Chase Anthony Brighton stalked gracefully across the checkered tile lobby of his floor and paused to nod at his colleague as the other man stepped into his own office.  He gave a short wink to the shapely brunette receptionist doggedly following the old man, and she laughed in return, waving him back to his own business with a quick flip of her fingers.  She had no illusions about why she had been hired and given a quick promotion by ‘dear old Mr. Winstead’ and Chase had no illusions that she would be going anywhere anytime soon with her outrageous salary for such simple work.  Most of the time, she fetched coffee and made copies – when she wasn’t updating every file in the senile old man’s office to the computers for when he passed on.  Chase gave a half-smirk to his own secretary, a young and pretty, but homely looking graduate student from the local university.  She smiled serenely and ignored the look he had given her.  He could only surmise that she was hoping to get a letter of recommendation to a local design firm at the end of her tenure with him.  She was smart enough, and efficient enough, and Chase just didn’t have the heart to be able to break hers.  She had sorted and filed and typed all summer, and more than once, her organization skills had come in handy after Madeline had dug through his office and wrecked a presentation.  She would get a glowing letter, he guessed, even if she had to write it herself.  He leaned on the desk with an air of impatience and allowed her to pick through this morning’s messages in order of importance, or at least what she thought was most important.  When she began listing his meetings and consultations for the day, he noticed there was one more message note sheet under the color-coded schedule book.  Chase casually leaned over and fished it out; his secretary started slightly, but waited for his to read it calmly before glancing up at him in an obviously bored manner.  He had to give the girl respect for knowing he would have zoned out if she had given him this particular message first, and would have probably missed some of his meeting agenda by walking away – and she had the grace not to blush when caught as well.  That alone told him what she thought of his loud and often rude caller.

“Tell Mr. Ammeretti that our lunch meeting is still on, but we’re moving it to the Russian Tea room on West 57^th street.  I’m sure he can find it.  If Mr. Ralston calls, put him through.  It is very important that I speak with him as soon as possible to set up a meeting while he is in New York.”  Chase paused, working out the time table of his day in his head.  His schedule currently allowed for a two-hour meeting with Luiso Ammeretti for lunch and then at least a three, no better make that two, hours for an evening meeting with Thomas Ralston if he made it into town early enough.  That would be more of a family gathering than a meeting, so he wasn’t worried too much about being around Thomas’s family.  He, after all, still had to feign interest in whatever Madeline, his dear fiancée, had called for this time.  His secretary had scribbled urgent in quotation marks, but he could see from her eye roll, that it would probably be far from important.  Knowing Madeline, it would most likely be what color shoes she should buy at Saks to match that new dress, didn’t he remember the one?, or would he be such a dear and fetch her purchases from Neiman Marcus on his way to her apartment?  Chase’s lips lifted into a pleasant smile as he turned his mind away from Madeline and toward the thought of Thomas’s step-daughter.  She should be headed into town at least for a little while to catch her sister’s shows while she was still state-side.  Catching himself tromping down a road of regret, he addressed his secretary again.  

“If Madeline calls, tell her I’ll be out and about for the day, but she can always call my cell.  If she’s lost it again, give it to her yet again.”  Chase wondered at the patience of his secretary with his new fiancée.  “And try not to drop the call too many times this time.”  Poor Madeline was always losing things and a cell phone number, or better yet, her new cell phone was often the last thing on her poor little taxed mind.  If it didn’t pay for itself or keep her apprised of the latest society gossip, she just wasn’t interested.  The only time she could keep track of the damn little cricket was when it was attached to her head and she was trashing some poor girl who didn’t have the same designer fashion sense as Madeline’s witchy little friends.  He chuckled to himself as he lifted himself off the edge of his secretary’s desk and headed to his office.  If there was one thing right about that thought, it was that Madeline’s mind was taxed by very little.  She was quite often vapid, and not for the first time, Chase wondered why he had ever agreed to marry her in the first place.  It wasn’t as if his mother actually cared for her either.  In fact, Venetia Brighton downright despised the girl.  But, since his father’s passing, there was very little that Venetia actually cared for.

