For Love or Money

By Marvin Kauder

Allen Tobias has a secret. He is a best-selling romance novelist writing under a pen name. His sister is the only one who knows. Her job is to run interference for him and take care of his growing fortune. After years of loneliness, Allen becomes involved with three beautiful women. Each has the power to sweep him off his feet. Complicating matters, Sunburn, his first novel has been made into a blockbuster movie and its premier has caused the spotlight to be cast in his direction. Allen doesn't want the notoriety that goes along with being a celebrity. He wants to be free to find a woman who loves him just the way he is, without the fame and fortune. He needs to make certain that the woman he chooses wants him for love and not for money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669847441

Marvin Kauder

Marvin Kauder is a retired high school visual arts teacher who resides in Richmond Hill, Ontario. His biggest fan and inspiration is his wife, Elise. Mr. Kauder's published romance novels are September Sun and Madame President. For Love or Money will be his next novel.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I don’t want to answer the phone. I know it’s my sister Marnie calling and I know what she’s going to say. And I don’t want to hear it. I answer it and guess who? It’s Marnie and she says what I knew she would say.

Are you watching Hollywood Now?

I am, but I say nothing.

Well, are you?

She is a lawyer by profession and a pain-in-the-ass, by practice.

Yes Marnie, I am.

Then you heard.

Yes, I heard.

There is a pause and then she becomes more circumspect.

Dad’s not there, is he?

No I try not to let my exasperation show. Dad’s not here.

She is waiting for me to verify that he is next door, but I do not. Even though I am thirty-three and she is two years older, we haven’t varied from our sibling script. She henpecks me and I pout. If I thought about it, and I don’t — I would be ashamed. But I’m not. She is really a good sister. She’s always watching out for me and taking care of me, and I resent her for it. She has a way of speaking — breathing actually, that is just so irritating.

Well, what do you think?

What do I think? I don’t know what I think. I watched it too and I think that there’s nothing to think about, and I tell her so.

Allen you’ve got to do something.

What? What can I do? I fire back. Then I add, I’m just going to ignore it.

So what else is new?

She hasn’t switched topics with that comment. She’s just inferring that ignoring issues is a well-worn strategy with me, and it is. I regret now that I pulled her back into the canoe when we were kids at the cottage. She would have drowned. I guess I would have been sad for the next few days, but then the last twenty years of my life would have a dance of joy.

You know, sooner or later…

I don’t let her finish that thought because I know I won’t like it, and I add a little ‘nasty’ to my tone when I say, Well, I’ll worry about that then, and I hang up on her.

A moment later, I am contrite when she answers the phone. I mumble something that might not be accepted as an apology in a court of law, but then I’m not the lawyer — she is. She grunts like mom used to. The grunt is an acknowledgement that she is not totally impressed with my repentance.

She breaks the silence first and continues on as if our altercation did not occur. She is so irritating.

It’s becoming a gold mine for the media.

I listen as she talks. The ‘gold mine’ she refers to is the publicity surrounding Sunburn, the blockbuster romance novel now being released as a blockbuster movie. The movie boasts a cast of Hollywood glitterati that makes it a hit, even before it opens next weekend. The movie studio that is producing it, is not leaving any publicity stone unturned. They have the stars, the director, the costume designer and even the creator of the musical score, out trumpeting the arrival of Sunburn as "the most powerful love story since Gone With the Wind."

Now they are pushing a new wrinkle to hype the premiere. Who is D. Gale, the author of this runaway best seller? Why hasn’t he or she been seen or heard from in the six years since the book was first published? Then newsflash, D. Gale is Dorothy Gale and isn’t that the name of the Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz? Is Dorothy Gale just a pseudonym and if it is, who is the author of Sunburn? Who indeed?

And are you prepared? Marnie prods.

For what?

For when they follow the yellow brick road, and it leads right up the pathway to your doorstep. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

She is so insufferable sometimes.

No, when I talk to you I feel like I’m in Oz. I snap back. And I’m having an irritating conversation with the Cowardly Lion.

