Chapter 17 Go on a Final Walk-Through #2
In his mind, he runs like an NBA player who just stole the ball from his opponent and is on the way to score a slam dunk before the final buzzer.
In actuality, his feet are heavy. His muscles are uncoordinated. He doesn’t make it five steps before eating grass.
He rolls over, panicked. Distantly, he knows the wetness at his shoulder is the champagne spilling onto the lawn. It’s the least of his problems.
Jordan pats his chest. He searches for his phone. He’ll call Denz or Kami or anyone fast enough to catch Amy. Then he remembers his phone is in the kitchen, which is in the house. Approximately five million steps away.
Uselessly, he slurs, “Help?”
No one can hear him. No one is coming to save his drunk ass.
Minutes, maybe hours go by. The alcohol makes it hard to tell.
Eventually, he hears footsteps. He’s treated to an upside-down view of shiny black shoes and a swanky linen suit. Javi stands over him, crimson-faced, nostrils flared.
“Hi?” Jordan tries weakly.
Javi’s greeting comes in a “What the fuck have you done?”
Two seconds later, Jordan turns his head and vomits all over the grass.
Kami isn’t talking.
She hasn’t spoken since he sat down on the lavender love seat opposite her desk.
She hasn’t spoken since texting him yesterday morning to meet her at 9 AM sharp this morning.
Kami hasn’t said a single word about anything and Jordan’s afraid she might never speak a word to him again.
She’ll simply slide his termination papers across the desk.
Go back to typing on her computer as Jordan packs up everything in his office in a tiny cardboard box security provides him.
He holds his breath, waiting. Nothing.
The clacking keyboard is the only noise echoing in the office.
Jordan’s almost positive she knows what happened at the party. Everyone probably does. Kim and Connor didn’t mention anything when he walked off the elevator. They were preoccupied wondering where the doughnuts were. None of the interns looked at him funny either.
Even Eric, who stopped Jordan to show off new photos of the twins, didn’t bring up how he had cost the company one of its biggest clients over a bottle of champagne and feelings.
Maybe Kami told the staff to keep quiet about it?
Saturday night’s still a bit hazy. Jordan hasn’t put all the pieces together yet.
He remembers Javi hauling him off the lawn. Being led to one of the fourteen bathrooms where no one could see him hugging the porcelain toilet. Javi stole his car keys. Snuck him out a secret door. Helped him into the passenger seat of his Audi.
When he thinks back through the fog, Jordan doesn’t remember talking to anyone on the way to his car. Not the McClintocks. Not Sam or Amy. Not the Peterses or Sloane or Jamie. It was just him and Javi, who occasionally looked at him with disgust, then apathy, and, finally, pity.
After that, it’s a blur.
All Jordan knows is he woke up in his own bed with a glass of water and two ibuprofens and a dead phone waiting on his nightstand.
He hasn’t seen or heard from Javi since.
Nothing from Jamie either. That was to be expected, though.
Jordan has done a respectable job pretending it doesn’t hurt. That he’s still angry. There’s no room for sadness, disappointment.
His act lasted for about half a day.
Then the tears came. Hot, fast, infuriating. He let one man have that kind of effect on him. Drag him so far into his emotions, he can’t see left or right. It’s been years since Jordan was this angry, but it had happened.
All because of Jamie Peters.
The tap-tap of Kami’s keyboard snaps Jordan out of his misery.
Morning light washes over her brown skin. Her smooth high ponytail. She’s not making eye contact with him.
Just typing.
It reminds Jordan of being thirteen. When his mom warned him not to practice basketball skills in the apartment. But he was so close to perfecting that spinning-the-ball-on-your-finger trick. She was at work. Tevin was gone too.
He needed to keep going.
He needed to—
The ball slipped off his finger. Hit the living room’s glass coffee table before bouncing into the large, ornate bookcase. The one that held Tevin’s awards and Jordan’s trophies and his mom’s favorite crystal swan.
The one Grandma gave her before she died.
Predictably, the swan was the only item that fell off the shelf, shattering. Jordan cleaned it up before his mom got home. He tried to explain himself, but he was still in his pissed-off-at-the-world little-shit stage.
He didn’t apologize for what happened.
Cheryl didn’t say a word. Not over dinner. Not during breakfast the next morning. Days and days of silence followed. Jordan kept waiting for the yelling, the shouting, the punishment.
It never came.
Not until a week later. When he finally sobbed out an apology. He very specifically remembers the smell of Coco Mademoiselle as Cheryl pulled him into her arms and kissed the top of his head. That’s when Jordan realized what his real punishment was.
Her silence. Feeling alone when she was right there.
This time, Jordan’s not going days before saying something.
“Kami, I—”
She holds up a finger. “I didn’t give you permission to speak yet.”
Jordan’s jaw clicks shut.
