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He looks over his shoulder briefly (for what reason, I have no clue) and then looks back at me with a smile. “Tomorrow then?”
“I’ll have to let you know. Gotta make a quick call before our meeting.”
He rises and gives me a look that might be interpreted as pain, and then he heads out, buttoning his blazer as he goes.
Quinten Carmichael is the poster dad, the Carmichael kids the poster children in that song, Cats in the Cradle.
He had no time for anything but work when I was a kid. Work and family were always separate, so I don’t typically get ‘my father’ at work. I’m not supposed to get ‘my CEO’ outside of work, but he’s so rarely outside of work that I’ve never gotten much of him at all.
That said, I do have loyalty to him. This bullshit with my mother has been a cloud I’ve chosen to ignore. It was easier to ignore it from New York. Now that I’m here again, it’s hanging over me.
Dad had a heart attack a couple months before I’d caught her. It did not wake his shit up and slow him down. His heart was just one of the list of threats my mother used in an effort to get me to keep my mouth shut about her escapades. Yet I tried to talk to my father repeatedly, thinking I could deliver the truth in a way that would soften the blow, but he blocked me at every turn. He has to know. Or maybe he knows without knowing the details, but it’s obvious he doesn’t wanna deal.
When threatening me about his heart didn’t seem to work, she tried threatening me, saying she’d “eviscerate him” if he filed for divorce, suggesting she had secret ammunition. She plays dirty. I don’t doubt she would.
But, if my suspicions about my paternity and Austin’s paternity are right, I could play even dirtier. I could wind up with more of my father’s estate than her. Way more if I play certain cards.
She’s always been self-absorbed, preferring to leave the childrearing to nannies and teachers. Now, I tolerate her. I have limited relationships with my siblings, my nephew, but she’s another story.
She’s gonna try to corral me into fake “family” shit for the time I’m here, but I’ll be pushing back.
She’s the prime reason why I have but one use for the fairer sex. They’re not fair. They’re selfish bitches who only care about themselves. There’s one exception. Okay two.
Adele, my sister. And Suki, the nanny who raised us. Suki retired a decade ago when my younger brother went off to college, rendering her useless. Suki moved to upstate New York a few years back and I’ve visited her half a dozen times since I’ve lived in New York City. She is more like a mother to me and she’s the only reason why Adele isn’t just like Audra.
As for the women in my life other than my sister and my nanny? There’s no room in my life for a permanent female. Yeah, I’ve got commitment issues. Because, in my experience, 98% of the women out there can’t be trusted. I don’t have the inclination to sift through the remaining 2% to look for compatibility. Besides, there is no shortage of attractive women throwing themselves at me, so I never have to look for female company.
I make my quick call and then head to the boardroom where the meeting is already underway.
***
It’s our fiscal year end this week, so my father is going through slides on a PowerPoint, talking to the room about our goals for the upcoming quarter. The room is filled with my team and a few tech people. Me. Two designers, one of them a new girl with pink hair who has been ogling me (undressing me with her huge blue eyes the entire meeting. She must be from the Baltimore company we recently acquired), two IT people, the new chick who I’m sharing the apartment with. My father’s secretary, two marketing staff members, and two marketing interns are also here. The four marketing team members in our New York office have dialed in to the meeting and are on-screen.
In New York we’ve got six salespeople and four marketing people, two admin team members and me.
We’ve also got a Miami branch office with ten staff members, all sales.
Normally, my marketing manager would head up a team meeting. George does weekly meetings at 9:30 on Monday mornings. My idea. My people hate it but there’s no excuse for laziness. I expect them to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Monday mornings. I only attend these meetings once a month, by video conference.
Dad wouldn’t even be here, normally, but we have
the two new contract people and George is on medical leave. Since I don’t usually work out of this branch and we’ve got two newbs, it’s typical for him to do a meeting and make sure people know who he is. I’ll have to be the one doing these meetings until George is back.
My father introduces Carly Adler and Ally Kingston again, for my benefit since I’m late, cracking a joke about it, then resumes talking about how Carly’s gonna be taking a lead on our internet marketing campaigns. Ally is aligned with her on our new campaigns and will be working with our team as well as the web developers on art for all the new company website properties as well as working on the art for our online courseware.
We recently acquired a new franchising consultancy division in Buffalo, which I scouted because of their impressive online and social media presence and Dad closed the deal on it.
This is where Carly came from and we’re ramping up marketing for another consultancy firm we’ve acquired, so it’s going to get busy. Dad’s intro tells me that this girl, my roommate, is the reason why that firm in Buffalo was doing as well as it was.
Dad’s singing her praises, waxing lyrical about how she boosted the return on investment for Facebook and Google ads for the subsidiary singlehandedly. She got them ranking as top for many coveted search terms for our industry, which is why we bought them. They were small potatoes, but yet they were outranking us, taking their small regional firm from local to national.
She had gotten them an online reputation and influencer reach that had been enviable. And that was why I punted the opportunity Dad’s way. If we can’t easily compete against someone and quickly outshine them, we try to buy them out.
Dad’s talking like this twenty-something chick is the sole reason for that company’s success and he gushes in a way that never happens, continuing to eye me as he does it. And that doesn’t sit well.
He announces we’re closing that Buffalo office down and bringing work for it in-house, laying off the entire team back there. Her expression drops at this news and I give my dad a look. He doesn’t pick up on the meaning of the look.
He should’ve told her this aside, rather than telling her in front of the department that she’s the sole survivor from a company she worked at. I don’t know how long she’s been there, how hard it’s gonna hit her. These things are unavoidable, but you have to finesse them when you’re keeping assets around.
