by JA Huss
I go into the private reception area where my office is located and find Eileen. She spies me, then says, “Oh, thank God you’re back!”
The place is filled with people rushing back and forth moving boxes of legal papers on dollies. I spy the other two founding partners having a heated conversation in the hallway outside my father’s office, and turn to Eileen. “What the fuck is happening?”
“Your mother’s here. You should go talk to her. She’s down there. In his office.”
I nod, that awful sinking feeling back in the pit of my stomach. Because I just know something’s happening. Has been happening for a very long time, I just never saw it coming.
I push past the other two partners, who don’t even stop their argument to say hello to me, and stand in the doorway.
My mother is sitting in my father’s oversized chair behind his desk, talking a mile a minute, handing out instructions to the five office assistants as they go through file cabinets and drawers.
“Mom?” I say. “What’s going on?”
She stops everything and smiles at me. “Oh, good, you’re back. Everyone,” she says loudly as she claps her hands three times. “Get out. And close the door behind you.”
I watch as all five people drop what they’re doing and leave.
“Come here, Jordan. Have a seat.”
“What the hell is going on?” I repeat.
“Well,” she says, swiping a piece of hair out of her eyes. She’s still Barbara Bush classy, but with a healthy dose of disheveled added in. She takes a deep breath. “I don’t have time to explain the details, but the short answer is I’ve sold your father’s portion of the firm to the other partners. And… and you quit, Jordan. I handed in your resignation and—”
“What?”
“—and you’re done here.”
“You… fired me?”
“No,” she says. “You’re not fired. You quit.”
“But—”
“You don’t want to work here, Jordan. Trust me. Just… just take the boxes I packed in your office and…” She shrugs. “Well, I was going to say go home, but it’s being sold and we’re having an open house this afternoon. Do you have another home? I mean, I’m assuming you do, since you don’t live with us. But…” She shrugs again. “I have no idea where you live, Jordan. And that’s not your fault—it’s not even my fault, not really. It’s his fault. And it ends today. So… wherever you’ve been staying, go back there.”
I just stare at her. “Who are you?”
Which makes her laugh.
And that unsettles me more. Because… “I mean, Dad just died and—”
“Yes, that reminds me. Can you handle the funeral? I’ve already contacted the mortuary.” She reaches for her purse and goes fishing through it. “Where is that card? Oh, here.” She thrusts a business card at me and I take it automatically. “Can you call them and make sure everything is taken care of? We’re having the funeral tomorrow. Just… you know, pick whatever you want.”
“Mom,” I say. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Later, Jordan.” She frowns. “I can’t today, OK? But I’ll explain everything soon. I promise.” And then she presses a button on my father’s desk phone and says, “Can you send everyone back in, please?”
The door opens and all the people who were ordered out return and get back to work as I stand there, just feeling… stunned.
I turn and leave, still clutching the business card for the mortuary, push my way past the still-arguing partners, and go into my office. Eileen is standing in the middle of the room behind a dollie stacked with boxes. “These are all your personal things. And don’t worry about me. Your mother is hiring me over at her company.”
I blink three times. “My mother has a company?”
“A real-estate business, apparently. I never knew.”
“Me either.”
“Well.” She shrugs. “It was a good offer. So I’m not unhappy about it. Do you want some help to your car?”
“Don’t you think this is weird?”
“Super weird.” She laughs. “But… you guys have always been weird. So not that unusual. Oh, and before I forget. Finn and Darrel came by yesterday and I sent them home. Your mother was already in control. So you should probably call them and let them know the game is over.”
I just stare at her. Blink. Say nothing.
“Jordan?”
“Yes?”
“Do you need some help to your car?”
I shake my head. “No. Thanks. I got it.”
“OK,” she says, walking around the dollie. “I’m gonna miss you. Maybe you’ll come by your mom’s office some time and visit?”
“Sure,” I say, even though I have no idea where that office is.
And then she’s gone. And I’m left alone in my office with a dollie stacked with boxes.
I pack up my car, head over to the mortuary, and spend the next five hours dealing with the details of death. And then I go back to Chella’s house.
Because I feel like there’s no place in this world I belong but there.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I attend the funeral out of obligation and feel like a hypocrite doing so. It’s raining at the gravesite. Coming down in sheets, and we—my mother and me, the only family there—are sitting under a small hastily erected black canopy as the ceremony drags on.
Everyone else is huddled under large black umbrellas and it kinda pisses me off. That he gets a horrendous thunderstorm as the backdrop to his farewell. Something so dramatic should be reserved for people you’re truly sad to see die.
I’m not sad and I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think my mother is either.
We stay there, sitting in our chairs, until everyone else has left. My mother reaches for my hand and says, “Your friend came to see me the day after you left the house that night.”
