Rancher Daddy

by Lexi Whitlow

  “Here you go,” Max says, laying a key in Hayes’ hand.

  Hayes nods, thanking him, then shows me on to the elevators.

  Inside the elevator Hayes slips his hand into mine.

  “I told you I had something to show you,” he says. “I hope you like it.”

  I have no idea where he’s going with this. What on earth could he have stashed in a storage unit that has anything to do with me?

  He shows me down a long concrete walled corridor lined with padlocked doorways, finally stopping at one. He slips the key into the lock, releasing it, then swings the door wide. Reaching inside, he flips on the overhead lights.

  The narrow space is filled with brown, crepe paper wrapped shapes of varying sizes. None of it means anything to me.

  “Let’s have a look,” Hayes says, urging me in.

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing.

  “You remember I said that Mary Boon was Guy’s gallery rep?” he asks. “Well, they had an interesting business relationship.”

  “How so?” I ask, wondering how that relates to this field trip.

  “Guy never sold any original work,” Hayes informs me. “Mary only sold limited edition prints and licensed merchandise. He kept all the originals. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—part with them.”

  It dawns on me; my father’s assets, even his art, everything that was easy to liquidate, my mother has sold or attempted to sell. Holy shit…

  “My mother collected Guy’s work since they were both young, up-and-coming. She continued buying his prints, and he gave her a dozen or so originals over the years of their friendship, but after he died….”

  Is this room full of…?

  “When lots of his work showed up at auction, she bought everything she could to keep the collection together.”

  I feel my head spin.

  Hayes reaches for a corner of crepe wrapping, tearing back the paper, revealing the contents beneath.

  I see the corner of an oversized, wood-block print piece. It’s vaguely like what I’m attempting to do now, except I’m working on an even larger scale.

  Good Lord his work is beautiful. I’ll never match it.

  Hayes moves through the room, revealing more and more of my father’s treasures. Every piece I see strikes me in the gut like a canon shot. I’ve never seen these things. At best, I’ve only ever seen hints of them in his commercial work. This work—his personal work—this is all new to me.

  Hand cut, giant wood-block set type, reading, ‘She doesn’t know me. She couldn’t pick me out of a line-up of all the people who betrayed her.’

  And,

  ‘The concept of ‘Daddy’ is a construct in sit-com narrative.’

  I can’t help it, but seeing all this, my knees fail me. My eyes cloud. My throat closes.

  “My mother and your father were close.” Hayes says, seeing my emotion. “She wanted to keep everything together. She didn’t want his work spread all over.”

  I nod. It’s too overwhelming to process. “I’m… I’m glad… I’m glad she did,” I choke out.

  I can’t manage more.

  “Oh, my sweet angel,” he coos into my neck, drawing me inside his embrace. “I didn’t want to upset you or make you sad. I just wanted you to know his work is safe.”

  Safe. Safe? Collected in a space only a doorman who I don’t know has access to? Safe in a space across town and a universe away from my world? Safe where no one can see it? Not even me, unless I’m in the good graces of its guardians?

  In this instant I hate my mother for everything she’s done to vaporize my father’s legacy. And in this instant, I resent my father for abandoning me. He’s right, for years I couldn’t have picked him out of a line-up of ten of my mother’s revolving boyfriends. He could have walked up to me on the street and I wouldn’t have known him.

  That day when I came to New York for the first time, he met me at the airport, and I didn’t know who he was. I had to take his word for it. Twenty minutes later he handed me off to Hayes.

  And now Hayes, or rather his mother, owns his life’s work.

  This isn’t how things were supposed to work out. He was supposed to live longer. I was supposed to grow up and get to know him. He counted on that. I counted on that. And my mother wasn’t supposed to have factored in to any of this.

  I study another one of my father’s pieces. Bold, italic letterforms set in dark black ink with red outlines

  ‘Will she even know who she is? How will she find her way forward, without a light to guide her?’

