That Spring in Paris

by Ciji Ware

  “Are you kidding me, Brad?”

  He scowled at her. “No. I’m not.”

  “I don’t think this is even legal, but let me check with my lawyer,” she said, doing her best to control her temper while buying time to try to figure out what was going on.

  “No lawyers. Just sign.” A skimpy inch of his blond hair fell across his damp forehead beaded with a sheen of perspiration despite the coolness of the evening air.

  “And if I won’t?”

  “Then you’re fired. As of the minute you walk out that door.”

  Juliet almost felt as if she were an actress onstage, playing out a dramatic scene that was a crucial turning point in the plot. Brad was staring at her, his eyes narrowed and his lips as thin as two elastic bands stretched near to breaking. She had a premonition that they were about to have an argument that had been bubbling on both their parts from the time he’d tampered with the training wheels on her bicycle when she was six. That day, he’d hidden the wheels so she couldn’t ride in a section of the hotel’s underground garage set aside for the three Thayer children to play in.

  “You’d fire me if I don’t sign?” she scoffed. “That’s a pretty well-worn threat of yours.”

  Her words were convincingly calm and controlled, although it was obvious to her that Brad had become so agitated throughout the takeover fight—and clearly still was—that he just might follow through and can her this time.

  He picked up the pen from his desk with his right hand while glancing at his Rolex watch on his left wrist. “I’ll give you exactly one minute.”

  “Did Jamie sign?” she demanded.

  From her brother’s expression she could tell that Jamie must have left before Brad could put the same strong-arm tactics on him. Brad had probably learned from some co-worker that their brother had already departed to meet his sister for dinner somewhere.

  “He’ll sign.” Brad glanced at his watch again. “Thirty seconds.”

  In a move that stunned even her, Juliet grabbed the pen from his hand and threw it with all her force across the office. It bounced off one of the iron girders with a ping.

  “Gimme a break, Brad!” she declared, her voice starting to shake. “This is my stock we’re talking about, here. I earned it and I’ll sell it when I damn well want to! NO, I won’t sign this agreement. What the hell is driving you to be such an asshole?” Brad actually looked shocked that she had the temerity to talk to him like she was, which added fuel to her fury. “I actually want to know why you act like such a prick all the time, not only to Jamie and me, but to ninety-nine percent of your staff?”

  “You’ll be sorry,” Brad ground out between clenched teeth.

  Juliet stared at her mother’s favorite child and slowly shook her head. He was her brother... her flesh and blood... from the same set of parents. What had made him so different from Jamie and her? What had brought them to this moment after all their years of rivalry and Brad’s casual cruelty to both his younger siblings for as long as she could remember? Why did he believe so strongly that he was entitled to the best of everything, to the first of everything, to whatever he wanted, even if he had to crush blood relatives who got in his way? What had given him such a belief about himself that nobody else mattered?

  At length she said, “I know I’ll be sorry. You’ve always tried to make sure of that if I stood in the way of anything you wanted. But let’s not talk about me and what will happen between us after today.” She waved her arm in a wide arc to include his high-tech office surroundings. “What I want to know is why is winning and being number one and pounding the opposition to dust so much more important than anything else in the world to you, including your own parents’ welfare—the folks who raised you and paid for your education and loaned you ten million dollars to expand this enterprise?”

  Brad looked startled by this sudden switch of topic. Juliet took advantage of his silence. “Okay, so you beat back a takeover bid this time.” She lowered her voice almost conversationally and leaned over his desk, her elbows crooked and both palms pressing against the glass surface that felt cold on her skin. “Do you even realize that you are a very disliked personality around here? There will come a time when you won’t win. When you won’t have a single friend to back you up because you’ve lost your power and can’t do anything for your hangers-on and they’ll drop you from a dizzy height—splat! When you’re not the Golden Boy anymore and Mother can’t be your defender because she’s old or dead. Then you will sit in a soulless room like this and wonder what the hell happened to you.”

