And Barron must really be sad, because he lets me hold him for a few more seconds than usual before pulling away and saying, “We should leave now if we want to get to Wes’s school on time.”
He’s right, and with a quick walk downstairs, we get on a bus that will drop us off right in front of CIT, just a few minutes by foot from Wes’s public school.
However, my phone goes off halfway through the ride. It’s Allie, Holt’s assistant.
“Hello, Allie, how are you?” I answer, my heartbeat speeding up.
I haven’t spoken to Holt since the restaurant fiasco last Friday. And much like I had been waiting for his father to show up, I had also been waiting for Holt to make his next move.
But as it turned out, Allie’s call has nothing to do with Holt.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I hate it here!” Wes yells as soon as I walk into the classroom where he has been detained after the incident. “Tell her I am not going here anymore! You can homeschool me, just like you did Ender!”
I ignore him and go to where the teacher is seated behind her desk, looking like a reluctant jailer. “Hello, my name is Sylvie Pinnock,” I say, holding out my hand for a shake.
“Hi, Sylvie. I’m Ms. Garcia, Wes’s teacher,” the frazzled woman answers, clasping my hand.
“So very nice to meet you,” I say with a gentle smile, thinking of the afternoon drinks I ordered for the Ixtapa Kinder Club staff after Wes trashed the art room.
“I wish it was under better circumstances,” she answers, throwing Wes a doleful look.
“It’s your own stupid fault,” Wes spits from his desk. “You shouldn’t have put me next to Dale! He’s stupid, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And if I have to stay in this school, I’m going to kill him.” He turns his angry stare toward me. “Tell them I’m not going here anymore!”
“Do you mind if I speak with Wes alone?” I ask the teacher.
“Not at all,” the teacher answers, grabbing her purse and rushing from the classroom like a released prisoner.
After she leaves, I tilt my head and say, “Hello, Wes.”
“Tell her I’m not coming back here!” Wes screams in response.
“Hello, Wes,” I repeat. Then I level him with my Jamaican mom eyes until he finally mumbles, “Hi.”
“It’s good to see you,” I say, sitting down at the little desk directly across from his. There is a laminated green name card on it that says Dale Milano. I am guessing this desk belongs to the same Dale who asked me the other day if Wes really has his own videogame room and if so, could they have a playdate. And perhaps Dale really is the reason Wes has his hands crossed over his chest and his face puffy from crying.
“How was your day?” I ask him.
“How do you think it was?” he answers, voice snotty as I have ever heard it.
“Wes, my friend, you need to revisit your tone and try that again,” I answer, my voice still deliberately calm.
“Bad!” he spits out. “My day was bad. Because of her…and Dale.”
“Tell me more about this Dale. Is he a friend?”
“No! He acted like he was going to be my friend, but then he called me a crybaby.”
“He said you were a crybaby? Why would he say this? Did something happen?”
“Kinda,” Wes mumbles. “These kids were playing soccer and I kept on getting the ball but every time I kicked it, the goalie would block it or catch it. The other boys stopped passing it to me because they said I couldn’t kick.”
“And you became frustrated, is that right?”
Wes nods miserably. “I haven’t cried once since coming here. But now all the boys are saying I’m a crybaby. And Dale says he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
“No, mon! Did he really say this to you?”
Wes nods again. “Then he asked Miss Garcia if he could change desks because he said he doesn’t want to sit next to a crybaby.”
“You are not serious.”
“Yeah, he said that! He said it in front of the whole class!” Wes answers, his face crumpling with remembered pain.
I give the situation some consideration and then say, “Oh my goodness, Wes! How lucky! This is the best thing that could have happened to you.”
“What?” Wes says, looking at me like I have gone crazy. “No, it isn’t!”
“Oh, but yes, it is. Dale acted like he was going to be a true friend to you, but you put that boy to the real test, didn’t you now? Made him show his true colors before you invited him to your home. As my good friend Prin would say, ‘now you know he ain’t shit.’”
The unexpected curse word widens Wes’s eyes. Then he giggles. “Yeah, he ain’t shit,” he confirms, voice stronger now.
I hit him with a stern look. “But that is the last time you will say that word out loud, right? I can’t have you out here cussing up this nice school.”
Another giggle from Wes. “Okay, I won’t say it again,” he whispers as if we are co-conspirators in a plot.
“Good, now tell me everything this teacher of yours has done to you.”
“I told you. She sat me next to Dale!”
“And when Dale showed his true colors, what did she do?”
Wes doesn’t respond so I prompt him again, “Wes, what did Mrs. Garcia do?”
“She was about to send him to the principal’s office but when he got up, I shoved him.”
“Ah…” I say with a nod. “So now, Dale is at home watching Netflix while you are looking at a two-day suspension because you didn’t like the results of your true friend test.”
“It’s not my fault!” Wes shouts in that aggrieved way of his. As if everyone and everything in the world has been placed here to set him off.
“Wes, I am not here to talk about fault,” I answer with a sharp shake of my head. “I am here to discuss how we are going to get you out of this two day suspension, my friend.”
“We’re not,” he replies. “You’re going to homeschool me like you did Ender.”
