All That Glitters Read online

  “Not a regurgitation of the firm’s promotional materials. I want to know your passion. What excites you? What do you need in your life?”

  Liam stared at him. What was Tristan looking for? Not practical art, apparently, but—

  “Let’s try it another way,” Tristan said. “What excited you about the Taybec Briggs project?”

  “My proposal didn’t make that clear?” Liam fought through the muddle of his mind. “We were going to create a unique streetscape that would seamlessly combine—”

  “No! What excited you? What images made you feverish, made you passionate, made you obsessed with the need to create? What drove you to put all the hours you did into the proposal you created? A proposal which, I must say, showed the professionalism and aesthetic sensitivity of all your work. But what’s your passion?” And he thumped his chest in vaguely the area of his heart.

  “My passion.” Liam took a deep breath. “Why are we having this conversation, Tristan? You know me. For years, I’ve done good work for you. I’ve brought in three times more business than any other associate has, and I’ve produced the designs the clients want. I could go to any firm in this city, with my portfolio, my client recommendations, and have a job in a second. I could start my own damn firm and have more work than I could handle. I’m not bragging about this—you know it’s just the truth. I could do all of that, but I’ve stayed here, with you.”

  “You’ve produced the designs the clients want,” Tristan said. He didn’t sound like he was arguing, but his eyes were fierce when he said, “What about the designs you want? The ones you dream about?”

  “My…. I’m not the client. If I had hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on major projects, I could build the designs I want. But I don’t, so I do what they want.”

  “I agree. But sometimes, for a firm to stay strong, for it to thrive and lead and excel, we have to change the clients’ minds about what they want. We have to show them something better than what they want, something more exciting, more daring. And that’s what I saw from Allison’s proposal for this project. And looking at her work made me realize I’ve never seen that from you.”

  Liam felt numb. “My designs are—”

  “Professional. Polished. You bring jobs in on schedule and on budget, and I know that’s a rare thing. But where’s your passion? Your vision?”

  “And you think Allison can do the rest of it? You think this job is just about vision? Jesus, Tristan, are you forgetting how much business I bring into this firm? The networking, the PR, the rainmaking, the glowing testimonials and repeat business from clients who appreciate me paying attention to the business side of things. You think Allison can do all of that?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I thought you could work with her, to help her learn that side of things. And, Liam, this is one project. I’m not firing you. I know what you bring to the firm, and I value it. You know I do.”

  “But I don’t have vision or passion,” Liam said dully. “You value me for my business sense, not as an architect.”

  “You’re a solid architect. An excellent architect. But—”

  Liam stood up. Whatever else was happening, whatever was beyond his control, at least he wouldn’t sit there like a damn schoolboy being lectured from on high. And being vertical allowed him to pace.

  “Without me you’ll be laying off half your staff,” he managed. Did Tristan not see this?

  “I’m not firing you,” Tristan repeated. Then he sighed. “I’m sixty-eight years old, you know. I’m still healthy and I have no plans to retire—I still love this firm far too much. I still feel passion for architecture, and for the work we do. But I’m at the stage of my life when I’m starting to look at my legacy. I want to see what I’m leaving behind. And I want to leave exciting, cutting-edge projects behind. Projects that pushed boundaries. I’ve made enough money. It’s time for me to start making art.”

  Art.

  There were other arguments Liam could make, but it was all suddenly too much. This old bastard and his delusions of grandeur, Liam’s own powerlessness, the thought of Allison lurking in the office outside, waiting to see what the meeting was about—waiting to gloat? Liam pushed to his feet. “And you don’t think I can do that. I’m done, then. I’m gone.”

  “For the sabbatical you mentioned. A break, a chance to refresh yourself.”

  “A chance to look for work elsewhere, at a firm where they appreciate my contributions.”

  This was really happening. His worst imaginings were coming true. There was no bigger, better project that Tristan had been holding in reserve, no misunderstanding or simple remedy or—nothing. There was no solution other than a quick escape. “I’ll clear out my station. I assume you’ll be contacting my existing clients, but they all have my cell number, and I imagine they’ll follow up with me.”

  “This is unnecessary. You still have a place here. And I still look forward to seeing your proposal for our next project. As you said, our clients have always been more than pleased with your work.”

  “But not you,” Liam said. He immediately wished he could take the words back because they just seemed like they were reopening a discussion that he absolutely, positively wanted to keep closed. He started for the door. “I quit. I hope you and Allison are very happy together.”

  Tristan let him have the last word, or maybe was just too slow to say anything before Liam was out of range.

  He was hyperaware of Allison staring at him as he jerked open the drawers of his desk. There wasn’t much that wasn’t company property, and he didn’t have any boxes or bags, and he’d be damned if he’d take the time to find any. His diplomas and commendations were on the wall, but they were properly anchored and would be tricky to get down. Jesus, why couldn’t anything be easy?

  He straightened and turned toward Allison’s work station. “Tell Tristan to have my stuff packed up,” he ordered. “I’ll send a courier for it tomorrow.”

  “Liam—” she started, but he was not going to have a conversation with her. Not about this or about anything else.

