To deny our most human biological drives is to deny who and what we are, he says onstage. Repression and shame destroys self images. It ruins potential, because we’re all so busy searching without being able to have, or express, or do.
There’s a ton more to Anthony’s philosophy, of course, but there were times at Fate In Your Palm when I half-expected Anthony to tell us to stop hugging and high-fiving the people sitting around us … and fuck them instead.
The thought makes me laugh out loud. I must be high on life. New job, new purpose, new relationship with my father.
Without thinking, I slip my phone from my pocket and call my mom.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom. It’s Caitlin.”
Mom’s the only person I know who still primarily uses a landline. When I don’t tell her who’s calling, it confuses her.
“It’s so great to hear from you, Honey! How was the conference?”
“It was a seminar, Mom.”
“Whatever, same thing. How was it?”
“It was nice.”
“Did you jump up and down and run through the aisles?”
Yes, sort of. But I don’t want to say that now because it’ll sound stupid, especially since she’s asking because that was something I said before I went, making fun of the rampant enthusiasm you hear about at these big Ross events.
It’s been a week now, and my over-the-top energy has settled back into more mature, actionable enthusiasm. I know what my future can be, and have a plan in mind. It’s not just rah-rah anymore.
I really do feel so much better.
“It was pretty crazy,” I decide to say.
“Well, tell me all about it!”
So I do. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I stroll through my neighborhood and tell Mom just about everything. I don’t tell her the more intimate things that happened with Anthony, including the car ride and the intensity therein, but I do tell her Anthony and I had lunch and that I spent several days focusing on just me for a change.
Normally I focus on work, and that’s one reason Jamie seems to have decided she was wrong to brush me off so long before agreeing to hire me. I do kick ass, but I rarely pause to think. I react, react, react. The time I spent at Fate In Your Palm forced me to stop all the frenzy, look inside, and see which things within me might require attention.
That’s when I realized I was sad, when I realized I was angry.
I think this as my mother tells me she’s glad I had a good time. I think it while I listen to her voice. Because there’s an elephant in the room between us: the shitty way we ended our last conversation. Listening to us now, anyone would think we were a mother and daughter on good terms, but at least some of this is nerves and artifice. Mom’s probably hoping I’ve stopped being furious with her and that we can just not discuss the things I said to her before I got on my plane to change my life.
But I now understand that repression never helps anyone.
I sigh. “I called Dad while I was there.”
Wary: “You did?”
“Yes. Some stuff from the seminar got me thinking I should. We had a long talk.” Then I realize how that might sound so I add: “A good talk.”
“Oh.” She doesn’t sound relieved, and doesn’t ask what the talk was about — though that’s the obvious follow-up. Both probably stem from the fact that I basically told her last time that I was on Dad’s side, that she was a cheating bitch who never appreciated all he’d done for us, and that I hoped I never became as selfish and cruel as she was.
I feel the moment change. It’s still sunny, but the other end of the line has gone cloudy and cold. She’s not stewing because she’s pissed at me, though I wish she was; she has every reason to be mad.
No, she’s waiting for another verbal beating. She’s quiet because last time we had this out, I convinced her how wrong she was about it all — for trying to divorce Dad in the first place, then taking a lover when he put an end to it.
I remember Rena onstage, sitting in her chair. I remember Anthony saying, Do you trust me? I feel a hitch rise in my throat and I try to suffocate it. Before speaking again, I close my eyes. I pretend Anthony is in front of me, his big hand reaching out to touch me.
Do you trust me, Caitlin?
I can almost feel the weight of his hand. I can almost feel the power of his belief in me — the same strength I felt before I called my father.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I tell her. “I’m sorry for all those things I said to you.”
As the wall breaks and the tears fall, I tell her everything.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CAITLIN
BY THE TIME I RETURN to work after my two-week vacation, Jamie has completely changed my access to the foundation’s private intranet. I’m suddenly able to see new folders but can’t see ones I used to see. I’ve been added to project groups I’ve never heard of before and uninvited from others. There are a dozen emails in my company inbox that I don’t know how to answer.
She’s even screwed up all my custom settings, like the textured skin I added to my email program so it didn’t feel so boring and corporate. Now it’s back to boring.
The fact that I work remotely makes the changes all the more disorienting. Jamie spends a chunk of each month here in San Diego to manage the brick-and-mortar office in person, so at least she has physical proximity to anchor her. When things are weird in an office, you can ask questions of the person next to you. If I try to do the same thing, I’m talking to a ficus and a Mr. Spock bobble-head.
“Jamie,” I say when I get her on the phone. “What the hell?”
She tells me that the world did not stand still while I was playing with Anthony and then lounging around my apartment for a week after, that she moved forward with getting me into the position I was apparently formally approved for, and that I now have all the tools required to do my new job. I tell her I don’t actually know what my new job is, so Jamie tells me to meet her in Encinitas in an hour.
“Bring stories,” she says.
