by Wendy Wax
EDWARD ARRIVED AT THE ALEXANDER ON Thursday morning to find Hunter Jackson in the lobby flirting with a clearly enamored Isabella. Edward looked the young man over and could find no fault with his sharply creased gray pants and blue blazer, which he’d paired with a crisp white collared shirt and red tie. His demeanor when he spotted Edward fell shorter of the mark. Rather than “snap to,” he gave Isabella a last overly familiar wink, straightened quite slowly, then sauntered toward Edward.
“Good morning.” Jackson’s tone was friendly enough, but the bob of the head was regrettably casual for someone reporting for his first day on a brand-new job.
“Good morning,” Edward said smartly, hopefully demonstrating the importance of one’s demeanor. “Shall we?” He motioned his head toward his office and kept walking, expecting Hunter Jackson to follow.
Edward did not remove his jacket but motioned Hunter into the supplicant’s seat before taking his own behind his desk. “I appreciate your punctuality,” he said without preamble. “My plan is to expose you to the different levels of service we provide our clients. I have chosen a number of tasks for you to perform that should help illustrate this range.”
“Yes, well, I have some ideas for raising Private Butler’s profile. I’ve also made a list of potential corporate clients I can approach.” Jackson’s words were businesslike and well thought out, but he was slouching in his chair as if hashing something out with a colleague. Only the telltale leg movement gave away his nervousness and/or irritation. Edward wasn’t certain which.
Edward folded his hands on his desk as his uncle Mason often did before imparting an important point of clarification. “Good. We’ll take a look at that together after you’ve had some time to get acclimated to our services and company philosophy.”
“I’m sorry?” Jackson said, looking genuinely confused.
“You won’t be calling on people until you have a clear understanding of the services we offer and the manner in which all employees of Private Butler conduct themselves. I’ll also want to make sure you completely grasp the underlying philosophy on which the company is based,” Edward explained.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Edward replied. “Really.”
They stared at each other for several long moments. Long enough for Edward to note the flare of anger and astonishment that sharpened Jackson’s features and see him hide the reaction in the depths of the green eyes. Jackson looked away first. “But isn’t that a waste of my connections and experience?”
“For the moment it may seem that way,” Edward conceded. “But it’s hard for even the most accomplished salesperson to sell or market something he doesn’t fully understand.”
“With all due respect,” Jackson said. “Your business isn’t all that complicated.”
As usual, any sentence that began with “with all due respect” included almost no respect at all. Edward shrugged off his irritation and kept his tone pleasant. Just as Hunter Jackson needed to learn to do.
“I promise you there are things to be learned. Important things.”
“I’m all ears, then.”
“Very well,” Edward said, even though Jackson seemed more insolence than ears. “This is how we shall begin. For the next week you’ll take on small tasks for a variety of our clients. No matter how small the task, it will be treated as if it were of the utmost importance, because to us, to this company, it is.
“We are time-savers. Convenience givers. We make our customers feel good about spending money for others to do what they could, in fact, do for themselves if they had the time or the inclination.” He paused to allow the message to sink in. “We make people’s lives easier. Period. There’s nothing we won’t do—as long as it’s legal and ethical.”
He paused again both for emphasis and because he wanted to make sure Jackson heard what came next.
“This morning you’ll handle these requests for two of our long-term clients. After lunch you will explore these travel-related issues for Emily Redding.” He handed Hunter Jackson a typed form with the pertinent names and addresses.
“You actually expect me to pick up and deliver someone’s dry cleaning?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“And take a package to the UPS Store?”
“You’ll also be hiring a cleaning company for the Ritchies. There’s a potential list attached. And picking up Grace Anthony’s dog from the groomer’s.
“But these are errands.” The horror in Jackson’s voice indicated that this was a veritable crime against nature.
“Yes.” Edward maintained eye contact. “And quite menial ones at that. For which we are paid.” He watched Jackson process this shocking turn of events. “If you handle these assignments without any trouble, tomorrow you’ll keep an appointment with James Culp to select a gift for his wife Alicia’s sixtieth birthday. I have a questionnaire I often use to elicit enough information about the recipient to make it truly special.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” He had in fact been planning to give this assignment to Brooke Mackenzie, who wouldn’t need a form or prompting of any kind, but the point here was to teach Hunter Jackson the scope of what Private Butler offered from the seemingly insignificant to the mundane to the life changer. To make him understand that no request from a client was more important than another. And perhaps to make him stop and think about what it meant to give thought to another human being’s needs or wants above his own, which Edward suspected would be the hardest lesson of all.
“If you have any problems or questions you can call me on my cell phone.” Edward handed the younger man a business card. “Otherwise I’ll expect you back here by four p.m. to fill me in on how things went.”
“You want me to come back here to report how the errands went?” Jackson asked, apparently unable to grasp the concept.
“Yes, of course,” Edward replied.
Jackson nodded but didn’t speak. The sheaf of papers in his hands trembled slightly with what Edward suspected was suppressed anger. Suppressed was good. This business was all about controlling one’s personal thoughts and emotions.
