by Anna Yen
Chapter 17
A terrible malodor jolted me awake from a deep, blissful sleep on my own Tempur-Pedic mattress. The stench was so strong that I was certain it could stir even a hibernating bear. I knew the smell—it had been polluting our home since I returned from the hospital four weeks ago; an “immune-boosting, cancer-challenging” herbal concoction that Mom brewed downstairs in the kitchen. I wondered which mix of syrupy soup, brown pellets, and powdery phytochemicals was on that morning’s menu. More important, how long did my parents (and Scott and Peter, too) expect me to carry on with all the mumbo-jumbo? I’d fought them at first, but their joined forces were too powerful to overcome.
Still sore from the surgery, I turned to my side, pushed myself up with both arms, and made my way toward the kitchen. When I heard the muted sound of Audrey’s voice through the swinging door, I picked up my pace because I assumed Ava was with her.
“Where’s Ava?” I asked as I stood barefoot in the kitchen.
“Hi!” Audrey said from the family room. “She’s not here.”
“Good morning, Sophia!” yelled Dad, who was at his station in front of the television.
“Why not?” I asked.
“You have no idea how many germs kids carry. They’re like petri dishes. It wouldn’t be good for you to get sick right now.”
“Good morning, Sophia!” Dad happily yelled again.
“Good morning,” I snapped back at Dad. Then to Audrey, “Is she sick now?”
“No.”
“Well, then why didn’t you bring her?” I asked.
“I just told you why. What’s the big deal?” Audrey argued.
She thought she was protecting me and that I was making a big deal out of nothing. Except Audrey’s cautiousness signaled she was already treating me differently, and that is what I reacted to. Anyway, there was something about my sister’s daughter that lit me up inside and that could help me forget about everything that had happened—everything that might come. Ava made me smile, which happened less and less during those days, and a niece sighting was just what I needed.
“Don’t baby me, Audrey. You know I hate that.”
“She’s just worried you’ll get sick,” Mom chimed in.
“You guys are driving me fucking crazy!”
“You’re a f—”
“Girls! Girls! Language! No four-letter words in this house,” Dad shouted.
My eyes teared up and I whimpered, “It’s my last chance to see Ava before I’m buried in work again.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Audrey asked. “Why are you so emotional?”
“I don’t know,” I said as I slumped over and used the back of my hand to wipe away a stray tear. This wasn’t the first time I had become weepy over nothing. Last week I’d sobbed when Dad told me to put on some socks. When I asked Dr. Levin about my weepiness, he responded, “Your body has been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. Just give it some time to settle down.”
If I have to settle down one more minute in this house, I’m going to go batshit crazy.
“You’re not ready to go back to work. The doctor said eight weeks,” Audrey said.
“That’s bullshit. Oh, sorry, Dad.”
“Sophia!” Dad exclaimed as he tore through the kitchen.
“Hey, where are you going? Breakfast is almost ready,” Mom shouted after him.
“Those damn squirrels are in my trees again!”
Mom looked at me and shook her head. “Your father is crazy.” She handed me a mug full of sludge with one hand while she flipped a fried egg with the other.
“Oh God,” I said as I looked at the contents of the mug.
“Drink it,” Mom demanded, droning on and on about its antiviral and antibacterial properties.
Audrey cringed as she watched me take a deep breath, plug my nose, and slam the lukewarm liquid down my throat. She looked as relieved as I was when I finished the sludge and exhaled loudly through my mouth.
“Ugh!” I exclaimed.
“That’s pretty fucked up.” Audrey grimaced.
“LANGUAGE!” Dad shouted into the house from his squirrel-watching station outside. Audrey and I laughed.
“It’s a good thing I taught you to slam a beer. You’re getting some good use out of those skills.”
Mom’s slipper came flying across the kitchen, barely missed me, and nailed Audrey in the shoulder. “Ouch!” she exclaimed.
There was no need to say anything. My grin and raised eyebrows said it all, so I grabbed a banana and walked toward the door. “I’ve got to get ready.”
