Part 21
Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:55 am
First off, I think we need to take a moment to give credit to BB for being on top of everyone else for the first time so far in this fic. [insert applause here]
BB:
Ellie:
cjensen2: First off, hey. I'm glad you came back for the sequel.
Novy:
Leila:
It's a long fic.
dreambeliever:
Christina:
Thanks for all the feedback! I really appreciate it!
This part mainly focuses on Max, Alex, and Isabel, so sorry if it's a bit of a downer. But it's an important part, gives you some answers to some long-asked questions.
Part 21
Max picked apart his breakfast the next morning. There was so much whipped cream on the French toast that he couldn’t taste the toast. The whipped cream was nice, though, woke him up a little.
Yolanda approached the table, seemingly proud but wary of the meal she’d cooked. “Miss Liz, how is the taste?” she asked hesitantly.
“Oh, everything’s great, Yolanda,” Liz assured her readily. “Thank you.”
Yolanda smiled and refilled Liz’s coffee. Once she was gone, Liz leaned across the table and said, “You know, we should really give her a raise. Or let her move into the pool house or something. I love Yolanda.”
I’ll have to fire her soon, Max thought. She’ll probably want a letter of recommendation.
“Max? Did you get any sleep at all last night? You’re so out of it.”
He snapped himself out of his thoughts. “What?”
She gave him an impatient look.
“Sorry,” he apologized.
“Are you okay? I think you’re working too hard.”
He grunted. He’d devoted his entire life to work for . . . well, for most of his life. And even that wasn’t enough. “How’d you do on that test?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.
Liz shrugged and shoveled a forkful of toast into her mouth. “He hasn’t posted grades yet, but I feel pretty good about it.”
He nodded. “And how’s work for you?”
“Uneventful. Isabel stopped by yesterday. That’s about it.”
Isabel. Contempt roared through her veins at the mere mention of his sister. “She should just stay out of our lives,” he grumbled.
“I think she just wanted to annoy someone. She was all, ‘Would you love Max no matter what?’” Liz rolled her eyes. “Stupid.”
Or not, he thought, wondering. It was a question he’d asked himself a lot within the past few months. “What’d you say?”
“I just told her to leave.”
He frowned. “So you didn’t answer the question.”
“No, why should I?”
He set his silverware down, worried. Maybe the answer was no. Isabel was a perceptive person; maybe she knew something he didn’t. “Well, would you?” he asked.
“Would I . . . love you no matter what?” She gave him a confused look. “Of course. That’s not even a question.”
He felt like breathing a sigh of relief, but he nodded calmly instead. “Good.” The coming months weren’t going to be pretty; but if she stuck it out with him, he’d stick it out with her. It was too bad things couldn’t just stay the way they were.
****
“An affair we could spin to your advantage. Even a love child or a DUI. But not rape.” Roger shook his head as he paced back and forth in Max’s office, the infamous issue of Corporate in hand. “It’s the one thing everybody with a soul knows is wrong. But you did it, and now you’re paying for it. Literally.”
Max rolled his eyes. He didn’t need a lecture on the morality (or lack thereof) of his actions. He needed the story to go away. Revenue was already down thirty percent.
“Let’s figure out who brought this public and pay her to retract her claims,” Roger suggested, dropping the magazine into the trash.
The wheels of Max’s mind turned as he tried to figure things out. “It doesn’t make sense. None of those girls even remember it happening. They were drunk. Or drugged or both. I think the only one who remembers is . . . Maria.” He tried to picture Maria approaching some business-oriented magazine and relaying the events of that night as tabloid gossip, though, and he couldn’t. “But what does she have to gain from going public in a magazine? If she was gonna tell anyone, she’d tell a lawyer, sue my ass.” It wasn’t Maria. Couldn’t be. She’d moved on from what he’d done to her.
“That’s a good point, Max,” Roger said, pulling up a chair beside him. “Whoever reported this hasn’t brought a lawsuit against you. Clearly she’s not out for money or justice. So the question becomes, who do you know who hates you enough to ruin your life just for the hell of it?”
Max narrowed his eyes, contemplating. When Roger put it like that, only one answer came to mind.
****
Max looked around his house. The marble countertops, the four-course breakfast, the dutiful maid, the happy wife . . . in a matter of weeks, all of this would be gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess smelled breakfast when she entered Michael and Maria’s house. Maria was in the kitchen scrambling up some eggs and buttering toast. Michael was asleep on the living room couch, his mouth hanging open just slightly, his right arm and leg dangling to the floor.
“Hey,” Tess said quietly.
“Hey,” Maria returned.
“How you doin’?”
“Better. I actually got some sleep last night.”
Tess glanced back into the living room. Michael was snoring lightly.
“Yeah, he was up all night taking care of Macy,” Maria explained. “She kept crying and crying and crying, and he didn’t want me to have to deal with it.”
Tess smiled. “Aw, that’s so sweet.”
“I know. See, this is what you have to look forward to when you’re a parent: sleepless nights.”
“Yeah.” She honestly did look forward to sleepless nights, though. Who needed sleep when you had a beautiful baby to occupy your time? “Hey, speaking of that . . . I told Kyle.”
Maria turned down the heat on the stove. “Told Kyle what?”
Tess just bit her bottom lip and smiled.
Maria’s eyes widened as she understood. “Oh my god. Tess, that’s huge! What’d he say?”
“He basically said he’d think about it and get back to me.” She cringed.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So, not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. But at least he didn’t completely shut me down.”
“Yeah.” Maria used the spatula to lift the eggs out of the frying pan and onto the plate. “He’s probably just surprised.”
Tess sat down at the table, wringing her hands together nervously. “I think he was. But hopefully once he thinks about it, he’ll realize what a good idea it is.”
“Yeah, he will.” Maria took a second plate out of the cabinet and piled a small amount of eggs onto it, handing it to Tess. “Keep me updated, okay? It’s good for me to think about . . . good things.”
Tess smiled sympathetically. Maria was trying to be so strong, and in all fairness, she really was handling it pretty well. But still, she felt the need to assure her, “Your mom’s gonna be here for all sorts of good things, like your wedding and the birth of my baby, whenever it happens. And when it does happen, she’ll technically be Grandma Amy. Again.”
Maria poured herself a glass of orange juice and sat down next to Tess to eat her breakfast. “She said she doesn’t want her cancer to control my life,” she said, “so I won’t let it. But I do know one thing for sure: I’ll feel a hell of a lot better once I get my own mammogram out of the way.” She shuddered.
“I know.” Tess didn’t want her best friend to have to do that alone, so she added, “Hey, you know what? I’ll go with you. I’ll get one done, too.”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, it’s a good idea.” There was nothing wrong with taking precautions. She was at risk, too, since her mother had suffered from it, and she'd prolonged it until now. “We’ll do it together.”
Maria thought about it for a moment and decided, “That sounds a little less scary.”
Tess nodded in agreement.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Isabel poured a mountain of Fruit Loops into her son’s cereal bowl and instructed, “Say when,” as she poured milk in along with it. She kept pouring, waiting for him to stop her, but he didn’t. Finally, as the bowl was about to overflow, she decided, “Fine, I’ll say it for you. When,” and stopped pouring the milk. Garret dug his spoon onto the bowl, haphazardly splashing milk onto the table. Isabel refrained from saying anything. It didn’t really matter. Their kitchen table was crappy anyway.
