Can't Help Falling In Love

by Cheryl Harper

  Randa straightened her shoulders and wished she’d worn anything but this ridiculous skirt and heels. She wanted her flip-flops. She’d have to pull them out before she checked her bags.

  She pasted on a brave smile and waved. “Laura, Willodean, it’s been a pleasure. Maybe we’ll be fighting each other for guests sometime soon.”

  “Aw, don’t make me show my other side.” Willodean jabbed a finger in Randa’s direction. “I meant every word I said. Come back. Got it?”

  Randa didn’t salute but she thought about. “Yes, ma’am, I hear you.” As she walked across the lobby she thought she heard Willodean say, “And nice manners too. Just what you’d expect from a Miss Congeniality.”

  Randa pulled herself together and her stiff upper lip lasted until she was seated in first class with Elvis singing in her earphones while she watched the clouds float under the plane. Even if she had no idea what to say, she should have kissed Tony goodbye.

  She’d been afraid she might try to get him to ask her to stay. Just because she’d promised not to use her tricks didn’t mean she’d forgotten them. Walking out alone had been hard, but she owed it to herself to figure out what she really wanted next and she had to do it without crying on Tony’s shoulder. He could fix her problems for her. She was certain of that, but the biggest lesson she’d learned at the Rock’n’Rolla Hotel was that until she could do that for herself, she would never have what she wanted. Maybe sneaking away had been an old Randa move too, but she just couldn’t face saying goodbye to him. Being the new Randa wasn’t always easy. She’d regret not taking that moment for herself for a long time.

  WHEN TONY MADE it up to the front desk two hours early for his shift, he did his best to look like he always did. But he didn’t feel the same. He felt unsettled. Like he’d lost something or forgotten an important appointment. Worse, he was angry. Not like the old days. This anger wasn’t cold. It was hot and bubbling and directed mainly at himself. He hadn’t made it this far in his life by being afraid of work or hard decisions. He should have offered her… something. Asked her… something.

  Willodean was working on a crossword puzzle when he passed her office on the way to his. When she didn’t look up, he hoped he’d managed to sneak by without being caught. He didn’t know what to say to her and if he knew one thing about Willodean Jackson it was that she wouldn’t let that deter her from asking any question she wanted.

  “Checked out your friend Randa this morning.”

  Tony looked up in time to see Willodean plop into the chair across the desk from him and set her green sequined tennis shoes up on the corner. It looked like she was making herself comfortable. “Girl looked worn out and not in a good way.”

  Tony click-clacked on his computer keyboard and tried to look overworked and underpaid, but Willodean wasn’t budging. Finally he leaned back in his chair, hooked his elbows on the armrests and muttered, “That makes two of us.”

  “You won’t believe what she told us.” Willodean twitched her feet. “She said you weren’t there to see her off because you were sleeping.” Willodean raised her eyebrows. “You don’t sleep. So were you just playing possum? Hoping she’d let you off the hook without having to say so long, farewell, goodbye, or ‘don’t let the door hit ya, where the good Lord split ya’?”

  Tony rubbed his forehead. “Honestly, Willodean, do we have to talk about this? She’s gone. I’m here to work. Everything’s back to normal.”

  Willodean laughed. “You can’t fool me, kid. Maybe you want it to get back to normal, but we aren’t there yet.” She held up a hand to tick off her points. “First of all, you look downright mad. Madder than a wet cat actually. You’re sleeping and you don’t sleep. You actually took a night off from work. And you look like a man whose skin doesn’t fit quite right. This isn’t the new Tony, the one we’ve gotten used to lately. It’s not really the old Tony either. I’m glad to see emotion on your face, even if it’s full-on mad.”

  Tony shook his head. “I felt so damn good when I woke up this morning. Like… normal. Like there were things to look forward to and like life was just awesome. And then about two seconds later, I figured out she was gone. I went next door just to make sure and found the stack of books she begged me to take her to get with a thank-you note sitting on top. Nothing about leaving or missing me or being happy about… whatever we had. Just a stack of books and a gracious thank you.”

