by Jess Bentley
Just two days after Red Hall reopens, I see him stumble into the lounge and start doing what he does — making a scene. Cameras come out, and it’s like throwing gasoline on a burning building. Things get rough, and ultimately I have to sic security on him and personally escort him to the door. I’m polite about it, professional. I tell him he’s welcome to come back sober, but this is not the environment that appreciates an outburst. Buh-bye.
According to all present, I handled the situation just fine.
“So why,” I ask Gloria, that little spider, when I see Red Hall mentioned in the paper, “is there a headline in the fucking local news suggesting that I may be on my fucking period?”
“I… I don’t know,” Gloria says, blinking her bright blue eyes at me in confusion.
“It may be,” I tell her, taking a step forward as I point to the quote she’s credited for — first and last name, mind you — with barely contained fury, “because you told them I was having a really rough pre-menstrual cycle and that I sometimes get a little over-emotional when I’m PMSing, Gloria!”
“Like right now?”
The gall of this woman. If I strangle her, it’s entirely possible no one will miss her. Except George’s work mate, Gloria’s dad, and his wife who is my mother’s closest thing to a best friend, which is the only reason I keep her around. And why? To hang onto some broken semblance of peace in a family that doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
“No, Gloria,” I say, calmly, “I am not currently on my cycle, which would be none of your business anyway. Right now, my anger is a one hundred percent all-organic direct reaction to you shooting your mouth off with a third-rate, scandal-chasing asshole when you know — you know, Gloria — exactly what the fuck I’m dealing with right now. Why? Why would you do this to me?”
“I didn’t do anything to you,” Gloria insists. “I just thought it would help people understand why you went off on Martin like that. He was just having fun — ”
“No, Gloria, he wasn’t just having fun,” I groan. She’s so fucking dumb, how does she even function? “You think it’s a coincidence he showed up after the most recent debacle? That he just strolled in for the first time? People like him don’t discover places like mine two months after the fact, Gloria!”
I should fire her. I know that. It would be best for everyone. But my image is fragile enough as it is right now, and if I throw her out after she gave that quote it’s just going to make what she said seem more true. Especially when she’s been with me since I opened the doors. I have not had to fire a single person so far — my entire original staff is still working. I was careful in hiring every single one of them. Gloria was the only exception and I have regretted it from day one.
No. It’ll have to be something else and it will need to be relatively public. Worst of all, it will have to wait.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Gloria says. She isn’t repentant, though; just defensive. It is absolutely the wrong tone to take with me at this very moment and I try to warn her of that with my face, which is still flushed red with anger. Like I said, though — she’s dumb as a box of hair, this one. “It’s just that right now, Red Hall kind of needs to be careful about its image, and throwing Martin Twill out was a mistake.”
She flinches when I go completely still. I measure my tone carefully. “You are not to say another word to a blogger, reporter, or a stranger on the street, in either support of or defense of Red Hall’s PR image or situation, or me, or anyone who works here. If I see another quote in any media outlet of any size, I will fire you. It is not your job. I handle the PR, or I hire the people who do. You are a hostess, Gloria. Are we perfectly, plainly, crystal clear?”
Gloria swallows loudly, and nods. But there’s defiance in her eyes. Burning just a few inches behind those pretty blues, I can see her calculating.
When I turn and leave her there in the storeroom to simmer in it, I can practically feel the point of the knife that I know she is going to stick in my back when she gets the chance.
But that fact is, she can do that whether she works here or not at this point. All I can do is keep her close enough, for now, to keep an eye on her.
And maybe find out if her parents really would miss her.
It’s one o’clock in the morning, and I’m finally back home after spending an extra hour after close scheduling out the next week’s worth of social media posts and preparing the special menus for printing. Tim is going to hold the reception at Red Hall, and at last, things are looking up.
All I want right now is to crawl into bed. I don’t even bother to undress; just slink down into the warm embrace of my plush mattress and let myself take the slide down into sleep.
And then my phone rings. Should have put it on silent.
But it could be related to work. Lacey is restless, and planned to stay up late experimenting with some ideas we’ve had for the reception. She does that from time to time. I trust her entirely.
I’d better answer it, though. Except… it’s not my chef. It’s George, who never calls me for anything. Do I dare answer?
“Hello?”
“Janie,” George says, “you better come. It’s Gina. She’s been admitted to the hospital, and they say it’s bad.”
“Why?” I sit up, and I’m already putting my feet back into my heels. No, better wear flats. Shit, I’m still in my dress from work. “What happened?”
“What do you think happened?”
He doesn’t want my answer to that. “Did they admit her for a panic attack?”
“For observation, yes… and they want to keep an eye on her heart.”
My heart begins to pound. Jesus… in the past three years I’ve barely spent any real, quality time with my mother. It’s strange that this is what comes to mind. Right away, I’m wondering how long she’s got. She active enough, but Mama’s health has never been ideal, not for fifteen years. Not since Dad left and, really, even before then.
“Text me the room number,” I tell George, and then hang up. A moment later, the text comes through and I’ve changed into something more casual, though my hair is still up. Whatever.