When I show up at the little restaurant with its sidewalk-obstructing tables, Jamie has already ordered me a margarita the size of my head. The table itself has become a curious mix of party-girl-time and serious business. She’s wearing a yellow beach dress and sandals, her hair all wind-blown, pinned up with chopsticks. She’s wearing rhinestone sunglasses and has an honest-to-God briefcase open beside her. There are file folders everywhere.
“Are we partying or having an audit?” I ask, looking it all over.
“Anthony started his foundation with the best of intentions. He just wanted to feed people. He did not, however, really want to slow down to get his shit in order. He managed the whole damn foundation by himself until last year, at which point he hired me and I got us staff and an office. Got the foundation a few computers. Generally brought it into the 1990s.”
“It’s 2017,” I point out.
“Gotta start somewhere.” She plops a stack of manilla folders between us, nearly sabotaging my drink. “This is legacy. Everything Anthony wrote down before I came aboard. In pen.”
I look it over. “Please tell me you’re just showing me this as a curiosity. Because you thought I’d find it hilarious, not because it’s now my responsibility.”
“Sorry. But the good news is, that’s what the margarita is for. And the better news is that it’s huge and strong. If you can finish half of it, you’ll be ready to troll the streets for hot surfers to blow.”
I look at Jamie’s margarita.
“You have to do it alone,” she says, noticing my glance. “My days of blowing random hot surfers are over. Aiden looks down on it.”
“Prude.”
“But I can follow you around. Wipe up the messes. You aren’t seeing anyone, right?”
I don’t know why the answer doesn’t come faster than it does. “Not really.”
“We can get to the blowjobs later.” She pats the paperwork. “Let’s start with this.”
; “Nice briefcase,” I say. “Really goes with your outfit.”
“Glad you like it. It’s yours. Take this home and start digging, but you may find it easier to just come into the office until you’re through the rest. Less carting stuff back and forth.”
I take a drink. Jamie’s right; it’s strong.
Good, I’m going to need it. “I don’t want the job anymore. Forget I said anything.”
“This is background,” Jamie says. “It’s not your day-to-day. You just need to run through it and make some notes. You’re looking for patterns.”
“What kind of patterns?”
“See if anything jumps out at you about Eros.”
“Is this the thing about that Barnes guy?”
“Sort of. But maybe not. You really surprised me that night. I’m serious; you can’t talk about this stuff in public.”
I gesture around. We’re in public.
“I’m not planning to be explicit,” she says.
“What’s the fun in that?”
“Point is, I talked to Anthony a few times after I talked to you. He won’t give me details, but I do know he’s definitely moving forward with the deal I told you sorta bothered me.”
“Sorta? I almost put on a tinfoil hat.”
“You know how Anthony is,” Jamie says. “He’s a mile a minute and ADD on most things. He dreams big, acts fast, and only stops to think later. He leaps before he looks, then figures maybe it’ll turn out he’s wearing a parachute if he falls. ‘To accomplish a lot, you need to do a lot’ — that’s what he says. I figured that’s what was going on here and that he really hadn’t stopped to consider whether the others were taking advantage of him. But I was wrong. He laid out exactly what he thinks they’re after, and it’s all money-money-money. He just doesn’t care because he figures he can get his goals, too, even while the others are raking in the cash.”
“What are his goals? What is Eros making all that money-money-money doing?”
Jamie shrugs. “Above my pay grade. It’s insider stuff. I gave him the same concerns I gave you, but he’d only tell me he’d thought of it already and that things were fine.”
“Just … fine?”
“That’s what he said. So that’s where this comes in.” She slaps the paperwork again. “Give it a once-over. This, and a lot of electronic records he’s finally started using at my insistence. There’s a conference service he uses for his meetings … Disclosure, it’s called. He’s so scattered; he doesn’t even tell me about half the meetings, so I have to remember to go in and check for new recordings. Be thorough, but not too thorough. Don’t give yourself a migraine. Maybe take a month to go through all of it, no longer.”
“A month sounds pretty thorough.”
Jamie shakes her head and takes a swig of her drink. “You haven’t seen how much there is to go through.”
“Do you want to give me any more clues as to what I’m hoping to find?”
Jamie’s tongue creeps into her cheek. She sighs. Then she looks into the distance and sighs again. “I don’t know, Caitlin. I’m really trying to trust Anthony on this, but ever since I’ve taken over the foundation it’s felt like my responsibility. We do great work. I know Anthony believes in that work more than ever, so when I give him my concerns and he says it’s all fine, I want to accept his judgment. But he and Aiden are both so guarded about the really central stuff, and to me — out here without any evidence for or against the things that won’t stop bugging me — it’s hard to shake the weird feelings that won’t leave me alone. Maybe it’s fine … but maybe it’s not? I don’t know. But due diligence is the least I can do.”
She nods toward the paperwork.
“Anthony trusts people a bit too much sometimes. If someone stuck something in front of his face years ago and told him to sign it, he probably just signed it without reading the fine print. So skim through what’s here and what’s back at the office, see if any of the names I’ve already told you pop out: Alexa Mathis, Parker Barnes, maybe any Olivias; it’s not all that common of a name. Look for anything about Eros or Trevor Stone or Daniel Rice. Maybe Bridget Rice, too? I don’t know her maiden name. There are some transcriptions in the pile too; check those out. If something looks familiar, read it more carefully. Any questions about anything you find, call me. If something seems off, I’ll show it to Aiden. I don’t think he’d put me off if I asked point-blank with something in hand.”
