Me: Yeah. Sure. I’ll be there.
Short. Sweet. And no need for her to reply.
“Dad! Hey, Dad!”
I sit on the bed and yank a pillow over my lap. We’ve already had a talk about innies and outies. I don’t want to have to explain why my underwear is tenting.
“Yeah, Luke. What’s up?”
He walks down the hall, fingers fidgeting and a question written all over his face. Please, no more questions about vaginas.
“Last night at your hero party—”
“It wasn’t a hero party, bud. Just a party for some of my and your uncles’ friends to get together—”
“Whatever,” he murmurs and averts his eyes. Oh, shit. “Was my mom there?”
His voice is barely a whisper, but it throws me. Like, knocks the fucking wind out of me and squeezes a vise around my heart. He’s never asked something like that. He’s never wondered about her aloud.
“Luke?” It’s all I can manage with a lump the size of Texas lodged in my throat. I soften my voice. “Why would you ask that?”
“I just thought . . . never mind.”
“No! Wait!” I reach out to him and put my hand on his shoulder to keep him from running away. I squat in front of him so we’re eye to eye. “You just thought what, buddy?”
He stares at his fingers as he twists them together. “I just thought that maybe she would come back because she was proud of you and celebrate.” He pauses, and I can see his internal struggle, which makes every part of me hurt for him. “And there’s the mother-son picnic coming up soon, and I thought that maybe she would . . .” His words fade and tighten that vise so tight my chest burns.
“You thought she might take you to it?”
He nods but never meets my eyes as a tear slides down his cheek. “No, buddy. She wasn’t at the party. And I’m so sorry but she’s not taking you to the picnic . . . but Nana is, and you know how much fun she makes everything.”
“Yeah. Okay. Fine.” He tries to step back and break my hold on his shoulder, wanting to turn around and end the conversation, but for the life of me, I can’t let him go just yet. When he finally looks back up at me, his shaggy hair hangs over his forehead and there’s a gravity no kid should have in his stare. His bottom lip quivers, a short-lived moment of vulnerability before he shakes his head abruptly. “Never mind. It’s not a big deal.”
I could play all the baseball in the world with him. Tickle him and hug him endlessly. Build an infinite number of Minecraft worlds with him. Beat every Marvel superhero game there is. None of it would matter because I’d never be able to fill that hole Claire left him with.
Fuck you, Claire.
Fuck.
You.
That isn’t saying a goddamn thing about the hatred I feel for her because of what she did to me.
“Hey,” I call after him, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look back. He just keeps walking down the hall.
Fuck you again, Claire. Seven ways from Sunday.
“My God,” I mutter as I press my fingers to my eyes for a second.
You’d think it would be simple. A click and drag here. A justification of the text there. A change in font size there. But I’ve been trying to master Rissa’s little challenge of the day—how to do a print layout of a magazine—and failing miserably.
Well, not miserably. Rather it’s just taking about ten times longer to do the print design than it takes the normal staff to do one. As in, my light is the only one still on in the office and everyone else is long gone home and the rest of my to-do list is left sitting there with nothing else checked off on it.
I jump when my cell rings.
“Sidney.”
“Dad? This is quite the surprise.”
“I was just calling to see what you were doing.”
“That’s code for you were calling to check on me.”
“Perhaps.” His chuckle fills the line, and it’s silly that a part of me wants to crawl into the phone and go back home with him. Back to the life that I hadn’t realized I’d missed until now.
Back to the beautiful view of the bay where there weren’t men who frustrated me to no end one minute and then kissed me breathless the next. Back to my friends and my bed and familiarity instead of this office where my light is the only one left on most nights and the stray cat that comes into my backyard is the only thing I really speak to once I get home.
“Figures.” I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Did you expect any less from me? How’s it going?” He asks the question, but I know he already has the facts and figures and web traffic at his fingertips. He just wants to make sure I know my stuff and that I’m not relying on others to do the work for me. I’ve seen him do this in meetings too many times before.
I figure I’ll drive him a little crazy first.
“I’m good. I told you I’m staying in the Kraft house, didn’t I? You remember the Krafts, don’t you?” When he begins to answer, I just talk right over him. “He was the grouchy old guy who used to complain about everyone at the farmers’ market. Well, he passed a while back, and his kids decided to rent the house he was restoring as a vacation home for those interested in the vineyards. Oh, and I know I just talked to mom the other day but tell her—”
“Sidney.”
That lasted longer than I expected it to. “Yes?”
“Skip the runaround and get to the facts.”
I laugh. “Couldn’t you have at least let me get to the part about the next-door neighbors and how they are so very loud at night when they leave their bedroom windows open?”
His laugh is full and rich and makes me smile. The hard-ass who sometimes shows he has a heart. “Great. Good for them. Now if you’re done trying to annoy me, we could get to the reason I called, other than to say hi to my daughter.”
