by L. Maleki
So. While I’d been plotting Frank’s demise, he’d secretly paid off my father’s debt. Once again, I’m the asshole.
The only time I’d talked to Frank about the house was when he was drugged, on the plane home from Galveston. Just after I’d told him that I’d sent a rock star to his son’s birthday party in his stead and that he was a terrible human being. I sighed heavily. It’s so hard to judge where exactly in Hell Frank belongs when he does things like this. Glad I’m not the one in charge of his soul.
I peeled myself off the floor outside the boardroom, choosing to be long gone before the meeting ended. I did not have the strength to face anybody, including the racist, misogynistic bastard who saved my family home and kept me from committing a felony.
Back at my desk, I unlocked the desk drawer and hefted out the black binder. The Book of Frank. I tore a sticky note off, wrote a few sentences, and then stuck the note to the front of the binder:
Frank, I did not fire Michelle. She is the one who created this book. She is the reason your big Texas deal happened. She is the one who knows how everything in this office works, including you. She is fiercely loyal to PRCM, though you don’t deserve it. If you don’t hire her as your executive assistant, you’re an idiot. Be good to her and she’ll make sure PRCM runs like a watch.—Paris
P.S. You are a jerk. But thank you for keeping me from doing something criminal and stupid. And, I think, maybe, for setting me free? Most importantly, thank you for saving my father’s house. You did a good thing there.
I placed the Book of Frank squarely on his desk, smiling at the spiked aluminum art and the shelf with the shards of blue crystal, taking in the crazy that was Frank one last time.
I might never know for sure why he paid for the house. Or if he’d said those terrible things in order to make me stand up for myself … Nah. He’s just a racist. A racist with money to burn.
Someday, maybe, I’d talk to him about it, but not that night.
Todd was waiting for me at my desk.
“I didn’t take anything from his office,” I said haughtily. “You can look.”
“Paris, I’m sorry.”
The nicety was so unexpected, I had to choke back tears.
“Listen,” he said, sitting on the edge of an armchair in front of what had been my desk earlier that morning. The office was empty of people. He hadn’t brought the police with him. He continued, “This whole debacle came about because of a lack of communication between Frank and I. I knew there was something going on, but I wasn’t sure what. My reports weren’t matching up. I’d narrowed it down to having to do with you and Nicki, once I realized it wasn’t Frank. If he was going to embezzle, he’s smart enough to know how to do it in a way none of us would ever find out.”
“I get you thinking it was me. But Nicki?” I couldn’t decide how to feel, grateful or depressed.
“That was why I had her start working in my office, to split you up, see what happened. It was obvious she couldn’t have done anything on her own.”
“Todd, I swear to you, I’ve been trying to talk to Frank about the irregularities for months. I would never do this.”
“I know. And if Frank would just pay attention and do his job, he would have seen Nicki’s stupid attempts at trying to pull something off right from the start. When Ericka set it up.”
“Oh. Ericka.” That explained so much.
“His last executive assistant.” Todd nodded, then sighed. “Frank certainly gave her enough reason to want to hurt us. She wasn’t nearly as smart as she thought she was, though. It was never going to work, but especially when she partnered with Nicki. Who, by the way, has confessed to everything.”
“She is one class act.”
“Once you showed Frank the report, he figured out exactly what was happening, probably immediately. He truly is a genius. But he’s also a moron—Frank decided it would be fun to put on a show for the shareholders instead of talking to me about it first. He’s lucky it worked out the way it did.” Todd snorted. “They’re down there now, patting him on the back, thanking him for all his hard work.”
“I’m lucky, too.” I opened my tote and removed the pages of evidence I’d printed off, grateful Frank had stopped me from trying to blackmail him. Though I still couldn’t believe it wasn’t him. I held them out. “You probably don’t need these anymore, but they’re yours. I’m done.”
Todd took the papers. I felt lighter. Jobless, but lighter.
After Todd left, I stacked the five postcard-sized frames on my desk and laid them gently in my bag. Door photos, reminding me there was always something on the other side.
Kwan greeted me at the elevator in the lobby.
