2015

KINETIC - MONDAY AFTERNOON

BRIAN’S OFFICE

GUS

“It sucks and blows!” I glare at Dad, who is most amused by my predicament. “I would expect a degree of sympathy!”

“I am sorry that my genetics contributed to making you an honour student, and you have the onerous task of inducting the new students.” Dad intones with a smirk.

“Can you be serious, please?!” I huff, and put my feet on his desk, he knocks them off as I knew he would.

“Okay, what is the problem with this? I believe you have done this before, two years back?”

“Yes, but I was fourteen and keen then, I am sixteen and not so keen now!”

“But you committed to doing this.” I sigh and he snickers. “What is the name of your distraction?” He looks knowingly at me while chewing on the end of his pencil.

“It is a thing not a person.”

“And that is?”

“The barn…”

“Gus, we have discussed this, and…”

“I know, I know, but they are seriously driving me crazy. And it helps you.”

“How so?”

“Mom wants to use it as her studio, what with them barely having any room at all…” I watch him go pale at the thought of Mom sharing any living space! Oh yes, she would start there, but slowly and most assuredly she would encroach; and the one thing he doesn't like is encroachment! “...she has even started to buy canvases and furniture. The furniture is in storage for now. And…”

“She’s what?” He swallows hard then reaches for his phone. I mentally cross my fingers and toes. “Hi, may I speak to Melanie Marcus, it's Brian Kinney. Yes, I’ll hold.” He continues to chew on his pencil like a cheroot. “I shall come to the point, Mel, Lindsay wants to use the barn at Britin as a studio, and I was thinking it might be more suited to Gus. He’s a growing lad, he needs the space, and now that you guys are back in Pittsburgh for good, it would give us some much needed bonding time. I could make it into, say, his junior bachelor pad. I am more than happy for Lindsay to have first choice and...okay, I shall leave that in your more than capable hands. Bye now.” He hangs up, then regards me carefully. “Obviously, you will act surprised when she tells you this.” I nod and start to smile in relief. “But if you are lying about this, I shall burn it to the ground with all your prized possessions in it.”

This time I swallow hard then shake my head. “We may not have much in common, Dad, but the unwillingness to lie is one of them.”

MARCUS-PETERSON RESIDENCE, PITTSBURGH - EARLY EVENING

KITCHEN

MEL

I look around the sumptuous kitchen and sigh. The house is truly beautiful and more than we deserve if truth be told! We've been back for seven months now. Gus and JR are settled and very happy. I thought Lindsay was too, but she’s not. And the reason why is a six foot two auburn haired best friend called Brian who is not behaving the way she hoped!

When I was offered the partnership at Fitz & Williams, she was very encouraging for us to return from Canada after four years; her career was not like mine. In Pittsburgh she was someone and had Bloom as added luster to her, then, glittering career, but in Toronto she had to start again. Yes, Sidney's well respected worldwide in art circles, but that counted for nothing. She was on her own, and having to start from the bottom was so very galling according to her. I remember the many days and nights she would rail against the injustice of it all, when she as the senior curator at Bloom Gallery was offered nothing more than gallery assistant with the salary to match!

She rejected job after job until I did the one thing I never thought I would have to do: I went to Brian and begged him to get her to see sense and just accept a job, any job. He was furious, as she had told him that nobody was hiring, and had manipulated him into sending her support for Gus, I was so blindsided and angry that I gave him his rights back there and then, and what was the first thing he did? He stopped the support payments. It took her almost a year to notice, which made me wonder how much he had sent to her. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday, and oh how much it hurt…

Start of flashback

MARCUS-PETERSON RESIDENCE, CANADA - TWO YEARS AGO

STUDY

“That can't be right!” I hear Lindsay gasp and push open the door the study. She is staring at the screen, so engrossed that she doesn't notice me come in or stand behind her. “What the hell is going on with this account?!”

“What account? We don't bank there.” I ask, and she almost shoots through the ceiling. “So what is that?”

“Mel!” She reaches for the mouse but I beat her to it. “You startled me! Since when do you take to sneaking around?!”

