Chapter Twenty-four #2
“Is there any way we can keep up with you while you’re on this ride?” the reporter asked.
“I have a YouTube channel viewers can subscribe to: Weston’s LGBTQIA Ride for Equality.
I’ll be posting content, including interviews, tours of facilities that cater to our rainbow community, and information on my sponsors and their chosen charities.
It’s free to subscribe, so I hope you will. ” Weston smiled at the camera.
The reporter turned to give her sign off. “We’ll put a link to Weston’s channel on our home page. This is Cheri Todd, WNYC News at Six. Back to you in the studio.”
The camera guy said, “We’re out,” and removed the camera from his shoulder. The reporter began winding the microphone cord and handed it to the camera guy who put it in the van parked at the curb in front of the shop.
Cheri Todd stepped over to West and spoke quietly for a moment before they both joined Edmond and me.
“Mr. Aames, thank you for bringing this story to our attention. It will be a great piece for tonight’s broadcast, and we’ll check in with Weston along the way.
I know many of our viewers will subscribe and follow along. It’s a great story.”
She shook Edmond’s hand, waved to Weston, and the cameraman drove them down the street. I turned to Edmond. “What was that?”
“Yeah, Uncle Edmond. What the hell was that. You don’t just show up at a guy’s house with a news crew and no notice. I almost didn’t answer the phone when you called for me to meet you in front of Eaton Cycles. We’re packing the RV for the trip.”
Edmond gave a shark-toothed grin. “That, my boy, was free publicity. I’m a member of the New York Bar Association, and at one of the charity events the bar supports, I met the legal counsel for WNYC. Nice guy, and I’ve had dinner with him and his wife a couple of times.
“Anyway, we both sit on the disciplinary committee, and we had a meeting last week regarding a crooked lawyer we’re going to disbar.
It was the same day you wanted to go to lunch and I couldn’t go because we were having a hearing.
After the vote, I got to talking to my friend over drinks and told him about your ride.
He has a gay son who’s going to UConn and is involved in a few activist groups on campus.
My friend asked if you’d give an interview to WNYC before the ride begins to draw attention to the issue, and I said of course you would.
People watch the evening news, Weston, and they’ll see this story.
You did a fantastic job with the interview. ”
Edmond then turned to me. “You missed the first part, but it was just as good as the end, and it will give this ride a lot of free publicity. They’ll link the interview on their website so others can watch it, too. You don’t mind that we shot the interview in front of your store, do you?”
I glanced up to see the front window of my shop with the Pride flag hanging in it, and I chuckled. “You old son of a gun. You know I don’t mind because, as you said, it’s free publicity.”
Edmond laughed. “Hey, I have my moments. Anyway, let’s go sit down. West, I want to talk to you for a few minutes before you finish your preparations for the trip.”
“Let’s go inside and have something to drink.” I led the way around the corner, locked the RV that I’d parked behind the building, and we went through the back door and up the stairs to the apartment.
“Edmond, would you like a beer or coffee? I’m afraid I don’t have much else. We cleaned out the fridge a little while ago.”
Edmond grinned. “I’m going out for dinner in a while, so just water, Bridges, please.” He pulled out a stool at the counter and sat down while Weston still seemed to be ruminating in what had just happened.
I filled a glass with ice and filtered water from the front of the fridge, handing it to Edmond. I leaned against the sink before taking West’s hand and pulling him to stand in front of me where I wrapped my arms around him and rested my hands on his flat abs.
“What’s going on now? Has the apartment sold?” Weston asked.
I jumped in. “Yeah, you didn’t tell me you were selling the apartment out from under them. Isn’t it part of the estate? I’m still the executor, right?”
“Yes you are, but no, the apartment isn’t part of the estate.
It belongs to Aames Investments. It’s on their books as an asset, and I wanted to get it off before anything happens with disbursement of the estate in July.
When Claude was first diagnosed, there were some experimental drugs and treatments that May and he wanted to try, so the firm bought the apartment to give him the liquidity he’d need because none of the experimental procedures would be covered by insurance.
Claude had the rent taken from his monthly draw.
