Chapter 7 #2
She dialed the number and she could barely catch her breath, her heart nearly pounding out of her chest cavity, her throat tight and her stomach spinning circles, all the serenity from those moments with Jack completely gone.
The phone rang and rang, over and over again.
He was abroad, in Dubai for work, and she knew it would go to voicemail, was preparing to hear her father’s voice saying his own name and then the computerized woman telling her to leave a message, but then there was a click and it connected.
“Indiana?” Charles Gaffney’s voice echoed loud and clear through the cell.
Indy blinked. She didn’t know he had her number in his phone. “Hi, Dad,” she managed to croak out.
“What’s wrong?”
“Um, why—why would you ask that?” she asked, her voice cracking a little.
“You never call me,” he said. “I can’t imagine why… is there something wrong? Are you okay?” The words were completely foreign to her.
Your girlfriend, my agent, is sleeping with my coach.
She’s cheating on you. It was easy in her head, but she couldn’t force the words past the lump in her throat.
She didn’t even know why it was so tough.
It should have been simple. Just tell him and hang up, get it over with, except the words were stuck and wouldn’t budge, not for anything.
“Indiana?”
“No, um, nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. I just thought I’d call. You know, to um, catch up.”
“Catch up?” he repeated. Apparently it had sounded just as strange to him as it had to her.
“Yeah, we just… we don’t really talk, like you said, ever, and I… If you’re busy, I understand, it’s fine. I’m sure you’re busy.”
He cleared his throat sharply. “I am, but I can—”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, seeing her escape and taking it. “We’ll… we can talk later. No big deal. Bye.”
She ended the call and clenched her fist around the phone. Hauling back her arm, she nearly threw it across the room but stopped herself as the phone began to buzz in her hand. Without even looking at the screen, she answered it.
“Hello?”
“You didn’t let me finish. I was just about to go into a meeting, but I canceled it. Now, I can tell something’s wrong, India—Indy. You wouldn’t call me unless you had no other option, I know that much. Tell me what it is, and maybe I can help.”
She hadn’t expected him to call back, let alone for him to talk to her like that, like what happened to her mattered or like his concern wasn’t simply because he had to be concerned.
Indy tried to get the words to form on her lips again, but still, they wouldn’t come.
How do you tell someone something like that, especially your dad, especially Charles Gaffney?
“It’s nothing. I just… Does Caroline have to be my agent? I know you and her are a thing, but…”
A heavy sigh echoed through the speaker. She couldn’t tell if it was in relief or exasperation. “Caroline is the best at what she does. Even if she and I weren’t a thing, as you say, I’d still want her to represent your interests.”
“I don’t trust her.”
“Has she ever done anything to betray your trust?”
Indy hedged. “She didn’t tell me that you guys were together.”
“Do you tell her about your boyfriends?”
“That’s different,” she protested, biting her lip after the words flew out a little too fast and a little too high-pitched.
She could almost hear the laugh in her dad’s voice as he said, “You’re right, it is different.
Your personal relationships could have a potential impact on her ability to perform her job.
Hers do not. What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to like her.
It’s not personal. It’s business and it would be a silly business decision to let the best tennis agent in the world go because of something personal. ”
It was almost exactly what Jack said. Apparently, they had a lot more in common than she’d ever imagined.
She decided not to examine that too closely.
“What about the opposite?”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Letting business get in the way of personal things?”
“Yes.”
And now they weren’t talking about Caroline anymore. They were talking about the missed birthdays and Christmases and phone calls never returned and gifts picked out by assistants. It was about them.
“Then… then you have to decide what’s more important to you,” he said finally, but slowly, like it wasn’t really what he wanted to say, even though it was the truth.
A truth that hit her right in the chest. He’d always put his business before personal, always put his job before her and her mom, because he’d decided a long time ago that business was more important than them.
“Right, okay, sure.”
“Indiana… Indy, that doesn’t mean…”
“I’ve gotta go.”
She ended the call, hearing the line disconnect, but she kept the phone to her ear.
“Caroline is cheating on you with my coach, but whatever, I don’t even care, you and her, you deserve each other.
You’re the kinds of people who don’t care about who you hurt.
You don’t care, and now I don’t care either. You both can go to hell.”
Then she chucked the phone against the wall as hard as she could.