Her cell phone rang, and she sensed it was Billy, so she slipped into the other room to answer it. “Hey, loser,” she said quietly. Alex was already at work, but she didn’t want to take any chance that Garret would overhear her.
“Hey, baby. I just wanna let you know I gotta take off for a few days.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Lorenzo scored me some gigs in Colorado.”
She sat down on the arm of the couch, defeated. “Are you kidding me? Billy, this is a very stressful and pissed off time in my life. I need you here.”
“I’ll be back this weekend.”
That meant days without proper sex. “I can’t believe you’re choosing music over me.”
“Babe, I gotta go,” he insisted. “I could get a record deal.”
“Oh, please, your music’s better than it used to be, but it’s still not that good.” She angrily slammed her phone closed and threw it at the wall. The battery popped out the back.
“Dammit,” she swore, standing up. She bent down to pick up the phone and battery, and when she turned back around, her brother was also standing in the living room. “Max!” she shrieked, startled. She immediately worried how much of her phone conversation he’d heard. “How long have you been standing there?”
He just shrugged in response.
“Well, that was the . . . plumber,” she lied.
“You need your pipes cleaned?”
She glared at him. He probably knew more than he should have. Her brother was surely a dumbass, but this was the second time in recent history he’d overheard her on the phone with Billy. He had to suspect something. “What’re you doing here, Max?” She glanced back into the kitchen. Garret was still eating his cereal, making a mess.
“Nothing much,” Max replied. “I just figured it’s about time I confront you about this.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a rolled up magazine, dropping it onto the floor at her feet.
She bent down and picked it up. “Ah, the article that rightfully accuses you of being a rapist.” She grinned. “I swear, I’ve read this thing, like, a thousand times.”
“I’m sure you have.” He seized the magazine back from her and flipped it open to the article about him. “‘An anonymous source claims that Maxwell Evans, youngest multi-millionaire of the southwest, took advantage of her sexually while she was in a drunken state,’” he read aloud. “An anonymous source claims that.”
She shrugged. “Karma.”
“You.”
She flinched but tried to disguise it. “Me?”
“You did this.”
She laughed ruefully. “Why would I?”
“Because you could never handle the fact that Dad liked me better.”
Her entire body clenched. Her brother and her dad versus her. Some things never changed.
****
“Ugh, I swear, my brother is the lifelong thorn in my side!” Isabel stopped and did a line a coke, then resumed her pacing and ranting in Billy’s bedroom. “He won’t promote my husband. He won’t give me a job. And do you know why? Because he says he can’t trust me.”
Billy lay back on the bed and undid his pants. “Smart guy.”
“No, not smart. Lucky. Max has never had to work hard for anything. He was born a boy, so everything was just handed to him on a silver platter. I swear, if he ever fought for anything he wanted, I’d probably die of shock.”
Billy gazed at her. “I’m gonna write a song about you.”
She could barely hear him over the sounds of her own fury. “You know, I could have money and mansions and maids if I’d been born an only child. I could have all sorts of power. And unlike my brother, I’d know what to do with it.”
“Baby, come here.” Billy tried to slip one of his feet between her legs.
“No.” She backed away, not at all in the mood. “You know what I think? I think it’s time Max learns a lesson.” After all these years of him messing up her life, it was about time she did something to mess up his.
An hour later, she was at the office of Corporate magazine, one of her absolute favorite publications. She’d worn one of Billy’s baseball caps, along with his Nirvana t-shirt, to help disguise her appearance. She also had on a brown wig they liked to do role-play in, and big, black sunglasses that covered most of her face. She walked right up to the front desk and got the secretary’s attention. “Hi,” she said, “I assume your staff is acquainted with Max Evans of Evans Hotels.” She didn’t wait for a response. “I’ve got a story for your little magazine here.” It took everything she had not to smile as she said the untrue words. “Max Evans raped me.”
****
He glared at her, looking as though he could kill her for this. “That’s a lie.”
“Is it?” She took one more glance into the kitchen, just to make sure Garret wasn’t listening. “You raped me of a career that was supposed to be mine.”
“Get over it.”
“And you have raped dozens of girls.” She shrugged. “This is just feminism at its finest.”
“Or its most pathetic.” He clenched the magazine tightly in his hands, crumpling all the pages. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I’ve created an obstacle,” she stated simply. “Overcome it.” If he was half as great as he thought he was, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. It was just an accusation. Many a man had thrived upon a rape legacy.
“You’re so jealous,” he said.
“I didn’t get them to write this article out of jealousy.”
“Like hell you didn’t.”
“I got them to write it out of courage.” She traipsed her fingers through her hair, loving the look on his face. Frustration. Finally, he got to feel as frustrated as she did. “Face it, Max: The reason why we’ll never get along is because we’re the only two people in the world courageous enough to take each other on. Although, if you’re gonna get all pissy over a little article, maybe you’re not that brave after all.”
He shook his head angrily. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I upset you. That thrills me.”
“You think you know so much about business, but you don’t. You don’t know what a story like this does to me.”
“It humiliates you.” She was fine with that.
“It ruins me,” he said emphatically. “It ruins my company, it ruins my life. I’m losing everything because of you.”
For the first time since she’d initiated the article, she felt uneasy about it. “What’re you talking about?” How could he lose everything? He’d always have the company, even though he didn’t deserve it.
“Nobody wants to do business with an accused rapist,” he explained. “All the investors, all the customers . . . you see, there’s this little thing in business called integrity—it’s rare but important. And when you violate a person’s most basic human rights, you tend to lose any and all integrity you have.”
That sounded like his fault, not hers. “Then you shouldn’t have violated anyone.”
“Isabel, you don’t get it.” He stared at her with panic in his eyes and said, “My company is gone.”
She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. No, it wasn’t. She would have known about it. Everyone would have known about it.
“I mean, it’s still here, but not for much longer,” he explained. “It’s dying a slow and painful death, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing. I’ve been trying to keep it on the down-low, but it doesn’t matter anymore. In a matter of weeks, maybe even days, Evans Hotels will cease to exist.”
Isabel stared at him in astonishment, mouth agape. He had to be lying. Or joking. This was some kind of strange joke that only Max, with his non-sense of humor, could understand. The company couldn’t just die out. It was huge. It was powerful. It was supposed to have been hers.
He flapped his arms helplessly against his sides. “Are you happy now? I can’t overcome your ‘obstacle.’ It’s the end of me. I’ll have no job, no money. But on the bright side, at least you’ll never swindle the company out of me.” He laughed angrily. “You’ll never get it. You see, Isabel, you have a bad habit of sabotaging yourself. No company, no Michael . . .”
She furrowed her brow deeply. How dare a piece of scum like Max even say that name.
“Oh, well.” He shrugged. “At least we can have bleak futures together.”
She got that it wasn’t a joke. But it still didn’t seem real. “There has to be something you can do,” she said. “Let me help you.”
“I think you’ve done enough.” He shoved the crumpled magazine into her hands. “All I have to do is break the news to the few employees I have left.” Before she could even get the question out, he added, “And yes, that includes Alex.”