  Fuck him. He left me with her in the darkness. I’ve made my way just fine.

  “I’ve seen enough,” I say, gathering myself. “I’m glad everything’s together. Thank your mom for me.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, pushing back raw anger. I need to put this in a corner and wrap a tight shroud around it. Put it with all the other betrayals and disappointments that I’ve boxed off and quarantined, to keep myself from being infected by the rage that would debilitate me if I gave vent to it.

  This bunch of over-sized prints on canvas, stored behind wraps in some mid-town storage unit can’t affect me. They’re not mine. They mean nothing to me.

  I can get past them. I must.

  “We were gonna go ice-skating,” I remind Hayes, rallying myself. “You promised.”

  Chapter 20

  Hayes

  “Ice skating,” I repeat. Thirty seconds ago, she was on the verge of tears, and now she’s talking about ice skating.

  How am I ever going to fathom this girl? She’s so contained. She won’t let anything in or out.

  “Seriously? Today?”

  She nods, smiling, but the smile is forced.

  I shouldn’t have shown her all this. It’s upset her. She’s trying to suck it up and act like it doesn’t matter, but the emotion is simmering just below the surface.

  “Do you really want to go skating?” I ask. “Or are you just saying that because you want to get the hell out of here and act like you never saw any of this?”

  “A little of both,” she replies, biting her lip. “I really do want to go skating. And today’s just about the most perfect day for it.”

  Logistically, it is doable. It’s only a mile or so away, hiking through deep snow with more still falling; but it will be an adventure.

  “Two things,” I say. “First, we get breakfast. Then we go to my place so we can get some warm clothes.”

  “Fair enough,” she replies, her spirits rallying a touch.

  At the penthouse landing, James informs me that my parents are out; they’ve gone downstairs for brunch. I hoped that would be the case. They’re generally reliable for Sunday brunch around this time, even on a snow day.

  I leave Chloe to wander, gaping at the apartment and the breath-taking views while I go up to my room and change clothes. A few minutes later, with a sweater, hat, scarf, and gloves in hand, along with one of my old coats, I find her at the terrace door, staring outside at the snow with an expression of wonder on her face.

  “What do you see?” I ask, dropping the winter gear on a chair, stepping behind her, slipping my arms around her and pulling her close.

  “You have gargoyles on your porch,” she states flatly. “Giant gargoyles, and a griffin.”

  “I do,” I admit. “Not many people get to grow up with actual gargoyles out their back door.”

  She turns and looks up at me. Her eyes, bright with questions. She chooses to remain silent, but I see her wheels turning.

  “What?” I ask her.

  She shakes me off. “Nothing,” she replies, returning her gaze to the grand terrace and the snowstorm, now tapering off. “Nothing.”

  All bundled up, we make it up 41st street, marching through piled snow, a cutting wind at our back. There are few people out on the streets, but those that are, are just like us, young and laughing, hand in hand. Once we make 5th Avenue the scene changes. Here it’s busier and the snow plows have already begun
to get to work. That’s no wonder because it’s just a few days until Christmas and this is New York’s epicenter for holiday shopping insanity.

  Chloe is wide-eyed, taking it all in; from the vaulting skyscrapers to the shops and massive department stores lining the broad avenue. She lingers occasionally at shop windows, peering in.

  “You haven’t been over here since you got to the city?” I ask her, drawing her close under my shoulder.

  She shakes her head.

  Maybe it’s lack of money. Maybe she’s intimidated by all this. Maybe it’s something else. I don’t press it. I’m glad she asked me to take her skating. I’m glad to be the one walking her down 5th Avenue in the snow.

  “We’re almost there,” I tell her, hugging her close as we walk. “Another half block. We’ll get a hot chocolate at the rink café.”

  Give me a room full of free weights, climbing ropes, rings, and a pommel horse, and I’ll give you a show to remember. Put me on steel blades on a freshly smoothed ice surface, and I’ll make a complete idiot of myself.

