The sound of high-pitched trilling startled Chas awake. He glanced at his clock. Five-thirty-seven. He’d barely been asleep an hour, what with all the emails he’d composed. Stumbling out of bed, he moved toward the noise. It seemed to be coming from his living room. What the hell was that? It didn’t sound like anything he owned. Maybe it was a car alarm down on the street, the sound somehow thrown so that it seemed closer.
A little dizzy and off balance from so little rest the past few days, he rubbed the base of his palm into his eye.
The living room was dark and he stubbed his toe on the edge of the sofa as he passed a smidge too close to it. That woke him up. He cursed a blue streak, hopping on one foot and rubbing the abused member until the sharp pain subsided enough to stand on it again. The trilling had stopped in the midst of his outburst, but he turned the light on anyway, curious to see what it might have been.
“What the hell?” He blinked. Then blinked again. The image didn’t change. Perched on a lampshade, a yellow cockatoo stared back at him. Chas took a step toward it and it flapped its wings and hissed. “Okay, birdy, don’t have a tizzy.” How in hell had the bird gotten in here anyway? He did a quick scan of his door and windows. They were all shut tight. Crazy. Had it been in here when he got home, maybe hiding somewhere? Maybe one of the maids had left it here? It was a stretch, but they were the only ones with access to his hi-rise. He’d have to talk to management about it later in the day.
The bird started singing. He recognized the tune, but couldn’t understand the words at first. Then it came to him: Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend. A trickle of fear ran up his spine. That was just a little too coincidental and creepy for comfort. A loud pop! sounded followed by a pungently scented purple mist. He stumbled back, shouting, “Ohhh shit!” The hairs on his arms and neck stood straight up. He grabbed the first thing he could find to use for defense, a heavy brass candlestick off one of the end tables, and fled toward the door.
“Ooh. No need for such”—an inhaled breath—“dramatics, Chas daarling,” a familiar, sweet and smoky voice said.
He swung around. Marilyn Monroe?
“Come sit beside me and we’ll…ooh…have a little chat, shall we?” She dipped her lids and puckered her lips at him. Lounging with one knee on his sofa, she was dressed in the same billowy halter dress she’d worn in that movie where the breeze from the subway lifted her skirts so high, it nearly gave fifties moviegoers their first-ever famous celebrity beaver shot.
This is not happening. He scrubbed his eyes and opened them again, but she was still there. Okay, this is a dream. I’m dreaming. Dreaming is good. His heart rate calmed. This, I can handle.
Now that he knew what was going on, he decided to kick back and enjoy the ride. “Hey, Marilyn,” he said, sauntering back to the end table and placing the candlestick there. “What’s up?”
She smiled and patted the sofa cushion next to her.
He shrugged and plopped down. This was actually kind of fun. “Who was better in the sack, anyway, Robbie or Johnny-boy?” Hey, it was his dream, might as well see what his subconscious came up with. He twisted around and grabbed a pillow for his back.
“Listen close-ly, my fine gen-tle-man, I’ve got some-thing impor-tant to tell you.”
The voice had changed, become angry and sinister. He swiveled his head to look. Okay, the dream was turning weird. Now the Wicked Witch of the West sat next to him. Green face, long crooked nose, ugly yellow teeth. He scooted over several inches.
“I’m giv-ing you a choice and what-ever choice you make will de-cide your des-tiny.”
That sounded ominous. This is just a dream, remember. “Yeah, okay.”
Before his eyes, the witch morphed into a beautiful woman, a stranger to him, and one that was dressed in a clothing style reminiscent of Shakespeare plays and fairy tales. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.
His heart pounded, his palms began to sweat. Yes, he was afraid he did. “Delilah’s fairy?” His voice came out higher pitched than normal.
“Ahh, right on the—” she tapped his nose with her long-nailed finger. “Now, here is your choice. You can have Delilah or her fortune, but not both. You will have until midnight tomorrow—the night of your gala—to make your choice. I must warn you, however, that once the choice is made, there is no turning back from it.”
“So the money really is charmed? It’s going to disappear if I use it, like Delilah said?”
“Not necessarily, it depends on the choice you make.”
All he could do was gape at her and shake his head. “This is not happening.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Yes, dear, yes it is.” She leaned toward him and whispered. “And since you amuse me, I’ll give you a little hint: If you make the right choice, I’ll see you again in twenty or so years.” She patted him on the knee and with a couple of snaps of her fingers, disappeared in another puff of purple mist.
Chas sat on the couch for a full ten minutes, too numb to move. When he thought his legs could hold him, he got up and walked back to his bedroom. The time on the clock registered the same time as it had before. Surely he’d been dreaming. And to prove it, he was going back to bed right now and let the alarm clock wake him in two more hours.
