Running Away With You (Running #3) (19 page)

The three of them clean up from dinner as I put the finishing touches on dessert.  I’m making a playful twist on Bananas Foster.  I made a version of this once for Derek, and I hope he remembers. 

I stand at the stove, heating up the Foster sauce.  While it simmers, I melt some white chocolate in a double boiler.  Just as they finish cleaning, I begin to plate the warm brioche pudding, topping it with my classic Foster sauce, sliced bananas, and a drizzle of white chocolate on the plate.  I add a dollop of homemade caramel ice cream and garnish it with a rock sugar waffle for just that little bit of crunch.

“Oh man, Jette, this is so good,” Derek compliments me.  “Remember that time you made me Bananas Foster for a pancake breakfast?  I thought that was good, but this –”  He stops talking and shoves a giant forkful in his mouth.

Shea and Evan both stop dead in their tracks.  “She made breakfast for you?” Shea asks incredulously.

“Yeah, when exactly did that happen?” Evan questions.

“The night I found out you lied to me, remember?  I had way too much to drink and I drunk-dialed you or something like that.  I crashed on Derek’s couch that night.” 

“Oh, yeah.  What was the name of that guy Emmy was dating at the time?”  Evan turns to Derek. “Your roommate.  Gary?  Glenn?  Gordon?”

“Grant.  His name was Grant.  He was a really cool guy.  I still haven’t cleaned out his room, though.  He got a job offer and flew out to Chicago the next day.  He left all kinds of shit behind that I still need to go through.”

“How long ago did he move out?” Shea asks.

“I dunno.  April, I think?” he guesses.

“Derek, that was, like, eight months ago.  I’m coming over tomorrow and we’re cleaning out that room,” she tells him.  “God only knows what’s in there.”

“We could stay at my place tonight, and then we can get an early start,” he teases.

“Is it so bad that we need an early start?” 

“It’s pretty bad.  We should stop somewhere on the way home and pick up some trash bags.  And rubber gloves.  Just in case.”

After dessert, we clean up and gather in the living room.  Derek and Evan put on the Knicks game while Shea and I talk weddings.  She shows me countless pictures of her weddings and I share my clippings.  One thing becomes glaringly obvious – we are not even close to being in the same league.  My snapshots are mundane and pedestrian at best.  I had no idea how much opulence and grandeur was possible. 

Shea doesn’t know our history and she knows very little about me personally, so most of our time together is spent filling in those gaps.

“Okay, Juliette, I’m going to show you pictures of ten weddings.  I want you to take them and place them in order from your most favorite to least favorite.”  She hands me ten postcard-size photographs that range from rustic chic to elegant crystal.

Once I’ve placed them in order, she collects the cards in reverse order, leaving the top four.  “Now tell me what you like about each of these.”

“The thing that drew me to the top four pictures was the flowers.  They were everywhere.  Some even had bouquets hanging from trees, and flower-covered arches.  Flowers have such a special meaning for us.”

“I notice three of these are indoor weddings and one is outdoors.  Why is that?”  Shea points to the tropical wedding photograph taken on a beach.

I explain to her about our fateful meeting here on the beach and how much we love and adore our beach house.  She takes copious notes throughout our talk.

She puts the cards away and takes back out my bottom four cards.  “Now tell me why you eliminated these,” she says.

“This one you have labeled ‘Old Hollywood’ is too art deco,” I explain.  “I’m not a fan of rich colors and geometric shapes.”

I point to the image of gold and ivory tapestries with ceiling murals.  “This,” I tell her, “reminds me of Liberace’s bedroom.  Yuck.”

There’s another one labeled “Bling” that I eliminate because of the soft pastels and overly stylized accessories.  Pearls, baubles, and tea lights don’t interest me.

“And as beautiful as this one is, I can’t get married in a winery.  Marcus and Camilla had their reception in early September in the middle of grape vines and wine barrels.  I don’t want anyone comparing the two.”

“I understand.  This is a great start.  Give me a day or two to come up with some ideas.”

We make plans for her to come back to Rush on Friday night.  I give her a list of all the places I’ve been, with notes explaining the problem at each location.  She tells me she can get a better idea about my tastes by looking over my choices. 

“Hey, if you two are done, how about grabbing us a couple of beers?” Derek bellows.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Evan clarifies.

J
eremiah has some great ideas about tweaking my Bananas Foster dessert for our next menu change.  He wants to add walnut ice cream and replace my bread pudding with a crêpe.  I’m not convinced, so he’s whipping up a plate for my inspection.

“Hey, Jette, could I talk to you?”  I look up to find Derek standing in the doorway, holding a large envelope. “Privately?” 

I’m surprised to see him so early – his shift doesn’t start for another hour.

I excuse myself from the kitchen and take Derek back into my small office.  He shuts the door and sits on my tiny couch.  “Shea found this yesterday,” he tells me.  “It was in a stack of mail I never saw.  Grant must have taken the mail in his room and left it there.”  Derek hands me a manila envelope addressed to him, with the return address of a Princeton investment firm.

“I don’t understand,” I tell him.

“Open it up.  Read it.”

There’s a letter inside.  It’s an annual dividend statement.  I don’t understand much of what it says, but it’s addressed to Derek and it lists his deceased parents as the shareholders.  From what I can gather, his parents had begun purchasing stock in 1984.

“Let me get this straight. Your parents started buying stock in 1984, right?”

He leans his elbows on his knees and looks up at me.  “Yup. That’s the year they were married.”

“Did they buy a lot?” I ask.

