Well, I got busy last night and here are the fruits of my labor. I borrowed a character for this one and cookies to anyone who knows which 90's TV show Jimmy James is from.
Disclaimer: The usual
/J.C.'s POV/
It was Monday. It seemed like an eternity since Saturday night. And for the first time in days it seemed like life was getting back on track. Bran and I hadn't seen each other in days – which wasn't too out of the ordinary for us – so at least there'd been peace in the house over the weekend. Today the boys were going to school, Summer had playschool, River was going to take the day off and just rest and I was going to work. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't ecstatic about leaving River all alone to her own devices, but I thought she needed a day to herself before I shoved her back into the school population. I admit I had been hovering a lot lately. She hadn't had more than a few hours to herself to get everything sorted out in her head. So I was going to make sure she got it by making myself scarce.
That and I got a call this morning from the office about some hostile takeover of the company that peaked my interest just a bit more than I liked. Apparently Diamond Oil was making the move I had expected them to try for the past five years. And apparently no one at the office had any idea how to handle it, either. So I really had no choice but to leave her at home. Rain had suggested I bundle her up like a babe and take her to the office with me. It was a great suggestion, but I had the feeling I would be a little too busy today to even check in on River more than once or twice every couple hours. And that just wasn't right when you brought a kid into the office. Especially today.
I walked in and it was like stepping out of the eye of the storm. There were employees everywhere. Some carried files, some carried memos and one was even moving a plant. Phones were ringing off the hook, papers were fluttering and skittish people were rushing around like chickens with their heads chopped off. A cool head was definitely needed. Oh to be the boss now that Chaos was here…
I strolled into my office and found it like I did every morning. It was empty. It was peaceful. And it was all mine. I smiled and threw my coat over the back of one of the chairs and glanced at the new Summer collection of drawings and scribbles to brighten my day. They brightened the room tenfold and it was almost like home, except neater and there was a handy dandy button on the phone that would get him coffee. With that thought in mind, I rounded the desk and pushed my favorite button.
"Grace. Coffee."
"Mr. Curtis –"
"And I want it the way I like it. The doc can go to hell."
I took my finger off the button and waited. It was a full five minutes later before a red head walked into the office. She looked wary, like she'd never seen an office before, but she caught sight of the Summer hall of fame wall and smiled slightly. It lit up her face and I wondered how blinding a full smile would be. I noticed she had one of my favorite coffee cups in her hand and the day instantly brightened. She seemed to notice me standing there and blushed a little before making her way over to where I was.
"Where's Grace?" I asked, taking the cup from her tapered fingers
"You gave her the week off so she could go to her cousin's wedding in California," she answered easily "We were supposed to have met yesterday, but you were unavailable. I'm Helen."
I took her outstretched hand and knew I was going to enjoy the next week. She smiled more than she had before and it was beautiful. Soft blue eyes and she looked soft and loving. I found myself looking at her left hand and found no ring before I finally snapped back to reality and let go of her hand. No, I wasn't going there. I was done with women, especially the gorgeous ones. They always left.
"Here are your messages and there is a Mr. James wandering about the building. He wanted to see you the moment you got in," she informed him
"Well, send him in when he does show up," I told her and she smiled, turning for the door "And it was nice to meet you, Helen."
She beamed warmly at me before leaving the room. I smiled back and took a sip of the coffee as the door closed. I suppose the sputter of coffee and the noise I made would pretty well be classified as a gag. I coughed for a minute before setting the coffee down and cursed both Grace and the Doc. I went over to my coat and pulled a red sucker from the coat and decided it would do fine as a stir stick. By the time Jimmy James graced my presence I was seated comfortably behind the desk with my sleeves rolled up to my elbows and the sucker stick handing loosely from my lips. And sweet coffee. That'd show the doc. I set the stick down and smiled warmly at my business partner.
