Page 2 of February (New Orleans #2)

“R epresentative,” Monica said into the phone.

“If you need to speak to one of our–”

“Representative,” she repeated louder.

There was a moment of silence on the other end, and Monica was hopeful the demon machine had heard her.

“If you need to speak to–”

“Fuck you,” Monica said and hung up her cell phone.

She then pressed a button on her desk phone.

“Yes, Miss Arnette?” her assistant said.

“Can you please get the stupid shipping company support line on the phone and find out what happened with my package? I keep getting the robot and can’t get to an actual human being to help.”

“Of course, Miss Arnette.”

Monica pressed the button again to disconnect them, wondering why she’d tried to do it herself, to begin with. She had an assistant for a reason. And she didn’t technically insist that people around the office call her Miss Arnette. It had just happened the day she’d started working here right out of her MBA, and she hadn’t corrected anyone. She supposed it was a combination of two things that had led them to believe that she’d prefer it. One, she was the heir to the Arnette empire, which spanned so many businesses now that she’d lost count of how many they owned. And two, her father had expected everyone to call him Mr. Arnette. He was seventy-five years old, so that moniker was more of a holdover from other times, but as a result, they’d all begun calling her Miss Arnette and, for a short while, Mrs. Arnette because she’d gotten married but never changed her name.

She was supposed to wear the shoes she’d ordered to an event tonight. Yes, she had other shoes that she could make work; she had an entire closet of them in her Manhattan penthouse that she’d paid far too much money for after her divorce, but since half of it had been paid by the divorce settlement, she didn’t consider it to be all that bad. These shoes, though, were a limited edition, and she’d managed to find them prior to them being released, which meant that she could ensure she’d be the only one wearing them at the gala and wouldn’t end up in the same awful situation she had last year when she’d shown up in the same shoes as her now- ex -wife’s new girlfriend because she’d tried letting a stylist dress her. No more of that. Monica would be dressing herself from now on, and she’d do everything she could to ensure that she wouldn’t match the younger woman her ex had left her for. How cliché was that?

Monica probably should have known it would happen. After all, she’d been the younger woman once. Her ex was ten years older than her and had a son from her previous relationship, which she’d ended to be with Monica. Now, Monica was forty years old, watching her fifty-year-old ex-wife bring her thirty-year-old girlfriend to parties. It was all very New York society to Monica, which was annoying and frustrating, and all she had wanted was the perfect pair of shoes to show off to the thirty-year-old who had once been a model and still looked rail thin; way too thin for Monica’s taste. She preferred her women to look like they enjoyed eating food, not that they counted every calorie.

“Monica,” her father said in his usual scraggly voice that hadn’t aged well due to his insistence on smoking a pipe at least once a day and sometimes, twice.

“Yes?” she asked as she looked up from her computer, knowing he’d just walk in without asking for permission anyway.

“Acquisitions wants us to pick up this little company,” he said.

“Well, I’m over the acquisitions team, so that’s a little surprising.”

“You’re over four departments, so you don’t hear everything,” he replied.

“Okay. Why am I hearing about this one?” she asked.

Her father sat down in the chair opposite her desk and said, “I want you to vet it.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“You mean my team?”

“No, I mean you personally.”

“Dad, I have a hundred people who could all–”

“I know the owner personally,” he interrupted. “I went to business school with his father.”

“Oh, okay. What’s the company?”

“They do greeting cards.”

Monica closed her computer to look at him more fully.

“A greeting card company?”

“We have a greeting card company that they’d fold into,” he replied.

“We have a pretty big one. Are they causing us problems? Competition?”

“No, not really. They’re local only; no online presence. They’re in New Orleans, and they’re staying afloat but just.”

“They’re in a major tourist hub, which should’ve given them good sales numbers, and they’re barely afloat?”

“Yes. I think we can help by acquiring them, taking the assets, letting them retire younger than they’d planned, and we’d benefit from eliminating the competition.”

“You just said they weren’t competition.”

“Not seriously, but they have a presence there, and rack space is everything in tourist towns like New Orleans.”

“So, you’re sending me to New Orleans? Dad, I have departments to run.”

“I’d handle this myself, but the doctor told your mother that I’m not allowed to fly for the next few weeks because of my heart.”

“Yes, and you should listen to them,” she replied.

She remembered the scare they’d all just been through, with her father in the hospital, having an operation, and her worrying that she’d never see him again, holding her mother’s hand and telling her that everything would be all right at the same time.

“I am listening to your mother,” he argued.

“Wise man.” She laughed.

“You should find yourself a woman like your mother, not like the one you married. Your mom puts me in my place but loves me, even though I’m an old man set in my ways.”

Her father, surprisingly, had had no issues with Monica being gay or marrying a woman. He’d just hated the particular woman she’d married and had said as much every chance he got. Then, when the marriage had ended, he’d thrown Monica a divorce celebration dinner and opened his most expensive bottle of wine for the occasion.

“When and how would I find this imaginary woman? You’re sending me away,” she replied.

“You’ll find her. You want someone to share your life with, Monica.”

“Dad, I work eighty hours a week. When would I even see this woman to share my life with?”

“You need to delegate. I delegated to you, but you have yet to delegate anything I’ve given you, so you have too much on your plate.”

“I actually just delegated to my assistant.”

“Oh, you did, didn’t you? Is that why I just heard her arguing with a shipping company because you couldn’t get through to a human about a certain pair of shoes you’re missing before I walked in?”

