He was determined to change things. Simon Kent was not one to stand idly by and let others get the upper hand. There wasn’t anything that went on in this building Kent didn’t know about. Well, after this afternoon, he had to admit there wasn’t much that went on he didn’t know about.
Kent slammed his fist on his desk thinking about it. He had been at HRT a long time. He deserved better than this and, by God, he was going to get it. He’d crushed worthier opponents before than Ian Justyn. Simon Kent was a gladiator, and no one could defeat him.
The man knew when to strike, knew when to out maneuver and knew when to sit back and watch an opponent kill himself. Kent had laid low long enough. He had bided his time waiting for Jack Tolan’s position and he was going to get it. This network was his. No one was taking it from him, especially an upstart who had just crawled out from under some mountain crag.
Simon took a deep breath, and walked to the window of his office, third from the top. “Just one more floor.” He thought out loud and paced. He tossed people a lot more talented than Justyn under the bus before. Why did this little gnat keep escaping the tire tread?
What did Ian Justyn have that kept allowing him to one up him? Granted he was younger, and Kent had to admit, more talented. Talent never had anything to do with it otherwise Kent himself would have never lasted. Hell, most of the people in this town wouldn’t have made it if the game was based on talent.
This was corporate “Survivor”—out play, out wit, out last. Kent was a genius at this game. He’d dedicated his life to it, to this network for over thirty years. He’d stolen the recipe, stirred the pot and served up revenge long before that brother and sister got together and procreated Ian Justyn.
Obviously, he had underestimated him. Somehow the little rat had gotten in some pretty good bites. Kent knew the tables had turned and it was his clock that was now ticking. There wasn’t much time left. The boy had dazzled them all, but he hadn’t fooled Kent.
“Yes.” Simon smiled. Justyn thought he was down for the count. What a better time to cut him off at the knees? If he could just keep himself in the game until it was obvious that the Hunka Hunka HRT was little more than a forgettable wet dream.
He looked at the memo of the new Fall Schedule. Kent curled up his lips as he looked over all the Justyn had managed to get behind everyone’s backs. He wished he’d thought of it first. It was all ridiculous.
It was a simple matter of hanging on until the fall. Moving the highest rated show to Saturday night? Ha! And that pulpy science fiction thing as a soap in late afternoon? Simon laughed out loud. As soon as the ratings dive bombed, Justyn would be toast and the board would come snacking on his hors d’oeuvre again.
“Well…” Kent ogled his reflection in the window. “The brat thinks the war is over. What better time to sneak up behind him and show him exactly who Ceasar is.”
“Fine.” Lance Crawford tossed the last of his desk into a cardboard box. “If that’s the way they want it. That’s the way they get it.”
So he was being demoted and put down on the first floor. He really didn’t like this job in the first place. It was all just a stepping stone.
He picked up his box and headed to the elevator. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for that idiot Simon Kent. “I should have known better.” He said as the elevator doors shut. He pushed the first floor button.
Kent spent so much time trying to knock Justyn off his rung on the ladder we all fell off. But you couldn’t tell that prissy little flit anything. If he’d have just let Justyn alone, none of this would have happened. Kent practically paved the yellow brick road Justyn was now dancing on with his rag tag team.
Crawford smiled as he leaned against the car wall. “They may think they’ve almost made it to the Land of Oz.” He thought. “But surprise Dorothy, Kent was just the wicked witch.”
The doors opened and Crawford made his way to his new, smaller office. “Wait til’ he gets a load of the man behind the curtain.”
The perfectly coiffed woman on the screen smiled into the camera. “The golden boy strikes again.”
“A legend mixes it up with TV’s number one boy toy,” Her equally plastic co-host said.
“And those aren’t even the headlines on today’s Showbiz Now!” An announcer proclaimed as the iconic theme song kicked off the graphics.
Clare grabbed the clicker and started changing channels. “Doesn’t this town know there’s something else going on in the world besides themselves?”
She gave up and reached for the French pastry by her bedside. “Mmmm, gotta love Napoleon.” She sighed licking chocolate and cream off her lips. She leaned back on her pillows and savored every bite.
