“There is no vagina food allowed at this table,” Riley interrupted. He was my youngest brother by five years, and it didn’t matter that he was a full foot taller than me now, or that he could pick me up and lift me over his head. He’d always be a little kid to me.
“Riley,” Patrick growled. “Sit down and shut up.”
“I will puke if there’s open yogurt in this room,” Riley said. “I’m not exaggerating. It smells like old barf, and can someone actually explain what yogurtis?”
He snatched up the cartons and, in the process, knocked over his stainless steel water bottle and both of my coffees. Liquid and ice cubes splashed across the round table, and hell promptly broke loose.
Everyone shot out of their chairs, yelling and swearing, and collecting laptops and phones before much damage could be done. Andy found a roll of paper towels, and she and Sam mopped up the spill while Matt produced a set of tiny tools from his messenger bag and took apart his soaked computer.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Patrick shouted at Riley.
“I do not like being in the presence of yogurt,” Riley responded.
“Would it not be possible to handle that in a slightly less catastrophic way?” One leg of Patrick’s trousers was drenched with coffee, and he pointed to Andy’s waterlogged notebook, the disemboweled computer, and the stained rug. “How is it?” he asked Matt.
“Fried,” he answered. “And it smells like pumpkin spice.”
“Oh my fucking God,” Patrick seethed.
“It’s not that bad,” Andy said as she wiped laptops and phones dry. “Only a few casualties.”
“I’m going to have to sand and stain the whole surface again,” Sam murmured, his hand coasting over the tabletop.
Riley gestured toward Patrick. “If we could just agree that there’s no yogurt at meetings—”
“Get over the goddamn yogurt,” Matt said.
“If we’re banning yogurt, we’re sure as shit banning coffee and water, too,” Patrick said.
“Shut up,” I bellowed. “Everyone. Shut up. We have things to accomplish and we’re not spending the next hour bitching at each other aboutyogurt. Sit down, get your status reports ready, and don’t speak unless I specifically invite you to do so. Understood?”
There were more muttered comments as we dealt with soggy chairs and stained clothes. We returned to our seats and started working through property updates. Patrick tracked the fine project management details while I monitored the Boston real estate market, but I quickly zoned out while staring at the Multiple Listing Service website.
I was tired, hungry, and caffeine-deprived, and generally irritable. There was no one reason for my irritability, but a mountain of little reasons that had been building for months.
“All right, well, I think we’re good,” Patrick said, glancing at me. “Did you get everything you needed?”
“Um…” I skimmed the list of priorities and issues on my side of the master status table Patrick and I shared. “I think so.”
I retreated to my office and spun my chair to face the gothic arched windows. I didn’t have much of a view—just the alley below and the adjacent Beacon Hill red brick row houses—but I needed a place for my thoughts beyond the four walls of Walsh Associates.
I was fierce to the bone, and it served me well. That fierceness taught me to keep it together at all costs because if I fell apart, everything and everyone was falling with me.
It gave me the strength to raise my siblings when my mother died and my father lost his mind. It kept me going when I was single-handedly covering college tuition for Sam, Riley, and my sister, Erin, funding the takeover of Walsh Associates from my father, and putting myself through law school, all while selling houses on the side. It gave me the energy to learn the law, money, architecture, and Boston, and the expertise to manage all of that with more competence than most people ever expected out of a five-foot tall redhead. It gave me the will to, at once, be everything everyone ever needed.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped being everything to my siblings.
A brisk knock sounded at my door but I didn’t answer. Tom and my brothers were going to barrel right on in regardless of whether I responded. The rest of my support staff knew not to bother me unless the building was burning down, and I didn’t smell smoke.
“Okay, boss. I think you’re going to like this.” Tom chattered on about the newest iPhone for several minutes while I stared out the window. “Boss?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Can it wait?”
Tom pointed to my desk, ignoring my question. “Phone is charging but otherwise fully operational. I picked up your prescription and another pumpkin spice latte, and Rory ran the payables this morning.”
New phone, birth control pills, coffee, and a heap of checks to sign. “Thank you,” I said. “What else is on my calendar for today?”
He swiped his tablet to life and pushed his angular glasses up his nose. “Ten o’clock with the bank to close on your Louisburg Square investment. One o’clock lunch at Townsman with that development firm. They’re the ones who want to buy out the Medios Building, and if their assistant can be trusted, the offer they’ll make is a good one. Please be nice to them. Three thirty with Patrick to review the upcoming projects. Eight o’clock dinner with Mr. Pemberton.”
