by Louise Bay
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Fathers are protective over their daughters.”
I snorted. “Yeah well, sperm donors aren’t.” I was pretty sure Charles Jayne hadn’t had a parental instinct in his life.
“I just think it’s a little strange that he accepted the lunch invitation and then didn’t want you working on the account.”
A lot of what Charles Jayne did didn’t add up. He must have known JD Stanley was a big account and if he requested I was dropped from the team it would look bad on me. “He just doesn’t want me anywhere near him.” I dug my fingernail into the pile of the velvet.
Grace took a sip of her wine. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” I asked.
“It just feels like we’re not seeing the whole picture.”
Jesus, since when did Grace give my father the benefit of the doubt? She knew what an asshole he’d been over the years. “Are you taking his side?”
She twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers. “No, not at all. There is no side for me except yours. I’m just saying things don’t add up.”
I glugged down some wine, desperate for the liquid relaxation to do its magic.
“Okay, so your father’s an asshole. Let’s just take that as read. And, for whatever reason, he didn’t want you working on his account.” She rolled her lips together as if she was trying to stop herself from saying what came next. “I’m worried about how bothered you are by it. And that you resigned from a job you worked so hard for. Aren’t you just letting your father control you?”
When the JD Stanley pitch had come up, I thought it would be an opportunity for me to finally be free of my father. “I just thought I had the upper hand this time. I was going to get my chance to press his nose up against the glass and show him what he’d been missing.” I should have known better. I never had the upper hand as far as my father was concerned.
“I’m guessing he knew that and didn’t want to see. Most assholes don’t want to be reminded of their assholishness. They either reinvent reality so they’re not assholes, or they avoid any situation where they could be reminded.” Grace was talking from experience and suddenly I felt bad for being here and dumping all this on her. Her father had cheated on her mother more than once, and she always said afterward it was as if he’d used an imaginary chisel and gone through people’s memories, re-carving history. “Your father’s a powerful man and powerful men don’t like to be wrong.”
“But he was okay to go to lunch.” I wiped a nonexistent drop of wine from the outside of my glass. Why had he agreed to lunch knowing I would be there and then had a problem with me working on the account?
Grace nodded. “He was probably curious, wanted to see if you’d forgiven him.”
Lunch had been fine. Polite and professional. Had he really expected anything else?
“And he probably didn’t give any thought to how you’d feel about it,” Grace continued. “I’m sure he’s like most men—too focused on themselves to worry about anyone else.”
Selfish was exactly what my father was. When I was little and he didn’t turn up when he said he would, I would pretend to my mom it was no big deal. I remember understanding he made her cry, a lot, and that she’d cry more if I was disappointed. So I learned early to mask my hurt and upset. But it was soon replaced by anger and frustration I wasn’t so good at covering up.
I looked up from my glass to find Grace poised with a top up. “I’d be surprised if he was trying to sabotage your career,” she said as the wine glugged into my glass. “I’m sure he could have stopped you from getting a job on Wall Street very easily if that’s what he’d wanted to do. Did he tell Max to fire you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Just said he didn’t want me working on the account because he wanted to keep the personal and professional separate.”
Maybe Grace was right and it had been less about my father trying to ruin me and more about him protecting himself. Tears welled in my eyes. I covered my face with my free hand in some kind of futile effort to stop them from falling.
If I wasn’t so embarrassed by the fact my father hadn’t wanted me working on the account just like he hadn’t wanted me when I was born, things might be different. A regular client requesting a team change would have been bruising but I’d have gotten over it. My father requesting I didn’t work on his account if we were on good terms may have been bearable, but it was the Max element that made it so humiliating. Somehow, having told him about my father, having confided in him, I found his decision to accept my father’s wishes without question rusted the knife, made the cut deeper.
I’d wanted to work for Max King for as long as I could remember and I’d ruined it by sleeping with him.
“It’s such a betrayal,” I managed to choke out.
The cushions beside me dipped and I moved my hand as Grace took my wine from me. She grinned. “I’m sorry. I can’t have you spill red wine over this beautiful couch. Let it out, have a good cry, but don’t hold red wine while you’re doing it.”
I laughed, her concern over her couch breaking me out of my misery. “You’re right. This couch is too good to spoil for a man. You pretend you don’t like the finer things in life, my friend, but you can’t help generations of breeding.”
She took a sip of the wine she’d just taken from me. “I know. However hard I try, I can’t help reverting back to type. I have such good taste.”
I laughed. “You do. However much you fight it, you’re always going to be a Park Avenue princess.”
“There, you see? At least I can make you laugh with my ridiculous life choices.” Grace shifted, sitting cross-legged on the couch facing me, giving me her full attention. “Speaking of ridiculous choices, tell me about the resigning thing.”
“Max had a decision to make. He knew how I felt about my father and he didn’t hesitate to pick him over me.” I shook my head. “If he’d just been my boss, if I hadn’t told him how my father had abandoned me, I might have been able to swallow getting kicked off the JD Stanley account. But the way he so easily chose business over me was just too much.” It was as if he’d drawn a line in the sand and said my feelings would never be more important than his job.
