“Yes, ma’am.”
“At least you have decent taste in shoes,” she told him as she poured in a more than generous splash. “Are you gay?”
“Helen!” Kennedy protested.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, it was a question, not a judgment call.”
“An inappropriate one.”
“No it wasn’t. It was simply curiosity. My son’s gay, and he needs a good-looking boyfriend.”
“I’m more interested in you,” Jonathan told her.
“Me?” Obviously flustered, she let the decanter slip, and she barely caught it. “Me?”
“Shall I throw her out?” Kennedy asked Jonathan.
“Would you actually do that?” she demanded.
“In a word, yes. I have zero tolerance for intolerance.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. No offense meant, Jonathan. But if you’re in the market for another job—”
“Hands off, Helen,” Kennedy interrupted.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow at her before leaving.
“I’m confused,” Helen said when they were alone. “Is he or isn’t he?”
“It doesn’t matter to me one way or another. He does a hell of a good job and clearly doesn’t take offense to offensive people.” He regarded her. “But I do. I’d rather not do business with you than subject my employees to remarks like that one.”
Just then his cell phone rang. His mother. Jacqueline.
He sent her to voice mail, figuring he could call her back after the meeting.
Almost immediately, she phoned again. “Sorry,” he told Helen. “My mother.”
He stepped into the anteroom before answering. “Hello, Jacqueline.”
Without returning the greeting, she said, “Your father thinks he’s going back to work.”
And clearly she was having none of it. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I was planning to stop by.”
“No. It’s urgent.”
He checked his watch. “I’ll be there in an hour.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
After straightening his tie, he returned to the office. Helen had emptied her glass. “I apologize for the interruption.”
“My father has dementia,” she said. “So I sympathize. I appreciate the fact you care for your parents like you do your employees.”
He didn’t mention that he was merely being summoned to negotiate a peace treaty between the two.
“I’ll be in touch after I meet with the board of directors,” Helen said.
“Let’s be clear about one thing. If that was an act, it was over the line. I will not tolerate that kind of behavior in my building. And if that is really who you are, Aldrich Enterprises has no interest in doing business with you.”
“Understood.” She went to the door.
He held up her cane. “You forgot this.”
She returned for it. “I take it I shouldn’t ask about Chantelle and the cattle prod?”
“Out. Or you’ll find out for yourself.”
* * * *
By the time he arrived at his parents’ Beacon Hill house, there was a strange sort of détente going on.
Their housekeeper greeted him and took his brown bomber jacket.
“Thank God you’re here,” Alice said. “I have no idea what in hell to do with either of those stubborn mules.”
“You’re referring to my parents?” He grinned.
“Who else?” she rolled her eyes.
Alice was as steady and as loyal as they came, and he’d often wondered if either he or Karyn would have survived childhood without the woman.
“They’re in the dining room,” she said before he could ask. “Lord love a duck, that’s the most miserable place to sit for two hours. Two hours they’ve been sitting there. If they were civilized, they’d argue in the sunroom, not that there’s any of that today, anyway.”
He cracked his knuckles, and she laughed.
“I’ll be listening in from the doorway,” she confessed.
He took a step then stopped. “How many of my secrets do you know?”
“All of them.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I even know that you sneaked out of the house to see Lilly Merriweather when you were fifteen.”
“Good God.” Even he’d forgotten that.
“All of your secrets,” she whispered.
The house was silent, except for the quiet hum of the heater. Unusual. He knew that there were other staff members in the home. And somewhere else, four yippy, barky, demanding dogs loomed.
No matter what, even with the bountiful flower arrangements and dozens of family pictures, the place still reminded him of a museum. Hardly surprising since the place had been built in 1899. Though the Federal-style town house had been remodeled numerous times and had all of the possible modern conveniences, furniture and heirlooms had been added by each generation. As far as he could tell, none had ever been removed.
He winced every time he walked past a spectacular blue vase. When Kennedy had been seven, he’d ridden his bike in the house. That was strictly forbidden, but his mother had been in bed in the late stages of pregnancy. He’d knocked over the vase, and Alice had helped him glue it back together. To this day, he had no idea whether his mother knew he’d broken it. He didn’t have the courage to ask.
He found his parents in the formal dining room, seated at the vast mahogany table.
Both had empty cups in front of them. Thomas had his arms across his chest while Jacqueline’s hands were folded on the tabletop.
As always, his father was at the head of the table, his mother at the foot. With places for another dozen people between them. He wondered if they could even see each other through the candelabra in the middle.
“There you are, Kennedy.”
“Mother.” He stopped to shake hands with his father, and he cocked his head as he took in the man’s features. Thomas wasn’t as pale as he’d been last week. In fact now there was an unholy gleam in his eyes. Kennedy was starting to see the problem.
Then he walked to the far end of the room and gave Jacqueline a kiss on the cheek.
“Oh, Kennedy. You need to talk some sense into him.”
He moved the candelabra to the sideboard then invited the pair to move closer. Neither budged. “Okay, then. Father. You first.”
