“So you don’t hate me?” she asked and looked up at me through her tears.
“Not at all,” I lied, “although Justin probably has a slightly different view of the whole thing.”
“You can say that again, Emily replied and started crying again, “I don’t know if he’s ever going to speak to me again.”
“He will get over it and it’s good practice for him…it won’t be the last time in his life that he’s disappointed by a pretty girl like you,” I said.
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” Emily said and looked up at me through her tears.
“Now sit down for a second and I will get you a glass of water,” I said and led Emily over to the couch in her living room. Justin was sitting in the lounge, staring out the window at nothing in particular. He looked up and greeted me but didn’t say anything else and I could see that he was very upset. That’s when I really lost it and my anger took control of me as I saw how badly Justin was taking the whole thing of his mother selling the gifts I’d bought him. I walked over to the kitchen and felt like I could just shout at Emily in frustration of doing what she did without even discussing it with me.
When I came back from the kitchen Justin wasn’t there anymore and I could hear the door of his bedroom closing as he went off to go and sulk some more about the loss of his TV and PlayStation.
Now you know what it feels like when they take all of your favorite toys away in one fell swoop little buddy I thought to myself and remembered the sense of anger and loss I’d experienced when my dad took away my Porsche and credit cards. Despite Emily’s tears and the fact that she was clearly quite distressed about the whole thing I was now very angry. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d gone and sold the gifts that I’d worked so hard for, it was also the fact that she’d tried to hide from me what she’d done and the fact that she apparently didn’t give a shit about the way it had affected Justin. Her inconsiderate actions felt like a slap in my face and it had broken her own son’s heart in the process.
“Can you please stop crying now? I said in an irritated tone of voice.
“I knew it, you’re angry with me!” Emily cried and the tears started flowing freely again.
“Well not that it seems to matter to you, but I worked two weeks overtime to buy those gifts and you don’t even seem to care that you’ve gotten rid of the only real toys Justin seems to have ever owned in his life!” I shouted and stomped around the living room like a wounded buffalo.
Emily said nothing and just sat there crying. I realized that there was no point in staying there any longer as I was probably only going to get even angrier than I was already so I got up and stormed out of Emily’s apartment. I walked home in a rage and realized that I’d been keeping a lot of my frustration bottled up inside me about the poverty I’d been forced into by my dad’s stupid little fucking game of getting me to prove myself. I’d been pretending that it was all some kind of adventure or quest, while it really was nothing more than a continuous struggle for me.
I got home and sat down on the couch just to get some kind of equilibrium back. I realized right away that I’d taken a lot of my personal frustrations out on Emily and that she didn’t really deserve it. I regretted my thoughtless actions right away and wished I could just give her a phone call to apologize to her, but then remembered that I didn’t even own a fucking cell phone.
I lay down on my couch and tried to relax but it was as if my mind was in a spin and I could quite switch off. It took me almost a very long time before I felt calm again and when I looked over at the alarm clock on the table which was the only way for me to tell time after I’d sold my Rolex watch for $100, I saw that it was close to midnight already. I walked over to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. I thought that a beer would have been nice to help soothe my frayed nerves, but water was all I had in the house. I walked back to the living room and lay down on the couch without even taking off my clothes.
I fell asleep right there on the tattered old couch, thinking I would apologize to Emily first thing in the morning when I saw her at the factory. I was working a later shift than usual and Emily would probably already be hard at work by the time I got to the factory; perhaps she would already be over the whole drama of the TV games and my terrible reaction when I found out at she’d sold it to pay the rent .
I had the strangest dream after I fell asleep there in my living room. I dreamed that Emily was sitting in a little rowboat with Justin and I was standing on the shore, watching their ship as the waves came crashing over it. I tried to get in the water to swim over and help them, but Grant Belmont was standing right behind me and he kept pulling me back by my shirt as I tried to reach forward.
I woke up in a cold sweat and wondered what the hell the dream could possibly mean. Perhaps it meant absolutely nothing at all, but I still thought that I would have to do something real soon to try and help Emily and Justin out financially so that she wouldn’t be so stressed out about paying the rent…and the day was fast approaching that someone was going to have to do something about Grant Belmont so he would just stop bullying everyone on the factory floor.
EMILY
As angry and heartbroken as I felt about Nathan’s words I had to admit that he was right about one thing; I had broken Justin’s heart by selling his PlayStation and TV and there was no real way for me to make up for it.
I wondered if I’d done the right thing…was there perhaps another way I could have gone about it without having to sell off the only real toys Justin had ever had in his short little life? What if I’d opened up to Nathan about my financial difficulties and asked him to take Justin and I in under his roof…would he have done it or would that have been one step of commitment too far for him? No matter how many times I tried to run all of the various possibilities through my mind I got no real answers and realized that I was simply going to have to live with the consequences of what I’d done.
On top of everything else my car was starting to give me more and more trouble and I realized that I would have to get the money from somewhere to have it serviced before it stopped running for good.
