by Tom Berreman
“Yeah, I’m sure he told you about my ballet career cut short. Where did you live?”
“East Seventieth and Park.”
“No way. I lived at East Sixty-Sixth and Lex. We were only six blocks apart, funny we didn’t run into each other at some point.”
“Here you go guys,” Sean said as he returned with their beers.
As the evening progressed the conversation became more and more between Brent and Courtney, at times it was as though Sean wasn’t there. After an hour Sean realized the two were getting along and he made an excuse to leave.
After another hour together they agreed they’d like to see each other again and made a dinner date for Saturday night.
“Good night, Courtney,” Brent said as they stood on the sidewalk outside O’Reilly’s. “I really enjoyed tonight.”
“Good night, Brent,” she said before moving close and giving him a short, but passionate, kiss. “I’m looking forward to Saturday.”
She climbed into her Jeep parked on the street in front of the bar and drove away. Brent watched until her taillights disappeared as she turned north onto the Pacific Coast Highway.
Brent was glad he moved home to California.
Chapter 12.
Brent stood in the hallway outside his dad’s closed office door, his arms folded across his chest, his foot tapping. They had a noon lunch reservation at La Paz and it was already twelve thirty. He was about to knock and interrupt when the office door opened and a man about his age emerged. The man, well-appointed in a grey tailored suit, crisp white shirt and burgundy silk tie, somewhat out of place in Jennco’s casual work environment, shook hands with Curt Jennings before he turned and walked toward the lobby.
He passed Brent without acknowledgement.
Brent followed his dad into his office.
“Dad, we’re late for lunch.”
“I know Son,” his dad replied. “Just give me a minute to check my emails.”
Brent sighed in disappointment and sat in a visitor chair as his dad sat behind his desk and logged onto his computer.
“Who was that guy?”
Curt said nothing for a moment, still preoccupied, as he clicked his mouse several times to open his emails.
“David Taylor. He just accepted my offer to join the company as the new chief operating officer. He’ll start as a vice president, and I expect to move him to president soon. But I’ll remain chairman and CEO.”
Brent sat stunned. As hard as he tried to speak, his brain couldn’t convince his mouth to respond. This was an unexpected barrier to his quest to run his father’s company. After a minute of awkward silence, he again tried to spit out the words he hadn’t been prepared to say. Words he hoped he never had to say.
“But Dad, I’ve worked hard to learn the company from the ground up just like you wanted. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, but I’ve only had six weeks. My resume’s exemplary, a Harvard MBA with over ten years of sophisticated consulting experience. With more time I can learn how to run this company.”
“And what’s your point?”
“I thought you would groom me to be the next COO, eventually CEO.”
“David Taylor has an exemplary resume, with significant operations experience. I value operations over consulting experience and feel he’s the best one to take the company to the next level as I cut back my day-to-day involvement. I warned you not to expect any preferences just because you’re named Jennings.”
Brent started to respond when there was a knock on the door. Judy, Curt’s administrative assistant, walked into the office.
“Excuse me Mr. Jennings, Margo Hansen is on the phone with our bankers, and she needs you to sign a million dollar wire transfer authorization. She asked if you could take a moment to stop by her office while she prepares it. She can walk it down if you’re busy but it has to go ASAP.”
“Sure, tell her I’ll be right there. I just need a minute to respond to one email.”
“Okay,” she said, shutting the door again.
“Can we talk more about this over lunch?” Brent asked.
“Yeah…, maybe,” Curt said as he stood and left the office.
As soon as his dad left Brent stood, closed the office door, leaving it open just a crack, and sat behind the desk. His dad’s email was still open, and Brent scanned it hoping to find Taylor’s resume. Confident he had what it took to run this company, he wanted to see what operations experience his dad found so valuable.
An email flagged important Eric Rogers sent to his father a couple of weeks before Brent started at Jennco caught his eye. He opened it and read Attached is a copy of the current schematic and zip file of all the R&D files for the sensor. Brent hoped intimate knowledge of the company’s next innovative product would give him a competitive advantage over the new COO, the man he had learned to hate without ever meeting. Maybe someday he could use it to convince his dad he’s capable to run the company, or perhaps sabotage Taylor’s advancement. He forwarded a copy of the email and its attachments to his Jennco email address, deleted the sent message on his dad’s email account and continued to peruse his messages.
Just before Rogers’ email was an email from Adam Ritter captioned Sensor Prototype Diagnostics. He was about to open it when he heard his dad’s voice in the hallway. Without time to read Ritter’s email he stepped from behind the desk just as his dad entered the office.
Brent would use LinkedIn to review David Taylor’s resume.
He panicked and tried to think of an excuse why he had shut the door and was behind his dad’s desk. Either his dad didn’t notice or didn’t care as he said nothing, returned to his desk and picked up his phone before turning toward Brent.
“I’m sorry Son, but something’s come up. I have to cancel lunch.”
“Okay, some other time,” Brent said.
He turned and left the office, stifling his urge to slam the door, instead gently closing it behind him.
