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“It’s Daisy. She went sledding today with some friends after school and I just got a call from one of the moms that she hurt her ankle and it might be broken. I’ve got to go down there and take her to the hospital for an X-ray but I’ve also got a job tonight cleaning this lady’s place. Can youpleasedo the job for me?”
Most of Ben screamed at him to tell her no but his conscience wouldn’t let him. Louisa had done favors for him in the past. He owed it to her to help if he could. “Sure. I can do it.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetheart, you’re a life saver.” She gave him the address. “Her name is Mrs. Mitchell. Tell her you’re from my agency. And wear a black t-shirt. Her sight is for shit, so she won’t notice one black shirt from another. She’ll pay you in cash at the end of the evening. I charge two hundred. Okay?”
“Anything special I need to do?”
“Bathrooms, kitchen, litterbox. Dust everywhere else. Sweep and mop the floors.”
Ben was allergic to cats but figured he’d be fine as long as he avoided them. “Sure. I hope Daisy’s okay.”
“Me, too, Benny. Me, too.”
Ben took a ride share to Mrs. Mitchell’s house since it was in the suburbs and he wanted to arrive sometime this century. Between the snow money and the money from his cleaning job tonight, he’d be able to justify the expense.
Mrs. Mitchell, as it turned out, did not have a cat. She had five cats. Ben did everything he could to avoid them but still they twined around his ankles and kept getting up on his clean countertops. Then he’d have to gently scoop them up and put them on the floor. Over and over and over.
By the time he was done with the job and had collected his extremely well-earned money, it was late. Too late to take a bus home, so he got another ride share. It was only after he’d gotten back home, dumped out the bucket collecting leak water, taken a weary shower, and crawled into bed that it occurred to Ben that he’d forgotten to get his fifty dollars from Kyle. He’d also skipped dinner entirely.
4
Simon Rescues an Adorable Stranger
Thursday, December 14
Simon’s Land Rover
The Loop
“This wasn’t at all what I expected,” Jeff said. His perfect teeth, that Simon could still remember being in braces, flashed in a brilliant smile.
“How so?” Simon asked. The world outside the car window was a whirl of white. The snow was coming down quite hard and he was glad Hudson, his supremely competent and experienced driver, was at the wheel today.
“To be honest, sir, I thought you’d be grilling me about the company. Not that I could’ve done much to destroy it in less than a week.”
As a mixed-race kid brought at age eleven into a white family of mostly rich low-key racist white snobs, Jeff hadn’t always had an easy time. He’d been commonly referred to as “that mongrel” by several of the Princes and their various offshoots. His father, Stewart, a brilliant physicist working at the University of Chicago, was Korean. Jeff’s mother, who’d been a professor of economics at the same university, died when he was a toddler. Simon didn’t know much about her, but pictures of her that Jeff had shared with Simon showed a beautiful woman with light brown skin, gray eyes, and riotously curly chestnut brown hair. When asked of her heritage by some of the more outspoken members of the family, including Simon’s mother, Stewart had said only that she was “purely American” and refused to be drawn further.
What Simon had been interested in was how clever Jefferson had been even as a child. In Jeff he saw someone worthy of succeeding him as the head of Prince Industries, thus keeping the company in the family. None of the other children of that generation had been the slightest bit interested in running a multi-billion-dollar company and Simon wasn’t about to force any of them to do so. Jeff had been a solution to an extremely difficult quandary, as far as Simon was concerned. He was someone Simon had worked with for the past decade, watching as he nimbly climbed the ranks within the company by dint of his considerable talent and hard work. More than anything, Simon trusted Jeff, and that was a commodity in exceedingly short supply when it came to vetting potential CEOs.
“I don’t anticipate your destroying the company at all,” Simon replied. “I’m far more concerned about how you feel being given the reins. I’m hoping you’re not having buyer’s remorse.”
“You’re still technically in control,” Jeff pointed out. “You’re the majority stockholder.”
“When you’re ready to buy my stock, Jeff, it’s available for sale. In the meantime, I don’t plan on voting against you in any of the stockholder meetings.”
“Unless I try to steer Prince over a cliff, naturally,” Jeff said lightly.
“Are you planning on that?”
Jeff laughed loudly. “God, no, sir.”
“Exactly. And you’re allowed to call me Simon. Or Uncle Simon, if you must, but it makes me feel incredibly old.”
“All right then, Simon,” Jeff said, trying the name on for size.
“Excellent. And excellent timing, as well. We’re nearly back to the office.”
A few moments later Hudson pulled the Range Rover to the curb at the entrance of the Prince building “Are you coming in?” Jeff asked.
