I was still trying to get used to having her at my beck and call. Roxy was such a free spirit rocker chick. She had an ultra-modern haircut with purple highlights. She followed the rules at the office. Always impeccably dressed, but she wasn’t budging on her hair color. I stood firm as well, and Mr. Steele finally conceded.
I think his daughter Zoey had a hand in that. She was another larger than life person and my first friend here in New York. A natural rebel, but the apple of her daddy’s eye. Another free spirit who made no apologies on who she was, and another who liked a little sparkle to her look… I don’t know what it was, but when comparing Zoey to Roxy, I suddenly felt a shiver run up my spine. It felt like I was describing my relationship with my daddy, or at least how it used to be.
“Excuse me, Ms. Fairchild.” The sound of the intercom brought me out of my deep thoughts, and I was thankful for that. I had no business revisiting a past hurt that would never be undone.
“What is it, Roxy?”
“Your mother is on line three, again. She insists on speaking with you. Shall I take another message?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll speak with her. Please put her through.”
I counted to myself…
1, 2, 3, 4, 5…
Needing to get myself in check before speaking with her. The last thing I wanted was to forget my manners when it comes to my mother.
“Hello, mama.” My voice was quiet and my accent always picked the right time to return anytime I would speak with her.
“Hello, daughter. Thank you for taking my call. How are you today?” she seemed like she genuinely wants to know.
“I’m fine, mama. How are you?”
“Your father and I are okay, thank you for asking. I received the contracts you sent over for the new horses we are about to acquire, thank you for that. You always do the best work, better than any other lawyer your daddy keeps on retainer.”
“Mama, I’m due in court soon. Can I call you later?”
“That would be fine if I knew you would, but we know something will come up and you won’t call. I know you’re busy, Tenley, and you have no room for us in your life, but I miss you. Your daddy misses you, and I need you too. Please come home to us. Hasn’t it been long enough? Our relationship with you consists of business dealings and these less than five minute phone calls. A Christmas package delivered every year right to our door step. A card containing pleasantries, but no personal attachment to the words written so eloquently on the paper. I love you, Tenley. I miss my daughter.”
I tried my best to put her at ease. “Mama, that’s not true. Please don’t talk this way. You know my work takes up all of my time, and I know more than anyone how long it’s been since I’ve been home. You are my mother, of course I want to talk to you, but I’m just busy now. I promise to call you later, I promise.”
I tried with my whole heart to believe what I was desperately trying to convince my mother to believe, and then she hit me where it would hurt me the most. “He loved you so much, baby girl. I hope you find a reason to smile today. I love you.”
The line clicked off. My tears fell, and I was left with memories of him. Dammit! Not today. I’m about to hear the biggest verdict of my legal career, and my mother picks this time to throw the past in my face. Why? They have their life in Wyoming. I have mine here in New York. I don’t want to hurt her. I never wanted this distance and feeling of loss between us, but it happened anyway.
“Roxy...” I call out to my assistant.
“Yes, Ms. Fairchild.”
“Please come into my office.”
She entered and took a seat in front of my desk, waiting for me to fire off my list of tasks for her to complete.
“Roxy, you are my right hand. The one person I depend on to keep me in check. I’m a very busy woman. I work fourteen hour work days, sometimes more. My entire life is work, which leaves little room for anything else. In here, I need one thing that is personal. For the last time, please address me as Tenley. If anyone has a problem with how I ask you to address me, they know where I am and can take their trivial grievances with me. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Ms.…I mean Tenley.”
I almost smiled at her slip of the tongue. Roxy was not a confrontational person, more of a people pleaser.
