by J. J. Bella
When and where?
Friday. 5 PM. Meet in front of the diner.
Tomorrow, he thought. That's doable. Risky, but doable.
Leon knew it was a bad idea, but one last deal could mean the difference between Hunter and his mother having a difficult year or a halfway decent one.
One last deal, he thought. Then I'm done for good.
He spent the evening psyching himself up for the deal, but a text from Mr. Delahunt would make sure that it wasn't to be.
Change of plans, kid. You're getting on a flight tomorrow. It's already bought; business class. I don't want to waste a second. Big plans for you.
And just like that, his future was decided. Leon went through his money that night, setting aside the bare minimum of what he'd need to get settled in New York and leaving the rest for Hunter and his mom. He and Hunter spent Leon's last evening in town like they did when Leon was younger, both of them playing video games together and eating pizza.
"You'd better not forget us," said his mother with a smile as Leon headed out the front door, a single suitcase carrying everything he wanted to take with him.
"Not a chance," said Leon. "I'm going to get you to out of here; don't you worry about that."
Leon kneeled down to say his goodbyes to Hunter, who ran up to him and wrapped his arms around Leon. He hated to leave his brother like this, but he knew without his father around, the two of them would at least have a safe place to live.
The evening flight was uneventful, and the business-class accommodations were a luxury that a man like Leon wasn't used to. Taking advantage of the in-flight Wi-Fi, Leon decided to check the news for his hometown. He scanned listlessly through the headlines, nothing in particular catching his eye.
But when he refreshed the page, he saw something that he couldn't believe.
SHOOTOUT IN SOUTHWEST IOWA CITY LEAVES TWO DEAD, TWO WOUNDED
Leon sat up in his chair and clicked the headline. Whatever had happened, it just took place. He went through the brief article, taking in each word. And the further he went along, the more his heart sank. Sure enough, the shootout was between Anton's gang and whoever they were doing business with that day. The details were sparse, but whatever happened, a shootout resulted. Members on both sides were dead, and the picture included was of Anton, his hands handcuffed behind his back as a cop shoved him into the back of a car.
Leon's blood went cold.
That could've been me, Leon realized. If Mr. Delahunt hadn't changed the flight, I'd be in jail right now. Or worse.
Much went through Leon's mind during the rest of the flight, but the end result of his thinking was that he'd resolved to leave every trace of his old life behind, aside from the family that he'd long-since considered his duty to look after. But as much as he wanted to scour from his memories of his old life, he found himself thinking of Jade.
He'd loved her; he'd long accepted this to be true. The love he had for her surprised him, and he chuckled to himself when he remembered that at first, he considered her nothing more than a nuisance. But now she was gone, and he only had himself to blame.
"Good flight?" asked Mr. Delahunt from the back of the limousine that he'd picked up Leon from the airport with.
"Very good," he said.
"Excellent. Because I want you to be ready to get to work. You eager to get started?"
Leon looked out of the window at the Manhattan skyline far off in the distance.
"You have no idea."
A slight tap on the back of his shoulder brought Leon back to the present moment.
"Hey, Mr. Sebastian?"
The voice from behind him seemed far away, as though Leon were awakening from a dream.
"Hm? Yes?"
Leon looked over his shoulder. One of the younger employees, some fresh-faced kid right out of college, like Leon once was, stood behind him. Leon could tell by his slightly nervous expression that he was not at ease at having to tap Leon's shoulder to get his attention.
"I think your coffee's ready."
Leon glanced down at the two steaming mugs in front of him, realizing that he'd likely been daydreaming for several long minutes.
"Ah. Thank you," he said, taking the cups and heading back to his office.
A nearby secretary opened the doors for him, and Leon strode in, coffee in hand. Jade seemed to be as dumbstruck as she was when he left; she barely noticed as Leon placed the mug of coffee on the table in front of her.
"Am I in a dream or something?" she asked, her gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance.
"Like some twist on the ‘naked in front of everyone' dream?" asked Leon, taking a seat behind his desk and propping his feet up. "The old ‘my new client is someone I dated nearly a decade ago' dream? That's definitely a new one."
"I can't believe this," she said, now shaking her head.
"Well, believe it," said Leon. "The faster you do, the faster we can get to work."
"You're ‘Midas'?" asked Jade.
Leon sighed a bit.
"That's me," he said. "Though let me make it very, very clear that I didn't pick out the nickname. I'm not really the nickname type, and even if I were, I'd be something a little better than that."
"What," said Jade. "Like T-Bone or something?"
Leon smirked.
"So, you're in New York?" asked Leon.
"Hold up," said Jade. "My story isn't that exciting. I mean, you're the one sitting at a huge fucking desk in a corner office on the top floor of a Manhattan skyscraper; I need to know how all this happened."
She waved her hand around vaguely as she said "this."
"What's to say?" asked Leon, folding his hands over his stomach. "I got headhunted by a company during my last semester of school, moved to New York, and worked my ass off for a few years."
"That's the summary to end all summaries, Leon," said Jade.
"Well, that's all there really is to it," said Leon, taking a sip of his coffee. "It's not like I found a genie who granted me three wishes."
