Chapter 3
My apartment differs verylittle from my office. Both are high-ceilinged, completely open spaces. Both are surrounded by dramatic views of the city. Both are decorated with dark and industrial furnishing.
This is on purpose, a reminder for myself that my work is never really done. That just because I’m uptown in my penthouse doesn’t mean that I can relax or get caught up in foolish distraction.
Unfortunately, though I sit at my desk, though I’ve followed my daily routine to a tee, I can’t focus at all on the quarterly reports I need to finish.
My mind has been uncharacteristically preoccupied as of late. Normally I’m single-mindedly focused on whatever project I’m currently working on. It’s a trait I’d honed in my youth, an almost supernatural ability to compartmentalize. It was born out of a childhood that hosted innumerable distractions. While my peers finished homework at the peace of a kitchen table or bedroom desk, I had to study at a high top, feet away from a rowdy bar. My father’s dive in Hoboken was frequented by bikers, prostitutes, and car thieves, a delightful stew of personalities that inevitably saw the evening ending with someone’s teeth scattering across the beer-drenched floor. And I was always able to tune it all out.
But this month, this unusually warm April, two major disasters, one professional, the other personal, have been gnawing at my brain like a dog on a bone.
Of course, the imminent failure of the Seafarer is hardly a new concern. Everything about the project has been a disaster since day one. Unreliable contractors had pushed the build time from twelve months to eighteen. Public enthusiasm, never significant, had waned considerably since the initial announcement; when it had launched from the dry dock, the crowd had been half the size my advertising team had expected.
That team had been the first firm I’d fired. Not because the launch went poorly, but because they’d tried to convince me that it had all been part of their master plan.
I may be new to the cruise ship industry, but I am not an idiot. A low turnout is only ideal in a house fire.
The Seafarer’s issues would normally be more than enough to keep me occupied, but apparently some cruel god has decided that I can handle just a little bit more.
On the personal side of things, the problem that’s been diverting much needed attention away from the ship is my younger brother, Jack.
Jack isn’t a bad kid. Okay, technically he is by most people’s (and the law’s) definition of the word. But take my word as a former really bad kid, Jack just doesn’t have the same destructive anger that I’d had at his age. Unfortunately, while I’d been able to channel my aggression into business, Jack has zero drive to do anything at all.
No, my little brother would rather ignore his natural intelligence in favor of drinking with his buddies, gambling, and getting laid. I’d had a lot of plans for him when I became his legal guardian last fall. Now my goal is no longer to get him into Yale, but just to get him to graduate high school, a situation that’s perilous at best at the moment.
The board of the Elton Academy, a premier boarding school just outside of Boston, is currently deliberating on whether or not to expel him for arson.
At least it had been an accident, the result of flaming shots spilled a bit too close to a pile of textbooks. By the time the firemen had come, Jack had managed to use an extinguisher to put out the mess himself. Unfortunately, it was too late to keep the room from having to be completely renovated.
Normally a mistake like that, especially this close to graduation, would be swept under the rug. But his roommate happened to be the son of the French ambassador. His Eminence was very displeased to find his son’s name in the news and was downright furious to discover the sizable collection of alcohol, weed, and psychedelics that were confiscated from the scorched dorm room.
All of it had led to an incredibly unpleasant meeting last Friday. I’d taken the train down to Boston and sat through an hour of bitching and moaning from the politician (a class of people I don’t like in the best of times) directed at my younger brother. Jack isn’t a perfect kid, but I didn’t buy it for a moment that he’d subjected his poor innocent roommate to nights of partying and debauchery. When I pointed this out, I was accused of trying to downplay the severity of the matter. I’d then said that his son ran from the fire like their government had run from the Germans. The whole meeting had gone downhill from there.
Though I’d defended him to the best of my abilities, I’m not certain Jack is making it out of the place with a high school diploma. It’s beyond frustrating. I just wanted to get Jack back on the right path, but he’s not exactly making things easy on me.
It’s obvious that I have enough problems in my life right now. I don’t need any more.
Certainly none that come in the form of a blonde spitfire in stilettos.
Evie Davis is my worst nightmare. She’s a distraction in its purest form, stealing my attention on the train and not letting it go. Witty and wily, from our first conversation she’d captivated me. She’s utterly entrancing. She’s deliciously sexy. She’s a blue-eyed love note with a red-lipped kiss on the dotted line.
Additionally, she’s rude and easily riled and thinks that I had everything I own handed to me on a silver platter. There’s never been an idea I’ve wanted to correct more.
I turn in my chair, look out over the city. I usually find my gaze drawn west, but ever since our meeting, I’ve found my eyes drifting uptown, tracing the towers of Mid-Manhattan, wondering which one she’s in, what she’s doing, what she’s thinking about.
So imagine my surprise when her shocked voice had cut through my fantasies this morning and I’d turned around to find her right there in front of me.
