27.
Ian
It’d probably be fair to say that up until I met Daisy, I didn’t really have any idea about the notion of being in love. The idea of it still sort of freaked me out, but what other explanation was there for this excitement I felt whenever I was around her, or on my way to see her?
Before I’d stopped by her apartment a few days ago on Sunday to give her those flowers, I’d been hoping against hope that she’d be able to look past all the shit with Annie. I’d bought the flowers on a whim and had hoped she’d at least take them from me, though it wouldn’t have surprised me if she slammed the door in my face. But that hadn’t happened, and I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d felt more relieved about something. It surprised me, in a way, to be feeling this way to begin with, but I actually rather liked it.
At work though, it still made sense to keep things quiet, which really only enhanced the sexual tension between us. Just watching her from my desk as she went about whatever it was she was doing, only to have her look up and catch me made me want to pull her into my office and have her right there on my desk, door open for all to see, I didn’t care. Being in the office when she was there was a good exercise in restraint.
That Wednesday, though, I packed up my stuff on time and got ready to leave.
“You’re heading out?” Daisy asked.
“It’s Wednesday,” Jonathan said. “He’s got to go visit
his stepfather.”
“Oh, that’s right. Could I come with
you?”
“Uh, sure,” I said, because she’d caught
me completely off guard. Why the hell did she want to come with me? Not that I
wouldn’t mind her company, but it seemed like an odd request . . . until I
remembered that she thought I was doing this because I actually cared about
Pete. “It might not be the most exciting thing, but . . .”
“I bet it’ll be great,” she said. “Let me just run and use the bathroom.”
“I just talked to Dan,” Jonathan said, “and they’re down at the harbor, waiting for Martin and his group.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I don’t anticipate there being any issues. Weren’t they planning on leaving earlier? I thought I heard something about early afternoon.”
“Yeah, but there was an issue at Logan, something
about lost luggage. It’s getting sorted.”
“All right, I’m ready,” Daisy said when she returned.
I tried to ignore the look that Jonathan was giving me as we left. And as we were driving to the Eagle Hollow, I was thinking that “great” might not be the exact term I’d use to describe it, but who knew; maybe it would be.
“He had a stroke,” I said to Daisy as we walked into the facility. “So he can’t actually talk. As far as anyone knows, though, he understands things completely.”
“That must be so hard,” she said. “To lose your ability to speak but to still be able to hear and understand. I can’t even imagine.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll be glad to meet you. This is his room right here.” I paused before we went in. I hadn’t parked where I normally did; this time I parked in the visitors’ parking area, which wasn’t visible from Pete’s window. I cleared my throat before we went in.
“Hi there, Pete,” I said. “This might surprise you,
but I’ve brought a visitor with me. I thought you might like to meet Daisy.”
She walked into the room, a smile on her face. She didn’t seem the least bit
uncomfortable, and I felt my skin start to crawl as she went over to his
wheelchair. My instinct was to shield her from him, but what was he going to
do? He couldn’t get up; he couldn’t even speak.
“Very nice to meet you,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “I’m Daisy. That was one of the first things I learned about Ian, that he had a stepfather that he came and still visited, which I thought was really great of him to do.”
Oh, Jesus. She continued to talk, and I tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t that I was tempted to burst out laughing or anything—it was more like I wanted to cringe. Most people would have been somewhat uncomfortable at having to have a conversation with someone who couldn’t actually respond to what they were saying, but Daisy didn’t seem the list bit bothered. It would appear as though she had missed her calling as a nurse, or maybe a preschool teacher.
I sat down in the other chair and watched Pete watch her. It was clearly a mistake to bring her here, as this was no doubt the highlight of his day, perhaps the highlight of his entire life. A young beautiful woman, focusing all of her attention on him. His eyes shifted over to me for a second, and I just stared at him, hoping he’d get the clue that this wasn’t some sort of kindness on my part. My phone started to vibrate in my pocket, but I ignored it. Daisy kept talking with Pete, talking with him as though he were a participant in the conversation.
“They said it’s probably going to be very humid tomorrow, so you’re lucky you have air conditioning in here,” she said. She looked around the room. “This is a very nice place.”
My phone buzzed again, and I pulled it out of my pocket to peek at the screen. Dan. The clock on my phone said that we’d already been here for almost half an hour longer than I usually stayed, so I stood up, touching Daisy’s shoulder. “We better get going,” I said. “I need to take this call from Dan.”
“Why don’t you do that and I’ll sit with Pete a little bit longer,” Daisy said.
