Catching Kurstie's glance, she grinned crookedly and her best friend grinned back. Patsy's fear of the trestle was an ancient standing joke. She had crossed it with them in the old days, but she had done so inch by creeping inch, fretting about it every step of the way.
They had always allowed extra time when she was along to avoid being mowed down by the five o'clock.
It came hurtling out of the woods across the gap now, hitting the trestle with a horrendous rattle of wooden struts and iron rails. A moment later it thundered past the spot where they stood in the woods. Then it was gone, roaring beyond the lake to the other side of the highway, its whistle trailing a mournful wail.
Hayley shouted with laughter and threw an arm around Kurstin's shoulder. Her friend rotated her arm so Hayley could see her wrist watch.
"Five forty-five," Hayley said complacently. Then the two of them completed the old refrain together. "Right on time."
They smiled at each other in satisfaction. No one else ever found it as funny as they did, but there was comfort and amusement in the shared history of an old joke.
She sighed. "This is great," she said. "Thanks, Kurstie. I really needed a day like today." They climbed back up on the track and, looking at her friend, she debated her options as she made minor adjustments to her balancing act atop one of the rails. Should she tell her about last night with Jon-Michael or not?
"Is it starting to worry you, Hayley, that the date of Wilson's execution is growing nearer?"
With her mind elsewhere, the question caught her off guard. "No," she said. "Well, yes." She looked at her friend helplessly. "That is, sort of."
Kurstin's smile was wry. "Your decisiveness is a trait I have always admired about you."
"I used to be decisive," she replied seriously. "Once upon a time I knew exactly what I believed in."
"Like when you believed that capital punishment was wrong?"
Hayley jerked. "Oh, God. You remember that?"
"Of course I remember. Not in an expecting to see you on the eleven o’clock news picketing a penitentiary on execution night way. But you had strong feelings on the subject." She shot a glance at Hayley as they picked their way down the tracks. "What I don’t know is how you feel about it now."
Stomach rolling queasily, Hayley tore her gaze away from the compassion in Kurstin's eyes. "I don't want to talk about it," she said flatly.
"Hayley, for Cri'sake! I’ve been waiting a good year and a half for you to introduce the subject."
"And the fact that I never did wasn’t your first clue?" She knew she was being unfair. But she simply could not talk about all the mixed messages the capital punishment topic raised—and the many ways in which they messed with her head.
"Fine." Kurstin rammed her hands deep inside her pockets to keep from reaching for a fistful of Hayley's hair, which she would love to give a satisfyingly hard yank. She felt rebuffed and angry. More than that, however, she felt massively frustrated, because she knew her friend.
Hayley did not bare her soul easily. She retreated deep inside with the problems that mattered to her most and refused to let anyone follow. Kurstin had faith that sooner or later she could beat down the wall her bestie had constructed around this particular dilemma. Seeing the stubborn set of Hayley's pointy little chin, however, she had to accept it would not be today. So for a while she simply observed her lifelong friend in silence.
Then finally asked, "What is bothering you, then, if it isn’t the execution?"
Hayley's head shot up. "Who said anything was?"
"Your heartfelt tone when you said you really needed a day like today."
"Oh.” For a couple heartbeats, Hayley considered trying to hold it in. Then she blurted, “This is embarrassing." Still, it was easier to talk about last night than the other, and God knew she had been thinking about it before Kurstin blindsided her with the capital punishment thing. Her feelings about the upcoming execution always hovered in the back of her mind, knocking to make their presence known. At this moment, however, last night's debacle was a fresher issue.
"No kidding? Now you really have my attention. Dish. What is embarrassing and why?"
"Well it's pretty shallow, for one thing, compared to the issues of life and death. And it’s something I shouldn't even allow to bother me."
"Allow, schmow, babe. Feelings are what feelings are. Tell mama what the story is with yours."
Hayley skinned her hair off her forehead with both hands and held it there while she stared at her best friend. "Your brother slapped the moves on me last night."
