Page 67 of Plum

I held this company together when it was three months from insolvency. What happens if I leave? I don’t really need to ask. Thomas would reverse course in a second, and the company would go under. He’s never understood the new economy. He doesn’tbelievein it.

If I left, Eric would follow, probably fund a start-up with nothing but a good story and money from his VC drinking buddies. He’d be bankrupt within a year.

I can’t destroy what I’ve worked so hard to save. I’ve sold my soul for this place. For my position in this town. But how does Jo-Beth fit? She’d change in this life, and I don’t want her to change.

So, I’m back to square one. Frustrated, missing Jo-Beth, snapping people’s heads off. I’m staring at a spreadsheet, the numbers blurring, when an email notification catches my eye.

your father ryan Adam morrison

I scan it quickly. He’s back from Florida. Wants to know when I can grab a beer.

Fuck it.How about now? Are you in town?

He writes back right away.

i can be there by dinner. where at?

My heart speeds up, all the garbage in my mind pushed aside by the adrenaline. I can’t believe this is happening. I shoot off the name of a brew pub downtown, a casual place by the stadium. It’s large. Crowded. Not my usual scene.

He says he’ll be there at five o’clock.

I want to call Jo-Beth, and I’m reaching for my phone when it rings. It’s Mom. She wants to talk about the Hearts and Diamonds Gala. It’s this weekend. She wants to know who I’m bringing. What I’m wearing.

I haven’t thought about any of it beyond vaguely resenting the time it’ll take away from Jo-Beth. I hint that I might take a pass this year, and then Mom brings out the big guns. I can hear the tears in her voice.

“Just tell me you’ll be there. Marjorie is coming. It’s the only time all year that my three children are in the same place. I don’t ask much, Adam. It’s for the foundation.”

“I’ll be there,” I promise. Another reason to call Jo-Beth, but as soon as I get off the phone, I’m called into a meeting with project development, and I hardly get out in time to drive across town to meet Ryan Morrison.

As I walk into the pub, tense as hell, I realize it was a good thing I didn’t have the time to psyche myself out about the meeting. I don’t know what I’m feeling, and I don’t have the time to untangle the threads of resentment, bitterness, and curiosity. I’m also checking my phone, part of me convinced the guy is going to cancel.

But the hostess knows exactly who I’m talking about when I say I’m meeting someone. She leads me to a table by the bar, and there he is. He stands as I walk in. There’s no mistaking it. He has my height, my black hair, although his is shoulder length and streaked with grey. He’s got a paunch and a straggly beard. He’s wearing a Harley T-shirt, and his arms are covered in full sleeves, the ink faded, mostly denim blue. He’s wiping his palms on his worn jeans.

“Adam?” His voice cracks. He clears his throat.

I cross the rest of the way to the table, and stand, eye-to-eye with this stranger, his voice the same as mine, but gruff from smoking.

“Yeah.” I offer my hand. What else do you do? He takes it. He’s got a firm handshake, but his fingers are thin.

“Should we, ah—” He gestures to a chair. He already has a beer. “You look, ah—” He offers a wry grimace, and there’s the gap in his teeth I remember. “You wanna order something?”

Yeah. I should. I need something to do with my hands. I wave over the waitress who clocked me the minute I walked in and order a stout. Then I take my phone out of my pocket and put it on the table, face up, make a show of checking it. For some reason, I need this man to know I’m not like him. I need to be accessible. People rely on me.

“So, you wanted something?” I keep my tone even, professional.

“Um. Yeah. Shit.” He’s nervous, taken aback. He’s drumming tobacco-stained fingers on the table, his knuckles swollen and bent. Arthritis. He has the hands of a man twenty-five years his senior. “I—Uh.”

He fumbles in his pocket and takes out his own phone. Then he fishes out a pair of thick-rimmed glasses from somewhere and slides them on, squinting. He taps, and when he finds what he’s looking for, he seems to exhale.

“Here she is.” He flips the phone to face me, and I don’t know what I’m expecting—a sibling I never knew about, maybe—but I’m faced with the photo of a bike. It’s a road racer. Vintage. Maybe from the eighties. It’s pristine, mint condition, and gorgeous.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it street legal?”

“Not at all.”

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