“Why him?”
“So you can have the last word, Mother.”
“All right, then.”
Thomas said he was tired of being treated as if he were an invalid. He needed to get out of the house. He was as healthy as he was going to get after his recent surgery, and he resented sitting at home and having people watching him to see if he was going to die. He ended with, “I still have some life in me.”
“The devil’s more like it,” Jacqueline protested.
“Your turn,” he told his mother.
She admitted to fretting about his father’s health. They loved each other, in ways Kennedy couldn’t understand.
He helped them negotiate a compromise. Thomas could come to the office three half-days a week, as long as a driver brought him. And if he became fatigued, he’d come home immediately. And Kennedy told his mother she could go to brunch with her friends and even attend the country club once a week, if Thomas was out of the house.
“It’s selfish of me to want that,” she said.
“Do you think I want you to suffer?” Thomas demanded with more energy than Kennedy had known he had.
“Well, no.”
“Your friends need you, too. And what about the children’s Christmas gift program? Kids won’t get a gift if you’re not organizing things,” Thomas said. Smart man. After thirty-five years, he’d learned his own form of persuasion.
Jacqueline gave a brave nod. “Very well.”
Kennedy rapped his knuckles on the table then pushed his chair back.
“We’ve another delicate matter, Kennedy,” Jacqueline said.
He was already half standing, but he paused.
“You’ve had time to get over the unfortunate incident, I take it?”
“By that you mean Chantelle.”
“Your father and I think it’s time for you to start dating again. Marvin and Phillipa, you remember them? Well, their daughter Minerva has just passed the bar exam. Phillipa’s family traces their heritage back—”
“To the Mayflower?” he guessed.
“Precisely.” She exhaled. “You’re over thirty,” she reminded him.
“Ancient,” he agreed.
“We only want your happiness. It’s time you settled down. With an appropriate young woman. Not like…” She waved her hand.
“An actress?” he supplied.
“You have responsibilities to your father, to the family.”
“I’m well aware of that,” he replied with practiced patience. Without the heavy mantle of expectation, he might not have returned to Boston from Texas.
“Let us help you,” Jacqueline implored. “You’re a busy man. Your father and I can help you find someone suitable who will be a good wife and understands what’s expected of her.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I know you mean well, Mother. But I’ll make my own choice of bride. When I’m ready.”
“Being married is the best thing for a man,” Thomas added.
His father’s words shocked him. Over the years, he’d been silent on the subject. “Is it?” Kennedy asked.
“Well, after his oats are sowed, of course.”
“Sown,” Jacqueline corrected. “And really, Thomas. Must you encourage this type of behavior?”
He smiled at his wife. “When the right woman comes along, a man knows it,” Thomas said. “No doubts. The need to sown those oats is gone.”
“Sow,” she said. Then she glanced at the ceiling. “Give me strength.”
He frowned, taking note of the exchange between his parents. Neither had hostility or frustration in their tone. It was, he realized, a form of intimacy. When they played off each other like that, they excluded the rest of the world.
For the first time, he felt a pang of envy. If he had a health issue, there’d be no one there to watch out for him. Worse? He had no one to watch out for.
Empathy for his parents rocked him, and he saw their relationship, and them, through a clearer lens.
Now that he’d seen it, he knew he could miss it.
Just then he heard a door open and four Pomeranians, yipping, barking, sliding across the hardwood in a frenzy of orange-colored fur, dashed in. Jacqueline all but squealed in delight, and Thomas scooted back his chair and helped one of the dogs climb into his lap.
Seizing on the distraction as a chance to leave, he promised his parents he’d be back next week. He raised his voice to tell his father that he’d see him at the office, then made a strategic dash for the front door.
“You’re welcome,” Alice said, handing over his jacket.
“That was you?”
“I figured you’d had all you could take about your love life.”
They exchanged smiles, and he made his escape.
He called Jonathan to find out his new schedule, then hurried to get caught back up. It didn’t work.
By the time he left his office at the end of the day, he was running late for Karyn’s opening. Even on a good day, art galleries were not his favorite places. On a day like today? He’d pay someone to go for him so he could go home, enjoy a nice glass of whiskey and put up his feet up in front of the fireplace. Maybe he’d ask Julien if he’d done any work on cloning.
On the car’s satellite radio system, he selected smooth jazz and leaned back against the seat, trying to relax as he navigated traffic. Minutes in, the music vanished. Static replaced it. Then a high-pitched sound shrieked from the speakers. “Fuck.” He reached for the volume control, as the sound changed, becoming much like an emergency alert notification.
“A genius is attempting to reach you,” a woman’s voice said in soothing tones. “A genius is attempting to reach you.”
His phone?
Next, foreboding music, like something that would introduce a blockbuster science-fiction movie, rocketed through the car.
Shaking his head, he pushed the phone button on his dash.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“It’s my score,” Julien said.
“Score?”
“You know, like they have in movies. Theme music.”
“You have your own theme music?”
