by Jessica Ashe
“If you pull any stunts like that again then you will be fired, make no mistake about it. For now, you can spend the night calling every media contact you have and putting together a press conference for tomorrow morning. If this news is going to come out, then I want to control the message.”
“You should let me handle the message,” Daisy argued. “I’ll put out a statement and we can stretch things out for a few more days. Keep people talking about you.”
“I don’t want people talking about me,” I said sternly. “Not like this.”
“I really think—” Daisy began.
“Are you seriously fucking arguing with me right now? I should have the hotel escort you from the premises, and send you on the next plane back to Liverpool. You have your instructions. I’ll conduct the press conference from one of the conference rooms in this hotel. It’ll start at ten in the morning.”
I turned and lightly pushed Jenny on the shoulder to lead her towards the door even though I could tell she had plenty more she wanted to say to Daisy. It wouldn’t do any good. That woman only heard what she wanted to hear.
I reassured Jenny that I would be firing Daisy as soon as the press conference was over tomorrow. Jenny helped me plan a few words to say in front of the press, but the tough bit would be answering questions. I planned to answer as many as I could to try and put this whole thing to bed once and for all. With Jenny by my side I might just about be able to get through this in one piece.
-*-
Jenny and I arrived together at the hotel the next morning. She looked more nervous than I was. She’d never been on television before, but I’d asked her to sit next to me during the conference for moral support.
Daisy had done a decent job rounding up the media, especially considering I was still not a household name in the US. Many of the large UK media outlets were in the States following the Premier League clubs touring the country in off season, and Daisy had managed to get all of them here. I’d still be firing her before the day was over, but she was going out on a strong footing at least.
Jenny and I sat down at the table and looked down at all the journalists in front of us. There were a few empty seats, but not many. The table had a glass of water each and a jug in the middle, but that was it. I did press conferences for my club occasionally, and there were usually sponsor logos everywhere and people fussing over me to attend to my every desire. This was much more low key; just how I wanted it.
The reporters started yelling out questions the second we walked into the room, but I just sat there and stubbornly waited for the clock to tick over to ten o’clock before clearing my throat to indicate that I was ready to start speaking. This reminded the crowd that first and foremost this conference was for me to talk to them, not for them to ask questions. I’d take a few questions when I was ready, but not before.
I scanned the room and recognized a few of the journalists from yesterday outside the hospital. I even spotted the annoying blonde that Jenny had sent flying when she wouldn’t get out of my way. I made a mental note not to take any of her questions later on.
“Thank you for coming today,” I said, addressing the crowd. I waited a few seconds for the murmur to die down and for people to stop fiddling around with their equipment. The noise of cameras taking photos would be a constant irritation throughout, so I would just have to get used to that.
“I’ll try to keep this short. There are rumors going around that I have cancer. That’s true. I have a brain tumor which is a form of cancer.”
Everyone in the room stood up and started yelling out questions. They weren’t subtle and more than one person asked something along the lines of “are you going to die?” Jenny took a sip of her water and I could tell she looked uncomfortable. I tried to give her a reassuring look, but she didn’t notice. I wanted to reach out and put my arm around her, but that wouldn’t be at all appropriate right now. I nearly did it anyway, but finally the noise died down and I carried on speaking.
“This is going to take a lot longer if you people keep interrupting me,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to answer questions. I recommend you all keep quiet until then.” Journalists hated being told off, but they soon realized this would be easier for all of us if they played along.
“Four years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I had surgery and it went away. I recovered fully, and obviously it didn’t impact me physically because I ended up playing for one of the top soccer clubs in England.
“Recently, at one of the checkups I still have on a regular basis, my doctor discovered that the tumor had returned. The diagnosis is better than last time, but I am still at risk. The tumor is treatable, but there is no guarantee that the treatment will work. I’ll be undergoing radiotherapy and hoping for the best.
“I only received this information a few days ago and, while I had hoped to inform my club in private, that plan was destroyed when you lot all showed up outside the hospital yesterday. I spoke to Liverpool United this morning and they offered to support me in any way I needed while paying me full salary.”
If I was feeling overly cynical, it could be argued that my club had little choice. If the club didn’t support me it would get slaughtered in the media, but to be fair, my manager and the chairman had been fantastic about everything.
I’d also squeezed in a quick call to Dad to tell him what was going on. I’d hoped to tell him in person, but he saw the news and I couldn’t outright lie to him about it. I’d deliberately not gone home until the early hours of the morning to avoid Mom and Sheridan. If they didn’t know before then they would now. It said a lot about my relationship with Mom that I was more concerned about Sheridan’s reaction than hers.
“I declined the offer to remain on the books,” I continued, “and the club agreed to release me from all my obligations. I don’t want to receive my pay when I’m not playing. That’s not fair on the club or its fans. Hopefully the money used for my salary can go towards a new player who can take the club back to the glory days where it belongs.”
