Balancing the Scales Read online

  Then I remember where the hell I am and jolt back from her. She drops her hand in response. “Sorry, I, ah, here.” She takes my hand and puts the chocolate into my palm, then slips away from me.

  My organs seem to remember their natural beating and breathing rhythm. I put the chocolate in my mouth. As soon as I crack the bitter dark chocolate shell, there’s a rich, sweet burst of flavor. Not too sweet. Just sweet enough for me.

  “Well?”

  I cross my arms and lean back on the bench. “You might be the one to make a sweet man out of me yet.”

  She bites her bottom lip, and I realize she’s probably uncomfortable under my ogling.

  I have to do something to take the heat out of the air between us before I forget why I’m here. To be polite. Friendly. Human.

  “So, besides ticks, what have you seen of New York?”

  She exhales, probably as happy to escape the intensity that was just between us as I am. “Between my shifts here and sleeping, not much.” She moves around the kitchen, taking cakes from the ovens and lining the various shapes, colors and sizes along the work benches. “I’m actually on vacation next week, so I’m going to make a start. I have a list of things I want to do. I’m going to go up the Empire State Building. Take the subway to see Yankee Stadium, maybe do a stadium tour or something because I don’t actually know the rules of baseball. Mmm, ride the ferry to Staten Island and take pictures of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty as I pass by. Walk South Shore Boardwalk.”

  She continues to talk. Sensing I’ve been relieved of cake-baking duties, I continue to listen to her from back on my stool. I could listen to her all night. That accent is actually kind of sweet, not at all irritating. Her voice is soft and gentle, but animated. Not for the first time this morning, I’m feeling like someone just wrapped me up in a thick blanket.

  Suddenly, my lack of sleep is taking its toll. I rest an elbow on the worktop and lean my chin against my hand. Those dimples are back and she’s waving her wooden spoon in the air as she talks about a cute Italian restaurant she’s heard of by Central Park. Apparently, it does the best pizzas in the city. When my eyes close, I still see her, like bright light that still shines through your eyelids when they’re shut. As I drift into a calmness I haven’t felt since…I don’t remember… I take her with me. The sound of her voice. The curve of her lips. Her button nose. That sweet giggle.

  * * * *

  “Drew.” Her whisper floats into my ears like a song. I feel her fingertips against my temple. Then I smell cake. Moaning, I reach out my arm to wrap it around her. Instead of a beautiful woman and a soft mattress, my hand finds a stainless steel work surface.

  My eyes dart open, and I sit up quickly, glancing around Edmond’s kitchen. “Fuck.”

  Becky is no longer in her white chef uniform, she’s in jeans and a T-shirt and she’s biting her lip to stop herself from laughing.

  “You fell asleep, Mr. Big Shot.”

  I scowl, despite being more embarrassed than angry, and stand. As I do, I find we’re no longer alone in the kitchen. Ah, Jesus.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Edmond shouts across the space. I’ll never hear the end of this with the guys.

  Four other chefs are doing some kind of prep and clearly all fighting to hide their own amusement.

  Well, there’s nothing else for it. I stand and take a bow. “Thanks for the service, guys.”

  I pick up my suit jacket and coat, putting them on as I leave the kitchen.

  Becky follows me through the restaurant and pats my back, one hundred percent patronizingly. “Come on, tough guy, I’ll treat you to a breakfast bagel.”

  I turn to face her and raise a finger in front of her nose. “You.”

  “Me what?” she says through a giggle.

  I lose all my conviction and end up shaking my head, my smirk betraying my attempt to be angry. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep. And you shouldn’t have put me in a sugar coma.”

  “Oh, come on, even the best lawyer on the circuit needs a nap.”

  I find myself wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into my side without conscious thought. “You can buy me a bagel for that.”

  Once we’re served, we stand to the side of Fabio’s truck, eating our bagels and sipping coffee. “Were you born here?” she asks.

  I nod as I chew. “Staten Island.”

  “Do you have family?”