Oh, no, she thought, suddenly as panicked as he was. Alex was going to lose his job. It was the job that supported their family. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills, paid the mortgage, paid for Garret’s clothes so he could look nice for Miley Guerin.
“I have to fire my best friend,” Max said pityingly. “I have to fire my nephew’s father. And when this is all said and done, I won’t be able to help him, or Garret or even you. I won’t have a penny to my name. You guys will be on your own.”
She averted her eyes, unable to conceal her fear.
“Something tells me you didn’t expect this to happen. Careless, Isabel,” he taunted. “Didn’t Dad teach you anything? Whenever you make a risky maneuver, always think ahead.”
She tore the magazine from his grasp and backed away from him. “I hate you,” she ground out.
“I hate you, too.” He smiled angrily. “But congratulations. You brought down the bad guy.” As he turned and walked out the front door, he muttered, “Unfortunately you brought down your own family along with him.”
She stood motionless in the living room once he was gone, clutching the shreds of manipulation in her hands. Garret called to her from the kitchen, asking if she was okay, but she couldn’t even answer him. It was just meant to have been an article, embarrassing but harmless. It wasn’t meant to be this. But she should have known it would be. Nothing ever went the way it was supposed to. Not for her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael walked around C4 in a fog, barely able to keep his eyes open and yawning uncontrollably. It’d been a long night. He didn’t understand why Macy had to be her loudest and most uncooperative on the nights when he and Maria needed sleep the most. All that mattered was that Maria had gotten to rest, though. He was okay.
“Are you sure you’re able to work today?” Kyle asked him. “You look like you’re a zombie.”
“I am.” Michael yawned again. “I’m so glad Tess took Miley and Macy to work with her today. I love my kids, but they wear me out.”
Kyle laughed a little, but he seemed uptight about something. “Of course she took them,” he mumbled. “She’s probably practicing.”
Michael hopped up onto the front counter, grabbing a copy of their latest inventory report to look over. “For when you guys have kids?”
“Yep.”
“That’s not a bad idea. It could happen any day now.”
Kyle grunted. “Oh, trust me, I know. Last night, we’re about to do it . . . I got my pants down, and you know what she says?” He paused for dramatic effect. “‘I wanna have a baby.’”
“Really? She said that?”
Kyle nodded.
“Huh.” Michael had suspected for awhile now that Tess felt that way, but he hadn’t expected her to tell Kyle about it yet. “Wow, congratulations.”
“What, con-congratulations?” Kyle sputtered. “First off, she’s not pregnant yet. Second, I was hoping for more of a ‘whoa’ or ‘golly.’”
Michael arched an eyebrow. “Golly?”
“Don’t you think this is a big deal?”
Michael shrugged. “Well, yeah, but you guys will be great parents. I’ll be a fantastic uncle.” He smiled at just the thought of it. “And it’ll be nice for Miley and Macy to have some cousins to play with.”
Kyle looked at him nervously. “Okay, this isn’t like a definitive thing, like there’s definitely gonna be cousins. No, it’s still up in the air.”
Michael frowned. “What’s stopping you?”
“Uh, the fact that I’m only twenty-four for starters.”
“Yeah, but you’re done with college, married,” Michael pointed out. “You got a nice house, successful business.” When Maria had gotten pregnant, he’d been a junior living in an apartment, working part-time at an art museum on campus.
“Okay, but let’s put this in perspective,” Kyle suggested readily. “A decade ago, I was fourteen. Fourteen, man. I hadn’t even gone through puberty yet. And now it’s baby time?” He flapped his arms at his sides. “I don’t think so.”
“I had a daughter a decade after I turned eleven,” Michael pointed out.
Kyle glared. “But that’s you. I’m still a spaz. I don’t know if I could handle it.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Michael hopped down off the counter, heading back into his office to get some coffee. He needed a serious jolt of energy.
Kyle followed him, still worrying out loud. “But this isn’t just a test drive. I can’t get behind the wheel of fatherhood, decide it doesn’t handle well, and opt out of the purchase. This is an all or nothing deal.”
Michael poured coffee into his World’s Greatest Dad mug and continued to assure his friend. “Look, for what it’s worth, if you and Tess decide to do this, Maria and I are gonna be here for you, just like you guys are for us. But if you’re really not ready, just tell Tess you’re not ready. She’ll understand.”
“Oh, I don’t know if she will,” Kyle argued. “You didn’t see that look in her eyes when she told me. She’s . . . really invested in this.”
Michael took a sip of his hot coffee, still not understanding the issue. In his mind, Tess’s baby mention was a good thing. Whether Kyle was ready for it or not, they had the opportunity to plan a pregnancy, either now or down the road. Lots of people didn’t have that chance.
“Our lives can never just be boring, can they?” Kyle mused. “We always gotta have something going on. Amy’s cancer, my potential fatherhood, your sexlessness.”
Michael chuckled. “Yeah, but the way I look at it, things could always be worse.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Max felt fairly certain his life couldn’t be any worse than it currently was. He felt like such a failure. His father had entrusted the company to him after his death. He was supposed to have done great things with it. The worst part was that Phillip Evans had been attempting to change his will shortly before his heart attack. He’d known. The bastard had known that Max couldn’t handle it.
He sat in his office having downed about half a dozen shots of tequila, staring at the phone. He’d been debating whether or not to call Roger all day. It seemed in a way that Roger should be the last one he should fire. But it didn’t really matter at this point, and maybe it was better this way. Firing Roger would be practice for firing his brother-in-law.
Max picked up his phone and dialed Roger’s number. It went straight to voicemail. “Roger,” he said, clearing his throat, “I really can’t stand you and I don’t care if I ever see your face again, so I’ll just do this over the phone.” He waited a moment, then blurted it out: “You’re fired.” The words left a bitter, acid-taste in his mouth, and this was Roger. He couldn’t imagine how it would taste to say it to Alex. “Thanks for trying to help,” he mumbled before lowering the phone. At least that was done.
A knock on the door made him bristle, but he said, “Come in,” anyway.
Alex came into the office. “Hey,” he said, “you wanted to see me?”
Max swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, sit down.”
Alex sat down across from him and took out his cell phone. “Isabel keeps calling me,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You think I should call her back?”
“No.” Max knew why Isabel was calling Alex. She wanted to let him know he was going to be fired. He almost wanted to let her tell him, but he knew Alex deserved to hear it from him.
“Yeah, all she does is stress me out.” Alex stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Hey, speaking of stress, it’s gettin’ too hectic out there. Are you gonna hire some new help anytime soon? ‘Cause you’re gonna have to. There’s, like, four of us out there, and we’re way overworked.”
Everyone at Evans Hotels was overworked. Max had devoted his entire life to that company, and he was going to have nothing to show for it. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, feeling guilty for stressing Alex out. His wife surely did enough of that for the both of them.
“I don’t mean to make it seem like it’s your fault. It’s just . . . busy,” Alex said.
“Yeah.” Max couldn’t help but wonder if he and Alex would be busy after they no longer had jobs. Would they find other jobs? Would it fall to Isabel and Liz to keep things under control? “Listen, Alex . . .” He licked his lips. His throat felt dry, and the words felt like ten pound weights as they started to come out. “You’re a good friend. You’re my only friend.” He actually felt himself starting to get a little choked up, and he couldn’t have that; so he shoved the emotions back down and spoke more evenly and calmly. “I’m proud to call you my brother-in-law.”
