My Father's Dirty Friend

by Ava Carpenter

  As I step in the secretary nails me immediately: “Sir... Mr. Lockwood,” she flusters as she tries to stand and move toward the door. “You were, um, asked to leave the hotel. Calling security would not be a good thing—”

  I hold up my hand, cutting her off. “Just tell Thomas I need to speak with him.”

  “Well, I believe Thomas— Mr. Bradley, is out right now, Mr. Lockwood.”

  A smile breaks across my face as I look from her panicked face to the door behind her and back. “I can see someone in there,” I say. I watch as she very slowly cranes her head to look through the frosted glass of the office door and then back to me, all the while trying not to take her eyes off me as if I might sprint past her at any second and through the door.

  She looks me directly in the eye. “There’s no-one in there.” Her words are almost whispered, her lips seem dry and cracked.

  I cock my head. “There isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure Thomas Bradley isn’t in there right now?”

  She adjusts her glasses. “Absolutely.”

  I point at the door. “But someone is in there.”

  “Not Mr. Bradley.” She takes an exaggerated glance over my shoulder to the exit, raising her eyebrows. “I think it’s time for you to leave, Mr. Lockwood,” she says.

  I nod in agreement, smile, turn around and take a step toward the exit. When I see that she has started moving back to her desk I spin on my heels and breeze right on by her protests, throwing the door to the office open in one swift motion.

  Thomas Bradley stands up from his desk, hands on his hips as his office door slams into the wall. The secretary rushes past me, speaking fast, her voice high with anxiety as she apologizes profusely to Thomas for letting such a bad man as myself entry to his domain. Thomas merely holds up his hand to assure her its not her fault, keeping his eyes locked to mine as we stare each other down from across the room.

  In my periphery, I can see the secretary sense our gaze as she reads the room and begins to back out through the doorway, quietly mumbling something about canceling Thomas’ next appointment, evidently reassured that none of the transpiring events are her fault.

  I step further into the room as she tries to close the door around my body. Seconds pass in an eerie silence until he finally speaks. “Mason,” he says simply.

  “I thought you were out,” I say. “Decided I might have left a pen in here the other day, didn’t want to leave without it.”

  “Few things to wrap up here before leaving,” Thomas says. “You know how it is, got to have that peace and quiet.” His words aren’t quiet, they boom from across the room, the air around me vibrating violently.

  “I know,” I say.

  Thomas slowly sits back in his chair, the squelch of the leather as equally loud as his voice. “You aren’t supposed to be here, Mason. It’s going to really disappoint me if I have to bring security into this, all just to get you to leave.”

  I smile. “It won’t come to that, I have my bags outside, ready to go. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute, before I leave.”

  Thomas snorts. “Oh, have a few things to say, do you?”

  I nod in reply.

  He fiddles with a pen on his desk as he speaks, maintaining that piercing eye contact all the while. “Well that might suit you, Mason, but it doesn’t suit me. I think you are really in some ridiculous need of intelligence if you expect me to even consider wanting to hear anything else that comes out of your mouth.”

  “That may be so, but you’re going to hear it, either way,” I tell him and mean it.

  “And what’s the topic of conversation this time? Still trying to get me to sell the business? Or is it something else this time? Or is it Stacy?”

  When he says her name I almost intake a sharp breath but manage to catch myself beforehand. Thomas and I have known each other a long, long time, and even though I am known to be a shark in the boardroom the thought of having to speak to him about anything regarding Stacy now does not sit well on my mind. This is no nth hour boardroom shakedown takeover that requires ice-cold blood in the veins and a business-only manner.

  This is my biggest deal ever, I realize suddenly. And now I can’t even rely on my expertly cultivated acumen.

  I have to look at another aspect of myself to make this work.

  “Look, Thomas,” I begin but he cuts me off.

  “Stacy then,” he says quietly, and then, after a long breath: “so what I’m hearing around the hotel is true.”

  Across from him there are two chairs on the other side of the desk so I move there, but I don’t sit. I stand my ground as I speak. “It depends on what you’ve heard, Thomas.” And that was true, I have no idea what the hell anyone could have heard about Stacy and myself, but I should have known we would not have gone unnoticed in such a big building filled with as many people.

  Thomas leans forward, spreading his hands across the desk. “I’ve heard enough, Mason. When even my staff report as such, it greatly interests me.”

  “It’s true then,” I say bluntly. “But Thomas, you have to understand, none of this in any way has to do with the business.”

  Another squelch from the leather as he slinks backward, the chair itself protesting under the strain, being pushed to its absolute limits. His expression a terrible scowl, his eyes casting a complete disdain for my character. He all but shakes his head in disgust, but I can imagine it clearly in my mind all the same.

  “We’ve known each other a long time, Thomas.”

  “Much too long, it would seem.”

  I shake my head. “Throughout these years you’ve always respected me.”

  “I only respected your work ethic, Mason,” he snaps back.

  The sentiment is false, we both know that, but he’s fighting now, throwing whatever he can to see what will stick, will hurt. I deflect and speak louder. “If you can respect my work, then you can respect my feelings, Thomas.”

