| |
BEFORE ALEX LEFT, I asked him to send in Blackwell.
“You should rest,” he said.
“I’m fine. I just need to ask her a few questions.”
“About Wenn?”
“That, and a few other things. I won’t be long with her. I’ll get my rest.”
“I know you better than that.”
“Rest comes in all sorts of forms,” I said.
“I don’t need you worrying about Wenn.”
“And I’m telling you that’s not an option. How can it be? I need to focus on something, Alex, or else I’m going to go crazy. Please try to understand. I’m doing my best to deal with our loss the only way I know how.”
“And that’s to fight?”
“For something that deserves to be fought for, yes. God can’t take both of them away from us. I won’t let Him.”
Beside me, the monitors started to beep faster. I saw Alex shoot them a worried look and then, perhaps sensing it was best to just send in Blackwell, he looked at me with a deep well of concern before telling me that he loved me and stepping out of the room.
When he left, I put my face in my hands and took a breath in an effort to calm my nerves. But it didn’t work. I was too overwhelmed, too upset, too physically drained to calm emotions that were already fried. I wanted to cry again for the loss of our child. I wanted to throw something across the room because, on the island, there really was a part of me that thought our baby might have made it. But right now, there was another part of me that felt like a fool for believing that a fetus so young in its development could have survived that crash. Hope is a powerful elixir, and what do any of us have but hope when everything around us looks so bleak?
When Blackwell entered the room, she wasn’t alone—she was with a nurse, who came to my bedside while Blackwell hung back.
“How are you feeling, Mrs. Wenn?” she said. “Are you in any pain?”
“No,” I said, not wanting any more drugs because I wanted to remain alert. “I’m actually feeling fine.”
I saw her glance up at the monitors, which were still beeping furiously—and thus giving me away.
“I’m just upset,” I said. “You can understand why.”
“Of course,” the woman said. “Perhaps you’d like something for your anxiety.”
“I’ll calm down,” I said. “My husband was just here. We talked about the loss and we both became upset—that’s all. But thank you.”
“You can have food soon,” she said. “Pretty much just liquids at this point, so there’s not much to choose from. But I’ll leave the menu with you, and you can alert me when it’s filled out. You must be hungry at this point.”
“More thirsty than anything. Is it safe to have water now?”
“It is. Let me get you some.”
“That would be perfect. But would you give Barbara and me thirty minutes first? I’d like to speak to her in private, if that’s OK?”
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes with some water,” the woman said, and after leaving me the menu and writing down my vital signs, she was off.
“Well,” Blackwell said when the door shut behind her. “Brava.”
“What does that mean?” I said, looking at her as she crossed the distance between us.
“The performance you just gave, of course. Award-worthy. Who knew you had that in you? I always saw you as a rough-and-tumble sort of girl, to be honest. Hardly the wolf in sheep’s clothing I just witnessed.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, so don’t lie. You’re in pain—physically and emotionally—but you just showed her none of it on purpose. And truth be told, in the process, you also just blew one hell of an opportunity. That woman would have given you a Xanax as big as your ass if you’d asked her for one—not that you could have swallowed a pill that big. But no, no—you eschewed it. You tossed away the opportunity as if these moments just come to one easily. So naturally, I’m curious, because who on Earth ever gives up the X when it’s within arm’s reach? Not anyone I know.”
“Well, you just met her then.”
She sat down next to me, and fingered her hair out of her face. “So I have. Alex said that you wanted to see me. He looked shaken. Any idea why?”
I told her about our conversation.
“I’m a mess,” I said. “I don’t even recognize myself. I came on too strong toward the end, and I regret that. My emotions are everywhere at this point. I just feel as if I need an outlet, Barbara, and for me, Wenn is it.”
“You’re both going through a lot,” she said. “And actually, I can see each point of view. The pain of your miscarriage is too great. What you suggested to him was psychologically sound. You think that by throwing yourself at Wenn you can distract yourself from the pain. And who can blame you for wanting to? On paper, it sounds logical, even though it will only serve as a distraction until any problems at Wenn are fixed. After that, your focus will return to your child and linger there until you fully face and absorb your loss. As for Alex, he’s more worried about you right now than he is about Wenn. I’m not even sure if he gives a damn about Wenn after what happened to you and to the baby.”
“That’s who he is, and I love him for it. All you need to do is look at him to see how upset he is. Do you have any idea how much that kills me? That’s why I thought we could band together and fight for Wenn if we have to.”
