“More than you’ve spent so far today.”
“Be serious, James.”
“I am.”
“But…but that’s ridiculous,” she sputters. “I don't need that many diamonds. Nobody does, except maybe Elizabeth Taylor's ghost!”
“I can afford it.”
She lets out a long exhale. “They’re not blood diamonds, are they?”
“Ethically mined, sourced from Canada. Only the best for my wife.” I pause. “Should I be investing in a laser system, or anindustrial rock crusher? Do you even have a way to crush stones that hard?”
“Stop,” she growls. “Don't buy me anything else. I don't need it.”
“I don't care what you need. I have the money, so you should have everything youwant.”
“So you’re going to, what? Buy me a laser that I didn’t ask for just because you feel like it?”
I lean back in my chair, satisfied. “That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
“Enough,” she snaps. “You win.”
She hangs up the phone, leaving me grinning at the blank screen. Apparently, I enjoy frustrating my wife with ludicrously expensive gifts. Ignoring the call on my calendar which was supposed to start five minutes ago, I open a tab and start googling industrial rock crushers.
16
MAURA
My hands shake with fury as I hang up. Energy surges through my muscles. I wish I could throw the damn phone. I want to kick things, punch things, break stuff in half. There’s probably a punching bag in the building’s well-equipped gym, put there for exactly this purpose.
All the anger surging through me has to gosomewhere, since apparently channeling it into James’s credit cards is pointless. Since I’d probably break my hand trying to throw a punch, I settle for kicking a box in the corner of my studio. Predictably, the box I pick is full of rocks, and it makes my toe throb with pain.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter, limping over to a chair so I can take off my sock and inspect the damage. My foot looks perfectly fine, which just makes me more annoyed, somehow. James’s optics comment had my anger at a low simmer since I woke up this morning. Our last conversation just heated my rage into a boil.
All because I couldn’t provoke him with a credit card spree.
It probably makes me the definition of “poor little rich girl,” but I’ve shopped away my anger since I was a little girl, when mynanny accidentally shared that my father said she could use his credit card to buy me anything I asked for.
I was around eight years old at the time. Victor was on a business trip, and I hadn’t seen him in almost two weeks. Worse, he hadn’t evencalledme. He texted the nanny a few times, asking if I’d taken my meds and done my homework, which of course I had. I begged her to let me use her phone to call him back, but she was too scared of interrupting him at work.
So instead, I asked her to take me to the toy store. Once we were there, I let loose, asking her for all the most expensive items I could find. Gigantic doll houses. Special edition Barbies. A little pink Jeep I could drive around in. Not toys that would normally interest me, but toys that would send a message.
Call me.
Yell at me.
Notice me.
My plan worked. My father called that night, demanding to know why I had to run up such a bill on his credit card. He never spent enough time around me to understand that most eight-year-olds don't have much impulse control. “What's got into you, Maura?” he screamed.
“I don't know,” I answered, smiling.
My father didn’t yell at me much. That would have necessitated him actually paying attention to me. Sometimes, I'd try to pick fights with him in person when he was home. It never worked. He’d walk out of the room the second I tried to disagree with him, insisting I was “too emotional.” The only way I was ever able to get his attention was with spending sprees. When it was his precious money on the line, suddenly he cared, at least a little, aboutwhyI was acting that way.
At the very least, it would get him to be as angry as I was.
Sitting in my studio, rubbing my sore foot, I'm painfully aware that I just tried to use an eight-year-old's tactics against agrown man. I'm still disappointed that I didn't work, though. I was looking forward to seeing how James acts when he’s angry. Ideally, he would yell at me or throw his own tantrum. I expected he was more of the silent treatment type, though. I could still eke out a grim satisfaction from watching him walk around the apartment, pretending he didn't see me.
