Generations Read online

  “I know you do, but you can have another office later. Right now, I think it’s important to get feet under the company before you start putting stuff on top of it. Keep your overhead as low as possible. You might even consider taking a loan from your assistant.”

  “No!” Marissa realized she’d spoken too loudly and lowered her voice. “I’m not taking money from you. I pay you, not the other way around.”

  “But I don’t need your money,” Tabs replied. They’d had this conversation so many times, it was almost ridiculous. “I just put my checks into savings. It’s your money, if you think about it. I’m keeping it safe for you.”

  Marissa shook her head. “Listen, rich girl. Yes, you have a trust fund and all that—whatever. I’m not going to ruin our friendship by mixing money up into it. We agreed that if you took this job, it would be on the same terms as anyone else, and no special treatment because we’re best friends. You do remember that, right?”

  “I remember, but I never liked it.”

  “I don’t need you to like it. I just need you to live by it.” Marissa picked up her burger. “Please just do it my way, all right?”

  “All right,” Tabs grumbled, stabbing at her lettuce while Marissa sank her teeth into her burger. “But I’m glad you’re listening to me about giving up the office.”

  “It’s temporary,” Marissa said after she swallowed. “We’ll have another office again someday—a much better one.” She just wished she knew when that might be—and she wished she didn’t feel like such a failure.

  Chapter Two

  “Thanks for lunch, Florence,” Tony called out, a smirk on his face.

  “Would you like me to box up some fourths for you, Mr. Espinozo?” she asked, poking her graying head into the dining room.

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t eat another bite.” Tony rubbed his perfectly flat stomach.

  Andrew watched the exchange with amusement. Everyone was welcome at Florence’s table, but Tony always took her generosity to the absolute limit, and they enjoyed baiting each other.

  “Let’s go in my office,” Andrew said, pushing back from the table. “I’ve got some things to show you.”

  “I should hope so. You didn’t say a peep during lunch, and my curiosity’s getting the better of me.”

  “I didn’t say a peep because I didn’t know what to say.” They walked down the hall and into the large room that overlooked the gardens and where Andrew spent most of his time when he was home. He flopped down in his desk chair and waved at Tony to take the other one. “So, I have some pretty big decisions to make.”

  “Yes, you do.” Tony had said he’d wear his lawyer hat. For him, that meant showing up in dress slacks rather than faded jeans. He leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other knee, flashing a cashmere sock. “What’s up?”

  Andrew pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “My father had a lot of secrets,” he said at last.

  “Go on.”

  “You already know about the mistress in Denver. And the one here in town.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, part of my father’s will includes a nice little payout for each of them.” He slid a piece of paper across the table.

  Tony picked it up and whistled. “This isn’t chump change,” he said.

  “No, it’s not. And I can’t help but think about my mother, and how hard she had to fight for alimony and child support payments.”

  “Doesn’t seem fair.”

  “No, it’s not fair.” Andrew stood up and walked over to the window. The clouds were starting to part, revealing bright blue sky on the other side. “That was never how my father operated. He never saw the value of fairness. Or honesty. Or decency.” Andrew’s stomach clenched as he spoke.

  “But your mother did,” Tony said from his chair. “And she’s the one who raised you. You’re not the same as your father, Andrew.”

  “I know I’m not, and I give her full credit. I wish she was still alive so I could tell her that.” He walked back over and sat down. “But now I’m trying to figure out this legacy my father left me, not only financially, but as a son. My life values are different from his, but we do share a lot of the same traits. Our business sense, for one.”

  “And you can’t resent that,” Tony said, holding out both arms to indicate the gorgeous house where Andrew lived.

  “No, I can’t. I’m successful because my father taught me how to set goals and take risks and be creative. He did pass along some good lessons. The rest, on the other hand . . . yeah. I’ll likely need therapy before we’re done.”

  “We all need therapy,” Tony replied. “Even the best parents mess up their kids a little bit.” He studied Andrew’s face. “What else? There’s more to the story.”