  “Your feelings?” he says with one eyebrow arched high.

  “Coming here to speak of this, I don’t think you realize just how hard this is for me,” I tell him. “Feelings, Thomas. If you’re asking me if I’ve been seeing your daughter, then the answer is yes. But I’ve been seeing her this weekend only—”

  “— of course, the ladies man, Mason Lockwood—”

  I barrel on right through his interruption. “— only, Thomas. And it has nothing to do with the business, yours or mine.”

  Thomas stands abruptly, fists on the tables, yelling, his chair spinning in circles behind him. “Then why did it have to happen just now, this weekend? Answer me that?”

  I shake my head. “It happened on its own, that’s the truth. Regardless of what either of us, you and I Thomas, regardless of how we have misled each other of intentions, it simply happened.”

  My fists are on the table now, too, the both of us hunching over the opposite sides of the desk, trying to stare down, trying to do anything to get our points across. In the back of my mind, I think about how ridiculous this must look to an observer, and I wonder if the secretary is at that frosted glass at this very second, trying to peer inside.

  “It had nothing to do with the hotel,” I say calmly.

  “That’s all very convenient,” Thomas’ voice is but a whisper above my own thoughts. “After all these years, Mason, and you have to fool around with my daughter because you couldn’t get your way? I think this has to be the lowest play I’ve ever seen you do.”

  I lean in further, reaching across the desk, chin up. “Like I said, Thomas, none of this was planned.”

  “After all these years of knowing us, the family, Stacy… how could you?”

  I shake my head. “It has nothing to do with the past. That Stacy is long gone, all you have now is a beautiful young woman for a daughter, Thomas.”

  “You think I don’t know that? I don’t like it, but I know Stacy is a woman, what can I do about it now. She is free to live her own life, go her own
way.”

  I try not to sneer. “But she isn’t, is she? You demand she continues on in the hotel business, your business, the family business, with no care to what she herself wants.”

  “And you do know what she wants?”

  “Yes,” I tell him, and mean it.

  Thomas’ face becomes redder with anger. “Now you’re going to tell me how to communicate with my own daughter? Mason, get out of my office before I throw my desk at you.”

  You can try, I think to myself, knowing that I can’t back down now, not after all this. “I know it because I have feelings for her, Thomas. You can laugh at it if you wish, but I’m telling the truth, I have feelings for your daughter, Stacy, and this is you hearing it from me, personally, no matter what all these rumors are.”

  The words linger in the air for an uncomfortable time, his face becoming so stoic I can barely read him. After maybe half a minute he simply lifts the pen from his desk and plays it in his hand, and I’m half expecting him to try and stab me with it.

  Thomas slowly sits back down in his chair, an aura of deflation about him. He breathes deeply, lets it out again, watching me as he does so, something going on behind those piercing eyes of his, perhaps the deepest rumination that he has ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

  Finally, he speaks again, his voice a certain tone, not quite defeat, but rather a muted dejection; some willful result from an inevitable resolve. “Like you said, Stacy is a grown woman. I can only do so much to advise her. She makes her own decisions, good or bad.”

  His eyes glint like he is seeing me for the very first time, or maybe he is seeing something within me. I hope its something good whatever his stare means.

  “You always were a tenacious bastard, Mason.”

  I lean as far across the desk as it will allow, summoning all my resolve, speaking my words with the fullest confidence and honest intent. “I want to do it,” I say quietly, simply.

  Thomas looks up from the pen spinning in his fingers, regarding me with something of a puzzlement, then a realization. He leans all the way back in his chair, his feet propped against the desk drawers. He spins the pen.

  A minute passes, yet another, the office once again silent as Thomas contemplates my words. The time stretches onward and it becomes almost unbearable as I watch the notion dawn on him, his face begins to change, for the better from my estimation, my hope.

  I read his expression before standing up tall again, now fully reinvigorated, a new task at hand, so much to prepare. “It will keep the business in the family,” I tell him.

  His eyes grow wide as I lay it all out for him but he doesn’t move, he simply watches as I pace the room, explaining, hearing my own words echo back at me as my heart beats faster in my chest.

  It feels good.

  Chapter 13

  Stacy

  I’ve never really been afraid of crowds or large gatherings and that kind of thing, but when I push through the doors into the ballroom I almost halt on the spot.

  The room has been filled with tables with more than enough guests to accommodate them. Most of them aren’t seated, however, and are seemingly milling around the room stopping from time to time to engage chat with other guests. A waiter walks by me and I have to fight off the urge to reach out and knock back a glass of wine on the sly.

  Behind me, I can sense a backup forming so I move away from the door and try to meld into the crowd. I almost stumble in my high heels, still so unsure of myself in them. The room feels stuffy even though I can see the windows are cracked wide, so it must be these damn clothes. Only twenty minutes earlier I had visited Sharon at the supplies room and all she could find was a hostess uniform exactly one size too small for my body. Even now as I try to disappear into the crowd, I’m well aware of how tight this purple jacket is across my bust, and I don't even want to think about how big my ass must look in the matching purple pin skirt.

  At least the heels are a good fit, I think to myself.

