“Yes, he’s always like that,” the protestor said, anticipating the question. “That’s why nobody can stand his ass. He broke your bullhorn without even caring that it wasn’t his property he was breaking. But he’s always been that way. Arrogant prick!”
But Norris was still looking at Carly. “Who is that?” he asked, motioning toward her.
The protestor, however, was surprised. “You aren’t from around here,” he said. “Are you?”
Norris paused, then decided to speak. “In every protest, the person being protested love to blame outside agitators for all of the confusion. Well, I’m a true outside agitator. I travel this land agitating for citizens’ rights.”
“But not for nothing. Am I right?” the protestor asked. “Cruikshank’s campaign hired you, didn’t they?”
Norris paused again. Then spoke. “I don’t discuss my employer,” he said.
“But why did they hire you? I know they want you to agitate Big Daddy Sinatra. But agitate him into doing what?”
“Just agitate him. Because guess what? That bullhorn breaking he just did? The way he threw me in the street like I was lower than a dog? It was secretly videotaped and will undoubtedly lead every newsbreak all day, and every newspaper headline tomorrow morning around these parts. You think he’s hated now, you just wait. The strong arm of Big Daddy Sinatra will be exposed, and it will be exposed in vivid color.” Then Norris looked at the protestor. “I know what I’m doing, pal.”
The protestor laughed.
“Now answer a question for me,” Norris said. “Who’s that lady?”
The protestor looked as Carly began getting into the driver side of the Jaguar, and Big Daddy stood beside the car talking with her. “That’s his daughter,” he said.
Norris smiled. “Go on!”
“No, I’m serious. He adopted her. And adores her. He has a lot of kids, probably more than meets the eye given his reputation, but that one over there is his heart.”
“Well,” Norris said with a contemplative look, as if an entirely new avenue of agitation had just opened up for him. “You don’t say?” he added.
The grade-school students marched in a straight line toward the auditorium. Carly was just entering the hall, just arriving to work, when she saw them, and then the teachers following behind them. “What’s going on?” she asked Judea, the nearest teacher, as she fell in line too.
“Our new boss is about to be introduced,” Judea said.
“Is it a woman like they claimed it was going to be?”
“I haven’t met her yet. But I think so.”
Just as they were about to continue, Penelope Wright, one of the vestry members, walked over to the two of them. “Miss Sinatra,” she said. “May I have a word?”
Carly glanced at Judea. Penelope Wright barely spoke to her on any given day. Now she wanted to speak privately with her? “Of course,” Carly said and followed the old lady away from the others.
“How are you today?” Penelope asked.
“Very well, thank you,” Carly said. “How may I help you?”
“I see your father has put his foot in it again. They had a live report on the morning news. He didn’t have to break that man’s megaphone, or push him down. What is wrong with that man?”
“Is my father the reason you wish to speak privately with me?” Carly asked her. “Because if it is,” she continued, but Penelope interrupted her.
“No, no, it isn’t about him,” Penelope said. “It just angers me sometimes the level of behavior he stoops to. As a leader in our community, he should know better. But this isn’t about him. It’s about you. It’s about you doing the vestry a favor.”
That request was even more shocking to Carly than her indictment of her father. “A favor?” she asked.
“Let me explain. The new head mistress, Miss Flannigan, will be staying at your father’s hotel. At the Jericho Inn. We thought, given your familial relationship with the owner, that you would be the best person to escort her over there and introduce her to Mrs. Sinatra. If you don’t mind.”
Carly smiled. “Not at all,” she said. It was a reasonable request. “I’ll be honored to do so.”
Penelope smiled. “Good,” she said. “You have always been an outstanding person, Carly. That is why we didn’t hesitate to hire you. Big Daddy may have asked us to consider you, but he does not run Saint Catherine’s the way he runs the rest of this town. We hired you in spite of him. Thank you,” she said, and left.
