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“Five hundred,” the guy next to me says as he throws some chips into the pot. I slide my cards away from me, showing that I fold, and Dante gives me a confused look.
“You seem down,” he says. I probably look far worse than I am, but that’s just because tonight, I’m struggling to keep the mask on. Dante and Noah are used to seeing me showing my emotions, but we’re in public. Well, we’re not in the public since this happens to be an illegal side of an otherwise legit business, but I should have a smile on my face at the very least.
I do my best to shift into my persona, but I know it’s cracking. “We’ve got a lot happening with the break into ChitChat. Our first official client is getting videos of normal people, not models or actresses. And it’s for a beauty product.”
“Makes sense to me,” Dante says.
I squint at him. Dante has been our mostly silent partner from the beginning. The only part he’s played has been in the finance department, and though he’s done amazing at it, he’s never tried to stick his nose in anywhere else, trusting to our expertise.
“Why does it make sense?” I ask.
“Because women want to see themselves using the products. They want it to be real. We’re not living in 1990 when everybody was trying to be a superstar. Millennials hope they can make enough to pay rent and Gen Z has grown up with YouTube being their television. I don’t even know if the kids these days know what cable TV is, and most of them have only been to a movie theater a few times in their lives. Nobody dreams of being a star anymore unless it’s a YouTube or ChitChat star.”
I huff. Maybe Dante knows more about advertising than he lets on. “Maybe that’s why everyone’s struggled,” Noah chimes in. “We’re all trying to convince people our products can make them become movie star famous when we should be trying to sell something that will make them YouTube famous.”
Dante nods as he lays down a full house and the guy next to me sighs, showing two pair. He scoops up the three thousand dollars’ worth of chips. “Sounds miserable to me, but they probably haven’t realized that being a little wealthy and famous is just a hassle. Give me money over fame any day of the week.”
I can’t agree more.
It only makes me want to go back to Madison’s tiny apartment and spend another night drinking terrible wine with her. But that’s the last thing I should do after getting slapped. Just then, for the first time, I realize she’s the first woman I’ve ever pursued who works for me. Is that it? It’s definitely hot thinking about the things we could do in the office with the blinds closed.
I sigh as I collect my chips. I don’t want to be here anymore. “Where are you going?” Noah asks as he passes the deck to someone I’ve never met before.
“Home, I think. There’s too much on my mind to have fun playing cards tonight.” Noah gives me an odd look, but I ignore it. Even Emery Brooks has a night every few years where he needs to be alone.
“I guess I’ll see you at the office tomorrow,” he says.
With a nod, I stand up to exchange the chips for dollars. I can’t go to Madison’s, and I don’t want to stay here. Going home sounds miserable. Tonight deserves a full tank of fuel and a long drive up the coast.
***
The Porsche 911 is the smoothest ride I have, and God, it feels good to have the top down on a late night drive up to Connecticut. I haven’t done this in far too long. I think the last time was after Dante said that he wanted out of Aspire, and he’d be looking for a new business to run soon.
There’s only one place I ever go on these late-night rides, and as I cross the Connecticut state line, I feel the tension draining from my body. No one knows where I go on these drives. Not even Dante or Noah. They wouldn’t understand.
It’s only fifteen minutes into Connecticut that I get off the freeway and turn onto a gravel road to one of the few truly ridiculous purchases I’ve ever made. The gravel crunches as I creep down the road. Chirping crickets can barely be heard over the sound of the waves on the shore and the sea breeze blowing.
A stone tower rises over the ocean, bright light shining out on the water. Spotlight Point Lighthouse is nothing special, one of many lighthouses that dot the New England coast, but it’s special to me because it’s mine.
The lantern keeper’s truck is parked on the gravel, and I pull up next to it, putting the Porsche in park and getting out. As I climb the stone steps that ring the tower, my hand runs along the edge, feeling the cracks and crevices of a building that has stood against hurricanes and thunderstorms for nearly a hundred years.
The world has weathered this piece of history, but it hasn’t broken it. It alone stands tall, defiant of the winds of the world, as it guides the men and women who seek the shore. Those winds may not have been able to topple it, but they’ve scarred its surface, leaving their marks in thin scratches.
Spotlight Point Lighthouse won’t survive forever. It will eventually fall to the same storms that it guides boats through. One day, all that will be left will be rubble along the shore.
Unless someone helps it to survive, to patch the holes and fill in the missing mortar.
Is that what I’ve been missing this whole time? Someone who can help me bear the winds of the storms?
I open the door to the lantern room, and Jared Wheeler turns in his office chair to glance at me. The lantern keeper has been working here for almost forty years, and the change of ownership seven years ago didn’t faze him at all. Nothing changed for the old man with a salt and pepper beard and short gray hair.
His eyes still dance with laughter, and his laugh lines are still deep. He knows exactly how everything works in the stone tower that’s been his nightly home for longer than I’ve been alive.
“Been a minute, Emery,” he says as he turns back to the newspaper he’s reading.
I cross the deck of the lantern room toward the glass walls that look out over the sea. “More than a minute, I’d say.”
“Time’s different when you’re my age, boy. Months go by like weeks used to. What’s the trouble tonight?”
