8
“So,” I try to sound light and breezy, not disappointed and confused. “I think the coverage turned out great, even if Josh couldn’t make it.”
I enlarge the photo from the ribbon cutting earlier this week and shift my laptop around on the cold wood table, wishing they didn’t keep the conference rooms at temperatures fit to house penguins and polar bears. Dad and some of our PR team members sit across from me, along with a few PR staffers from Bell Construction.
“That’s great Su—”
“Mr. Canton, sir?” Our receptionist’s voice cuts through the room, a bit garbled in the overhead speaker.
“Yes, Holly?”
“Um, sir the Bells are here.”
As she says it, the Bell employees across from us get notifications on their phones and laptops. I watch their eyes go wide and their spines straighten.
Something is going down.
Something big.
“Leeland!” Dad bolts out of his chair with a smile as Mr. Bell files in with Josh, Adam, and I think the company vice president and maybe their head of marketing? I’m not sure. I am sure that they all look like someone died.
My heart flips at the sight of Josh. I try to catch his eyes but he keeps his gaze on the floor. He doesn’t look angry but he doesn’t look well. He seems sick and tired and…holy crap, is he dying?
Susan. Be serious.
“Jon. We have a situation. Call your lawyers.” Leeland doesn’t bother smiling back as he gives my dad orders.
“Lawyers?” My dad’s head jerks back in surprise. Josh’s dad looks at the lower level staffers around the table. “Alright, uh, excuse us everybody, C-Suite only please.”
Well, okay then. C-suite doesn’t include me, not yet. I get up to go.
“Susan, uh, honey, well, maybe you should stay.” Mr. Bell adds. I slowly lower myself down into my chair, as dread works its way up into my chest. There’s the awful feeling of collective held breath as the staffers scurry out of the room.
“Well? Whatever it is, I’m sure our teams can handle it.” My dad starts as soon as the room has been cleared of all lower-level personnel. Except me.
“I’ll cut right to it. Last night Joshua was caught in a…compromising position.”
A what?
Last night…
The phrase just hangs there, no one daring to touch it with a ten foot pole. My dad clears his throat and that’s enough to finally get Leeland to continue.
“I have friends at the Tulsa World, as I’m sure you do as well, they let me know that they’re running the story this afternoon.” At that, the big cowboy simply hands his phone to my father. I watch my dad…fold.
First his face loses its color, then the air leaves his lungs, and finally his knees seem to give out. The big rolling chair shifts backward an inch when he collapses into it.
“Dad?” I whisper.
“The girl has been paid off, she’s not pressing charges or providing comment. But I couldn’t pay the World off. They said it’s just, quote, ‘too juicy.’”
The girl.
Compromising position.
Paid off.
Like…a sex tape?
“Juicy?” Stan, our head of PR scoffs. “Jon, Leeland, please. I know you may be old school but we all know people have sex. He’s an NBA star, c’mon. I don’t see how a sex tape will—” His mouth snaps shut as soon as my dad hands over Leeland’s phone.
“I don’t want anywhere near this.” My dad blurts, sounding gruffer than I’ve heard him in my life. He shifts his body as if shielding me. “Her deal is off.”
“Now, wait Jon. You’re near this whether you like it our not. Our partnership is public, so this already affects you.”
Dad shakes his head, frustrated. “Thank God, Thank God, they only went on a few dates.”
“Dad?” I say, louder.
“The deal. Is. Off!” My normally very calm, very peppy dad levels a glare at Josh that sends a shiver down my spine. And Josh…nods.
“Josh?” I speak up much louder now. Because that’s it? A nod? We’ve been dating for months! We’ve kissed, we’ve loosely talked about weddings and houses and kids and even though we didn’t…go all the way, of course, we made out a little. Kind of…wait. Is he gay? I don’t see how that’s such a big—
“Shit.” Stan is now muttering curses under his breath, but I catch a little bit of what he says. “Sharing a girl consensually is one thing, but you can see in this video she was clearly drugged.”
Drugged?!
