“No, d-don’t quit!” his dad stammers, then coughs. “It’s not because of you. I’ve been planning this for a while. The timing’s right, and … you’ll be there. I’m … proud of you. Son.”
The shock emanating from Alex right now clogs the air, thick and overwhelming. It’s only slightly less palpable than the discomfort coming off his dad.
“Two days ago, you told me to put in my notice. Now you’re fucking proud?”
“I was taken off guard,” his father protests. “I didn’t know if you’d used my name to get the job—”
“Of course I didn’t use your name. I’ve never needed to!” Alex bellows, furious. “It’s not my fault you found out as late as you did.”
“Don’t raise your voice,” his father growls.
Alex laughs darkly. “A scolding? That’s new.”
A fist hits the table, and I jerk, squeaking a little. “Just…” His father exhales in obvious exasperation. “Stay. Keep doing whatever it is you’ve been doing for the past two months. Grow Bite the Hand however you see fit. Spare no expense. Invest in anything you think worthy. Money is no object when it comes to that brand right now. Got it?”
I roll my eyes. Like father, like son.
“You cannot possibly think,” Alex says, “that with you gone, Dougie will allow us to launch BTH as a subsidiary. He hates me almost as much as he hates you. I feel it every time we’re in a room together. He’ll probably try to get me fired.”
“So you’re going to give up without trying?”
“That’s not what I said,” Alex retorts, masculine bravado flaring. “I’m only making a prediction, and I don’t even hear you denying it.”
“Well.” Robert clears his throat. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens.”
Alex says, “Guess so.”
Here’s the thing. Even if I weren’t hiding in a closet, this would still be one of the weirder conversations I’ve been privy to. Robert sounds like he’s challenging Alex. And Alex sounds like he’s … accepting it.
After a beat of silence, Robert asks, “Late night?”
“Yeah.”
“Sonja?”
“Dad.” Alex exhales. “I dated Sonja for three weeks when I was twenty-one.”
I briefly ponder how to acquire Sonja’s Social Security number and least favorite way to die before I remember that Alex is just a coworker.
“Right. I guess it’s been a while since we’ve … caught up.”
“Twenty-five years, give or take.”
“Don’t be that way, Alex. You’ve always been independent.”
Alex says nothing. But I can feel it—the way his heart is stretching outside of him, asking for a chance to be known. Maybe he doesn’t want to be independent.
“Seeing anyone new?” Robert asks.
A chair scrapes along the floor. “No.”
Footsteps cross the apartment. Seconds tick by as Alex’s dad pokes around. The creaky bathroom door swings open, then closed again. I huddle deeper in my corner.
“Why won’t you use your trust, Alex? This place is a shoebox.”
Alex sighs. Maybe this is a conversation he’s tired of having. “If you don’t understand the reason by now, there’s nothing I can say to make you grasp it.”
“You realize, if I die first, you get half my money, and if I die after Linda does, you get everything?”
“You realize I’m going to donate it all either way?”
There is a stony silence on the other side of my barrier.
“Here,” says Robert. “Take my house key in case this place gets condemned. Our Upper East Side town house will be empty through Christmas.”
“Why?”
“Linda and I are going away for a few months. I’ll be back in January.”
“Europe?”
“Australia.”
Alex hums appreciatively. “Enjoy retirement.”
“It’s not…” Robert trails off, then says, “Thank you.” He heads for the front door, pulls it open. “Don’t forget what I said about BTH. You’re in a strong position of leverage right now. If I gave you anything besides good looks, it’s the Harrison hustle.”
“Says the early retiree.”
His father raps his fingers on the door. “Don’t be so sure about that.”
As soon as it closes behind him, I pop open the pantry door and peek around the edge of it. Alex slides across the floor in black socks, flicking the front lock closed. I barrel-roll out of the pantry, and by the time I look up, he’s above me, offering a hand.
“Your dad seems…”
Alex hauls me to my feet. “Demanding? Authoritative?”
I frown. “I was going to say it seems like he doesn’t know how to act around you.”
“That’s because we’re only one degree removed from strangers.” He looks down, at the folded white envelope in his hand, the faint outline of a single key within. Eyes glazed, he shakes his head and murmurs, “He’s never invited me to his home. Not the one in New Haven or the one on the Upper East Side. And he’s certainly never called me son before.”
I’m proud of you, son.
A small, barely there flame of hope glimmers behind Alex’s eyes. It twists my stomach up in knots. Because I know the feeling, in a way.
I have my own issues with my parents. Frankly, I don’t think there’s ever been a child that, at some point or another, hasn’t felt less than enough. It shows up differently for all of us, but for me, not feeling enough looks like a teenage kid staring at her parents’ bodies of work—plaques and portraits and signed guitars and old refurbished cameras—and knowing their legacy is marked on the world. It’s there. Tangible. Art they created, together, and apart.
The absolutely mortifying thing is that their biggest expression of humanity was supposed to be me—and this is how I turned out.
Crying in art class because I don’t get it.
Stage fright so bad I pee a little.
And then, this strange sense of calm, of certainty, when I discovered an old book of sudoku puzzles at the recording studio. When I could calculate the exact grocery bill before the machine. When my brain started to estimate the net worth of all my parents’ art—every royalty, every gallery sale—and I wondered if I’d ever see the world the way they saw it. As an expression. Not an equation.
But despite it—despite all of it—I’ve never, ever questioned that they love me.
Yet here Alex is, brilliant, one of a kind, misty-eyed because his dad doesn’t want him to quit his job anymore, said he was proud, called him son, and did it all to soften the blow of leaving Alex behind to battle Robert’s own worst enemy.
“I should go,” I whisper, my voice thick with emotion. Suddenly everything’s hitting me wrong, and my suspension of disbelief that any of this is normal has ended.
Alex’s attention snaps back to me. The hand he used to pull me up, still interlaced with mine, tugs. He looks down at my body covered in his clothes, and his face changes into something more concentrated. “You don’t have to.”
“No, I really should.” I look down at myself. “I’m covered in bar tar, and sweat, and fragrance-scented laundry detergent remnants.”
“Shower. If you want,” Alex says. “There’s hot water for another hour.”