Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

She thanked him for coming, and after he left, she walked over to the desk Bill was using. “Thank you for all the nice things you said about us to the press,” she said gently, as he looked up in surprise.

“Did that awful woman print them? She followed me to the Metro last night, and I lost my temper. I can’t stand her, she’s a muckraker, digging for dirt, at everyone’s expense. I told her what I thought about it, and how great I thought you all were in the crisis, including the police. She didn’t want to hear it, so I’m amazed she printed it.”

“So am I,” Marie-Laure admitted. “I can translate the piece for you if you want,” she offered.

“My French is good enough to read it, even if I can’t hold a decent conversation to save my life.” He smiled at her. He followed her to her office so she could give it to him and went back to his desk to read it. They were going to be in meetings that afternoon about the aftermath of the lycée shootings, but the morning had been easy and unscheduled for the Americans for the first time. A moment later, when Marie-Laure glanced at him, she could see he was furious and very upset. He came back to her office and was nearly shaking with rage.

“What right does she have to print that? Who my family is has nothing to do with my professional life, nor what I’m allegedly going to inherit, that’s nobody’s business. I’ve been working for thirteen years as a doctor, and that has never come out. I was careful that it didn’t. It’s totally irrelevant, and all it can do is complicate my life. No one is going to take me seriously if they think I have that kind of money behind me, and I’ll have every gold digger on the planet on my ass,” he stormed at Marie-Laure although it wasn’t her fault, and he looked like he was near tears. She could see how much it meant to him not to have anyone know who he was or how much he had, but it was too late now, thanks to Jacqueline Moutier. The secret was out. Marie-Laure tried to calm him down, but he was all wound up and left the office a few minutes later to take a walk and cool off.

The article circulated around the office after that, and everyone was startled to realize how wealthy he was. Gabriel commented reasonably that it was nice for him, but it really had nothing to do with the work they were doing together, or their dealings with Bill. He was still the same man, no better or worse than before they knew his family was Browning Oil. And for his part, Gabriel didn’t care. The others didn’t either, but it was something to talk about. Paul Martin said he thought he was lucky, and Gabriel said not necessarily, that it probably would draw the wrong people to him if word got out. He said that it changed how people felt about you, with that kind of fortune. Jealous people were out to trip you up and take something from you, or be nasty about you, and the greedy ones were out for what they could get. It was easier if people didn’t know. In that sense, Bill was right.

Bill was still upset when he came back from his walk. No one paid attention to him, they had all read the article and were trying not to show it. If the piece got syndicated to the States, which it might because he was who he was, he dreaded everyone at SF General knowing about his tie to Browning Oil and their fortune. There was nothing good it could add to his life. Silence had been golden for all these years, but there was nothing he could do about the exposure now.

Wendy came across the room to talk to him as he sat at his desk, looking like a storm cloud. She decided to approach anyway and spoke in a low voice. “I know you’re not happy about the piece, Bill, but they didn’t say anything bad about you. It makes you seem serious and hardworking, and news dies eventually.”

“Not that kind of news, they’ll pull it up anytime anyone wants to write an article about me. It makes it sound like my only accomplishment is having a family with money. And that’s no thanks to me.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “Those things are an accident of birth. It doesn’t say your family made their money by being nuclear arms dealers, or selling immigrant women into sexual slavery. Your family is part of the establishment, and you’re a conscientious doctor who lives below the radar. After the initial shock has worn off, it’s not much of a story one way or the other.”

“I don’t want women pounding on my door because of it, or maniacs threatening to kidnap my children.” He was grateful they didn’t live in San Francisco if that was going to become an issue, and Athena’s father had had security for her for years, since he had a vast fortune too. It was the only common point they’d shared, rich parents, so he hadn’t needed to worry about her motives, they had had enough other problems without that. It wasn’t something he wanted to worry about. It was just easier if no one knew what his family had and he would have one day. He had already inherited quite a bit at thirty and thirty-five, and stood to get another windfall in a few months at forty, but that was no one’s business but his own. The way he lived and dressed, nothing showed. No one would have guessed how rich he was. He was modest and humble.

“I can understand your concerns,” Wendy said kindly, sympathetic to him. “I grew up in New Hampshire, and my father was kind of a small-time operator in a small town. He and my uncle made some shady deals. Nothing too large scale, but enough to get them into trouble, and my father went to jail for tax evasion for three years. It was the most exciting thing that had happened in our town since Paul Revere rode through it and Thomas Jefferson once spent a night there. It was all over the local newspapers, and I thought I’d die every time someone mentioned it, which they did quite a lot for a while. It gets old, people forget. My father died two years ago, and I was worried about their dragging up old history in his obituary. He did a lot of good things for our town in his final years, and they gave him a hero’s farewell, with not a word in his obit that he had ever gone to prison. And no, people won’t forget what you come from, it’s part of who you are, but if they know you, they won’t care. Trust me, it’s true.” He was touched by what she said, and thanked her, and he was calmer when they left for their meetings that afternoon, but it was still major news, and the people he was working with liked him even better because he never was pompous, showed off, or acted as though he was enormously wealthy. They respected him even more than before.

Only Paul, the young firebrand in the group, dared to tease him about it, as they headed across town in the van to visit some of the injured victims of the lycée shooting. “Now that the secret is out, Bill, I was hoping you’d buy a Ferrari, so I could ride around in it with you and pick up women.” His brazen irreverence made Bill laugh since he knew it was well intended and Paul was joking. But the others held their breath for a minute, waiting to see how Bill would take it. Marie-Laure had shared how upset he was, and they had seen it for the past few hours since he’d read the piece.

“I’ll buy you one before I leave,” Bill quipped back. “I’m planning to buy a Deux Chevaux for myself.” It was the classic small model antiquated Citroën, the smallest they made, the kind poor students drove.

Paul rolled his eyes with a look of disgust. “Some people just don’t know how to spend their money. You’ll never get a decent woman with that pile of junk.”

“That’s exactly the kind of woman I want,” Bill said, as the others laughed, and everyone relaxed. Paul had broken the ice, and after that, they all treated Bill as they had before, and not like the heir to Browning Oil. He hoped things would go as smoothly in San Francisco, if word got out there. And their reaction increased his respect and affection for his new friends.