Two for One-Relatively Speaking (The Two for One series) Read online

  Two for One: Relatively Speaking

  © 2011 by Sean David Wright

  For my two daughters…

  Ah, the teenage years!

  Chapter 1

  Not long ago, while having lunch with a poet friend of his, Max Bland was asked by that friend what the biggest problem is in sharing a house with two women.

  “The electric bill,” Max had quipped.

  At the time he had meant it. What with his wife Danielle and her wife Katie constantly changing the mansion’s thermostat settings based on how out of whack their hormones were on any given day, combined with the number of electrical crimpers, curlers, trimmers, hairdryers, straighteners, lighted mirrors and such each woman used every morning prior to facing the world, Al Gore could have used their home as Exhibit A in “An Inconvenient Truth.”

  However, Max was now considering that if his friend were to ask him the same question today he would provide a different answer.

  The problem in living with two women, Max Bland would now say, is the shoes. They were everywhere, littering the floors of all thirty-five rooms of the house, always waiting to trip unsuspecting male feet because both Danielle and Katie had developed the habit of coming home, kicking off their footwear and leaving them in the oddest of places.

  His mind was chewing on this particular matter this morning because while heading into the kitchen a few moments ago to get a bottle of water he did not recall his horoscope today mentioning anything about those of the Aries persuasion needing to beware of being struck down by black Manolo Mary Janes; therefore he was not on the lookout for black Manolo Mary Janes and so therefore the black Manolo Mary Janes had had the advantage on him when they tripped him up just inside the kitchen’s doorway causing the forty-five year old novelist to spin wildly out of control and crash into the antique breakfront by the stove. This collision jarred that piece of furniture enough to upset the china inside, the dishware tumbling off their stands and clattering about noisily within, most of them shattering into useless shards.

  His ankle smarting and a sharp pain knifing through his right shoulder Max had lay on the floor and searched for what it was that had smote him.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, spying the shoes in the kitchen’s entrance. He crawled over and picked one up, looking at the size printed inside the damn thing. It was a 6 which meant it was Danielle’s. Two days ago a similar mishap had been caused in the parlor by a pair of size 7 ½ sandals belonging to Katie. In that incident Max had lost his footing just enough to spill most of the scalding hot coffee he’d been carrying onto his hand, and he now suspected that for the rest of his days on Earth he would be in constant peril from misplaced footwear unless he acted immediately.

  Max wanted to tear the shoe he was now holding to shreds but he knew from previous attempts that Manolos are particularly well made. Yet he felt he had to do something because this, he proclaimed inwardly, was the last straw. The ache in his shoulder was already dissipating but his left ankle—turned when he first stumbled—was beginning to throb painfully. As God was his witness these were going to be the last injuries he suffered due to obscenely expensive footwear.

  This thought of God (never mind that he didn’t believe in such nonsense) reminded him of something: weren’t there a number of verses and whatnot in the Bible about the Israelites or the Mennonites or the whoever-the-hell-ites using fire to destroy evil things? Was that the Bible, he wondered, or Lord of the Rings? Anyway, no matter; his mind was made up. Picking the other Mary Jane up from the floor Max carried both to the drawing room, tossed them into the fireplace and in a few moments had a crackling blaze going fueled by two logs, a dash of lighter fluid and one pair of shoes.

  The world felt safer already.

  “Good heavens!”

  Max heard the shout from the kitchen a few minutes later. He hadn’t moved an inch since lighting the fire, positive that he had read in the Bible about the whoever-the-hell-ites never walking away until the evil thing had been completely consumed by the flames. Or was that also Lord of the Rings?

  “What on Earth…?” This came from the kitchen again and Max looked up in time to see Maureen, the head housekeeper, emerge befuddled from that room and jump when she spied her employer.

  “Oh! Mr. Bland!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on her heart. “You gave me a fright!” She gestured back toward the kitchen, “I saw the state of the china cabinet and was afraid we’d been burgled, sir.”

  “No, I just had a little accident is all,” Max said. He was forty-five and slender, some gray salting the black curls near his temples. A product of an inter-racial marriage his skin was the color of caramel and he had ambiguously ethnic looks—he neither looked African-American, like his mother; nor Caucasian, like his father; in fact, he looked like he could have belonged to just about any race of people found in various regions of the planet.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Slightly concussed but I’ll live.”

  “I see, sir.”

  Maureen came and stood next to Max before the fireplace.

  “Excuse me, sir, but isn’t it a bit warm in here for a fire?”

  The woman was right; because Katie insisted she was freezing if the temperature inside their London mansion dipped below 24°C, and Danielle insisted she was freezing if the temperature dipped below 25°C the mansion’s thermostat on this, only the third day of the New Year, was set at 26°, or south-of-France weather. But Max said to Maureen: “Nah, it’s a bit nippy actually. This fire feels fine.”

  “As you wish, sir,” Maureen said.

  After a few moments of silence during which Max never took his eyes off the flames lest what remained of the Manolos tried to make a run for it, Maureen said, “Excuse me again, sir, but are those shoes I see in the fire?”

