God's Eye (54 page)

“Well, I had decided that I had enough money to start a very small fund of my own. I would get others to invest with me. A little here, a little there, until we were big enough to go public.”

“You want to go back to that kind of investing?”

Her hands flew, trying to fill things in faster than she could talk. “That’s just it. I
know
investing. I know it head to tail. I want to invest in things that need it. Green companies, small business funds in underdeveloped countries, sound mining practices. Who knows? The return will be smaller in number of dollars, but bigger in other ways.” Margot nodded. “That makes more sense.”

“But with this infusion, I can start a corporation now. I have enough to do more than just invest my own trust money. I can hire a few people, start a real fund right off. It still won’t be huge, but it’s enough to go public.”

Margot broke out in a huge smile and threw her arms around Katharine. “I’m so happy for you. This is great news–”

“No,” Katharine pushed back. “Maybe you can be happy for
us.
I need a researcher. Someone I trust, someone who can find anything–follow the business trails through to the products and the ramifications. I know where to find people who can count the money, but I need you to make this work right.”

Margot stilled as the idea hit her.

“Don’t say anything yet.” Katharine held up her hand. “I don’t want you to be an employee. I want you to be my business partner. I’ll invest the money, but the business will belong to both of us. You probably need to think about it.”

“Wait. What?” Margot’s eyes glazed over.

Katharine waited a few moments. Though she just wanted her friend to say yes, she knew better. But it didn’t last long. “I don’t want you to be my employee. You’re my friend. And honestly I’m scared of running the whole thing by myself. I know how to run this whole business. But I need another logical brain to help out. Fresh eyes. Good ideas. I don’t think I should be the sole decision-maker. I don’t know that any one person should be.”

She watched as Margot started to think. And sure enough, about five seconds later, well-thought-out questions began coming one after the other.

“Are you sure you can put only your money into this and have me as a partner? Maybe I should just have a small percent. Even that would be huge for me.”

Katharine smiled. Margot was working out details. That probably meant she’d eventually agree.

“Yes, I’m sure. And no, you’re in fifty-fifty. Not even forty-nine–fifty-one.”

“I don’t have any money of my own to invest. It doesn’t seem right.”

For a moment, Katharine was somber. “I don’t really have the money either. I know how Light & Geryon earned that money. I thought long and hard about just giving it all to the United Way or the Red Cross or something like that. I don’t want it. Even the money in my account is the same thing. It’s not quite blood money, but it’s close. I can’t keep it for me. I wouldn’t feel right living off it. But I do like the idea that it could do something good. Something important starts with it. Something that you’ll help me make into something bigger than the damage that started it.”

“Holy crap.” Margot sighed, and Katharine laughed. “When do we start?”

“When can you quit the library?”

“I need to give two weeks’ notice. It will take me that long to train someone up and get the new person oriented.” This time her sigh was smaller. “I love that library.”

“I know. And I’m really grateful.”

This time Margot looked at her dead-on. “You don’t know me well enough to give me half of your multimillion-dollar corporation.” “It’s just money. And, yes, I do.”

For maybe the first time ever, she reached out to hug someone for no other purpose. It wasn’t a quick pat on the back or a loose-armed, go-to-bed-now social expectation. It wasn’t romantic or sexual or leading to anything else. And she didn’t even once think that it would be rejected.

She simply draped her arm around Margot’s shoulders and pulled her friend close. Margot hugged her back, and they sat there, heads touching as though they might be transferring thoughts, staring out at the calm waves rolling up, and grinning like loons.

The soft sounds of the ocean were periodically punctuated by Margot saying, “Holy crap.”

•  •  •

It took Katharine two weeks to sell her condo. She hadn’t yet started the company.

But she had already filed the initial paperwork, and she kept a running tally of her thoughts for what she believed the company should do. Where they should start. What they needed to avoid.

She’d asked Margot to write down her ideas too. Three days after Margot had come in from her lunch break and handed in her resignation, they had sat down to compare notes. Liam had been hanging around and had laughed that Katharine came in with a laptop and spreadsheets, while Margot appeared with a yellow legal pad and a handwritten but truly elegant mission statement.

Katharine shrugged at him. “It’s why she’s my partner. A mission statement hadn’t even occurred to me. And mine would have had bad grammar anyway.”

They created homework assignments, Margot found an artist to design the logo for Green Sea Investments, and Katharine found a web designer.

She worked harder than she ever had before. Uncle Toran had called several times to let her know how disappointed he was that she was starting her own company instead of reopening her father’s. He also saw fit to let her know that her father would be disappointed in her too.

She tried to let it go, but the barbs burrowed deep and stuck. And they hurt. But they didn’t change her course. Nothing was strong enough to get her to change her course.

She got other calls asking her to vacate the condo so the agent could show it. After one such visit where she’d been too engrossed in her spreadsheets to remember to leave, she decided to stay for all the walkthroughs.

She didn’t like the people that had come to see the place. And she realized after sitting through several more walkthroughs that those were the only kind of people her unit seemed to attract. After one particularly snotty couple came by and complained about everything from the color of the walls (too garish a beige) to the quality of the bathroom tiles (clearly not handmade), Katharine cornered the agent. “How do we get nice, decent people to come look at it?”

“Is that what you want? I was wondering why you kept turning down good offers.” The agent had offered a soothing hand on Katharine’s arm. “You know, you won’t live here after you sell. You don’t have to like these people. You won’t know them.”