Kurstin's eyebrow elevated. "Yeah? Well, golly gee whiz. Shocker." She gave Hayley a poke. "The million-dollar question is: how did you respond?"
"Uh, you are not going to like this, Kurst. I hit him on the head with an oar handle."
She could still see him falling back, clutching his temple. "Jesus, Hayley," he had growled. "A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed."
"I said no!"
"One you meant, I mean."
Angry and rattled, she had been tempted to give him another rap. But Bluey had emerged from his office, demanding to know what the hell was going on, and she had taken a large step back instead.
"Don’t think this is the end of the discussion," Jon-Michael had warned in a low voice that licked its way down her nerve endings. Then he’d picked up his instrument case and strolled away, leaving her to make a lame excuse to Bluey while Jon disappeared through the darkened lounge.
The coward.
Kurstin regarded her now with obvious relish. "He really got to you, huh?"
"Please. I succumbed to a moment of panic, is all." She tried to disguise her knee-jerk defensiveness with an indifference she was far from feeling. "I haven't attracted male attention in a long time, and it spooked me. I overreacted."
"Yeah, it probably spooked the hell out of you to discover you liked it."
"Who said anything about liking it!"
"Oh, come on, Hayles, this is me you are talking to. Why else would you strike out at him?”
She bristled and Kurstin hastened to add, “Now, I’m not saying you wouldn’t have smacked the man silly if he were harassing you. But I have known you forever and if that were the case, you would have screamed bloody murder while you were beating him black and blue, and I’d be bailing him out of jail today." Kurstin gave her a stern look. "So, please back atcha. He kissed you or felt you up, or something, and you liked it. But—and this is the real issue—he has already messed up your life once so you didn’t want to like it and you cracked him upside the head to make him stop. How am I doing so far?"
"Shit."
Kurstin grinned. "That's what I thought. So when is the wedding? I'm warning you, put me in pink flounces and I will make your life a living hell."
"Good God, you’re a smartass. We have got to get you out more often."
"Well, lighten up. You aren’t seventeen any more. What could Jon possibly do to you now that is worse than what you have gone through the past few years?"
Hayley dropped her hands to her sides and blew out a breath. "Not a damn thing. Okay, you're right," she admitted and flashed Kurstin a crooked smile. "Crap, I spend nine months out of the year counseling teenagers to get in touch with their own truths, to learn not to lie to themselves, no matter how many lies they feel compelled to tell others to get through their days. Pretty good advice, don't you think?"
"Yes, you should take it."
"I really should." She scooped her hair behind her ears. "Here is the thing though, Kurst: dealing with Jon-Michael sometimes? It makes me regress right back to seventeen. I forget I’m an adult now with much bigger problems to handle. Instead I feel like those PTSD vets you hear about who flashback. I get hit by all the old feelings of impotence and rage I had to deal with every time some thick-necked jock invited me out and I knew he thought he was gonna get a red-hot roll in the hay at the end of the evening for the small cash outlay of a burger and a shake. So, no. You are absolutely right.
" She expelled a harsh breath through her nose. "I do not want to like it when Jon-Michael kisses me."
Kurstin glanced over at her friend as they started walking again. Hayley's head was down, her hands stuffed in her pockets. "I’m not denying you have cause not to believe a word he says to you," she said. "But he truly has changed, you know. He is not the same self-absorbed eighteen-year-old anymore."
Hayley glanced up at Kurstin. She hesitated but asked, "When did he quit drinking?"
Her patent reluctance to even ask tempted Kurstin to jump right in and answer her. Except…
"I think you really should discuss that with Jon-Michael," she said with reluctance. Ooh, God, that hurt. She yearned to tidy up everyone's problems; it was her nature to do so. But in this instance it really was not her place.
"Fine." The flatness of Hayley’s voice made Kurstin wince, for she was familiar with both the tone and her friend's innate stubbornness. Hayley would choke before she’d ask Jon-Michael. Hell, Kurstin could practically see her nailing the lid on a curiosity she probably already regretted voicing.
