘Get me some water. Now!’

‘But, your cheque . . .?’

Susan ignored him, fanning Alexis’s face in worry. Someone handed her a wet napkin and she pressed it to her friend’s flushed cheeks. ‘Alexis? Honey, wake up. Wake up. What happened? Who was that?’

Alexis blinked, coming back to consciousness. Susan felt as if a weight was lifted off of her. She’d been so worried. Alexis’s mouth moved and Susan leaned down just in time to hear her whisper, ‘Call a cab. We have to get home. They’re taking everything.’

One month later . . .

The trial wasn’t even close to being over, but Alexis’s life of privilege was. Men in cheap suits raided her apartment, laying claim to everything that wasn’t tied down, treating her like she was the daughter of some Mafia kingpin. Everything was gone – the money, the servants, the hotel stocks, jewellery. Even the furniture had been seized by the government – at least the furniture that didn’t belong to the hotel.

‘Do you have any drugs in the apartment we should know about?’ they’d asked her. ‘Do you have any guns, knives, or other weaponry? Are you aware that your mother is under arrest for embezzling funds? Has she ever handed you strange packages and asked you to store them?’

What was she supposed to say to that? Alexis chuckled darkly, remembering how she’d replied. ‘Yeah, my mother gave me a square-cut diamond and not a princess cut for my thirteenth birthday. It came in a box from the wrong jeweller. That was strange. She usually got the jewellery part right.’ The agent looked like he wanted to slap her. Alexis didn’t care. Didn’t they have real criminals they could’ve been out arresting?

‘Alexis?’ Susan yelled, sounding oddly excited for such a horrible day. They were being kicked out on the streets like hobos and her friend was yelling in her happy voice. ‘Alexis, are you here? Come on, I’ve got some great news.’

Alexis plucked a tissue from the box next to her on the floor. They were cheap tissues. She couldn’t afford the lotion kind any more. She could barely afford a free drink of water. What was she going to do?

She didn’t feel like talking to Susan, so she stayed hidden in her corner, sitting on the floor of her former home. The hotel manager had agreed to let her stay a few weeks to have time to pack. He was a nice man, one Alexis wished she had paid more attention to. But now her two weeks were up and she had to go. Susan convinced her to sell some of her clothing. She did, getting maybe a quarter of what she paid for it. Still, it wasn’t a whole lot of money after she paid the bills her mother no longer could cover. Not paying wasn’t a choice. News like that would’ve spread through her social circle, destroying her reputation. Alexis might be debt free, but she could barely afford a week at the Flea Bite Inn.

Susan said that Ted offered his place. The last thing Alexis wanted was to live with Susan’s boyfriend. But where else was she to go? What was she going to do? He’d probably gloat that he was right when he’d said Alexis couldn’t live off her mother for ever. How in the world had he known? Was it so obvious to everyone else that her mother was a criminal? Alexis had known the woman her whole life and didn’t know she was a criminal.

She glanced around the living room. The penthouse boasted enormous windows that gave a panoramic view of the city in every direction. There was a concrete fireplace wall. The hotel provided big-screen televisions in both the master and secondary bedrooms and a flat screen in the living room, all of which included surround sound and DVD players. They even had a television in the bathroom and kitchen area.

The suite had hard-wood floors, vintage chandeliers and a sound system on the terrace. In the bathroom there was a two-person steam shower and a separate cast-iron, claw-foot bathtub. In the bedrooms they had king-size beds with feather white comforters and six full-length pillows.

The furniture was all custom-made. Alexis had chosen the mohair fabric sofa with the red fabric pillows and matching chair. She insisted the hotel decorator buy the Monaco hand-painted end tables and matching plant stand. She was the one who said hang neutral beige curtains to offset the red of the furniture. She picked the hand-woven rugs and Tiffany lamps. This was her home and now it was going to be rented to strangers.

‘There you are, Lexy,’ Susan said, coming around the corner. ‘What are you doing on the floor?’

‘Why are you so chipper?’ Alexis grumbled, blowing her nose.

‘I was just over at Ted’s.’

‘What, so you get laid?’ Alexis frowned.

‘Well, uh, yeah,’ Susan said, looking slightly embarrassed.

‘Lucky. I couldn’t get laid if I paid a man,’ Alexis said. She hadn’t got laid once since her life had crumbled. It would just be her luck if her body had already rusted shut. A month without sex? If anyone asked her, that was the real crime in this whole situation. Did she even need to recall the fact that the agents had taken her ‘toys’ as well? Yeah, like she was going to have the lawyers get her vibrators back for her. The newspapers had been bad enough without adding that fuel to the fire.

‘Lexy,’ Susan said, her voice mildly scolding.

‘I don’t understand how my mother’s bad decisions can affect me so much. Just because an ill-gotten fortune paid for my life doesn’t mean my life has to be put into the newspapers. Have you looked at today’s headlines? The tabloids are interviewing ex-boyfriends I never knew I had. Apparently, I’ve had sex in some fetish club with a whole group of them. They would never have dared to say that about me before. Now, there is no fortune, there is no life, no respect. My life is over. I’d be better off dead.’ Alexis sniffed, feeling very fatalistic.

‘Forget the papers. Didn’t we say we weren’t going to read them? I’ve even stopped watching the news, so you shouldn’t start listening to it now.’ Susan stroked back Alexis’s hair. ‘What’s really going on, Lexy? Did you see your mother and her lawyer today?’

‘He can’t do much else for us,’ Alexis said. ‘He said it’s better for my mother in the long run, if we just let the government have the rest of my things since I can’t produce receipts for them. Who the hell keeps receipts for everything?’

Alexis took a deep breath, trying not to cry. Thanks to her mother’s lawyer, Alexis managed to get some of her belongings back – clothing, her camera, Susan’s stuff. But almost everything else had technically belonged to the hotel.

‘We don’t have a home. We don’t have a car. Crissakes, I can’t even hold down a job. I barely have an education, unless a mail-order diploma from the Photography Institute and a fluency in Italian counts as a worthwhile education.’ Alexis started crying anew, weeping into her hands.

‘We have each other,’ Susan said, sternly. ‘And don’t you forget it. Now, I want no more talk of dying. You’re a fighter, Lexy. Now, what happened today with your mom? Did she look well?’

‘It was awful, Susan.’ Alexis sniffed, grabbing another tissue. She dried her eyes. ‘I had to look at her through a pane of hard plastic. She was always so elegant and now she’s been reduced to a cheap orange jumpsuit. I’m sorry, but that colour was all wrong for her. It drained her face of all life and she always had her hair perfectly upswept, you know. Now it’s in an ugly bun. They didn’t let her have make-up, so she looks all old and tired. I barely recognised the woman.’

‘Well, Lexy, maybe make-up isn’t what is important to her right now,’ Susan said. ‘What did she say?’

‘You’re on your own, kid. Find yourself a rich first husband.’ Alexis swallowed, near tears as she thought about it. ‘How am I supposed to find a rich husband in Manhattan? The whole city knows about Francine Grant’s arrest. No decent family will touch me with a ten-foot pole.’

Susan opened her mouth, but nothing came out.