“Well, I could say the same.”
Max shook his head. “Don’t.”
Alex stared at him in confusion. “What’s going on?” he asked as though he suddenly sensed something was wrong.
Max sighed heavily. This was even harder than he’d thought it would be, but it had to be done. “I know I promised you wouldn’t lose your job, but . . .” He trailed off, a lump in his throat.
Alex stared at him in horror. “No,” he said, pushing the chair back and rising to his feet. “No, no, no, Max. You said . . .” He pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You said.”
“I know what I said, but you don’t know what’s going on here.”
“You’re firing me?” Alex roared.
“I’m letting you go,” he corrected. “I wish I didn’t have to, but--”
“This is bullshit!” Alex interrupted furiously. “This is bullshit, Max!”
“This is your wife’s doing, so before you yell at me, you might wanna have a word with her,” Max bit out angrily. He hated his sister. Hated. Her.
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“I’m talking about . . .” Max reached into his top right-hand desk drawer, revealing every issue of that fateful issue of Corporate he’d ever seen on newsstands. At first, in a vain attempt to keep the article from spreading, he’d bought every issue he could. But he hadn’t been able to buy enough, and he hadn’t been able to buy them in time. “This,” he said, throwing the magazine down on his desk. “We’ve all seen it. We know what it says. And you and I both know it’s true. I’ve raped girls. And Isabel knew that. She’s the ‘anonymous source’ in this article. She’s the one who told them everything. She didn’t know it’d go this far, but it did. And now you’re losing your job for it.”
“But it’s just an article,” Alex protested.
“No, it’s a smoking gun,” Max informed him. “The minute word got out about this, I lost all my investors, half my customers. I tried to fix it, but there’s just no way I can salvage anything.” He saw the defeated look on Alex’s face and the look of déjà vu in his eyes. “You’ve been here before,” he said. “You know how it goes. You and your dad were riding high, and then all of a sudden . . . it’s like falling off a cliff.”
Alex shook his head angrily and made his way over to the window, peering down at the street below. His lips were pressed together tightly as though he were trying to keep from saying anything.
“Do you remember when I first hired you?” Max asked him. “I promised you’d have a job here for as long as Evans Hotels was in existence. And I kept my promise.”
Alex whirled around, blazing. “You also said I’d get out of Customer Service. You said you were gonna promote me, said I was gonna be your right-hand man.” He threw his arms in the air. “What the hell happened there, Max? I’ll tell you what happened: You lied. You always lie. You were just dragging me along because you felt sorry for me.”
“Look, Alex, I know this sucks for you, being out of job and all, but it sucks for me, too. I’m losing a career. I’m gonna have to sell every possession I own just to pay off all my debts. My cars, my house . . . for all I know, I might lose my wife over this.” Alex just looked at him unsympathetically, and Max knew he’d done the wrong thing by bringing his own woefulness into this. “And judging by the look on your face, I just lost my best friend.”
“Oh, well, poor Max Evans. You really expect me to feel sorry for you? My family lives on this income. I have a son to provide for.”
“You can find another job,” Max tried to assure him. “You’ll have experience to put on a resume, and I’ll be happy to offer a recommendation.”
“A recommendation?” Alex spat. “Oh, save it, Max. I don’t want any more ‘help’ from you, ‘cause it always comes with strings attached. ‘Oh, I’ll get you a job, Alex, but only until my past catches up to me. Oh, I’ll buy you a house, but only a shithole one. I’ll be a good uncle, but only when I feel like it.’” He grunted and shook his head. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?”
I am a good uncle, Max thought. I have to be. He’d tried so hard . . . “Alex, this isn’t a choice,” he said, feeling choked up again. “It’s a lack of one. I have to let you go from this company because there is no company.”
“And whose fault is that?” Alex growled. “You can blame Isabel for a lot of stuff, but you can’t blame her for this. This is something you did.” He slammed his knuckles down atop the magazine to emphasize that point. “This is your fault.”
It was much easier for him to deal with if it was Isabel’s. “Alex . . .”
“Stay away from me, and stay away from my family.” Alex turned to leave the office, but he stopped on his way out. “Oh, and to save you the trouble, you can’t fire me. I quit. Thanks for nothing, Max.”
Max lowered his head and crawled into the corners of his mind as Alex walked out the door. He heard a car roar out of the parking lot a few minutes later, and he had no doubt Alex was heading to the bar.
Because of him.
Fuck.
TBC . . .
-April
BB:
Well, in this part, she definitely shows that she likes to get back at people who she thinks have wronged her.I just love seeing Isabel this way but it frightens me a little too because you just know she's going to do something horrible and crazy to get back at Maria.
Luckily I don't think she's that desperate.I'm glad that Tess finally told Kyle, and I hope she does give him the time to adjust and come around to the idea and doesn't do something drastic like secretly get herself knocked up. That would be bad.
Ellie:
Wackable? That's perfect! Another new name to add to the 521/522-Isabel Nicknames list. Did you see that Nakema over at CID called her Schitzobel?Wackabel is at it again!
Interesting. I can get on board with this. I think she really was happy with Michael, but she had these lingering doubts, and that is what made her cheat on Michael with Alex. And now, of course, looking back, she realizes she shouldn't have doubted anything.The way I see it ... I don't believe Isabel was ever "that" happy with Michael - otherwise, why would she ever have cheated on him with Alex?
Yep, that's exactly right. And like you said, when things didn't go her way, that's when the bitterness and jealousy really ignited. All of Isabel's issues in this fic stem back to her father. She may go on and on about how she hates him for not leaving the company to her, but I think what she hates him for more than anything is being able to manipulate her. She's the puppet master nowadays, right? But she let her dad pull her strings and convince her that she needed a richer man in life, and look where it got her.The main reason why she cheated on Michael was because of her father's disapproval of Michael. He felt that Michael was beneath her, social standing wise, and I believe he told her to get rid of him(I believe that's what he said in 521, but I could be wrong - may need to go back and re-read that).
cjensen2: First off, hey. I'm glad you came back for the sequel.
Yes, she can be very hypocritical.Isabel’s self-aggrandizing diatribes and belief in her own extraordinary abilities is so annoying and getting old. Basically, from what I’ve seen the only way she ever gets things done is by using her looks and sex, which is what she criticizes the other girls for.
I think that Isabel wasn't acting when she was with Michael. She really was in love with him, and he really was in love with her. Right now, she's surrounded by people who bring out the worst in her (Billy, Alex, Max, Liz), but when she was with Michael, she was with someone who brought out the best in her. The Isabel that Michael knew was smart, beautiful, and talented. And she still is all those things--she's just using her talents for evil rather than for good. There will be a couple of flashbacks in future parts that will show a time when they were dating. They were happy together, until Isabel messed things up and started thinking that love wasn't enough, that she needed money, too. (The irony, of course, is that nowadays Michael is financially stable and her husband isn't.) Everything worked out the way it was supposed to, and Michael is of course even happier with Maria and their daughters than he ever was with Isabel. Isabel's stuck in the past, though. The happiest years in her life have passed her by, and she's desperate to get them back. So . . . I just repeated pretty much everything BB said.Liz’s point that Isabel and Michael would probably have still been together if she hadn’t cheated on him highlighted something I have been wondering myself. I just do not comprehend how someone as amazing as he is being portrayed in this fic could have possibly been taken in by her for two years, to the point that he was actually going to propose to her. Are we supposed to think that she is that good of an actress and that he never got any of her psycho, bitchy vibes? Or that she was that different when they were together? Or was he just too enamoured with her beauty and sex skills to actually think that he wanted to marry her?