What are the odds?
Instantly upon seeing her, an unfamiliar voice had nearly spoken out of my mouth and hired her on the spot. Even though I’d managed to bite it back, the impulse to offer her the job had hammered at me the entire meeting. Years of professionalism had allowed me, forced me, to keep my cool. And then she’d done what I thought was impossible and had actually impressed me. Off script she was just as quick and crude, disarming and daring, as she’d been on the train.
And god how that black business attire had clung to her curves…
But ultimately my composure had won out. Ultimately reason had reigned. There is absolutely no way I can work with that woman. It’d be a shit show. Every time we’d have to meet to talk about the ship, I’d only be able to fantasize about bending her over and making her squeal.
No. Business and pleasure have to be separate for me. Unfortunately, because business is my entire life that means there’s very little time for pleasure. Maybe that’s why I’m acting like a lust-struck teenager over this complete stranger.
But still that doesn’t change the fact that Evie Davis is bad news. Bad news for Madison Enterprises. Bad news for the Seafarer. And bad news for me.
My phone rings.
It’s Jack. That’s not a good sign as the kid makes it a point to never call me unless the sky is falling.
“What is it?” I say and immediately wish that I sounded happier to talk to him. Though maybe if he called more I would stop bracing myself every time we speak.
“Hey, Nick,” Jack says. My heart sinks. My younger brother sounds contrite. Another bad sign.
“Don’t tell me they decided,” I say sharply. “They said they’d deliberate through the end of the week.” Giving me enough time to buy a building or finance a library or fund a scholarship. The Madison Scholarship for Academic Excellence does have a nice ring to it.
“Well they were going to, but…”
“But what?” I growl when he hesitates to continue.
“But I may have gotten caught running a little game last night.”
“How little?” I groan.
“Five grand buy in.”
Jesus Christ, this kid is going to be the death of me.
“Did they get the cops involved?” I ask immediately.
“No. The headmaster’s son was there. Security just hauled all of us into his office, and we got screamed at for an hour.”
“You’re lucky that’s all that happened,” I say. “I mean have you seriously not learned anything from Dad?”
I immediately regret my words. Jack doesn’t like me bringing up our father. He claims I’m not fair to the old man; he doesn’t know I always hold my punches.
“I learned some things,” he spits. “I’ve made thousands off these prep school idiots.”
“Well too bad neither of you learned how not to get caught,” I mutter.
Our father is currently incarcerated for running an illegal gambling operation out of the back of his bar, and for about fifteen years worth of unpaid taxes on all the money he made off it. He got ten years. It’s a sore spot, the reason Jack’s entire life in Hoboken got turned on its head. I really shouldn’t be poking the bear, but I’m beyond fed up.
“Why the fuck are you being such an asshole?”
“Why the fuck do you think?” I growl. “Let me answer for you — because the next thing you’re going to say is that the school has made a sudden decision about your arson case.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Well? Am I wrong?” I ask.
“They want me out of here by the weekend,” he admits. At least he has the decency to sound ashamed.
Well there goes any hope of Jack graduating with his class. The thought of getting him to repeat his senior year is laughable. My little brother isn’t going to get his high school diploma and, frustratingly, it happened on my watch. Were my expectations too high? No, Jack is just as smart as I was at his age. He can do anything he wants with his life. Unfortunately what he wants is to go down the same path as our loser father.
Well there’s no unfucking this mess. I massage my temple and say, as patiently as I can, “How much stuff do you have?”
“A couple suitcases,” he says. “I travel light.”
“Good. Pack up. I’m going to book you a hotel and I can have you on the first plane tomorrow.” I’m pushing down all my annoyance — at Jack, at the school, at Dad — and jumping into the persona I feel most comfortable in: the scheduler, the planner, the boss. Get him back here without a criminal charge and we can go from there.
But still Jack hesitates. “I was thinking I’d stay here through the week,” he says. “I have friends I want to say goodbye to.”
Bullshit. “You’re trying to collect on people aren’t you?”
“What?” Jack is entirely unconvincing. “I don’t?—”
“Do you think I’m an idiot, Jack?”
He drops the act. “Man, there are kids here who owe me two grand! I can’t just walk away from that.”
God, when did my little brother turn into a wannabe thug? “And what’s the plan?” I ask sarcastically. “When they can’t or won’t pull the money together you’re gonna break their kneecaps?”
“No…”
“So then what are you going to do?”
Jack’s voice is hard. “They can’t just keep what they took from me. It’s not right.”
“I don’t blame you for trying to reclaim what’s yours,” I say patiently. “But you’ll get arrested if you start going around that school trying to shake people down. Didn’t you have a plan to get it back when you started loaning it out?”
“I had a Rocco but he got expelled last month.”