  Willodean didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

  Now that he was started, he didn’t want to stop. “And that pissed me off because… it meant something to me.”

  Willodean sighed. “Kid, if you’d seen her face and those tears, you’d know it meant something to her too.”

  “I’m not mad at her. I’m mad at me. I guess… I mean, I’m used to bad things happening, so I could roll with this. What really pisses me off is that I didn’t do a damn thing to convince her to stay or come back. It didn’t feel like the manly or noble thing to do.” He snorted. “So now I’m mad like a little kid.” Tony tried not to let hearing that she was upset when she left affect him. Anger would help him rebound quicker. He could go out, pick up a nice normal girl with bills and exes and crazy kids and whatever else and work on something that could last. “She was crying?”

  Willodean’s mouth curved up. “Like her heart was broken.”

  Tony rubbed at the ache in his chest and ordered himself not to cry like his heart was broken.

  Willodean sat up in her chair and dropped her feet back to the floor. “Think we’ve got a good handle on the staffing problems?”

  Tony was glad of the conversation change. He needed to think. Without the watchful eyes of Willodean Jackson recording every emotion that caused a minute change on his face. Other people might struggle to read him. To her, he was large print and easy words.

  “Getting closer. Once construction starts, I think we need to talk about another assistant manager for the shop, some part-time help, but we can do that later, and of course we’ll have to start staffing the key spa positions, manager, assistant manager… and whoever else it takes to run a spa.” Tony jotted down a list of things he needed to research. Staffing was never-ending, but a spa? That was different. “Why do you ask?”

  Willodean stood. “You’re about to take a week’s vacation.”

  Tony opened his mouth to protest but she held up a hand. “No arguments. You haven’t had one since you started working here. Now seems as good a time as any.” She smiled and winked. “Better start making plans. Let’s say… two weeks from now. We’ll meet with the builder, talk over the expansion, then you’re out of here. You don’t have to go to Chicago but you can’t stay here.”

  “YOU LOOK LIKE hell. Memphis must have been rough.”

  After her father completed his state-of-the-company monologue, her mother’s dining room had fallen to polite, quiet silverware clinks. It took a minute for Randa to absorb the fact that Trip was talking to her. And that some sort of response was actually required. For most of the meal, she’d sat quietly and listened to her father and brothers converse about whatever projects they were working on. It was miserable. So pretty much like usual.

  Randa had no idea why she’d decided to come for the weekly meeting her father held every Thursday night. One of the best perks of traveling often was missing these. These dinners might look like nice family gatherings, but this was business. They might have been family only. And they might have taken place at her mother’s formal dining room table. But all of her brothers and their picture-perfect wives had assembled and worn their business best. On a slow news day, Whitmore family gatherings might fill high society pages. And her mother’s cook had gone all out with the trappings of a traditional yet still completely upscale dinner. Instead of roast, there was prime rib.

  Randa glanced across the table at her brother, Trip. His tie was loose but otherwise he could be posing on the cover of Moguls Monthly. He looked a bit tired but that might also have been a bit of concern that she saw in
his eyes. As the firstborn, Marcus Whitmore III, or Trip as everyone called him, was the most sympathetic to her cause. He knew how hard it was to live up to expectations even if he didn’t understand what it was like to barely miss the mark. When he didn’t add anything else, she looked at the rest of the family seated around her and the empty chair right next to her where her fiancé would sit if she had one.

  The empty seat was depressing. Another ally would be nice.

  Her mother piped up. “Looks like the food was pretty good, though.”

  Randa set down her soup spoon and wiped her mouth.

  “Dammit, Diane, don’t say stuff like that to her. You know she takes it so seriously.” Her father waved his hand. “Ignore her. Ignore your brother. You look fine. The last thing I need is you on some crazy crash diet that makes you mean and stresses you out.”

