by Holly Rayner
"So, what did happen last year?" Kathy asked. "I transferred to this station after the worst of it was already over."
"Well, I assume you heard about the affair?" The Sheikh sighed, sitting back and rubbing the bridge of his nose as though even remembering the event gave him a headache.
"Yeah, with an intern, right?" Kathy replied.
"A nineteen-year-old intern," Tehar replied. Kathy winced. "And barely that. The photos that were leaked were very compromising. Mitchell's family is influential, but his ex-wife's family is probably even more so. She was humiliated and her family was outraged. They set out to ruin his career and QIC Media on top of it. The press had a field day. We've always tried to brand ourselves as moral leaders with upstanding values. That one of the part owners was fooling around on his wife with a teenager—a teenager who worked for him no less! The consent issues there cannot be understated. Well, needless to say, it was an ugly blemish on our record. It nearly killed this station and the entire company with it."
"So, why wasn't he fired?" Kathy asked, frowning over her Styrofoam lid.
"Henry Alan owed his father a favor. They've been friends since charter school." Tehar waved it off dismissively, though his tart expression made it clear he didn't approve of such nepotism. "So, Mitchell was merely demoted. I was given his position, which he isn't pleased about as I'm sure you can imagine."
"That explains a lot, actually," Kathy muttered, recalling how quickly Mitchell had fled the building. "He doesn't exactly speak fondly of you, or of Henry Alan."
"Knowing what kind of man he is, I would be very surprised if he did," Tehar said with a snort. He shook his head, returning to his lunch. "But enough of that business. How have you been since my last visit?"
Kathy debated how truthfully she should answer and decided to lean on the side of polite formality.
"Fine," she answered with a slightly stiff smile. "Working hard. If I didn't love this work as much as I do, I'd probably have gone crazy by now."
"As evidenced by today." Tehar raised an eyebrow, clearly still baffled by the ridiculously long shift she'd worked. "But I was more concerned about what happened right after my last visit. Forgive me if it's not something you want to talk about, but I heard your father passed just this November?"
"He did," Kathy answered, tightlipped, sitting back a little stiffly. She put down her fork. "Lung cancer. He was a pack-a-day smoker for most of his life."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Tehar frowned, sympathy and concern making lines in his face that made him seem older than he was. It was somehow comforting, a glimpse past his usual formal facade. "I've lost relatives to cancer. There's nothing worse than watching someone you love disappear a little at a time."
"No, it wasn't like that for me," Kathy said, shaking her head. "By the time he got to the doctor and had it checked out, it was already terminal. Treatment might have given him a few more years, but he decided against it. Didn't want it to interfere with his work. He didn't even tell us he was sick until he went into the hospital for the last time, by which point it all happened pretty fast. Spent his last few days pushing out one more article. He wanted to finish this big piece on the Syrian refugee crisis. He'll probably get a few posthumous awards for it."
She shrugged, hands in the air, as though it were all meaningless. Like it had happened to someone else. Tehar's frown deepened. Kathy looked away.
"We hadn't spoken in years," she said. "We were never close."
"I heard you didn't request any time off." Tehar leaned back, looking at her thoughtfully.
"I figured the best way to honor his memory was to keep working." Kathy scoffed, covering her face with her hand. "It's what he would have done. Of course, that was before the will came out and—"
She cut herself off, a sour taste in her mouth. She dropped her hand back to her lap sharply, composing herself.
"I'm sorry for bringing up such an unpleasant subject," Tehar said as she trailed off. "Everyone mourns in their own way. I was simply concerned Mitchell was the reason you hadn't taken personal time to grieve. I'm relieved to know it was your own choice."
"I appreciate your concern," Kathy replied, distancing herself from the unpleasant conversation.
To his credit, Tehar looked apologetic for bringing it up.
"Thank you again for lunch," Kathy said, closing the takeout container with a squeak of Styrofoam. "I really appreciate it. I'll finish the rest at home. I should give you your tour so you can get back to work."
"That's not necessary," Tehar said quickly. He'd picked up his phone and was frowning down at the screen. "I can find my own way around. You've answered the biggest questions I had already. You should go home and get some rest."
"I really don't mind—"
"No, I insist." Tehar stood up, coming around the desk to urge her towards the door. "I was serious when I said you should take better care of yourself. We can't afford to have you getting sick."
Kathy opened her mouth, considering telling him everything, and then thought better of it.
"All right," she agreed. "Thank you, sir."
"Oh, one thing before you go." His hand was warm on her shoulder as he guided her out of the office, but he paused to offer her his phone instead. "May I have your number?"
Kathy froze, caught off guard.
"You did say I could call next time I had questions," he reminded her with a smile. "It would be much more convenient than flying in."
"Oh, of course." Kathy shook her head to clear it and accepted his phone, handing him hers. They exchanged numbers quickly and Kathy took her phone back, amused to see he'd entered his name as 'Tehar' rather than Sheikh or boss or something more formal.
"I'll probably see you tomorrow," Tehar said as he tucked his phone away. "I'll be in the studio for a few days before I report back to Henry Alan."
