by B. E. Baker
RIGHT. WORK. SPEAKING OF. I TRIED CALLING MARY AND SHE WOULDN’T EVEN ANSWER HER PHONE.
I close my eyes. I wish I could fix this for her. I CAN CALL LUKE.
I DOUBT THAT WILL HELP.
Probably not. I CAN KIDNAP MARY AND TIE HER UP SO SHE HAS TO LISTEN TO YOU.
THAT IDEA HAS MERIT.
GREAT. I’LL CALL A GUY. GIVE ME THREE HOURS.
Dots. More dots. I hate dots. I wish I could see what she’s thinking, not just read the things she decides to send. I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T LET MY FAKE BOYFRIEND GET HIMSELF THROWN IN JAIL OVER MY MISTAKES.
I wish she would drop the fake, but I don’t want to scare her off. MAYBE YOU SHOULD CALL TRUDY INSTEAD.
TRIED ALREADY. NO GO.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR OTHER FRIEND? TRIG’S GIRLFRIEND?
TRIG’S WIFE, GEO? I DIDN’T EVEN THINK OF THAT. I’M AN IDIOT.
YOU’RE STRESSED. THAT’S NOT THE SAME THING. CALL HER. I BET SHE ANSWERS. FROM WHAT LUKE TELLS ME, TRUDY AND MARY HAVE SOME TRUST ISSUES. MAYBE GEO ISN’T AS BAD.
BRILLIANT. I’LL LET YOU KNOW WHAT SHE SAYS.
AND NO PRESSURE, BUT IF WE CAN’T FIND A GOOD DEAL, I WILL NEED TO SELL BERG, I type. Then I delete it. Because this may be a fake relationship, but it feels real to me. And I’m afraid if I try and pressure her, I stand to lose something I can’t ever recover.
13
Paisley
Geo picks up on the first ring. “Oh. My. Gosh!” Her voice is three octaves higher than it should be.
“Hey.”
“Holly Paisley von und ver boten Licktensin! Oh. My. Gosh.”
Not even close to correct, but she tried. “Yeah, so we have some stuff to talk about.”
“I cannot believe I know a princess. An honest to goodness princess. Oh my gosh, can you bring your crown when you come home? I want to wear a real crown so badly.”
That crown just keeps coming up. “So, my family doesn’t actually have a crown.”
“I don’t understand.”
I could kick my great grandma. “Apparently one of my relatives found it ugly and had it remade into, like, earrings and a bracelet or something.”
“That’s bonkers.”
“Right?” I laugh. “I’ll have to look into it.”
“You do that. But seriously, girl. How could you never have said a single word?”
It takes me an hour and a half to explain it all to her, and about twenty minutes of that is just me bawling on the phone, which makes her cry, and it’s just, well, it’s exhausting.
“Oh Paisley.” I hear a scraping sound like she’s moving her chair. “Wait. Should I call you that? Or do you want me to call you Holly?” She inhales. “Oh man. Or should I be calling you like, your royal majesty, or whatever?”
I laugh. “No, please no. No one even calls me that here. Seriously. We’re not even royal. Some real sticklers call me ‘her serene highness,’ but I hate that. We’re the Princely Family, not the royal family. Believe me, just Paisley is fine.”
“Okay.” She drops her voice. “But listen. If you change your mind and want to go by Holly again, that’s fine. I’m so sorry about what you went through. I could have just as easily done that when Mark died, you know. Hidden away, changed my name, pretended it never happened.”
“But you were too brave,” I say.
She laughs. “Brave!” She laughs again. “Oh, Paisley. I wasn’t too brave.”
“You wouldn’t have run away.”
“First of all, I had Rob. He had been through the same thing, and he needed my help. If your brother, what’s his name? Cole? If he had needed help, you’d never have left. But then there were also my parents. My mom got sick, and she needed me, and my dad did too. When you heard your dad was sick, you went home.”
