Chapter 11
Maynard
“Are you ready for this?” Claire took a breath and hovered her hand over the doorknob to her parents’ house.
The Tremont's house could only be described as genuinely charming. They lived in a secluded rural area off several side streets about an hour away from Chicago. Their property, like everything else around, was covered under a thin white blanket of snow. Bushes and outlines of flower beds broke through pristine calm and hinted at the lush colorful paradise this place must be in the spring.
I shifted the seventy-year old bottle of whisky to my off hand and readied the bouquet of Japanese flowers that I had flown in this morning. I had never done this sort of thing before, but I came prepared.
Claire and I had only been dating for a few weeks, which was longer than I'd ever been with anyone before. It was an amazing experience to be able to open up to Claire without judgment. The sex had also only gotten better as we built trust and learned more about each other. I was too much of a novice to know if all relationships were like this, but I couldn't imagine they were.
Claire and I had something truly special.
This meeting-the-family thing was a foreign concept to me, something I'd only ever heard about, but it couldn't be that hard. Impressing people was second nature to me and it was even easier now that my Christmas-party-turned-charity-fundraiser, was all over the news for breaking year end donation records. The public saw me as a billionaire philanthropist and next month I'd be featured on the cover of Time magazine.
I was on top of the fucking world!
“Of course.” I shot Claire a sly, half smile and nodded. If I could convince a full event hall to donate millions of dollars, surely I could talk to just two people.
I had this.
Claire didn't seem so sure. She flashed me a worried look just before opening the door and calling out to her parents. My suit was crisp and my shoes were polished to a mirror shine. I looked damn good and was ready to wow her parents’ socks off.
Why was she so nervous?
When we stepped inside I noticed that there were countless additional touches on the brown bungalow style house that weren't completely finished. If she hadn't told me her father had built the house I'd probably have guessed as much from seeing it in person. This was a master craftsman’s project home.
“Hi, Honey. You're early,” came a voice behind a corner that looked to lead into the kitchen. Claire's mother stepped into the modest living room, drying her hands on her apron. She wore a modest blue blouse with jeans and her hair, which was pulled back into a tight ponytail, was a darker shade of blond than her daughter's.
Lynn wore very little if any makeup. She had a mature, natural beauty and had all the same curves that Claire had but the spaces in between were filled in more. She wasn't fat, just hearty. Claire told me her mother ran a flower shop and a local farmers market on the weekends and had ten green thumbs instead of fingers.
Claire hugged her mother, then introduced me.
“Hello, Mrs. Tremont.” I bowed slightly, taking and kissing her hand. It was still moist and pungent from the preparation of dinner.
“Oh,” Lynn exclaimed, slipping her hand from my pursed lips. “That's not a good idea— The garbage disposal was clogged, I was just cleaning it...” Her voice quieted, awkwardly.
“These are for you,” I said, straightening back up and fighting the urge to wipe my mouth. I was off to a rocky start but there were few things in life that flowers couldn't fix. “Claire told me about your flower shop so I figured you might like these.”
“Thanks.” Lynn took the exquisitely wrapped bouquet tentatively. She studied them, separating a few of the white and yellow bulbs in her fingers, then asked, “Is this Japanese Barberry?”
“Berberis thunbergii, yes.” I smiled, having committed the full names of the various types of flowers to memory on the flight over. I specifically asked my vendor for flowers that were uncommon in the US. I didn't want to buy Lynn something that she was already growing in her shop.
“Ah,” Lynn smiled uncomfortably. “Thank you for the thought, they're very pretty, but I can't take them. Some of these are very invasive species and are technically illegal.”
I could hardly conceal the look of disappointment on my face. When I got home, I was going to have a short, harsh conversation with my vendor. My frown deepened when I saw Claire sharply raise her eyebrows and smirk in an I told you so expression.
She was enjoying this.
Claire told me that her parents were hard to please and didn't like expensive or elaborate gestures. I rarely considered the actual cost of things so I hadn't given her warning much thought. The money was always just there—so, to me—the flowers and the whisky had only costed me the time it took to pick them out.
“Where's Dad?” Claire asked, deciding to put an end to the uneasy silence of my misstep. She took her jacket off and placed it on the coat rack, then hung mine as well.
