Free Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money by Linda L. Richards Page B

good one. Despite their revolting habits and the
low opinion society holds of them, vultures are innocents. They’re
creatures of instinct and evolution. They can’t help what they are,
they just are. There was something more calculating about Ernie.
And controlled. On first contact, it came off as a kind of burning
intensity, something that my 22-year-old self had found incredibly
sexy and somehow reassuring.
    From the beginning, he was emotionally and
sexually demanding. When we were in public together, he’d stand
very close — later I’d find it oppressively close — and across a
table or a room his eyes would always search for mine, ultimately
find them and hold them. He was intense on all levels. He took my
breath away. After a while, it felt like he was squeezing it out of
me.
    To say that Ernie was arrogant sounds like
ridiculous understatement but, again at first, it struck me as an
arrogance he owned, not something borrowed or some hollow pretense.
That arrogance seemed balanced by a bold impulsiveness that, in my
youth, I took to be something pretty and romantic. Everything about
Ernie was big. His dreams, his ambitions, his ego. And none of that
was a problem for me. At first. Once it became a problem, I didn’t
stick around.
    The little bit I knew about Ernie since then
had come from the trades. It was all around his growing reputation
as a corporate whizz kid who was making a career out of bailing out
public companies that were on the pale side of successful.
    It interested me that Ernie was doing
exactly what he’d set out to do: he was in the business of running
stuff and bossing people around. You don’t do an MBA at Harvard to
be a stockbroker. Sometimes life just happens, as it had to me. I
was betting the market would respond to the news of his
appointment.
    I checked the stock price: it already was.
$6.07 now. And climbing. So I put in another buy order — a market
buy this time — for an additional 4500 shares. I was sweating, but
it was happy sweat. I had a good feeling about it. It was
practically all of my working capital — the cash I needed to make
my living — but Ernie knew his stuff.
    The electronic purr of the telephone nearly
caused me to push my keyboard onto the floor as my hand sought to
make the ringing cease.
    “Hi Maddy!” The voice was cheery. Bright. A
post-breakfast daughter salute.
    “Hey Mom. How’s Seattle?”
    “Incredibly dry, sweetie. How’s your
life?”
    Broad questions are my mother’s specialty.
And no matter how many times I hear it, “how’s your life” always
floors me. Like I should start cataloging stuff: I’m trying to eat
more bran and whole grains, I think my body will thank me for the
consideration when I’m 40. I’m regular. So is my period. Which
reminds me: no, in case you’re thinking of asking, I’m not seeing
anyone and am therefore not getting laid.
    I didn’t say any of that.
    “Great, Mom. You?”
    “Oh, you know. Clarisa Meyers and I are
thinking of going to Vegas in November. On a bus. And I thought:
wouldn’t it be fun if Madeline joined us? In Vegas. Do you think
you could?”
    “Geez, maybe Mom. November isn’t for a while
yet.”
    “But if you planned sweetie. If you
planned. Then maybe you could go. You’re so close now. Not like
when you were in New York.”
    “It’s true. OK. It’s only about a few hours
drive for me. It might be fun. But listen, remind me in October,
OK?”
    “Great! That would be so great. So is
anything new?”
    Now this was a question I could actually
handle: I even had a bit of news.
    “Well, guess who I ran into last week?”
    “Am I really supposed to guess?”
    “Ernie Billings.”
    “No!”
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    “At a club in Santa Monica. He was there
with his wife .”
    “His wife? Oh Madeline, I’m sorry honey. Did
it hurt?”
    I thought for a second before answering, but
only for a second. “You know Mom, it didn’t. Not at all. But it’s
been a long time, hasn’t