  Brad simply stared at her, offering no response. She doubted anyone had ever called him out like she just had. She rose from her chair and gathered her belongings, her mind spinning with the implications of the words she’d laid before him as if they were Scrabble tiles on the smooth surface of his desk and maybe she’d finally won a round, for once. This was probably the end of any relationship she could hope to have with her brother who had also been her employer and the source of her income for five years.

  “I’m leaving, now,” she said, adding, “for good.”

  Brad finally spoke up. “I’ll sue you! My lawyers will tie you up so tight that whatever stock you sell will go for attorneys’ fees.”

  She affected a shrug, fairly certain there wasn’t much a person could be sued for if she already was legally allowed to sell a portion of her stock as of July first of this year.

  “Sue away,” she offered. She zipped open her tote bag and showed him its contents. “See? I’m only taking my personal affects... make-up, hairbrush, wallet. I bought my own cell phone, but I’ll leave you my laptop with everything intact. It’s on my drafting table. All the files, including the computer-generated designs, are in the company system on my desktop computer, as well as those of the rest of the staff. I’ll email you all the passwords. You own everything, Brad,” she assured him, “the branding, the production specs, the invoices of everything ordered and paid for by the art department. And just as Avery did, I’m leaving every single thing I’ve ever done for you as an artist and designer and supervisor. It’s all yours, Mr. Sexual Predator.”

  Brad’s eyes widened with alarm as Juliet said, “Yes... I know all about that, too, so to avoid any mess, Avery and I would both suggest you don’t summon your attack dogs.”

  Her brother jumped to his feet, but before he could sputter a word, she overrode him. “And if you’re worrying I’ll go work for one of your competitors, have no fear,” she pledged, turning to leave. “I will never, ever have anything to do with video war-game production for the rest of my life.” She flashed him a smile. “And that’s an agreement I will sign—if you insist—so you truly have nothing to sue me over.”

  “You can’t do this!” he shouted.

  “Oh, yes I can,” she said, calmness unlike anything she’d ever experienced settling over her. “And just think... once again, you totally got your way. You are now the master of all you possess. But remember one, important thing...” She slid the zipper closed on her bag in a single, swift movement. “You don’t actually own people in this world, Brad. Not Avery, not Jamie—and you certainly don’t own me!”

  And then she walked out of his office and headed for the Tadich Grill.

  * * *

  Even though Juliet was seriously late for her date to meet Jamie for dinner, she decided to walk the distance from the office building to the restaurant. As she strode down the darkened sidewalk through an eerie mist swirling through the canyons of downtown San Francisco, she felt shaky, yet strong. Brave—and also afraid for her future. But she felt free. Free from the fear of Bradshaw Thayer IV’s bullying that had cast a shadow over her life for as long as she could remember. She was free to go. Free to sell some of her stock in a few months in order to finance a year in France. Free to choose her own path and practice the art she yearned to create. If she couldn’t make a living doing that, she was free to take the time to find a new path, just like Finn was doing. With her talents
and abilities, she could always find something to do that would sustain her. She was amazed by the thought that she no longer had to drink from the poisoned well that had been her life at GatherGames under her brother’s intimidating domination and her mother’s cool detachment. She might never understand why Brad had become who he was, she realized, but she knew, thanks to meeting Patrick Finley Deschanel, that all strong men were not like her brother whose narcissism had been a toxic force her entire life.

  As she caught sight of the restaurant, she suddenly had a vision of her unsuspecting parents having a quiet supper of their own this night, as they so often did, at a little round table set into a bay window in the family suite. They would be dismayed when they learned what had just transpired between their two eldest children. Juliet had tried to act as her parents’ guardians, but her mother had consistently taken Brad’s side in all things for reasons she had never truly comprehended. As for her father, he’d caved in at every stage.

