Chapter 2
“Like I care that you can’t keep your wife in line, Richard. You don’t need her anyway. She was doing something so that you’d not have a son worthy of our name. I just know it. And that mother of yours is in on it. Every time she comes around talking about you, they put their heads together and whisper to each other. You’ll see that I put an end to that too, don’t you?” He told him yes, he did. “You need to find yourself someone younger. I told you that after she gave you that first sissy. Useless things, women. And they don’t play fair either.”
He had his own troubles with women right now. His wife, whom he married only for her money, was telling him that she’d had enough of him and was going to invoke the prenup on him. And she would, too. Just to embarrass him. Damned women. Dick didn’t have a pot to piss in that her money hadn’t paid for. Not to mention him being able to have this company there as his own was out of the question. He’d used her money to get it started and she brought that up to him daily. Christ. He was so fucked right now.
“Have you seen David?” He said that he was home with his wife, where he should have been. “I can’t find him or his wife either. It’s like they all took a dump at the same time and were flushed away.” That made no sense; however, he didn’t point it out to him. Like he was thinking, he had himself a lot of trouble with women and his wife to care about his sons and their woes.
David was a pussy. He’d married that Mary when he’d told him not to and now they were all three stuck with women who thought that they ruled them. By damn, no one ruled him, and as soon as he found his errant daughter, he was going to make sure that she understood it too.
“What about Jacklynn? I saw her today with some man.” He could tell his son was trying to remember some little tidbit about his sister when he looked at him all constipated. He asked him what she was talking about. “She said that they were getting married or some bullshit like that. His name was Andrew or something like that. I didn’t see a ring or anything. She was at someone’s house. Do you remember that house we wanted to purchase? On Maple Avenue? The Bickers used to own it. I would have thought that place was abandoned by now.”
“Someone bought it right out from under me.” Richard said that was right. “Yes, I remember that house. What was she doing there? I fired her today, too. Thanks for telling me about her running off with some man instead of drumming up me some more business like I sent her there to do. You can’t trust a damned person, much less family. They should be about ready to sell it off now that they’ve done all that work to it. Go to the real estate place in the morning and tell them to get me that house. I’ve wanted it—”
“Dad, Mom’s here.” Richard said it so low that he almost missed it. Putting away the paperwork that he’d been going over all day, he asked her what she wanted. “Hello, Mother. You look lovely today.”
“Cut the shit, Richard. I’m here for you, too. I just heard from Linda and Mary. Seems to me that they’ve finally grown a couple of balls and are leaving you two sick shits.” She looked at him. “Same as I’m doing too. Leaving your father and taking everything with me.”
“Not me.” Dick wasn’t happy that his son was sucking up to his mother. “You’re not getting rid of me, are you, Mother? I’m going to make this company shine.”
“Not if the buyer comes through on the sale of the company, you won’t. And the only way that you’re going to be able to make anything shine is to get your head out of your ass and have a look around. The company is losing money like it had its artery cut and is bleeding money like it’s its job. And I blame that right on the three of your heads. At least Jacklynn is making us look good. What did you upset her with this afternoon, Dick?”
She could say his name, just Dick, like it was a dirty word. And no matter how many times he’d asked her to not call him that, she would do it repeatedly. Christ, he hated her. He tried telling her that he didn’t know what she was talking about, but that went over like a wet noodle. She said that her secretary had seen her leaving there sobbing.
“I fired her if you want to know the truth.” He told his wife why when she asked him. “Can you imagine her having an affair with some waiter at that thing last night? Christ, what is this world coming to when a man can’t trust his own daughter to get them more jobs lined up instead of blowing some waiter in a closet?” Dedria laughed. “I don’t know what you find so funny. There will probably be a bastard child come out of this. A girl just like her, too.”
“I hope so. And you won’t have to worry about Jacklynn having a bastard child. I heard she was married just today.” He asked who had given her permission to do such a thing. “She neither needs nor wants your permission on anything, Dick. She’s over twenty-one and doesn’t answer to any of us. He’s a nice young man, too. While I’ve not met him personally, I know his family.”
