Chapter 10
Ezra opened his office door with a whistle.
“Is that a Christmas carol I hear?” Joy’s face looked almost comical in her pretend shock.
He tilted his head to consider. “You know, I think it was! ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’ to be precise. They were playing it in Star’s shop.”
“Oh, her store is the best place to feel a little cheer. I’m happy for you, for you both.”
It was premature to be wishing happiness on them both, but he didn’t correct her because he liked the sound of it. He would love to one day be good for Star, like she had been for him. He stepped into his office. The lights flickered and then turned on. As soon as he opened up his phone, he groaned. Ten calls from him dad. He didn’t even want to know. But the phone rang again while he was staring at it. His dad’s headshot smirked back at him.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Son. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”
“Just stopped by the local café for some breakfast with the Christmas Shoppe owner.” Perhaps he could cheer his father before he spit out whatever tirade Ezra could hear brewing on the other end of the phone.
“No more time for that. No need to woo these people any longer. We move forward in the most disruptive manner possible. We force this through, and we don’t take no for an answer.”
“Great, but they’ve all said yes. Mostly. We have the signatures we need.” Star’s signature was not required. She leased the land from the city. The council had been on his side from the beginning; they just wanted the shop owners happy and to give a verbal agreement. He knew Star’s answer had to be yes, but he wanted to make her such a deal that she’d be happy with it. He thought he could figure it out. Just a couple more days and the plans would be in place so he could show her.
His father’s voice in his ear jarred him. “Christmas day! We hold the ribbon cutting in the center of town and we celebrate by razing the place, starting with the Christmas Shoppe.” His laugh sounded maniacal. “We treat it like our gift to them. We can even wrap the store on the outside, like a gift and then watch the wrecking ball, pass out champagne. Invite the city. And watch it crumble to the ground.”
“Uh, Dad, what’s going on?”
“Everything I’ve already told you. This is a great idea, son. Our gift to the city, we will call it.” He could hear his father swallowing some kind of drink. “It’s your mother, Ezra.”
His heart stammered. “What?”
“She’s doing this.”
“Dad, you’re not making sense. Where are you? I’ll come to you.”
“No need. I’m coming out there in three days. She did it. She finally had the balls to try to take me down.”
Ezra waited, hoping his father would start making sense.
“I got a call from her attorney. And then the subpoena, and she’s going for it all, son, damages, past alimony, one half of all we own plus damages on top of that. She accuses me of keeping you from her. Can you believe that? As if you’d want to be with her.” He drank something again.
“Wait, Father, has she reached out, tried to be in contact with me?” Somehow of all the issues just dumped on him, Ezra most urgently wanted to learn whether or not his mother had tried.
“She did, through the years. Our personal firewall is good at deciphering all her fake identities to try to get through. We effectively kept her out, I think.”
Ezra was floored. All these years and his father had been blocking communication from his mother? He didn’t own any emails not run through their own personal internet or web people. He never once suspected that his life was being censored. “I’m going to ignore that complete breach of my privacy and invasion of my personal life and ask, what’s the prediction? Is she going to win?”
He heard a glass slam down on a counter. “She could. Our attorneys are talking settlement. I want to fight her. But they say it might be a better move to settle.”
Then she had a case, a strong case. His father never settled. Had his father cheated her out of money all these years, blocked her from seeing her son? His anger simmered in a low growing ball of betrayal…and confusion. He sat down, the world spinning at eye level. Then he smiled. Of all the emotion crowding out thought, the strongest was pride. Go mom.
“I’m putting this resort in your name completely, separate from the company. I’ve been working on a whole different company. It’s filed and almost finished. I’ll bring the papers with me, get everyone to sign them, with whatever agreements you have in place.”
“You’re hiding profits from Mom.”
“Not hiding them, preventing her from stealing everything out from under us. It’s all in plain eyesight. She can’t and won’t take your assets. It’s mine she’s after.”
Ezra made a note to hire an accountant. “Can you send me all the paperwork? I want to understand what we have going here.”
“You just worry about closing this deal, son. It’s the one thing she can’t touch. I want her to see it plain as day, with you at the head.” He cackled, and Ezra happily got off the phone with him.
Mind spinning, room spinning, he sat still, trying to understand what exactly was going on. He made some calls to people within the company he trusted, some outside help, his attorney and accountant and got to work.
After several hours of getting together a power team of people he could trust, his phone rang again. The mayor. “Hello?”
“Oh Ezra! Glad to catch you. Look, we just talked to the event planning people and we’re all set for Christmas day. We’ll have the ribbon, the champagne, though he said you would be covering that particular expense.” He waited until Ezra grunted his acceptance. “And everyone is excited about it. You’ve made the shop owners real happy. I can’t wait to tell the children’s home where they’ll end up. You’re a good man, Ezra, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
“You too, Herald. Uh. Star doesn’t know about this, does she?”
A long pause followed his question. He almost repeated it. “I thought she knew. That this was coming because she’d be on board.”
“Nope, this is all my father.”
