He nods and slowly lowers himself gently onto the opposite couch. The couches face each other like a quaint little conversation ensemble. I am beginning to see what Natalie meant; this place does look like a formal, personality–less, furniture showroom. And how perfectly the backdrop fits Jayden’s smooth elegance. He almost perches like a formal society dame might have back in the Victorian era.
“So it is about her. Look, guilt is a normal thing to feel. But don’t take it so hard. You’re only a guy. You work harder than anyone I know. Maybe you were tired. Maybe your judgment was off. But a beautiful woman like her? How could you resist her?”
My head whips back. “She told you?”
He shakes his head, and his mouth twists as he gives a little half shrug. “Well, no. I hired her.”
Speechless can’t begin to cover what my drink–addled mind spins into. I don’t comprehend what he just said. “Hired who?” I mean, what the hell is he talking about?
“Chantal. I asked her to help you alleviate some of your stress. I know how hard we’ve worked you on the Steckler account. After we had that talk about you and Natalie, I figured you needed to blow off a little steam. You deserved a reward for all your late nights and hard work. That’s why she showed up so late. Didn’t that ever occur to you? What other secretary would stay there so late? It wasn’t a set–up. It was just… a gift. She’s known for helping some of us with over–exhaustion and stress. For a fee, of course. Pretty mind–blowing, huh? That thing she does with her tongue—”
I’m on him before I realize I’ve even moved. Underwear and all, I attack Jayden on my couch. I shove him, my torso knocking hard into his before pinning him onto the couch and slamming my fist in his face. Completely taken off guard, he doesn’t react for a few seconds until his mind registers what his body is feeling. He raises up his arms, blocking my next hit, and shoves hard at my head, pushing me while he tries to rise. If I were one hundred percent myself, or even sober, he’d never have gotten me off him. But drunk and in my present sloth–like condition, he easily gains the upper hand. I land on my ass, sprawled out. “What the hell is your problem, Sam? I was helping you. You didn’t have to do it. All you had to do was say no if you didn’t want to.”
All I had to do was say no. The truth of his offending statement fills my ears and singes my brain. I hunch forward, totally defeated, cradling my pounding head in my hands, and pressing hard against my temples. Damn. He’s right. I wasn’t forced. It seems incomprehensible that Jayden would hire a woman for me, but even worse that I’d have taken him up on it.
In my peripheral vision, I see Jayden smoothing out his suit. I didn’t hit him hard enough to hurt him by any stretch of the imagination. His disdain for me now is evident. “Don’t you think your guilt here is a bit over the top? Quitting? She’s not going to sue you, or expose you. She’s as safe as it gets. You think I’d risk damaging any of our reputations with bad publicity? Chantal is the best and the most discreet. Plus, she has just as much to lose as we do! Her discretion is as real for her as it is for us. Relax, Sam. It’ll remain our little secret. The dramatic resignation? A little much. I don’t appreciate that. Not any of it. ”
“Natalie walked in. She—she saw me. She saw us.”
Silence. “Ah. That’s what this is all about? Well, I can’t say I planned for that possibility, although it’s kind of perfect. Look at this for real, Sam. It’s your chance to get ahead and really focus on your career. She never wanted that for you. You can’t deny that. She held you back. No, us back. Come on, shower, and get yourself together. Let’s go talk. We can work this out. I’m sorry, really, I didn’t intend for that to occur. But is it really the worst news?”
“Get out!” I finally whisper through gritted teeth. My anger, shock, and rage simply overflow from me. I hunch over on the floor of my expensive, pointless company housing, banishing the very man who gave me all of it, and suddenly see the transparency of all the mistaken illusions I ever harbored about what was important in life. I don’t even have the energy to passionately say it. The urge to beat my fists against my chest and scream at Jayden for what he did and for no good reason is pointless. He refuses to see or admit he did anything wrong.
“Sam? You don’t mean that. You’re just in a bit of shock. Stress. I know… Take a few days off. Let the dust settle. Take as long as you need. We’ll talk when you’re sober and have had some time to analyze everything.”