  Andrew leaned forward and rested his folded arms on the desk. “Dad’s lawyer took me for a drive this morning and showed me some of the properties I just inherited. One of them is a huge old hotel down by the railroad tracks—a place I never even knew Dad owned. Or that it existed. It’s trashed, Tony—it’s been neglected for a long time, and I can’t even wrap my head around how much money it would take to bring it up to code. I was going to sell it and move on, but . . . there’s just something about it.”

  Tony raised an eyebrow. “You’re getting involved in another project, aren’t you?”

  Andrew laughed. “Yeah, I might be. You know me and my projects.”

  “Yes, I do, which is why I should stand up and leave right now.”

  “But you won’t, because you’re utterly intrigued.”

  Tony sighed. “Yeah, I am. Go on.”

  Andrew picked up the folder Mr. Harker had given him. “Here’s everything I know about it. Looks like it had an amazing history. I want to know everything about it, including the people who lived there over the years—mainly, my family. I want to know who they were and what they were like.”

  “Are you going all genealogical on me because you’re grieving your father?” Tony gave him a shrewd look.

  “Maybe. It would be nice to know there were people in my line who weren’t obsessed with the almighty dollar and who cared about other people.”

  “Whoa. Bitter.” Tony shook his head. “I’m seeing the need for that therapy now. Listen—I’ll do some research and see what I can find out about the place, all right? But I don’t want you rushing into anything until you have more information.” He tapped the folder. “This looks like a huge undertaking, and you know as well as I do that you’ve lost money on projects before.”

  “And you know as well as I do that I always make it back,” Andrew retorted. “But yes, I’ll ask questions and do my due diligence.”

  “Good.” Tony stood up. “I’ll make some calls, all right? And I’ll get back to you Monday morning.”

  “You mean Beverly will make some calls,” Andrew teased.

  Tony grinned. “That’s what paralegals do. I’ll see you later.”

  He crossed the room and opened the door, almost running into Jimmy, who was just coming in. “Oh, sorry, Jimmy. I wasn’t being careful.”

  “That’s okay, Mr. Tony.” Jimmy smiled and came into the room. “I wiped everything off and put it in a new box, Mr. Andrew. There was a dead spider, but I threw it away.”

  “Great job, Jimmy. It does look a lot cleaner.”

  The young man smiled, then left without saying anything else. He was probably eager to get back to his weeding—that was his favorite job in the garden.

  Andrew picked up the photograph that had captured his attention before. Now that the glass was clean, it was easy to see how much he and this Adam Brody resembled each other. He studied the faces behind the glass a moment longer, then set the picture aside and pulled out the next item. It was a ledger started in June of 1875. Amazing.

  Each page was brittle and yellowed, but he could still make out the bold, clear handwriting. It wasn’t just a ledger, but it was a journal and an employment record of sorts. Adam Brody had not only tracked profi
t and expenditures, but he’d written down the employees’ names and their positions at the hotel, and he’d also kept notes about their job performance. It seemed that he was only able to keep his waitresses temporarily because each time he’d hire a new girl, she’d fall in love and get married. Andrew shook his head, smiling. That must have been a frustrating way to run a business.

  He flipped back to the first page. He saw that Adam had spent quite a lot of money on lumber and nails over his first few days at the hotel, so he must have had a lot of repairs to do too. Then he hired a young woman named Elizabeth Caldwell to be his first waitress. A few pages later, Adam made the note that he’d married Elizabeth and given her little daughter his name. Andrew grinned. Yes, there had been a lot of romance at the hotel, and Adam had started it himself.

  Page after page and book after book of meticulous handwriting laid out the whole history of the hotel until it just suddenly stopped in 1901. Andrew pawed through the box one more time to make sure he’d seen them all, but that was it. No mention of who took over the hotel after that, no additional records—it was as though the people who had come to life in his mind as he read had just vanished back into the ether they’d come from. He sat back in his chair, startled to see that four hours had flown by while he read. Some questions had been answered, while even more had been raised. The biggest one of all, however, was no longer even a question. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. He picked up his phone and hit a preprogrammed number.

