Mikalo's Grace (7 page)

"And will he?" I found myself asking, my eyes
growing wet with tears.

She shrugged.

"It is wounded and raw. It hurts. Still."

"Claudia," I interrupted.

"Ah, he told you of Claudia. Then this is
good. A good step, I think. But still, I know him and I know his
pain. I know his heart. Perhaps he doesn't feel it is yet ready to
give? That I do not know."

The door opened and Mikalo entered, heading
back to the table, a large smile on his face.

Her hand still on mine,

"But he is worth the wait, my Grace. Wait and
love. And trust. That is best."

Chapter Fifteen

"I hate you," Deni was saying.

She sat across from me, blonde and beautiful
and effortlessly elegant. Dressed in couture, the opulence of her
Park Avenue duplex all around her, balancing tea with lemon in fine
china in one hand, and seething with jocular envy.

"Well, it's your fault," I said.

She sipped and placed the cup on the table
beside her.

"And so the dead husband remains dead?" she
asked.

I nodded.

It was Sunday. Mikalo was at his hotel
getting a change of clothes and some quiet time. We had slept,
deeply, and awoke, hungry for each other again. And we had made
love, sweetly, tenderly, with no tears.

And now here I sat giving my best friend the
blow-by-blow, so to speak.

"I wept, Deni. I mean, I literally sobbed and
sobbed. And he sat there and held me and cried with me."

"It was that good?"

"Yes," I said, "it was. But it was more than
that. And it wasn't that. It was, I don't know, that heaviness,
that pain, that --"

"That mourning."

"Right. That mourning. That constant mourning
I've been going through --"

"Putting yourself through," she interrupted,
correcting me.

"Okay, yes. Putting myself through for the
past who knows how many years that was finally gone. I just felt
light and free. It's hard to explain."

"No, no," she said. "It makes sense. I've
always said you needed a good roll in the hay and, well, there you
go. All better now."

She paused, pursing her lips as she
thought.

"What?" I asked.

Leaning back, she watched me.

"Are you sure?"

Oh god, I thought, what now? Is he married?
Bisexual? A serial killer on the run? One of those handsome men who
preys on the weak, the needy, the chunky and desperate? Just what
was she going to say?

"He's not getting the job."

"Oh," I said, and then stopped.

Deni knew everyone, had her finger on the
pulse of everything, and was better at gathering news than the best
reporters in the field. If she said it was so, it was so. She
triple checked her sources.

"Blazen isn't sure he's a fit and ..." she
was saying.

She stopped and waited.

"And what?" I asked, well aware what the
answer would be.

"He's afraid Mikalo might fraternize with
other attorneys."

"In other words, Blazen doesn't want Mikalo
fucking me."

"Something like that," she said, gently.

"So because of me, he doesn't get a job?"

"He doesn't need the job, Ronan."

Standing, she quickly walked across the room
to her desk, returning with a glossy gossip magazine. One from
Europe. Italy or France.

"Look," she said, sitting next to me and
thumbing through, "Here's your boy."

Her perfectly manicured nail rested on a
snapshot of Mikalo at some party looking impossibly handsome and
happy surrounded by equally handsome men, all in black tie holding
champagne flutes.

"Very handsome, by the way. One of Europe's
most eligible bachelors. He's been chased by princesses and
countesses and movie stars since he turned sixteen. Which, by the
way, is the age he was when he inherited the bulk of his family's
wealth.

"Pole vaulted squarely into the B Group with
that one, he did," she continued, using her phrase for
billionaires.

"He's an unbelievable, amazing catch. And
that's why I hate you right now.

"And this," she then said, "is his baby
brother."

The nail now rested on a different picture,
this one of an angry looking man with a generous chin, his eyes
lost in the folds of his pouting face, his gaudy silk shirt two
sizes too small for his bulk.

"If Mikalo leaves Greece," she was saying,
"Baby Brother has full rein to dismantle everything, sell off the
businesses, and ... "

She paused, turning back a page or two, her
nail pointing out yet another picture, this one of a hard looking
woman with cold eyes and a sneering frown awkwardly dressed in an
elaborate wedding dress gripping Baby Brother's arm.

"Piss it all away on this charming little
buttercup," she said, finishing.

"There must be documents in place," I quickly
said. "Trusts and wills and business contracts that can't be
broken. Something that vast can't be dismantled in one fell swoop.
It's often incredibly complicated. I doubt he can just sell it all
and take it all."

"If Mikalo isn't there to watch him like a
hawk, he will, legal or not.

"So, you see, basically what this article
says -- in French, so I can get you a translation if you want -- is
that there's a huge war building between the few who side with Baby
Brother and want all that cash and the many who side with Mikalo
and want to protect what his father and his mother built.

"In short, he knows he could never really
leave Greece, move here and have a life, not if he wants to protect
his family and their legacy.

"If you want him," she continued, "you have
some stiff competition"

My cell phone rang.

Mikalo.

"Let me get this," I said to Deni.

Closing the gossip rag, she stood, returning
to the desk.

"Hello," I said, the phone to my ear.

"And my Grace, you are well?"

"Yes, thank you."

A pause.

"You are thinking," came the response. "Is it
not good?"

"No, it's fine," I said, the words feeling
like a lie.

"Ah, then I see we will talk later.

"The Firm would like to see me tomorrow," he
then said. "I got a phone call just now. We meet at three. Perhaps
there is news."

"I think so."

Another pause.

"Tonight we will have dinner," he said. "And
you will share your thoughts."

"Okay."

"Do not be sad, my Grace."

And then he hung up.

I looked at Deni.

"He meets with Blazen tomorrow at three."

"And?"

"I don't know," I said.

She came and sat next to me, her hand on
mine.

"Use your head, Ronan. This is not your
battle to fight, okay?