  The writer nodded but otherwise gave no explanation.

  “As you wish, sir.”

  It took several minutes but eventually the Manolos were little more than ash. Using the poker, Max jabbed at the burnt remains a couple times to check for signs of life. There were none. He then looked at his watch.

  “Okay,” he began, “I’m off. Lunch with Katie.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “While I’m gone I’d like you to do me a favor.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “I want you to gather up all the stray shoes you find lying about in every room of this house and toss ‘em in the trash bin outside.”

  Maureen was about to automatically say “Certainly, sir” again when the significance of this order struck her. A mere domestic she may be but even she was acutely aware of the value of the footwear belonging to the ladies of the house, which she was endlessly picking up and placing in their proper closets as she tidied the manor daily. In fact, the carelessness shown by Ms. Edwards and Ms. Shaw with their posh shoes was a favorite topic of discussion when Maureen met her friends—domestics all—for pints at the pub every Friday evening. After all, just one pair of Jimmy Choos was worth more than Maureen earned in a week.

  Little wonder, then, that she blinked at Max and respectfully bade him to repeat the order.

  “Pick up all the shoes,” Max said, “and dump ‘em in the trash.” He did this as though merely telling the housekeeper to swing by the grocers to get some bread.

  Maureen blinked again.

  “Certainly, sir,” she finally said. She hesitated a moment before finding the courage to add, “But…won’t the ladies be upset, sir?”

  “I suspect they will but it’s my neck, Maureen, not yours. I guarantee you will not be held responsible.”
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  Maureen’s features relaxed.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll admit I was worried. Ms. Edwards has been rather quick-tempered as of late, if you’ll forgive my saying so, sir.”

  “Forgiven; besides, you’re right.” In fact, Max planned on broaching the topic of Danielle’s recent moodiness with Katie during lunch. He started for the east staircase.

  “You can begin your project by tossing those pumps over there by the couch,” he said as he left the room.

  ***

  “That is, like, so brilliant!”

  “Do you really think so?” Katie Shaw asked, leaning back in her Herman Miller chair.

  “Oh. My. God.” Annabeth breathed. “Totally. It is, like, such a good idea, Ms. Shaw. Really. Totally.”

  “Not too far-fetched?”

  Annabeth rolled her eyes as if to suggest that anyone who considers one of Katie’s ideas too far-fetched ought to be locked up. In, like, jail.

  “Oh. My. God. Ms. Shaw, it is so totally a great idea. I just wish I had thought of it myself, you know?”

  The topic of this discussion was a new scheme Katie had devised to help those in Britain who were homeless. Katie, a thirty-two year old blonde with girl-next-door features, including a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose, ran Rivers Haven, a London-based charitable organization meant to solve the country’s homelessness crisis. This new scheme of Katie’s was innovative and unique, so much so that she was actually a bit worried if it would indeed yield results.

  Well, that was one reason she was worried; another reason she was worried, truth be known, was because she was counting on Max’s help.

  “Listen,” she said with caution in her voice, “before we get too excited we need to remember that logistically this will be tough to put together. We haven’t even begun to contact writers yet and—”

  “Totally don’t worry about that, Ms. Shaw, okay?” Annabeth cut in, and as usual Katie had to suppress laughter. It was funny enough that Annabeth—the new intern at Rivers Haven who was fresh out of college and all of twenty-one years old—had the energy of a hummingbird on espresso and could never seem to sit still for five minutes, but the fact that she talked like a San Fernando Valley girl with a British accent made Katie want to start chuckling every time the girl opened her mouth.

  Annabeth went on.

  “I will, like, find the names and addresses of, like, all the agents who represent the authors we want. Then, I’ll totally get to work on a letter that we can send to them. You know, ‘Dear Ms. Rowling, we are, like, the Rivers Foundation and we would totally like to offer you the opportunity to, like, totally help the homeless.’ That sort of thing, you know?”

  “Fine,” Katie said, making a mental note to be sure to proofread Annabeth’s proposed letter very carefully in order to drastically reduce the number of totallys and likes it might contain.

  “Besides,” Annabeth went on, “once, like, all the others find out that Max Bland is totally on board they’ll all totally sign up too.”

  “Right, right,” Katie said, nodding. But it would’ve taken someone who knew Katie better to hear the pessimism in her voice. In fact, Katie was beginning to regret telling the younger woman that this project could start with Max Bland, since they were family. In retrospect it may have been premature.

  Speaking of Max…a glance at the clock on the wall opposite warned her that she’d have to leave in a few minutes in order to meet him at the restaurant in time.

  “Listen,” she began, fixing Annabeth with a level gaze, “don’t go spreading the word just yet that Max Bland is on board. I may be close to him but…well, Max can be difficult. If you should ever meet him you’ll understand.” Once more Katie had to suppress the desire to break into giggles; the image of Max meeting Annabeth, followed immediately by the image of Max killing Annabeth, was almost too funny to bear. But she swallowed the laughter, got up from her chair and said, “I’m leaving for lunch; why don’t you work on that letter and have a draft on my desk before I get back.”