“We turn now to our analyst Reed Harlowe…Reed, thanks for being with us today.”
“Thank you, Montana, it always good to be here.”
“So what’s your take on the bold moves over at HRT?”
Clare rolled her eyes, but realized she had no choice. She sighed and stuffed her mouth full again.
“For years the network seemed to be out of the race, languishing further and further behind. After seeming complacent for the bottom of the heap, suddenly HRT is making the world sit up and take notice.”
“Ratings have been inching up, most attributing the small spike to new cover boy Ian Justyn.” Montana added.
“True.” Reed agreed. “But the industry as a whole paid little attention, knowing a charismatic headline maker does not a network make, but HRT and Justyn seem to be out to prove they are not only in the game, but taking back the kingdom they created.”
“Go, Ian!” Clare pumped her fist in the air. “Whoop! Whoop!”
“What’s the run down Reed?”
“Nothing is official yet, but insider’s say that Justyn pulled off several coups that have the other networks trembling. First and foremost, the Hunka Hunka HRT secured the rights to all three books in the “Blood Kisses” trilogy, so hot every studio in town has been gunning for the properties since the first book topped the best seller list six years ago.”
“Any word as to what they plan to do with it?” Montana asked, reading from the teleprompter.
“Rumors are running the gamut, but no definite word. As usual, “Blood Kisses” author Amanda Jackson isn’t any where to be found, but her camp confirmed that a deal with HRT has been made.”
“Why HRT, Reed?”
“Two words.” Reed looked at Montana. “Ian Justyn.”
“Whoop! Whoop!” Clare said. “Bring home the bacon, baby!”
“Justyn is proving himself to be more than just a Hunka Hunka HRT not only capturing the prize “Blood Kisses” flag, but also snagging new free agent and television’s hottest sex symbol Jeff Torkelson for a series starting this fall.”
“Quite a score for someone ABC’s president recently scoffed was a pretty little flash in the pan no one would remember by fall.”
“And what a score it is Montana, our insiders tell us that apparently Torkelson is only half the package. Comedy icon Tess Sinclair is coming out of retirement to co-star in the series said to already be guaranteed a full season.”
“Who the hell is Tess Sinclair?” Clare turned up her nose.
“HRT will formally announce the series, and most likely intentions for “Blood Kisses” at a formal press conference unveiling their fall line up next week.” Montana confirmed.
“We’ll have to wait until fall to see if the power moves add up to big ratings, but the rumors themselves have already sent the other networks scrambling.” Reed looked back to the camera. “It would seem that HRT do nothing else to keep the town from buzzing more about them, but they have one more shocking secret slipping out.”
“What else could they do?” Montana feigned excited shock.
“Once again, nothing has been confirmed, but we have it on good authority that VP Jack Tolan has been let go.”
“Hasn’t Tolan headed up the television division since the mid 80’s?”
“Tolan has been with the company all through its golden age, stepping into the top spot when the network seemed unstoppable, but the big hits stopped coming. In the era of cable and pay network HRT is forging a new direction and obviously feel Tolan is no longer the man to guide it.”
“Any idea who’ll be taking over?”
“For the time being David Turner, the man who built the network from the ground up will be taking over the reins.”
“And Ian Justyn?”
“Yeah, what about my Ian?” Clare said sucking the sticky off her fingers.
“Justyn is said to be moving up quickly, assuming the title Director of Development and Promotion, a position newly created just for him. Our insider says the position is a thinly veiled prize to keep Justyn from jumping ship while he’s being groomed to take over the reins of the network.”
“So if his moves turn into rating’s success…” Montana encouraged.
“By this time next year, HRT will hand him the keys to the kingdom.” Reed finished.
“Remember you heard it here first on “Showbiz Now”. In other news…”
“Oh yeah!” Clare sighed. She looked around her. “Make lots and lots of money, Ian ‘cause when the time is right, Mama’s gonna get it all.”
Clare stuck her tongue out at the TV and laughed. She reached for another Napoleon and chowed down.
“Dave?” Simon Kent poked his head in the door and smiled. “You have a moment?”