I fell asleep right there on the couch and woke up late the next morning, about half an hour before I had to be at work. I’d never gotten around to setting my alarm clock the previous evening and now it was a race against the clock to make it to work on time. I felt so guilty about selling Justin’s stuff that I spent the little time I had left before work to make him a proper breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast.
When I finally got outside and climbed in behind the steering wheel of my little car and turned the key in the ignition there was absolutely no response from the engine. I tried gain, to no avail.
“Oh God please no, what else can go wrong today?” I muttered under my breath and got out of my car to start walking to work. It was at least a 20 minute walk and I just hoped that old Jerry would be able to cover for me like he always did.
“Grant wants to see you in his office,” Jerry said when I finally arrived at the factory and tried to clock in. He looked very concerned and I could just tell that Grant had somehow gotten wind of the fact that I was late.
“Close the door behind you and don’t sit down,” the ill-mannered swine said after I’d knocked and entered his office. He looked even more like arat than usual, as he’d tried to put some kind of gel in his hair and it just looked absolutely awful.
“I want you to hand in all of your work clothes and sign out for the last time,” he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Why?” was all I could say while my heart started pounding right through my chest.
“Because you’re fired, that’s why,” Grant said. He had a hideously satisfied expression on his face and just held his hand up when I tried to protest.
“Please save me the sad stories, you’re more than 20 minutes late and you know our policies.”
I walked out of Grant Belmont’s office in a daze and felt like I was living th
rough some kind of nightmare.
“I’m so sorry Emily, I tried my best to stop him,” Jerry said and I could see that some of the other factory workers were close to tears when they realized that I’d just been fired.
“It’s okay Jerry, I know it’s not your fault,” I said and handed him my work overalls. I didn’t even register anything else that Jerry was trying to say to me and glanced around the factory floor one last time before leaving it for the last time as an ex-employee of Edward Electronics.
When I finally got home I just sat down on a chair in the kitchen in absolute shock and wondered what I was going to do next. It suddenly seemed like such a waste that I’d sold Justin’s TV and PlayStation as we would soon be without an apartment anyway, despite all of my efforts to get money together to maintain our lease.
“Are you okay mommy?” Justin asked and put his arms round me. It finally all became too much for me and I burst out crying while my courageous little boy tried his best to console me.
“It’s okay mommy, I’m not angry about the TV games anymore,” he said and that made me feel even worse.
“You’re such a wonderful son and I love you so very much,” I said and sent up a silent prayer towards heaven that some kind of door would eventually open up for Justin and I so that we could just finally have a normal life.
“I love you too mommy.”
I thought of all the time we’d spent in the little apartment and how difficult it had been just to survive most months. Even though these had been very hard times this was still the only home we knew and now even this place was about to be taken away from us. We could just hang around indefinitely and hope for some kind of miracle, but time had taught me that miracles were few and far in between for a single mother working a dead end job.
There really was no choice. I would have to scrape together what little cash I had left and put some gas in the car and drive off with Justin to my parents in Arkansas. I knew that this would probably put a strain on them, as my dad would be going to hospital soon with the money I’d sent for his emergency operation, but it was either that or Justin and I would end up living in our car. As I was thinking along these lines it struck me that my car might not even start up for the trip to my parents. It sometimes gave me trouble when it was cold in the morning and then it would be fine again once it got warmer…I just hoped it would start and made a mental note to have it serviced sometime very soon.
“How would you feel like going on a little trip with mommy?” I asked through my tears and Justin looked so excited when I said it that I forgot about all of the challenges ahead and the fact that I’d been fired for just a second.
“Yippee! A real holiday!” Justin shouted and despite the fact that I was crying I smiled at his childlike faith. Perhaps it was time for me to stop worrying so much and to simply believe that things would all somehow work out in the end.
I got out two bags for Justine and I to pack our clothes and most important possessions in and took a final look around the little apartment before closing the front door behind us. I left the key in the window and realized I couldn’t give a damn if someone found it there and broke into the place. All of Justine and my belongings had fitted into the two bags I had packed and all of the furniture and other things left in the flat was the property of my slimy landlord who never made an effort to come around and fix everything that needed fixing so I didn’t really care what happened to his stuff inside the flat.
Justin looked so happy that I also managed a smile as we walked outside together. I opened the boot and put our bags inside and then got into my car to see if it would start.
“Please God, just grant me this one little miracle today,” I prayed and turned the key in the ignition. My temperamental little car sputtered twice and then the engine started up as if nothing had ever been wrong with it.
“Thank you,” I whispered and looked over at Justin who was sitting straight up on the passenger seat next to me with a look of sheer expectant exuberance on his face.
As little as I cared for the apartment I was leaving behind I still felt and incredible sense of loss as I pulled out of my parking spot and into the road that would take me out of Round Rock, Texas.
