Page 68 of The Best Man: Unfinished Business

Chapter Forty-three

Jordan

On approach to O’Hare Airport, the airplane’s flight path was so familiar to Jordan that from the oval window, even a thousand feet in the air, she could identify the neighborhoods below as they slowly descended.

Square blocks and brick homes, apartment buildings and structures spoke to the solid middle-class that was the heart of the Midwest and the well-structured foundation that formed the core of her upbringing.

Never mind that she sat nestled in a first-class seat, or that a text message from her awaiting driver would be on her phone even before she turned it back on after landing.

This was home and it felt good to place her feet on solid ground.

As promised, Brian had arranged a dinner meeting with Dominion’s chairman, scheduled for the next evening.

The purpose of the trip was not for her to impress them, but rather for them to impress her, with their best attempts to convince Jordan to make a home again out of Chicago, their corporate headquarters, even if temporarily.

As a company, they had problems that only Jordan Armstrong could solve, problems that, as was well known, she had solved for other companies.

This meant there was nothing for her to prepare, and nothing to do other than what came most naturally for her.

So arriving in Chicago, she was able to focus on what was overdue.

A trip to see her parents. By now she’d pushed the memory she’d unearthed on paper back where it belonged.

Buried, in her mind, somewhere in a drawer, in the past. It felt good to revisit who she used to be, especially now that she’d remembered why.

“Do you have any checked bags, Ms. Armstrong?” a black-suit-clad man inquired as she approached, heels clacking along the tile of airport floor.

She’d spotted him easily as she descended the escalator into baggage claim.

Black suit, white shirt, black tie, and a hat even, holding a white digital sign that clearly read Armstrong on a backlit screen.

“No, just the carry-on,” she confirmed.

“Fantastic. If you’ll follow me, I’ll call your driver now to pull up to the curb.”

“Okay, then. Let’s go,” Jordan said.

When the car arrived, the man in the driver’s seat briefly turned around to address her in the spacious cabin of the car. “Ma’am, I’m Gregory. I’ll be taking you to the Peninsula today. Do we need to make any stops along the way?”

Jordan considered the question. Surely, she didn’t need to go straight to the hotel.

There were no preparations to make, and she felt plenty good after a first-class flight of only three and a half hours from Los Angeles.

“Actually, yes,” she said, then gave Gregory the address of her parents’ home on Chicago’s South Side.

“And before we get there,” she added, remembering her mother’s constant instruction to never arrive anywhere empty-handed, “I’ll need to make two other stops, one spot to pick up flowers and another to pick up a nice bottle. ”

“A bottle of wine, ma’am?”

Jordan smiled. “No. Johnnie Walker.” Her dad would clown her into next season if she showed up with a bottle of wine for him. He’d call her bougie and say she’d forgotten her roots.

“Very well. Three stops. And may I ask your selection of music? I can set the entertainment system to anything you’d like, classical, R Too pretty to leave, they’d say.

Ironic. But certainly, the bar had been raised in the selection she’d brought for her mother.

So, thanks to Harper Stewart for that…I guess…

Jordan smiled and acknowledged her driver, appreciative for having such conveniences.

She didn’t like to wait, and Jordan Motherfucking Armstrong didn’t have to wait, not for anyone.

Harper evidently hadn’t understood that about her.

He’ll understand now, she thought, and just as quickly pushed even the idea of him out of her mind, again.

Harper had no business here in Chicago, and especially not living rent free in her head.

“Jordan! Look at you! And those flowers!” Jordan’s mother was at the door pulling it open before Jordan even made it to the top step, so clearly excited to see her daughter.

Her mother looked a little bit older, but still gorgeous and well preserved, with clear smooth skin and salt-and-pepper hair cascading in curls around her shoulders.

She wore subtle makeup as she always did, and a swash of the same deep berry Estée Lauder lipstick she’d worn since at least the eighties.

Behind her, Jordan’s father became visible in the doorframe, wrapped in a brown-knit collared sweater, wearing his usual cold-weather brown corduroys and a Chicago Bears skully on his head.

She was so glad that some things never changed.

Jordan was her mother’s baby, but her father’s daughter.

He’d wanted a boy, but made do with Jordan, teaching her the essence of “act like a lady, think like a man.” Steve Harvey learned that shit from me, her father would always say.

“Hey there, Champ,” Jordan’s father greeted her with his nickname she’d had from the time she was ten years old—because Daddy wanted her to know she was a winner and to act like it.

She was a daddy’s girl in just that way then and since.

Always setting herself up to land the shot no matter where she was.

And she was excited to tell him about her newest opportunity, to see that same pride in his eyes. She needed that.

“Hey, Mom. Hi, Daddy.” Jordan gave her greetings and handed over the gifts she brought.

“Oh, Jordan, these are divine. Let me find something to put them in right away,” her mother said effusively, then scurried off toward the kitchen. Her mother was easy to please. Her father, not so much.

“Let me see what you got here,” he said, rummaging his way into the bag that held the scotch. Jordan found herself holding her breath. “Oh, you got that Johnnie Walker. You know I only drink the good shit. What’s this?” He pulled the box up out of the bag to examineit.

“It’s Black Label, Daddy. That’s the good stuff.”

“Now, Jordan, Blue Label’s the real good shit. You know I know that. But this’ll do.” And with that he slid the bottle back into the bag. “Now who’s that white boy out there with you on the curb? You back with that slick dude from Vermont, are you?”

Jordan had to laugh and shook her head, following her father into the living room. “No, Daddy. He’s just my driver. And Brian’s from Massachusetts.”

“Riiiight. He looked like a Kennedy.”

“Speaking of Brian, he reached out to me regarding…a new job opportunity. One here in Chicago.”