Oblivion

            “When did you know you wanted to be a model?” asked Louisa.

            “Oh, I don’t know. Roughly two weeks after I became a model, I guess.”

            “But what made you try it?”

            “There were other things going on…at the time.” Brad, across the table, continued eating determinedly. “I’d always had the thought in my head. I’d been told I had the looks, and it seemed like so much fun.”

            “So how’d you get into it?”

            “I ran off and did it.”

            “You ran off?” Louisa repeated.

            “Ran off. It was highly dramatic.”

            “You’re not doing anything of the kind,” Brad told Louisa, staunchly.

            “Uncle Brad,” said Louisa, rolling her eyes. “I want to be a doctor,” she told Chrystie.

            “A doctor.” Chrystie smiled. “That would be fantastic. A much more useful career than the one I chose. Even than the one your uncle chose.”

            “I didn’t choose teaching. It chose me. How else does one write and make a living at the same time?”

            “You could write fiction.”

            “I was never any good at writing fiction.”

            “You used to write beautiful poetry.”

            “You used to write poetry?” Louisa sounded both shocked and supremely interested.

            Brad stood, scraping his chair back. “I never wrote beautiful poetry.”

            “Yeah, but did you write poetry?”

            “I wrote very bad, very trite poetry.”

            “That’s sweet,” said Louisa.

            “It was nothing of the sort, it was foolish.” Brad rinsed his plate, placed it in the dishwasher.

            “It was sweet,” Chrystie told Louisa.

            “Are you done, Louisa?” asked Brad, sounding impatient.

            Louisa looked more amused by his impatience than anything else. “I’m done.” She stood and handed him the dish. “Thanks. I take it I’m supposed to vanish, so I’ll be up in my room.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I’m only teasing. I won’t tell anyone else you used to write poetry.” Then she turned back to Chrystie. “Thanks so much for dinner, Chrystie. It was so delicious.”

            “No problem,” Chrystie replied.

            Brad picked up Chrystie’s plate and glanced after Louisa’s retreating figure. “She sounds much more genuine when she praises your cooking than she does when she praises mine.”

            “I’m sorry I spilled your poetry secret. I thought she must know.”

            “What is it you want, Chrystie? And how much is it going to cost me?” he inquired, grimly, as he rinsed her plate.

            “It’s kind of a lot, Brad, so if you could sit so I could look at you while I tell you this…”

            Brad looked alarmed, as he obeyed. She swallowed, tried to think how to tell him, and then he made things worse, suddenly covering her hands on the table with his own. “Whatever it is, Chrystie, whatever trouble you’re in, I’ll help. It will be okay, I promise,” he assured her, gravely, and she believed him. “Now what is it?”

            “We went to the reading of the will,” she said.

            “Yeah. And what happened?”

            “She left you a million pounds.”

            “She left me what?”

            “A million-”

            “I heard…A million pounds? Why ever would she leave me so much money?”

            Chrystie was staring fixedly at his hands, because his eyes were too beautiful. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she looked in his eyes and asked him, once again, to make a huge sacrifice for her. “Because she loved you, obviously. Also the books at Oblivion.”

            “She left me the books at Oblivion?”

            “And the Bentley.”

            “The Bentley? Why would she leave me so much?”

            “Well, the books and the Bentley, Brad, really, that should be pretty obvious.”

            “It was fourteen bloody years ago, Chrystie. Why does everyone act like it was yesterday?”

            “I don’t know. Really I don’t know.” She took her hands out from under his. “There’s more.”

            “More to the inheritance?”

            “Oh, yes. She left you half of Oblivion.”

            Brad scratched his head. Then he said, “She left me half? Who did she leave the other half?”

            “Me.”

            Then he laughed, actually threw back his head and laughed. “Playing matchmaker. Really. This is incredibly absurd. What do you want? Do you want my half?” He smiled at her winningly. “I’ll sell it to you for a fair price. A dollar, shall we say? Or a pound. Whichever you prefer.”

            “Brad…Well, it’s sweet of you, and I’ll take you up on your offer eventually, but the thing is, neither one of us has actually inherited the house yet.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because…Because there’s a condition.”

            “What condition?”

            Here goes nothing. And she did actually look him in the eye, because she owed him that. “We have to get married.”