Chapter Ten
“And once more, inhale ... exhale ... release the heels ... moving into plank, inhale ... exhale ... hold there for one more inhale ... exhale ... now chaturanga ... hold there and breathe ... long and slow, draw breath all the way to your navel, and out ... very good.”
“She’s trying to kill us,” Ida muttered quietly, struggling to hold chaturanga on her bright yellow yoga mat. “Twice a week, she attempts literal murder.”
Autumn was too focused to answer, but her eyes slid that direction and saw Ida’s arms shaking. When the instructor, a teensy Punjabi woman for whom yoga was far more spiritual practice than physical exercise, moved them into upward-facing dog, Ida sighed with loud relief and dropped her hips to her mat.
They moved into their cool-down phase, a series of sun salutations and finally savasana, the ‘corpse pose.’ “The best thing about yoga is the nap at the end,” Ida stage-whispered.
Though Autumn took yoga more seriously than her friend and tried hard to quiet her mind and stay in the moment, she chuckled—as did the women nearest them. For Autumn, yoga was physical exercise, mental discipline, and something not far from psychotherapy, the complete self-care package. Every weekday she gave herself this hour to make herself strong inside and out. She did not chat while she was being mindful. It was one of the rare times her brain settled down and let her rest.
For Ida, yoga was a thing she did twice a week to hang out with Autumn. Though she appreciated the physical benefits, she couldn’t get into the headspace, and yoga itself was too slow and quiet to interest her. She’d rather be in spin class.
Autumn had tried spin once and would never go back again. Her whole life was lived at that go-go-go pace. She didn’t need it in her ‘me time,’ too.
When the class was over, they rolled up their mats and slung their towels over their necks. Autumn helped Ida put away the bands and blocks she’d used to hold a few positions, then they headed to the locker room, stripped down and wrapped towels around their chests, and hit the sauna. By the end of this evening, Autumn would have cleansed most of the stress from her muscles and settled her mind well enough that she could sleep.
Ida leaned back against the wood-slat wall and sighed with much more satisfaction. “This is the best part of yoga,” she crooned. “When it’s over.”
Two older women sitting on the facing bench laughed.
Also leaning against the wall, Autumn lazily shook her head. “You complain, complain, complain about yoga. You don’t have to do it, you know.”
“Well, you won’t do spin or the weight room. Trying to get my hands on you to hang out is like winning the Powerball.”
There were too many ‘roid bros in the weight room, screaming and dropping weights. And men called women ‘pick mes’? Please.
“Not true,” she countered. “We have a standing shopping date.”
“Once a month. Friendships are not sustained with one single day out of thirty.”
“We text nonstop every day, sweets. In this digital age, that counts as hanging out.”
Though she didn’t open her eyes, Autumn felt Ida sit forward. “I suppose that’s true, but damn, it’s depressing. What’s next? The singularity?”
Now Autumn opened her eyes so she could roll them at her friend. “You use that as your doomsday scenario all the time, but I do not think it means what you think it means.”
“Cute, Inigo Montoya. It means when the robots turn us into batteries or livestock or something.”
Laughing, Autumn hooked an arm around her friend and kissed her cheek. “Close enough. But I think there are a lot of steps between texting and oppression by robot overlords.”
Ida hugged her back. “That’s the kind of blasé attitude that gets an electrical cord shoved up your butt while you’re not looking.”
They were quiet for a while after that, leaning on each other, sweltering in the sauna. Then Ida came out with something that made Autumn sit back.
“I met another of James’ friends last night. He’s a stockbroker. Drives a Lucid Dream Edition. And his name is Parker Wright—he’s literally Mr. Wright, Autumn.”
Ida had been seeing James Cho, Mr. Biceps, for several weeks now, and they’d become pretty serious. Autumn had met him a few times, and he seemed like a decent guy. But he and Ida were now in cahoots. Three times—four now—Ida had schemed to set Autumn up with one of his friends, a collection of them apparently curated by James.
“Absolutely not,” Autumn said now, kicking the notion away for the fourth time. “And I’m starting to get mad about the way you’re not hearing me.”
“I am hearing you,” Ida protested—and then huffed with loud rhetoric when one of the older ladies across the room dumped fresh water on the coals. “I’m just not liking the answer.” When Autumn prepared to launch into a rant about how she felt about that, Ida stilled her with a raised hand. “Not liking it for you, not for me. I know you haven’t wanted a relationship since Miles, and that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not really even talking about Tinder matches, exactly. But you’re not even doing social-function dates this summer. You went to Marlie and Laiken’s wedding solo. Not even a plus-one! You’re a beautiful, brilliant, successful thirty-four-year-old badass. Do you really mean to give up and become a crazy cat lady already?”
