Chapter 9: A Way Through the Minefield

July 11, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“You’re still up?” I said to Elyse who was sitting on the couch in the great room. “Good.”

“Uh-oh,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I need to tell you something and get your opinion, and it’s better I do it before I talk to Jessica and Kara in the morning.”

“It’s nearly 1:00am!” she protested.

“I know. But honestly, I can sleep in if I need to, and so can you. There’s no breakfast or Guys’ and Girls’ Nights because we had the back-to-back parties last week, plus Albert’s and Stephie’s birthdays. What time did my wives go to bed?”

“Around 11:30pm. They were waiting up for you but eventually were too tired.”

“I should have called,” I said. “But Samantha and I talked until just after midnight.”

“Talked? As in words coming out of your mouths? Or body language?”

“Talked. I didn’t even kiss her goodnight, for good reason.”

“Sauna or ‘Indian’ room?” Elyse asked.

“It’ll take longer than a sauna,” I said.

“Sauna and hot tub?” she grinned.

“If you behave. We need to talk, not fool around.”

She nodded and we went to the basement, keeping quiet so as not to disturb Michelle. Fortunately, she’d taken the room closer to the stairs than to the sauna, so it was less likely that our conversation would wake her up.

“What’s up? Obviously she had some things to say that kept you from leaving. It must have been pretty compelling given what you thought happened.”

“Oh that happened, but in the end, that was nothing. As I told all of you during our vacation, I could forgive her being with another guy after what had happened, so long as she’d been truthful otherwise.”

“So she did sleep with someone in Monaco?”

I nodded, “Yes. Once. And hated it. But that’s getting ahead of the story. Let me tell you what happened.”

I told her about the conversation with Noel Spurgeon, and then the revelations about Lisa. None of that surprised Elyse, and conformed to what she had known or surmised. I skipped over the part about Jeri because I knew that’s where the issues would come, and took Elyse through Samantha’s story.

“And you believe that?”

“I do. Everything fits. It all lines up. And so does the part I skipped.”

“Skipped? Why?”

“Because you’re going to have the same reaction that I did.”

“Why do I think this is going to be really, really bad?”

“Because it is. It’s what I thought about the whole way home. The other stuff I told you really is just High School drama, only quite a few of the players are older than kids would be in High School. And as Samantha pointed out, I have a lot in common with her dad. Fortunately, I have people who rein me in. He doesn’t.”

“OK. I still have some questions about Samantha, but what’s the bad part?”

“Jeri,” I said flatly.

“Jeri?” Elyse asked, her face showing a mix of surprise and concern.

“Jeri. Barney didn’t mess up the reservation at the InterContinental. Jeri changed it.”

“What the fuck?” Elyse gasped.

“And she wasn’t a virgin.”

“Then what the hell was that all about?”

“Getting me to do something I would never have done without her orchestrations. Join the Board of the Lundgren Foundation.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“No. And, Elyse, Jeri lost her virginity in Monaco. When she was eighteen.”

“She swore she’d never been out of Chicago! That lying little bitch! I assume we’re terminating her first thing Monday morning?”

“That was my first reaction as well.”

“Uh-oh. That means you’ve had a second reaction. Forget it! She HAS to go. If she manipulated you with sex to get control of you, who knows what she’ll do next?!”

“I thought about that, too. Samantha made a good argument to not do anything rash.”

“Oh now THIS I have to hear. Your lying little teenage lover spinning yarns for you!”

“Elyse, of all the people involved here, she’s the only one who I am reasonably certain DIDN’T lie!”

“You told me you were suspicious about Samantha’s past after Lisa told you that stuff. And come on, be serious. Seventeen-year-old virgins don’t usually wiggle their butt at you after agreeing to anal sex immediately after having their cherry popped!”

I nodded, “All things being equal, I’d agree. But just because she’d never had sex doesn’t mean she’s ignorant. I daresay that Michelle knows quite a bit about sex. As she puts it, ‘Pure, not ignorant’. And Samantha had access to something I don’t think Michelle ever even THOUGHT about, let alone did. A collection of videotapes.”

“She watched porn?” Elyse laughed.

“She once told me her dad had a huge collection of VHS tapes. Most of it was mainstream movies, but a good chunk of it was porn, apparently. I’m not sure how much she watched, really.”

And that included something I could never reveal that I’d wished Samantha hadn’t revealed to me. Tapes her father had made of some of her friends. Personally, I couldn’t fathom watching my dad have sex with anyone, and certainly not my mom. But Samantha admitted to watching two of those tapes in shock and horror, then resolving never to look at them again. I probably would have thrown up.