They will have scenes together, but as for any "lingering passion," I think it's safe to say that Michael is one-hundred percent in love with and passionate about Maria DeLuca only.I have appreciated so far how Michael doesn’t seem to hold on to any lingering passion for Isabel and desperately hope that he does not respond to her advances in any way at all through this fic!
Novy:
Oh, I'm glad it's realistic. I know there is a lot of soap opera/90210 stuff that happens, and I really hoped that there would be a quality of realness underneath.Captivating stuff. It's all so very real.
Well, I knew I wasn't going to get him to change his mind (even though he was wrong on the issue and I was right.) Basically I had to do a 20 minute video presentation at the end of the day and the other students in the class still only had to do 10 minute presentations. I don't know how on earth that constitutes a fair assessment, but whatever. I did the video just to prove to him that I could and I kicked major booty.Eagerly awaiting more. Hope things went well with your prof.
Leila:
Yeah, her manipulation tactics are kind of hit and miss, but for the most part, they're hit.You already know that I love Isabel and her evil mind. What I really love is how she's able to put the seed of doubt in somebody's mind. She's the real puppet master. It might not work everytime for her own benefit but it works.
Well, I don't know if "soon" is the right word considering the fact that I've written this fic up to page 738 and I just managed to get these people past Thanksgiving.Michael is awesome. He gives his best to be the good husband and father. So far he manages very well but I'm assuming it's just the calm before the storm. And it's going to happen soon.
It's a long fic.This is definitely something that could happen at some point.I fear that even Michael might crack under all that pressure of being the 'perfect' hubby and daddy supporting his family.
dreambeliever:
Yes, Liz opened her mouth before she actually thought about what she was saying. Even if she hadn't told Isabel about Amy's cancer, though, Isabel probably would've found out somehow.I just wanted to tell Liz....SHUT UP! and before I knew it she blabbed. Uuuggghhhh...
Christina:
Oh, I've done that! That's so frustrating. One time I had an entire update of this fic ready to go (and you know it takes me awhile to get an update ready because I go through and respond to all the feedback and then I go through and italicize everything I need to), and that same thing happened! Grr, indeed.Grr, dammit. I started typing a huge thing of feedback but I'm on my boyfriend's laptop and it's keypad is ridiculous and somehow I exited out of it right when I was near the end. Gah! Now I'm pissed.
Definitely. There are lots of changes coming up for both Max and Liz, though, and they start in this update.Also, I think it's weird that Liz has seemed to change Max for the better; whereas he/ or his lifestlye has changed her for the worse.
Thanks for all the feedback! I really appreciate it!
This part mainly focuses on Max, Alex, and Isabel, so sorry if it's a bit of a downer. But it's an important part, gives you some answers to some long-asked questions.
Part 21
Max picked apart his breakfast the next morning. There was so much whipped cream on the French toast that he couldn’t taste the toast. The whipped cream was nice, though, woke him up a little.
Yolanda approached the table, seemingly proud but wary of the meal she’d cooked. “Miss Liz, how is the taste?” she asked hesitantly.
“Oh, everything’s great, Yolanda,” Liz assured her readily. “Thank you.”
Yolanda smiled and refilled Liz’s coffee. Once she was gone, Liz leaned across the table and said, “You know, we should really give her a raise. Or let her move into the pool house or something. I love Yolanda.”
I’ll have to fire her soon, Max thought. She’ll probably want a letter of recommendation.
“Max? Did you get any sleep at all last night? You’re so out of it.”
He snapped himself out of his thoughts. “What?”
She gave him an impatient look.
“Sorry,” he apologized.
“Are you okay? I think you’re working too hard.”
He grunted. He’d devoted his entire life to work for . . . well, for most of his life. And even that wasn’t enough. “How’d you do on that test?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.
Liz shrugged and shoveled a forkful of toast into her mouth. “He hasn’t posted grades yet, but I feel pretty good about it.”
He nodded. “And how’s work for you?”
“Uneventful. Isabel stopped by yesterday. That’s about it.”
Isabel. Contempt roared through her veins at the mere mention of his sister. “She should just stay out of our lives,” he grumbled.
“I think she just wanted to annoy someone. She was all, ‘Would you love Max no matter what?’” Liz rolled her eyes. “Stupid.”
Or not, he thought, wondering. It was a question he’d asked himself a lot within the past few months. “What’d you say?”
“I just told her to leave.”
He frowned. “So you didn’t answer the question.”
“No, why should I?”
He set his silverware down, worried. Maybe the answer was no. Isabel was a perceptive person; maybe she knew something he didn’t. “Well, would you?” he asked.
“Would I . . . love you no matter what?” She gave him a confused look. “Of course. That’s not even a question.”
He felt like breathing a sigh of relief, but he nodded calmly instead. “Good.” The coming months weren’t going to be pretty; but if she stuck it out with him, he’d stick it out with her. It was too bad things couldn’t just stay the way they were.
****
“An affair we could spin to your advantage. Even a love child or a DUI. But not rape.” Roger shook his head as he paced back and forth in Max’s office, the infamous issue of Corporate in hand. “It’s the one thing everybody with a soul knows is wrong. But you did it, and now you’re paying for it. Literally.”
Max rolled his eyes. He didn’t need a lecture on the morality (or lack thereof) of his actions. He needed the story to go away. Revenue was already down thirty percent.
“Let’s figure out who brought this public and pay her to retract her claims,” Roger suggested, dropping the magazine into the trash.
The wheels of Max’s mind turned as he tried to figure things out. “It doesn’t make sense. None of those girls even remember it happening. They were drunk. Or drugged or both. I think the only one who remembers is . . . Maria.” He tried to picture Maria approaching some business-oriented magazine and relaying the events of that night as tabloid gossip, though, and he couldn’t. “But what does she have to gain from going public in a magazine? If she was gonna tell anyone, she’d tell a lawyer, sue my ass.” It wasn’t Maria. Couldn’t be. She’d moved on from what he’d done to her.
“That’s a good point, Max,” Roger said, pulling up a chair beside him. “Whoever reported this hasn’t brought a lawsuit against you. Clearly she’s not out for money or justice. So the question becomes, who do you know who hates you enough to ruin your life just for the hell of it?”
Max narrowed his eyes, contemplating. When Roger put it like that, only one answer came to mind.
****
Max looked around his house. The marble countertops, the four-course breakfast, the dutiful maid, the happy wife . . . in a matter of weeks, all of this would be gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess smelled breakfast when she entered Michael and Maria’s house. Maria was in the kitchen scrambling up some eggs and buttering toast. Michael was asleep on the living room couch, his mouth hanging open just slightly, his right arm and leg dangling to the floor.
“Hey,” Tess said quietly.
“Hey,” Maria returned.
“How you doin’?”
“Better. I actually got some sleep last night.”
Tess glanced back into the living room. Michael was snoring lightly.