“I still don’t know what you expect me to find,” I say. “What is my job, anyway? I wanted to be part of the movement, not be a file clerk.”
“I’ve been thinking of you as Director of Charitable Change.”
“What does that mean?”
“I made it up. But with all the new money coming in, I figure we should diversify. Most will still go to feeding the hungry, but you know how big Anthony is on education. So we want to use some of the money to fund schools, maybe open some new ones.”
“Little Anthony Ross Institutes? Training the next generation of Anthonys?”
“Who knows? Maybe.”
I like it. “And curing AIDS, of course.”
Jamie actually laughs. “No, that money’s gone. It came in and went right back out. I don’t know where it went. I asked Anthony and he said it was nothing I needed to worry about.” She sighs again, then meets my eye. “If Anthony says not to worry about it, is it stupid that I’m still worrying?”
“You’re just trying to do your job,” I tell her. “And protect him.”
“So do you want to do this? Help me try and protect Anthony?”
I don’t think Anthony needs protecting, but I do want to advance his mission. It’s been a week and a half since I saw him last, but I still want to do this more than anything.
What Anthony Ross stands for, I find myself increasingly wanting to fight for.
“Of course.” I don’t want to ask the same question for what must be the fifth time or more, so instead I start leafing through the papers, stacking and moving them to go through later. In lieu of asking the question, I pitch an answer to see if Jamie will bite: “I’ll just see if it looks like anyone is sending Ross Foundation money where it shouldn’t be going. See if there are other cases of large sums coming in and then going out again, like with this moon money thing.”
“Sounds good. Thank you. Am I being ridiculous?”
“Maybe just a little. Drink more. It’ll go away.”
Jamie laughs as I clear the table of paperwork. “So what happened with you and Anthony?” she asks, business apparently out of the way.
I almost spit margarita all over her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, he said you did a one-on-one. Was he talking about something beyond the one-on-one in his car that you told me about on the phone?”
One on one, one IN one … what’s the difference?
I really do want to talk about this with Jamie. Why does Anthony have to be like a father to her? Girls don’t like it when their friends fuck their dads, right?
“Sort of.” I’m treading carefully because I honestly don’t know what Anthony might have told her. She knows he has one-night stands on the road. Is it possible he’d tell Jamie about having sex with me? I doubt it, but Anthony can be a wildcard. I don’t think I should admit this if I don’t have to, but I’d hate to get caught in a lie.
“What did you talk about?” She seems to realize mid-sip that she’s presuming. She holds up a hand so I won’t speak before she swallows, then says: “I mean, if it’s something you want to talk about.”
“How much did Anthony tell you?”
“Nothing, really. I just asked how things were going and he brought it up.”
“He just brought me up? You didn’t ask about me?”
I get a strange, assessing look. “Yeeeah …” She draws the word out a little, eyes narrowing. “Why?”
“Just seems like he has a lot going on, so I’m wondering why he’d single me out to tell you about.”
“Maybe beca
use you’re my friend? Because you finally took him up on the invitation to attend and we’d been wondering if you’d like it or find it stupid?”
“Oh.”
More narrow eyes. “What’s up, Cait?”
“Nothing’s up.”
“So what did you talk about? In your second one-on-one of the event?” She says “second” as if it’s totally outrageous.
“More about my mom and dad.”
“That’s cool. So did you call your mom this time?”
“No, but I called her a few days ago.”
“How did that go?”
“It was hard — but good, in the end. I apologized. We set things right.”
Jamie nods. “And Anthony told you to do that.”
“No.”
“So you just talked? Just had a little follow-up?”
“Is there something specific you’d like to know?”
But instead of asking Did you have sex with him? — as part of me is sure she will — Jamie just shrugs. “You’ve seemed different lately.”
“I guess I am different. Better. Things are good.”
“All thanks to the miraculous influence of Anthony Ross,” Jamie says.
“What can I say? I guess I’m a convert.” I take another drink so I won’t say something stupid.
It works; Jamie lets it go.
“Tell me about Aiden,” I say. “How are the two of you doing?”
She does, and the moment passes. For now, at least, I’m in the clear.
But why do I need to feel “in the clear” if everything is normal and nothing is wrong?
CHAPTER TWENTY
CAITLIN
IT’S BEEN TWO WEEKS SINCE I’ve heard from Anthony.
This is hardly unusual; Anthony is a huge part of Jamie’s life — they don’t see each other in person as much as they’d both like, but they’re constantly exchanging messages and phone calls, Skyping and interacting on LiveLyfe — but it’s never been like that between me and Anthony.
Why would it be? He’s been an acquaintance, nothing more. The fact that we’ve had sex — especially under our agreed-upon terms — shouldn’t change that.
The Guru (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 6) Page 11