The Italian Heir-CASTELLANO SERIES: MARTIN’S STORY

2

It was a gloomy Wednesday morning. The grey clouds greatly obscured the 7am sunrays and a low deep rumble groaned lazily beyond the skies and that probably annoyed most New Yorkers that travelled by foot to work.

I’m beginning to think this sort of weather always comes on whenever I let Erika drive—it’s as if God himself knew that yet again, a crazy woman driver was on the loose and was more likely less than pleased.

“Erika watch the—'' I didn’t get to finish my sentence and the woman seated on my left had yet again chosen to accelerate rather than slow down at the speed bump. “If I get to meet my creator sooner than expected, it’s all your doing.” I said flatly, trying not to wince at the clunking sound that came from the bottom of the engine against the tar road.

She swore hotly. “I swear they must’ve just added it overnight.” She added testily, not noticing my change of expression.

“Crawford, that bump has always been there and you ran over it at least three times now.” I countered. She muttered under her breath and I heard words like ‘grumpy old fart’ and ‘exaggeration’.

When she said nothing, I continued. “What is this group assignment that’s important that got you flying back to New York immediately?” I asked, ignoring her mutters.

“Oh, that,” she said glumly. “Well, if you must know, our new team leader—Rhea, did not give us much of a choice. She requires all of our physical presence— it makes the information exchange much clearer, she says.”

I snorted. If there was one person Erika Crawford feared, it was her best friend Rhea Buchanan. The two have been inseparable since middle school when they first met—like two peas in a pod, but their characters were opposites. Erika has a nick for procrastinating whereas Rhea gets any job done rather quickly when given, hence Erika was probably half annoyed when she was told to cut her trip short because her best friend needed her to be present for a group assignment but maybe half relieved after she’s freed of her cousin’s attempts of match making.

“I mean…”Erika trailed. “I love Rhea to death and everything, I swear I do! But sometimes the way she insists on getting work done just drives me insane. Mind you, there’s exactly 12 weeks before this project is due but she wants us to get it done quickly, saying we might get extra marks and that gets us way ahead of everyone else.”

“She’s the Student Body President, Crawford. It’s quite expected of her to get on top of things. You’ve got to bear in mind that she’s more thorough in planning and executing than any one of you in your team, I assume, when you’re one of them.” I added in a low chuckle to which she clicked her tongue against her teeth in disapproval.

“Or maybe it’s to show foreign exchange students how things are done at Cornell,” she added in an undertone.

“Yet another?” I asked, surprised. Professor Rockwell, the Business Professor, hardly accepts exchange students in her class, especially when she’s locked the amount of students she took a semester—interrupts her lectures having a newbie, afraid that they won’t be able to catch up (the elderly woman would say).

“Right? Well, Lucien’s an exceptionally bright student—Professor Rockwell just couldn’t turn the Dean down when he asked her. Also, he happens to be in all of my classes, literally. He’s French. Did I mention that? So sometimes zis eenglish iz quite hard to understand.” She waved her hand, imitating the foreign student, grinning to herself. “But all is forgiven because he is sort of, well, he’s nice.” She scrunched her brows, as if it were cumbersome finding a word to describe the French kid.

“Nice? You think all the boys you meet are nice, Erika.”

“Because I try to see the good in them, unlike you, jumping straight to a conclusion by merely taking a glance at those poor defenseless boys from head to toe and deeming them dull and uninteresting.”

“Poor and defensive—what? Seems to me that ‘goodness’ is the only thing you see in them.”

“You ask Josh how well he drives!” she shot at me.

“Who is Josh?”

“The guy who asked me out two weeks ago!”

“I only asked him that because I knew if you had two horrible drivers in the same car, who knows what could happen next?” I said briskly. “And you two were heading to a party together, god knows what you teenagers do there.”

“Because you never stay too long at a party to find out!” she said loudly, but then broke off because she knew she always drove terribly anyway.

“I was only looking out for you Erika.” my voice dropped and she sighed. “Yeah okay, I get that.” Her shoulders sagged from being tensed up earlier. “Is this why you’ve been making me drive myself to class every morning in your car?”

