Page 2 of Can't Win 'Em All
“How about this?” Mom started after a few seconds. “What if we bring in a crisis management team? We’ll see what they say and put together a template for a press release. Then we’ll let your father know what the plan is.”
“I say we cut him out entirely,” Zach said dourly. “Anything we can do to ruin his life, I’m all for it.”
Mom was sympathetic to Zach’s feelings, but only to a point. “Zachary, you are happily married and living your best life. How about we don’t make things more difficult for everybody else simply because you want to make your father’s life miserable?”
Zach was caught off guard. “Um … that’s not the only reason. He hurt Olivia when he tried to force her out of my life. He made her feel like garbage, like she wasn’t good enough.” There was anger practically dripping from his tongue. “He deserves a miserable life.”
Ever pragmatic, Mom raised her hand. “Yes. I understand. That doesn’t change the fact that you and Olivia are thriving. In fact, if you want to get to making grandchildren for me, I will be thriving too.” She sent my brother a knowing look.
“Oh, geez.” Zach threw up his hands, reminding me of the overreactive tween he’d been at one time. “You just had to go there, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Mom replied easily. “You need to take a breath. The hotel is doing great. The casino is doing great. The divorce is going to take some time because your father is fighting it at every turn, but that’s on schedule too. Just … calm down.” Her eyes flashed with warning. “I want to hear what your sisters have to say.”
“Yeah, Booby Ruby,” Rex drawled so only I could hear the nickname. “What do you think?” He sent me a flirty wink that did strange things to my insides.
Rather than dwell on the strange things that Rex did to my stomach—and, if I’m being truthful, my rickety girl parts—I cleared my throat and drew everybody’s attention to me. “I know nobody asked my opinion,” I started.
“I did,” Rex countered. His expression was guileless. He honestly had no idea what he did to me. That made it all the harder.
“I think Mom’s idea is a sound one,” I offered. “Those crisis management teams exist for a reason. It’s not as if Dad is suddenly going to grow a conscience and do the right thing.”
Snickers rang out around the table.
“We have to force him into the right decision,” I continued. “Those crisis teams are effective because they take the emotions out of their plans. We’re too close to this.” I darted a pointed look in Zach’s direction. “Some of us are way too close. We need an outsider to tell us what to do.”
“Or we could just go old school and drop Dad’s body in the desert,” Pearl added helpfully.
Mom extended a warning finger in her direction. “Don’t be cute.”
“Who says I was being cute?” Pearl challenged. She had Middle Child Syndrome and always pushed the boundaries on every side just to get the attention she was convinced she was due. “I’m being serious. The casino owners of old wouldn’t have put up with Dad’s crap. He would’ve been a strange hump of sand in the desert long before now.”
If Pearl had Middle Child Syndrome, I had Little Sister Syndrome. I wasn’t the youngest child, but since Zach was a boy, it sometimes felt that way. His upbringing had been vastly different from mine. My place in the pecking order meant I used my cuteness to get my way.
“I can try to talk to him,” I volunteered out of nowhere. “Dad I mean,” I added when confused looks flitted around the boardroom table. “Maybe I can make him see reason.”
Zach let loose a rude snorting noise and then immediately held up his hand in apology. “Sorry. I just didn’t realize you were serious.”
“He might listen to me,” I hedged. Even saying it, I knew that was unlikely. “Or he’ll just try to use me as a weapon against all of you. That seems far more likely.”
“It’s not the worst idea,” Opal mused. “He might tell you his plan if he thinks you’re having second thoughts on ousting him from the company.”
“He still has shares, though,” Rex interjected. He was no longer smiling. “He is a part of this company no matter how we wish it was otherwise. We can’t just ignore him and hope he goes away.”
He turned to face me. “As for you going undercover with your father, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” He looked pained. “He’ll try to use you, Ruby. You might think you can handle him, but he’ll be absolutely diabolical.”
“He will,” Mom agreed. “However, he also looks at you as his baby girl. He’s never seen you for who you truly are. Out of all your sisters, he sees you as the most malleable. As long as you can keep your head and not fall for his machinations, I don’t see why you can’t at least try to have a conversation with him.”
I beamed at her. That was as close to a ringing endorsement as I was going to get. “Thanks for believing in me.”
Mom’s smile was soft. “I see you for who you are, Ruby. You’re much smarter than your father ever gave you credit for. You have a solid head for business, especially when it comes to negotiation tactics.
“He’s not going to believe it if Opal or Zach are the ones who approach him,” she continued. “He’ll smell a double cross before they even get over the threshold. Pearl, of course, is too blunt to play undercover agent. You, however, have always been the cute one.”
“Hey!” Pearl was understandably insulted. “What the hell?”
Mom grinned at her. “I don’t mean that you’re not cute. It’s just … to get attention as a child, Ruby had to bat her eyelashes at everybody. She even talked with a lisp for three months because she saw it on a television show. Everybody fell for it too.”
“Ah, yes.” I smiled at the memory. “I saw old episodes ofThe Brady Bunch. They had a lot of kids too. I couldn’t be Marcia and nobody wanted to be Jan.” I shot Pearl an apologetic look. “That left Cindy.”