“Not sneaking. I have been in the house for half a hour and in the room for at least five. I’ve answered your question, now answer mine.”

Her head drops. “I didn't want to tell you, as I know how upsetting it will be for you.” She looks up her eyes filled with tears. “But, because I couldn't find a job…”

Would not more like!

“...I had to do something. So, so I went to Lynette and asked, no begged for help. I was surprised when she and her husband agreed…” She starts to cry. “I am so sorry for not telling you, but surely you can see how hard that was for me to do?!”

“Yes, I could see that, but this stops. Call Lynette, thank her for the help, but it is no longer needed because you are going to close the account and put it on our joint one. Then accept the next job that is offered to you.”

“Excuse me, but…”

“You lied to me. Yes, you did, and I am furious. Those are the terms of my forgiveness. Take them or leave.”

“Them. It's take them or leave them.” She sniffs.

“Not in this case it isn't. I shall leave you to your call.” She looks astonished. “But move the money first.”

Twenty minutes later, I listen quietly as she talks to Lynette, or should I say bitches to her about me.

“She was so callous. She made me close the account in front of her and ordered me to accept the next job that I am offered! The nerve! It is so freaking cold everywhere and she won't spring for another car, claiming the art district is walkable! That's as maybe, but I don't want to walk to a job that I am not a senior curator in!”

“What are you going to do?”

“Don't know. What would you say to helping a sister out for a while?”

“As if you had to ask! Never knew why you agreed to the move to that cold front anyway, would a thousand a month do it?”

“That would be…”

“Unnecessary.” I stride in and she gapes at me. “Lynette, I know she has been trying to persuade you to stop helping, and it is very kind of you to insist, but fortuitously this came.” I drop the envelope in her lap. “It’s from Belle and Bow, you had an interview with them a couple of weeks ago, remember?” She nods, still mute with shock. “Well, judging by the size of that envelope, it looks like an offer to me. That’s what I love about Canada, the quaint older world way they do things, none of this emailing. Go on, open it!” Her hands shake as she does as I say and she quickly masks her disappointment. “Oh my God, you got it! Okay, it is not senior, but it is as a curator. You must be thrilled?!”

“Delighted, absolutely delighted!”

“Sorry, Lynette, we have to go and celebrate. Thanks again for all your help.” I cut the call before she can say anything and smile. “I was wrong, they do seem to be in the modern era.”

“Pardon?” She mumbles.

“They will accept your acceptance by email. Why don't you do that now, then I’ll grab the wine?” I see the moment she knows she has lost in her eyes and grin wider. “So you going to do it?”

“Yes. Yes, of course I am, I am just recovering from the shock…”

End of flashback

And for a year everything settled back to normality and then I got the partnership offer. Oh how she haranguing and carped at first, then used Gus and JR being closer to their fathers as another way to persuade me. And that was the clincher, using their fatherly influence as leverage.

Naturally, she returned to Bloom, where she has been playing curator of the manor ever since.

I was saved from living one lie by, of all people, Brian. He demanded his rights back immediately. We had to go through the motions, but Gus was delighted, as was I. The times she had used him as a bargaining chip but I was helpless to say anything, she would wonder why I was championing him all of a sudden. And not once did he threaten to tell Lindsay.

But it was giving the rights to Michael that caused the most trouble! For all his brown eyed, cute boy next door looks, he was like a dog with a bone in the prelude to insemination, insisting on being at every appointment, decorating the nursery, buying toys, clothes, everything the baby would need from his dad. And unlike Brian, he would be with us every step of the way!

It was those words that were the death knell for me. I could not do it, but I could only stall so long, and, Ted being Ted, could see how distressed I was. So, in a way, I did what she did. I accepted my best friend’s offer to be the father...with them both being dark and her looking more like me, everyone believed Michael is the father. But the one thing I could not do was take money from Michael, so I have put it in an account for him, for when he finds out, because secrets have a habit of being revealed. I just hope that the money will salve his wounded ego.