"You know," she said slowly, thinking aloud. "You and Jon-Michael used to talk."
Hayley made a rude noise. "We used to spar."
She smiled. "Well, yeah, that too. Intellectual foreplay, I always thought. But if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit there was a lot more to it. You two really talked to each other. Except for me, you were probably the only person in the world for whom he didn’t constantly put on a front." Watching her friend start to poker up, Kurstin acknowledged, "I know he broke faith with you in a big way. Sometimes, though, I think you tend to forget everything except that."
"So, what you’re basically saying is I do not have a right to feel the way I do?" Hayley smiled bitterly. "So much for feelings are what feelings are."
Kurstin stopped dead in the path and glared at her friend. "Oh, quit being so goddamn obtuse!" She took a deep breath, drawing calmness in with the scent of the evergreens, before continuing more quietly, "I would just like it if you would consider the earlier parts of your relationship with Jon…the good ones. Don't let one night poison all your memories.”
Since Hayley had more or less told herself the same thing she kept from snarling a defensive kneejerk reply. “I’ll consider it,” she said instead, and unapologetically changed the subject. “So, you have anything left to eat besides those stupid raisins?”
"Mr. Olivet will see you shortly, Mr. Olivet." The secretary smiled self-consciously at the duplicated name. She was new, and Jon-Michael studied her from where he sprawled in the hard-backed, hard-armed visitor's chair. His father was a difficult employer, demanding and gruff, and his secretaries generally only lasted somewhere between six and ten months.
The telephone rang and he felt no compunction about eavesdropping on the secretary's end of the conversation when she picked it up. "Richard Olivet's office," she said with professional pleasantness. “I’m sorry, sir, he is not available at the moment. May I take a message? Ben Thorton?" She scribbled on the pink phone-message pad. "I'm sorry, Mr. Thorton, would you repeat that? I didn't hear the name of your company." She blinked at the receiver. "Mr. Thorton? Hello, Mr. Thor—darn it." Flustered, she reseated the receiver.
Jon-Michael hesitated, then supplied, "Thorton-Byer Machinery." He was familiar with old Ben's habit of barking out barely intelligible orders. "Phone number's in Contacts."
The secretary shot him a grateful glance and located the information she needed to finish filling in the slip.
It must have been she who had called to set up this meeting. Usually his dad’s summons were peremptory demands, but she had presented it as a request, saying his father wanted to discuss something with him. And he had gotten his hopes up.
He contemplated his feet. Could the old man have had a change of heart concerning the Ben Thorton situation? Thorton's bidding practices had been an on-going battle between Jon-Michael and his father the entire time he had worked in the family business. Thorton-Byer consistently submitted competitive bids, but the actual work was rarely done on time and Jon-Michael had argued for years that awarding them the job ended up costing Olivet's more in the long run than if they had simply accepted a higher bid from a competitor to begin with. Sitting outside his father's office, it surprised him how badly he itched to get hold of the most recent bid and check it against the specs to see if Richard had forced Ben to toe the line this time. Surprised and irritated him.
He did not regret having walked out on the company, dammit. It was the only choice Richard left him. He had more drive, more plans and just plain more to offer than the old man seemed willing to entertain.
Yet if Dad is ready to bend a little on the Thorton issue, then maybe… Eyes narrowing, he looked up at the secretary.
"Inform my father he has exactly one minute, then I am out the door," he snarled, then felt like a real prince when she jumped, flushed a deep red, and reached for the intercom, shooting him an agonized glance when she fumbled it. Way to go, Olivet—you’re a regular chip off the old block.
This was such a typical ploy of Richard's—calling a meeting and then leaving him to cool his jets. A moment ago Jon-Michael had been rather amused by it and willing to play the game. Now he was no longer in the mood. He shoved to his feet.
The door to his father's office opened at that moment and Richard stood in the doorway, staring at his son with disapproval. "Come in, Jon-Michael," he ordered.