“Yes.”

“Oh okay, I thought you were enjoying being a tyrant ordering me to drive you around.”

“Impertinent.” I breathed out and she smiled once more. “We’re here.” She announced. I hadn’t realized, in all the heat of our little squabble, we were long parked somewhere in the South Wing of Cornell. “Have a great day at work martini.” she grabbed her bag from the back seat and started for the door. Erika was the only one who gave me a million dumb pet names.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked.

“Oh yea.” Her fist met my clenched one and we exchanged a little fist bump—something we had always practiced since we were kids. “Stop fooling around your assignment and say hi to Rhea for me.”

“Fooling around?” she asked airily before glaring at me. “Watch me.”

The car door slammed and I watched her wave one last time before walking in with the other students on campus. A few greeted her along the way and a few cast glances towards my car. I took it as a cue to leave.

“Good morning Mr. Castellano.” John greeted me with a little nod with the usual slim silver tablet in hand, pulling the glass door to the Finance department open and I was greeted by a chorus of ‘good mornings’ across the floor.

Phones were ringing as early as 8am in the morning, fingers typing against keyboards followed by more mouse clicks with the simultaneous roars of the paper shredder machines.

The layout was as such: a common large area where all cubicles housed the clerks, accountants and executives. The managers had rooms of their own. On the right, there were discussion pods that were sound-proof, as well as a private lounge area for brainstorming or a quick recharge, a fully-stocked pantry and meetings rooms past the discussion pods. The Financial Advisor’s office was at the very end, sealed from the mayhem by heavy mahogany doors and the secretary’s desk, which ran in a semi-circle which sat outside those doors.

“Morning John, what do you have for me?” I asked, dropping my suitcase on the large polished oak wood desk where a mountain of documents was waiting for my attention.

I flicked through those documents while John briefed me on my schedule this morning and I had him reschedule a meeting and cancel another. “Have Jackson put on hold his marketing budgetary plans after my discussion with the Director and Chairman, and tell Ben to revise his presentation, lesser words on a single slide guarantees one less listener falling asleep…”

John turned himself around at the door and the look of his face showed as if he had just remembered something important, “Sir, this morning, you had a…”

But whatever he had wanted to relay was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone at my desk. “I’ll come back later.” John nodded respectfully, but before I could protest, he was already out of the door.

“Martin Castellano speaking.”

All morning, I was going through document after document, then attended short discussions over video calls with some of our international clients, followed by more continual revision of budget planning until I felt the ink of my pen ran dry.

I stacked up the folders I'd yet to go through in a neat pile, intending to put them aside for now, but my eyes caught the sight of a yellow post-it note that stuck on the bare surface of my desk. Words, written in cursive that I recognized by heart who they belonged to. Dropping the files on the other side of my desk, my eyes skimmed the contents of the yellow paper.

‘Dropped by your office and was rather surprised to not find you here,. I thought you were quite a workaholic. Call me.’- Z. B

Feeling my insides churn uncomfortably, I peeled away the small piece of note harshly and held it in my hand, ready to ball it up and fling it into the trash can, but for some reason, I read it once more and folded the note into two, suddenly feeling angry at John who had let her in here yet, I knew Zoe Blunt all too well, she would’ve talked her way in without needing much persuasion.

I would know, we were dating for two whole years.

As if on cue, the vibration from my phone broke the fragmented memories of my ex- girlfriend from seeping back into my memory, breaking me out of my trance. If Zoe Blunt had meant nothing to me, I wouldn’t have even glanced at that note twice, but unfortunately, at some point then, she did.

“Seriously, fratello, are you still mad at me for going on a bike without a helmet? Lucy and I were meant to wear it but we didn’t want to mess up our hair either.” Victoria Castellano broke into my office and, with an exasperated look plastered on her face with John, tailing behind her, telling her she should wait outside until I was available.

“It’s alright John.” I waved a hand at him and he disappeared behind closed doors. “I was working Vi, have a seat.” I said calmly, gesturing my sister towards the couch at the small lounge area of my office as I pulled a piece of blank paper, scratching the ball of the pen carelessly on it to test the ink once more before I placed a signature on a document.

