One Final Step

by Stephanie Doyle

  “I like to see your shiny bald head. It makes me smile.”

  “I think you’re afraid when I die Anna is going to simply record my voice and run the business on her own and you’ll never know she’s got me buried in the backyard.”

  “Hardee, har.” Anna’s voice came from off the view of the computer’s camera. “Death humor. I love it.”

  It was comforting to know Anna would never leave Ben’s side. She was either the most dedicated assistant in all the world, or his very best friend. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

  The redhead popped her face over Ben’s shoulder. “Hi, Mad. So what do you think? Ready to come out of obscurity and take the world by storm again?”

  “Don’t pressure her,” Ben said, shooing Anna away with his hand.

  “I’m going to make your dinner. What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” he growled, not looking at the computer but at his assistant, who was once again off camera.

  “Steak and mashed potatoes? With asparagus in hollandaise sauce? That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  “Please, God, tell me you’re not going to attempt to cook that.”

  “Uh, duh. It’s called delivery.”

  Madeleine smiled. She shouldn’t have been worried about leaving him. Not with Anna there. “I see you are in good hands.”

  “I’m in impossible hands. I fire her daily, yet she keeps coming back. She knows I don’t have the strength to physically remove her and I find that absolutely galling.”

  Madeleine took note of the flannel robe and the lines around Ben’s mouth and eyes. He’d been a superhero once. First a servant to his country, then a man who charged in and rescued people from their failing lives. Now his life was failing and Madeleine wondered what the group would do without him.

  Not that everyone in the Tyler Group wouldn’t ultimately recover. Everyone Ben hired had a unique skill set that would always be valuable to people who needed that particular service. What Ben provided that no one else could, however, were the connections. Putting people together who needed each other the most. That was his special skill.

  She shivered a little and hoped he hadn’t seen it. She needed to think positive thoughts. “How is the treatment going?”

  “Treatment sucks.”

  “So I’ve been told. What are the doctors saying?”

  “I don’t want to talk about the doctors, I want to talk about you and the job. What did you think of Michael?”

  Where to begin? Her impressions raced through Madeleine’s mind at lightning speed. Handsome, intelligent, forceful, tightly wound. Not too dissimilar to the politicians she used to work with back in the day. The differences were subtle but they were there. Michael was not as polished. The Armani suit, which was tailored perfectly for him, still didn’t quite fit. His language wasn’t always refined, though there was no hint of the streets where, according to his famous bio, he apparently grew up.

  The boy from 8 Mile who went from stealing cars to becoming a legend in the racing world to creating an empire of specialty high-end vehicles sought out by millionaires and billionaires around the world.

  Now he was ready to turn his talents to mass marketing a car for the future. It was ambitious and noble, probably unlikely. Definitely unlikely considering the world still saw him as a frivolous speed jockey who liked to drink champagne from women’s cleavage after each victory.

  Strange, but the man who had sat across from her hadn’t looked much like the pictures she’d seen when doing preliminary research. His hair was natural brown with gold streaks rather than bleached white, as it had been during his days on the racing circuit. While his hazel eyes had been more prominent with the extreme color, they seemed fairly normal on a face that wasn’t as darkly tanned as it had been back then.

  Of course, in most pictures he’d always been wearing his custom-made trademark wraparound sunglasses. No real chance for a person to see his eyes and detect the intelligence and determination within them.

  “He was okay.”

  “Okay. What an abysmal word. Talk to me, Madeleine.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say. “He’s got potential. If he plays his cards right and changes his public persona, I think he would stand a better chance of having his ideas reach his target audience.”

  “Does he need your help to do that?”

  Yes. Madeleine was confident about that. She was sure he didn’t see himself the way she did. “I think so. You know my concerns.”

  “I know your concerns. I also know what it meant for you to leave your house to fly out there and meet him. And I appreciate that you did it because I asked. But, Madeleine, it’s been seven years.”

  She hated when people recited the number. It was like there was some magical timetable in the universe for recovery. After two years she should have moved on. After five years she should have put it in perspective. After seven years she should have forgotten it entirely.

  None of those things had happened. It made her feel weak. She hated feeling weak more than she hated people reciting the number of years since the incident.

  “I’m considering it.” She would sleep on it and decide if the fear of getting back into this line of work outweighed her need to do more than simply read or write about a subject.

  “Good girl. This job would be good for you. I know it. And Michael…well, Michael’s not what he seems. You know how the media can distort things.”

  “You mean like when they christened me the ‘Whore of the Twenty-first Century’?”

  Ben actually smiled. “Yeah. Like that. When you think about how ridiculous the name— It doesn’t matter. You can’t go back. Only forward. I’ve been letting you bury your head in the sand for five years coming up with idea after idea that other people take credit for. That time is over, Madeleine. You’re ready.”

  “Thanks, Pop.” It was a lecture she had received before, mainly from herself. She bristled a little to hear it from Ben.

