The nosy asshole part of me doesn’t want to contemplate finances and equations. It wants to know more about the pretty girl with the attitude of a rottweiler.
So I do what any nosy asshole does in the days of Google. I search for her name and dig around to see what I can find.
It isn’t much. Her social media is set to private, so all that comes up is a few profile-picture updates. And what do I learn? She really likes changing her hair. And her clothing choices all seem to involve clashing prints and colors, combined with interestingly masculine footwear.
I do find a business in her name and follow the trail of links to a basic website showing a few of her pottery creations. The girl’s an artist, like Alden, but on a much smaller scale. Or at least that’s what her website indicates, but her stuff is great.
I’m not the Carlton brother with the eye for great art, though. I’ve always been the math guy. The one who could crunch the numbers.
The disappointing search for information on Cora set aside; I focus on her father’s business. The internet doesn’t seem to forget, even when over a decade has passed. There are articles on its slow crumble and eventual destruction; they even mention my father. As I read over a history that I should have been aware of, a weight settles into my stomach. Randolph is marrying the wife of a man he was instrumental in undermining. My father twisted Cora’s father’s life into something unrecognizable, and over ten years later, he swooped in to pick the last meat off the bones.
This sinking feeling isn’t new. I’m not so deluded to think that my father rose to the pinnacles of success without treading on a few toes, but this doesn’t feel like just that. This feels like he slowly slid a knife in someone’s back and walked away smiling.
I pick up the phone, glancing around to make sure no one is about to approach my desk, and dial Danny’s number. He answers the phone with a groan that rumbles against my temple and sets my head throbbing harder.
“If you’re still in bed, I’m going to…”
“You’re going to what?” Danny asks, a lazy smile in his voice.
“Cry into my keyboard.” I make a snorting sound, but it’s not far from the truth. I need to make a note to myself that midweek drinking is off the cards for me. I’m nowhere near middle-aged, but this hangover makes me feel old.
“I’ve been up for an hour,” Danny says. “I even managed a workout.”
“HOW?” I groan loudly, then glance around again, finding two of my colleagues staring at me with furrowed brows.
“What?”
“Why don’t you have a hangover?” I hiss.
“I don’t know,” Danny continues. I hear gulping as he takes a long, quenching drink. That’s probably why he’s full of the joy of spring, and I feel like winter has come and left nothing of me in its wake. My brother always has a bottle of water in his hand. It’s good for his skin, apparently. “Did you see Cora’s face last night?”
“At what point?”
“She was mad,” he says with a pleased hum.
“She was,” I agree.
“She’s going to be madder when she gets home.”
Bending closer to my desk, I hold the phone tighter to my ear. “What did you do?” In my heart, I already suspect that it will be something awful. Of all of us, Danny is the most easily hurt and the quickest to anger. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to take a moment to calm himself down. He has skin as thin as the onion membrane we used to have to extract in science class so we could look at cells under a microscope.
“She left her laundry in the drier, so I dumped it in the trash. I mean, if she doesn’t exist, then her clothes don’t belong to anyone.”
“You what?”
“Listen, before you get all holier-than-thou, you know Cora needs to learn a lesson. If she thinks she can go through life treating people like shit, she will end up getting burned. She might come across someone who doesn’t put up with her shit in a violent way, and then what?”
“So this is a public service that you’re offering…an education in social skills?”
“Exactly.” Danny sniggers, and I shake my head. He’s not a bad guy. In fact, of all of us, he’s the one who volunteers his time to help a local charity. He’s the one who always remembers birthdays and makes a big fuss of organizing everything during the holidays. He just has a very inflexible way of approaching life. People are either good or bad, and if they’re good, they get his best, and if they’re bad, they end up on the receiving end of his worst.