by L. Maleki
Frank did not deserve anything of the kind.
“I should go. I just wanted to check in.” I paused. “Also, I should probably find out if your bosses are planning to invest with us after last night. What do you think? Who should I ask?”
“Oh my gawd, are you kidding me right now?” She held her cheek and giggle-grimaced. “Those good ol’ boys thought Frank was a hoot. Besides, they were all pretty liquored up by the time we had dinner. Let me tell ya, they can hold their booze. They may not have looked hammered, but they were. I’m sure they won’t remember most of his shenanigans.”
“Are you sure sure?”
“Not a hundred percent, but enough that I’d bet the farm.”
I swiped my brow dramatically. “Whew. Okay. Well, that’s one less thing to worry about.”
I wasn’t going to believe it until I saw a check written out to PRCM, but it was enough for me to convince Todd that everything was fine in good ol’ Texas and he should let me come home. But I was almost certain Frank was a human being and I couldn’t just abandon him, as much as I wanted to. Todd was right about that much.
Chapter 25
In the end, it was Michelle who solved the problem. Todd had told me I could come home, with Frank in tow, but he had to be stable and I had to do something about his hair.
“He can’t be seen like that!” the COO had exclaimed upon viewing a photo of the blue Mohawk. “He looks like he was trapped in a frat house basement!”
“Who knows. Maybe he was,” I’d said. Frank had yet to hold a coherent conversation with anyone.
Michelle suggested hiring a concierge physician, a private ambulance to drive us to the airport, and a hairdresser to accompany us home. She also worked out a deal with the pilot so he’d wait for us. Todd was not thrilled at the cost, but I told him I had Frank’s private credit card and that Frank was fine with me charging the costs to him. Which I am sure he’d agree to if he was lucid.
The medical personnel carefully pushed his gurney across the tarmac to the waiting jet. Anyone watching the bizarre scene would have to assume we were filming a movie. The travelling physician closely monitored the patient and the private ambulance attendees manhandling the tubes and wires coming out of my idiot boss. Frank, in a stupor, looked like Bozo the Clown fresh off a bender. They’d removed his head bandage, which revealed a line of Frankenstein-like staples across the top of his forehead.
Next to me walked a tiny elf of a woman in a long white lab coat. She was from the local high-end salon, supposedly their best colorist. I’d talked her into performing a miracle on our flight to New York, offering a handsome stipend and all the Dom Pérignon and caviar she wanted from the plane’s pantry. The pilot even agreed to let her fly back on the private jet, since he had to return to their Galveston base anyway.
As Frank was wheeled past us, she said, “You’re kidding me. That guy? Is he unconscious? What happened—” Then she focused on Frank’s ridiculous hair. “Oh. Look at that.”
She turned to me, wide-eyed. I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “Yep, that’s why you’re here. Need help carrying your bags?”
Once she was standing over the sedated patient in the cabin of the plane, his table locked down to the floor, the stylist poked at the blue spikes. “Damn. They sure did a number on him.” She twisted to face me. “I’ve only got three hours?”
“Maybe a little longer, but not much.”
The physician said sternly, “You better watch those staples. You get anything in the open wound, they’ll get infected. Not to mention it would cause Mr. Coyle pain.”
“Don’t worry about the pain part,” I told her.
“Hm. I’m gonna need a step stool.”
“The goal here is to make him look as normal as possible.”
“Hm.”
With the physician watching the hairdresser’s every move like a hawk, I sought out the longest couch. I was asleep in under three seconds.
I woke up forty minutes out from NYC.
Frank was already awake and groggy. He’d made the physician put his hospital bed at an incline so he could see around him and drink some water. His bald head reflected the sun from the window.
The colorist had decided shaving his head was the best option, especially since the Mohawk had been wide in some places, narrow in others, with wandering margins. The dye had left a blue stripe on his scalp, with runlets of indigo staining the back of his neck. It didn’t come off with salt scrubs or cleansers, so finally, she’d bleached his skin, leaving an angry red streak down the middle of his head. She assured me once the skin recovered from the chemical burn, he was going to look normal. Or as normal as a bald dude with scraggly eyebrows, pasty skin, and a row of forehead staples could look.