I turn in my chair, the rain pelting the roof of the canopy so hard, it makes her hard to hear. “Ixion?” I ask.
“No. Chella.”
Chella. “Why?”
“She was worried about you. And she told me some things. Things I had already found out about because when you left that night, you forgot to take your folder of evidence with you.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I didn’t know, Jordan. But I should’ve suspected. Because when you came back from LA and joined the firm, I decided to get my real-estate license. And I did that so one day, when my nightmare was over, I’d have something of my own to fall back on. Oh, we’re filthy rich, but all that money was his, not mine. And before you say it’s half mine too, I don’t want it. I don’t even need it. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”
“You sent me that listing last year, didn’t you? For the garden mansion.”
She presses her lips together. “I knew who she was. I suspected what had happened to her. And I couldn’t let him sweep it all away by letting the house be sold in foreclosure. There was too much anger inside me last year. So I sent it to you and hoped. And you, for whatever reason, heard my prayer to keep their story alive, and bought it.”
“I don’t even know why, though. Why did I buy it?”
“Because somewhere inside you, you knew too.”
“I didn’t. I blocked it all out.”
“I didn’t know who she was, I just knew of her. I knew she got pregnant, that her oldest was your half-brother, and that she married another man and moved on. I forgave her because she was very young and very young people do very young things.”
“She was the one who came to me in the cabin,” I say.
“I know. I figured that out from your file. And I’m so, so, so sorry I wasn’t there for you when that happened. I truly had no idea. If I had…” She shakes her head. “I’d have done this sooner.”
“Moved out?” I ask, kinda confused.
“No,” she says. “Got rid of him.”
“What?”
“Your friend Chella came and told me what you did for her. She said…
she said she owed you but she wasn’t sure how to repay the debt.”
“She told you I—”
“She said you helped her with a problem,” my mom says, not letting me finish my sentence. “And she wanted to help you back. So I took care of it. Because I owed you too.”
“You killed him?”
“That night you left… well, let’s just say I was done being told to go back to the kitchen. And before you start feeling guilty about this, Jordan, let me just say one more thing about it and then I’ll never speak of it again. He got what he deserved and it was a long time coming.”
We just sit after that. Listening to the rain. Staring at the gravesite. Trying to understand the new world we both now live in.
And then she says, “Walk me to my car. I have one more thing to tell you.”
“We came in a limo,” I say, once I look around and see all the limos are gone.
“I had my car brought so I could leave on my own terms. It’s right there.”
She points to a silver S-class Mercedes and we walk towards it, no umbrella, but in no particular hurry, either. I open the driver’s side door for her, then close it and walk around to the passenger side and get in.
“Reach into the glove box,” she says.
I do, and pull out a folder. “What’s this?”
“The will is being read this afternoon, but that’s all yours now. You don’t need to go if you don’t want to. I just wanted to explain two things. One. The building? The one you wanted so bad? It’s yours now. I made sure that was in the new will I drew up.”
“New will?”
She smiles at me and pats my cheek. “The partners helped me forge it. That’s what they were fighting about yesterday when you came in. I told them we’d sell them back your father’s stake in the firm for half price if they put their stamp of approval on the new will.”
“What’s it say?”
“It just all goes to you. That’s all.”
“What did it used to say?”
“It all went to the club.”
“What club?”
“Oh,” she says. “Oh. I didn’t realize. I thought you knew?”
“What club, Mom?”
“The Barrister Club. His club. His sex club. He gave all his money to them. It was part of the… deal, I guess.” She shrugs. “Some mutually assured destruction pact they had. He sold you out so many more times than you knew, Jordan. And I’m sorry. I should’ve left and taken you with me, but that was a losing battle if ever there was one. He’d never give you up. You were his legacy. So I stayed. I did it for as long as I could, but the other night, after you left, and I saw what he’d done, what my staying had done to you, I decided I’d had enough. And then your friend came and told me she owed you. And did I have a way to help her pay you back?”
“And you did,” I say.
“I did. I injected succinylcholine into his ass while he slept.” She smiles. And if she wasn’t my mother, she might scare me. But the smiles fades and so does the fear. “It’s the perfect poison. He did die of a massive heart attack. He was sick. And if I had left him alone, he’d be dead in less than a year. But if I had left him alone that Club would’ve gotten your inheritance. Would have gotten you, because they’d have dangled that money in front of you and promised you the one thing you thought you needed above all else. And even though you and I both want to think you’d resist and say, ‘No, thank you’… you wouldn’t have, Jordan. Because your father groomed you to say yes. It was inevitable.”
“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” I say.
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” she repeats. “He was a goddamned genius. A very sick genius.”
“That’s why he didn’t want me to buy the old Turning Point building?”