  She understood she’d purposefully cut herself off from the life she once had. But it wasn’t as if anyone had come knocking on her door to pull her back into the political arena. She could be as ready to reenter the political world as can be. It didn’t mean she was going to get any job offers.

  “I’m not your father, I’m your employer. More importantly, I know you. Go research electric cars and Michael because you know you are itching to do it. Then call him in the morning and take the job. Consider my health-care costs. I need the money.”

  Madeleine snorted. Ben Tyler did not need the money. He did, however, need to think he was contributing to the group, helping its members. Especially at a time when he felt so physically useless.

  “I’m seriously considering it,” she told him.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Yo, cancer boy. Dinner is on the way and you are going to eat some of it even if I have to sit on your pathetically weak chest and force the food down.”

  Ben leaned into the camera and lowered his voice. “Do you see what I have to put up with?” To Anna he shouted, “You’re fired.”

  “Nice try, Donald Trump. Start making your way into the kitchen. By the time you shuffle here the food will have arrived.”

  Madeleine laughed and she could see a hint of a smile on Ben’s face before she disconnected the call. That was what made Anna completely indispensable. She still made Ben smile. And a man, no matter how sick, still wanted to smile once in a while.

  Left on her own, Madeleine thought about Michael. Michael, who needed a kingmaker.

  This was probably not going to end well, but the urge to reach for it was impossible to ignore. For seven years she’d felt like she was living someone else’s life. Happily, because her own life had imploded into a disaster. Lately, though, she’d begun to feel a sense of urgency. Like if she didn’t try to overcome her fears she would waste away and forever become the quiet hermit she’d made herself into.

  She was going to take the job.

  God help her.r />
  CHAPTER TWO

  “THIS IS IT.”

  Madeleine turned her attention to the flat-screen monitor on the wall and watched a series of images appear. At Michael’s urging, she’d agreed to come back to his office for an in-depth look at the project. Despite having made up her mind to take the job, she still found herself hesitating to tell him.

  Sitting with him now, the presentation was less important than observing the man. She watched as he animatedly went through each screen, detailing design changes, enhancements and improvements for the standard Detroit-made car, while at the same time utilizing the factory machinery already in place. He talked about making more space in the passenger seating area and trunk without the need for driveshafts and chassis.

  None of it made any sense to her. She was the stereotypical woman when it came to automobiles. She knew they needed a key and gas to work and every three thousand miles the oil needed to be changed. That was about all.

  “Okay, let’s talk about money. Are you still with me?”

  Madeleine nodded, then listened to him expand on costs. He discussed how many to build against projections of what would sell. And the price of the car and the impact it would have on the average American. Not to mention the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

  Madeleine had to smother a smile. The average American. It had been a long time since she’d heard anyone use that phrase so effectually. Because it targeted not a specific group, but everyone in the country. It was something politicians learned long ago, all American people, rich, poor and those in the middle, still liked to identify themselves as average.

  This man wasn’t average. He was extraordinary.

  Again she considered the bio on him she had read before agreeing to fly to Detroit. Raised by a single mother in the poor section of Detroit, he found he had a knack for both fixing up cars as well as racing them. It eventually led him into crime when he began to steal them. Incarcerated at the age of nineteen, he’d served all three years of his sentence.

  His time served was actually an anomaly. As a first-time offender for grand theft auto, the sentence made perfect sense. But with parole and relatively good behavior he should have been out in half the time. Instead he’d spent the full three years behind bars.

  After being released he went to work at an auto body shop. Archie Beeker still owned and operated it, not too far from where Michael grew up. In countless interviews, Michael always credited Archie with giving him his start, with saving his life. While working for Archie he began to rebuild cars from the scrap heap and was racing them in what was called “Formula X” races all around the country.

  Not the sleek, sophisticated machines of Formula One and not the stock racing cars of NASCAR, the Formula X cars represented the best designs built with the least amount of money. Eventually through his wins and his designs, Michael attracted the attention of a Formula One team who took him to Europe and the rest was history. After years of successfully racing cars in Europe he eventually retired and came back to his hometown of Detroit to start up his specialty car design company. A company that would eventually spawn the idea for the vehicle he was currently showing her.

  Madeleine tried to reconcile the images of the spiky-white-haired racer with the wraparound shades and the sedate businessman standing in front of her in his expensive suit and tie.

  But there were still edges to the businessman. His sleeves were rolled up. She could see his forearms were sprinkled with light brown hair. For a moment she was captivated by those naked arms.

  “So what do you think?”

  She thought his arms appeared very strong. Probably not the answer he was looking for and definitely not something she should be thinking about at all. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such thoughts about a man. Probably not in seven years.

  Another kind of counting she didn’t like to think about. She didn’t know what the fact that it had been so long said about her, a woman who hadn’t admired a man’s forearms in more than seven years.

  Cold? Most likely. Overly cautious? Definitely.

  “Have I finally convinced you?” he asked.

  “I think you believe in what you’re doing.”

