To Get My Inheritance, I Have to Pass His 'Purity' Test

The mahogany desk is exactly four inches thick.

It is a slab of African wenge polished to such a high gloss

that the reflection of the ceiling fan appears to be spinning inside the wood itself.

On the corner of the desk sits a crystal glass of water.

There is no condensation on the outside of the glass

because the room is kept at a constant 68 degrees.

To the left of the glass, a silver fountain pen rests on a green leather blotter.

The nib is retracted.

The silence in the office is heavy.

The kind of quiet that exists only in buildings where money is managed

and secrets are filed in alphabetical order.

Arthur's hands are flat on the desk.

His fingernails are buffed.

He does not move.

He does not blink.

The only sound is the rhythmic mechanical click of the central air-conditioning

vents adjusting their slats.

He looks at me the way a man looks at a complicated piece of machinery

that might be starting to smoke.

It isn't anger.

It isn't even judgment yet.

It is the calm detached observation of a mechanic.

I am 24 years old and my father's entire legacy,

the real estate holdings in Manhattan,

the offshore accounts, the house and sack harbor

and the foundations that carry our name

is currently compressed into a single manila folder

resting under Arthur's right palm.

He calls it the moral fitness clause.

My father called it the safeguard.

I call it the leash.

The language is quite specific, Alaina Arthur says.

His voice is a smooth practice baritone.

The kind of voice that makes even the most outrageous demand

sound like a weather report.

The executor of the estate must certify

that the beneficiary is living a life of exemplary character

and social stability for a period of 36 months

following the testators passing.

It is a character bond.

Your father wanted to ensure that the wealth he built over 40 years

wasn't liquidated to fund a life of,

let's say, impulsive distractions.

I watch the way he says impulsive.

He tastes the word.

He knows I spent three years in London

pretending to study art history

while actually studying the bottom of champagne bottles

and the interiors of fast cars.

He knows about the drummer from Brixton.

He knows about the night and I beether

that ended with a police escort

and a very expensive non-disclosure agreement.

My father paid for the silence,

but he didn't forget the noise.

I've been home for six months, Arthur.

I say, I keep my voice steady.

I've been practicing this.

I'm working at the gallery.

I'm at the gym by six.

I'm in bed by 10.

I haven't even had a glass of wine at a public event.

I am the picture of stability.

Arthur smiles, but his eyes stay on the file.

Public stability is a performance, Elena.

Private stability is a fact.

And facts require verification.

He slides a piece of paper across the wing wood.

It isn't a legal document.

It's a schedule.

It lists several dates over the next month, dinners,

a charity gala,

a weekend at a retreat in the cat skills.

Each event is paired with a name.

Men, successful men.

Men with pedigrees that read like a list of Ivy League donors.

What is this, I asked,

though the coldness in my stomach already knows the answer?

This is the vetting process, Arthur says.

If you are to demonstrate a change in character,

you must demonstrate a change in company.

These are individuals who have been pre-cleared.

Their families are known to the firm.

Their backgrounds are compatible with the image

your father intended for his heir.

To maintain your standing,

you will limit your social engagements to this circle.

You're choosing who I date.

I am certifying your judgment, Arthur, correct me gently.

If you choose to deviate from this list,

you are signaling to the estate

that your priorities have not shifted.

You are signaling that you prefer the impulsive distractions

over the responsibility of the inheritance.

And as the executor, I would be legally bound

to trigger the diversion clause.

The funds would go to the university endowment,

and you would be left with the base stipend.

Six thousand a month,

hardly enough to maintain your current residence,

let alone your lifestyle.

He stands up then.

He is tall.

His suit tailored so perfectly that it looks like armor.

He walks around the desk and stops just a few inches too close.

I can smell his cologne sandalwood

and something metallic like a sharpened blade.

He doesn't touch me, he doesn't have to.

The air between us is thick with the weight

of the millions of dollars he holds behind his teeth.

It's for your own protection, Elena, he whispers.

I promised your father I would look after you.

I'm simply making sure you don't trip over your own feet again.

The first dinner is with a man named Marcus.

He is a third generation hedge fund manager

with teeth so white they look blue in the candlelight.

We sit in a restaurant where the menus don't have prices

and the waiters move like ghosts.

Marcus talks about his rowing team at Yale.

He talks about his collection of vintage watches.

He talks about himself in the third person.

I sit there and smile a night when he tells a joke

that isn't funny.

I let him order for me.

I am being a good girl.

