One of a Kind

by Michelle Monkou

  “Really? I guess with your young age, you are more likely to recognize that segment of the market.”

  “Let me clear up that faulty logic. With my business experience, I can identify what population segments are underserved in the media and who needs a break-out publication just for them.”

  “Anything else that your qualifications have availed you of?” The interviewer dropped her overtly fake, saccharine smile. Instead, a brittle edge coated her words.

  “There will be restructuring and consolidating within the company.”

  “Buzzwords that mean job elimination.”

  “I see that you have a tendency to try to outthink me. I have no intention of destroying jobs. There are partnership opportunities where the best of both worlds can be shared and exploited among companies.”

  “Sounds like Meadows Media may need to buckle up for a bumpy ride.”

  “I like an employee base that isn’t settled with the status quo.”

  “I guess time will tell whether Grace Meadows made a sensible choice. She did build her company from scratch and put her life’s blood into making it a success, not only for herself, but for the city, as a tax base, source of stable employment, and significant contributor to local charities.”

  “You’re a bundle of hope and well-wishes,” Dana said sarcastically. “You keep checking on me and waiting for the sky to fall. I don’t live my life in that manner. So, unless you have something substantive to ask, this interview is done.”

  * * *

  “What on earth was that?” Kent asked when they were back at the office.

  “She plucked my nerves,” Dana responded.

  “Why?”

  “What are you asking me?”

  “Why did you let her get to you? She is not the person you have to convince. The public is watching how you handle yourself and her. You came across as an arrogant knucklehead.”

  “Knucklehead?”

  Kent couldn’t stop pacing. For days, he’d felt as if Dana was trying so hard to exhibit her readiness for the CEO title that her efforts were backfiring. He’d also noticed that she was pushing him away. Excuses about work. Excuses about not feeling well. First, he blew it off, thinking that she was sick, but it hadn’t gotten better.

  Watching the business news was how he’d learned about the interview. He knew the personality of the various hosts, but Dana wasn’t listening and his suggestions were met with a brush-off.

  The talk about business strategy made him get up to go get a beer. Something told him that she hadn’t cleared anything she said in this interview with Grace. A news program wasn’t the place to unveil business strategy.

  Dana operated like a solo act.

  “What is your problem with what I’m doing? I’m not mincing my words. I have a vision. And I’m going to make the company even more successful and relevant.”

  “Why are you unlearning everything?” Kent asked exasperatedly.

  “I’m not your performing monkey, Kent,” Dana snapped. “I was never yours to control and bend.”

  “I’m a coach, not a puppet master.”

  Dana shrugged. Her body language was clear, indicating that she thought the two were synonymous.

  “Have you talked to Grace?”

  “About what?”

  “I’m sure you blindsided her.”

  “Oh, now you’re an expert on what Grace thinks?”

  Kent stopped his pacing. He couldn’t continue if he wanted to. His mind had gone blank. His motor skills hung in suspended animation. A roar sounded in his head, leaving him wounded and hurt.

  “We’re having a fight,” Kent said.

  She snapped her finger and pointed at him as if it was a gun. “Brain cells do work.”

  “Why are we having a fight?”

  “Because I trusted you. Figured your word was gold. Shared my innermost thoughts, fears, things that you don’t share unless you’re...close to the person,” Dana told him.

  “I have never betrayed you.”

  “I find that you prefer to use more sophisticated words that add a touch of polish on the B.S. that you serve.”

  Kent opened his mouth to continue, but Dana didn’t let him “No. I’m done listening to you.”

  Finally, his legs moved and he walked closer to her, but she put her arms up. “I’m done having you touch me.”

  Despite what she had said, he pulled her into his arms. “Why?” His voice sounded hoarse.

  She shuddered. “I’m done with you.” She pushed away, grabbed her purse and walked out the door.

  Kent felt as though he had been through a storm and emerged in a different, but oddly similar, universe. What had he done to draw that anger from her? Whatever the confusion was, he knew they could talk it through.

  “Dana?” He hurried out of the room after her.

  “Kent, Grace is on the line.”

  “For me?” He walked back into Dana’s office and took the phone.

  “What is going on with my granddaughter?”

  “I’m trying to figure it out.”

  “Well, you won’t have too much time to do so. Not on my dime.”

  “Are you firing me?”

  “Consider it services rendered. Your final check will be in the mail.”

  Kent had never been terminated from a contract before. He’d heard about it from his fellow competitors, who had worked with difficult personalities. Nothing pleased their clients. Eventually they were fired from the job. In his mind, his competitors should have seen the termination coming and planned accordingly.

  In this case, he had been totally blindsided, so much so that he couldn’t figure out where to focus his energies to remedy the problem.

  He walked out of the building and stared down both directions of the street. Every small act took a lot of brain power to focus and kick aside all the thoughts crowding his brain, demanding answers. He picked a direction, not caring where it took him. His feet shuffled along with a haphazard momentum and his shoulder occasionally bumped a passerby. A muffled apology and a small overhead wave were his standard responses to irritable victims.

