What Can You Not Buy With Money?

“Mary,” It was nighttime, right after Walker and I swam for hours at the pool. We were in our hotel room, freshly showered and watching a random channel on TV. “What do you think about the trip so far?”

“Great. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun.” I was under my covers, enjoying the copious amounts of air conditioning and the feeling of my damp hair air drying.

“Really?” Walker raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I’m sure you’ve had fun like this before.”

“Actually, no.” I shook my head and looked at him sadly. “Fun for me was just having a normal day and not dealing with any drama. But being with you, Lucy, and Vern has been an adventure wherever I turn. This trip is probably the first thing I’ve done that doesn’t have any regret in it.”

“Regret…?” Walker leaned back in his pillows as he studied me quietly.

“Yeah. I’d always look back and wish that something that I’ve done would have been different. But not this time. Even when I acted like an idiot in front of you and all those hangovers are something I’m glad happened. Thank you.” I shrugged my gratitude off quickly, not wanting to scare him away by opening up to him like I did.

Walker got out of his bed and sat on mine. “No, thank you.” He had a loving twinkle in his eyes as he continued. “I really am happy when I’m with you. You know that?”

“I do now.” I took his hand and leaned over to kiss his cheek. I wasn’t going to try to do what was right—I was going to do what I wanted. And what I wanted was to have Walker. “I love you.”

Walker blinked, a shadow of surprise clouded his mystifying expression. “Since when?”

“I always have. It’s just that now I love you more than anything.”

Walker blinked slowly, his face close enough for our noses to meet. Then he whispered, “I want to believe you.”

“Then believe.” I took the first step and kissed him softly on the mouth.

>

For the first time in weeks, I turned on my cell phone. And I never knew it possible to have over one hundred voice mails and missed calls.

Most of them were from Adelmo, Pierre, Madame Slater, and, surprisingly, Lila Maddock. In fact, Lila called me more than twenty times. She left messages telling me, ‘We need to talk,’ and ‘Please, it’s urgent.’

Everyone was worried for me, so I felt it was only fair that I did call. I decided to call everyone, from easiest to hardest. Lila won the award for being the easiest of the four people.

“Mary, you’re alive!” Lila sounded terrified, her voice shrill and stressed. “Where did you go?”

“I’m in Florida. What do you want?” I was cold, but polite.

“I wanted to tell you about the photos—I was there when Bohr handed them to Terra. I… I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. Bohr’s insane. Those pictures are fake. He got that goon of his to stalk you and Walker and take pictures of you two for months. Even when you were… with Burgess. And then Bohr had these guys actually photoshop the images. There were hundreds—thousands—of pictures they referenced and mixed in.”

I was wrong. Lila was definitely one of the hardest people to conversate with on the phone. “It doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done.”

“What do you mean, ‘What’s done is done’?” Lila’s voice went higher. “You mean you’re not going back to Burgess?”

“Yes, I mean that.” I bit my lip. “Lila, I know you’re trying to be nice, but—”

“Please, get back with him! I know I’m the biggest bitch you’ve ever met but please, for pity’s sake! Burgess has lost it! If you were back in the city, reading the tabloids or the local news you’d understand what I mean. He’s buying companies left and right, beating up paparazzi like their blood bags, and he’s e-mac-i-a-ting. Or I think that’s the word for it…” Lila caught her breath. “Mary, he needs you. The world was right when you two were together. I want him to be the way he was before. And Bohr’s been stressed since Burgess has become the domineering asshole—and I have to deal with it. I need your help, Mary.”

My heart had gone cold, and instead of feeling compassion for him I just became a statue. “No, he doesn’t need me. I’ve got to go, Lila.”

“Mary, wait—” I hung up before Lila could finish. I would never understand that girl, but I refused to listen to the nagging voice in the back of my head. I went to the next phone number to dial, which would be Adelmo Bohr.

“Mary, is that really you?” Adelmo answered after the first ring. “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, how about you?”

“Oh, you know—just typical servitude of the big man. By the way, he’s right here! You want to talk to him? This could help push this all behind us.” There was a desperation and eagerness in the tone of his voice that startled me. Adelmo sounded terrified.

“No, I don’t want to talk to him. But what about you? Is he treating you all right?”

“Don’t worry about me. Where are you?”

“Orlando, Florida.” I was unsure if I should have told him the hotel I was staying at, but I did anyway. He sounded so worried, so I decided it best to give him the specific location to ease his troubled mind. It was a poor lapse of judgment on my part.

“Mary, will you be coming back soon?” Adelmo kept throwing questions at me, but I felt it was only fair to answer them.

“Yes, after a few more days we’re heading back to San Diego.” Feeling that there was nothing else to discuss, and the fact that Burgess was so readily available rushed me to hang up. “Okay, I need to go now. Got roller coasters to ride. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay,” disappointment was echoing from his voice. “Bye.” He hung up first, and I did the same.

The finale would be Pierre and Madame Slater. I took a deep breath as I dialed their long distance number, and waited. The moment the phone was answered, I knew I was on speaker and they were both throwing in questions and cries and yells that hurt my ears.

“One at a time, please.” I hear the door open in our hotel room and I turned to see Walker enter with aviators on. He was dressed for the heat, ready to head off to the theme park.