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Chapter 28

Asher Bennett Carter

New York City, May 2015

Asher gazed at the turbulent East River as his chauffeured SUV cruised down the FDR on his way to the Carter Corporation headquarters. It was the end of May, and with the close of his term approaching fast and his grades still worse than a popped squash ball, his time was up, and he knew it. He wouldn’t be able to outrun the clock on his inadequacies at Harvard Business School being exposed. He came home to New York City to get ahead of it, and to perhaps create a diversion of sorts to buy himself more time with his father in particular.

He thought he might ask his father for funding to finally get his startup, Squash Lodge, off the ground. He would provide the ABCs of squash basics. Coincidentally, that was also his name, which is something he would promote in his deck. He only needed $3 million or so and his plan was to pitch it to his father as a real-life business application and then somehow prove to Harvard that he could use founding a company as an independent study of sorts. He had managed to finesse something similar last year when his grades first returned as less than desirable. Plus, if he already had a business, the MBA would follow. It was real-life learning, and Harvard loved stuff like that, going rogue or whatever. It was bold, fresh, unexpected.

He was going to say all this to his father, and he thought about how best to approach the topic while he sat at his father’s office, waiting to go in. Well, he sat in the waiting area outside of his father’s office. He, like always, needed an appointment to go see him. William Carter Jr. didn’t do surprise visits and drive-bys, not even for his kids. Asher had already been offered four or more beverages, which he had declined, and was impatiently shaking his left foot waiting to be called for his turn. The Carter Corporation employees weren’t discreet in their gawking, taking extra-slow walks by the clear glass to get a glimpse at the returning heir apparent.

Asher hadn’t wanted to make the rounds. The last time that he was in the office was last summer during his mandatory servitude to the family business. For at least four weeks of every summer since they were twelve, each Carter child was required to show up to learn the ropes at the company headquarters. Neither sibling was qualified to do anything serious connected to the family business, but their father thought of it as immersion therapy, that simply being on the premises would inspire them to be better. At first, this was the kind of thing that Asher grumbled about until college, when Tatum first suggested that he would take over the company one day. She sat with him in his off-campus apartment dreamily imagining the future. They would live in New York, obviously. She would work in art, perhaps as a dealer, perhaps in curation. Asher nodded along, partially giving this conversation his attention. Tatum had to ask him twice what he wanted to do.

“Oh, I don’t really know yet,” Asher said noncommittally.

“You don’t?” she asked. “You’re not just going to go work for your dad?”

He hated that that was what was expected. He wanted to be his own CEO, to have the chance to be the self-made man that his father would respect. Asher jumped when his name was called by his father’s third assistant, and he was, at last, ushered into the office. William didn’t look at Asher when he walked into the room, leaving Asher to make the choice of where he would sit: the couch in front of the large burl coffee table or the two chairs directly across from where his father was. Asher tried to nonchalantly wander toward the furniture that he wanted to sit in, waiting for any sign of objection from his father. William didn’t show any immediate interest in where Asher sat, so he finally just chose the couch, sitting with an exaggerated delay. William looked over at his son and spoke first.

“I assume you have come here to ask me to help you not fail out of business school,” William said.

Asher choked on his own response. His father’s already being aware of his failure wasn’t desirable, thwarting any opportunity he had to maneuver strategically. William raised his eyebrows as his gaze bore into his son. Asher tried to control his heartbeat.

“Dad, I—I was going to tell you that I needed some help,” he sputtered.

William raised his hand. “Save it. You need more than some help. But I want you to first convince me why I should give it.”

Asher inhaled audibly. He had to play this right. He should have anticipated that there’d be no windup, that he’d be shot right into action from the moment he entered this arena. In the end, he just hung his head in shame and said, “I’m sorry, Dad.”

William stared back blankly. “Asher, this isn’t something that I’ll fix for you. You’re an adult now with all the tools at your disposal to turn this around. Your sister also went through some difficulties at school, but she had to suffer the consequences and now understands how to better adapt.”

His sister. Asher perked up at the mention of Kennedy, remembering that her little project could be his get-out-of-jail-free card. “I know, Dad, and I have a plan on how to graduate, and I will. I’m not going to let you down. Not like Kennedy.”

“So why are you in my office?”

