He looked at her in surprise. “You think he got sentimental in his old age.” He gave a dismissive snort and lifted his drink. “You know what he did the day your brother was born? His first grandchild?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“Look, Dad, I’m not saying he was some big, loving guy—”
“And then you were born. The great man sent a card,” he said. “For your birthday, two
and a
half
years later.”
“I’m not defending him,” she said, though she was. “People change. Especially in their old age.”
He grimaced. Anderson Lewis was hostile to reminders of his own mortality. “You might think that’s no big deal now since you don’t have children of your own. But some day you will—” She opened her mouth and he waved his hand between them. “—And if you don’t, it’ll be a damn waste.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
He raised one white eyebrow and shoved a large bite into his mouth. “My point is, your grandfather did have children, which should have triggered some human feeling. But no. The year before your mother and I started, uh, dating,” he said, “your grandmother died. He'd never been much of a father, working all the time, but it got worse. I’m sure that’s what drove your mother to chase after some poor dope who didn't even know she was in high school.” He flicked his temple with an index finger. “Then she got pregnant. Barely seventeen, her mother recently dead, and Daddy kicks her out of the house. Of course I had to take care of her. And then two kids. She never forgave him.”
It was never easy to hear the same, bitter story. Too young and poor to start a family, her parents had divorced before Bev was in preschool.
“What happened with Ellen? Everyone talks about her like she's pure evil or something, but she was even younger than Mom.”
“Took her father's side. Called Gail a slut, hid in her room, didn't unlock the front door.”
“But she was just a teenager,” Bev said.
Her father shrugged. “Whole family loves to nurse a grudge.”
Sadly, it was true. Bev didn't understand it—why fight with the only family you'd ever have? “He left me a picture of my grandmother, through the lawyer.”
“Sounded like a nice lady,” Anderson said. “I bet he didn’t appreciate her any more than he appreciated your mother, or you and Andy.”
Or Kate, she thought, though Anderson didn’t know Bev’s half-sister very well. “But he did leave her the house. And, of course, left me the company.”
He dropped the remains of his burrito on the plate. “And for Andy? The one who could actually do something with a business? No, Bev. He was just stirring up trouble, probably to teach Ellen a lesson. Make her work for it a little harder. If he could have figured out a way to prevent you from profiting in the end, he would have.”
Bev looked away, out to the parking lot where a woman was strapping a pug into an infant car seat. “Why do you think I couldn’t do it?”
“Know what? I’m getting Andy on the phone.” He pulled out his cell and slid his thumb over the screen. “First you’re mad because you think I want you to go into business, and now you’re mad I don’t.”
“I just wonder why you think I can’t. Like it’s totally impossible or something.”
He wasn’t listening. “Sorry to bother you, son. Got Bev here. She’s having delusions of grandeur. Fashion executive. Yeah, I know—” he paused, listening, and raised his eyebrows at Bev. “She’s sitting right in front of me.” He held out the phone.
Bev frowned and made no move to take it. “I didn’t say that.”
Anderson jabbed the phone at her. “Listen to your brother.”
Listen, not talk. She took it. “Hi Andy.” A couple years older, Andy had grown up cheerfully protecting her from all the insults and disappointments of life. She’d been quiet and sensitive; he’d been loud and tough. They were a balanced pair. Sometimes it had worked too well, locking them into habits with each other that were hard to change.
“Hey,” Andy said. “Are you nuts?”
“Dad’s got it all wrong,” she said. “I was only talking about my options.”
“One of those being nuts?”
“Andy,” she said, then raised her voice to be heard over the yelling she heard on her brother’s end of the line. “You sound busy. Dad shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“I thought you liked teaching.”
“Of course I like teaching,” she said. “Dad shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“The fashion industry isn’t as glamorous as it sounds, you know. I know how you love clothes, but apparently it’s not so fun making a living at it.”
“Actually, Andy,” she said, “I’ve been there. Just last week, actually.”
“I heard. I thought you sold out to Ellen.”
She hesitated. “I am—I was—oh, Andy, I don’t know. Some of those people seemed so . . . eager to have an outsider come in.” She turned her thoughts away from one eager person in particular.