Chase supposed it was Thomas’s step-daughter’s fault that he was leg-shackled to Madeline.  Antoinette had been the one that introduced him to Madeline in the first place.  Back then, she was pretty and perky, but hadn’t seemed as money-hungry, or sometimes downright vicious, as she was now.  And then, Antoinette had left a crying Madeline on his doorstep while she jetted off to Malawi, or whatever developing country in who knows where.  The only thing Chase had been able to do to get the wailing debutante to shut up had been to kiss her, and then, he couldn’t get rid of her.  He had tried to break up with the poor girl twice in the last six years and the only thing that succeeded in doing was giving him a headache.  He supposed it could be worse.   She was decently pretty, with a good family line, and so airheaded that she would be able to smile and look pretty as he vied for the New York senate seat.  Chase knew better than anyone that the Senate seats were hard to secure if anyone tied to the mob opposed you, so he had taken extra care not to impinge on anyone’s known territory or business while building his own.  Albeit, Chase had also taken special precautions to make sure his business had no dealings with the mobs or any undercover operations.  Import and architecture in New York weren’t the easiest things to keep in clean operation, but at least he was a private and not public shipper, and his reputation in South Carolina had made it easier to hand-select his clientele.  Chase was also known for not taking any high profile cases as a rule of thumb, since he didn’t care to get wrapped up in anything deeper than Madeline’s hobbies.  These days, he could afford to be picky about his cargo, and demand a higher price because of it.

As he pushed the door closed behind him, Chase wondered how much work he could get done before Madeline would get bored with waiting and call him again.  He guessed that he had at least 30 minutes.  He could add another 30 minutes if his secretary feigned ignorance and hung up on her a couple of times before either forwarding the call, or giving Madeline his cell number for the tenth time.  He didn’t blame her, really.  He just wished he didn’t have to deal with the whining about her supposed incompetence it involved and then having to listen to the numerous ‘oh so obvious’ reasons why he should fire her and hire another secretary.  The last time, Chase had given the poor secretary a raise.  He usually just listened to her tirade until he broke down and mentioned hiring a secretary like Winstead and effectively launched her into another diatribe about how he was going to leave her for a secretary and how would that look in the Post?  Usually, chase couldn’t help but mumble “smart” under his breath at that point, attempting to cut her off by any means possible.  Chase paused in his musings and flipped on his computer.  He loaded his email and scanned through, noticing a new one from Mrs. Ralston, and surprisingly one from his mother as well.

Chase, against his better judgment, opened his mother’s note first and scanned the few lines.  He could imagine her ticking away at the keys, careful not to chip one of her manicured nails.  His mother had always been a beauty and nothing if not straight to the point, which is what his father had loved so much about her.  Lately, she had seemed to waste away in the looming two story mansion and it saddened Chase that she was so lost without his father.  However, the neatly worded missive about how she would be grateful if he would take an evening out of his busy schedule to make an appearance at the Ralston house for their annual neighborly get together in Charleston had him raising an eyebrow.  Such a flowery skip around her demand that he show up and ‘make the nice,’ as she often called it was almost enough to make him hit the reply button.  He supposed it was time to settle down and give his mother grandchildren to break her out of her downward slump.  He stayed his fingers over the mouse and looked at the date and time of the other feminine email in his inbox.  Since it was getting closer to that time of year, he assumed Mrs. Ralston’s email would have a similar invitation.  It would probably have a similar tone as well.  Antoinette’s mother had perfected the passive aggressive guilt trip.  Chase could remember being on the receiving end of her snide, yet perfectly proper requests more than once in the years he had spent at their summer home in Charleston.  He quirked his lips and scanned through the rest of the notices, marking several off as junk mail.  There was one from his lawyer, probably about the prenuptial agreement he was drafting, and one from his broker, definitely outlining their plans for the investments next quarter, and one from an address he didn’t recognize.  His security measures hadn’t filtered the document out as junk, and yet something made him want to delete the note anyway.  His pointer hovered over the link for a moment as he debated whether or not to open it.

Chase’s mind jerked back to the present with the ringing of his cell.  He dragged the device out of his pocket and scanned the identification as if he needed it with the obnoxious jingle coming from it:  Madeline.  He waited for a second while checking the time on his computer before sliding the phone open and answering.  He had just enough time to talk to her for a few moments before his noon meeting.  Chase made sure to make appropriate murmurs of consent at the contents of Madeline’s busy schedule as he gathered up his contract drafts and designs and filed them away in his briefcase.  She continued listing off her plans for the afternoon.  Mentally, Chase made a reminder to invite Madeline to stay at the Brighton house for the Christmas get-together with the Ralstons.  For some reason, the Brighton house and their holiday party with their neighbors triggered a thought of the email still sitting unopened in his inbox, but he could not place the cause.  It continued to weigh on his conscious, as he shut down the computer, but it would have to wait until later, he thought, as he clicked off the monitor and strolled out of his office, motioning to his secretary to lock up when she left.  He knew she would understand this to mean he would not be back for the afternoon.  Whatever or whoever it was, could definitely wait.

