Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
MACKENZIE
My apartment is small but perfectly formed and I feel lucky every time I walk inside. Finding somewhere to live in New York that’s not a rat-infested closet and is actually affordable is harder than finding a date after the age of thirty.
Maybe Allison’s boyfriend should develop an app for that.
My phone is ringing before I can even take off my stupidly high shoes.
I kick them into the air and drop onto my gorgeous sofa that cost me more than three months’ wages but is so worth it.
It’s cream and velvet, and sitting on it feels like a warm hug after a long day.
Then I swipe across my phone to accept the video call and try to push my annoyance down because it’s not my mom’s fault that I have such a strong reaction to her.
Okay, maybe it’s a little bit her fault. But a lot of it is just down to circumstances.
My screen flickers into life and four boxes appear and it’s then I realize it’s a family group chat.
In the top corner are my parents. They’re still both wearing make up which means they’ve only just stopped filming for the night.
My dad looks like he’s wearing a kaftan.
My mom is still wearing her skating outfit.
And of course she looks fabulous the way she always does, even though she’s almost sixty.
Nobody at work knows my parents are Nancy and Greg Gauthier.
If I said those names I’d be treated differently.
My mom was America’s skating sweetheart in the 1980s, winning the Ladies’ Figure Skating gold at the Olympics twice in a row.
And then she fell for my dad, the captain of the US hockey team, and the rest was history.
The country swooned when she gave up competing to follow my dad around, getting married and pregnant with my sister, Isabella, within a year. I came next, followed five years later by Brad and Johnny – my twin brothers.
Or as hockey fans know them, the Danger Twins.
“It was a bad hook,” my dad is saying as I join the call. “But you gotta avoid those confrontations.”
“He was asking for it,” Brad says, looking angry.
“Doesn’t mean you have to give it to him,” Dad says.
“Anyway,” my mom cuts in, smiling widely. “How is the training going, Isabella?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.” My sister rolls her eyes.
Like my mom and dad, Isabella appears on Ice Stars, the latest reality show to rock the nation.
But unlike my parents – who are judges – Issy is an ice dance partner to one of the celebrities who takes part.
This year she’s skating with Justin Royle, an ex-boyband star from the early 2000s.
I haven’t caught the show at all, but from what I hear he’s got two left feet and spends more time on his butt than his skates.
And I know exactly how that must feel.
Growing up in a third-generation skating family isn’t the best if you freeze – literally and metaphorically – as soon as you’re near ice.
They’re still talking among themselves, and I’m seriously considering quietly leaving the video call when I hear my name being said.
“Sorry?” I blink. I don’t even know which one of them said it. I’m so tired.
“Did you watch the game last night? What did you think?” my dad asks.
“The hockey game?”
My dad looks exasperated. “Yes. Was it a foul?”
I look from him to Brad, whose jaw is tight. He’s always been the more vocal of the twins.
“I had to work last night,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Well it was a foul,” Dad says to Brad. “End of.”
“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” I ask hopefully. “Because I need to go to bed.”
“Oh no, honey.” My mom shakes her head. “I told you it was about Gramps.”
I know she did, but I was really hoping whatever it was that Wayne Gauthier – my dad’s dad – had done, wasn’t going to affect my night.
“He needs surgery,” my mom says.
“Okay.” I nod. “That’s a shame. I’ll send him some flowers.”
Mom and Dad exchange a glance. “And he’s got a little trouble at work.”
Gramps is eighty-eight-years-old and is still working. He bought a hockey team in West Virginia twenty years ago, when everybody else his age was starting to enjoy retirement and taking cruises.
But hockey has always been Gramps’ life. The same way it’s everything to my dad and my brothers.
After years of being the most famous hockey player in Northern America he can’t bear to let go.
“What kind of trouble?” I ask.
“The IRS kind.”
I let out a low breath. “What does his accountant say?”
My dad shrugs. “He fired him. Says it’s his fault.”
“His office manager then?”
Mom wrinkles her nose. “He fired her, too.”
“And he’s about to have surgery? How long will he be out for?”
“At least three months. He’ll need to go into a nursing facility to recover.”
“Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry,” I say. “What’s he going to do about the IRS?”
There’s a little shift in everybody’s posture on screen. Like they’ve suddenly relaxed. It takes me a minute to figure out why.
Because I’m asking questions. They think I want to help.