  “My parents are around. They still live on the island. I have a much younger brother, and a sister who’s a couple years younger than me. She can pretty much get anything she wants out of me.”

  “That’s what big brothers are supposed to be for, right?”

  There’s something almost wistful about the way she says it that has me wondering whether she has a brother she misses.

  “Do you have a brother?”

  “Yep. Older. I have two actually. Two half brothers and two stepsisters. I’m the youngest. Three dads between us.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  She raises one shoulder and picks at the edge of her bagel. “We’re not really a close family. I needed and wanted a change.” She pauses, then, as if a wave of something comes over her, she lifts her head and smiles. “Hey, if I ever want to see them it’s only a flight away, right?”

  I wait a beat, expecting her to say more. It doesn’t come, and I get the feeling she might never want to see her family.

  I can’t remember the last time any woman, other than Sarah, made me curious to know more. Like why did she need a change? I decide now is not the time to ask. In any event, why in God’s name would she want to share her life story with me?

  “Well, British Becky, thanks for the stainless steel bed. I need to work now.”

  “You’re crazy. You need to go home and go to bed. Real bed. Or at least shower and change.”

  “I can do that in the office.”

  We both trash our wrappers, and we’re left standing facing each other an awkward silence descending. How on earth is this supposed to end? How would it end with Sarah? We’re friends, it’s just the same thing, right?

  “Okay, well, I guess I’ll go decorate those cakes.” She gets there first.

  “Right. Sure. And I’ll go get my injunction.”

  “Yep. Okay then.”

  She turns to walk away, and I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief when she spins back around. “It was nice to get to know you. Someone. In the city. Thanks, Drew.”

  I nod because I’m not sure what else to say. Then I start to walk away. God, she’s so great and so grateful that someone in this city spent time with her. She shouldn’t be grateful. She’s so…she’s… “Becky!”

  She turns in the street and I’m shouting across the suits walking between us. “You can’t go to Yankee Stadium without actually watching a game. There’s like a law against it. And I would know.” I feel passersby looking at me like I’m some kind of weirdo. I couldn’t give a… “Let me take you.”

  “Okay!”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay!”

  “I’ll send a ticket to the restaurant.”

  “Okay.” She’s laughing as she walks backward away from me, not considering how many people will knock into her. Christ, she really is a tourist.

  * * * *

  “You’re looking especially happy, considering you were here until the small hours.” Sarah carries her daily bowl of porridge that she’s made in the kitchen as we walk the corridor. It’s some quinoa thing that sounds healthy until you see that it’s drowning under Manuka honey—Sarah’s latest fad.

  I try to rein in the grin I hadn’t realized is on my face. Before I manage to do that, Sarah halts on the spot and sucks in a breath, making me stop alongside her. “Are those yesterday’s clothes?”

  Ah, fuck. I resume the walk to my office and she totter
s in her heels to catch up to me. “They are, aren’t they? No wonder you’re smiling. I just told you to apologize to the woman. Although, wait, in Drew language that probably did mean sleep with her.”

  “You’ve got the completely wrong idea. And don’t you have work to do?”

  “My job is to see and hear everything that goes on in this place and report back to you. What I’m seeing and hearing is that you slept with Becky.”

  I press a hand to her shoulder when we reach her desk and encourage her to sit. “No, I didn’t. If you must know, I fell asleep in these clothes. Now, I’m going to grab a spare suit from my office, shower and change. Then I’m going to do my job. Like you should be doing yours.”

  She raises a hand and leans back in her desk chair. “Hold up. You went to her apartment?”

  I growl and screw my knuckles into my suddenly tired eyes. “No, I fell asleep in the kitchen at the restaurant.”

  She presses a hand to her mouth, but her bellowing laugh still finds a way out. “You’re such a loser.”

  “I’m not a loser, I’m your boss.” I make a move toward my office and call back to her. “Can you get me two tickets to the Yankees and Royals on Tuesday? Pull some strings and make them good ones.”

