Exmas

by Winter Renshaw

  “Well that’s perfectly fine, Reed,” Bevin says, lifting her glass and pointing it at me. “Every family is different. There’s no right or wrong way to celebrate—or not celebrate.”

  “I find it fascinating.” Neve rests her chin on top of her hand, her elbow on the table. That would never fly at my house growing up—yet another thing I’m growing to love about this family. They’re laid back. No one’s fussing at anyone else about using the proper silverware. No one changes for dinner. There’s no superficial stuffiness in the air.

  “Fascinating how?” Joa’s brother asks.

  Neve turns to him and shrugs. “Just how his family does their own thing for the holidays. Can you imagine if Mom and Dad booked a trip to Tahiti or something and left us to fend for ourselves?”

  Logan sniffs. “That’s a little insensitive, don’t you think?”

  Neve’s eyes dart to mine. “I don’t mean it that way.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I just can’t wrap my head around spending the holidays alone,” she says. “I know you’re used to it, but that has to be hard sometimes, right?”

  “Neve,” Joa speaks up.

  “It isn’t hard when it’s the only thing you’ve known,” I say. “I don’t think we’ve spent a Christmas together since I was maybe eight or nine?”

  “You’re joking.” Neve’s mouth is agape. “What’d you do Christmas morning? Who was there when you opened presents?”

  My left palm digs into my thigh under the table and the collar of my shirt rubs against my heated neck. This feels like a therapy session now. Or an incredibly invasive date—the kind where I’d normally excuse myself to “take a call” and then get the hell out of there.

  “Usually one of the nannies.” I answer Neve, despite the fact that I know how this sounds. Poor little rich boy. Taking another swig of beer, I smile at the Jolivets. “Can’t choose your family, am I right?”

  I steal a look across the table, catching Joa’s stare. Only this time she doesn’t look away. She sits there, unmoving, though she isn’t nibbling the inner corner of her bottom lip while appearing lost in thought. It’s as if she’s studying me, seeing me for the first time—again.

  “Mama, can I go watch Frosty the Snowman?” One of the twins breaks the silence and suddenly people are moving and shuffling and breathing and eating and drinking again. “Grandpa said he taped it for me on the DVR.”

  “Yes, sweetheart. That’s fine,” Neve says, eyeing her untouched plate but not saying a word. They say in life you have to choose your battles. I imagine that applies with six-year-olds as well.

  One little tow-headed girl dashes into the next room, followed by the other. A minute later, the sound of the TV blares over the stereo system, drowning out Nat King Cole.

  “Turn it down, Ellison,” Neve yells from the table—yet another thing that wouldn’t have flown at my house growing up.

  Nat King Cole’s velvet tenor returns and the cartoon sounds fade into the background. Neve and her husband chuckle and Bevin smiles, placing her hand over her heart. She’s textbook grandma sweet. She finds anything and everything the twins do endearing and adorable.

  I never met my mother’s mother. She passed before I was born. But my father’s mother was something else. She was obsessed with me, intentionally going out of her way to make Bijou feel inferior any chance she got. One year she gave me a hundred-dollar bill in a Christmas card as well as the newest PlayStation console. At the same time, she gave Bijou a pack of stickers with the cellophane already torn. Bij was only seven but she was old enough to know the difference between our gifts. As the years passed, the more Grandma Constance showered me with riches and spoiled me with attention, the more I pushed her away, doing my best to act like a spoiled, ungrateful brat of a grandson so she would stop with the lopsided affections. It wasn’t fair to my sister.

  I mentioned it to my parents once and they shrugged it off, saying that’s how she’s always been and they had no intentions of doing anything other than sweeping it under the rug.

  “She doesn’t do well with other females. Believe me, I speak from experience,” my mother had said. “We just ignore it. She won’t be around forever …”

  And she wasn’t.

  She passed when I was thirteen, proving that just because you’re heartless doesn’t make you insusceptible to heart attacks.

  My parents missed the funeral, unwilling to interrupt their Bali vacation. Instead they sent flowers and mentioned something about holding a private memorial service when they returned—which never happened.

  By the time dinner is over, half the crew scatters to the family room. I grab a few dishes and carry them to the kitchen, placing them in a stack by the sink.

  Growing up, I never had chores—though it didn’t stop me from asking for some.

  “Darling, that’s why we have help,” my mother would say with a silly laugh as she pressed her finger against my nose.

  “The meal was amazing, Bevin. Mind if I wash the dishes?” I ask her when she places another stack beside mine. I realize it’s an odd request. I just don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to do something like this ever again. Washing my own dishes isn’t the same.

  Bevin laughs. “Do I mind? Goodness, no. They’re all yours. The Palmolive’s under the sink.”

  I fill one half of the sink with warm, soapy water that smells like sweet apples, grab a soft sponge, and get to work.

  Neve and Joa bring a few more dishes my way before Bevin shoos them away.

  “You wash, I’ll dry?” she asks, grabbing a clean towel from a drawer.

  “Sure.”

  “I hope you’re enjoying yourself today,” she says when I hand her a plate. “I know it can be hard, spending Christmas with a bunch of weirdos like us.”

