‘Not at work today?’ he asks, observing the jeans, the casual jacket. He himself is wearing a sharp suit. Then he adds, ‘Oh– you probably don’t work any more, do you? Not since your ship came in, so to speak.’
Ted stares at him. ‘Have you been following me?’
‘No, why would you think that?’ he replies. ‘It’s lunchtime. I work just over there.’ He points vaguely in the direction of Fifth Avenue.
‘No, you don’t,’ Ted says boldly.
John studies him for a moment. So, Ted has grown a pair. He would never have stood up to him when they were younger. Young Ted was intimidated by him. ‘Have you been doing your homework, Ted?’
For a moment the two men study each other in a standoff.
Ted says, ‘You reached out when you heard I might beinheriting from my brother. You asked me for money. I was warned about people like you. So yes, I’ve done my homework.’
‘People like me?’
‘People that come around when you’ve come into money, asking for loans, offering great business opportunities.’ Ted saysbusiness opportunitiesas if it has quotes around it.
He smiles at him. ‘It was in the news, Ted. You were a prospect, nothing more. You know how it is.’ He reaches into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He pulls one out, places it between his lips, and lights it with a gold lighter that he pulls from his other pocket. It glints in the sun. John admires it. He says, holding it up, ‘Isn’t it a beauty? I didn’t inherit it from my father, though. I bought it.’
‘You’ve had some ups and downs,’ Ted says.
‘Haven’t we all,’ he agrees pleasantly.
‘You’ve done time in prison for white-collar crime. For fraud.’ Ted says it with distaste, looking down his nose at him.
‘Oh, it wasn’t so bad,’ he responds casually. ‘It was only two years, and you learn a lot in prison.’
Ted stares back at him. ‘Well– I don’t think I’ll be doing any business with you,’ he says shortly.
John grins. ‘Oh, you never know,’ he says, drawing deeply on his cigarette, filling his lungs, and then coolly blowing out the smoke.
Ted turns and walks away. John watches Ted’s retreating back thoughtfully, smoking his cigarette.
That evening, Lara arrives at Jill and Ted’s place and rings the bell. She and Ben have just returned from a three-week vacationin Greece, and she and Jill need to catch up. Ted is out at a charity event. Lara’s holding a nice bottle of Chablis.
The door opens. Lara holds up the bottle and grins.
They settle in the front room after Jill fetches wineglasses and arranges some cheeses and crackers on a plate. It’s getting chilly in the evenings and there’s a fire burning in the fireplace. Lara asks, ‘How are you?’
‘Good! Really good, actually,’ Jill says, looking relaxed, like her old self.
‘How’s Ted doing?’ Lara asks. ‘What’s he up to these days?’
‘He’s still thinking about what he wants to do next.’
Lara pours them each a generous glass of Chablis. ‘And what about you? Are you going to stay at the gallery?’
‘For now,’ Jill says. ‘But I’m thinking I might actually want to start my own gallery some day.’
Lara says, ‘Well, you could do that now, couldn’t you?’
They chat for a while about the pros and cons of Jill leaving Clives and opening her own gallery, and how exciting it would be. They talk about Greece. They drink the entire bottle of wine.
Eventually, she asks, ‘Have you heard anything more from that guy Ramirez?’
‘No, not a thing,’ Jill says.
‘That’s good,’ Lara says. She lowers her voice to a more intimate register. ‘You know, if you ever need to talk about it, you can talk to me, Jill. You know that, right?’
