Homework

Chapter 6:  Beware: Brian at Work


 

Brian

As if dealing with being a full time Daddy and trying to keep the other demanding twat I live with from imploding because we’ve had to fuck everywhere in the house except our own bed wasn’t enough, I’ve spent the week playing fucking catch-up at Kinnetik … I needed to be sure that everyone’s up to speed with all their accounts and, more importantly, that we’re on track with our plans to land the next ones. In advertising it’s not so much that you’re only as good as your last campaign, it’s more like you’re only as good as the one you’ve got planned for next fucking year sometime for a client you haven’t even landed yet.

But things are okay. Ted and Cynthia have worked their asses off, just like I pay them to do. Cynthia has been researching three companies we want to go after – two of them major regional players and the other a National brand. She’s just about ready to work with me on throwing some ideas around and she’s been in contact with all of them, sounding them out and all of them are ready to talk with us sometime in the next month or so. She always was fucking good at the research stuff and since she’s been going after clients herself, it’s given her an even bigger incentive to come up with the goods.

As for Theodore, he’s just saved us a shitload of money and improved our office hardware at the same fucking time.

Sometimes I wonder if Wortthefucker’s or whatever his name was that Ted used to work for was just a complete moron or whether Ted has just grown a whole new set of balls; because he’s fucking brilliant. (Although of course I’d never fucking tell him that.) But what I can do with words and concepts and Justin can do with images, Ted does with figures and logistics. He’s always thinking one step ahead about how we can cut costs without cutting quality and he comes up with amazing deals from all our suppliers. He’s just persuaded the company who provides all our printers and copiers to replace the lot with new state of the art models with no increase in the lease costs, plus they’ll throw in six months’ worth of free printer cartridges for nothing.

In exchange, they get to keep our business and we agree to design them a new logo, put together and run a small campaign in the local press for them and redesign their website; which means we’ll design something, farm the actual coding work out to a couple of college kids and the whole thing will cost us maybe a thousand bucks in staff costs, plus the print run fees which will be minimal (thanks again to Ted’s bargaining powers). For that we save thousands on the printer costs alone plus we get all new equipment which in turn will improve quality and make things run more smoothly.

Of course, they get to make it known that Kinnetik designed their campaign, and with our reputation, that makes it look like they’re doing better than they probably are because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to afford us. And in the way that these things work, that image boost alone will probably bring them more business. So everyone wins.

Like I said, Theodore is a genius at this stuff. And for years he sat working like a human fucking calculator for someone who wouldn’t have recognized any kind of talent even if it bit them on the balls.

Ted was the one who suggested that if Daphne was employed by Kinnetik, we could make sure she got insurance coverage and even paid holidays and shit. In terms of the accounting it’s apparently justified to ensure that key company resources (me) are available when required. Other CEOs claim a company-paid chauffeur as one of their perks, for me it’s a fucking nanny. Christ almighty! If I were still the dickhead who was so paranoid about his fucking reputation that I almost let the best thing that could ever have happened to me walk away rather than actually admit that I wanted him to stay, I’d be crying into my Jim Beam right now.

Moving on … because I needed to put in the hours in the office, there’s been no time to consult with Stephane about when we can expect to get our fucking kitchen back, so I’ve arranged for him to come over today and talk about that, plus starting on the loft renovations to turn it into Justin’s studio. Not to mention whether there’s anything we can do to somehow sound proof the fucking bedroom. Or maybe Gus’s room. Or both.

If little Sunshine can’t get properly fucked in his own bed so he can roll right over and fall asleep drooling on my shoulder, the storm clouds are going to get bigger and bigger and it’s precious little fucking Sunshine any of us will see. Especially me.

He’s held it together this week, and we’ve invited Daphne over today – theoretically to help keep Gus occupied while we’re looking online for shit like a vacuum cleaner that can be used on the fucking stairs and something to do a decent job cleaning all the damned glass in the house. The cleaner I use for the loft is happy to come over here and do this place as well, but I don’t trust them to get the right product. In the loft it didn’t really matter, but here there’s all those fucking glass bricks and I know from bitter experience that if you use the wrong stuff it either doesn’t clean them properly, or it fucking scratches. We were having that problem at Kinnetik till Ted read the cleaning company the riot act.

So we need to research that, and of course, if we sound proof the fucking bedrooms then we’re going to need some kind of monitor in Gus’s room; we need to be able to hear him if he wakes in the night, or has a nightmare or any shit like that. Plus it would be good to have something for when he’s in bed and we’re downstairs. I don’t want him to have to come down those fucking stairs to get us if he wakes up and needs something. So we have to order something to do that job, and we haven’t even started looking for the furniture we’ll need once the kitchen and dining areas are actually fucking finished. Well, I guess Marty can help with that. He’ll probably have ideas about the monitoring system too. I’ll give him a call later.

