Chapter Twelve Sassy
twelve SASSY
Sassy didn’t recognize the man sitting near the front desk at the police station, but there was no one else, so she assumed he had come for her. She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed that her father had sent someone else to get her or if she was relieved he hadn’t come himself.
“Miss Rankin?”
He stood with a smile and rolled up his newspaper, tucking it smoothly into his jacket’s inside pocket. Sassy focused on playing it cool, but she couldn’t help noticing that the guy was a definite hunk. Way too conservative, and maybe about ten years older than she was, but a girl could still look. His dark hair was cut neat and short, and his eyes were a pale grey-blue.
“I recognize you from your photographs,” he said.
“Beg your pardon? My photographs?”
The corners of his eyes creased self-consciously. “That sounded presumptuous. I apologize. I’m Tom Duncan. Please call me Tom. I work with your dad. I’m his new partner, actually. He has photos of you all over his office. Your mother and brother, too, of course, but mostly you.”
She eyed him with suspicion. His partner? Joey was supposed to have that job.
“I didn’t know he had a partner.”
“He asked me last week, and I was honoured to accept.” He extended a hand toward the front door of the building, and she saw traffic moving steadily beyond. “I took care of the paperwork. Shall we go?”
She’d been in a cell for only a couple of hours, but as she stepped into the fresh air, she took a deep, restoring breath. “What time is it?”
Tom was in the middle of sliding his sunglasses on, and she couldn’t help but think that he looked an awful lot like Sean Connery when he wore those. It didn’t hurt that he was wearing a light brown sport coat over an ivory sweater. She was positive she’d seen a photograph of Sean Connery wearing exactly that. Tom lifted his wrist to check his watch, and the sleeve pulled taut against his upper arms. The man was hiding an outstanding set of shoulders in that jacket.
“Five o’clock. Rush hour. Sorry I took so long, but I had another appointment. Your dad did, too, which is why he sent me. My car’s parked just up here. I’m supposed to take you to his office.”
As they walked, she regarded him covertly. Tom Duncan was taller than average, with straight posture and a confident stride. It was like she was walking beside James Bond. Imagine that. This guy must be smart, too, for her father to bring him in as a partner.
He seemed likable enough, but Sassy had taken a stance months before, vowing never to fall for a businessman. She’d recently discovered how cruel and capitalistic her father’s real estate business was, and how ruthless he had to be as the best realtor in the city. The night she found out, she and Davey had been sitting with friends, talking about this and that, when one complained that his parents had lost their house to the bank, and some real estate guy had bought it.
Squinting against cigarette smoke, the young man had said, “I was born in that bedroom. Nothing wrong with it. It was the only pad I ever knew, but The Man trashed it, you know?”
“Bummer. They knocked it down?” Davey asked.
“No, man. They renovated the whole thing. Totally changed it. Then he bought our neighbour’s house and did the same. Then, like, three more houses went up for sale, and now the neighbourhood is so expensive no one’s got the bread to live there. A whole street, wiped out for profit.”
Sassy kept her mouth shut about her father and what he did for a living. “Why’d the other neighbours sell their houses? They must have gotten a lot of money for them.”
“Gentrification, man,” another girl groaned. “Fat cats killing the whole world with their green. I say we should all just hang on the streets. Screw ’em.”
Sassy had to laugh. “Yeah, but only in the summer.”
From that conversation, Sassy learned that renovated houses cost too much for most people to afford. Her father did that: buying up old houses, fixing them, then selling them for big cash. After he worked on them, only the rich could afford to own them. Where was everyone else supposed to go? That conversation had changed how she regarded her father. She loved him, but to do what he did, he’d have to be cold. And greedy.
At the same time, she was uncomfortably aware that his income paid her rent. She kept her mouth shut on that, too.
“I have to ask,” Tom said. “What’s jail like?”
Any good feelings she had started to develop toward him evaporated. “What a question.”
“I’ve never been. Until today, I’d never even been in a police station. I’m curious.”
“I don’t recommend it.” She walked on, annoyed and keen to change the subject. “So lemme get this straight. If you are my father’s partner, that makes you a conniving, thieving capitalist like him, right?”
His jaw dropped. “Wow. What a thing to say.”
She smiled, pleased with herself, and kept walking. Tie game.