“Ms. Tehrani, I need your badge and your elevator code card.” He sounded so serious but then leaned in closer, stress accentuating his whisper. “Paris! What did you do?”
The security guard had offered me a smile and wave every morning. A kind word or gesture every day. I was going to miss him. I slid the badge off my lapel and handed it over with my elevator card. “It’s okay, Kwan. I’m not in trouble. It’s what I want. Besides, maybe I can quit smoking, now that I’m leaving this place.” I gave him a big hug. “And here,” I said, handing him a Photography by Paris card, “this is my new business card. If I’ve left something behind, this has my address.”
A woman’s silky voice spoke up from behind me. “May I have one of those?”
I whirled around as Kwan tipped his hat. “Ms. Jenson,” he said, and then left us.
Oh. She’d been at the investors’ meeting. She had seen everything.
“You’re unemployed.” Her bright eyes drilled into me. “What are you going to do now?”
“I … That’s a good question.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, you know the answer, girl.”
I straightened my spine, squared my shoulders, and said, “If we’re talking about my career, then of course. I’m taking my photography business full-time. And I’m taking the art world by storm.”
“Atta girl.” She grinned.
“And I’m doing a Kickstarter campaign,” I said, spinning the dream into reality. “You, too, can be a part of this, if you so desire …” I was smiling, giddy, but serious, speaking from the heart.
“If you want my involvement, let’s skip Kickstarter. How about I fund the startup and keep sixty percent of the profits? I happen to have some investment money that was freed up recently.”
“Are you saying you’re pulling out of PRCM? Because of me?”
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Frank Coyle may be a genius, but he’s a pig. There are plenty of geniuses out there who are hard workers and decent people. I’m not wasting my time and money on his little endeavor one second longer.”
His “little” billion-dollar endeavor—I was never going to move in her circles, be at her level. But I could aim for it.
“If you want in with Photography by Paris, I’ll offer you forty percent with your startup coverage,” I said. “And you’ll sign my company to do the photography for your print ads for a year.”
She laid her manicured hand over her chest and laughed, deeply. “Oh, you’re good.”
We traded cards, shook hands, and then I watched her leave the lobby, moving like a sleek panther sliding into the jungle.
I could be her. I would be her. Strong and confident, moving through a world of her own making with ease, choosing her own path.
I was no longer tethered to my father’s dreams of my future in finance. I’d burned that to the ground. But I’d established the first solid foundations of my own business, a commercial photography business. I would prove to my father that my art, my dream, was real and, combined with the business savvy I had learned from him, was going to pay the bills.
And if he couldn’t get behind my new plan, well, I’d be disappointed but I was done trying to please others, especially with my life choices. As I reached the exit, Kwan tipped his hat and held the door for me. I floated o
ut.
Epilogue
A Year Later …
Alessandra looked me in the eyes and smiled, a big, open, friendly smile I couldn’t help but return. And then she spewed chunky baby barf across my chest, like a pressure washer, ruining my new silk Dolce & Gabbana shirt. Of course.
“Let me take her. There’s a clean shirt in the diaper bag.” Gina, grabbing the wiggling five-month-old, glanced at me and said, “You’ve got vomit in your hair.”
I tried not to freak out; it took every ounce of willpower not to strip down to my bra in the middle of Central Park in a disgusted frenzy. Instead, I removed the T-shirt from the diaper bag, an old Pokémon symbol emblazoned on the front, and changed with as much modesty as I could, using my already ruined shirt to remove the biggest chunks from my hair. I was proud of my aplomb, while secretly adding another tally to my “never having a baby” column.
We’d already gone through the stash of costume changes in my photo shoot bag. Regardless, this had been an exquisite fall day, the Indian summer bringing out another round of rose and rhododendron blooms, enhanced by a backdrop of colorful leaves. The sun filtering through the trees, dappling the rocks and grass, made my heart hurt, it was so beautiful.
Okay. Being honest, it was really the magic of having friends close on a day like this, everybody working together to make Lucia’s sweet child laugh. Shooting picture after picture, endless variations on the family, a mommy, a baby girl, and her auntie.