  “We’re going to the game?” Stepping into my office, I find the source of that voice. Marty is sitting on my sofa drinking a coffee that looks like it came from Fabio. His legs are spread in his black suit pants. His free arm is draped lazily along the top of the cushions. “No, we’re not. I’m taking a friend.”

  “I’m your friend.”

  I move to the standing wardrobe in the corner of my office and pull out a dark gray suit, white shirt and blue silk tie. “A different friend.”

  “Which one?”

  “Christ, what is it with the Spanish inquisition from you and Sarah this morning? What’s up anyway?”

  He stands, drains the last of his coffee and fires the empty cup at my waste basket. Miss.

  “You’ve moved the basket,” he says. “I came to tell you I’ve been putting out feelers among the other partners, trying to get a sense of whether they’ll vote for you or Patrick when it comes to naming Richard’s replacement.”

  I scoff. “Please, if they know what’s good for their earnings, no partner in their right mind is going to vote for Patrick over me.”

  “Right there, Drew.” He points at me with one hand and presses the other into his pants pocket. “That attitude is losing you votes. I’ve got to tell you, buddy, the guys on the forty-sixth floor are all for Pat.”

  I lay my suit on my desk and prop my ass onto the edge. “Who gives a shit about the guys on forty-six? They’re real estate attorneys, for Christ’s sake. They hardly even qualify to be taken seriously.”

  “Yeah, well, they’ll be taken seriously when it comes to a vote. Right now, I’d say you’re looking at evens. You need to do something to tip the scales in your favor. Our favor.”

  “Like what?”

  He holds out his hands. “I don’t know, Drew. Take them for steak. Buy them Yankees tickets. Whatever you have to do. I’ll be damned if my name is sitting alongside fucking Patrick’s.”

  “I’m not bribing a bunch of real estate jokers with good meat. That’s not my style, Marty, and you know it.”

  “It’s up to you, Drew. But it’s on your stubborn head if this vote doesn’t go the way we want it.”

  With that, he leaves. At the door he twists back to me, his hand braced on the handle. “Is that the suit you were wearing yesterday?”

  Goddamn it. “No.”

  Chapter 6

  Becky

  1996

  Mummy stops the car outside Nanna’s house. I’m already excited. I love Nanna’s house. It’s nicer than ours. Not bigger. It’s quite small. It’s a white house in a row of other white houses. But Nanna’s house feels nicer. I like how it smells of her, and I like that she lets me watch cartoons. And we always have fun, Nanna and me. I like that too—it is always just Nanna and me, no one else. She listens to me, and sings to me and she’s the best nanna in the whole wide world.

  I unfasten my seatbelt and slip from my booster seat onto the path next to Nanna’s front garden. Her roses are big and pink. She loves her roses. She spends a long, long time pulling yellow leaves off them and pouring special grow juice on them.

  Mummy stays in the car and winds down the window. “I’ll be back later. Tell Meg to give you lunch and dinner.”

  I pull on my backpack and wave, but Mummy is already driving down the road. It makes me sad that she never says goodbye. Nanna says maybe it’s because Mummy is sad to be leaving me.

  I shrug and head to the house. Nanna is already coming down the drive to see me. Her arms are stretched out wide.

  I run to her, and she scoops me up. I wrap my arms around her jiggly belly and she squeezes me tighter, kissing me on the head. She smells like the talcum powder she puts on me after a bath. “Oh, hello, my baby. I’ve missed you.”

  She tickles under my arms. It always makes me giggle. “I’ve missed you too, Nanna. Mummy said she was too busy to bring me last weekend. And the weekend before Stella from next door looked after me and my brothers and sisters.”

  Nanna pushes her head against mine in the way she normally does. Her curly gray hair is fluffy like a teddy and tickly on my skin. “Well, you’re here now, sweet pea. Guess what?”

  She starts walking us into the house, still carrying me. There are so many things I can’t think of one to guess. “What am I wearing?” she asks.

  I open my mouth wide. “A pinnie! Are we making cakes?”

  “We sure are. What’s in this bag of yours today?”