I don’t think so. More like sage advice from the Scarecrow with the degree in Thinkology.

Even her one-liners are obnoxiously annoying.

Whatever. I say as a clever retort, and then I shift to a more pleasant. Did you buy the tickets?

The tennis tickets?

Yes, Did you get front row, centre court for the tournament?

Do you know how much front row, centre court for two costs?

She is incredulous, but I don’t care and I tell her so.

I don’t care. Did you get them?

Yes, she says and then proceeds to bombard me with prices that would have knocked my socks off, once upon a time.

And just how are we going to explain them? Tell me, you’re the fiction writer.

Just tell Dad that you’re getting the tickets from a grateful client.

She scoffs. Nobody is that grateful. He’ll never believe it.

So then tell him your firm bought them and left them to your discretion.

He’ll never believe that either.

Yes he will. He’ll believe anything you tell him, I struggle not to sound bitter. After all, you’re the lawyer in the family.

Yes, a lawyer, slash business manager, reduced to one client.

I thought seeing to Dorothy Gale’s holdings was keeping you busy. I can be obnoxious as well as petulant, but as usual, she counters with maturity.

Yes, Dorothy is keeping me busy.

And very rich, I add, shamelessly.

CHAPTER TWO

Two chocolate popsicles later, my dad, the retired history teacher comes in and flops down in an armchair. He slips out of his sandals and sighs as he closes his eyes in exhaustion. I feel badly for him and say, You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

I know, but you can try.

He is worn and I hover between concern and anger. He has offered to help our neighbor’s daughter boost her marks, so that she can be accepted at a teachers’ college. The offer was noble, the effort valiant and the girl — so not worth it. I think he knows that, but he’s in love with her mother, so what better way to prove his worth.

I already know the answer to this question, but I ask it anyway. Didn’t she have a rough of the essay done?

His eyes are still closed and he begins to rub them for relief. No, that’s why I have been slogging through Darwinian Theory for the last three hours. The good news is that she got the last Mango Punch lipstick at the drugstore. Lucky, she went there instead of the library.

I can’t help but laugh. I love my father, Maury Tobias. He’s a good man. He was my hero when I was a boy and I guess he still is. It’s just that I realize with each passing year, he is not indestructible like Superman. It’s disappointing, but I know that it’s not his fault. Now, as I regard him, his exhaustion is another sign that he is mortal, just like my mother.

Do you want something? I ask.

He opens his eyes, sees the Popsicle sticks and says, "If you’re up to another round of those, I’ll join you.

I’m going with chocolate. I say as I rise.

Make mine Orange.

Talk about role reversal — here’s my dad, a sixty-two year old widower, coming home from a date. Well, a date of sorts and me, supposedly in my prime, sitting in the house on this spring evening watching TV. There’s a lot of irony here and I know irony. I used to be a high school English teacher. That’s before I became Dorothy Gale, the famous romance novelist and the money started to pile up.

Most people would have gladly stood up and taken a bow in the spotlight and modestly accepted all that media attention. Then there’s me. I froze up, as if I had just committed murder and handed all of that stuff off to Marnie to handle. I can’t help but smile as I think of the look on her face after I told her, and the high notes she hit when she saw the amount of money pouring into D. Gale’s account.

This is coming in quarterly, and you’re driving a car that’s five years old. You just borrowed money from dad to fix the brakes, and you have all this! Are you crazy?

She just stared at me, and I could see her brain going on hyper-speed. Finally she said, So you didn’t leave teaching to make a living in the stock market?

I confirmed with a nod.

You don’t know anything about the stock market. That’s why you wouldn’t take dad’s money to invest for him.

I nodded again.

You’re an idiot.

I nodded to confirm, but I don’t think she believed that I understood what she said, so she spelled it out a bit better.

When it comes to money, you are an idiot. Her voice rose and she enunciated the last four words with the special customary scorn she reserved for me.

We regarded each other and I thought I could see the steam escape from beneath her collar as she gathered herself together.

So why are you telling me about this? Why am I so blessed at this moment?