“The chance to sell it and get it off the books came up when a friend of mine wanted to buy it after he learned of Claude’s death, and the firm made a nice profit on holding it.”
West glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes at me. He then turned back to Edmond. “So that business about renting the apartment from the estate wasn’t bullshit?”
Edmond appeared startled. “No, Weston. Do you think I’d try to cheat you?
I’d never do that. This was a great opportunity for you and May to get out from under that behemoth.
You two wouldn’t want to continue to live in that mausoleum.
Claude only wanted it because he said it was a symbol of his success, but he wasn’t exactly thrilled to live there either.
The firm, along with all of its assets, will come to you after you finish this ride, so I want it to be hugely successful, and I’m telling everyone I know about it. ”
West placed his hands on my forearms around his shoulders. “If I don’t want to run Aames, what happens to it?”
“Well, what do you want to do with it? You can sell it or you can name someone as president and only sit on the board as chairman. You’ll still get a salary draw every month as your father did, it’ll just be a lesser cut because the president’s salary will need to come out of it.
That was what your father was going to do when he was diagnosed, but the time went by too quickly.
Hell, Weston, he was still making decisions until he went into hospice care and began taking heavy pain meds.
“I stepped in and took over for him, and I’ve been doing double duty at the firm and the company ever since.
I’m too old to work so many hours. When your Mom and Dad sat down with me to do their will, I told your father that I’d help whomever he chose as his successor, but I didn’t want the job.
I’m fifty-seven, and I’d like to do some traveling before I die.
I’d be available to you as often as you needed me, but I’m not interested in taking over Aames.
” Edmond took a sip of his water and slyly checked his watch.
Weston sighed. “What’s Mom doing for money, Uncle Edmond?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
West glanced at me, and I kissed his temple, shaking my head at Edmond to confirm that May hadn’t told West jack shit.
“She had her own money coming into the marriage. When she worked for your father before they became involved, May had an inheritance from her grandmother. She just had it in a passbook savings account drawing piddly interest, so your father advised her where to invest it, and she just left it alone all these years. She has about five million of her own funds.”
Weston gasped. I was surprised too.
“Mom led me to believe we’d be surviving on beans and franks. She was going to get a job, Uncle Edmond. I got a job to help out.” Oh, my guy was pissed.
Edmond held up his finger for Weston to hold on for a minute. “Weston, when your father made the caveat in his will about your needing to prove yourself, it was with the mindset that you might be a spoiled rich kid who would sponge off his mother for the rest of her life.
“Your father and Daryl built Aames Investments from the ground up. Bridges didn’t want to go to work for the firm, and that was fine, but Claude’s dream was for you to take over the firm and step out of his shadow.
Make Aames what you want it to be. It’s a living thing if you think about it, and you can grow it the way you see fit. ”
Edmond checked his watch again. Obviously, he had plans for the night.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Weston, but I think your mother didn’t tell you about the money because she wants you to take control of your life.
You’re twenty-five. You have an MBA. You know business.
You’ve handled the planning of this ride, and it sounds as though you’ve made up your mind that you’re going to do this.
Maybe don’t jump to the decision you don’t want to be a part of Aames right away.
Really think about what you want to do with your life, okay?
I hate to drop these bombs and run, but I’ve got a date. ”
“I’ll walk you out, Edmond.”
I unwrapped Weston and walked Edmond down through the shop, stopping at the door. “Do you think May misled him on purpose?”
“Yes, I do. Claude was petrified that West was going to turn into CJ and Claudia. He and May had a lot of discussions about it when Claude was diagnosed, so I think she wanted to show Claude that Weston wasn’t like the older two. Elise made them what they are. May is nothing like her.”
I opened the front door where a car was waiting for him at the curb, and we said goodnight.
I locked the downstairs and turned off the lights before going to see how Weston was fairing after the discussion with Edmond.
He cleared some things up for Weston, which was good, but I hadn’t told my boyfriend that I would be the fifth vote on the board in the event of a tie.
I prayed I didn’t have to break a tie because I never wanted West to think he only got the firm because of me.
I believed that would undermine all the confidence he’d gained since the beginning of the process.
Weston had worked hard and he deserved to know he earned everything coming to him.