“You don’t know anyone that I don’t allow you to know.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew that he’d fucked up badly. “What I meant was, you and I go to the same functions, so there isn’t any way you’ve met his family.”
“What do you do at night, Dick? When you’re all alone in your bedroom? Use that namesake of yours until you come, or do you plot ways to piss me off? I’m thinking both since I’ve not slept with you since before Jack was born. Or are you having an affair? Not that I give a crap, but you’ve pissed me off today too. Good Christ, I must have been royally intoxicated that night to allow you to touch me again.”
His office door opened again, and three of the armed security team were standing there. He asked them what had happened, and the fuckers looked at his wife without answering him. He didn’t even get to tell them that he was the one that signed their paychecks because he was sure they knew as well as he did that the only person that signed anything in this company was his damned wife.
“Get him out of here before I have to call the police.” He was stood up, and his arms jerked behind his back. “And you’ll be happy to know, Richard, that your little things have been packed up as well. Including your list of names that you’ve fucked that you kept for some unknown reason.”
“What about our marriage? You said that for so long as I didn’t go out on you and didn’t make a fool of you, you’d keep me on. Well?” She named three things that he’d done in the last two days that had embarrassed her. “You don’t know shit. I didn’t do anything to her. She had it coming.”
“Did the secretary have it coming, Dick, or do I not know shit? And if you didn’t do anything to her, why does she have recordings of you patting her on the ass every time you walked by her.” She put her arms over her breasts, and that was when it occurred to him that he’d not seen her naked in years. “Get out of here before I have to have you arrested. Again.”
He’d been a little drunk that night as well. The only reason that he’d been taking liberties with his secretary was because he’d been drinking again. That shit would get him into trouble quicker than anything.
He was just coming out of the building—well, he was being shoved out of the building when he saw the limo pull up in front of the building. That was just what he needed to get home before she changed the locks on the doors. It would be just like her to make it so that he didn’t have anywhere to go. Just as he was reaching for the door to get into the sleek machine, the driver, Taller, told him that he wasn’t there for him but for his wife.
“That’s fine. I’m going home anyway.” He told him that he wasn’t to pick him up and he might as well find himself other accommodations as his house was in lockdown from him. “What do you mean, lockdown? There isn’t any way that she’s going to lock me out of my own house.”
“And yet she did.” Richard was trying to get into the limo as well and Taller told him the same thing. That his house was currently off-limits to him as well. “It is my great pleasure to tell you both that working for you has been the worst ten years of my life. And my name isn’t Taller. What the hell kind of name is that anyway? But Coulier.”
They watched as Dedria slid into the limo without a second glance at the two of them. No matter how much they asked her, he and his son, she wouldn’t tell them where they were supposed to stay tonight. It was then that Richard remembered his credit cards.
“There isn’t any way that she’ll cut me off, being her son. Sucks to be you, huh Dad?” He wanted to hit his oldest son, but he couldn’t keep up with him. Whatever burr Dedria got up her ass was going to cause him all kinds of trouble. When Richard turned back to him, he asked him if he had any cash on him. Telling him that he had about a hundred bucks when he didn’t have a penny to his name, Richard invited him to share a suite with him. So long as he paid the price of dinner. Catching up to his son, he nearly wept with joy when he saw David coming toward them with a hangdog look on his face. Richard invited him to stay with him as well.
“They won’t work.” Richard asked David what he meant. “The credit cards. She’s cut them off, too. I was in a nice room when, all of a sudden, the police showed up and dragged me down the hall and out of the place. You know, for someone who doesn’t like to be embarrassed, she sure is making a spectacle out of all of us.”
The three of them were standing on the street about a block from a nice hotel they couldn’t go to with a job they no longer had about the same distance away. He’d never seen his wife so upset that she’d do this to her sons. That was when he remembered that he had a daughter. Pulling out his cell phone, he was going to demand that she give him all the cash she had on herself. There was no way that he’d think that she was married, either. She wasn’t very bright, and she wasn’t all that pretty, either. Dick couldn’t remember when the last time he’d seen Jacklynn before today. He realized then that she’d gone straight to her mother, and that wasn’t fair. Daughters and their daddies were close, he thought. Not that he wanted her around unless she was useful and right now she was.