  I wriggle out of the pink backpack that Nanna bought me and unzip it when she sets me down on a wooden chair at the kitchen table.

  I take out my school workbook. “I bought this to show you.”

  Nanna leans her head to one side, and I know what I did wrong. “You bought it, or you brought it?”

  “Oops.”

  “Remember, Rebecca, brought is when you have brought something along with you. Bought is when you’ve bought something from a shop.”

  She’s told me this before, but I always forget. Some words I’m good at, but bought just sometimes slips out. I do it at my house, and Mummy never says anything, but Nanna allllways catches me.

  “Now, let me see.” She takes the orange book from me and opens it to the last page. She draws in a big breath and smiles. “You got ten out of ten? This is the spelling test we worked on last time, isn’t it?”

  I nod, and my smile hurts my lips because it is so wide.

  “Well, it’s a good thing I bought you an extra special treat for baking today, isn’t it?

  I feel my eyes open wide. Nanna takes a paper bag from the kitchen bench and hands it to me. I look inside and slide out pictures of all the princesses I love. Cinderella—she’s my favorite—and Belle, and Princess Jasmine.

  “They are to go on top of the cakes we make.”

  “Really?” I stand up on my chair and wrap my arms around her neck. “Thank you, Nanna.”

  “You’re very welcome, sweet pea. Now, let’s get this jacket off and start baking, shall we?”

  She takes off my pink coat, leaving me in my dungarees and flowery T-shirt—an outfit my Nanna bought me. She combs my hair, hurting me when she tugs on the tangles, but she puts it into a plait, and I like when she does that. It feels nice to have someone play with my hair. When she’s done with my plait, she makes me stand on a stool and wash my hands in the sink.

  When I’m clean, she holds a big bowl, and I put in flour and eggs and sugar when she tells me. She beats them all together until all the lumpy bits are gone; then she lets me have a go. It aches my arm, but I keep going because it’s so much fun making cakes with Nanna.

  “What do yo
u say to doing some vanilla cakes and some chocolate cakes?” She takes a bar of chocolate from the fridge and wiggles it in front of my face.

  “I think you know the answer to that, Nanna.”

  She laughs. Her laugh is pretty.

  When our mix is done, we pour it into colored papers inside a tin. I have to stand on my stool and watch Nanna put the cakes in the oven because she says it’s burny.

  “Right you are then, why don’t you spell the word”—she looks in my orange workbook—“pottery for me, and if you spell it correctly, I’ll let you lick the chocolate bowl?”

  I clap my hands and try to think. I remember how the word looks from my school class. “P.O.T.E…no, P.O.T.T.E.R.Y. Pot-tery.”

  She tucks a paper towel into my T-shirt at the neck; then we sit at the kitchen table, and I lick the chocolate bowl and the wooden spoon. Nanna tries not to, I can tell, but she ends up putting her fingers in the vanilla bowl and licking them more than one time.

  When our cakes are done, Nanna says they have to cool before we can do the best part and put icing on them, but we get to make the icing with butter and a different, fluffy kind of sugar. After, we put it in the fridge and eat ham sandwiches at the table. I only ever sit at the table to eat at Nanna’s house.

  Finally, Nanna feels the cakes and says it is time to put the icing on. I climb back up to my stool beside her, and we use a spoon to ice the cakes. She gives me some shiny silver balls and some sparkly glitter and the princess stickers.

  I start with my favorite. I poke Cinderella’s face until she sticks to the icing. “When I grow up I’m going to be like Cinderella. Except I’m going to have wings too, so I can fly anywhere I want.”

  “And where would you like to fly to, sweet pea?”

  “Mmm, where does Prince Charming live?”

  “Well, I suppose he lives in Disneyland, which is in America.”

  I lick icing from my finger. It’s yummy. My finger makes a popping noise when I pull it from my mouth, which makes me giggle. “Then I’ll fly to America and I’ll find Prince Charming, and he’ll kiss me and I’ll wear pretty dresses.”