“What you need to understand, my dear, is that Alex might not want that. We all grieve in different ways.”
“When you lost your child, what’s the first thing you did?”
She lifted her chin at that, and I could see in her eyes that she knew where I was about to take this. “You already know the answer, because you know me. Naturally, I went straight back to work. I threw myself into it.”
“So, you see?”
“To a point, I do. But I was alone in my grief, Jennifer. Charles knew nothing about the pregnancy. He didn’t go through the thrill of finding out that we were pregnant as I had. I cheated him of that—or perhaps I saved him from it, depending on how you look at it. Because I miscarried before telling Charles, our lives were able to go on normally until we decided it was time to have children. After that, things were good for years before that son of a bitch cheated on me. But here’s where our situation differs—Alex has gone through the highs of your pregnancy from the start, and also the lows of not knowing whether you’d lost the child after the crash. So, you see, it is different. You want to fight for Wenn because you believe that it can distract you from the pain. And I won’t lie to you—for a while, it probably will. It’s been said that our work saves us. There’s truth to that, and I’m here to tell you that I know it for a fact. But I’m also here to tell you that prolonging the grieving process comes at a steep cost. What you won’t deal with now you’ll only have to deal with later—and what good is that for either of you?”
“Won’t the blow be softened by then?”
“The shock of your loss will be gone, of course, but not the blow. Either way, you’re still going to have to face the full weight of it at some point.” She glanced away from me. “I’m just not sure if that point is now.”
“What does that mean?”
“You really should rest.”
“And if you know something that pertains to me, I really should be told what that is.”
“We both know that while I left you alone with your husband, I wasn’t exactly sitting on my ass.”
“I know you weren’t. You already know something about Wenn. So, what do you know?”
“Nothing good.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is. Stephen Rowe is now CEO and chairman of the board.”
“You mean, interim CEO...”
“I wish that’s what I meant. Ten days after we went missing, it was largely assumed by the public that all of us had perished in the crash. Our stock was all over the map. Without Alex as Wenn’s frontman, stockholders pressured Wenn into electing a new CEO and chairman of the board to right the ship. From what I understand from my conversation with Ann, a meeting was held, Rowe lobbied hard for both jobs, and he got them. Your husband no longer runs Wenn, Jennifer. Stephen Rowe does.”
“You can’t be serious...”
“I’m afraid that I am.”
“But Alex has controlling shares.”
“Your husband was considered dead. And not just by the public and the board. On the morning of that tenth day, authorities held a press conference and went on record to say that it was unlikely that any of us had survived. It was that statement that launched everything into motion. That’s when the board had no choice but to do what they did.”
“But Alex is alive. The world knows that now. Certainly, this can be reversed.”
“Under these circumstances, that might be more difficult than it sounds.”
“Why?”
“Every company controlled by a board has its bylaws. Wenn’s bylaws are clear. If the CEO is not fit to complete his or her duties, then a new CEO shall be elected. Same goes for chairman of the board. The presumption of death allowed the board the lawful right to go to a vote, which they did. Now, with the knowledge that Alex is alive and well, everything has just been tossed into the murk. Could Alex fight this? Of course he could—and should. The good news is that because he has controlling shares, he’ll still have a seat on the board. But here’s the thing, Jennifer—it would be up to the rest of the board to consider the circumstances at hand, and decide if another vote should take place. They could vote Alex back into his former positions, or they might decide, that in the wake of the SlimPhone overreaction, that Stephen Rowe is the jolt of new blood that investors need to believe in Wenn again. Ultimately, it’s up to the board, through which your husband has one vote.”
“The chairman of the board is an invisible title. If it hadn’t gone to Rowe, I’m not even sure if Alex would care that he lost it at all. But the CEO is the public face of the company, and having Rowe as the face of Wenn is something Alex won’t stand for. Look,” I said. “What about the information I have on Rowe? Certainly the board wouldn’t want a personal scandal to hit Wenn’s new CEO and chairman of the board while the company remains under such pressure.”
“I would imagine that they wouldn’t. But what do you have on Rowe that’s concrete?”
“Nothing yet, although he believes that I have photographs.”
“And if he calls your bluff? What will you do then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need to know.”
“What stymies me is that he had the balls to take those jobs even when he thought that I had the goods to crush him.”
“He thought that we were dead. What did he have to lose? Presumably, whatever he thought you had on him died with you.”
“And yet here I sit, quite alive.” I nodded toward the door. “I think you’d better get Tank,” I said. “In fact, before we lose more time, I think you should get him right now.”