“I didn’t realize it was that serious between you two,” she said.
“It’s not serious.” Perhaps it had become more serious than I’d realized.
“But serious enough that you want him to pick you over his job,” Grace said. I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say. “What did he give as an excuse?” Grace asked.
“He just said that the client can pick the team.”
Grace winced.
“Don’t you dare say he’s right.” He wasn’t right, was he? “It would be different if Max and I weren’t fucking, but we are. Were. I’m not just his employee.” I wasn’t sure what we were to each other and I supposed it didn’t matter anymore. But he’d owed me something. Some kind of loyalty. Hadn’t he?
“I’m not sure you’d be quite this upset—so upset you handed in your notice—if it were just ‘fucking’. You say it’s not serious but it sounds like it is from your perspective. Do you have feelings for him?”
I scraped my hair back from my face as if it would help me see more clearly. Did I have feelings for him? “I feel like I want to punch him in the face; does that count?” I asked as Grace rubbed my back.
But I didn’t want to punch Max, not really. I wasn’t angry. I felt broken, as if I’d taken a right hook to my stomach. Somewhere along the road, I’d let him in, enjoyed being with him—I’d been happy, and not just when we had sex. I couldn’t remember a time when that had been true of any of my other relationships. My father had ensured I grew up heartbroken, the scars of our relationship creating a barrier between me and other men. No one had ever broken through. No one except Max. It had just been sex—amazing sex—and then somewhere along the line, as he’d revealed himself to me, I’d been forced to do the same. He’d opened me up and I’d let myself care.
“I think maybe you feel more for him than you’re admitting to yourself,” Grace said.
Of course I had feelings for him.
Max was the only experience I’d had of being with a man where I’d not worked out how or when we would end before anything started. I knew I would leave my college boyfriend when we graduated. I knew the guy I saw occasionally at Berkeley would never leave Northern California and I’d never stay. I always saw the end before anything began. And that suited me. It meant I didn’t get attached, didn’t have any false expectations. With Max, I’d never seen the end and so I felt cheated of all the time we could have had together in the future. My expectations of him, of us, had been too high because they hadn’t had limits.
I wanted so desperately for Max to have told my father if he didn’t want me working on the account, Max didn’t want his business. Finally, I wanted a man to put me first. Ahead of money, ahead of business. I wanted Max to stand up and claim me as my father never had.
I understood now my heart was closed to any happy futures. Shut down. Every man who came after this would always have limits.
*
I stood in Grace’s closet, surrounded by her designer wardrobe I’d been pilfering since I arrived a little over a week ago. She might not wear them often, but she sure had a lot of beautiful clothes. I couldn’t avoid going back to Manhattan any longer. I figured there was no running into Max if I went back on a Saturday. I needed to go back to my apartment.
“This is Gucci,” I yelled from her bedroom, pulling out a black pencil skirt.
“Jesus, your voice carries three blocks. I think I prefer you mute.”
I hadn’t had much to say for the first few days of my stay at Grace’s. It was as if the pain of walking away from my life had stolen my words. But after my third day in bed Grace had literally pulled me into the sitting room and forced me to watch TV and join in commentary on episode after episode of Real Housewives. Things got a little better after that and I was able to contain my gloom. But it was still there, lurking, waiting for me to be on my own so it could take over.
“Yeah, that skirt looks great with the YSL gray silk cami.”
“I can’t wear Gucci anything when I’m just packing up a few things and dragging a suitcase around on the subway.” I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay my rent, but something had stopped me giving notice on my apartment. I’d waited a long time to live in Manhattan and work at King & Associates—I just wasn’t ready to let it all go yet. Reluctantly, I put the skirt back in the closet.
Grace appeared at the door to her closet and rested against the door frame. “You love me, right?”
I snapped my head around at her. When Grace started a sentence with that preface, I knew the follow-up wasn’t something I wanted to hear.
I turned back to the racks of clothes. “I don’t know, it depends what you’re going to say next,” I replied.
“Well, I was thinking that while you’re in Manhattan, maybe you’d want to call your father.”
I turned to look at her, completely confused. “And why would I want to do that?”
“To get some answers. Hear what he has to say.”
“Why would I give him any of my time or energy?” Just because Grace seemed to be reconsidering her relationship with her parents and their money, didn’t mean I had to.
“Honestly?” she asked. “Because I think you spend far too much of your time and energy on him. Everything you do seems to be a reaction to your father.”
I looked up from the stack of T-shirts I was examining. “How can you say that? I haven’t taken anything from him since college.”
“You think ending up at King & Associates, working for the only place in town that didn’t work for your father, had nothing to do with him? You walked out of a job you supposedly loved because of him.”
“That wasn’t about him, it was about Max,” I replied. “You’ve got this all wrong.”
She pushed off the door frame and stood in front of me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “It was about a business decision Max made regarding JD Stanley—your father’s business. Despite your desire to avoid him, he’s everywhere in your life, pushing you down one path or another, whether it’s to avoid him or show him his mistakes.” She released her hands and splayed out her fingers. “Aren’t you exhausted with it?”