He holds his hand out flat and tilts it from side to side.  “Yes and no.  They bought ten shares a month for most of their marriage.  That’s where all their savings went.  That was why when they died, we had a shitload of bills to pay and no money to pay them with.”

“Are ten shares expensive?”

“Not really.  The cost of the stocks they bought ranged from $25 to $50.  I figure it cost them on average about $400 a month.  By today’s standards, that’s a car payment.”

I hand him back his documents.  “That’s great, Derek.  So what are you going to do with all that stock?”

“That’s why I want to talk to you.  Do you think Evan could hook me up with a good attorney?”  He gets up and starts pacing around the room.

“I’m sure he could.  Are you going to transfer the stocks to your name, or cash them in or something?” 

“I don’t know what to do.  Evan is the only person I know who handles this kind of money.  He has people he trusts to advise him.  I need to talk to someone like that.”  He sits back down, bending himself in half, practically putting his head between his knees.

“Derek, I don’t understand.  It’s just a few shares of stock.  Why are you so freaked out?”

He stands up, walks directly toward me, and puts the letter back on the desk in front of me.  “Read it.  All the way.  To the end.”

“It says here that the stock is traded on NASDAQ under the symbol AAPL and the type is listed as common.  There’s a DRP listed as 585.54.  I don’t really know what any of that means.”

“Shea Googled the AAPL symbol.  They were buying stock in Apple, and it looks like they purchased more than two thousand shares over the years.”

I do a little math in my head.  “Holy shit Derek, if the stock is still worth $50 a share, that’s like $100,000!”  Now I’m standing up too.

“No it’s not.”

“Less?  Did the stock prices go down?”

“See that DRP?  Do you know what it means?”  I shake my head.  “That means that instead of getting dividend payments, they reinvested it and used the profit to buy more stock.  DRP stands for Dividend Reinvestment Plan.”

“No way.  Do you mean to tell me that you have more than two thousand shares of stock in Apple?”  My heart is practically beating out of my chest.

He nods and points to a line on the form letter.  “This number here shows their capital investment.  They bought a total of exactly 2,400 shares.” 

Then he traces his finger down the column.  “This number is the accrued shares from reinvestment.  They earned 7,004 additional shares since 1984.” 

“You’d better sit down for this.”  He waits until I’m seated.  “That figure of 585.54 is the cost of a single share of Apple stock today.”

“Holy Mother of God, Derek, you’re a freaking millionaire!”  I jump up out of my seat and run to him, throwing my arms around him and squeezing with all my might.

“Jette, technically I’m a multi-millionaire.”

Cashing in the Chips

T
he door swings open and Derek comes sauntering into the bar with a spring in his step, wearing a jaunty expression of triumph.

“Hey, Derek, meeting go well?” Marcus asks as they shake hands and shoulder-bump.

“Man, you have no fucking idea!” Derek proudly proclaims.

He walks right up to me, picks me up, and spins me in the air.  After placing my feet solidly on the ground, he dips me low and leans in to kiss me.  I panic.  Derek has
never
kissed me before.  He puckers and slowly lowers his face until we’re nearly touching, then plants his lips squarely on my cheek.  They linger there for much longer than I would like, but I can’t help but grin.  He has every right to be jubilant.

He releases me and eyes Emmy, who’s watching the show from behind the bar.  This time it’s Derek who crooks his finger and calls Emmy out.  She comes running to him and jumps into his arms.  He catches her like she’s a sack of potatoes and she plants kisses all over his face.  “Hey Mr. Moneybags!”

Even Reese comes out to share in the joy.  Derek places Emmy back on the ground, and he walks determinedly toward Reese.  She locks her eyes onto his, and when they meet, they wrap their arms around each other and just hold on.  Reese buries her face in his neck, and I see her raise a hand to wipe away a tear.

She pulls away from his embrace, looks him dead in the face and tells him, “Derek Lattimer, I am so happy for you.  Go make your dreams come true.”  She turns away and runs back into the kitchen, tears freely flowing.  This is what regret looks like, and it’s heartbreaking.

The dinner crowd hasn’t arrived yet, so we pull Derek into a booth so we can hear all the juicy details.  He can’t sit still.  He barely gets his ass in the seat before he bounces up and heads to the bar.  “Be right back.  I’m getting us a pitcher.  I need a beer.  Or twelve.”

He returns with a pitcher and a tray of glasses.  He pours himself a glass and hands Emmy the pitcher to serve herself.  Of course, she just passes the pitcher right along.  Derek holds the glass up to his mouth and drains the glass with hardly a breath between gulps.

“Jette, I wish Mac was here so I could thank him myself.  His money guy is some kind of wizard.  We’re cashing out some of my stock immediately and I should have the funds in my account in forty-eight hours.”

“Do I even want to know how much that is?” I ask him.

“Six figures?” Marcus asks.

Derek shakes his head.

“Seven?”

He nods.

“So what are you going to do first?” Emmy asks.  “You’ve got to buy at least one thing you totally don’t need.”

“First I’m going car shopping.  I’ve always wanted a Jeep Wrangler, ever since I was a kid.”

“Then you should definitely buy one.  Get all the upgrades and modifications they have.  Don’t say no to anything, even if you don’t think you need it,” Marcus tells him.

“After I get a car, I want to buy a house.  I haven’t lived in my own place since before my parents died.  I’ve bounced around from rental to rental, and I’m tired of it.  I want to own a home somewhere I can be proud of.  I want to have a place where I can invite my girlfriend’s parents to come for dinner.  I want them to think that I’m ... I dunno ... good enough, I guess, for their little girl.”