“And while you are representing this company in any capacity whatsoever, you must be aware of the signals your body language may be sending.”
“Is that right?” Jackson asked.
“Yes. Slouching as you are right now is never appropriate. It demonstrates a lack of interest in what’s being communicated as well as a lack of focus in general. When you meet another person’s gaze, you don’t want to show emotions or judgments that you are then forced to mask.”
“Is that right?” Jackson asked again. His tone of voice was far too terse, but he had already straightened in a far more acceptable manner.
“Yes,” Edward replied calmly. “Your voice and what it gives away is also critical. Private Butler employees never challenge the client in any way. The client is always, without exception and without argument, right.”
“How unsatisfying.” Jackson’s response was offered without inflection or emotion, but the green eyes were icy sharp. Yet another window into his true thoughts that the young man would need to learn to keep shut.
“Being a concierge means focusing on the customer’s satisfaction above all else,” Edward said. “To use a sexual analogy, we want the customer completely and utterly satisfied. We don’t want them faking an orgasm so to speak and then not calling us again. Your satisfaction is not required.”
* * *
THE CELEBRATORY DINNER THAT NIGHT FELT A BIT like a Hollywood film in which all of them had been cast and expected to perform. Although Samantha could see the anger and resentment in their eyes, Hunter and Meredith played the roles of the newly and happily employed; Jonathan acted the genial if distracted host while Cynthia played the crusty but loving matriarch, which allowed her to work in more than a few slap downs while pretending to be supportive. Samantha was the proud “parent” who pretended the smiles were real and the future rosy.<
br />
By the time it was over and they’d dropped Cynthia off at Bellewood, Samantha’s jaw hurt from the forced smiling. Every last nerve stood on end.
She watched Jonathan’s face in the spill of passing streetlights, the planes and angles falling in and out of shadow going back over how little he’d spoken at dinner. In fact, she’d barely heard his voice since the other night when he’d read Stellaluna to the Mackenzie girls with such warmth and feeling.
“Thank you for the dinner,” she said.
“My pleasure,” he replied.
More streetlights and more silence followed. They were alone and yet they were still playing their parts. Apparently no one had approved the scene and called “cut.”
“Did everything get settled on the nanotechnology thing?” she asked, needing to break the silence and because if she didn’t ask now, she suspected she’d never really know.
“Yes.” His eyes remained on the road. His tone was even but there was no missing the note of dismissal. It was a note she’d learned to heed, always afraid of overstepping her bounds. But she needed to know how much damage had been done.
“That’s it?” she asked. “One word to cover what had to be a huge hassle and expense?”
“What else do you want to know?” he asked simply.
“Was it expensive? Did it take a lot of your time?” Are you still angry with me?
“Yes.”
He didn’t look at her. But she could feel the stiffness of his body, the tension in the large, capable hands that held the wheel.
There were so many questions she’d never asked. She’d tread so carefully, always afraid that if she went too far, asked for too much, he’d realize she wasn’t worth it. This approach had seen them through twenty-five years as husband and wife. But it had not made them equals. As they had in tonight’s “movie” they’d played out the roles they’d created in their own long-running production. She had always been the supplicant to his munificent provider.
“We may not always show it,” she said. “But we all appreciate what you’ve done for us.”
He continued to stare out the windshield and she thought that was going to be the end of it.
His voice, when he finally spoke, startled her. “It’s funny, isn’t it, that after all this time the three of you are still ‘us’ and I’m . . . I don’t know, Samantha, what exactly am I to you?”
“What . . . what do you mean?” Her voice sounded timid and afraid even in her own ears.
He turned and looked at her. She forced herself to meet his eyes, tried to see what they held. But they were lost in the shadows. “I’m so tired of your gratitude,” he said. “The way you think you have to please me all the time.”
Samantha sat, frozen, unsure what to say. She searched his face, trying to figure out what he wanted to hear.
He shook his head and gave a rueful snort. “I rest my case. You’re too busy trying to figure out what I want you to say to even consider saying what you actually think and feel.”
They were at the Alexander before she realized it. He pulled the car into the parking garage.
“But I can’t help being grateful,” she said. “My God, Jonathan, you saved us from complete ruin. You became a parent to a nine – and eleven-year-old at the age of twenty-seven. No matter how difficult they’ve been, you’ve treated Hunter and Meredith like your own flesh and blood. You’ve bailed them out over and over again.”
He parked and turned off the car. They sat in the dimly lit concrete structure.
“I can barely let myself think about how much they’ve cost you. How much we’ve all cost you. All the things you’ve given up. How can I not be grateful?” she asked.
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. She could see them more clearly now, but they remained dark and unreadable. “I don’t know, Samantha,” he said. “I only know that I’m no longer sure whether gratitude is really enough to hold a marriage together.”
He got out of the car. Despite the things he’d said to her he walked around and opened her door. But Jonathan Davis’s manners had been hardwired into him at birth. She knew better than to read anything into them.