It was in that twilight between wake and sleep that he heard the fairy whisper: “Make the right choice and you’ll reap more than you ever dreamed possible. Make the wrong one, and you’ll live with the regret of it unto your dying day.”
* * *
“Keeping the vultures at bay?” Chas’s father said a few hours later as he walked into Chas’s office and headed straight for the sofa, reclining on it as if he were about to have a free association session with Sigmund Freud.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about that very thing. There’s a chance I may lose the company, Dad.”
He sat up and leaned toward Chas with his arms on his knees. “What? You? I don’t believe it. That’s why I asked you to come back last year. If anyone can save it, you can. What about the loan from Delilah?”
Chas would have loved to spill his guts about the fairy, the choice, the charmed money, but he knew he’d get the same reaction from his father that Chas himself had given Delilah the night before. He wanted to save the company—he did. But the thought of losing Delilah caused such an ache inside him, he couldn’t breathe. “It may not come through.”
His father dropped his head. “It’s all my fault. I made investments that I should have known were too risky—and would have, if my mind had been on business and not on your mother’s health.” Looking directly at Chas again, he said, “I can’t lose this company, son. Not after losing your mother, too. It’d be too much. Do whatever you have to do, but get it on its feet again.”
Well, that was that. Chas flipped his pen from end to end on his desk several times. “Dad, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“If you had been given a choice between this company and Mom, which would you have chosen?”
“No brainer. Your mother, of course.”
“Why?”
His father chuckled, clearly thinking Chas was razzing him.
“I’m serious.”
His father’s face sobered. “She was the love of my life. She made every part of it richer, more fulfilling. Even though I love this company with every fiber of my being, it can’t keep me warm at night. It doesn’t worry when I’m late coming home, it doesn’t nurse me when I’m sick or tired to the bone, or both. Your mother did all those things and more.” He pointed a finger at him. “I think your little Delilah’s going to be the same for you. You finally backed a winner in her, son.”
Chas smiled, but didn’t meet his father’s eyes. “Yeah, I did. I’m lucky.”
“So you do love her then? It wasn’t just the money that got you interested? I did wonder.”
He met his father’s gaze. “Yes, I love her.”
“I can’t say I’m not relieved.”
“Mmm.” A sharp poignancy of love found and lost clutched at his heart. Well, if he was going to say goodbye to her, he’d at least leave her with a token of his esteem. “Dad, I think it’s time for you to hand over Mom’s ring. Will you bring it to the gala with you tomorrow night?”
His Dad hooted. “Finally. Now I know you’re serious. Yes, I’ll bring it.”
The ring was a family heirloom on his mother’s side. A five-carat cushion shaped yellow diamond, brought from Africa by his great-great-grandfather for his bride-to-be. The gem was surrounded by colorless diamonds and set in gold that had been mined directly from one of the man’s own quarries. It had been handed down from first son to first son until his mother, whose own mother had had only daughters, preserved the tradition through the female line. But now it was Chas’s turn and he only hoped that his mother would understand. She’d sternly told him when she’d given it to him that day after her last round of radiation that he was not, under any circumstances, to give it to one of his “fiancées of convenience,” that he was only to give it to someone he truly could not imagine a life without. He thought she might understand, knowing the circumstances and the depth of feeling he held for Delilah. He prayed she would understand.
* * *
The wire would be sent to Zurich on Monday. Delilah offered to transfer the funds today, but he put her off, telling her that Monday was soon enough. He couldn’t force himself to finalize his choice. Not yet. Not when there was still a little time to maybe—just maybe—sell his thoroughbred, if fortune shined on him.
The two-year-old filly was the last piece of property he owned that could be liquidated for enough funds without sending out a town crier blasting the fact that their business was in trouble. That’s why he hadn’t put their family home or his hi-rise on the chopping block. It would have raised too many eyebrows and subtlety was vital.
Unfortunately, the prospective buyer for his thoroughbred had been dragging her feet for months and Chas wasn’t about to sell Blue Lightnin’ for a song, nor would he sell her to just anyone, no matter what the outcome. The filly meant too much to him. She’d been a gift from his mother just before her diagnosis, when his world still looked rosy and his future still looked bright.
The filly had never raced but was descended from two Kentucky Derby winners, and she could run an eighth of a mile in under ten seconds. She was worth every penny he was asking for her. If only the interested party would come through for him, Chas could save his company and keep Delilah in the bargain. For Delilah, he’d sell ten such thoroughbreds.
* * *