Chapter 8 - THE LEGACY OF GERALD KLEIN
A few days later,
I received a package from Switzerland.
It was a small wooden box,
smelling of cedar and aged oil.
Inside was a hand-written note from Gerald.
“I heard about the dinner,”
it read.
“The watch was never meant to be a status symbol, Audrey.”
“It was meant to be a reminder,
that true quality is silent.”
“The stars on that face don't shine for the critics.”
“They shine for the navigator.”
I smiled,
holding the note against my chest.
Gerald was ninety years old,
a man who had survived wars and market crashes,
and he knew more about value than my entire extended family.
I thought about the bus rides,
the long hours on the MTA,
surrounded by people who were all navigators in their own way.
They were the real world.
The Connecticut mansion was a bubble,
a fragile glass sphere,
held together by the collective belief in its own importance.
Blake had called again,
this time with a "business proposal."
He wanted Aethelgard to use his father’s firm for our international payroll.
I deleted the email without a second thought.
The price of entry into my life,
was character,
not blood.
I went down to the street,
the cold air of Manhattan biting at my ears.
I walked to the subway entrance,
merging with the crowd of commuters.
I stood on the platform,
the watch tucked securely under my sleeve,
the mechanical heart ticking against my pulse.
A young woman standing next to me,
looked at my simple blouse and jeans.
“I like your shoes,”
she said,
smiling.
“Thanks,”
I replied,
“they’re comfortable.”
She didn't know I was a billionaire.
She didn't know I owned the building she worked in.
She just liked my shoes.
And in that moment,
her compliment meant more to me,
than all the fawning praise,
from the relatives in Connecticut.
The train pulled into the station,
a roar of steel and wind.
I stepped on,
finding a seat near the door.
I watched the city go by,
the tunnels,
the graffiti,
the raw energy of a million lives.
This was my Ferrari.
This was my zero to sixty.
May you like
And as I looked at the constellation on my wrist,
I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