“Yeah, he was up all night taking care of Macy,” Maria explained. “She kept crying and crying and crying, and he didn’t want me to have to deal with it.”
Tess smiled. “Aw, that’s so sweet.”
“I know. See, this is what you have to look forward to when you’re a parent: sleepless nights.”
“Yeah.” She honestly did look forward to sleepless nights, though. Who needed sleep when you had a beautiful baby to occupy your time? “Hey, speaking of that . . . I told Kyle.”
Maria turned down the heat on the stove. “Told Kyle what?”
Tess just bit her bottom lip and smiled.
Maria’s eyes widened as she understood. “Oh my god. Tess, that’s huge! What’d he say?”
“He basically said he’d think about it and get back to me.” She cringed.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So, not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. But at least he didn’t completely shut me down.”
“Yeah.” Maria used the spatula to lift the eggs out of the frying pan and onto the plate. “He’s probably just surprised.”
Tess sat down at the table, wringing her hands together nervously. “I think he was. But hopefully once he thinks about it, he’ll realize what a good idea it is.”
“Yeah, he will.” Maria took a second plate out of the cabinet and piled a small amount of eggs onto it, handing it to Tess. “Keep me updated, okay? It’s good for me to think about . . . good things.”
Tess smiled sympathetically. Maria was trying to be so strong, and in all fairness, she really was handling it pretty well. But still, she felt the need to assure her, “Your mom’s gonna be here for all sorts of good things, like your wedding and the birth of my baby, whenever it happens. And when it does happen, she’ll technically be Grandma Amy. Again.”
Maria poured herself a glass of orange juice and sat down next to Tess to eat her breakfast. “She said she doesn’t want her cancer to control my life,” she said, “so I won’t let it. But I do know one thing for sure: I’ll feel a hell of a lot better once I get my own mammogram out of the way.” She shuddered.
“I know.” Tess didn’t want her best friend to have to do that alone, so she added, “Hey, you know what? I’ll go with you. I’ll get one done, too.”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, it’s a good idea.” There was nothing wrong with taking precautions. She was at risk, too, since her mother had suffered from it, and she'd prolonged it until now. “We’ll do it together.”
Maria thought about it for a moment and decided, “That sounds a little less scary.”
Tess nodded in agreement.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Isabel poured a mountain of Fruit Loops into her son’s cereal bowl and instructed, “Say when,” as she poured milk in along with it. She kept pouring, waiting for him to stop her, but he didn’t. Finally, as the bowl was about to overflow, she decided, “Fine, I’ll say it for you. When,” and stopped pouring the milk. Garret dug his spoon onto the bowl, haphazardly splashing milk onto the table. Isabel refrained from saying anything. It didn’t really matter. Their kitchen table was crappy anyway.
Her cell phone rang, and she sensed it was Billy, so she slipped into the other room to answer it. “Hey, loser,” she said quietly. Alex was already at work, but she didn’t want to take any chance that Garret would overhear her.
“Hey, baby. I just wanna let you know I gotta take off for a few days.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Lorenzo scored me some gigs in Colorado.”
She sat down on the arm of the couch, defeated. “Are you kidding me? Billy, this is a very stressful and pissed off time in my life. I need you here.”
“I’ll be back this weekend.”
That meant days without proper sex. “I can’t believe you’re choosing music over me.”
“Babe, I gotta go,” he insisted. “I could get a record deal.”
“Oh, please, your music’s better than it used to be, but it’s still not that good.” She angrily slammed her phone closed and threw it at the wall. The battery popped out the back.
“Dammit,” she swore, standing up. She bent down to pick up the phone and battery, and when she turned back around, her brother was also standing in the living room. “Max!” she shrieked, startled. She immediately worried how much of her phone conversation he’d heard. “How long have you been standing there?”
He just shrugged in response.
“Well, that was the . . . plumber,” she lied.
“You need your pipes cleaned?”
She glared at him. He probably knew more than he should have. Her brother was surely a dumbass, but this was the second time in recent history he’d overheard her on the phone with Billy. He had to suspect something. “What’re you doing here, Max?” She glanced back into the kitchen. Garret was still eating his cereal, making a mess.
“Nothing much,” Max replied. “I just figured it’s about time I confront you about this.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a rolled up magazine, dropping it onto the floor at her feet.
She bent down and picked it up. “Ah, the article that rightfully accuses you of being a rapist.” She grinned. “I swear, I’ve read this thing, like, a thousand times.”
“I’m sure you have.” He seized the magazine back from her and flipped it open to the article about him. “‘An anonymous source claims that Maxwell Evans, youngest multi-millionaire of the southwest, took advantage of her sexually while she was in a drunken state,’” he read aloud. “An anonymous source claims that.”
She shrugged. “Karma.”
“You.”
She flinched but tried to disguise it. “Me?”
“You did this.”
She laughed ruefully. “Why would I?”
“Because you could never handle the fact that Dad liked me better.”
Her entire body clenched. Her brother and her dad versus her. Some things never changed.
****
“Ugh, I swear, my brother is the lifelong thorn in my side!” Isabel stopped and did a line a coke, then resumed her pacing and ranting in Billy’s bedroom. “He won’t promote my husband. He won’t give me a job. And do you know why? Because he says he can’t trust me.”
Billy lay back on the bed and undid his pants. “Smart guy.”
“No, not smart. Lucky. Max has never had to work hard for anything. He was born a boy, so everything was just handed to him on a silver platter. I swear, if he ever fought for anything he wanted, I’d probably die of shock.”
Billy gazed at her. “I’m gonna write a song about you.”
She could barely hear him over the sounds of her own fury. “You know, I could have money and mansions and maids if I’d been born an only child. I could have all sorts of power. And unlike my brother, I’d know what to do with it.”
“Baby, come here.” Billy tried to slip one of his feet between her legs.
“No.” She backed away, not at all in the mood. “You know what I think? I think it’s time Max learns a lesson.” After all these years of him messing up her life, it was about time she did something to mess up his.
An hour later, she was at the office of Corporate magazine, one of her absolute favorite publications. She’d worn one of Billy’s baseball caps, along with his Nirvana t-shirt, to help disguise her appearance. She also had on a brown wig they liked to do role-play in, and big, black sunglasses that covered most of her face. She walked right up to the front desk and got the secretary’s attention. “Hi,” she said, “I assume your staff is acquainted with Max Evans of Evans Hotels.” She didn’t wait for a response. “I’ve got a story for your little magazine here.” It took everything she had not to smile as she said the untrue words. “Max Evans raped me.”
****
He glared at her, looking as though he could kill her for this. “That’s a lie.”
“Is it?” She took one more glance into the kitchen, just to make sure Garret wasn’t listening. “You raped me of a career that was supposed to be mine.”
“Get over it.”
“And you have raped dozens of girls.” She shrugged. “This is just feminism at its finest.”
“Or its most pathetic.” He clenched the magazine tightly in his hands, crumpling all the pages. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I’ve created an obstacle,” she stated simply. “Overcome it.” If he was half as great as he thought he was, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. It was just an accusation. Many a man had thrived upon a rape legacy.
“You’re so jealous,” he said.
“I didn’t get them to write this article out of jealousy.”
“Like hell you didn’t.”
