ABOUT LANDRY

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i.

Your mother is a beautiful woman. When she was young, she’d immigrated to the United States with her parents and her younger sisters in pursuit of a more accepting business market. Her father was the head of a tobacco company and as his oldest daughter, it was her responsibility to take on the company if anything should happen to him. [break][break]

They were at a corporate event in uptown Seattle, her father practically showing her off to the partygoers, when she caught the eye of a young businessman who’d come into a fortune after investing in hotel real estate all over the West coast. He’s tall, handsome, with a square jaw and the most entrancing golden eyes. She asks him if he’s wearing contacts, and when he shakes his head, a debonair grin pulling up the ends of his mouth, Alejandra Flores feels that telltale tug in her gut and the tingles in her fingertips that mean something good is about to happen. [break][break]

The man introduces himself as Sebastian Vegas. His eyes glint like copper in the late evening light.[break][break]

ii.

Alejandra Vegas gets pregnant in the autumn. You arrive right on time, and when your mother takes you into her arms for the first time, she barely notices that Sebastian isn’t there to see you cry. To hear you wail your little heart out, to see the clenching and unclenching of your tiny bronze fists. [break][break]

He isn’t there to see you open your eyes for the first time, to see those burnished gold irises of his reflected back in your own. [break][break]

He comes home from his business trip in New York a week later, mopey and grumbly. He’s tired, irritated that he hadn’t been there to see you arrive--but he takes one look at you--at your wrinkly brown body, at your shock of black hair, at those burning, burning eyes--and suddenly he feels better. He feels happy. And that, to him, is enough. [break][break]

iii.

You know from a young age that you are different. You are special. Your friends from school don’t all live in homes that seem to stretch for miles and miles from end to end. They don’t have personal chefs, don’t have full-time nannies, don’t have mothers who lace their arms and necks with only the finest gold jewelry. [break][break]

You ask your mother to chaperone a kindergarten party and she happily agrees. It’s only when her personal security detail follows her into the classroom that you realize that something is different. [break][break]

That something is wrong. [break][break]

You ask your mother to remove you from the school. The looks the other children give you are almost too much to bear--as if you’re different, as if you’re some sort of alien come to take over the planet earth. You don’t ask for an out because you think you’re better than those other children--you ask for an out because escaping the glares would be better than enduring them for the sake of an image. She agrees, and very shortly afterwards hires a governess to oversee the rest of your studies. You never step foot in a classroom again.[break][break]

iv.

You think your mother is the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. Sometimes, when you know she’s getting ready to leave for a party, you sit and watch her get ready. For all of the personal assistants your family has hired, the one thing your mother has always refused is someone to help her get ready. She zips up her own dresses, styles her own outfits, paints her own face. [break][break]

The click of expensive jewelry snapping shut around her wrists is as familiar to you as your own two hands. Her hands, her fingers, ever so nimble and careful, flash under the lights of her vanity as she twists her rich black hair into an elegant knot at the top of her head. She dusts her bare shoulders with gold flakes, and you swear that her russet skin glows like an angel’s. [break][break]

The only thing she puts on that isn’t gold is her wedding ring. A massive diamond set in a smooth silver band, fitted so evenly to her finger that it looks like she’d been born wearing it. She wiggles it onto her finger and gives it a gentle kiss before rising from her seat and ushering you out of the bathroom. [break][break]

She leaves for the party, and suddenly the house seems very cold. [break][break]

v.