I am being socially stable.

Every 20 minutes I see a man in a dark suit sitting

at the bar glancing toward our table.

He isn't eating.

He's holding a small leather notebook, Arthur's shadow.

I realize then that this isn't just about who I'm with.

It's about how I behave while I'm with them.

I have to be the perfect accessory.

I have to be the silent, elegant black woman

on the arm of the right kind of man.

I have to fit the mold my father bought for me.

The purity test isn't about sex.

It's about submission.

Two weeks into the schedule I meet Julian.

He isn't on the list.

He's a photographer I met through the gallery.

Someone who sees the world in shadows

and doesn't care about the pedigree of the person standing

in them, he's kind, he's real.

He makes me feel like a person

rather than a line item on a balance sheet.

We meet in secret at a dive bar in Brooklyn

where the floor is sticky and the music is too loud.

For two hours, I forget about Arthur.

I forget about the Wings desk and the 68 degree office.

I feel the blood moving in my veins again.

When I get back to my apartment,

Arthur is sitting in the lobby.

He's wearing a trench coat despite the fact

that it hasn't rained in days.

He's holding a Manila envelope.

The bar is called the Rusty Anchor.

Arthur says, as I walk toward the elevators,

it has a health department rating of B.

The Man you are with has a credit score of 580.

He lives in a loft with three roommates.

He is an impulsive distraction, Elena.

I freeze.

You followed me.

I protected the estate, Arthur says.

He walks toward me.

His footsteps echoing on the marble floor.

This is your first strike.

The clause allows for two warnings

before the diversion becomes permanent.

I was disappointed, Elena.

I thought we were making progress.

I thought you understood the stakes.

He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair

behind my ear.

His fingers are cold.

He leaves them there for a second too long.

A claim of ownership disguised as a gesture of comfort.

I can make this go away, he says.

His voice dropping to a low intimate hum.

I haven't filed the weekly report yet.

I could simply omit this evening.

But I need to know that you're committed to the process.

I need to know that you trust me more

than you trust your own impulses.

What do you want, Arthur?

I ask.

My voice sounds thin, even to my own ears.

I want you to come to the Catskills retreat this weekend alone.

We'll go over the long-term management

of the real estate holdings.

Just you and me, I'll teach you how

to be the person your father wanted you to be.

If you do that, I'll consider this Brooklyn incident

a momentary lapse.

I'll wipe the slate clean.

The Catskills house is a glass and steel

monstrosity perched on the edge of a cliff.

It's beautiful and terrifying.

Inside the walls are white.

The floors are slate and the silence

is even deeper than the silence in Arthur's office.

There is no cell service.

There is only the wind howling through the pines

and the sound of Arthur pouring two glasses of scotch.

He hands me one.

I don't want it, but I take it to refuse

would be difficult, to refuse would be unstable.

You look tired, Elena.

He says, he's changed out of his suit

into a cashmere sweater that looks softer than skin.

You've been under a lot of pressure.

It's hard, isn't it?

Being told who to be, you're the one telling me, I remind him.

No, he sighs, sitting on the sofa

and gesturing for me to sit beside him.

Your father told you, I'm just the messenger,

but I can be a very flexible messenger

if I feel the beneficiary is showing true appreciation

for the responsibility.

He puts his hand on my knee, it's heavy.

It's a deliberate weight.

I look at the hand, then up at him.

His face is a mask of professional concern,

but his eyes are hungry.

They are the eyes of a man who has spent 20 years

managing other people's lives

and has finally decided he wants to keep one for himself.

I could sign the certification tonight, he whispers.

I could end the 36 month period early.

I have the discretionary power to declare the terms met

if I see extraordinary growth.

Imagine that, Elena, you could have everything.

The money, the houses, the freedom, no more lists,

no more shadows following you.

I look at the glass of scotch.

I look at the dark woods outside the Florida ceiling windows.

I think about the $6,000 a month.

I think about the apartment I'd have to leave.

I think about the shame of losing it all,

of proving my father right,

of being the failure everyone expected me to be.

And what does extraordinary growth look like to you, I ask?

Arthur leans in, he smells like expensive tobacco and power.

It looks like loyalty.

It looks like you realizing that I am the only person

in the world who truly understands what you're worth.

It looks like us becoming a team, a partnership.

He moves his hand higher.

I don't flinch.

I don't move.

I stay perfectly still, like a statue in a gallery.

I think about Julian.

I think about the sticky floor of the dive bar.