“Maybe he shouldn’t have bailed you out,” he muttered behind her. “I wouldn’t have. I don’t usually get along with Marxists.”
“You’re probably too old to understand what we’re all about.”
She wasn’t sure why she’d snapped like that. She admitted to the occasional tantrum, but she wasn’t usually rude. She blamed the hours spent waiting in the police station, all by herself.
His footsteps stopped. “Unless you want to walk all the way, you should come back here. This is my car.”
Slightly embarrassed, she went around to the passenger door of his navy-blue Buick and got in. The car smelled new, so she told him that, hoping to smooth things over a bit.
He patted the dash. “Nineteen sixty-six Buick Skylark. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.”
She didn’t know or care about cars, but she decided to keep that to herself. She faced the window as he pulled out of the parking spot and made his way into traffic. The new-car smell was a bit strong, so she rolled the window down and let the wind toss her hair. After a few minutes of riding and thinking, Sassy couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Is he furious?”
“Who? Your dad? I’d say so.”
Tom was resting his elbow out the window, and the sun was beaming onto his sunglasses. From this side she could see a little curled line at the side of his mouth. Not a smile, a smile line . She wondered if it disappeared when he got mad. Right now, though, he looked amused.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. Your dad lets you live your happy hippy life and pays all your bills, and all he asks is one thing: keep a job. Instead, you skip off work, get arrested, then beg for mercy. Incredible. No kids of mine will ever be spoiled that way.”
Sassy’s cheeks burned. “It’s none of your business.”
“That’s a good thing,” he replied frankly.
She was glad to see Tom reach for the silver dial of the radio, filling the cab with Simon and Garfunkel. “The Sounds of Silence” was one of Sassy’s favourites, and the melody almost swept her anger away. Almost. She’d been meaning to learn it on the guitar—it wasn’t difficult, just a few simple chords—but she hadn’t yet. She didn’t realize she was humming along with the radio until the song ended and gave way to the Mamas and the Papas.
“Your dad told me you were a singer. You know this one, too?”
“?‘California Dreamin’,’?” she murmured, cheered by the music and intrigued. “Sure, I do. My dad called me a singer?”
“Well?”
She scoffed. “I’m not singing for you. I don’t perform on demand.”
“Fine. Just making conversation.”
She wasn’t sure why she didn’t like this man. He hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, he was obviously making an effort to be nice. Whatever it was, something about Tom Duncan grated on her, so she kept quiet the rest of the drive. She knew the route to her father’s real estate office as well as she knew the walk to her apartment building, and the closer she got, the more she withdrew. She glanced sideways at Tom, but he didn’t speak again until they reached the building then parked.
“Nervous?” he drawled. That little curl at the side of his mouth was definitely teasing now.
Sassy climbed the three storeys to her father’s office then walked in, remembering at the last second to stop at the receptionist’s desk. As a little girl, she’d gotten away with dashing into his private office and acting cute whenever she arrived, but that kind of allowance had gone the way of her pigtails.
Miss Sloane had her hair up in a beehive today, and her green-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses matched her olive-coloured turtleneck almost exactly.
“You’re looking hip,” Sassy said.
Miss Sloane glowed with the compliment, but her smile subsided as she remembered the reason for Sassy’s visit. “Thank you, Susan. It’s nice to see you again. Go right in. Your father’s waiting for you.”
He was turning pages in a binder, checking them against another piece of paper at the side, and Sassy saw photographs of buildings flip by. She stood still, waiting for his cue.
She knew she was spoiled, like Tom had said. She knew she had it easy, like Davey suggested when he’d come to her for money and a place to stay. She’d never admitted to any of her friends how wealthy her family was, but she’d come close when she told Davey about the deal her father had made about her rent. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed about how much money they had, she just didn’t see any point in flaunting it.
From the very beginning, she and her father had been close. He loved Joey, but Sassy was the apple of her father’s eye. While she couldn’t remember a lot from when she was little, she’d seen pictures of him carrying her on his shoulders, pushing her on swings, laughing as they shared an ice cream cone. Those photos, he told her later, had been taken by her mother. Then she died, and Sassy got older. He devoted more time to his business, and she’d seen him less. After Joey left, her father had barely been home at all. She understood that. The big red house was so big and empty it practically echoed with every step, every sound. Now that Sassy was on her own, she imagined he basically lived at the office.
