Indebted To A King

by Lisa Lang Blakeney

  It was something altogether worse.

  I'm invited to the company conference room via messenger and around the table are Mr. Stokes, Fern, one of the human resources managers, and the spawn of the devil himself–Damien.

  "Have a seat, Sloan."

  The human resources manager takes the lead.

  "So we've called this meeting to address some charges made by Mr. Damien Hardwick."

  What the hell?

  "You work here?" I ask incredulously.

  "You can speak directly with me, Miss Pearson. My name is Mrs. Rickard, and I specialize in mediating corporate conflict and resolutions. I'm here to address the charges that Mr. Hardwick has made against you."

  My stomach drops.

  Blindsided again.

  "I'm not sure what's going on here, but whatever this is doesn't seem like normal procedure. I should have received formal notification from my supervisor." I glare at Fern. "As well as by HR that there were any kind of accusations being made against me before you called this meeting."

  "This is not a formal meeting, Miss Pearson," the Rickard lady says in a very calming voice. "This is all very informal. We're hoping to simply mediate and negotiate a positive outcome for both parties. That's all we want, so we can all go about the business of doing our jobs."

  "I'm sorry, but what does Mr. Hardwick do for the company?"

  "I work in the mailroom as you well know, Miss Pearson," the kid interjects, and I swear I didn't know he knew how to speak the King's English a few weeks ago. Or dress in normal clothes. He's wearing a crisp, white oxford shirt with a pair of clean khakis and cheap dress shoes. Looking as American as apple pie.

  "Speak only to me, Mr. Hardwick," the mediator responds. "So we're here, because Mr. Hardwick said that you may have misconstrued something that he said to you as a romantic overture and then told someone close to you about it. A man who ended up assaulting him."

  "This is absolutely surreal."

  "We understand that in today's climate, many things a man may say to a woman could be misinterpreted, but we want you to understand that we take this type of thing seriously here. We want you both to feel that your workplace is a safe space. Just like this room right now is a safe space to tell us everything that happened."

  "I don't need a safe space. His story is a complete lie."

  "I'd rather not say that anyone's lying, Miss Pearson. The way I like to reframe things is that people often see the same set of facts through a different lens."

  "The lens of a liar. This boy is my kid sister's boyfriend. He's lying to get back at me for an incident that happened between the three of us. An incident he caused."

  "Is that true, Mr. Hardwick? Are you dating Miss Pearson's sister?"

  "I've never met Miss Pearson's sister."

  Oh. My. God.

  He actually said that with a straight face.

  "Listen to me." I stand up angrily. "This kid is a pathological liar. He is dating my sister. He physically assaulted me. And I think he's been crank calling me for weeks."

  "When did he assault you?" Mr. Stokes chimes in.

  "The black eye and bandages on my face that I've been sporting for weeks. He did that!" I point to him.

  "Please calm down, Miss Pearson," the mediator requests.

  "Why didn't you report it with HR?" Fern interjects.

  "He didn't work here when it happened. At least I don't think he did," I say.

  Damien dramatically stands and lifts his shirt showing the black and blue marks of what I believe are his ribs healing.

  "The only one who's been assaulted in this room is me, and I don't feel safe in this environment anymore," he says putting on the act of a lifetime. "I was attacked by Miss Pearson's boyfriend for something that I didn't do."

  Everyone's eyes turn to me.

  "I'm afraid we have footage to back up what Mr. Hardwick is saying, Miss Pearson. The man who visited you a while back, a Mr. Cutter King, is seen on tape threatening and physically assaulting Mr. Hardwick in the mailroom area. Punching him in the very area that is bruised. Grabbing his throat."

  "Is there audio of that footage?"

  If Cutter did approach Damien here, he would have definitely said something about Dawn in his threat. I can't believe that he hasn't mentioned a word of this, and I've been sleeping in his bed for days.

  "I'm afraid it's only video footage like most CCTV's."

  "I'm sorry if you thought I was making some sort of pass at you, Miss Pearson. That was not my intention. I tried explaining that to your boyfriend, but he tried to choke me, and then he promised that he'd return to finish the job if I didn't leave you alone. I just got this job, and I really like it so far, but now I'm afraid to come to work. Could you talk to him?"

  Holy shit and the Golden Globe for best actor goes to . . .

  I throw up my hands.

  "Do I need to get a lawyer?"

  Fern and Mr. Stokes give each other some sort of look.

  "Thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Hardwick," the mediator says. "Your supervisor and the HR department will get back to you about this matter. In the meantime, please report to work at eight tomorrow."

  "As long as this situation is handled I have no problem coming to work."

  Unbelievable.

  "Don't forget about that statutory charge, you prick," I say as he walks out. "You fucked with the wrong girl."

  While Damien doesn't verbally respond I watch as he balls a tight fist on his way out the door. Once the door is shut, Mr. Stokes speaks to me.

  "We're not idiots, Sloan. We know something doesn't smell quite right with this guy's story, but he does have footage of your guest threatening and assaulting him on the property. He could sue us."

  "That's why I asked if I needed to get a lawyer," I say.