  He strode toward the door, brushed past a couple draftspeople as they entered the building without offering them any greetings, and then he was out on the street, almost gasping for air.

  He’d just quit his job. He’d quit. Because—because Tristan had lost his mind, that was why. The whole thing was—it was incomprehensible. Absurd.

  His cheeks felt strangely cool, and he reached up and found them wet. He was crying. Again. Walking down the sidewalk of New York City, crying like a stupid baby.

  There was something seriously wrong with him. And he had no idea how to fix whatever it was.

  Chapter Four

  “WHO NEEDS a brain break?” Ben asked his class of fifth graders. He was gratified to see them pause and actually think about it. It was an extra step in the process—he could have just led the whole class through an exercise, or pulled out the kids he could see were struggling—but he was trying to encourage them along the path to self-regulation, and they needed to get better at realizing what they needed and when they needed it. “Let’s have the kids who need to rev down over by the flag, and the ones who need to rev up out in the hallway.”

  As the kids started moving, he could see that they were making the right choices. The ones who needed to calm down a bit were heading for the flag, the ones who’d been dragging were on their way out the door, and the rest of the students were staying right where they’d been, still sorting through their math problems.

  It had worked. He’d been picking away at it all year, and this was the most perfect exercise yet, and he should have been elated. Instead? “I’m going to join the flag team,” he told the class. “Michelle, can you lead us? And Adeel, you okay being in charge of the hallway crew? You ready to get them pumped up?”

  True to character, Michelle looked unsure and Adeel totally confident. Which was fine, because Ben was there to back Michelle up if she needed it. Not that she would—she�
�d be great. Hell, maybe she’d be good enough to calm him down, to ease the incessant buzzing in his brain, a drone that seemed to focus around images of Liam, emotions related to Liam, speculation and concern and warnings, all related to fucking Liam—

  Okay, anytime Ben even thought the word “fucking” in a fifth-grade classroom, he needed to chill out. He sank onto the floor, cross-legged, and tried to find the right expression of nonpressuring encouragement for Michelle. “What exercise do you think we should try?” he prompted her.

  “Uh—” She looked almost wild for a moment, as if she was thinking about sprinting out of the classroom, but then took a deep breath and blurted out, “Colors? Breathing colors?”

  Ben nodded, and before he could speak, another student said, “Sounds good.”

  “We should breathe in blue,” Michelle said softly. “Nice, calm, gentle blue. And we’ll breathe out orange—being mad and wild all the time.”

  And Ben followed the drill he’d taught to the children. He visualized the swirling, calm blue in the air before him and breathed it in, deep and full, then held it for a moment before exhaling and visualizing chaotic, angry orange being pushed away from him. Right into the face of poor, sweet Michelle, but the visualization exercises never paid a whole lot of attention to the laws of air currents.

  “We’ll breathe in red,” she said, “but a nice, purple-y red. A strong color, but not a crazy one. And we’ll breathe out—that yellowy-green color that’s all confused and weird.”

  Well, Ben wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was a visualization that would make sense to most of the students, but it absolutely worked for him. Breathe in strength, breathe out confusion. Hell, yeah, he was down for that.

  He could hear the kids in the hallway playing whatever stupid pop song Adeel had selected, and he knew they were having a dance party; he’d known they would as soon as he’d named Adeel as leader. And that was fine. They were kids and Ben had deliberately requested a classroom right next to the gym, where his students could be noisy without disturbing anyone else. Let them dance, let them build up some energy before they came back in to refocus their attention on math.

  “Can we do blue and orange again?” a student asked from beside Michelle. “I didn’t get rid of all my orange.”

  “Okay,” Michelle agreed. “We’ll breathe in blue, and breathe out orange. Is everybody ready?”

  Ben breathed along with the students, then stood up when they did and went out to the hall to make sure the dancers were under some level of control.

  They were, and they returned to the classroom at least a bit more energized and ready to work.

  He took a rare moment of peace to stand still and watch them all. Fifth grade was the end of the simple years; after this, hormones would start gushing and they’d all become irrational, unbearable creatures. But fifth grade? Fifth grade was the breath of cool air on the mountaintop before stepping off a cliff and tumbling ass over teakettle to the valley below.

  And he’d been entrusted with guiding these precious creatures through the last sane year of their lives. Jesus, what had the principal been thinking?

  Well, he’d do his best and try not to get distracted. He wouldn’t think about Liam, not here in this temple of learning. And not at home either, because fuck Liam! Fuck his perfect face and his deep eyes that somehow didn’t go red even when he was crying, fuck his soft words and every emotion he stirred up in Ben’s soul. Fuck, fuck, fuck… shit. Far too much internal swearing for a classroom.

  He tried to breathe in some blue and breathe out some chartreuse, but there was too much activity in the classroom; he couldn’t settle into the depth of meditation he’d need to get rid of a disturbance like Liam. He settled for bundling the negative ideas up and stuffing them into an imaginary drawer of his desk. He wasn’t getting rid of them, just putting them away for the time being. He needed his full attention for the students, but he’d have to come back to the rest of it eventually.

  The technique worked, more or less. Well enough to get him through the day and all the way home, but when he pulled into his driveway and saw Seth sitting there on the front porch, waiting for him, it all came rushing back.

