Twelve Months To Ruin You

Gerald Visits

Gerald Mensah showed up at seven, wine tucked under his arm like he’d spent more time picking the bottle than he’d care to admit. The moment he stepped into the penthouse, he brought that easy warmth of his with him, filling the entrance before he’d even taken off his shoes.

“Anne,” he said, like he was genuinely pleased she existed.

“Gerald.” She stepped back to let him in. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”

“I wanted to.” He handed her the bottle and she looked at it and immediately felt underdressed for a Tuesday. “Something told me you’d appreciate a good red.”

“Something told you right.”

He smiled, and she smiled back. It was easy between them, warm enough that she almost forgot the strange feeling tugging at her. There was something about his voice, though. It brushed against the back of her mind, familiar in a way she couldn’t quite place.

She went to find a corkscrew and told herself it was nothing.

****

Dinner was already on the table by the time Derrick came out of his study, jacket off, slightly less assembled than he usually was by seven in the evening. He saw Gerald and something in his whole face changed, not dramatically, just loosened slightly. Like he’d been holding something at a certain tension all day and just stopped.

“You’re late,” Gerald said.

“I own the company. I’m never late.”

“You’re late to your own dinner table.”

“That’s Anne’s jurisdiction now apparently.”

Anne, from the kitchen doorway, said “I heard that.”

“I meant it respectfully.”

“You really didn’t.”

Gerald laughed and sat down and that was how dinner started, easy and warm and loud enough that Anne forgot for twenty minutes that she was supposed to be watching everything.

****

Gerald was good at dinner. Not in a showy way, not the kind of good that made you feel like you were being entertained. Just genuinely present. He asked about Anne’s firm and listened to the answer properly, not the polite half-listening people did when they were waiting for their turn to talk. He asked a follow up question about the Carlton account, she’d mentioned it once, briefly, three sentences, and she looked at him.

“Derrick told you about Carlton?”

“He mentioned you handled a difficult client recently.” Gerald smiled. “He seemed impressed.”

Anne glanced at Derrick. Derrick was looking at his food.

“Interesting,” she said.

“He doesn’t impress easily,” Gerald added, which made Derrick look up.

“I said it was handled well. That’s not the same thing.”

“You said she demolished him.”

“Professionally.”

“You used the word demolished.”

Derrick pointed at Gerald with his fork. “You were not supposed to repeat that.”

“I’m sixty percent sure I wasn’t supposed to repeat that,” Gerald agreed. “I’m repeating it anyway.”

Anne pressed her lips together. Not smiling. She was absolutely not smiling. “Demolished is a strong word.”

“He cried a little,” Derrick said.

“He did not cry.”

“He had the face.”

“People have faces, Derrick. That doesn’t mean….”

“The face,” Derrick repeated, and Gerald laughed and Anne finally gave up and smiled and the table went warm with it.

****

She noticed it during the main course.

Gerald was talking about something, a property deal from years ago, a story he’d clearly told before but told well, and he said a phrase. Short. Casual. The kind of thing you’d say without thinking.

Anne’s hand slowed on her fork.

She knew that phrase. Not from here. Not from anything recent. From somewhere older that she couldn’t locate.

She kept eating. Kept nodding at the right moments. Gerald finished the story and Derrick said something and the conversation moved on and she stayed with the feeling quietly, turning it over, trying to find the edge of it.

It didn’t come. By the time dessert was done it had faded back to almost nothing and she told herself it was just one of those things. Some people had voices like that. Familiar for no reason.

****

After dinner Gerald and Derrick moved to the living room and Anne started clearing the table.

She wasn’t eavesdropping. The living room door was open and the living room and dining was not a large space apart and she could hear them, that was all.

They talked about the company first, the board, Humphrey, something about a contract that was coming up for renewal. Normal enough. Then Derrick said something quieter and Gerald’s response was different. Softer. The specific way people talk when the conversation has moved from business to something that matters more.

She stood at the sink with the water running and listened without meaning to.

Gerald said something about Owen. She couldn’t hear the full sentence but she heard the name and she heard the tone and she heard Derrick go quiet in a way that was different from his normal quiet. Gerald kept talking. Low and steady. And Derrick said something back, short, two or three words, in a voice she hadn’t heard from him before.

She turned the tap off.

Dried her hands.

Stood in the kitchen and looked at the living room doorway and thought about that voice and what it meant that a man who kept everything that controlled could sound like that when someone said his father’s name.

****

Gerald left at nine thirty. Derrick walked him to the elevator and Anne stayed in the living room, tidying things that didn’t really need tidying.

When Derrick came back she was straightening a cushion that was already straight.

“Good dinner,” she said.

“It was.” He sat down on the couch and picked up his phone. “Gerald likes you.”

“He’s easy to like back.”

Derrick looked up. “You say that like it surprised you.”

“Didn’t it? I came into this with exactly zero prior relationship with any of your people.”

“Gerald isn’t complicated.”

Anne put the cushion down. “How long has he been around? Properly.”

Derrick looked back at his phone. “Since before my father died. He and my dad were close. When everything….” He paused. “He just stayed. Never made a thing of it.”

“That’s devoted.”

“He is.” No hesitation. No qualifier. Just that.

Anne nodded. “You’re lucky to have him.”

“I know.”

She said goodnight and went to her room and sat at the desk and opened her laptop.

She wasn’t sure why she opened a new document. She wasn’t sure why her hands went to the keyboard before she’d decided to type anything.

But she typed two words and then sat back and looked at them.

*Gerald Mensah.*

Just his name. On a blank page.

She didn’t know why she’d done it. She should close it. There was nothing to write. She didn’t have anything to write. She didn’t know anything, she had a feeling, a half-feeling, the ghost of something she couldn’t name, and you didn’t open documents for ghosts.

She didn’t close it.

She sat there with his name on the screen and tried to pull the memory loose, that phrase he’d used at dinner, the one that had slowed her hand on her fork, and it kept almost arriving. She’d get close enough to feel the shape of it and then it would slip. Like trying to remember a dream an hour after waking up.

She’d heard that voice before.

Not on television. Not in passing. Somewhere that had mattered.

She stared at the screen. The cursor blinked next to his name, patient, waiting.

She got close. She got close enough that her hands moved to the keyboard again, close enough to feel the edge of it, close enough to know that when it finally came it was going to change the shape of something….