  “Understatement. Did I sell you?”

  “I don’t know much about auto mechanics.”

  “Forget that, did I sell you as an average citizen? Would you buy this car? Would you believe you can save money by buying it?”

  Madeleine considered that. She drove a BMW. A nine-year-old gift from her father, which was beginning to show its age. He’d given it to her after she’d been hired by the Marlin presidential campaign. Tangible evidence of her success at such a young age. Her older brother, Robert, who hadn’t yet made junior partner at his law firm, had been seething with jealousy when her father handed her the keys.

  She should have done away with it years ago, if only because it brought back memories of a time when her father was proud of her. Not that she was hanging on to it for sentimental reasons, trying to hold on to a piece of him now that he was gone.

  Her father would disdain such impracticality.

  The future was where her head should be. Eco-friendly instead of maudlin and sappy. What Michael was describing would be better than all hybrids on the road today. Definitely a practical choice for her.

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying to regain her focus on the present instead of the past. “It almost seems improbable.”

  “Exactly! That’s my point. We get it into our heads that technology is so far down the road we think it will always be out of reach. I want to convince people the time is here and now. We can have this.” He pointed to the screen, now an image of a silver car anybody would want to own. “We can have this now.”

  “Then let’s talk about the other side of the equation. Tell me about you.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m the one being interviewed?”

  “Because you are. Remember, I need to believe in you as well as your project. You’ve sold me on the project, now sell me on you.”

  “I’m the problem, remember? It’s why I need you. I’m a hard-drinking, fast-car driving, womanizing playboy.”

  No, she thought, he wasn’t. There was so much more to him. She could sense it. There was a sincerity about him that playboys she’d met, and she’d met plenty during her days on political campaigns, never had. “You also run a successful luxury-car company. One wonders where you find the time for all your activities.”

  “A man finds time for what he wants. And I no longer actually race fast cars, at least not competitively, so there’s that.”

  “Why do I feel like you want me to see the worst in you?” She could see the question startled him, but she sensed it was getting closer to the truth.

  “I don’t. I’m trying to be honest here.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured. Again, she didn’t think so. Instinctively she felt like he was hiding something. It should have signaled her warning bells. After all, she hadn’t verbally committed to the job so it wasn’t too late to decline his offer. Instead she found herself desperately curious about him.

  “If you won’t tell me about the man you are today, tell me about who you were. Many have retold your success story. Kid from the wrong side of 8 Mile Road makes it big. How did that happen? How did you turn it around? You were a kid from a poor neighborhood…”

  “I was a poor kid,” he interrupted.

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “No. There is a big difference. There were kids who grew up in the same neighborhood I did who didn’t think they were poor. They had a mom, sometimes a dad, too. They had siblings and family meals. They ate three times a day and they went to school and did their homework. Yeah, maybe they wore shoes long after they outgrew them or pants that were too tight. They never got an extra helping at dinner, but they weren’t poor.”

  “You were different from them.”

  “In every way. It was just me and my mom. Don’t ask me about
my father, I have no idea who he is.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. He could have made things worse. As for my mother, it feels weird calling her that, mostly I called her Jackie. She was an addict. Big deal, right? So are lots of mothers on that side of town. Jackie was strung out most days doing whatever it took to get her next fix, while I survived on what the state gave us. I lived on Kraft Dinner and the dollar menu at the local fast-food place. We never talked from as far back as I could remember. It was like we didn’t even know each other. We were two people sharing the same apartment.”

  “Did you go to school?”

  “I tried for a while. I had this thought that I could use school to get out, but it was too much time spent sitting around talking and not enough doing. So I was done with that by seventeen. The only thing I cared about were cars and driving them fast. It’s how I got hooked up with Nick. He lived on the block and would see me screeching around town in my mother’s POS. He showed me how to fix cars, and my mother’s POS always needed fixing. Eventually he brought me into the game.”

  “Auto theft?”

  “Yeah, yeah. At first I just broke down the cars for parts. Then one day Nick takes me out and shows me how to jack them. I’m not going to lie—it was a pretty big high. My adrenaline would pump, but you had to make your fingers move and you had to remember how each car was different and how to shut down an alarm in seconds. In hindsight it was a blessing and a curse.”

  “A blessing?”

  “Kept me off the drugs. Nick didn’t tolerate that. Bad for business. No drinking, no drugs. When you jacked you needed full control of your senses.”

  “The hard drinking came later, then?”

  “Huh? Oh…yeah, yeah. Later.”

  Exactly. He was no more a hard-drinking man than she was a hard-drinking woman. Yes, he was definitely hiding something and it was only one of the reasons she was cautious about taking him on as a project.

  For one, he was a man in the media spotlight, which meant working with him was going to present some risk. Plus, while she didn’t exactly believe he was the scoundrel he presented himself to be, there were all those pictures of him at various parties with so many different women. Men, she found, didn’t easily give up the things they wanted—especially when they were told by someone else not to indulge.