The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante
Chapter Nineteen
KYRA
“We could write to more corporations,” Brad suggests.
We’re discussing how to get more sponsors, how to get our message out. This is something I consider myself to be good at, and we’ve done well so far, but I’m interested to hear what Brad has to say, since he claims he’s a know-it-all.
“We already do that.”
“You should do the small and personal approach. Meet people in person. Cultivate relationships.”
“We already do that.”
“Then it sounds as if you’re doing all the right things. You could go big and take out an ad in the paper.”
I laugh, because his idea is so ludicrous. “You want us to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an ad? In the newspaper, or on a billboard, or in a glossy magazine, or maybe a TV ad? Which is it?” I’m shocked that he’s suggested a crazy solution.
“It’s not so strange. You want to attract the big donors. Get the eyes of the big corporates. This is the way to do it.”
“Dude, people would think we’re throwing money away. We’re not a corporation,” Fredrich says.
I scowl at Brad in disbelief because what he’s suggesting is so insanely wrong, I can’t believe he had the audacity to suggest it. Everything I started to assume about him begins to dismantle. He catches my tight expression.
“Your idea doesn’t make sense,” I tell him.
I hear a noise, like something scraping, like lots of sand falling, an out-of-place noise that alerts my sixth sense. We all stare upwards, and then WHAM! Brad comes at me like a bull, hurling himself at me. My chair topples over and I scream as we fall to the floor. His hand cushions the floor before my head hits it. Something dull and chunky thuds to the floor directly at the spot where my chair had been.
It happens so fast that I forget to breathe.
“What the—” Fredrich jumps to standing, Simona too. They help us to get up. Miraculously, I’m not hurt despite being bulldozed to the floor in my chair. The armrests saved me from taking the full brunt of Brad’s body weight. He stands up slowly, surveys me lying on the floor, and offers me his hand. Then he helps me to stand.
Dazed, I look up at the ceiling, then at the floor. Shock holds me frozen to the spot.
“A chunk of plaster,” Fredrich cries, walking over and prodding it gently with his foot. It’s a hefty chunk. . “You’re lucky it missed your head.”
Simona stares at it. “That could have killed you.” She looks as worried as if it had happened.
“He saved your life, looks like,” Fredrich announces.
“Thank goodness for your quick reflexes,” Simona adds in. They are both singing Brad’s praises.
“Are you hurt?” I ask him, slowly shaking out of my shock bubble. There is too much to process all at once: Brad’s side tackle, the plaster from the ceiling, the fact that I could have been so badly—fatally even—injured.
But also the feel of him against me. The firm yet soft feel of his hand as my head smacked against it. Everything except my heart rate slow-motioned. I caught a whiff of his cologne—clean and fresh with a hint of pine, it took me out of this damp-smelling room and led me to a field of flowers. Even now, my heart flutters just thinking about it.
He saved my life.
I reach for his hand shakily, gratitude washing over me as I turn his palm over in my hands. He lets me. “Does it hurt? Can you move your fingers?” I examine both sides of it carefully. He flexes his fingers.
“It’s all working. Can I have it back now?”
Everyone laughs.
I can’t, because what happened scared me. If he hadn’t moved me out of the way, who knows what injury I might have sustained?
“Thank you.” The quiet words tumble from my lips. “The water pooling on the roof must have gone through.”
“Your ...” He touches his own lip. I squint at him. “Your lip is bleeding,” he says, pointing at it. It’s only then that I feel the pain on my lower lip. I run my tongue along it and taste the salty blood. Brad winces. “Looks painful. It could be deep. You might want to get it looked at.”
Simona comes over, motherly-like, and tilts my head up so that she can get a better look. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I think we should split for lunch,” Fredrich announces.
“Another man who runs at the first sight of blood.” She rolls her eyes. “Get me the first aid kit before you go.”
“I’ll get it,” Brad pipes up. “I know where it is. You showed me when you took me around the factory.”