* * *
When he returned to his office Brent no longer possessed self-control and slammed his office door behind him so hard his Harvard diploma fell from the wall, shattering the glass in its frame as it hit the floor.
“Just a cherry on top of my shit sundae,” he said, not bothering to pick up the broken frame.
He opened the confidential email from his dad’s computer. The attachments included the autonomous vehicle long-range sensor’s schematic and a zip file containing all the supporting R&D files. He saved the attachments to an external flash drive, deleted the email from his in-box and tossed the flash drive into his briefcase.
Instead of starting work on his next project he left the office and headed to the bar to drown his sorrows. His ambition to run Jennco was slowly slipping away.
Chapter 13.
“Thanks Joni,” Jason said as she placed a pint of local microbrew ale in front of him.
Following a half day Lake Superior sail he was enjoying a beer on the Gunflint Tavern’s outside deck. He often told his Washington colleagues there was no more beautiful place on earth than Minnesota in September, and the day’s weather was a testament to his conviction. Temperature in the seventies, a light breeze and not a cloud in the sky.
As he looked around the crowded deck, filled mostly with Twin Cities’ residents enjoying one last weekend up north before winter, he noticed a woman sitting alone. She was staring out at the harbor, casually sipping her beer. When she turned as Joni approached her table, he could see only her silhouette. But that was all he needed.
It was Allison Dahlstrom.
* * *
The feelings erupting in him were wrong. He was in love with another woman, a Washington Post reporter on assignment in the paper’s Hong Kong bureau. He should be feeling nostalgic, remembering a time in his life when he was young and carefree. He and Allison enjoyed good times together, but went their separate ways. But instead, he felt a powerful yearning for a former lover, and it made the love and heartbreak they shared feel like it was
only yesterday.
They had dated thirteen years before when he lived in Saint Paul. She was his best friend’s older sister, and what started as a casual date for a few drinks turned into an intense short-term relationship. They were both sexually inexperienced, though neither were virgins, and for six months they learned the art of making love together.
He knew she was in love with him, but couldn’t set aside his feelings for his girlfriend who was halfway through an eighteen-month stint with the Peace Corps. Gretchen’s daily letters diminished his quest to forget her and move on. When she returned from Haiti, he broke up with Allison to be with her, but that relationship went down in flames after six months.
He often wished he had never left Allison. He saw her occasionally after their breakup, but she moved on to a new relationship, and they remained cordial. He hadn’t seen her since he left Minnesota for Washington.
As Joni passed by on her way to the bar he asked her to bring Allison a beer from him.
* * *
Even though Allison was staring out at the harbor, she had seen Jason the moment he stepped onto the deck.
After he moved to Washington, she convinced herself she would never see him again, and tried her best to forget him. It was the only defense to stifle her deep feelings for him even after he left her for another woman.
But at times she encountered triggers that caused memories of their time together to return so vividly, and reignite the pain. A movie on late night TV they had seen on their first date. A chance encounter at the mall with one of Jason’s old friends. Seeing Gretchen on local TV news where she was a weekend anchor.
Now she found herself only feet away from the man she once loved. And staring out at Lake Superior, she struggled with the realization that she never stopped loving him.
* * *
After Joni set the beer on the table in front of Allison she turned and pointed at Jason. When Allison’s eyes met Jason’s he smiled and raised his glass. She returned his smile and raised her glass, but remained seated for a few minutes. Finally she stood, picked up her beer and walked toward his table. With her blonde hair and blue eyes she was as beautiful as the day he kissed her goodbye over a decade before.
He wasn’t sure whether she’d thank him or toss the beer in his face.
“Hello Allison, good to see you. What’s it been, ten years?”
“More like thirteen,” she said. The exact date was etched in her memory. “Mind if I join you?”
“I’d love nothing more, please have a seat,” Jason said, glad he wasn’t wiping microbrew from his face. “What are you doing in Grand Marais?”
“Just taking a long weekend, by myself. Needed some time away.”
“Still live in Minneapolis?”
“Yeah. Husband and three kids, a house in the burbs, white picket fence…, living the American dream.”
“Why do I sense a sarcastic tone in your voice?”
“Well…, at times it’s more like a nightmare.”
“The reason for your weekend getaway,” Jason said, a statement, not a question.
She smiled and said nothing, then changed the subject.
“What are you doing in Grand Marais?” she asked. “Last I heard you were a big shot lawyer in some Washington firm.”
“I was until a few months ago. Remember last February when there was a thwarted terrorist attack on the president’s State of the Union Address?”
“How could I forget? There was nothing else on the news for at least a week. Some anonymous lawyer stopped the attack and got shot, but he saved the president and most of congress.”
“That anonymous lawyer was me.”
“No way,” she said, her comment mixed with laughter of disbelief.
“It’s true, check out my scar,” he said as he lifted his shirt, exposing the nickel size circle of scar tissue on his shoulder, a white sphere on his otherwise well-tanned chest. “I represented a pro bono client, an undocumented hotel maid, who witnessed the murder of a senator. He was involved in a plot to release a biological weapon into the Capitol Chambers hoping to replace the left leaning president with the right wing secretary of state. But he had second thoughts and a couple of thugs killed him. She called me, and when they overheard her tell me about the murder they killed her, then tried to take me out. One thing led to another and I had no choice but to stop the attack, and you know the rest. Just got lucky, I guess.”
