Chapter 4
Bex
Ten weeks later
I have enough money that I will never need to work again.
Many young people would take this opportunity to go get that degree they always wanted or somehow fulfill the youthful promise their parents saw in them, but I’m not one of those young people. Perhaps because there wasn’t much youthful promise.
In the weeks since the funeral, I’ve managed only to quit my job and sleep. I sleep a lot. Some of that is the Xanax. Mostly it’s the misery, however.
Human beings supposedly have a set point for joy…
some innate level of happiness that they’ll soon return to no matter what occurs.
I still haven’t returned to mine, and I’m not sure if I ever will.
I sometimes wake weeping and sometimes wake empty, but I’m definitely not where I was before, which might not have been happy but was a reasonable facsimile of it.
The phone vibrates on my nightstand. I glance in its direction but sink farther beneath the duvet instead.
It used to be my friends, and Brian, but I couldn’t be who any of them wanted.
I couldn’t dust myself off the way they’d hoped.
I grew tired of disappointing them and stopped answering their calls.
These days, it’s mostly Duncan Levy, the executor of the will, saying there are forms to be signed or emails to be read.
Neither of these will change anything. It can’t bring anyone back.
So I usually don’t answer his calls either.
The ringing starts again and I heave a sigh. Levy must think there’s an emergency to be dealt with, but the silver lining of having everyone you love die is that there are no more emergencies—not real ones.
I reach over to silence the cell and see the Henchman’s name rather than Levy’s.
God, it’s been ten weeks. I really hope he’s not calling to discuss how I fucked up at the funeral now.
I must somehow find a way to convince myself the fault was shared, but it’ll be a struggle.
I wonder if female hysteria might still be considered a valid excuse.
I pick up. “Hello?”
“Hi, Rebecca,” he says with the bone-deep discomfort of someone who needs you to do something but has to pretend to care about you first. “How are things?”
“Just peachy,” I reply. “Never better. Other than, you know, my dead family.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence. I’m sure his handsome, blade-sharp jaw is agape, and I don’t give a shit. I’m tired of people asking how I am. I’m tired of people expecting me to perform my grief or just…be better.
And let’s face it: this isn’t a call he’s making out of the goodness of his heart. If it were, he’d have made it a lot sooner.
Perhaps he hasn’t because you threw yourself at him at your family’s funeral, Bex.
“Okay then,” he says slowly. “I’ll just get to the point. Your father’s absence—”
“Death.”
“Right, but I meant his absence from the company. It’s left a pretty significant hole in day-to-day operations on the U.S. side and there are decisions to be made, decisions I can’t legally make on my own when half of Families Travel belongs to you.”
I want to go back to sleep. I’m very tempted to say “Whatever you think is best” or “Put this in an email,” but that’s not what my father would have wanted. He loved the company. He’d want me to at least listen. “What sort of decisions?”
The Henchman sighs. “Look, I’m not sure how much your father shared with you, but the work we had even three years ago has all but dried up.
We were betting on that TV show to turn things around, and we sank everything we had into the lead-up to it.
Now that the show’s off the table, we’ve got nothing.
And apparently the network is in talks with Baby Makes Three.
” His quiet laugh is tinged with bitterness.
“Who wants to watch that shrew of a wife lead her henpecked husband around?” I demand, though that’s basically what they were getting with my dad and Jessie too—Bronwyn and I weren’t even going to be in most of the episodes.
“They have a very large social media presence, while we have almost none. They’ve also been rather volubly exploiting this tragedy, and people seem to agree with them.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have sent Duncan Levy to voicemail quite so often.
“Maybe the show’s still possible for us,” I venture, tugging the covers around me and reaching for a donut hole from the box in my lap. “We could hire someone to pretend to be a family touring the globe.”
“Rebecca…the show is about Families Travel. And it was big news, the deaths. We can’t just pretend someone else runs the company. Anyhow, I met with the lawyers today and they’re recommending we dissolve and file for bankruptcy.”
Bankruptcy. That’s a lot more dire than I thought.
It means that we are seriously in debt…and half of that debt is mine. “Fuck. What’s plan B?”
“Plan B is that we both dump more of our personal funds into advertising and hope for the best. Except I imagine you don’t have much and I have even less.”
This seems unlikely, given that Theo sold a company a few years ago for a bajillion dollars, but I’m certainly not throwing everything I have into an outdated plan that’s already been proven not to work. “I assume, since you’re British, that plan C involves wizards and a death curse.”
“I’m pretty sure plan C involves stealing what remains in the company’s coffers and fleeing to a country with no extradition treaties,” he replies.
I stretch out in my bed and set the box of donut holes on my nightstand. “Solomon Islands and the Maldives don’t have extradition treaties with the U.S. I’ll price out overwater bungalows.”
He does not laugh, but I’m not certain the Henchman is capable of laughter. “I find it somewhat terrifying that you know this information offhand. I’m fairly certain we’re stuck with filing for bankruptcy.”
“No,” I say firmly. “You can’t lay off Linda.”
“I’m not sure you’re understanding how this works. We’d be laying off every—”
“What about that guy?” I cut in. “The miracle worker.”
There is a long second of silence during which, I imagine, he’s rolling his eyes and suppressing a groan. “Is this another Harry Potter reference?”
“No. That guy. Fuck. What’s his name? Martin something. I read about him in Forbes.”
“I’m dumbfounded by the fact that you read Forbes,” he says dryly. “You’re thinking of Martin Miller, but he’d have to agree to work with us, first of all, and secondly he doesn’t want a salary…he asks for five percent of the company.”
Given that our company is apparently worth zero dollars, giving up my two and a half percent isn’t especially painful, but it also means Miller would be unlikely to take us on. And we don’t need him. What we need is Kylie and Jasper’s following.
Better yet, we need our fucking show back. I still have no desire to appear on television, but I’ll do it if I must.
“What if we sold the idea to a different network, then? It’s not like there can only be one travel reality show. There are a million real estate and housewife reality shows. Two Whorish Singles Take On the World has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
He does not suppress this groan. “Yes, it sounds like exactly the kind of show your father would want our company associated with. And would want his daughter starring in.”
“What about Emil Harris, the guy who does all the reality TV? If I talked him into it, we’d be golden.”
The Henchman sighs wearily, as if I’ve exhausted him with my efforts to solve his problem. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got a better chance with the aforementioned wizards and death curse.”
Why is he such a pessimist? “What’s the harm in trying?” I reply. “I’ve never spoken to a person more scared of failure than you are.”
“Well, if there’s one thing to be said of you, Rebecca, it’s that you’re not scared to fail. But I suppose you can’t make the situation worse.”
Jesus, he’s such a prick.
And he’s also wrong. If Jessie were here, she’d tell him herself:
I can make any situation worse.