Chapter 40
40
S ean drove Gloria and Mina to their attorney's office in Tampa. He insisted on coming with them even though he also wanted to be at the Barn making music. Both of his passions were warring with each other right now, and he steeled himself to the fact that it might be that way for the rest of his life.
He'd always have split passions, but that was life, wasn't it? Everyone had them.
He turned into the parking lot and found a spot. He helped Mina out of the back seat, mostly he stood there and offered her a solid hand as she managed to get out. She was tough, his little girl.
He walked between the two women in his life, holding both of their hands. Gloria had her laptop with her. They'd spoken over breakfast, what little they both ate, about how they would handle things today, and he was proud. He was so proud of them.
Mina was getting to be her old self again, at least a little bit of her old self he knew of.
She was professional, she was smart, and she was a take-charge kind of woman, a lot like her mom.
As they walked in, the receptionist greeted them, told them there was already a conference room waiting for them, and that they should follow her.
They sat down at a conference table, all of them at one end, directly across from a large screen on the wall. There was a camera system pointing to it, that hung from the ceiling.
The receptionist got them water, and Attorney Timothy Drake entered the conference room and shook all their hands.
Gloria spoke first. "What are your feelings on how today will go based on reading over my contract, Tim?"
Tim replied, "We've already kind of spoken about this. I do believe it can go either way, and I know that's not very comforting, but they would not speak with me until the meeting today. They refused a phone call over the weekend, and so I can only assume that their lack of conversation with me is because they're getting their ducks in a row. So today, no matter what they offer you, I do believe we have to tell them that we will get back to them after we have had some time to speak. They've taken the time they've wanted, so we can do the same. There's nothing in the contract that says anything to the contrary, that you would not get any time to seek counsel on any contract conditions or changes, and we will play that card if we have to."
He glanced at each of them. "How are you each feeling about this?"
Gloria looked at Mina first, and Mina shrugged. "I guess I feel like the network is being pompous about this. I don't believe they have grounds to stand on as to the conduct clause. I do think they may use this to either lower her television presence or reduce her contract amount, and I go with her. So if they are going to let her go, I won't be working with the network either. They don't have a contract with me. I have a contract with my mother as her producer, and I do believe we can find work for her somewhere else. It might not be easy, but I know we can. She's a professional. She's good at her job. She's done nothing wrong, so I think we can find work again."
Timothy nodded.
Sean watched Mina as she spoke. She was clear, and she was concise. He knew she wasn't feeling very well because of her rib. But she looked strong.
He glanced at Gloria and watched her as she spoke. She looked directly at Timothy, and she said, "I mirror Mina's comments. If they fire me, so be it. We'll talk about it after that and decide if we want to sue them for breach of contract or if we want to move on."
Timothy nodded. He looked across the table at him. "Sean, I know this doesn't really affect you too much, but do you have feelings on the matter?"
He shrugged. He looked at Mina, and then Gloria. "I'm actually here for moral support, and for what that's worth, I don't think they have a leg to stand on either, but I'm mostly here to talk with you afterwards about how we want to conduct the PR and anything that we can do further as to suing the reporters for causing the accident."
Timothy nodded. "Okay." He glanced at his watch. "We can go ahead and dial in. They will see us all on screen."
Timothy stood up, walked to a credenza, grabbed a box of tissues, and put them on the table. He looked at Gloria and winked. "Just in case."
Gloria grinned and nodded. She said nothing.
Mina had her hands on the table folded in front of her, and Tim called into the conference call. Two gentlemen appeared on screen, both of them sitting in the same office. They looked stiff and uncomfortable, and Sean felt happy about that.
Timothy introduced himself.
The studio heads introduced themselves. Bob Olson was the president of the network. His counterpart was the network's attorney, Walter Hildebrand.
Bob started the conversation. "First of all, Gloria, Mina, and Mr. West, I hope you're all healing and doing much better."
They each merely nodded. When neither of them said anything further, Gloria responded, "We are doing much better. Thank you."