“He's outside getting wood for the fireplace,” Lynn went back into the kitchen and took a temperature reading of the bird in the oven. “Dinner should be ready soon. Help yourself to a drink, if you'd like. Claire, you know where everything is.”
“I'll go give Hal a hand with the wood.” I placed the bottle of eighty thousand dollar Glenfiddich single malt Scotch whisky on the table next to the envelope Claire had brought in. The envelope was addressed to her father. I scanned it as I put my black overcoat back on. It was from the Harper Group, they handled acquisitions for their parent company.
Were they trying to buy out her Dad's business?
“Do you want me to come introduce you?” Claire asked, breaking my concentration.
“I'll be fine.” I kissed her on the cheek. “I need another crack at this ‘impressing the parents’ thing.”
“It's an acquired skill, you'll get it... Hopefully.” Claire said, with a wink and a smile. “Good luck. My mom was the easy one by the way...”
When I walked out into the backyard I was greeted by the cutting wind as it whipped up little powder spirals off the mostly unbroken white sheet of snow that connected the main house and garage to the distant greenhouse. A grunt followed by an abrupt snap cracked the air.
“You Maynard?” The gruff voice echoed throughout the backyard, then was punctuated by an ax head splitting a log. Hal wore only a sleeveless shirt, thick pants and heavy boots. Steam wafted off his thick arms, chest and gut.
Hal wasn't particularly tall, but he was a large man with the kind of build that came from a lifetime of heavy manual labor. He covered his baldness by shaving his head and wearing a faded green Breton cap. His bushy brown beard completed a look that would've allowed him to pass as a lumberjack or fisherman.
“Yes, sir.” I made my way over to him and a pile of wood, my nice shoes crunched softly against the frozen snow. I extended a hand, but quickly pulled it back as he brought the ax down again, easily splitting another log.
Hal left the ax embedded in the stump and crushed my hand in a stony grip. I was no stranger to handshakes and was able to match his firmness, but the man's hand was rougher than chipped granite. It spoke volumes about his trade.
“Read about you in the news,” Hal said, his green eyes were the same color as Claire's but a little lighter and much, much harder. It was difficult to get a read on the guy, his beard consumed the lower half of his face and most of his neck.
“The fundraiser?” I asked, letting my lips start to curl in a proud smile. That was more like it, let us start on a high note and go from there. The first step in any new relationship was to build relatability and commonality. Claire told me Hal was into the whole community thing. “Yeah, that went really well. We raised a lot of money for—”
“No,” he said, driving the ax into the stump to keep it out of the snow. “The sex tape with that princess.”
“Oh,” I chuckled, nervously. “That was a long time ago.”
“Six months a long time for you?” Hal asked, bending down to pick up the wood pieces.
“Feels like it. A lot has changed for me since I met Claire.” I didn't get the feeling that he'd believe me even if I explained. Was this why Claire wished me luck before I came out here? I decided to change tactics. “Can I give you a hand?”
“Dunno.” Hal palmed a large piece of wood and stacked it in his basket. “Doesn't look like you're dressed for hauling wood.”
“Claire tells me you have a woodworking shop downtown.” I changed the subject. I took off my fine leather gloves and loaded a few pieces into the basket. “You make and restore furniture, right?”
“That's right.” Hal grumbled, his tone was that of mild exasperation.
The silence between us quickly became oppressive.
“I noticed that letter on your table. Is everything going alright?” I groped at some way to continue the conversation. I didn't mind silence when it was on my terms. I was the one trying to impress him. This was one of the very few times that someone else was holding all the cards.
All I wanted was for her parents to like me, why was this so damn tough?
“Fine.” Hal left it at that, then realized I was still looking at him and offered me a little more. “Just another soulless corporation. It's not the first time someone's tried to buy me out.”
“The Harper Group is a subsidiary of Milspoor International. I know the guy that owns that company, I could talk to him if you want. If it's a money thing I don't mind helping.”
“I don't need your help and I sure as hell don't want your money.” With the basket full, Hal stood up and looked directly at me. “That shop has been in my family for two generations. I'll be damned if I let some rich prick decide what happens to it. We Tremonts don't get pushed around and we don't take handouts.”