Of course he did. Rocco was the guy Dad used for collecting on people who ran up debt. He was a monster of a man with a bald head the size of a watermelon and thick arms covered in prison tattoos.
“I’m just going to pretend that you didn’t have anything to do with him getting expelled,” I say with a sigh.
“I didn’t! He got expelled for punching a teacher.”
“You’re really surrounding yourself with a high class of people.”
“His dad’s a senator.”
“Then that’s where he gets it from.” I stand from my desk and start pacing up the length of my windows. “Look, kid. You don’t have time or leverage. Just accept the loss and get back here.”
There’s silence on the other end, and I swear I hear him hit a vape. I pretend I didn’t. I really don’t need something else to fight with him about.
Finally, Jack asks, quietly, “You sure you want me there?”
I sigh. The truth is that I don’t. I love my brother, but I enjoy solitude and also really don’t need more problems right now. Unfortunately he’ll be up to more trouble if he’s running around New York City all night with his gang of friends. At least staying here I’ll be able to keep an eye on him, maybe put out the fires before he starts them. Literally.
“If I didn’t I wouldn’t be asking you,” I say gruffly. “But you’re going to have to get a job and start studying for your GED, okay? You’re still going to college next semester.”
“Yeah… About that…”
“You are going to college,” I say deliberately. I’d already anticipated that this was going to be the next war Jack and I would fight and I’m prepared to pull out the big guns.
“I want to take a gap year!” he protests.
“Bullshit,” I say. “You want to party. Well good news. You can do that in college.”
“Dad says college is for people who are too stupid to make it by themselves.”
I ignore the pointed jab at me and say, “You’re really going to listen to what Dad of all people says? Did he tell you that before or after he complained about how bad prison food is?”
Okay, maybe I don’t actually ignore it.
“He’s not wrong,” Jack challenges. “Lots of really successful people never went to college. But just because you had to…”
“Those people had a plan and skills,” I say through gritted teeth. “Of the two, you have neither. Or, at least none that aren’t going to lead to sharing a cell with Dad. Is that what you want? Because believe me, once you turn eighteen, the consequences for fucking up are a lot more serious than getting kicked out of another prep school.”
“So I should just get a business degree and come work for you?” he sneers.
“You say that like it’s not a great opportunity,” I say. “But I wouldn’t force you to come work here. Or even to get a business degree. I just want you to have the opportunities that come with college. It’s all paid for. Why not go?”
“Whatever,” he says instead of answering. Jack must sense that this is a debate he’s not going to win, though I know for a fact that he’s only retreating until he can regroup and try again later, maybe when I’m in a better mood. Of course, he should know by now that I’m never in a better mood, and once I make my mind up about something it rarely changes.
I hear Jack shuffling around his dorm room, no doubt trying to think up a new angle. I let him, flopping down on my black leather couch and putting the news on mute.
“How’s work?” he finally asks. If he thinks that’s going to soften me, he’s quite mistaken.
“The same,” I say, trying not to picture Evie’s lithe figure flouncing away from me.
“When’s the ship set to launch?”
“We haven’t set an exact date yet,” I say vaguely. Even that’s more positive than the reality. It’s pending a solid ad campaign and at this rate the Seafarer may never set sail.
“I saw it on Reddit the other day.”
Reddit? I frown. Evie had mentioned the platform earlier. I’m not too familiar with it, chalking it up mentally to yet another social media site where people act like assholes for the enjoyment of no one.
“And what did Reddit have to say about the Seafarer?” I ask, trying to sound like I’m not that interested. Evie’s assessment of my issues with marketing the cruise liner to young people has stayed on my mind.
“That it’s uglifying the New York skyline. That cruises suck ass. All the usual things.”
“Cruises aren’t that bad,” I say.
“Have you ever been on one?”
“No, but neither have you.”
He barks a laugh. “Yeah and I never fucking will. Loud kids. Old drunk people. Cheesy entertainment. And you can’t escape the boat? Not exactly my idea of a good time.”
I bite my lip. Yep, that’s about the same spiel Evie had given me.
Suddenly I realize that I have an actual young person here to test her ideas against. “Would you go to Ibiza?” I ask.
“Hell yeah, I would,” he says instantly. “Wait. Are you going? Can you take me?”
“Stop, stop,” I say over him. “I’m not rewarding your delinquency with a vacation, much less to Ibiza. I’m just curious what you think of it.”
“I don’t know, man,” he says. He hits the vape again and this time it’s harder to pretend I don’t hear it. “What’s not to like? Beach parties. Sick clubs with great music. Girls in bikinis. Ten out of ten.”
Okay, I guess Jack isn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know, namely that young people like to party on islands. But what about that DJ? The one with the Mortal Kombat name who Evie claimed was the new big thing. That would be a better sign of whether or not she has her finger on the pulse.
“Who’s the hottest DJ right now?” I ask .
“That’s a hard question. You talking EDM? House? Hiphop? Techno?”
