“I have a new client, and this morning was the only time I could meet him.” This is only half true—I’ve been courting Ernest Havisham for months, and yesterday he officially hired Saxton & D’Arcy to manage his sizable investment portfolio. This morning I was trying to get some work in, even though Saxton, my partner and honorary father, strictly forbade me to stay in the office past nine in the evening. And on weekends. And on national holidays ...
“Okay, enough about your addiction to work. I have some news.”
“Oh yeah?” I’m surprised by the enthusiasm in his voice. Charles is a man of habit. He doesn’t like it when his plans change and consequentlyhates anything resembling news. He hasn’t had any real news to share since he got his adenoids out in third grade.
“Do you remember my great-uncle Lanfranco? The one with the villa in Tuscany?”
“Of course I do.” Charles’s parents became legal guardians for my brother and me when our parents died twenty-nine years ago; George and I lived with the Bingleys until we were adults. Charles’s mother was from Florence, at home they spoke Italian, we went to a bilingual high school, and we spent all our summers in Italy at Charles’s great-uncle’s villa.
“His son just died with no heirs,” he says, “so the estate goes to my sister and me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yesterday a notary from Belvedere served me all the heirship documents.”
“Are you going to accept?”
Charles shrugs. That’s another thing he hates: to make decisions. “I don’t know.” The expected response.
I’d bet my right arm he’s going to ask what I would do in his place. Three ... two ... one ...
“What would you do in my place?”
I’m no psychic. I just know him like the back of my own hand. “I should have known you’d put the ball in my court, Bingley-Boggley!”
“Don’t call me that. We’re not at school anymore.”
Bingley-Boggley, the wavering Bingley, was the nickname our PE teacher had given him because he was always the last to join the line for anything that involved jumping, running, climbing, or diving.
“How should I know what I’d do? I guess I’d be weighing the pros and cons, wouldn’t I?”
Cornered, my friend snorts. “It would be a nice property, and I have a lot of happy memories there. The issue is I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Now that my dad is retired, I have to represent the company: Today I’m here; tomorrow it’s New York or LA ... It would bea big expense for a place I’d never have time to visit.” Charles stops the treadmill and rests his right hand on his hip. “My spleen hurts. Let’s do some weights.”
The fact that I didn’t share my opinion may be among the chief causes of his aching spleen.
We position ourselves on the benches, lifting our barbells in sync.
“I told the notary I’d think about it; if I refuse, I have to send him a formal renunciation,” he says in the break between sets.
“Who would own the property if not you?” I ask.
“Some cousins seventeen times removed from Pontassieve, who I think would be more interested than I am.”
“More interested than I am, that’s for sure,” a woman’s voice interjects.
I look up from my supine position to see Caroline, Charles’s twin sister, towering over us.
“Hi, Carol,” says her brother between huffs. “I was just asking Michael his opinion about the estate in Tuscany.”
“Good,” she says, loosening her bun and letting her long copper hair cascade down her back. “Michael, convince him to let it go.”
“Charles, let it go,” I parrot.
“There’s nothing more boring than the countryside,” she goes on. “If only it were a penthouse in Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais! A casino, a vibrant social life, and with the Mediterranean climate, we could enjoy it all year round. Don’t you think, Michael?” she asks me.
“I prefer Spain,” I shoot back between lifts.
“Of course you do,” she says. “Too many French people in France, plus all that butter in everything. Spain is the new Costa Azzurra: Benalmádena, Marbella, Estepona. Perfect for spending your days by the sea.”