  In a sudden flash of insight she realized that she was powerless to change that well-worn dynamic and she couldn’t fix any of them. It was up to them to act in their own interest—and if they chose not to, it was not her responsibility anymore.

  Nobody owes me the keys to the hotel. I had the joy of living there all these years and that’s enough.

  She was free.

  As she entered the door to the Tadich Grill, a strange lightness swept through her, as if a warm, spring breeze from the budding green vineyards to the north had wafted through this old brick building, lifting her spirits with its gentle force. The maître d’, who had hosted the Thayer family here for many years, greeted her warmly and led her to her brother’s table.

  “Well, it’s about time, kiddo,” Jamie chastised her, rising from his seat in their favorite sequestered booth. “You’re forty minutes late.”

  “I have a very good excuse which I’ll tell you about in a minute, but first I need a drink.”

  She still felt deeply unsettled by her run-in with Brad, but also—and strangely—euphoric. Considering what had just transpired, euphoria was the last thing she had expected. She was in crisis, wasn’t she? Why did it seem as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders? She turned her attention to the waiter. “A bottle of Veuve Clicquot, if you have it, John. And two glasses. We’re celebrating.”

  “Of course, miss,” he replied, cheerful in the knowledge that the bill for the sparkling wine, alone, would be substantial, and so would his tip.

  “What are we celebrating?” Jamie demanded doubtfully. “I have four messages from Brad on my phone that I let go straight to voice mail.”

  “Trust me, you won’t want to listen to them.” She glanced at her surroundings. “Just give me a moment, will you? I have to go to the ladies’ room and I’ll be right back by the time the champagne arrives.” And before Jamie could question her further, she headed for the rear of the restaurant.

  She loved the Tadich Grill. It was reputedly San Francisco’s oldest continuously operated eatery, founded, in its original incarnation, in 1849 in the wake of the Gold Rush. Its current California Street location near Battery in the Financial District attracted a wide spectrum of stockbrokers, dot-comers, hedge fund managers, politicians, “old” San Franciscans like her parents—and tourists, of course.

  On the right, a bar almost the same length as the building itself stretched from the front door to back. Per usual, the stools were fully occupied with diners, as was the row of tables on the left. Starched white tablecloths, each sporting a bowl of fresh lemon wedges, were on every table. The aroma of fresh filet of sole simmering in butter and breadcrumbs, a dish for which the Tadich Grill was justly celebrated, poured out of the kitchen in the rear of the restaurant. Alternating with the small, square tables in the main room and built into the high-gloss, wood-paneled walls on the left were alcoves with booths like the one Jamie and she were assigned that were large enough for up to six patrons. Additional dark wood paneling with large mirrors covered the walls illuminated by Art Deco brass and milk-glass light fixtures that hung from the high ceiling.

  It was an admittedly noisy restaurant, but if your name was Thayer, or that of other recognized San Francisco families like the Aliotos, the Feinsteins, or the deYoungs, a smaller number than six patrons would be granted one of the exclusive, bigger booths. Within the roomy cubicles cordoned off with individual curtains, private conversations could take place away from the cheerful babble in the main eating hall.

  By the time she returned to her seat after washing up, the waiter stood at the ready to pour from the bottle of her favorite French champagne. Once he departed and Juliet raised her glass in a mystery toast, Jamie demanded, “Okay. What gives? Did Finn ask you to marry him long distance?”

  Startled by this, Juliet burst out laughing. “No, but almost as good. Brad just fired me... or I quit. I’m not quite sure which one it was, but I am g-o-n-e, gone!”

  “He fired you from your job?”

  Juliet laughed again at the dumbfounded expression on Jamie’s face.

  “Yep! Even called Security to escort me out of the building, just like he did when Avery quit. He acted like a jackass, per usual, and I got mad, and without blinking an eye, he did a ‘Donald Trump.’”

