Chapter 6 #3
“I understand if I’m fired . . .” Jillian starts again, trying bravely to hold her composure, but it’s too much and her face crumbles. She pushes her glasses up onto her head and pulls a handkerchief from her cleavage. Dabbing at her eyes, she murmurs, “Sorry. So sorry.”
“You’re not fired,” I tell her sternly. “But I might be. It’s my fault, my fuckup. Seriously.”
Jillian swallows back her tears and wipes at her cheeks. “No, we’re not going out like this. I promise we’ll make it up. What now?”
She rallies, ready for me to dish out orders like some four-star general, but I have no idea how to fix this.
What now . . . good question. I know Dad’s furious and disappointed. I could see that much in his eyes. It’s not that he expects us to win every proposal, but to lose because I nearly killed someone? That has to be a first.
“I don’t know yet. Can you give me a minute, please?”
Jillian eyes me warily. “Do you need anything? Coffee, scotch, a vending machine Reese’s?”
“God, no peanut butter!” I moan. “Just a moment to think this through.”
Jillian nods and closes the door softly. I count to five and then give in.
Tears come hot, burning behind my eyes. Trembles shiver through me at what could have happened due to my lack of diligence, at what I might still lose.
Slowly, the tears come less hard and fast, more of a sprinkling than a deluge as I run out of liquid in my body. With a few sniffles and a good nose blow, I try to pull myself together.
Fix this. You are Courtney fucking Andrews, and you don’t let anything get you down. Yes, this sucks ass, and not in the good way. But everything is fixable.
I look at the presentation binder, disappointed that I didn’t send one with Ms. Crabtree. Maybe when she’s feeling better, she could look through it again?
I snap my fingers. That’s what I’ll do—send a heartfelt apology letter with a bottle of good wine and the presentation with a note that I would be happy to address any questions she has.
I scribble a Post-It note, reminding myself to read the contract again and make sure that Ms. Crabtree can have wine.
And Post-It notes, and ink, and everything else.
My phone buzzes. It’s Jillian. “Sorry to interrupt your mental breakdown, Court, but Mr. Andrews would like to see you. Now.”
My feet drag down the hall, my belly filled with dread. I love my dad, and more importantly, I respect him. And my behavior today reflected poorly on him, which pains me. But I need to know if Ms. Crabtree is okay, even if he fires me in the same meeting.
“Come on in, Courtney!” Dad calls from his office, hearing me come in.
“Hey . . . before you start, I just wanted to apologize again about what happened with Jane Crabtree,” I tell him.
I settle into the chair across from his desk, unable to help feeling like a student who just got called to the principal’s office.
“I really can’t believe I screwed it up with flowers so seriously. Is she okay?”
Dad looks at me carefully, leaned back in his chair. “She is. She was fine after a few minutes of sitting down with a small dash of forty-year-old Glenfiddich scotch. Said she’d check in with her personal doctor to be sure.”
“It’s not even noon!” I don’t know why that matters. The woman almost died. She can certainly have some fancy scotch. It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?
Dad hums thoughtfully. “She’s also re-thinking the deal.”
I shake my head vehemently. I’m not letting go that easily. “No. No way. We’ve worked too hard on this. I’ve worked too hard, and it’s the right thing for us all. I have a plan.”
I tell him my idea about a peace offering, changing the wine out for a bottle of that fancy Glenfiddich, and he chuckles.
“You are something, daughter of mine. A chip off the old block.” He actually looks a little proud, but that can’t be right.
“A murderous chip, you mean?” I ask sarcastically.
He leans forward, interlacing his hands on the desk blotter. “Courtney, do you really think I have never made a mistake? Granted, this is a large and serious one. But I’ve made and lost millions on my own actions, some good and some . . . decidedly not.”
“You don’t have to try and make me feel better, Dad.”
There’s no way my dad has ever made a mistake remotely similar to this. He’s amazing, a sight to behold when he’s in action.
I still remember being in my first year of business school, learning about negotiations and contract tactics.
It was like a light bulb had gone off over my head, so bright that everyone could see it.
Dad had been using those tricks on us for years about everything from curfew to chores.
Not that we did many of those, but every once in a while, he’d get on a kick about our learning the value of hard work and assign us some gross, disgusting cleanup job.
I whined at the time, but it did change how I saw the house employees who worked around our home doing some of those same jobs.
It made me a lot more grateful and a lot less bratty, I think.
Later, after I’d graduated, I’d seen Dad go from this smart guy I idolized to something real and tangible.
A goal I set for myself. Every day, we worked together, and even when we argued like cats and dogs about what the right course of action would be, he could find a path through anything.
If it wasn’t profitable or didn’t work as projected, he just wasn’t done yet.
Like the Great Wizard of Oz, he had a grand plan.
He chuckles. “Have I ever told you something to be kind, to make you feel better? And are you actually asking for head pats over this shitshow?”
“No, no, and no.”
“Exactly. I fucked up, Ross fucked up, every executive and VP up and down this hallway has fucked up. It happens. And I think you’re beating yourself up more than I ever could.”
I’m in shock. Dad isn’t much of a curser, but he just spewed out three F-bombs like they were nothing. I still don’t believe him.
