The Heat

by Alice Ward

  Gross. Oh, yes, he was eligible. For the ass-kicking of his life.

  “Yeah, well,” I muttered, wiping my hands on my ratty sweatpants. “I guess if you sawed off the devil horns, he could be cute.”

  Emily grinned. “Don’t even think about it. You’ll never get a saw past security at JFK.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wyatt

  I couldn’t help it. I was a planner.

  When Ryan and I made the decision to go to Australia, we — mainly me — had planned for months, taking all eventualities and possible pitfalls into account. We’d carefully mapped out the route to avoid potential problems. We’d spent day after day talking about the different things we would see. I carefully researched the weather, the customs, the terrain, everything, leaving nothing up to chance. I’d carefully organized a backpack that had everything I could possibly need.

  My father, upon seeing my piles and piles of guidebooks and notes, had given me a thoughtful look. “You know, son, there is much more worth in doing than in planning.”

  As my ass grew tired from sitting on a plane for nearly twenty-four hours, I was thinking of my father.

  He’d been right.

  If Ryan and I had just gone to Australia when we had the idea, everything would’ve been fine. We’d have had six months’ worth of memories. Instead, we only had six months’ worth of planning for a trip that never got off the drawing board.

  Not that I’d had six months to plan this trip to Malaysia. Hell, I hadn’t even had six days.

  No, this was called flying by the seat of my pants, something I’d never been good at. I did spend what time I had — all two days of it — researching the country and the palm oil production processes. I’d also browsed the Palm Oil Summit website to see which major players would be on hand, and I’d rehearsed a company statement for any environmental groups that might think of cornering me in the lobby. It hadn’t felt like it was anywhere near enough.

  I landed in Kuala Lumpur early that morning, and I’d been surprised to step off the plane and into an airport that was bustling with people. It was funny. When I thought of Malaysia, my brain automatically imagined the jungle for some reason, but much of Kuala Lumpur was as modern-looking as New York. And as busy. I hadn’t expected such large crowds, all moving like bees in a swarm.

  I’d only had an hour to get my shit checked into my hotel before jumping on another plane to visit one of my company’s largest plantations in Miri, a Malaysian city on the northwest coast of Borneo. My guide and translator, Ajay Dhungal, had been very good at prepping me for everything I’d encounter on our short two-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Miri, but I still felt like I was flying without a net.

  But this was good. I needed to be more impulsive.

  In Miri, I lifted my travel bag onto my shoulder as we stepped out of the airport and into a wall of heat. It was hot even in December. How did people stand it? At the hotel, I had changed into a white linen shirt with pale cargo pants and a hat, and the sweat was already pouring off me in what felt like buckets.

  The sun was punishingly hot and blinding, so I pushed my sunglasses up on the bridge of my nose and reminded myself that even if I was woefully underprepared for this trip, things would work out. Because I needed it to work out. My father might not have been on board with this change, but I knew this would be worthwhile for the company my family had created. It was up to me to drag us into the twenty-first century, and if I had to sweat a little to do so, I would.

  “Lead the way,” I said to Ajay.

  There was a Jeep Wrangler waiting for us at the curb, but before I could jump in the car, Ajay pulled out a can of insect repellant. He handed it to me, and I sprayed myself from head to toe, something I thought I’d probably be doing nonstop for the rest of my stay. The mosquitoes here were brutal, and not only that, there were things called Dengue fever and malaria to worry about, neither of which sounded fun.

  Ajay introduced me to the driver, Mat, a worker at one of the refineries. This morning, we were going to tour one of the many plantations in which our palm oil was harvested from. I sat back in the front passenger seat, guzzling water from a bottle I’d brought as the driver set off. “Where are we headed?”

  “Long Lama,” Ajay answered in his heavily accented English. “About two hours inland.”

  I groaned and turned around in my seat to stare at him. “Did you say two hours? One way?”