  Fine. She looked fine. That was something. She tugged down on the skirt she’d barely gotten zipped and fidgeted with her suit jacket. She also managed to suppress a nervous hair flick.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, everything’s in my report. Willodean Jackson has absolutely no desire to sell and no need. I don’t think there’s a price we could set to get her out of there and certainly not one that makes good financial sense.”

  “No price at all?” Randa thought she heard a suspicious tone in his voice as Marcus Whitmore leaned back so that a server could remove his cold soup. “That doesn’t happen much.”

  Randa was glad to hear he was leaving open the possibility that it might happen ever. Even if she was the only one who’d seen the phenomenon.

  He sighed. “Trip, head down there in the next few weeks just to give me a final opinion.”

  Trip didn’t answer, but the look in his eyes was apologetic as he nodded.

  Randa fiddled with her knife. “Why do you need another opinion, Father? Don’t you trust me?” She smiled at him.

  He pointed at her oldest brother. “Trip is on it. He’ll get down there, do some looking around, and let us know where to go next.”

  Randa glanced down at her water glass and her false smile faded. “Oh, that’s fine.” But it wasn’t. And saying it was instead of how she felt about being dismissed like that was what the old Randa would have done.

  Her father heaved a gusty sigh. “Just… listen, I need you here for a bit. This isn’t your thing, Randa. Business is hard. Cold. That last report sounded like a fan letter to… what’s her name? The owner? You aren’t cut out for negotiation. I’ve got some important meetings coming up. You can help your mother entertain. Since you ran off your last fiancé, I want to show you a few prospects this time. Maybe a choice is all it’ll take. Plenty of properties in this world.”

  The thought of being on parade for a long line of hotel heirs filled her with dread. Enough dread that she wasn’t even sure she could make it through dinner. Before Tony, it had been awful. Now she just didn’t know if she could grin and bear it.

  Her mother said, “We’ll need to see about getting you some new dresses. What you have’s probably too tight. You’ll look like a cheap woman.”

  That was her mother’s greatest insult. Cheap woman. Like what a woman wore had anything to do with her value. To her mother, the two were intimately acquainted.

  Of course, it didn’t help that she was absolutely right. The waistband of her skirt was digging into her side and Randa was pretty sure it was ironic crappy luck that she was also starving at the same time.

  Her father glared daggers at her mother. The boys swiveled their heads from one end to the other. And their wives ate tiny bites of everything on their plates.

  She didn’t know her sisters-in-law very well but she’d often thought her life would be easier if she could just follow their lead. They dressed well, attended all the right functions, volunteered time and money to the best charities, and were perfectly inoffensive in all ways to her parents. She was closest to Trip’s wife, Alice, who’d brought with her a regional chain in Canada that was quickly rebranded when they married, but their occasional lunches hadn’t convinced her Alice was satisfied with her own dynastic match. Randa had made the mistake of asking if being a rich man’s wife had been Alice’s dream. Randa wasn’t sure either one of them were prepared to hear the honest answer. Alice’s face was full of resignation as she said, “Don’t be stupid, Randa. I did what my father asked. Now I’ve got a husband who’s never home, most likely because he’s in love with his secretary, and no life of my own.”

  Randa picked up her wine glass and took a calming sip. More than anything she wished it was sweet tea. Maybe after this was over, she’d get into her tiny red sports car and head out on the hunt for a greasy burger and icy tea.

  And then she’d listen to her mother harangue for days after.

  Suddenly, she had no idea why she was so desperate to stay here, to fit in, to try to out-Whitmore the Whitmores. All it got her was hungry.

  On the plane ride home, she had listened to Elvis sing and done her best to convince herself that the homesickness she was feeling would pass. In just the space of a few days, she’d felt more at home, more herself, at the Rock’n’Rolla Hotel than she ever had in her mother’s dining room. And somewhere between takeoff and landing, it hit her that maybe her dream had never really been about the hotel of her own. She was smart. She liked challenges. She liked business. But just because her family’s business was hotels didn’t mean that was her only option. Maybe her dream had really been about finding a place of her own. Work she could find anywhere.