  I like control. I’m into strength moves and power. Chloe, on the other hand, is all about winging it, improvising and flying face-first into danger.

  She skates circles around me. For two hours on the ice, I struggle to keep up. At first, she’s wobbly, but in just a few minutes she gets the feel and starts dancing on those skates, swinging me around, making me dizzy, making me tumble.

  Good lord she has fun. I have fun watching her, being her foil.

  By mid-afternoon we’re both tired, worn out from the play and horsing around on the rink. We make our way back to 5th Avenue. It’s freshly plowed, with traffic running up and down as if it was any other day. We’re both frostbitten, winded, and hungry.

  “You like sushi?” I ask her.

  She smiles, her cheeks pink, eyes bright. “I adore sushi.”

  Our next stop is a block away, a little Japanese restaurant that’s among the best in the city. Hatsuhana is usually packed, but because of the weather we have no trouble getting a seat right up front at the sushi bar.

  We spend almost two hours eating whatever the chef sends us, drinking sake from tiny porcelain cups. When we’re full, and warm, and feeling light, we head out into the frigid air to find our way back home.

  I don’t want our day together to end, and I tell her that.

  “I have to go to work in the morning,” Chloe says apologetically. “And I’m going to call Mary Boon—so tomorrow is a big day. I need to be on my toes.”

  This is her very practical way of sending me packing.

  “Tomorrow night,” I say. “Chinese takeout at your place, and you tell me what I can do to help you prep a portfolio for your meeting with Mary.”

  The streets have been cleared enough so that taxis are running again. I put her in a cab to Chelsea as the sky shades to twilight. I hail one home to the East Side. I hate leaving her. It’s a feeling I’m afraid I’m going to become all too familiar with.

  Chloe Harvey is going to test every promise I ever made, putting my feet to the fire at every turn.

  Chapter 21

  Chloe

  I study the work hanging on my bedroom walls. I ponder the letterforms and ligatures I’ve contrived, the hitched spacing, dropped baselines, the color and shading I’ve applied to make the ideas latent inside each sentence come off the page. I consider the state of mind I was in when I wrote the lines and envisioned these prints.

  I was just days out of Richmond, brand new in the city, here in this apartment, surrounded by boxes. I was alone, as alone as I’ve ever been. Alone. Angry. Frightened.

  To combat my fear, to channel my anger, to crowd out my isolation, I did the only thing I know how to do: I got to work. The stuff hanging on the walls is the result.

  I have sketches for twenty more of these, all the messages just as hopeless and morose.

  The odd thing is, after spending the entire day with Hayes, I’m not feeling the bitterness or the isolation. I’m not sure what it is I’m feeling.

  He has an effect on me.

  He holds my hand and it’s as if gravity can’t bring me down. I was so angry with everything in my life this morning, seeing my father’s things, reading his thoughts and fears made real on canvas. An hour later Hayes had me laughing, blushing, teasing. He takes all the fear out of me. He replaces it with… hope?

  ‘Hope is that thing they use to tease you into believing the lies that eventually kill your soul.’

  I recall the last time I allowed myself to genuinely hold on to hope. It was my senior year of high school. My father and I had a deal. If I would agree to stick it out in Virginia until I graduated, then I could move to New York permanently and stay with him. I was willing to be patient and wait until I was eighteen and done with high school so that legally my mother couldn’t intervene. I was finally going to be happy, and safe, and feel loved.

  But he died. Every ounce of hope I ever had about being happy died along with him.

  That’s what happens when you hope.

  I need to keep reminding myself of that.

  Nothing lasts. You can’t rely on people, or promises, or plans. The only thing I can rely on is the very real fact that if I let myself fall into hope, I may never climb out of that bottomless pit again.

  Monday is a whirlwind. It begins with an all hands meeting at work to get project updates. All our clients are scrambling to finish things by year’s end and the work load is piled up. After the meeting, I call Mary Boon.