Kami finishes typing. She folds her hands on the desk. Her face is placid as she says, “Would you like to know how I spent my Sunday?”
Jordan stares at her.
“Well?”
“You didn’t give me permission to speak?”
She looks unamused. “I was on the phone with the McClintocks. With Sam. I couldn’t reach Amy.
But I left three voicemails. Voicemails, Jordan, like I’m some Gen Xer still using a rotary phone.
” Kami exhales. “I tried to figure out how we went from planning the biggest wedding of the year to it being called off at the engagement dinner.”
Jordan knows it’s a rhetorical question. Obviously, Javi told her how.
“This was our golden ticket,” Kami continues. “We were one month away from changing the company’s trajectory. Back at the top. And it’s gone in a single night.”
Jordan bites hard on the inside of his cheek.
“Amy went from a happy bride-to-be to drunkenly telling off her future in-laws in front of fifty guests,” Kami fumes. “And where was the wedding planner? Where was the person I trust most?”
Flat on his ass and wasted over a relationship that never existed, Jordan refrains from saying.
“Sick.”
“Sick,” Jordan echoes sadly to his knees, before jerking his head up. “Wait, come again?”
“The McClintocks said you disappeared,” Kami tells him. “You got sick and went home early. Left Javi in charge.”
“I … did?”
“That’s the story.”
“Javi said that?”
She nods.
Jordan’s brow creases, confused. Javi never mentioned to anyone what really happened. That it was all Jordan’s fault. And the only other person who knows—Amy—isn’t answering her phone. But why would Javi do that?
Why would he bail Jordan out?
Kami squints at him, arms crossed.
He could lie. It’d be so easy. But Kami’s right. Every step of his career, she’s trusted him to do what’s right. Be the best.
Jordan’s not that pissed-off thirteen-year-old anymore. He’s an adult. He can own his fuckups.
He clears his throat. “I’m the reason Amy went from happy to nuclear overnight. Over champagne, actually.”
Kami waits for him to continue.
Sighing, Jordan recounts what happened. Most of what happened.
He leaves out the fight with Jamie and the Peterses.
But he mentions finding Amy crying. Then he backtracks to every instance when Amy hadn’t been the cheery bride-to-be.
How he tried to remain neutral, but, in that singular moment, he couldn’t watch her fall apart.
“It wasn’t fair to her,” he says.
“Was it fair to Sam?”
“What?”
Kami’s expression sharpens. “Did you think about Sam? Did you remember that, as the wedding planner, they’re both your clients?”
Jordan hesitates. “No.”
“Before you go handing the bride a bottle of champagne so she can work through her feelings, consider inviting the groom to talk to her.”
“It’s not like he’s been there before.”
“Guess what, Jordan? You’re an event coordinator. Not a marriage counselor.”
Jordan’s jaw clenches. “I know, but—”
“You put our reputation on the line,” Kami interrupts. “All because you couldn’t separate 24 Carter Gold Jordan from Jordan the friend.”
“I’m the same person.”
“Not when it comes to a client, you’re not.”
He lets out a hot breath. “We’ve lost clients before. When your dad was in charge.”
Immediately, he regrets saying it.
Kami’s right eye twitches. “Let me remind you,” she begins, “those were clients my dad chose to walk away from. Not the other way around.”
“I’m sorry—”
She doesn’t let him finish. “Hell, not even Denz lost a client.”
It’s his turn to flinch, irritated. “Surprise, surprise. I’m not Denz.”
“Obviously!”
He drags air through his nose. This isn’t them. Never has been. Jordan doesn’t fight with Kami. He reasons with her.
“I knew better,” he starts calmly. “But Kami, is this really who we are now? A company that does whatever it takes for a magazine cover? Is that our goal? Or is it making sure our clients are truly happy? We’re supposed to be bringing their dreams to life.”
Kami studies him.
Jordan goes on. “Amy wasn’t happy. This isn’t what we promised her. What I promised her.” He gives her a sincere look. “How far are we going to move away from Uncle Kenny’s original vision to prove we’re better than our competitors?”
A beat.
Kami drums her pink nails on the desk. She’s thinking. Jordan rubs his anxious hands along his dark trousers.
Finally, she says, “I need time to decide what I want to do.”
Jordan nods eagerly. Time is good. A couple of hours, a long lunch, maybe they can meet again—
“You’re temporarily suspended,” she announces. “Effective immediately.”
His stomach plummets into his shiny Gucci loafers.
“You’ll still be paid,” Kami adds. She maintains a professional, neutral expression. Jordan wishes he could say the same. “But no work-related activities. Any future events you were on will be reassigned.”
“Kami, I…” he starts, just like he did thirty minutes ago.
This time Kami doesn’t hold up a finger to stop him. Instead, she turns to her computer and starts typing. Conversation over.
He’s been dismissed. Rejected.
Again.