“You think I don’t know what’s going on, don’t you? You think I have interns doing the legwork while I’m out at wine tastings.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” I clear my throat, offended but not surprised. I hadn’t really given him reason to think differently before. “You’ll be happy to know that I haven’t handed anything off. We’re all set to start the third round of voting,” I lie, knowing Grayson’s pictures and bio are the main things holding us up from being one hundred percent ready. I glance down to my sad attempt at writing his bio in case he fails to come through, and the only line I have on there, which is actually scratched out, “Grayson Malone is a man who can kiss the breath out of you.”
Not exactly the type of bio Rissa is looking for.
“And the third round will cut the field to . . .”
“Ten.”
“Advertising?”
“I’ve pulled in double the advertising than what we normally do. Possibly because I’ve opened the option to advertising more male-oriented products—”
“Why?”
“Because women are looking at this contest side by side with the products. They assume that these men use them, and it tempts them to click and buy.”
“Okay.” The word comes out in murmured consent.
“And according to the hits on the site and for each link, it seems to be working. We’ve had a fifteen-percent increase for the advertisers’ links, and overall, the website has seen a twenty-percent increase in traffic.”
He makes a noncommittal sound, but I know it’s because he’s writing all this down. The man loves his numbers. “How do you plan to sustain this?”
“Why are you asking? I’ve never seen you this involved in the day to day of your other magazines. Don’t you have a set of managers who would love to ask me all of this?” I tease, knowing he would likely double-check their work too.
“Yeah, well, it isn’t every day I have my daughter doing such great work.” Is it sad that a part of me sags in relief over not having let him down and the other stands tall from his praise? “So . . .”
“So?”
“How do you
plan to maintain this level of interest?”
“I’m working on that. I’ve sent out press releases, have a social media marketing plan in place when the next round of voting begins, and—”
“I was pleased to see the numbers on my report. I was more than happy to know you were applying yourself. Rissa has reassured me that she’s given you a few challenges to deal with and she’s confident that you won’t let her down. Let’s see that you don’t, because her word is what will either earn or lose you the position at Haute.”
“I won’t.”
“So then why are you letting me down?”
“What?” I hate the sudden jolt of my heart in my chest at his words.
“I placed a call to an old friend down there, and the first thing she talks about is how you are in today’s newspaper, kissing one Grayson Malone. That doesn’t happen to be the same Grayson Malone who is on Modern Family’s website as a contestant, is it?”
Words fail me as I fumble with the keys on my computer to bring up the Sunnyville Gazette. I scroll through the home page of the local newspaper, and right there in the Tuesday gossip column is a picture of Grayson and me. Or more specifically a picture of the kiss I planted on his lips in the middle of the bar. Both of my hands are on the sides of his cheeks, and my lips are more than slanted over his.
“I can explain that picture. It isn’t what you think.”
“Hmm.” I hate that sound. “It is you in that picture, right?”
“Yes.” My voice is barely a whisper. The high from getting his praise moments ago comes crashing down with the sudden disappointment heavy in his voice. Feeling like a reprimanded child, I try to explain. “He helped me with a situation, and there was a party, and I was thanking him—”
“Whether you are sleeping with him or playing Yahtzee with him . . . how exactly do you think it looks to have the person running the contest for my magazine also mentioned in a newspaper gossip column as dating him? Because, from my vantage point, it would seem a little fishy if, say, said contestant ended up winning the ten-thousand-dollar purse.”
“But I have nothing to do with the voting whatsoever.”
“Do you think the public will believe that? Do you think they care? All they see is bias.”
“Dad . . . it isn’t as if this is some formal election . . . it’s a fun contest.”
“For you maybe, but for some of these guys, the prize money is a handsome amount. It isn’t their next reservation on a private jet, it’s how they are going to pay off their credit card bills or put a down payment on a house.”
I sigh. There’s nothing else I can do to get him to see my side of things. And sadly, while he has a point about voter perception, it’s all quite ridiculous to be so serious about the whole thing.
“Dad. I assure you—”
“I assure you that this isn’t something the editor-in-chief of Haute would be caught dead doing.”
And there it is. The final slap on the cheek to let me know what’s at stake, as if I don’t already know.
“You know what a small town Sunnyville is, Dad. You know how rumors fly. I’ve worked my ass off to do what you asked. To make this newsworthy and gossip worthy and trend worthy. All of them. And I’m still pushing for it, so if you want to be mad at me for gossip in the rumor mill, then so be it.”
“I know what I see, and I know what it looks like.”
“Is it too blue-collar in here for your white-collar hands to touch?”
Grayson’s words come back to me, and I hate that I’m hearing them in my dad’s words when I’ve never heard him imply anything of the sort. I hate that I’m wondering if he’s more worked up because of the picture and the implication of bias to readers or because I’m kissing Grayson Malone of the Sunnyville Malones.
“And your perception is wrong,” I say, knowing that he sees what he wants to see, and once he does, there is no changing his mind. He calls it the privilege of being older. I call it close-minded crap.
“I should have known you’d somehow make this story, this situation, this contest, about you. It’s what you do best, isn’t it?” The remark is sharp and cuts to my marrow. Does he really see me the same way that Grayson does? Selfish and self-centered?