Rubbing her shoulder, Audrey said, “I’m heading out, too.”
“Why are you even here?” I asked.
“Mom and Dad called—”
I held up my hand to stop her. “Enough said.”
I stopped at the gray console table just outside the kitchen door and rifled through the first drawer to find my car keys, left untouched for six weeks. Between Mom’s shouting, the clinking of keys in the drawer, and my high heels, Dad must have heard me from upstairs. When I finally found my keys and turned toward the door, Dad was standing in front of it.
“I’m afraid you’ll catch germs,” he said. “You need your immune system to spend all its energy recovering from your surgery.”
“Dad! What are you talking about?” I said, frantically trying to push past him, but he was blocking the front door. “There are germs everywhere, including in this house.”
“Can’t you work at home just a few more days?” he pleaded. “Daddy wants you to stay home. Why go to work? You have that appointment with the new oncologist this afternoon anyway.”
I chuckled at the scene unfolding in front of me: Dad parked in the doorway, his arms outstretched high and his legs spread out wide, still wearing his pajamas. When he pleaded like this, it was hard to imagine him as the tough businessman he was known to be. Then again, I must have learned my negotiation tactics from somewhere.
It was then that I noticed that he still had toothpaste in his mouth. Jesus H. Christ!
As much as it pained my incision—sternum-to-pelvis, no small nick—I couldn’t help but laugh at his foamy lips. I regained control quickly, though, as my desire to escape the house outweighed Dad’s shenanigans. I also knew I needed to be in the car so I could speak privately with Ion’s CFO—a call that I’d arranged days ago. No need for Mom and Dad to start butting in. Within seconds I switched from laughing to yelling over Dad’s toothpaste-mouthed pleas. “DAD! Please!”
“I’m begging you, Sophia. Do this for your poor, poor daddy. Stay home just one more day,” he said, gargling a bit from the toothpaste. “Mom and Dad are going back to Taiwan tomorrow. Don’t you want to spend time with your daddy?”
Drastic measures were in order. As loudly as I could, so that Mom could hear me from the kitchen, I said, “No! Dad, I’m late! If you don’t move, I’m going to start looking for my own apartment!” Toothpaste drooled from Dad’s mouth; a disappointed look crossed his face and he dropped his arms. My dad knew my antics too well, and we both looked toward the kitchen door as Mom flew through it. She was on a crash course with the front door, where we were still parked.
“What? Apartment? You aren’t moving, Sophia.” I felt guilty for a moment, having just put this woman through hell with my cancer and now manipulating her with the threat of moving. God forbid she be forced to explain to her friends that her daughter disobeyed her and actually moved out. But then I wondered what it would be like to live on my own, away from the care and comfort of my parents. I smiled at the thought of my own San Francisco apartment, and of buying my first couch. Of throwing dinner parties with Peter, just like real adults. As Mom rushed over, my hand lightly ran along the ten-inch scar on my abdomen.
Someday, Sophia. But not now. Not yet.
When Dad saw the look of determination on my face and the death grip I had on my keys, he knew he had been defeated. Slowly, reluctantly, he slid out of the doorframe. “I don’t like this,” he noted a
s he made way. I could see his eyes tearing a little, but I wasn’t sure if it was because the toothpaste was burning his mouth. I chuckled in triumph and pecked both parents on their cheeks before walking outside and down the paved steps toward my car. I was aware of the silence where my mother’s parting comments once had been. Where she used to call, “Suck in your belly,” or “That outfit doesn’t do you any favors,” there was just a reminder about my late-afternoon appointment with the new oncologist and her silent approval of the weight I’d lost because of the surgery. I was relieved not to hear her usual commentary, but hated the price I’d paid to avoid it.
I positioned myself in my leather bucket seat, pressed the button to lower the convertible top to let the summer’s UV rays warm my skin, and ran my hands over the smooth, padded steering wheel. Ahhh. The roar of the engine sounded more intimidating than I remembered, and the tight grip of the low-profile tires around our circular driveway caught me, and my still sore stomach muscles, off guard. But I enjoyed every second of my regained independence as the car eased forward.