Well that explains Claire's resistance to me paying off all her debt. Claire may be shy at times and often used humor to dissolve tension but she wasn't weak. She could be incredibly stubborn and needed to feel like she earned everything.
It was hard to wrap my head around that concept. She had debt, I had money, what was the big deal? Sometimes it felt like I owned a pure fresh water lake and she was dehydrated on the shore, trying to save up money to buy a bottle of water.
Meeting her parents and seeing their work ethic and mannerisms first hand made me finally start to see why self-reliance mattered so much to her. It was something that was hard for me to fully understand, given my upbringing. I'd have to keep that in mind more. Claire had so many nuances to her and I wanted to know all of them.
This last month with Claire really had changed me.
“I feel like we started off on the wrong foot, Hal.” I felt like I was at a serious disadvantage here, this wasn't at all how I wanted this to go. Why did he dislike me so much?
“It's Mr. Tremont.” He bristled in his rough tone as he ripped the ax out of the stump and put it back in the shed.
OK. We'll play it like that, I thought. I could do formal.
“I haven't always had the best press, Mr. Tremont, but I'm working on that. My sister, Bianca, and I are in the process of opening a global charity foundation. It will be on par with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for reach and impact.”
“Most nonprofit organizations are tax free ways to launder money.” Hal snapped a glare at me. Then narrowed his eyes. “But yours will be different, right?
“It wouldn't be like that. Hell, I wouldn't even take a salary, or rather I might and then donate that back to the cause. We're still talking with the lawyers to figure out how it will all work.” I caught myself trailing off. It was all still so complicated. I restarted my point, “I've changed. Claire— Claire has shown me a lot of things.” I paused, realizing that I chose my words poorly then quickly clarified. “About myself.”
Jesus, was I babbling? That's not something I'd ever done before.
“Claire is a great girl.” I started over again. “I really like her.”
“I love my daughter but she has bad taste in men. I don't want to see her hurt again.” Hal hefted the bulging basket of chopped wood in one arm and began walking back to the house. “As far as your charity goes, I don't put much stock in best intentions or in what will be. Actions are all that matter.”
He made it clear that this conversation was over.
The heat of anger that swelled inside me staved off the howling wind and cold. I'd been called many things by many people, most of them were well deserved, and I never cared before. This time was different because he was important to someone who mattered to me. It bothered me that this man thought so little of me and didn't even know me.
No way. I refused to let things between him and I end like this.
“I'm not like that prick Chance. I'm not using Claire for anything,” I stated loudly with the authority of being back on stage and addressing hundreds of people. It was a tone that demanded acknowledgment. “Whether you can see it or not, I care about your daughter.”
Hal stopped and regarded me with a raised eyebrow. He looked me up and down, measuring my worth.
“The only reason I allowed you to come here today was because of what I read about your parents,” Hal's tone softened a bit. “They built their empire from nothing then gave a lot of money to a lot of worthy causes. I can respect that.”
“Thanks.” I nodded. For someone who seemed to hate the rich, Hal certainly did his homework. Finally, I found some common ground with the man! I could work with this. “I strive to—”
“And now you have that empire.” Hal interrupted, the softness drained from his voice. He let the pointed statement hang in the air like a deadly icicle above my head. “That publicity stunt aside, who've you helped with all that money?” He paused for a beat then continued, “Besides yourself.”
Hal's words stung a lot more than I was prepared for.
I never claimed to be some fucking saint. I was eighteen when I inherited NYC's biggest hotel and half the Cooper fortune. I was too absorbed in the next girl I wanted to fuck to ever give a shit about the greater good. I used to catch flak for that all the time from the media and from Bianca, but it always rolled right off me. I had the world by the balls, to hell with everyone else.
But that wasn't me anymore.
What had I done with all my wealth?
“Listen, son, I'll cut right to it,” Hal said, opening the storm door that lead into the back of his house. “If you came here looking for my approval to date my daughter, you don't have it.”
Hal walked in and let the door snap shut behind him, leaving me alone in the backyard. A lonely torrent of snow drifted by in a swirl on the cutting wind.
I sighed. A plume of visible hot breath streamed from my mouth. “Well, fuck.”