  He nodded with a wide smile. “Yes. We will tour for two hours then be back to the hotel an hour before the summit reception begins.”

  I faced forward again, wondering who I should strangle for creating such a grueling schedule. That was why I planned things carefully, to avoid shit just like this.

  But it wasn’t Ajay’s fault or the driver’s, so I settled my weary ass into the Jeep’s seat, hoping it wouldn’t grow calluses on it before I made it back to the States.

  “So, you work at this plantation?” I asked the driver, needing to do something to stay awake.

  From the back seat, Ajay translated, but it didn’t seem like he was speaking Malay.

  The man nodded and began speaking the language I couldn’t comprehend. When he finished, Ajay said, “He came over here from Bangladesh with his family three years ago.”

  “And how are the conditions here?” I asked.

  Ajay translated, and Mat slid me an are you insane look that was quickly replaced with a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter as he spoke, and I desperately wished that I knew the language. I turned eagerly to the back seat, but when Ajay translated his words back to me — “There is good and bad.” — I knew it wasn’t the whole truth. The man beside me was afraid to speak freely.

  When I pressed for more specifics, I didn’t get any, which made the drive seem interminably long.

  For the first hour, I marveled at the sheer vastness of the landscape. Pavement gave way to narrow dirt roads as we traveled inland through thick green rain forests. Then the jungle vegetation gave way to stout palm trees, planted at exact intervals. These, I knew, were the beginnings of the palm oil plantations. I could see men walking among the trees, harvesting the palm fruit bunches.

  Some of them didn’t look like men, though. They looked young and malnourished, their bodies bent at sharp angles. “Are there child labor laws here?” I asked Ajay, who translated to the driver.

  The man nodded, his knuckles growing white as the gripped the steering wheel again.

  “You can speak freely. I will keep your answers in confidence.”

  After Ajay translated again, Mat glanced at me, reluctance in his expression. That one look was telling… he was afraid. Afraid of what?

  Talk about frustrating. I hadn’t come all the way out here to have my hands tied.

  I looked back at Ajay. “Tell him that I can’t help, that I can’t do anything unless I know the truth.”

  The response… “It’s all good. We’re pleased to have a job. Pleased to feed family.”

  Although I knew there was more, from the set line of the driver’s lips, I knew I wouldn’t get a different answer. The man was afraid. Of what? Who? I needed to find out.

  Mat took us to a building deep among the palms where I toured the fields, and later, to a refining plant where I saw the first step in how palm oil was made. The large fruit bunches were tossed around in a large cylinder to separate the fruit from the husks. Everyone was friendly and happy to see me. Overly friendly. Overly happy. Nodding and smiling as if they’d been preparing for my visit and were putting on a show.

  I had the sinking feeling that this wasn’t reality.

  By the time the tour was done, I felt like a piece of shit. Like something bad was happening, and I was responsible, but I was being kept in the dark over all of it. Basically, I was expected to fork over the money and stay the fuck out of the day-to-day operations.

  Later, when I was good and pissed off, the manager of WE’s Southeast Asia operations fin
ally graced us with his presence. I asked him about the working conditions out in the fields and came close to firing his ass on the spot when the bastard just shrugged. When Ajay translated, I realized the manager wasn’t being flippant. As I had already began to suspect… the labor was subcontracted, and WE had no control over the labor or employment practices.

  “There has to be some way to cut out the middleman and have some control over this,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “There may be, sir,” he said to me through Ajay, throwing up his hands. “I just do as I’m told, and this is the way things have always been done.”

  After a long, tiring, infuriating morning, we drove back to the coast. I took the flight back to Kuala Lumpur from Miri, my head swimming with everything I’d seen. On the ride to the hotel through the bustling capital city, I checked my phone. Only one hour until the official start of the summit in Shah Alam, so just enough time to go back up to my room and take the shower I badly needed.

  As the city raced past me, I called Ryan. He yawned so loud and long it pissed me off. “Um. Dude. You realize it’s four in the morning here?”