She’s no fool. She knew why I told her anything — it’s because I wanted her to fix it. And I confirmed her suspicions.

I want you to take care of — well, everything. I am halfway through another novel and I want you to handle that when it’s done, too. I like the writing part, everything else is just a headache. Just make sure I have some money in my account for gas and stuff and well, do what you want with the rest. Invest it, or whatever. Do whatever makes sense and bill D. Gale for it. Just keep me out of it.

Keep you out of it?

She looked at me like I just told her I could fly.

And how do I do that?

You’re the lawyer. Go figure it out, and then do what lawyers do best — bill for it.

That was how it began. A few meetings with Marnie, and I had signed whatever I needed to sign, and then I just went back to being me and D. Gale. I guess I was just like those super-heroes in comic books — mild-mannered semi-successful stockbroker Allen Tobias, disguising the secret identity of romance novelist, Dorothy Gale. And my super power — well, I can turn words into money.

I return with the Popsicles and dad tells me about his frustrating evening with Karen. Karen is the twenty year old daughter of Heather Miller, a beleaguered divorced mother. Dad and Heather struck up a friendship when she moved in next door three years ago, and he slowly began to pick up some of the paternal responsibilities of dealing with Karen’s determined and impulsive behavior.

I’m sure that dad hadn’t realized what he was getting himself into. One good deed led to another, then another and then — well, and then he was hooked. All the problems that he avoided when Marnie and I were growing up, were now his courtesy of Karen Miller, hellion in spiked hair. Drinking, smoking, drugs — you name it, and Karen had tried it — and dad was dedicated to making her stop. She had a brain, according to dad and he thought that with just a little help at this critical moment, she might just become a decent teacher and teach herself how to fly right. That ‘little bit of help’ seems to be taking a lot out of my dad and although I do like Heather, right now it’s hard to find something positive to say about her wayward daughter.

Well dad, are you sure Karen’s worth it?

He regards me for a moment and then begins to smile.

The jury may be out on her, but her mother is pretty terrific.

I smile too, but inside I feel a little disloyal as the image of my mother flits by. Yet, the adult in me is happy for my father. I know that he suffered watching mom being eroded by ovarian cancer. My mind floats to that unhappy time, and to how lost we all were when she finally passed. The only flicker of joy in that dark memory, is that she was able to be there for Marnie’s wedding.

Do you need some money? My father is already sliding his hand into his pocket and withdrawing some bills.

No. I say. It is a practiced no — practiced because I say it often and have reproached myself when I have said it too harshly. It doesn’t seem to matter because he hands me one hundred dollars and says, For gas.

Dad, I don’t need the money, I plead.

Just take it. He is insistent. We do this a lot. I give him money every month to cover my share of the expenses, and he gives it back to me in dollops. He thinks I don’t know what he’s doing.

I don’t need it. I’m doing well in the market.

How can you be? It’s been bad for the last two weeks.

It has? I didn’t know that. More irony, my father is so worried about me investing in the stock market that he studies it religiously, so that he can protect me somehow and I know nothing about it — except for the terms, buy and sell. I just try to bluff my way through it with friends when they ask me for tips. You want a tip? Put your money under your pillow, it’ll be safer that way. If I’m really pressed, I say, It’s hard enough risking my own money, I don’t want to take responsibility for risking yours." Well, it may not be much, but it’s worked so far.

I give up and take the money. I reach over to kiss his cheek and thank him. Next time I see Marnie, I’ll give it to her and let her figure out a way of giving it back to him. She hates being caught in the middle, but isn’t that why she went to law school?

Now that we have settled that, dad picks a new topic and asks, "Who do you suppose that D. Gale is, that they’re making all of that hoopla over?

I don’t know, dad. I lie.

Once he was able to tell I was lying just by looking into my eyes, but he’s not looking at them now. Instead, he’s busy channel-flipping as he says, Wonder what made her use a pseudonym?

I answer truthfully this time, but he’s only half-listening. I’m sure she has her reasons.

