Chapter7
She dressed better this time, avoiding the devil-may-care collegiate summer look, he noticed. Despite her supposedly not wanting to see him, she still showed up nice-looking. She looked rather picturesque in her orange day dress, with espadrilles to match.
He had wanted to pick her up, but she insisted it wasn’t a date. They met in a sushi bar a few blocks from his office. He had loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves for the occasion. Despite nearing Christmas season, Miami was still hot, and so was Aliya, he thought, and may that never change.
“Hello, J,” she said, trying to sound as pleasant as possible. Her body language was stiff. She called him J. It was informal. Was that a good thing? He couldn’t quite place it yet. She was guarding herself—that was the best way to sum her up: guarding herself from him.
“J… no one’s called me that in a while,” he told her, as she took a seat across from him.
She held onto the menu, her grip tightening.
“My mother called me JJ. James Junior, she said,” he continued. “What do you feel like having?”
I feel like escaping, she thought. She had told herself she just might enjoy his company; she was going to be sober this time, and she had known him better by this time as well. Last Sunday’s morning shenanigans were still deeply ingrained in her thoughts. She had dreamt about that Sunday for the last three days, and now here he was, charming as ever, and she was walking right into his trap.
“You pick,” she finally said.
“Again?” he looked at her quizzically. “I’d want for you to decide.”
There was something in his eyes that made her scan the menu. She was unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine. She had only had sashimi a couple of times in her life, twice in the past fifteen years, and these orders ended up as disappointments. She should’ve suggested somewhere else, somewhere with chicken and waffles. Who cared about stereotypes? She wanted comfort food.
“I’m not familiar…” Her voice faded. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and then she took a deep breath. Before she knew it, James had called the waiter, prattling his orders. Once he was done, he looked at her again with a smile.
“You should eat out more, to familiarize yourself with different cuisines.
American food is good, but a lot of it is hella unhealthy.”
“If I can afford to eat out more,” she muttered.
Apparently, he had caught this. “Then, we’ll have more frequent meals together then.”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “You’re taking things the wrong way.”
“What else am I taking the wrong way? That you regret knowing me?”
I regret sleeping with you for emotional reasons. “We shouldn’t have had that lunch.”
“You wanted to know me, too. It wasn’t a one-way situation, Aliya.”
“You think you’re all that, don’t you? You’re so used to people saying yes to you all the time because of your money, your looks.”
“So, you do find me attractive?” A smile escaped from his lips.
She shook her head, raising a brow. “You really are full of yourself—” She stopped, seeing their orders arrive.
“Well, if you eat a lot, you will be full,” he told her as soon as the waiter left. He shook his head. “I’m being nice to you, and you’re denying yourself of—”
“Of what? Of your money? The fact that anytime soon, paparazzi can start taking pictures of us?”
“What am I? A celebrity?” He frowned, hating the word paparazzi. “And did you google me?” He almost laughed aloud.
“Your name’s popped up, yes,” she said defensively. “And you’re here, having lunch with me. I’m not the celebrity; I don’t have money.”
“I’m not looking for money or someone with celebrity status. I just need a good conversation with someone who can defy me a little.”
“Defy you a little?” She sounded incredulous. “Defy you? Because everyone else follows what you say? Even those women you’ve—” She stopped, placing her chopsticks down. “Look, I don’t understand where this is going, but I want it to stop.”
“You want to stop before you even get to the destination?”
“There is no destination,” she said, her pitch higher this time. “This,” she said, circling her fingers in the air, “this has no destination. There is no point to this.”
James was observing her; her insecurities had shown through, but it was a normal insecurity, he thought. Aliya was a confident woman in her own right, but his presence was making her waver a little, all for these tabloid features.
“What makes you think there is no point to this?” he asked her, knowing the answer already.
“We’re on different spectrums, from society to character. You’re an asshole, by the way,” she added with a twinkle in her eye.