“What happened?” He squinted up at me, the money green of his eyes dimmed to a slate gray. The physician and hairdresser stepped away to give us privacy.
“I don’t know, Frank.”
“I missed Liam’s birthday party, didn’t I?” His face drooped, and a tear dropped from his left eye. It was hard to tell if it was genuine regret or a side effect of the morphine.
“Yes. You did. Your wife is not happy.” I’d show him the video later. “But I was able to get a hold of Bieber’s assistant. Justin made it to the party on time, sang a couple of songs for the kids. Liam probably didn’t even notice you were gone.”
For most parents, that would sting. Not Frank. Waves of relief swept over his rubbery face. “Oh. Thank you. Thank you, Paris.”
I hunched over in my seat, disgusted with the soft, mopey disgrace of a man. Propping my chin in my hands so I wouldn’t throttle his fat neck, I said, “You know, Frank, family is forever. Liam is a great kid. I hope he remembers you as a good dad.”
He coughed and then winced, putting a hand to his bandaged ribs. “My father was such an asshole. Coyles don’t produce functional families. Just money.” He hit the button on his dripline for more morphine. Slurring, he said. “I bet your dad was a real doozy. Were you allowed to leave your house in Afghanistan?”
“My family is from Iran, you—” Swallowing it down, I said, “My dad was the best dad ever. He did everything for me.”
His eyelids closed; I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he said, “That’s nice. Is he dead?”
I gazed off into the distance. My dad was at home, packing, likely getting ready to live in his car. “He’s alive. But now he’s about to lose everything he built because I’ve been spending my time worrying about you firing me instead of helping him.”
“Yeah …” His voice drifted, far away.
The bitterness and rage billowed. I bent over him, close enough to spit in his face. “People like you, who can’t tell the difference between a Persian or an Arab, are ruining my dad. He’s no jihadist. He’s just a good guy trying to live the American dream.”
There was no stuffing my emotions back in the box now, but Frank had closed his eyes again, breathing the deep breaths of sleep. I poked him but he only grunted.
“You’re such a pig! Yes, I have dark skin. My dad has dark skin. Does that mean it’s okay for him to lose his business? His house!” A torrent of words and feelings and tears spilled out. I wanted to scream, to penetrate Frank’s fog, but I don’t think it would have mattered. “I could be helping him, but no, I’m here, in a private jet with someone who treats his own kid like a dog, while they foreclose on the house I grew up in.”
“I mumble jabba wob …” Frank mumbled, surprising me, and then his chin dropped to his chest. He was out.
Todd and another private ambulance met us on the blacktop in Teterboro. A clammy smog blurred the horizon in every direction. So different than Galveston, which was moist and hot, even in May, and had an ocean that scrubbed the air clean. Our slice of the Atlantic … not so much.
The COO approached the slack-faced, drooling CEO. Frank’s shaved, blistered head was gray against the white sheet. He did look better than he had three hours ago, though, even with the staples
and the chemical burn. Unfortunately, Frank was not the hip guy who could pull off the bald look. At all.
“Excellent work here, Paris.”
I did not appreciate Todd’s sarcastic, ungrateful tone.
“Asshole,” I said behind my teeth. I’d always liked Todd, but this was too much. He’d asked too much, and expected too much, and said too much.
“What was that?” He cupped a hand behind his ear, an impatient grandfather move.
“Nothing,” I said, a disgruntled child.
Todd frowned at me before turning away. “You,” he said to the waiting medical personnel. “Take him to his house. Paris will go with you.”
“I can’t,” I interrupted. “I have an issue I need to take care of immediately.”
“Yes, you do. Frank. Frank is your issue.”
He walked away without looking back.
I stood outside the door of room 729, trying to clear my head. It was late afternoon, long after I told Gina I’d be there. Lucia had now been in Mount Sinai for over twenty-four hours, her baby in jeopardy.
