Clean Slate

by Holley Trent

  Jerry had dropped out of college to surf professionally and modeled on the side to pay his rent and subsidize his travel. The modeling was the far more lucrative gig. He did that for several years before being frustrated by the vagrancies of the industry. He basically dropped out of modeling without warning, leaving a number of his old contractors confused. He didn’t pose again until last year when Nikki strong-armed him into some N-by-N promo stills. That’s how Ben had found his mother’s long lost son.

  “How do you know if a woman is worth pursuing?” Ben turned around from the window just in time to see Jerry’s eyes widen.

  “You’re asking me?”

  Ben shrugged. “You’ve done pretty well.”

  Jerry barked with laughter. “You think I planned that? I didn’t pursue Trinity and she didn’t pursue me. Not really, anyway. We hooked up because we got sick of antagonizing each other. Got tedious.”

  “But you love her.”

  A dreamy smile spread across his brother’s face. “Absolutely. Pretty sure she returns the sentiment.”

  “Hmm.” Ben turned his back to the room and looked out the window once more. “But before her, certainly there were other women.”

  “Yeah.”

  When Jerry didn’t elaborate Ben turned his face toward him and cocked up a brow. “Nothing serious?”

  Jerry shrugged. “I was a professional beach bum. Traveled a lot. When I moved back home, no one really held my interest. Hell, took me two years to pay attention to Trinity.”

  “What did she do that finally got your attention?”

  A wolfish grin.

  “Tell me.”

  “She tried to tame me. Failed, obviously, but the gall woke me up, that’s for sure. Why? Got some ladies on the hook back in Belgium?”

  Ben shook his head. “Like you, I’m on the go too much for anything serious. I’m just wondering now because I’d like to have a home. Settle down somewhere.”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  Ben leaned his back against the window and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe here.”

  “Of all the places in the US you could relocate to, you’d pick a tiny patch of unincorporated dirt in northeastern North Carolina. Why?”

  Ben opened his mouth to respond, but realized he had no answer. Why? Well, why did his heart beat? Why did he swallow in his sleep? Why did he close his eyes when he sneezed? Because that’s the way he was made—what he was programmed to do. “Wouldn’t you like me being nearby?” He already knew the answer, but felt the question had to be asked anyway.

  “Hell yeah, I’d love you being around as Trinity and I start a family, but what about Clara?”

  Ben blew out a long, shuddering breath. Moeder. She’d already lost one son to the US, but to lose the one she raised single-handedly, too? The woman would probably fade away from the unfairness of it all. “I’ll have to make her understand it’s the best for everyone. Maybe if she sees I’m happier here…that there’s more for me here, she’ll be content with my choice.”

  “You going to spring that on her right now?” Jerry asked, nodding his head toward the phone on the desk.

  Ben shook his head. “No. No. Maybe when I escort her back to Belgium after the wedding, I’ll explain it to her then. It’ll take me that long to have a plan to return, anyway. I can’t just keep flying back and forth ninety days here and there.”

  “I’m sure something will shake out. Now, do you want to make this call or should I? We need to figure out how to handle her ticket situation.”

  “I’ll dial.”

  * * *

  “Moeder, Jeremiah is aan de telefoon.”

  The sound of a sharp intake of air was barely registered by Clara’s receiver, but Ben heard it and interpreted it for what it was—an outward expression of his mother’s fear. He had no idea why she would fear her elder son. Jerry had been nothing but gracious and hospitable during her visits, even urging her to return soon on his dime.

  “Mother, say something,” Ben urged in Dutch.

  After a few moments, the soft voice on the other side of the Atlantic managed in stilted English, “I am glad you are together.”

  “Yes, you told us that several days ago. Listen, did you receive any mail? From an airline or travel agent?”

  “Yes, but there was no…” She seemed to feel around for the English words and gave up. She continued in Dutch. “There was no information about the hotel.”

  Ben pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and took a bolstering breath.

  Jerry interceded.