I smiled as I pictured Mom’s face when she worked out how much money I was throwing away. That would likely cause her as much discomfort as my illness.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I obviously won’t be playing soccer for the foreseeable future, but I’ve recovered from a setback like this before and I’m sure I will do so again. I think I’m going to regret saying this, but does anyone have any questions?”
Nearly every hand in the room shot up. I picked out a reporter near the front who had the look of someone vaguely important.
“Is the brain tumor life-threatening?” the man asked.
I saw Jenny shift in her seat next to me. She was probably starting to regret agreeing to be here with me, but I thought it was important for her to be seen with me. One day I hoped to go public with our relationship, so it seemed like a good idea to start dropping hints immediately.
“Yes,” I replied. “The tumor is life-threatening, but I have an excellent doctor and I completely trust in his ability to help me fight this. If there’s a way for me to keep going, then I assure you I will. I have a lot to live for now.” I glanced over at Jenny subtly. None of the reporters had picked up on her presence. Maybe they thought she was Daisy.
Next I called on the reporters from the English press as I figured their questions would be more likely to relate to soccer, and sure enough they did.
I answered question after question until the reporters started to get tired. I had given them enough information to write a number of stories, so they should be happy for a while. I certainly didn’t have any intention of doing any interviews if I could help it. Not until I was ready.
Jenny and I left the conference out a back exit and snuck into a waiting taxi. As soon as the car pulled into the streets it looked just like any other taxi. We were free of the press for the time being, at least.
“Now for the really tough part,” I said to Jenny. She’d been deadly quiet the entire morning. I
knew what she was thinking about and felt helpless to take her mind off it.
“That wasn’t the tough part?” Jenny asked. “I don’t know how you did that. I wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds.”
“Yes you would. You’re strong; a lot stronger than you realize. The tough part now is dealing with our parents. They will have seen the conference or at least heard about it. My mom is going to give me no end of grief about this.”
Our parents came home together early in the afternoon. They never normally did that. Jaxon hated his mom and I certainly wasn’t a huge fan of her, but she must have been devastated to find out about her son’s illness that way. She’d probably called Dad and he’d picked her up from work.
Carrie ran to Jaxon the second she walked through the door and threw her arms around him. He smiled at me like he didn’t really care, but I think he did feel a touch guilty for excluding her. They went into her office to talk leaving me alone with Dad.
“How are you handling this?” Dad asked.
I tried to talk, but I couldn’t say anything. I stuttered and then the tears started falling down my face. I’d wanted to cry all day, but I needed to stay strong for Jaxon and that meant he couldn’t see my tears.
“Come here, sweetie,” Dad said, bringing me in for a hug. I cried into his shoulder as he hugged me like he hadn’t done since he and Mom broke the news to me that they were separating. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Why?” I asked. I tried wiping the tears from my face, but they were quickly replaced by fresh ones.
“For sitting up there with Jaxon. I can’t even begin to imagine how tough that must have been for him to do. He needed you up there with him and you stayed strong.”
I didn’t feel strong. Jaxon was the strong one. He confronted his problems head on. He had a tumor and he held a press conference to tell the world about it. When I had a problem—like when a professor blackmailed me for sex—I couldn’t even tell my parents about it.
“It’s not fair,” I whimpered. “He’s already beaten this thing once. Why does it have to happen again?”
“I know, sweetie. It’s awful for something like this to happen to anyone, let alone to someone so young. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“I just wish there was something I could do for him.”
“There is; be there for him.” Dad led me over to the couch and we both sat down. I grabbed a few tissues from the box on the small table and blew my nose. “You two are close, right?”
I froze in the midst of blowing my nose again. For a few seconds my heart seemed to stop in my chest, but I forced myself to relax. Dad hadn’t meant anything by that, had he?
“We’re friends, I suppose,” I replied, not able to look at Dad as I spoke. “As well as being brother and sister.”
“Good,” Dad replied. “Because he’s going to need all the friends he can get right now. Just keep doing what you’re doing and support him.”
I nodded. I intended to spend as much time as possible with Jaxon over the next few months, so at least now I had an excuse.
“If things get too tough then you can always talk to me about it,” Dad said. “I know I’m your father, but I was young once as well you know. Whatever you want to talk about, I’m here for you.”
“Thanks Dad.”
“And so is your mother. She’s going to want to speak to you about this as well I expect.”
“I’ll give her a call tonight,” I promised.
It had been years since I’d sat down and really talked to my father, and I considered using the opportunity to tell him about what happened to me at college. In the end, I decided against it. What would be the point? Nothing could be done now and I think Dad would rather not know something so creepy happened to his little girl.
I went upstairs and called Mom while I waited for Jaxon to come and join me after talking with his mother. Mom hadn’t known how close Jaxon and I were, but she was also pleased to see me standing by him. I think Mom had always thought of him as one of the bad guys because he was Carrie’s son, but she could see now that he wasn’t like that.