“Now, I need you to take care of something for me, a personal request.” I enunciated very clearly to my assistant. “Please send two dozen yellow sunflowers to my mother. Address the card as follows: ‘
You asked me to find a reason to smile today. I’m not sure I can do that. So I’m sending you our favorite flower in hopes they bring you some happiness behind the sadness we are all feeling today. Love, Tenley,’
Please do this at once and then phone my driver. I need to get down to the courthouse.” I once again was curt with Roxy. She looked at me with sadness in her eyes, no doubt after what I told her to say in my card. My mother said I never put feelings behind my words, well hopefully she would believe this one. I shut down because it’s what this day represented. Usually I didn’t mind having my life controlled by my day planner. If only Roxy had a magic wand to make me forget what today really meant.
Today was not just any busy work day, it represented the anniversary of losing my brother. Five long years without him. Five years trying to forget the life I loved and the people who loved me back. I left them. Fled like a fugitive on the run. I couldn’t stay even to grieve with them, not when everything reminded me of the loss I felt. A pain at times that subsided, but never really went away. Today was one of the days where it reared its ugly head and I just surrendered to it.
I thought if I got to work while the city still slept, I could stay busy and forget. My mother’s phone call squashed my bright idea. They grieved and moved on with their lives. I did too, but not in the way I promised I would.
I can’t retreat and allow my heart to hurt.
I was stronger than that, and I had a case to win.
By the time I arrived at the courthouse, my take no prisoner attitude was back. I worked incredibly hard, and now it was time to hear the fruits of my labor. As a lawyer, I modeled myself after the fictional character Olivia Pope, gladiator lawyer. To fight tirelessly for her clients, go up against the toughest challengers, and beat their asses. To simply win and always come out stronger. The one thing in my life that I had complete control over was my career. I did it extraordinarily well, and it came before anything else in my life. It was truly all I had.
I fight for my clients and I never give up. I win for them.
“Well done! Well done, indeed. You have done it again, Miss Fairchild.” A glass of champagne was being raised up in my honor. I was being toasted by Raymond Steele, founder of Steele and Copeland law firm, where I had just won my first case as a newly appointed partner.
I was high on an adrenaline rush, the best kind. I loved the thrill of going up against the power players in the all-boys, no girls allowed club. This was a two year case in the making. My best friend Tommy, the sole owner of his construction company, was being muscled to give up controlling interest in his company by, let’s just say, a more connected one. I not only exposed them for being the frauds they were, but singlehandedly took down their HUD Housing scam to cheat their way through the system. Many hardworking people who lived in those neighborhoods never saw their investments come to life because of the duplicitous acts committed by the criminals who were involved.
I knew what I could do in a court room and wasn’t fazed by the looming threat of violence against me if I didn’t stop pursuing the case. I would have envelopes stuffed with cash waiting for me in my mailbox, and when that incentive didn’t work, they upped the ante.
One night, I received an anonymous e-mail that stated:
Go look outside at your car. We can get to you anytime…any place. The next time you’ll be in it.
The car detonated right in front of me. Now I was pissed, and fuck them for even trying to intimidate me.
I carried forward with my case. We won. They didn’t. They went to jail, and I was still standing, enjoying a very delicious glass of champagne. Who knew where the fight in me came from? I never questioned it, not ever.
Zoey, my best friend and Raymond’s daughter, was still whistling as I finished my very short thank you speech. Tommy hugged me hard and wanted to take me out to celebrate, but I refused him.
“Come on Tenley, please? One dinner, and you can be the dessert, where you’re lying on my bed naked—and I mean very naked—for me to worship and devour.”
For the first time today, I smiled.
You see mama? I found a reason to smile, even if it’s a small one.
My friend accomplished that impossible feat.
“I love you, Tommy, you know I do,” I replied. “But the answer is still no. We are friends, the best kind. Let’s leave it at that.”
At that moment, he seductively touched my arm and, because I’m still a woman, react to it by stepping back but feeling the goose bumps his touch left.
“We can be so much more if you would give us a chance,” he whispered.
He truly meant what he was desperately trying to make me believe, but I knew better. I’d been down this road before many years ago, and all it left me with was a heaping serving of regret. I put my champagne down and gave my friend a hug and silently wished I was somewhere else. Tommy’s friendship was too important to me. I wasn’t about to have history repeat itself again.
