Not something I’d ever said. Not even close.
The seconds ticked by, and I waited and asked myself why it was so important.
Because they were my family, that was why. And I needed that to be real.
At last, when I thought she never would, Hope picked up the pen I’d left lying helpfully nearby, wrote in the date, and then paused with it hovering over the signature line. She took a breath, let it out, signed in one fast scrawl, then set the pen down as if it were burning her.
“There,” she said. “Done.” She stared at the paper for another minute, then turned to me and said, her voice full of wonder, “This is the first time in six years that I haven’t been alone. Since I was nineteen. This is the first. I can’t believe it. I can’t…”
Somehow, there was a lump in my throat. I gathered her into me, held her close, and said, “Six years is long enough. The six years are over.”
Hope
When Hemi and I stepped out of the lobby and into the July heat, I was still shaken.
It had felt momentous, signing that paper and seeing the other one, the one that was done, because Hemi had already taken care of it. Karen was going to college.
And I’d given somebody else power over her, the thing I’d been working and praying to avoid ever since my mother had gotten sick.
So many nights I’d lain awake, the cold fear gnawing at my belly as I’d envisioned her being taken away from me and hadn’t seen how I’d ever manage to avoid it. Days when Vincent had threatened to fire me. Days when there’d been a hundred ninety-four dollars in the bank account and a week to go until payday. The time when she was twelve and I was twenty, and we’d both gotten a hideous weeklong flu, one after the other, and I’d had no choice but to leave her home alone and beg Mrs. Alvarez, eighty-four and grouchy, to look in on her, because I’d had no more sick days left.
All the school holidays, the summer vacations when I’d left her home alone and thought, If something happens to her. If they find out, and they say I’m not adequate. And then she’s twelve, and she’s in foster care.
It had been worse than that, too. I hadn’t been adequate. But I’d been all she’d had.
I’d felt so close to the edge, always. Now, I wasn’t. We weren’t. It was over. It was really over.
Except that “having somebody else” also meant “having somebody else with an opinion on what she should do, and what we should do.” And not just “an” opinion. Hemi’s opinion, which was about twice as powerful as a normal person’s, and could drive Karen into full rebellion if I weren’t careful. And then there was Hemi’s money, with the power it brought to make college happen, to make eye surgery happen. The power to change her life completely.
There was more than one way of losing a child.
Karen’s welfare is all that matters, I told myself fiercely. Not your ego. Not your need to be right, or your need to be the most special person in the world to her. Hemi is wonderful, and he loves her, too, so now she has two people, and that’s nothing but good.
“All right?” Hemi asked. I’d barely noticed when we’d crossed the street, but we were in Central Park now, and thankfully in the shade.
He took my hand, and I said, going for casual, “Sure. And I haven’t held hands with you since New Zealand, you know? It’s nice.”
He glanced down at me and said, “I really have been neglecting you, eh.”
I hesitated, but he was too busy, I’d said half an hour, and there was no time like the present. Anyway, I had a feeling this was going to take more than half an hour.
How did I say this, though? Somehow.
“You haven’t been neglecting me,” I said. “You’ve had a lot to do, and a lot on your mind. I get it. But there’s something else. You want to have the right to make decisions for Karen, and I need the right to make a decision, too. For myself.”
“Oh?” His voice was still perfectly calm, but the hand holding mine surely wasn’t as relaxed as it had been a second ago.
“I need to leave Te Mana,” I said, and his hand jerked.
“No,” he said.
“Hemi. You don’t get to say ‘no.’ Not about this.”
His profile was set, and he’d picked up the pace, skirting an elderly lady with a Shih Tzu and three kids eating ice cream, forcing me to scramble to keep up. “Why?” he asked.
“Because…” It was hard to walk this fast and talk, too. “I’m in too privileged a position, that’s why. Nobody will tell me the truth about me or my work, because they’re afraid of you. I don’t have enough to do, and nobody’s going to push me so I can learn, and I’m an outsider.”
“Then tell them you need more to do. And of course you’re an outsider. It’s been two weeks.”
I sighed. “I know you think I’m some scared little puppy. But I did that. And I said I didn’t have to go home at five, that I wanted to stay, but somebody seemed to have already told them differently, and guess whose name is on the paycheck?”
“I don’t think you’re a scared puppy. If you have a problem with your supervisor that you can’t solve, go to Henry.”
You see how tricky this was? I couldn’t reveal who’d said what, and have Hemi step in. How would that make anything better? “I’m in a no-win situation there,” I tried to explain. He was walking so fast, and I was trying not to pant. I passed a couple eating gelato. One of them had lemon ice. Man, that sounded good. I wanted to stroll and eat gelato, not speed-walk and argue. Maybe I should drop it and casually suggest…
Ha. Like that would work with the Human Guided Missile. Finish it. “People either treat me with kid gloves, or they’re…envious and bitter, and they probably have a right to be.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me. I know. And, no, I’m not going to tell you how, other than to say that nobody else leaves at five o’clock, and everybody knows that I do, and everybody knows why. Sure, it’s been two weeks, but I’ve been at the company almost a year, and I’m more isolated now than I ever was. And I know that sounds like whining. I get that. I appreciate that you’ve wanted to give me something to do that would…that would challenge me, but this isn’t it.”
“Tell me why,” he said, “and I’ll fix it.”
“No. You won’t. If you stepped in, what good would it do? It would only make it worse. And all right,” I said when he didn’t answer. “I’m going to tell you what I’m most worried about.” I clutched his hand more tightly. I was starting to feel a little faint. It was too hot out here, and I was too nervous. I should have worn a hat, I thought fuzzily.
Hot. On my head. “Maybe we should sit down for a minute,” I said.
“I’d rather walk.”
“Uh, Hemi.” The world was going alarmingly black around the edges, and I stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk as bicycles and pedestrians veered to avoid us. ”I need to sit,” I managed to say in a voice that was coming from somewhere down a tunnel. “Please.”
He swore, and then he was walking me across to a bench and setting me down on it. “All right?” he asked.
“Uh…sure.” I put a shaking hand up to my forehead. The cold sweats had started up again, just like the day before.
“Bottle of water?” he asked.
“Please.” I just wanted him to leave.
The second his back was turned, I put my head between my knees and concentrated on breathing. There. That was better. I sat up again, muttered, “Whoops,” and went back down again. It had to be at least ninety-five out here, and so humid it was like sitting in the middle of a gigantic, soaking-wet washcloth. A hot one.
When Hemi came back with not one but three water bottles, I was sitting up, attempting to look as cool and composed as a woman could whose body temperature would have been right at home in the Saharan Desert.
“Better?” he asked.
“Sure.” I eyed his overabundance of hydration. “Thank you. But…were you thinking I’d stick one under each arm to cool me down, or something?”
He smiled, the barest touch at the corners of his mouth. “Reckon you are feeling better.”
I took the bottle of water he handed me, and then couldn’t get the top open, because my stupid hands were shaking. He took it from me without a word, opened the top, handed it back, and pulled out his phone.
“Yeh,” he told somebody. Charles, obviously, because the next words out of his mouth were directions. “Twenty minutes,” he said once he’d hung up.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Got dehydrated, that’s all, I guess. Much better now. And isn’t it Charles’s day off? Does the poor man ever get a day off?”
“He doesn’t want a day off. Lives with his sister, doesn’t he. And he likes his job.”
“How do you know? Secret sign language? Mental telepathy?”
“Because I asked him after you two moved in, when I gave him his raise. I asked, was he satisfied. He said yes.”
“Nice to be you,” I muttered. “Nice clear communication.”
“I think so. And I’m waiting,” he pointed out, “for you to communicate with me now, instead of practicing your sarcasm skills.”
Right. Get going. I took another drink of wonderfully cold water, then said cautiously, “I’ve…heard that, um, that people think I got Martine fired.”