It takes all I have not to roll my eyes. “First of all, Barron homeschooled himself. I only paid for the books and the testing. Second of all, that option is not on the table, my friend, because I am not anybody’s teacher. So, we are going to have to come up with another way to get Mrs. Garcia back on your side. Come, do you have any thoughts about how we can do this?”
“I don’t know,” Wes huffs at first. But then after a moment of thought, he says, “Maybe I could say sorry.”
“Maybe,” I agree, my voice considering. “But this could be the kind of situation that will require a very sincere apology and I don’t know if you’re up to that yet. I mean, look how smart Barron is and he has still not unlocked his sincere apology skill!”
I let that little challenge float between us like a life preserver tossed into the conversation. Then I hold my breath and wait to see if he will take the bait.
“Hey, mon,” Wes says, clasping Barron by the hand and pulling him in for a chest bump after we leave the school and walk to where Barron waits on the concrete steps.
“Did Vee really never home school you?” Wes asks as we start walking back to the gated community where Holt’s estate sits.
Wow, I think to myself. That was his biggest takeaway from my very intense afterschool special-level intervention?
“I mean, she paid for the tests and I am thankful for that,” Barron answers with that Jamaican kid flair for answering difficult questions in a way that won’t get him in trouble. “Why? Do you want to be homeschooled now, mon?”
Wes shrugs. “I guess not. The teacher was mad at me, but I apologized and promised to bring apples in for the whole class tomorrow, so she said I could come back to school.”
“Nice!” Barron says. “I still have a hard time saying sorry.”
To his credit, Wes doesn’t rub it in though technically speaking, this is the one talent he can easily lord over Barron. Instead he says, “Hey, you wanna play Viking Shifters in my gam
e room when we get back to the house?”
“After you do your homework and write a note of apology,” I remind Wes.
Wes rolls his eyes. “After all that stuff?” he edits.
“Yeah!” Barron says. And just like that, a bad day has turned around.
However, guilt twists my heart as I realize how true my words to Wes were. Barron had seen Wes at his worst. That very first day in Ixtapa he had waited patiently for me to defuse the raging eight-year-old before asking if Wes wanted to try out his bioHelmet, as if the younger boy hadn’t just trashed an entire art room. And now here they were, months later, and still the best of friends. Barron had even waited outside the school without protest while I handled the fallout from Wes’s latest blow up.
Barron doesn’t seem to care that Wes occasionally sobs like a child half his age and flies into fits of rage. And Wes doesn’t seem to care that Barron is a 40-year-old genius trapped in a child’s body. They get each other and accept each other just the way they are. Without judgment.
There aren’t many adult relationships I could say that about.
But thanks to me, they will soon be torn apart.
Chapter Thirty
“How about I make jerk chicken and plantains for dinner tonight since we have the kitchen?” I say after Wes finishes his homework.
Since it is too cold to do homework outside, we are camped out in Wes’s massive suite. And I do mean massive. Save for a working kitchen, it has all the amenities of an upscale apartment. Not only does he have an en-suite bathroom with heated floors…he also has enough space to house a family of five. Glass half-walls partition the space into a study, a small gym, and a Cape Cod-style bedroom with not just one, but four beds embedded into the far wall for Wes to choose from every night. There’s even an entertainment room with two state-of-the-art gaming chairs parked in front of two separate flat screens—as if Wes should never have to share a screen or—gasp!—take turns with a guest as Barron must when he and Wes play single-player games at our place.
Yet in spite of all the luxury surrounding him, Wes somehow always seems to end up at the guest cottage with us.
Usually after homework is done, I let Barron and Wes play for an hour or so at the main house while I cook the evening meal. Then I text Barron to say it is time to eat dinner. Wes has never technically been invited to eat with us, but more often than not when Barron comes through the door, Wes is close behind.
However, the cottage, as nice as it is, only has a basic stove top without an oven. After years of living in employee housing, I am dying to prepare something I can pop in the oven and leave to heat up. I decide today is the day for me to take advantage of the chef’s kitchen in the big house. It helps that it’s Lucynka’s day off.
But while Barron nods enthusiastically, Wes wrinkles his nose at me. “What’s jerk chicken? And plantains?” he asks.
“Jerk chicken is a marinade…like a sauce you put on chicken before you cook it. And no worries, I can make a non-spicy version just for you. Plantains are tasty, too. Like bananas but maybe less sweet.”
“Me and Dad hate bananas,” Wes informs me. “He won’t even let Lucynka bring them into the house.”
I squint a little, wondering if Wes is confused. The memory of Holt scarfing down those birthday banana fritter pancakes I made him—like all perfect memories that come before something bad—has haunted me for years.
But before I can get more details from Wes, Barron lowers his tablet to say, “They’re really good. Like candy and way better than bananas if you ask me.”
On Barron’s recommendation alone, the formerly defensive eight-year-old decides he cannot wait to try plantains. And when the boys come down to the kitchen to ask if they can have a snack, my answer is, “Yes, you can grab a piece of fruit while you cut up the plantains for frying.”
“Cool, like when we helped Mika make green spaghetti last week!” Wes says. “She was a good babysitter.”
