Retreat (14 page)

    
“I need to talk to that guy Freedman you
told Mom about,” Rebecca trumpeted, bobbing her head past Clara and searching
the room. “The one giving the money to enterprising new businesses.”

    
A snicker shot through the room. Clara
allowed a smile to touch her lips as she addressed the crowd. “Please excuse
the intrusion,” she said.

    
Rebecca’s jaw dropped and she stomped her
right foot, placing a hand on her hip for emphasis.

    
Another flash.

    
“Intrusion!” Rebecca bellowed, appalled.

    
Clara tried to usher her out of the room
but Rebecca would have none of it. She was clearly offended by Clara’s remark
and aimed to make sure she got what she came for.
 

    
Rebecca hollered again for Freedman, who
stood and asked her to leave. Instead, she strutted over to him, explaining
that she needed him to invest in a bead business she’d started and heavily
insinuating how she planned to pay him back.

    
This time the flashes flew like shots from
a machine gun.

    
Clara was trying to pull her away the whole
time, but Rebecca was bigger and had the strength of whatever dope she was on
to back her up. When Freedman dismissed Rebecca, telling her there was no way
in hell he’d ever invest in anything she was selling, she’d turned to the
riveted crowd.
 

    
“You see how he’s blowing me off?” she
spit. “Well you just wait until you all get it up the ass, too. You’re all
happy here? Clara told my mother that all this asshole does is take companies
like yours and sell them off, piece by piece by piece. You all think you’re so
freaking smart? Ha! You’ll be out of work in less than a year! Just ask my dear
sweet sister Clara.”

    
By the time security dragged Rebecca away
the damage had been done. Confused chatter spilled through the crowd at what
she’d said and Corville had joined Morlock up on the stage, talking heatedly
about what it meant for them. They knew damned well that was what Freedman had
planned, but the key to making it work was that the rest of the executives were
kept in the dark until it was too late. The admission, even coming from what looked
like a low-rent hooker, would surely cast doubt on their intentions all along.

    
Jon could see the deal crumbling before his
eyes, his chance at making partner vanishing with it.

    
It was too late for damage control. As the
crowd grew louder he’d joined Freedman, who was marching toward Clara. He’d
fired her, loudly, and Jon had backed him up. When she started to object, Jon
pointed toward the door through which security had just dragged her lowlife
sister.

    
He remembered the pain that crossed through
her eyes as she looked at him. The security guards were headed toward her.
She’d snatched her purse off the table and headed toward the door before they
could manhandle her the way they’d done to Rebecca. Jon followed a few moments
later, still raging at how everything had gone to shit, and watched her step
into a taxi at the curb out front.

    
That was the last time he’d seen her before
Thursday. After a year of trying to justify breaking it off, the truth of what
a thunderous asshole he’d been was finally hitting home. He had to make it
right with her. He realized that now.

    
He turned away from the window and sat down
at his desk, going back over the Spritzer & Spritzer website in detail so he’d
be so well-versed that Clara’s father would have to let him come on board as an
investor. It was the excuse he needed to be near Clara so he could gain her
trust. If it could earn him a few dollars, too, that would be all the better.

CHAPTER
7

    
On Tuesday morning, Clara drove to the
offices of Spritzer & Spritzer and pulled the Acura into the narrow spot
out front, the same spot she’d parked in since she first got her learner’s
permit sixteen years before.

    
Brighton
had changed since she’d cruised its streets in her white Volkswagen Rabbit,
circling past the same group of misfit guys a hundred times a night. Cruising
had been outlawed for one thing, and signs were posted all up and down

    
About a year ago there’d been a fire on

    
For everything that changed so much had
remained the same. Kids still bolted after high school graduation and few
returned, causing the local population to plummet. The oldsters who hadn’t
deserted to Florida
gathered in the musty basement of St.
John’s Lutheran Church every Wednesday to play cards and
reminisce about the days when Brighton was
bustling with commerce. As economic growth continued to nosedive, the housing
stock had been largely bypassed by the run-up in prices across the country,
leaving charming singles available at what would be ridiculously low market
values somewhere else.

    
It occurred to Clara, as she stepped out of
her car, that her father’s conversion of Spritzer & Spritzer into a
high-margin niche business could set the stage for the community’s
rejuvenation, if only the state government were astute enough to understand the
business model and be willing to encourage township and borough officials to
adjust their zoning and other ordinances accordingly.

    
As she stepped into the corporate
headquarters of Spritzer & Spritzer, Clara was struck by the familiar scent
of wood paneling, cherry tobacco smoke and coffee. Her father always smoked a
pipe in his office on Friday afternoons, and the old paneling held the
fragrance all week long.

    
The office building was one story, with
high ceilings and an interesting floor plan that allowed everyone except Meg,
who served as her father’s assistant and the receptionist, to have his or her
own private office. Clara’s office was next to her father’s, as he’d reminded
her when she and David came to visit. Josie’s office was on the other side of
the building. It worked better that way. Her mom and dad had a tendency to
drive each other crazy on multiple levels, so separating them was the only way
to get any work done.