What the heck!
“Josh. Dad. I want to see it.”
“No.” My father replies.
“I’m sorry Susan, you’re a sweet girl. You’ll find some—” Josh starts.
“YOU shut your mouth!” Leeland bellows at his son so loud the icy glass walls of the conference room vibrate. “You’re here to apologize and work with our legal teams, that’s it!” Adam coughs uncomfortably next to his brother, “And YOU.” Josh’s dad jabs his pointer finger from one brother to the next. “You knew how carried away he’d gotten with his women and his drugs, and you said nothing! Damn it, you let him get caught on video!”
Josh sniffs.
No.
No!
My skin grows so hot so fast I’m suddenly grateful for the frost gathering in the air condition vent above my head. But it’s not cold enough.
Because I’m so stupid. I am SO STUPID.
Allergies?!
I’m a sweet girl who was crushing on a lying, cocaine sniffing…what, gang banger?
“I want to see it.” The men start to protest but I raise my voice. “I could get asked questions. I am not a child, Dad. I need to know what we’re dealing with.” Amazingly, I keep my voice calm and my face relaxed.
Until I see it.
It’s not just that there are multiple guys gathered around one very out-of-it girl. It’s just…dark. The setting is some kind of dirty abandoned factory, a rave or something, if people still have those? Some of the guys have creepy masks on. The girl’s whole vibe is what I would describe as gothic. Dominatrix. Forbidden. Black leather and eye liner and spikes, chains…and Josh.
He’s clearly the target of the video. The camera keeps zeroing in on the girl—her hooded eyes and stumbling feet—and his face…it’s like he’s in heaven. Surrounded by what I would consider hell. The camera pans down to watch him guide her hand to join his own hand that’s gripping his—I throw the phone on the table and recoil.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
So, yesterday evening when I was stranded waiting for him at the children's hospital, thinking about our photo opp and worried about our family legacies he was…there. Doing that.
Stupid stupid stupid!
No wonder he never really touched me.
He must look at me like a twelve year old little pollyanna. A blonde, bland goody two shoes. I back myself into the wall, starting to slide toward the nearest door. I will not cry now. I will not cry like a kid in front of him. Susan, DO NOT CRY.
“Like I said, Leeland,” Dad repeats, “Deal’s off.”
“I don’t see why? As you pointed out, they only went on a few dates and those dates weren’t exactly convincing.” He throws those words at Josh, accusing. Disappointed. Yeah, that makes two of us. No, made. Made two of us. “They were just doing the corporate thing, representing the company. The real romance must have been budding elsewhere.”
I freeze. My eyes fly open of their own will.
My dad tilts his head. “I don’t follow…”
“Adam will marry Susan.”
I screech out a “What?!” Just as Adam says, “Dad, no!”
But Mr.Bell goes on. “They’re the same age, they see each other on campus, ya see. It was fate, God was just guiding these two kids together through the older brother. Adam,” Leeland glares, “will do a better job of convincing the world they’re dating.”
“No, I’m not doing it,” Adam mutters.
But his dad is undeterred, still laying out our future as if we’re not even in the room. “Josh is going to rehab—”
“I’m what?!” Josh finally wakes up and joins us in what’s happening.
“Dad, please,” Adam tries but his father doesn’t stop.
“—and won’t be anywhere near the public face of Bell Construction the rest of his embarrassing life, thanks to the internet. Nothing is ever really forgotten or gone, so he will have to be. Adam is now my successor. He actually knows how to swing a hammer, at least.”
Adam stands so fast his chair flies backward behind him. “Dad, listen! I am not doing this!” The second Bell brother looks…distraught. Devastated, even. It’s the most animated I’ve ever seen him…and, and it’s because he cannot stand the thought of marrying me. I grab the nearest chair and fold into it just like my father did minutes ago.
The room is still, thick, awkward.
Flames must be starting all over my skin, I’m so thoroughly embarrassed. Allergies. What an idiot. A stupid, silly little fool.