He didn’t notice her in the doorway, so she sniffed to get his attention. He glanced up, and her heart broke a little, seeing his initial joy quickly melt away.
“We have some things to talk about, Susan.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, stepping up until she was across the desk from him. She bit her lip to keep from crying. She hated disappointing him. “Thank you for bailing me out.”
“You assaulted a policeman,” he said flatly.
“He was being mean to my friend,” she replied lamely.
“You pushed him. A policeman.” He shook his head. “Never in my life did I imagine either of my children would be a criminal. I am so ashamed of you.”
The floor dropped beneath her. “I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered.
“What kind of peaceful antiwar protestor shoves a cop? You know what that makes you?”
She blinked and her vision blurred. “No, sir.”
“A hypocrite, Susan. You are a criminal and a hypocrite. And if the policeman hadn’t been so kind, you’d have a criminal record for the rest of your life.”
She’d assumed she did have one now, so in the midst of this terrible storm, this was a sunbeam of good news. Not enough to change much with her father, though.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I… I got carried away. It was exciting out there, and then the police stopped us and—”
“Were you high, young lady?”
Her cheeks burned. “A little.”
“My daughter. Smoking drugs, hitting cops.” He turned his face from hers. “I feel sick. What would your brother say? Would Joey think this was such a great idea?”
Joey probably would have thought it was funny, but there was no way she was going to say that. She didn’t move. She had no idea what to do.
When he faced her again, he was no less angry. “What were you doing in a protest? You have to be crazy to get into that. Have you seen the news lately? All the race riots in the U.S.? The national guard getting called in to stop riots where people were throwing bottles and rocks, setting fires, looting—”
“That’s not happening here, Dad.”
“Don’t interrupt me.” He tapped his pen on the desk then slid all his paperwork to the side. “I have another question, and I sure hope you have a better answer this time. It’s the middle of the day on a weekday. You should have been at work, not shouting on the streets, disturbing people. Why weren’t you at work?”
A sob caught in her throat. She felt weak and scared and afraid. “I quit on Tuesday, Dad. I’m sorry.”
“You what ? And I’m just now hearing this? Do you want to lose your apartment? Why on earth—”
“I had to leave, Dad. Trust me.”
“Why should I trust you?” he asked through tight lips. “You, we have established, are a criminal and a hypocrite.”
She flinched.
“Tell me why you quit that job. Explain.”
“I don’t want to,” she said weakly.
“Doesn’t matter. Against my better judgement, I just bailed you out. You owe me.”
He was right. She owed him for so many things. “Technically, I was fired.”
“Even worse. What did you do?”
“I… I was uncomfortable. My boss—”
“You can’t blame your failures on someone else, Susan. You know that. Take responsibility for your own actions for once in your life.”
She took a deep breath and felt her cheeks burn with regret. It would hurt him to think of his little girl in a situation like this, but he had her cornered.
“All right, Dad. I’ll tell you the truth.” She squeezed her eyes shut and kept them that way as she blurted out everything. “Mr. Brown came after me. I was typing for him, and he copped a feel, and I tried to get up but he pushed me back into my chair. I was scared, so I shoved him off and ran out. I’m sorry. That’s what happened. Even if you make me live at home again, I will never go back to that office.”
When her father said nothing, she opened her eyes. He was staring at her, his face a shade of grey she’d never seen before.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I—”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Did you know that he was—”
“There were rumours. Another girl quit before me, and people said he’d been spoken to about it, but I don’t know what that means. Evidently, it wasn’t enough. I never thought he’d come after me, and if he did, well, I swore I would be tougher than that other girl. But I guess I wasn’t.”
The lines of his face had softened. She knew him so well, and right now she could tell that what he wanted most was to stop being angry and give her a hug instead. But she knew herself, too. She didn’t deserve that hug, and he knew she knew it.
He cleared his throat, struggling for words. “I am sorry you went through that.”
“I want to work again, Dad. I will find something. And I promise I’ll work hard.”
She heard a sound behind her and glanced back. Tom had come into the office and was looking down at his shoes. That was embarrassing. She hadn’t wanted him to hear their conversation, but he’d probably taken in every humiliating word.
“I’ve already found you a job, Susan,” her father said, looking pleased at last. He grinned and held out his arm. “Meet my new partner and your new boss, Tom Duncan.”