by Lily Zante
“I’ll get it,” Brad pipes up. “I know where it is. You showed me when you took me around the factory.”
“Now that is what I call a hero,” says Simona proudly, as he disappears out of view.
BRANDON
* * *
I don’t even want to think about what might have happened had that chunk of plaster fallen on Kyra’s head.
When Emma asks me at work the next day how my little experiment is going, I don’t know how to answer that.
“It’s trickier than I thought, working at the factory.” I’m back in my own office, but lately I seem to prefer going to Redhill. I don’t even know why. I must be going soft in the head.
“Now there’s a surprise.” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
“She’ll come around. I haven’t had a chance to properly work on her yet.”
“You mean pull the wool over her eyes?”
I pick up my crystal egg-shaped paperweight. The smooth surface is cold and I roll it around in my hands as I contemplate recent events. The things I do and say, the way I’m trying to manipulate Kyra, these are things I routinely do. This is nothing new to me, but this time I’m not so sure.
“It’s impossible to pull the wool over Kyra’s eyes,” I announce. “She’s way too smart for that.”
Emma rolls her eyes, “Heavens above. The man has a heart.”
“I didn’t think it would be this hard to lie to these people.” I wait for Emma’s caustic remark, but to my surprise, she is silent. She hands me the paperwork instead.
“This could be the making of you, Brandon,” she says, sashaying towards the door and giving me a backward glance.
I stop rolling the paperweight and look up at her.
“Are you playing with her heart, Brandon?”
“No way in hell.” The way I say it seems to convince her.
“You have a ten o’clock meeting with Frontier Group, and lunch with the people from Delanque.”
I groan. A busy day isn’t what I need. Splitting my time between two places is starting to make my head spin. I’ve managed well so far, but today I have no interest in meeting with the movers and shakers of the corporate world. I don’t care about new deals and mergers.
My head isn’t in the right place. I’m in danger of turning soft. I feel bad when I say things to Kyra that are deliberately wrong.
Things that aren’t in her best interest.
She’s adamant that the factory is in a good state, but a falling chunk of plaster could have killed her or someone else. Water pooling on the roof after a storm shouldn’t cause such problems. She knows Greenways is up and coming, even though she has no clue of the vast amounts I intend to make from it, but she has a sixth sense about things.
I get through the day, but my head is at Redhill. I’m fighting to contain my feelings for Kyra, and maybe seeing Jessica tonight will remind me of the taste I have in women.
“I’m still going to drive them out.” I smile at her, even though the smile doesn’t come from the heart. Emma winces as she closes the door and I contemplate the state of events.
My project is going slower than planned. These things take time to get moving. Neville thinks I’m not being very business-like about it. He thinks I should force my way in. This is also what my father would say, but thankfully I don’t need to involve him in the minutiae of such detail. The poor old man needs to recover and not worry about his empire. I’m going to take care of it.
Me.
What a strange twist of fate that someone like me ended up like this. That I rose to such heights when life was so cruelly stacked against me.
Kyra, Simona and Fredrich, the ‘supposed’ management team, aren’t the type of people I would count as my friends. The people working there, the broken people with sad stories about their broken pasts, they would normally be invisible to me. Their world and mine shouldn’t intersect.
And yet in a weird way, it does. During my few days there, I am forced to face things I would rather pretend weren’t there. It’s changing me and making me feel bad about my intentions. Its churning out the very things I’ve tried so hard to hide and push away.
It’s Yvette I need to stay away from the most. That skinny slip of a woman, with the years’ old face, she reminds me of too much. Walking around the factory floor, I get talking to these people and against my better judgment, I find myself being reeled into their lives.
I’ve tried to put my feelings and emotions away. Hell, I didn’t have any going in. I didn’t care. But now I have started to, and it’s messing with my head.
Those goddamn food nights were the first line of my defense to break down. Week upon week of seeing those people—poor and hungry, with defeated looks in their eyes—people grateful to receive a hot meal.
Over time, it’s hard to see that and not be affected.
Chapter Twenty
KYRA
* * *
As we get closer to the day of Elias’s fight and our big night, I start to have some doubts as I head towards the storage room to do another check of the inventory.
“What’s up, Lewis?” Brad catches me frowning at my clipboard.
We’ve reverted back to using our surnames like we used to in our early hate-filled days where we barely tolerated one another. It’s not because we’re at odds again, but because it feels safer. Something has changed ever since he saved me from that falling chunk of plaster.
I look up and try to remain calm. “This is turning out to be bigger than I thought.”
He shrugs and throws his hands in the air. “This was your crazy idea.” I ignore his comment, knowing that he always has something negative to say. What we do isn’t for everyone. It takes a certain type of person to want to help those less fortunate than ourselves and Brad clearly is missing that part.
I turn my back to him. “What are you doing here?” I ask. It’s a Friday, and he doesn’t usually come here on Fridays.
“I figured you would need help setting up for tomorrow. Fredrich said you could have double the capacity tomorrow.”