It feels like a dream I had a long time ago.

It feels like something that belongs to a girl

who doesn't exist anymore.

If you sign the papers, I say, my voice, a dull, rhythmic post,

does the monitoring stop?

The monitoring becomes internal, Arthur says.

He's smiling now, he's one, he knows it.

We won't need shadows if we have each other.

He leans forward to kiss me.

I close my eyes.

I tell myself that this is just another part

of the vetting process.

I tell myself that money is the only thing that's real

and that everything else pride, desire, love

is just an impulsive distraction.

I feel his breath on my skin and I think about the wing desk.

I think about the 68 degree air.

I think about how easy it is to be pure

when you have nothing left to lose.

The next morning, the sun hits the slate floor

and sharp blinding squares.

Arthur is in the kitchen making espresso.

The machine hisses and pops.

He looks younger in the morning, light more human,

but the folder is still there resting on the kitchen island.

He slides a document toward me along with a cup of coffee.

It's the certification.

It's signed in that silver fountain pen.

There you go, he says.

You're a very wealthy woman, Elena.

Completely independent.

I pick up the paper.

It feels lighter than I expected.

I look at the signature.

It's a series of sharp jagged lines

that don't look like a name at all.

They look like a fence.

I have a meeting in the city at noon.

Arthur says, checking his watch.

I'll drive you back.

We can have lunch at the club.

Start the new chapter properly.

I look out the window at the cliff.

I could walk out the door right now.

I have the paper, I have the money.

I could call a car, go to Brooklyn,

find Julian and disappear.

I could be unstable and impulsive and broke

and I would be free.

But then I look at the espresso machine.

It's a $3,000 piece of Italian engineering.

I look at the cashmere sweater draped over the chair.

I look at the way Arthur carries himself.

The absolute certainty of a man who owns everything he touches.

I realize that I don't want to leave the room.

I want to be the one who owns the room.

The club sounds lovely Arthur, I say.

I pick up the espresso cup and take a sip.

It's perfect.

It's exactly the right temperature.

Good girl, he says.

I don't even mind the words.

They feel like a soft velvet collar.

I realize then that the trap wasn't the will.

It wasn't the moral fitness clause or the purity test.

The trap was the realization that I am exactly

who my father thought I was.

I am someone who can be bought.

And Arthur didn't just buy my loyalty.

He bought my soul and he did it with my own money.

I walk over to him and straighten his collar.

I do it slowly.

My fingers brushing against his neck.

He freezes his eyes widening slightly.

He thinks he's in control.

He thinks he's the master and I'm the prize.

But he's old.

And I have 36 months to learn everything he knows.

I have 36 months to become the person who manages the managers.

We should go, I say my voice as cold and clear

as the water in the crystal glass.

We don't want to be late for lunch.

It wouldn't look good.

Arthur nods, a flicker of something

like fear crossing his face before he

masks it with a smile.

He reaches for his coat, but I'm already

at the door holding it open for him.

The wind from the cliff blows into the house,

chilling the air, but I don't feel it.

I don't feel anything at all.

I am the perfect air.

I am the picture of stability.

I am exactly what they wanted.

As we walk to the car, I notice a smudge

on the glass of the passenger side window.

It's a tiny, oily fingerprint, probably

from one of the housekeepers.

I take a silk handkerchief from my bag

and wipe it away until the glass is perfectly clear,

perfectly transparent and perfectly hard.

I am ready for the TTS engine to read my life.

I am ready for the next date on the list.

I am ready to pass every test they put in front of me

until there are no tests left.

And I am the one holding the silver fountain pin.

The drive back to the city is quiet.

The car is pressurized, shielding us

from the noise of the world outside.

Arthur talks about interest rates.

He talks about the board of directors.

He talks about the future.

I watch the trees blur into a continuous wall of green.

I think about the secret hunger my father must have had.

Not for money, but for the power to reach out

from the grave and pull the strings of the living.

He succeeded.

He found the one person who would enjoy

the tension of the wire.

Arthur reaches over and takes my hand.

His grip is firm.

I squeeze back.

It's a contract.

It's a covenant.

It's the most honest thing that has ever happened to me.

I am Elena the Eris.

I am the girl who passed the test.

And as the skyline of Manhattan rises up to meet us,

jagged and cold against the pale blue sky,

I know that I will never have to worry

about being unstable ever again.

I am locked in.

I am secure.

I am handled.

And God helped the first person who

tries to set me free.