by Emma Quinn
The men stayed another fifteen minutes, taking notes and asking questions. It seemed that even the smallest details had to be confirmed through King Rochester. They left, closing the doors behind them. My father sat at his desk, and I remained at the window, now watching his reflection. If he expected me to act toward him as those other two buffoons had, he had another thing coming.
Finally, I turned to him and took the seat in front of his desk without being asked. I was his son, after all, and I didn’t need to wait for him to offer me a seat. He didn’t speak, only gave me a brief glance, and then opened a desk drawer, pulling out a thick manilla file folder, which he opened on his desk. He donned his reading glasses and looked over the top rim at me. It was a comical moment in which I thought he looked like an ancient schoolteacher scowling over his glasses at a disobedient student.
His unblinking scowl kept me from outright laughing, but I did grin and shake my head.
“So, you find something here funny, do you?” He tapped the folder. “If you were the one paying for all this, you would lose your sense of humor quickly.”
“What is it? Your expense sheet that proves how much you spend to have your court fools pandering to you and hanging on your every word? I can see how that would be upsetting; but a man has to do what a man has to do to retain his kinglike status nowadays, huh?” I was finding it impossible not to be that rebellious, snarky teenager with him.
He chuckled but there was no humor in the sound or in his expression. “Oh, you have so much growing up to do yet, Dylan.” He flipped a few loose pages, scanning over them briefly as he did so. “No, this expense file is all yours, son. Do you have any idea how much it costs me every month just to maintain that private jet of yours?”
Shocked, I looked up sharply at him. “You’ve got a whole file just on my expenses?” I laughed. “Incredible. You’re going to bitch about my juvenile lifestyle and expenses when I just saw how you lord your wealth and status over the general populous. Wow.”
“If you’re referring to Ethan and Daniel, I lord nothing over them. They are two of the hardest working men in this office building. Without them, I would be hard-pressed to keep the day-to-day routine of this place running smoothly. As for them hanging on my every word, that’s what they’re paid to do. They execute all my orders and apprise me of all the important developments in the last twenty-four hours. What do you do, Dylan?”
“I’m your son, not some paid jester acting like I give a shit about any of this.” I tried to reign in my temper but was finding it more difficult than usual.
“Well, let me help you out. Let’s refresh your memory of what you do to benefit this company and your family.” He flipped a page. “You use the private jet to take yourself and twelve of your favorite celebrities to Switzerland four times a year, it seems.” He flipped another page. “Oh, yes, and you stay at the most luxurious resort for two weeks while you’re there, and you finance all the booze and drugs and food in the finest restaurants; you utilize all the services offered at the resort; oh, and look at this…you seem to be renting the entire resort lodge, not just the rooms suitable for your party of friends.”
My father had never mentioned my Swiss vacations, or any of its affiliated expenses. Hearing them read out like that made them seem far higher and far more superfluous than I had thought possible. Heat rose to my face. I gritted my teeth and kept silent.
He flipped more pages. “And here. You use that oversized yacht of yours to host parties all year long, it seems. Let me see…” He counted aloud as he scanned the page. “Twenty-two parties last year; seventeen already this year.” He let the paper fall from his hand and took up another. “And here we have the beach house where I came and interrupted your nap yesterday. Do you know how much it costs to maintain that house every year?” He didn’t wait for a reply, only shook his head and flipped several more pages. “No, you don’t, Dylan, because you don’t pay for any of it. You hand someone a card, and you continue to live however you deem fit.” He called out what was at the top of the pages as he lifted one after another and turned them face-down on the opposite side of the folder. “The Lamborghini. The Corvettes, not one, but three. The Ducati. The penthouse in Los Angeles. The house in Florida. And, gardeners, cooks, storage fees, maintenance fees…” He took off the glasses and looked directly at me. “Shall I go on? Because the list is much, much longer as you can see here. And, would you like to know the exact cost of each one? Because I also have that information here.”