“That’s why. You already had a club. He didn’t want you to have an alternative. That’s why he bought it back when it went on the market. I always knew he did. I saw this coming because I was the one who made him sell the old club. The one your friend’s bought. I’ve heard they ran it well. I’ve heard it was a nice place. Your father’s clubs? They were… not so nice. So Chella didn’t talk me into anything, she was just… a perfectly-timed catalyst. Please don’t blame her.”
“And Augustine? And Alexander? What—”
“Blackmail,” she says. “He saw Ixion come home and was afraid the two of you would become close again. Not that way, Jordan. He was afraid the two of you would figure out the part he played in Ixion’s family’s death. So he looked up Augustine and Alexander and blackmailed them. Oh, they don’t know anything about Ixion. They had no part in that. But your father knew the moment Ixion returned you two would grow close again. He wasn’t worried about you being bisexual. I’ll give him that credit. He was worried about you finding out he had them killed.”
“But why did he do it?”
“Because Ixion’s father found out that Ix took the blame for you. That’s why. Your father couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen. He was a sick, sick man. So he brought your other friends back and used them to get to you.”
“Alexander’s family,” I say, putting the final piece into place.
“They are as dirty as they are old. He was the only one to make a clean break. And your father threatened to take it all away.”
“So they…”
“So they came. And they tried to tell you so many times. Augustine is a lovely woman, Jordan. We’ve talked extensively since she came to Denver. I reached out to her that very first week I discovered she was here. She loves you still. I don’t know what you feel for her, but she did this for you. And Alexander didn’t just go along. He was invested not only for himself, but for what you were to them. They didn’t want to lie to you. They were sick over this whole thing. But I told them to do it. And I told them to trust me. And I told them to be patient. And they did. So please don’t blame them either.”
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” I say.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” she repeats. “I am a goddamned game player.”
I just look at her and laugh. I can’t help it, I laugh. Because my fucking mother is the genius in this game. She is the game master. Not me. Not my father. Her.
“And if there’s one thing your father taught me over these last thirty-odd years, Jordan… it’s how to play dirty.”
EPILOGUE
So… weird.
Turning Point was finally mine. It was all I could think about for the past six months. And hell, if I’m being totally honest with myself, for the past year and a half since it closed down.
And then that day came when my inheritance was truly mine. That building was truly mine.
So ironic… that when all that finally happened, when I’d finally gotten the only thing I thought I wanted… I didn’t want it anymore.
I gave the house to Ixion and Evangeline as an engagement present. And then I threw in the building as a bonus. Signed the whole thing over to them.
Ixion was always a good guy. He just never knew it. When he told me that story of why he was in jail up in Wyoming—that day I bailed him out and brought him back home—well, that sealed his fate, I think.
He’s just a guy who wants to help. Just a guy who wants to do the right thing.
And he did, I knew he would
Turning Point is now called Safe Place. They partnered with Smith and Chella and combined their gyms for troubled teens with the six-floor building that is now sort of a foster home, I guess.
And looking back, I don’t even recognize myself back then. Don’t have any clue why I was so consumed with the idea of that club. Don’t know why I’d ever want to go back and have sex with strangers.
Because the two people I belong with were always there in my past, waiting for me to forgive myself and come home.
I found them in LA.
I went to the Cheeseman Park condo, but they were gone. The leasing agent told me that the condo was under my father’s name, and so it actually belonged to me. He even gave me their address.
So I found them in LA.
I was surprised to find them in the old Westwood condo, the very same one we all lived in together all those years ago. They told me they sold it, but it was a lie. Just in case shit went askew in Denver and they needed to lie low.
I don’t hold that against them though.
It was a long, messy week of arguments, and accusations, and begging for forgiveness. On all sides. Mine, as well as theirs.
But the really cool part is that we got past it. And the even cooler part is… now I know what he whispers in her ear when he’s driving her crazy with lust. It drives me crazy too.
I mean, how could I hold all that shit back in Denver against them? They were up against a master. My father made the rules of the game and then he put them on the board and told them to play.
And I owed them my forgiveness, though that’s not why I gave it.
I turn over in bed to find Augustine’s naked breasts in my face.
“Good morning,” she purrs, still half asleep.
“Good morning,” Alexander says, reaching around her waist to pull her close.
Our eyes meet over the top of Augustine’s bare shoulder and we share a crooked smile.
“Good morning,” I say, taking my turn.
Because we’re a chain reaction.
A triple bond.
One of those rare things in nature that are held together not by attractive forces alone, but by something much stronger.
By love. And commitment. And friendship.
Maybe it doesn’t work, but if we fail, it won’t be because we were afraid to try.
It’ll be because we tried and failed.
***************
Want to start another series? Try THE MISTERS!
Ellie is the “celebrity concierge” at Stonewall Entertainment. She’s good at it. On most days. Just not the day her new boss, McAllister Stonewall, shows up and catches her secretly sexting in his debut executive meeting.
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