David Turner hid the scowl on his face as best he could. “Sure. Sit down.”
Kent delicately shut the door behind him and sat down in the chair across from Turner. He folded his hands in his lap and made himself comfortable. He sighed, then smiled. “I understand.”
Turner looked up from his paperwork. “Understand what?”
“Our time has come.” Simon released his hands and put them on the chair arms. “I step aside.”
“You’re resigning?”
“All I ask is that I am allowed to stay for the remainder of my contract.” Kent looked down. “I dedicated my life to this network, to you, so please, let me leave with a little dignity.”
“That’s pretty much up to you, Kent, but personally you let the dignity ship sail away a long time ago.”
Simon nodded his head.
“Well, is that it?” Turner asked pointedly.
“Yes. I won’t waste any more of your time.” Kent stood up.
“You should have thought about that years ago, too.”
Simon Kent struggled to keep his anger in check. “May I say something to you, friend to friend?”
“Kent, we’ve never been friends.” Turner put his pen down and his glasses on the paperwork. “But if you have something to say, I have enough respect for your time to listen.”
The rotund little man nodded and stepped to the desk. He seemed to be thinking precisely about his words. “He’ll break your heart.”
“Excuse me?” Turner scoffed.
“You know what I’m talking about, Dave. We’ve all seen it before. Ian Justyn is just another in a much too long series of handsome young men you’ve attached yourself to, young men that you’ve mentored and staked your reputation, this company’s reputation on. Everyone has failed, Dave. This one will, too.”
Turner harumphed and picked his glasses back up.
“I won’t say I told you so when it happens, but I hope you’ll remember that I warned you in time and that once again you didn’t listen.”
“Oh, I’m listening Kent.” Dave peered over the top of his glasses. “I hear every word you’ve said.”
“And you will still let this boy railroad you, taking this network further down the drain. It can’t take much more, Dave. I dare say, this is the last hurrah.” Kent nodded his head and turned to go.
Turner let him get all the way to the door. “Wait a minute, Kent.”
David tossed his glasses back on the desk and waited for the man to turn around. He motioned for him to take his seat again.
“You’ve made sure I understand, Simon. Now I want to make sure you understand.” Turner stood up and went over to the bar. “Scotch?”
“Thank you.” Kent smiled, but didn’t dare move from his chair.
“You seem to be under the impression that I’m not aware of the state of my own company.” He poured two stiff ones, and handed one to Kent.
“Oh, I didn’t say that.” He said as he accepted the drink.
“You may not have come right out and said it, but you danced all around it and pointed at it with your twinkle toes.”
Kent scowled at him as they saluted each other with their glasses and took a drink. “Dave you are constantly misjudging…”
“Simon, I’m trying to be nice here, so do us both a favor and shut the hell up.”
Kent’s eyes popped and David Turner continued. “Just because I’ve out lived everyone in this town doesn’t mean I’m senile. Granted, I probably haven’t got that many good years ahead of me. If I’ve got a year at all.”
“Oh, don’t give me that, nonsense.” Simon said. “You’ll out live us all.”
“I’m 94 years old. One good sniffle and I’ll be hooked up to more wires than a Muppet, but I’ll be damned if I’ll out live this company. I’ve stood back and played the old man too long. Look what’s it’s gotten me.”
“You should be proud.”
“I would be, if the damn thing could survive without me. Ninety Four years, Kent and the only thing I’ve got to show for it is a case of tarnished foo foo and once great conglomerate I had absolutely no intention of building in the first place. That’s my legacy in this world Kent, feel good crap with my name on it and a barely breathing mistake.”
“If that’s how you truly feel, Dave. Then maybe it is time you do just sit back and let it die, or hand it over to people who still believe in it, people who deserve it.” Kent sat his empty glass down with just a little too much English.
“You?” Turner smirked.
Kent shrugged his shoulders.
“You don’t believe in this company, Kent. You’ve just been floating through contract cycles, thinking eventually you’ll be in control long enough to suck it dry.”
“How can you say that, Dave?” Simon looked hurt. “After all the years I’ve put in?”
