Haze(3)

My eyes drop to the marble floor in an attempt to mask the grin that I feel on my lips. "A bullfrog?"

"She asked where I grew up, Mr. Foster," Sophia goes on, "I was telling her about some of the things I saw back home."

I look up and directly at her. I have no idea where 'home' is to her. She was a quick hire after my last assistant quit on the spot more than three months ago. Her name escapes me but the vile loathing in her eyes when I refused her request for an extra week's vacation to accommodate her honeymoon was memorable.

All the pent up resentment she'd held within for the eighteen months she worked for me had collided with her better judgment and had won. She'd hurled a barrage of insults at me in such rapid succession that I struggled to distinguish one from the other.

Once her peace was said, I calmly informed her that the two weeks of vacation time she'd previously requested had been approved months earlier and tacking on 'a few more days' as she casually put it, would eat into my time in London during fashion week. I needed her there with me, not on a beach in the Caribbean drinking cocktails crafted from tropical fruit and flavored rum.

"We need to talk, mother," I say, ignoring the expected question about Sophia's childhood and the amphibian that apparently played an important role in the story of her life. "You can continue this conversation when we're done."

She shoots me a look that carries a veiled warning of something intended to be menacing. It may have worked, and likely did, when I was still a child, but now that I'm thirty-two-years old and running an international conglomerate that boasts our shared surname, the impact it has is fleeting, at best.

"You're asking me to be rude, Gabriel." She yanks softly on the diamond earring that is hanging from her left ear. "I'm just getting to know Sophia. You can wait a few minutes while we finish up."

It's now clear that she knows exactly why I insisted she make time for me today. It's also obvious why she lobbied for a discussion over dinner. She wanted the security that a crowded restaurant would bring. My mother knows me well enough to recognize that discussing family business in public isn't something I willfully do. That has a time and place, and regardless of what my mother wants, the time is right now.

"This can't wait." I motion towards my office. "We need to talk. That needs to happen now."

Her lips etch into a firm, thin line as she tosses her purse and coat on Sophia's desk in an overly dramatic gesture before she walks straight towards me.

***

"Your father would have no part of this." She arches her neck to once again look at the now closed doors of my office. It's the third time she's done it since I suggested she sit on the black leather sofa before I sat next to her. "He wouldn't approve of this at all."

I unbutton my suit jacket. "When is the last time you spoke to him?"

"Why? It doesn't matter when I spoke to him."

It actually does.

Since their divorce more than a decade ago my parents' broken relationship has swung on a pendulum from adoration to unconstrained contempt, bordering on hatred. The latter usually is in play when my father brings his latest companion to a company function in full view of my mother.

The string of dalliances he's had since they separated has been with women younger than me who view him as a tolerable rung on the ladder to success. Not one of the dozen or so women who have flirted their way into my father's life has lasted more than a few months.

"You know how much I value your input, Mother." I lean back wanting my body language to convey my message just as much as my words. I've learned in the most difficult way possible, through much trial and error, that the only way to handle Gianna Foster effectively is to make her feel valued and irreplaceable. "You also know that I'm not hiring any new designers at the moment."

She scratches the top of her forehead. The motion pushes a few strands of her deep brown hair aside. My mother has never made a secret of her pursuit of youth. She's on a first name basis with at least three of the most prestigious plastic surgeons in Manhattan. In her ongoing effort to recapture the face that once was reflected back in the mirror, she's lost the natural glow she had when I was a child. I remember back then thinking that she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Now, as I look at her perfect complexion, I see a woman battered within by the ever moving hands of time.

"Did your father put you up to this? Is that what this is about?"

It's an underhanded tactic devised to halt the conversation in its tracks. In the tug-of-war that was, and still is, the dissolution of their marriage, my parents viewed my two brothers and me as the ultimate prize. When we refused to take sides, my mother upped her game. Now, whenever there is a business related matter, she reverts back to blaming my father. He's too busy with his latest twenty-something girlfriend to even realize the company still exists.

"This is about Dante Castro." I stop for a beat before I continue, carefully considering my words. "He's a talented designer, but we have no place for him. You need to rescind the offer you made him."

Her jaw tightens at my words. "I'll do nothing of the sort. I already called a friend or two to announce that he's heading the men's division."

At last count, she'd called contacts at four of the premier fashion magazines. Each had reached out to me within the past two hours for my reaction to the announcement that my mother had secured the virtually unknown talents of a designer whose ability is questionable but whose presence is meant to make my father jealous. I'm not about to hand over the reins of our men's fashion line to someone whose claim to fame is designing t-shirts emblazoned with logos for skateboarding aficionados.