  As she watched her brothers and their wives and their lovely table manners, she realized that, no matter how scary it was, to be happy, she was going to have to give up on the idea of making herself a perfect Whitmore. She’d tried. Now it was time for her to be the perfect Randa.

  “I’m glad you’re all here. I’ve made a decision and this is an excellent place to announce it.” Randa folded her napkin beside her plate. No matter how she put this, it wasn’t going to go well. She needed to make a quick getaway in order to avoid flaming fallout.

  Her father tilted his head like he was oh-so-interested to hear what she had to say.

  “I’ve decided that I want my own hotel, Father. When we find a new place in Memphis or wherever the next place is, I want to renovate it and then I want to stay and run it. I want my own place. You know that’s what I’ve always wanted. Not a husband with hotels. One of my own.”

  The room was quiet. No doubt everyone was holding his or her breath awaiting Marcus Whitmore’s decree. Just like Randa.

  He laughed. “You think you can do that? Just demand it and make it so?”

  Randa wet her lips. “Well, I have more than proven myself. I’ve worked hard, done a lot of time on the road, learning what makes a good Whitmore hotel.” She straightened her shoulders. “I’m ready. I can do this.”

  Her father looked down at his wife and shook his head. “I never doubted you could do it. You’ve done the hardest part of the job and done it well.”

  Randa was speechless for a minute. Then her mother said, “Of course you can. Nobody doubts your intelligence, Randa.”

  Marcus shrugged. “But you’re missing the point. I’m not in this for one well-run hotel. I’m building something here. I want the strongest chain in North America and you’re going to help me best by adding to the number, not by running one really well. I can hire people to run hotels. You’re the only daughter I have.”

  He picked up his fork and resumed eating like it was all settled.

  And no one argued.

  Except Randa.

  “Don’t you care what I want?”

  He snorted. “Of course I do. That’s why you’re still sitting here, a part of the group even after you’ve let me down twice now. That’s why I pay your outrageous credit card bills. But I know what will be best for you.” He pointed up and down the table. “Look how happy they are. I did that. I’ll do it for you too. I’ll get my hotels and we’ll all be happy.”

  Rand
a glanced up and down the table. Her brothers and their wives might be as blandly attractive as photo-frame models, but they didn’t look happy.

  She turned to face her father. “I’m never going to marry the man you choose. I can’t, not now. Since the Rock’n’Rolla and the people I met there, everything’s changed. I have to change too. I want my own hotel.”

  “Or?” He raised an eyebrow. The temperature in the room plummeted. “You’re too soft to do what I asked you to do and not soft enough to follow the plans I make. What good are you? What are you contributing, Randa?”

  Randa blinked quickly. “So it’s all about return on investment, right?”

  Marcus looked surprised she’d even ask the question. “Well, yes. Of course it is.”

  “I’m not an investment.” Every head at the table snapped in her father’s direction. She might have laughed if her hands weren’t ice cold. “I’d like to offer you my resignation then. I’ve charged a plane ticket as my severance.”

  “You don’t resign from a family.” He leaned back in his chair. “You want my money, you work in my business where I tell you to. That car is mine. Your clothes. The credit cards that pay for some really outrageous spa days. All mine. I don’t complain. You’re a beautiful woman and there’s a whole lot of power in that, but if you aren’t working for me, all that stops.”

  Randa glanced across the table at Alice, who seemed to be encouraging her with her eyes, and at Trip, who looked resigned and maybe a little like he admired her guts. “I’m not quitting the family. I am quitting the job. And I understand perfectly that your money will stop when my work stops. I can find another job.” As she said it, she was amazed at how certain she was that it was the truth.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Her father looked genuinely curious. “You actually think I’ll let you go work for a competitor?”

  “I’ve got to try something new. My ideas. My hard work. And people are going to recognize it. My new boss has already shown she appreciates my work. I’m going to make someone else a lot of money.”