  “Clara, Trinity and I will be upset if you don’t stay here with us.”

  “I could never impose.”

  “You’re not imposing. What are you going to do when we have children? Are you going to fly all the way from Belgium to stay at a hotel in town fifteen miles from here or are you going to stay here with us? Near the babies?”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “You would want me there?”

  Now it was Jerry’s turn to rub his bridge.

  Ben groaned and switched to the rapid-fire French Jerry didn’t understand. “What the fuck, woman? He’s trying to draw you in and you’re acting like an ice cube.”

  “I just don’t want to impose. He has a mother already. I wouldn’t dare to—”

  “He has no mother!” He smacked his palm down on the desktop with a force that startled Jerry. Ben took a deep breath and started to pace around the desk. “That woman who adopted him doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She treats him like shit she’s stepped in. You’re worried you’d feel like an intruder, and I’m telling you this man hasn’t had a mother in over thirty years. There’s a hole there. Are you going to step into it and fill it, or are you going to keep holding him out at arm’s-length like you don’t want him?”

  “I have no idea what you two are saying, but I’m pretty sure it’s about me,” Jerry said, voice deadpan.

  Their mother sighed. “Thank you for your offer. I would love to stay with you and Trinity, if it is no trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble, honest. Now can we talk about the rehearsal dinner? I feel like we should give you sufficient notice so you don’t feel dumped on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to be comfortable sharing a table with Dad and Kate? If not, we’ll split up the seating somehow and have you sit with Trinity’s folks.”

  No response.

  “Moeder?” Ben nudged.

  “I will do what you like, Jeremiah. I appreciate your concern about my seating.”

  “Of course I’m concerned. You’re my mother. Do you think I’d stick you in a corner and make you an observer of something you’re supposed to be participating in?”

  “It is kind of you to include me.”

  Jerry closed his eyes and held the phone’s mouthpiece against his shoulder. “I give up.”

  “She’ll come around. I know her.”

  “She needs a goddamned hug or something.”

  Ben laughed. “Yeah. A hug.” She already had the something. It came in a pill bottle.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Daisy startled every time the N-by-N barn’s main door swung open, but when she turned around to assess the new arrival, the newcomer was usually just Juan with his hand truck fetching another load of boxes to ship or some other staff member cycling in and out to smoke. The one person she needed to talk to hadn’t shown up yet.

  She’d tossed and turned all damn night, stomach roiling and head spinning, driving herself very near the precipice of a full-blown anxiety attack.

  It was just like high school debate team all over again. She’d lasted only a week in that. When it had been her turn to take the podium, arguing on the “pro” side of Sunday mail delivery, she’d tamped her stack of index cards on the stand, took one look at the audience, and promptly lost her lunch.

  Nikki wasn’t that scary. What was the worst she could say? “No”?

  “G
irl, you’re wound so tight I could probably sharpen a pencil in your ass.”

  Had it been anyone else, Daisy would have blushed and hid her face, but for Momma? That was par for the course. She groaned and bent her head low over the oatmeal soap bars she’d been wrapping all morning. “I’m just tired.”

  “Why? Ellis and Elizabeth keeping you up again?”

  Ellis and Liz: AKA Daisy’s housemates. Ellis was deaf in one ear from working at the shipyard and lived life twice as loud as necessary. Liz worked from home doing third shift customer service by phone for a certain moving van rental company. Sometimes irate movers yelled at her. Sometimes Liz yelled back.

  Daisy scooped up the ten soaps she’d just packaged and carried them to the waiting box on the nearby table. “No, Momma. I have earplugs for them now.”

  “Why don’t you just move home, huh? Quieter.”

  Daisy returned to her stool and pulled the next tray of cut soaps closer. “Because I’m twenty-seven years old. I’ve been married and divorced and have reliable income. I shouldn’t be living with my mother.”

  “Says who?”

