In 2008 the group had one hundred billion in assets! God!
Can you imagine having that kind of money? No wonder the great, great grandson is spending it like water.
‘Oh look. Some pictures. Wow! Get an eyeful of how the rich live.’ She turns the laptop around so Lana can look at the images as she scrolls down. ‘Just some of their chateaus, palaces, castles, garden-mansions and city houses.
Wow! Look at this one in St James’s Park.’ There is silence for a while as the girls gaze in wonder at the photos.
‘Do you think you will get to visit any of these places?’
‘Definitely not. I have to sign a confidentiality agreement.’
‘Still, it’s an unbelievably exciting prospect, isn’t it? Just don’t fall for him.’
‘I won’t,’ Lana says confidently.
‘Let’s skip back to Google and go to about…page three…and see what the conspiracy theories have to say about this august family. Oh dear…blood-sucking crew.
“If my sons did not want war, there would be none.” His grandmother said that. Very nice. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln stated in his statement to Congress, “I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me, and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in my rear is my greatest foe.”
Billie shuts the laptop. ‘OK, quite enough of this. Let’s not spoil a good thing. Let’s celebrate your total brilliance, instead.’
Lana opens her mouth to protest. She knows exactly what Billie means by celebrate.
‘Aaa-aaa… Don’t say another word,’ Billie says, reaching under the bed to pull out a bottle of vodka. She opens the drawer of her tiny bedside table and rummages around until she finds two dirty shot glasses. She puts the two glasses on her bedside table, which is marked with leftover circles from other vodka full glasses. These glasses will make new moons that overlap the other moons.
She fills them to the brim and holds one out to Lana.
Lana laughs. ‘So early in the morning?’
‘Are you kidding? This is an un-fucking-believable turnaround. You go out of here in borrowed plumes to snare a fat bastard and you come back with not just the most eligible bachelor on either side of the Atlantic, but the son of the richest family on earth. You’ve pulled off the deal of the century, girl. We have to celebrate,’ Billie says firmly.
‘I haven’t pulled him, Bill. He wants to have sex with me in exchange for money.’
‘So? Would you rather be having sex with the hunk or the perv?’
Lana says nothing.
‘Look, I know you are into that deluded saving yourself for the special guy nonsense, but honestly, love, you really are getting too old to be playing virgin. Every puss needs a good pair of boots otherwise it shrivels up and dies.’
Lana smiles. ‘You don’t have one.’
‘Ah, but I have Mr. Rabbit. Nothing dies when he is around.’ She opens the second drawer of her bedside cabinet to expose her huge and colorful dildo.
Lana gasps. ‘With your mum in the next room?’
Billie shrugs. ‘I use it when she’s at the supermarket.’
Lana takes the proffered glass, still shaking her head at her friend’s total lack of inhibitions. They clink glasses.
‘Here’s to…’ Billie grins wickedly. ‘hot sex with anyone.’
They down the vodka and Billie thumps her chest. So early in the morning the alcohol has an immediate effect on Lana. Heat spreads quickly through her veins and makes her feel light-headed. The future seems exciting suddenly.
Billie’s mother yells, ‘Breakfast is ready,’ from downstairs.
Billie lets her head hit the pillow behind her in disgust.
‘God, she does my head in. If only she wouldn’t do that.
Every fucking morning she goes on about breakfast. You’d have thought after nineteen years she’d know I don’t eat that shit.’ She twists her body and reaches out to the little cupboard under the drawers of her bedside cabinet and takes out a jar of strawberry jam and a spoon. She unscrews the lid and feeds herself a spoonful of jam.
Lana simply looks at her.
‘Don’t say it,’ Billie warns.
‘I won’t, but really, Billie, your mum’s right. How can you eat jam for breakfast?’
‘For the one thousandth time because it’s delicious.’
She spoons another mouthful in, and commands, ‘Now, tell me every inappropriate thing that happened last night.
Don’t leave a single thing out.’
Lana tells her everything except for the kiss, which she herself cannot make sense of and cannot bring herself to talk about. Billie’s eyes alight on the orange coat and she smiles smugly. ‘I told you the dress and coat were lucky.