  An hour later, he sat on a park bench, looking at the athletically inclined, the young at heart, and children who didn’t know how fickle the world could be. He closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the sun for its warmth. Through and through, though, he felt cold.

  Rejected. Fired. Tossed onto his butt. His triumphant turn in the U.S. hadn’t mustered up enough glory for its end to be epic. He had worked hard and received a boost from Grace, but the rest had been up to him. For every client she’d recommended, he had to prove that Grace wasn’t his besotted mentor.

  He headed back to the hotel. Time to go home. Time to take his sweetest memories from the recent events back with him, though Dana and Grace’s accusations still hurt and he wanted to hit something, hard.

  One message was left for him on the hotel phone. Please let it be her, he thought. Please let it be an April Fool’s joke, although they were in May. He’d hang on to anything that could give him a second chance. The message played through to the end. No, Dana wouldn’t be returning. No, Grace did not rescind his termination. Henry, dear gentle Henry, had said he’d be over in the next hour to talk. His voice left no doubt that he was coming to finish the job that his wife and granddaughter started.

  Many had said, Don’t mess with the Meadows family. They are like a nighttime drama, the Meadowses. They may fight among themselves, but to make an enemy of one Meadows is to draw the wrath of all. He wondered how many would follow him to England to continually plunge a knife in his chest. He didn’t dare ask the question in their presence—if he still could—because one of them was bound to answer.

  Henry was prompt. He called the hotel to announce his arriva
l and Kent provided him with the room number. Meeting in a restaurant or other public setting in the hotel was more suitable for Kent’s purposes, but he suspected that the conversation could get intense. While the other members of the clan had come at him without warning, he wasn’t going to stand idly by and be accused by Henry. One thing he wasn’t was a whipping boy for the Meadows family.

  “Good afternoon, Henry. Come in and have a seat,” he said when the man appeared at the door

  As he waited for Henry to be seated, Kent still wondered how he and Grace had gotten together and remained as close as they were all these years, despite their long marriage. “Can I get you something to drink? Water, coffee...?”

  “Water.”

  “I’m here because the two women who are the lights of my life are unhappy. And that is an understatement. I don’t have a habit of influencing their emotions so that they must only be happy. In this case, I take it personally because I reached out to you, I liked you, and you were conniving to get the better part of Meadows Media.”

  “I am at a loss,” Kent admitted. “Accusations are flying hard at me. Character names that I’d rather never hear again after this are being painted to my skin. And I have yet to understand what I have done.”

  “If you say it’s only business and not personal, I will pop you in that British pretty-boy mouth.”

  “I’m not saying anything.” Kent made a big production of pouring himself a drink. Water wouldn’t do in this crisis. He went for the espresso machine.

  “A week ago, Dana got a call from an interested buyer for the Meadows radio station. She hadn’t put it out in the industry that it was up for sale, but she wouldn’t walk away from a deal.”

  Kent waited for the tie-in to him.

  “Then she, the interested buyer, alluded to being your business...and, well, intimate partner, who seeks out companies that need to sell off assets quickly. That it was your estimation that, under Dana’s management, she would be selling off chunks of Meadows Media.”

  “Why would I ever say something like that? And to whom?”

  “Dana had the woman investigated and, sure enough, she did work with IPOs. Your name wasn’t linked with them in business, at least on paper. But you certainly were linked as her partner.”

  “Agatha?”

  “Penelope Agatha Browles. See, I had to make it my business to check on Dana’s accusations.”

  “I had no business dealings with Agatha. Yes, we dated once, but I don’t even know what she’s doing now.”

  “Well, she’s doing enough, if you ask me. The questions from the interviewer, those were the questions that Agatha had asked Dana. I don’t know how she managed to get a famous business journalist in her palm, but she did.”

  Kent needed a moment. But Henry’s quiet anger promised not to be quiet any longer.

  “You had better say something...good.”

  “This has been so elaborate that I’m not sure that I can get you to listen.”

  “Pour me a touch of whatever you’ve got. I liked you once; maybe I can like you again.”

  Kent didn’t know how he’d manage to clear his name. As long as Henry was willing to stay the course with him, though, he’d answer any questions.

  By the time he left this room, he had one important clean sweep to make back in England. Then, he was going to do everything in his power to win back Dana.

  Chapter 16

  Kent didn’t leave from his hotel and head over to Meadows, as he’d originally planned. He had business to take care of in England. Thankfully, Henry was back in his camp and wholeheartedly felt that he had to tie up loose ends.

  Jet lag had no power over white-hot anger. Calmness eventually settled over Kent that allowed him to function as if all was well with the world. Once he arrived back in London and checked in with his office, he drove his car to Clapham.

  “Hey, Kent, didn’t expect to see you.” Conrad did his shadow-boxing greeting, but dropped his hands at Kent’s frigid lack of response.

  “Did you know what Agatha was up to?”

