Chapter Two
Later that week, my aunt Susie called. She didn’t touch base often, and when she did, it was when she wanted or needed something. It was Friday and I was looking forward to a golf weekend, and I knew it was about to be soured.
“Hi, Mack. How are you?” I heard the traffic honking in the background.
“Fine. What’s up, Susie?” I got right to the point. It never seemed like what she really wanted, but Susie had sold her shares in the company to my dad when her husband, Arthur, wanted to invest in real estate. They’d been successful, and I was grateful to not have to work with her or her two brunette, curly-haired, and “freckled from too many vacations in the Caymans” daughters—Sonya and Sylvia. They were both pains in my ass, always wanting something like their mom.
“I wanted to know if you were coming for the Jewish New Year. Did you see my email on it? As I said, Sylvia and Tom have included some friends this year, so you may enjoy meeting a few people your age?”
I’d seen the email, glanced at it and trashed it. It had popped into my inbox after the Frances Shakedown, as I’d come to think of the other day.
To the innocent, Susie’s invite might seem innocent and kind, but I knew it had a nefarious bent. “I’m not sure,” I told my aunt. “It’s three months away, Susie, but I’ll probably have a quiet meal at home.”
In reality, I’d do what I always did. I’d visit Milly’s grave, come home, and watch a livestream service over a bowl of takeout matzo ball soup. It wasn’t grand or even close to any tradition, but it was my own annual plan.
“That’s a shame. You shouldn’t be alone. It’s a holiday. Plus, Tom’s colleague is looking to launch a product in the skin care world. I thought the two of you could meet. She’s also single…and Jewish.”
Boom! There it was. My dad’s only sister coming in hot with a two-for-one. A potential wife with a long-term interest in my company.
“Tom was thinking of backing Traci. That’s her name. Traci Wechsler. Beautiful, strawberry blond hair, thin, went to Cornell. Come to think of it, she goes to the Hamptons on the weekends often. You should come out and meet her.”
I felt my head shaking side to side to the nonsense, my brain in overdrive on how to respond. My sort-of venture capitalist cousin-in-law, Tom, had been wanting to sink his teeth into my financially secure business for a while. “That’s so nice of you to think of me and the company, but I try not to do business with friends of family. It just feels more like a potential catastrophe than a safe zone. And I’m not dating anyone other than my job at the moment.”
“Milly would want you to come. Not just for the holiday but out to the beach house too,” Susie screamed over an ambulance whirring by. I imagined her sitting straight as an arrow, in the back of an SUV, privacy screen up, her black hair plastered into a bob, and not even glancing out the window to see what the emergency might be.
I laughed. “Milly wanted me to fall in love with some serendipitous person I met like in a movie, not a financial prospect of Tom’s. Thanks for the invite though.” I rolled my eyes at the thought of Milly believing the universe would send someone fascinating and worthy my way. I was a lot of things; lucky wasn’t one of them.
I disconnected the call and decided to go for a run outside. Best part of building a shower in my office was escaping to the nearby Hudson River Trail for a midday pounding of the pavement. By the time I returned with five miles on my feet and a clearer head, I’d forgotten Susie and Tom’s proposition and was ready to face the last few hours of my work week. It wasn’t often I took a weekend away from it all, but when I did, I did.
“Mack?” Corey poked his head in my office as I resecured my cuff link.
“You can go. Get out,” I instructed him, assuming he wanted to start his free weekend early. I wasn’t sure who was more excited about my weekend off, Corey or me.
“No, it’s not that.” He cleared his throat and stepped into my office slowly.
“What? It’s not like you to be bashful. Spit it out,” I told my assistant who was staring at me like he’d seen Santa Claus, for real.
“She’s here. Again.”
“Who is here? Susie? I just spoke with her.”
“Not Susie.” Corey approached with a caution I rarely saw him exhibit. “I know in the past I’ve played a few jokes or tried to set you up. But I heard you the other day—no more. I don’t even know how she is getting past security—”
“Cookies. Oatmeal chocolate chip, to be specific,” rang through my office, the one and only Frances Burns strutting right in as if she belonged.
“Definitely not Susie, although I might prefer her.” I turned toward Corey before quickly focusing on our visitor. “Hello, Ms. Burns. I’m not a big oatmeal chocolate chip fan.”
“Good thing I didn’t save you any.”
I couldn’t help the small smile spreading across my face. The tiny blond half-pint had nerve, I’d say. “What brings you back to stalk me?”
“Remember, I kickbox,” she sassed back.
I felt Corey’s head pinging between the two of us. “I certainly do. Now tell me, what can we do for you?”
She stood there perfectly still until I noticed a small twitch in her neck. She seemed to be motioning between Corey and the door.
“Do you want privacy? You have to use your words.” She actually glared at me, and my smile grew wider. “Now Frances, do you need to speak with me alone?”
“I do.” She jutted her chin out and stood as tall as her frame would allow.
“Corey, I know you would prefer to get out the popcorn and enjoy the show, but I’ll be okay. Promise.”
Poor Corey tucked tail and headed out, but not before turning and winking at me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he planned this. But after the ass ripping I’d given him on his pranks, there was no way he’d risk it.
As soon as he left, I turned toward my visitor. “Now Frances, I’m heading out for the weekend soon. So what business do we have left to discuss? I thought we were all done.” I ran my hand through my hair and noted it was still a bit damp from my shower. My mind screamed to get out of this discussion as fast as possible. On the contrary, my body didn’t care how inappropriate it was to imagine Little Miss Kickboxing in the shower with me. Yep, that was where my head went. The other one.