He left out that the perpetrator escaped the authorities and fled to a Caribbean island without an extradition treaty, and a week later a car bomb destroyed his Porsche and put him in the hospital for a month. A final retaliation for his intervention in the perfect plan to return America to that envisioned by the founding fathers.
“Wow, I’m sitting with a national hero.”
He just smiled.
“Last I heard through the Minneapolis grapevine you were engaged.”
“I was,” Jason said, his mood becoming somber. He fell silent.
“Sorry,” Allison said. “Bad breakup, I guess.”
“No, she was killed.”
“Oh, Jason. I didn’t mean to--”
“No, that’s all right. I can talk about it. Once I dug into the terrorists’ attack plan, they viewed me as a threat. They planted a bomb in my car, but Cyndi…, my fiancé…, borrowed it when hers was in the shop.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was tough. I loved her with all my heart and mourned her loss. But I moved on. I couldn’t dwell on what could have been, there’s nothing more you can do after something like that.”
“By moving on, do you mean someone new?”
“I hope you don’t think less of me for moving on so soon after Cyndi’s death, but I sort of accidently fell into a serious relationship. Her name’s Megan Forsythe, she’s a reporter for the Washington Post.”
“How do you accidently fall into a serious relationship?” she asked, unable to stifle her laughter.
Jason smiled, appreciating his last comment sounded funny.
“Don’t give me shit, Dahlstrom,” he said. “She was writing an investigative report about Islamic terrorist sleeper cells in the D.C. area, and her primary source was working with the same man behind the State of the Union attack. Our paths crossed, we realized our investigations focused on common elements and we joined forces. And one thing led to another and…, you know.”
“Yeah…, I know. But you still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing in Grand Marais? And is she here with you?”
“After the thwarted terrorist attack, I decided to just take a break from the rat race and move here. I spent quality time in this area when I was young, my aunt and uncle lived close by. Pulling into town the first day I knew I made the right decision.”
He paused and sipped his beer.
“And the answer to your second question is no. Megan was on assignment in the Washington Post’s London bureau when I moved here, but when her London assignment ended the paper offered her an excellent opportunity in Hong Kong. So, instead of joining me here she accepted the promotion. We Skype when we can, but it’s not quite the same.”
“What is it with you and long-distance romances? Hong Kong…, Haiti….”
“Touché,” Jason said, appreciating the sarcasm, and laughed without humor.
Regrets that simmered for thirteen years still stung.
Chapter 14.
Jason stood on his deck outside the second story apartment above his gallery and law office. He leaned against the railing, enjoying his coffee on a beautiful September morning. He squinted as he looked southeast over Lake Superior, the morning sun bright against the crystal blue sky.
“Good morning,” he heard behind him, turning to see Allison wearing only his button-down oxford dress shirt. She hadn’t taken time to fasten the buttons and a mild gust of Lake Superior breeze parted his shirt, offering him a glimpse of the beautiful body he savored the night before. He paused and gazed out at the harbor for a moment, but fi
nding no escape from his thoughts he returned his attention to his overnight guest.
He struggled with the image of another woman standing in her place.
The evening before they enjoyed several rounds of craft beers and spent hours catching up. Allison was eager to see his gallery, so they made the two block Main Street trek to his place for a nightcap.
Thirteen years of suppressed feelings erupted into a night of passionate lovemaking.
What they had done was wrong in so many ways. But it had been a long time since he and Megan made love, and he yearned for the gentle touch of a woman. His yearning, plus a few too many beers, made it easy for him to justify what he knew was nothing more than a one-night stand.
Two people once in love. A woman struggling with a broken marriage and a man missing the woman he loved, unsure whether the time and distance between them diminished their connection. They each found a short respite from their issues in the comfortable, familiar arms of a former lover.
But guilt was sure to follow.
“I was hoping to see you next to me when I woke up,” she said, feigning a pout.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said as he walked forward and pulled her close. “I was awake for an hour, and you were so peaceful I let you sleep.”
“You seem lost in thought, what’s on your mind?”
That I wish the woman I loved were standing in your place.
“Nothing much, just enjoying a beautiful Lake Superior morning.”
* * *
Sitting on the deck an hour later, Jason and Allison were finishing a Sunday brunch of Eggs Benedict, asparagus and mimosas.
“The last twenty-four hours were incredible,” she said.
“The perfect ending to your long weekend getaway?”
“Yeah,” she said as she reached across the table and grasped his hand.
Neither spoke as they looked out at the harbor, each sorting through their thoughts. It was an unspoken truth their night together was a one-time thing, reliving pleasant memories of the past, and could never lead to anything more.
“You know,” Jason said, prepared to express his feelings of guilt, shame and regret for their one-night encounter. But before he could continue Allison’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID.