Right now, I’m sitting in the chemo suite of Parkside Hospital. My new doctor, Dr. Quintana, tends to favor an intravenous approach when it comes to a chemo delivery system.
I’m not a fan.
The oral crap was bad enough, but with this stuff, my vein feels like it’s eroding at an incredible rate and I’m getting hit with all the hell of chemo that I had just started to get used to before I went in for that stupid trial, only the symptoms are worse and they’re hitting me a lot quicker.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Quintana asks me after my next round of vomiting.
“I’ve never felt better,” I tell him. “I hope there’s a marathon today because I feel like going for a nice twenty-six mile run right about now.”
“I wouldn’t suggest that you go running in your current condition, especially for such a distance,” he says.
Dr. Quintana doesn’t seem to understand or appreciate sarcasm.
This is the kind of thing that makes me miss Jace. I’m not mad at him for me getting kicked out of the trial. I mean, I was at first, but I’m not anymore.
Even when I was upset at him over the trial, I knew it wasn’t his fault, that I wouldn’t have been in the trial in the first place if he hadn’t put himself in such a precarious position.
My phone rings, and it’s with a great deal of annoyance that I reach into my purse to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Grace, it’s me, Margaret. You really need to come in,” my intrepid little secretary says.
“I’m having toxic sludge pumped into my veins at the moment,” I tell her. “Can it wait?”
“Shoot,” she says. “I forgot you were back on chemo.”
“What’s going on?”
“John just got fired,” she says. “I guess he was badmouthing this idea you shared with one of the members of the board and it got kind of heated. He said that it was either him or you and they chose to keep you.”
“Why would they fire him just for badmouthing me?” I ask. “He’s been doing that for years.”
“Well, he may have told Mrs. Sutton that she was an idiot for wanting to go with your idea to work Memento into more markets,” she says.
“Yeah, calling a board member an idiot will usually — they’re going to do it?”
“Yeah,” Mags says. “They wanted me to give you a call and get you in here so they could tell you themselves.”
“I’m stuck here,” I tell her. “Is there any way you could schedule a meeting with them for me tomorrow?”
“Grace?” It’s Mrs. Sutton, the board member who I apparently should have talked to years ago.
“Yes, Mrs. Sutton,” I respond.
“You assistant said something about chemo, are you all right?”
Okay, John may have had a point when he called her an idiot. I didn’t expect the board would know or care that I’ve got this thing in my head, but it’s pretty safe to assume that a person on chemo isn’t all right.
“I’m just in the middle of a-”
“Grace, I’ve talked to the rest of the board, and we’re all in agreement,” she interrupts. “We’d like you to spearhead our expansion in the Midwest. I know you’ve been softening the ground for a while now, and there’s no one else more prepared to move on this than you.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask.
It almost sounded like she’s offering me a promotion.
“We’d like for you to fly out to Cleveland. I understand you’ve been working with someone out there at KJBP, and I’d like you to extend a formal offer on behalf of Memento,” she says.
“Tonight?” I ask. “I really don’t think — Mrs. Sutton, even if they were to take the needle out of me now, I don’t think I’d-”
“Well, we don’t want to wait very long on this,” she interrupts. “Just do me a favor and tell me that you’ll get in touch as soon as you’re feeling up to it. I’d hate to have to send someone in your place after all the work you’ve put into this.”
I’d approached her and told her I thought we should be expanding into other markets, but I didn’t give her any specifics and I certainly didn’t mention Andrew, the man from KJBP I’ve been working with.
It must have been Mags. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s the one who decided to fill Mrs. Sutton in on the details.
“I’m not sure when I’ll-” I start.
“Make it soon,” Mrs. Sutton interrupts again. “We’re planning on moving you out to Cleveland if this thing sticks, so I’d be prepared to make the pitch of my life if I were you.”
There’s some interesting phrasing.
“How long can this wait?” I ask, not about to fly out to Cleveland while having to deal with the effects of chemo.
“The best I can give you is until the end of the week,” she says. “When’s your next round of chemo finished?”
“End of the week,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I really can’t give you any longer.”
Isn’t it strange how they were apparently waiting for most of the term of the company’s existence, but now that they’ve apparently started listening to me, it can’t wait another week?
“That seems unfair,” I tell her. “I put this together. What’s with the timetable?”
“We need to get going on this. KJBP’s already starting to get other offers.”
Someone leaked it. This is the problem with telling anyone anything.
“It’s strange that they would receive another offer,” I tell her. “I’ve kept this move under wraps for quite some time and they’ve never had another offer before.”
“I may have threatened them by saying that if they didn’t sell to us, they’d end up as just another Disney channel or CNN,” she says reluctantly.
“And let me guess…”
“Yeah, they called both companies to find out what kind of offer they were going to make.”
