Sweat (11 page)

“What kind of deal?”

“Pack your bags and get your passport. You are going to America. There is something I need you to take care of.”

Chow Ying didn't think about the offer. He had no choice. Run and be killed, or bide his time and play the game.

Jake's car chugged down his father's street, jerking and misfiring past well-hidden million dollar homes. The Subaru had seen better days, and the car was giving its fourth owner every indication that he would be the last. The clutch slipped with every downshift, the brakes squeaked profusely, and its latest ailment added danger to annoyance—an intermittent stall that hit without warning. “Old Betsy” was dying a slow death, like a two-pack-a-day smoker.

The gate was open at 25 Follin Lane and Jake made it halfway up the steep driveway before the Subaru gave out. He put the car into first, turned the key, and announced his arrival to the high-class enclave with a backfire that rattled the double-pane windows. Betsy lurched up the driveway and Jake parked in front of the garage, its closed doors the only thing separating the old Subaru from his father's new Porsche 911 Turbo convertible.

Jake shut the door to his car with an authoritative hip-check and made his way alongside the perfectly manicured yard in the middle of the large circular driveway. He rang the doorbell and waited anxiously. He was seven the last time he had visited his father's house, and the residence he remembered was nothing like the one where he now stood. He looked up at the slate roof three stories above and peeked through the small windows that ran vertically next to the door.

The door opened suddenly and Jake, startled, stumbled to the edge of the porch and teetered precariously over a row of rare roses.

“Good evening, Jake,” said the Hispanic women with a kind face and a warm smile. “Your father is expecting you. My name is Camila, but everyone calls me Camille. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“Your father has told me a lot about you.”

“Well, I doubt that, but thank you just the same.”Camille smiled again and her face radiated. She liked the young man. If first impressions were any indication, the son was not like the father.

“Please come in.”

Jake stepped into the grand foyer and looked around. The thirty-foot cathedral ceiling was nicely framed by handcrafted wood moldings and adorned with a sparkling crystal chandelier. The dark marble floor stretched to the edge of Jake's view in two directions. A huge grandfather clock rested against an interior brick wall, its pendulum giving off an audible echo as it reached its double-sided apex.

“Can I take your belongings?” Camille asked, gesturing to the brown bag in Jake's left hand.

“No, I got it, thanks. It's just a bottle of wine. I didn't want to come over empty handed. Not sure if it is a good bottle or not, but the guy at
Norm's Beer and Wine
recommended it.”

“I am sure it is fine. Please follow me.”

The kitchen was in the back of the house, if that is what you could call the eighteen-thousand-square-foot monstrosity Jake's father shared with his two servants. Jake placed the bottle of wine on the island counter and held the brown bag in his hand, not knowing where to look for a trashcan. Camille grabbed the bag and led Jake to the sunken great-room to the left of the kitchen.

“Please have a seat. Your father will be with you in a minute.”

“Thank you.”

“You certainly look like your father, you know.”

“So I've been hearing a lot recently.”

“You don't think so?”

“No, I guess I do take after him in the looks department.”

“How about the other departments?” Camille asked with another brilliant smile.

Jake looked at Camille's face and melted just a little. If he were twenty years older, and hadn't met Kate, he would have asked her on a date.

“We will see,” Jake answered.

“Can I get you anything, while you wait?”

“No, I'm fine thank you.”

“Very well. I'll be in the kitchen should you change your mind. I hope you're hungry,” she said before vanishing, not waiting for a response.

Jake looked around the room. It was emergency room sterile. The cushions on the sofa were wrinkle-free. The magazines on the coffee table were aligned as if someone had used a ruler. The massive plasma television on the wall was off, its screen glistening. Four different remote controls for various electronic gadgets were arranged according to size on the end table. It was a bachelor pad with anal-retentive maids. There were no signs of a woman's touch anywhere. Jake wondered what the rest of the house looked like. It must take a lot of furniture to fill a pad this large, he thought. He figured his father needed one servant just to keep up with the dust.