“Do we have an echo?” Julien asked. “You’re repeating everything I say.”
“Shock does that to me.”
“What do you think of it? I’m not happy with it yet.”
“I think it’s remarkable.”
“My composers are still working on it, and we’re supposed to turn it over to a sound engineer for recording. I’m just not quite ready.”
“If you want to sound like you’re defending the universe from invaders, I’d say you nailed it.” Julien was the only person who made Kennedy feel unimaginative by comparison.
“Are you driving? If you are, pull over.”
“Give me a minute.” He found a spot near the curb.
A full-body image of Julien filled the car’s navigation screen. He was wearing neon pink shoes, gray slacks and a white shirt and he was performing a few vaudeville steps. “This is why I need music. You need something catchy to introduce this technology.”
“How the hell did you do that?” He hadn’t activated any app that could make video appear. Christ, was there even an app to superimpose someone’s face over your GPS?
“This is only a test…”
“Good thing you’re not any uglier,” he said. After checking his mirrors, he pulled back into traffic. “That’s slick,” he told Julien.
“It’s not there yet. Infancy. Frustrating as hell. I need technology to catch up to my ideas.”
“You’ve had that problem since you were ten.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I’m letting you know that I’m back on the West Coast. I couldn’t tolerate your abysmal weather. And I needed my office.”
Kennedy had been surprised that he’d even tried to be gone that long. “Did you let Karyn know?”
“I called her first.”
“How did she take it?”
“I think making it up to her will take some time, and she wants theme music, too. She thinks it would be good for her career. She said she’d forgive me if I sent an autographed picture of myself.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Well, she should have. Who wouldn’t want that? I’m thinking life-size. You know, something to get her through until we figure out a hologram. Can you imagine? An indelible image in crystal or something.”
Kennedy was surprised that Karyn had taken it so well. She’d called him the day before yesterday. Through her tears, he’d barely made out what she had to say. She’d confessed she’d been awake for the better part of three days. Self-doubt was eating her from the inside. No one would like her work. And she’d threatened to go to the gallery and slash all her photos.
He’d left the meeting he’d been in and had driven to her apartment to pick her up. Since his brotherly assurances hadn’t soothed her, he’d taken her to Doodles to talk to the owner. The woman had sworn she wouldn’t have encouraged Karyn’s participation if she hadn’t believed in her. Looking around at the bizarre sculptures and sketches and something to do with braided ropes, he’d have to say that Karyn’s painted photographs, while random, were at least recognizable.
The woman had been unaffected by Karyn’s meltdown. Instead, she’d made her a cup of tea and had served it alongside a sugar cube and a dose of compassion. Kennedy suspected she’d seen this type of behavior before.
By the time they’d left, Karyn had been glowing, all doubt gone. He’d taken her to eat, then had driven her home and put her to bed.
She’d slept for over twenty-four hours.
“You’ll be at Reece’s bachelor party?” Julien asked
, interrupting his musings.
He, Julien, Grant and Reece were scheduled to spend a weekend in Mexico. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’ll send you the itinerary tomorrow,” Julien said. “I love being the best man.”
“You just like planning parties.”
“Isn’t that what I said? Sun. Sand. Hammocks. Give Karyn my love. And take off that tie before you go inside.” With that, Julien’s image dissolved into a million pixels.
When he’d parked, he pulled off his tie and shoved it in his coat pocket. Julien couldn’t have seen him wearing it. That was beyond even his genius. Then he remembered that Julien had asked if he was driving. That meant the tie comment had been a lucky guess. And a damn good one.
He walked through the gallery door and saw his sister. She had a glass of red wine in hand, and she looked radiant. Her blonde hair was laced with vibrant purple streaks. Cleverly, they matched the color of her skirt. She had on a long black sweater, artistically belted in metallic silver. She’d selected flat, ballet-style shoes, and she’d perfected the waif look. With her bright smile and tinkling laugh, no one would have suspected that demons gnawed on her psyche.
It made him wonder how well he ever knew anyone.
Karyn spotted him and drifted over. He couldn’t think of a better word to describe the way she moved.
“You came,” she said, holding onto his hand as if it were a lifeline.
“I wouldn’t have missed your grand début.” He kissed her cheek. He’d already called the gallery owner earlier in the day and asked her to let him know whether or not Karyn sold anything. If not, he’d purchase a picture for display…somewhere.
“Karyn, love! Over here,” the gallery owner called.
“Oh, Kennedy… You were right. People seem to love my work. I’ve already sold three paintings.”
“You have?”
“And that doesn’t count the one Julien promised to buy.”
No wonder she’d been forgiving of Julien’s absence.
“Kar-ryn!”
“Gotta go.” She took a little bow and went to join her fans.
He waved. Who knew? Good thing he didn’t put any of his investments into art.
A waiter passed by with a tray of filled wine glasses. Even if Karyn wouldn’t notice, he figured it would be rude to leave less than two minutes after he had arrived, so he accepted a glass.
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