“Yes. Can you believe it?” Victoria would never put the well-being of employees above her lust for money. She summed up her delight by noting, “the good news is, that gives you an in.”
“How so?” Confusion riddled Aubrey. “Our plans call for structured, but still massive numbers of layoffs. We will send 3,000 people to the unemployment line before next Christmas.”
“Yes, yes, of course. The number of people he employs is absolutely ridiculous and we are going to do everything we can to destroy that ridiculousness. I know what our plans are, Aubrey.” Victoria didn’t want to have to spell this out in plain language. She would do it, if necessary. As long as Aubrey kept it out of her emails and texts. Plausible deniability remained a consideration in all her dealings since she rose to her current level in the financial world.
“So?” Aubrey asked even though she knew something she wasn’t going to like would follow that ‘so’.
“So, Mr. Clarke doesn’t know that.” And there it was. Victoria spelled it out, against her better judgment.
“Why not give him what he wants?” Aubrey suggested. “Add a guarantee to the contract for the sale. No employee will be downsized for at least a year. After that we move on and do our own thing. He saves face with his employees and we get the sweetheart deal we want.” Aubrey realized this was the path forward, but something told her Victoria would not agree.
“Are you kidding, Aubrey? Have you lost all your instincts in the one and a half days you’ve been away?” Victoria tamped down on her feelings of betrayal by Aubrey’s suggestion, but couldn’t quite sequester them. “We do not add guarantees to our contract offers we get guarantees added to our contract offers.”
What was Aubrey doing? Was she intentionally sabotaging herself? There was no getting around the fact she just suggested breaking Victoria’s first rule of corporate raiding. ‘Don’t make guarantees.’ “I’m sorry, Victoria. I’m not sure where that came from.”
“Well, wherever it came from, make sure it stays there when you see Mr. Clarke tomorrow.” Victoria paused so she could lend the conversation the gravity she felt it required to match the ingeniousness of her plan. “As I said before, Mr. Clarke doesn’t know we will cut 3,000 people from his swollen payroll, and there is no law that says you can’t promise him whatever you want. Use your girlish charm to convince him you will do your best to get the layoff language added to the contract before it is signed.”
Aubrey saw where this was going, “You want me to convince him we aren’t going to do what we have every intention of doing.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do.” To Victoria, the plot was delicious. “You will use the connection you two have, the rapport you’ve built with Mr. Clarke…”
Aubrey interrupted. “You mean you want me to use the trust he has for me as a weapon against him.” She wanted to say it in its ugliest form so there could never be any illusions between her and Victoria that what they were planning was as distasteful as it was dishonest. Aubrey couldn’t believe the words slipped past her lips. It felt a lot like the beginning stages of standing up to Victoria.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Victoria, of course, missed all of the subtext in Aubrey’s statement. She was the literal type.
“Will there be any legal ramifications to what I will be doing?”
“I doubt it. No judge can say definitively what was going through your mind. You could find a way to spin it that makes it seem as though you really believed there wouldn’t be any cuts. Besides, once these self-made hicks get their money, they always buy a big boat and sail away to an island somewhere.”
Aubrey loved that the best Victoria could offer when it came to future legal troubles was an ‘I doubt it’. Her mantra about not making any guarantees was so ingrained she wouldn’t even do it with the people that worked for her. “I understand what you want me to do.”
“That’s great.” It annoyed Victoria that Aubrey wasn’t doing backflips over her idea to save the deal for Clarke’s. “But what I really need to know is: Can I count on you?”
Aubrey sighed. She didn’t like the idea one bit but didn’t see other options. “Of course, you can, Victoria. You can always count on me.”
“Excellent. I’ll call again if anything urgent comes up. Otherwise, keeping checking your email for further information from me. And, speaking of email, don’t put anything in writing anywhere about what we talked about today. No emails, no texts, no memos. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Aubrey wasn’t surprised that after securing confirmation from Aubrey she wouldn’t be keeping any written records of what Victoria asked her to do, Victoria hung up. If Aubrey knew Victoria like she thought she did, she would never bring this conversation up again. It would be as though it never happened.
