Carriage Trade by Stephen Birmingham Page B

very brave woman, Mandy.”
    â€œVery brave or very stupid. Or maybe brave and stupid are the same damn thing.” She flips her chestnut ponytail with her left hand. “Anyway, I’ve stopped worrying about what my mother’s feelings are. But poor Blazer, on the other hand—”
    â€œMandy,” he says, “maybe I shouldn’t say this, but don’t you think Blazer had it coming to him? He treated his father like shit, and your father wasn’t a man who liked to be treated like shit.”
    â€œOh, I know, I know. And particularly after that last big row of theirs. But still—”
    â€œHe threatened your father, Mandy. He tried to—”
    â€œI know, I know. But I think what hurt Blazer most of all was not being mentioned in the obituary this morning. It was like reading that he didn’t exist.”
    He shakes his head. “I don’t know how that happened,” he says. “I gave The Times all that information. Want me to see if I can get the paper to print a correction, mentioning that Silas R. Tarkington, Junior, was inadvertently omitted from the obit? They’re pretty good at doing things like that for us.”
    â€œNo. No, I don’t think so. That would be like rubbing salt in his wounds. Like saying, ‘Oh, and we forgot to mention that he also had this son.’ No, the harm’s been done.”
    â€œIf Blazer had ever tried to make anything of himself, it might have been different. But face it, Mandy, your half brother’s a bum.”
    She nods mutely, in agreement. “Still, he was always nice to me when I was growing up. And—in fact—it turns out that at the last minute Daddy was planning to rewrite his will.”
    â€œReally?” he says, looking at her, interested. “How do you know that?”
    â€œJake Kohlberg told us so. He was apparently planning to reinstate Blazer in some way and make some other major changes. But then he—died—and it was too late.… Thank you,” she whispers to the waiter as he places her glass of Lillet in front of her.
    â€œWhat sort of—major changes?”
    â€œI don’t know. After Blazer went storming out, I asked Jake if we could see a copy of the new will he’d been drafting, but he wouldn’t show it to us. ‘Lawyer-client confidentiality,’ he said. ‘But I’m his daughter!’ I said. ‘And I’m his lawyer,’ he said. Stupid lawyers.”
    â€œHmm,” he says.
    â€œAnyway, he left you his emerald pinky ring. I thought that was sweet of him. It’s a good emerald, even though you-know-who picked it out for him.”
    â€œSmitty.”
    â€œWho else?”
    â€œSmitty knows her stones. Anyway, I’m touched that he’d leave that to me, Mandy. Of course I could never wear it. It was like his signature. It was his ring. It will always be his ring.”
    â€œI suppose so, yes.” She sips her Lillet.
    â€œAnd what about the art collection?”
    â€œThat was something of a shocker, too. Mother gets to keep up to twenty paintings for her lifetime. The rest go to the museum— but only if you-know-who is made special curator of the collection.”
    â€œSmitty again.”
    â€œHow’d you guess? That was a little callous of him, don’t you think, putting Mother and Smitty in the same paragraph of the will? But again, Mother was cool as a cucumber when she heard. Didn’t blink one mascaraed eyelash.”
    â€œCallous? I’m not so sure, Mandy. It could be his way of giving Smitty a new job. Getting her out of the store—for your sake.”
    â€œReally? You think so?”
    â€œThat’s the way his mind worked. He’s left you and your mother a major share of the store’s ownership. And I don’t think Smitty is one of your favorite people.”
    â€œReally? You noticed that? Well, aren’t you smart, Mr. Tomcat. I loathe