“If you’re calling me for money, tough shit. If you need something from me, well, tough shit on that as well. I’m finished with you and my brothers.” He asked her when she’d gotten so uppity. “I was actually born that way, and I nearly let you beat it out of me. I’m married to a nice man who loves me, believe it or not, and I couldn’t be happier. Well, I suppose that I am, thanks. I’m in love with someone who loves me back.”
“Does he know about your affair last evening? I bet that he’d like to hear that you were putting out your wears when he as waiting on you.” She told him that he was the man that she hooked up with. “Damn it all to fuck and back, Jacklynn. What’s gotten into you? You’re supposed to be at my beck and call, and now you’re acting like you don’t have me as a father.”
“What a good idea. You’re no longer my father.” She laughed and he wanted to bash her face in. “This is the last call you’ll make to me, Dick. Your phone is about to be shut off soon and I find that I don’t want a thing to do with you anymore.”
She hung up on him. He didn’t even have a dial tone there for he had a feeling that the stupid thing had been turned off, just as she said it would be. Dedria must be going through some kind of change for her to be acting like this. Not that he’d say that to her, but he thought that once he gave her some space, she’d be right as rain again. If only he’d been putting back money so that he’d have himself a little stash to get by on when she got her menopausal craziness. Or whatever it was called.
~*~
She didn’t much care for her sisters-in-law and she didn’t care for their children either. She didn’t hate them but didn’t like them all that much. They were spoiled rotten and had no concept of boundaries—both the mothers and the kids. Jack decided that she’d had enough lunch with them and was ready to get up and leave when her mom showed up. Thankful for the diversion, her mom sat down and started giving orders to the other two like she was a drill sergeant and they were her underlings. She should have remembered that about her mom. She didn’t suffer foolhardily with adults or children.
“I’ve sold the company. The two of you will no longer be able to live in the houses that you currently do because I purchased them before I had my sons. I’m going to sell them off, and if you have the money and want to buy them, then go for it. Otherwise, you’re going to have to find—”
“Hold on a second. You don’t have any right to sell our homes. Those were a gift when we got married.” She asked Mary if she’d been paying the taxes on the home. “No. You were doing that since they were in your name.”
“I think you just answered your own question. And I have every right to—”
“What the hell am I supposed to do with two kids and no income. I mean, you did fire your sons today.” Linda looked at Jack. “I guess you’re going to be taking over the company. And be responsible for tossing us out of the houses that we’ve had since we married into the family.”
“I have no use for your homes, Linda. That’s what Mom wants and she usually gets what it is she wants. Or, in this case, owns. Besides, these are things that you should have taken care of before you got knocked up. And since you signed a prenup, then it really is a shame that you didn’t have a job where you got paid enough to have some money put back.” Jack looked at Mary. “I’m not sure why you think that Mom should be responsible for your woes. However, I’ve been working all my life and have a good deal of money put away. Plus, as of this morning, I’m happily married to a man who loves me back. You must have known that neither of my brothers was going to support you after you left them. You didn’t, did you?”
“I’m going to demand child support from you, Dedria. It’s the least we can get since we had your grandchildren.” Mom pointed out that she’d not been responsible for them in the first place and wasn’t now. “Are you saying that you don’t love them?”
“They’re heathens. The lot of them. Just look at them.” Each mother looked at their offspring and it had her wondering if her child would be like this. She hoped not.
Davy, David and Marys oldest was sitting there in his chair and making a mess with Catsup and his French fries. There was so much on his plate that she was sure that the bottle was about empty by now. Daniel, the second born, didn’t look any better. His burger was torn into small pieces, and he was currently tossing the bits at his sister, Joey or Josephine, four months old, who was screaming her head off in the car seat she was in with no one paying any attention to her. Looking around, she had wondered why people were sitting so far away from them and now she had her answer. The kids were brats. Even Linda’s children, who were currently running around the restaurant and knocking against people, were loud and unbearable. The glares that were directed to their table were enough to make her want to never have a child. But she knew on some level it wasn’t the kids’ fault but the parents that had raised them to think that it was all right to do the shit they were doing.