And my heart gives another guilty pang because of the conversation I have already had with Mika about replacing me in two weeks.
Barron soon abandons us to sit in the kitchen’s bay window and read a Go Rodriguez biography. However, Wes ends up not only helping me cut up the plantains, but also marinade the chicken and put it in the oven. But alas, having a hand in the preparations isn’t enough to change his mind about bananas…or their cousins.
He spits out his first little nibble of plantain, then scrapes all the plantains off his plate and onto Barron’s before going to town on the jerk chicken.
“I told you I wouldn’t like it,” he informs me proudly with his mouth full of chicken. “Calsons do not like bananas.”
“And Pinnocks do not like rude boys who talk with their mouths full,” I counter, trying to figure out why he is so certain his father hates bananas.
“I like the jerk chicken!” Wes whines, as if that makes up for his impolite commentary on my plantains. But then proving that, like his father, he always has an agenda he asks, “Can I still have dessert?”
“Eat the rest of your chicken and rice and peas and then we’ll talk about it,” I say, though I already know the answer to his question.
Usually, I only do dessert on weekends. But knowing about the difficult conversation I would be having with the boys tonight, I’d purchased a pumpkin pie and some ice cream earlier today at the market. A little sweetness to go with our hard talk.
“Wes, I have something I must talk with you about,” I say as I put a dessert plate down in front of each of them.
“What?” Wes asks, already looking defensive. And though I never asked for this job, I hate that I must let him down by leaving it. With his mother only two years dead and his less-than-stellar school record, I can imagine what goes through his mind whenever an adult says, “we need to talk.”
Still, I hang on to my lightest tone as I answer, “You know, I’m so glad you like Mika…because I have spoken to her about her graduate school schedule, and she will be taking over your care when I leave in two weeks.”
Wes pauses with the spoon of ice cream halfway to his mouth. “What? You’re not leaving.”
“Yes, I am,” I say in a gentle but firm voice. “I have been given the opportunity to work at CIT. This means I will be able to go there for free starting next semester. It is a very exciting opportunity for me.”
I push as much enthusiasm as I can into my voice as I say this, but Wes’s face instantly hardens as he says, “No. You are not quitting. I won’t let you.”
Barron and I exchange looks at his response, then I say, “Wes…” crooking my head sympathetically.
He just shakes his head and says, “No, you have to be my nanny. Dad will pay for CIT if you want to go, but you have to stay and be my nanny.”
“I do not want your father to pay my way,” I answer. “I want to do this on my own, and though I have loved being your nanny, I am more suited to working with groups of children. This is why I need to—”
“No!” Wes shouts, cutting me off again. “You can’t do it! Dad won’t let you. If you try to quit, he’ll find a way to make you be my nanny, just like he did in Mexico. It doesn’t matter if you want to do it or not. You shut up and stop talking to me about this!”
Wow…and there it is, the monstrous streak Wes inherited from his entitled father and his diabolical grandfather.
I clench my teeth, counting slowly to ten so I can open my mouth again without completely losing my mind on the little boy.
But before I reach five, Barron tilts his head and says, “What do you mean ‘just like he did in Mexico,’ mon?”
Wes jerks back his head at Barron’s question, only just realizing in his anger that his best friend—the one who has no idea his mother was manipulated into serving as his nanny—is still there at the table.
“Oh, Ender. I wasn’t…” For once, Wes stops and thinks, his eight-year-old brain racing to catch up to his mouth before he lamely says, “I just mean I don’t want her to go.”
/>
Barron jerks back his head mirroring Wes in so many ways as he says, “You can not want her to go, but you cannot make her stay. That is not your place, mon,” he informs Wes. “You might be rich, but you do not get to tell my mama what she can and cannot do. She is leaving this job in two weeks, and I caution you…you will not like what happens if you try to stop her from doing it. Again.”
Wes is not so officious now. He seems to broil under Barron’s extremely Jamaican look of disapproval. And I’m impressed with my son. Seriously, I think his “you are not going to rule me” face could beat my mother’s any day in a contest. But I keep my expression neutral as I say, “Barron is right. I will be leaving this job in two weeks. That is non-negotiable. But I don’t want us to part with bad feelings between us.”
Wes opens his mouth to answer, his entire face red with embarrassment. But before he can, a voice behind us says, “What the hell do you mean you’re leaving?”
Chapter Thirty-One
HOLT
I had been planning to give her a raise. While reviewing Allie’s daily briefing notes, I stopped at the one about Wes. Looks like he got in trouble at school. Again.
This is a fairly common occurrence—or at least it used to be. But I hadn’t seen a “Wes incident” in the report in over two months. Not since Sylvie took over as his nanny. I clicked on my IM screen and sent Allie a quick text: “What happened with Wes? Is he suspended?
“No!” came Allie’s immediate answer. “When I called to check in, Sylvie said he apologized and worked it out with the teacher.”
Wes… a Calson… apologized. Moreover, Wes took the steps to handle the situation rather than let it be handled by someone else.
I could hardly believe it. As unreligious as I am, I could not help but think this was a goddamn miracle. A goddamn miracle only Sylvie could have brought about.
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 18
