“We’re going to Palm Beach for the week. Your father says we need a vacation. Maybe he does, but I don’t see how I’m going to get away,” Beverly told her son, sounding distracted.
“It’ll do you good too. You both work hard.” He hung up a few minutes later. He always admired his mother and the huge success she had made of her small company. It was mammoth now, and she still kept an eye on everything. He came by his work ethic honestly. Both his parents worked diligently. He was glad they were going on vacation. He wouldn’t have minded a week in Palm Beach himself, but he didn’t have time. He had meetings booked solidly for the next three weeks, and more to do after that. There were always exciting new developments in his business.
Maureen was out when he got home that night. She didn’t leave a note. She never did. If she was out, she was out. It didn’t matter where. They rarely ate dinner together, except on an impromptu occasion when they met in the kitchen, foraging for something to eat. She didn’t like making dinner plans with him, because she said he was always late, or canceled at the last minute if something came up, which happened more often than not, some conference call from another time zone that he wanted to take at the office.
Mike found some cold chicken in the fridge and made a salad to go with it. He ate at the kitchen table, and answered some emails and texts afterwards, and then looked at his watch. It was still early in California, and he decided to call Jenny, his daughter. He hadn’t spoken to her in three days. She loved her college life at Stanford, the classes she was taking, and the friends she had made there.
Jenny answered as soon as she saw Mike’s name come up.
“Hi, Dad. I was just thinking about you. I was going to call you later. I figured you might still be at work.” It was nine o’clock in New York, which said a lot about his habits.
“I’m home. How’s life in the Wild West?” She smiled. She loved talking to her father. He had been busy a lot of the time when she was growing up, but she admired his work ethic and his success, despite what her mother said about him, that he didn’t care about anyone but himself, and that his family meant nothing to him. She hated it when her mother said things like that about him. It had put a wedge in her relationship with her mother, much more than with her father. She was his staunchest defender, which made her mother even angrier at Jennifer and her father. She wanted the kids to be as angry as she was and support her position.
“It’s not so wild,” she answered him. “I’ve been in the library all week.”
“Trying to meet guys, or studying?” he teased her. She was a diligent student and had graduated from high school at the top of her class with honors. She took after him, and he knew she’d be a fine lawyer one day. He might even hire her to work for him.
“Very funny, Dad. Studying, obviously.” She’d had a boyfriend the year before, but the romance had been brief. She was a pretty girl, and looked like Mike, with shiny dark hair and cornflower blue eyes. His were more of a sapphire blue and his hair was thick and almost jet black, with only a few stray gray hairs peppered through it. He looked younger than he was.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, and laughed, then thought of something. “Have you ever heard of a store in the city called Brooke’s? It’s downtown in a seedy neighborhood, and I guess it’s been there for ages. Your grandmother was telling me tonight that her grandmother took her there as a young girl.”
“Oh my God, Dad. It’s the coolest ever. It looks like nothing from the outside. Inside, they have the best stuff I’ve ever seen. I went there with Mom once. It’s super expensive, but everything is really beautiful. They have special one-of-a-kind stuff and the fancy luxury brands. Are you buying it?” she asked, and he laughed.
“I don’t just go around buying stores. Maybe I wanted to shop there.”
“They have cool men’s things too. If you buy it, I want a big discount. I can’t afford it on my allowance.”
“We’ll go together sometime. Someone mentioned it today at work, and I was curious if you’d heard of it. I don’t know how I managed never to hear about it,” although he wasn’t a big shopper, he never had time.
“It’s kind of like a fabulous secret.” Jenny endorsed her grandmother’s description of it, from a younger generation, which intrigued him. Whatever the Brooke’s style, the store seemed to leave a lasting impression on anyone who went there, even once. It made him curious to see it for himself, not even as an investment, but just intrigued by what his mother, daughter, and researcher had said.