Nineteen

Troy couldn’t count the number of times Grace had said “You don’t understand” when she was telling him about her childhood, her life as a competitive figure skater, her parents. Likewise, he couldn’t imagine how many times he had replied, “Of course I do, Grace.” Now, he realized, he really hadn’t. Grace had come from a world so alien to him he wondered if he would ever understand it.

Troy had never been around people with the kind of money it took to rent a jet or live in a mansion with a complete staff to take care of it. But of course there had to be a staff—no one could take care of something that big alone. The closest he’d ever come to that kind of wealth was knowing a guy who had a cousin who was a pro football player and bought himself a three-million-dollar house and a fast car. He couldn’t even remember what kind of car because of course he’d never seen it. Troy didn’t even read about rich people. He read about rafting, climbing, diving. He was scrimping to make his Jeep payments. Grace could probably pay it off out of her allowance.

Did Grace get an allowance?

He left Grace at her place and went home to his apartment, which was very quiet. It was also very lonely. He had only rarely spent a night alone since he started sleeping with Grace and he wasn’t thrilled about being alone tonight, either. Troy had never lived with a woman and he still didn’t, not officially at any rate. He and Grace each had their own place. Except he checked in with Grace at least three times a day and saw her when they were both off work. And stayed the night more often than not.

But right now he needed a little space and time to think. He thought he knew her inside and out, but after four days in San Francisco he wondered if he knew her at all. He was more than a little intimidated by the magnitude of her wealth. It made him feel like a failure by comparison. Intellectually he knew that wasn’t the case, but somewhere inside, he had that sinking feeling of not being good enough.

The next day, during his free period, he went looking for Iris, whom he considered his closest friend. She was a counselor and he needed counseling. There was a part of him that hoped she’d be busy with a student, because he wasn’t sure how he was going to put into words what he was thinking.

“Got a minute?” he asked, standing in her doorway.

“Sure,” she said with a smile. “Want to sit?”

“Thanks,” he said, sitting in front of her desk. But then he didn’t say anything.

“Troy? Problems with a student?”

He shook his head. “Listen, I don’t know how to say this, how to explain this, so if I sound like an idiot...”

“Just spit it out. We can rake through the idiocy afterward.”

“Can this be confidential?” he asked.

“Of course!”

“It’s about Grace. We’ve gotten pretty close.”

Iris smiled. “You two seem great together.”

“You know we’re not alike, right?”

She made a doubtful face. “You seem a lot alike. You laugh at the same things, you appear to be inseparable, she’s an athlete and you’re a pretty physical guy. I bet you finally found someone to play with.”

“But we come from completely different backgrounds. Completely. Did you know Grace is—” He struggled. “She’s well-to-do.”

Iris leaned back. “I heard that. I mean, she told me. It was pretty recently, when she was telling me about growing up on the ice-skating circuit. She said she had tutors and traveled the world to compete and I asked how expensive things like skating lessons were. Lessons for kids can be as much as ninety dollars an hour but coaching for world champions? It can be any amount, depending on the coach, maybe four hundred a day! Plus expenses. So I asked...”

“Her mother is rich,” he said. “Old money. Apparently there’s a difference,” he added.

“She didn’t make it on a dot-com,” Iris said with a grin. “I assume there’s enough so that it keeps growing itself. Not only was Grace born into it, apparently her mother was, as was her grandmother.”

“It might be billions,” Troy said.

“Billions? Come on!”

“I don’t know. How would I know? But here’s what I know after spending a few days at her childhood home. The house is bigger than four normal houses, and it takes a full staff to run it so just one person can live in it. There’s a full-time driver, even if he’s not driving much. I think her mother might have other houses—she likes to spend time in Cabo, in New York, in London. There’s art and jewelry and her mother can rent private jets anytime she wants to. I mean, she stinks with it. I’m serious.”

“Wow. Incredible. Sounds like the Gettys. You should look and see if they’re on the Forbes List.”

“I’m afraid to,” Troy said.

“Why?” she asked with a laugh. “She’ll still be your friend.”

“Iris, we’ve been more than friends. And I can’t relate to that kind of money.”

“Just as well,” she said, laughing. “It’s not yours. It’s hers.”

“Iris, could you please stop laughing. It makes me feel like a poor relation with his hand out.”

“You have your hand out?”

“Of course not! But that’s how I feel! Do you know anyone that rich?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Peyton comes from a pretty rich family.”

“She does?” he asked, shocked.

“Uh-huh. Her parents own one of the biggest farms in Oregon. Huge. They grow pears for Harry & David, potatoes for grocers, have a ton of sheep for the wool and now she says her father and brothers are into Christmas trees. Scott says it’s a huge family, almost all of them in the business, and her father has holes in his jeans and drives an old pickup with no shocks. He probably doesn’t have a twenty in his pocket, but his net worth is astronomical.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “Do they live in a big house?”

“Yes. With one bathroom. Eight kids, one bathroom. Try to imagine.”

“Okay, we’re not talking about the same thing at all. Grace has money to burn. I think if she started spending it now she couldn’t go through it all. Unfortunately for her mother, it’s in Grace’s near future.”