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When I look away, I see my father staring at me. There’s a cold, meaningful fury to his eyes and I know right then that he knows what I did. The timing was too perfect for it to have been a coincidence. As far as I know, he didn’t put the hit piece out at all. There would have been no point.

At least for now, he’s not in the mood to have a discussion about it. Well, to call it a discussion… probably it would be a dressing down or maybe, finally, a disinheritance speech. I find myself hoping it will be. Except I doubt that my father would stop there.

He waves a hand, and one of the girls approaches him. He glances up at her, and then down at his tented Speedo before he looks at me again, a vicious grin on his face. Like a good little pet, she kneels beside his chair, pulls him out of his Lycra prison and starts to go down on him, his fingers tangled in her hair. Like watching a train wreck, for half a second I can’t look away. I see her eyes close tight, and I recognize the spasm of her shoulders as he forces her down and she gags.

I don’t show my disgust outwardly. Just turn, and walk away. He doesn’t have to say what he’s thinking for me to know what he means. He’s in charge; don’t forget it. No worries, Dad. I never do.

I make my way to my room, lost in thought. My father has never been one for things like spankings, or even beatings. Oh, he’s hit me a few times. But the real punishment is always more clever, more subtle, more insidious than that.

What I did was a big deal. I know that. But I also know how my father thinks. Whatever he comes up with, it will be a warning shot across the bow — a reminder that he’s in charge. It’ll hurt, but it won’t be the end.

The part that will hurt the worst, I realize, is what he comes up with to make up for the lost opportunity to hit Janie Hall where it will make a difference.

As I let the cool water wash over me in the shower, I start to doubt the wisdom of what I’ve done to help Janie. There’s every chance in the world that I’ve only made it worse.

Shit.

Chapter 37

Janie

Most of the time, the celebrities that frequent Red Hall are a boon. They show up, they bring their friends, and they attract the paparazzi. While I don’t care for them personally, they do attract the crowd that knows how to locate celebrities. Every person in this weird social food chain has money and wants to spend it in Red Hall. It’s good business, and I’m grateful for it even if I sometimes have to let security throw out the occasional stalker.

But once in a while, one of the bad ones shows up.

You know the ones — they’re recent reality TV stars or known divas who live to make a scene wherever they go. One of them, Martin Twill, who did two seasons of some TV show I didn’t see, has managed to consistently stay in the public eye by mouthing off, getting wasted in public, and pulling every trick he can think of to stay in the public consciousness.

In his defense, it’s worked. In the last year or so he’s managed to finagle everything from a successful YouTube channel to spots on major panels for the hot networks. Whatever, go him.

Just two days after Red Hall reopens, I see him stumble into the lounge and start doing what he does — making a scene. Cameras come out, and it’s like throwing gasoline on a burning building. Things get rough, and ultimately I have to sic security on him and personally escort him to the door. I’m polite about it, professional. I tell him he’s welcome to come back sober, but this is not the environment that appreciates an outburst. Buh-bye.

According to all present, I handled the situation just fine.

“So why,” I ask Gloria, that little spider, when I see Red Hall mentioned in the paper, “is there a headline in the fucking local news suggesting that I may be on my fucking period?”

“I… I don’t know,” Gloria says, blinking her bright blue eyes at me in confusion.

“It may be,” I tell her, taking a step forward as I point to the quote she’s credited for — first and last name, mind you — with barely contained fury, “because you told them I was having a really rough pre-menstrual cycle and that I sometimes get a little over-emotional when I’m PMSing, Gloria!”

“Like right now?”

The gall of this woman. If I strangle her, it’s entirely possible no one will miss her. Except George’s work mate, Gloria’s dad, and his wife who is my mother’s closest thing to a best friend, which is the only reason I keep her around. And why? To hang onto some broken semblance of peace in a family that doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

“No, Gloria,” I say, calmly, “I am not currently on my cycle, which would be none of your business anyway. Right now, my anger is a one hundred percent all-organic direct reaction to you shooting your mouth off with a third-rate, scandal-chasing asshole when you know — you know, Gloria — exactly what the fuck I’m dealing with right now. Why? Why would you do this to me?”

“I didn’t do anything to you,” Gloria insists. “I just thought it would help people understand why you went off on Martin like that. He was just having fun — ”

“No, Gloria, he wasn’t just having fun,” I groan. She’s so fucking dumb, how does she even function? “You think it’s a coincidence he showed up after the most recent debacle? That he just strolled in for the first time? People like him don’t discover places like mine two months after the fact, Gloria!”

I should fire her. I know that. It would be best for everyone. But my image is fragile enough as it is right now, and if I throw her out after she gave that quote it’s just going to make what she said seem more true. Especially when she’s been with me since I opened the doors. I have not had to fire a single person so far — my entire original staff is still working. I was careful in hiring every single one of them. Gloria was the only exception and I have regretted it from day one.

No. It’ll have to be something else and it will need to be relatively public. Worst of all, it will have to wait.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Gloria says. She isn’t repentant, though; just defensive. It is absolutely the wrong tone to take with me at this very moment and I try to warn her of that with my face, which is still flushed red with anger. Like I said, though — she’s dumb as a box of hair, this one. “It’s just that right now, Red Hall kind of needs to be careful about its image, and throwing Martin Twill out was a mistake.”

She flinches when I go completely still. I measure my tone carefully. “You are not to say another word to a blogger, reporter, or a stranger on the street, in either support of or defense of Red Hall’s PR image or situation, or me, or anyone who works here. If I see another quote in any media outlet of any size, I will fire you. It is not your job. I handle the PR, or I hire the people who do. You are a hostess, Gloria. Are we perfectly, plainly, crystal clear?”

Gloria swallows loudly, and nods. But there’s defiance in her eyes. Burning just a few inches behind those pretty blues, I can see her calculating.