“I got them to write it out of courage.” She traipsed her fingers through her hair, loving the look on his face. Frustration. Finally, he got to feel as frustrated as she did. “Face it, Max: The reason why we’ll never get along is because we’re the only two people in the world courageous enough to take each other on. Although, if you’re gonna get all pissy over a little article, maybe you’re not that brave after all.”
He shook his head angrily. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I upset you. That thrills me.”
“You think you know so much about business, but you don’t. You don’t know what a story like this does to me.”
“It humiliates you.” She was fine with that.
“It ruins me,” he said emphatically. “It ruins my company, it ruins my life. I’m losing everything because of you.”
For the first time since she’d initiated the article, she felt uneasy about it. “What’re you talking about?” How could he lose everything? He’d always have the company, even though he didn’t deserve it.
“Nobody wants to do business with an accused rapist,” he explained. “All the investors, all the customers . . . you see, there’s this little thing in business called integrity—it’s rare but important. And when you violate a person’s most basic human rights, you tend to lose any and all integrity you have.”
That sounded like his fault, not hers. “Then you shouldn’t have violated anyone.”
“Isabel, you don’t get it.” He stared at her with panic in his eyes and said, “My company is gone.”
She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. No, it wasn’t. She would have known about it. Everyone would have known about it.
“I mean, it’s still here, but not for much longer,” he explained. “It’s dying a slow and painful death, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing. I’ve been trying to keep it on the down-low, but it doesn’t matter anymore. In a matter of weeks, maybe even days, Evans Hotels will cease to exist.”
Isabel stared at him in astonishment, mouth agape. He had to be lying. Or joking. This was some kind of strange joke that only Max, with his non-sense of humor, could understand. The company couldn’t just die out. It was huge. It was powerful. It was supposed to have been hers.
He flapped his arms helplessly against his sides. “Are you happy now? I can’t overcome your ‘obstacle.’ It’s the end of me. I’ll have no job, no money. But on the bright side, at least you’ll never swindle the company out of me.” He laughed angrily. “You’ll never get it. You see, Isabel, you have a bad habit of sabotaging yourself. No company, no Michael . . .”
She furrowed her brow deeply. How dare a piece of scum like Max even say that name.
“Oh, well.” He shrugged. “At least we can have bleak futures together.”
She got that it wasn’t a joke. But it still didn’t seem real. “There has to be something you can do,” she said. “Let me help you.”
“I think you’ve done enough.” He shoved the crumpled magazine into her hands. “All I have to do is break the news to the few employees I have left.” Before she could even get the question out, he added, “And yes, that includes Alex.”
Oh, no, she thought, suddenly as panicked as he was. Alex was going to lose his job. It was the job that supported their family. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills, paid the mortgage, paid for Garret’s clothes so he could look nice for Miley Guerin.
“I have to fire my best friend,” Max said pityingly. “I have to fire my nephew’s father. And when this is all said and done, I won’t be able to help him, or Garret or even you. I won’t have a penny to my name. You guys will be on your own.”
She averted her eyes, unable to conceal her fear.
“Something tells me you didn’t expect this to happen. Careless, Isabel,” he taunted. “Didn’t Dad teach you anything? Whenever you make a risky maneuver, always think ahead.”
She tore the magazine from his grasp and backed away from him. “I hate you,” she ground out.
“I hate you, too.” He smiled angrily. “But congratulations. You brought down the bad guy.” As he turned and walked out the front door, he muttered, “Unfortunately you brought down your own family along with him.”
She stood motionless in the living room once he was gone, clutching the shreds of manipulation in her hands. Garret called to her from the kitchen, asking if she was okay, but she couldn’t even answer him. It was just meant to have been an article, embarrassing but harmless. It wasn’t meant to be this. But she should have known it would be. Nothing ever went the way it was supposed to. Not for her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael walked around C4 in a fog, barely able to keep his eyes open and yawning uncontrollably. It’d been a long night. He didn’t understand why Macy had to be her loudest and most uncooperative on the nights when he and Maria needed sleep the most. All that mattered was that Maria had gotten to rest, though. He was okay.
“Are you sure you’re able to work today?” Kyle asked him. “You look like you’re a zombie.”
“I am.” Michael yawned again. “I’m so glad Tess took Miley and Macy to work with her today. I love my kids, but they wear me out.”
Kyle laughed a little, but he seemed uptight about something. “Of course she took them,” he mumbled. “She’s probably practicing.”
Michael hopped up onto the front counter, grabbing a copy of their latest inventory report to look over. “For when you guys have kids?”
“Yep.”
“That’s not a bad idea. It could happen any day now.”
Kyle grunted. “Oh, trust me, I know. Last night, we’re about to do it . . . I got my pants down, and you know what she says?” He paused for dramatic effect. “‘I wanna have a baby.’”
“Really? She said that?”
Kyle nodded.
“Huh.” Michael had suspected for awhile now that Tess felt that way, but he hadn’t expected her to tell Kyle about it yet. “Wow, congratulations.”
“What, con-congratulations?” Kyle sputtered. “First off, she’s not pregnant yet. Second, I was hoping for more of a ‘whoa’ or ‘golly.’”
Michael arched an eyebrow. “Golly?”
“Don’t you think this is a big deal?”
Michael shrugged. “Well, yeah, but you guys will be great parents. I’ll be a fantastic uncle.” He smiled at just the thought of it. “And it’ll be nice for Miley and Macy to have some cousins to play with.”
Kyle looked at him nervously. “Okay, this isn’t like a definitive thing, like there’s definitely gonna be cousins. No, it’s still up in the air.”
Michael frowned. “What’s stopping you?”
“Uh, the fact that I’m only twenty-four for starters.”
“Yeah, but you’re done with college, married,” Michael pointed out. “You got a nice house, successful business.” When Maria had gotten pregnant, he’d been a junior living in an apartment, working part-time at an art museum on campus.
“Okay, but let’s put this in perspective,” Kyle suggested readily. “A decade ago, I was fourteen. Fourteen, man. I hadn’t even gone through puberty yet. And now it’s baby time?” He flapped his arms at his sides. “I don’t think so.”
“I had a daughter a decade after I turned eleven,” Michael pointed out.
Kyle glared. “But that’s you. I’m still a spaz. I don’t know if I could handle it.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Michael hopped down off the counter, heading back into his office to get some coffee. He needed a serious jolt of energy.
Kyle followed him, still worrying out loud. “But this isn’t just a test drive. I can’t get behind the wheel of fatherhood, decide it doesn’t handle well, and opt out of the purchase. This is an all or nothing deal.”
Michael poured coffee into his World’s Greatest Dad mug and continued to assure his friend. “Look, for what it’s worth, if you and Tess decide to do this, Maria and I are gonna be here for you, just like you guys are for us. But if you’re really not ready, just tell Tess you’re not ready. She’ll understand.”
“Oh, I don’t know if she will,” Kyle argued. “You didn’t see that look in her eyes when she told me. She’s . . . really invested in this.”
Michael took a sip of his hot coffee, still not understanding the issue. In his mind, Tess’s baby mention was a good thing. Whether Kyle was ready for it or not, they had the opportunity to plan a pregnancy, either now or down the road. Lots of people didn’t have that chance.
“Our lives can never just be boring, can they?” Kyle mused. “We always gotta have something going on. Amy’s cancer, my potential fatherhood, your sexlessness.”
