Petty by Design

Chapter 4: The Coast

The Ashford Foundation's board retreat was held every October at a hotel on the coast, a long low building with a glass wall facing the ocean and a restaurant that served only three things. I had never been invited, because I was not on the board and I was not family, not yet.

This year I decided to go anyway.

I did not crash it. I am not that kind of person. I called the hotel and reserved a room for the same weekend, under my own name, and I told David I needed a few days by the water before the wedding planning got out of hand. He thought it was a wonderful idea. He offered to come with me. I told him I needed to be alone, and he said he understood, and I believed him.

I drove up on a Friday afternoon, my car packed with two days of clothes and the folder I had been building for a month. The coast road ran along the cliffs for twenty miles, and the ocean was gray and restless, and I played the radio too loud and did not think about anything except the plan.

The hotel lobby was full when I arrived. I recognized almost everyone. There was Patricia Lang, checking in with her husband. There was Marcus, on his phone, pacing by the window. There was Eleanor, standing by the fireplace with a glass of wine, holding court.

She saw me before I saw her. I know this because when I turned from the front desk, she was already looking at me, and her face did not change, which was worse than if it had.

"Elena," she said, as I walked past. "What a surprise."

"I needed some air," I said. "David sends his love."

"Does he," she said. It was not a question.

I smiled at her and walked to the elevator, and I felt her eyes on my back the entire way.

That night I ate dinner alone in the hotel restaurant and watched the board members through the window of the private dining room. They sat around a long table with a fire in the corner, and I could not hear them, but I could read their faces. Patricia Lang looked worried. Marcus looked bored. Eleanor looked like a woman who had already won.

At nine o'clock the meeting broke and the board members drifted into the bar. I stayed in my chair with a book, and after a while Bethany Cole came and sat down across from me.

She was younger than I had thought, maybe twenty-six, with dark hair pulled back and a face that had not yet learned to hide anything.

"You got my memo," she said.

"I did."

"I shouldn't have done that." She looked at her hands. "I could lose my job."

"Why did you?"

She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Because it's wrong. And because I have a sister, and if someone did that to her I would want someone to tell her before it was too late."

I looked at her for a long time. I have always been able to tell when someone is lying, and Bethany Cole was not lying. She was scared, and she was tired, and she had done something that might cost her everything, and she had done it anyway.

"What happens on Thursday?" I asked.

"The board votes on the revised charter."

"And if it passes?"

"Then the list of founders is locked for ten years. No new names, no amendments, no exceptions. Anyone not on the list when it passes is permanently excluded, and so are their heirs." She paused. "Including any children you have with David."

The room was very quiet. Outside, the ocean moved against the cliffs, and the sound of it came through the glass like something breathing.

I had not thought about children. I had not let myself think about children, because that was a door I did not want to open until I was sure the floor beneath it was solid. But Bethany had opened it, and now I could not close it again.

"Does David know?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I really don't."

I believed her. That was the worst part.

That night I lay awake in my hotel room and listened to the water and thought about the ledger in my head, and about the pages I had filled with the names of people who had wronged me, and about the fact that for the first time in my life I did not want revenge. I wanted to be wrong about this. I wanted to find out that I had misunderstood, that Eleanor was just being careful, that David was on my side.

But I knew, with the cold clarity that has never once lied to me, that I was not wrong.

I got up at dawn and drove home before anyone else was awake.