I clear my throat again as I stare at all of my hard work on the layout on my screen that I’m not even here to do but that I’m trying to learn anyway, and school my voice into neutrality. “It’s late. I’m still at the office and need to close up.”
“You’re still there?”
“Yeah.” It’s where I am every night.
“Fix this, Sidney. You were doing great right up until now.”
The line goes dead, and I lean my head back against the chair and close my eyes as I process everything he just said to me. The accusations. The implications. The bullshit.
When I open my eyes, the picture from the weekly gossip column is right before me on my laptop screen. I sigh and scroll down a bit so I can read whatever nonsense they decided to publish with the picture.
In other news, it seems being a hero in Sunnyville comes with perks these days. Our very own hot dad in the Modern Family contest, Grayson Malone, seems to be spending a lot of time with here-then, gone-then, back-in-town-again Sidney Thorton. At a local party to celebrate Malone’s heroics from last week, they were seen getting reacquainted with each other. New couple alert. (picture right).
Thank you, small-town rumor mill.
I groan. Now I really do miss home and the anonymity of living in the big city. I was never noticed there unless I chose to be—show up at the right restaurant with the perfect guy so that I know our picture will be taken, only to play coy about it later.
But this is Sunnyville, not San Francisco. This is small-town journalism, not money-hungry paparazzi.
This is Grayson Malone, not my flavor of the month.
Without thinking, I pick up my cell and dial. “Sidney, is that you?”
When I hear Rissa’s kids in the background I regret it immediately. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”
“Let me guess, you finally left the office and saw the Gazette.”
“Nah. I’m still here and finally saw the Gazette,” I say.
“If it’s any consolation, the gossip column only comes out once a week, so they can’t write any more until next Tuesday.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I part-joke, part-complain. “At least I’ll have a week for my dad to chill out before something else is printed.”
“When I told you to problem-solve getting Grayson on board, kissing him wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.” When I don’t laugh at her joke, she continues, “Was your dad pissed?”
“It’s really none of his business.” I glance back to the photo and article for a minute. “He does have a point about perceived bias, though.” It almost kills me to say that.
“I’ll call him now and tell him I orchestrated all of this. It’s my fault and—”
“Those aren’t your lips sitting squarely on Grayson’s.” I laugh and am more than surprised she’d take the blame for me. “Thank you for the offer, but it isn’t necessary.”
“Well, just think about what they are going to say when people catch wind of the photo shoot you’re doing tomorrow.” My shoulders sag in exhaustion. “Maybe you should be the one to oil him up—all hands on pec, er, I mean on deck kind of thing.”
“You really are trying to get me into trouble, aren’t you?”
“Who me?” she asks. “Never.”
When I look back to the computer, I know the person who’s going to get me into trouble is in the picture in front of me.
I’m not sure how.
I’m not sure when.
But I definitely know he will, because I’m thinking about him way too much, and it has nothing to do with this contest and everything to do with his kiss.
“Who put you guys up to this?” I laugh as I glance around the dispatch room, where everyone has their heads bowed at their stations, trying t
o fight the grins on their faces. “Bueller? Bueller?”
I take a step closer to my desk and just shake my head. There are copies of the Gazette’s gossip column everywhere. There’s Sidney kissing me on the lips taped to my chair, to my monitor, to my headset, to my bulletin board. To every fucking place imaginable. The words “hot dad” are on a banner stretched over all of it.
Christ.
I look around again and this time everyone is looking my way and they all bust up laughing. “You guys are assholes.” I start taking down the papers.
“Oh, flyboy, come and give me mouth-to-mouth!” McArthur mocks.
“Mount me, Malone.” That one was Vin.
“Way to date a rich girl!” Uley says, and his words stop me in my tracks. I know he means nothing by it, but every part of me rejects his comment, and it takes me a second to clear my head. To bring my mind back from the bullshit it brought up.
“Dating? Sorry, Uley, but not this man. How’s a guy supposed to work with all this crap in the way?”
“You could always roll it up and spank her with it,” someone at my back tosses out, and the whole room busts up laughing.
“She isn’t a dog, and it’s just gossip.”
“Gossip, my ass,” Uley says. “Looks to me like she has you right where she wants you.”
I look over to him as his words hit, but his head is already down, and his fingers are flying across his keyboard. Then I look back down to the picture of Sidney kissing me. The same damn one my brothers had already given me shit for.
I was letting myself believe it was a coincidence—that I was the one who started the chain reaction by kissing her—but as I look at the photo I realize it’s the second time she’s made me look like a fool. It’s the second time she’s manipulated me into her publicity-fueled fire.
It’s the second time she’s used me.
Maybe that’s why I’ve yet to hit send on the bio she wants. Maybe that’s why I’ve gone to text her ten times already to cancel the photo shoot.
I try to shrug off the notion that her kiss was nothing but a publicity stunt, but it sticks in a way that makes me want to bail from work, from this office that’s a kicker of a punishment on top of grounding me.