  I laughed, thinking he was joking, then realized that, shit. It was. I looked at my watch, which was still set for New York time. A twelve-hour difference. “Well, you know. Other side of the world and all. I thought you never slept?”

  “I hardly ever sleep,” he corrected with another long yawn. “But four a.m. is my sweet spot. What’s up? How are things going there?”

  “It’s pretty fucking awful,” I muttered, raking a hand through my sweat-stiffened hair.

  “You mean, Malaysia as a whole?”

  “No. Malaysia’s great. Hot as hell, of course, but I suspect that the plantation and working conditions are dire.”

  “Did you get some good video and pictures to send me?”

  “No. That’s the problem. They knew I was coming, so they made the place look like Disney World. I got frustrated on the informational bullshit ride that practically singsonged its way through what they hoped would convince me was the joys of the life of a palm oil plant.” I shook my head. “Not really, but you get what I mean. I took some pictures and video which I’m emailing you now. See if there’s anything worth showing for the next board meeting. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah. On it. So has the summit happened yet?”

  “No. The reception starts in about forty-five minutes. It’s a good thing we’re here, Ryan,” I said, wiping my face with a hand that I felt sure was grimy as hell. God, I needed a shower. My linen shirt was plastered against my body with sweat, which was dripping down my face like rain. “Maybe now we can start repairing our image.” I paused, thinking about those overly smiling faces. “No. Maybe now we can start doing the right thing.”

  “You okay, Wy?”

  I thought of Mat. The frail forms in the fields. Guilt slammed into me like a knife. “Not right now, but I will be.”

  Ryan exhaled a long breath. “That bad?”

  “I think so. Now to get someone at WE to give a damn.”

  “You will.”

  I appreciated the positive thinking. “Yeah. Be looking for the video.”

  “Will do. Give me a call later, at a respectable hour.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Will do.”

  I hung up just as the car pulled up in front of The Club Saujana Resort in Shah Alam, a city located just east of Kuala Lumpur. Even with my last minute reservation, I’d been lucky to secure a room where the roundtable was being held, and it was complete decadence compared to where I’d just been. It had all the amenities: a spa, two 18-hole golf courses, several pools, and lush gardens. But as I prepared to step outside, the guilt I’d been experiencing settled around me like a wet cloak.

  I thought of Mat and all the other families who were suffering in order to eek by a living. It didn’t feel right to hunker down tonight with a massage and a glass of wine when people I ultimately paid, even through subcontractors, were struggling just to survive.

  I stepped outside and retrieved my travel bag from the back, then thanked Ajay for the tour.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Watts,” he said, bowing deeply and taking his leave. Before he moved very far, I called him back and gave him a hundred-dollar U.S. bill. First, his eyes widened as if a ghost had just appeared in front of him. The surprised look was soon replaced with genuine delight. He bowed deeply again… and again… his abject gratitude making me feel like an even steamier pile of privileged shit. “Thank you, Mr. Watts. Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Watching him scurry away, I was determined to do more. I would make the conditions for the workers better. I would make WE better.

  Resolute, I turned and came to an abrupt halt when a cell phone was stuck in my face.

  I blinked and took a step backward, but the cell phone followed, staying within a few inches of my nose. My first instinct was to slap it away, but then a small voice said, “Mr. Watts?”

  Looking past the damn screen, then down, I finally spotted a teenager with tortoise-shell glasses and a dark ponytail holding the phone up to me, its camera surely getting a grade-A view straight up my nostrils.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re the CEO of the American company, Watts Enterprises, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” I said, groaning inwardly. What was this? The shower was calling to me. I had mosquito carcasses swimming in the sweat pools on my body. I looked around, wondering where this kid’s parents were.

  “Are you the same Mr. Watts who has refused to use sustainable practices time and time again as your company looks to rape the Malaysian rain forest of its natural resources?”