Jimmy James was a financial backer to a lot of different projects. He dabbled in everything from radio stations to oil and he still had more money than he knew what to do with. He was very much the financial figurehead. He'd invested fifteen years ago when I had come across a bit of a problem. In order to expand the business I would need to have a greater capital base. If I didn't expand, I was looking to be bought out within the next few years. That's when Jimmy had made an emergency stop in Houston and just happened to walk into the bar I was having a drink in. We'd been friends and partners ever since. He only made random visits to Houston lately, but his visits were memorable and even involved business sometimes. Once he'd brought a news announcer from New York for absolutely no reason. Jimmy rarely needed a reason. He always had something going on in that head of his but I never had to remind him I was the 62 percent owner and that I held the sway. But he'd never done anything to contest that before. I wondered suddenly why he was here on such a hectic day. His presence was reassuring in a way. I wasn't alone.
"J.C." he greeted
"Jimmy," I replied "How are you?"
"Just fine. I see you're still buying cheap Picasso imitations," he commented, motioning towards the Summer collection
"They were gifts from an adoring fan of mine," I corrected
"My adoring fans generally give me money." He was completely straight faced "And they're usually titled as clients, but that's just nitpicking."
"These are much more useful than money," I assured him "Are you here because of the buy out?"
"Yeah, I guess you heard about that."
"Of course I did, Jimmy. I own this place," I reminded him "Why? Were you hoping I wouldn't hear about it?"
"Of course not," he said in a tone that basically meant I was on the money but I should drop it or he was going to make things drawn out and painful in his denial "Ready for the negotiations?" he asked, leaning a hip on my desk
"There will be no negotiations. I'm not selling and I will not be bought out," I answered him "And I adamantly refuse to be taken over, especially in a hostile fashion."
"Who said anything about selling?" Jimmy asked and I sighed "And that whole hostile thing…. just forget about that."
Yeah. Now things were making sense. It figured that he'd do something dumb like this.
"Jimmy, tell me you didn't."
"Of course I did," Jimmy answered without hesitation "What better way to meet a potential wife than to sit down and negotiate business with her?"
I'd like to mention here that Jimmy James had one constant goal and that was to find a wife. I didn't know if he was lonely or he just wanted a wife for the sake of having one, but he was set on finding a suitable woman. And he was willing to go to very long lengths to do this.
"Wait, so you're telling me that Kate Richards bought out Cope or Masters?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around this
"Yeah. Bought out Masters last week. This is going to be her first big meeting as the head of the company."
Cope and Masters had owned the Diamond Oil Company for at least 10 years. I hadn't thought either of them would bother to sell out, not when they could ride the profits until the day they died. I was surprised I hadn't heard about one of my biggest competitors making such a drastic change to their infrastructure. To be fair I had three nephews recently come to live with me, and this trouble with Corrine and River's incident had me a little distracted. I was going to have to get my head back in the game or I was going to be riding the profits from my office at home while some Neanderthal like Brat was going to be sitting in my chair with his kid's art on the wall.
"I don't even want to think about how much coin that cost her," I told Jimmy and gave my head a shake
"You're better off," Jimmy promised and I nodded
"So the only way you could think to talk to her was by putting my business and my livelihood on the line?" I gave him a stern look and he fiddled with a pen from my desk
"Seemed like the best plan. She's been on my list for a while."
I'll add that as Jimmy has sought for a wife he has made lists of potential ladies all over the country that could fit the bill in a pinch. All of them were known for something and a good deal of them were too smart to get involved with Jimmy James.
"You can't tell me that you don't have other women on your list."
"Nope, but she's in the top ten," he added and held out a piece of paper for my inspection
"I see you narrowed it down again. Only three of these women are my ex-wives," I pointed out
"Makes for an easy set up since I've met them all before," he offered with a shrug
"I know two of these women are married to senators."
"Divorce happens."
"Jimmy," I sighed giving him a stern look "Sister Marie-Frances is not going to give up God and marry you, no matter how much you sponsor her convent."
"Stranger things have happened."
"I still think it's doubtful. And 'That hot chick off Perry Mason last week' is really…please tell me you do not have my oldest daughter on here."