Ida was not wrong, exactly, but she didn’t have all the information. Autumn had in fact not had any kind of date, not even a friend to accompany her to social functions, since she’d returned from her latest trip to Missouri. But that wasn’t because she’d packed up her vagina and settled into spinsterhood. It was because every time she thought about reactivating Tinder or even asking one of the men with whom she was platonically friendly to accompany her, that drunken night in Signal Bend reared its head. Every guy she considered became Daniel Cox, and he was the mascot for a really embarrassing night. She couldn’t stomach getting near a guy right now.
But she had not said a single word to Ida about Cox. It was the first secret she’d kept from her friend in two decades that wasn’t about a surprise party or a special treat.
“I am very tired of this topic coming up. And why do I have to have a man, anyway? As you say, I’ve already got a great, successful life. I’m good as I am. And not a single cat anywhere to be found.” Re-tucking her towel, Autumn stood up. “I’ve got work to do tonight when I get home.”
Ida reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Hey, I’m sorry. I just want you to have everything.”
“I already do, Ida.”
“Yeah, but I was there, lying next to you on our bellies, watching Outlander when your dads weren’t home, talking about how bad we wanted to be somebody’s Sassenach.”
In her head, as Ida pronounced that Scottish word, Cox whispered, city girl.
Autumn shoved the memory away. It was so maddeningly absurd that she couldn’t get the man out of her head. He didn’t like her. She didn’t like him. And even if that weren’t true, he lived hundreds of miles away and was not her type. So what if he was good looking. So what if, when he deigned to speak, poetry spilled from his lips. So what if he’d held her while she puked and comforted her when she was scared. So what if he’d saved her more than once on that night. He’d only been gathering intel. No doubt his whole club was laughing now at his stories about the hapless drunken city girl.
Plastic, he’d also called her. And a snake.
“We were fourteen, Ide. And Outlander is a fantasy series.”
She freed her arm and went back to the locker room.
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~oOo~
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A few nights later, Autumn stood before the grill on her balcony and flipped two beautiful salmon steaks, then flipped the foil vegetable packets as well.
“Rosé? Or sauv blanc?” Pops asked behind her.
Autumn smiled over her shoulder. She was not an oenophile, but her father was. “It’s your birthday, you pick.”
He considered the bottles in his hand. “I think the sauv. Shall I pour now?”
“Sure. These only have a minute or two left.”
Pops went through the sliding door to her kitchen, and Autumn continued grilling his birthday dinner.
Managing her divorced fathers was a daily tightrope walk. Though both Pom and Pops said they wanted everything to be easy on her, and though she believed they meant it and really did try, neither was particularly successful. Pom was dramatic about it, but Pops was just as jealous of any time Autumn gave Pom as vice versa. He was simply quieter about it—which actually made Autumn feel more guilty. When Pom made a scene insisting that he didn’t get the same access Pops did (not true), she could tell him to get over himself, but when Pops said “I understand,” and looked away, she dissolved into a puddle of guilty goo.
But they didn’t like the same things, so she couldn’t simply make everything balanced through repetition. Pom wanted extravaganzas for his birthdays—he wanted costumes and event spaces and glitter. Pops hated all that; he was happier with a quiet meal and a nice gift, or maybe an evening at the theater and a dinner in a quiet restaurant. So, though neither would enjoy the other’s kind of fun (another of the factors in their divorce, when their love for each other was no longer strong enough to mask these differences), when Autumn spent a lot of time arranging a big surprise party for Pom, Pops sighed and said he understood why she was busy, and when she had Pops over for a home-cooked meal and their annual screening of The Princess Bride, Pom made a big fuss about how Pops always got the personal touch.
She adored them both, but sometimes they were exhausting.
When the salmon was properly seared and the vegetables the perfect degree of dark and glossy, she plated them nicely, added a sprig of dill to each, turned off the grill, and carried the plates to the table. Pops was already seated, sipping his wine as he contemplated the park across the street from Autumn’s condo.
The plates in her hand, she paused. The last wisps of summer sunlight streaked the sky, backlighting her Pops in a rosy halo. He was a big guy, over six feet and probably forty pounds over a weight a doctor would call ideal. For work every day, whether he was due in court or spending the day in his office, he wore a classic two-button, three-piece Brooks Brothers suit, navy or charcoal, sometimes with a muted pinstripe but usually plain. Tonight, for a date with his daughter, he wore professionally pressed charcoal slacks, a white Oxford cloth button-down, only one button undone, and classic Bass loafers. Besides his belt, his only accessory was the Breitling Navitimer watch she’d bought him for his sixty-fifth birthday last year.
