Find Some Peace

I can’t even begin to describe how warm I felt when I awoke to Sidney’s light breathing against the back of my neck. There are plenty of times like these when people are together romantically, but they never seem to really acknowledge the sheer beauty of moments like this. Never in my life had I felt so warm, comfortable, and safe. Even in a new city, waking up like this felt completely natural. I wish I could wake up to this every day.

The boy behind me groaned and burrowed his face in the side of my neck, kissing the skin there softly and yawning almost pur-like in my ear. His admittedly pathetic excuse for stubble tickled my cheek as his arms tightened around my middle. “Good morning,” he whispered almost seductively in my ear, but at the same time his level of happiness completely eliminated what sex appeal there could have been.

“Hi,” I replied back as if proud of something. Turning in his arms, I leaned my entire body against him as if to fence him in. That was basically my goal, anyway. I never wanted to move from that very spot, warm to the core of my being, comfortable as could be.

The boy kissed my forehead softly; so softly that it felt as if he was only brushing his lips over my skin and retreating to look me in the tired, content eyes. In the midst of our comfort in one another, my cell began to ring furiously; the last thing I expected to happen today without emergency. After all, all of the guys knew where I was and only one remained back home, but I was about a hundred percent sure that Cheryl wouldn’t need me at all for at least another week.

That could only mean one thing.

I sprung up, breaking away from Sidney and flew down the hall, into his room. My cell sat on the foot of the still messed up bed from, like, days ago, just screaming at me to pick up or something. I grabbed the thing, violently snapping it open and slamming it to my ear. “Hello?”

The deep voice, scratchy with age and experience, calmly addressed me as it always had; as the executive, the mentor, and never the father. “Amanda, you are due back in three days. Am I correct?”

“Y-Yes, dad-I mean Ralph… Why?” I had already cringed in preparation of his words. Nothing good ever came out of a call from “daddy”. Hell, nothing ever good came out of dad period. He was a walking load of bad news for me. He hadn’t changed at all from when I was a little girl, either. Ralph would always be the business tycoon to me and sworn enemy Trent.

“The Ducati deal went under.”

Bile was beginning threatening to greet the back of my throat at the blood completely drained from my face. To explain the source of my limited work material; it’s not that I was an overly efficient worker bee back home, it was that I was not only efficient as hell but I hardly had a big important thing to do. That was, until the Ducati deal succeeded. I had worked at that for nearly two years of rubbing elbows with their corporate big boys and suddenly the walls I so carefully built up were crashing down around me.

My business game-face found its way into my voice box. “Why?”

“Their main reason was that their experts doubt our success—they’re doubting your success, Amanda.”

Cringing, my eyes fixated themselves on the carpet at my feet. He was beginning to sound like the father figure he should have been, only he was showing his scolding side and never any other. It was all rather sickening. “What’s the company’s fall-back plan to sustain a steady income and maintain plausible tax-independent revenue for the year?”

“That was the fall-back plan.”

“What?!”

“Now, Amanda-“

“No—I’ll start running through product designs of my own and read through as many partner files as I possibly can. Hopefully I’ll be able to formulate some sort of minor back-up deal based off of the resources we already have.”

“I’ve already been through damn near every contract. It’s not going to happen.”

“Have you already consul-“

“It’s too late.”

“It can’t be too late, Ralph.”

“We have a dense enough money influx to sustain the base foundation of the business, but we may have to start discontinuing certain toys that haven’t put up the big bucks.”

“I’ll take care of that. Have Cheryl forward every file and statistic we’ve got to my lap top and I’ll make sense of this all.” And thus came forth the question I knew I had to ask that just about scared me to death. Obviously if he was actually calling me, this situation had to be severe if not potentially career-ending for the both of us. “How far has the income dropped?”

He was slow to answer, justifying my fears. “Twelve percent.”

And just as quickly as my comfort arrived, it was gone in a flash. Sidney watched me carefully from the doorway as I collapsed against and leaned on the bed for support, the phone loose now in my fading grasp. “This is in the last six months?”

“Four.”



It became apparent to me that I wasn’t aggressive enough in my job the moment we parted ways. My father’s guilt trips and conniving words thereafter giving me the news of our money loss was far from what I would hear upon landing home. There was no telling how many people he had laid off or how many stores he had withdrawn our products from. This was the last thing I ever expected for the business, even in the hard economic times of the present day world.

“So what does this mean?” asked Sidney, teetering at the edge of the rolly chair he wouldn’t stop spinning around on. The boy was like a child overcome with nervous energy, antsy and incapable of staying still.

Irritated, I eyed him with narrow eyes. “You know business, kid. Down twelve point four percent isn’t a good thing. “Daddy”’s already laid off way too many people… I mean, I knew business was suffering but I didn’t imagine this much-“

“So what, is your career still secure or are you in danger or what the hell is going on?”

“Oh, no, my job will be fine. Even if it’s not, I still have the resume for greatness so there would be no problem in transitioning to something different. I’m just worried about the guys who work under me. There’s some really great faces I’m afraid are going to be put on the chopping block or given pay cuts they can’t handle.”