“Oh, tuck your bottom lip back in. No one’s looking and no one sure as hell is buying.” Dave handed Simon his glass. “Pour us another.”
Kent poured them both another drink, bringing the bottle back with him and put it on the desk. “You’re all put kicking my ass out the door, Dave. You can’t blame me for trying.”
“Simon, face it, you’re kicking your own ass out the door.”
Kent looked Turner in the eye. “Ian Justyn is a slick player, and he’s been using your crush on him to take this whole company for a ride.”
Turner laughed, out loud.
“I’ve seen you do this before, Dave.” Kent tried to say calmly and firmly.
“And I’ve seen you have the same knee jerk reaction to every kid that came along for over thirty years now. Any one who has ever managed to take the focus off you for more than two seconds is automatically a threat.”
“They’ve all come after me, because they know I’m the one that has to go down for them to go up.”
“You are the only one who ever believed that.” Turner leaned in close. “Do you know why you are even still here?”
“Because I’ve been able to give this network product the audience wants for thirty years.” Kent said smugly.
“Simon, the product you’ve turned out as a whole has lower demographics than dead air. You are still here because quite frankly, I enjoy sitting behind my desk and watching you try and kill off your misguided perception of the competition. I kept thinking that one day you’d use that keen killer instinct and come up with something good or at least get smart enough to join forces with someone who had talent.”
“I’m insulted.”
“No you’re not.” Dave freshened up their glasses. “You really don’t give a shit what people say or think or you’d have crawled back under your rock years ago.”
“I managed to get rid of a lot of losers for you.”
“And you chased off a lot more that we needed. I should have just fired your butt years ago.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Frankly, I’ve been waiting.”
“For what?”
“For the right one. Simon you haven’t got the ability to make great television, but you do have an annoying capability to inadvertently create a great fighter. That’s what this company needs, a great fighter who can also create good television. We’re out of time. You are too much of a liability now and my pre-burial plan is all paid up.”
“You’re putting it all on Justyn?”
“Why not? He’s kicked your ass in every direction but out of the closet. You’ve squeezed that kid until I thought his head would pop off, and damn if it didn’t explode in all the right colors. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
“You think I created that monster?”
Turner knocked back his drink. “Face it, you couldn’t create diarrhea with a dozen babies and a vial of black plague.” He sat back and smiled. “But you did force a young man to fight for his life, and instead of focusing it on you, he focused it on the company. He did what you could have done all along, but didn’t think you had to.”
“So you are just going to hand him the keys to the car and let him drive off into the sunset?”
“How stupid do you think I am, Kent? I’m going to give the kid a chance, but I’m not letting anyone drive my car again. Look what happened when I did.”
“I’ll admit, he’s made an impressive first impression, but I doubt you’ll see anything else. Too much luck involved, nobody’s can keep that streak going.”
Dave shook his head. “If you knew anything about that boy, Kent. You’d have an entirely different opinion.”
“I know he’s a hillbilly with a sob story, boo hoo. Unlike most people in the building, I don’t let little things like that color my vision.”
Turner stood. “And that’s exactly why you were allowed to hang around for thirty years instead of making us fight to keep you here.”
Kent matched his stance. “You are so wrong, Turner.”
“It really doesn’t matter. You are welcome to stay until you’re contract runs out, but you so much as belch without saying excuse me…”
Simon Kent put up his hands to interrupt. “I understand, I’ve been warned. Play nice and at least I get to leave the sandbox without a black eye.”
“I’m doing what I think I have to do.” David Turner reached out his hand.
Kent took it and shook. “Me, too.” He said and closed David Turner’s door behind him. He leaned against the closed door. “Me, too.” He smiled and went on his merry way.
He was finally asleep. Ian found himself just sitting by the boy’s bedside a lot, just watching him breathe. He seemed to be doing fine, but Ian knew how easy it was to convince people of that. Ian pulled the comforter up around Ronnie’s shoulders and kissed his forehead. He double-checked to make sure the cat was curled up with him and shut the bedroom door.