“Dad, please, I can’t,” Adam’s voice is softer now. Grating, like it’s being pulled out of his throat without permission.
“You can. You will. You’ve always hated being second in line well, son, here you go. It’s done.”
“Now wait a minute. It’s not done. Susan,” My father turns from Mr. Bell to me. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to do this.”
“Sadie then?” Leeland says pointedly.
Dad’s head snaps back to Leeland so fast it’s like he’s been slapped. “Excuse me?”
The cowboy’s whole countenance changes. I feel like I’m watching fiction, a real life version of the moment a villain reveals their true identity in a Disney cartoon. The lighting shifts, the shadows stretch under Leeland’s eyes and I swear, the air in here just chilled even more.
“You think you have a choice? You owe us, Jon, not the other way around. Look at your books. Look at how much I’ve loaned you. The hit I’m taking on every one of your properties. Nothing has changed. Except,” he side eyes Josh again, “That maybe we need to be associated with your wholesome family brand bullshit now more than ever. So, if not Susan then Sadie. She’s finishing high school, right? We can’t wait any longer than her.” My dad starts shaking his head but Leeland has us, and everyone in the room knows it. “Susan, Sadie or bankruptcy. Public scandal, all the misdeeds of your idiot brother in tomorrow’s paper, right next to my sorry excuse for a son.”
“No, we’ll work something else out, I’ll…we…”
I know, as I see the terror in my father’s eyes.
This is it.
This is the before-and-after turning point of my life.
Not the moment Dad said he’d arranged a marriage for me, not looking at that disturbing video, but here, now. Whoever I was, whatever I felt or believed before, whatever juvenile dreams I had…the white picket pile of crap. They are all gone now. Now it’s just my harsh reality.
Blackmail. Truth. Responsibilities.
Because I can’t do it. I cannot, will not let my family’s legacy end here, today. Like this.
I’m also not going to let Sadie suffer through this. She’s so sensitive, so emotional and volatile. She’s a romantic. A sham marriage? With someone who seems to hate our family? It would kill her.
So I’m only a little surprised when the words come out, even though I didn’t plan to say them. My voice is soft, small, but resolute, “It’s fine, Dad. I’ll do it.”
“No, Susan, my girl, you don’t…I’ll… we can…” But he’s not even really trying to convince me. When Leeland grew, lengthened, towered over this room, my dad…shrank. He has no fight left. He is a man defeated.
It makes me physically sick.
I hate that they’ve done this to him. My uncle may have made some mistakes but it’s the Bells, it’s Leeland who’s snuffed out the spark I’ve seen in my father’s eyes everyday since I was born.
“What?” Adam exhales the word, shocked. He looks at his dad, then my dad and back again. My father, my hero, dips his chin in shame as Leeland nods once, triumphant. I can’t really move at all. And Adam’s head is just shaking, his mouth hanging open.
I study him for the first time. It would be funny, if our world wasn’t imploding around us right now, how he seems to be in opposition with, well everything.
This room is all cold air and cool colors. He’s tanned and sweating in a warm red OU shirt, his hair seeming more dark brown now than almost black. The table, chairs and lines in this room are all sharp and angular in contrast to his round muscles. His shoulders are huge, his biceps, too. It’s a little distracting now that I notice it…who buys his shirts? Why do they buy them a size too small?
“Dad,” He snaps me back to reality as he pleads the word under his breath, hands on hips, anger radiating off of what I’d now call his hulking arms and chest. He looks up at the ceiling, his thick neck straining, veins bulging, and yells, “DAMN IT!”
Then, ripping open the door so hard the handle nicks a dent in the drywall, my future husband storms out of the room, without even a single glance at me.
“He’ll come around. Now. Let’s make a plan for exactly how we’re going to clean up this mess, eh?” Leeland says the words casually but the stare he levels at his VP is threatening enough I hear the poor woman gulp. Stan leans forward in his chair and shifts closer to my dad. Papers start to shuffle and chairs roll closer to the table. “Let’s start with Josh, then we’ll make plans for Adam and Susan…”