Free The Truth about My Success by Dyan Sheldon

who need a little space.
    Paloma still isn’t sure. Her mother is obviously for this plan, which automatically makes Paloma against it. “I don’t know if I want to go to a ranch.” She squidges up her nose as though she can smell the horses and cattle. “A ranch doesn’t really sound like a whole lot of fun, Jack. Aren’t they dusty and far away from everything?”
    Leone jumps in to say that it isn’t as if Paloma’s going to be attacked by an Apache war party, but gets no further than “It’s not like—” before Jack silences her with a look.
    “This isn’t that kind of ranch,” says Jack. “It has everything you can imagine or want.” His smile falls on Paloma like a prairie sun. “To tell you the truth, it’s more like a luxury liner than a ranch. You know, sweetheart, one of those massive cruise ships that are the size of a small city? Only, of course, it doesn’t move. And it’s not on water. But some of those boats have to be seen to be believed.”
    And he begins to describe not the ranch but the yacht belonging to a billionaire of his acquaintance. Movie theatres. A bowling alley. Gym. Hot tubs. Squash and tennis courts. Pools. Boutique. Salon. Disco hall. Helicopter pad. A yacht Jack may never visit again if his luck doesn’t turn itself around very quickly.
    Paloma, still trying to decide how she feels about this vacation, doesn’t realize that Jack is talking about a super-yacht currently docked in Dubai, but thinks he’s describing the dude ranch. Not a horse or cow is mentioned. Now what she smells are gourmet meals and the exotic herbal mixtures used in the spa and the beauty parlour. By the time Jack has finished, Paloma is so excited you’d think she’d been dreaming of this vacation for most of her life.
    Until a less happy thought occurs to her.
    “But I can’t go somewhere like that.” Paloma glares at her mother. “
She
cut up all my credit cards.”
    “We’re getting you a new one with a high limit,” promises Jack. “It’s already been ordered.”
    Paloma flings herself from her chair to give him a hug.
    “I swear to god, Jack,” Leone says later as she walks him to his car, “you could sell a pot of boiling water to a lobster.” She laughs. “And get it to jump in.”
    It’s nine-thirty. There is still one lobster without a pot in Jack Silk’s scheme, but he isn’t worried. It’s another interesting point of human behaviour that we tend to judge other people by ourselves. Jack Silk loves money. Because he loves money he believes that there is no one who wouldn’t do anything for it. Oona says she can’t leave her father? Father, schmather, is what Jack thinks. People have killed their fathers for less than he’s offered Oona. And he seems to be right.
    He has just turned into his own driveway when his phone starts to play the Triumphal March from Aida.
    “Hello?” Her voice is like a jab. “It’s Oona. Oona Ginness. I guess you have a deal.”
    Jack Silk smiles into the night.
    Splash!

Moving in with the Minnicks
    Jack Silk is not a man to leave anything to chance, or to anyone else – not even God – and so he has organized everything. With the smoothness of oil flowing over glass, he convinced Abbot Ginness that it is in his best interests, as well as Oona’s, to go along with Jack’s audacious plan. “The world’s a harsh place, where it’s hard to get a break,” said Jack, with his instinct for voicing other people’s feelings. “When we have a chance to help each other, we should take it.” He seemed to look around not just the apartment but the entire complex of El Paraíso and read Abbot’s whole unhappy history without moving his eyes from Abbot’s face. “That’s a great kid, you have, Mr Ginness. She deserves better. Much, much better. You owe her this.”
    And what loving father would argue with that? Certainly not Abbot. It isn’t Oona that he doesn’t care about.
    “But I’ll worry about her being so far away,” he