Bob nodded and continued, "We've had some lengthy conversations over the weekend about this, as I'm sure you're aware. And the network, while we understand this is a precarious situation, we've been watching the Internet and looking to see what damage control is going to have to be done. There's a lot of anger out there right now, and of course they don't have all the facts. So we understand that we have to take it with a grain of salt. Our feeling moving forward is that we would like to keep you on, Gloria. We would minimize your amount of time on air, rather than a weekly show. We’d move you to biweekly and put another entertainment show in the opposite weeks. This is until the public has had time to settle down on this issue. And we also feel as though you need to make a public apology."
He watched Gloria's face. She was good. She made no faces. She didn't roll her eyes. She stared blankly at the camera.
All she said was, "We'll take this under advisement with our attorney."
She looked over at Timothy, and he nodded. "Thank you, gentlemen. I've advised my client that we will have a discussion after this meeting. We wanted to know what your position was first. Now we will discuss it and I can get back to you by the end of the day."
Bob looked confused. "This is a very generous offer, Gloria."
Timothy saved Gloria from having to respond. "As I mentioned, gentlemen, we will take this under advisement, and I will get in touch with you later on today. Do you have anything else that you want to speak about?"
Bob turned to Walter. Walter shook his head. "No, that's all we have. Thank you."
They ended their side of the call quickly. And Timothy ended the call from his office.
He glanced at Gloria and said, "How do you feel about that?"
Sean was mad. He was so angry, his back stiffened and his breathing came in spurts.
He said, "Fuck them. A public apology. She doesn't owe anyone a public apology. She has apologized to me, and she's apologized to our daughter, and we are the only people that get that from her."
Gloria reached over and placed her hand on his. "Thank you for being angry on my behalf."
She looked at Timothy. "I'm not really sure what to say or how I feel about this. I guess I'm partly relieved and partly irritated at the same time."
Mina took as deep a breath as she could. "I would like to walk away from the network, but I'm not sure what that looks like right now. And I think I would like more than just today to think about it."
Timothy nodded. "How about this? Go home and get some rest. I know the trip was probably quite exhausting for you. And email me later with some questions or some future steps. And we'll go from there."
Gloria pulled her laptop out of the case. She brought up the video she'd been working on.
She addressed Mina first. "I haven't spoken to you about this. I apologize that this is the first time you're seeing this. It's something I worked on this morning. But I'd like Timothy's take on this before we bring it to production and then before we release it."
Mina looked into her eyes and nodded slowly.
She started the video, pushed her laptop to the center of the table so they could all see it better. They sat in silence as the video of the three of them, with the statement about Mina's parentage, and the photos of the accident and finally, the photos of Gloria and Mina in the hospital. Sean's back stiffened again. His neck tightened, and he rotated his head. After the network's bullshit meeting, he needed to go for a walk. It was ironic that he thought the thing that would make him want to get away and take a walk was being mad at Gloria. But right now, he understood a little bit more about what she was dealing with. And he didn't like it one bit. He wanted to protect her. But he felt powerless, and that made him angry all over again.
After the video ran, Gloria pulled her computer back. She typed something out, then turned to Tim. "I've just emailed you the video, which needs to be edited a little bit better and we'll get clearer images of the accident scene. My videographer can do that. And then I want to narrate over the video. I've just emailed you the script of what I want to say. Please look these over and email me later and let me know your thoughts on that. I'd like to release it this evening.”
Timothy nodded. He stood. "I'll look them over. We'll do a little research here too. Make sure that you don't have anything libelous in your narration."
And then he turned to Sean and said, "Can we table the conversation about the lawsuit for about a month? Mina needs to heal. They both need to be released from medical care before we can do anything further. And I'm waiting to hear from the attorney from the other vehicle, not the reporters, but those that were in the vehicle ahead of you prior to the reporters diving in. So if I can ask you for a bit more patience, it'll help us in the long run."
Sean gritted his teeth. His jaw was tight, but he understood what Timothy meant. He nodded slightly and said, "I can give you that."
They stood and left Timothy's office together.