Five months after I heard, but I didn’t really believe Cole. It wasn’t like my dad called me himself. “He really is frail, Geo. It hurts to see it.” I shake my head. “I should have come back for a visit a long time ago, but it felt like a step backward. Or I worried that if I came, I’d never get back to Atlanta.”
“Okay, so I haven’t pushed, but it seems like you’re never going to bring it up.”
“Wait, what?” I ask.
“You weren’t alone in those photos, missy.”
James. She’s talking about James.
“Right. So that’s a weird story, too.”
“I’d like to hear it,” she says. “And I already had to cancel my lunch appointment, so you may as well tell me.”
“You canceled—”
“I texted while we were talking. No big deal. They’ll reschedule. Now, spill.”
“It was the strangest, most improbable sequence of events.” I tell her about the wedding, and how much I liked him, and my ultimatum, and how he never called.
“You never even told me you hit it off,” Geo says. “I cry foul.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You tell me about all the guys you date,” Geo says. “You may not tell me about your secret family and your wealth beyond imagining, or the many languages you speak, but you tell me about the loser meatheads you date, always.”
“I didn’t tell you about him, because I wasn’t sure if he’d call.” And then when he didn’t, it hurt too much.
“Fine. Go on then. What’s next?”
I tell her about how I lied to my parents to try and stave off a disastrous evening, and then how my lie showed up on my doorstep. “And then, in the most bizarre twist of all, he went along with it.”
“Why?” Geo asks. “Do you know?”
I really don’t. “He said he’d never really lied, and he’d never had a girlfriend, so why not try both?”
“That is pretty thin.”
Right.
“And so that’s it?” Geo asks. “He posed for some photos and took you to the ball, and that’s it? You just go your separate ways?”
I explain about Berg Telecom, and how I need to ask Paul for a favor. “I guess we’ll be in touch about that, but I need to figure out how to not only get Mary and Trudy to talk to me, but then I have to ask Paul for this huge favor.”
“You know that Paul sold his company, right?” Geo asks.
My heart sinks. “I know, but isn’t he still involved?”
“I don’t know, honestly.”
Oh, no. If Paul can’t help me, the business is really out of luck. “Well, either way, I need to figure out how to get Trudy or Mary to call me back.”
“Let me call them,” Geo says. “I think a little berating about trusting their friends is in order.”
“I lied to them.” My voice is smaller than I meant it to be.
“You were protecting yourself,” Geo says. “And your lie never harmed them, not in any way. You were there for us, for all of us, every single time we needed you. Sometimes you were there for me when I didn’t even know I needed you.”
“Thanks.”
“They owe you an apology,” Geo says. “I wish I could reach through this receiver and give you a big, Southern style.”
I do too. Bawling alone in my room is kind of pathetic. “I wish I was flying home today.”
“Spend a few more days with your family,” Geo says. “But then come back to us, because I miss you.”
“Me too.”
“Oh, and you let me handle Misses Trudy and Mary. They’ll be calling you within the hour, I swear.”
I laugh, but it’s at least half a cry. “Okay.”
But while I wait for Geo, I get to thinking. I forgot Paul sold his idea to 3M. Or maybe I intentionally didn’t think about it. I have no idea whether he still has any sway at all. I need to tell James that. Otherwise, I’m not being honest with him.
My hands tremble when I pull up our text chain. Flirty. Fun. Probably about to be over.
I HAVEN’T TALKED TO PAUL YET, BUT YOUR IDEA TO CALL GEO WAS SPOT ON. SHE AND I TALKED AND WE ARE OKAY.
Three smiley faces.
BUT SHE REMINDED ME THAT PAUL SOLD
HIS COMPANY TO 3M.
Nothing.
I close my eyes and bite my lip. Now I will have no reason to keep talking to James at all. Because he’s going to sell off the pieces of Berg Telecom and that’s it.
And also, I’ll have to tell my parents I totally failed them. We can sell a piece of art or two and start over, doing what, I don’t know, but the media will be watching us like hawks right now. Although, the sale proceeds from whatever James sells should float things for a few more years. I worry about the factory workers who will lose their jobs, but maybe the workshop will survive.