    
“Hey Meg,” Clara said. Her friend grinned
from under her bangs and popped up from her desk to give Clara a warm hug.

    
“Welcome back,” she said sincerely. “You
look great.”

    
“Much better than I did at the park, I’m
sure,” Clara said with a knowing laugh. She certainly felt better in her new
suit than she had in her old sweats. “I hope I didn’t scare Jenna.”

    
Meg laughed. “Hardly. She just wondered who
you were. I told her you were my friend since elementary school. She thought
that was pretty cool.”

    
“That’s because it is pretty cool,” Clara
said, smiling. She’d worried when she went away to college and then moved to Texas that Meg would
cool toward her, but it never happened. They still emailed a couple of times a
month, and when she’d brought David to meet her mother and father they’d gone
to dinner with Meg and Grady while Meg’s mom babysat Jenna.
 

    
“Your dad’s in his office,” Meg said. “He
wanted you to come in when you got here.”

    
“Okay, thanks,” Clara said, taking a deep
breath as she walked down the sun-washed hall toward his office.

    
She paused on the way to contemplate a
series of faded newspaper clippings from her grandfather’s original coal-mining
operation that had been framed and hung evenly along the wall. Her father tried
to continue the company as a mine for years but the decline in the industry
took a toll on the business and on him. On more than on occasion Clara had
closed her office door to avoid hearing him pleading with the bankers.

    
When she arrived home with a freshly minted
business degree from Penn
State, she’d tried to
talk him into diversifying but she didn’t think she was getting through.
Apparently she had, though, because it wasn’t long after she left for the job
at Freedman’s that he got the bug for bio-fuels.
 

    
She wasn’t sure how her father would react
when he found out that she ended the engagement. She knew Josie would be on her
side, but her father liked David, especially that he could take care of her,
even though her father was well aware she could take care of herself. He’d even
offered to give David a job at Spritzer & Spritzer. She never told her
father that David laughed at the prospect of working for such a small-time
operation. And come to think of it, he’d been a major ass to Grady and Meg,
treating them as if they were taking up his valuable time with their small-town
drivel. Clara may have left Brighton for
bigger fortunes, but it was still her hometown and she hadn’t appreciated
David’s attitude toward the town or her father’s company.

    
Of course, the company wasn’t so small
anymore. The recent hires were only the beginning of the expansion her father
was planning as he ventured deeper into bio-fuels. Between the revenue the
company generated and state and federal grants that promoted the work, the
potential was great. Her father kept her current by sending her white papers
and journal articles that highlighted what he wanted to do.

    
“Hey Dad,” she said, standing in the
doorway of his large office.

    
“Clara,” he said, glancing up over his
reading glasses and giving her the papa bear smile she could never forget. The
uncertainty of the past few days melted away as she looked at him. She couldn’t
help but smile back.

    
Bill Spritzer recently turned 60 but was in
better shape than he’d been in years. He still had a bit of a round belly, the
Santa Claus pillow she remembered leaning up against as a little girl, and his
hair was completely gray and fading to white. He had a light tan from the hours
he spent outside educating government officials and investors about the methane
output he was capturing at the Brighton
landfill and the science behind turning old waste into new energy. Business was
being good to him in his later years, particularly after decades of struggling
in a dying industry.

    
He stood up and strolled over to her,
giving her a squeeze. “Welcome home, honey girl.”

    
She smiled up at him. “Thanks, Dad.”

    
“How are you doing?” he asked, motioning
toward the chair across from his in the large office.

    
“Good,” she said. “Better.”

    
“Well, you’re about to get busier,” he
said.

    
“Are you sure you’re okay with me coming
back on board? I’m sure it wasn’t in the budget.”

    
He laughed out loud. “Yes, I’m sure. And don’t
you start worrying about the budget already. You’ll need to earn your keep by
bringing in new customers and keeping the ones we have happy. And since these
days a lot of those customers come with government and corporate strings
attached you’ll have your work cut out for you. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
he asked, his gray mustache tickling his upper lip.

    
They both knew he was talking about more
than the job.

    
“I’m up to it,” Clara assured him, tucking
her hair behind her ears. “Point me in the right direction. I need something to
take my mind off the mess I’ve made.”

    
“From what your mom tells me you had some
help making the mess.”

    
“True.”

    
“I never liked that David Carpenter, you
know,” he said, reaching over and absently tapping the spent tobacco out of his
pipe onto a small black tray. “Never thought he was good enough for you. He was
too caught up in keeping up with the Joneses.”

    
Clara stared at him, amazed at his
reaction.

    
“You told me you liked him! You even
offered him a job,” she said.

    
He winked at her. “I had to figure out some
way to keep an eye on him. He was marrying my daughter.”

    
“He wasn’t interested in the job,” she
said.

    
“I know. I still tried, though, and that’s
what counts. You’ll be better off without him.”