Chapter Nine
Brady
“Thomas,” I say. “Good to see you.”
Thomas comes around his desk – a nice, but normal sized desk, unlike Kendrick's – and gives me a firm handshake.
“Nice to see you too, son,” he says.
Thomas is one of the most brilliant men I've ever known. He came from nothing, made it into MIT and started in the R&D department here at KT – it seems like a lifetime ago. And now, he's sitting in the CEO's seat – keeping it warm for me, he's fond of saying. But like Miss Delia, I think Thomas gives me more credit than I deserve. His are yet another set of shoes I could never possibly fill.
But, he is an inspiration. A real-life success story. He's responsible for some of Keating Technologies' biggest innovations. It probably wouldn't be unfair to say that without Thomas Newhouse, there might not be a Keating Technologies – at least, not as it's known today. Without Thomas, I don't know that KT would be the empire its become.
Thomas, Kendrick, and my father were the best of friends. The Three Musketeers. They did almost everything together – fishing trips, camping excursions. I remember getting together with them for family barbecues and whatnot. I grew up around Thomas and thought as highly of him as I did Kendrick. They're both great men. Aside from my father, the best I've ever known.
Thomas is tall, but not nearly as wide as Kendrick. Whereas Kendrick is built like a linebacker, Thomas is built more like a cornerback – a little more slender and agile. Despite being well into his fifties, Thomas' ebony skin is smooth and unlined. The only thing giving his age away is the liberal sprinkling of white through his still-full head of hair and neatly trimmed goatee.
He's as un-Texas as Kendrick is Texas – which makes sense, given the fact that Thomas was born in Philadelphia. No snakeskin boots or Stetsons for him. No, Thomas wears a very nice, but conservative three-piece suit. He's a frugal man, not given to lavish spending sprees – in fact, he drives a ten-year old car and has had the same modest, two-story home as long as I can remember.
My father always told me that I could – and should – learn a lot from both Thomas and Kendrick.
I take a seat in the chair before his desk, setting my hat on the seat next to me. Thomas walks around, dropping down into the chair behind it. He looks at me and pats the arm of the chair, giving me a wide, warm smile.
“It's nice and warm for you, son,” he says.
I give him a smile. “You look better in it than I ever could, Thomas.”
He laughs out loud and shakes his head. “Well, you can always update it to a more fashionable, stylish chair when you take over.”
“If I take over.”
He nods. “Oh, you will,” he says. “I have every faith that you will. Can I get you some coffee or anything?”
I shake my head. “No, I'm fine,” I say. “Thank you.”
I don't want to debate the point with him right then and there. Needless to say, I'm having more than my fair share of doubts. Two years may seem like a long time, but as I've pondered it since meeting with Kendrick, I'm starting to see that it's not all that long at all in reality. Two years to find a wife and learn the intricacies of all of KT's different divisions? Yeah, when I really sit down and think about it, I'm not feeling all that great about my odds.
“How are Marie and the kids?” I ask.
He smiles and I can see the light of pride in his eyes. I'm not proud of it – in fact, I'm pretty ashamed of it – but deep within me, I feel a small spark of jealousy when I see that look. It's a look of pride I never saw in my own father's eyes – and would never have the chance to see. Thomas is proud of his kids – and he should be. They're both remarkable. But I would have given the world to see that same light of pride in my parent's eyes – if only just once.
“Marie is good,” he says. “She's keeping busy with the gallery. Anna is graduating from Temple next year. She's going to be a lawyer.”
“Better keep her away from Kendrick,” I laugh.
“I plan on trying,” he says with a grin. “But he's already been pouring honey into her ear.”
“And Jonas?”
“Jonas is heading out to California,” he says. “He's going to start his PhD work in San Diego.”
“Marine Biology, wasn't it?”
Thomas nods. “Indeed. The boy loves the ocean,” he replies. “And all the critters in it.”
“Yeah, I've seen Jaws too many times to feel comfortable getting into the water like that.”
“You and me both, son,” Thomas' laughter is booming. “You and me both.”
As the laughter dies out, we sit back in our seats and stare at each other for a moment. It's as if Thomas is waiting for me to say something – though, I have no idea what it could be.
“Kendrick said I should come see you,” I finally say.