HE SHOULD HAVE TRANSITIONAL RIGHTS.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief.
BUT IF HE DOESN’T, I’LL NEED TO CUT IT LOOSE. I ACTUALLY NEED THE CAPITAL I HAVE TIED UP FOR ANOTHER DEAL.
Another deal. Of course James is moving on. It’s what he does. This whole thing has been strange from the beginning. Cole said Dad sold to a chop shop, and James told me himself that he tears things up. Why was he even considering anything else?
I want it to be because of me. Or maybe I don’t, since he appears to be bailing. I don’t know what I want. But I’m gripped with a burning, irrational desire to know exactly why James has waited this long. What’s his motivation?
I call him. He doesn’t answer, and my heart breaks just a little.
Two second later, he Face Times me.
I can’t answer. I’m wearing sweatpants. My hair isn’t done. I haven’t even looked in a mirror today. CAN’T FACETIME, IDIOT. I LOOK LIKE MEDUSA.
I LIKE SNAKES.
He Face Times me again. Oh come on. I answer, but direct the phone at my wall.
“Look,” I say. “I—”
“I can’t look. You’ve got the phone turned the wrong way.”
“I’m not turning it around, either. I told you—”
“If it helps, I haven’t put on a single speck of makeup today either,” James says.
I laugh, and I finally turn the phone around. “There? Are you happy?”
Both dimples show up when he smiles. “I am, actually.”
“Look, I know you’re busy, and I’m sorry to bug you, okay?”
“I’m never too busy for my girlfriend,” he jokes.
I’m sick of joking about it. “I need to know something.”
“What?”
“Why are you delaying selling Berg Telecom?” I frown, but I realize it makes me look even more horrifying. “Wow, I hate looking at myself on this.”
“Then you have no taste,” he says. “And about the company, I told you. I usually sell things off, but I’ve been looking for some companies with growth potential lately. I’m keeping a select number of businesses.”
“But why?” I ask.
“Yours had good employees with a decent facility—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Not why are you keeping my family company. What I mean is. . .” I lick my lips. “Why are you changing strategies?”
He opens his mouth, but doesn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to tell me, I guess, but I feel like I’ve told you every single thing about me. Even some stuff that I really shouldn’t have shared.”
“It’s my grandfather.” He looks at something on his desk. “Okay?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I haven’t told anyone.” He looks back at the phone. “Not even Cooper. The rest of my team is really scratching their heads about it.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“My grandfather is a real piece of work.” He pauses again. Clearly this isn’t something he has talked about much. “I’ve hated him my entire life, right along with my dad. Neither of them has any idea how to deal with family. My grandfather has been married so many times, he can barely keep his wife’s name straight.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s atrocious,” he says. “But it is what it is, right? I mean, I didn’t think about it much. But when Harvard kicked me out, I asked my grandfather for a loan. He gave it to me, a big one. I went to him with my business plan, and he pushed me hard to make sure I knew what I was doing.”
“So he’s the reason you have what you have?”
“I’d like to think I’d have gotten here no matter what,” James says. “But yeah, he gave me my start. Five million dollars, with a decent interest rate.”
“You paid him back.”
“I did, with the interest we agreed upon, which was a market rate at the time. But I doubt I’d have found anyone else willing to loan me that kind of money.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m not sure I talked to him again, between then and now. But his first wife, her name was Greta.”
“That’s your Gigi,” I say. “Right?”
He smiles. “You were paying attention. She raised me, inasmuch as anyone raised me. I spent nearly every summer with her, and she never said a single bad thing about my grandfather, which was impressive, because he’s a creep. Truly.”
“Okay.”
“But she left me some things to do when she died.” He leans back in his chair and has to rearrange his phone so that I can see his face. “The first one was easy. But the second one, she wanted me to forgive my grandfather, and that was hard. I tried all year, but I could not let go of my anger that he left her.”
“Did you do it?”