"She's going to be old enough to get married one of these days," Jimmy defended
Yeah, like when she's forty and I've died from some sugar overdose or have a heart attack at the news she's actually ready to get married.
"Jimmy, I have one word for you – unrealistic."
"Alright, J.C. you're the expert on wives. How would you go about it? You've been divorced, what, a dozen times now?"
"I only count three. The rest were the product of alcohol and annulled the next morning," I told him "And I was just plain lucky."
"Well, that's three strokes of luck you have up on me. I need to take initiative. Not all of us can sit on our butts and have pretty women marry us on a whim. I don't know why they do that, though. You're pretty poor," Jimmy pointed out and in relation to him, I was pretty poor
"Well, next time ask me and we'll go to a bar or something and find you a woman. Leave my business out of it."
"Hey, this at least gives me a legitimate reason to get out of New York and come and see you."
Yeah, like he'd ever needed one of those, either. I once had his news director on the phone and apparently they were 900 percent over budget because Jimmy insisted on flying to his house a state over everyday at lunch to play with his dogs. Jimmy had told him flat out to put the private plane's expenditures into the budget. Poor Dave, I think that was his name. He wanted to know how I managed to be partners with the man for so long. I'd smiled and told him you just had to have kids and Jimmy made sense.
"I'm overjoyed, as always. But a heads up on this kind of thing would be appreciated next time."
"You know about it," Jimmy pointed out
"Yeah, a phone call at six in the morning saying the negotiations were at ten was a lot of forewarning."
"When did you get so touchy about this stuff?" Jimmy asked
"When I took in three more kids," I muttered
"What's that make? Eight now?"
"Seven," I corrected
"You are a brave man. If I ever have a little Jimmy to carry on the family I will be leaving the raising of the boy to his mother until he's old enough to appreciate business-like stuff."
"Father of the year," I drawled, moving some papers off the phone "Helen; more coffee, please. Less cream, more sugar than the first cup."
"So, are you coming to the negotiations or are you going to leave it to the master?"
"I'll be coming," I told him
I left my drugged daughter at home to take care of this mess only to find Jimmy was busy playing house. I supposed I'd better go to the meeting or I would most likely be living in a cardboard box with my kids and Darrel's kids in the garage River practically lived in already. That just wasn't acceptable.
"When we get up there, just go with the flow of things," Jimmy advised, "I'll lead the negotiations and you just sit there and look all country-western, like usual."
I raised an eyebrow at him while he played with the name plague on my desk. I did not look country-western. I looked relaxed. I'd even put on good pants today instead of my usual jeans. I'd forgone the boots for black leather shoes and I was wearing a tie before I'd sat down for coffee. So what if my top two buttons were undone and the sleeves were rolled to the elbow? I at least had presence.
"Then what?" I asked
"Well, I'll turn her offer down nicely and invite her for dinner at a restaurant you'll be recommending not that's too rich for you, but you insist is anyways because you're a penny pincher. Then you can go and do whatever the hell you want." Jimmy smiled then – always a bad sign because it proceeded a not so brilliant idea "Hey, go adopt another dozen kids. If you're looking for something more grown up, I'll let you have Mathew."
I gave him a tired look. Mathew was one of his employees who had managed to lock himself in the broom closet after he'd serenaded the office with an hour-long song about elves and other things I lost track of. I'll add that there was and never has been a lock on that closet door, either.
"No? Alright. I'll meet you up there. Right now I've got to make a few calls," Jimmy said as he reached the door
I stared after him for a full minute, wishing I kept a bottle of whiskey in the office for Jimmy James emergencies. I had one for all of Caroline's, but since I no longer had to deal with her, there was no need for booze at the office. I sighed and listened to the chaos outside the office before finally standing.
This day was not going to end soon enough for my liking.
/Ponyboy's POV/
"…So then there was this other chick standing the middle of the road like she belonged there and of course the guy I'm fighting thinks she's with me. So I've got Jimmy standing there yelling for me to pound the guys face in like I'm Captain America or something and now I have to worry about this girl neither of us knows. Turns out she's stranded as well as a Ranger's daughter." Duke smiled a little "So not only did I get a good fight in, but I also managed to go home with the daughter of the man who ended up arresting the guy."