  She’s genial, but in typical New York fashion, straight to the point and fast talking.

  “I want to see three original works so I can get a sense of how they present, then another ten to fifteen digital files representative of your style and medium. If I like them, then we’ll discuss representation and putting together a show. My cut is fifty percent of sales of original work, and seventy-five on licensed images. If you can live with that, I’ve got my calendar in front of me and we can set a date to meet, look at your work, and talk. Right now, I’m booked through Thursday next week, but I have Friday morning available.”

  Right smack between Christmas and New Year’s.

  After that, I get a call from a guy named Jody Jenkins; he’s the Lyft driver’s brother. The long and short of that conversation is that I think I’ve scored my first official freelance gig.

  Near the end of the work day, after almost everyone else has gone home and I’m still working on comps for a client presentation, my phone rings.

  “I’m two blocks away,” Hayes says. “Chinese take-out? Or do you want to go out?”

  I save my file, then shove my chair away from the desk. “Take-out,” I say. “It’s been a big day.”

  “Should I come in, or you want to meet me outside?”

  “Come in,” I tell him. “I’m in the bullpen, along with the rest of the entry-level rabble.”

  “I need to have a chat with Scott and Dan about that,” he teases. “You need an office.”

  I love Egg Fu Yung. The restaurant offers shrimp Egg Fu Yung with lobster sauce. It is decadence concocted from the simplest of ingredients. I serve up a steaming helping, with fried rice and spring rolls, then begin devouring the meal as I explain to Hayes how my day went.

  Hayes smiles while the words tumble out about all the stuff that has suddenly landed on my plate.

  When I run out of air, he sits back and smiles.

  “I’ll help you get things ready for your meeting with Mary. The shit on your walls is ideal. If you have more ideas like that, I’ll pitch in to get it all on paper then photographed.”

  “Why are you so willing to help me?” I ask between gobbled mouthfuls of rich, salty Chinese food. “It’s a lot of work. You’re on Christmas break. Shouldn’t you be enjoying it with your family instead of volunteering hours and hours of labor to assist me?”

  Hayes puts his noodles down. He folds his hands between his knees. His expression goes serious.

  “Chloe, I want you to s
ucceed,” he says. “I want you to realize that you can count on me. I want you to see we make a pretty good team.”

  A team? What’s he even thinking?

  I honestly don’t know what to do with him. What I do know is that there’s no way in hell I’ll ever pull everything together for Mary Boon without someone’s help. I also know that I crave spending time with Hayes even though it feels reckless. I know he’s going to leave and go back to Richmond, we’ll both move on, and all this will just be a memory that withered in the distance between us.

  But if he’s willing, I can’t afford to turn down his help.

  I’m also really enjoying his friendship, with benefits.

  Chapter 22

  Hayes

  This week hasn’t gone quite like I expected, but it’s been good. Chloe met my mother and father briefly at a dinner my parents gave two days before Christmas for a few friends and the executives of Haus Chandler. My folks were busy with their guests, but they took some time with her, trying to make her feel welcome. She was nervous and didn’t want to linger much past dessert, so we fled at the first opportunity. I spent Christmas Eve and day with them, and she spent at least part of the day with Scott, Dan, and a party of their friends. She fled that one early too, texting me from the basement of The Foundry, telling me she hoped I had a Merry Christmas. I offered to come over, but she insisted I stay put.

  I still have a Christmas present for her. She said she hates Christmas, and begged that we wait until New Year’s to exchange gifts.

  The late nights working with Chloe in the basement of The Foundry have been exhausting. It’s been a whirl of setting up presses, pulling giant, poster size prints, seamlessly stitching them together so they feel almost like billboard displays, and then meticulously photographing every piece. Though, they’ve also been a lot of fun; more fun than I’ve had in a long time.

  What hasn’t been quite as much fun is the fact that we’ve been so damn busy we haven’t made nearly enough time for extracurricular activities.