He nods. “I went to see him. It was a horrible visit, but he told me about his time with my grandma, and how things went wrong. They lost a child, and it kind of broke them. And some other stuff. He didn’t trust her, and she couldn’t believe him after that.”
“But it was more complicated than you thought?”
James frowns. “A lot more complicated, and a lot more. . . normal. I don’t know if I really succeeded, but I got a lot closer than I thought I could. And while I was there, my grandfather offered me something. He has put the bulk of his very extensive estate in a trust, an irrevocable trust. He’s going to name a trustee at the beginning of the year, a trustee who will also be the sole beneficiary.”
“Why would he do that?” I ask.
“He’s keeping several hundred million,” James says. “More than enough for anything he could need. And he’s giving some to each of his multitudinous offspring. But he wants someone to run it all, the most successful of his progeny.”
“It’s you?”
He shakes his head. “It’s my dad.” His tone is flat, with a hint of frustration.
“Is your father extremely wealthy?”
James shrugs. “He’s made fifty million or so more than me, but I’ve made my profit from tearing things apart. Grandpa thinks that’s not as good as building something, like Dad’s insurance company.”
“Okay,” I say. “But do you care?”
“He set me a challenge,” he says. “If I can make up the difference between my dad and me, I get it all.”
“But that’s not fair. Your dad has had way longer to create his.”
“Grandpa sees me as broken, and this is his chance to fix me. He’s trying to make me learn to build things and not just tear them down.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I have to close the gap by fixing companies, not by selling them.”
“Oh. But, don’t you have a bank? That’s something you built.”
He smiles. “You’re a good person, Paisley, too good. I built that bank as a wrecking ball.”
“So walk away from his dumb stipulations. Wrecking balls provide value too, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t care what your grandpa thinks. He may think you’re broken, but that doesn’t make him right. And he sure has no idea how to go about fixing anything, does he?”
“That’s all true.”
“Then what am I missing?” I ask.
“My dad is the last name on my list.”
“Oh.” His list of people he needs to repay. “You want to beat him.”
“I do. Maybe that means I’m broken too. Maybe it means that even if I do this
, I won’t have fixed anything.” He coughs, and then looks back at the screen. “But I still want what I want.”
“Plus, what do you get if you win?” I raise my eyebrows. “I mean, it sounds like it’s not a bad prize either.”
“Yeah, it’s three point two billion, give or take.”
I whistle. “That’s.” I shake my head. “Wow.”
“I almost have a billion now. But three times what I’ve got?” He shrugs. “It’s not nothing.”
“Hey what was your grandma’s first request?” I ask. “And does she have more things for you to do?”
James smiles. “Trust you to notice that omission.”
“I’m a secretary,” I say. “It’s my job to pay attention to the details. I’m good at my job.”
“I bet you are.” He shifts the phone again, and my view of his face is obscured by something, maybe his thumb.
“She made me set up a charity first,” he says softly. “But I’d rather not share the request she made for this year.”
Strange. “Okay.”
“But look, I found another company, a brilliant one. I can buy it for a song, and I’m pretty sure I can grow it in time for Christmas.”
“If you can get your money out of Berg Telecom.” I swallow. “I get it. I may only be a secretary, but I’m not an idiot.”
“You’re mad.”
I shake my head. “It is what it is, James. You said that yourself. I may not like it, but it’s not like you’re really my boyfriend. You don’t owe me anything.”
“Right.” He bobs his head woodenly. “It’s good that you understand.”
“So maybe I don’t even need to bother talking to Paul.”
“No.” He shifts the phone again so I can see his eyes. “Talk to him. If he has the chance to get you a bid, do it. I can stall for a week or two.”
I don’t cry. I’m really proud of that. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“I mean, you owe your ex that much, right?” I force a smile. “For all that love we shared.”
James drops his phone.
“I’m kidding,” I say loudly. “Totally kidding.”
“So we broke up already?” When his face comes back on the screen, he’s smiling too. “Over what?”