  “Agatha? Please do not mention that name to me. You should have added psycho to the list of things wrong with that woman.” Conrad pointed his finger at him. “First, I thought she was ready to move on. I thought she was heading out of town on a fabulous job. That’s what she wanted you to believe to get you back. I was just the simpleton to think that she was falling for me.”

  “Did you tell her anything about me or Dana?”

  “A teensy bit.”

  Kent glared at Conrad.

  “I was tired of her talking about you. I’d met Dana at your parents’ and thought she was a fantastic woman. You love her. She loves you. It was time for Agatha to move on...with me. So, yes, I kind of rubbed it in about you and Dana.”

  “You fathead.”

  Conrad patted his face. A frown imprinted itself on his forehead, as he looked ready to protest.

  “You stirred her up like a snake.” Kent filled him in on the gritty details. “First, I was going to kick your ever-loving arse. Then I was going to go and have a showdown with Agatha, but that’s probably what she’s hoping for.”

  “Um...thank you for not pounding my face. And Agatha has to know that this wasn’t going to win her any points with you.”

  “I don’t think she cared. Or maybe she didn’t think that I’d find out.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’m bringing in the big guns. Grace Meadows.”

  “Dana’s grandmother. The one who you said fired you?” Conrad scratched his head. “Not sure if you’ve gone batty, but she doesn’t like you.”

  “Henry will take care of that better than I could. That’s her husband.”

  Conrad shrugged, looking confused.

  “This can be Grace’s final throw-down. Someone messed with her baby, in this case, babies—Meadows Media and Dana.”

  “I think you’ve become positively American on me.”

  “I’ll leave the stiff upper lip thing to you.”

  “But I want to come with you,” Conrad said with a whine.

  “Why?”

  “I think American women are smashing.” Conrad pulled open his desk drawer and pulled out a mirror. “I must be a good catch. They love a brother with an accent. Look at Idris Elba. They have mad, mad love for him.”

  “First, I can’t believe you have a mirror in your desk. Second, you don’t have Idris’s height or charisma.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I just have to say, ‘I like it shaken, not stirred’ in my posh Brit accent and panties will be flying off.”

  “I’m heading over to my folks’, going home to pack a few more things for a longer stay, and then I’m hitting the next plane out.” Kent shook Conrad’s hand and pulled him in for a hug. “Hold down the fort for me.”

  “Tell Dana I’m sorry.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Ask her if she’s got any sisters, cousins, maids...”

  Kent left Conrad laughing and still calling out, his voice coming now from the open office window. He didn’t know how long he’d be in the U.S., if he’d be an intercontinental commuter, but whatever it took, he was on his way back to get his woman.

  * * *

  Did CEOs call in sick? Dana was sure that they also came down with the flu and stomach viruses and Sunday blues about having to go to work on Monday.

  How many had a broken heart as a diagnosis? she wondered.

  She knew that bed rest, a dark bedroom, and lots of chips, chocolate and soda weren’t necessarily the cure, but that they had enough powers to mask the symptoms, at least temporarily. The crying fits, well, nothing seemed to stem those.

  Grace had sent Leona over to check on her. She got treated like a salesman at the door, while Dana stayed hi
dden behind a curtain until she gave up and left. As added protection against an invasion, since Leona had keys, Dana put on the security locks.

  Dressed in a ratty T-shirt, she filled an empty plastic margarine container with her favorite cereal, poured in the milk, and grabbed a spoon. Finding a comfortable spot on the couch, she folded her feet into a lotus position and ate her cereal, staring at the switched-off TV screen.

  A banging on the door interrupted her mulish contemplation about how much life sucked. Grace obviously wasn’t letting up by sending Leona over for another round of being ignored. Well, Dana didn’t mind playing the game, because she was sure to win.

  “Dana, open this darn door. Now.” It was Belinda’s voice.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Dana muttered, digging deeper into the couch. As if she’d open the door for her cousin.

  “We know you’re in there.”

  First Belinda, now Fiona.

  “I can see you.” A distorted face pressed against the glass patio door. “Why are you sitting there like you’re a guru on a mountaintop? Come and open the door. I am a policewoman. I can break your glass.”

  “You’d need a reason.”

  “I smell smoke. Belinda, do you smell smoke?”

  “I see an unconscious body.”

  Dana watched Fiona pick up a rock. “Don’t you dare!” she shouted. She didn’t want to budge. “Piss off!” Now she was talking like she was British.

  “I know you’re not talking to me like that.” Belinda was the biggest of the three cousins. And she was known for a heavy hand when they played tag back in the day.

  Dana wanted to have her moment in peace. Why couldn’t they all let her be?

  “I got permission from Grace to break a window.”

  This was Grace’s house. Grace had been sympathetic when she’d explained why her interview went south. They had bonded by chanting a mantra calling for the “death of Kent.” Getting her cousins to mount an invasion felt like some sort of betrayal.

  Dana slowly unwound her legs. She set down her cereal.