  Daisy didn’t answer. A dark bolt at the front of the room caught her attention and she turned her gaze toward Nikki’s office. The boss lady had arrived through the non-public entrance via the storeroom and made a grab for her ringing desk phone. Daisy watched Nikki mouth “Nikki Stacy-Mitchell” and stood.

  “Momma, I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh, you telling me your comings and goings now? I thought twenty-seven-year-olds didn’t do that. Silly me.”

  God. Daisy adjusted the hair beneath her baseball cap so the brim sat straighter and activated her tunnel vision. She kept her eyes on Nikki’s office door as she strode through the expansive facility, passing the sofas where the staff lounged during breaks, the large pine conference table, Jerry’s cubicle—where he sat, fortunately, with his back turned to the aisle, Trinity’s workbench, and the kitchenette.

  Daisy stopped in the doorway and wrung her hands as Nikki cut her gaze up from the pad she scribbled notes on.

  She beckoned Daisy in.

  Daisy stepped just inside the threshold and shifted her weight.

  “That’s really last-minute. I don’t know if I have anyone to send,” Nikki said into the phone. She finally sat down and tossed her pencil onto the desktop.

  The fine hairs on the back of Daisy’s neck stood on end, and without turning around she knew they had company in the small office.

  “Look, I’ll try to scrape something together but at this late date I don’t know what it’s going to be. That’s a lot of free shit to give out, and lot of employee man-hours. My staff is very lean. I can’t afford to send my principals out to trade shows and have them standing behind tables for…” She stopped and crooked one black eyebrow up at the new arrival in the doorway. “Let me call you back.”

  Daisy turned her head to the right to find Ben leaning against the doorframe. Her breath caught at the sight of him, fabulously sunburned but still smiling.

  “Ben. Darling,” Nikki purred, tapping her fingertips together and grinning like the cat that got the cream.

  “Good morning.”

  “Can you do me a wee favor?” She held one thumb and forefinger a few millimeters apart to show just how small the boon was.

  “Anything.”

  “Shit, I wish everyone else was so accommodating. I’d spend less time yelling. Come in and close the door for me, will ya? Oh! Daisy!” She snapped her fingers and pointed at her, seeming to confess she’d forgotten she was there. “You’re so damn quiet. What’d you need, hon?”

  “Uh…” All of Daisy’s blood seemed to rush to her head and her stomach turned. She swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth and stood from the armchair she’d been occupying. “I wanted to pitch something, but…” She looked from blank-faced Nikki to Ben whose smile widened at her attention.

  Fuck.

  She dropped her gaze to her shoes. “I’ll come back later when you’re not busy.”

  “Honey, if there’s ever a point when I’m not busy, go ahead and roll me into the nearest open grave.” Nikki picked her pencil up once more and used it to wind her long hair into a sloppy bun.

  Ben closed the door.

  Nikki fixed her green gaze on her and ground her teeth. Teeth-grinding was her tic.

  Just spit it out. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be out of her firing range.

  “I had an idea for some new soaps.”

  “You did?”

  Daisy opened her mouth to respond and closed it while she got her thoughts together. How to be diplomatic? She didn’t want to throw her mother under the bus or anything. She just wanted some independence—authority of her own.

  She sighed. “Nikki, I didn’t want to wait for the Monday meeting because Momma doesn’t know I’m even thinking about this.”

  “Hmm.” Nikki gestured to the chair, indicating Daisy return to it.

  She did, and pulled it closer to the front of the desk.

  Ben was still hovering, so Nikki hooked her thumb toward the other chair. He pulled it up.

  “Lay it on me, Daisy. Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.”

  Daisy let her face slacken with her confusion. “I’m sorry?”

  “I’ll explain when you’re done.” She tapped her fingertips some more.

  “Oh. Well, we’ve always used our old family recipes for the soaps. There hasn’t been much change in the product in a hundred years, best I can tell. I know people like the soaps because they’re natural, but they’re not very luxurious.”

  “Go on.”

