Chapter 15: Betrayal

Bruce was right. I was only nineteen. I wasn’t forty-two or forty-three or whatever. Even the memories I had of future history were more like déjà vu than foreknowledge. I knew there were big things coming up in the next few years. But what I considered big was what had been important to me in the last life and didn’t include things like who won the Kentucky Derby or the World Series. If I was going to get rich, it was going to be by being savvy in the real estate market, not by betting on the Super Bowl. I knew the technology stock bubble would burst right after the turn of the century. Terrorists would fly planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The real estate market would take a dive in 2008 because lenders had been giving money to underqualified buyers and their mortgages were suddenly more than the value of their homes. When I was done exploiting the condo market, I could make a bundle flipping houses as long as I had everything in guaranteed funds by 2008. But even with market foreknowledge, that was a risky business.

Who was important in the stock market? I was lucky to remember who was elected president. Each morning when I read the newspaper I was filled with a sense of remembering a little detail or something that came next in a sequence of events. But never far enough in the future to make a difference to me or anyone I knew. I’d made my mistakes in my former life. I guessed I’d just make different ones in this life.

The four of us moved into a nice apartment in the old hotel across Franklin from my fourplexes. Loring had just started renovations on it when my building was complete and they weren’t all done yet. It was a grand old residence hotel and I put a bid on acquiring the first condo conversion in it. Jim wasn’t sure he wanted to sell out that building, but I convinced him by pointing out that this would be a hot seller because of the new work. When I set my original projections of 500 units, that was only a quarter of the total Loring inventory, but those were the buildings that were recently enough updated that we could sell with minor work. The other units were showing enough wear and tear that they’d need more updating before they could be sold.

The upshot was that I got a prime three-bedroom, two-bath condo for about half what it would sell for in two years when the building was finished.

Lily, Bruce, Emily, and I moved into the unit the first of July, but I owned it on a contract for deed. They paid me rent, and I kept it fair for them. We tallied up the expenses for the condo including utilities and split it all four ways. I suddenly realized that I was the major breadwinner. But since it would be Emily’s and my home no matter what happened to the other two, I was content to bear half the expenses.

Money was tight in the industry at the moment. Interest rates for single family detached housing were at ten percent and holding. Condos were two percent higher. But Jim was pretty savvy when it came to financing property and when I suggested that he start carrying the paper, he was pretty pleased. You couldn’t earn a 12% return on many investments and as long as I could keep him from getting greedy and over-qualifying people, he’d make out fine on five year contracts with a balloon.

So far, he was being pretty conservative and I liked that.

By the end of August, I had two sales people and a receptionist. Bruce had landed a nice job teaching theatrical design at a private college on the north side of St. Paul. He had a bit of a commute, but he said he didn’t mind it and his old Fiat was still in good shape. The toughest part, of course, was his schedule with productions, rehearsals, and having to build the sets. He had a lot of late nights and slept late in the morning.

Lily had her job at the University and worked eight to five. I worked like a maniac on Friday through Monday, putting in long hours. Then I went to classes on Tuesday through Thursday.

Opportunities for the three of us to be together doing something loving were infrequent.

I guess that’s what started the trouble in paradise.

I wasn’t feeling all that great, but I had a showing and went in to work on Saturday as usual. Lily would be home and taking care of Emily. I knew that Bruce had Saturday shop hours when students were supposed to put in their time, just like I’d had to for the opera. They were preparing a show called Lilies of the Field, which I thought was pretty humorous considering we had our own Lily. They’d made a movie of it years ago, but the only thing I remembered of it was Sidney Poitier leading a bunch of nuns in singing ‘Amen.’

I got through my showing and told the other two salespeople that I was going home.

The sounds coming from the bedroom were not those of a happy baby. Oh, they were happy sounds, all right. Just not baby sounds. I stood in the bedroom doorway unable to believe what I saw. Lily and Bruce were fucking.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I screamed. Emily answered my scream with a startled baby squall coming straight from her sleep.

“You’re home early, baby,” Lily said. “Come join us.”

“Yeah! I guess you weren’t expecting that, were you! How long has this been going on?” I was beyond rationality. My boyfriend and my best friend were fucking. How could I have been so stupid.

“From the morning after my graduation,” Bruce said. “You were there.”

“I’m taking my baby and going for a walk. Get out of my house! Both of you!” I grabbed Emily out of the crib and her baby bag from beside the door. We ran out of the condo as fast as I could go. How could they do this to me? Fucking behind my back! I was furious.

I walked with Emily in my arms for half an hour, going no place special. I thought about stopping at di Napoli restaurant but I didn’t want people to see the tears streaming down my face. I felt so betrayed. I made one more trip through the park and around the Art Institute then went back to the condo. Emily had been fussing the entire time we were out and I needed to check her diaper and feed her. There was nothing left to be done but go back to my empty home.

Only it wasn’t empty.

Lily was in the kitchen and the smell of onions sautéing filled the air. I stormed toward her and she met me halfway across the dining room. I didn’t get a word out. She kissed me. I loved that so much! And I hated it! I pushed her away.

“I told you to get out. I don’t want you here.”

“You can’t just throw us out. We live here. Bruce just went out to get some wine for us for dinner.”