“I suppose I could see that.”

“Also, you know from my journals what Tasha wanted. And she wasn’t the only one. My sister’s friend Shelly. Becka. Joyce’s sister, Connie.”

“And your sister,” Elyse said flatly.

“Yes. My sister. And while it wasn’t me, I get the picture from you that you were willing to do anything with Sean that first time.”

“He had me in a constant state of orgasm. I’d have done anything. Two guys. Three guys. Girls. Anything. I was out of control, and did everything he asked for. Fortunately he didn’t bring any friends into bed with us.”

“Wow. You’ve never revealed THAT little tidbit before.”

“No, but you knew what happened when I got riled up. It’s why I was so concerned about ever having someone else in the same bed with us. But forget that. I guess it does explain why Samantha knew more than one would expect a virgin to know. But Jeri? Jesus Christ, Steve! You can’t have a girl like that around!”

“I haven’t decided what to do yet. But there are considerations. Some that Samantha raised. Some I thought of on the way home. First, as Samantha rightly pointed out, Jeri hasn’t done anything at all that actually hurt me, except perhaps get me on the Foundation Board, and even that is debatable.”

“But all the stuff with her mom?”

“Would have happened anyway. So long as Jeri worked for me, her mom would have seen me as the main thing keeping Jeri away from the Foundation. I don’t believe Margaret Lundgren knows I slept with Jeri. If she did, I think things might have been uglier. And if this was some giant conspiracy between Jeri and her mom, then why put me on the board if I’m going to oppose them? No, I think that stuff would have happened whatever the reason I had, or Jeri had, for what happened in LA.”

“But still!”

“I know. But think this through now. If I fire Jeri, I am going to HAVE to give the Board of Directors a reason. She’s integral to the company. I spent two months defending her and insisting we keep her on staff because she was so important. Because she’s the best Windows programmer we have. Now I go back and say, whoops, I slept with her three years ago, and because of that I need to fire her. Just how well do you think THAT will go over?

“I KNOW Illinois is an ‘at will’ state and I can just let her go. But the Board will demand an answer. Lying to them is NOT a reasonable course of action. I know this sounds as if I’m trying to cover my butt here, but I’m not. If I need to confess what happened, so be it, but there’s more to it than just me confessing to the board.

“Karl is on the board. His best friend is Howard Pointe, Jeri’s fiancé. Karl will know I slept with Jeri. Karl will know about the manipulation. Do you think there is any way, any way at all, that he DOESN’T tell Howard? Your best friend’s girl is a manipulative, conniving bitch who seduced her boss and used him. That will wreck things between Howard and Jeri, will probably wreck my friendship with Howard, will upset Jeri, AND likely cause Karl to resign from the board.”

“So a girl who you just described as a manipulative, conniving bitch gets to keep all of her ill-gotten gains?”

“Which are what, exactly? A fiancé who loves her and I’m reasonably certain she loves? A good job which she had before she seduced me. Me on the Board of the Foundation. Of the three, only the last one is really ‘ill gotten’ and despite my complete distaste for it, there is a good reason to stay.”

“What the fuck would that be?”

“Alec Glass. The one bright, shining hope in this entire mess. Well, besides Samantha, though she has her own issues which need to be dealt with.”

“What do you care about Lisa’s dad?”

“What do I care about a man with integrity? An honest man? A man who keeps his word and is faithful to his wife? And did a business deal with me which was mutually beneficial? AND who thinks Margaret Lundgren is a waste of human flesh?”

“OK,” Elyse said with a smile. “So you found an honest man, Diogenes. That’s not sufficient reason to keep her around.”

“There’s another consideration. The Michelle G. Easton Center. It’s funded by the Foundation and could not survive without the funding. And if I make enemies of Jeri and Margaret Lundgren, just what do you think will happen? And by the way, that’s another thing Alec has going for him. He’s the one who suggested hiring Bethany as the director of the Center. I have to consider that as well.”

“No way! No fucking way! Jeri HAS to go.”

“So we dismiss our best programmer, throw NIKA and the Board into complete turmoil, wreck Howard’s relationship, and make enemies of Jeri and Margaret Lundgren? That’s what would happen here. And I guarantee you it WOULD get out, and then what happens when Cèlia or Kajri decides my rules don’t REALLY apply? Or Mikela? There is NO possible upside to firing her. None. Hell, do YOU want to explain it to Ben Jackson? I sure as hell don’t! Or what if Jeri decides to file a sexual harassment lawsuit? THEN what? Think that will go particularly well? Remember, Barney arranged for a room for me and I willingly didn’t use it.”

