Echoes of Titanic

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Please ignore my ridiculous dramatics,” she said softly, giving Kelsey’s hand a tight squeeze and then letting it go. “This is your time to shine. I want you to get out there and grab that audience the way you grab investment opportunities.”

  Kelsey smiled. “That’s a good way to put it.”

  “I’m serious. I know you hate this public relations stuff, but you’re doing a great job with it. I promise that a light is at the end of this tunnel. You’ll see it soon.”

  “If you say so.”

  Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Kelsey opened the door. She was glad to hear the noise of a chattering crowd, as it meant Walter hadn’t yet called things to order. She stepped into the shadows of the backstage space, but much to her surprise, Gloria didn’t follow.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Kelsey asked, turning to look at the woman, who was hovering on the other side of the doorway.

  “No. This is as far as I go today.”

  Kelsey squinted. “I don’t understand. You’re the reason for much of my success, Gloria. You should be out there by my side.”

  “No,” she repeated. “You need to be seen as the independent, capable businesswoman you are. If I’m up there with you, it weakens the impact. It makes it look like you’re still a child learning at my feet.”

  “But that’s exactly what I am, metaphorically speaking,” Kelsey whispered. “Gloria, there’s no way I could do this job without your guidance.”

  “Sorry, Kels. This is your time to shine. Yours alone.”

  With that, Gloria gave her one last meaningful look and closed the door. There in the darkness, Kelsey tried to wrap her mind around all that had just happened. She was still trying to make sense of things a few moments later when Walter popped his head through the curtain from out front, just to make sure she was there.

  “All set?” he asked brusquely.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  With a nod he disappeared again, and after a moment he began to speak over the noise of the crowd, asking everyone to take their seats because it was time to get started.

  As the crowd quieted down out front, Kelsey moved forward to the side of the stage, where she could get ready for her entrance and watch Walter at the podium. Looking out at him now, she saw that he was wearing his usual nondescript yet perfectly tailored Saville Row suit with a white shirt and blue tie. Standing there, he seemed the very image of the powerful Wall Street investment broker. That sense of power came not from any grandiose gestures or broad, sweeping proclamations, but instead the opposite—a reserved, dignified air and no-nonsense style that spoke volumes about his position in the world of finance. Kelsey had always respected Walter, at least until the past few months, when he’d begun scrambling in response to the company’s identity crisis. Until then, he’d been an excellent CEO, both before and after Nolan Tate’s departure from the firm. Currently, she wasn’t so sure.

  Soon the audience sounds had ceased and Walter was addressing the crowd, thanking them for coming and welcoming them on behalf of Brennan & Tate “and the whole Tate family.” Talk about laying it on thick. The only member of the family who was even here today was Kelsey herself—and possibly her brother, Matt, if he’d managed to get out of work in time to come. More than anything, she had wanted her parents to be here too, but the consensus was that Nolan was still too incapacitated to be seen in public and that his appearance would undermine the whole event. As Walter had explained it to her, today’s primary goal was to make Brennan & Tate appear vibrant and successful and growing. If people saw that the president of the company was now “essentially an old man in a wheelchair who can barely form a coherent sentence,” it wouldn’t exactly instill consumer confidence.

  Thinking back over that awful conversation with Walter, Kelsey finally realized the source of today’s apprehension: This was wrong. It was disingenuous. Allowing them to exploit her success was one thing, but hiding the full truth from the public about her dad’s health was another. Closing her eyes, she thought about how far things had drifted since he’d had the stroke. Nolan Tate would never have pulled the kind of stunts Walter had been green-lighting lately. Kelsey’s heart pumped with a sudden surge of anger, and she decided that this was it. She’d play the role today, as requested, but after this she was calling a halt to the entire, absurd publicity campaign. The moment that campaign excluded her precious father—incapacitated or not—from a public event staged in honor of his daughter was the moment it crossed the line.

  Her decision made, a surge of peace rushed through Kelsey’s veins. For the first time in a month, she felt like herself again: decisive, in charge, ethical. Even as Walter was praising those very qualities from the podium in his introduction, she was scolding herself for having let things get so out of control. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out her notes from her pocket, looked down at them, and read through her key points, telling herself she would make this speech one to remember. She would give it everything she had. She would knock it out of the ballpark. And when it was finished, she would tell Walter Hallerman that it had been her grand finale as far as PR efforts were concerned.

  Then she would get back to the business of investing.

  Finally, after a few more minutes of Walter’s praise, citing Kelsey’s summa cum laude degree at Swarthmore and her MBA from Columbia, and telling the audience what a “gifted” and “gutsy” person she was, he turned toward her, smiled, and concluded his intro with the words, “And now I’d like to bring out our guest of honor, Ms. Kelsey Tate.”

  That was her cue.

  Plastering a smile on her face, she walked out onto the stage, shook Walter’s outstretched hand, and then took her place next to him, facing the audience as they clapped. As she stood there looking out at the crowd, she was surprised at the number of familiar faces she could see. In fact, from what she could tell, the first few rows of the two-hundred-seat auditorium had been filled with men and women whose businesses she had helped get off the ground. Because of her investment work, these people had been able to start or expand their own companies, which had then managed to grow and develop, create jobs, and become profitable for them all. The sight of these people gathered together in one place, in her honor, was both humbling and energizing. They were why she did what she did. They were the whole point of it all.