"I'm glad to hear it," Kathy said, sincerity obvious. She was glad to have someone keeping an eye on Mitchell's shenanigans. "I'll see you then. Good night, sir."
"Good night, Miss Burgess," Tehar said with a polite nod. Kathy smiled and waved as she left, allowing her weariness to settle back onto her shoulders as she stumbled out into the hot parking lot to find her car. Sheikh Tehar was a good man. She was going to miss him when she had to leave.
Chapter Two
"You're home, finally! God, you look awful."
Kathy opened the door of her condo to see her best friend sprawled out on the couch with her feet on the coffee table. Tessa was tall enough to be a model, but her proportions were more scarecrow than Barbie, a comparison made more apt by her huge cloud of curly blond hair. She and Kathy had been friends since middle school, they lived in the same building and had keys to each other’s places, and Tessa was currently helping herself to the last of Kathy's yogurt.
"Thanks for reminding me," Kathy said, dragging herself to the coat rack to put up her keys and bag before collapsing face first into the couch across Tessa's lap.
"You're out of yogurt."
Kathy groaned in reply, and Tessa patted her head.
"Long day?" she asked.
"Unbelievably."
"Well, good news. You'll have plenty of time to relax on your date tonight!"
Kathy groaned louder. Tessa rubbed her back.
"Aw, come on," Tessa pleaded. "Richard is a really nice guy! You're going to have a great time."
"You don't know he's nice," Kathy pointed out, her voice muffled by the sofa.
"Well, I know Linda from my yoga class thinks he's really nice."
"She's his sister!"
"From my experience with brothers, that should make her think he's awful," Tessa pointed out. "Besides, I may not know he's nice, but I know he's healthy, good looking, and financially stable. That's what you're really looking for here, right?"
"You make me sound like some weird gold digger." Kathy sat up so that she could glare at Tessa. "It's not like I'm doing this because I have a choice."
"Then don't go on the date."
Tessa shrugged, unconcerned. "It's not like I care if you get your inheritance."
Kathy pursed her lips, struggling with what to say. Then she gave up, shoulders sagging.
"It's a lot of money," she conceded.
Tessa laughed, and Kathy, defeated, turned to prying her shoes off her aching feet.
"Plus, the family home in Colorado," she added, chucking one of her heels across her stylishly decorated but conspicuously unlived-in living room. "If I let that go, my family would never forgive me."
"I'm sorry for laughing," Tessa said, setting the yogurt down on the coffee table. "I shouldn't. It really is messed up. What kind of father forces his daughter to get pregnant? That's some dark ages B.S."
"According to the will, he doesn't want me to end up like him." Kathy sighed, unable to resist the urge to defend her father, dropping her other shoe unceremoniously on the floor. "He spent his whole life focused on nothing but his work. He pushed me and Mom away and ended up in that hospital, dying alone. So, he thinks making me have a kid will force me to focus on family. Cause that worked so well for him, right?"
"I thought people were supposed to get nicer and more understanding when they find out they're dying," Tessa said, shaking her head.
"I don't think that's it," Kathy mused, leaning back against the sofa, rolling her stiff shoulders. "I think it's more like…people find out they're dying and get desperate to leave some kind of mark on the world. We're always so sure there's going to be more time. Then suddenly there isn't, and we realize how much we've wasted on things that won't matter or be remembered. I think a lot of people who find out they're dying would like to pick up a weapon and go around screaming and overthrowing governments. Get themselves a statue or at least a note in a history book somewhere. But instead, we just try to make nice memories with our families or guilt them into something, in hopes we'll be remembered through them, maybe."
Kathy shook her head, hands open, palms up, like she was trying to wrench the complicated truth out of the air. "I don't know. Dad just seemed so desperate to leave something behind, and it’s like he didn't even want to bother trying to get through to me because he knew the damage was already done. He just kept working on that last article like if he made it good enough it might, I don't know, save him or redeem him somehow. In the end, I still don't think he liked it."
"Was it any good?" Tessa asked, choosing, probably wisely, not to comment on Kathy's philosophical quandary. Kathy shrugged.
"His publishers liked it," she replied. "It's being considered for some awards."
"You haven't read it?"
Kathy shook her head, frowning, discomfort and guilt pulling down the corners of her mouth as sharply as origami folds.
"Don't you want to?" Tessa asked, looking confused. "I mean, it was obviously important to him."
"I will eventually." Kathy tried to escape the issue, standing up on stiff and wobbly legs to wander into the kitchen for something to drink. "So, when am I supposed to meet this Richard guy?"
"He's picking you up at six," Tessa answered from the couch, where she'd resumed eating her yogurt.
Kathy pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time and hissed a curse when she saw that it was already five.
"Come on," she said, grabbing Tessa and dragging her away from the couch. "I'm going to need your help."
She showered quickly while Tessa hunted through her closet for the best outfit.
"Not that," she said as she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and fumbling for the hair dryer on her vanity.
"But it's cute!" Tessa protested, holding up the tiny red dress.
"I'm looking for a baby, not a one night stand." Kathy went to the closet herself, shuffling through her clothing with a rapidly deepening frown as she hunted for something first date appropriate.
"What about this?" she asked, pulling out a blouse and suit jacket.