“No can do fratello, I’m here so we can have lunch together.” The 18-year-old shook her head stubbornly and rounded my desk, picking up a photo frame of the 5 of us when we were much younger playing football in our backyard, just before the twins sent the ball flying in Alex’s well…manhood.

“Lunch? Isn’t it a bit too early for that?” I glanced at my watch, trying to hide the surprise that it was indeed 10 past noon. She looked up from the photo and raised her brows, looking every bit smug. “Now that you’ve realized the time, shall we go then? I’m starving.”

“Alright, shall we have some pizza then?”

“Pizza sounds great!” Victoria chirped. In all my years of having lived with women, we–the boys in the Castellano household, had learned the hard way of never asking a woman what or where she wanted to eat, because she could go on just thinking about it to the moon and back and make you choose for them instead.

I opened the doors to my office and stepped out after she did. The office floor was now relatively empty since half of the corporate workers had gone for lunch. “It’s nice to have my little sister stop by at such odd hours of the day despite having a supposed full day of classes.” I said, yanking the car door open for my sister. She thanked me and got in.

“Well, I didn’t know where else to go.” She said, strapping herself in once I got in myself. “And I was feeling rather generous with my time and I wanted to see my big brother.” I also noticed she had avoided any eye contact.

After what seemed like a long silence, I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t saying anything but only gazing out of the window, watching the cars drive past us and pedestrians standing to the side waiting for the traffic lights to turn red once more.

“Vi…why are you really here?” I asked quietly and she heaved a silent breath, turning her head around and leaning against the headrest. “Well…”she hesitated before shaking her head once more, as if chickening out on what she had come here to say. “It’s nothing really.”

“The look on your face says otherwise, but if you don’t want to talk about it, then I won’t press you about it any further.” I said languidly, taking a right turn after the traffic light turned green. She sucked in a deep breath and confided in me about what had been bothering her in the last few days.

“I don’t know who I could turn to and honestly, it’s a bit embarrassing letting my older brother in on my love life. I confide in Lucy in everything, but maybe just this once. I just don’t see how she’s right about this! She’s being a little too uptight if I might add, I know she’s my sister but—“Victoria left her words hanging in the air for a bit and I was reminded of Erika ranting about Rhea this morning about her best friend’s ‘no procrastination’ policy. “She should help me out, right?”

“Let me get this straight, you’re in love with a boy that you have only known for a month? And you got into an argument with Lucy because she advised you against it?” I repeated, Victoria’s cheeks turned pink at my drawn conclusion. “Now that I hear you say it…it really makes me look like the bad person for that argument with her.”

“Okay.” I nodded, carefully formulating the choice of words in my head before articulating them, as this was the first time Victoria had ever let me in on her personal life. “What do you see in this guy that you don't see in other boys?”

This time, she didn’t even need to think hard, it was as if she knew all of this boy’s qualities by heart that she was able to recite it immediately when questioned. “I admire his intelligence, the way he speaks and carries himself, he’s opinionated but doesn’t speak unless it’s required, he listens, like really listens although now as I’m telling you this, I do feel sort of bad knowing that I’ve probably went on and on for hours just talking; you can always find him perusing through books in the library—“

And sounds like a real big nerd.

But, of course, I held my tongue.

“And why do you think Lucy advised you against it?”

“Because she thinks I’m just overthinking it! I just think she’s jealous that I’ve got someone like that and she’s probably bored of hearing me repeat the same scenario about a couple of boys over and over again. And maybe I might just not be the only girl who gets this ‘special treatment.’”

“Vi, Lucy always had your best interests at heart because you’re her sister. She rather uses harsh words and spares you the possibility of getting hurt. Over thinking and obsessively imagining something and insisting the relationship turn out the way you wanted instead of letting nature take its course can be emotionally damaging to you, especially when it’s one-sided. I want to say you’ll get hurt in the process if you don’t get what you wished for, but then I also want to say if you—god forbid—were to experience such hurt, you’ll be more conscious of your feelings the next time.”