It’s all in the eyes, you think. Lustrous pieces of burnished gold hooded by thick eyelashes and low brows. In the right lighting, they look like the little stones that your mother likes to get fitted onto all of her jewelry. They glint, they glitter, they burn in exactly the right way.
[break][break]

But they’re not familiar. You see these eyes every day when you brush your teeth in the bathroom mirror, or when your father bends down to offer you a hug before he sends you off to school for the day. It’s the eyes, you think. Because otherwise, you wouldn’t believe your father when he slots his fingers into the little girl’s white-blond hair and tells you that she’s your sister. “This is Victoria,” he says. [break][break]

The little girl is sitting cross-legged in the living room of her mother’s apartment, a toy dinosaur clenched in her tiny hands as she sizes you up. It’s the eyes. Gold, like coins lost on a pirate ship at sea. Gold, like the burning sunrise that peeks over the summit of Mt. Rainier every morning at dawn. [break][break]

She does not look like you, but her eyes--so sharp, so careful, so keen--are what cement your little shoes to the floor. One moment, you were ready to go visit the Museum of Modern Art with your father--and now, here you are, stifling in a quiet apartment and staring into the face of someone who looks like you but doesn’t look like you. [break][break]

She doesn’t have your dark, warm bronze skin. She doesn’t have your brown-black hair, or your sharp russet brows. When she takes you to show her your bedroom, you find yourself thinking that it’s quite possibly the smallest bedroom you’ve ever been in. Your bedroom at home in Seattle is furnished lavishly and could almost double as a family room. This is nothing. A bed, a dresser, a few rumpled sheets. The only toy in sight is that dinosaur--chewed up and faded, but a toy all the same. [break][break]

Your father disappears into another room with a tall, pale woman and you can hear them talking through the walls. Something about money, and food, and child support. You’re not old enough to understand what any of it means--but you have a feeling that this little white-haired waif of a child is your sibling. It sits in your gut, fluttering like a fish out of water. Your father’s voice tilts into a shout, and then suddenly there’s a scuffle as he backs out of another bedroom and grabs you by the arm. [break][break]

You don’t get to tell Victoria goodbye before you’re being dragged out of the apartment. You don’t even get to tell her your name. [break][break]

But those eyes--those burning gold pools of honey framed by thick, dark lashes--they follow you all the way home.[break][break]

vi.

You hear whispers between your father’s friends. “Bastard child,” they say. “Illegitimate.” [break][break]

You don’t know what any of it means. And you won’t, for a very long time.[break][break]

But it lingers. It follows you and your father wherever you go. [break][break]

Your mother doesn’t seem as happy as she used to be. She doesn’t glow. Not like she used to.[break][break]

vii.

Your reputation is flimsy. Brittle. With news of your illegitimate sibling circulating through your father’s business and social circles, there’s little doubt that his empire is on the verge of falling. Word doesn’t travel fast around these circles, but that word can knock the knees out from any respectable businessman. [break][break]

It’s taken them twelve years to sniff things out. Tracing back child support payments, tracing back business ventures to New York that never actually happened. But Sebastian’s colleagues find out--and for a few weeks, it looks as though the successful young businessman is going to have to figure out a way to pick himself up out of the dirt. [break][break]

So he stops paying the woman in New York. [break][break]

You vaguely remember a little girl you met years ago--white haired, with the gold eyes and the chewed up dinosaur toy. Your younger sister.[break][break]

She doesn’t seem that important to you anymore. You never see her to begin with--so what’s the point of missing someone you don’t know?[break][break]

You push her to the back of your mind, box her hair and her eyes and her chewed up dinosaur away for later. And just like that, the memory of Victoria is lost to the recesses of your subconscious. [break][break]

viii.

Some of the heat is taken away from you and your family, but not all of it. Your father hasn’t done enough to clear his name. [break][break]

Just after your twelfth birthday, you and your parents drive to an estate ten minutes outside of town. You recognize the man who greets you at the door as one of your father’s most trusted business partners. Casinos and hotels often walk hand in hand, of course. [break][break]

The three of you are escorted into a large sitting room and you take a seat next to your mother. She rubs her fingers along her bracelets, and you look up at her, brow furrowed. ”What are we doing here, Mama?” You ask. [break][break]

But Alejandra only shakes her head and rests her hand on your knee. You don’t understand why they still won’t talk to you. Why this family still won’t tell you what they’re doing. It drives you absolutely insane, the fact that they don’t trust you. [break][break]

You don’t have much time to reflect on it. [break][break]

Mr. Dean steps into the room, followed closely by Mrs. Dean and a young girl that you’ve never seen before. She must not attend your father’s parties with her parents. [break][break]

As they settle on the couch across from you, your father clears his throat and smiles.[break][break]

“So,” he starts. “About the marriage.”

ix.