The sound of the wind rushing past me and of the crowded freeway fueled my adrenaline. No coffee needed today. Surprisingly, Ion was the farthest thing from my mind; instead I imagined walking into Treehouse and the warm welcome back I was soon to receive. I ignored the traffic and acknowledged how good it felt returning to my old routine as I sang along with the radio. When later the ringing of my mobile phone interrupted my blissful state of mind, I fumbled to plug in my headset. In the moments that passed during the phone’s first, then second, ring, my nerves began to rattle. Weeks earlier I’d already spoken with (read: been interrogated by) two other Ion executives, and I knew this call with the CFO, Rajesh Patel, would seal the deal.
When the phone rang a third time, my hand hovered above it; my hesitation to answer surprised me. What about Scott? I owed him so much. The phone vibrated and rang a fourth time; I picked it up half a second later, but it was too late—the phone had fallen silent. I told myself I would call Rajesh back when I figured out what I wanted to do, then hit one of my phone’s speed-dial buttons. “Hi, Peter, it’s me.”
Shuffling in high heels and a black drop-waist embroidered silk dress toward the new Treehouse building made me feel like Minnie Mouse. My feet had been blissfully bare during my recovery, and it was as though they’d forgotten how to walk in heels. I looked around me to see if anyone had witnessed my less-than-graceful approach, but the coast seemed to be clear. I reached for the vertical steel bar that would open the glass door, but another hand came up from behind me and pulled the bar for me.
Jonathan’s eyes sparkled as we both stepped inside and he gave me the warm hug I was expecting. “Hey, welcome back. It’s been a while.”
Hey, where’d you come from?
“Thanks. But I was never really gone. Just recovering. We spoke every day,” I said, trying to downplay how ill I’d been.
“We prefer you here, safe and sound where we can see you. Six weeks is a long time,” he said with a grin. “How are you feeling?”
I tried not to read into his question and answered as though it were any given precancer day. “Great. How are you?”
“Glad to see you,” Jonathan returned. He noticed me looking around at the new office—I hadn’t seen it completely finished. “Pretty cool, eh?”
“Amazing.”
“Listen, get settled and then come talk to me about our upcoming shareholder meeting. I’d show you around, but I have to get to a nine o’clock. Oh, and Ashley’s booked something in your calendar at eleven, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Jonathan left me standing just inside the entrance and I tilted my head way back, feeling as though our new office’s ceiling were as high as the sky.
“What do you think?”
I looked left and saw Scott standing there with crossed arms.
“New outfit?” I asked jokingly, referring to his black shirt and worn jeans and noticing his too-thin frame.
Scott shook his head, making it clear my sarcasm didn’t register, then said, “Come on, let me give you a tour.”
There was a controlled madness happening in front of us—ebbs and flows of people stopped to talk to one another while holding their morning coffees. I followed Scott as he waved his arms like Vanna White.
“The architect had originally put the cafeteria and gym on the opposite ends of the building, but I wanted this courtyard to be the heart of the company. A place where the magic happens—where discussions and brainstorms take place organically because everyone at the company will have a reason to come here at some point during the day—to collect their mail, get something to eat, go to the bathroom, whatever,” Scott explained.
“Hmm. Very clever. What else is down here?” I asked.
“Well, the gym, theater, and company store to name a few more,” he answered as though stating the obvious. “They’re all here. This is the place that will inspire and encourage creative thought. It will ensure everyone still feels cohesive even though all the departments are very spread out now.”
Wow. Leave it to Scott to think of that stuff.
The building almost felt like a huge airplane hangar framed by lightly tinted glass and beams that were made of gently blasted steel. It emitted a warm and friendly vibe, just as I knew Scott intended. I tilted my head back. My eyes ran along the second-floor offices that overlooked the grand courtyard; I became slightly emotional about its enveloping beauty.