That was pretty stupid. Not of KJBP, but of Mrs. Sutton.
Yeah, a lot of smaller stations are scared of getting eaten up by the bigger guys, but every station is looking to turn a profit. If it comes down to a choice between the pride of remaining a small station that can do something relatively close to what they want and the station owner making a shitload of money…you can guess which way they’re going to go.
The one way to get a bigger fish to eat your meal is to let them know, directly or indirectly, that you’re making a move to expand. Aspiring monopolies hate competitors, but they’re usually willing to let a few weaklings like Memento Entertainment exist, so long as we crowd out anyone who might be a serious threat.
By moving to expand in another market and being stupid enough not to keep things properly quiet, we’ve become what they’d consider a serious threat. It really doesn’t take much, those with the most power are often the most insecure.
“Why even bother sending me out there?” I ask. “We don’t have the war chest to win.”
“They like you,” she says. “They want to give you the first crack at it, but you’re going to have to make it one hell of a proposal.”
“What do I have to bargain with?”
“We’re willing to go as high as ten million,” she says.
Well, they’re not hamstringing me entirely, but in the world of television, ten million isn’t that much money. Actually, yeah, they’re hamstringing me entirely. KJBP never going to go for ten million now.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to fly by then,” I tell her, “but let me call my contact. I might be able to get him out here.”
I’ve got an idea that has a slight chance of turning the tide, but it’s still a long shot.
“Do whatever you have to do,” Mrs. Sutton says.
Somehow, I get the feeling that she isn’t going to come clean if KJBP ends up going the other direction. I’m pretty sure she’s telling me that my job is hanging in the balance here.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I tell her. “Just do me a favor and l
et me deal with this from here. The last thing I need is for someone telling them that CBS is looking for another affiliate.”
“Yeah, about that…” she says, and how this woman got to be on the board of anything, I have no idea.
“I’ll call when I know something,” I tell her and hang up the phone.
This is some bullshit, but it’s the closest thing to movement I’m likely to see for the rest of my career with M.E. I’d love to say that I’m confident in my ability to snatch this deal out from under the big guys, but all I have to work with is ten million?
I swear, if this ends up falling through and I end up losing my job, I’m taking Mrs. Sutton down with me, no matter how entrenched she may be with the board.
Now Jace is walking into the room, though, and I’m feeling all of the annoyance, anger, frustration, sickness and pain I feel physically turning toward him. Like the woman from the board I just finished talking to, he could have made things a lot easier if only he’d kept his fucking mouth shut.
He’s going to let his career burn because the two of us have some kind of relationship, but what he doesn’t seem to get is that it wouldn’t have mattered if I made some improvements on that drug. The reality is that I don’t have a long life ahead of me no matter what happens.
I can’t just sit back while he buries himself, but I don’t think he’s going to make the right choice on his own. He already fired Yuri for doing what she was actually supposed to do. If he’s going to save himself, he and I need to not be together, but the only way I think that’s going to happen is if I go nuclear.
Let’s just say that after that phone call, I’m already getting tired of having to clean up other people’s mistakes.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I wanted to come and check on you,” he says. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’ve been better,” I tell him, “but that couldn’t possibly matter right now.”
“Why not?”
“Why are you here?”
“I told you, I wanted to come and check on you,” he repeats.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” I tell him.
“How is that supposed to feel? What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“My hearing’s coming up,” he says. “I’m a bit nervous about which direction it’s going to go. This kind of thing isn’t really looked on that kindly in my profession.”
“Why didn’t you tell them about Dr. Marcum? If you weren’t going to use the backstory you concocted, then why did you set it up in the first place?”
“When I was in that moment,” he says, “I realized that I couldn’t jeopardize another doctor’s reputation or security just to cover for myself.”
“How noble.”
“I get that you’re not feeling well,” he says, “but we knew this could happen.”
“I guess I just thought that we might try going for a different result,” I tell him.
“They had me,” he says. “Yuri sold me out.”
“Yeah, your groupie,” I tell him. “You probably should have done something about that a while ago.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you know how I knew your ex was cheating on you?” I ask.
“You said it was because being an…” he finally notices I’m not the only one with a chair in the chemo suite. He leans close and lowers his voice. “You said it was because of my second job and that she’s the one that convinced me to get it.”
“No, you moron,” I tell him. “I swear, men will not make it another step forward in this world until they learn to understand women.”
“What was it then?”
“It was the way she acted,” I tell him. “It was the way she looked at you and talked to you in front of other people.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh. “We’re really not that difficult to understand,” I tell him. “Most of us have developed a pretty good poker face out of sheer necessity, but you can always tell when a woman is asking for something she doesn’t really want. Do you really think that filming the two of you together was what she wanted to do? It was a fucking power trip for the other guy.”