“Did your ‘other’ employer let you have the day off, Hartley?” I clasp the clipboard to my chest and wait for his answer. He’s always so coy about his other interests.
He gives me a smile as an answer. “I have permission to be here.”
“Are you really not going to tell me what you do on your days off?” His concerted refusal to answer my questions makes me even more determined to get to the bottom of it.
“They’re hardly days off.”
“Then what are they?” I ask, digging and prying. He walks towards me until there’s not much distance between us, and I catch a whiff of his aftershave. Only, I wonder if it is aftershave or too strong shower gel. The sharp and refreshing smell of pine takes me to the outdoors and reminds me of woodland hikes. I step back, until my back hits the wall. He angles his head. “You’re very nosy about what I do on my days off.”
My insides twist with discomfort. In that life of his I know nothing about, he could have a girlfriend. Or be married. Curiosity swirls around me, an uneasy dance of things I want to know, but also don’t want to know.
“Nosy? No,” I manage to say, miraculously keeping my voice level.
“No?” He steps closer, his breath is warm and sweet, he’s that close to me. His eyes trail a slow, lazy curve over my face, from my lips to my eyes and back down to my lips again and I rub my bare arms, unsure of where these pesky goosebumps have sprung up from. “You’re not?” he asks, when I say nothing.
I press my lips together, self-consciously. Nervous. Jittery. Excited. “No,” I manage.
“There is nothing to tell.” His voice is low, like a hoarse, sexy whisper.
Sexy? What in the world made me think it was sexy? Aside from it sending shivers darting along my skin. I jerk back, trying to force my back to sink into the wall, and of course I fail miserably, but I’m determined to maintain the upper hand. In the foggy recesses of my brain, it comes to me t
hat Brad always has a presence. He can fill a room with his aura, just by walking in. Something tells me that he’s been trying to slow things down, and this knowing sixth sense of mine suddenly takes this new hint of an idea and runs with it.
Who is he?
I’m growing accustomed to him invading my space. It has a dizzying effect on me, his continued closeness which is both a drug and a danger. I want him, but I’m also afraid. “Are you a drug dealer? A corporate investor? Something else?”
He guffaws as if this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “I didn’t think it was possible to have those words in the same sentence.”
His breath is warm, his aftershave mildly intoxicating. I catch another drift of pine and mint. Or am I overthinking, oversmelling, over imagining? I seem to have become obsessed in such a short space of time. “Can you move back, please? You’re invading my personal space.”
He steps back. Not enough. Not as much as he could have. Or should have. He’s still hovering around the edges of the boundary.
“Better?”
I arch an eyebrow, and give up because I’m none the wiser as to what he does on the days when he’s not at Redhill. I should let it go. We have other, bigger things to think about, and we have a big show to get off the ground tomorrow.
I push away from the wall, smooth down my blouse and clutch my clipboard as if it were a lifebuoy I desperately needed. Brad is like a deep, dark well to me, and I’m scared of falling in and drowning.
“Why don’t you see if Fredrich needs your help?” I suggest. It’s a miracle that I’ve managed to sound normal-headed, because inside, I feel anything but that.
“I will, seeing that you obviously don’t need me.” Brad leaves and now I’ve forgotten what I was looking at before he came by.
BRANDON
* * *
I walk away and wonder what the hell just happened. I’m not the kind of guy who makes moves like that but Lewis makes me react. It’s one thing I can’t control, and I’m used to controlling everything.
I spend the rest of the day helping Fredrich. He talks me through the plan for tomorrow and tells me that the crowd could be much bigger than expected. No shit. Like Kyra, he has no idea how it’s going to go. I think they’re being very adventurous with this idea.
I guess it’s not a bad thing to do. I mean, how else are these people ever going to see a fight like this? But, given that this is Cardoza’s hometown, I would have expected the city officials to put on an event for him, something like this—a public party somewhere in the park. Maybe they don’t want to put on an event for homeless people.
Only someone like Kyra would ever do something like that. It reminds me of what I am up against and why I’m going through with this crazy charade.
All over the city, people are getting together in bars and restaurants, throwing dinner parties to watch the fight. One of Jessica’s friends is throwing a party and she asked if I wanted to come. I should have accepted. She’s still trophy-wife material. A socialite with brains and beauty, dressed from head to toe in Chanel.
I told her I was busy working on some bullshit deal I need to take care of. It wasn’t a complete lie because I’m going to travel out of state to have a meeting with a prospective investor. I promise her that I’ll make it up to her sometime.
On the day of the fight, we start earlier than usual. This time, all the factory employees are helping, not just a small handful from the usual food night roster.
Yvette is there with her kids.
Kyra shows up, and she looks nicer than usual. She’s still in her jeans, black skinny ones with boots and a tight-fitting top over which she’s wearing a jacket.
If this is her idea of doing something ‘wild’ on the weekend, that girl obviously hasn’t lived enough. I feel sorry for her.