  “You’re here about Liam,” Ben said, forcing a smile as he walked up the path.

  Seth nodded and pulled a beer out of the portable cooler by the side of his chair. “How’re you doing with it?”

  Ben shrugged and took the beer. “I’m fine, I guess.” He settled into the wooden chair next to Seth’s and kicked his feet up to rest on the porch railing. There were some kids playing a version of baseball on the lawn across the street—very calming. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. I ran into some guy I used to know. That’s all.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it all day—stewing about it—and if it’s hitting me like that, it must be five times worse for you. So, no, I don’t think he was just ‘some guy you used to know.’ Your first love—your only love, if we’re being at all honest, which we absolutely are—breaks your heart and runs away, then turns up out of the blue. That’s some crazy shit, Benny boy.”

  “It was surprising,” Ben admitted cautiously. He pulled his feet back down from the railing. “But it’s over with. It was strange, but it’s done. I’m fine. It was good, really,” he started, but he lost his train of thought. He’d had a theory about why it was good, hadn’t he? “Or maybe not good. But everything’s fine.”

  “Okay, you’re a genteel guy, well-educated and everything. So tell me… what’s the polite way for me to say that you’re full of shit?”

  “Perhaps you could use nonverbal communication. A raised eyebrow, a sigh or snort, a head shake…. No, not all at once, you just look like you’re having a seizure. You’re like a big, red, epileptic Wookie.”

  Seth stilled and they sat quietly for a while. Eventually Seth said, “Uncle Calvin’s worried about it all.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think that’s possible, because of course Uncle Calvin doesn’t know about this. How could he? Liam wouldn’t have told him, and I didn’t tell him, and of course you wouldn’t go blabbing all over town about my personal business. So, no, sorry, I don’t think Uncle Calvin has any idea about any of this.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “Oh my God, Seth, what did you think I was going to do? What are you, and possibly Uncle Calvin, worried about, exactly? ‘Ben had a strange run-in with Liam and now I’m worried that Ben might….’ What? What dire act do you think I’ll engage in if you don’t do whatever it is you’re doing?”

  “Well….” Seth took a swig of his beer. “There was the Kevin incident.”

  “Kevin wasn’t an incident, he was—I don’t know. And none of that was actually about Kevin anyway.”

  “I know. It was about Liam.”

  “No, that’s not right. I was having a little early midlife crisis, and it just happened to coincide with some strange things in a relationship. That was all.”

  “He loved you and you broke up with him. You broke up with him because he loved you. Because you were scared, because of Liam. And your parents, probably, but that’s therapy for another day. Today we’re talking about your issues related to Liam.”

  “I don’t think we are. I think we’re talking about—Dinah. How’s she doing? Has the morning sickness stopped yet? And is Tamara still excited about being a big sister?” Seth just frowned at him, so Ben added, “No, you’re right. There are lots of people who are concerned about Dinah, and even Tamara. But sometimes the father gets forgotten in all this. I’m sorry if I’ve let that happen. So, tell me, Seth, how are you? It’s stressful, isn’t it? The expectations from society, from yourself, that you be the provider for the family, the protector. But you’re bringing a new life into a totally uncertain world. How can you be sure you’ll be able to rise to the challenge? Provide and protect for this precious new creature? And for Dinah, while she’s preoccupied with being pregnant and looking after the new baby. That’s a big job for you, right? Wow. S
tressful.”

  Seth held out for a moment, then spoke in a rush. “Okay, obviously I know what you’re doing, but yes, it is fucking stressful!”

  “So stressful.”

  “Babies cost a damn fortune! Not the stuff so much—we’ve got lots from Tamara still, and everybody shares everything around. But all the extras! Day care and medical stuff and Dinah taking time off work, and she wants a long maternity leave, and of course she should be able to do that, she deserves it and our kids deserve it, but she wants me around all the time too, so we can all bond, and I want to bond but I also want to pay the damn bills, and it’s kind of hard to do both, and whichever one I do less of you know there are people just lining up to judge me for it, to be disappointed in my choices. And then I get stressed about being too stressed, because this is supposed to be a joyful, happy time and I can’t even do that right, and Dinah’s always telling me to relax and enjoy but that’s easy for her to say, all she’s got to do is gestate, and I have to do everything else, and if she screws up—I mean, she’s not going to screw up gestating, the baby is totally healthy and she’s doing a great job—but if she did, everyone would feel sorry for her, but if I screw up, everyone’s ready to jump all the hell over me!”

  “Well. That was actually a bit more than I was hoping for. I was thinking in terms of a little distraction from your invasive questions. And instead—damn. Seriously, Seth, you need to at least not worry about me. I am just fine. For all the rest of it…. Yikes. Are you guys actually having trouble with money?”

  “Not yet. But Dinah’s a teacher. She’s going to want the kids to have a good education. So that’s college to pay for, and—”

  “Wait. You’re honestly getting this worked up about college? No. No, no, no. Tamara isn’t even two yet, and the next one is negative three months old! That is too soon to be worried about college. If you expect me to take this panic attack seriously, I’m going to need some more concrete, immediate issues.”