Heather Dean is two years younger than you. The two of you are sitting on the back porch of the house, looking out into the garden. They have a hedge maze, and you almost want to ask Heather if she knows the way through it. [break][break]

But she’s quiet. Her hands tug on the ends of her hair, fidget with the hem of her dress. The two of you aren’t meant to be friends, you don’t think. You’re both too shy. [break][break]

So you stand up and dust off your slacks, shaking your head. [break][break]

You take the steps two at a time and decide to try your hand at the hedge maze. Your suit is getting stuffy, so you strip out of the jacket and drape it over a fountainhead near the entrance. You’re not yet tall enough to see over the edges of the maze, and when you duck through the opening arch, it’s as though you’ve entered another sort of world. [break][break]

You’re about fifteen paces down the first walkway when you hear a rustle behind you. You turn, and there she is--Heather Dean, hands tucked into the pockets of her coat, brows raised. “I know how to get through it,” she tells you. [break][break]

You shrug and look left and right, debating your chances. ”Don’t tell me,” you say. ”I’d rather solve it myself.” [break][break]

Heather’s mouth splits into a careful smile. “Don’t cry to me when you get lost.” [break][break]

You decide to go left. ”I won’t,” you say. [break][break]

But you can’t say you’re not glad when you hear the soft tap of her feet behind you, following you through the maze. You can’t say you’re not thankful when you make a wrong turn and she snaps her fingers to let you know you’ve gone the wrong way. [break][break]

x.

The first time you make it through the maze without her help, you’re fourteen and she’s twelve. She blindfolds you with one of her father’s neckties and she races through the hedges, snapping her fingers to lure you this way and that. When a stray root threatens your stumbling path, she stops and grabs your arm to guide you safely across.[break][break]

The two of you spend most of your time tramping through the hedges. It feels good to have a friend. After so long alone, it’s good to have a companion. Someone who knows what it’s like to live this way, to be isolated, to be suffocated.[break][break]

You and Heather are to be married when you turn thirty. Arranged by your father and Heather’s father, to clear the air amongst their social circles. It unites the families, unites the businesses. The two of you are well on track to become the wealthiest couple in Seattle, should you marry one another eventually (or so your family advisors tell you). Right now, the two of you are happy to just be friends.[break][break]

Years pass in the blink of an eye. Mrs. Dean no longer leaves her bedroom, and Heather has stopped joining you to run the hedge maze. You’ve stopped expecting her to greet you at the door when you arrive to that familiar estate that sits just outside of town. Instead, you wander up to her room, sit on her bed and listen as she talks about doctors appointments and specialists and expensive treatments. Weeks pass this way, and she stops greeting you at all. You wander a quiet house, tug on her locked bedroom door, then leave a note for her under a paperweight on the kitchen table. The drive back home is quiet.[break][break]

You’re lying on your back in your bed one rainy summer night, listening to a thunderstorm roll past outside. A book is cracked open on your knees, your russet hair pushed back and out of your face. Thunder rattles the windows, rain and wind threatening to fill your bedroom with relentless cold. You hear a tap on your balcony window. You dismiss it as a tree branch, as an unlucky bird that got swept away in the wind. But then the tap comes back, louder, more insistent. You look up.[break][break]

It’s her.[break][break]

At the window, soaked to the bone, shivering. [break][break]

You scramble out of bed and unlatch the door to let her in. She puddles water on your marble floor, and after a moment, you realize the water streaking down her cheeks is not rain, but tears. [break][break]

She shakes her head, and you fight back tears of your own as you pull her into your arms. She weeps against your chest, body shaking with sobs.[break][break]