“I don’t know. Like, DJ music,” I say, waving a hand. When exactly did I get this out of touch? “There’s a girl here in New York. Something like Clumpy… Cooler…”
“Those aren’t even names.”
“Carrie?”
“Wait.” Jack bursts out laughing. “Are you talking about Kara Kon?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” I say. I get up from the couch and go back to my computer, type the name into the search engine. “Do you know who she is?”
Jack is still laughing at me. “Yeah,” he says when he finally regains his composure. “I know who Kara Kon is. I’m not dead.”
I apparently am though. Google comes up with a Wikipedia page, talk show interviews, a discography of songs all stylized in capital letters, and a smattering of recent news articles.
The first article I click leads with a video. I play it. The volume is off, but, from the look of things, if my speakers were on they would be blasting some flavor of unpleasant electronic noise. Cell phone footage shows Ms. Kon behind a turntable in a bikini top and short jean shorts, a backward snapback over long, rainbow-colored braids, waving her hands to amp up a huge crowd of people in Washington Square Park. The article describes the scene as a “pop-up concert” that the police broke up for not having the right permits. I don’t know much (anything) about the music industry, but for a surprise event the place looks packed. There has to be a good three thousand people there.
“What do you think of her?” I ask.
“Kara Kon? Hot,” Jack says.
“As in trendy?” I ask, mesmerized despite myself by the jumping ocean of people. If I charged a fifty dollar cover…
“No idiot. She’s hot. As in, ‘Gimme those digits, girl’.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, but is she popular? Do people like her? Like, drinking-age people, not teenagers.”
“Yeah, for sure. They’ve been playing her at the clubs constantly. She’s the big new thing. Why?”
I’m about to explain when I pause, frown.
“How are you getting into clubs?” I ask.
A beat.
“They’re eighteen and up clubs,” he tries.
“You’re not turning eighteen for another couple weeks.”
“Hey I think I hear someone calling me. Gotta go.”
Before I can say anything, Jack hangs up on me.
I’m going to kill this kid. But I push the problem from my mind. What’s probably a very impressive fake ID is the least of my issues when it comes to Jack.
And no, my real concern isn’t even his flagrant disregard for the law or whether I can wrestle him into college next year. It’s how we’re going to get along once he arrives. Jack’s been in school since I took over as his guardian. The last time we lived together I was changing his diapers. And tomorrow I’m going to be picking him up from the airport and moving him into my spare bedroom.
I’ve never had to take care of anyone before. And I know that Jack’s almost an adult, but I’m not even sure there’s food in the fridge right now. I guess it’ll be the end of bringing home my occasional hookup too.
A problem for later, or, I guess, tomorrow. I let the matter rest for now and text my assistant, asking him to book the hotel and plane ticket for Jack, and then, as an afterthought, ask him to get some basic groceries delivered.
Once I’m finished, I realize that my computer is still playing footage of Kara Kon’s pop-up concert. Now it’s showing guests fleeing the scene as police swarm over the event. Ms. Kon is being bundled away by her staff but she’s not going quietly, hanging onto her turntables and trying to keep the party going to the last note. Unsurprisingly, the article notes that she’s facing legal trouble for both holding the concert and refusing to shut it down immediately.
Kara Kon looks like trouble, but apparently this is what the kids are into these days. I think back to the launch of the Seafarer. There’d been a crowd, but mostly tourists and some older locals. I’d given a small speech that had been interrupted by coughs and several pointed yawns. A disaster, by all accounts.
Now I picture inviting this madhouse onto my precious cruise ship. Another, different, disaster? Maybe. But the damages could be kept to a minimum if I hired a small army of security. The legal issues Ms. Kon is facing add an aura of danger to the event. And I can count on Kara Kon keeping herself in the news to give me tons of free advertising.
I bite my lip. It’s a good idea. It’s the right idea. The only problem?
I can’t in good conscience steal it from Evie. It would cross a moral line for me. No, if I did this, she would have to helm the project as its rightful creator.
I picture working with Evie all summer. I see her long, tan legs pacing in my office. I imagine her bending over my desk, what I assume are very perky breasts pushing against her blouse. Sarcastic words would flow from those delicious lips, continuing what seems to be a deliberate campaign to bring me down a notch. And then there’s that world view of hers, that people aren’t in fact malicious backstabbers and conniving cowards. Could I really put up with this for months? This simultaneously conflicting desire to either bend her over my desk or over my knee?
But the failure of the Seafarer is not an option. Every other ad agency has given me tired and trite ideas, and Evie Davis has handed me success in the palm of her delicate hand. I’d be a fool to let my attraction prevent success.
Besides, I’m Nick Madison. I can keep things separated. It’s always been my greatest skill. I can keep her at arm’s length, keep things professional, save the fantasies for the privacy of home.
Right?