The car came to a gradual halt and we arrived at Alan’s Pizza Parlor, parked at the side of the street along with the other cars.

“But there’s no harm in finding out his real intentions towards you—that is, like you said, if you’ve taken an interest in this guy.”

“And how do you suppose I do that? Should I ask him how he feels about me?” she sat up straighter, looking very eager now, as if I were to let her in on a big secret.

“No.” her face fell but I did not turn to look at her but instead, watched an elderly lady dressed in dark blue overalls with her fraying grey hair tied into a loose knot walking down the street with a basket full of lilies in her right arm, smiling at strangers who passed her. “The simplest and oldest way of such is just to befriend him like what you’re doing right now. If he reciprocates the feelings, I’m sure his intelligence—like you claim he has great amounts of, will let you know in his own time and way. Don’t go chasing the guy, Vi, let the man do the honors instead.”

Victoria leaned back in her seat once again, digesting what I'd just said to her, neither agreeing or disagreeing. I, for one, slightly wished I hadn't sounded too harsh with my words, but my sister once again turned to me with a small smile etched on her lips, “I think this trip I’ve made to you did not disappoint, thank you fratello.”

**

It was 10 past 6 late in the evening when Steve and I were in the middle of a game of basketball in the backyard, flanked by my brothers—Alex and Elijah and Scott, who was Alex’s best friend. Victoria was keeping score and was busy chewing on some nuggets whilst ignoring Lucy who was on her laptop busily typing away at the poolside table.

There was a loud honk and Rhea’s Jeep came into view, flashing her headlights at us, causing her boyfriend Steve to miss his shot at the hoops. “Babe! I almost had that!” he cried. Erika poked her head out of the passenger’s seat window, “Make way for the queen’s arrival.” She said, her voice held an air of haughtiness.

“And you’re the peasant announcing her arrival?” Alex blurted, earning a quick, light smack on the back of his head from me. “Ow, what now?” my brother protested.

“Impertinent.” Erika cried, pointing at him. Rhea made a little point at me with her chin after saying something to Erika in a quick inaudible discussion. She seemed to be groaning now and the younger boys turned away from the car and continued to shoot hoops.

“I bet you 10 dollars my girlfriend is bugging Erika about their assignment.”

“There’s no need to bet.” I said, rolling up my shirt sleeves once more, “I’m sure it's definitely it. Cue her complaining in 3, 2…”

“Martin, just the man I want to see.” Erika said rather excitedly. “When she calls you by your name, you know she’s got but a request to make.” Steve said under his breath as he moved over to where his girlfriend was waiting after kissing Erika on her cheek.

“Whatever it is, it’s a definite no from me.” I said, bouncing the ball in one hand and Erika threw her bag on the ground and skipped her way towards me. I let the ball dribble away from me as I walked over to my briefcase, picked up the lily I had bought earlier and gave it to her.

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say, and thank you.” She gave the lily a quick sniff and shook the stalk gently, admiring the white petals. Ever since she’s complained about her dates not getting her any, I decided I might as well get her flowers instead.

“Do I really need to though? Now that you’ve used my real name instead of ‘smartin’ pants or martini, I know you’re about to ask something despicable.”

“Huh.” Erika thought for a bit, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “I might need to change my approach soon. Fine.” She said, looking steadfast. “If I get to shoot this ball into that hoop, you promise you’ll hear me out on what I have to ask…say.” She corrected herself quickly.

I agreed because I knew Erika all too well that she was terrible at basketball, but she bounced the ball, feebly attempted to dribble it and then…

“She scored?” Steve looked up from his hushed conversation with Rhea, Alex and Scott looked surprised. “Lucky shot sis.” Luke gave her two thumbs up.

“Now,” She said, turning to me with a rather smug look on her face. “Can we move over to somewhere quieter?”

We moved over to the poolside where it was much quieter, except for the quiet sloshing of pool water against the tiles after an abrupt breeze swept past the backyard and Lucy looked up, waved and buried her face in her laptop once more. “What is it now, Crawford? I am not playing chaperone on your next date pretending to be your young uncle.”

