“But he can’t stop me from signing away my inheritance. He can rant and rave about it if it makes him feel better. But there’s nothing he can actually do. Is there?”
Lionel Neuman shook his head. So much anger. And arrogance. The arrogance of youth.
“Ultimately, Robert, you are correct. The decision rests with you. However, as your family’s attorney for more than four decades, it is my duty to inform you…”
Robbie wasn’t listening.
Save it for someone who cares, Grandpa. I don’t want Kruger-Brent. I never did. And I don’t care about the goddamn family. Apart from Lexi, not one of them is worth a damn.
He’d come to a decision last night. Admittedly he’d been looped at the time, lost in a heroin and tequila haze while playing the filthy, dilapidated piano at Tommy’s, a gay bar in Brooklyn.
Some older guy who’d been coming on to him all evening yelled out: “You know what, kid? You could do that shit for a living.”
It was a throwaway remark. But it hit Robbie like a bullet between the eyes.
I could do this for a living. I could run away. Away from Dad, away from Kruger-Brent, away from my demons. Change my name. Play piano in some anonymous bar somewhere. Find out who I really am.
Robbie Templeton wasn’t interested in Old Man Neuman’s concerns and warnings and quid pro quos. He wanted out.
“Here.” He grabbed a piece of paper from Lionel Neuman’s blotter. Using the lawyer’s pen, he scrawled two lines that were to change his life forever.
I, Robert Peter Templeton, hereby renounce all claims, entitlement and inheritance left to me by my great-grandmother, Kate Blackwell, including all rights and shareholdings in Kruger-Brent, Ltd. I transfer those claims in their entirety to my sister, Alexandra Templeton.
“It’s signed and dated. And you just witnessed it.”
Handing the paper to the alarmed attorney, Robbie stood up to leave. Lionel Neuman was struck again by how unusually good-looking the boy was. Truly a gilded youth. But the telltale signs of substance abuse were already beginning to show. Bloodshot eyes, sunken cheeks, bouts of uncontrolled shivering.
How long before he winds up on the street, another hopeless, helpless, faceless addict?
Six months. Tops.
“Thank you for your help, Mr. Neuman. I’ll see myself out.”
SEVEN
LEXI TEMPLETON WAS NOT LIKE OTHER LITTLE GIRLS.
When she was five years old, her father received a phone call at the office.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come and pick Lexi up right away.”
It was Mrs. Thackeray, the principal of Lexi’s kindergarten. She sounded distressed.
“Has something happened? Is Lexi okay?”
“Your daughter is fine, Mr. Templeton. It’s the other children I’m worried about.”
When Peter arrived at the Little Cherubs Preschool, a tearful Lexi hurtled into his arms. “I didn’t do anything, Daddy! It wasn’t my fault.”
Mrs. Thackeray pulled Peter to one side.
“I’ve had to send two children to the emergency room this morning. Your daughter attacked them with scissors. One little boy was lucky not to lose an eye.”
“But that’s ridiculous.” Peter looked at Lexi. Clinging to his legs in a yellow cotton sundress with matching yellow ribbons in her hair, she looked the picture of innocence. “Why would she do a thing like that?”
“I have no idea. My staff assures me that the attack was entirely unprovoked. I’m afraid we won’t be able to have Lexi back at Little Cherubs. You must make alternative arrangements.”
In the back of the limousine, Peter asked his daughter what had happened.
“It was nothing .” Lexi swung her legs merrily, entirely unrepentant. “I don’t know why they all made such a fuss. I was doing my collage. It was a picture of Kruger-Brent. You know, your big tower where you go to work?”
Peter nodded.
“It was really pretty and silvery and I did all tinfoil on it. But then Timmy Willard said my picture was ‘damn stupid.’ And Malcolm Malloy laughed at me.”
“That was mean of them, honey. So what did you do?”
Lexi looked at him pityingly, as if to say, What sort of a question is that?
“I stuck up for myself, like you told me. I stabbed Timmy in his head. Don’t worry , Daddy,” she added, seeing Peter’s stricken face. “He didn’t get dead. Can we go to McDonald’s for lunch?”
The child psychologists were all in agreement.
Lexi was highly intelligent and highly sensitive. Her behavioral problems all stemmed from the loss of her mother.
Peter asked: “But what about this vengeful streak? Her lack of moral boundaries?”
The answer was always the same.
She’ll grow out of it.
“Don’t let me hear your excuses! You have poisoned the queen. You will have your head chopped off straight away.”
Lexi grappled with her limited-edition Little Mermaid Barbie doll.
“That’ll teach you, you fishy-tailed crin-i-mal.” She grinned triumphantly as the head came free. “Now you are absolutely DEAD!”
“Lexi!”
Mrs. Grainger, the new nanny, walked into the bedroom. A sea of decapitated dolls littered the floor. She sighed.
Again? Whatever happened to tea parties and teddy bear’s picnics?
Eight-year-old girls had sure changed since her day.
In her midfifties, widowed, with no children of her own, Mrs. Grainger had been hired as a replacement to the infamous Mrs. Carter. (The Templetons’ former housekeeper had made the most of her blood money, divorcing her grumpy husband, Mike, and running off to Hawaii. She was last seen on a beach in Maui having coconut oil massaged into her ample backside by a half-naked twenty-year-old called Keanu. Mrs. Grainger had never gotten along with coconut oil.)