I was driving away from the only man I’d felt anything for over the last couple of years and I realized that I’d been denying the intensity of my feelings for him. I considered driving over to the factory to have a final word with Nathan and to apologize again for having sold Justin’s TV and PlayStation and perhaps just to look into his gorgeous eyes one last time. But then I remembered how angry Nathan had been the previous evening and thought he might just shout at me again and I definitely didn’t have the strength to face something like that in my already battered down state so I just took the turnoff towards the highway and kept on driving away from Round Rock, Texas… and away from the wonderful, slightly irresponsible man I’d hoped to get to know much better one day.
“Let’s put on the radio and sing,” Justin suggested and I turned up the volume button on the cheap car stereo. The sound wasn’t that good but we could hear the music and even though neither Justin, nor his unemployed mother, knew the words to the song we still sang out loud with the music as we drove down the highway toward Arkansas and an uncertain future.
NATHAN
I couldn’t believe what Jerry was telling me. How could Grant just fire Emily for being a little late? No matter how I tried to wrap my mind around it I simply couldn’t understand how anyone could be that cruel.
I knew that Emily’s car had been giving her trouble and if only I’d had any kind of mechanical skills I would have fixed it for her. I tried my best to get down to work but I simply couldn’t force my mind to get into the rhythm of fitting together electrical components as if nothing had happened. The whole debacle was compounded by the fact that I still felt incredibly guilty about my terrible behavior the previous evening at Emily’s place and now it seemed I might never get the opportunity to apologize to her.
I made some additional mental notes, next to some similar ones I’d already made, to teach Grant Belmont a little something about decency and good manners as soon as I got the chance. He badly needed some people skills and I could think of a couple of creative ways of helping him learn some. I took a look around the factory floor at all of the good people who kept slaving away every day for their meager salaries and thought how devastating it would be for them if my dad closed the deal with Mr. Cheng and his Chinese business consortium. If the factory was moved to China, like my father was planning to do under the deal with the Chinese, all of these factory workers would soon face the very same fate that had just befallen Emily that morning.
“I’m sorry Jerry, but I can’t carry on as if nothing’s wrong!” I finally announced as I left my work station on the assembly line and walked over to Jerry to hand him my work overall.
“Are you crazy? Grant won’t hesitate to fire you if you just leave your work station in the middle of a shift!” Jerry said and he looked very concerned.
“You know what Jerry? You should be the one sitting up there in Grant’s office and that rat faced bastard should be the one getting fired!
I walked out of the factory in a huff and suddenly I couldn’t give a shit if I got fired and failed my dad’s little test. It was time to set things right, or at least to try doing so before it was too late. I stood outside the factory for a while and wondered what I should do first. I decided to rush over to Emily’s apartment to see if she was okay. On my way there I kept rehearsing in my mind what I was going to say to her.
Emily I’m so sorry you lost your job! No, that wouldn’t do…I had to apologize for my terrible behavior first.
Emily I’m so sorry I acted like a total ass last night…yes, that was better, but what about the fact that she’d just been fired?
Emily I’m a total ass and I’m so sorry you got fired! Somehow I couldn’t quite come up with the right things to say and decided to just wing it as soon as she opened the
door. I knocked three times and waited for her to open like she always did. Nothing happened and I knocked again. Still nothing.
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and peered through the window. Everything looked quiet inside Emily’s flat and when I turned around I saw that her little car was not parked in its parking spot. She must have gotten it started somehow and I realized that she’d driven off somewhere. Apart from the fact that I had absolutely no idea where she might have gone I didn’t have any mode of transportation to drive off on a wild goose chase after Emily anyway, so I only had one final option available if I really wanted to try and fix everything that was going on.
I needed to go home and confront my dad.
Not only did I have to find some way to get Emily’s job back for her, I also needed to have it out with my old man about his plans to destroy the lives of all the good people working in his factory, just so he could lower production costs by moving the factory to China. I hated how my father only saw everything in dollars and cents and the time I’d spent working like an ordinary, struggling factory worker for Edward Electronics had taught me that here was a lot more to life than just making a profit. I was totally prepared to go back and work with the rest of the workers on the factory floor for the rest of my life, as long as I could save Emily’s job and all of the other workers’ jobs by convincing my dad to let go of his China plans.
I had no money left for a bus ticket so I ended up hitchhiking back home to Malibu, California on the back of some sixteen wheeler trucks and four by fours that rattled across the roads as if there was a constant earthquake striking the highway underneath us. It took me one entire day and night to get back to California and when I arrived there I was very hungry and I looked much the worse for wear.
When I finally stood in front of my parents’ large mansion it didn’t really feel like I was home at all…I realized that, as small and uncomfortable as my little apartment in Round Rock had been, I’d started thinking of it as my real home. I didn’t even have a cell phone to call my mom or dad to announce that I was coming home and now I had to pressed the buzzer outside the large security gate just to get someone to open up for me. Fabio, our French chef, answered and he was ecstatic to hear my voice.
Big Bad Billionaires [Volume 2] Page 44