“I quit, Jayden. Forever.” I look up, my speech no longer slurred. Slowly rising with as much dignity as I can muster in my underwear during the middle of the day, I stare right into his eyes. “Just leave.”
“Don’t do this. You need me. This is your chance to pursue your dream. We can make this work. We can—”
“Get out!” I command one last time as I pass around him and disappear. I plan to hibernate in my bed some more.
****
“What’s going on, Sam?” I nearly drop the bottle I’m tipping to my mouth when my brother’s voice startles me. Grabbing it just before it falls, the sticky liquid covers me and the bed.
Oh, hell no. I don’t want to tell my brother about it. My brother stands there in his work uniform, all shaved and properly put together. My brother, the most decent damn person I’ve ever known. His job is installing media for private homes. He works for a ginormous conglomerate, nine–to–five, five days a week. He’s never missed a single day. Nor worked an hour longer than his daily schedule. He has humble ambitions, and is perfectly content with his well–paying job and solid hours. He’s amiable, kind, and decent. He does not have an ounce of resentment or jealousy for my financial success in comparison to him. Nothing but good will from Dustin. And Dustin’s best friend is Natalie. I can’t tell him what I’ve done. He’ll think I’m a total scumbag. He’ll think I’m horrible, awful, nasty, and a complete prick… and worst of all, he’ll tell my mother.
I cringe and drink more liberally, picturing my parents when they discover what I’ve done. What kind of man I truly am. And not the son they raised and made sacrifices for.
I lift my blurry gaze to my brother. He is staring at me in his quiet, patient way, waiting for me to answer him. He must’ve used a key to let himself in. His uniform is still ironed and neat. His service van is parked in my driveway.
At first glance, I appear by far to be the successful brother. My house is huge and in a neighborhood that we should not have been able to touch. In all honesty? We can’t. The house I live in belongs to the company; and we rent it at low cost; it’s one of my employee perks. It’s their way of projecting a more positive image. My car is a high-end sports car, and my brother drives a nice, reliable, mid–grade sedan. Some of the suits I wear cost as much as he pays to finance his car for a month or two. Yet, never once could I say that I am the better man. I’ve always known that. Dustin is content with the man he is and what he has managed to attain. He’s always been that way. Even worse still? He’s happy for me whenever he observes me getting something I want. No resentment, envy or jealousy.
I glance down at the underwear I’ve been wearing for the past three days. Look at me now.
How do you tell a guy who would rather sell his last possession than tarnish his integrity what I’ve done? He’s the one who works every Sunday at a soup kitchen, actually believing he can make a difference in the community we grew up in. Our old neighborhood is now mostly gangs; the working class has, no doubt, fled. With rampant poverty, the field we once played and roamed in has been tagged and graffitied countless times. Except no one even tries to maintain it now. No one with a brain goes there unless it is to score or sell some dope. Nonetheless, Dustin faithfully appears there, serving soup at the shelter closest to our old neighborhood and spending the day helping and encouraging others less fortunate than he. In short, Dustin is always decent.
How do I tell someone like that what I did?
How can I not tell him? It’s not like I can lie. One can’t lie to someone who’s as good and decen
t and kind and just plain nice as Dustin. Especially not when he’s staring right at me, quietly waiting for me to answer. Whenever you’re ready, his casual slouch tacitly conveys to me. He’ll stand there, waiting until he’s gray. Never in a hurry, he doesn’t expect anyone else to be either.
I lean forward, feeling miserable, and rest my elbows on my knees. I’m too ashamed to look up at him as I rub my hands through my hair. “I screwed up. Everything,” I mumble.
“What’s happening, Sam? Where’s Natalie?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper shamefacedly. I am so horrified. Who loses their wife?
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean, I literally don’t know where on Earth she is right now.”
The ensuing silence is heavy and somehow passes judgment. Dustin’s silence is always telling. “What did you do?” Dustin asks in a strangled voice. An upset voice.