Carly shook her head. What did her father ever do to that woman? Sometimes she could be so reasonable, like her request for Carly to escort the new head mistress, and other times she could be the most unbearably obnoxious woman she’d ever met.
But when Carly fell back in line, and made her way into the auditorium, she realized that she was wrong. As soon as she saw the new head mistress, and especially saw the skin color of the new head mistress, she fully understood why Penelope Wright singled her out to be the woman’s escort. She clearly saw that Penelope Wright wasn’t being reasonable at all. Just, as she usually was, obnoxious.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“This is our chain of command,” Marla Grape said to the new clerk, showing her the hierarchical tree on the front desk computer. “If a complaint comes in, you contact me. Always come to me first because I’m the lead clerk. But if I’m not available, you move up the chain, as you can see here, to Mr. Sinatra.”
Becky Hamlisch, the new clerk, looked at the older woman. “Mister Sinatra?” she asked. “You mean Donnie?”
Marla shook her head. “No, I do not mean Donnie. I mean Mr. Sinatra. I know everybody thinks of him as one of them, but he is still the desk clerk supervisor of this hotel. He’s Mister Sinatra to you and me and everybody else who works here.”
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Becky quickly stated, distressed by Marla’s response. “Honest I didn’t. He told me to call him Donnie, that’s the only reason I said it like that.”
“I know what he told you,” Marla said, “but I’m telling you that calling our boss by his first name is not acceptable. And don’t you worry. If he has a problem with that, tell him to come see me.”
Becky smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.
As they continued to stand behind the counter inside the lobby of the Jericho Inn, a bed and breakfast in the heart of town, and continued to discuss more of Becky’s job duties, a big Ford F-150 drove up and could be seen through the double doors of the front entrance. When Becky looked up and saw the truck, she stiffened. “A customer just pulled up, Miss Marla,” she said anxiously. “My first customer. What do I do? What am I supposed to do first?”
“Settle down,” Marla admonished her, as she continued to input keys. “That’s what you do first. It’s no big deal. You’re going to have customers every single workday I assure you.”
Becky smiled, realizing her overreaction. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.
Then Marla looked up too. When she saw Charles Sinatra get out of the truck, she looked back down and continued to key-in. “That’s not a customer, anyway,” she said. “That’s Big Daddy.”
Becky looked at the handsome, muscular man as he stood beside his truck and put on his suit coat. “Big Daddy?” she asked. He wore shades, an obviously expensive suit, and was dripping sex appeal even from a distance away. Becky was in her thirties now, and still had high hopes of marrying well. “Who’s Big Daddy?”
“Oh, no one special,” Marla said sarcastically. “He’s just the owner of this place.”
Becky looked at her. “The owner? But I thought Donnie’s stepmom, I mean Mr. Sinatra’s stepmom, owned this hotel.”
“She runs this hotel. But Big Daddy owns it. He owned it before he married her.”
Becky was surprised. “That’s Mrs. Sinatra’s husband?”
Marla nodded. “Yes. And it still drives these ladies around here crazy. An outsider like her corralling a man like him. But there’s no doubt about it. He’s all hers, and she’s
all his. Every woman that’s tried to break that bond have the scars to prove it.”
Becky was disappointed. Jenay Sinatra, she’d already decided, was nobody’s pushover. But Becky was no bad looker either. Most men considered her most attractive. She still held out hope. And when he entered the B & B, she couldn’t help but smile. “He’s very good looking,” she said to Marla.
“He’s mean as a hungry lion on a summer night,” Marla replied. “That’s why they call him Big Daddy. It’s not an affectionate term, I assure you. He never shows an ounce of compassion ever. He kicks people out of his rent houses like they were roaches to him. You should have seen what he did to a protestor this morning. It was all over the news. He nearly killed that man.”
Becky looked at her. “Really?”
“He’s worse than the government. He’s worse than Big Brother. He just takes and takes and is trying to take over this whole town.”