Hemi’s entire body stilled. “Well, you did. Or rather, you didn’t. You got her not fired.”
“Yes, but they don’t know that, and how can I tell them? They say…” I took a breath and continued. “That I complained to you that she was…mean to me, because she criticized my work. And because my work was bad,” I finished in a rush. “Slow and sloppy.”
I was burning from more than the heat now. The humiliation was right there. It had never left; all I’d been able to do was shove it aside. What I’d heard in the ladies’ room had cut to the bone, because I hadn’t known if it was true.
“Of course you weren’t slow and sloppy,” Hemi said. “We both know why she said that.”
“How do I know for sure, though? I’ve never had an office job before. Vincent didn’t exactly praise me to the skies either, for that matter. Nathan said I was fast, but how much can I rely on that? I can’t. Maybe I am slow and…and sloppy. I can’t get better if I’m not getting honest feedback.”
It hurt so much to say it, especially to Hemi, especially to myself, but I had to say it. It was the truth.
“Fine,” he said. “I told you, you don’t have to work. I’m quite happy to have you stay home.”
“And do what? Have…blow waves? Shop? Hemi, I need to see if I can do a job. I need to see if I’m any good, and if I’m not, I need to find out how to get good. And the only way I can do that is to find someplace where nobody’s going to shield me because I’m your girlfriend, or hate me and backstab me because I’m your girlfriend, either.”
All right, I was getting agitated. Sue me.
“First,” he said, “you’re my fiancée, not my girlfriend. In six weeks, the minute we can do it, you’ll be my wife.”
“Right. And that would make it better how?”
“Second,” he said, ignoring that, “who’s hating you? Who’s backstabbing you?”
Oh, man. I’d gone there. “Figuratively,” I said.
He stared at me. “No. Not figuratively. Who?”
“Well, let’s see,” I said. “Who was upset yesterday, when I talked at that meeting? Oh, yeah. Everybody. Take your pick. I shouldn’t have talked. I had no place talking. It wasn’t my job. You could have told me about the meeting privately if you’d wanted to, have shared your…your vision, and your concerns about it, and I could have given you my opinion or just asked questions, for what that was worth to you. If you ever wanted to do that, I’d love to hear it. But I can’t do it at work. It’s not going to fly. It would be different if I had some skills, but I don’t. That’s the hard truth. I need to get some. I need to be somebody. I need to do something. I need to have something to offer.”
“You are somebody,” he said. “You’re my somebody.”
I laughed. I couldn’t believe it, but I did, and Hemi’s expression hardened even more. “If Karen were here, she’d say that the 1950s called, and they want their sexual politics back. I love being your somebody, but I have to be more than that, just like you do. Come on, Hemi. See.”
“I don’t see,” he said, and then his phone chirped, and he looked at it. “Charles.” He stood up and put a hand down for me. “Time to go.”
I’d thought about this over and over the day before. Obsessively, you might say. I’d come to the conclusion that there was no real choice. I couldn’t work for Cherise, a woman who hated me even more than Martine had. I’d gone back into Henry’s office and told him that I’d stay with Simon, and I’d seen the expression on his face.
I wasn’t going to stay there long. I couldn’t. It made me feel like a little girl playing Office. Everybody wants to be somebody, Gabrielle had said, and she was right. I loved Hemi more than I could possibly say, but loving somebody wasn’t enough to build an entire life around.
“I’m going to be looking,” I told Hemi. “And I’m not going to do it behind your back. I’m going to look for a new job, and I’m going to get one. When I do, I’ll probably be working until six-thirty, and that’s all right, if I’m learning something. And if I’m hearing the truth.”
Hemi
What was I meant to do with Hope? She was impossible.
When I was in the car with her again, was watching her leaning back against the cool leather and closing her eyes, I asked, “Better?”