She loved him so, so much, her quiet, careful father. When her dads had been in love, Pom called Pops his ‘kite string,’ keeping hold of him so he didn’t fly off into the ether. And Pops had called Pom his ‘sparkle.’ They’d been a perfect example of opposites attracting, each filling in the lack in the other.
But when their love had started to form cracks in the foundation, the first thing they’d lost is patience for their differences. Instead of a ‘kite string,’ Pom had begun to see Pops’ methodical, prudent approach to life as a noose. And instead of sparkle, Pops had become frustrated by Pom’s ‘attention-seeking.’ They’d held on far longer than they should have, because they hadn’t wanted Autumn to lose her foundation of a happy home.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t been nearly as circumspect about their decaying relationship as they’d believed. Autumn had seen it happening, but nobody—least of all her—had wanted to talk about it. Even Pom had been buttoned up about it. As a result, she’d been doing this equity dance between them since long before they’d taken off their wedding rings. Now this gentle, benignly intended tug of war was simply a feature of their relationships.
She set a plate before Pops and kissed the top of his head, still lush with ruddy blond hair, though it was thickly streaked with white now. “Happy birthday, Pops.”
He reached up and held her head to his for an extra beat. “Love you, little lassie.”
“You look like your mind is busy,” she said as she sat down across from him with her own plate and glass.
“Not especially. But this looks beautiful.” He picked up his silverware and cut into the salmon. His eyes rolled back with his first bite. “Perfection. You’re such a good cook, honey.”
“Thank you. I love cooking for you. You don’t want to talk about what’s on your mind tonight?”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing.” Autumn watched him steadily until he chuckled and said, “Okay, it’s nothing particularly important. I lost a case today, and it’s eating at me.”
“What case? Can you tell me?” He never talked about cases he was actively working on, and he was equally mum about cases involving clients who had him on retainer.
“Sure. It was in the news. A pro bono case with an evicted family. The jury decided for the landlord. She has six children—three of her own, and three of her sister’s, who was killed two years ago. I was able to get them temporary housing while the case was pending, but they’ll lose that in ten days now. She lost her job as a home-care aide getting evicted, and he sold or discarded all her belongings. She and those kids have nothing.”
“Can you appeal?”
“Technically, sure. But I don’t think the judge made any reversible errors. Nor did I. Our tenancy laws don’t do much for the tenants, sadly. There’s wiggle room on both sides, and I did everything I could think of for the jury to give Mrs. Henderson that room, but they gave it to the guy who emptied out her apartment while she was working a double shift and sold or trashed all her belongings when she was only one month behind on her rent.”
Without realizing her father was involved, Autumn had seen a news story about the case online. “She was also breaking the occupancy limit of her lease agreement, wasn’t she?”
Pops turned a gently disappointed look on her. “Don’t be a real estate person right now, Autumn.”
She felt her cheeks go warm. “Sorry—I didn’t mean it that way. I meant do you think that’s why the jury wasn’t swayed? Because there were seven people in that little apartment? One bedroom, right? She’d been out of compliance with the lease for two years. So did the jury agree he was within his rights to act as he did?”
“I don’t know the jury’s thinking. I only know the verdict. But yes, they found for him, so it’s reasonable to assume they believe he was in his rights.” He focused on his salmon and veggies for a couple bites and sipped more wine before he added, “But she wasn’t hoarding children, Autumn. They were packed into that small apartment because she couldn’t afford anything bigger. And the apartment was in good shape. Crowded as they were, they took care of the space, and they were quiet. All their nearest neighbors testified on their behalf. But the jury, it seems, was more interested in the piece of paper than the human beings involved.”
A contract—a so-called ‘piece of paper’—was meant to protect both sides. Of course contracts could be, and often were, written to favor one side over the other, but the other side had to sign off. They had to agree, had to consent. Of course they could also be, and often were, written in complicated and abstruse verbiage meant to disguise and distract; this was why the common advice to consult an attorney before signing a contract was excellent counsel.
Pops was now a generalist, with his own office and two associates, but he’d been a corporate patent attorney while she was growing up. He understood very well about contracts and the ways they were written. However, Autumn knew not to press that point. For him, the case in question wasn’t about what was legal but what was moral—and that very question was why he’d left corporate law.
She absolutely understood his point. In fact, she agreed with it to a great extent. There was a lot of dirty dealing and exploitation of naiveté in the business world. Everybody was trying to climb over the other guy and position themselves on top. In the corporate world, that was accepted, both sides were wrangling words as hard as they could be wrangled, so deals ultimately turned out fairly balanced. But big sectors of the business world had businesspeople on one side and regular ‘civilians’ on the other, and the civilians got screwed hard as a matter of course. In the name of ‘just doing business.’
