Chapter 19
Richard
It was barely daybreak and Black Rocket Records was busier than I’d ever seen, but not with customers, although they were here too. Half the store bustled about urgently with renovations. Was this all for that band’s album release concert?
The executive side of me quickly calculated the cost of the manpower, the materials and the temporary loss of revenue due to the construction. This wasn’t something a small store could afford easily. A pit formed in my stomach.
If this concert didn’t go exactly as planned the Rocket might not be able to make its next bank payment. That’s when bad things started happening.
I spotted Gloria immediately. She was barking orders at half a dozen workers nearly twice her size. Gloria wore a black, ragged top t-shirt and ripped jeans. She was sweaty from coordinating, moving things and also taking care of customers that were brave enough to enter.
Where was Judy in all this?
I walked in, idly rubbing my silver cufflinks. The last few weeks had been an avalanche of mistakes, and I was tumbling hard down the wrong path.
I canceled my engagement with Madison the night of the dinner. She unsurprisingly threatened legal action for a breach of our agreement. Fortunately nothing was signed yet so she didn’t have a leg to stand on.
In a lot of ways, walking into that coffee shop felt like I was back at square one. I had just arrived to town with no attachments and was looking to accomplish a goal. That goal had changed though. It wasn’t about the inheritance anymore.
It was about Gloria.
This time I was going to do it all the right way.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Gloria wiped the sweat from her eyes with the back of her arm. Her shock of black hair was both matted to the side of her face and also stuck up at random angles.
“Must’ve been a big cat,” I replied, with a half smirk. The joke went over like lead balloon. Gloria wasn’t pleased to see me.
“I don’t have time for games.” She swept a hand at the men working on the stage and rearranging the store to fit the coming crowd. “There’s still a lot of shit that needs to be done before Friday.”
I switched to plan B.
“I was going to bring flowers…” I held up the bottle of fine whiskey, I’d brought for her. It was a bottle of Glenlivet vintage nineteen-sixty-four. Only a hundred bottles were ever produced. It arrived from Ireland this morning. “But I figured this was more your speed.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Gloria said, unimpressed. She lifted a cardboard box full of extension cords and walked toward the stage. “Leave it behind the bar.”
I frowned, setting the liquor on the floor and snatched the box out of her arms. Gloria sighed, realizing that I wasn’t going to let her carry it while I was standing here, then pointed to the stage. One of the workers grabbed the box when I got close.
“Let me help.” I set the bottle of expensive whiskey on the shelf beneath the cash register. Walking back to her, I took off my jacket off and tossed it on a nearby chair. “Looks like you could use an extra hand.”
“I don’t want you to wreck your thousand dollar loafers,” she smiled bitterly and without humor. Her icy tone stopped me from rolling up my second sleeve.
“Where’s Judy?” I asked, keeping the conversation light. I was trying to create the right atmosphere for an apology. It didn’t matter how sorry I was, if she wasn’t ready to hear it, then it would just fall on deaf ears.
“Probably draining the rest of our fucking bank account to pay for all this,” Gloria muttered under her breath. Then in a louder voice she said, “I don’t know. Not here. Which is exactly where you should be.”
“Wait.” I gritted my teeth; this wasn’t how I anticipated this meeting would go. “About that letter—”
“That letter was awfully clear. You don’t want to be with me. I get it. I’m sure you and Business Barbie will make a great couple.” Gloria left to help a customer.
She poured the girl a coffee, glanced over at me, then asked to see the girl’s ID. Confused, the college girl riffled through her satchel and eventually produced a driver’s license. Gloria carefully read it, then gifted the girl a twenty-five-thousand dollar bottle of liquor. The girl thanked Gloria with a wide, but still confused smile, then went off to the self service station.
She turned back toward me with a raised eyebrow and a look that said, you can’t buy my affection.
Gloria was serving a small line of customers when I walked over. I wondered how she was going to spite me, now that she was out of gifts to give away. In between pouring cups of coffee and taking payment from people, she asked me, “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
“Extremely so.”
“So tell me, Richard…” She slapped the cup down on the glass counter, forcing the customer back a step to avid hot splashing liquid. Gloria turned to me with a mix of anger and hurt floating in her stormy gray eyes. “What is it you want from me?”
I finally understood how Lucas felt when he’d lost Molly.
I ran over this conversation in my head hundreds of times. I broke it down into sections, planned it, and practiced it. Realizing I wasn’t going to get the right atmosphere for it, I went for my apology anyways.
All my practiced lines suddenly felt canned and artificial. They all came from the heart, but they weren’t as passionate they needed to be. I let them dissolve in my mind and went with the only thing that actually felt honest.
“I’m sorry.”
Gloria’s stone expression softened at the sincerity in my words, but that only lasted for a moment. Her resolve hardened immediately.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I want you to go.”
It was hard for me to wrap my head around her words. They were so… final. There wasn’t room for negotiation or a better offer. Suddenly it hit me. For the first time in my life I’d committed myself to something and I failed. That pit in my stomach became a wide chasm.
I wasn’t going to win this one.
I wasn’t going to win her.
Defeated, I walked out of Black Rocket Records. I hadn’t even bothered to grab my jacket. It didn’t matter.
“Sir?” James, my driver, asked seeing the disappointment the bore heavy lines on my face. He shook his head opening the car door for me then corrected himself, “Is everything all right, Richard?”
It was a surprise he remembered our earlier conversations about titles and names. I hadn’t requested his services since the day he first brought me here. I didn’t know what to tell him, so I didn’t tell him anything.
No, everything was not all right.
For a long time we simply idled in the car, parked by the side of the road. He’d asked me where I wanted to go, but again I couldn’t answer.
I wasn’t the kind of man that was ever racked by indecision or hesitation. Whether it was the right call or even occasionally the wrong call, I’d always been able to make it quickly and decisively.
“Take me to my jet,” I said at length. “I’m done with Caldwell Hope.”
“Would you like anything from your apartment packed for you?”
“No,” I said gravely. The full weight of my failure in all things was pushing me into the backseat. Soon I’d disappear into the folds of leather and never be seen again. “There’s nothing left for me here.”
I’d failed Gloria.
I’d failed my father.
I’d even found a way to fail Lucas.
So what? Dad’s voice said in the back of my mind. I imagined his voice shrugging indifferently somehow. It was only the last failure that mattered; the one that stopped you from trying again.
I dwelled on those words as we drove in silence. I thought about the whole cryptic conversation we had that first day as we overlooked the town. We talked for such a long time yet so much went unsaid.
My ringing phone jolted me from memory.
“Richard speaking,” I said, distractedly. Part of me was still sitting on the bench behind my father’s estate, listening to him talk.
“Hi Richard. This is Jackie, your father’s nurse. I’m afraid I have some terrible news—”
My heart sank like a stone in a pond.
“I’ll be right there,” I said. I knew what she was going to tell me, but I didn’t want her to say the awful, final words out loud.
Your father is dead.