  Once the applause died down, Walter proceeded with the award part of the ceremony, again shaking Kelsey’s hand as he welcomed her into Brennan & Tate’s prestigious “Quarter Club.” Turning to the audience, he explained the significance of this honor, that it meant she had brought in twenty-five million dollars’ worth of business to the firm. That earned another round of applause, during which Walter’s EA, Yanni, came up on stage and handed him a small plaque, which he would then present to Kelsey.

  How very Academy Awards of them, she thought wryly. All this moment needs to make it complete is an evening gown for Yanni and an orchestra to cut off my acceptance speech.

  “On second thought,” Walter said, still holding the plaque, “if you folks will indulge me for a moment, I think there’s an even better way to do this.” With that, he gestured toward the front row and said, “Lou? Would you do the honors?”

  “Absolutely,” the man replied, rising and quickly bounding up the steps to the stage.

  Kelsey grinned as he came, thrilled to see her old colleague and friend Lou Strahan. She hadn’t noticed him before, but she couldn’t be happier to be sharing the stage with him now.

  Once Lou reached them, Walter handed him the plaque and then put an arm around his shoulders and spoke into the microphone.

  “Many of you may know Louis Strahan, a former vice president here at Brennan & Tate and now the owner and CEO of the very successful Strahan Realty Trust.”

  Kelsey saw a number of heads nodding in the audience, and someone called out, “Way to go, Lou!” to a smattering of applause.

  “Anyway,” Walter continued, clearing his throat, “there’s so
mething about Lou you may not know, but it’s the reason I’ve asked him to come up here and present this award to Kelsey on our behalf.” Glancing at Lou and then at Kelsey, Walter said, “Five years ago, not long after I came to this firm, Kelsey made her very first investment on behalf of Brennan & Tate. That investment went to Lou to provide start-up money for his new company. As that was the first deal she brokered on her own, and it ended up being such a profitable one for all involved, I thought it appropriate that he be the one to present her with this award today.”

  With that, Walter took a few steps back and Lou moved to the microphone. Even before he spoke, Kelsey was smiling in anticipation. The man was a real character, intense and driven but also brutally honest and wickedly funny. She’d missed working with him but was pleased he’d done so well out on his own—and that she’d had a hand in helping him get started.

  “I won’t say much,” Lou told the audience with just a tinge of his old Brooklyn accent coming through, “because I know you folks would rather hear from a beautiful young woman than a long-winded old man.”

  Some of the audience members chuckled, and after a beat Kelsey realized why. Lou wasn’t talking about himself. His comment had been intended as a dig toward Walter, who was older than him by a good fifteen years and did tend to get a little long-winded. She stifled a smile and made a point of not looking Walter’s way.

  “Just let me say,” Lou continued, “that I remember well the first day Kelsey started working at Brennan & Tate. I already knew her and liked her, of course, from various functions Nolan had brought her to over the years. But this was different. Now she was going to be a coworker. The boss’s daughter. Can you imagine?”

  More smiles, more chuckles.

  “Kelsey, I don’t mind telling you, the guys in my division took bets that first day on how long it would take before you’d go crying to Daddy over something.”

  The audience laughed. She smiled, rolling her eyes.

  “Of course, this being an investment firm and me being a smart investor, I didn’t like the odds.” His expression grew serious as he leaned closer to the mic. “I knew the reputation of Kelsey’s great-great grandfather, Sean Brennan, who first founded Brennan & Company more than one hundred years ago. I knew the legend of her great-grandparents, Sean’s daughter, Adele, and her husband, Edwin Tate, who together ushered Sean’s business through the depression, renamed the company Brennan & Tate, and built it to what it is today. Finally, I knew Kelsey’s father, Nolan Tate, one of the finest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.” Again glancing her way, he concluded, “Given all of that, I knew that this young lady wasn’t the ‘cry to Daddy’ type at all. I was right. Instead, she was smart, talented, and hardworking, with the knowledge to back up her instincts. It has truly been my pleasure to work with her, a delight to count her as a friend, and a privilege to present her with this award. Kels, may this be just the first of many honors and accolades to come. Congratulations.”

  Lou handed her the plaque and they shared a long hug. She was too overcome with emotion to thank him for his kind words lest she start to cry, so she simply gave him a grateful smile as they pulled apart.

  “I’m so proud of you, kiddo,” he whispered, looking a little emotional himself. With a nod to Walter, he returned to his seat.

  Kelsey took a deep breath, assuming it was her turn now, but then Walter surprised her by stepping back up to the mic. Hoping he knew to keep things moving, she stood at his side and took a moment to look down at the plaque and her name engraved there as he talked.

  “Before I turn the podium over to our guest of honor,” Walter said, “I have one more item of business, a little surprise for her.” Glancing her way, he said, “Just this afternoon, I learned that Kelsey Tate has been named by Forbes magazine as one of their ‘Forty to Watch Under Forty.’ Congratulations.”