  Another hostess nods an acknowledgment as she walks past, and I return in kind before the crowd swallows her again. Despite the heat in the room, my bare legs remain cool thanks to all this movement. I finger the white neckerchief that completes this uniform as I walk deeper into the mass of bodies.

  Networking… how the hell am I going to do this? I can barely keep the thought of Mason out of my head and any time I do think of him my eyes begin to water until I choke them back with great effort. This isn’t going to be the great networking exhibition my father is expecting.

  “Stacy?” a voice calls from somewhere behind me, barely audible over the din of sound filling the room. I turn to find one of the waiters, one that looks even more clueless about all this than I do. “Should I take wine or champagne to seating area nine?” he asks me hurriedly, like his life depended on this decision.

  Only your job performance, I think solemnly.

  “Wine,” I offer after glancing the area in question. The real reasoning I don’t know, why or how, but I fire that answer from the seat of my pants and I’m damn hopeful I’m right. Maybe it’s latent business acumen, inherited in the old genes themselves after all, I try to convince myself, though I don’t really buy it.

  Maybe that’s what all business was in reality: educated guesses and blind shots. Thinking of this just brings Mason back to my mind again so I push those thoughts away, bury them deep down in the back of my mind.

  Good riddance.

  The sea of bodies parts once more and my father strides toward me. I step in front of him, not even sure if he saw me in the first place. “Stacy,” he says before I can even get a word in. “I can’t stop to chat right now I have to go hold back these foreign investors before they leave. Something to do with land rights, or some such.”

  As he talks he motions with his wine glass the general direction toward the entrance I had just come through, but everyone in the room looks the same to me and I have no idea which people he is even referencing. Before I can ask he has already slapped me on the shoulder and moved on to chase down the ghost of the investors he spoke of.

  I stand alone again in a room full of people. At least I am remembering to keep up my smile, though I’m sure it must make me look crazy; the permanent smile of an unrepentant murderer. I sigh, straighten up, and reintegrate into the moving, milling crowd.

  After I spend ten minutes moving around making idle greetings to various people I spot the one thing I want right now: the buffet table. It is laden with enough food to feed the entire hotel and it is continually busied and replenished by staff. Just the mere sight of it makes my stomach rumble so loudly I’m instantly afraid that the people nearby can hear it, so I start walking again, slower this time, skirting around the buffet like a shark circling a juicy seal.

  It’s almost ten more minutes of this circling and craving for food before I’m stopped by a couple in their early thirties who know my father. Instantly, I can tell they are super rich just by the sound of their voices and the cut of their clothes; he in an expensive tux and her in a low cut dress that she must have been poured into.

  The two of them are also super attractive and I can feel myself fluster a little as the man sparks up a conversation with me almost out of the blue. “Bradley’s lass, right?” he asks.

  “It’s Stacy, dear,” the woman says. She is hanging precariously from his arm and I am at once quite alarmed that she might fall and break something.

  I beam my smile wider, crazier. “That’s me.”

  “That’s great,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to talk to Thomas tonight but I’ve yet to see him,” he says. His words are long and drawn out in an effort to project some sort of elitism or, I realize suddenly, character and class that might hide their true age.

  “I’m afraid you might have missed him,” I inform them. “He is off hunting down some slippery investors. Last I saw him was on the other side of the ballroom.”

  The man brings his hand to his forehead. “That’s too bad. Well what about yo
u, Stacy? Are you following in your father’s footsteps yet? Surely he has you down here as a lookout.”

  The woman suddenly titters and I almost recoil in horror. “Any good stock tips for us, Stacy?”

  I suddenly want to be far away from this conversation, these people, this ballroom, this hotel, everything. I think of my hotel room and my bed and my book collection. Where I could be right now, reading, sleeping, dreaming.

  “Sorry,” I say finally, realizing that an uncomfortable period of time has passed. “All those things my father keeps close to his chest. You know how he is.”

  The woman slumps further into the man’s shoulder. I can almost hear the trust fund screaming for help, being eaten alive by these two. But yet I can’t help myself continuing to talk, my mouth moves and the words come out and my brain thinks: why, Stacy? Why did you do this to us, after all we’ve been through?

  “Books,” I say. Just that single word as if it would explain everything.

  They look at me like I’m insane, because maybe I am. “Get into the book trade?” he asks perplexed.

  “No, that’s what I’d like to do,” I say quietly, but they hear me as I can see their eyes growing wider with disinterest the more I speak. But screw them, these people are going to be used by me and I will say my piece. “My dad is big on the hotels, and his other interests, I might add. But he isn’t big on my idea of getting into publishing, you know?”

  “Uh-huh,” the man says.

  “What about you guys?” I ask, stepping closer to them. “Are you guys interested in publishing? I have a lot of ideas, maybe we can work together on this.”

  They simply stare at me. A long time passes and I can almost hear the whirring of their brains ticking over, formulating an answer, an escape, any way to get away from me without insulting the daughter of their host.

  At least twenty seconds pass, thirty. A few of the guests milling by bump into the three of us and we jostle back and forth now and then, like flotsam on the ocean.