*
Kyle held a handsaw he borrowed from Marcus while he took eyeball measurements of the tree in front of him. It was a full tree. At just a shade under seven feet, it would fit nicely into the space by the front window where the Wilson’s would likely put it. At least, he assumed that’s where it would be going since that’s where it went back in high school when he used to go over to the Wilson house to study for tests and do other homework with Aubrey.
She and Kyle had been so inseparable then. In a strange way, their inseparability was the biggest part of the reason why he broke up with her. Standing there looking at that elegant Christmas tree, he realized the day, over twelve years ago, when he ended their high school relationship had been the day he made the biggest mistake of his life. He hoped there was enough magic in this Christmas to undo that mistake.
Behind him, he heard the sound of boots crunching on snow. He turned to see who it was. Aubrey closed in on him. She looked beautiful in the sunlight reflecting from the untrammeled snow. He wondered if every time he caught sight of her he would feel the thrill of being in her presence the way he did right now. Was that a feeling that wore away with repetition? Why was she the only person who had ever inspired it in him? “You never could sneak up on me,” he said.
“That’s only because I’m about as stealthy as a bull in a china shop,” Aubrey replied.
Kyle smiled at the truth in Aubrey’s simile about herself. “Everything okay?”
Aubrey wondered which thing Kyle meant. “Are you referring to the annoying work phone call, or all that talk Marcus was doing about my dad coming here every year for thirty straight years, until this year.”
“I meant the dad stuff, but I’m willing to talk about either.” Kyle said.
Aubrey sighed. She didn’t want a big discussion about her dad right now. Not after her job had been threatened. “Let’s go with the work call.”
“Fire away.” Kyle projected absolute attentiveness.
That attentiveness was a welcome change from the way Walter looked when Aubrey shared stories about her work with him. It allowed her to instantly open up to Kyle. “My boss wants me to go over to Marion and pop in on The Mr. Clarke of Clarke’s Department Stores.”
“Wow, that’s impressive.” Kyle knew Aubrey was a big shot New Yorker from the various town gossip he had caught over the last few years. He didn’t know exactly how high she had risen until that moment.
Aubrey bowed to Kyle. “Thank you for being impressed with me, I do deserve it, but it’s just because my company is buying his company. This is the deal I was telling you about on the way back from the airport.”
Kyle wanted to show he paid attention. “Right, the place with the twenty-five-year-old registers.”
“That’s the one.” Aubrey took a turn being impressed. Kyle had been listening to her. “My boss wants me to trick him into going through with his original agreement.”
“But you don’t want to do it.” Kyle guessed Aubrey’s small-town values were getting the best of her. They wouldn’t allow her to do things so opposed to the way she had been raised.
“I don’t. Not at all. He’s a wonderful, kind, old man. He cares for the people
that work for him and the reason he doesn’t want to go through with the deal is because he knows it isn’t a good deal for those people.” Aubrey’s regard for Mr. Clarke shown through everything she said about him.
“I don’t mean to take it back to the other thing Marcus mentioned earlier, but he sounds a lot like your dad to me, Aubrey.” Kyle was nervous about making this connection, but it was such an obvious one, he couldn’t resist. To his surprise, Aubrey loved the idea of equating her dad and Mr. Clarke.
An additional thought leapt into her brain and made her laugh out loud, “my dad would have asked him to Christmas dinner.”
Kyle thought about everything Aubrey said to him over the past few minutes, as he pretended to inspect the tree which stood in front of them. “You know, I could always come with you if that would make it any easier.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“It’s no trouble, really. Even if we get more snow tonight, I could just get one of the Dodson twins to run the blade for me tomorrow.” Kyle realized in a hyperbolic flash he would give his snow ploughing business to the Dodson twins if it meant that he could spend another full day with Aubrey. Now wasn’t the right time to tell her something like that.
