Chương 5
“Does your board know?”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
Vanessa made a small sound.
Daniel corrected himself.
“The finance committee knows.”
“Not the full board,” Vanessa said.
Claire stared at her husband.
“How bad?”
He looked at his mother.
Eleanor looked back.
Something passed between them.
For the first time, Eleanor appeared to be asking permission rather than giving an order.
Daniel exhaled.
“Bad enough that without new capital we could lose control of the company.”
Claire waited.
“And?”
“And possibly enter a restructuring.”
“Possibly?”
“Likely.”
Eleanor said, “Hundreds of jobs.”
Daniel snapped, “Stop using them as hostages.”
His mother went still.
Claire did too.
Daniel pushed his chair back.
“That’s what you’ve been doing. Every time I said we had to tell her, you said six hundred people would pay for my conscience.”
“Because they will.”
“No. They’ll pay for our decisions.”
Eleanor looked almost offended by the pronoun.
“Our?”
Daniel gave a tired laugh.
“You made me president at thirty-three because you wanted my name on decisions you were still making.”
Nobody spoke.
Vanessa stared at him.
Daniel went on.
“I approved two acquisitions I knew were overpriced because you said the market would recover. I approved the aircraft orders. I signed the credit extension.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “You did.”
“So don’t make Claire responsible for saving us.”
Eleanor leaned back.
“You are choosing an extraordinary moment to discover ethics.”
Daniel nodded.
“I know.”
That answer disarmed even her.
Claire watched him and felt anger twist into something more complicated and less useful.
Daniel had betrayed her.
He had also just refused to hide behind her.
Both things could be true.
She hated that adulthood was mostly finding out how many incompatible truths could occupy the same room.
Martin checked his watch.
“It is eight twelve. No one is going to Manhattan.”
Eleanor looked at him sharply.
“That meeting—”
“Can be missed.”
“You have no idea what is at stake.”
“I have some idea.”
Martin picked up one of the documents.
“Your office asked this afternoon whether Claire could authorize a direct distribution sufficient to participate in what your email described as a secured bridge investment.”
Claire looked at Eleanor.
“How much?”
No answer.
Daniel rubbed his forehead again.
“Forty million.”
Claire actually smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because the number was too large for her body to process properly.
“Forty million dollars.”
“It would be collateralized,” Eleanor said.
“With what?”
“Company assets.”
Vanessa said, “The company assets already securing everything else?”
Eleanor turned on her.
“You have contributed nothing to this family except commentary.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Just for an instant.
Then the smile returned.
“There she is.”
Claire had seen Vanessa insult waiters, flirt with married men, and photograph a homeless person sleeping beneath a designer store window because she thought the juxtaposition was interesting.
She had assumed Vanessa was shallow.
It occurred to her that she might simply be practiced.
A child raised by Eleanor Mercer would learn armor early.
Claire opened her phone and called Nora.
It went to voicemail.
She hung up.
Daniel watched her.
“Where are you going?”
“Not home.”
“I can leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave. I want me to leave.”
“There’s a hotel near the airport.”
“I know.”
“I’ll get you a car.”
Claire looked at him.
He stopped.
“Right.”
She picked up the ribbon and wrapped it around the box again.
Her hands were clumsy.
Daniel stepped forward instinctively.
She looked at him.
He stepped back.
That tiny movement nearly broke her.
Not because she wanted him close.
Because yesterday he would have tied the ribbon without asking.
Twenty-four hours could make ordinary tenderness illegal.
Beth offered to take custody of the documents.
Claire refused.
“I’m keeping the box.”
“Of course.”
“And my phone.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody calls the hotel.”
Daniel said, “Claire—”
“Nobody.”
He nodded.
Eleanor stood.
“You cannot simply disappear in the middle of this.”
Claire put the box under one arm.
“Watch me.”
It was the kind of line she would have hated in a movie.
In real life it came out tired and slightly breathless, and then her suitcase caught on the conference-room threshold and tipped over.
Vanessa laughed.
Claire looked at her.
For half a second Vanessa appeared embarrassed.
Then Claire started laughing too.
It was wrong.
Her husband had married her under false pretenses, her father had predicted it, her mother-in-law had tried to maneuver forty million dollars out of her trust, and Claire was standing barefoot now because one heel had slipped off while she wrestled with a suitcase.
She laughed until it hurt.
Martin picked up the suitcase.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Don’t say anything wise.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You always look like you’re about to.”
“I’m thinking about the deductible on my rental car.”
She laughed once more.
Then she started crying.
Not dramatically.
Her face simply stopped cooperating.
She covered her mouth, furious at herself.
Daniel moved.
Martin’s hand came up.
Not touching him.
Just enough.
Daniel stopped.
Claire wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Hotel,” she said.
Martin nodded.
Outside, the rain was beginning to weaken.
The jet remained on the apron, engines still idling.
As Claire crossed the hangar, she looked at it once.
Eight hours earlier, she had been excited about the trip.
Daniel had told her they would spend the night in New York after dinner, sleep late, get breakfast at the little place on West Tenth where she liked the burned edges on the pancakes.
He had remembered that.
That was the worst part.
He had remembered.
People did not have to be pretending every minute to ruin your life.
The hotel room had a view of a parking structure and an air conditioner that hummed even when Claire turned it off.
She sat on the bed in the hotel robe with wet hair dripping down her back and the turquoise box beside her.
May you like
Her suitcases remained zipped.
At 1:07 in the morning, Nora arrived carrying a paper grocery bag, two coffees, a toothbrush, potato chips, and a pair of sweatpants with NORTHWESTERN written down one leg.