I look up at my brother. He is shaking his head. His eyes grow bigger. He knows. He can tell. He knows me well enough to see when I’ve screwed up. I’ve done that so often in the past, when my greed and ambition go too far. Or while trying to reach for something far beyond what I deserve. Or when I am selfish. I recall when we were only eleven and nine. There on the street was some homeless guy, lying around our stoop, asking for money. I stepped over him and ignored his request, snickering at him mercilessly with my friends. While he tried to sleep, I would often play pranks on him. Sometimes, I’d place raw eggs in his hands, hoping he would squeeze and crack them open all over his palms. My friends and I derived great amusement in our torture of the poor guy. At the very least, I always bullied him. I never once thought I was wrong until I witnessed my little brother, who once followed me, gently removing the egg I put in his hand and replacing it with the few dollars he’d taken from his piggy bank. He never said a word of rebuke to me. I can still remember the snickers of my friends, and even more, the heat of my embarrassment. Sure, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I wouldn’t have done it on my own, but under the power of mob mentality, peer pressure and being eleven, becoming such a bully got easier. Dustin? Never. Never once could anyone convince Dustin to do anything he knew deep down was wrong.
“I cheated on her.”
The words come out in a strangled whisper. My voice sounds like sandpaper and nearly abrades my vocal chords. The words alone fill my head with dizziness.
“Sam…” Dustin’s voice cannot conceal his shock.
“She saw me. She saw me having sex with another woman. So you see, Dustin? She’s gone. Forever. There is no more Natalie in my life. Go ahead, tell me what a piece of shit I am. A selfish, awful piece of shit. Just tell me. Go ahead.”
Silence. More of his awful silence. I finally raise my eyes to observe his reaction. His eyebrows are drawn down in what? Shock? Horror? Hatred? Disdain? Sympathy? I don’t know. Then, he finally shakes his head gently and asks, “Why? Why did you?”
I shrug as I stand up, the sudden movement making me wobble. I want to storm around, stomping my feet, raising my fists, and railing about what she failed to contribute to our marriage, defensively claiming I wasn’t all to blame. The silence endures. So much judgment. So much loneliness. But that’s all a cop-out. Dustin won’t buy it anyway. “I don’t know,” I finally mumble, and the sad, pathetic, worse truth is that I sincerely don’t know why I did it.
“Is it an ongoing thing?”
“No. It was a one–time mistake. Never again.”
Dustin nods and says calmly, “Tell me about it. What happened?”
Staring at my brother, his caring words make a lump in my throat, which threatens to suffocate me. I blink my burning eyes. “We can’t have kids. It started… it started then. Everything that happened, well, it all started with that.”
Dustin nods as he sits on the edge of the bed. “You never told me that.”
“We never told anyone. She didn’t want anyone to know.”
“And you? What did you want?”
I stare at my brother, my face and mind blank. I have no idea what I wanted. We hadn’t talked about it for many months now. I tried to ignore any feelings I had concerning it. Due to Natalie’s history, she didn’t want to adopt. She interpreted her inability to conceive a child of her own as an ironic sign that she wasn’t supposed to have kids. Therefore, I was also not going to have kids.
I wanted kids. Badly. That’s what first made us start trying. It was all because of me. And after we figured out it wouldn’t be as easy or as natural as it was for most couples, I tried to be as kind and considerate as I could. She took the news pretty well and never seemed to dwell on it. But now? My mouth is hanging open as I realize I was never okay with it. I really wanted to discuss other options, any options with Natalie. But how could I insist when I didn’t want to hurt her or make her feel any blame for it? She was okay about it, and let the matter go. But I’m realizing now, I was not okay, and I didn’t let it go. Instead of facing it with her, I tried to pretend things were okay, when everything was actually all wrong after that.
I pretended we were focusing on enriching the lives we did have. We loved our jobs and the business of our lives. We loved being able to do what we wanted when we wanted to. The trouble is, I’m realizing now, it wasn’t enough for me and yet I didn’t tell her and I resented her deciding it for me. My anger built from that resentment until we stopped doing anything with each other after that. “I don’t know what I want. Even if I knew, I’m not sure how I’d tell her.”
He shakes his head and sighs. “You were always the smartest, savviest student and businessman in the room, but you never had a goddamned clue about your feelings.”