“Shit, damn . . .” A few more choice words poured out of Antoinette’s mouth, the pert arch of her cupid’s bow framing every crass syllable.  She shook the little plastic meter again and prayed for a new answer.  Adding a few more colorful phrases to her repertoire, she tossed the test into the trash bin beside her along with the other two identical meters from the day before.  It didn’t matter how many times she peed on a stupid little pale indicator stick, the mocking little blue plus sign appeared every time.  This new one had even been more condescending with a shiny blinking “positive” next to the indicator.  A baby would come now, it was just a matter of time, and she supposed, a great deal of effort.  With her mission in Romania done, she seemed to have more time than she needed on her hands these days.  Toni pulled herself onto the green marble countertop of her Miami home and folded her legs into her body.  When had this happened?  Hadn’t she been careful?  Counting back on the tips of her fingers, she stopped with a groan.  Kythria.  It could only have been Kythria.  No, they hadn’t been careful.  She hadn’t been thinking at all, much less careful.  Toni could kick herself.  She never should have been there in the first place, much less have gotten wrapped up in his mess.  She didn’t even want to think about him, and here she was, having his baby. Toni let out a weary sigh and turned her body to look at herself in the tiled bathroom mirror.  Her eyes looked hollowed out and grey, even to herself.

Out of habit, Toni pulled her inlaid lacquered cigarette case out of her khaki’s pocket and flared the end of one thin tube to life.  She took two long drags and leaned her head against the mirror with another exhaled sigh.  Drifting one leg down, she kicked her hand knit crimson swirled socks back and forth a few times, but didn’t notice them.  She seemed to be doing this a lot these days: sighing and staring out into space.  She blew out her smoke in a series of little rings just for amusement.  It didn’t work.  Mentally, Toni began ticking off the people she would have to call.  Her mother was on the top of the list, of course, but she might delay that headache by calling her step-father first and apprising him of the situation for support against the dragon lady.  Her step-father would understand and calmly help her work through the steps for care.  Her mother, on the other hand, would have a melt-down and scream and rally against her stupidity, before insisting Toni work everything out with the father-to-be in order to achieve the happily ever after she never had.  Or, she would give Toni that look and sigh, which simply meant ‘I can’t believe I birthed you and you still became as stupid as to fall into the same mistake. I am so disappointed with you.’  Her mother had perfected that passive aggressive speech and Toni had already been on the receiving in more times than she could count.  It didn’t matter that there wouldn’t be a ‘happily ever after’ with the father.  Toni wasn’t interested in that anyway.  Appearances were everything to her mother, even when Toni could care less what people saw or thought.  It didn’t matter that Toni’s own father had not cared for her mother’s appearance with a child and had gone out of his way to deny having a daughter.

She brought the cancer stick back up to her lips and frowned in disgust.  ‘Well, there goes that habit,’ she thought as she held the end under the tap and twisted the cold water on.  ‘One bad habit down, only a million more to go.’  She chewed on the edge of her thumb nail for a moment before making another silent decision.  Toni pushed her stocking feet to the floor and added another name to her list: the father.  She figured she would have to tell him eventually, and that would mean another confrontation with the high and mighty Mr. Brighton himself.  That was the last name on her list – after her sisters and the paternal grandmother, who would dote on her and love her, but would not insist she tell her son.  Or, maybe not.  Toni reasoned that she could keep this to herself at least a few months longer.  She had at least a month before she would start to show and another 5 or 6 more before she would hire a midwife and seclude herself at her parent’s island home to wait for the baby to be born.  That meant there was still plenty of time before he would even notice something was different.

Of course, she would still have to tell Madeline.  Not that Toni wanted to call her best friend, turned not speaking neighbor, but Chase’s fiancée did deserve to know that she would be a step-mother before they were even married.  She didn’t even know why she wasn’t speaking with Madeline anymore.  Ever since she had returned home from her tour of duty around Europe and Asia, the girl she had been inseparable from hadn’t given her anything more than a dirty look.  Toni flicked off the light in the bathroom and headed downstairs to the kitchen.  Her mother would be in Manhattan this time of year at her step-sister’s fashion show.  The question was, did she want to relay the joyous news to her over the phone, where she could zone out indefinitely, or did she want to give it in person where her sisters and step-father would be there to support her if her mother flew off the handle?

