That Spring in Paris

by Ciji Ware

  Before Brad could give voice to the glare he cast in the direction of his younger brother for such insubordination, Juliet jumped in to support Jamie’s show of bravery.

  “Look, Brad,” she began, “let’s consider events from several practical perspectives. A takeover at a good price would give Mother and Dad some peace of mind for their retirement years. You’d have plenty of money to start another company, and we could all say ‘this chapter is closed, and thank you very much,’ and then be on to the next chapter, whatever that’s going to be for each of us. As far as I’m concerned, buying us out sounds great to me!”

  Brad turned from staring at Jamie with fire in his eye, to looking as if he were going to toss his silver dinner knife into his sister’s chest. She’d never seen him so livid.

  “I should fire you right here for your disloyalty!” he said, his voice low and menacing, “and the only reason I’m not is I want you to completely redesign the lousy packaging you’ve done!”

  The senior Bradshaw Thayer sitting at the head of the table held up both hands as if to ward off his son’s fury. He spoke in a tone that surprised Juliet with its firmness. “Now, son, don’t say anything you’d regret. I’m a member of the Board of Directors too, remember, and you and I need to talk about this calmly and rationally. Your sister and brother are only speaking their minds.”

  “Shut up, Dad!” he ground out between clenched teeth. “You may be on the board, but you know nothing about how these takeover raids go down. I want all of your complete support and if you don’t give it to me, I’ll make certain none of you come out of this whole. I want—”

  Jamie pounded a fist on the table. “Don’t you dare talk to Dad like that! He knows plenty about your business, and so do Juliet and I! He and Mom signed an equity loan that puts this hotel and their entire future at risk, so you’d better damn well listen to him and listen to us, you narcissistic—”

  Just then, their mother jumped to her feet, rattling their dessert plates and wine goblets. Her lipstick red wool suit offered a nod to the upcoming holiday season, but her helmet of hair, recently coiffed in the hotel salon, framed a face flush with anger. Her vermillion lipstick stretched into a single grim line as she brought down the handle of her own silver knife loudly on the table, gaining the attention of everyone.

  “Stop this squabbling right now!” she demanded.

  Juliet waited, wondering if this time, at last, her mother would refrain from automatically siding with her Perfect Boy, and, instead, see the wisdom of plotting an exit strategy from GatherGames that would insure her own and her husband’s future, along with that of the rest of the family. Mildred Thayer’s audience sank back into their pale pink upholstered dining room chairs, looking at her expectantly to see which side she would favor.

  They didn’t have long to wait.

  One of the few female engineering students in college before she joined her husband’s architectural firm many years before, she wagged an agitated forefinger at Brad, senior, seated at the other end of the table.

  “You all should be ashamed of yourselves—and especially you,” she scolded her husband, “for not circling the wagons to support this family’s enterprise.” Her sweeping gaze included the rest of the assembled. “This is a challenge, certainly, but Brad understands the electronic video game business far better than any of you!” She turned on Juliet and Jamie. “He and his team know a lot more about these unholy moves made by the greedy VCs than either your father or I do, and unquestionably more than you two!” She glared at her younger adult children. “We can’t let them humiliate Brad junior this way! We are going to support him one-hundred percent, do you hear me? One-hundred percent!” she repeated.

  Juliet looked at her father who didn’t say another word. He simply lowered his eyes to stare at his untouched dessert. And she realized, as never before, that her mother would always run the show within her parents’ marriage—and the family as a whole.

  Hearing no opposition, Mildred Thayer resumed her seat and continued in a calmer tone of voice, “I agree wholeheartedly with Brad that the VCs on and off the board are vultures, and now that the company is earning big profits, they want to own it all, and would probably depose Brad as CEO, once they gained total control.”

  “That’s because they think he’s a lousy CEO, and I agree!” Jamie spoke up.

  This time, Mildred slammed the palm of her hand on the table. “I vote ‘no’ on the takeover bid, and I expect the rest of you to do the same!”

  Again silence.

  Unable to stand it any longer, Juliet jumped up from her chair, her fists balled at her sides. “Forget the issue of who controls GatherGames! The world is changing, Mother. The Paris attacks—and now San Bernardino—should tell us that sending out these violent videos that make shooting people just a game is a terrible business for this family to be in! Has it ever occurred to you that there may come a day when whackos in some other country that doesn’t like us sends killer drones over San Francisco—and all because they saw how to do it in products our company produces? Maybe the VCs on our board want to get their money out before the industry itself takes a hit. Or maybe, as you say, the takeover boys think they can make many more millions producing garbage-loads of this horrible crap! Either way, I don’t care! I want out.”

  “Your bottom line will care if I boot you out right now!” Brad shouted.

  “Then do it, so I don’t have to witness what happens around here when the FBI makes life miserable for companies like ours. Why can’t you see that the VCs’ wanting to take us over is a blessing in disguise for this family, to say nothing of restoring its honor?”

  “Honor?” Brad spat. “Oh puh-leese, stop being such a damn drama queen, Juliet!”

  Her mother joined in. “Exactly. There’s no real evidence to support anything you’ve just said, so sit down!”

  “You don’t think so?” Juliet turned to face her mother. “Well, what if the Feds get a legal warrant? What if the investors on the board get nervous as these terrorist attacks keep happening and the money guys want to pull out of being in this business? What if the tide turns with public opinion about the shit we’re selling to the universe and—”

  “Oh, give it a rest!” Brad intervened. “You always see the dark side.”

  Mildred Thayer looked to her son for support. “And if the Feds put out a warrant, you’ll refuse it, won’t you Brad? All of Silicon Valley feels that way, so you’ll have lots of support.” Mildred waved a dismissive hand in her daughter’s direction. “Ultimately, the F.B.I. will go after the big boys like Fox Interactive and Hasbro, not small-fry companies like ours.”

  For her part, Juliet could feel her blood pressure rise in its usual fashion. She was desperate to leave the room before she railed against her father for his silence, along with her mother and elder brother for the smug smiles that now creased their lips.

  “Can’t you see what a bigger issue this is?” she implored.

  “The issue is so much bigger than what you’re talking about,” Brad said, his tone dripping with disdain. “I suppose you don’t give a damn about everyone’s right to privacy. A couple of terrorists using encryption is the price of American freedom.”

  “Believe it or not, I happen to agree with you on encryption, although I wouldn’t phrase it that way. But it’s total bullshit when it comes to your reasons for taking this stand!” Juliet lowered her voice, her teeth clenched. “You just want to keep raking in the cash producing violent video games to prove to everyone what a genius you believe you are! But, let’s do talk about a genuine ‘bigger issue.’”

  She looked directly at her father who presented the classic picture of a deer in the headlights. “What about the quaint notion of the moral issue involved here, Dad? What about your being part of a company like GatherGames—you, a man who supposedly builds things, not tears them down? Our gaming products teach children to think killing other human beings is entertaining! A fun sport. And now it’s part of the viol
ence and carnage happening all around the world—”

  “Oh, now, here it comes,” Brad interrupted, “Juliet on her soap box.”

  Juliet glared at him. “Maybe you wouldn’t blather on about the ‘price of freedom’ in defense of your sickening video war games if you could have seen what the terrorists in Paris did to take away the freedom—permanently—of the innocent people who were killed, to say nothing of horribly wounding hundreds of others, including Avery Evans.” She searched the faces of each of her family members in turn, her glance coming to rest on her father as tears of frustration and disappointment filled her eyes.

  With an underlying sense of despair she mocked, “So, Dad... it’s okay with you that we, the hallowed Thayer family of San Francisco, USA, play a part in what happened to blameless people like Avery who got mowed down by guys with Kalashnikovs and AK-47s, maybe even inspired by some of the products we produce? Don’t you see, Dad?” Juliet pleaded, willing her father not to look away. “This has nothing to do with encryption. We produce images that celebrate slaughtering other human beings! You and I and Jamie have a role in this horror show, just as much as Mother and Brad! We’re all making big bucks out of it, which makes us co-conspirators. All of us, and we’d better start to face it!”

  “Young lady—” her mother began, but Juliet cut her off with bitter sarcasm directed at her father.

  “Daddy, think about the Thayer family’s brand of blood-and-guts as you drink your champagne and eat your roast beef this holiday. Think about the business our family is in as you celebrate Christmas at Grace Cathedral! You know: ‘Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Men?’”

  She turned to address her mother, whose scowl had never altered from the moment her daughter had begun her tirade. Juliet wondered if they’d ever speak again, but the volcano erupting inside her couldn’t be stopped. “And when you hold your little holiday brunch with your bridge buddies this year, Mrs. Thayer, think about the roadside bombs our video games glorify.” She balled her monogrammed linen napkin into her fist. “What a bunch of hypocrites we all are, myself included!”

  Juliet looked across the table at her brother Jamie, lowering her voice. “I’ll drive you to the airport tomorrow morning. I can’t stand to be in this room another second!”

  She rose from her chair, threw her napkin on the table, and walked out of the private dining room.

  * * *

  The next morning, Jamie volunteered to take the wheel to drive to San Francisco International, down the peninsula to San Bruno, south of the city. As he nosed their black SUV up the ramp to exit the hotel, he said, “Hey... you were pretty dramatic last night.”

  It was just past six in the morning. The clear December skies formed a big, blue square as they headed out of the underground garage and up Jackson Street, turning left on Jones. These several hours later, Juliet had started to feel remorseful that she had let her temper hijack her emotions at dinner the previous evening.

  “I know,” she acknowledged glumly. “Like our sainted mother and elder brother are so fond of pointing out, I’m the family’s notorious ‘drama queen.’”

  “Well, you had plenty of provocation. You said what had to be said. Pretty damn well, I might add.”

  “Thanks, but I’m sorry I lost it like that. It’s just that I couldn’t believe how Dad made one tiny attempt to get Brad to look at the family’s situation from a viewpoint other than his own selfish one, and then Daddy folded his tent the second he got the slightest opposition from Golden Boy and Mom.”

  “And you expected something different to happen?” Jamie headed down the steep hill toward the 101 Freeway and the airport. “And, incidentally, get ready,” he warned. “Brad didn’t actually fire you—which I knew he wouldn’t in front of Mom and Dad because he needs to maintain a united front—but he’s going to use the stock owed us to keep us tied to the company as long as he wants.”

  “That’s what I just don’t get,” complained Juliet. “All that money in the balance—to say nothing of the fact that poor Dad will probably lose control of the hotel if the game company goes sideways at some point—and he just lets Mom and Brad roll over us all.”

  “Check and checkmate!” Jamie replied with a shrug. “Did you ever beat Brad in a game of chess?” Before Juliet could answer, he pronounced, “No. Neither did I.”

  Juliet said glumly, “Basically, as long as we want the money we’ve worked for these five years, you and I will be slaves to the ‘company store,’ and Brad knows it.” She stared out the window at the stream of holiday traffic ahead of their car as they entered the freeway. “I am so ready to forget what’s owed me for the work I’ve done, quit right now, and get on that plane today with you!”

  “No!” Jamie insisted with startling vehemence. “I’ve switched sides about this.”

  “What?” Juliet said, alarmed.

  Jamie shot her a grin. “After what you said last night, I see we can’t give up yet. Your job, while I’m away, is to locate a killer lawyer not associated with GatherGames or the family and try to find out the true meaning of every, single sentence of fine print in our contracts regarding our stock. There might be something in there that would give us some leverage in negotiating an exit strategy, along with the dissenters on our board. Who knows what might happen if it got around to some of the board members that you and I were willing to join them in offering to sell our stock to any outside folks interested in acquiring GG? And if we can’t get that deal, by next July—if I read our contracts correctly—we have every right to sell the family shares we each have and also exercise a portion of our options to buy more stock at the old price. At the very least we should get some independent legal advice about all this.”

  “Engaging our own lawyer would be considered family treason of the first order,” Juliet noted, “but I hear you, and it might be the only way out of this nightmare. A fight with the VCs to the death on Brad’s side could ruin everything for Dad—as well as us.”

  Jamie nodded in agreement. “Maybe Pa would finally accept that sleeping with the enemy is the only way to get back his investment—or lose it all. For us, it’s finding a way of bailing out of this horrible industry with at least some of the money we earned.”

  “Of course, if we join the dissident members of the board, we’d be putting Dad smack in the middle of a family feud,” she warned morosely.

  “When are you going to face it, Juliet?” Jamie demanded, moving into the right lane in order to take the exit into the airport. “He’s Brad’s father, as well as ours, and he did very little to come to our defense in this last go-around.”

  “Well, for sure he is the Man in the Middle. That’s got to be hard.”

  “Look!” Jamie’s exasperation was now boiling over. “Bradshaw Thayer, the Third, is a sweet guy and a pretty good architect, but he’s weak. He’d sacrifice his nearest and dearest to avoid facing a conflict. Which means that even though we’re worried about him—and, by the way, he’ll worry about you and me as well—he’s more than likely to allow us to get sold down the river by Brad or the VCs. Our father would do virtually anything to avoid having to grapple with our dear Mother-the-Engineer, a lady who crushed his balls long before we were born.”

  Juliet banged the back of her head against the car’s leather headrest. “God Almighty, you just nailed it. This is absolutely awful!”

  “Just go find us the right attorney, okay?”

  Juliet nodded. “Okay, ’cause we’re the only ones who will look out for our interests.”

  “Number one of which is to get out of the electronic war game business, agreed?”

  Juliet nodded again as Jamie brought the car to a halt in front of the airport terminal.

  “Not only do I want to get out of GatherGames, I’m going to donate a big chunk of anything I end up with to some anti-bullying nonprofit that I’m going to track down!”

  “Well, speaking of bullies... I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said. “When are you officially going to dump
Jed Jarvis?” Juliet had earlier disclosed to her brother her plans to break it off with her supposed boyfriend. “That guy is no pal of ours, Juliet, and he’ll side with Brad at every opportunity.”

  “He only got back from China yesterday when I saw him briefly at the office.” She felt like such a wimp, because she could have dealt with this particular issue then and there. “If you must know, we haven’t been together since before I went to Paris.”

  “Does he know you plan to give him the boot?”

  “I didn’t think it was decent to announce it in an email, or even on the phone.” Silently, she was forced to admit to herself that she dreaded telling Jed to his face that it was over between them. Maybe she was more like her father than she realized?

  “I never liked the guy,” Jamie said as a security cop was walking in their direction while their car sat at the terminal’s curb. “Jed used to get on my case all the time when I was a kid, just like Brad did.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” she assured her brother, a sudden vision of Finn sitting across his couch from her on the L’Étoile de Paris. “Deleting that particular relationship is the next ‘To Do’ on my Christmas list.”

  Jamie raised his hand in a fist bump, which Juliet matched with a laugh. And with that, both of them got out of the car and met at the trunk. He handed her the keys.

  “Well then, Happy Holidays, Sis,” he said, giving her a hug before pulling his suitcase out of the back. “And thanks for putting me in touch with your friend Finn. I’ll give him and Avery your very best.”

  Wishing for all the world that she could deliver that message in person, she summoned a smile and said, “Roger that. Merry Christmas, sweetheart. Travel safe.”

  CHAPTER 18

  On Christmas Eve, Claudine Deschanel and her group of friends and family were among the hundreds of parishioners to emerge from Notre Dame with snow falling in a thin veil, dusting the ground as well as the iron fencing marking the perimeter of the vast grounds. Finn stared up at the soaring spires that pierced scudding clouds overhead, certain that there would be even more snow by morning. His thoughts drifted like the icy flakes to a remembered vision of Nob Hill he’d seen as a boy, some 6000 miles away from where he walked in Paris this night. He wondered if Juliet would think of him at her local church service in San Francisco. He’d certainly found himself thinking of her as the solemn organ music reverberated against the cavernous cathedral’s arched rafters.