  I chuckle. “It’s fine. And I’m glad to be here. You have a lovely family.”

  She nods, pausing. “I hope you weren’t offended by Joa’s comments earlier. I think I backed her into a bit of a corner. I do that sometimes. She was only saying it because—”

  “—no need to worry. We had a chat. Cleared it up,” I say.

  From the corner of my eye, I watch her crack a smile. “Oh, good. Glad to hear that.”

  I hand her a shiny, dripping wet fork.

  “She’s always been my restless soul,” Bevin says, polishing the tines. “Doesn’t know what she wants or how she feels half the time. Scared of making real decisions, you know? She’s a bit complicated, that one.”

  I dunk another plate in the water. “Aren’t we all?”

  Past

  Reed

  I stand outside Grosvenor’s office at a quarter to nine on a tepid December morning. He buzzed me and asked me to meet him for a quick chat about the Wellesley account a little while ago, only from out here I can hear that he’s stuck on a phone call.

  Leaning against the wood-paneled walls, I check my phone, aimlessly scrolling, mindlessly reading—until I hear him say Joa’s name.

  “She’s perfect,” he says. “She’ll be our fall guy ... She’s desperate for the job and eager to please and she’ll do anything I tell her to do … right … I know … I think so too … I’m about to make the announcement in a half hour … sounds good, Harold. Yep … later.”

  My blood runs ice cold as I process what I just heard—or rather what I think I just heard.

  So Joa got the job—but he’s setting her up?

  For what?

  I knew Grosvenor was a slimy bastard from the moment we met, but I never imagined he’d stoop this low.

  Knocking on his door, I wait.

  “Come in,” he calls a second later. Grosvenor sits up straight in his throne-sized chair when he sees me. “Reed. Hi.”

  I place the files on his desk, jaw clenched as I try to steady my breathing.

  “Sir, before we dive into the Wellesley account, I wanted to let you know that I’ve given more thought to your offer,” I say, referring to the half dozen or so time
s he’s pulled me aside over the past few months, all but offering the VP position to me on a shiny silver platter.

  Each time, the salary would grow, the benefits package would have a couple of extra goodies thrown in, and he’d carry on about what an asset I am to the company and how he’s had me in mind for the job since before Madeleine announced her retirement.

  There may have been a time when I wanted the job just as badly, but that was before Joa came along and proved her worth. And when she told me she’d put in for the job, I didn’t bother wasting my time. I knew if I applied, I’d get it. No question. And I couldn’t do that to her.

  But now, it would appear that I don’t have a choice.

  She’s being set up, and I’ll be damned if I stand back and let it happen.

  Sure, I could let her take the job and tell her what I heard, but if we’re going to figure out what the hell’s going on, we need someone Grosvenor knows and trusts.

  Someone who’s been to his house.

  Someone he treats better than he does his own son.

  Someone he thinks the world of.

  Me.

  “All right, Reed,” Grosvenor says, elbows resting on his desktop and hands folded. “And what have you decided?”

  “I’d like to accept the position.” My stomach tightens. She’s going to hate me for this. “If it’s still available.”

  Grosvenor’s thin lips stretch wide and he slaps the desk. “Way to pull through at zero hour, Reed. But I never lost hope. I figured you’d come to your senses.”

  His excitement stretches from his eyes to his dancing fingertips. He seems all too eager to make me his fall guy, but maybe his reasons are simple in nature. Maybe they mirror the very same reasons I think I’m better equipped to get to the bottom of whatever little plan he’s hatching.

  He thinks I trust him.

  The last thing I expect when I call the SEC tip line is to be placed in touch with a live human.

  “Scott Litchburg, Enforcement Division, how can I help you?” the man on the other end answers.

  I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of my Range Rover in a quiet corner of an underground parking garage. It was about as far away as I could get without leaving the place completely, and I can’t be gone long. The staff meeting is in a half hour and he’s going to make the announcement then.

  I tell Scott what I know, which isn’t much, but he agrees that it’s worth looking into. He asks me a few more questions, apologizing for the periodic silence on his end as he jots them down with pen and paper, and then he collects my contact information.

  “Oh, and Mr. York, one more thing,” Scott says before he ends the call. “This is officially an active investigation—case number d-as-in-dog, x-as-in-x-ray, four, six, eight, one, one, two, one. All evidence and information—no matter how big or inconsequential you believe it to be—is property of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Enforcement Division and is hereby declared confidential. Any violation thereof is punishable by a fine of up to—but not to exceed—one million dollars as well as up to ten years’ imprisonment.”

  He sounds like he’s reading off a script.

  “I just need to make sure we have an understanding,” he says. “You can't tell your Mama or your wife or your girlfriend or your dog. I don’t care if you trust them with your life. This is federal property and cannot be shared with anyone outside of this investigation until this file is closed. Do you understand, sir?”

  “I understand.” I bury my head in my left hand, my fingertips digging into my pulsing temples.

  I won’t be able to warn Joa.

  I won’t be able to tell her a damn thing for who knows how long.

  I hang up with Litchburg and check the time.

  The meeting starts in five minutes. It’ll take me that long just to get back up to the eighth-floor conference room.