Michael chuckled. “Yeah, but the way I look at it, things could always be worse.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Max felt fairly certain his life couldn’t be any worse than it currently was. He felt like such a failure. His father had entrusted the company to him after his death. He was supposed to have done great things with it. The worst part was that Phillip Evans had been attempting to change his will shortly before his heart attack. He’d known. The bastard had known that Max couldn’t handle it.
He sat in his office having downed about half a dozen shots of tequila, staring at the phone. He’d been debating whether or not to call Roger all day. It seemed in a way that Roger should be the last one he should fire. But it didn’t really matter at this point, and maybe it was better this way. Firing Roger would be practice for firing his brother-in-law.
Max picked up his phone and dialed Roger’s number. It went straight to voicemail. “Roger,” he said, clearing his throat, “I really can’t stand you and I don’t care if I ever see your face again, so I’ll just do this over the phone.” He waited a moment, then blurted it out: “You’re fired.” The words left a bitter, acid-taste in his mouth, and this was Roger. He couldn’t imagine how it would taste to say it to Alex. “Thanks for trying to help,” he mumbled before lowering the phone. At least that was done.
A knock on the door made him bristle, but he said, “Come in,” anyway.
Alex came into the office. “Hey,” he said, “you wanted to see me?”
Max swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, sit down.”
Alex sat down across from him and took out his cell phone. “Isabel keeps calling me,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You think I should call her back?”
“No.” Max knew why Isabel was calling Alex. She wanted to let him know he was going to be fired. He almost wanted to let her tell him, but he knew Alex deserved to hear it from him.
“Yeah, all she does is stress me out.” Alex stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Hey, speaking of stress, it’s gettin’ too hectic out there. Are you gonna hire some new help anytime soon? ‘Cause you’re gonna have to. There’s, like, four of us out there, and we’re way overworked.”
Everyone at Evans Hotels was overworked. Max had devoted his entire life to that company, and he was going to have nothing to show for it. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, feeling guilty for stressing Alex out. His wife surely did enough of that for the both of them.
“I don’t mean to make it seem like it’s your fault. It’s just . . . busy,” Alex said.
“Yeah.” Max couldn’t help but wonder if he and Alex would be busy after they no longer had jobs. Would they find other jobs? Would it fall to Isabel and Liz to keep things under control? “Listen, Alex . . .” He licked his lips. His throat felt dry, and the words felt like ten pound weights as they started to come out. “You’re a good friend. You’re my only friend.” He actually felt himself starting to get a little choked up, and he couldn’t have that; so he shoved the emotions back down and spoke more evenly and calmly. “I’m proud to call you my brother-in-law.”
“Well, I could say the same.”
Max shook his head. “Don’t.”
Alex stared at him in confusion. “What’s going on?” he asked as though he suddenly sensed something was wrong.
Max sighed heavily. This was even harder than he’d thought it would be, but it had to be done. “I know I promised you wouldn’t lose your job, but . . .” He trailed off, a lump in his throat.
Alex stared at him in horror. “No,” he said, pushing the chair back and rising to his feet. “No, no, no, Max. You said . . .” He pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You said.”
“I know what I said, but you don’t know what’s going on here.”
“You’re firing me?” Alex roared.
“I’m letting you go,” he corrected. “I wish I didn’t have to, but--”
“This is bullshit!” Alex interrupted furiously. “This is bullshit, Max!”
“This is your wife’s doing, so before you yell at me, you might wanna have a word with her,” Max bit out angrily. He hated his sister. Hated. Her.
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“I’m talking about . . .” Max reached into his top right-hand desk drawer, revealing every issue of that fateful issue of Corporate he’d ever seen on newsstands. At first, in a vain attempt to keep the article from spreading, he’d bought every issue he could. But he hadn’t been able to buy enough, and he hadn’t been able to buy them in time. “This,” he said, throwing the magazine down on his desk. “We’ve all seen it. We know what it says. And you and I both know it’s true. I’ve raped girls. And Isabel knew that. She’s the ‘anonymous source’ in this article. She’s the one who told them everything. She didn’t know it’d go this far, but it did. And now you’re losing your job for it.”
“But it’s just an article,” Alex protested.
“No, it’s a smoking gun,” Max informed him. “The minute word got out about this, I lost all my investors, half my customers. I tried to fix it, but there’s just no way I can salvage anything.” He saw the defeated look on Alex’s face and the look of déjà vu in his eyes. “You’ve been here before,” he said. “You know how it goes. You and your dad were riding high, and then all of a sudden . . . it’s like falling off a cliff.”
Alex shook his head angrily and made his way over to the window, peering down at the street below. His lips were pressed together tightly as though he were trying to keep from saying anything.
“Do you remember when I first hired you?” Max asked him. “I promised you’d have a job here for as long as Evans Hotels was in existence. And I kept my promise.”
Alex whirled around, blazing. “You also said I’d get out of Customer Service. You said you were gonna promote me, said I was gonna be your right-hand man.” He threw his arms in the air. “What the hell happened there, Max? I’ll tell you what happened: You lied. You always lie. You were just dragging me along because you felt sorry for me.”
“Look, Alex, I know this sucks for you, being out of job and all, but it sucks for me, too. I’m losing a career. I’m gonna have to sell every possession I own just to pay off all my debts. My cars, my house . . . for all I know, I might lose my wife over this.” Alex just looked at him unsympathetically, and Max knew he’d done the wrong thing by bringing his own woefulness into this. “And judging by the look on your face, I just lost my best friend.”
“Oh, well, poor Max Evans. You really expect me to feel sorry for you? My family lives on this income. I have a son to provide for.”
“You can find another job,” Max tried to assure him. “You’ll have experience to put on a resume, and I’ll be happy to offer a recommendation.”
“A recommendation?” Alex spat. “Oh, save it, Max. I don’t want any more ‘help’ from you, ‘cause it always comes with strings attached. ‘Oh, I’ll get you a job, Alex, but only until my past catches up to me. Oh, I’ll buy you a house, but only a shithole one. I’ll be a good uncle, but only when I feel like it.’” He grunted and shook his head. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?”
I am a good uncle, Max thought. I have to be. He’d tried so hard . . . “Alex, this isn’t a choice,” he said, feeling choked up again. “It’s a lack of one. I have to let you go from this company because there is no company.”
“And whose fault is that?” Alex growled. “You can blame Isabel for a lot of stuff, but you can’t blame her for this. This is something you did.” He slammed his knuckles down atop the magazine to emphasize that point. “This is your fault.”
It was much easier for him to deal with if it was Isabel’s. “Alex . . .”
“Stay away from me, and stay away from my family.” Alex turned to leave the office, but he stopped on his way out. “Oh, and to save you the trouble, you can’t fire me. I quit. Thanks for nothing, Max.”
Max lowered his head and crawled into the corners of his mind as Alex walked out the door. He heard a car roar out of the parking lot a few minutes later, and he had no doubt Alex was heading to the bar.
Because of him.
Fuck.
TBC . . .
-April
They will have their mammograms and learn their results in the next few updates, after this one.
Ay, ay, ay!
when you see it if you would like to listen. (Just to let you guys know, the next music I drop by will be for a scene that you all will like VERY much.)