Eve’s totally on board with this. Before this disagreement, she and Jake shared a clear vision for Love & Pease. Yes, improving the lives of the brand’s devotees through high-quality organic products and wellness awareness is all very well and good, but at the end of the day, the reason for their company’s existence is the reason for any company’s existence: pure profit.
The only one standing in their way of achieving that is Bella.
Bella, whom Chet granted disproportionate shares of Love & Pease in his will, would steer this company off a cliff if given free rein. She repeatedly dismisses Jake’s practical proposals for cost-cutting by claiming they’re “unethical.” Only Miss Bleeding Heart would impoverish her own family by refusing to employ Chinese labor because she pretends to care sooo much about some Uighurs she’s never even met. Why Chet allotted so much of the company to a young, inexperienced girl who wasn’t even his own flesh and blood is something Eve will never understand.
She can only conclude that Chet must have identified in Bella qualities he found wanting in his biological offspring. She was an exceptionally bright child, eager to learn, and, on some level, achingly vulnerable. He often remarked to Eve that he pitied her, which made absolutely no sense. Bella was one of the fortunate ones, thanks to the whims of Chet’s first wife.
The idea of adoption never would have occurred to Madeleine Pease if she hadn’t watched a documentary about the widespread and appalling murder of children in Bogotáno ghettos by both nongovernmental and governmental entities who considered the atrocious acts to be a form of “social cleansing.” She insisted Chet travel with her to the Colombian capital immediately to see how they could help put a stop to the horror.
The results of their admittedly virtuous efforts were twofold: the Pease Foundation, which consisted of an orphanage and school for young girls impacted by the raging drug war, and a doe-eyed four-year-old named Isabella.
Madeleine was showered with praise for adopting an older child instead of a baby, though behind her back acquaintances questioned her true motives. After all, Jake, Dani, and Will were mostly raised by nannies and then shuttled off to boarding schools while their mother disappeared on shopping excursions and spa vacations at destinations unknown for weeks on end. Some of her cattier girlfriends mocked her for modeling herself after Madonna or Angelina Jolie.
At any rate, the naysayers proved to be at least partly correct. Once the excitement of bringing Bella home dimmed, Madeleine soon grew bored with all aspects of family life and declared herself emancipated from motherhood forever. Last anyone heard, she had relocated to a seven-mile island off Bali, where she keeps company with an elderly energy-drink magnate. At Christmas, she sends the kids a box of prickly pink rambutan as a reminder of her existence.
But this is not the time to muse on the tragedy of Madeleine and Bella. Eve must channel all her energy toward securing the happiness of her own daughter.
She releases a breath and lowers her left foot as she pivots her right foot frontward, spreading her arms and bending until the fingertips of her right hand brush against her right ankle in an expertly executed Trikonasana. If she can convince Jake that Will plus Megan plus her creates a unified front in the boardroom, then he might come around. It’s not in Bella’s nature to fight the five of them; she simply doesn’t care that much about the family company or the Love & Pease mission. Perhaps, with time, they can buy her out and Bella can return permanently to Bogotá to pursue her passion, wiping the snotty noses of orphaned waifs.
But how best to pitch this plan to Jake? He’d been so bruised by Chet’s practice of ridiculing his business proposals, he takes offense at the slightest hint of being overruled. It will require a soft touch to make him believe it was his idea to give in on Will and Megan and bless their union. She must treat him gently, as pink and soft as the inside of a viper’s mouth—especially since he’s never been deferential to any woman. He chose as his wife a compliant Catholic girl named Heather with a fondness for black headbands and biennial procreation, whom Eve has never once witnessed standing up to him.
“Hey! You here, Eve?”
Heavy footsteps clomp up the stairs. Before Eve has a chance to ease out of her yoga pose, Dani bursts into the salon, accompanied by a cloud of cold air and burnt Cannabis sativa. She has tipped the ends of her bleached-white cropped hair in brilliant purple and she is more emaciated than ever in skin-tight black jeans.
“Don’t stop on my account.” Chet’s oldest child tosses her black leather jacket carelessly on the couch. “It takes for fucking ever to get to this place these days with the traffic. I hate coming out here.”
Dani’s hands are stained with blotches of red and green, indications she’s been in one of her manic states, probably painting up a storm in the attic of her architecturally significant Jamaica Plain house she shares with her wife, Cecily. No doubt the two have had another argument.
When Dani is in one of these moods, Eve stays clear.
“Is any of Dad’s booze still up here, or did you pour it all down the drain?” She places her hands on her hips and scans the room.
“I think there’s some scotch in that cabinet.” Eve smooths her fluffy cashmere sweater and gestures half-heartedly to an antique sideboard. She wishes Dani would ease off the toxins. It’s not helping her domestic situation. “How’s Cecily?”
Kneeling, Dani rustles through the bottles with a disturbing clanking. “She’s pissed. I was supposed to attend her school’s holiday concert this evening and now I can’t. It’ll be a whole thing when I get home.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Dani’s wife is the principal of an alternative school for gifted children in JP. It seems to Eve as though there’ve been holiday concerts every weekend. Then again, all those Suzuki violins and, of course, the parents demanding solos. “Don’t blame me for making you come out to Weston. Jake called the meeting and he made it sound like you were all in.”
“Damn straight.” Dani pulls out an old bottle of Glenlivet and squints. “Fifteen years. Not thirty, but it’ll have to do.” Removing a cut-glass tumbler, she asks, “What’s the latest?”
“Megan got a text from Will about him being detained at Logan and broke into tears.” Eve doesn’t want to ruin her daughter’s moment by divulging too many details. “That’s all I know.”
Dani stops mid-pour and holds the bottle aloft. “Aww. She’s such a sweetie, that kid.”
Except not so much of a kid. Eve was a new mother when she was Megan’s age. She is about to make this point when she hears another set of footsteps thumping up the mahogany stairs and Jake arrives, AirPods in his ears, conducting a conversation with the ether.
“Exactly,” he says, sliding down the zipper of his waxed Barbour, his gaze vacant. “No, no. You don’t have to. I’ll write a draft and then send it to you for a quick vetting. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll avoid mentioning any legal action. Got it. Not directly. Okay, bye.”
He ends the call and, as if just realizing where he is, says, “Sorry about that. Arthur.”
“And how is the trusty old legal bulldog?” Dani takes a sip, straight, no ice or water.