She meant that, he thought, and it made him smile. “I am? I guess I am. I’m an asshole because it got me to where I am now. I needed to be one.”
She fell silent, imagining what he had gone through as a child. She didn’t know much about him still, yet she judged him. He was probably lonelier than she had thought. It’s lonely at the top, her father once said, in awe of the president he had voted for. “Can you stop being one?” she asked him.
“It’s been this way for 22 years; I wouldn’t have survived being nice. Nice guys finish last and broke,” he told her before taking a sip of his water. “I don’t want that for you.”
“We’re too different, you know?” she said, struggling to come to terms with her attraction to him. She had always enjoyed the feeling of falling in love, but this was different. It was as if she was riding a wave without knowing how to do so.
“You can do so much more than just be a dentist.”
“So, what should I be? An actress? A model?” Aliya scoffed. “I could be your secretary.”
He looked annoyed. “My secretary has a difficult job; her achievements are exemplary.”
“Cause you work people to death?”
His eyes narrowed. She didn’t know about his life, yet she concluded things already. He was an asshole, but there were certain things that heeded respect for others. “Every job has its challenges, even modeling and acting; you can’t do both.”
It stung her a little, just a little. She wouldn’t allow some two-faced jerk to ruin her day. “Listen here, you—I said yes to this lunch meeting hoping you’d be nicer. Turns out you aren’t.”
“So, you know how it feels to be judged based on what you see.”
“I’m sure you’d do the same.”
“I observe.”
“You conclude,” she corrected, losing her appetite.
“I have fifteen more minutes of lunch break,” he told her, his teeth gritting. “You’d better be worth my time.”
“You aren’t worth mine,” Aliya snapped at him, lowering her voice. Her lips quivered in quiet rage. “Imma get going now. Thank you for lunch.”
“You barely ate.”
“There was no reason to eat. You only made me come here to play word games,” she replied. “To try to insult me.”
“I wasn’t insulting you. Like I said, you can do better than—”
“Being a dentist?” She shook her head. “I enjoy my molars and dental caries and drool, thank you very much. You obviously haven’t had a passion to help anyone in need, unless it counts as some PR stunt. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for you to get back to your tower, and it’s time for me to get back to my own, low pay wage life.”
She stood up with as much pride as she could muster, placing down a fifty-dollar bill on the table near his hand. It wasn’t going to cover one roll of sushi, but it could just cover the tips. Damn, these people had bigger tips than she’d ever gotten at the café in a day. Were they hiring?
She could feel the other customers’ eyes looking at her as she walked out. The diner clearly knew who James was, but they had no idea who she was. For a moment there, she was afraid that some random paparazzi photographer was going to show up at the door and snap away till it rendered her blind.
He didn’t come after her. He was right—he did avoid the drama of relationships. If she had expected a lot, she would have been sorely disappointed by now, a disappointment that was going to manifest for weeks on end. What was she doing to herself? She had allowed herself to be hurt. I don’t give you permission to hurt me, she thought, I barely know you.
Deep down, it bothered her. It was a thought she had tried to shrug away as she walked down the street, occasionally looking at the beach longingly.
*
James paid for the meal, forcing himself to eat what remained of the fresh and juicy salmon sushi. He was irked that the lunch date had turned out that way. He was merely correcting whatever supposed errors he had committed last Sunday.
It was true, he had wanted something better for Aliya. He just couldn’t see her as a dentist. He was already choosing her career for her. He shook his head. There was this need to control, he knew. That was how he ran things. If someone couldn’t adjust to him, he’d send them away, or discard them. There was so much to do, so much to think about, and one more person didn’t matter. Aliya was just another agreeable face in the crowd…
Yes, that was what she was. He was going to have a busy afternoon ahead of him, he told himself. Another board meeting scheduled, that never-ending wrestle for control, something he would not relinquish. He had preferred for a driver to bring him back to the office, not wanting to sweat while wearing his newly dry-cleaned suit.