  “Tony?” he said when his friend picked up. “We’re a go.”

  ***

  Andrew was crazy. He knew he was crazy. No sane person would put everything at risk like this. But he’d spent all weekend thinking about it, and he knew it was the right thing to do.

  Andrew looked in the mirror and straightened his tie. Florence shook her head when he entered the kitchen and sat at the counter. “There you go, all dressed up in your thousand-dollar suit. Who are you trying to impress?”

  “I’m trying to feel like I know what I’m talking about.” Andrew poured himself a mug of chamomile tea and plopped four sugar cubes into it. “I’ve got to get my board of directors behind me.”

  “I don’t see why you even need a board of directors,” Florence said, placing a dish of peaches and cream in front of him. She’d drizzled some honey over the top, just the way he liked it. “I think they’re meant to keep you out of trouble, but you get in trouble anyway.”

  He laughed. “That’s very true. They try their hardest, and then Tony helps me find a way around them.” He took a bite, then paused. “You’re too good to me, Florence.”

  “Everyone’s too good to you.” She patted his arm. “Someone really ought to take you over their knee once in a while.”

  “I think I’m a little too old for a nanny or a governess or whatever you want to call it.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a wife.” She gave him a pointed look. “You need someone to keep you in check. Gracious knows, Tony won’t do it. That man is the biggest enabler I’ve ever met.”

  “He just knows where the excitement is,” Andrew replied.

  “Life isn’t always about excitement. It’s about holding steady and doing the right thing.”

  He nodded as he thought that over. “You’re right, Florence, and I have to tell you, I really think that’s what I’m doing with this hotel.”

  She paused in her act of wiping the counter and gave him a curious look. “How so?”

  “That building was loved once upon a time—loved deeply. It was never meant to be abandoned to fall apart. It deserves to be restored. It deserves to be loved again.”

  “And that’s why it’s now yours,” Florence said, giving him an approving look. “It’s your destiny to give it that love, Andrew.”

  He snorted. “I don’t think buildings have destinies.”

  “But people do, and that’s what I’m talking about. Your eyes just now—I haven’t seen them light up like that in a long time. Not since your mother died.”

  Andrew looked down into his peaches. He and his mother had been very close, and when she’d died, he’d felt a piece of himself go with her. But that was ten years ago, and he’d thought he’d managed to hide it well enough. He guessed he was wrong. “She was my reminder of all the good in the world,” he said at last. “She had a tough, tough life, but she found joy in it anyway, and that inspired me to look for my own joy in every circumstance.”

  “She was a good woman, and you’ve grown into a good young man. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll make of this new venture. You’re excited about it—I can tell.”

  “Yeah, I am. I’m nervous too, though—I’ve got it built up in my head as this amazing thing, but what if I can’t deliver? What if I make a bunch of promises, and it’s all just a bunch of talk?”

  “And what if it’s fantastic?” Florence smiled at him. “Don’t go borrowing trouble. Make your plans. Do the best you can. Advertise. Talk it up. Then see what happens. Don’t prepare to fail before you’ve even begun—that would be a horrible way to start out.”

  Andrew chuckled. “You’re right. I think I’m just extra nervous because this is the first time I’ve cared about something in a while.”

  “And I’m excited to see that sparkle in your eye.” She gave him another smile. “You’ve got this.”

  “Thanks, Florence. I really hope you’re right.”

  When Andrew walked into his downtown Topeka office half an hour later, he was surprised to see Tony already there waiting for him, accompanied by a tall man with graying hair and glasses. “Andrew, this is Matt Kingston,” Tony introduced. “He’s a genealogist here in the area. We got him on the case as soon as I left your house on Friday, and he has some information for you about your family.”