“God damnit! We CAN’T have her around. Not if she acts that way!”

“And I don’t?” I said gently. “I played that game with Lisa like a professional.”

“But that was defending yourself.”

“Which somehow gives me moral high ground? I don’t think so! Bad behavior is bad behavior. I told you I didn’t like it, and I don’t because people shouldn’t act like that. Ever! Something Samantha said to me that she and I discussed later really sticks out. And that was the comparison she made between me and her dad.”

“What?”

“He has a serious penchant for teenage virgins and a long track record of them eagerly dropping their panties for him. Sound familiar?”

Elyse smirked, “Well, yes.”

“Samantha pointed out the difference between her dad and me is that I’m younger and he has more money. Well, and one other thing that is what has her tied up in knots. I know how to love people. He doesn’t. And that’s what made her feel so bad when she had sex with the guy in Monaco. Maybe he was lousy in bed, but I doubt it. I bet she’s telling the truth. The problem was that he wasn’t me.”

“Wasn’t you?”

“She was just a girl he’d lusted after for years. A warm body to get off with. It turns out, Samantha didn’t like that. She spent the rest of that first week in her room except for meals. The second week she spent time with her mom. She said it was the first time she’d ever felt her mom cared for her. I think part of it was Samantha making the effort, and part of it was her mom seeing how much Samantha was hurting.”

“And her dad?”

“At first, I was a bit pissed about the Jeri thing, but then Samantha pointed out I was just like him. That particular look in the mirror wasn’t enjoyable.”

“So no more teenage virgins for you?” Elyse asked.

I chuckled, “Samantha rightly said that the time will come when I waive my rules because I see something I truly want. I suspect she’s right. But I’m certainly going to be more, well, restrained. I was already moving down that path. If Lisa hadn’t done what she did, I would have turned Jodie down and stuck to my agreement.”

“Are you SURE about that?”

I chuckled, “Yes, actually, I am. As weird as this might sound, I liked the limits.”

“That’s maturity. It’s what you’re teaching the kids - you are free, but there ARE limits. Where those limits are depends on the person and the situation. Rules are good when they serve to guide us, not control us. It’s like the rope barrier at a cliff. You can easily go past it, but it’s there to warn you of danger. A fifty-foot wall would protect you from danger, but would also take away the breathtaking view. You believe in rope barriers, not fifty-foot walls. And the restraint comes from within you, not from the outside.”

“Exactly. And that’s what Lisa, Jeri, and Samantha never learned growing up. Only Samantha has become fully aware of it and needs someone to help her figure things out.”

“You?” Elyse asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Maybe. As a friend. I don’t know that I’ll ever be with her again. It will take time to rebuild our relationship.”

“What does she want?”

I smiled, “She asked me to stay the night, but it was half-hearted because she knew I’d say ‘no’. In fact, deep down, she wanted me to say ‘no’ so that I wasn’t her father. If you get my meaning. It’s like with Bethany after Nick was murdered.”

“So what’s going to happen with Samantha?”

“She’ll come to dinner next weekend if Jessica and Kara agree it’s OK. Samantha knows it won’t be easy, but she wants to try.”

“What she wants is the ‘Steve Adams experience’,” Elyse smirked.

“But not the way you mean it. She wants to be loved. Truly loved.”

“Interesting. But back to Jeri. Damn it! I do NOT like this one bit.”

“You think I do? And riddle me this - what do I tell Jessica and Kara?”

“Oh shit! That’s just as bad, if not worse!”

“Yeah,” I sighed.

I got up and adjusted the sauna controls, and Elyse and I got into the hot tub. I turned on the whirlpool jets and we sat quietly for a few minutes while the water swirled around us.

“You can’t tell them if you’re going to keep Jeri on staff. But you can’t lie to them, either.”

“Two completely contradictory positions both of which must be fulfilled. Now you see my REAL issue.”

“And I’m your sounding board.”

“As always! First, you’ll read all of this in my journal. Second, it affects NIKA. Third, I needed your advice.”

“Hey, genius, if you write it in your Journal, Jessica will read it eventually.”

“Shit,” I sighed.

“And you never lie to your journal and never leave anything except your, uh Italian connections, out of it.”