“All right,” Anne said, the numbers already running through her head. “So what does that mean, logistically?”
Mr. Vernon barely concealed a grimace. “Her lawyers have already written to the co-op board about her intention to sell.”
Anne slowly sat down on the other end of the sofa. So that’s how her mother had known. Bianca Russell had been the Uppercross co-op board president for a decade before she moved out following her own divorce from Walt. She had ruled all eight floors of the building with an iron fist and still stayed in touch with many of the board members.
“What am I going todo?” Walt lamented.
“As I see it, you’ve got two options,” Mr. Vernon replied. “It’sclear MacKenzie isn’t interested in the apartment, just the financial incentives. With that being the case, you could buy her out of her half.”
Even as he said it, the lawyer looked dubious, and Anne couldn’t blame him. Walt Elliot’s lack of fiscal responsibility was no secret. Even as a child she had suspected that his spending habits were out of control. But the true weight of it wasn’t something she’d had to consider until after her parents’ divorce. When she took over the day-to-day running of Kellynch, she had created a detailed personal budget for her father, in an effort to curb his spending and keep him from dipping into the company’s profits to fund his whims. If he had followed it like he’d promised, not only should he have a healthy savings account, but his credit score probably improved, too.
If, she thought to herself.
“Buy her out?” Walt cried. “It’smyapartment! Besides, I don’t have that kind of money just lying around.”
“You don’t need the entire sum,” Anne replied. “We can take whatever you have in your savings, then take out a mortgage to fill in the gap.”
“You want me to take outanothermortgage?”
Anne stilled. There had never been a mortgage on his apartment. Bianca Russell had come to their marriage with blue-blood family money, and Walt had received a healthy settlement for their seventeen years together. And while Bianca took her remaining fortune and spent her time traveling around the world with a steady stream of younger boyfriends on her arm, her father had gotten the apartment and then proceeded to spend his income on plastic surgery and vacations.
“What do you mean ‘another’ mortgage?” she asked.
Her father rolled his eyes. “Did I mortgage this apartment lastyear? Yes. But that was only to pay off a few outstanding personal loans.”
“What about the savings account we set up for—”
“You have to spend money to make money, Anne!Everybodyknows that.”
Anne let out a long breath, hoping it would somehow dilute the mix of frustration and disappointment swirling in her chest. Why was she even surprised? This wasn’t a new problem. Walt had been overspending for years without consequence. It was part of the reason her mother had left him. Yet Anne had naively thought that if she stayed close by, she might be able to curb it. That had been the main motivation behind living at home through college, then later for working at his company. Walt couldn’t possibly put his livelihood in jeopardy under her watchful eye, right?
Right,she thought dryly, shaking her head.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. When she graduated with honors from Columbia Business School six years ago, she almost immediately started working at a large hedge fund in Manhattan. The work had been exciting at first, with days spent working with numbers and projections, promises of promotions, and a defined track for success. But within a few months she couldn’t ignore the moral gray area she was forced to work in. She quit unceremoniously one Tuesday afternoon after a meeting where her boss made a joke about foreclosing on people’s homes, and she walked out the door feeling like a thousand-pound weight had been removed from her neck. Walt Elliot obviously hadn’t seen it that way, though, berating her for the loss of her title and her salary. A few days later she happened to answer a call from her father’s accountant and learned just how close Kellynch was to bankruptcy.
The solution seemed obvious: She had an MBA, why not use it to help save her father’s business? The fact that she went on to spend the next five years digging his production company out of crippling debt over and over again had not been part of the equation, though. Walt rarely acknowledged it, either. He paid her close to nothing, but then he also didn’t charge her rent, so perhaps the expectation was that she would ignore everything else going on in his life. Unfortunately for him, old habits die hard.
“Dad, we’ve been over this—”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” he hissed. “I have it all under control. Once we sign the contract for another season ofDivorce Divas, the initial payment will cover—”
“There’s no contract, Dad,” Anne cut him off. She could already feel a headache coming on. “Not for a while, anyway.”
Walt’s face blanched. “What?”
“The network put us on hiatus.”
“Why?”
“Remember that fight Denise got into with Marsha last month?”
Her father stared at her blankly.
Stupid question, she thought. It had been months since Walt even stepped foot in the Kellynch offices.
“Well, Denise attacked Marsha, and now Marsha, along with the restaurant, is pressing charges. We can’t even finish the current season until the investigation and trial are over, which could take months.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Walter moaned, slumping back onto the red leather sofa as he cradled his glass to his chest.