“Oh that was just once alright!”

“Or your second cousin, twice removed for that matter.”

“I can assure you it’s none of the above. This concerns my assignment I was dragged so mercilessly back to New York for.”

“Glad to hear you’re taking initiative in starting it so early.” I said blithely, taking a seat on the couch. Erika took a seat not too far away from me, removing the pillow on the seat before plonking down on the beige cushion.

“If you remembered correctly, I wasn’t given a choice.” She said, looking less than amused. “Anyway, we were assigned to work with young businessmen of large corporations—to get a deeper look into their work life, skills and knowledge, their business ethics and principles; in short, it’s a get-to-know-you 4-week program and learn what you have and can teach us Business majors.”

Seems to me that she had it all sorted out as to who she had picked.

“And?”

“And I decided that my first and only option was to work with the youngest Financial Advisor I know personally and that’s you. It spares me all the trouble, really. I mean, writing emails to other CEOs and whatnot, knowing full well, they’d be too busy to reply to a university student when I could be halfway through my assignment.”

“No.” was my simple answer.

“No? No—why not?” a look of confusion spread across her face, but nevertheless, her eyes showed determination and that she was not going to take ‘no’ for an answer.

“I personally think this is an opportunity for people to know the real you and what you really do! I didn’t mention this earlier but the best group assignment will be published in an interview with the candidate chosen by us!” she shook the lily stalk exasperatedly in her hand and looked at it apologetically for a brief moment before dropping it to her side.

“And why do I care about wanting people to get to know the real me through a paper published by a Business student? I’m pretty sure there are thousands of other businessmen of large corporates who would love to work with you on this and will gladly be interviewed by you—given your family background, they’d naturally say yes.” I reasoned and she looked affronted.

“I’m not using my family’s influence on my assignments, Castellano, that’d be just too easy, wouldn’t it?” she looked reproachful but nevertheless continued grudgingly. “Fine, put all that publicity talk aside, why won’t you teach me a thing or two if you when I’m willing to learn?”

“If you really want to learn, you might as well attend those private lectures and discussions I give occasionally. Besides, agreeing to let you work with me on this assignment is as good as letting people’s noses around into my field of work if your interview paper gets published—it might just be another glorified article in a fashion magazine.”

She gave me an as-if-those-people-already-don’t look when I mentioned nosing around.

“But this is precisely why I’d rather work with you and not attend your private lectures! Like you said, your discussion and lectures are mostly exclusive, only the best of the best get in and I unfortunately do not fall into that category, but I’m willing to work for it only if you teach me.” She clenched her fists in indignation, never breaking eye contact.

Her words hit a nerve when she mentioned ‘exclusive’. It wasn’t something new to me that my one-time lectures at certain universities were only meant for students of caliber heading toward the same industry; private discussions between well-known and distinguished businessmen of large corporate holdings who had the same mindset and business strategies that were set to work and actually succeeded.

The depth of my intelligence and strategies was never meant for people who I thought weren’t as good enough, with little to none skills and limited knowledge of business that weren’t on par with my vision, and neither do I feel the need to spare my time making them think they can develop it all through a mere discussion.

But was this how I saw Erika? As an inadequate woman who did not reach my level of high expectations? Is this why she has always thought I was arrogant?

It was, after all, a mere assignment. But I knew it was an assignment that would take up a colossal amount of my time and attention that could be delegated to much more important, pressing matters.

“I’m just not sure if you have the mental tenacity or energy to keep up with the way I do things.” I finally said after being silent for so long. I relaxed my arms against either side of the chair’s armrest as I leaned back, feeling good that I had the final say.

But the defiant look on Erika’s face told me otherwise.

“I’ve never worked with you ever, so I daresay try myself, Castellano.” Erika stood up from her seat, the light reflections of the evening sky reflected in her pupils as she indignantly, the balls of her previously clenched fist opened, revealing the nail marks she had indented on her palm. “Because right now, I’ve never wanted anything more than to see you eat your words when I truly emerge triumphant knowing that I too am no less than you as a Business major.”