  That earned the biggest applause yet, and even Kelsey was momentarily taken aback by such news. PR ploy or not, this was indeed a big honor, one that would no doubt come with a photo and profile in the magazine, garnering her and her firm attention on an international level. Now if she could just wrap up all the promoting and get back to work, she might actually be able to prove whether such an honor was justified.

  Finally, Walter concluded his portion of the event and handed the reins over to Kelsey. As he walked off the stage and took his seat down front, she slid her plaque onto the little shelf under the podium, and tried to gather her wits.

  “‘Forty to Watch Under Forty,’” she mused aloud to the audience as she placed her notes on the shiny wooden surface in front of her and adjusted the microphone. “Wow. I’m deeply honored. Of course, I hope it’s not rude of me to say that I’d rather be in something called ‘Thirty to Watch Under Thirty,’ but I passed that cutoff about two years ago.”

  Her joke garnered a huge laugh from the crowd, bigger than it deserved. Good. That meant it wouldn’t be long until she had them in the palm of her hand. Before she launched into her talk, which would build to a crescendo with the announcement of the new scholarship program, she took a moment to thank various people, including Lou for his kind words, Walter for his support, her investment team, her executive assistant, and her coworkers. She also thanked her mentor, Gloria, but even as she said the words, she looked around and realized the woman wasn’t in the audience. Trying not to think about that, she continued.

  “Finally, I’d like to thank my father, even though he couldn’t be here with us today, and to pass along his regards to all of you. I miss seeing my dad around the office, of course, but I’ve never missed him more than I do right now.”

  She shot a pointed look at Walter, who didn’t flinch, though Kelsey noticed a few nods of sympathy among those sitting nearby. Her acknowledgments complete, she clasped her hands together, placed them on the podium in front of her, and looked out at the audience, allowing a moment of silence before delivering the most important part of her speech. In that moment, it was almost as if she could feel the room coming together as one, an eager and listening entity ready to hear whatever she’d come to say.

  “Just about one hundred years ago today,” she began, her eyes slowly scanning the faces in the room as she spoke, “over in Belfast, Ireland, a young woman named Adele Brennan was getting ready for the most important voyage of her life. She was just nineteen at the time, a brave, smart, and resourceful girl who was fascinated with, of all things, business, something that was practically unheard of for a woman of her generation.”

  Kelsey paused to let that thought sink in, and then she continued.

  “Making the trip with Adele was her cousin Jocelyn and her uncle, Rowan Brennan. On April tenth, nineteen twelve, the three of them made their way to Southampton, England, and boarded the grandest ship that had ever been built: Titanic. They were bound for America, where Adele would be reunited with the father she hadn’t seen for sixteen years.” Kelsey looked around at the silent, rapt audience. She would have liked to give a more detailed version of Adele’s story, but today her time was limited.

  “Four days later, as I’m sure you all know, Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank. Both Jocelyn and Rowan died that night. Of the three travelers, only Adele survived.”

  Kelsey paused a moment to let that sink in, but as she took a deep breath to continue, she heard a strange sound coming from the back of the auditorium, a low, chanting drone that started out soft but quickly grew louder. Others could hear it as well, and heads began rotating to look. Even Walter turned around in his seat to see what was making such an odd noise.

  Kelsey’s eyes scanned the auditorium, trying to match the source of the sound with the person making it. Soon, she realized that it was a man, and he was repeating one word over and over. At first she thought it was “ire” or “fire,” but after a moment she realized what he was saying: liar.

  The man stood, shouting the word at the top of his lungs, “Liar! Liar!”

  Stunned, Kelsey looked t
o Walter, but he had already jumped up and was quickly striding up the aisle toward the back of the auditorium. She thought he was going to try and apprehend the man himself somehow, but instead he slipped out the back, probably to alert security.

  Everyone else stayed where they were, clearly stunned at this odd turn of events. Suddenly, as quickly as the chanting had begun, the man stepped out into the aisle and pointed at Kelsey. She had never seen him before, and for a moment she was afraid he might pull out a gun and take a shot at her. Instead, he simply cried out, “Lies! It’s all lies! The real Adele Tate did not survive Titanic!’

  That earned a gasp not just from the audience but from Kelsey herself. What was this lunatic talking about?

  “The woman who claimed to be Adele was actually an imposter,” he continued loudly, his eyes gleaming behind dark-rimmed glasses. “She stole the real Adele’s identity, stole this company, and then lived out that lie for the rest of her life!”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Kelsey gripped each side of the podium, her mind racing. Someone needed to shut this man up—though a part of her very much wanted to hear what he had to say. He was lying, of course, but he must have some reason for making such a crazy claim.

  Suddenly, the back door of the auditorium swung open and two security guards came marching in, followed by Walter. At that moment, as if sensing that the most interesting person at this event was about to be carted away, the media people hopped up from their seats and began moving toward the man, throwing questions at him.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Why have you come here?”

  “What was the imposter’s real identity?”

  The nature of their questions sent a chill down Kelsey’s spine. Were they really going to give this man’s words credence? The very notion that the woman who called herself Adele Brennan had been an imposter was absurd!