Jake finished looking around the living room and went back to find Camille. He sat down at the breakfast counter and checked out the cookbooks on the shelf to the left while Camille milled about like someone on a mission.

“How do you like working for my father?”

“I like it. He travels a lot, so I have more free time than most full-time domestic help.”

“Is he a tyrant?”

“He treats me well. He helped my cousin get a job cleaning in his office building. Her name is Reina. She is cute. You would like her.”

Jake figured Camille's answer was a standard, off-the-shelf reply. He knew his father was no angel. “Reina, heh?”

“It means ‘queen' in Spanish.”

“I'll keep my eye out for her.”

“She has already seen you. She told me you were handsome. I must agree.”

Jake tried to steer the subject of the conversation away from himself. “So working for my father is okay?”

“I can't complain. He has always been fair with me.”

As if on cue, Peter walked into the room with the same intent-to-impress presence that he always carried. The fact that his son was the lone member of the audience didn't change the show.

A handshake, an offer of a drink, and a tour of the house. Jake took it all in. The tour, the showmanship, the bragging. By the fifth bathroom, each with its own bidet, Jake started to wonder why he had come. But years of curiosity had their claws deep into his skin. He was determined to see where the night was going to take him. Hopefully he would learn something. Something about his father, and maybe something about himself.

For the host, drinks preceded dinner, interrupted the main course, and book-ended dessert. Jake drank three microbrews before he started declining more beer, mixed drinks, and the hard stuff. He accepted a second helping of spiced grouper and rice to help put a dike in the flow of alcohol entering his bloodstream. His father liked his sauce, and Jake noticed he held his liquor well. It was not a trait he wanted to emulate.

“Would you like anything else?” Camille asked, clearing the dessert dishes. “Coffee, perhaps?”

“That would be great. Black please,” Jake answered before his father could insist on another drink of a stronger nature.

“Would you be so kind as to fetch my single malt and a glass?” Jake's father asked his faithful servant.

“Certainly.”

“My son and I will be on the deck.”

“Yes, Mr. Winthrop.”

The sliding door glided open and Jake and his father stepped onto the expansive wood deck. As was with the rest of the house, the yard was immaculate. Lights surrounded the pool, their reflection shimmering on the water slightly, the surface rippled by a light breeze. There was a rock garden beyond the pool and a screened gazebo on the left where the lighting from the yard met the darkness of the summer sky. A huge wooden fence enclosed the two and a half acres Peter proudly claimed as his backyard.

“Nice yard.”

“It should be. It cost a fortune. There is an Asian garden that winds around the Gazebo and stretches to the back of the lot. I tried to have the architect design it after a famous garden in Kumamoto, Japan. There is a pond with carp that cost three grand apiece, and a grove of imported Japanese Maples that cost half that amount. The lighting and fence cost another eighty thousand.”

“It is nice,” Jake said again, unimpressed with the running total of money spent.

“How do you like work so far?” Jake's father asked.

“It's good. It has been educational. I've learned a lot.” Jake laughed at himself and the stream of safe answers.

“You have been doing a great job. You have a good sense of business acumen. A good head on your shoulders. I have been impressed.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Have you given any thought to what you are going to do after graduation, career-wise?”

“Not really. Right now I'm still working on easing back into society. The last year has been rough. Kind of been out of the loop in a lot of regards, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure. Sure,” Peter said in a deep, soothing voice. “If you are interested, I would be happy to have you join Winthrop Enterprises. I would love to teach you everything I know. Prepare you for maybe taking the business over one day. I can't run the show forever.”

Jake didn't respond. He'd only been working at his father's company for a few weeks and a lifetime commitment was more than a little daunting. But he did enjoy working at the company. He certainly enjoyed the steady paycheck of nine hundred dollars a week, after taxes. Not executive money, but not starving student money either. For all intents and purposes, he was an intern pulling in fifty grand a year. He hoped no one else in the office knew how much he was making.