  "Here's the thing," he continues. "You didn't sign up for the managerial training course, your numbers are lower than any other team in the company, and you just lost your best client to Regan Pullson. We're starting to wonder if this is where you really want to be."

  They're trying to push me out. I don't even like this stinking job anymore and they want to push me out.

  "I'll let you know who my lawyer is in a day or so."

  Then I stand up to put on my coat.

  "Wait, Sloan," Fern speaks. "Is this really how you want to handle this? You'll never get another pharmaceutical gig if you're at the center of a lawsuit. The pool of associates is small. Managers even smaller. Trust me, you'll want to handle this quietly."

  "You mean you want me to resign."

  "The boy has evidence on you."

  "Not on me. Someone else."

  "The man threatened him in your name. A lawyer will use that in court. A lawyer can say that you asked him to do it or hired him to do it."

  "I thought there wasn't any audio. How would you know he did it in my name?"

  "Hardwick thinks you sent this man downstairs to hurt him."

  "I didn't even know he worked here!"

  "But you do know him?"

  "How many times do I have to tell you? Yes! I told you he's my sister's boyfriend."

  "And that's probably all true, Miss Pearson," the mediator jumps back in. "But it almost doesn't even matter. You two have a connection. You and the man in question have a connection. An assault did occur on tape. The common denominator is you.

  "This coupled with the fact that your performance here is at best lackluster, we thought it'd be in your best interest to offer you a nice package and a stellar reference so that you can move on."

  The soft and sweet "let's work this out" mediator has all of a sudden disappeared. Now she's playing hardball.

  "Are you a lawyer, Mrs. Rickard?"

  "I am a mediator."

  "With a law degree?"

  "Yes, if you want to be technical about it. I am a lawyer."

  "Then the next time we all speak, I'll be back with mine."

  Twenty-Six

  Sloan

  My p
arents are an American success story. My father comes from humble beginnings in rural Virginia, and became a popular championship point guard for the basketball team at a university in Kentucky. He met my mother there while they were both students. She was a beautiful, tall, thin golden goddess on campus. Long legs, long wavy blond hair, ice blue eyes and very popular across campus. She had dreams of becoming a professional model and definitely had the looks to actually make it happen, but her relationship with my father got in the way of that.

  My father is also a beautiful man, and looking back at old photographs of him, I realize just how handsome he was in his prime. He was a tall, muscular man, with closely shorn black hair, beautiful chestnut colored skin, and a killer smile. My mom fell hard for him in college, then followed him to the city of his first professional basketball team, married him, and then quickly became pregnant with me.

  While she didn't become the catwalk superstar she dreamt of, she ended up carving out a respectable career for herself as an agent. She ran the "parts" division (hand models, foot models, hair models) of one of the largest modeling agencies on the East Coast for many years, but has now settled into a life of service. Raising money for a variety of worthy charities important to residents and many politicians of Philadelphia. Much like Elizabeth's Aunt Juliette does for autism.

  While my parents have a lot of faults, I've always been grateful for how hard they both worked and the life of privilege that it afforded me. Yet unlike many of my contemporaries, I've always been adamant about forging my own path. I never wanted to be like some of the girls I grew up with.

  Some of them ended up fulfilling the path of our social circle by marrying well, popping out a couple of kids, and continuing the circle again. Some are strung out on pills. Some are sleeping around with half of Hollywood. Some are drunk at the ripe old age of twenty-six. Many ended up trying to salvage whatever fame they were desperately trying to hold onto by starring in low budget, low class, reality shows.

  But I was so supposed to be different. Special. Better.

  Yet am I?

  I ended up in pharmaceutical sales, because a professor I almost slept with at Penn advised me to try it. He said I looked the part, and that I'd probably have a very good run at convincing middle-aged doctors, like Clark, to purchase drugs from me.

  I was appalled and disgusted by the professor’s comments at first, but I knew that in his own twisted way he actually meant well. I was barely holding my head above water in his class, but he knew that what I lacked in actual comprehension of the subject matter, I made up for in determination to pass the class. Come hell or come high water I was going to succeed in this world. On my own. And have a good-ass damn time while doing it.

  Yet here I am.

  Swimming in a murky reality of my own.

  And I'm not having a good time at all.

  My best client, the one I was so proud of, never respected me. He just wanted me on his arm and in his bed. The job that I thought I'd earned, the one that defined me, turned out to be something I fell into and then something I forced. It wasn't really ever a natural fit, and now I'm being squeezed out. The boy that I thought was too dumb for my sister turned out to be a freakin' criminal mastermind that I totally underestimated. He's been one step ahead of me at every turn planning my demise.

  I thought I was right about all of these things, but I was mistaken. Pitifully mistaken. And so, the one thing I thought that I may have originally gotten wrong, the man who happens to be the common denominator in all of this, ended up being the one thing I had always been right about.

  He has been my biggest mistake of them all.

  I've become a squatter and a recluse.

  I haven't gone to work.

  I haven't checked my cell phone.

  I haven't showered.

  I haven't moved.

  It's been three days, and I've been staying at my parent's home on the mainline, because I've been too much of a chickenshit to go back to my apartment. It wouldn't be good for me to go back home.