After she changes into a pair of your dry pajamas, she curls up in your bed and tucks her head into her hands. Within minutes, she’s asleep. Exhaustion lays heavy on her shoulders, and you stay awake all night making sure she’s as comfortable as she can be. [break][break]

A fourteen year old girl should not have to know loss like this. Not so soon. You slip beneath the comforter with her, and you freeze as she rests a hand against the flat plane of your stomach. A friend is what she needs, you think. A friend.[break][break]

You hold her hand at the funeral, you hold her hand at the wake, and you hold her hand at the reception. She squeezes your knuckles so hard you feel like your hand might explode, but it’s worth it to you. [break][break]

If it makes her feel better, you’ll do it.[break][break]

xi.

Heather is different after her mother.[break][break]

She’s not distant, per se, but she’s the first to suggest that playing in the hedge maze is childish. She spends a lot more time with her father, and when you ask her to be your partner to another soiree your parents are throwing, she accepts without much protest. [break][break]

You find yourself at her house more and more often. And when you’re not doing work at her kitchen table, teaching yourself everything you need to know about running a business, she’s hanging around in your bedroom and rifling through your books as if she doesn’t know how carefully you’ve organized them on their shelf.[break][break]

You’re seventeen when she sits down on your bed and her sweater slips off her shoulder just so. You notice, perhaps for the first time, just how much you’d like to run your hands along her arms, to carefully massage all of her sadness away. [break][break]

It takes everything you have not to tell her you love her when she kisses your cheek goodbye one rainy afternoon. She slips into her father’s black car with a wave and a smile, young and sixteen and as happy as someone like her can be.[break][break]

xii.

She asks you to go on a picnic with her just after you finish your studies with your governess. You’re nineteen, now, a man still growing into limbs too long and hands too big. You stand in the shadow of giants; in the shadow of your father, your mother, Mr. Dean, the shadows of all those businessmen and women who raised you and watched you grow up into the man you are today. [break][break]

It’s late afternoon when you climb into the passenger seat of her car and she drives the two of you into the countryside of Washington. There’s a cooler in the backseat, and she gives you free reign of the AUX for the duration of the trip. There’s something magical about the way she tosses her head back to sing when you queue up that song, the one you’d danced to one night after one of the countless parties you’ve attended as a pair. [break][break]

Heather’s gotten rid of Lucian, for the time being. You notice this as you pull off onto a small dirt road and she ducks out of the car with a little chirp of excitement. You’d have been fine with the bodyguard’s presence, and you’re certainly used to being watched--but somehow, the bodyguard’s absence is unnerving. Strange, even.[break][break]

You step out of the car, blanket hooked over your arm as you follow her off the side of the road and into the tall grass that sways ever so gently in the evening breeze. ”There aren’t any snakes, are there?” You ask as you pick your way through the terrain, and the laugh she tosses back at you is enough to make the skin of your spine prickle with adoration.[break][break]

“I don’t know. Better hope there aren’t.”[break][break]

Heather finally slows to a stop at a small gap in the grass. The ground here has been trampled, well-loved, as if it’s been visited more times than anyone could possibly count. You set down the cooler and the blanket where Heather asks you to, and when you’re dusting your hands on your thighs, she sits down and motions for you to join her. [break][break]

The field is quiet, the sort of place not meant for just anyone to find. Heather tells you that she’s been coming here for five years. Five years, you think. Since her mother died. [break][break]

The two of you chat for hours while you snack on the sandwiches she’d put together in her kitchen. You talk about life, about family, about everything and nothing at all. This is the first time the pair of you have truly talked in what seems like months--as children, you’d both confided in one another almost implicitly. Heather’s mother had died, and that had changed. You talked, yes, but not as often. Not as much. [break][break]

She leans back on her hands and looks up at the horizon, mouth pulled into a serene smile. “Best spot to watch the sunset, Landry,” she says, watching as the sky bleeds into burning orange and pink. [break][break]