  Annabeth flitted away and then Katie asked Jesminda, her secretary, to come into the office. When the smartly dressed Indian woman walked in Katie held up a message slip Jesminda had left on Katie’s desk earlier.

  “Did my wife say why she was calling?” Katie inquired.

  “No, but she absolutely refused to let me put her through to your voicemail.”

  Katie sighed.

  “She wasn’t rude to you again, was she?”

  “Let’s just say she didn’t take the news that you were in a meeting very well,” Jesminda replied with an amused twinkle in her eyes. “In fact, I got off the phone feeling like it was my fault the Sisters needed to see you.”

  “Jess, I’m sorry.”

  “No worries. Under normal circumstances I really like Danielle and so I’m hoping everything is okay?”

  Katie was putting on her coat. She did in fact have a suspicion as to what had turned her darling wife into a female version of Max—grumpy and easily annoyed—over the past fortnight or so. Problem was, Katie had no proof; Danielle still hadn’t confided anything to her yet.

  “Oh, wait!” Jesminda suddenly exclaimed, zipping out to her desk. The secretary was back in a flash with a large padded manila envelope that she handed to her boss.

  “This came for you while you were in the meeting. Those are beautiful stamps on it, though. Where are they from?”

  Katie looked at the package and then smiled. She was glad it finally arrived; perhaps tonight, at home, news of this will help in cheering Danielle up. She tossed the envelope onto her desk and then said as she walked past Jesminda, “The stamps are Samoan. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  ***

  The buzz being transmitted in the London offices of banking giant ARCL was simply this: the American is on the warpath. This warning was whispered by staff passing one another in the corridors or riding the lifts together; it was e-mailed from HR to Sales, from Sales to Legal, from Legal to Investments and so on. It was shared between men peeing in neighboring urinals and between women taking cigarette breaks on the sixth floor balcony.

  The American is on the warpath.

  Some had the audacity to append the word again to the end of the phrase because, quite frankly, this had been happening rather frequently of late, over the past fortnight or so. Prior to then the American had been rather charming for the most part while demonstrating a firm resolve to make this division run even better than the much vaunted one across the Pond in New York.

  Eighteen months ago this American everyone was talking about, Danielle Edwards, had arrived in London and taken over the reins as president of this division of ARCL. At the time, London branch was a bit of a mess and since London was vital to the Dutch banking giant’s European operations the bigwigs in Rotterdam had no problem transferring Danielle from her vice-presidency in New York, figuring that if anyone was capable of righting the ship on Bond Street it was she.

  And the Rotterdam bigwigs had been right. As daunting a task as it was Danielle was now president of a well-oiled machine. And although some heads had rolled, in this era of jaded European views toward the U.S. Danielle emerged from the first few months of her reign well-liked and respected, giving no indication that she was a typical ugly American, a bully like George Bush, only more stylish and with a better manicure.

  Until lately, that is.

  Currently, Danielle was in the Trafalgar conference room on the 17th floor. She was overseeing a meeting between her mutual funds administrators and some sales people from Davis-Gilligan, a British investment firm attempting to peddle a new funds package to the bank in the hopes that ARCL will in turn offer it to their clients. But the meeting had not been going well. Danielle had shown infinitesimal patience for the Davis-Gilligan lot, picking apart their proposal on the minutest, most technical levels and basically belittling them for daring to believe their crap funds package could possibly meet the high standards of ARCL-London under this, the Ed
wards regime. And when she wasn’t busy making them feel three feet tall she’d turn on her own people, the funds administrators, making sure they knew they ought to get down on their knees and pray to whatever gods they hold dear that they won’t lose their jobs over the way this branch’s mutual funds division has been, to use a British term, complete bollocks, lately.

  A coffee break was requested; the bloke who humbly asked for it looked as if he were frightened Danielle would gut him for being so bold. Indeed, she seemed to consider doing just that, even eyeing his midsection momentarily as though trying to decide if a poignard or a toshi would be the best tool for the job; but grudgingly, she granted the break. Several of the attendees used this chance to bolt from the president’s sight and hurry to the nearest smoking room thinking it better to spend the break sucking a few more years off their lives than risk staying in Trafalgar and having God knows what happen to them. Those brave enough to remain were huddled in small whispering groups, drinking coffee that was fast becoming stale and dreading the resumption of the meeting.

  Meanwhile, Danielle stood off by herself before the huge window, arms crossed, gazing out at London, looking as if she’d now like to leap outside and tear the rest of the city a new asshole.

  Eventually she felt a presence near her and smelled expensive aftershave. Turning, she saw that one of the Davis-Gilligan people—a tall, achingly handsome guy whom she thought was named Darren (or was it Gavin?)—had come to stand by her and was now meeting her eyes with a very intense gaze meant to signify many, many different things, all of which had naught to do with mutual funds.

  “Yes?” Danielle asked, refusing to respond to his smile with one of her own.

  “Oh, nothing,” DarrenOrGavin said. “I just happened to see you standing here all by yourself and thought it a shame is all.”

  Danielle resumed gazing out the window.

  “I think you’ll find I’m very good company, so why be on your own?”