Chapter 1
by Pierre Bastien


The caterer led Reid back through the house, towards the front door, filling him in along the way.

“He just barreled in and started yelling your name. He seems drunk.”

It was three in the afternoon.

"Cavanaugh," thought Reid. It had to be him. Cavanaugh was the squash pro at the Bel Air country club. He hailed from New Zealand, and had been installed there at the club for three years or so. Reid was also a member there at the club, and the two had gotten to know each other reasonably well over the last few months.

Cavanaugh was a capable squash pro. While he wasn’t terribly organized, he was good with the kids at the club. He’d turned a dozen or so junior players into regulars at the clinics he put on. His laid-back manner, charming accent, and tousled brown hair had been a hit with the kids — and with the parents too.

Stacy was one of those parents.

When Reid got to the front door, he saw Cavanaugh leaning against the door frame, dressed in blue jeans, a white dress shirt, and brown loafers, looking rather disheveled. He was examining some sort of stain on his shirt.

Reid wasn’t sure if Cavanaugh has been drinking since this morning, or since the night before.

“What are you doing here, Cavanaugh?” asked Reid in a half-urgent whisper.

Cavanaugh looked up at Reid and simple replied, “Is he here?”

“No.”

Cavanaugh looked down again and fussed over his shirt stain for a bit longer. Without looking up, he asked, “Is she here?”

Reid paused to think about it. “Yes,” he finally responded.

Cavanaugh didn’t say anything right away, so Reid added, “You should go home. You’re a wreck. You don’t want her to see you like this.”

Reid waited. The caterer was still standing next to him, motionless.

Eventually, Cavanaugh stood up straight. “Mate, you’ve always looked out for me. I appreciate it.”

“Get some sleep mate,” replied Reid. “You’ll feel better in a few hours.”

Cavanaugh swung around and walked out the door, pausing briefly to steady himself on the door frame that had been holding him up a minute before.

As Cavanaugh stumbled down the path towards the driveway, Reid looked to see if Cavanaugh’s car was parked there — but it wasn’t. Cavanaugh started fumbling with his phone to call an Uber.

Reid and the caterer glanced at each other, looking relieved. After another moment or two, they parted ways, walking back to deal with the party.

Reid thought back to his days at Darien High School. Stacy had been a classmate of his there. She was two years older than him, which at that time had seemed like a significant age difference.

As a senior, Stacy was a standout cross-country runner for the Darien Blue Wave, their high school team. Reid, then a sophomore, was a promising talent on the boy’s cross-country team.

Even back then, Reid’s mouth moved just as fast as his legs, and he seemed unafraid of playful banter with Stacy. According to the unwritten, unspoken, but ironclad code governing high school relationships, she was most definitely out of Reid’s league. That didn’t stop him from trying though. In the end, he never got anywhere, but he left an impression on Stacy all the same.

Stacy and Reid didn’t see each other again for a good 20 years. She had moved out to California at some point before him, and worked her way into the Silicon Valley startup world. She was now the chief marketing officer at a local startup, which was trying to break into the highly competitive niche of selfie drones. 

After a few years on the west coast, Stacy had met Henry, an LA native who was just beginning to build up a real estate business that loaned money to house flippers. At least, that’s how Reid understood it. Henry called himself a “local real estate bridge lender”.

Stacy and Henry had married after a short courtship, and soon they had a baby boy, who was now nine years old.

Although Stacy had yet to strike it huge in the startup world, she was a sought-after executive, and her income supported the family while Henry built up his business.

Henry’s business barely survived the financial crisis, but things had really boomed after that, with cheap credit filling his sails just as nearly all his competition had been wiped out in the crisis. In short order, he had a thriving business and a small fortune, and was busy growing that into a huge one.

Reid had moved out to California a few years behind Stacy, and was busy building up his own business as a financial advisor. He’d reconnected with her about a year ago through the magic of Facebook. He’d invited Stacy and Henry over to one of his regular house parties, and was quite pleased to find out that they were looking for some help investing their newfound wealth.

Reid’s client base had been eroding recently, what with everyone putting their money into index funds these days. Henry and Stacy had come through just at the right time, putting a sizable sum of money under Reid’s care.

But just when things were looking up, they took a turn for the worse. Stacy and Henry’s marriage had started to come under strain, and then gradually began to break apart. Neither of them had wanted to tell Reid about it — so he’d remained in the dark. Until Reid’s last party, that is.

Reid arrived back at his makeshift tournament desk, picked up the bullhorn, and started barking out instructions to the players. He quickly got everything back under control, beginning to shepherd everyone through the first round of the tournament.

Stacy, sitting at a table near the pool, caught Reid’s eye. She had emerged from the hot tub and had put on a wrap and a floppy, wide-brimmed sun hat. She sauntered over after Reid had finished corralling everyone with his bullhorn.

“Everything going alright?” she asked.

“Never better,” answered Reid with a playful eye roll.

Stacy arched an eyebrow at him.

“Your buddy Cavanaugh was just here,” said Reid.

Stacy tightened up a bit. “Oh really?” she responded, feigning indifference.

“Yeah. He looked like he’s seen better days. I sent him home to sleep it off.”

“He sure does enjoy a good party, doesn’t he?”

Reid chuckled and smiled at Stacy.

The last time they’d all gathered at Reid’s house, Stacy and Henry had both shown up, even though by that point they’d agreed to “take a break” from the marriage. What Reid didn’t know was that Stacy had been messing around with another guy — Cavanaugh.

Stacy wasn’t doing anything off-base. She and Henry had agreed to agreed to see other people, at least temporarily. The problem was Reid didn’t know any of this, and had invited Cavanaugh to the party.

Things had started off civilly, but after one too many drinks, Henry just started pummeling Cavanaugh, who stood there and took the beating. Cavanaugh ended up falling into the hot tub. Reid was the one to jump in and pull him out.

“Reid,” started Stacy, “there’s something you should know.”

“What’s this,” grinned Reid, “a proactive heads-up for a change?”

“It’s Cavanaugh,” said Stacy. “He’s threatening to sue Henry over the…incident.”

Reid gulped.





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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.