He nods. “He wanted me to talk to you,” he says. “About your future. And the future of Keating Technologies.”
I nod my head and grin. So, Kendrick's plan is employ a two-pronged attack. He squeezes me from one side and has Thomas squeeze me from the other. Clever. Very clever.
“If you're going to give me the same pep-talk Kendrick gave –”
“I'm not, actually,” he says with a smile. “I like to think I'm a little more original than that.”
“Okay,” I say and sigh. “Let's hear your sales pitch, hoss.”
He chuckles. “It's not really a sales pitch,” he says. “I actually want to show you something.”
“Oh? And what's that?”
Thomas stands up and motions toward the door. “Come with me and see.”
I give him a grin and stand up, following him toward the door. Over the next two hours, Thomas walked me through all of the different departments housed in the Keating Tech building. He showed me everything from the R&D department to accounting. He introduced me to countless people – most every single one of them passionate about their job. And he also showed me some of KT's current projects – some really amazing innovations he hopes to bring to the marketplace soon.
When the tour was over, we grabbed some lunch in the cafeteria and I heard more stories from more people about how much they love working at KT and how good the company is to them. Nobody knew me from a hole in the ground and I like to think that I've got a pretty good bullshit detector and I can sniff out a brown-nosing, ass-kisser a mile off. But that detector didn't go off once all day. It was really – something.
Eventually, we make it back to Thomas' office and it's getting late in the afternoon. He has his personal assistant bring in a couple bottles of cold beer for us, giving him a warm smile as she sets them down on the desk.
“Can I get you anything else, Mr. Newhouse?”
He shakes his head. “No, Lisa, thank you,” he says. “You can knock off for the day if you'd like.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods. “Of course. Go spend time with your boy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Newhouse.”
She gives him a grateful smile and nods to me as she departs, leaving us alone with our beers. I pick up the bottle and laugh.
“Still drinking the fancy imports, huh?” I ask.
“It's the one indulgence I allow myself,” he laughs. “Kendrick may be okay drinking the domestic swill, but I never will be.”
“He calls you a little hoity-toity because of this, you know,” I say, holding the bottle up.
He shrugs. “What else would an unrefined, uncultured cretin say?”
We share a laugh and take a long sip of our beer. It's a brand I haven't had before and I have to admit, it's pretty tasty. I'm not usually prone to drinking beer – I'm more of a bourbon man, myself – but when I do, I usually drink the domestic swill, as Thomas calls it. But after tasting this, I might have to re-think that.
“Good, isn't it?” Thomas asks.
I nod. “Maybe the Europeans do know a little something about brewing beer.”
“I've been trying to tell you,” he says. “Kendrick is a lost cause, but I've got hope for you still, son.”
“You may have made me a convert,” I say. “Just don't tell Kendrick.”
He laughs and takes another drink of his beer before looking at me. “Do you know why I had you tour the building with me today?”
I give him a grin. “You thought I needed the exercise?”
He chuckles. “Hardly. I think you do well enough on that count on your own,” he says. “No, I wanted you to see, firsthand, the impact this company has in the lives of its people. I can tell you from my own experience that working for this company – for your father – changed my life. Bettered my life. And you heard a lot of other similar stories today.”
I nod. I did hear a lot of similar stories. I didn't realize just how many others shared Thomas' story. Or something very much like it.
“I wanted you to see that,” he says. “Because I think you need to understand just how important this company is to people. What a difference it's making in their lives – and in the world.”
I nod again, understanding the point he's driving at – or at least, thinking I do. “How many people does KT employ?”
“Here? There are a little more than eight thousand employees in this building alone,” he says. “But we have so many more. There are research facilities, subsidiary companies – even warehouses and general office spaces. In San Antonio alone, we employ many thousand more. And all told, KT employs more than fifty thousand people nationwide.”
I sit back in my seat and whistle low. “I didn't know that.”
He nods. “If you let your sister –”
“Half-sister.”
“Half-sister, then,” he says. “If you let her gain control of this company, she's going to break it up, sell it off, and all of those people will then be out of work. Basically, half of San Antonio is going to be unemployed.”