"Are you dating him or interviewing him for a job?" Tessa asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Neither," Kathy huffed. "Both. I don't know!"
She threw the outfit onto the bed and turned back to the closet.
"Well, what are you after here?" Tessa asked, putting the dress down. "If you're just looking for a sperm donor, they have clinics for that, you know."
"Cause being a single mom sounds fantastic." Kathy rolled her eyes.
"So, what, you want to get married?" Tessa pressed Kathy for an answer impatiently. "Cause that might take a while. Don't you only have a year before the will expires and everything gets taken by the bank?"
"I know how long I have, Tessa!" Kathy gritted her teeth in frustration. "I just—"
She turned around, throwing up her hands, and flopped down onto the bed.
"I want to have some kind of connection," she said, trying to put her conflicting feelings into words. "I don't know that I want to get married or even continue a relationship with the guy. I just don't want my kid's father to be some stranger I never met, or only saw once or twice. I want to know who they are."
"You know you won't be doing this alone, whatever happens," Tessa said gently, coming to sit beside her. "I'm going to be here to help you. Plus, with the inheritance and what you make, raising a kid on your own is doable. You don't have to chain yourself to some guy you barely know."
"I just don't want to regret this," Kathy admitted.
"I'm pretty sure it's inevitable," Tessa said, putting an arm around her. "'My dad said I have to' is not exactly the ideal motivation for starting a family. You're probably bound to think 'I shouldn't have done this' at some point. But that doesn't mean you'll always feel that way, or that it won't be worth it. Here's the real question: Would you regret it more if you didn't do it?"
Kathy said nothing, unable to say one way or the other.
"Whatever you decide to do, I'm behind you all the way," Tessa promised. "Kid or no kid."
"Thanks, Tess," Kathy said gratefully, leaning on her friend's shoulder.
"But I do think you should go on this date," Tessa said, pushing her up straight again. "If you don't like the guy then the whole argument is pointless anyway. And you never know! You might fall in love!"
"Doubtful." Kathy sighed. "But all right. I'm not wearing that red dress though."
They eventually settled on a floral sundress, light enough for the warm weather, reserved but still flirty, and Tessa helped with Kathy's makeup and hair.
"I'll text you from the restaurant," Kathy said as she grabbed her bag and headed for the door, Tessa following her. "I should be back around ten."
"Not planning to get started on that baby tonight then?" Tessa teased. Kathy rolled her eyes.
"If plans change, I'll text you," she said. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck!" Tessa called, and Kathy hurried out of the door and down the stairs.
Her little condo, nice but affordable, was on the second floor of a tidy little complex. A square of tan box-shaped apartments surrounding a parking lot edged with palm trees and flowering bougainvillea bushes. She probably could have afforded something bigger or nicer, but she didn't need a lot of space and she liked having the extra money for other things. Kathy did all right for herself. She made enough to save a little each month and not have to struggle to keep food in the house. Every once in a while she could splurge on something nice, but she was smart enough to know the wire she walked. A kid would be just the thing to knock her off her semi-comfortable perch.
She'd done her research after her father's will had come out. Having a child was expensive—especially without a second income to chip in. She'd have never even considered it without this unexpected insistence from her dead father. The inheritance would certainly help. He'd been very successful and his savings was considerable. But regardless of what Tessa said, Kathy didn't think it was reasonable to expect that she could do this on her own.
She headed down the street, checking the time. The sun was still bright, the pavement steaming hot. The sun wouldn't set till past eight this tim
e of year. Kathy was glad for the shower and the extra coat of deodorant. Florida heat, even in spring, was nothing to sneeze at. The average temperature hovered around the eighties for most of the season and jumped to the low nineties in the summer.
The heat wavered in little mirages above the ground, distorting images of fire bush and fern. The spring was still young, the plants still green and thriving. But Kathy knew from experience they would all be brown and dried out and dead well before midsummer. Still, she liked Florida best during the spring and fall when the temperatures found an unsteady balance and the greenery went wild, and it felt, for a little while, like you really were living in a tropical paradise. There were days, lying on the barren white sand on the beach and trying not to roast, where she felt she might as well have moved to the desert.
It made her miss Colorado, where she'd grown up and where her extended family still lived. The deep wet green of the Pacific Northwest seemed like a distant myth when walking down the hot, crowded sidewalk of Miami. The ranch where her grandfather kept horses, the cold creek that ran through the old evergreens, the sight of mountains always on the horizon; these were the places her thoughts returned to when she tired of the dried-out endless flatness of Florida.
She'd moved here to get away from her father, literally moving as far away as she could, and she did love it sometimes. Being so close to the ocean was wonderful, and she loved the people and the culture there, the color and the excitement and not having to wear six layers if you wanted to leave the house before June. But it did wear on you after a while. Sometimes she longed to be nomadic.
The small park where she was to meet Richard was not very far down the road from her apartment. If there was one great thing about Florida, it was that even in Miami it rarely ever felt like you were living in the city. Not like New York or Chicago, which she'd visited on business before, which tended to feel like being imprisoned in a concrete box. Here, all but the densest downtown areas were still full of greenery, and open parks were frequent.