  “Why did you fall for the bait? I thought we were playing it cool until—”

  “There was nothing cool about Brad’s dragging me into his office tonight and practically putting a gun to my head if I didn’t sign an agreement not to sell any stock until he said I could.” She was no longer smiling. “He tried to find you first to force you to sign, too, but you’d already left.” She looked at him sharply. “And don’t you do it!”

  She spent the next twenty minutes sipping champagne and giving chapter and verse of everything that had happened in their brother’s office that evening.

  “Holy shit... what am I supposed to do now?” Jamie fell silent for a moment and then said more quietly, “I want to quit, too. Or get fired,” he amended. “Doesn’t the company have to pay us severance if it gives us the old heave-ho?”

  “You bet I’m going to fight for some severance, and I don’t blame you for wanting to leave,” Juliet sympathized. “It’s a snake pit, all right, but your leaving GG at the same time as I do may not be our best move, ultimately. We’re going to need you on the inside for as long as you can stand it. I smell a big, fat rat at work in all of this. Somehow Brad knew, or suspected that you and I were planning an exit strategy so we could sell the preferred family stock at the company’s five-year mark and make our escape. What happened tonight was a power play he tried to pull to stop us.”

  “But how would he know what we’ve been discussing?” Jamie wondered. “Didn’t you say our lawyer promised absolute anonymity?”

  Juliet nodded. “Yes. It’s a big ethics thing with those firms. I’ll have to go through the exit process with GG’s Human Resources department, so maybe I can find out a few clues about all this.”

  “Good luck with that. They work for Brad, remember.”

  “But they also have to advise me of the SEC rules and my rights regarding the stock I own outright. I’m guessing I’ve pretty much lost my stock options after tonight’s fight. I doubt, now, he’d graciously grant me an acceleration so I could exercise them as an investment—which our lawyer told me earlier he could—if Brad were a nicer guy.”

  “Which—guess what—he isn’t.”

  “Even so,” she continued, “I’ll still have the family stock I own. Maybe there’s no need for you to quit and give up on your options yet. If my hunch is right, there may be a way, down the road, for you and Mom and Dad to exercise yours and acquire more stock at a good price. You’ve just got to hang in and do what you told me: keep your ear to the ground and your powder dry while we wait to see if there’s another takeover bid.”

  “You think there might be another one?” Jamie groaned. “Honestly, I don’t think I can go through that again. Dad, either.”

  “
It won’t happen right away,” she predicted, “but from everything I hear in the art department and in ladies’ room on occasion, those vulture capitalists are still circling—which is why Brad is so paranoid about our selling our family stock in July. To him, it’s nothing but a vote of ‘no confidence’ and a slap in his face, especially if you quit, now that I’ve been fired. You can use staying as leverage and refuse to sign anything!”

  “He is such a jerk,” Jamie muttered with disgust.

  “Well, his legendary failure as a leader is the company’s soft underbelly. Every kid in America may be playing Sky Slaughter, but from the rumors still floating around, somebody even bigger than the last group has great incentive to go in for the kill.” She clinked her glass against her brother’s as their waiter appeared with two aromatic plates of filet of sole doused in butter, lemon, and capers, with pasta on the side. “Here’s to you and me getting out of this deal alive and in decent financial shape.”

  “What are the parents going to say when they find out Brad fired his own highly talented, hardworking, and competent sister?” demanded Jamie with a scowl.

  Juliet smiled fondly at him across the table. “Thank you for saying that. As a matter of fact, Mom and Dad’s reaction to all this will be very, very interesting. I’m betting, though, it won’t be any different than it’s always been. Brad can do no wrong.”

  Just then, Jamie’s cell phone emitted a ping. He glanced down and heaved a sigh.

  “Brad again. This time it’s a text.” He paused, reading, and then banged his head against the booth’s paneled wall in a show of frustration.

  Juliet couldn’t contain her curiosity. “What’s he saying now?”

  Jamie read aloud from the small screen.

  High High Priority! FBI interviews tomorrow re encryption issues.

  All staff at office by 6 a.m.