It was a trinket compared to her family’s vast fortune, but the reality was that there was only one way he could have gotten twice what she had conceded, by somehow forging her signature on the request to the board.
“I—I—I—” she stuttered, only reinforcing her grandmother’s impression of her idiocy.
“Nina’s right, it is real estate,” Caitlyn’s cheery voice interrupted the detente, causing everyone at the table to swivel toward her. She blinked, looking around at her sudden audience. “Calvin and I ran into each other at lunch last week, and I—well, he told me a bit about it. Would you…like me to share?”
“Please,” said Celeste with a sharp look at Nina. “Since Nina is apparently too caught up with rattles to pay any attention.”
Caitlyn swallowed heavily. “Well, um, it’s this project he’s doing. He buys in outlying areas around New York. Towns that are starting the upswing as commuter areas, but where the market hasn’t quite followed yet. Basically, he’s flipping properties that have turned commercial, but he’s using his, um, knowledge of the area to do it.”
“Why wouldn’t he just do it all in one part of town?” Celeste wondered. “How can he manage property all over New York? And now I gather this has already expanded into the greater New England area. Isn’t that spreading himself a bit thin? He’ll need a different accountant for every state.”
“Um, I think it’s diversifying, he said?” Caitlyn stumbled around the language, ending her sentences as questions. “Better than putting all his eggs in one basket?”
Nina studied her friend, who did not meet her eye. It must have been quite a lunch she had had with Calvin. Particularly since she didn’t think to mention it to her.
Celeste also seemed to think so. She turned to Nina. “I expect you to learn more about this before the family gets further involved. I will not write another check or approve any other requests from your trust until we see a full business plan.”
“But, Grandmother—”
Celeste only held up her palm. “That’s final. I’ll not speak any more about money. It’s crude over lunch.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Calvin’s voice boomed as he strode back into the room and deposited a chilled bottle of Perrier next to Celeste, then made a big show of pouring it into her water glass.
Celeste’s lip curled as she watched, almost as though she were disgusted by the idea of touching the water after Calvin had.
“Thank you,” she said when he finished, though Nina doubted she meant it.
It didn’t matter. She had no intention of writing any kind of business plan with Calvin anyway. One more month, she thought as she reached for the middle of the table to serve herself some pasta. The ten million could be written off as a divorce payoff. Ending marriages had certainly cost other family members more. Like exile, for one.
Nina sighed. She wasn’t sure taking a break from her family would qualify anymore as a punishment.
“Pasta, princess? Really?”
Everyone turned toward Calvin, who was busily forking several pieces of bloody steak onto his plate. Not for the first time, Nina wondered again how a human being with so many resources could always look so ill-fitted to…everything. The arms of his navy jacket pulled around the shoulders, and because he had forgotten to unbutton it at the waist before sitting down, it also tugged oddly around his stomach and the sides. Nina wondered if he was aware that his pants were black and therefore mismatched.
Incredible, she mused. In the last year, she had watched Calvin jump into the trappings of her family’s wealth and circle with all the grace of a cow diving into a duck pond. He had acquired all the visual things he perceived as hallmarks of the upper class: the stodgy driver, the ugly heirloom furnishings, the tailor who had last serviced Nina’s grandfather in the early eighties. And still the man managed to make ten-thousand-dollar custom suits look like polyblend discount rack fare.
“What’s wrong with pasta?” she asked through her teeth.
“What isn’t wrong with it?” Violet babbled, then laughed to herself before taking another gulp of wine. Her plate was completely empty.
Calvin added two more pieces of steak to the mountain he’d already gathered. “That depends. Are you trying to turn back into a refrigerator?”
Violet cringed. Celeste’s face didn’t move.
“Cal,” Caitlyn said, who somehow managed to be friendlier with one syllable than Nina ever could. “It’s just a bit of pasta. Plus, Nina and I had spinning this morning.