  “That’s great,” Andrew said. “Please, come in and sit down, Mr. Kingston. I have a meeting in half an hour, but my time is yours until then.”

  “It’s Matt. And it’s my pleasure.”

  They took seats around Andrew’s desk, and Matt pulled out a file. “I had a lot of fun digging into your genealogy, Mr. Brody,” he said. “Did you know that the name Brody is Gaelic, and means ‘a ditch’? Your ancestors were probably farmers and did irrigation for their crops or something along those lines.”

  “Hmm. I had no idea,” Andrew replied. “To be honest, I’ve never thought about my family much past my grandparents. I didn’t know my great-grandparents at all.”

  “Many people don’t know much beyond the second generation. That’s why my job is so fun—I get to introduce them to their families. I love looking at people’s family trees and studying how their ancestry makes them who they are today.” Matt pulled a sheet of paper from the folder. “I’ve printed out this pedigree chart for you. Here’s your ancestor, Adam Brody, the man you asked about. He married Elizabeth Caldwell in 1875, and they had three children—Rose, Gabriel, and Hope. It looks to me like Rose came into the marriage with Elizabeth.”

  Andrew nodded. “That’s what I read in the ledger from the hotel—she was a baby when Adam met Elizabeth, and he gave her his name.”

  “You have a ledger?” Matt’s face lit up. “I love it when people keep personal histories. It makes my job so much easier. Now, your direct ancestor was Gabriel Brody. He was born to Adam and Elizabeth in 1877. His son was Alfred, born in 1902.”

  “That’s around the time the ledger stops,” Andrew said. “The last entry is 1901. I think it was made by Adam too—the handwriting is the same all the way through.”

  “Entirely possible. Adam would have been fifty-one in 1901. Was there any clue as to why that was the last entry?”

  “No, just that the doctor had come by. That was it.”

  “Hmm.” Matt looked at the pedigree chart again. “Ah. This might explain something. Elizabeth passed away in 1901.”

  “What? She did?” Andrew sat back, feeling as though he’d been shoved. “How? Of what?”

  “I wasn’t able to ge
t that far, but I’d be more than happy to keep digging, if you’d like me to,” Matt said.

  “Of course. Yes, I want to know.” Andrew rubbed his hand over his face, surprised at his own reaction. What difference did it make if she’d died at the age of fifty or the age of ninety-five—it’s not like he would have had a chance to meet her, so why was he so rattled by this news?

  “All right. I’ll see what I can find out.” Matt went back to the chart. “Gabriel got married and had a son . . .”

  He continued on for a moment, but Andrew couldn’t focus until he heard the words, “And that brings us to you, Andrew Brody, age twenty-eight, Adam Brody’s great-great-great-great grandson.”

  Andrew’s head spun. “That’s a lot of greats.”

  Matt laughed. “Sure is. That’s why we just say fourth great-grandfather—so we don’t have to say ‘great’ four times.”

  Andrew looked at the list of names. All those people he never met, never knew. All those people who had walked the earth before him and had stories of their own to tell. “What can you tell me about Adam and Elizabeth personally?”

  Matt leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands across his stomach. “Quite a lot, actually, which was a nice surprise given that this was a hundred and forty years ago. They were both born in New York and came out here in search of a better life—that’s how many parts of Kansas and the states farther west were settled. People back east wanted to expand and to have their own property, and the west seemed like a perfect opportunity. Kansas was called the gateway to the west, sort of the bridge between civilization and uncharted territory. Adam had just inherited a sum of money from his father’s death, and he used that money to come out to Kansas and purchase the building to function as a hotel for the wave of travelers he predicted would come.”

  Andrew sat up a little straighter. “You say his father had just died?”

  “That’s right. Just a short time before. Wait,” Matt said. “Your own father died not too long ago, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, a month ago,” Andrew said, leaning back again. “What a strange coincidence.” He had goose bumps on his arms.