“Jack?” She looked at her mom and noticed that the kids were being taken away with their mothers. “Are you all right? You look like you zoned out there for a few minutes. Is it the kids? They’re going to be in prison before they reach their teens if they don’t do something about them soon.”
“I won’t allow my kids to rule me like those do their parents. What the hell were they thinking? Strictly speaking, that’s the only conclusion that I can come to. Christ, Mom, was I like that?” She told her that of her three children, she was the only one that she’d take out in public. “Thank goodness. My children won’t be like that, I promise you.”
“I never thought you’d raise kids like those.” Mom shivered and took her hand into hers. “Now that they’re gone, tell me about your husband.” Jack felt her face beam with happiness and the love that she had for him. “I guess that’s all I needed to know to see that you dearly love him. But be careful, child. The others will hurt you to get to me. Including your father. I’ve never known such a stupid man in my life than him.”
“I guess you only married him because, in that day, it was the way that things were done when a woman got pregnant. But why did the other two think that marriage was going to solve their problems of getting a good marriage out of them? Seriously, Mom, they both could have done much better.” She said that it was her dad’s fault. He raised them to be spoiled. “I guess you didn’t have much to do with their upbringing.”
“Enough that I feel some responsibility for their actions, too. I should have listened to my own mother when she told me that I was raising pampered idiots who wouldn’t amount to much. And your father? Good heavens, I can’t believe that I allowed him…it’s all water under the bridge now. They are what they are and I’m going to take a stand against them like I should have before you were born. But then I’d not have you, and you’ve been my pride and joy since you were old enough to know that they weren’t worth the cost of a free newspaper.” They both laughed. “Oh darling, what am I going to do without you working all the time? You were so easy to find that I’d go there to see you just so we could talk. Your father, to this day, thinks that I dislike you as well.”
They were sat at a different table so that the mess could be cleaned up at the one that the kids had been playing at. She noticed that her mom left two one-hundred-dollar bills and apologies to the people around them. As soon as they were seated, her mom pulled out the files that she’d had in her purse and handed them to her.
“You’ve married into a very wealthy family in the event you didn’t know that. Not only are they rich, but the one that married you is by and far more wealthy than his brothers. Good investment man, I’d say, and willing to take chances that the others aren’t.” She looked at the paperwork, knowing full well that she was now as wealthy as her new husband. “I can’t even find a skeleton in their closest but for their father, who was an abusive man, and their mother, who left her six sons when she took off to parts unknown. I couldn’t ever do that. Not with the kind of boys they must have been. Do you remember Margaret Grable? That’s the person responsible for them being what they are today. Men of good standing who know how to save money as well as invest it.
“August told me that one day they’d had enough and took off, leaving their father to his own devices. He was in jail at the time, I guess, so he couldn’t stop them.” She said that she’d heard that but not how they left. “He told me, but I don’t think that I’m going to share unless he wants you to know. Mom, he’s a wonderful man, and I can’t believe how quickly I fell in love with him. He said it was the fates that got us together. I believe it.”
Mom was explaining about the houses that her two brothers lived in. They were small in comparison to the one that she and August shared and yet she could see that the value of both homes had not only gone down in the years that they’d been married but by a significant amount too. She asked about that.
“You’d think that since they work for a service like the one that has been putting bread on their table might have rubbed off on them. But if you look at that closeup of their homes, you can see that they’ve never kept up with the yardwork nor planted any flowers outside. I shudder to think what the house looks like on the inside—hold on, darling. I need to take this.”
She pulled out her own phone and called August. “I won’t be long, I just wanted to see if you’d like to meet my mom and me at the restaurant downtown. It’s called Rose Café. I’m suddenly hungry like I wasn’t earlier with my brothers’ wives around.” He said that he could meet her there in an hour. He was having a bit of fun with her dad. “Oh, you’ll have to tell me when you get here. Dad and my brothers are not only out of a job, but they don’t have a home either.”