"I mean," started Jade. "I would get it if you were just kind of successful, or on your way to being successful, but you're, like, at the top of the game here."
"I had a knack for this," said Leon. "Mr. Delahunt, the man who found me during school, saw something in me that I didn't. He took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew."
"Hold on, hold on," said Jade. "This is really all stuff that I should be getting down. What with the article and all."
"That's right," said Leon. "The New Yorker. Quite a coup. I assume that this means your writing career's taking off?"
Jade couldn't help but let out a snort.
"Sputtering on the runway is more like it," she said.
"Do tell."
"Well, I finished school, then went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop."
"Wow," said Leon. "Very impressive."
"Thanks, but a fat lot of good it's done me."
"How do you mean? You are in New York, after all. This is the exact right place to be for both of our industries. You seem to be doing something right."
"You should take a look at my apartment and tell me that again."
"That bad?"
"You could drop it in the corner of this office and forget it was there. But the price I'm paying for it might make you think otherwise."
"Ouch. Welcome to New York," said Leon. "But wait, I don't mean to poke at an old wound, but don't your parents help you out with those sorts of things?"
"Helped," said Jade. "Once I told my dad that I wanted to move to New York, he decided that he was about done with paying my way. ‘Be happy you're graduating without any debt' he said. ‘Now go off and do something with that degree I bought for you'."
"Now you're just like the rest of us working stiffs," he said, a small smile forming at the corner of one side of his lips.
"Don't remind me," said Jade. "Going from dad's credit card to balancing a checkbook has been a hell of a process."
"You'll be gla
d you did it," said Leon.
A moment of silence hung in the air.
"It's…good to see you," said Leon. "Regardless of how odd the circumstances are."
"Yeah," said Jade, looking up at Leon from her coffee and smiling just a bit. "It's good to see you too."
She took a sip of her coffee and sat back in her chair.
"Though I have to admit, I'm a little surprised that you're going in for an article like this. I know it's been a while, but you've never really been the open-book type."
"You mean this little tell-all?" asked Leon. "Yeah, I'm not too crazy about it either."
Jade furrowed her brows.
"You mean this wasn't your idea?"
"God, no," said Leon. "This was a decision by the ever-so-wise board. They figured that with me as on the up as I am, it'd be a good idea for me to put on a good face for the public."
"That's…not surprising in the least," said Jade, allowing herself a smile. "You weren't exactly the type to be forthcoming about personal details, even back then."
"And that's the way I like it," said Leon, taking a seat on the edge of his desk. "The way I see it, I'm here to do my job, to be an asset to this company. The ‘dealing with the public' business is HR's job. But, like I said, the rest of company wants the world to have a face to go with my reputation."
"Right," said Jade. "Otherwise you seem like some super villain or something pulling strings from the shadows."
Leon chuckled.
"That's right," he said. "And they think a story with my big, smiling face on the front cover will humanize me or some such."
Jade responded with a wide-eyed expression.
"Cover story?" she asked.
Leon furrowed his brows in confusion.
"That's right," he said. "My contacts in journalism are pulling some strings to get this front and center."
Leon could tell that Jade wasn't expecting this.
"You alright over there?" asked Leon.
"Oh yeah, fine, fine," she said. "Just didn't know about, um, all that."
"You'll be fine," said Leon. "The trick is to think about the spotlight as an opportunity to show off your skills, not a chance to screw up."
"Easy for you to say," said Jade, looking around at the office. "You seem to have found just the right outlet for your talents."
A silence fell over the two of them.
"Well," said Leon. "Where shall we start?"
"I suppose that's up to you," said Jade. "I could never really get you to talk about your past before."
"That's right," said Leon. "And there are certain…details about my life that I've made a special effort to leave behind. Details that are not to come anywhere near this article."
Leon watched as the color drained out of Jade's face. He could tell that she knew just what –that being his criminal past- he was referring to.
"Understood," she said.
"So, do you want to start with my first year at Sanderson Holdings?" Leon asked. "That seems like a natural place to begin."
"Actually," said Jade, "I'm thinking that we should go back a little further than that. I want the reader to really see where you've come from, what makes you tick. Now, we can…elide some details, but I've seen where you come from, and I know it's made you who you are. After all, not everyone who grew up in your neighborhood managed to make something out of themselves, let alone all that you've accomplished."
Leon bristled at this, but he knew that she was right. He began scanning through his past in his mind, trying to figure the best face to put on his humble upbringings.
But before he could give the matter too much thought, the secretary's buzzer cut through the still of the office.
"Yes?" asked Leon.
"You have a guest, Mr. Sebastian."
"I'm actually with a very important client at the moment. Are they scheduled?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Leon could see a small smile form on Jade's face at being referred to in this way.
"No," said his secretary. "But they're really anxious to see you."
Leon made a smile of his own. He knew just what this meant.
"Alright," said Leon. "Send the little dude in."
"You got it, Mr. Sebastian."
"Do we, um, need to reschedule?" asked Jade.
"No,' said Leon. "In fact, who you're about to meet would be a fantastic addition to the article, I think."