“Well, actually, it’s about Kennedy,” Asher began, feigning hesitation. “She’s working on something. She said it’s a birthday tribute for you, a video about your accomplishments and whatnot, but she’s been asking a lot of strange questions. It’s like she’s gathering intelligence on you and the company, and it just seems weird. I thought you should know.”

“What kind of intelligence?” William asked, his attention now totally focused on his son.

“Company origins, your relationships with old classmates, how you think about yourself and money, what the company does. Stuff like that. I don’t think she knows anything you don’t want her to know, but she’s been doing this for a while, so I thought I should tell you.” Asher tried to look contrite, as if he felt a bit uncomfortable snitching on his sister.

“I see,” William said carefully. “Well, I already know, but perhaps you can be of assistance. Asher, you do know a great deal more than your sister about this corporation, and I trust that you’ll ensure that that information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands for any reason.”

Asher locked eyes with his father and nodded. He had been keeping the secrets, dodging Kennedy’s questions, and intentionally minimizing any inconsistencies that emerged from her research. He felt, again, that he’d earned his father’s trust, that he was given marching orders and he wouldn’t fail. He left the office with no immediate solution but with a renewed energy to use Kennedy’s video as leverage for their father’s affection. At least that was his plan until he stumbled into the penthouse that night, drunk and high. Wandering past the library on his way up to his room, he caught the tail end of a conversation between his parents.

Growing up, Kennedy was the eavesdropper, Asher too big and noisy to be subtle. But since he did want to know if his dad was going to intervene on his behalf with Harvard, he snuck quietly closer to the door and held his breath to listen. The beer he was holding was sweating in his hand. He got to the door too late to hear what his mother said first, but his father’s words shocked him. He clutched his drink tighter to ground himself.

“I had him tested at least ten years ago,” William said. “Jacqueline, the boy is dumb. It’s an insult to me that you thought that I wouldn’t notice that. And he’s very physically fit. He’s tall. He’s all ... brawn. I tested him, and I found out. It doesn’t change anything for me. He’s my son and that’s that, but I knew. I never asked you about it because, well, what does it matter now?”

Outside the door, the boy in question did a double take. He was very physically fit, but surely his father couldn’t be talking about him ... about his not being a Carter. Right?

“I guess it doesn’t,” his mother replied. “But this stuff about Kofi potentially coming out is not great. Are you sure Kennedy doesn’t know anything? This new activity surely can’t really all be from her ...” Their voices muffled after that and dropped to a decibel that he could no longer hear.

Kofi? Who’s Kofi? Asher wondered to himself. Somewhere deep in his mind, he had a vision of his sister telling him that name, but he just couldn’t remember why. He was receiving far too much new information. His head began to swim and his entire worldview upended. Was he not his father’s son? Why would his father know something like this and never say anything? What did that mean for his future? What did that mean for his inheritance? Surely that was based on the fact that he was a legitimate Carter.

Asher realized he’d never had so many thoughts in such rapid succession. He was getting a headache. He slid down the wall in the hallway to catch his breath. He looked right at a painted portrait of all four Carters, something done around his time in middle school. He stared at his own immortalized young face, slightly lighter than the others, hair texture a bit different, but that was normal for Black families, surely. Wasn’t it?

He felt suffocated by the toxicity of these secrets. He’d come here believing that his biggest issue in life was that he might not make it to a graduation ceremony, and now he had to question who he was, his own family history, his mother and father’s lies. Asher walked in a daze to his room and decided to do what he always did when he was confused, which was often. He did nothing.

Asher reclined horizontally on his bed and stared up at the vaulted ceiling. His was the bedroom with the skylight, and through the upward-facing window, he could see neighboring buildings and a bit of the sky. He thought about what his life would be like if he wasn’t a Carter, thought about what would change for him. Surely, it was bad. He would be stripped of everything, not only his name but his security detail, his driver, his apartment, his credit cards, his access to cash, his club memberships, his cars, his watches, his art, his stock holdings, his boat that he never used. He wondered if he might be allowed to keep the vintage diamond-accented squash-racket lapel pin he received for his high school graduation, but just in case, he would take it back to Boston with him.

He was tipsy, but he followed his thoughts down the spiral of this waking nightmare and found himself suddenly sober. He would have to get a job, a real one. Asher ran from the bed to his bathroom, where he waved his hand forcefully in front of the toilet seat to trigger the auto-open and vomited. He rested his head against the gleaming white TOTO ceramic and closed his eyes. There was no way he was going to ever tell anyone what he’d just heard.