“We’ll see about that tomorrow. Right now, why don’t we focus on getting the perfect Christmas tree. One that would have made my dad jealous.”
Kyle sized up the tree standing in front of them. He found it wanting. “If jealousy is what we’re aiming at, this one will never do. It’s not really a covetous tree.”
Aubrey laughed again. She and Kyle began to walk off in search of the perfect symbol of Christmas when Aubrey’s phone rang again. She looked at the display. This time it was Walter. “I’m so sorry, Kyle. I suppose I have to take this one too. I’ll only be a second. I promise”
“No worries. You’re an important woman. I get it. I’ll keep looking. Just remember I get the credit when your mama tells you what a great job you did picking out the tree later.” Kyle walked deeper into the Christmas tree forest to give Aubrey the alone time she needed.
Aubrey watched him walk away. She thought about ignoring the call from Walter. He didn’t deserve to talk to her anyway, not after that one-sided conversation from last night. My goodness, what was she thinking? She was going to marry Walter less than three months from now! She needed to get her betrothed act together. Walter was a good man. He wouldn’t win any awards for any of the qualities adult children celebrated in their parents’ fifty-year anniversary speeches, and, he also wasn’t anything like her father, but… Good lord, she thought to herself, she had to answer this phone right then, or it was going to go to voicemail.
Aubrey slid the button on her screen over in order to accept the call from Walter. “Hello.” A solid thirty seconds passed before Aubrey spoke again. Just like the night before when she had been in the truck with Kyle, she was limited to one monosyllabic rejoinder at a time. Another minute passed. Aubrey looked around the tree farm. Where had Kyle gone? After a few seconds of scanning, she found him several hundred yards to her left. He seemed to be taking mental measurements of another tree.
A second minute passed. Aubrey managed to get in one “wow” and a single “uh-huh”. She saw Kyle was about to move on from the tree which had captured his attention. Walter said something particularly egregious that made Aubrey roll her eyes at the sky. She had enough. For the first time in their relationship, Aubrey was about to interrupt King Walter in the middle of one of his notorious monologues.
“Listen, Walter, I’m going to have to call you back later. I’m trying to pick up the Christmas tree for mom’s living room now.” She wanted to hang up after she said it, but she hadn’t progressed far enough into whatever funk had descended over her relationship with Walter to go through with that yet. She was, however, pleased when a miffed tone invaded his voice and he abruptly said that was fine because Darren needed him anyway. Of course, he then hung up on her without saying goodbye, or I love you, or tell your mom I said hello. None of the things Aubrey imagined ninety-nine percent of fiancés did when they spent Christmas away from their one and only true love.
Aubrey found she didn’t mind. She was happy to be released from the obligation of paying tribute in the court of King Walter. She liked the new nickname for him. She never used it for him before, but it seemed to her it fit him. It also gave her another reason to think about pausing the engagement hurtling toward her at irreparable speed. My goodness, what if she were making a massive mistake. It felt to her like she was taking the square root of love by choosing Walter. As if he were the answer to some testable formula that told her who she should marry in order to have the perfect life… in business.
Aubrey felt overwhelmed. She wished her dad were there beside her to talk this over. She knew he hadn’t chosen her mom based on some calculation on a slide rule. He followed his heart. During their lives together, he walked away from countless jobs that offered him more money and more status so he could spend more time with the people he truly cared about, his wife and daughter. Aubrey loved that fact about him. So, why was she not emulating what was best in her father in her own life? Try as she might, Aubrey couldn’t find an answer.
Flakes from a snow shower began to fall as Aubrey moved through the Christmas tree forest in search of Kyle. She found him dusting branches with his bare hands so he could get a better look at the fullness of the tree which stood before him. He was pretty sure this was the one but didn’t want to get hit by a hidden bare patch after his handsaw drew tree sap.