Thomas' presentation hits me in the gut in a way that Kendrick's hadn't. Apparently, his two-pronged attack is having the effect he wanted it to have. Looking into the faces of the people KT employs, speaking with them, hearing their stories – it made that connection to this company real for me. It made it tangible.
Which is exactly what these two were hoping to achieve – Kendrick lays out the bare facts and Thomas makes it real for me.
“You know, you and Kendrick are like a couple of scheming old women,” I say, chuckling wryly.
He shrugs. “We can be,” he says. “We just wanted to underscore what is on the line if you don't meet the obligations of your parent's estate. We thought it was important you see what's at stake.”
“Well, now that I understand it,” I say. “It still doesn't change the underlying problem.”
“And what is that underlying problem?”
“For one thing, understanding everything KT does,” I say. “I'm not a genius like you, Thomas. I'm not an engineer. Hell, I can barely do math.”
He chuckles. “I'm hardly a genius, son,” he says. “I'm just somebody who works hard and doesn't give up.”
“That's crap and we both know it, Thomas,” I say.
He leans back in his seat and takes another drink of his beer. “You do realize that your parents never expected you to master every nuance of what we do here, right?” he asks. “Nobody can. There are projects going on in this building that I don't understand. Not the first thing about them.”
“Then why would one of their conditions be that I understand the workings of KT when I assume control?”
Thomas looks at me for a long moment. “One of the biggest frustrations your father had with you was that you always took everything on yourself,” he says. “You're a stubborn kid, Brady. You have a real hard time asking for help.”
My laugh is wry. “I suppose the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree in that regard.”
Thomas smiles. “Indeed,” he says. “But I will give your father all the credit in the world. He learned to ask for help. If he didn't understand something, he learned to be comfortable asking somebody to help him understand it.”
“My father?” I ask. “Actually asked for – help?”
“He did,” he replies. “Believe me, it's a hard lesson to learn – how to humble yourself enough to admit that you don't know everything. It's not easy admitting that you aren't the smartest guy in the room and that you need help understanding something.”
I give him a grin. “I freely admit that I'm never the smartest guy in the room,” I say. “There's more I don't understand than I do. Except when it comes to football.”
Thomas nods. “One of the best lessons your father ever learned – and tried to teach you – was to know your strengths,” he said. “To know what you are good at and what you might need help with. It was an amazing transformation I saw in him over the years. But because of it, he became a lot more well rounded. Your father was a genius in his own right, Brady. He designed things that still blow me away. But eventually, he learned that he didn't know everything and learned to lean on others. And that's a lesson you'll learn. That's why that condition is spelled out the way it is in his estate.”
I cock my head and look at him. “So, what you're telling me is that they only wanted me to learn to ask for help?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he chuckles. “Do you really believe they expect you to have a thorough knowledge of everything KT does? That's impossible – and your parents never expected you to do the impossible.”
“Sometimes, it feels like it.”
Thomas chuckles. “Son, this is a lesson they wanted you to figure out on your own – that you don't have to do it all yourself. They wanted you to learn how to ask for help,” he says. “And by telling you this, I'm breaking their confidence. Kendrick wanted to tell you, but given that he's the executor of their estate and their attorney, he was bound by law. But once we learned of what Tiffany is doing behind the scenes, we decided that the stakes were too great to not tell you.”
“So, just to be clear, all I have to do to fulfill that condition is – ask for help?”
Thomas chuckles. “More or less, yes. As ridiculous as it sounds,” he says. “All they wanted was for you to humble yourself enough to learn to find the experts around you who can help you, who can help guide this company and grow it. They wanted you to learn to lean on them.”
“Experts like you,” I say.
He shrugs. “Among others,” he says. “There are good people in this company. Smart people doing some amazing things. And they only wanted you to be aware and knowledgeable about what's happening.”
I sigh and sit back in my seat, taking a long swallow of beer. I can't believe what I'm hearing. Although, it makes perfect sense now that Thomas has let the cat out of the bag. My parents were always trying to teach me lessons. Always doing things like this to make a point.
“That's a lot to digest and I'll have to think it over some,” I say. “I'm not entirely sure how to process it all just yet, hoss.”
“I wouldn't expect anything less,” he replies.
“But that still leaves us with the other condition,” I say. “And that one could prove a little more troublesome than the first. That's not about learning a lesson.”