Anyway, we’re going to be busy dealing with all this shit, and Gus will need someone to keep an eye on him. We could probably manage, but it’s a pretty good excuse to get Daphne here so we can talk to her about spending some time here in the evenings looking after Gus.

Hopefully, she’ll be okay with that, because if not I might seriously have to consider hiring some fucking stranger to help us out.

I don’t mind paying the money – I’m prepared to offer Justin’s girlfriend whatever she needs to cover the rent on her place and whatever else she needs - but I don’t want …

If I leave Gus with Daphne, that feels okay; it’s the same as leaving him with Jenn or Debbie. She’s not a kid, she’s smart - capable of putting both Sunshine and me in our places; she won’t have any trouble dealing with Gus. And anyway we’ll always be just a phone call away. But leaving him with a stranger night after night just so we can go out and play pool or some shit … that … it doesn’t seem right. It just fucking doesn’t. Even if he’s asleep and never really knows we’re gone.
 

*****
 

Justin

I know Brian is nervous about Daph not wanting to take on the job we’ve kind of designed for her, but I think it’ll be okay.

I mean, she knows Gus, and they get on really well. And she knows that most nights he won’t even wake up (totally not like his Dad); once Gus hits the pillow he’s just out to it. So she’ll be able to study here – either in the media room or in Brian’s office if she likes. Plus it will mean that she doesn’t have to worry about trying to find some other loser to share her flat for the next year or so till she finishes this course she’s doing.

It’s not even like we plan to go out every night. Some nights we’ll probably just ring and tell her not to come over. But any time we feel like it, she’ll be here and us going to Woody’s or even Babylon for a couple of hours won’t be a big deal. Brian thinks it will be better for me too, because it means that if I’m kind of in the zone, I won’t feel like I have to stop and come home just to help out with Gus. I’m not sure about that. I think I’ll still want to come home so we can all have dinner together; but then if I feel like going back to my studio and putting in some more work I can do that without feeling bad about abandoning Brian.

The biggest battle will be to get her to take the money, especially what Brian wants to pay her; but he’s insistent that it would cost more than that if we went through an agency because we’d have to pay their fees as well, and then we’d have to leave Gus with a stranger. So I hope she’ll see that she really is doing us a favor. Brian has talked to Ted about it and he’s going to set it up properly, like a real job. That means she’ll have to pay tax, but she’ll be paid enough for that not to be a problem. Ted’s worked out a way to have her employed by Kinnetik, not by Brian directly. Brian will take a small salary cut (well, small to him) to cover the cost of employing someone who can free him up to work the kind of hours he normally would, but can’t when there’s Gus to consider. It doesn’t really make a difference to Brian, except that he might have been able to claim Daph’s wages as a tax write off, but for Daph it means she gets insurance and holidays and all that stuff. Plus she’ll have a formal employment history which always looks good once you start looking for a job, even if it’s not in your field.

Ted’s got everything figured out and once we can get Daph to agree to the details, the paperwork will be pretty much ready and she can hopefully start right away.

We’ve agreed that it will be best for Brian to talk to her about it. If it comes from me she absolutely will just regard it as something she should do to help me out and won’t want to take anything for it. We’re hoping that Brian can kind of make it less personal.

Anyway, when she arrives we’re just finishing breakfast. The workmen are already buzzing around doing whatever they do and Gus is all excited because he’s going to his Grandma’s for a sleepover tonight, so I tell him I’ll help him pack (I suspect we’ll be repacking like ten times today to make sure he’s got everything) and we go upstairs and I hear Brian ask Daph if she can bring her coffee through to his office because there’s something he wants to talk to her about.

I cross my fingers and tell myself to relax and to put my faith in my partner’s ability to sell just about anything to just about anybody.

I only hope Daph’s not going to be the exception.

 

*****
 

Brian

Justin’s little playmate is intrigued when I invite her into the office. She even looks a bit nervous. But I can see her bracing herself to take me on if I try to pull anything she regards as bullshit – especially bullshit that might hurt Justin and once again I remember why I like her so much; why I’m so fucking glad Justin has a friend like this, who really has his back. It’s something I’ve never really known. Well, not till he came along. Now I have him. And funnily enough, I also seem to have Ted. And even Emmett; I have no fucking idea how that happened. But it’s this mini-avenger I have to deal with today.

“Daphne,” I start … then I stop. I know Justin is worried; not that she’s going to refuse to help us out, but that she won’t accept any payment for it. And neither of us would feel right about making such demands on her time if she won’t. I start again. “I’ve got something I need to talk to you about, an offer that I … we’d … like to make. But I need you to hear me out before you say anything.”

She looks fucking confused now, as well as nervous.

I sigh.

“You know how things stand with Gus,” I say. “I’m sure Justin’s told you what the situation is with Lindsay.”

She nods, biting her lip. I smile at her to let her know that I’m okay with that, that it’s fine that he shared that with her.