Andy snorted. “So you are considering it.”
“I’m not delusional.” She glared at her father on the other side of the table. “I feel guilty. Not about Grandfather, but about everyone in that company. It’s not the happiest place in the world. And you’ve heard the stories about Aunt Ellen.”
He exhaled into the phone. “You’re running away from something. What happened?”
“Nothing.” She listened to her brother’s silent disbelief for three long seconds, then got to her feet and walked out of the restaurant. Out on the sidewalk, with her back to her father inside, she said, “Dad shouldn’t have called you.”
“I know you, Bev. Something happened, and now you’re running away from it. Boyfriend problems? Mean boss?”
“That is not it.” She wandered away from her father’s gaze to stand in front of a manicurist next door. “Actually, I need to find a new job.”
“Aha,” he said.
“I was fired.”
“And now you doubt yourself and want to throw away your entire career at the first setback.”
“I’m not throwing anything away.” It was she who’d been chucked. “It’s too late for me to find a permanent teaching position for the fall anyway. Like it or not, I am available to deal with Fite, and they just might need me.”
“You can’t do what other people need. You have to do what’s right for you.” His voice softened. “You love teaching. You’ve stood up to Dad’s bitching about it for years, which was great. I always backed you up there.”
“Maybe this is what I need.” Bev took a deep breath. “Did you know I made more money typing W-2’s into a computer last summer as a temp than I did educating children? Hilda paid more than most, but it was probably still less than you pay your secretary—administrative assistant—whatever.”
“Some cardiologists make less than Gwen does.”
“Point is, if I ever want to buy my own home, quit the summer jobs, upgrade my car, save for my retirement, I’m going to have to figure something out.”
“Figure what out? You’ll get a fortune when you sell Fite.” He paused. “Right?”
She didn’t want to tell him how little she’d agreed to take from Ellen. “I refuse to bankrupt her. She’s family.”
“Not going to—Bev. How much?”
“You don’t understand. None of you understand. Fifty thousand is a fortune to me, and to her, I’m sure—”
“That’s it? For the entire company? Oh, Bev. This is a perfect example of how you’re too damn nice. Really, it’s pathological. Give the phone to Dad. He’s going to tie you up until I get over there. Are you at that taco truck in Santa Ana?”
She gritted her teeth. “Will you listen to me? I am not being nice.” How she hated that word. “And besides, maybe I won’t sell it at all. I have a chance here to do something different.”
“Even if it’s all wrong for you.”
“Exactly,” she said, then closed her eyes while he crowed into the phone.
“Run, baby, run.”
“Oh, be quiet.” She looked up at the hazy platinum sky above the strip mall. Her brother was rich, successful, crafty, and insufferable. “I’m just looking at all my options.”
“I don’t think taking on that company right now would be a good option for anyone, Bev. Except as a tax write-off.”
“You haven’t been there. It’s a little rough around the edges at the moment, but there’s a real history you can feel, people with passion—”
“Grandfather was Fite’s heart and soul. I read that in his obituary in the
Times
.”
“There are other people there with heart and soul. I felt it.” She heard him snort. “And don’t rag on my feelings, you dork. If it doesn’t work out I’ll just get another teaching job. Any money I get”—earn, she added silently—“from Fite will help me be sure this time. I’ll approach a school as an investor, not as some underling.”
“Find another teaching job now,” he said. “No need to pretend you’re something you’re not.”
“Pretend?” She squeezed the phone. “I’m not pretending. I’m exploring. Grandfather left this company to me, and nobody really knows why. He must have wanted—”
“No offense, but if Grandfather wanted somebody to actually take over, he would have left it to me. Mom says he was just trying to piss off Ellen.”
“No offense? I’m not in first grade anymore, Andy. I didn’t get an MBA, but my GPA and SAT’s kicked your ass. Managing children takes a hell of a lot of quick thinking, guts, and creativity.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Of course you’re smarter than I am, you always were. But you’re too nice. You’re a preschool teacher, not an asshole. From what everybody says, Grandfather was. Not to brag, but look at me. And Dad. To succeed in business, you have to be. Look what Grandfather built all by himself, from nothing. He wouldn’t have given Fite to the nicest person in the family if he thought she’d actually be crazy enough to keep it.”