They entered the building and crossed to the elevators in silence. He held the door open as she entered. He didn’t say another word as they rode up to the twelfth floor and disembarked.
Her thoughts skittered about, jumbled and unclear. Maybe if she found the right words she could turn this around. But her fear of saying the wrong thing; the possibility of spewing her deepest feelings out into the silent abyss that now surrounded them and having them found lacking or, worse, unreciprocated, made her swallow them back.
“Jonathan, please . . .”
He looked down at her, watching her carefully, waiting for she didn’t know what.
“Just tell me what you want. I don’t know what it is you want from me,” she said.
“I know.” His tone was as sad as his eyes. Both were filled with regret. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
She watched him, mute, as he pulled things from the closet and dropped them into his carry-on bag. “I’ve got meetings scheduled out in LA on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think I’ll head out in the morning and get in a few days of golf—unwind a little bit—before then.” It wasn’t a question.
Tears clogged her throat and dampened her eyes. She had the oddest flash of Rhett Butler packing and leaving Scarlett O’Hara in the final scene of Gone with the Wind. She had an embarrassing urge to cry, “Oh, my darling, if you go, what shall I do?” just as Scarlett had asked Rhett. Except that she was horribly afraid that if she did, Jonathan would quote the modern equivalent of Rhett’s famous words back to her.
The last thing Samantha could bear to hear from Jonathan at the moment was, “My dear, I don’t give a damn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WHEN SAMANTHA WOKE THE NEXT MORNING THE apartment’s silent emptiness told her that Jonathan had already gone. Feeling as hollow inside as the apartment, she turned her head and opened her eyes in search of some proof that he had left something for her beside the memory of his disappointment. But there was no note on the bedside table and no comforting scent of coffee already brewed. Samantha pulled the sheets up over her head and closed her eyes, but there was no wishing herself back in time or even back to sleep.
Her mind replayed last night’s conversation and pinpricks of panic pierced her. Jonathan had sounded so disappointed in her, in them. Disappointed enough to leave.
“Stop it.” She said this aloud even as she threw off the covers and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “He’s upset and he left a few days early. He didn’t leave leave.” But it was so unlike Jonathan to be poking and prodding her feelings like that. If he hadn’t taken her by surprise, she would have come up with something better than how grateful she was. She rubbed her feet over the carpet. But would she have opened herself to that kind of hurt? Their whole marriage had been a bargain. How could she admit to feelings she shouldn’t even have and then face his pity or have to hear him apologize for not returning them?
She glanced at the clock and was almost sorry she had no workout scheduled this morning. Physical exertion might burn off some of the worry and having someone—anyone—push her would be a good thing right now. She began to swing her legs back onto the bed. Her hand was already reaching for the covers when she stopped. “No!”
She’d have one cup of coffee and then she’d get out of the apartment. Maybe she’d jog to the park and back before she had to shower and dress for the day. What she couldn’t do was sit here worrying. She and Jonathan had been married for a long time. Like any married couple they had arguments and problems. Normally she was able to smooth things over before anything could fester or grow out of proportion.
Because she was afraid she would appear ungrateful. Which might cause Jonathan to question why he had married her at all.
The pinpricks became sharper, blooming into full-fledged panic. She raced into the
closet to make sure Jonathan’s things were still there. Don’t be silly. He’s upset and he left for a few extra days to think. That’s all. But what if his thoughts led him to decide their marriage wasn’t worth saving?
She was out of the apartment and jabbing at the elevator call button as if wolves were nipping at her heels. When she stepped in for the ride down she tried to think calming thoughts, but the panic seemed to be sucking up all the gray matter and blotting out rational thought. Just as it had when her father’s disgrace and her parents’ deaths had left her not only penniless but responsible for her brother and sister.
Nerves jangling, she groaned aloud when the elevator stopped on the tenth floor. Because she apparently wasn’t feeling quite horrible enough, when the doors slid open Zachary Mackenzie stepped on.
Samantha’s lips clamped together. His opened wide in a happy smile.
“Hello,” he said jovially. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been wanting to thank you for watching the girls the other night.”
Irritation ignited into anger and mingled with the panic, creating a toxic brew. He looked at her expectantly. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“You know, Natalie and Ava Mackenzie?” he prompted. “I understand they spent the evening with you and your husband.”
“Yes,” she answered. The fury bubbled in her veins and sought release. It was a relief to let it out. “Because you’d forgotten them.”
“Well, not exactly,” he said with what she knew was meant to be an ingratiating smile.
She stared at him. “Not exactly, how?”
“It’s just that I’m not used to taking them on weekdays,” he said as if this explained everything. “And we were invited to play golf up in Highlands with the Oglethorpes; they’re an old Atlanta family. Maybe you know them?” He shrugged when she didn’t answer. “Time just got away from us.” He seemed so smugly happy with himself. Oblivious to the fact that she, whom he seemed so eager to impress, was about to erupt and rain molten lava all over him. The man might know how to improve bodies and faces; if he knew how to read them he’d be pressing the emergency button and trying to escape.