"It has taken years to build your career, so
please don't do something stupid and rock that boat. Don't lose
their respect, their fear of your brilliance. Your talent. Don't
throw all of that away without thinking very, very carefully about
the consequences.

"Besides," she continued, "you don't even
know if he would move here if they offered him the job. Or if he
would even accept. You have no idea."

She was right.

I didn't.

Chapter Sixteen

Tomorrow's meeting hung over dinner like a
ghost.

I picked at my salad, he at his fish, both of
us sipping first one, then two glasses of wine.

The waiter cleared our plates and offered us
the dessert menu.

We absentmindedly accepted, the slender
sheath holding closed its promise of mouth-watering treats,
destined to lay on the table between us, ignored.

He cleared his throat.

"This worry, it swims around your head like a
fish," he then said. "If you have a question, ask. You know. I said
before I am like the open book."

I couldn't bring up the failure that awaited
him tomorrow or what it would certainly mean for whatever it was we
were building.

Or, rather, the end of what we were
building.

"Tell me about your family," I found myself
asking.

"Ah," he said, glancing around the room, "my
family. In Greece."

He stopped, pausing as he thought.

"Understand, my Grace, there is my family, my
blood. And there is my family, those not of blood, but of soul.
Those I love. Virginie, Claudio, Louis and Mathilde, and others.
They are my family. My true family.

"But you ask of my blood family, yes?"

I nodded. Yes.

"There are many. Many I love. But my brother,
Silvestro, he is a problem. And that is the story."

"How so?"

He lightly laughed.

"He has an unhappy life and this unhappiness,
it drives him to do stupid things."

"Like?"

He shrugged, taking a sip of his wine.

"You have a quick interest in this?" he then
asked, watching me.

"I've heard things. And it's important to
know the truth. From you, I get the truth."

"Yes," he said. "This is true."

Sighing, he continued.

"My father works for many years to build
something he loves, something that loves him in return. He joins
his father in heaven, my mother takes over, protects it, cherishes
it, loves it as he did. That is to be respected and honored, I
believe.

"She then joins my father and it is now me
who is to protect and cherish and honor. But, no, Silvestro and his
bride Caugina, they decide to sell the oil to the Russians and the
ships to the Iranians, the grocery stores to the Persians and the
cell phones to a man in Mexico. The concrete to a family in
Argentina.

"He is like a whore, my brother. They show
him money and he does not care who it is. He dances. For the money,
he dances.

"He does not ask me, he does not ask the
family, he does not ask anyone but his Caugina, a woman whose only
happiness in life is spending money. And then she is unhappy until
she spends more.

"But no, I will not allow this. To destroy my
father's dreams for more money? We have enough. Too much. And there
are families to think of. Those who worked with my father for many
years, and then my mother. People who they loved and are like
family. People who have families of their own who need protection,
security. People with grandbabies.

"Do you just throw them away for more money?
No, you do not. I will not. Silvestro, Caugina, they will. They
will not think about it twice. They sign the paper and many -- many
who already suffer in my country, who already struggle --, many
lose so much and are hurt."

"There must be contracts, business deals, red
tape," I said, interrupting. "Something as complicated as this
can't be thrown away easily."

"This is Greece," he reminded me. "You find a
hungry lawyer with no sense of good, of right, who is like a dog
with the bone, and it can be done. Unless I am there to stop
it."

He leaned back in his chair, his cheeks
flushed red.

"This talk, it angers me. I share too much, I
think."

Looking at me, he continued.

"And you, why do you ask? To find the truth
you say? What truth? It is sad, my family. And the money, I do not
spend it. I do not live like a king."

"Mikalo, we've discussed this. What you have
is yours. I have --"

"Yes, it is mine. My family's. Those I love.
It is too complicated, this money. Always brings its nose into my
life, my love. I wish ..."

He stopped.

"My Mikalo," I began.

His hand raised, stopping me in
midsentence.

"My mind, there is much right now."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I didn't mean
to upset you."

He shook his head and looked at me.

"I do not think this will be for me," he then
said.

And like that, whatever relationship we had
was finished.

I felt the room grow warm, the table spinning
before me, my skin feeling flushed, my breath growing ragged.

"This job ..." he was saying, "it will not be
mine. I know this and --"

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"What?"

"You're talking about work, not us,
right?"

"Of course, work," he answered, growing
impatient. "You think I speak of you and of me?"

"I didn't know --"

"You think I would throw you away like that?"
he asked, snapping his fingers. "Because of a brief argument? I
grew hot. It was not you. It was them. This Silvestro and his whore
Caugina."

"I'm sorry. I just --"

"You do not trust, Ronan."

Ah, I was no longer "my Grace".

"No, I do."

"You do not. I kiss a friend, and you believe
the worst. I show my impatience, you worry it will end everything.
I say it is over, you believe it is you and me and not some stupid
job.

"Is that trust?" he continued.

I waited, silent.

"Is it?" he asked again.

"No, you're right. It's not."

"Why? What have I done for this?"

He watched me, waiting for an answer, his
eyes unbelievably sad.

How to explain a childhood of betrayal and
sadness? A father who constantly threatened to leave and a mother
who poured her hopes and dreams into you, a girl who could never
achieve what she dreamed.

Or a bitter marriage started too soon and
built on delusion and lies? Buffeted by drink and buried in tears,
freedom only coming with the screeching of tires on a wet road and
the sickening crunch of metal at the bottom of a cliff hundreds of
feet below.

And then the years of guilt as you fought to
protect the reputation of a man who wore your wedding ring yet
hated being with you.

Mikalo waited, the pain in his eyes
growing.

How to tell him that it wasn't him, but the
past? The same past you thought you had washed away in an ocean of
post-coital tears.

How to tell him he was the best thing about
your life?