Last Christmas I gave her an extra week of paid vacation and when she was gone, I brought in a professional organizer to give her area a “makeover,” thinking I was doing her (and the rest of us who have to walk past this hot mess on a daily basis) a service—only the spic-and-span tidiness lasted a mere six weeks before she had completely reverted to her old ways.
I tried.
“H … hi, Mr. Schoenbach.” She stutters when I make her nervous. My father had a soft-spot for her. Now I’m wondering if he had a hard-on for her too. She’s completely incapable of doing this job. “I … I was just finishing up …”
I check my timepiece. It’s a quarter ‘til eight. Her coffee is filled to the brim and her computer monitor is pitch black. Her orchid-colored lipstick is faded, like she’s been engaging in recent idle chit-chat.
Liar.
She follows my gaze, her lips teetering as she searches for a response, but I walk away before she has the chance.
On the way to my office, I count four people whispering, six people staring, and one sad sap from accounting who dares to make conversation with me at this ungodly hour.
I’m sure they’re all wondering why the hell I’m here on the heels of a family tragedy.
Unfortunately for them, it’s none of their fucking business.
I shut my office door and take a seat at my desk, turning to face the cityscape outside my windows. The Chicago skyline is surprisingly in clear sight today, the sky behind it a surreal shade of vanilla-orange dreamsicle.
If I were a mawkish man, I’d be drowning in a puddle of tears over the fact that the sun rose this morning without Larissa.
But I’m practical.
And I’m well aware that life carries on with or without us.
We’re nothing in the scheme of things.
And this is just another January sunrise.
Another Friday.
And I’m just another Schoenbach, ready to bury myself in meetings and paperwork until it’s the appropriate hour in which a man can enjoy two fingers of Scotch, and then I’ll show myself out—taking the back stairs so I don’t have to make awkward, have-a-good-weekend small talk with the suits and skirts on my payroll.
I’m certain the majority of my staff despises me, never mind that I anonymously cover Yuri’s daughter’s private school tuition, privately donated a Toyota Camry to our most tenured maintenance man when his Pinto could no longer reliably get him to work. Never mind that I make donations in all of their names to the Halbrook Heart Disease Foundation every January. Forget that I secretly paid off Margaux’s mortgage the first year I took over, when her husband lost his job (and his battle with lung cancer six months later).
I’m self-aware enough to comprehend that working for me is no walk in the park, so I try to soften the blow when I can. Privately. Anonymously. Always.
I’ve no need for karma or accolades.
I’m seven answered emails into my morning when Margaux rings my desk phone.
“Yes?” I exhale into the receiver.
“Mr. Schoenbach? Your mother is here.”
Lovely.
“Send her back.” I hang up and finish composing my last response, managing to hit ‘send’ the instant Victoria Tuppance-Schoenbach strolls through the double doors.
I rise to greet her—not out of respect but because I’m not in the mood for the passive aggressive guff she’ll give if I don’t.
“Darling.” She makes her way across the room, her thin red lips puckered into a faux pout, her arms outstretched. Leaning across my desk, she cups my face in her gloved hands and kisses the air beside my cheek. “Thank you so much for handling the preparations last night. I was in the area this morning. Thought I’d come here to check on you. How’d it go?”
After leaving the funeral home last night, I’d meant to text her Saturday’s details, but instead I texted Deidre-from-6A and had her come over for a nightcap—and to suck my cock.
“Fine, Mother. The memorial is Saturday morning. Eight to ten.”
“Such a tragedy, isn’t it?” She clucks her tongue, staring toward the scenic city abyss behind me. “Honestly, it was for the best.”
“Excuse me?”
“Since the moment she came into our lives, she’s caused nothing but trouble.” She keeps her voice low despite the fact that this office is sound-proofed and a world away from anyone else who may or may not be nosy enough to listen in. “You know, I never liked that girl.”
“You don’t like anyone.”
It’s an incurable sickness.
Bred into the Tuppance DNA.
Passed down generation to generation like a genetic defect.
We don’t tend to care much for anyone unless they’re serving a direct and useful self-serving purpose.
“Fair to assume you won’t be attending?” I lift a brow.
My mother gasps, a hand splayed across her heart. “Can you imagine what people would say if I didn’t? My God, Bennett. You know how they talk around here. Would I rather be meeting the ladies for brunch at The Marigold that morning? Yes. Of course I would. But not going isn’t an option.”
A simple yes, I’ll be there would have sufficed …
“Your honesty is … refreshing,” I say.
“It’s much too early for sarcasm, darling. Please. Enough.”
“Have you spoken with Errol yet?” I change the subject.
Tugging at her pearls, she draws a resigned breath. “I have. He’s aware of Larissa’s untimely passing, and he plans to attend her memorial, but he won’t be bringing his wife. We both know that’s a good thing. Larissa and Beth never got along. Oil and water, those two.”
It probably didn’t help that my mother poisoned their relationship early on, pinning them against one another like some sick and twisted game solely for her own amusement.
All of their differences aside, Beth and Larissa never stood a chance where my mother was involved.
She’s a destroyer, that woman.
She destroys all that is good in this world, whether she means to or not.
She destroyed our family, her marriage, my father …
It’s as if she can’t help but to meddle, to ensure everyone else is as miserable as she is.
“All right, well.” She rises, straightening the hem of her boucle jacket. “I’ve got a million little things to do this morning and I’m sure you do as well, so I’ll leave you be.”
Thank God.
My email chimes with Margaux’s expense report—fifteen hours late.
“And Bennett?” My mother stops at the door, turning back to me. “Call your brother. You two haven’t been on speaking terms for years, and I’d hate for things to be awkward Saturday morning.”
“Will do,” I lie.
Whoever said death brings families closer never met the Schoenbachs.
5
Astaire
The sound of children laughing and shuffling down the hallway Friday morning is my cue to silence my phone.
I tuck it into my top drawer for the day and reach for my coffee, stealing a few more sips before the craziness of the day ensues.
I found the Schoenbach obituary—if you can call it that—earlier this morning. The funeral home posted it sometime last night.