Avion #2
After a quick shower, I combed and brushed down my hair and applied makeup that wouldn’t draw too much attention to my face but would still look good on the cameras.
‘Press coverage’ was my middle name for the day, so as much as I’d prefer to do something that would help me blend into the background, I still had to look photogenic.
My phone rang—again—and with the time to meet up with my brothers closer to arriving, I had no choice but to answer.
Multi-tasking was something I was good at, fortunately, so as I pulled on my heels and packed my dress into a bag to carry with me for the ribbon cutting that evening, I answered my phone and put it on speaker.
“Anton,” I hummed. “I’m doing fine if that’s why you’re calling.”
“Good morning to you as well, Avion,” Anton replied. “I hope you’re spry and ready for the day.”
“Aren’t I always?” I replied.
“We’re out front in the limo,” Anton replied.
“Tell her to come immediately,” I heard Vincent say in the background.
“Ah, I hear Vince is excited for a loving, fun-filled day with the family.”
“I won’t repeat him if you heard it,” Anton said. “Please hurry.”
“Rather than that, why don’t you remind our brother that I’m not one of his little secretaries.
I told you I’d meet you at nine, and it’s still just a quarter-til.
I’m going to finish packing my things and getting ready at my own pace, and then I will come down to the car, on my time.
If he has a problem with that, send him up to get me. ”
Anton sighed. “Can we please not start this already?”
“Start what?” I asked. “See you in fifteen.”
“Yeah. See you in fifteen.” Just before he hung up the phone, I heard him say to Vincent, “Nothing, she’s comin...”
Whatever. If it was better for Vincent to think I was jumping through hoops for him, then let him think that.
I had so little control over my life at that point, that if fifteen minutes were the one thing I could control, I’d control every minute of it and dare some Lieutenant Governor or his sniveling younger Secretary of State to try and take it away from me.
Even though I was ready to go within five minutes, I kicked dust around my apartment for an additional ten minutes and then finally grabbed my to-go mug of coffee, briefcase, dress, and makeup bag, and then made my way out of my apartment.
I rapidly responded to texts and emails in the elevator on the way down and was irritated to find that when I reached the ground floor, there were already loads of press posted to take pics of me heading out to the car.
I sighed, put away my phone, slapped on a smile, and stepped out.
“Avion!” one of the journalists yelled as soon as I stepped out. “Avion! Is it true your father is stepping aside for your brother instead of re-running?”
I looked over at the journalist, wide-eyed. “What?”
The door to the limo opened and Anton stepped out.
His dark brown hair was swirled back over his head, and he looked dapper in a suit-vest and matching slacks, with a striped button-up undershirt and sleek tie.
He downplayed our family’s wealth more than my brother, but he still had a tie clip, cufflinks, and an expensive watch that caught the morning sunlight.
“There she is,” he said with a big smile. “I swear, your beauty is going to make me lose my seat.”
I shook my head at him, an equal smile on my face. “It runs in the family, big bro. Don’t forget that.”
The cameras ate it up, snapping pics and recording the loving conversation as I walked forward to give Anton a hug. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close, whispering as quietly as I could, “Is Dad not running again?”
“We’ll talk about that in the car,” Anton said quietly, then gave me a kiss on my cheek and pulled back from me, leaving a hand on my back so he could guide me to the limbo, thereby ensuring I didn’t hear anything else from the clamoring journalists. He opened the door and said, “After you.”
I ducked into the limo, where my older brother, Vincent, was waiting.
He was Anton, but older and slimmer. His hair was a bit longer, and fell down the back of his neck, curling up slightly at the bottom, and his fingers were decorated with many rings, among which was his alma mater ring from Harvard, and his class ring from high school.
If smug were a person, it’d be Vincent Narzand.
He didn’t even look up from his cell phone as I climbed in, only offering a quick, “Avion, good morning,” as I sat on the seat across from him. “You’re late.”
“I’m not,” I responded. “I said I’d meet you at nine.”
Despite the fact that he was looking at his cell phone, Vincent felt it necessary to flick his wrist out of the sleeve of his pinstripe suit and check his half a million-dollar watch. “It’s currently nine-o - two.”
“That would be because of the circus outside, gathered by some rumor that father isn’t running next term and ceding to you,” I explained.
“Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?
I assume you wouldn’t have made me meet with you for six hours earlier this week to go over his campaign trail if you knew there wasn’t a campaign to trail. ”
“It came as a shock to us too,” Anton said as he climbed in after running off the cameras, shutting the door behind himself. “It was a sudden tip that we got...”
“I don’t believe we agreed to discuss this with her,” Vincent said, eyeing Anton.
Anton dwarfed himself. “Sorry.”
“First of all,” I said, looking at Vincent and trying to force eye contact with him, but he wouldn’t even look at me, “I’m right here, please don’t talk about me like I’m not.
Second of all, being his campaign manager is my job.
If he’s not running for Governor, I don’t have a campaign to manage. Are you telling me I’m out of a job?”
That finally brought Vincent’s gaze over to me. “No one said that. I’ll still require a campaign manager.”
That thought made me want to unlatch his cufflinks and stab myself in the eye with one of the pins. “My dedication is to our father, not to you.”
Vincent smiled at me then. “You have always been a ray of sunshine, little sister.”
I smiled back, giving him the same forceful gaze, he was giving me. “And you’ve always been the rainbow after the rain.”
Anton clapped his hands, snapping the tense silence between us. “Well, it looks like we’re all geared up and ready to pretend like we love each other for the next twelve hours.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “It’s gonna be a riot.”
How was I going to be able to pretend to be a loving sister with these two for the next twelve hours, when I didn't even know if I was going to have a job tomorrow?
Start Reading Today!