The Last To Know - What I Did Before We Dated

by Bridy McAvoy

  “Hooston, we have a problem.”

  His smile fluttered then faded. Just five little words and he knew something was serious.

  “How long do you need, Steve?”

  “I asked Alison to hold your calls, and clear your schedule. This is a big one.”

  “Well, seeing as your resignation speech wouldn’t take four hours, I know we have something we can solve. Talk to me.”

  I’d decided on a slightly oblique solution.

  “How much do we spend with Midstate Press each year on advertising?”

  “About three hundred thou, last time I checked. That’s one of your portfolios. You probably know better than me. Why?”

  “It’s about three hundred and forty.”

  “Okay, you going to tell me the problem with them, then?”

  By now I was sitting opposite him, the large expanse of his glass desk spanning the area between us.

  “I’m going to give you two choices, Bruce. Either you switch that portfolio to someone else immediately, or I resign. In fact, if you switch it, I’ll resign anyway.”

  “So it is a resignation speech. What’s going on, Simon?”

  “No, not a resignation but I refuse to work with a newspaper group where one of its papers is going to run a character assassination piece on my wife.”

  “What?” He was almost up out of his chair. His hands balled into fists.

  “You heard me. The Gazette is doing a piece on my wife on Friday. Once it runs, her career is down the tube. I can’t work with them, nor can I work for a company that uses them.”

  He nodded slowly. “This piece, is it that bad?”

  “Yeah. Sammie told me the details last night.”

  “And it’s untrue?”

  This is where I started lying to him. “Yeah, they came to her to fact check, she denied it, and they’re running it anyway.”

  He looked at me for a minute. “Okay, I think I need more than that. They go to press, what, tonight for Friday?”

  I nodded. “It ain’t pretty.”

  “I’m a big boy. Talk to me, Simon. Let’s see what we can do about this.”

  He sat and listened as for the next fifteen minutes I gave him an abridged version of what Samantha had told me. I didn’t tell him it was a confession from her, just as if it was the gist of the article. I told him about Frank’s death, about how the reporter running the story was married to Frank’s daughter. I told him how he’d been dating Samantha before she met me, and before he dated Sarah Bryant. Then I told him about the laptop with Frank’s memoirs on it that he’d left to Samantha in his will but the lawyers executing the will couldn’t find any trace of it. How I was sure Sarah had cooked up the fake memoirs that allegedly incriminated my wife to get back at her. Frank had never liked her husband, and he wanted revenge on Samantha for being ditched by her so she could date me. Sarah had also been upset with her father’s will when he didn’t split his estate evenly between the three children. The two boys had got most of it.

  About half of it was true, the important bits were verifiable. The laptop had disappeared, and the will was a matter of public record. The only serious untruth as far as I was concerned was the authorship of those damning memoirs. Frank had written them, but I was banking on Sarah not being able to prove that.

  I finally wound down and Bruce steepled his fingers, watching me for several minutes. Then he was all action, picking up the phone. “Alison, get me Smith and Thompson on the phone, I don’t care which one, but I want one of the partners, not some secretary or paralegal… I don’t care what they’re doing, I want one of them on the phone, stat.” He put the phone down and looked at me. “Go take a seat on the couch. Try and relax. This is fixable without us losing your services.”

  A moment later his intercom buzzed. “I have Andrew Thompson on line one for you.”

  “Thank you, Alison. Coffee for two, please.” Then, “Andrew, good morning, how are you? Thanks for taking the call so promptly.”

  I couldn’t hear what was said at the other end.

  “Actually, Andrew, I’ve got a situation that needs handling… No, I mean stat, right now. Can you be here in twenty minutes? … Yes, it is that serious… Okay, see you then.” He put the phone down as Alison entered with two tall lattes. He rose and walked over to the couch next to me. “Thank you, Alison. Andrew Thompson will be joining us in about thirty minutes. Show him straight in, please.”

  “Of course.”

  He didn’t say anything to me, just waited for her to close the door on her way out.

  “As you just heard, our lawyer will be here in half an hour. We’ll go over it again then, and then I’m going to make a phone call. Unless Andrew says different, I think that will be the end of the matter.” He chuckled. “I bet Alison is agog to find out what’s happening in here.”

  For the first time in twelve hours or so, I smiled. “I bet.”

  “I take it you haven’t told anyone else.”

  “No.”

  “Good, keep it that way. And Samantha?”

  “She’s staying in, won’t be answering the door to anyone.”

  “Good thinking. How’s she holding up?”

  I shrugged. “In bits. That library is her life.”

  Bruce shook his head. “No, you’re wrong there. You’re her life, buddy. We all know that. She worships the ground you walk on. Not quite sure she worships you that much…”

  He chuckled and I joined in for politeness’ sake. After all, he was going to help me out.

  “I take it golf will not be happening this week.” We played a round together every other Saturday.

  “Fair assumption.”

  “You turn up at the club, I think I’ll wrap an eight iron round your neck on the first tee, buddy.”

  “If Sammie didn’t bend my best Callaway Big Bertha round there first.”

  Bruce shook his head. “I don’t know why you use that shit club, anyway. My driver is far better.”