Instead of caring for my friends, I’d cared for Frank. What kind of choice was that? Who did that? My only comfort was that Lucia did have Gina in the midst of her crisis. My dad was also in crisis, but he stubbornly refused to talk to me. Keeping my job and sending him money, especially with the raise, was the only immediate solution I could see. Okay, I told myself, so I wasn’t choosing Frank over Lucia, I was choosing to do what I could to help my dad.
Would my friends buy that?
Peeking through the window outside the room, I could see Lucia sleeping inside. There were machines monitoring her and the baby. Everything seemed calm, the beeps and chimes rhythmic and soft. Gina was sacked out on a padded armchair, head hanging in an awkward position, like a kid asleep in the back seat on a long car ride.
My heart cried out to them, but I was too terrified to go in. What if they didn’t understand, if they shouted at me, told me to leave? My heart palpitated, imagining the horrific scene, something out of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Gina throwing a chair at the wall while Lucia wailed “I hate you!” in Italian.
They need you. You’re here now. Stop being such a wuss.
Gina woke up, caught sight of me, glanced at the sleeping Lucia, and trudged to the door.
I stayed in the hallway. “What can I do?”
“What can you do? First off, change your clothes, girl. You smell like a guido after a night in the clubs.” She peered up at me through tired and very judge-y eyes. “Are you wearing a bra? Your bubbies are on high beam.”
I buttoned up my cardigan. “Sorry, my bra strap broke. Things got a little crazy. And not in a good way.”
“Are you drunk?” She eyed me suspiciously.
“No, I swear.” I glanced down. “I mean, I want to be drunk, but come on, I want to help. I want to be here. Do you need me to get anything from your apartment? Please, what can I do?”
“Just slow up for a minute.”
Gina and I stood outside Lucia’s hospital room, studying the Italian model through the window. She appeared so young, her slight body propped up on the bed. Her eyes were closed, blue veins pulsing behind her eyelids, both hands pressed against her belly, protecting the baby. Her hair was flat and shapeless, and the dark circles under her eyes could easily be mistaken for black eyes. My face scrunched up, trying to hold back tears.
“Every time they think they’re going to send her home, the baby’s heart rate drops again. If there was anything to be done, we’d be doing it.” Gina rested her forehead against the glass. Her dark brown pageboy haircut covered the sides of her face, like a nun’s habit. “I’m not much of a praying kind of girl, but my mama and my nona have a prayer chain in full swing back in Italy. Feel free to tag on to that.”
“She’s letting you tell people … ?”
“No. I wish. I told my family that one of my close friends is about to lose a baby but I didn’t give any details.” It was hard to understand what she was saying with her nose pressed flat against the glass. Maybe she thought if she pressed hard enough, she’d be back in her own reality, everyone safe and happy. “She made me go home this morning, saying she wanted to be alone for a while. She’s been sleeping ever since I got back.”
I pressed my forehead to the glass next to her. Sharing space. Breathing air together.
She sighed heavily on the glass and then drew a smiley face in the condensation. “She’s my family. I will help her raise that baby. I’ll be the perfect auntie. Lucia would do it for me.”
Lucia’s eyes fluttered open. She groggily peered around, and I watched her focus on the steady heartbeat pulsing on the machine next to her and visibly sigh in relief. Then she caught sight of us at the window and raised a weary hand to wave us inside.
At her side, I hugged her gently. “Oh, Lucia.”
“Don’t you dare cry.” Her voice was raw. “She’s a tough little bambina.”
“You said ‘she,’ Lucia,” Gina whispered, taking her hand.
Lucia smiled, nodding to her. “They did an ultrasound when you were away.”
I took her other hand. “They told you the sex?”
She squeezed our hands and laid them on her belly. Warmth seeped into my palm as our fingers tangled together over this new life.
“Say hello to my beautiful baby girl.”
“Hello sweet thing,” I whispered.
“She’s moving already?” Gina’s voice was filled with wonder.
Lucia offered a small grin. “No, not yet, but she’s alive.” Her hands on top of ours, she squeezed again. “Così molto vivo. So very much alive.”