Aubrey stopped several hundred yards behind him so her boots would not give her away. Even from behind, completely covered as he was by those khaki coveralls, he looked so handsome to her. She found herself seized by a ridiculous desire to run up and jump onto him piggyback style. Walter believed work was something you did sitting behind a desk. If she had brought him here, he would have found someone to pay to cut their tree down. As she started walking toward Kyle again, she decided a more realistic depiction of Walter involved him driving to the nearest home improvement store and buying a tree in a box. It occurred to Aubrey, Walter’s decision not to be here with her when she needed him was his loss not hers. She was going to enjoy this day on this Christmas tree farm, with the man who chose to be there with her.
Kyle turned as he heard her boots crunching in the snow again. “I think this may be the perfect one,” he said.
She didn’t even examine it, “then let’s take it home.”
“Are you sure, I mean you didn’t look at the back. It could be all Charlie Brown on the backside.” Kyle said.
“I trust you.” Aubrey replied.
Those words resonated deep within Kyle’s heart. How he longed to hear them in other contexts. “Well, you are right, I wouldn’t intentionally steer you wrong.” It was the best he could come up with considering how much pressure he felt on his heart after hearing her say those words.
Chapter Seven
Aubrey and Kyle sat in the front seat of his pickup. Kyle adjusted the rear-view mirror before pulling onto the road leading away from Old Man Peterson’s farm. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of the beautiful Christmas tree he and Aubrey chose for Greta. The tree hung over the tailgate by at least a foot. Kyle had tied it down with ropes and bungee cords.
“Thanks for helping us out this year.” Aubrey felt warm toward Kyle in this moment. Probably because of the light snow and the time they spent selecting and cutting down the tree. She wanted to make sure she got in a thank you while the feeling of gratitude was deepest within her.
“That’s what friends are for.” Kyle replied.
There was something else Aubrey wanted to clear up while her feelings were as pure as possible. “I’m sorry I was so mean to you when you came to pick me up at the airport in Charlottesville.”
Kyle chuckled, “I told your mama when she asked that it probably wasn’t a good idea.”
“If you knew it wasn’t a good idea, why’d you agre
e to do it. Sounds to me like neither one of you listened to your advice.”
“I don’t know, Aubrey. I think I missed you. Missed being your friend. I hoped that maybe you’d forgive me.” There were a dozen other reasons he could give her, foremost of which would be he knew he still had feelings for her after all these years, but he chose to leave it with the three reasons he spoke out loud.
Well, at least he was honest about it. Aubrey would give him that much. “I still don’t forgive you, by the way. Even though you are being so nice to my mom and I this Christmas. Being nice is not equal to deserving to be forgiven.”
Kyle took his eyes off the road for a half second so she could see there was no pretense in him over what he was about to say. “That was twelve years ago, Aubrey.” He thought better of the plea for forgiveness he had been tempted to deliver, decided maybe it was best to keep it light for now. “Can’t I be paroled based on time served.”
Aubrey participated in the joke with him while still allowing a bit of the sting from the hurt she felt to seep into her words. “You broke my heart, buster. There is no possibility of parole for that crime.”
Kyle’s protective mask of revelry faltered. She struck a nerve beneath the veneer of comedy. “Honestly Aubrey, I did what I thought needed to be done.”
“You left me. Literally. Left me. On prom night. How could you feel that was what needed to be done?” Aubrey sensed her eyes beginning to tear. The last thing she wanted was to seem weak, so she cast her gaze out into the pastures which rolled by her window. She watched as the snow got deeper in the fields. “Do you know how important that night was to me, Kyle?”
“It was important to me too.” Kyle’s will to keep the secret rapidly crumbled. He was in danger of letting it out.
“Did you not love me?” Aubrey surprised herself by asking.
Perhaps, this was the one question she could have asked that would stiffen his resolve. Of course, he loved her. As the saying goes, a blind man could have seen how much he loved her, especially on the very night he left her. His twelve-year-old secret would remain safe for at least another day. “I’ve always loved you, Aubrey.” Kyle didn’t care he declined to put his love in the past tense. If she noticed, and didn’t like it, she could tell him what to do with his love.
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