Tom shook his head at where he was hunkered over a Chevy that needed the timing belt replaced. Duke had been telling stories today since Jimmy was sick and wasn't around to talk like there was no tomorrow. Duke didn't have much practice at it and was clearly annoying Tom but he wasn't about to say anything. He left himself to shaking his head and frowning every so often when Duke tried to embellish the story a little more.
"Wrench," Tom ordered holding out his hand for it
I reached down on the towel the tools were spread over and handed it to him. He didn't bother looking away from what he was doing, which was how he always was. It was nice to have someone so abnormal that they were normal hanging around. Kind of like Two-Bit if he would give up speaking.
"Grounded, aren't you, Kid?" Tom asked, tweaking something under the hood
"How'd you know?" I asked, not remembering telling anyone that
"Rain is hanging around looking at the clock like it's his life line," he pointed out " He don't bother unless he has to be home before he gets caught not being there."
I glanced over at where Rain was looking at the clock like it was his lifeline and shrugged.
"It could be worse," I pointed out
"Yeah, misery do love company, don't it," he stated
I nodded. I'd been grounded for under aged drinking, Rain for the same thing, River because J.C. probably figured it was the best way to keep her immobile for a while, and Soda…well, I think he basically got drug down by the rest of us. I had the feeling that if Darry and Brand were younger they would have been joining us, but J.C. said they were adults and it wasn't his place to treat them like kids. I think he got the desired effect out of all of us – none of us were feeling proud to have been at a college party now.
"I've decided I'm not going to get drunk again," I told him
"Good choice, Kid. Now you know."
I nodded. I guess I had done it just to try it, to understand why Two-Bit raved about it. You got dizzy, threw up, and got yelled at while your head hurt. To top it off, I couldn't remember much more than getting sloppy and silly. What if next time I ended up as mean as Johnny's dad? What if I hurt someone bad and ended up putting the same fear Johnny had into someone else? I couldn't do that to anyone. It was better to eliminate the booze.
"Ok, J.C. gets off work in half an hour. He'll be leaving work in ten if nothing comes up," Rain dictated, standing up from the couch "That means we should be moseying back to the car, if you don't mind."
"Kid's going to scheme his way out of his own funeral," Tom muttered, "Make sure you don't run your life like that. There's something to be said for honesty."
I nodded and glanced at where Rain was looking Tom over thoughtfully.
"There's something to be said for thinking, too," he offered, "Even if it does happen to have ulterior purposes."
Tom bent back under the hood and shook his head. "See ya tomorrow, kid. Tell River she's missed."
I nodded and wiped my hands on a rag before following Rain out of the garage. Soda cam loping out behind us a minute later, a smile still on his face from whatever it was Duke had said before he left. It was kind of odd not to have River around. Rain was forced to make the conversation flow and Sodapop was trying, but they had no common ground really. I guess I could have helped, but I really had nothing much to say. Tomorrow everything would be back to normal, though, so it didn't much matter.
When we walked into the house it was pretty quiet. Rain shrugged, unusually quiet incase River was asleep. We all headed down the hall to the living room with our books from school. River was sitting on the couch smiling into the phone. She glanced up in surprise when we walked in and then smiled again.
"Hold on a sec, they just walked in," she told the person on the other end of the line "It's been nice talking with you."
"Who's on the phone, Riv?" Rain asked, plunking down on the couch beside her
"A couple people, actually. They called themselves Steve and Two-Bit and they've been waiting about ten minutes to talk to –"
That's as far as she got before Soda was over the back of the couch and snagging the phone from her.
"Steve?" Soda asked into the phone and a wide smile appeared on his face "Two-Bit!"
"There's another phone in the kitchen," River pointed out and I got the hint pretty quick
I had the phone picked up a minute later.