“Ask your mother next time you see her. The first time I blew it, I was a mess.” His eyes go hazy and he smiles, even though he’s talking about a major screwup.
“This was back even before Ross was born, and your mother and I had just gotten married. I thought I was a hot property, and I fell flat on my face. Your mother had to nearly drag me out of the living room to break my funk. I’d holed up in there for three whole days, doing nothing but drinking and watching TV.
I smelled like stale beer, cigarettes, and body odor. It’s a wonder she didn’t leave me.”
“You don’t smoke.” I’m looking for holes in the story, any inconsistencies that will tell me he’s lying to soothe my bruised ego.
“Didn’t before then, didn’t after then, but those three days, I smoked like a chimney. Even learned how to blow smoke rings.” He makes a circle with his lips and does some sort of quiet puffing sound that makes me believe him.
“Listen, you’ll make mistakes, honey. You’ll probably make fewer than me or Ross since you’ve had the benefit of learning and observing ours, and you’re smart enough to learn from our examples, both good and bad.
Just keep your head in the game and learn from what happened today because today could’ve been so much worse, and that would’ve been on you. ”
I get the disappointed dad look I knew was coming, and it cuts deep because I know I deserve it.
I nod solemnly. “I will.”
“And send the scotch now.”
“On it.”
Dismissed, I go back to my office. I spend the rest of the afternoon with Jillian, making the arrangements for the scotch, presentation, and apology letter. We both double, triple, and quadruple check everything. She reaches out to Michael to confirm too, covering all the bases.
When there’s nothing else we can do, I send Jillian home early for the day. It’s been stressful on her, I know. And I want to sit alone and lick my own wounds too.
I barely get an hour of peace before Abi calls, my cell phone doing the ring tone she chose for herself, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper.
Abi doesn’t even like those decades-old jams like I do, but she loves to sing that song annoyingly loud with all the vocal hitches done right in my ear.
Bitch. God, I love her.
“Hey, Abs, guess you heard?”
“Heard what?” she answers. We never bother with greetings, both of us so busy that sometimes she’ll call, bark something in my ear or to my voice mail, and hang up without waiting for any response. “How’d the meeting go?”
Oh, shit, I guess she really hasn’t heard. “Well, it basically went to hell in a handbasket. Or nearly to the morgue in a casket, rather.”
“What?” she shrieks, blowing out my eardrum. “You’d better explain yourself right now.”
I tell her about the contract rider that we read but didn’t memorize and how the flowers caused Ms. Crabtree to have an allergic reaction.
“Oh, my God! This is all my fault!” Abi cries, remarkably similar to me and Jillian earlier. Take three on the Blame Game roundabout.
“It’s not. You didn’t even know about the allergy, so how could it be your fault? I had everything I needed right in front of me to put two and two together and get the four of death, but I didn’t. This is on me.”
“That’s awful, honey. I’m sorry.” At least she agrees with my assessment. This is all my fault. “What’d Dad say? Did he run you through the wringer?”
"Not exactly,” I start, but Abi’s on a roll.
“No way, he fired you? Are you fired? Oh, God, Perfect Courtney is going to be out on the streets! Never worry, dear sister, you can sleep on my couch,” Abi promises.
“I’m not fired! And I have an apartment, you know? With my own couch and a bed and everything. Maybe it rings a bell, considering you’ve been there and actually slept on that couch a few dozen times? Though I’d understand if not, because you were drunker than a sailor on shore leave.”
“Well, you don’t have to rub my face in it. See how easy I make it on you to drunk crash on my couch next time.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Abi, I don’t get drunk like that. Neither do you anymore.”
“Yeah,” she says wistfully. “Those were the days. Now we’re all grown up and responsible. Well, except for you, killing people on the daily.”
She laughs, and though I fight it valiantly, after she snorts, I can’t anymore. I laugh too. Through the laughter and fresh tears, I stutter out, “I almost killed someone today. It’s only funny because she’s okay, I swear.”
“I get it. Dark humor helps process the macabre. It’s healthy. Let it out.”
The serious way she says it sends me off again, but eventually, even the release of laughter peters out.
“Thanks, Abi. I needed that.”
“Anytime. That’s what I’m here for. What’d Dad say about all this, though, for real?”
I can hear her holding her breath. I have a very different relationship with Dad than either of my siblings. I think it’s because he and I are two peas in a pod in truth, where they are so different from him that wires sometimes get crossed and things get lost in translation.
I tell her about his assuring me that he’s made mistakes and that Ross made them too. And that this will just be a lesson I learn from and a story I tell one day. But she can tell that I’m not sure I actually believe that yet.
“I agree with him. And don’t you dare tell him that I said he’s right. But you can’t be perfect all the time, Court. And expecting yourself to be is a lesson in futility.”
I’m silent for a moment, thinking about what she’s saying.
“Court, you there?”
“Yeah, just marking down the date you said Dad was right,” I tease.
“I hate you,” she snaps.
“Love you too. You want to hit the gym with me tonight? We can give Ross shit together.”
“I would love that, you know I would, but I’m working late.” I hear her shuffling papers around in the background and then a crash. “Ugh, just dropped a whole stack of old orders I’m going through. I’ll talk to you later, ’kay? Mwah.” She sends an air kiss over the line.
We don’t start with hellos or end with goodbyes, so she just hangs up.