“Your dad is trying to get me to buy Blackman. He said that he’s decided that he’s too old to be running a company. He told me that it practically runs itself. I didn’t tell him that I was going to own it by the end of the day. Are you all right?” She told him a little about the early lunch with the other two women and how their kids were brats. “I’ve seen kids like that a great deal growing up around here. According to their parents, they can do no wrong. I’m betting that those kids are the same thing.”
“Mom has hung up now. Can you come—hold on, she wants to speak to you.” They only spoke for a few minutes, and Mom looked too pleased with herself about something. She asked her what she’d done.
“Nothing that your man won’t enjoy. I want him to tell Dick that he’ll buy the firm. He can’t, as you know but it will have your father thinking that he’s pulled something over on me. I didn’t think he’d get the balls to do it, not this soon after being fired, but it goes to show you just how stupid he is.” Mom ordered some appetizers for the table. And as soon as Locke and Alex, his wife showed up, she knew that there was going to be a lot that her father was going to be arrested for in the very near future. “When I asked the two of you to meet me here it was so that we could talk business. But some of that is going on right now. I’m to understand that you have direct contact with the president.”
“He’s been a good friend since before Martha passed.” Locke looked sad, but he smiled at her mom. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re going to be ruffling some feathers on your family?” He looked at her. “Congratulations, Jacklynn? Or are we to call you Jack? My brother is certainly in love with you.”
“And I him. We fit perfectly, it feels like.” Locke nodded and looked at his own wife with so much love on his face that it spread warmth all over the room it felt like. “He and I, we have big plans together. Not a great deal as yet, but some that will dust off this town and get my family out of the way soon.”
When August joined them, he kissed her on the mouth, and she wanted to tell everyone to go away. They had plans for tonight. But he pulled away and looked at her mom. He was smiling like she’d never seen him smile before. Like her mom did when she was holding all the right cards in a game of chance.
“He is going to meet me at the bank in the morning. He wanted it now, but I told him that I had plans. Dick doesn’t have any idea that I’m married to his daughter nor that I’m a very wealthy man in my own right. I think he has it in his head that he’s going to take me to the cleaners. He’s got it in his head that I’m stupid with my money as well.” Mom said that was good. That’s the way that it should be. “I hope you’re right. I don’t want to be hanging out in prison while he’s out running around. I just found the love of my life, and I don’t want to leave her for some stupid trick that he’s going to lose. He will lose, won’t he?”
“He’ll go to prison. He’s going to commit the worst kind of fraud by selling you something that he knows perfectly well doesn’t belong to him. I’ve been talking to the banker here in town, too. He’s well aware of what’s going on. And if my sons are with him when he does this with you, they’ll be just as guilty.” Mom looked pleased, but she could tell that August was still nervous. She was, as well. Not that she didn’t trust her mother, but she didn’t trust her father at all. “I promise you, August, I won’t allow you to be involved in his demise at all. He’s made this happen all on his own, and I can’t appreciate you enough in telling me what he’s been up to.”
When dinner menus were brought to them, she noticed that all the appetizers were gone. That was fine with her. That meant that everyone was hungry. Ordering a nice piece of grilled salmon, she knew that, on some level, this wasn’t how her mother wanted to spend her evening. At times, she caught her looking so very sad.
“You don’t have to do this, Dedria. My family and I can get him arrested just as easily if you’re not involved.” She thanked August. “You should take a long cruise or something, get away so that when this is finished, you can be someplace where the sun is shining on your face and the idiots two—or the idiots three are far away from you.”
Mom looked away before she looked at her. “What I wouldn’t give to have had a man to love me the way that this one does you, darling.” When she wiped at her tears, she took August’s hand into hers. “You’re a wonderful man, young August, and a better man than I’ve ever met. No, I’ll be there simply because I want to see his face when he realizes, like all the other times he’s tried to scam me, I was there to show him that it won’t work. And if my sons are there, it will be the icing on the top of a very long-awaited cake. They have pissed me off enough. And I’m going to see that they get their comeuppance.”
There was no more talk of people going to prison. Occasionally, her mom would look sad, but either Locke or August would bring her out of it. She didn’t have any idea why it wasn’t bothering her that her entire family was going to jail. Jack supposed it was because they had been scamming people all her life, and they were going to be caught this time.