Furious, and more than a bit embarrassed and emasculated by the overload of information about myself, I shook my head. He had only gone through about half the file before him. Having it all lumped together like that was quite sobering and damped my hostility quite a bit. I didn’t like knowing that I had been living so extravagantly on my father’s dime for so many years, but I was also ill-equipped to do otherwise. It’s not like I had a job of my own or my own stream of income from anything I had ever done or accomplished.
“So, what do you propose we do about correcting this deficit? How do you propose you begin paying all this back?” He leaned back in his seat and laced his fingers together on his lap.
“Pay it back?” My entire body tensed, and my mind spun. He couldn’t be serious. There was no way I could ever repay so much money.
He nodded.
“There’s no…no way to…I couldn’t…it’s impossible!” Nausea set in and my hands shook. I scrutinized his face to ascertain if he was serious. He was.
“It might take you the rest of your life, huh?” Then he grinned and sat forward. “You’re right. It is quite impossible for you to ever earn enough to repay all this debt. So, here’s what is going to happen, Dylan.”
He replaced the papers neatly into the file and closed it. “This is for you. A present. A reminder. And, hopefully a catalyst to help get you started on the right path.” He pushed the folder toward me, and I took it reluctantly, amazed at the actual heft.
“All right. So, what’s the verdict? What’s my punishment, Pop?” Even in the light of my frivolous lifestyle’s ridiculous cost, I was a shit with a bad attitude. It’s hard to break a decade-long habit.
“Look at it however you want, son. You are going to start working right here in the office with me every morning. Five days a week. As my son, and heir to everything I have, you have a larger stake in the happenings here, so if something comes up and you’re needed on the weekends, you’ll do that too.”
“What!?” I nearly dropped the file, fumbled it as I shot forward in my seat, and managed to spill the remainder of my coffee onto the black and white marble patterned carpet. “I can’t do that! Every morning? This early?” I sat back, shaking my head. I used my feet to push the chair back so I wouldn’t put my feet in the coffee mess, and then snatched the cup from the floor.
“Oh, yes. You can and you will. And, I wasn’t finished.” His grin was maddening. “Every morning, you’ll report here, and you’ll shadow Ethan for two hours. You will learn his job. You’ll be out of here by ten, no later, every morning, Monday through Friday. Every evening, you will report to the main warehouse and work from four until midnight. That way you can learn everything about this industry from the bottom-up, just like I did. If you are going to take my place one day, you need to know how things work on an intimate level.”
My body tingled as if numb. “That’s a total of ten hours a day working, every day. No, I can’t do that. That leaves me no time for anything other than work. I’m not a machine, you know.”
“You can, and you will. Else, all your finances are done. Then you will have to go out and get a regular job and try to pay your own way in life. Do you know what that means? It means all your fancy houses, toys, vacations, parties, and all your so-called friends with celebrity status will disappear, too.”
“Nobody works ten hours a day. Nobody. That’s ridiculous.” In the back of my mind, I thought that maybe his attitude was why my mother had left. I couldn’t say I would blame her, if Dad was t
his tough on her, too.
“You’d be shocked at how many people work ten-hour shifts at jobs that pay much less and for bosses who care much less about them. A lot of people in today’s world work two jobs just to keep a decent roof over their family’s heads. You’ve lived in your party-hardy fantasy world far too long. It’s over and it’s time for you to join the real world, the world of contributing adults.” He pushed away from his desk. “Your job starts right now.” He pointed to the spilled coffee I was so adeptly avoiding. “With that. Go find something to clean that up. It’s high time you start cleaning up your own messes, too.”
Feeling as if I were trapped in a nightmare and that I would wake up soon, I stood and plodded out the door, having no idea where to find anything to blot up the coffee. I didn’t even know where the restrooms were in the building. I didn’t know anyone’s names other than his. I knew absolutely nothing about the business or how it was run.
