Brendan and the two girls hopped up and down, running in place, pivoting from one side to another, dipping low and then high. They shuffled and slid and moonwalked. Brendan scooped up one of the dogs and tried to manipulate its paws around to simulate dancing, but it struggled and growled menacingly, and Abby and Jenna dissolved in a fit of laughter.
She seemed genuinely happy here. Danny finally understood why she was so drawn to the Galvins. It wasn’t their wealth. It was the big and warm, chaotic and welcoming Galvin clan that she longed to be part of.
She wanted to be a member of a family.
Galvin returned to the kitchen after a few minutes. He stood next to Danny for a moment, watching the kids dance.
“Cute, huh?”
Danny nodded.
“She’s such a good kid, your daughter. She brings out something in Jenna we haven’t seen before. In years, anyway.”
“Hmm,” Danny said and nodded again. “They both seem happy.”
“That’s what I mean. Hey, how about we step away? Feel like a single malt?”
Danny hesitated for a moment-he’d already had a glass of bad red wine and had to drive home on the turnpike-but before he could reply, Galvin said, “I need to ask you a favor.”
11
Tom Galvin poured them each a few fingers of whiskey from a bottle whose label read THE MACALLAN 1939. He stood at a wet bar in his study. The walls were lined with leather-bound volumes that were probably purchased by the yard and had never been read. Everything smelled like cigar smoke.
“Not everyone gets the good stuff, you know.”
A quiet knock at the door. They both turned. It was Esteban, the driver. Danny realized he’d never heard him speak.
“Eh, Mr. Galvin, will I be driving your guests home?” Esteban’s voice was soft, his speech halting. He was unusually tall and broad, but his black suit fitted him perfectly. He had a large head, pockmarks on his high cheeks, and Bambi eyes. A large mole on the right side of his neck in the shape of Australia. A strange-looking fellow, neither ugly nor attractive, but somehow gentle and kindly seeming.
“Go to bed, mi amigo.”
“Thank you, sir.” Esteban made a slight bow, more a nod of the head, and was gone.
Galvin finished pouring and handed Danny a cut-glass tumbler. They clinked glasses. “Here’s to our wives and girlfriends,” he said. “May they never meet.”
Danny smiled and nodded. In the back of his mind he wondered what “favor” Galvin could possibly want from him.
“Your daughter is Jenna’s only friend, you know,” Galvin said.
“I know they’re close.”
“She’s such a good influence on Jenna. I mean, Jenna’s actually doing the assigned reading for school without bitching and moaning about it. Like, she actually read To Kill a Mockingbird, and we didn’t have to nag her once.”
“I read it out loud to Abby when she was probably too young for it, but… yeah, she’s a reader. Nice to know they talk about books, not just hip-hop or dubstep or whatever.”
“It’s like… if you surround yourself with good people, it makes you a better person. Brings out the best in you. Surround yourself with bad people, it brings out your worst. Every other school she’s gone to, last couple of years, she always seemed to fall in with the druggy, no-good kids. Bad influence. But Abby brings out the best in her. You have no idea how amazing that is.” Galvin’s eyes shone, as if they might be moist.
“That’s great,” Danny said, not knowing what else to say, surprised by the unexpected intimacy of the moment.
“You’re doing something right, brother.”
“Me? Nah, I just try not to get in her way too much. I don’t know what I’m doing. I screw up all the time.”
Galvin smiled. “So you’re raising Abby yourself? How the hell do you do it?”
“Hmm,” Danny said, half smiling, scratching the side of his face. He looked up and said musingly, “You know those old disaster movies when the airline pilot has a heart attack and the flight attendant has to fly the plane?”
He smiled. “Karen Black in Airport 1975? Or maybe it was Airplane! and it was Julie something…”
Danny smiled back. “Exactly. Whatever. You know, suddenly I’m supposed to know how to fly this thing? But you don’t have a choice.”
Galvin shook his head. “Man, I gotta hand it to you. If it wasn’t for Celina, I can’t even imagine…”
He beckoned Danny over to a couple of overstuffed leather chairs in front of a cluttered antique desk, where they sat. From a low table next to his chair, he lifted a glossy black lacquer box with gold lettering on top that said COHIBA BEHIKE. He lifted the lid and pulled out a couple of cigars, fat as sausages, and offered one to Danny.
Danny nodded, and the solemn ritual began. Galvin handed him a cigar cutter. Danny snipped the end of his cigar, then handed the cutter back. Galvin lit his cigar with a lighter whose hard blue flame looked like it could cut steel. He took a few puffs, and handed the lighter to Danny.
They smoked silently for a minute or so. Danny remembered why he never liked cigars. He thought about complimenting Galvin on the cigar. But what could he say, that it made him only mildly nauseated? Instead, he pointed his cigar at a wooden presentation case on the desk. Seated in a bed of red velvet flocking was a bronze medal that said COLLEGIUM BOSTONIENSE.
“You’re a distinguished alum of BC?”
He nodded. “President’s Medal for Giving a Shitload of Money.”
Danny laughed. Galvin was self-effacing about it, but he still kept the medal on display.
“Wanna know something?” Galvin finally said, contemplative. “I’m just a lucky son of a bitch. I know that sounds like some kind of bullshit false modesty, but believe me.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Ever drive somewhere and you’re pressed for time, but you just hit all the green lights, one after another? You know, boom boom boom-you just hit ’em all right? You just luck out?”
Danny nodded.
“Well, that’s me. God’s honest truth. Hand to heart.” He placed a palm over his heart. “Look up right place, right time in the dictionary, you’re gonna see my picture.”
“I doubt that, but… okay.”
“Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. But listen to me when I tell you: I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor.”
“Let me guess which one’s better.”
“Not gonna argue with you there,” he said with a grin. He pulled something out of his inside breast pocket and handed it to Danny: a folded slip of paper.
“Here’s the favor,” Galvin said. “Take this without giving me a hard time.”
It was a check for fifty thousand dollars, written on Galvin’s personal account at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
Danny looked up. “What’s this?”
“A year’s tuition at that damned overpriced girls’ school, plus some breathing room.”
“What-what are you…?” Danny was momentarily at a loss for words.
“Lyman is Jenna’s fourth school in three years. We’ve pulled her out of Winsor and Milton and BB &N and-jeez Louise, I can’t keep ’em straight. She always falls in with a bad crowd. Or they all think she’s stuck-up… The word gets out that her daddy has some money, and the kids go all Mean Girls on her. I don’t get it. Now, finally, she has a close friend who’s a really good person, and I don’t want anything to screw that up.”
“But… but what made you… how do you know…?”
“I have my sources.”
Danny’s head was spinning. A few minutes ago he was weighing whether to ask Galvin for a fraction of this, and now… Abby must have said something to Jenna; that had to be what happened. “I can’t possibly accept this. I mean… and anyway, this is way more than I need.”