Mom didn’t hate Carrie because she stole Dad away; Mom hated what Carrie stood for. Mom and Dad had split up because Dad thought work was more important than family. Carrie took that to another extreme. Dad seemed to be working less these days, but it was too late to fix his relationship with Mom.
I desperately wanted to spend the night in Jaxon’s arms, but that couldn’t happen. There was only so much news we could break to our parents in one day. We needed some time alone together, and I knew a hotel that had a penthouse suite available soon.
-*-
I strolled into work the next day as if nothing had happened. Much to my surprise, there was not an avalanche of emails waiting for me. I’d expected to see angry messages from Sam, but there were none. In some ways, that was worse.
No one looked at me on the way to my office. My colleagues had never been overly friendly with me in the short time I had been here, probably because they knew I got the job based on my relationship with Jaxon. That relationship now kept my colleagues quiet and respectful around me. They’d no doubt seen me looking devastated on television and that had earned me some privacy for the time being at least.
That privacy lasted until about lunchtime when Sam walked into my office on the pretense of “seeing how I was doing.” We both knew the big transfer wasn’t going to happen any more, but for twenty minutes the conversation danced around that. Sam asked me how other projects were going, but, at his request, I had been ignoring all other work to focus on Jaxon, so I had no idea how other projects were progressing.
Eventually he got to the point. As much as I sometimes hated Sam for his relentless focus on work, I knew he was a nice guy when he stopped for long enough to let his emotions run his mouth instead of his desire to make more money for his employer.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Sam asked. I shook my head. I should probably just resign, but that would get me no end of grief from Carrie. Better they fire me instead. “I’ve been speaking to the parent company and we both think it’s best that you end your secondment here and go back to work for Avian Financial.”
“Okay,” I replied simply. I had no idea what work for Avian Financial would entail because I hadn’t even stepped through the door when they had transferred me to New York United. Wherever I worked would be much the same. I didn’t have the strength to focus on anything, so each day would pass in a blur until I got to see Jaxon again.
I’d spoken with Jaxon before work and had talked to him about just quitting and spending every hour with him, but he told me to stick things out. It’s not like money was a huge issue. Dad would support me while Jaxon fought his illness, but Jaxon wanted me to focus on my career. He never said anything explicitly, but I knew he worried about what would happen to me if he wasn’t around.
“I told them that you would work here for another month and then move back,” Sam continued. “But just take the next month off. I’ll keep your office open if you need it, but you don’t need to come in. You’ll keep getting paid and after a month you can just show up at Avian Financial and they’ll never know the difference.”
“Thanks Sam,” I said. The words felt completely inadequate, but I didn’t have the energy to offer anything else. One day I would let him know how much I appreciated his help. It was just a shame Sam didn’t have a little more influence over this place because he could have really made a difference.
I hung around at the office for a few hours because I didn’t know where else to go. Jaxon was having his first radiotherapy treatment this morning, and he’d insisted on going alone. I wanted to be with him, but Jaxon told me I couldn’t be in the same room and he didn’t want me there in case he threw up. In the end, I relented and let him go alone. It must have gone well, because he sent me a message around lunchtime asking to meet me for coffee. I leapt out of my seat, picked up the few minor possessions I had in my office, and headed outside.
Even though the New York weather was technically getting cooler, the air felt as humid and suffocating as it had been all summer, perhaps even more so. I started sweating the moment I stepped outside and cringed as Jaxon put his hand on my back and kissed me on the cheek to greet me. We still weren’t prepared to do anything more affectionate than that in public. We wanted to keep the ‘stepbrother, stepsister’ thing plausible for as long as possible.
Jaxon took the second bag I was carrying with the stuff from my office. It was only a water bottle, a bag lunch, and two pictures—one of Mom and one of Dad. It was fair to say that I’d never truly made the office feel like home.
“I’m on a leave of absence,” I said to Jaxon, when I noticed the puzzled expression on his face. “Sam said I could take a month off before transferring back to Avian Financial.”
“Oh,” Jaxon exclaimed. “So I have you all to myself for a month? I can live with that.”
“How did the treatment go this morning?” I asked, as we strolled towards a coffee shop.
“Fine,” Jaxon replied. “No problems at all. I felt weak at one point, but I’m already feeling better. I’m not about to go for a run or anything, but all things considered, it wasn’t too bad.”
I suspected he was just putting a positive spin on things, but other than looking a touch pale, he did appear healthy. Jaxon held the door open for me and I started to walk inside when he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“What are we doing?”
“Going for coffee,” I replied slowly. “Are you sure that treatment isn’t still affecting your thinking?”
Jaxon grinned. “I meant, why are we going for coffee when we have the whole afternoon free? Come on, follow me.”
Jaxon practically dragged me into a taxi which took us on a short three mile—but twenty-minute drive—to the hotel that Daisy stayed in.