A Promised Fate (21 page)

“Yeah, why would you sneak out? You were too busy
sneaking around
at
home with Julia when Mom and Dad were
asleep.” She gave me a snotty eye roll and if we were younger, I
would have punched her in the arm and kicked her out of my
room.

“Touché … you got me. You know what? Oh,
whatever
.
I don’t have time to parent you. Don’t sneak out,
don’t say the H word and I’m sorry you had to clean my puke -- I’m
sure that was brutal. What time is Ava coming back?”

“Not for another hour.”

“Watch Max until she gets home. Please.”

“What? But why? You're awake now!”

“I have to work. It’s Fashion Week and I have already
missed a full day of work. I am supposed to be at the show site
this morning to get things in order.”

“Ava said you need to rest.”

“Ava is sweet. But I need to get my ass to work.”

“OMG she is literally going to kill me for not
keeping you at home.”

“Tell her I will be home early. I’ll make
reservations at The Yacht Club for dinner for the three of us. But
I really need to be at work today.”

“Uhh,” she whined. “Ari, I’ve been picking up glass
since five a.m! Babysitting was the last thing I want to do. I am
so exhausted and Max is so full of crazy energy. I don’t know how
you two do it all the time.”

“What time did you come home?”

“I dunno -- late, like three-ish and I haven’t been
to bed yet.” She yawned.

“Huh.” I talked while I strummed through my list of
missed calls. All of them were from work despite Ava’s attempt to
keep the callers at bay. “Who caught you sneaking back in?”

“Dad.” Lauren toyed with the elastic hair tie around
her wrist. “I don’t think I have ever seen him so angry. He said
I’m grounded for the rest of the summer.”

“I’m sure.”

“No, Ari you don’t get it. He was so mad with me for
sneaking out, that I didn’t know if he was going to hug me or shake
me. I sneak out all the time and he has never been like that
before. Ari, he cried.”

The only time I had ever seen my father cry was the
day his parents died. We all cried that day.

“He worries about you, Lo. You’re his baby.”

“He said it was too dangerous right now for me to
leave the house! What is that even supposed to mean? I was only
three houses down the beach. The only thing scary about last night
was stepping barefoot on a stupid sand crab!”

“Well, our house did get broken into…”

“Oh please, that was just some Ava-obsessed groupie.
No one is focussed on getting
me
.”

“The last time someone was obsessed with Ava, you got
kidnapped. Remember? You were tied to a tree, you got Ava shot …
twice.”

“Duh.” Her face flushed and she picked at some
chipping nail polish.

“Dad went easy on you last night. You wouldn't have
gotten off so lightly if I were your father.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Did you see Julia?”

“Julia? No. Why would I have seen Julia?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

When I stood, my joints popped and cracked with the
movement and my head gave a dizzying spin. Ava left the overnight
bag on a chair with my clean clothes folded up neatly inside it.
She must have gone through everything because when I packed, the
clothes were wadded up and shoved in messily.

“Watch Max for another hour and tell Ava to be ready
for dinner at six thirty.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, but I had already started to
call my assistant and brushed past her to head to work.

“Thank you for calling
baio
! Ari Alexander’s
office, Lirik speaking, how may I…”

“Lirik, it’s Ari.”

“Oh. Hi. Are you feeling ok?”

“I’m fine. I am heading to the Fashion District right
now. Transfer all calls to my cell for the afternoon. I’ll be back
in the office around four, I need to speak with you on an issue, so
set up a meeting between the two of us. It shouldn't take more than
a few minutes. I need you to call the Dana Point Yacht Club and
make reservations for three for this evening at 6:30. Get Detective
Jason Scott with the Los Angeles Police Department on the line.
Tell him something new is happening and I need to speak with him.
If he's available, put him straight through to me. I’ll take his
call in the car.”