  If I see Cutter, I'll run to him.

  I'll tell him about how horribly Clark treated me. I'll tell him all about the web of lies that demon Damien has caused. I'll tell him about the plot to get rid of me at work. I'll tell him all of this, because I'll know he'll try to fix it. He'll try to avenge me. He'll try to protect me. And then he'll try to fuck me senseless, and I'll let him.

  I'll let him because I miss him like crazy. I'll let him because I crave him like crack. I crave him, because he's the only man to make my body and my heart come alive simultaneously.

  And then I'll curse him out.

  Because at the end of the day, Cutter is the cause of all of this.

  No client. No job. No sister. No home.

  I should have known better.

  The only way this thing was ever going to end was badly.

  My mother doesn't believe in stewing in your own juices for too long, so by day three she's had enough of my wallowing.

  "That's it, Sloan. If you don't take a shower that sweatshirt of yours is going to walk on its own back to Penn."

  "I'm exhausted, Mom."

  "From what? If you want your job back you're going to have to fight for it."

  I haven't told her everything. In fact, I've probably lied about mostly everything including why my face looks like this. If I told her the truth about Damien, she'd go straight to Marsha, and it wouldn't be for the right reasons.

  My mother looks for any reason to throw Marsha's bad parenting into her face, because out of all of my father's women, she hates Marsha the most. Dawn's mom is the only one that had a baby. Daily "in your face" proof of my father's infidelity. All the other women failed their paternity tests, so my mother can pretend that they were simply lying "gold diggers" looking for an easy payday. She can't do that with Marsha.

  "That's just it. I don't know if I want it back."

  "What would you do?"

  "I don't know."

  "What are your hobbies?"

  "I don't really have any."

  "Is there a social issue you're passionate about?"

  "Not really."

  She walks around my room as I look for something in my old dresser drawers that I could possibly wear. She happens to stumble upon an old sketch book of mine from high school and starts flipping through the pages. I used to carry that thing with me every day.

  "Mom, you should really switch this furniture out. It looks exactly like ten years ago."

  "I don't come in here that much, so it doesn't bother me. It's still your room."

  She stops on one particular page of the book. A sketch I made of our attic before it was renovated. I used to love playing up there as a kid with my dolls.

  "Well you should update it, so it aesthetically goes with the rest of the house."

  I hit the jackpot and find an old Daughtry hoodie and a pair of jeans that still fit in one of the drawers.

  "Remember when I loved American Idol, Mom?"

  "Maybe that's it, Sloan," she says ignoring my question.

  "What?"

  "You can decorate homes for a living? Maybe even commercial spaces. Didn't you tell me that you were helping out with Elizabeth's nursery?"

  "Yeah, but I'd never charge her for that. I'm the godmother."

  "I know, but you could absolutely charge other people."

  "I don't know, Mom." I'm unconvinced.

  "You have a certain sense of style. A certain eye for pieces. People will pay for that. It took my friend Margie three years to decide on curtains for her living room. Three years! She would have gladly paid for you to have made the decision for her."

  "Well, I guess that's an idea. That just seems like a very hard career to get off of the ground."

  "I can think of seven people off of the top of my head who I could refer you to. Do a good job and word of mouth will spread. In the meantime, I don't mind giving you a little allowance to cover your bills for a while."

  We all have our con
nections and we shouldn't be afraid to use them.

  I remember the words I said to Gidget.

  "I'll think about it, Mom."

  "Good. Now that I've solved all of your problems, you can get dressed, so we can grab something to eat. I need a salad in my life."

  I laugh.

  The first laugh I've had in three days.

  "Okay, give me thirty minutes."

  My mother looks impeccably put together as usual. Her freshly dyed blond waves are perfectly coiffed, and she's wearing a pair of fashionable jeans, blouse, and pumps on her slender frame that most women her age couldn't possibly pull off.

  "I thought we were getting a salad?"

  "We are."

  "I'm in a hoodie and you're in . . . that."

  "My plan was to stop at Saks Fifth Avenue and grab you something else to wear. Wouldn't that make you feel better? Shopping always cheered you up when you were a horrible teenager, I mean a little girl."

  I roll my eyes. I forgot to mention that my mother thinks she's a comedian.

  "Forget it. I'll go in this."

  "You sure? I'm buying."

  "It's only been three days that I haven't been to work not three years. I have my own money, Mom. If I wanted to buy an outfit I would."

  "Okay, okay. You're so touchy."

  We arrive at Sambuca's. One of my mom's favorite Northern Italian restaurants. A small, laid back place with friendly staff where they serve really fresh salads and seafood. Back when my parents pretended that they were actually still a couple, we used to rent out the entire restaurant and come for her birthday every year. Now my parents live very separate lives.

  "Where's Dad?"

  "I think he's still in Boston?"

  "What's he doing there?"

  "He said it was a recruiting trip, but you know how that is. He probably has some pretty young thing up there."

  Since retiring from the NBA, my father has worked in various coaching positions for one of the local universities.

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "Were you ever happy with Daddy?"

  "Definitely."