“Sure, fine,” I said. “I’ll just be out in the hallway.”
I stepped out into the hall and called Dan back. He answered on the first ring.
“We’ve got a problem.” He did not sound happy.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I’ve been calling and calling. I haven’t been able to
get a hold of you or Jonathan! Where
the hell have you been?”
“What’s going on?” I could hear a lot of commotion in the background. “Are you
on the boat?”
“No, I’m not on the boat because it’s a fuckin mob scene down here.”
“Mob scene? What are you talking about?”
“There’s a shitload of people down here! People that aren’t supposed to be
here, I can tell you that much. Martin is furious; I think he wants to call the
whole thing off. At the very least, he wants to see you.”
“Well, where are they? Did they get on the boat?”
“No, they went back to his house. So you should probably head over there.”
I groaned. All those people down there, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood celebrities. How had word gotten out about it? This was bullshit.
“If they’re all back at Martin’s house, why the hell is there still a huge crowd there?”
“It’s dispersed a bit; half of them tried to follow the cars back to Martin’s, so we sent some guys with them, but a bunch of them stayed because they’re convinced that they’re going to come back to board the boat. This is a huge fucking mess.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said, hanging up the phone and stuffing it back into my pocket. I gritted my teeth as I went back into the room to get Daisy. FUCK.
I didn’t get into all the details with Daisy, but I told her I needed to drop her off because there was a crisis of sorts at work that I needed to deal with. Thankfully, she didn’t ask too many questions. Jonathan called as I was driving over to Martin’s South End brownstone.
“I’m heading over there right now,” I said.
“Good luck with that,” Jonathan said, sounding grim.
“He sounded pissed when I talked to him.”
“He is! His whole fucking dream cruise
trip was almost ruined. Granted, it wasn’t, so maybe he should get over it, but
either way, it doesn’t look good. I don’t know how it got out about that
happening, but it must’ve been someone from his end. Maybe it was his daughter,
for Christ’s sake. Teenagers are always going gaga for famous actors and shit.”
“That seems the most likely.”
“Parents are always turning a blind eye to the shit their kids do,” I said.
“Yeah. He definitely wanted to put the blame somewhere else.”
“Well, now I have to go deal with it.”
“You want me to go with you?”
I considered this. Maybe it would be better if there was two of us. But maybe
not. I knew what Martin really needed to do was bitch
at someone, get it out of his system, and
hopefully move on.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll deal with it.”
When I got there, though, Martin wasn’t interested in hearing any apologies. He wanted to lay into someone about it, and that’s exactly what I had to let him do. “This was a disaster,” Martin said. “A complete disaster on every level. I work with you, Ian, because you’re a professional in every way—discretion being at the top of that list. You know as well as I do that there are half a dozen other companies we could have gone with, but we decided to go with you. But after all this, I’m starting to wonder if that was the right choice.”
“We’ve always done right by you,” I said.
“Not today you haven’t! There’s no way that information should have gotten out like that,” Martin said.
“I can assure you, it wasn’t on our end,” I said.
But he was shaking his head. “So what are you saying?
Are you trying to blame us? Are you trying to say this was somehow our fault?”
Yes and no. There was no way any of our guys would have leaked that information
about Martin’s goddamn cruise—unless they wanted to be out of a job. Martin was
right—discretion was supremely important, and though we did have a lot of guys
working for us, only the ones who I could trust completely had specific
knowledge of events like these.
Martin was pissed, though, there was no doubt about it, though he was doing his best to keep it in check. His face was turning red, and I could see a vein in his forehead that I’d never noticed before. Probably because we’d never had an incident like this.
“You got an answer for me?”
I gritted my teeth and tried not to have a childhood flashback; that was what
Pete was always saying after he’d used me as a punching bag: You think anyone’s ever gonna have any
respect for a pussy like you? What? You got
an answer for me? I can’t hear you!
“My answer is that I don’t know exactly how this happened. You have my full apologies, though I am one hundred percent certain that it was not from our end.”
“Then who? If I’m one hundred percent certain it wasn’t on my end, and you’re saying
the same, one of us is wrong and it damn sure isn’t me!”
I’d never seen him so enraged. I let him bitch at me for a little bit longer,
and then I left, only after agreeing to at least look into the possibilities
that the leak was on our end. I stepped outside, glad to be out of there, but
in serious need of a drink.
And wouldn’t you know, the first person I see upon entering the fucking hole-in-the-wall sports bar I chose to go to: Billy McAllister.