Jade opened her mouth to speak, but before a word could pass her lips the doors to the office opened and a small figure stepped in.
"Daddy!" shouted Oliver, Leon's five-year-old son as he rushed past the doors and to Leon, wrapping his little arms around his father's legs.
"Daddy?" asked Jade, the word blurting out.
"That's right," said Leon, mussing his boy's hair. "Jade, I'd like to introduce you to Oliver, my son."
Chapter Fifteen
Jade couldn't believe what she saw. She wanted to rub her eyes like in an old cartoon to make sure she wasn't seeing things. But the longer she looked, the more certain she was; standing at the side of her first love was a boy, no older than five, his face a spitting image of his father's.
"What's going on, champ?" asked Leon as he squatted down to his son's height. "And why aren't you in school?"
"It's a day off, duh," said Oliver. "Remember? You said that we'd go get hamburgers for lunch."
"You know what?" said Leon. "I did. It's all coming back to me now."
Is this…really happening? thought Jade. I mean, I guess it makes sense – it's been eight years since we last saw each other. But this…not in a million years did I expect this.
"Who's that?" said Oliver, pointing to Jade over on the couch.
"This," said Leon, "is my old friend Ms. Jade. We've known each other from way back from before you were born."
Oliver turned to Jade and looked her up and down in a childish, appraising manner. And as he did, Jade couldn't get over how he had the same eyes as Leon, those same sparkling, piercing blues.
"Oh," said Oliver, apparently not impressed. "Hi."
"Um, hi!" said Jade, trying to give her voice some enthusiasm but feeling like the words just ended up coming out too loud. "Nice to meet you!"
She stuck out her hand towards Oliver. The boy responded by looking at it like a strange thing that he didn't quite know what to do with.
"Buddy, be polite," said Leon. "You know how to give a handshake."
Oliver checked himself and took Jade's hand, his tiny fingers cool against her skin.
"Nice to meet you, Ms. Jade," he said.
"There you go," said Leon. "Now, why don't you have a seat while I finish with Ms. Jade?"
"OK," said Oliver, plopping into a big chair on the other side of the room and taking a portable video game out of his bag.
"I think that's about all I have time for during the work day," said Leon. "Are you free this evening? We can go grab dinner and discuss some more of the preliminaries for the article."
But this new development had taken much more of a priority to Jade.
"You have a kid?" she asked in a voice lowered as not to attract Oliver's attention.
"Are you that surprised?" asked Leon. "I mean, having kids is something people do."
"I guess you're right," said Jade. "But, I don't know, it's just weird to go from college to this."
"Yeah," said Leon. "Like jumping into a time machine and ending up in a place that you're not sure you recognize. But let's talk about all of this later tonight. You know the Cardinal? Good place on the Lower East Side. Let's meet there at, say, seven. We can talk about all of this and more."
"Sounds good," said Jade, still feeling quite off-kilter.
"Excellent," said Leon. "Oliver, say ‘goodbye' to Ms. Jade."
"Bye," said Oliver in a flat voice, his eyes still fixed on his game.
"Real charmer, huh?" asked Leon with a smile.
"He's, um, really cute," said Jade, meaning every word. "Um, I'll see you tonight."
"Great," said Leon. "My secretary will show you out. See you then."
And just like that, Jade was back out into the hallway being led to the elevator. Minutes later, she was back on the busy streets of the financial district, wondering just what the hell had happened.
That wasn't some kind of hallucination, right? she thought, holding onto the nearest lamp post to steady herself. That was really Leon fucking Sebastian up there. Leon Sebastian, the former drug-dealer and now one of the wealthiest men in the city? And he had a kid?
She walked back to the subway as if in a daze. Back at her apartment, she collapsed onto the hard surface of her bed and stared up at the ceiling.
This probably means he's married, she thought.
Jade scanned her memories of the meeting, trying to remember if he was wearing a ring. But everything was a strange, surreal blur.
I mean, that would make sense. Unless he knocked up some girl. But that doesn't really seem like Leon's style. Then again, neither did having a kid and the kind of job where you wear a suit.
The hours ticked by until the dinner, and Jade looked forward to the next meeting with both high anxiety and eager anticipation. She wanted answers, sure, but working with Leon was still something she couldn't wrap her mind around.
And on top of everything, she thought, this is a goddamn cover story for the New Yorker. This is going to make or break my career; I can't afford to let my history with Leon mess this up for me.
She heaved herself out of bed and made herself a pot of cheap coffee. As she waited for it the brew in the lousy, rundown coffeemaker, she looked out of the window at the sliver of Manhattan and reflected on her meeting with Leon.
And…he looked good. Really goddamned good, she thought. Him in that suit, at that desk, in that office; it was strange, but also, really fitting.
Jade knew that, despite coming from the bad part of town, Leon had a cool, calculating mind and the sort of street smarts that had the potential to transfer flawlessly to the business world.
The only problem now is getting him to open up about his past, she thought. Something tells me that it's going to take some doing to have him give me any interesting details about his past. If I let him get the better of me I'll end up writing some fluffy PR piece. And that's not the kind of work that makes a name for a writer.