“Well… baby steps,” she replied.

“Monica, I’m retiring soon. You know that. Your mom wants me home, and I’m very much ready to finally enjoy retirement.”

“I know, Dad. I’m ready,” she said.

“You’re ready to take over, yes, but I don’t want this place to become your entire life. I have every belief that when I retire, you will move a bed into this office and sleep here.”

Monica laughed and said, “No, I won’t.”

Then, she thought about how, only three nights ago, she fell asleep in her business suit on her office sofa, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Go to New Orleans, meet with the company, make it seem like a quality acquisition as a personal favor to me, even if it doesn’t get us all that much, and try to enjoy yourself while you’re down there, too.”

“Wait. Is this your weird way of getting me to take a vacation?”

“How do you even know what that word means?” he joked as he stood up.

Monica tried her best to pretend like it hadn’t taken him a lot longer to stand than it used to and just focused on his smiling face, happy with his own joke.

“Dad, I don’t have time right now.”

“You’re working there, so it’s not a vacation. I’m only suggesting that you work during the day and enjoy your evenings. You’ve never even been to New Orleans. You never went to the football games at Tulane when I tried to take you. We have a box there, Monica. You never let me take you back home.”

“Dad, you’re a New Yorker. You went to Tulane for business school, but you’re not exactly from Louisiana.”

“I was for a few years, and it was home.”

“You know, Aaron is considering Tulane,” she shared.

“Oh. Good boy,” he replied.

“And LSU.”

“Well, talk him out of that one, obviously.” Her dad laughed.

“I’m trying not to talk him into or out of anything. Lily is trying to talk to him about Columbia. She’s pretty insistent.”

“Well, the boy will go where he goes,” her dad replied. “He has a letter of recommendation from me if he needs one for Tulane, and I’m happy to make a call.”

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll let you know if he wants that,” she said.

The door to the office opened, and her assistant stood there, looking a little scared.

“Yes?” Monica asked.

“Um… Your shoes are currently in Miami and will not be here by the time of the gala tonight. I tried everything I could. I even offered to fly down there to get them myself, but I wouldn’t make it back in time. The guy laughed at me when I suggested that.”

“Perfect,” her dad noted. “Not the laughing part,” he added to Monica’s assistant before he turned back to her. “You’re leaving tonight, anyway.”

“I am?” Monica asked.

“The jet is ready when you are. Pack for a few weeks, at least, to be safe. These things can take a while, and I’d rather get it all tied up in a bow before the next board meeting. Our law firm has an office down there, so reach out to them when you need them. Just tell them that this is a priority, and you’ll be fine.”

“Dad, I can’t just leave tonight.”

“Yes, you can. I’ll tell your mother you’ll be missing family dinners for the next few weeks. Just make sure to call her to check in so she doesn’t worry.”

“Dad!”

“And tell Aaron about the call. He needs to make his mind up soon if he’s hoping for fall admittance. It’s already February. Has he even applied? The deadlines are usually in February.”

“Not yet. Lily had him apply to Columbia only to see if he got in. He did, so now she doesn’t want him applying anywhere else.”

“That ex-wife of yours…” The old man shook his head. “Can you have the shoes delivery changed to the office?” He asked her assistant. “She’s going to be out of town for a while.”

“Dad!” Monica laughed.

She had no idea how she was supposed to go to New Orleans, of all places, for a few weeks and leave in a couple of hours to acquire a business for the company. It sounded like the business in question was about to go under and had nothing to offer them, but her father had a connection to it, which meant she couldn’t really argue. The gala was something they’d paid a lot of money to attend, but she hadn’t requested a plus-one, so the company would only have to find one person to take her seat at the table. This trip would also give her a great excuse to skip it and not run into Lily and her young girlfriend. For a minute there, she actually wondered at the likelihood of Lily finding out about her shoes, requesting them be rerouted to Miami and then delivered to her house just in time for her to slip them onto her girlfriend’s feet before the gala. Monica wouldn’t put it past her.

She packed up her things and chatted with her assistant about moving some meetings around and giving the ticket for the night to someone else. Then, she rushed home in the company-provided town car and stared into her overly large closet. She had to admit to herself that she’d gone too big for a place she planned to live in alone. After her marriage, Monica had decided she’d date around here and there as time permitted. She’d enjoy some liaisons as she was able, but she wouldn’t attempt another serious relationship. She’d at least hold off on that until long after her dad retired and she had a handle on the company she was about to inherit.

She’d bought the penthouse more out of revenge than anything else. It had just appeared on the market, and she’d known that Lily would be interested in it, so she’d snatched it up before her ex-wife had gotten the chance. It had three bedrooms, with the walk-in closet being basically the size of a bedroom all on its own. One bedroom was a guest room that hadn’t had any guests outside of the times Aaron had asked to stay over at her place instead of going home, and the other bedroom was her at-home office. She had to hire a maid because the apartment was too large for her to clean on her own, but since she rarely spent more than eight hours a day there and she was sleeping for most of that time, she wasn’t sure what she was really paying that maid for. The apartment was essentially empty. Yes, it had her possessions, and there were many of those, but that was it. There was no life in this place, only things.

Monica pulled out two large suitcases from the closet. Then, she stared out through the floor-to-ceiling windows, which automatically tinted when she turned on the lights to block her bedroom from prying eyes, and she stared out at the Manhattan skyline. This city was truly an amazing place, but she was beginning to feel like her father might be right: she could use some time away from it.