“And that’s why they call him Big Daddy?”
“Exactly why. No ma’am, there is nothing affectionate about that term, or that man, I assure you.” Then Marla looked at Becky. “But don’t you dare call him Big Daddy to his face. He doesn’t like it. He’s Mister Sinatra to you.”
“But I thought Donnie was Mister Sinatra to me,” Becky reminded her.
“They both are,” Marla said, and then smiled a big smile as Charles finally made his way to the front desk. “Good afternoon, sir!” she said with exaggerated joy.
“Good afternoon,” Charles Sinatra said as he approached. Becky noticed immediately that he wasn’t returning Marla’s gaiety. This man was all business. Mean, Becky thought, just like Marla said. “Is she in?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Marla said. “She’s in her office, sir. She and Mr. Sinatra are reviewing the protocol list for the upcoming debutante ball.”
But Charles frowned. “She and who are reviewing the list?” he asked.
Marla swallowed hard. “She and Donnie, sir,” she said.
“Oh,” Charles said, and Becky stifled a grin. Charles looked at her, and removed his shades.
When she saw his beautiful green eyes, her heartbeat quickened. And just by his look alone, she was pleased to see that he was sizing her up as most men did. He even looked downward, which was always, to her, a sign of more than a passing interest. And she could tell, by his reaction when he looked, that he liked what he saw.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Marla said, when she realized Charles had no clue who this new face was working in his hotel. “I want you to meet Becky Hamlisch, sir.” Marla motioned toward Becky. “She’s our new desk clerk.”
Becky was about to extend her hand, but when she didn’t see Charles extending his, she quickly thought the better of it. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Nice to meet you,” Charles said sincerely, but without puff or smiling, which she respected.
“You have a beautiful hotel here. It is very well run.”
“Credit my wife for that,” Charles said. “It was a big pile of crap when I first got my hands on it, and very poorly run.”
“You certainly wouldn’t know it by looking at it now. I must say she did an excellent job of turning it around.”
“Yes,” Charles said, looking at her, “she did.”
A smile would have been nice too, Becky thought, or even a thank-you for her compliment, but time was on her side. He was going to come around sooner or later. She was patient.
"You ladies get back to work,” Charles said as he left the desk and headed toward Jenay’s office.
Marla gave him a chilling look. “You heard him?” she asked Becky. “You ladies get back to work, he said. He doesn’t have to tell us to get to work. We know to get back to work. But did you see it? Mean as a junkyard dog!”
Becky nodded, but she was equally curious to know just how good in bed that mean dog was.
Charles, unaware of her interest or Marla’s distaste, and not caring either way, knocked one time and then entered Jenay’s office. He began walking toward the desk. Jenay was seated behind her desk, and Donald was seated on the side chair. “Forty more at the front desk too?” he asked her.
“At least forty,” Jenay said. “That part of the protocol is on us. We don’t want to look as if we held back. We want more of these kind of balls. Tell them to go all out. Decorate that space as if they were spearheading the ball themselves.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Donald said as he stood up. “Hey, Dad,” he added as he headed out. “Bye, Dad.”
Charles didn’t respond as Donald left. He, instead, made his way toward the desk. “Busy?” he asked Jenay as he plopped down on the chair in front of her desk.
Jenay noticed the strained look on his face. “Not really,” she said. “What’s up?”
Charles stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. “What are you doing?”
“Just going over protocols. Nothing special. What’s going on with you?”
There was a hesitation. “You saw the news reports?” he asked her.
“Of you throwing that guy off of the public sidewalk? Of you destroying his bullhorn?”
Charles stared at her. Would she judge him harshly too? “Yes.”
“I saw it.”
“And what did you think of it?”
“I thought he had it coming to him,” Jenay said frankly. “They’re there to create a commotion, that’s the only reason they were there.”
“And I played into it,” Charles admitted.