The doctor tells me more or less the same story. Mama had a panic attack, and thought that she was having some kind of cardiac event. When she came into the emergency room they told her she wasn’t — but she did have a murmur that got worse when she was in the midst of one of her attacks. Her blood pressure was too high, and there was a concern that she might have a stroke if her distress didn’t cause a heart attack first.
So, they want to keep her for a week for observation of her heart and blood pressure, but also for a psych eval. Why?
Because George admitted that she’d talked about killing herself before.
“They asked me, I told them,” George says. “And you know your Ma. She wants to stay.”
Mama’s asleep at the moment. I checked on her, and then met George to tell him to call me if anything changes. George, though, has another concern. The one that he actually called me for.
“Look, I wanna take care of your Ma, Janie,” he says, using that good-guy voice I’ve only heard when he wants something, “but we can’t afford this. We don’t have this kind of money.”
“Okay,” I say. After all, this isn’t about him, or me — it’s about Mama. I look at Chris and Derek, who’ve come to help out as well. “So, what are you guys pitching in? Are we just gonna split it, or what?”
My brothers share a look, and then drop their eyes.
“We both pitched in a grand,” Derek mutters.
A grand. Each. I look at George. “Which leaves…?”
“About five grand,” George says — apologetically! As if he’s really sorry about this when I know damn good and well that George Acropolis is never sorry about anything.
“She really needs them to keep an eye on her right now,” Chris says. “And you’re better off than any of us. Red Hall’s back open, right? You’ll make that kind of money back in a night.”
I�
��d very much like to know where he got information like that. He isn’t wrong, but it’s beside the point. These two are constantly going on about all the money they spend on cars and vacations and Armani suits that they have custom tailored. And a thousand bucks is the best they can come up with to “split” an eight-thousand-dollar price tag on their own mother’s hospital stay?
I stare at the door to Mama’s eight-thousand-dollar room. If she does need to be here — if the doctor is right that she’s in some kind of danger — then I’ll never forgive myself for letting her down.
For once, no one is berating me about my involvement. Go figure. Like they think they need to con me out of my money. It wouldn’t make a difference, and I’m not making the decision because they’re being friendly. I’m making it because Mama needs me and I’m the only one she can apparently rely on.
“I’ll handle it,” I say, and feel anger simmer just behind the thin veneer I’m able to maintain when they all smile at me. Derek and Chris take turns patting me on the back, and George even comes in for a hug. I endure it, for the sake of peace in a hospital, but don’t hug him back.
“I’ll ah, call you when the bill comes in,” George says.
Yeah, I bet he will.
“This’ll mean a lot to Mom, Janie,” Derek says confidently, as if I need him to reassure me why I’m doing it.
I want to tell them all to go fuck themselves. They’re all more than capable of pitching in to split the bill; they just consider it a waste of money. I know that. I know them. Chris breathes a sigh of relief and then checks his phone quickly. “Well, it’s late,” he says. “I better get going. Long day at work tomorrow.”
Three, two, one…
“Me too,” Derek says. “I’ll swing by tomorrow for a little bit.”
They both leave, and I’m alone with George. He turns to me, his mouth open to give his own excuse.
“I’ll stay with her,” I say, not even bothering to hide my disgust at this point. When it’s just me and George, I feel like we should just be honest with one another. In a way, it’s what family does, right? Even fucked-up families like this one.
“Are you sure?” George asks, feigning concern convincingly well. “I can stay if you need to go.”
Bullshit he can. The minute I’m out of sight, he’d run off and leave her here. “No,” I say. “Go home, George.”
If he meant it, if he really loved Mama, he’d argue with me, or offer to stay with me. We could nap in shifts or something.
But no. Once he’s gotten permission to fuck off, he does so without much of a fight. Naturally.
Once he’s gone, I ask one of the orderlies for an extra blanket and a pillow, if it isn’t too much trouble. She acts like she’s about to suggest I just go home, but whatever I was able to hide from the family I no longer have the will to keep hidden. She leaves to get me the goods, and I go into Mama’s room to wait for her.
Mama’s still asleep. She’s sedated. I’ve got a few hours to rest before she’s up. And shit, I’ve got a day of planning and tasting and setting up to do tomorrow. That starts about six hours from now. But at least someone will be here when Mama wakes up.
At least she’ll know there’s someone in her life who still gives a shit.
Jake
The hammer falls the next day. I was expecting it, so I’m not surprised when one of my father’s goons meets me in the garage, where I was hoping to avoid my father entirely by leaving the house for a few days.
“Mr. Ferry is looking for you,” Barry tells me, smug. He’s a heavyset guy, ostensibly one of the security personnel on the grounds, though he doesn’t do much securing. He runs “errands” for Reginald.
“I haven’t got a text from him,” I say. “That’s the usual mode of contact. Is his phone dead?”
Barry shrugs. “All I know is he wants to see you.”
“Where at?”
Barry snorts, and points up, as if to heaven itself. “Where do you think?”
The Office, then. Every bit as serious as I expected.
My father doesn’t care for an office setting. His meetings are usually informal, in an environment where he can schmooze and charm and everyone is off guard. But he does have an office. He reserves it for announcing hostile takeovers, firing longtime employees, and tearing new assholes. Just the stuff where he doesn’t feel a need to play nice.