CHAPTER THREE

Although eight years has passed, I remember it all as if it were happening now. It is the week before the beginning of school and as a second-year English teacher, I am already at my desk doing all those last minute tasks so that I can get off to a good start. I cringe thinking of how green and keen I was. I am sorting through course outlines when I hear Lou’s voice as he enters the English office. Lou is not his real name, but an affectionate nickname that Allan Louis, head of the English Department has acquired. He is a large part of why I am thrilled to be on the faculty of Fred Varley High School.

Allan Louis is the oddest assortment in one package — an ex-football star, published author, philosopher and an educator-without-peer. Despite his powerful frame, he is soft-spoken and dispenses wisdom with the precision of a pharmacist dispensing medicine. In the one year I have been in the department, we have become friends despite the age difference. Frequently we walk together during the lunch break, or after school, and because we have the same name, (his is spelled A-l-l-a-n and mine A-l-l-e-n) we have become known as Big Al and Little Al. I being younger, am Little Al.

When he calls my name, I look up and receive a most unexpected shock. With Lou, is an off-the-charts stunner — a real sultry beauty who creates instant havoc with my inner wiring. I am melting under her gaze and I think she enjoys my discomfort. I respond in something between a whimper and a stammer. It is if I have been wandering in the desert — my throat is parched and my brain is fried. Lou steps in as an act of mercy and introduces this magnificent creature as Meredith Hudson. Meredith is pleased to meet me, but not as pleased as I am to meet her. My hormones are banging into each other pretty good by now and I am as tight as a harp string.

Lou continues to talk and did I hear him correctly, or did I imagine that he just announced that Meredith and I, would be team-teaching together? I think so. I force myself to look away from Meredith, from those lips and those eyes. Whew, I am still steaming. I can feel beads of sweat forming as I concentrate on what Lou is saying.

The grade ten numbers are higher than forecast, and the board has allowed us to hire Meredith to take the excess. The students were already timetabled into your teaching slots Allen, so it made sense to twin Meredith with you. This is Meredith’s first year and you can help smooth the bumps for her.

I’m not even allowing myself to make inappropriate double-entendre remarks to myself. I am trying to be professional down to the core, but I can tell you my core is not cooperating. It’s on the verge of being arrested for indecency.

I have to meet with the principal on another matter, so I’ll leave you two to get acquainted with each other and do some planning for next week. Good luck.

Suddenly, I am alone with this very female, female and I don’t know what to do with my hands, or where to look. The silence is sticky as she waits for me to begin and I can’t begin because I have forgotten how to think. Coward that I am, I focus on the messy piles of paper on my desk and rummage through them. I rummage and I rummage until I am able to clear my mind enough so that I can read again. Without meeting her gaze, I hand her a copy of the Grade Ten English course and tell her to pull up a chair. I fold my hands to keep them from shaking and hide behind my teacher voice as I bring her up to speed.

The English office is typical high-school-clutter and yet whenever her eyes meet mine, we could be on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean. She is hypnotic and I am hypnotized. Nevertheless, I do my best to affect an air of professionalism and I do, until she interrupts my monologue by placing a confident hand on mine. She is asking a question, but my focus is the feel of her flesh. She repeats the question and it is only when the velvet touch of her fingers abandons mine, that I attempt to answer.

Later, when we are finished, she asks, Do you have time for coffee? My treat.

Shortly, we are in her fire-engine-red convertible, heading toward the nearest Starbuck’s. The conversation is light until we are well into our mocha grandes when we, rather she, maneuvers the talk away from the classroom. We discover that we are both unattached, although she sees someone from time to time, but it’s not serious. We both like bicycling and tennis and maybe we could get together and do something sometime. Her idea — not mine. We could, I agree — but don’t actually have the guts to make sometime into a specific time.

Soon, we are into the first week of school which is a lot like a bobsled run in the Olympics. Meredith is the hot news item of the week for both staff and students. She may even turn into the hot news item of the year, or the decade for that matter. I am inundated from the men on staff, either pumping me for information on her, or asking me if I’m pumping her. Even the occasional female has inquired about Meredith with a knowing eye. What there is to know, I apparently still don’t know.