  I knew what he was doing, taking the conversation off in a different direction. Distracting me, and at the same time not letting me out of his sight. Rule one-oh-one in Man-Management—don’t let a victim brood. I used that strategy on my own people often enough.

  Even though I knew what he was doing, I let him do it, and we chatted amiably about golf. I was better than him anyway—he tended to over-hit every shot, and he was absolutely rubbish on the greens. He was a genius in getting out of a sand-trap though, something he needed given his inclination to over-hit every approach shot.

  Andrew arrived twenty minutes later, and we all shook hands as he sat down. Andrew occasionally made up a foursome for golf, so he wasn’t a stranger, and his firm had handled the legal end of getting the new library project up and running. As a result he knew Samantha too.

  We exchanged pleasantries for a minute, then Bruce kicked off the meat of the meeting.

  “Andrew, I know you know Samantha, Simon’s wife. She has a problem. Now that problem spreads to us too, because of a very scurrilous character piece The Gazette is going to run. Since we spend over a third of a mill a year with the parent group of The Gazette, I want to know what my options are in terms of dealing with this.”

  Andrew looked at me but addressed his question to Bruce. “May I ask what the company’s stake is in this?”

  “We want to retain Simon’s services, and since he handles the Midstate advertising portfolio… I shouldn’t need to join the dots for you.”

  His next question was addressed to me. “It’s that bad a piece?”

  “Very much so. Quite frankly I could kill somebody right now.”

  “I’m the lawyer. I don’t want to hear that until after you’ve been charged.”

  I smiled dutifully, but Andrew was astute enough to know his attempt at humor had fallen flat.

  “Well, are you going to tell me it, Bruce, or have I got to drag it out of you?”

  “I’ll let Simon tell you, so I don’t miss any pertinent facts.”
>
  Andrew looked at me again. “Do you mind if I record this?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It can’t be used as evidence in any way, but it saves me trying to take detailed notes. I take it you don’t want Alison to minute this meeting?”

  Bruce shook his head. “Let’s keep this between the three of us for the moment.”

  “If I need to use any of my own staff?”

  “Discretion is, of course, the byword for your industry, Andrew.”

  The lawyer chuckled. “Secrecy, more like.” He opened his briefcase and pulled out a top of the line Sony recorder, and the ubiquitous yellow legal pad. His expensive fountain pen made its appearance from his jacket pocket and he sat back, looking at me expectantly.

  For the next twenty minutes I spoke without hesitation, repeating what I’d told Bruce earlier, but with a bit more detail. I was very careful not to let anything slip that would imply it had actually happened.

  Andrew listened and made a couple of notes on his pad, but didn’t interrupt.

  At the end, he nodded then smiled at me. “Off the record, I can see why you might want to kill somebody. But I cannot condone any such premeditated action.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “On first glance, I don’t see why you can’t ring Midstate and pull your entire campaign on the spot. I do need to check a couple of things first. Meet me at my office in, say, ninety minutes, and I’ll give you a fully considered opinion. In the meantime, I suggest you go home, Simon, and comfort your wife. She must be distraught.”

  “Thank you, I will.” I, of course, had no such intention.

  After shaking hands all round, Bruce showed Andrew out and, sitting down, laid out his strategy for me. While I’d been talking to Andrew he’d been thinking about the steps he was going to take. With any luck The Gazette wouldn’t know what hit it.

  Ten minutes later I was outside sitting in my car wondering what to do for an hour and a bit. Bruce expected me to go home, and I knew he may well call me there, and Samantha wouldn’t understand why he’d think that. If Bruce found out I hadn’t gone home then he might start to have second thoughts.

  Ten minutes later I pulled onto the drive. Samantha must have seen my car from the window because she had the front door open before I was out of the car.

  “Honey…?”

  I forced a tight smile, more for the benefit of the neighbors and shooed her away from the doorway so I could get inside and close the door.

  “Are you okay, Sammie?”

  “Of course not, what do you think? More importantly, how are you? I’m surprised you’re still talking to me. When you left without speaking this morning I didn’t expect to see you in this house again.”

  I shrugged. “I had something to do, and I needed to get started on it early.”

  “Something more important than us—than our marriage?”

  I could see she was starting to work up a righteous frenzy. I wanted her angry, but not at me.

  “Actually, something that just might save your bacon.”

  “Wha…? What are you doing?”

  “I’ll tell you later. To be honest, I’m here now because I think Bruce may ring here to check up on me and, seeing as you’re in the dark, I couldn’t risk you speaking to him.”

  “What the fuck is going on? I have a right to know, Si!”

  “I’ll tell you tonight, just in case it doesn’t come off. Don’t answer the phone after I leave. Let it go to answerphone, and don’t leave the house or answer the door.”

  “What the fuck are you doing, Si? Nothing illegal, I hope? Burning down The Gazette would just make it worse.”

  I shrugged. “Wouldn’t help—they don’t print the paper there anyway. No, nothing illegal, just a bit of corporate muscling.”

  She closed the distance between us and beat her fists on my chest. “Tell me!”

  “Nope.” I grabbed her wrists and gently pushed her away.