I followed Scott up a broad, steel staircase, then across an arched glass-and-steel skywalk that crossed over the courtyard and connected the right side of the building to the left. We walked through a wide, naturally lit hallway, then through double doors that led to the animators’ dimly lit fairyland—an area at least four or five times the size of their old space. I was surprised to see there were no more decorated cubicles; instead there was an entire neighborhood of twenty-by-twenty “homes”—each gloriously custom designed and built by its owner. “It was Dylan’s idea to give each animator a budget that they could use to build and decorate whatever they wanted,” Scott said as we passed by one complete with faux-stone walls and a turret. “I think it worked out well.”
“Did the engineers downstairs get as creative?” I asked.
Scott’s look told me I’d asked a stupid question, but he answered it just the same. “No.”
A man of many words.
We exited the animators’ mecca and crossed the bridge once again, then passed life-size statues of Treehouse characters lined up along the wide walkway that led to a row of offices. Inside the first one was a wall-to-wall fish tank, about eight feet tall and just like the one at Baron Capital. Scott waved toward it and said, “This is me, and on the other side of the fish tank is Ashley,” before he continued ahead. But I stopped, turned into his office, and walked up to the humongous tank. It looked like a seafloor, with sand and rocks lining the bottom and starfish and sea urchins clinging to them. I stepped closer to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me—an octopus stretching almost a foot wide swam happily to an opening between two rocks where it could hide. For a moment I was lost in the tank, staring dazedly into its undulating water. But Scott’s voice snapped me to attention; I turned around and rushed to catch up.
We proceeded down the hallway, where framed Treasures storyboards hung on the walls. Scott stopped at the fifth office and said before disappearing, “This is you. Jonathan is next door. I’ll see you at eleven.”
My office was a huge improvement on the old one. A glass wall faced the courtyard and gave the room the feeling that it was much bigger than it actually was. A monitor, keyboard, and mouse were arranged on a simple, drawerless pine desk facing the door, not the great view. I considered flipping the desk and ergonomic chair arrangement around so I could look out upon the courtyard, but remembered that Scott had a feng shui expert place every single piece of furniture and décor in the building. This particular arrangement followed one of his key rules: “Never put your back
to the door.”
I assumed it was Ashley who’d hung beautifully framed letters and hand-drawn pictures on two of the three walls, each addressed to Treehouse Investor Relations. I bought ten shares of Treehouse stock, said one that was written in blue crayon. It was signed, Sincerely, Ben, and included his first grade school portrait taped to the bottom. A large, framed Treasures poster hung alone on the third wall. In black Sharpie ink on the bottom-right corner was a note in Jonathan’s handwriting: Thank you for all your effort. When I saw two signatures on the bottom—his and Scott’s—I imagined the wrangling that must have taken place and Scott’s complaining, “I don’t give my autograph.”
I exited my office and stood on the glass bridge, then looked down into the courtyard. The artists, engineers, storytellers, and production managers that were there all seemed to be charging in one direction or another as though they couldn’t wait to start their day. It was how I felt at that moment, too. I thought of Ion again and questioned whether I could really leave this behind: Scott, Jonathan, and our movie that had entertained so many. Then Scott’s words of wisdom came to mind: “Nothing is forever if you don’t want it to be.”
At eleven o’clock, I stepped into the new Treehouse theater, where Jonathan and Scott waited for me seated in red-cushioned bamboo seats. These were the same seats Scott had insisted on purchasing months ago, the ones that had caused me so much grief when it somehow got out how much we’d paid for them—worse when word spread that we’d bought three hundred.
I observed Scott wiggling around in one of the infamous chairs and said, “I told you so.”
He frowned and responded with something he knew would upset me. “Okay, then find me new chairs.”
Jonathan replied with a nervous twitch before he turned to me. “Don’t go blabbing this to investors yet, but we finished The Amazings. You’re one of the first to get a preview.”
Just then, Scott waved his arm above his head and the theater lights went dark; the ceiling turned the midnight blue color of a clear Hawaiian night sky. Twinkling stars appeared and I gasped in delight when a comet flew by. Ahhh.