"…You sure she's your cousin, 'cause she sounds like she's pretty hot," Two-Bit informed Soda
"Yeah, like you would have a chance," Steve put in, obviously on another phone
"Man, it's good to hear your voices," Soda cut in and Two-Bit chuckled
"You should have known we wouldn't let you get away that easily," Two-Bit stated, "I thought she said Pony was home, too?"
"He's listening in on the other phone," Soda informed them and Steve made an annoyed noise
"Hey Ponykid!" Two-Bit yelled
"Hi Two-Bit," I replied with a chuckle
"Man, you sound like you've grown a full foot," Two-Bit stated and Soda chuckled
"He's gotten taller. I think it's all this fresh air," Soda added "There's farmland for miles around. Even have a twenty minute ride to school."
"So you did get stuck out in the middle of nowhere," Two-Bit paused "Steve, we're going to have to go and rescue them."
"We're fine, honest. Not much goes on around here beyond Septemberfest," Soda chuckled
"Don't go making it sound like our lives are glamorous or nothing now," Steve joked
"Hell, been dull here if anything. Some drunk Socs, boring teachers…" Two-Bit trailed off
"He ain't actually kidding. Been so quiet around here you get the feeling in the air that something's brewin' up, but it never seems t' happen," Steve put in
"Dal can't even get picked up for nothing!" Two-Bit nearly shouted "He goes and busts windows along the ribbon, so they hauled in Curly for it."
"And then he went to go and get some obvious stealing done and the whole force was tied up with some kid up in Brumly who was holding his folks hostage for no reason," Steve continued
"Wow," I sighed, "That's strange."
"No, it's boring as hell," Steve corrected "Been so boring here we were thinking we'd actually send that search party."
"Really?" Soda sounded excited for the first time in months
"Sure, we'll get out our map of Oklahoma and find Texas and hit the road," Two-Bit assured him and Steve sighed
"Texas ain't in Oklahoma, Stupid."
"Hey! Darry's home! Darry, Two-Bit and Steve are on the phone!" Soda shouted into it
"You'd think he never talked on the phone before," Steve muttered with a laugh
"Hi guys," Darry offered a minute later, sounding pleased at least
"Hey Superman," Two-Bit greeted "How's Texas?"
"It's not half bad," he admitted "I'm going to school here."
"Damn, good for you Darry," Two-Bit said honestly "So you can introduce us to hot college chicks when we come to visit."
"When'll that be?" Darry asked
"As soon as we can find Texas…" Two-Bit ruffled a few papers "'Paretly you aren't even in Oklahoma anymore."
"No, we're south in Texas," Soda budded in, sounding fainter, like Darry was the one holding the phone between them
"Two-Bit, you can't just pick up and come to Texas," Darry sighed
"And why the hell not?" Steve asked
"Because you have school and we have school. It's too expensive for us to take time off right now," Darry explained
"Killjoy."
"And if you disappear for a week on your mother again she's going to sick the cops on you," Darry added
"It was just one little trip to Vegas…" he trailed off
"And you didn't even make it out of Oklahoma," Steve put in
"How about the holiday?" Soda butted in "We got nothing going on then! Y'all could come and stay for a long time then!"
"Yeah," I put in "Our uncle wouldn't mind. There's even a guest house for people to stay in."
"Free digs?" Steve asked
"Beats the floor." Two-Bit probably shrugged there "Alright, we'll hold off. But there'd better be college chicks when we get there!"
"We'll be seein' y'all," Steve put in
"Bye!" Soda shouted and Two-Bit chuckled
"Nice to know we're missed," Two-Bit put in "Superman, you keep an eye on Ponykid and Soda-cola for us. Don't do nothin' I wouldn't do!"
Soda chuckled while Darry made the goodbyes and then the line was dead. I set the phone down and went into the living room where Soda was grinning like an idiot and Darry looked pleased. I couldn't help the stupid grin on my face, either. They were coming. The holidays couldn't come fast enough.
Well, a long chapter as my offering for a long break.
Any comments at all are welcome and flames are accepted.
See ya in the funny papers!!!
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