Chapter 26
Monday morning, I reported to my desk as if the past weekend hadn’t been straight out of a ridiculous, over-dramatic telenovela. Frank was out, back at his home with private care, a pile of burnt clothes, and an unhappy wife. Liam may or may not have been talking to him, thanks to his impromptu birthday concert. Lucia was still in the hospital, the baby’s heart rate continuing to dip and soar with no explanation. I didn’t want to go, but Lucia insisted both Gina and I go to work. Instead, Gina and I set up a rotating schedule, so one of us was always available.
I’d spent the night at the hospital. Another hospital, another uncomfortable chair, another round of unanswered texts and calls to my dad. I didn’t even bother reaching out to Benji. I didn’t have the strength to deal with the amount of apologizing ahead of me. And the whole painful ordeal would probably be for nothing—I couldn’t see how he was going to forgive me for turning my back on his clients.
A quick early-morning shower at home before heading into PRCM had not made me feel much better. As the elevator doors slid open to reveal our offices, the desire to quit tasted like iron in my mouth. But I’ve invested so much time and tears in this stupid company, I refuse to walk away without making something of myself. I will not go backward in the world of finance. That would help no one at this point.
I called a short meeting with the available PRCM staff on our floor. Todd was not invited. The gray-haired COO was classier and more polite than Frank, but in the end his focus was on the bottom line, not the individuals working for him. I no longer trusted him.
“I’m sure some of you have heard. It’s true; Frank broke two ribs and has a collapsed lung. It seems he was mugged. But he’s fine now. Todd had him brought home, so he’s back in New York, if you feel the need to stop in and check on him.”
No one in the room said a word. When the head of Investor Relations coughed, we swiveled in her direction. Andrea, surprised at being in the spotlight, coughed again and then held a tissue to her nose, her French manicure lacking its usual luster. “Just a cold. Sorry.”
Nicki snorted and turned to me. “I heard he’s come back with a shaved head. Is that true?”
I nodded but didn’t offer any more information.
“What happens in Galveston stays in Galveston, huh?” Nicki shook out her long red hair, a skinny bul
lfighter waving a flag. “It seems like you fell down on the job, if our boss was out on the streets, alone. What were you doing?”
“Nicki, shut up. My God, you are annoying,” said Michelle, glaring at the girl over her glasses. “As if you don’t know what he’s like. Anyway, Paris, tell us about the investors. Are they on board?”
“Frank tried his hardest to tank the deal but, yeah, they are going to go with us, as far as I can tell.” I tucked some long strands of hair away, out of my face, thoughtful. “Actually, during the meetings, when he wasn’t drinking, he was pretty amazing. I could see why people turn to him. He truly is brilliant.”
There were nods and shrugs around the table, among the traders. The young new analyst said, “Everyone knows he’s the best. Our college professors lecture on some of his biggest trades. No one can figure out where the market is swinging like he can. Why else stay? It’s not because of his office manner.”
That turned into a round of “Yeah, remember when he …” and a bunch of “Let me be Frank with you,” followed by impersonations and hysterical laughter.
The professional men and women in the room were satisfied to be cogs in this particular machine as long as they could make money and let off steam once in a while.
“Remember when he missed his flight in Frankfurt? Did you ever hear that one, Paris?” asked one of the traders, a guy in his thirties who wore golf shirts and was notorious for stealing other people’s lunches out of the staff refrigerator. “It’s why his last assistant quit.”
“You mean Ericka? The executive assistant?”
He nodded. “I don’t blame her. Frank called her at one in the morning, screaming that she needed to book him another flight, and then call Lufthansa and have the Frankfurt first class lounge workers fired. He had missed his connection because no one from the lounge had told him his flight was ready. When Ericka called, the attendant was irate—she’d told Frank multiple times they didn’t do all-calls. Then Frank missed the alternate flight they’d booked him on—for the very same reason! Instead of figuring it out, he went back to his hotel. He said he wasn’t leaving until Ericka flew over and got him onto a plane. She went. And guess what?”