During the breaks, Gina was texting her boyfriend in Brazil, a timber baron, and Lucia would swap kisses with her newest boyfriend, a librarian from Queens. So, yeah, maybe not the nuclear family described in home ec books from the 1950s, but they made it work.
Gina was baby Alessandra’s godmother, and listed as next of kin on the birth certificate; Lucia’s parents had turned their backs on her and refused to see their granddaughter. Lucia was devastated but sent them updates and photos, hoping they’d change their mind someday. Once I’d convinced Gina that firebombing the old couple’s brownstone probably would not win them over, we made a pact. We were a tribe. The village was going to raise this baby. But I was ready to return to my quiet space for the day.
“I should go. Can you call me an Uber?” I called over to Lucia, who was on her phone, as I finished brushing the puke from my hair.
Someone behind me leaned close and whispered into my ear, “Uber.”
I let out a shriek and spun around.
Benji. It was Benji. A camera hung around his neck. His hazel eyes sparkled against his tanned face, his adorable freckles making me want to touch his cheeks. And corduroys clung to his muscled thighs. Not much had changed.
“Get it? I called you ‘Uber.’”
“Oh my God, you’re making stupid dad jokes.”
“Hi, Paris. You look good.”
“Hi, Benji. So do you.” I tried not to drool. Then I remembered I smelled like vomit.
“You have something in your hair.” He reached for me.
“No, no, don’t touch it! Alessandra threw up on me.”
“Are you talking about her?” Grinning, he threw his thumb back at the five-month-old. “It’s baby spit-up. Who cares? You haven’t been around a lot of babies, have you?”
As Benji said warm hellos to everyone and then hoisted the baby in the air, rubbing noses with her as he swung her legs out, making Alessandra shriek with laughter, my secret, internal tally experienced a major upheaval. A new column—“Make a baby with this man now”—leapt into existence, filled with tally marks.
I bet we could work out the kinks.
“How in the heck can you afford this place?” Benji asked incredulously, turning in a slow circle, admiring my new gallery and adjoining offices on the bottom floor of a large, modern building made from white stone.
I’d left the bubble my dad had created for us with his white picket fence and created my own bubble, in the trendy Picket Building. I knew the minute Tris Jenson’s realtor pulled up to the curb in front of the impressive Bronx structure that I was home.
I twirled one of my mother’s gold hoop earrings between my fingers, cocked my head thoughtfully, and smiled at him. “Well, I had financial help from a celebrity investor, someone I met while working for Frank. She opened a door for me and I walked through. I decided what my new world was going to look like, and then made it happen.”
I slid my finger across one of my favorite photos on the gallery wall, one of the few with a human as the central feature. It was set on the bank of Benji’s favorite river. The focus was on my father, his slacks rolled up, and slow, shallow water flowing over his bare feet. He intently studied a river pebble in his hand, bemused and sun-dappled.
“You and my dad taught me about embracing the beauty in simple things. I’m doing that.”
As the handsome, kind, and witty man admired my work on the walls, I folded my arms and leaned back, watching him meander among my creations.
I don’t need a man to make me happy.
Benji flashed me a wide grin and a thumbs-up before moving to the next photo.
On the other hand, who am I to turn my back on the gift that’s come through my door?
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank all my friends that I’ve had to ditch on numerous occasions for work. To my friends who my boss has insulted, thank you for never fighting back and making a bigger scene. To my friend Mo, thank you for helping me and always being there for me, no matter what. A big thank you to Holly Lörincz for taking an idea I had and bringing it to life, I couldn’t ask for a better person to work with. Thank you to Chip Macgregor for guiding me and having my best interests at heart, and Skyhorse for believing in my book and letting me be a part of the decision process. Also, I would like to thank my brother, parents, and my aunt for giving me legal advice. You are the best.
Finally I’d like to thank Mr. Predetti, this book wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so understanding.
—L.
Thank you to our editors, Chelsey and Alex. Skyhorse provided a top-notch team. Thank you to Chip MacGregor for being there, always, and bringing this book to fruition and beyond. Thank you to Auggie, who subsisted on pizza for months at a time and didn’t complain (much). Finally, thank you to L., who brought me her story and trusted me to write it. You who shall remain nameless have been the perfect partner.
—Holly