Near the end of September, we give our first test of the term and Meredith asks if we can mark together so that she can use me as quick reference. That is how I find myself in an elegant glass elevator that delivers me to her apartment. If being alone with Meredith in her apartment wasn’t unnerving enough, the quiet opulence of this whole setup, is unnerving whatever nerve I have left.

Meredith has slipped into a tee shirt and sweat pants. I try not to notice that it’s just a tee shirt that she’s wearing on top and nothing else that could get in the way of her marking. I really don’t want to be here. She is just too much and I feel too unsettled when I’m near her. She bubbles as she organizes us and like a lap-dog, I find a spot on the couch. To my chagrin, Meredith slides in beside me, hands me some test papers and we begin.

For the next two hours, I do my best to concentrate on the task at hand, but Meredith’s presence is hard to ignore. There’s an occasional touch, leaning in examine the way I’ve evaluated an answer, looking up at me, her breath against my cheek. I am in agony until at last, the marking is complete.

Let’s celebrate. She says as she disappears into the kitchen and returns with two glasses and bottle of wine. She pours the wine and handing me a glass, proposes a toast. To surviving September. We clink glasses and I echo her words. We nurse our drinks and make pleasant small talk about school and people on staff.

They’re really a good group, for the most part. I say. They made me feel welcome last year, when I was a rookie.

Sipping her wine she says, Some of the men are making me feel a little too-welcomed.

Her eyes meet mine and I am embarrassed by their frankness. Finally, I say, Meredith, you are beautiful. You must know that. You cause a stir wherever you go.

Some women might look away, lower their eyes, or change the subject. Meredith just studies me for a moment. I don’t know what she is thinking, but I know that I have stopped breathing. Without releasing me from her gaze, she places her glass of wine on the table.

Do you think I’m beautiful?

Hypnotized, I nod as she moves closer and I whisper, I do. I think you are very beautiful.

I’m glad you do. You’re different than the others. I feel comfortable when I am with you. She says as she leans my way.

Closer still, she smiles and I am spellbound by the allure of her expression. She takes the wine from my hand, puts it on the table and with deliberate motion, her lips cover mine. The kiss is soft, erotic and intoxicating. I am in rapture.

CHAPTER FOUR

My short career as a teacher has made me punctual and someone who clings to routine. I am at the club on treadmill number three by six thirty in the morning. I jog next to Alexander Barry on treadmill number four and we talk about books. That is, until he kicks it into high gear for the last eight minutes of his run. I think it is harder for me, seeing the level of pain he inflicts on himself than it seems to be on Alex. We joke about it a lot, especially those few seconds before he reaches to adjust the control upward. We hit the weights for another forty-five minutes and then at least once a week, he cajoles me into having a coffee at the breakfast nook downstairs.

I always tell Alex that when he takes off his blue baseball cap, he looks like Alexander the Great with his blonde, shaggy hair. The first time I made mention of it, we were toweling down with our coffees and Alex confessed that Alexander the Great has been his hero since he was a boy. Patterning himself like the famous warrior, he tries to run his construction business like a general planning a campaign. His eyes turn fierce as he says, All day long I have to be the general giving the orders. I have to be alert. I have to plan ten steps ahead of where we are. When I can, I slip out to drive around, scouting for new projects. Turning an empty lot or field from an idea in my head into a construction reality that becomes a success, is a real rush.

Alex is passionate about business, books and running. Most of all, he is passionate about his family. In this world of impersonal bustle and cardboard people, Alex is real. I like him and I enjoy our discussions. A ferocious reader, Alex will buy and devour one or two books a week. If he reads one that he thinks I will like, he loans it or just gives it to me. When I have expressed my discomfort with his generosity, he says, Look, it gives me pleasure to share this with you. Don’t take that away from me.

So our strange friendship is confined to meeting three or four times a week before the day begins. We run, we lift weights and sometimes we sit down for a coffee, which Alex always puts on his chit. I don’t think he is totally convinced of my success in the stock market and being a