As soon as he arrived, he saw Mark waiting beside the secretary’s office. He hid his exasperation. What was it now? Mark was scowling, and James was in no mood to babysit. He nodded at Mark, who stood up.
“Betsy, I’ll be in conference room 3 in ten minutes,” he told her.
Mark followed his older brother inside of his office. “You made me friggin’ wait,” Mark told him, his voice sounding irritated. “Your secretary made me wait outside your office, like I was some ordinary rank and file employee.”
“You still are an employee; never forget that,” James told his younger sibling. “Rank and file or member of the board, you work for this company, and you work smart, and you work hard. As for Betsy letting you steam outside of my office, it was per my instructions, and Betsy will be getting her appraisal and then a raise.”
“I am your blood-relation,” Mark told him.
“We have the same father, nothing more,” James said. “We carry the same family name. Now, tell me, why are you here again? To plead for an increase in allowance? Has your mother been squandering those carefully allocated funds again?”
Mark’s eyes flinched. So, his mother hadn’t been the same since their father died. Their father never got to marry his mother, because that stupid Deborah Walcott didn’t grant her husband a divorce. That woman was vain as she was selfish; he knew. “I need an increase for medical reasons.”
“Did you get AIDS?” James asked him, looking at his face, enjoying Mark’s reaction. Careful, Mark, beggars can’t be choosers.
Mark remained silent. He was finally learning. He knew how ruthless James was, and what comforts their father had once provided had been limited, as were his opinions and decision-making within the company. “Mom’s sick,” he finally said.
James knew about this, yet he acted surprised. That gold-digger had cirrhosis, treatable with a liver transplant. That was what she got for drinking too much, he thought, suddenly remembering his own mother, who had been drunk way too many times when she had found out about the other woman. “What kind of sick?” he asked, pretending not to know.
“She has some liver problems…”
“From drinking.”
It wasn’t a question. James had stated so, and it made Mark feel uncomfortable. “Listen, if you had any respect left for those people who are older than you are—”
“I do, just not for homewreckers and gold-diggers,” James calmly replied. “I’ve given you, your siblings, and your mother enough resources to last you a good ten years, far better than many of the working class in America. You were sent to a good school—”
“By our father,” Mark interrupted.
James was undeterred. “You were sent to a good school, you were given many homes; your credit cards are in good order. If you think for one second you’re going to sway me into giving you further enjoyment, you’d best be committed to a mental facility. Are you still stressed by the fact that $200,000 from October until the end of this year won’t last you? It’s all about budgeting, Mark; you’d better start doing it now. My pocket isn’t a bottomless pit of gold, and budgeting is of the essence here. You gambled last week, wasting ten thousand dollars on a poker game; a poker game, really? What would Father say?”
Mark was seething this time. “If I could kill you, I would.”
“You can try,” James told his younger brother. “I highly doubt it’ll look great in the event of a corporate takeover.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“You’re the second person to tell me that this week.”
“You deserve more.”
“Name-calling is childish. Act your age,” James told Mark. “You don’t just come into my office to ask for money, and then call me names. Do your job, like the rest of the people I’ve hired. Your position as IT director is unnecessary as it is already, so make it work.”
Mark shook his head, staring at James like he was the most hideous person he had ever seen. Just once, just once, he wanted to punch the living daylights out of his older brother. “You’re going to regret doing this to me—to us.”
“I won’t, because this is part of my job. I weed out the unnecessary expenses and people. If you want to keep the perks you have, you follow what I say.”
“You aren’t our father.”
“I’m not, but I’m your boss, and I own this company,” James finished. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do, as should you.” His steely eyes looked at Mark’s, and Mark promptly looked away, walking out of the office.
He stared at his half-brother’s back, knowing full well that his father’s mistress, Monica, was diagnosed with end-stage liver failure. The only miracle possible would be a donor or stem-cell surgery, if that could work out for her. James knew how much it would cost, and the insurance she had wasn’t enough. Mark was desperate now, and he turned to booze, women, and gambling for stress-relief.