  Heading back, there’s only one thing on my mind. And when I make it to the meeting with thirty seconds to spare, that thing flashes me the prettiest smile that fucking obliterates my heart—though not nearly as much as I’m about to obliterate hers.

  Just this morning I kissed her and told her the job was in the bag, that there was no way they’d pass her up.

  I wished her good luck.

  And then I handed her a little silver box with a blue ribbon containing a gift that will be absolutely nothing the second Grosvenor makes his announcement.

  “All right, folks. Let’s get to it. I know it’s Friday so I’m going to make this quick and painless. Just one announcement for you today,” the man of the hour strides in and takes his place at the head of the conference room table, a leather folio pad under his arm and a cup of coffee in his hand. How he can be so casual while simultaneously hatching some kind of scheme sends a flash of red to my vision that disappears when I feel a kick under the table.

  Glancing up at Joa, who’s seated across from me, she mouths the words, “I’m so nervous” and then pretends to do a silent scream, her little fists clenched.

  She’s looking for reassurance.

  “As you know, we’ve been without a VP of Acquisitions for the better part of the year, and I know we’re all anxious to get someone in there.” He pauses to take a drink from his mug. “I’m happy to let you know that we’ve extended an offer to someone—and as of this morning, that someone has accepted.”

  From my periphery, I catch Joa’s gaze snapping to me—not because she knows, but because she’s confused.

  “Reed, if you’d stand up please.” Grosvenor points to me. “Everyone, you’re looking at the new Vice President of Acquisitions.”

  I steal a glance at Joa while the room erupts in stilted, forced applause. I think they’re all just as confused as she is.

  Her eyes water and her chest rises, but it doesn’t fall.

  She’s holding her breath, holding it in.

  Waiting until she can be somewhere far from me, I’m sure.

  “Reed, again, congrats,” Grosvenor says, “Everyone else, back to work.”

  He laughs because he’s exactly the kind of man who finds himself hilarious, and everyone begins to shuffle out.

  Joa won’t look at me and I can’t blame her.

  She squeezes between a handful of people, slipping out the door before I get the chance to catch up.

  When I get to her office, the door is locked.

  “Open the door, Joa,” I say, keeping my voice low but still loud enough that she can hear me. “Joa, please.”

  She ignores me, but I wait, undeterred by the fact that I’m the last person she wants to see right now and also by the fact that I can’t give her an explanation.

  With hands splayed wide against the frame of her door, I ignore the curious stares I get when people pass and I wait.

  And wait.

  Until the door is yanked open.

  I don’t move.

  “Excuse me,” she says, refusing to look at me.

  “Joa.” There’s nothing I can say, but maybe it won’t matter what I do or don’t say but how I say it.

  She’s known me for almost a year now, and honestly, she probably knows me better than anyone.

  If she would just look at me, she would know that I never meant to hurt her.

  “Excuse me.” Her voice is harder this time, though it does little to mask the quiver in her words.

  For the smallest moment, our stares catch, and I use the opportunity to say, “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” She shrugs, indifferent.

  I deserve that.

  I hook my hand behind my neck, watching her stand there with a small stack of papers clenched against her chest as she eyes the scanner in the common area outside her office.

  “Move,” she says.

  I step aside and let her through, watching as she scans her papers.

  Space.

  I’ll give her some space.

  She needs to cool down so we can have a rational conversation about this.

  Returning to my of
fice, I close the door, close my eyes, and close the chapter of a book I was far from close to finishing.

  By the time I come out a few hours later, I pass her darkened office.

  She must have taken the afternoon.

  I let myself in, surprised at the fact that she left it unlocked, and sit at her desk, ripping a Post-It from a cube beneath her monitor and grabbing a pen from her top drawer. Only before I have a chance to scribble a note to her, something catches my eye.

  The silver box with the blue ribbon rests neatly on top of the trash can.

  I leave a note with a single sentence: “It’s not what you think.”

  If I can pique her curiosity come Monday, after she’s had a chance to cool off, maybe I can salvage this.

  Retrieving the gift from the garbage, I carry it back to my office. By the time I arrive, I’ve already checked out, opting to give myself the rest of today, but a flashing red light on my phone and a voice mail from Grosvenor have other plans for me.

  17

  Joa

  He has a suitcase.

  And he’s hugging my mother.

  I pull into my parents’ driveway the Friday after Christmas to pick Reed up for our AM commute, only I wasn’t expecting him to bring his baggage along for the ride.

  I press the trunk release, grip the steering wheel with a gloved hand, and wait for him to load up and get inside. Mom watches from the front step, wrapped in her fuzzy robe, a snowman mug in her left hand. I give her a small wave and she nods. Is she … is she teary-eyed?

  “Morning,” I say a minute later as Reed buckles up.

  “Morning.”

  “Are you going home today?” I ask, shifting into reverse.

  “No.”

  “Decide to give that hotel another shot?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “You found another AirBnb?”

  He checks his phone. “I did.”

  I want to ask if this has anything to do with what I said yesterday, but I don’t want to go down that road again. There’s no point in dredging up a stale conversation that’s only going to lead to nowhere.