“Fine,” I tell Barry the lackey. “I’m going.”
Barry grins at me with his chipped front tooth. Asshole.
I take the stairs up to the third floor, which has exactly one function — to serve as a massive office with windows on all sides. The floors are made from a single giant redwood Reginald bribed the governor of California to get his paws on. Oiled, polished, and waxed, it makes the floor look stained with blood — which is the point, of course.
My father is waiting behind his desk, looking out over his domain. The estate stretches in all directions around us. Not that anyone’s ever attempted to assassinate my father, but the glass is five inches thick and bulletproof. Never can be too careful.
He doesn’t say a word until I take a seat in one of the uncomfortable, not-quite-big-enough chairs on the victim side of the desk.
“I didn’t tell you to sit,” he says calmly, as he swivels around to look at me, resting his elbows on his massive ebony desk. Not cheap knock-off African blackwood, oh no. Probably whole swaths of Gabon ebony trees — squat little things that never produce a slat of wood longer than a few feet — had to be mowed down to build it. Like everything else in the Office, it is custom-made and handcrafted into something painfully exquisite.
I sigh, and put my two-thousand-dollar Italian leather-clad feet up on it. “If I waited for you to tell me to sit, my feet would be sore by the time this was over. It’ll have the same effect if I sit down.”
At this show of defiance, my father’s eyes narrow, but he makes no other move, says nothing right away. This is what he does; I’ve seen him do it during negotiations, and I’ve been on the receiving end of a number of these dressings-down. I wait for it, imagining a roiling storm cloud gathering in the room above us, thunder rumbling warnings of what’s to come.
“Do you know what you’re worth, Jacob?” he asks me.
I shrug. Honestly, I’m not certain. A hell of a lot. “I don’t, sir,” I tell him. “But I’d guess it’s about — ”
“It’s nothing,” Reginald says softly, dangerously. “You are worth precisely zero dollars.”
“I’ve got five hundred and thirteen dollars in cash in my pocket,” I tell him. I don’t know why. To put up some kind of a fight? Already, I can see where this is going.
Reginald doesn’t laugh at my joke, which I realize moments after it’s out of my mouth is not very funny. “How far in life do you think that will get you?”
“A night at a cheap strip club,” I say. In for a penny…
“All of your stock in my company,” Reginald growls, “your trust funds, your life insurance premiums, even your credit, is connected to my interests and it has been since you were born.”
That’s… actually news to me. I probably should have been more aware of how that was all set up.
“So when I tell you, Jacob,” he goes on, “that I can and will cut you off — I don’t mean that I will stop paying your credit card down. I mean that I will divest you of every single penny to your name. Including the cash in your wallet. It can happen with a single phone call to my CFO, who, by the way, doesn’t like you.”
Nervously, I scratch the back of my neck. “I fucked his daughter a few years back…” I mutter.
“I don’t care who you fucked, Jacob. What I care about is that you seem, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension, to be hell-bent on forcing my hand in these matters. Do you want me to disown you? Do you want to be penniless? Are you tired of this life of luxury that I have painstakingly built for you and then laid, like a golden fleece, at your unworthy feet?” He’s getting louder by degrees, and it�
�s all I can do to keep still, keep my face blank, and not react. Can’t show him any fear.
“I’ve got a Masters in — ” I start, ludicrously, intent on somehow arguing that I could manage on my own.
But my father shakes his head. “You think I can’t have another son?” he asks. “You think that if I’m going to cast you out into the cold, I’m going to leave loose strings swaying in the wind? Believe me, Jacob — if I find that I have a need to fuck you, I will do so with such a vengeance that you will never find employment in this country so long as I live.”
“What do you want from me?” It’s the only part of the conversation left to have, really. Reginald didn’t bother with the carrot, which means he’s waving the stick for a reason.
“You are to make good with Janie Hall,” he says. “I don’t care how. You’re to charm her panties off like I have seen you do so often — like I taught you — and you are to sweep her off her feet until she’s literally eating out of the palm of your hand like a good little bitch in heat. Make her pliable. Am I clear?”
I nod once, instead of telling him how utterly impossible a task that is.
“I couldn’t quite hear that,” Reginald says.
“You’ve made your wishes entirely clear, Father,” I say, like a good, properly chastised son. It doesn’t take much.
“And?”
“And, I’ll do it.” I feel sick saying the words. A little whiskey will numb that right over. Which is convenient, since I’ll need several drinks to confront Janie directly.
“Good,” Reginald says. “Do you have a plan?”
“Just now?” I ask.
“I expected you to have a plan when you first approached her,” he says. “Did you not?”
“Of course I did,” I say. “That plan didn’t work. She wasn’t interested.”
“Ah. I see.” My father leans back in his chair and stares at me, his eyes cold and hard, weighing and measuring. Until I bring him Janie Hall’s heart on a platter, I know that he is now, and will until that time, find me wanting.
“I’ll make it happen,” I tell him, and the words are bitter in my mouth. Not only because I don’t want to do this — but because I hate knowing my father has me by the balls.