“Confidential Information and Materials between Ava
Zae Baio Alexander and Ari Cal Alexander aka The Disclosing Party
and Lirik F. Nino aka The Receiving Party.” Reading the document
aloud, Lirik’s eyes tightened and her light, dust-like freckles
wrinkled. “For the purpose of preventing the unauthorized
disclosure of confidential information as defined below,” she
thumbed through the small stack of papers.

“This is a non-disclosure agreement between my wife
and me and you. This agreement is a requisite of finalizing your
hiring process. You will find that as my assistant, you will end up
spending a fair amount of time dealing with my family, Ava
especially. You will have a window into our private life, including
access to family matters, legal matters, personal relationships and
messages from doctors, publicists, legal representatives and so
forth. As long as you are my assistant, you will have this access
to our personal lives -- our address, our personal numbers, our
childcare information, and, in a very limited way, our finances.
Hell, Fauna knew everything. My wife and I try very hard to remain
private and this agreement will ensure that you do not hinder us.
Really, this agreement protects all of us.”

I removed the cap of my fountain pen, exposing the
pointed, inky tip, and set it down on the document in front of
Lirik.

“I need you to put your signature here and, in doing
so, you will forfeit any ability to release information of any kind
about my wife or my child or myself to anyone without my consent. I
can call someone from legal up here to explain the parameters of
the agreement further if necessary. If you choose not to sign the
NDA, I will be left with no choice but to find someone else to fill
the position of my assistant. This agreement is a must. I insist
upon … it but more importantly, Ava insists.”

“I understand what a Non-Disclosure is, Ari. Legal
won’t be necessary.” She crossed one long leg over the other,
picked my pen up and looped her signature across the paper in a
curly, cursive scrawl on the final page of the document.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“Do you think these kinds of things actually
work?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you really think a simple signature on the bottom
of this page will protect you from anything?”

No. The answer to her question was no. A
non-disclosure is nothing more than a scare tactic. Lirik’s
signature wouldn’t protect Ava or Max. She could still take our
information, trot off and tell the world whatever she wanted about
us, take whatever she wanted from us, she could access accounts,
review personal records and try to use them against us. We could
retaliate but for what? Retaliation would only drag our own names
through the court system in a pathetic pursuit to get money that
Lirik likely didn’t even have and we didn’t even need.

“This document just outlines our trust in one another
on paper. It is not meant to insult you.”

“I’m not insulted at all, Ari. You can trust me. I am
on your side.”

“My last assistant signed the same agreement. It’s
nothing personal.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll send this to legal, they'll make you a copy and
we’ll be good.” I nodded, expecting her to excuse herself and I
redirected my attention to the contract awaiting my approval on my
desk.

“Did your last assistant ever have any issues with
the agreement?”

“Why do you ask?” I blinked back up at her.

“I was only wondering.”

“Fauna and I never had any problems, no. But speaking
of issues, as you know, we had a break-in at our home in Dana
Point. I don’t anticipate any more problems, but I would like you
to call the security desk and have one of them escort you to your
car if you find yourself working late.”

“I will. Do you have any idea of who did it?”

“No, we don’t know.”

“What are the police saying? Anything interesting?
That is, if you don’t mind my asking…”

“At this point, they don’t know any more than I do.
Has Detective Scott been in touch?”

“I’m sorry, no. I spoke with an officer at L.A.P.D.
and he said Detective Scott retired this past winter. He wouldn’t
give me any personal contact information but took a message and
said he would try to pass it along to him.”

“Great. This is just great.”

“How frightening. Your wife must be scared.”

“She’s upset, but Ava doesn’t scare easily. Frankly,
whoever it was that broke in, they are quite lucky that Ava wasn’t
home.”

“Oh really? Does she put up a good fight?”

“You have no idea the lengths my girl will go to to
win.”

“Good. That’s very good.”

Lirik’s finger traced the fabric of her shirt above
where I knew her tattoo would be.

“Mmm. Margaux mentioned that you two have worked
together before. How do you know her?”

“Margaux is a friend of mine. We met a few years ago
and we have worked together on some smaller projects.”

“Projects? What kind of projects?”