Oh hell no. “Listen, I think there’s somebody at my door. I need to go…”
“You’ll help him, right?” Isabella asks. “It’s Gramps.”
I blink because Isabella and I so rarely interact. It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking to me.
“Of course she will,” Brad agrees. “She knows we can’t do it.”
“We can’t,” Isabella says. “Not with our filming schedule and your game schedule.”
“And let’s face it, even if we were available we’d be terrible at it.” That’s Johnny. Okay, so he’s not my favorite anymore. “None of us know how to run a business.”
“But Mackenzie does,” Brad says.
I swallow hard. “I also have a job,” I say. One I’m hoping to get a promotion in as early as next week if all goes well.
“You could take leave,” Isabella says hopefully.
“I don’t have three months leave.”
“Pretend you’re having a baby. Or women trouble,” Brad says.
I roll my eyes at him.
“Honey, please.” My mom looks at me in that way only moms can. And yes, I’m thirty-six-years-old and a successful consultant in a dog-eat-dog industry, but it still works.
And I feel guilty.
“I can’t,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”
Five sets of eyes are trained on me, looking at me as though I just killed their favorite puppy.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. But I’m not giving in this time.
My dad breathes in sharply. “Okay,” he says. “We’ll regroup on this.”
It’s only when we end the call that I think about the expression that was on his face.
He looked exactly the same way he did when the US hockey team was down three-two against the USSR in the Olympic finals.
And then came back to win four-three and take the gold medal.
Every time I walk into Warner Power’s beautifully maintained lobby I feel like I should pinch myself.
My shoes – not three inchers this time – make a beautiful clacking sound on the marble floors as I head for the bank of elevators, past the twenty-foot long reception desk manned with five assistants who all wave at me, and the thirty foot palm trees – real by the way – which are planted in huge terracotta pots a New Yorker could comfortably live in.
I hear my name being called out and I turn to see Rachel running toward me, her dark hair streaming out behind her.
“Wait up,” she says, leaning on me to catch her breath.
Rachel and I met on our orientation day back when we first joined Warner Power as fresh faced graduates.
We shared an apartment for a while, before she moved into an apartment with her first – but not last – asshole boyfriend.
Not that I can tease her about them because I’ve had a few of them myself.
She’s the only employee at Warner Power who knows about my family. Mostly because Brad and Johnny knocked at my door drunkenly at three a.m. one night, and I had to explain why two six feet underage lookalikes were stumbling around our living room.
I was twenty-four then, and they were in their freshman year at college. Both with scholarships, and were celebrating a win against Cornell. When I’d finally persuaded them to sleep in my bed, I’d sat down with Rachel and admitted that I’d changed my name from Gauthier to Hunter.
And yeah, she knew the name. Everybody does. But she didn’t change her attitude toward me one bit the way people usually do.
Years later she admitted she Googled my old name. And found out about the incident that shall never be spoken about. And true to her word, she hasn’t mentioned it since.
Did I tell you that I love her?
“So how did the call with your mom go?” she asks when she finally catches her breath. She’s still leaning on me as I press the button to call the elevator.
“My whole family was there,” I tell her and she grimaces. “They want me to drop everything and go help my gramps in West Virginia.”
Rachel frowns. “Seriously?”
“Yep. He’s having surgery and the IRS is breathing down his neck. So they want me to make everything better.”
The elevator pings and we walk inside. “You said no, right?” There’s disbelief in her voice. I’d like to think it’s because she can’t believe they even asked but deep inside I know she doesn’t believe I’d turn down my family.
“Yes I did.” There. Take that. I feel powerful.
Her frown melts away. “Seriously?”
She knows I struggle with not being able to say no to my family. One of the reasons I avoid talking to them whenever possible. “I’m absolutely serious,” I tell her. “It was hard but I did it.”
She throws her arms around me. “I’m so proud of you.”
I wrinkle my nose but hug her back anyway. “Shaddup.”
We stop at the second floor and two guys walk in, blinking when they see we’re in the middle of an embrace.
Rachel lets me go. “Just making sure she’s warm enough,” she tells them, then pats my arm. “Yep, perfect body temperature.”
They give her a weird look then start a conversation between themselves about Bitcoin.
“Sorry,” she mouths at me.
“It’s okay. You give good hugs.”
She grins because she knows I’m right.