Thomas shakes his head. “No, it's not,” he replies. “But they believed in the stability a marriage can provide. They believed it reshapes one's priorities.”
“Yeah, Tiffany is a great reminder that my father always had his priorities straight,” I say, completely deadpan.
“That – was a mistake,” he says. “A mistake he never forgave himself for making. Believe me, I saw how badly he punished himself for it firsthand. But he and your mother – though they had their ups and downs – learned to get over it. Put it behind them. Because they had a stable marriage and never lost sight of their goals or priorities. And that's what they want for you, Brady.”
“Which is great and all,” I say and grin. “Except for the part about having a wife. I have no prospects, hoss.”
He sighs and grimaces. I can tell he's about to say something he either doesn't approve of or something he doesn't like because he looks like he just ate a rotten lemon.
“Marie and I have been married a long time,” he says, looking at the framed picture on his desk. “A long, long time. We're partners in everything.”
I nod, not sure where he's going with this.
“But not every marriage is like ours,” he says. “Other marriages are – well – different.”
“I'm not sure what you're driving at, hoss.”
He sighs and runs a hand over his closely cropped hair. “I'm just saying that I have a lot of respect for the institution of marriage. A deep belief in it.”
I nod slowly, still not understanding. “Okay, I get that, but you're losing me here.”
“I guess I'm having trouble spitting it out only because I personally detest the idea,” he says.
“Let me guess, this is an idea suggested by a certain burly lawyer friend of ours,” I say.
Thomas gives me a wry grin. “See? You are a lot brighter and more intuitive than you give yourself credit for,” he says. “Our burly lawyer friend and I were spitballing recently –”
“And by spitballing, you mean trying to find a suitable woman to throw in my path?”
He grins. “Something like that.”
“And? What did you two Cupids from hell come up with?”
“Well, I still believe that in two years, you can find a suitable match,” he says. “But during our discussion, a point was raised that there are marriages that are more like – business partnerships.”
“Business partnerships,” I say flatly.
Thomas nods. “Oh, I can think of a few prominent political couples whose marriage was little more than a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
I rub at the stubble on my chin. “Huh,” I say. “So, you think I just need to find a girl and propose a business arrangement? A little you scratch my back, I scratch yours deal?”
That look of distaste appears on his face again. “I'm not suggesting any such thing,” he says. “All I'm saying is that some believe it's – an option. And with time beginning to run short, perhaps it's an option you shouldn't remove from the table entirely.”
I can tell he's uncomfortable with even throwing that out there as an option. Thomas is a good man who values marriage and family above everything else. I can tell the very idea of a sham marriage to satisfy a requirement for my inheritance turns his stomach and goes against everything he believes in. But he had to be the one to float it out there because Kendrick couldn't, given his position.
The fact that he floated it out there at all though, tells me just how serious the situation is. Or at least, how seriously they're taking it.
“All I know is that this company cannot fall into Tiffany Greene's hands, Brady,” he says. “This is your father's legacy. Your legacy. And if she wins, she'll destroy it all in a heartbeat. And she will hurt a lot of people in the process.”
“I understand,” I say. “I just need a little time to think.”
“I'd expect that you would.”
I put my hat back on and get to my feet. Thomas comes around and pulls me into a tight embrace. A moment later, he steps back and gives me a smile.
“I haven't been keeping that chair warm for the last couple of years,” he says, “just to let some spiteful, greedy little girl sell it off to the highest bidder.”
“I know you haven't, hoss,” I say. “And I'm going to do everything I can not to disappoint you.”
Thomas nods. “That's all I can ask.”
I leave the Keating building and feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. The lives and livelihood of more than fifty thousand people rests on my ability to meet my two obligations – which are getting married, and apparently learning to ask for help.
My mind is swirling in a million different directions and I'm not entirely sure what to think. It feels like there's a hellacious storm brewing. It's out on the horizon, still two years away, but it's like I can see the thunderheads already gathering. The clouds are pitch black and promise to bring ruin and destruction.
Unless I can somehow manage to head it off.
The driver holds the door open for me and I slip into the back seat, lost in thought. But as he pulls away from the curb, an idea begins to form in my mind. And by the time we're halfway home, I'm feeling really good about it.
“This can work,” I say. “This can really work.”