Was I still narky? Of course I was. She wasn’t giving the situation enough chance to settle, that was all. Employees got their knickers in a twist. It was their entertainment. Gossip, outrage, rumors. And then it settled down and they adjusted and moved on. I’d tell her that, and then I’d tell her again, as many times as I had to until she knew it. She wasn’t getting another job and going back on that treadmill, wearing herself down again when she was already all but passing out from a few minutes in the heat. Why should she have to push herself that hard? Wasn’t one of us doing it enough? What purpose would it serve?
So, yes. All of that. But I still couldn’t help checking that she was all right. I couldn’t keep my feet with her. I gave up ground I didn’t have to, I broke all my rules, and I kept on doing it.
She opened her eyes at last. “Yes. Fine. I know you didn’t want to hear that, and still…Thanks for getting the car, although I’m embarrassed. You were right. It was too hot. And I never thanked you for yesterday, either. For listening to me in the meeting, and…after the meeting. I appreciated it more than I can tell you. For being sweet with Nathan, too.”
Sweet? I’d been sweet? How was I meant to answer that? And how was I meant to stay angry with her? “You are the most aggravating woman,” I told her. “I’ve started to believe that you were put on this earth to put me to the test.”
The minute I said it, I knew it was wrong, because I was saying that she’d been put on earth for me. Minefield.
Except it wasn’t. She turned her head, gave me that impossibly sweet smile that told me she wasn’t worrying one bit about giving up ground, that she knew she could win anyway, and said softly, “Good thing you’re such a hard worker, then. And such a good man.”
Which was how she did it. Every single bloody time.
Hemi
By Thursday, things had settled down. Hope was looking for a new job, and I knew it, and I wasn’t worrying about it. I’d taken care of it, and I had enough to do.
Maybe not enough to eat, though. It was almost noon, and I was thinking about lunch, which annoyed me. I’d lost my discipline in New Zealand like any big Maori boy going home to his whanau in the rugby offseason and tucking into his mum’s cooking. I’d come back just that unfit, too, and Eugene had made me pay.
When he’d done the weekly weigh-in on Saturday afternoon, I’d been down three and a half pounds since our return. I’d felt every one of th
em leave, too, protesting all the way.
“Not too bad,” Eugene had grunted, marking it down on the old-fashioned clipboard he insisted on using. “Egg whites only, chicken breasts, and none of them tamales, because I’ll know, and you’ll just make it harder on yourself. Another week or two, and you might just’ve worked off that fat. Pound and a half to go. And if you don’t like hearing it, next time, don’t do it.”
Hope hadn’t tried to hide her smile, and Eugene had told her, “Get on up here yourself, Miss Little Bit.”
“I haven’t gained any weight,” she’d said saucily, but she’d stepped up.
“Nah,” Eugene had said after the scale had offered up its proof. “You’ve lost another half a pound since last week. Haven’t put on the muscle you ought to’ve, either. You been working out too much? Too much is as bad as not enough. You ain’t Hemi. Don’t you be trying to keep up with him.”
“Thank you,” I’d muttered, and she’d shot me an outraged look.
“No,” she’d said. “I’m fine. Maybe I ate too much in New Zealand, did you think of that?”
“Hmm,” he’d said. “Feelin’ all right?”
“Yes. Fine.”
“Not really,” I’d put in. “Just about passed out in Central Park, didn’t you.”
“It was hot.”
“Hmm,” Eugene had said again. “Yeah, I’d say you better ease off some. And you need to be eatin’ them tamales. Just don’t give any to Mr. Big here, I don’t care how much he whines. And if you start feeling bad, you go on and get it checked out. Meanwhile, get on the bike. Level four, and keep it there. We’ll go easy today.” He’d turned to me, then, and said, “But you… you get on the rower and go hard. Ten minutes. I wanna see some sweat.”
One rule for me, and another for Hope. But then, I was all good with that.
And here I was, thinking about her again, and about lunch, too, instead of what I was doing. Pure self-indulgence. I shook my head impatiently and got back into it. For about two minutes, because the phone rang. Walter.
Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) Page 27