I volunteer to go pick up the food from the restaurants, along with Fredrich. Kyra has insured me on that clapped out heap of metal on wheels, which roughly passes for a van, and Fredrich is taking his pickup because we have a lot of things to pick up from the restaurants. Everywhere we go, it’s busy on account of it being a Saturday night.
By the time we get back, I’m feeling the tiredness and the night hasn’t even begun. The huge movie screen is up, and the guys from that company are hovering around talking to Kyra.
She comes over and tells us that the tech guys are staying here the entire time in case we have any problems with the screen. At least that’s one less thing to worry about.
“They’re probably also making sure you guys don’t ruin their equipment,” I mutter.
“That too.” She gives me a smile. It’s the first time we’ve acknowledged one another today. Up until now either she’s been busy, or I have, and we’ve managed to stay out of one another’s way.
“People are starting to come in.” Simona’s words make us all turn towards the entrance gates.
“Are they going to stand the entire time?” I scratch my head, because I don’t know how this will pan out.
“They’ll sit on the ground,” Kyra informs me. Sure enough, I see people have brought sleeping bags, pieces of cardboard and blankets, which they start to lay out as if they’re claiming their territory. “Okay.” She claps her hands together. “Let’s get to it. I need you two to work the general area. We have security, but you know these people, and they know you. This looks like a pretty big crowd.”
I look at the crowd and instinctively know that I don’t want to be wandering around and getting too close to these people. “You want us to walk around all evening?”
“Put on the high-vis jackets, and just work the crowd. We have security, so you don’t have to do much controlling of the crowd. Just let them know when food will be ready, make them stand in line.”
“They already know to stand in line.”
Surprise dances in Kyra’s eyes. She surveys me carefully. “What are you scared of? You’ve done this before.”
“Yeah, dude.” Fredrich claps a hand to my back. “I’ve got your back. Don’t worry. These people aren’t going to bite you.”
It’s not their bites I’m scared of. It’s catching something. TB or ... something. Half of these people are probably psychos. It’s one thing being on the other side of the table and serving food, watching from a distance, it’s another to be walking around surrounded by danger with no barrier between us. And now Kyra wants me to walk around as if I’m a server in a restaurant?
Not happening.
“I just ... I like being on the other side, serving. It’s nice, and .... humbling, to give out the food.”
She narrows her eyes at my pathetic excuse, before giving a dismissive shake of her head. “Don’t you want to keep an eye on the crowd and maybe get a better chance to watch the fight?”
“I’d rather serve the food.”
“Do you have a weak immune system or something?” she asks.
“No. I have a robust constitution.” And I’d like to keep it that way. If it was only suspicion swimming around in her eyes, I could tolerate it, but there’s also a look of disappointment. As if she expected better from me.
“Knock yourself out behind the tables then, Hartley.” Then to Fredrich. “I’ll go walk around, with you.”
I remember that I need to make a call. All of this back and forth between Redhill and my office, juggling the two worlds has been jarring. I have an important deal to take care of, and I forgot to sign some paperwork. I need to call Emma and ask her to pick them up from my office and drop them off at my house. “I need to make a phone call,” I say, walking away a I pull my cell phone out.
“Calling your girlfriend, dude?” Fredrich calls out after me.
Chapter Twenty-One
BRANDON
* * *
I feel like a total wimp when Kyra sticks me on the serving tables and patrols the ground herself. I should be doing that. Me, except that I’m too chickenshit to do so. She has more drive and ambition than a lot of the people I know, and she makes me fe
el ashamed.
I help Simona and the others to set up. A couple of local journalists are here, too. The more I look around, the more I see that this event is so getting bigger and bigger. It’s not just another food night, with a movie screen, it’s an event. Kyra and her team are seen as saviors. I see now how and why the city supports the underdog.
Yvette is here with her kids who are both helping. They end up on the table next to me. “Is it okay if they go here?” Yvette asks me timidly, as if I might bite. “They want to help and Kyra said it would be okay.”
She always looks so haggard, like a shell of a woman, and I get scared that if I accidentally brush past her, I’ll knock the life out of her.
“There’s plenty of room for more helpers.” I shift and leave a gap for them. Simona is on my right, and then Yvette and her girl and boy are on the other side. Because the tables are longer, there is a whole line of helpers this time and there is a lot more food.
There’s even some music. Music? “Where the heck is that coming from—” And then I see that the screen has come on. A cheer goes out from the crowd.
“I’ve never seen them so animated.” Simona beams as if she’s glowing with happiness, as if these are her children getting ready to watch a movie. I do not understand this … connection …this empathy.
The people who set up the movie screen also put up a few lights around the place so we’re not in complete darkness. I scour the crowd and see Kyra moving through and talking to people standing in line. She’s acting as if they are lining up for summer camp, and she’s obviously not worried about catching anything.
“She’s a natural, isn’t she?” Simona catches me staring as I put a dollop of pasta on someone’s plate.
“Doesn’t she ever get scared?”