“Ouch!” Antoinette drew back her fingertip into her mouth as she got a light static shock from her light switch.  She glanced down at the offending socks again and made a mental note to call her office and purchase more yarn.  She could have her assistant make her purchases, but it would give her a chance to get out of the house and wander around a vendor’s shop for a while.  She would have plenty of down time to churn out more socks for the soldier’s overseas and at least a baby blanket for the hospital while working on items for her own baby.  Toni sighed again as she pulled out a half-loaf of honey whole wheat bread and slipped a slice into her toaster.  She rummaged around in the cabinet for a second and pulled down a jar of almond butter.  She shook it and made another mental jot to buy another jar from the farmer’s market.  Cursing under her breath, she added one more check box to call her doctor and ask about her medications and their effects on pregnancy.  She had stopped taking her birth control after the first missed cycle and had simple prayed that it was the stress of the new students and flights overseas.  She also supposed she needed to call her other doctors as well, but that could wait until after she spoke with her mother.  If nothing else, her mother, or Chase’s at the very least, would know what she needed to do.  This was all very new to her, but there was no doubt she would make it through just like everything else.

While she was mentally forming to-do lists, the toaster dinged and Toni picked out the piece, slathering a healthy amount of creamy almonds on the top.  Taking a bite of her toast, she picked up her cell off the stone counter top and pushed the buttons to her step-father, Thomas’s office number in Dallas.  He should still be in Dallas this week, before handing the reins back to her step-brother and heading to New York and South Carolina.  She slid onto a barstool and glanced at the clock.  The metallic hands clicked silently toward three o’clock.  If it was only three, which meant he would still be at work for another two hours his time before catching a plane to New York and her mother, so she could safely reach him.  It also meant that she had another two or more hours before he would talk to her mother, because he wouldn’t risk her mother’s ‘shoot the messenger’ personality by telling her over the phone.  If Toni was lucky, she would be able to convince him not to tell her mother at all, and she would be able to ease things over herself, in person.  Putting down her cell, she pushed the speaker button and laid her head against the cool stone island top.  She danced her fingers across the tile in an abstract ballet while counting the rings out loud.  Thomas’ secretary answered brightly, and Toni frowned, lifting her head to check that she had called his direct extension.  Her step-father always answered his own phone while in the office.  She calmly told the woman she was looking for her step-father, and was informed that he had taken an earlier flight and would not be back for some days, but she could leave a message if she so chose.  Toni thanked the woman and hung up, closing her phone and laid her head back against the counter.

“Damn, damn, and double damn!”  Toni muttered to herself and debated calling his cell phone.  She dialed through six digits before putting the phone back down.  She twisted her lops and snorted.  No, she would have to fly to Manhattan and do it all in person.  It was the only way she would have any support since if she knew her family, her step-father would not be alone from the moment he set down at La Guardia.  Marching out of the kitchen and into her office, she flopped down into her padded office chair and pulled up the travel site on her desktop, pausing in her clicking to call her secretary.

“Lucy, I want you to take messages and call me for anything important.”  She paused to let her secretary catch up since she hadn’t even allowed the woman to say hello.

“Yes, hello, Lucy.  It’s Toni.  I’m going to be out of town for the next week or so.”  She waited for an appropriate response and then went on, her fingers flying across her keyboard as she waited to find the right flight times.  “Just send me the specs on that new yarn to my phone, and I’ll test the samples when I get back, or I’ll send you an address.  “She surveyed the options on the screen and clicked off one.  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone, but I’m booking a hotel and flight to New York right now.  I’ll fill you in on everything when I get back.”  Toni stopped to read her computer screen and click for her hotel.  Her secretary listed off the office plans for the next week.  “Yes, yes, you and Kate can handle everything with testing and send me the address and I’ll meet with that new vendor.  I completely trust the two of you like it was your own baby.  Just send me the times and places and his number.  I’ll call him from the airport to set it all up.”  She pushed the print button and listened as her printer surged to life.  Toni let her secretary prattle on while she headed back up the stairs to her bedroom.  “No, that’s the only meeting I’m setting up.  I’ll need all the time I can get with my family.”  She paused. “Okay, I’ll be waiting, and Lucy?  Thank you.”  Antoinette clicked off her phone and pulled out her suitcase.  It was going to be a long day.

Total count:  1,962                      Total to go:  48,062