He’s right. I’ve never had a goddamned clue, and I have less of one now than before. I’ve completely demolished my life. I was never prone to self–destruction before. I don’t have hidden addictions, or kinky fetishes. I don’t secretly go off and gamble and have sex outside of my marriage has never been something I even considered. Yet, I did that. Clearly, with no real thought, I did that. And Dustin is right, I’m almost clueless about my reasons for doing so, more so than anyone. How can I figure out the best way to fix something when I can’t even figure out what the problem is? And now that I’ve clearly divulged the huge disparity between us, how can I even begin to fix it?
Chapter Six
Sam
The summer I came home from college, before I started earning my MBA, she was there. With Dustin, of course. Those two hung out like dudes. Never once, to my knowledge, did anything romantic ever occur between them. Friends ‘til the end. Not even a flicker of looks at each other, or flirting. Dustin was always kind of methodical, and easy to be with, and he let me and Natalie occupy the forefront. We both had dominant personalities that took front stage to Dustin’s quiet steadiness.
The summer I went back home, I was coming down off the high of college life. College went well for me. I earned excellent grades, and made even better connections. The freedom of being away from our street on one end of Mission District was heady and intoxicating. I didn’t often reveal my upbringing, or mention where I came from. I could play the part of a preppy guy with no worries, monetary or otherwise. I got pretty good at pretending I had more money and higher social status than I actually did. After befriending the guys in a popular fraternity, I made the kinds of connections that would lead to my future success. One guy in particular stands out.
And that of course was Jayden Hall. He was the typical president of the fraternity, earned straight As, and his dad ran a huge firm. Those were all the buzz words I needed. The firm was named BorderLine Solutions, which managed the investment portfolios for dozens of highly visible millionaires and billionaires. They handled the fortunes for individuals, families and corporations whose fortunes were made off of anything from inherited riches, international banking to large retail stores. When I graduated, Jayden recruited me to start working for his dad’s company. At that point, I said no. I intended to move to Los Angeles and fin
ish my MBA at UCLA, after which I planned to get a job there. I also had a few other job prospects in mind from an internship I did a few summers back.
But when Natalie’s mom died, she had a mini–emotional breakdown, and I ended up in San Francisco, eventually taking Jayden up on his offer. Jayden was already one of the executives, but having his endorsement, along with my natural intelligence, hard work, and charisma, I managed to go pretty far. Starting as an investor and paper pusher at the age of twenty–three, I was fresh out of college. Sure, I had visions of dollar signs hanging in front of my eyeballs. I was motivated and unabashedly ambitious. I had so many things I wanted to do, and buy, and status I wanted to obtain. It wasn’t just about material possessions and greed. I wanted to do something significant with my life. I wanted my work and my life to matter. I wanted to achieve the status that went with being an executive. I longed for the lifestyle as much as I wanted the salary.
Jayden became my mentor, colleague and friend. I trusted his advice. Jayden taught me how to dress, where to shop, and what shoes to buy. I knew nothing at the time. I had to study and learn about all the things that Jayden was weaned on. Things like how to behave and entertain others with polite, innocuous conversation. And the country club? That was a foreign language to me. I studied men’s magazines just to try and remember all the hot brands and designer names and stupid, uppity shit like that. It was all new for me. Jayden knew his stuff and didn’t steer me wrong. I spent a lot of my time learning how to be a member of the elite class that Jayden inherited at birth.
It worked. I soon started to garner attention and interest. I worked harder than anyone. I was the most detailed–oriented, and also an out–of–the–box thinker. Some of my ideas earned the company big money. Always an attention-getter, my clients trusted me. Perhaps my greatest asset was that women liked to flirt with me. Their mild attraction toward me and coy flirtation often landed me clients I might not have otherwise appealed to. Even the men seemed drawn to me. They were mostly older, corporate types who saw me as a younger version of themselves. I was “mentored” by about half a dozen different clients. Of course, they never knew the others were also “mentoring” me, and they seemed to find that role flattering. Again, my desire to become their case manager was owing to my gift for schmooze. Maybe I’m downright manipulative, but I prefer to call it charismatic.
Leanne Davis - Natalie (Daughters Series #2) Page 6