“How does that even matter?” he asks. “Whatever the reason, the relationship is over, done.”
“Yeah, I get that, but what I’m really getting at is that you don’t pick up the signs that women are holding up in front of you. I could have told you after five minutes that Yuri’s got a thing for you. You can see it in the way she looks at you when you enter the room.”
“If you could have told me that, why didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t any of my business.”
“It wasn’t any of your — then what are we even talking about?” he asks.
“You wanted to know why you’re in the position you’re in,” I answer. “That is, unless I misread what you were saying.”
My phone rings.
“I just wanted to come and check on you,” he says. “What’s so complicated about that?”
“Well, I’m doing fine,” I respond.
“What is up with you? You’re acting like you don’t want to see me.”
“Maybe I don’t want to see you right now,” I tell him.
It’s a simple enough phrase, but it’s one that always seems to require an explanation.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because I’m getting sick of explaining everything,” I tell him. The ironic thing is that if he asks me to explain what I just said, I don’t think I’d have a clear response for him.
“If you want me to go, I’ll go,” he says, “but I’m here because I care for you. I wanted to tell you that whatever happens at my hearing, I’m going to play this off as if you had nothing to do with it.”
“I hardly did,” I tell him. “Once you had it in your head you were going to try to get me into the clinical trial, it was going to happen whether I did anything to help it or not.”
“What the hell is with you?”
“I’m tired, Jace,” I tell him. “I am tired and I feel like my body is being pumped full of battery acid, and that doesn’t feel so good. I’m tired of having to drag you along like some kind of errant child. I’m tired of waiting to die. I’m just tired, Jace.”
“I’ll leave you alone then,” he says.
I want to tell him I’m sorry, that I’m just lashing out. I want to tell him to come back.
I don’t.
He turns and leaves the room just as swiftly as he entered it and despite everything else, I feel a tinge of guilt as he walks away, but that’s something I don’t tell him, either.
Chapter Eighteen
Saline
Jace
“What are you doing here?” I ask as Melissa walks through my front door, almost bowling me over in the process.
“Men are fucking terrible, do you know that?” she asks.
“Trouble in Shangri-La?”
“Seriously, what is it with you people? You’d think Ty would have been thrilled that I was finally free and clear, but once I ask him when he’s going to leave his wife, he starts stuttering.”
“Melissa,” I say, “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day, but I really don’t-”
“Anyway,” she interrupts, “it got me to thinking. You and me, we weren’t such a bad thing, were we?”
“I really don’t know how to answer that in a nice way.”
“Yeah, I get that you’re pissed and everything, but I mean, come on, the way we ended things? You can’t tell me that there’s not something there,” she says.
“Melissa, you spent what I can only surmise to be a good portion of our relationship cheating on me with your boss. What makes you think that I’m eager to jump right back into that?”
“Jace,” she says, “I love you. I know you love me. Yeah, things weren’t perfect, but can you honestly tell me that you didn’t make any mistakes?”
“I made plenty of mistakes,” I tell her. “That doesn’t mean that I’m just going to forget about everything that happened.”
“Just think, though, we could go right back to where we were and just forget it ever happened. You forgive me, I forgive you. It’s really that simple. We built a pretty good life here, didn’t we?”
“Melissa, what’s this really about?” I ask. “I know you’re having a bad day because of what’s going on with you and Ty, but you said yourself that you were miserable in our relationship.”
“That’s just because I wasn’t trying. I don’t think you were, either.”
“Melissa,” I repeat, “what’s this really about?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “it’s everything. Have you ever been so sure that what you have planned for your life is going to work out, and then one day it’s just gone?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, “pretty recently, actually.”
“What happened to you?” she asks, and I give her the condensed version of what’s happening in my little slice of hell.
It’s surprisingly quick to sum it all up.
“You know what you did wrong?” she asks.
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t talk to her before you talked to Dr. Preston,” she says.
“How was I supposed to talk to her before him?” I ask. “I didn’t even know he was coming.”
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have talked to him at all, but you should have talked to Grace before you decided to nix Plan B,” Melissa says. “Have you ever bothered to consider that she may have only signed off on the trial because she thought you were protected? She would have lied to protect you. Hell, just to get into the trial, you know that she already did. All she wanted was the choice, but you took that away from her without asking.”
“I guess I never saw it that way.”
“Anyway,” she says, “I’d say the damage is done, so how about we get back to the topic at hand.”
“You don’t want to be with me,” I tell her. “You’re here because you’re used to being here. You’re used to coming to me when things aren’t going your way, but that part of our relationship is over. Even if it weren’t,” I continue, “that wouldn’t mean that you and I should get back together.”
Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) Page 21