“Now that is what I call a hero,” says Simona proudly, as he disappears out of view.
* * *
BRANDON
Idon’t even want to think about what might have happened had that chunk of plaster fallen on Kyra’s head.
When Emma asks me at work the next day how my little experiment is going, I don’t know how to answer that.
“It’s trickier than I thought, working at the factory.” I’m back in my own office, but lately I seem to prefer going to Redhill. I don’t even know why. I must be going soft in the head.
“Now there’s a surprise.” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
“She’ll come around. I haven’t had a chance to properly work on her yet.”
“You mean pull the wool over her eyes?”
I pick up my crystal egg-shaped paperweight. The smooth surface is cold and I roll it around in my hands as I contemplate recent events. The things I do and say, the way I’m trying to manipulate Kyra, these are things I routinely do. This is nothing new to me, but this time I’m not so sure.
“It’s impossible to pull the wool over Kyra’s eyes,” I announce. “She’s way too smart for that.”
Emma rolls her eyes, “Heavens above. The man has a heart.”
“I didn’t think it would be this hard to lie to these people.” I wait for Emma’s caustic remark, but to my surprise, she is silent. She hands me the paperwork instead.
“This could be the making of you, Brandon,” she says, sashaying towards the door and giving me a backward glance.
I stop rolling the paperweight and look up at her.
“Are you playing with her heart, Brandon?”
“No way in hell.” The way I say it seems to convince her.
“You have a ten o’clock meeting with Frontier Group, and lunch with the people from Delanque.”
I groan. A busy day isn’t what I need. Splitting my time between two places is starting to make my head spin. I’ve managed well so far, but today I have no interest in meeting with the movers and shakers of the corporate world. I don’t care about new deals and mergers.
My head isn’t in the right place. I’m in danger of turning soft. I feel bad when I say things to Kyra that are deliberately wrong.
Things that aren’t in her best interest.
She’s adamant that the factory is in a good state, but a falling chunk of plaster could have killed her or someone else. Water pooling on the roof after a storm shouldn’t cause such problems. She knows Greenways is up and coming, even though she has no clue of the vast amounts I intend to make from it, but she has a sixth sense about things.
I get through the day, but my head is at Redhill. I’m fighting to contain my feelings for Kyra, and maybe seeing Jessica tonight will remind me of the taste I have in women.
“I’m still going to drive them out.” I smile at her, even though the smile doesn’t come from the heart. Emma winces as she closes the door and I contemplate the state of events.
My project is going slower than planned. These things take time to get moving. Neville thinks I’m not being very business-like about it. He thinks I should force my way in. This is also what my father would say, but thankfully I don’t need to involve him in the minutiae of such detail. The poor old man needs to recover and not worry about his empire. I’m going to take care of it.
Me.
What a strange twist of fate that someone like me ended up like this. That I rose to such heights when life was so cruelly stacked against me.
Kyra, Simona and Fredrich, the ‘supposed’ management team, aren’t the type of people I would count as my friends. The people working there, the broken people with sad stories about their broken pasts, they would normally be invisible to me. Their world and mine shouldn’t intersect.
And yet in a weird way, it does. During my few days there, I am forced to face things I would rather pretend weren’t there. It’s changing me and making me feel bad about my intentions. Its churning out the very things I’ve tried so hard to hide and push away.
It’s Yvette I need to stay away from the most. That skinny slip of a woman, with the years’ old face, she reminds me of too much. Walking around the factory floor, I get talking to these people and against my better judgment, I find myself being reeled into their lives.
I’ve tried to put my feelings and emotions away. Hell, I didn’t have any going in. I didn’t care. But now I have started to, and it’s messing with my head.
Those goddamn food nights were the first line of my defense to break down. Week upon week of seeing those people—poor and hungry, with defeated looks in their eyes—people grateful to receive a hot meal.
Over time, it’s hard to see that and not be affected.