“But I want to like them. What do I have to do to get someone good in here?”

The agent practically snorted. “Drop the price by about two hundred grand!”

The woman had looked at her, horrified, when Katharine said, “Okay, do it.”

It had taken three days and the promise of a commission on the original asking price before the new listing went into effect. Katharine saw four young couples, a single lawyer, a junior businessman, and an older couple in the space of the next four days.

She sold the unit to a family who came through with a little boy. He wanted a dog, and the mother said they didn’t have enough to redo the carpet. She had noticed the incredibly faint soot stains that had never quite come out. The blood had entirely disappeared, but the gray stayed, just a bit.

They offered twenty thousand less than the asking price and Katharine took it. She then left them an envelope with a check for another twenty thousand to get a puppy and paint or retile or whatever. Writing that check had felt better than most anything she’d ever done.

So she took the money from the unit and gave it to Margot–who promptly told her to stuff it. Then she tried to say it in a nicer way. She ended with “I’ll buy my own house, thank you.”

Well, she’d overstepped. Luckily, Margot didn’t hold it against her.

Katharine had already bought herself one of the little houses on the walks up from the beach. It was small and homey and had the smell of sea air in every room. Though it was in Santa Monica rather than Venice, it reminded her of Allistair’s house. Well, it reminded her of the house where he’d taken her while he’d been here.

She painted her walls in bright colors, gave her old furniture to Goodwill, and bought new pieces. When she looked at her new living room set and realized it looked amazing but was too uncomfortable to sit in, she discovered she hadn’t been paying enough attention.

Instead, she put a mattress on the floor in her bedroom, telling herself she’d wait to find just the right things. Most people took time to acquire their homes. She should too.

She spent her first night in the new place sitting on her hard sofa and wondering if she could keep up this pace indefinitely, if she could stay one step ahead of the heartbreak that dogged her heels even as she ran from it.

And she knew she couldn’t.

Why had she even thought she could?

She’d been too slow all along. Too slow to see. Too slow to choose.

And her inability to see what was in front of her had killed someone who had twice told her, “I’m sorry, but I love you.” Who told her to choose herself, even though it would mean the end of him and all that he was. Someone whose last words to her Margot had translated as “You’re safe now.”

Katharine sat back, a wide smile on her face and a silly hat on her head.

The world outside Margot’s windows had gone dark for the night, but at this time of year that didn’t mean it was late yet. The dark, barely held at bay by the thin panes of glass, was more than made up for by the birthday cake that sat in front of her, the top of it a little sloped and the writing close to illegible. She was pretty sure that Margot had written “Happy Birthday, Katharine.” Or she had meant to. The loops hadn’t fallen where they were intended to, and it looked more like “Haggy Bidhclay, Kathanne.” However, to Margot’s credit, and due to her considerable drive for proper grammar, there was both a comma and a period for Kathanne’s Bidhclay.

Katharine just said thank you and left it to Liam to point out that cake decorating might not be Margot’s strong suit. Everyone else at the little get-together had kept their mouths shut about the cake too. No one wanted to hurt Margot’s feelings. For a few of them, Margot was their boss, and so the cake drew no comments other than that it tasted great and was colorful. Both statements were true.

Katharine had grinned at that. She was happy again. Mostly.

She had watched Margot and Liam together for several seasons now. Margot was happy too–only her happiness went all the way down.

Katharine tried not to be jealous of her friend, but some days that took more effort than others, and it didn’t always work.

Margot and Liam would get married soon. They hadn’t said anything, but it was there for everyone to see if they looked. It was in the casual affection that made it seem they’d been together much longer than they actually had. The simple way they communicated. The fact that they sometimes fought, and though Margot complained to Katharine about the fights themselves, she never once complained about Liam. Never called him an idiot or an ass or any of the other things she could have called him, given the disagreements. Katharine had no doubt that Liam afforded Margot the same respect. He loved her; it was as complicated and as simple as that.

She watched as the two of them met up in the kitchen and talked about something. She didn’t know what, and she decided not to listen in. Instead she checked out the lopsided birthday cake.

It was probably the saddest-looking baked good she’d ever seen. And certainly the ugliest she’d ever been given. But it was by far the most beautiful, too. Margot had made it for her–for Katharine, who had been raised to believe that appearances were everything and perfection was important. That anything and everything should be made by a professional if possible, and that it could all be bought for a price.

She hadn’t even had a cake in years. Grown-ups didn’t have cakes. Her eighteenth birthday had been the last. That cake, like all the others, had been ordered from whatever bakery was
de rigueur
that year. Those birthday cakes had been tiered and themed and lavish, and looking back, they had been laughable in their pointlessness.

It didn’t matter what this cake looked like, or even if it had tasted like cardboard. This year, someone had cared enough to do it themselves.

In addition to being presented with an imperfect cake, Katharine didn’t think she’d ever worn a pointed grocery-store birthday hat either. But here she was, with Liam and Margot and a handful of others, all of whom had been in her life since the earthquake, and they were celebrating. These were her coworkers and a small handful of real friends. She didn’t have many, not like when she and her mother had ruled the social scene, but these friends were real. One was even the daughter of one of her mother’s friends, and she too had gotten out of the game her parents lived in. So much had changed since the earthquake.

And that was how she had thought of it–just as “the earthquake,” because she couldn’t withstand the pain that came when she thought of the other things that had happened that day.