My own father had busted me to the rank of those two idiots following him around with a notepad, scribbling as if their lives depended on his every word.
Opening the door, wrapped in a sense of unreality, I understood that my life, as I had always known it, had been successfully obliterated.
5
Emily
W
ithin a week of me filing my complaint against the guy on the motorcycle, I was called back to the police station. For some reason, which was not explained to me even though I asked, Mr. Rochester of Rochester Industries had left me a check for the cost of my laptop. The amount was actually quite more than the cost of a new one. I called him to thank him. I had left a message but had not received a return call. Seeing as how he was the founder of Rochester Industries, I didn’t quite expect a call-back.
I called my father immediately about the check. He was as confused as I had been. I didn’t have much of a choice other than to cash the check two days later and purchase a replacement computer, though. My project was soon due, and I needed the computer to finish it. At my father’s house later that afternoon, I showed him the replacement. I had bought a slightly upgraded computer as the model of my old one was not sold anymore.
As he fired it up and looked through it, I said, “I’ll work a few extra shifts and replace the money. I feel like I should pay him back. I don’t even know the man.”
“I don’t know why he would have done it either, Em. Honestly, I’m at a complete loss. I’ll ask him first chance I get. He comes to the warehouse a couple times a week just to check in on everything and I get plenty of facetime with him.” He smiled and shut down the computer. “Let’s go grab something to eat before we go to work. What do you say?”
“Great! I’m paying, though.” I still had the money left over from the check, and since I was planning on paying it back in full, I didn’t feel any compunction about splurging on my dad. If anyone in the world deserved it, it was my dad.
“No, I couldn’t let you pay for my food, honey.” He began to argue.
Holding up my hand to stop him, I said, “Nope. No arguments, Dad. I’m paying. You’ve paid for thousands of my meals. The least you could do is let me buy yours once in a while without arguing.” I smiled at him and gave him puppy-dog eyes.
Laughing, he embraced me. “All right. You know, I never could get past the puppy eyes. I never was as strong as your mother when it came to that.”
Planting a kiss on his cheek, I reminded him, “Fathers aren’t supposed to be able to withstand the all-powerful puppy eyes of their daughters. What kind of world would we live in if that didn’t work on our fathers?” I gave a mock shiver as if to say it would be terrible.
He laughed again. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
We took a late lunch at his favorite diner. It was my favorite, too. Fritzi’s had been around forever. The same gnarly, good-natured cook ran the place as when I was a kid. There were never many people there, and that’s just how we liked it. It was small, homey was the word my mother had always used, and nothing had changed over the years.
Our favorite dessert in the world was the double cherry-nut sundaes made with one-hundred-percent real ice cream. None of that frozen yogurt or powder-mix, ice cream flavored gloop for Fritzi’s customers.
Over dessert, I noted the sadness deep in Daddy’s eyes. He tried to hide his immense loneliness and sadness from me, but I could see it plainly. He and my mother had been sweethearts since elementary school. They had married days after high school graduation and had held off on having me until they had both gone through college. He hadn’t only lost the love of his life and his wife; he had lost a lifelong friend. They had grown up together, always sweet on one another.
Although the cancer had taken her almost two years ago, it still seemed wrong to sit across from Daddy and only see him. Sometimes, I tried to pretend like Mama was just gone to the salon, or perhaps had only gone to the restroom as Daddy and I took meals at Fritzi’s. Living in a fantasy world wasn’t good for anyone, though, and I knew that.
“You know, she would have been proud of you, Daddy.” I kept my eyes on my sundae. I couldn’t face the acute sadness in his eyes.
He placed a hand over mine on the table. His hands were rough from years of hard work. I was happy that he had made manager at the warehouse and didn’t have as much manual labor to do, but it was plain that my father had done his share of hard work over the years. I looked up at him. The little crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes had deepened drastically over the past three or four years, his cheeks were not as hollow as they had been upon Mama’s death, and the dark circles had nearly faded away, too, but the sadness was there. It caused my heart to sink a bit. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her up, I thought sadly.