  “Why not?”

  “Because, on the off-chance any reporter does get to you today, your reaction has to be genuine.”

  She glowered at me, and I changed the subject before she could think of another approach.

  “How about a coffee while I wait for Bruce’s call?”

  “If we’re not answering the phone, how…?”

  I waved my cell at her and she frowned but headed for the kitchen. I followed.

  “That reminds me—your cell?” She pointed toward the iPhone sitting on the corner of the kitchen island. I picked it up and, making sure it was switched off, pocketed it.

  “Hey!”

  “Insurance, sweetie. It’s not you, I’m just being protective. I mean it, no contact.”

  Turning round, she leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms. “If you’re sleeping in the spare room, why are you suddenly being so protective of our marriage?”

  I took a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm, then crossed the room to stand right in front of her, one arm each side of her, bracing myself against the edge of the counter top. She couldn’t get away, couldn’t even look away, as I crowded into her personal space.

  “Let me put it this way. After last night I don’t know where I am. I don’t know if I even have a marriage left.” She sobbed but I continued. “But until I know for sure, I’m going to fight for my wife’s rights and her reputation with every fiber in my being. Would you expect anything less?”

  She caught her bottom lip in her teeth, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

  “Would it be any different the other way round?”

  She shook her head, uncrossed her arms, lifted them as if to wrap them around my neck, but one look from me and she dropped them to her sides.

  “Trust me on this. I’ll explain this evening…” I paused, looking her straight in the eyes “…and then you can tell me the rest of the story. I don’t believe for one minute it ended with you parading through his office dressed up like some kind of fantasy Christmas elf.”

  She shuddered and started to cry.

  I moved away before she affected me any more than she had done. As soon as I got close I could smell her perfume. She had one named for some Australian singer. It had to be imported—you couldn’t get it over here. It was a sweet smell and my favorite on her. Sometimes she could intoxicate me with that perfume, especially when she spritzed herself on her thighs with it. I pushed away from her, my cock reacting to the smell. Turning on my heel I headed for the den, then changed course and sat in the sunroom. A couple of minutes later Sammie padded through with the coffees. For the first time I noticed she was barefoot under the old sweats she was wearing. She’d stopped crying, even took a minute to splash cold water on her face. I let the silence grow and stretch as I waited for Bruce to call to say Andrew was ready for us.

  * * * *

  In the end, Bruce called Midstate from Andrew’s offices, just before twelve. He made it a conference call, using one of the meeting rooms, the device in the middle delivering crystal clear sound in both directions.

  “Mark, how are you?”

  “Bruce. I’m good. You? To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “Mark, before I start I have to tell you this is a conference call at this end. I have Simon, who you know, with me, but I’m going to be taking the lead. I also have Andrew Thompson of Smith and Thompson present too.”

  “Oh…kay. Should I be worried?”

  “Maybe. That, after all, is why I’m calling.”

  “Well, Bruce, we’ve never played it anything other than straight with each other, nor with young Simon there.”

  “Well, Simon is the reason I’m calling you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let me put my cards on the table for you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Simon, who is going to succeed me to the board when I step down next year, came to me this morning with a problem which involves Midstate.”

  There was silence at the other end.

  “He’s giving me two simple cho
ices. Either I accepted his resignation, or I cancel all contracts with Midstate, effective immediately.”

  “What?”

  I could almost hear the CEO of Midstate going off like a bottle rocket. Mark Brevet was a nice guy, but he’d never played hardball with Bruce before.

  “Hang it all, Bruce Hooston, you can’t do that. A contract is a contract.”

  “That’s why Andrew is here. I can and I will. A fax copy of a notarized libel injunction will be sent on conclusion of this conversation. Since we will be in legal dispute over a serious matter involving both our reputation and the reputation of a member of our staff, we have every right to pull every advert we are contracted to run with. Should The Gazette’s front page article hit the streets on Friday morning, I will spend Friday on the phone to every other major advertiser I know and can get hold of. I guarantee that on top of the three hundred and forty-six thousand in advertising revenue that article is jeopardizing, you will lose several times more too.”

  “Now just you hang on a moment, I have no idea what Simon’s got against an article he shouldn’t have heard of yet, but we have rights, and the right to print the truth. What you’re doing is unconstitutional!”

  “Mark, I am not threatening the constitutional right of freedom of the press. I am, however, challenging the article’s veracity and the motives of the staff involved. That article is libelous.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I take it you are aware of the scurrilous and unfounded accusations in this article under question?”

  “About the library story? Of course they wouldn’t print that without my say-so, and our legal team. They’ve been over it like a hawk. We’re satisfied it’s true.”

  I bit my lip. Bruce had warned me they’d try and take a hard line. I had to let him deal with this part of it.

  “Are you aware of the name of the chief librarian in the article who is having such a character assassination carried out on her?”

  “Of course, it’s Missus Samantha Hart… Hart? Simon, is this woman related to you? I’m so sorry, I didn’t make the connection.”

  “Don’t answer that, Simon, I’ll deal with this. The woman named in the article is actually his wife, Mark. Perhaps now you can understand both his anger and why he is so distraught about this libel.”