“She’s gonna be spitting mad.”
“I’m guessing you’re right. Or hurt.” He snapped his pencil in half. “I’ll tell her.”
“You sure about that?”
“Better me than finding out on Christmas day.”
“So she charmed you after all.”
He choked. “Pardon me?”
“We told her it’d be better to charm you than to fight you. Honey works better than lemons if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.” His teeth clenched and he his mind started running through all their interactions.
“When we asked her to get close to you.”
“Oh, I see.” Betrayal hammered through him.
“Right, and then the two of you working on the festival together. I hear you’re getting mighty close all on your own, now aren’t you?”
“Hmm. Thanks Herald. I’m sure my father’s assistant will be in touch about final details for the ribbon cutting.”
“Three days. That’s not a lot of time.”
“If you know my father, you know it’s nothing at all. We’ll be there ahead of schedule.”
When he ended the call, he threw his phone at the sofa across the room.
Joy entered. “Whoa now, how about a warning next time?”
“What do you want?”
“Just got your notes of all the people who called you while you were on the phone all morning. The one on top’s Star.” She winked.
But when Ezra scowled, she put her hand on her hip. “I see no reason for you to be all hostile with me.”
“You’re right. Were you in on this charming the Scrooge routine, too?”
“Charming the….” She shook her head. “Now, don’t you pay Herald any mind. He talks way more than he should about things he doesn’t know a thin
g about.”
“I see.” His anger boiled up to the surface. One too many bad news zingers in a morning. “I’ll need some privacy, if you please, for the rest of the afternoon. I don’t care who calls, I’m not available.”
“Understood.” She left, shut the door, and Ezra opened up his laptop. He planned to find his mother. His email dinged. Unknown sender. Looked almost like spam, but somehow it had made it through.
Dear Ezra,
I don’t know if this email will get through. I send them every week and this time I tried a different security measure so maybe it will reach you. I love you, my son. Every day I’ve regretted my parting words, my weakness in standing up to your father. Every day I’ve regretted that I left you in his hands to be raised. Every day I wished to take back those moments. I just want you to know you’re loved. No one should be raised thinking their mother didn’t care. And I want you to know a day does not go by that I don’t wish to hold you close. Even grown now as you are. I love you. I always have. If only I’d loved you enough to fight him. Well, I do now. I love me enough. And I’m asking for what is mine. I never wanted you in the middle of our battles when you were young, but now that you’re an adult, it’s time. I don’t expect anything from you. I just want you to know my love has always been there and will never fade.
My love forever,
Mom
Tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt ridiculous. But justified at the same time. She loved him. She’d been trying for years to tell him. She’d stepped away without him to protect him from the battles? He couldn’t quite understand that part, but it didn’t matter. People were weak, made bad decisions, but she loved him. Whatever her faults, her love made all the difference.
He forwarded the email to his own personal security guy, part of the new team he’d been collecting. “I need to find her.”
His security guy responded quickly: “Done. I’ll have the information for you in a couple hours.”
He wanted some answers. He needed to see her. He called his pilot. The jet would be ready. He went upstairs and threw some things in a suitcase. Then he returned to his office and paced the floors. Joy answered phones all day, every now and then glancing in his direction, but not once disturbing him, as directed.
At last his security guy texted. “Found her.” An address. He was at the airport almost before he knew how he got there. The plane took off. Kentucky. Good a place as any.
He wrote a return email to his mother. He poised his fingers above the keyboard, unsure what direction to go with his response, unsure where he wanted to take their relationship, not trusting. At least with his father, he knew what he was getting. His mother was a whole new potentially dangerous mystery.
At last he typed, simply, “I’m coming.”
Chapter 11
Star became more angry the longer she read the recent press about Heart and Stone and the treatment of Ezra’s mother. How could they! She unclenched her fist to scroll further down the page. The woman was kicked out of their lives and refused communication with her son. Her story of attempted reconciliation throughout Ezra’s life tore at Star. She, who longed for her own mother, couldn’t bear the thought of this woman, alive, and pining for her child.
Could Ezra be as kind as she thought him when he treated his mother in such a way? What kind of person shuts out his mother? And the lies Ezra told her. She had heard his tale, heard the sorrow in his voice. Perhaps the hurt his mother had created in him was so scarring he couldn’t face her? After all this time, surely he could have taken a moment to hear her out.
Something was very wrong with this situation. She felt all the more heartbroken as she had begun to care for Ezra, felt his lips on hers, hoped to spend many more moments enjoying the same. Now, where did this leave her? A store, out of business, an almost boyfriend she could no longer date and a father’s tree business that might suffer. Would they have to move from Sanders Corners?
She couldn’t bear the thought, and she couldn’t sit by and do nothing. For starters, she needed to make some phone calls to the mayor.
He picked up on the first ring. “I assume Ezra told you about the wrecking ball celebration?”
She bit back her hello. “What?”
“Oh, I thought for sure you were calling to converse about the Christmas day ribbon cutting and wrecking ball celebration.”