  Daisy crossed her legs at the ankles and stared at her knees. “I’ve been brainstorming more modern products, and I think I have a couple of ideas that’ll fit the brand but maybe appeal to a younger demographic.”

  “Younger and more broke?”

  Daisy shook her head. When she looked up, Nikki had found another pencil and was scratching notes onto her pad.

  “People who are careful with their spending, but who’ll splurge on toiletry items they view as necessities.”

  “Give me three ideas off the top of your head.”

  Three? Shit. Daisy clucked her tongue. “Um, well, the first is a lemon astringent.”

  Nikki lifted both brows and grunted. “Sounds nice. What else ya got?”

  Daisy swallowed hard. “An orange cream body soap—orange natural glycerin and milk.”

  Nikki scribbled on her yellow pad. “And number three?”

  Eenie-meenie-miney-moe…

  “A lavender-grape seed oil soap with soy for blemishes.”

  Nikki whistled long and low and intensified the frenzied pace of her writing. When she looked up again, she didn’t turn her attention to Daisy. She looked at Ben.

  “Ben, I wanna tell you a secret.”

  He laughed that deep, chesty laugh that made the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes deepen. “I’m afraid.”

  “You should be.” The little boss lady stood and sauntered to the file cabinet installed near the closet door. She pulled open the top drawer and scanned the file tabs until she found one of particular interest. “Ben, I really, really hate trade shows.” She pulled the file and closed the drawer.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m not charming. I get annoyed easily.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that about you, Nikki.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “Are you bullshitting me?”

  He just grinned.

  “All right, silver-tongue. Normally, if I absolutely have to send someone, I send Trinity because she knows the chemistry. But this is too soon and with the wedding coming and all she has on her plate right now, that wouldn’t be fair to her.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I like you more with each passing minute, Ben. You should snap him up before someone else does, Daisy.”

  Daisy chuckled nervously as her face flooded yet again. She snuck a peek at
Ben and found his smile had wilted a bit at the edges. Still friendly, but bearing some hint of familiarity—as if they shared some secret. With her gaze back to her knees, she wrung her hands.

  “Ben, this show is on Saturday. It’s an honor for N-by-N to even be invited, even if they’re plugging us into a bigger company’s slot who had to pull out at the last minute. I’m happy to take away bigger companies’ market share, and this is how I wedge this little company into places it otherwise couldn’t go. So, I’ll be candid.”

  She handed him the manila folder she was holding and waited for him to open it and review the glossy event brochures inside.

  “You’re handsome, you’ve got an accent women seem to like, and you don’t have shit else to do.”

  He laughed. “Oh, well, if you put it like that.”

  “Four hours including set-up and clean-up. Ten if you include the driving.”

  “What would I have to do?”

  “Hand out samples, tell everyone how great Nikki Stacy-Mitchell is, that sort of thing.”

  He raised one eyebrow.

  Nikki shrugged and walked to the front of her desk, leaning her butt against the edge. She looked at Daisy. “I need some samples, honey.”

  “Samples?”

  Nikki closed her eyes and nodded. “Mm-hmm. Samples. Small ones, but pretty ones. I figure around…” She moved her lips silently as if computing figures in her head. “Three hundred about this big.” Using her thumb and forefinger to make a circle, she demonstrated an approximate silver dollar size.

  “Soap, you mean?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Nikki wrenched her torso around and reached for her pad. “This show is to spotlight new products, and we hadn’t planned anything for it. If push came to shove, I would have sent out the winter nail polish palette, but I like this idea better.” She held the pad up and pointed to her scribbles. “A hundred and ten of each. The thirty extra will be for research and development.”

  Daisy gaped. “But we’re not going to have time to test them before…”

  Nikki put up her hands. “I know. Right now, having anything on the table would be better than showing up with nothing. If it’s good soap, our presence there will just be one more feather in the collective N-by-N cap. If folks don’t like them?” She shrugged. “Then they’ll just die a trade show death and we’ll forget it ever happened.”