Everything in Jon-Michael stilled as his patently uncalled-for hope deflated. His face stiffening into the blank expression he had perfected as an adolescent, hands stuffed negligently in his pockets, he ambled across the outer office and through the doorway. "Hey, Dad," he murmured as his father stood back to allow him by. He collapsed into the nearest chair and propped his feet up on the corner of his grandfather's mahogany partners desk. Giving Richard a lazy smile guaranteed to drive the old man crazy, he held his silence, awaiting his father's opening salvo.
Richard regarded his only son coldly. "When are you going to quit dragging the Olivet name through the mud and come back to work where you belong?" he demanded with icy displeasure.
Well, there you go, Jon-Michael thought derisively. Did you really expect he’d admit he was wrong? "Chasing after fourteen-year-old girls would be a case of dragging the Olivet name through the mud," he said flatly. "Playing my sax in a well respected blues bar hardly qualifies as a blemish on our exalted family. As for where I belong, it is sure as hell not in a company that holds no value for my ideas, education, technical and business expertise or opinions."
"Olivet's has always done perfectly well the way I have run it and the way my father before me ran it!"
"Yes, it has. But times are changing, Dad. And if we want to keep up we have to be prepared to change with it."
"We do not need to diversify," Richard categorically stated. It was an old argument.
"The hell we don't!" Jon-Michael's feet thumped to the floor as he sat up. He leaned forward. "That is exactly what we need to do. Look at the industry, dammit. It is not improving. If anything it has grown weaker. Boeing laid off forty-three hundred people last month. They have lost contracts, which means we’ve lost opportunities. And, hell, who is to say they won't decide to expand into the production of our part themselves, if it comes to that? I would if I ran the place. I would look into manufacturing the part in-house. It would have the two-fold benefit of eliminating one more middleman from the process and keeping some of the company's own people on the payroll." He looked his father in the eye. "Boeing comprises—what?—forty-one percent of our business? Or is it even still that much, given how many plants they’ve moved out of state? We need to diversify now. It is never smart to depend on one enterprise for the majority of our income, especially if the income we receive from them is shrinking."
"Our profits were up this quarter."
"And they could hit the skids next quarter."
"If you have so much faith in your ideas' viab
ility, why don't you present them to the board?"
Jon-Michael's smile turned bitter. "I learned a long time ago not to smack my head against brick walls."
"No," Richard disagreed with flat condemnation. "What you learned, Jon-Michael, was to walk away instead of sticking around long enough to face a problem head on."
"You sanctimonious son of a bitch," Jon-Michael said as ice lined his stomach. "You are goddamn right I learned to walk away. I got tired of being disregarded, and I finally learned to recognize a futile proposition when I saw one." He rose to his feet. "You know good and well presenting my ideas to the board is the most futile proposition of all. I am nothing if not a fast learner. You have the board in your pocket." Shoving his hands in his own pockets he looked his father in the eye. "Well, I hope you’re all very cozy together. But do yourself a favor and put a little something aside for when the company goes down the tubes. Because it will if you do not diversify pretty damn soon."
Richard smiled coldly. "Leave the worrying to the grownups, son. You can run along now. Go toot your little horn."
Jon-Michael had to consciously brace himself against reacting to his father's ridicule. He could import a few home truths about how productive he had been each day before going to Bluey’s and how capable he was of starting a company that would put his father’s out of business. But why bother? Keeping his expression bland, he said coolly, "Yeah, why don't I do that. At least I will have steady employment when you drive the company into the ground."
Then, stomach churning, he turned and walked out of the office, pulling the door closed behind him with the greatest of care. Gazing stonily straight ahead, he strode through the reception area, the barely heard secretary's farewell going unacknowledged.
Dammit. Why did he keep setting himself up to expect something different? Why did he keep coming back for the same old shit when he knew in his gut nothing would ever change? Today’s meeting had gone exactly as they always had.
Notorious Page 8