I was stunned. Was that what she thought? I sank to my knees, cross-legged. “You think I have some kind of warped obsession with my dad?”
Grace followed me to the floor. “Look, you’re not Kathy Bates Misery obsessed, but yes, I think you let him consume too much of your life, your energy …” Grace paused. “Your happiness.”
I looked up at her. I wanted to see doubt in her eyes but there was none. And I knew she did love me and I knew she wanted the best for me. “But he abandoned me and my mother. Fucked every woman in the tristate area. And all his sons work—”
“Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying get some kind of closure so you can let it go. Don’t let it rule your life. You’re an adult.”
“Just like that, let it go?” He was always going to be my father, and he was always going to be an asshole. I didn’t see that changing.
“Well, clearly it’s not that easy—we’re not in a Disney musical—but maybe have a conversation with him. Tell him how you feel. I don’t see how you’ve got anything to lose. This is ruining your life.”
I snorted. “That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I’ve got it wrong, but you’re talking to me from the floor of my closet.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’re convinced your father is trying to ruin you. Well, you’re letting him.”
I lay back on the floor, needing to think. Was I letting my father run my life? By not taking his money I thought I was doing the opposite. And I’d done well in my career without him. I’d resigned because Max had put business before me. My father wasn’t the issue there … Except it was JD Stanley’s business we were talking about.
“I’m not saying your father isn’t an asshole. He’s not going to win father of the year anytime soon. And I understand that when you were little he let you down again and again.” He had let me down. “And I’m not saying you have to have some kind of idyllic relationship. Just accept the reality of the situation and get on with your own life. I think a conversation with him might help.”
She was right. Since I’d moved to New York, my thoughts of my father had gathered like waves heading for shore. Turns out they’d just hit the beach.
My obsession with King & Associates had genuinely been all about Max King. It had nothing to with my father or the fact Max didn’t work with JD Stanley. But part of me had always known going to business school had been about proving to him he was missing out on knowing me, and I was just as good as my half brothers. And Grace was right, part of the reason I’d resigned had been about my father not wanting me—the bruises he’d formed being pressed by someone else this time.
My disappointment at my father wasn’t going anywhere. It floated around me like a bad smell, influencing me so subtly I didn’t realize his hold over me. Grace was right; he had far too much power over my here and now.
“You have to deal with the root of the issue,” Grace said. “My grandma always said, ‘If you just chop the heads off of weeds, they come back.’ So far, she’s never been wrong.”
Maybe if I just got it all out—raged at him—it would be like expelling poison and I’d be free. I had nothing to lose by confronting him, telling him how I was feeling—how he’d made me feel.
I jumped to my feet and scanned her racks of clothing. “Which one is the YSL vest?”
*
Even though I had no money, no job, and the fare would be something approaching the amount of a small car, I’d taken Grace’s suggestion and grabbed a cab into Manhattan. I stepped onto the sidewalk, the heat almost unbearable, next to my father’s Upper East Side brownstone.
I h
ad no idea whether my father was in. Even if he was, he might have company or be busy. I probably should have called first, but I couldn’t bear the idea he’d tell me no, and I was sure to chicken out if he suggested another time.
I walked up the stoop and rang the bell. Immediately footsteps scuffled behind the door.
“Hello?” My father’s housekeeper squinted at me.
“Hi, Miriam, is my father home?”
“Harper? Good God, child, I’ve not seen you in years.” She bundled me into the hallway. “You’re looking too thin. Can I get you something to eat? The soup I’m making won’t be ready for a few hours, but I roasted a chicken yesterday. I could make you a sandwich.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine.” I hadn’t expected the warmth, the welcome, to be treated as if I were family. “It’s nice to see you looking so well.”
“Old, dear, that’s how I look, but that’s what I am.” She began to make her way down the hall, beckoning me with her. “Let me call upstairs to his study.”
I couldn’t hear my father’s reaction to my arrival, but the conversation was short and didn’t seem to involve any cajoling to see me.
“You can go up, lovely. It’s the second floor, first door on your right.”
I smiled and took a deep breath. I was really doing this.
Climbing the stairs, I looked toward the top. My father stood there, looking down.
“Harper. How lovely to see you.”
He acted as if it wasn’t completely ridiculous for me to be here. I’d been to this house three, maybe four times in my entire life, and not once in the last five years. “Thanks for seeing me,” I replied. I didn’t quite know how to handle the welcome.
“Of course. I’m delighted.” As I reached the top of the stairs he grasped me by my upper arms and kissed my cheek. “Did Miriam offer you something to eat or drink?”
I chuckled despite myself. “An entire roast dinner if I’d wanted, I think.”
“Good, good. Come in.”
We went into his office, a room in all pale blues and whites that reminded me of the ocean. It had been given a makeover since I’d been here last. I took a seat in the chair opposite his desk. He sat, then stood again. “Sorry, we shouldn’t be across a desk like this. We can go downstairs. Or out in the garden. I didn’t think.”