“Just things.” Her long, thin fingers continued to
circle the silky fabric on her arm.

“You’ve worked on projects with Margaux in the past
and yet you are still friends. That’s quite an accomplishment.
Kudos.”

“Margaux and I both share the same passion. Aren’t
you fond of her? She is your grandmother-in-law after all.”

“I like Margaux. We don’t always see eye to eye but
she and I also share the same love -- Ava.”

“Ava.” Lirik smiled at the mention of my wife and
twirled the sonogram frame around on my desktop to face her. She
looked down at the grainy black and white image of our unborn
child. “And Ava is having a baby. When’s the baby’s due?”

“October the seventeenth.”

“Congratulations. Eleven weeks to go then? You two
must be anxious.”

“Not anxious. Eager. And yes, eleven weeks is about
right -- give or take a day.”

“Eleven weeks.” She said as if she were making some
kind of mental note. “Has her doctor mentioned if the baby may come
any earlier?”

“Uh no.” My eye tightened at her questions. “Not that
Ava has told me about anyway.”

“You don’t go to the appointments with her?”

“I go whenever I am able.”

Lirik kept rubbing that space, the small inner space
just below the curve of her elbow. It drove me crazy.

“How long have you had that tattoo?”

“Oh this? A while.” Her hand froze.

“Well, does it still hurt?”

“No.” She took her hands and tucked her fingers under
her legs. “I made your reservation. You are set for six thirty at
the Yacht Club. If you don’t leave now, you’ll hit traffic and you
won’t make it in time. I will make the copy of the NDA and send the
original over to legal for you. As I said, you can trust me.” Lirik
straightened the pages, stood and excused herself from my
office.

“Baby? I’m home!”

Max giggled loudly from the back deck and then
followed the laugh up with a pitchy squeal.

“Hey! We’re out here,” she called to me through the
screen.

“Are you two ready to go?”

“Almost!”

“I’ll grab a quick shower and change and then we need
to get going if we're going to make our reservation.”

“K!” she yelled and Max darted across the sun porch
and down the deck steps with another happy laugh.

The walls in the house were bare and cold and I no
longer left my shoes on the mat by the door. Slivers of glass were
still cropping up here and there – shocking reminders of what had
happened. The vast, open space felt lonely without Ava’s happy,
glossy smile matted, framed and hanging every few feet. Our house
looked as if new owners were still in the process of settling in
and making memories of their own. Our bedroom had seen the worst of
the mess. No more pictures of the two of us together knotted close
and in love. Just the bed and its attendant chair and night tables
remained. A piece of glass, long and sharp, glinted in the evening
sunlight and I plucked it from the area rug and tossed it in the
garbage can with a clatter.

The hot shower did little to relax me.
Max and Ava’s voices carried up from the living room. They
chirped in excitement and I could hear words like “soft,” “furry,”
and “
so
cute.”

“Oh crap, an animal.” I slammed off the hot water
faucet.

“Please, Mama? Puhlleeese?”

Oh, shit
,
an animal. And Max is begging to keep it.

“I dunno, Max. It’s up to Ari.”

“No, no, no, no,
no
!” I yelled
frantically, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist as I
raced down the steps to put a stop to the bringing in of any stray
pet.

“Ah! You let it in the
house!
Never
let
them in the house!” I skidded to a halt in front of Ava who had a
tiny, black, fur ball of a kitten on a blanket in a laundry basket
set in the living room. Max giggled and petted it over and over
again. The mewing continued unabated.

“Ari?” She flashed me a hopeful smile.

“No guys. No, Max. No, Ava. No cats, no dogs. No.” My
nose itched and tingled at the mere sight of the kitten.

“Daddy!” Max’s eyes immediately filled with great big
wet tears.

“Ari!” Ava scolded me. “You don’t need to be a
jerk!”

I softened, but only a little. “Max, Buddy, I’m
sorry. We can’t keep him. Cats make Daddy sick -- like
crazy-wanna-rip-my-eyeballs-out sick. Where did it come from? Take
it back.”