Separating Riches
Authors: Mairsile Leabhair
Separating Riches
By Mairsile
Separating Riches
© 2015 by Mairsile. All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form, without written permission from the author.
Editor: Tracy Seybold
Cover Design: Mairsile
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all of us who never thought marriage equality would happen in our lifetime. Thanks be to God we were wrong.
This book is also dedicated to my best friend in high school, who still cheers me on today. Thanks Bonnie!
A big thank you to Joyce and Fox for always sticking by me.
And always, may the glory go to God.
Mairsile
Chapter One
That’s A Wrap —Chris Livingston
and
Melinda Blackstone
“Public Service Announcement, Christine Livingston, take one,” the girl holding a clapperboard stated dryly, and then disappeared behind the camera.
Standing on an empty stage, with a blue screen behind me and bright lights in front of me, I felt very uncomfortable. I thought it was going to be easy to talk in front of a camera, but I could barely remember my name.
Christine Livingston. Chris. My name is Christine and I was a stinking drunk…
I nervously played with my 5.3-carat oval-shaped diamond engagement ring, loving the way it sparkled under all those lights.
“Action!” the director bellowed, startling me.
“What? Uh, oh, um, hello, my name is Christine Livingston and, uh‒‒”
“Cut!”
I heard my lover, Melinda, laughing from somewhere in the back, behind the lights.
“Try it again, please. Ready, and… action!” the director yelled.
“Hello, my name is Christine Livingston, and I’m here to tell you… no, that’s not right.”
“Cut!”
The director waved at the script girl, who read from the script, “The line is – and you may think you know why drinking and driving should not mix, but I’m here to tell you there’s a lot more to it than just driving drunk.”
“What is she, reciting a book, jeez,” Melinda scoffed, making me laugh.
“Okay, let’s try it again. This time with more emotion,” the director suggested, as the makeup girl powdered my forehead again.
Emotion?
“Hel…lo.” I drew it out dramatically. “My name is Christine Livingston and you may wonder, oh, I mean think you know—”
“Cut!”
“Look,” Melinda said, stepping in front of the camera where I could see her. “Let her say it in her own words. It’s her PSA, she should say what’s in her heart. Trust me, it will be better than this crap… uh, no offence to the writer.”
“Melinda, honey. I wrote the script, remember?” I asked, smiling with amusement at my fiancée.
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that,” she said sheepishly.
“Ms. Livingston, why don’t you look over the script while Ms. Blackstone says her part?” the director suggested.
“Thanks, that’s a great idea,” I replied happily, waving for Melinda to come take my place in front of the cameras.
Melinda ambled up, patted my butt as I walked by, and then stood on the X taped on the floor. The makeup artist fussed with her hair and makeup, and then held out her hand for the donut Melinda was eating. She took one more big bite, and then reluctantly handed the rest of the donut to the lady.
The director yelled, “Ready?”
Melinda swallowed, rubbed her finger across her teeth, and nodded.
“Action!” the director yelled.
“Hello, my name is Blackie Blackstone, and I’m a rich-bitch lesbian, get over it.”
“Cut!”
Wrap Party — Chris Livingston
Everyone gathered in the family room to watch our Public Service Announcement/commercial on TV. Our butler, Charlotte, handed flutes of champagne to Melinda, Norma, my parents, Meg and Frankie, George, and our other house staff. At my request, she handed me a non-alcoholic glass of champagne, and then finally took a glass of the bubbly for herself. In thirty seconds our commercial would be on. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the liquor commercial before it was really bad programming.
“What idiot put that on there?” Melinda ridiculed.
“Someone who didn’t pay attention to detail, I should imagine,” Norma stated.
“Is the DVR ready to record?” I asked nervously.
“Don’t worry, it’s already recording,” Melinda assured me.
I don’t know why I felt the need to record our commercial. The producer had sent over several copies of it two days ago. I guess it was because this one would be the first live showing on national television. I couldn’t imagine how many millions of people were about to see my face in their living rooms. Had I thought about that beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to go through with it.