But you aren’t looking at the sunset, are you?[break][break]

You’re looking at her. [break][break]

You can’t take your eyes off her, off the way the sun seems to sink into her skin like rain. She turns to look at you, and your breath catches in your throat.[break][break]

She smiles. You try to send one back, but you’re too caught up in the curve of her jaw, in the shape of her lips, the heavy brown of her eyes. [break][break]

It surprises you, really, that she leans in before you do. As the sky explodes with color, she angles her head to meet yours, and you can feel her quick, frantic breaths against your cheek as your eyes slip shut. [break][break]

But the kiss you’re waiting for never comes.[break][break]

There’s a rustle, and then she’s wiping her hands on her jeans as she stands, shaking her head like she’s just come out of a trance. “My dad wants me home in an hour,” she says as she packs up the cooler and folds up the blanket. “And I shouldn’t keep Lucian waiting.”[break][break]

You sit there dumbly for a moment, cheeks warm, mouth turned down in a deep grimace. [break][break]

”Okay,” is all you say, and you can swear that your voice is hoarse.[break][break]

xiii.

You grow busy with work. Your father sends you off to Yale to collect a business degree that you’re not sure you even want, and over time, you begin to lose touch. You stop coming home for breaks, and eventually, you find it best to call only when you need something.[break][break]

You write letters to Heather that you address but don’t send. They’re filled with stories and declarations of love that you could never hope to say in person. [break][break]

You keep the letters in a box under your bed, and when Heather stops returning your calls, you start to forget about them.[break][break]

xiv.

You’re twenty-four years old when your phone rings that fateful Saturday afternoon. [break][break]

It’s your mother. [break][break]

“Mr. Dean,” she says. “There’s been an accident. He’s gone.”[break][break]

Your first thought is Heather. After so long, your first thought is still her.[break][break]

But what now? Now that you’ve stopped talking, lost touch, lost connection--would she even want you anymore? Would she even care?[break][break]

You fly home for the first time in five years. [break][break]

You attend Mr. Dean’s funeral, but you don’t say hello to the woman standing quietly by his grave. She doesn’t deserve that. You don’t deserve her. You pull the brim of your hat down low and watch as she tosses a handful of dirt onto Mr. Dean’s ornate casket. He’s buried next to his wife, just the way he’d asked.[break][break]

You steal one last glance at Heather before turning to your father and scrubbing a stray tear from your eye. [break][break]

An hour later, you’re named CEO of Vegas Luxury Real Estate. Your father steps aside in the wake of you. His youngest employee, his most trusted employee. [break][break]

xv.

You’re in your office when a young woman arrives with a sheaf of papers clutched in her hands. Today is your thirtieth birthday, and you assume that this is some sort of employee trick to get you to celebrate. [break][break]

You flip open the packet and balk. [break][break]

LICENSE OF MATRIMONY, reads the paper in thick black font. [break][break]

To the partnership of Landry Sebastian Vegas and Heather Valentina Dean, authorized by the great American state of Washington.[break][break]

Heather Dean? You haven’t spoken to her in years. In fact, you’d forgotten all about the engagement--a promise made almost twenty years ago, a promise you had told yourself that you’d keep, no matter what. You reach up and you roll the silver diamond ring that hangs from your neck between your fingers. [break][break]

Your mother had never worn silver jewelry. She’d given her ring to you days before she’d passed away, a victim of the very same monster that had claimed Mrs. Dean’s life so long ago. [break][break]

You suppose Heather will wear silver jewelry, if asked. You slip the ring from your necklace and carefully pocket it. [break][break]

When you step into the little bar that you’ve heard Heather likes to frequent, you take a deep breath and steel your nerves.[break][break]

Your eyes catch on a dark red coat and long, black-brown hair. You roll the ring between your fingers in your pocket and put on your best smile. [break][break]

It’s what’s best for business.

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NORTHY

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