“Tommy, I know you believe that we can be something more, but this is as far as we go. Friendship is all I want with you. I have never lied to you about my feelings, but you need to stop the wanting more and just be my friend.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying. You need to have another glass of champagne and stop being so serious all the time. Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘friends…with benefits’? Jeez, you need a night out to relax.”
Great diversion…distract me with humor when we really knew you’re sidestepping the real issue here.
I questioningly looked at him, but he laughed and took me in his strong arms. I loved Tommy, I really did, but he wasn’t Jagger. No man could ever be. I wasn’t about to measure Tommy, or any man, to the one man who held my heart. That wouldn’t be fair to my friend, and it would just give him false hope.
The celebration carried on until Zoey was hammered and Tommy was close to it. I had cars pick them up and take them home. No one would be waiting for me at my apartment, so I stayed behind to work.
As I read through case files, my private line rang. Looking at my watch, it was nearing ten o’clock. No one ever called me this late and on this line. Only a few had this number including my mother, but she knew not to call me here for small talk. Today alone should have proved that. Hopefully my flowers eased the hurt I somehow caused her today. I didn’t have the ring choice on a set number, so it rang several times before I picked up the receiver.
“Tenley Fairchild speaking.” I went with professional before I knew who was on the other end.
“Hello, Tumbleweed!” I would recognize that voice anywhere. Her boisterous voice carried through the receiver that I had to pull the phone away from my ear. She called me by my childhood nickname given to me by my brother, and the only other person I could still stomach using it was her.
Placing the call on speaker, I said, “Wendy! How are you? It’s been a long time.”
What could I say to her? It had probably been a year or more since we spoke to each other in great length. Making partner was all I focused on, and I threw myself into Tommy’s case.
“Too long, Tumbleweed, way too long. Let me get to the point of my call. I have a favor to ask of you, one I’m hoping you won’t say no to.”
“You know I would do anything for you Wendy, you just have to ask and even then just a look will do,” I said.
“I hope that’s true.”
“It is. Name it. What do you need?”
“I need you to come home,” she said.
The six words that I had hoped she wouldn’t ask of me.
Was it possible that my heart had just stopped beating?
I actually put my two fingers to my throat to make sure. The line was silent. I knew we were still connected, but knowing Wendy, she was giving me the minute I needed to catch my breath.
“Wendy, you know I can’t do that. Anything, but that.”
“Tenley, have I ever asked anything of you before this phone call tonight?”
“No, ma’am, you haven’t.”
“Then please don’t refuse me the one and only time I do ask.”
“Wendy, are you okay? Can you tell me that much?” I nervously questioned.
“I’m fine, Tumbleweed. This request is for someone else.”
“Who?” I asked.
She didn’t say.
“My parents? Are they okay?”
“They are.”
“Wendy, why are you being so evasive? Just tell me why I need to come home.” My voice began to rise.
“Listen here, girl. If you have to question me as to why you are needed to come home, then you’ve been gone way too long. Call me when you get into town, and that means tomorrow.”
“Wendy, don’t hang up!” I pleaded before the line went dead, and I was left to be lost in my thoughts.
God! I just want this day to end, but even after all the good that happened in my career today, I’m back to that damn fucking day that my heart shattered.
My eyes found my calendar. November 30
th
, five years ago…you died. I’m numb… just numb.
I unlocked my bottom desk drawer containing a precious photograph of you that I allowed no one to see. It was times like this that I needed to remember and remind myself of things that were once attainable, but were no more in reach of having. Now sitting back and staring at your face, my mind drifted back to our very last conversation we had in person.
You held my hand and smiled at me. Your smile was beautiful. A forever memory etched out in my mind and carved throughout my soul. It was the one constant that began my day. The one simple act I could count on.
You were the early riser out of the two of us, because Daddy had you do all the morning chores before sunrise. How ironic that you died before the dawn greeted the new day.