“Yes, you did,” Jenay said. “But I’ll bet you one thing: those so-called protestors won’t be coming back. They won’t be creating any more commotions around your place of business.”
Charles smiled. “That’s true.”
“It’s not pretty how you do things, babe,” Jenay said, and Charles looked at her. “But it’s always effective,” she added. “I’ll take effectiveness over politeness any day of the week.”
Charles felt that swell of emotion he often felt when Jenay demonstrated her love for him. This time her words said it all. “Thanks,” he said with a weak smile.
But Jenay knew him too well. “But that’s not what’s really bothering you. Is it?”
Charles drew his legs back up and leaned forward in his chair. Most men with his vast business interests often had many advisors. Charles only had one: Jenay. He trusted her advice as profoundly as he trusted his own instincts. “They want to shut me down,” he said.
“Shut you down?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, yeah.”
“But, Charlie, don’t you think that’s a little excessive? I mean, Cruikshank is running his mouth. But it seems like nothing more than a clown show to get elected. I never took it seriously.”
But Charles did, and his facial expression told Jenay that he did. “So you think there’s more to it than this election? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s the way it’s shaking out to me,” Charles replied. “I looked into the eyes of that protestor this morning. That guy was no protestor. That guy’s a professional thug. If those hidden cameras weren’t rolling, he would have done a lot more than the little fighting back he called himself doing.” He looked at his wife. “There’s something more at work here, Jenay. I can feel it. I’ve felt it for some time now. Cruikshank may be the pawn, or he may be the mastermind. I don’t know which. But they want to shut me down.”
“But what’s their motivation? So they can take over? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Whoever they are,” Charles said. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
A worried look crossed Jenay’s face. She was about to say more, but Tony walked in. “Hello, parents,” he said. “Look what the cat drug in?”
Tony was dressed down, in a pair of faded blue jeans, a sweat shirt, and tennis shoes. A lot of grease spots stained his shirt. “Drug is right,” Jenay said, looking him up and down. “I know you didn’t go to work looking like that.”
“I work at a radio station, Jenay,” Ton
y pointed out. “Who’s going to see me?”
“The people who work with you at that station,” Charles said.
Tony smiled, and plopped down on the chair beside his father. “No worries, people. This is my day off. I’ve been working on some of my cars.”
“Don’t tell me you bought another car,” Charles said.
“Just this magnificent ’66 Studebaker.”
“Anthony! Not another one.”
“But this one isn’t like that other one. That other one was just a hunk of junk. This one has potential.”
Charles and Jenay looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Okay, don’t believe me. But you guys should stop judging me and come over to my place and take a look. It’s a classic I’m telling you. And when I get it restored, man oh man. It’s going to be a beauty to see.”
“And you won’t sell it, will you?”
“Not for all the tea in China,” Tony admitted. “But it’ll still be a beauty to see.”
Knocks were heard on Jenay’s door. Marla opened the door. “Excuse me, Mrs. Sinatra.”
“Yes?”
“Carly is here with someone she wishes to introduce you to.”
“Someone? Who?”
“The new head mistress at Saint Catherine’s Preparatory Academy.”
Tony smiled. “A woman running Saint Cat’s? And those old biddies over there are going to let her run it?” He stood up. “This I’ve got to see.”
“Thanks, Marla, I’ll be right out,” Jenay said. Marla left.
Jenay stood up too. “Wonder what that’s about?” she asked. “I’m with Tony. I can’t imagine that group hiring a woman.”
Charles stood up too. He was just as curious as they were. Saint Catherine’s was one of the oldest, and most conservative institutions in Jericho. This was rather shocking.
But when Charles, Jenay and Tony made their way out of the office and into the hotel’s lobby, there was more than curiosity and shock that met their gaze. Carly was standing in the middle of the lobby talking with the new head mistress, a tall, African-American woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. And each one of them, on seeing her, had their own reactions.
Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry Page 8