“We'll have to see about that. I'm not saying ‘no,' but give it some time and let's see where it goes.”

“I understand, son. I just want you to know that I'm here for you. And I would be flattered if you chose to follow in your old man's footsteps.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it. I really do.”

Camille reappeared and delivered a cup of coffee to Jake and a glass and bottle of Talisker to his father. The light conversation continued until Jake worked up the guts to ask a poignant question.

“So, Dad. Tell me about your side of the family. I never really heard much about that half of my gene pool.”

“It is a pool in dire need of a lifeguard, son.”

Jake laughed. His father could be as funny as a stand-up comic.

“I think everyone feels that way about their own family,” Jake said, sounding older and wiser than his age.

“I guess they do. What do you want to know?”

“I don't know. Anything really. Start at the beginning, if that's easier for you.”

Jake listened as the story unfolded and his father held his attention raptly. Peter Winthrop could flat out tell a story. The liquor only greased the wheels of obvious exaggeration, making the story that much better. Even the depressing, dirty laundry of a family he never knew came to cheerful life through his father's voice. But Jake knew where the truth ended and where the exaggerations began. He had the same gift. The ability to draw the crowd in and keep their attention. He used his storytelling skill far more sparingly than his father did, but he recognized the gift and, for the first time, realized it was something he was born with. Maybe the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, he thought. It may roll a little when it hits the ground, but gravity can only carry it so far.

The early years of Peter Winthrop's existence on this earth seemed pleasant enough. But when his father's story reached the fifth grade, Jake regretted having asked for Winthrop History 101. By the time his father hit puberty, which coincided with his father's third drink on the deck, Jake wanted to plug his ears.

Peter Winthrop was the youngest of six children and the only son in the family born to a feisty French lady and a hard-working Southern Baptist. When Peter was five, his father, Peter Winthrop, Sr., did what every man on his side of the family had done since they emerged from a packed ship hull in the early 1800s—he skipped town. No note, no phone call. He didn't claim he was going out for cigarettes. He didn't run away with a secret lover. He just decided that, after half a dozen children, marriage and fatherhood wasn't for him. He simply woke up one Saturday morning, had breakfast with his family for the last time, took a shower, got dressed, and walked out the front door without saying a word.

As the only male in a family of six women, life was tough for young Peter Winthrop, Jr. The balance of the sexes his father had maintained in the house crumbled with his departure. First the rules changed, and then the game. Where it was once acceptable to leave the toilet seat up, forgetting to drop the seat now earned him unbearable payback. Dirty shoes in the house were confiscated, and Peter had vivid memories of being driven to tears by humiliation and the scorching heat of the street on his bare feet. Clothes left on the floor were thrown on the front porch. Peter's mother had lost control of her life when her husband left. To overcompensate, she took complete control of her house. As the son of the man who had just sealed her fate as a single mother of six, Peter Winthrop, Jr. was going to be taught a lesson.

Between the ages of five to fifteen, life was one nightmare after another. It was more than just growing up without a father—there were plenty of families in the neighborhood who had lost fathers in the war and still raised children who grew into healthy adults. What took place at 311 Edison Avenue was anything but normal. The house quickly turned into a part-time beauty salon, flower shop, and fashion show. Five older sisters, their girlfriends, and a mother who was light years ahead in the feminist movement was the recipe for a painful existence for a young boy growing up in the fifties in the South.

At eight years old, he knew more about women, their bodily functions, and their views on men than most people three times his age. When his oldest sister learned to sew and took up dressmaking with the hopes of selling her wares, things took a turn for the worse. Peter Jr., too small to fight five sisters and their friends, was the unlucky fashion model of choice. He learned about skirts, dresses, hems and pleats. And that was just the beginning.

When his two middle sisters decided to try their hand at beautician school, the fun really began. Blush, liner, mascara, lipstick. He had tried them all, forced through physical restraint when necessary.