I looked over at Melinda and wondered what she was thinking about the whole thing. Melinda, so beautiful with her jet black hair, charcoal eyes, and rock hard physique, was so urbane, yet so blasé when it came to things like standing in front of a camera, as if she had done a thousand such commercials before, when this had been her first one. Her confidence always calmed my soul.
“Shh! Quiet, it’s about to come on,” my mother demanded.
First we heard the sound of brakes screeching as a car careens into a brick wall. Someone screams off camera, and then the screen is filled with dark gray smoke. I walked out of the smoke dressed in blue jeans and a spring blouse, with my long sandy hair blowing in the wind as if I had just stepped from the wrecked car. My green eyes practically sparkled against my rosy cheeks and plump red lips. I was surprised at how good I looked on television, which I knew was all due to a good makeup artist.
“Hello. My name is Christine Livingston, and I survived that car wreck unscathed. They say it was probably because I was drunk.”
I walked up to a wheelchair, picked up the whiskey bottle from the seat, and sat down. I held the bottle on my lap. “
Yes, I was young and stupid, but that’s no excuse. You see, I ran over a man with my car, putting him in the hospital, and in this wheelchair. I met the man that I had hurt and apologized to him. Believe me when I say that it was the most horrendous thing I ever had to go through.”
Meg Bumgartner, my friend and unofficial big sister, grunted. “That was the understatement of the year.”
Frankie Bonner, Meg’s wife, shushed her as Melinda’s part came up.
The camera cut to Melinda, who walked out of the smoke and up to the wheelchair where I sat. She was wearing black leather pants and a dark brown leather jacket, and I thought she looked so sexy. The prop man had to lower the floor behind the wheelchair because Melinda was so tall they couldn’t get both of us on camera at the same time without zooming out completely. She put her hand with her diamond engagement ring on it, on my shoulder.
“Hello. My name is Melinda Blackstone, and as some of you can probably attest to, I drank like an alcoholic. Christine and I are asking you to pay attention to the long-term consequences of your drinking. I’ve hurt a lot of people emotionally...”
Cut to close-up of me.
“And I’ve hurt a man physically, as well as emotionally. When I put this whiskey bottle to my lips, I never dreamed that I would hit someone with my car.”
I didn’t mean to cry on camera, but my eyes teared up anyway. I’m sure the director was pleased about that.
“That will be my albatross to bear for the rest of my life. Don’t let it be yours.”
Cut to close-up of Melinda.
“Don’t be a jerk like I was. Don’t drink and drive.”
Dissolve to both of us together.
“Melinda and I have started a scholarship fund called the Livingston-Blackstone Scholarship, for college students with a drinking problem. If you qualify, your tuition will be paid for each year you remain sober.”
I was so pleased when Melinda insisted that my name go first on the scholarship. It would probably have drawn more attention with her name first, but I was going to be the lead driver on the program, and it was, after all, my idea.
And in our effort to keep it real, Melinda added the next part.
“And be cool. Don’t think you can drink your way into getting this scholarship. We have retained the Bumgartner-Bonner Detective Agency exclusively for this program as a promise to the universities that we are serious about helping their students stay sober.
Frankie clapped when she heard her detective agency mentioned, and Meg goosed her in the ribs.
Cut to a close-up of me again.
“So if you’re serious about getting sober and getting a college education, we’re serious about helping you achieve your goals. Call this number at the bottom of your screen and make that commitment today.”
My mother, ever the party planner, suddenly jumped up and threw confetti everywhere, while blowing on a party horn. Everyone else joined in, and we were all dancing in the living room. My mother was dancing because she was sure that the nightmare I had put her through was over with. My friends and staff were dancing because it was just something you did at a party like this. Melinda and I were dancing because we were just so excited about our future together.
As the merriment tapered off, Melinda wrapped her arms around me and dipped me low, kissing me sweetly when she lifted me back up.
“You did a great job, Chris,” she said, smiling.
“And so did you, Melinda,” I replied sincerely.