See, for instance, the entire car-sales industry.
And also, yes, significant segments of the real-estate industry.
But from within such an industry, there were ways to find balance. So she told Pops, “I can reach out and see if I can find housing for her and the kids.” Her network in the Indiana real estate scene—and throughout the Midwest, really—was wide and deep. She was confident she could find someone who had Section 8 housing they needed to fill quickly so they could proceed with renting and/or selling their unencumbered units. There was generally a long waiting list for Section 8, but Autumn had ways of helping somebody jump the line.
The relief in her father’s smile seemed to light him from the inside. “That would be wonderful, lass. I adore my beautiful new pen, but this would be an even greater gift—a load off my mind.”
“Consider it done,” Autumn said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. She’d spent a grand on a limited edition Montblanc fountain pen for his collection; she could probably get the ‘greater gift’ done with a phone call or two. “But don’t tell Mrs. Henderson until I actually have a place for her.”
“Of course not.” He lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. “I love you so much, little lass. Now. Tell your Pops everything that’s been going on this week.”
Autumn grinned and told him all about the developing plans for breaking ground in Signal Bend.
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~oOo~
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Autumn realized her jaw had dropped. She closed her mouth and swallowed. “I’m sorry, what?”
Clearly loving her shock, Chase grinned impishly at her. “You heard me. I’m going to Missouri with you.”
They were sitting at a conference table with her entire team, five other people, so she couldn’t react the way her whole insides were reacting—a riot was going on inside her. Out loud, she smiled tightly and said, “Really? That’s unusual for you.”
The man hated to travel, and he most especially hated to travel for work. One of his standing ‘jokes’ was there were only three conditions that would induce him to leave town: a Mai Tai and a hot chick in a bikini waiting for him when he got there, blue skies and great golf or skiing, or somebody offering him a big sack of money.
None of those conditions applied to Signal Bend. Possibly the third, but they were quite a ways from that project paying out.
Chase scanned the table, making sure he had everyone’s attention. He did, of course. He’d had everyone’s attention since he’d hijacked this meeting; they were all keenly interested in him getting out of the way so they could return to their actual work.
Once he was sure everyone was watching, he shrugged, putting some sass into it, like a high school sophomore trying to get under the teacher’s skin. “Hey—you’re about to break ground on a brand-new development initiative. If this ‘Heartland Homestead’ is a hit, it could be transformational for MWGP and even commercial real estate in general. Obviously I want to be there.”
Big claims from the guy who’d just used air quotes when he’d spoken the name of this transformational project.
Autumn agreed that the project could in fact be broadly transformational; it was the heart of her inspiration for it, and she was the one who’d first planted those claims in Chase’s head. But Chase loved to diminish her ideas with one hand while he funded them with the other. He didn’t do that with any other VP (all of whom were men); only with her. Like he was trying to keep the little lady in her place.
Not like that. Exactly that. Well into the twenty-first century, still women had to fight for every inch of the corporate ladder and smile through daily disregard and diminishment.
Dear sweet goddess above, she absolutely did not want the man to accompany her on a business trip. She’d worked at MWGP for a decade, she’d worked fairly closely with Chase for a several years, and she knew how to manage him, how to keep him balanced on the line between inappropriate and real harassment. But that was in the office. What would he be like out of town? Would he expect her to spend off hours with him as well, acting like a tour guide through Signal Bend? Play cruise director for him? Take him to Marie’s and explain how if you want to get fed at all, you don’t try to order off the menu there?
Oh god. Would he consider dinner a date?
Right now, with her team watching, none of those questions could be answered. Right now, she needed to get him out of this damned conference room so she and her team could get back to work and finish the details of the groundbreaking. And then she needed to sit down and figure out how to dissuade him from this trip or, if she could not, how to set strong boundaries he would recognize and respect without making him so defensive it hurt her career.
She slapped the most anodyne smile she could craft on her face. “Can we talk about that this afternoon? When we finalize the plans here, I’ll be able to share them with you then.”
His brightly whitened teeth gleamed through his sharkish grin as he stared straight at her. “I think that’s a hint I’m supposed to take. What do y’all think?” He looked around the table at people whose names she’d be shocked if he knew. Everyone chuckled politely but nobody offered an opinion.
Slapping his hands on the table, Chase stood. “I guess I’ll take the hint. Carry on, troops—and Autumn, come straight to my office when you’re done.”
Thus reminding everyone that he was the big dog in this junkyard, Charlton Isley III strode from the room, leaving the door standing open.
Autumn went to close it. She turned and, without a single word or look to show even one drop of the fury storming through her blood, she said, “Let’s get back to it.”