He squeezed my hand, giving me his patented quiet, peaceful smile. “She would have been doubly proud of you, honey.” Tears welled in his eyes and I felt my own eyes stinging with the first hint of tears.
Sucking in a deep breath, I swiped at my eyes and forced a broad smile. Time to change the mood, I thought. “Nobody is going to be proud of me if I flunk class because I don’t finish my project in time.” I injected more happiness into my tone than necessary and, even though it came out sounding very fake, my father forced a lighthearted chuckle that I knew he wasn’t feeling.
“Well, we can’t have that now. You should be able to finish with that schnazzy new computer of yours, though. Right? If you need to drop some shifts, remember, it’s all right. You can make them up some other time when you’re not so busy with school.” He shook a finger at me. “Remember, school first. I’ll pay for everything you need and most of what you want, if you just let me know. I’d much rather do that and have you doing well in school than working out at the warehouse with me, Em.”
“I’m doing fine, Daddy. Really. I was only joking, anyway. I don’t need to drop any shifts.” I grinned at him. “And I don’t need my Daddy to pay for things I simply want. I’m not some spoiled brat; you and Mama raised me better than that.”
Relaxing, he laughed a bit. “You definitely have your mother’s sense of independence. She was as stubborn about it as you are.”
“Well, from what I can tell, I might have gotten a double dose of that.” I raised my eyebrows and nodded to him. “You’re a teensy bit stubborn and independent too, there, Daddy-O.”
With the mood turned around, we headed off to the warehouse.
An hour into my shift, with the new computer and the motorcycle incident well out of my mind, I looked up and was shocked to my core to see the man who had nearly run over me standing in front of my father, conversing calmly with him.
Immediately, I was angry.
Walking toward him, we made eye contact. He looked about as happy as I’m sure I did. My father looked around as I approached, confusion on his face.
Before I could open my mouth, the guy sneered. “You! Don’t tell me you work here.”
Hands on hips, I glowered at him. “Well, guess what? I do work here! Are you here
looking for work? Someone who lives as irresponsibly as you?” I scoffed.
“Looking for work? No. I do work here, lady. And do you know why I’m having to pull shifts at this lousy place five nights a week?”
“To pay for Uber fare because you obviously can’t operate a motorcycle?”
He stepped forward, glaring. “No, because you went to the police over something that was your own fault. Because you ran whining and crying about your precious broken computer. I bet it was broken before you tripped and fell on it, wasn’t it? You just wanted a new one and saw your opportunity to get one.”
“That accident was not my fault, and you know it. If you had paid for the computer, or just offered to pay for it, I wouldn’t have had to go to the police.” I was nearly screaming. He seemed to just have that effect on me. Both times I had been near him, I had resorted to screaming in anger.
Laughing, he threw up his hands. “Still unthankful that I even stopped to make sure you were okay. Now that I see where you work, no wonder you tried to get a free computer out of me. Thanks for messing up my entire life over your own clumsiness!”
“Messing up your life? You nearly ended mine, you spoiled, ungrateful…brat!” I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. The guy was so infuriating that I desperately wanted to pummel him. I had to think of my future as a surgeon, though. I couldn’t afford to damage my hands, or the rest of me, on someone as juvenile and irresponsible as that man.
My father put a hand on my shoulder. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Come on here. What’s this all about, kids?” He looked wide-eyed between the two of us.
I pointed at the man. “That’s the idiot that nearly ran me over. He’s the one who caused me to break my laptop.”
Daddy looked at the man, his mouth slightly open. “Is that true, Dylan?”
The man, obviously named Dylan, shrugged and scoffed. “I still say it was her fault, sir. She’s the one who practically jumped out into my lane. She’s lucky I swerved in time to miss her. If there’d been other traffic—”