“Um, no. Maybe you should let me know what that means?” Fear started to trickle in. “What exactly are we wrecking?”
A large sigh amped up her anxiety.
“What are we wrecking? Come on, Herald. You’re making me worried.”
“Your store.”
“What!”
“Yes, Ezra’s father is calling the shots on this one. He wants to do a big press release, celebration for the new resort, out with the old…kind of thing.” The mayor’s voice trailed off. “He has the best plan for your store. I can’t wait for you to hear it.”
“He can’t wreck my store until I agree on where I’m going, right?”
“Technically he can.”
“But you didn’t ok it, did you?”
“I did. It’s a great idea, showing how much more the developer will offer.”
“It’s the worst idea you’ve had in forever. We are getting caught up in the divorce squabbles of a truly evil man. He’s doing this to spite his wife. Please listen to me.”
“It’s out of our hands now, I’d imagine.”
She hung up, sick, and then made her own calls to the press. Before anyone could answer, Mary’s number showed up on her phone, so she switched over. “Mary, did you hear what’s happening to the store?”
“No, but honey, you gotta come see this.”
“What? Is it good news or bad, because I can’t handle anything too terrible right now.”
“It’s the best kind of news there is. Your man, Ezra, he is a literal saint from heaven. Bless his name forever.”
Star had to hold the phone away from her face so she wouldn’t shout disagreement. “Where are you? What do I have to see?”
“Come to 1500 First Street.”
“The old school house?” It was another icon for their town, empty space, the core of the structure had been around since the early 1900s. She grinned at the perfectness of the choice for Mary’s new home.
“Mmm Hmm.”
She walked to her truck, drove four blocks out and hopped out, just cause she wasn’t in the mood to walk.
Mary stood out in front, clutching papers to her chest and openly weeping. “Look what he’s done.” Her smile comforted Star’s concern. Mary held out the papers with shaking hands.
Star sucked in her breath. “This looks like the deed to the school.”
“It is, oh, it is. He bought it for us, Star, bought the whole thing, and see this.” She pointed to page five. “Here are the plans for their bedrooms and their facilities. He’s doing everything for us, just the way we had it, but better, newer equipment, and an annual salary for our staff.” She wiped at her tears that just kept coming. “I don’t know what to do with myself, I’m so grateful.”
Star cried with her. But she couldn’t tell if they were tears of joy or sorrow that she was the only one miserable with the new resort location. “Come on, let’s have a tour, shall we?”
They went in, arm in arm. Mary checked the blueprint and pointed out what rooms would be where, and Star listened to her excited chatter. She puzzled all the more about who this man, Ezra, could be.
“He’s set up our circumstances just right, now hasn’t he?”
She laughed. “Yes, he certainly has.”
Star texted him. “What you did for Mary and the children. Thank you.”
Then she buried her phone in the bottom of her purse. She didn’t want to talk to him, just wanted to appropriately thank him through her hurt and confusion.
She left Mary there to talk to the builder, who was coming to meet with her any minute. The lump of grief sat like a knife, slicing Star’s throat when
ever she tried to swallow it down. At last she just let go and sobbed into the steering wheel. How could a man who was so good, so caring to the children, be so terrible to his own mother, and to her?
She called Herald. As soon as the man answered her blurted out. “What’s he doing for my store? I’ve received nothing.”
“I don’t know exactly, Star. He just kept saying you would love it. He’d tell you. Then he left and no one’s been able to reach him.”
“Really?” She pulled out her phone to see the text she sent. No answer. “Is he OK?”
“You do care about him.”
“Of course I care, but I hate him, too. Now, how can I find out what’s going to happen to my store? I can’t just watch it get torn to pieces. I gotta clean it out. Clear my merchandise.”
“I’m sure he was gonna tell you, but I distracted him when I started teasing about you charming him and then the news hit about his mom, I’m sure he just has a lot on his plate right now.”
“Wait, you told him what about me charming him?”
“Nothing really, just that we were hoping you would charm him and so we could have a better situation for our main street stores…”
“Herald.”
“I figured you two were past those silly squabbles and well on your way to hitched.”
“How could you possibly think that?”
“It’s obvious to everyone in town, everyone except you.”
She hung up. Was he not seeing? Ezra was about to send a wrecking ball into her store.
She peeled out of the parking lot. No matter what happened, she had to clear the inventory. Sounds like, according to Herald, it was a done deal. No matter how much she cried, her store was going to be toppled to the ground on Christmas morning.
She closed her eyes. What kind of sick, twisted man would do something like this on Christmas morning? She opened them again. Scrooge, that’s who. She should have known.
No matter what, Scrooge hated Christmas. And Ezra was no different from any other Scrooge in literary history. In fact, if she read things right, the Henley men were choosing that very morning as a way to get back at Ezra’s mother. The press hadn’t seemed to pick up on the intricacies of the battle, but the resort was out of the mother’s reach and so the ribbon cutting ceremony was in part a celebration of that fact that she couldn’t sue for it.
Taming Scrooge Page 6