  I frowned and looked closer at the girl. She was wearing a t-shirt with an orangutan on the front that said SAVE ME.

  Oh, fuck.

  Ryan warned me about this. We knew that there would be representatives from environmental groups around, and I’d prepared a statement for them. And not just actual, legitimate organizations with mission statements and 501(c)(3) exemptions. These days, everyone wanted to be a YouTube star and would do anything to get their fifteen minutes of viral fame. He said these kind of fruitloops were everywhere, and I’d do good to avoid them because no matter what anyone said, there was such a thing as bad publicity. And giving these people airtime would only lend legitimacy to them.

  As cute as she was, I backed away. “Excuse me.”

  Tenacious as a chihuahua, she trotted beside me, wearing these ridiculously adorable white shorts, her camera lens trained on me. “Mr. Watts, you didn’t answer my question. Are you the one who said, and I quote, ‘We are not interested in sustainable practices at this time since it’s unfeasible with our current business model?’”

  I frowned. No, that wasn’t me. That was my father. In my head, Ryan was screaming no air time, and I was determined to listen to him. When I was able to make changes, then I would shout those changes from the nearest rooftop. So far, I hadn’t done jack shit, so I had nothing proud to report.

  Ignoring the question, I hooked a left turn, and instead of going through the side door as I’d planned, headed toward the revolving doors in front, lengthening my stride.

  The little spitfire of a girl somehow managed to plant herself in front of me again, damn camera front and center. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? Don’t you care about the harm you’re doing?” She pointed to her chest. “Don’t you care about them?”

  Against my will, my gaze dropped to where she was indicating, and as I looked, the fuzzy orange monkey grew two horns on its fuzzy head. Damn. Her nipples were about to break through her thin shirt.

  My cock pulsed.

  And I was officially a dirty old man.

  Gritting my teeth, I swerved around her, but a few seconds later, as luck would have it, an elderly woman shuffled into the revolving door, moving at the wicked fast pace of one inch per eternity. Hell fire. By the time I got inside the bless air conditioning of t
he lobby, the heat of the day and my confrontation with the little minx had my blood boiling — mentally and physically. I needed a shower, a cold drink, and—

  She came bounding around a corner, nearly rocketing into my chest. She skidded to a stop, her nose hovering a millimeter from my left nipple. Somehow, she’d sneaked into the side door and was in my face — nipple — again, all ninety-eight pounds of her.

  Had she been a leech in another life?

  “So, you don’t deny that you said that?” she asked expectantly, accusingly.

  I bit back a sharp remark and studied her. She was older than I first thought, probably mid-twenties, thank god. If she hadn’t been snarling at me, I’d bet her lips were full and pretty.

  She had a sweet little body too. On any other day, I might have happily kept talking to her, maybe try to weasel her into my bed. But her eyes shot that down. Her big hazel eyes made bigger by a pair of coke-bottle glasses were pretty enough, gorgeous even. But they held a whole lot of judgment for me. It pissed me off.

  “Actually, I do deny it.”

  She let out an ironic laugh that was closer to a bark. “You do?” She gave me a disappointed look. “So you deny saying that your environment raping company isn’t interested in sustainable practices, but can you deny that Watts Enterprises…” she reached out and poked me in the chest, “the company that bears your name, scored a zero on the Palm Oil Scorecard, and is considered one of the biggest users of non-sustainable palm oil in the United States?”

  Yes, we had, but we were making strides to get better. Didn’t that count for something?

  The single finger was still digging into my chest, so I caught her wrist, my hand easily circling her thin arm. Damn, her skin was soft, and electricity seemed to pulse off of her and into me. “I—”

  Her eyes widened even more, giving her a Kewpie doll look that shouldn’t have been attractive, but was. Instead of pulling away, she sank the finger deeper and plowed on, her other hand still holding up that damn phone. “And do you actually enjoy murdering orangutans and other indigenous species of the rain forest with your practices?”