Perhaps, this was now Monica’s karma. She had known full well that his father was married to Deborah, but she was a greedy little she-devil who sought out to tear them apart in the hopes that James Senior would marry her.
It was one of the reasons why he could never see himself in a stable relationship. Not every person ended up the same, but he couldn’t help but want to avoid everything negative that came with every relationship. They were all going to end up broken and disillusioned with love.
*
It was past four in the afternoon, and there was only one table that had a male customer, who was reading a book. The café was peaceful, with soft jazz music piping in from the background. Aliya was the only one behind the counter, as Robert had taken a quick break. Steam rose from the espresso machine as she cleaned it. Amidst the smoke, she heard the chimes on the door tinkle. She quickly wiped her hands on her apron.
“Welcome to Sunshine State Café,” she greeted, walking to the cash register section. Her heart stopped for a moment, and she couldn’t help but smile at the arrival. Mark. It was Mark. His face looked upset for some reason, but she maintained her happy barista demeanor, even if she felt a tinge of concern for him.
He sighed and looked up. “Hey there,” he said, forcing a smile. “Uhh…” He ran his hand through his hair.
It made Aliya’s heart flutter seeing him do that. She didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt his thoughts. What was wrong with her? She was jumping from one guy to the next, and they were all paler than she was. She almost laughed aloud at the realization.
“What’s the strongest you guys have?” he asked her.
“We don’t sell liquor,” she quipped.
The corners of his mouth turned up, and he found himself laughing aloud. “Well, it was a long shot, but I tried. I’ll have a macchiato with two shots of espresso. I’ll have it here, thanks.” He gave her his credit card.
“Rough day?” she asked, as she rang up the cash register. She quickly looked at the name on the card. Mark Smith. “That’s $5.00. Here’s your receipt. You can sit for a while; I’ll just call your name.”
“Nah, I’ll just stand here. It’d be great to have a bit of chit-chat.”
She bit back a smile as she spun around.
“So…” he began, leaning against the counter. “How long have you been working here?”
“A year and a half,” she replied. “So, what do you do?”
“I’m in real estate management,” he replied, “more of the whole websites and whatnot.”
“That’s why you had a bad day?”
“Sometimes, people can be assholes,” he told her with a short laugh.
Tell me about it, she thought. “I feel you,” she said. “Here’s your drink.” She placed the mug on the counter.
“Say, what time do you get off?” he asked her, enjoying how cute the barista looked.
“In fifteen minutes,” she replied, wondering if he was about to ask her out on a date. Was this the guy that was going to turn the tides?
“So, does that mean you can’t talk to me while I’m here?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Work first. If you can wait, then we can talk.”
“I was thinking more of a talk somewhere else. By the beach or something,” he told her. He couldn’t help but notice her breasts which weren’t too subtle, even with her uniform.
“We’ll see,” she told him, now feeling better after that disastrous lunch date with James. By the beach? Oh, he was a romantic, wasn’t he? “Enjoy your coffee.”
He smiled, taking a seat by the window, enjoying the view of the barista whose name he had only gotten from her nameplate. Aliya. Her name sent a smile to his lips. He hadn’t dated anyone seriously in a while, and he had a good feeling about her.
This was a welcome breath of fresh air to his bitter-tasting afternoon. James was never one to mince with words; in fact, he enjoyed making Mark feel like he was the lowest, vilest person on earth. All for the fact that their father preferred the company of his mother, Monica. Mark had always told himself that he was innocent of whatever scandal his mother had caused to James’ family. James just couldn’t get over the fact that the company had almost been given to Monica.
His older half-brother had gone through lengths to keep the company under his ownership, and for that, he was in awe. These were intricacies he wasn’t ready for years ago. He felt he was ready now, but he had to get rid of James first.
He saw Aliya walk into the backroom and then walk out, dressed in a nice outfit. Even better, he thought with a smile.