“I don’t mean to sound heartless, but isn’t that their problem? Why is it so important to you?”

Clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth a few times, I answered from the heart. “Ever since Matt died and you came along, I’ve been paying more attention to the faces I take for granted. They’re my only friends back home and they’re all great people. If this corporate giant falls or even stumbles, as it looks like it’s going to do, and I have to cut income or even worse, lay one of them off, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“But it’s not your fault.”

“Head of marketing my dear. My job is more crucial than my dad’s. And to tell you the truth, he doesn’t even do his job anymore. He basically just supervises the kid he wants to take over the place.”

His face lit up just slightly. “Wait-you have another brother?”

“Nope.”

“But you said he’s training someone to take over…”

“Yup.”

“Why not you?”

Oh no, I got the notion
Let’s get together and start the commotion
Round and round ‘til everyone stops
‘Til the next needle on the record player drops

My phone violently sounded again, this time in my hand and with a new ringtone belonging only to my step brother. I answered without the slightest hesitation, mouthing his name to a now annoyed-looking brunette boy in front of me. His eyes anxiously dug into mine; attempting to pick apart the answers he wanted from the cool demeanor I blatantly displayed in the face of the cold, hard facts of my father and my relationship.

“Yeah?”

“Dad called.”

The blood instantly drained from my features. “What the fuck is going on?”

He answered coolly, “I was hoping you’d know.”

“What did he call you about?”

“Business is apparently shit and he thinks you and me need to spend more time with each other. Wants me to ‘rub off on you’. Fuck, he’s still sore over you taking the job instead of me.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. He’s unforgiving. It’s just his nature.”

“Well,” my brother cleared his throat, “to be honest, I think he’s looking for an excuse to boot you out the door.”

“Hasn’t he always?”

The humorous tone didn’t sit with him at all. In fact, it completely unfazed him. “I’m serious about it this time.”

“Well he’s got no fucking reason to keep trying. God, I don’t get what his problem can still be.”

“Mom.”

The stinging sensation brought about the mention of that woman was nearly paralyzing. “I’ll figure it out eventually. Until then, let him blame the downfall of the company on me. At the end of the day-“

“At the end of the day, you’re supposed to be his blood daughter.”

“Quit battling me on our affairs, Trent. All he sees me as is the cause for mom’s death when it’s far from my fault, shit.”

There was tense silence between us now. All Trent could do was utter his reply. “No, it’s not your fault, but you can’t sit back and let him believe it is.”

“Well I’ve tried and failed. What do you want me to do?”

“Quit.”

“We both know I’m not going to do that. That would be insane.”

“It’s better than fueling the fire.”

And to that, I couldn’t reply with a good enough answer. I was shut up, done. Trent knew that he was right. He knew that I should call working under dad just to spite him quits. Hell, I knew it too, but I wouldn’t be the loser like Ralph would see me as soon as I quit. Quitting would make him think he was right and that I was admitting defeat, admitting that just because I was born, mom died.

I would never allow him that kind of sick satisfaction.

“This conversation is over.”

Click.

I was left now faced with a boy full of questions, watching me as though he had seen a ghost. His eyes were strewn with sympathy and questioning, his skepticism apparent in even his breathing. “I knew your dad was the exec, but I never knew you guys didn’t get along.” His voice was hushed. Mind you, it was hushed in one of those knowing ways, like he was almost scared to speak the sentence he did, let alone come to me with knowledge I just freely spewed of my mother. Vague as what I had said was, it was still enough for him to piece together the source of my father and I’s tension.

It was times like these, where I was leaning more toward irate than poignant, that I just stabbed at the point without the bat of an eyelash. To Sidney, this was a completely new side of me that I wasn’t sure he was ready to feel the heat of. “My mom died having me. Dad’s always blamed me for her death even though he doesn’t say it to my face. Made it known when he offered Trent the job I have now. Trent says I should quit so he can stop trying to find reasons to fire me… Now you know why dad’s training some random kid to take over when he retires soon.”

Sidney only stared at me; head cocked a little to the right with that innocent, sadly shocked look on his face that I hated seeing. I hated the feeling of receiving sympathy. Was I really weak enough to deserve it? “It’s no big deal,” I continued, biting off the edge of my already broken nail, “It’s just unfortunate is all. Trust me, I finally got used to it by my middle teenage years.”

“You don’t deserve this,” he replied quietly.

I couldn’t help but smile at his almost dumb struck way of speech. “I know, but hey, I get my revenge for the emotional trauma just by working. Since the co’s going downhill, it’s his turn to hit me with reasons to quit. He’s always wanted me to, anyway.”

“Well why don’t you?”

“Don’t want him to think I’m weak and guilty.”

He nodded in understanding. “But this is unhealthy…”

“It’s life, it’s work…”

“It’s not right.”

“No, it’s not,” I stretched, “but at least this is a battle of life I can win.”