Bev looked at her father through the glass as he picked at the black beans on his plate with his fingers. “Nicest person in the family?”
“You’re a chronic do-gooder,” Andy said, laughing. “I can just imagine you in management, going around trying to make everybody feel good about themselves. Nobody would get any work done. They’d walk all over you, Bev.”
She swung away from the restaurant so her father couldn’t see how angry she was. “Maybe Grandfather did leave Fite to me for a reason,” she said in the voice she would use with the most difficult, ignorant, obstinate five-year-old. “Maybe it wasn’t just to teach Ellen a lesson. Maybe he wanted me to get in there and change the whole feel of the place. Me, the stupid nice one. Why is that impossible?”
“Because it contradicts absolutely everything we know about him?”
“They need me.” She took a deep breath. “You know, when I visited, there was a grown woman crying in the bathroom?”
“Better than at her desk,” Andy replied.
“See? That’s why he didn’t leave it to you. What kind of attitude is that?”
“A realistic one,” he said. “You have no idea how hard it is to manage people. Real people, not miniature ones.”
“Do the people who work for you cry in the bathroom?”
“How the hell would I know? So long as they don’t take too long, it’s none of my business.”
“But it is,” she said. “They’ll work better if they’re happy.”
“Oh yeah? You’ve got studies to prove that?”
She glared at a parked SUV. “I bet there are.”
“So you think you’re up for that?” he said. “Completely transform a corporate culture? One devoted to fitness, you crazy person? This from a girl who forged a doctor’s note to get out of P.E. In fifth grade. What, kickball was too hard?”
That was the only time she’d ever been caught. “You try running the six-hundred-yard dash with brand-new C-cup breasts and no bra.”
“You could have asked Mom for one.”
“None of the other fifth graders wore bras back then,” she said. “I would have been teased even more than I was already.”
He snorted. “You won’t be able to wave around a doctor’s note when you’re the boss. Everyone depends on you.”
“I know all about that, believe me. You think little kids take care of themselves?”
“It’s different, Bev. How would you feel if I told you I thought I could be a better preschool teacher than you, tomorrow, without any training or experience?”
She closed her eyes and rubbed her thumb along the edge of the cell phone. “Maybe you could,” she muttered, feeling in her heart the little-sister worship she’d struggled with all her life.
“No, Bev, I couldn’t. I’d suck at it. And you’d suck at managing. You know why? Because you hate conflict. You’ve been avoiding me since last year, ever since you found out I broke up with Julie. And I’m your brother—you think I didn’t notice? You think I was too busy to notice my little sister didn’t reply to my emails?”
She flinched. “I just couldn’t believe it. She was so cool. And she really loved you.”
“You can’t avoid people when you’re the boss. Especially over crap like that.”
Bev let her mind drift away, past her view of the L.A. glare, far from the stink of the manicurist’s acetone wafting out through the doorway. Inside the restaurant her father was probably getting restless, eager to return to his new wife who wanted to produce more satisfying offspring. “I’d better get back to Dad. I kind of abandoned him.”
The phone was quiet for a moment. “Letting Ellen or outside management take over is the nicest thing you can do for everyone there,” he said. “From what I hear, they need expert help. Not you.”
But she barely heard him. Her thoughts had fled north. “Thanks for the advice, asshole.”
He let out a short laugh. “We done here?”
“Please. Get back to work.”
They clicked off. Bev wandered slowly back inside to where her father was scowling at the chaos of tortilla, aluminum foil, and rice on his plate.
Anderson took the phone from her. “He knock some sense into you?”
Bev sat down, reached for her cup, then froze. “Not exactly,” she said, realization growing. Her gut knew it first, and her heart swelled, filling her chest with pressure. She looked up into her father’s concerned scowl, surprised with herself, and felt a grin spread across her face.
All these people—from her family to her ex-boss to the damnably imperious Liam Johnson—thought so little of her.
Well, to hell with them.
“I’m driving up to San Francisco tomorrow,” she said.