The doctors assured Ian that Ronnie was doing well. Examinations and private sessions had led to the conclusion that the sexual abuse had not been re-current. Other than the one trauma, Ronnie had a happy, healthy childhood. When the doctors told Ian that, he burst into tears of relief.
It had been hard enough for Ian to live with himself knowing he’d given his son away. The thought that he’d condemned him to a childhood of perverted abuse would have been more than he could have handled. He’d already lived it. Having had his son repeat history would have broken him completely.
But why just then? Why would Kyle Osbourne suddenly, for no apparent reason, turn like that? Especially knowing that he could be caught at any moment? It didn’t make sense. Was it Ian’s sudden presence?
Ian couldn’t shake the questions out of his head, and it was really the last thing he needed to concentrate on. Maybe he should call Sparky, and get her to do a little private investigating for him. Then maybe he could lose the feeling there was something he was missing and concentrate solely on his son.
His son. He still wasn’t used to even letting himself think that. He was a father now, and not just in his head, in his heart. It was a physical fact.
Ronnie would come pouncing on his bed at the crack of dawn. He’d smile and chat and giggle all through breakfast, kiss and hug him before he went to work and be a subconscious vision of comfort knowing that when he opened up the door at night, Ronnie would still be there, the word “Papa” falling constantly from his lips.
But Ian knew Ronnie had a secret. Ian kept so many, he knew when someone had one they couldn’t bear to share. Ronnie, for lack of a better term, hadn’t landed yet. He was faking it well.
They’d made it easy; a big house, lots of people spinning around him distracting him with a brand new happy life. Ronnie hadn’t had a chance to be sad. He hadn’t mourned. He went straight from terror to peace, with no natural progression.
There was nothing left of what he lost to help him. The child had nothing left of it, but that stupid cat and a pair of underpants. The rest had gone up in smoke or was blown to tiny unrecognizable fragments.
Ian hoped that when Reese arrived tomorrow, they had found a few things, even if just trinkets. He knew how important that was for a man who was once a child who had nothing, not even love. Ian knew it was essential to a child who had had it all simply because he was loved and then had it all go kaboom.
He chided himself. He had to stop thinking that he was never loved as a child. He’d had a session with a doctor himself. He didn’t know that it was going to open the door to eternal ya ya, but it would, if nothing else, make him feel like he was trying.
It wasn’t fair to say he had never been loved. There was Taylor, Taylor with whom he made that beautiful, perfect little energy ball finally unplugged for the night in his room. There was Jude, the man who made him feel safe, encouraged him and made sure he knew that there was more to life than kicks in the stomach, taunts from bullies and trembling in fear.
And Aunt Hil…Ian smiled sadly. Hilary Johnston, the one person in the world that made him live, sometimes even if it was just a good swift lick in the rump. Whether it was making sure he could feed himself, to making sure the bones weren’t broken and the cuts didn’t get infected, to grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him until he took a breath, ready to fight again.
She was gone. It hurt in so many ways. Much like Ronnie, he had gone from burying the woman who kept him struggling to breathe to being a father with no natural progression. He needed her now, more than ever. How was he going to be able to do this without her? Who was going to lovingly knock the fight back into him when he was ready to give up?
The irony of it all wasn’t wasted on him. He’d begged for so long for his past to disappear. Now that he buried it with Hilary Johnston, he wasn’t sure how to even get through the day. It made him want to laugh until he choked to death with tears.
“Hey, Baby Doll.” Tippy said quietly.
Ian was suddenly found himself sitting on the balcony staring at the stars.
“Didn’t mean to startle you. I saw you sitting there and thought I’d just sit with you a while. Is that okay?”
Ian nodded his head and started to put out his cigarette. Tippy grabbed his hand. “Go ahead.”
He smiled. “I thought you went home.”
“I did.”
“You forget something?”
She shook her head. “Just checking on ya.”
“Ronnie’s fine, sleeping away.”
“I know, darlin’.” Tippy smiled, then took his hand and held it. “He’s not the only boy in the world that needs some one to peek in on him once and a while.”
She turned and looked at the same stars Ian was looking at. She looked at the sky and squeezed his hand, just let to him know the tears now falling silently down his face were all part of the natural progression.
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