Norma Shelby, the eighty-eight-year old Academy Award winning actress, and our permanent beloved houseguest, said in all sincerity, “You girls should think about moving to Hollywood.”
Laughing, I replied, “Oh, Norma, you are too kind, but I think we’ve embarrassed ourselves enough already.”
“This will make a wonderful chapter in both your books,” George said.
George Kirk, Melinda’s biographer, had become our friend, and practically lives with us now, supposedly so he can write biographies on Melinda, Norma and me, even though I still haven’t made up my mind yet. He believes that he’s found a goldmine in us, and since he’s Melinda’s only true friend, I tolerate him.
“Do you think anyone besides us saw it?” my mother asked.
Suddenly almost everyone’s cellphone began to ring at once.
Melinda laughed as she pulled out her phone. “Uh, I think that would be a yes,” she said, and then placed the phone to her ear.
I grabbed my phone off the table and answered it. Soon everyone was talking at once, and the calls kept coming in. My third call was from our scholarship call center in Memphis.
“Really? That’s wonderful!” I said excitedly, and put my hand over the phone. “Hey, listen to this,” I shouted to be heard, and everyone almost in unison told their caller to hold on. “Jackie at the call center said they have already had a couple hundred calls in the first ten minutes!”
“That’s freaking great!” Melinda exclaimed.
“Congratulations, girls,” my mother said proudly. “And don’t forget that we have a meeting this afternoon to discuss your first fundraiser dinner.”
Mom was so excited about helping us host a dinner, but Melinda and I were both actually dreading it. It’s not that we weren’t use to being around the rich and famous, because on some level, we were also rich and famous. Melinda was much more well-known than I was, but because of my mother’s fundraising dinners on behalf of her own charities, the local millionaire’s club in Memphis knew me well.
I have always felt inferior around the silver-haired businessmen, clinking the ice in their bourbon glass with one hand, and smoking a Cuban cigar with the other. I think I felt that way because of the change I saw in my father when he was around them. It was like he became a whole different person. The type of person who had no time left for me.
Wrap Party — Melinda Blackstone
and
Chris Livingston
I answered call after call, congratulating me on getting sober, even as I took sip after sip from my champagne glass. I was beginning to get tipsy. Just as my phone rang again, Chris floated by as if on a cloud and took the empty glass from my hand, replacing it with a diet soda. She winked at me knowingly, and I couldn’t help but smile. It felt so good to have someone watching out for me who actually cared more for me than my money.
One of the calls I received was from my father. I had sent him a copy of the commercial last week, to be sure that he was all right with it. My father, with all his billions, was not the most easy-going man, and I didn’t want him to be blindsided by this. He told me he was proud of the scholarship program Chris and I had started, which in itself, was a novelty to hear, but he had some hesitation at first, about what I said in the commercial. He was concerned with how it would affect the Blackstone name, but then he came around to my way of thinking when I assured him that the Blackstone family had always advocated for education. This was just a fresh approach to a known fact. I had hurt a lot of people with my drinking and it was important to me now to be honest about it. It wasn’t easy. But it was important.
The Blackstone family had survived much worse things through the centuries than my saying I drank too much on television, and still we prospered. That is, after all, what it was all about. Instilled in me at birth was the need to make that almighty silver dollar, so that I could add to the billions we already had. I had yet to do that, and my father was beginning to increase the pressure on me to take over the office in New York.
There was a time when I would have loved to party in New York, but now the thought of moving Chris from our spacious mansion in Memphis to a condo in New York City, frightened me. The appeal of living in Memphis with Chris was the slow pace and easy going nature of its people. I feared that if I moved to New York I would get caught up in the party scene again and resort to my promiscuous ways. That would cost me the love of my life, because Chris would not put up with it, not even for a second. I know it’s because she’s terrified of waking up next to the derelict in that gutter again, and especially of hitting that guy with her car. I can’t imagine what that must have been like, but I certainly don’t want her to go through that again, even if it meant long-term sobriety.