“I’m sorry for how the other day went…excuse me, do you hear me?”
I nodded, leaving my shower fantasies where they belonged—not in this room.
“Like I said, I’m sorry, but I need you to understand how important this is to me. My Paps—”
“Frances.”
“Frankie, please. The way you say it sounds old. No, no, dirty. I don’t know. It’s just Frankie to everyone.”
She had me at dirty, but I got back on track. “Frankie, listen, I know your Pap must’ve been special. I get that. My grandmother was a force herself. But he’s gone, like my Grammy is, and we can’t bring them back. All we can do is think of them, remember the good times with them, and live our lives.”
“It’s Paps. And there is a connection with us. At least a history we should find out about. He loved her. His Rosie.”
“There is no history,” I barked back, but my mind swirled with explanations. Milly always talked about true love. Maybe there was a deeper meaning?
Frances, aka Frankie, looked at me dead-on, her eyes blazing into mine—deep green forests beckoning me to hike around and explore, like the mountains of New Hampshire in graduate school.
“It’s normal to want some sort of closure when someone dies. It’s clear to me that you and your grandfather were extremely close, and he told you whatever he told you for some reason. It’s not my place to speculate why, but I do know it wasn’t so you would come and try to tangle me up in your emotional mess.”
“What if…I don’t know…the what-ifs are endless, and I can’t let it go.”
Clearing the toad in my throat, I swallowed my pride and over four decades of feelings. “I have to let it go. You see, I’ve spent a lifetime living in what-ifs. What if my dad didn’t get tangled up with my shit mom? What if I didn’t have Milly? What if I didn’t prove myself in my business? I’m not about to open another big can of what-ifs in my life. Period. End of subject.”
I said the last part with a hint of anger and a rumble in my chest. Did this deter Frances Burns? No.
She walked steadfastly toward me and, without asking or even questioning if it was all right with her nonverbals, took my hand in hers. This pint of a woman was worse than any reporter; she opened doors that had been bolted shut since the day Milly passed.
“Mackenzie, it’s okay to feel with me. That’s what I want. I need to explore what happened with my Paps, and I know you’re fighting the idea but I sense you want to also.”
Her skin was smooth and electric against mine, my head and body in a world war. “No, I don’t want to explore anything but my golf weekend, which you are making me late for. So if you’ll excuse me, Ms. Burns, I need to go.”
“My Paps played golf. Not very well, but he liked the idea of it. A gentleman’s sport, he called it.”
“Again, very sweet, but I have to go.” My mouth was saying one thing, yet my hand was still entwined with Frankie’s.
I quickly extracted my fingers, but she rambled on. “That was my Paps. A gentleman. He believed in fairness, shaking hands, and being honest.”
Stepping back, I looked down at Frances and raised an eyebrow. “If that’s what you call dangling a carrot, making up lies, or oversharing tidbits from the past with your impressionable granddaughter.”
She crossed her arms in front of her, forcing me to notice the pink satin camisole she wore under her ivory blazer. It had a small bit of lace trim by the cleavage, and I couldn’t help but note she was not lacking in that area…
“Eyes up here, Mr. Miller.”
Raising my hands in the air, I admitted my guilt. “Look, I really have to go.”
“Will you think about taking a quick peek at what I have? We can meet somewhere neutral. A coffee shop, a bar, or wherever you pick.”
It took every muscle in my body to keep from saying, If you wear that pencil skirt, I’ll meet you anywhere… But that wasn’t the man Milly raised me to be.
“I can’t. I’m sorry, Frances, but I can’t. My dad is gone. My grandmother is gone. Lord knows where my mother is…no sense in lying to you about that since you seem to be a truth serum for me. This company, my family’s name, is all I have. I am not about to go trekking on an expedition that would change any of that.”
“Here,” she said while stomping her foot. “Take this.” She shoved a business card at me and spat out, “When you change your mind, call me. I know you will.” She spun and walked out faster than I could reply.
“I won’t” was what I whispered to her ass as she sashayed out the large mahogany door, paying no mind to me or my misgivings.
Turning the card in my hand, I read her name aloud, as if I didn’t know it. Ms. Frankie Burns
It listed the store where she worked—one of New York’s finest and oldest.
Men’s Department
I’d bet she made a killing. Between her deadly looks and smart wit, she was likely to capture the heart of every shopping male in a ten-mile radius.
By Appointment Only
This meant she was pretty damn excellent at her job. And spent all her time around men; she knew how to handle and manipulate the Y chromosome. It figured; she sold suits to overeager men. One glance at her and you would know any man with a taste for women would be a goner. Even when she ran off at the mouth, she was the perfect combination of sexy, sultry, and cute.
“I’m going to head out.” Corey poked his head in, jolting me from a fantasy of being fit for a suit by the one and only Frances. It did sound a little dirty coming from me…
“I thought you left.”
“And miss the show?” He half smirked, partially smiled at me.
“I’m warning you,” I told him to no avail.
“That one packs a punch, and apparently packs a mean cookie. I called down to security and told them not to fall for her baked goods anymore.”
“Well, at least you did one right thing today.”
“I don’t think it’s me you have to worry about, boss. Pretty sure the blond-haired pipsqueak who keeps weaseling her way into your life is the one you need to look out for.”
For the second time today, someone turned and strode out of my office, not allowing me a chance to reply.
“She is. She is.” I spoke to the back of Corey’s large frame, hoping he didn’t hear me admit the truth.