“As you wish. I’ll get these papers off to you right away.”
“Thanks, Bill, and thank you again for your support.”
Stone hung up feeling lighter than air. A partnership at Woodman amp; Weld! He had never thought it possible until recently, and now it had actually happened.
Manolo came and took his dishes away, then came back and presented him with an envelope. “A fax for you, Mr. Stone.”
Stone opened the envelope and found the partnership agreement. He read it through quickly, then signed it and set it aside for FedEx pickup. Then he read the note for Arrington’s line of credit, which was well drawn and required no changes. As he returned the papers to the envelope, a movement caught his eye. He looked up.
“Arrington!” he said. She was standing there looking gorgeous, as usual. He got up and met her halfway. “I wasn’t expecting you; why didn’t you let me know?” They hugged and kissed.
“I remembered last night that the Bel-Air is reopening tonight,” she said, “so I thought what the hell, good excuse to come out. We left early this morning.”
He held a chair for her. “Would you like lunch?”
“I had something on the airplane, which was a charter. There wasn’t time to send for the Centurion jet. You know, Stone. Maybe it’s time I got my own airplane. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
“You’ll have to advise me on what to get.”
“I’ll be glad to do that and to get you more expert advice than I’m able to offer.”
“Can I afford it?”
“Arrington, you can afford anything your heart desires,” Stone replied. “By the way, I have the papers for your line of credit.” He opened the envelope and handed them to her.
“I think this is yours,” she said, handing back his partnership agreement. “And congratulations again.”
“Thank you; you helped make it possible.”
She glanced at the first page of the agreement. “A hundred million dollars!”
“You don’t have to borrow it all, just enough for the Champion deal and whatever else you want, like the airplane.”
“Do you have a pen?” She accepted one and signed the papers where Stone indicated.
Manolo came out with iced tea for both of them, and Stone handed him the partnership and line of credit agreements in the envelope, first writing the address on the outside. “Will you fax these, then FedEx the originals to New York, please, Manolo?”
“Of course, Mr. Stone.”
“I’ve been making some plans, Stone,” Arrington said. “Let me tell you about them.”
“I’d like to hear them.” He sat back and morphed into his listening lawyer mode.
19
Arrington brushed a strand of her blonde hair from her forehead and took a long drink of her iced tea. “I haven’t told you about this,” she said, “and you haven’t visited, so you haven’t seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“My house.”
“I recall your saying that you were thinking of building.”
“That was years ago. I went a little crazy after Vance’s death. I had never had access to huge amounts of money, and Vance was-how shall I put it?-prudent. I looked for a big house in Virginia and didn’t find anything I liked, so I decided to build the house to end all houses, and I did. Twenty thousand square feet of it.”
“Wow.”
“Well, yes. I hired an architect and an interior designer, and I went on a shopping spree all over the South to find just the right pieces to furnish it. The local gentry were peeved, because I was denuding the antique shops in the county and running the prices up on whatever was left, but eventually, I got it done.” She sighed. “Perhaps ‘overdone’ would be a better word.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t, and I don’t want you looking through old Architectural Digests for the piece they did. So, for weeks now, I’ve been tagging pieces in the house, and I’m going to throw the biggest auction anybody in Virginia has ever seen. Sotheby’s is sending down an auctioneer. And-you won’t believe this-I’ve found a buyer for the house whose tastes are probably better than mine. I won’t get all my money out of the place, but I’ll get three-quarters of it and be happy to have it.”
“Where will you live?” Stone asked.
“At Champion Farms,” she said.
“I wasn’t aware there was a suitable house on the property.”
“There isn’t, but there used to be. It was contemporaneous with Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, but it was destroyed by fire in the 1920s. A researcher has been able to find the original plans in the Charlottesville library-no one even knew they were there. So, I’m going to re-create the place on the original spot. It’s wildly overgrown, but there are beautiful trees, including a neglected colonnade of old oaks to the house. I’ll replace the damaged and fallen trees.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“It’s going to take all my time for the next two years, and then I’ll be looking for another project to keep me busy. I’ve learned that I’m dangerous when I’m not busy.”
Stone laughed. “I can imagine.”
“There’s something else: I want to talk to you about Peter.”
“All right, perhaps it’s time you did.”
“Peter is fifteen, and he’s at Episcopal High School, in Alexandria; it’s the best prep school in the South, on a level with the best New England preps. He is very, very bright, and he’s a grade ahead. He’s also very handsome, and tall for his age.” She retrieved a photograph from her purse and handed it to Stone. “For you.”
Stone stared at the boy-young man, really-and sighed. “He looks extraordinarily like my father.”
“I remember that photograph in your house,” she said. “Anyway, the school was reluctant to accept him at first, but then three of the senior faculty had a long lunch with him-I wasn’t present-and they were impressed with his maturity and seriousness, so they accepted him as a boarding student in the ninth grade. From what they’ve said about him so far, he’ll probably graduate in three years, maybe even two.”
“That’s breathtaking,” Stone said.
“I’m sure you were bright, too, Stone,” she said. “God knows he didn’t get it from me.”
“Now, now.”
Arrington reached into the large handbag resting next to her chair and handed Stone a thick envelope. “This is my will and the trust I set up for Peter. I’d like you and the people at Woodman amp; Weld to look it over and redraw it. My beneficiaries haven’t changed, but I’ll be interested to see if you think the trust needs work.”
“Of course,” Stone said. “We’ll do that as a courtesy.”
“You’ll never make any money that way, Stone.”
“We’ll do all right.”
“You’ll see that I’ve appointed you Peter’s trustee. I didn’t tell you, because, I suppose, I felt invulnerable, but recently I had a brush with ovarian cancer. They caught it early, but I had to have my ovaries out, and now I’m on hormones. If I get sick again, I’ll give you as much notice as I can, but you could, possibly, find yourself being a father to your son.”
“That would be an honor,” Stone said.
“Considering that you’re his father, it’s more of a duty,” she said. “Maybe he’ll find that out one day, but I don’t want you to tell him. He’s Vance’s son to the world, and that will be an advantage to him, if you help him handle it properly.”
“I can see how it would be.”
“You’re going to have to keep it from him how rich he’s going to be.”