“Well, it means that we’re the only option Gus has in terms of parenting for the foreseeable future,” I tell her.

She smiles at that. “I know that, Brian. And I think it’s great. I think that you and Jus will be great parents. Much better than he’s had for a while, I think.”

I give a kind of shrug at that. It makes me uncomfortable when people … well, anyway, that’s not the fucking point of this conversation.

“The thing is that neither of us were really prepared for that,” I say. “I’m still working on building Kinnetik and Justin … Justin has this piece to prepare for the Warhol and he’s also got something else coming up in October.”

Her eyes widen at that, so I guess that’s something he hasn’t shared with her. Tough fucking titties. She needs to know, needs to understand how important it is that he isn’t allowed to turn himself into some perfect fucking housewife whose only role is to look after the home and kiddies.

“He hasn’t told anyone yet, because the contract isn’t signed … it will be next week, I hope. But he’s going to have a solo show at a small gallery in New York.”

She starts bouncing around, then. I’m glad she’s happy for him, but this isn’t the time for this shit.

“Yeah, yeah. You can have a fucking squeeing session with him later. But the thing is that he’s going to have to be free to work as much as he needs to; he can’t be quitting early every day to come home and look after Gus.”

I hope I don’t sound as desperate about that thought as I feel. It’s absolutely unbearable to me that having Gus with us might damage Justin’s first big opportunity to really make his mark in the art world. It’s enough to make me start looking for Kinney cliffs. And he fucking knows it too. I know one of the reasons he’s been so wired this week (aside from not being able to fuck comfortably in our own new bed) is that he’s worried I’m going to freak out and do something stupid and self-destructive and just plain fuck-witted. I know I promised him months ago that I wouldn’t do that anymore, that I’d let him make his own choices.

But that was before … before all this shit with Gus happened. He’s my son. I can’t abandon him. I wouldn’t if I could. He’s maybe … somehow … in some fucked up way, he’s my hope that … I don’t know … I can prove all the fuckers wrong maybe. I can prove Jack and Joanie wrong, anyway. Prove that I can be a decent fucking father, that I’m not a total loss as a human being. Some shit like that, anyway.

I push all that fucking introspective shit aside and concentrate on what’s important right now – which is getting Justin’s BFF to this deal we’ve worked out.

Justin called it right, though.

At first his little girlfriend is all “oh, no, I couldn’t take any money for looking after Gus”.

But she comes round when I lay out for her fucking realities of the situation. One – that her best friend is the most pig-headed man on the planet and he is determined that she’s going to get paid; two – given that she’s trying to study and to keep a roof over her head she needs a job where she can pull in a decent income so she doesn’t have to go on living with dickheads which just distracts her from her studies; three - that if she won’t agree we’ll have to approach an agency; and four … the real clincher … how fucking critical it is that Justin gets all the time he needs to paint or to party or whatever the fuck he needs to do to get inspiration and prepare for the Warhol exhibition, at least.

We share a grin over the comment about the stubborn little shit we both love. She finally admits that she can see that it really would be a lot to take on without payment; and that it would be better for Gus that he’s with someone he knows if he wakes up in the night and we’re not there. Hallelujah!

I go through the job outline Justin and I have come up with. She’s adamant that she doesn’t want to get paid for nights when we call and say we don’t need her, but wavers when I point out that she’ll already have put her life on hold to be available those nights, and then demolish any last resistance by telling her that Justin would never call her to cancel at all if he though she’d be losing money on the deal, so everyone would lose.

In the end she agrees to pretty much everything, including coming in to Kinnetik on Monday to sign a contract and then effectively starting work Monday night.

By the time we go out to join Sunshine and Gus every fucking cliché about weights being lifted off shoulders is going through my mind because I feel like I’ve been freed up in some fundamental way and now I’m ready to take on whatever fucking comes. Just knowing that Justin doesn’t have to worry about rushing home every night to make sure I’m coping … that’s like suddenly being able to breathe underwater when before I’d just about been drowning. Might not be out of the deep waters yet, but at least now we’ve got some kind of life raft that should help us survive the fucking floods.

 

*****
 

Justin

I can tell when they finally surface that Daph’s agreed. Brian looks about ten years younger. (Though I don’t plan on telling him that – I value my life … and my sanity.)

We’d already agreed that it was important to get Gus used to having her around, so Daph and I have some milk and cookies with him and start talking about his room and how he hasn’t had time yet to get all his toys just how he likes (seriously, talk about apples and trees!), so they head up to his room so Daphne can help him get his toy storage drawers organized. I push aside thoughts about how scary that is; I guess it’s cute that he’s so much like Brian. But I can’t help wondering how much of it was him being yelled at by his mothers – especially Mel – to keep his stuff tidy.

Well, that’s all over with. He’s here with us now, and he’s going to be fine.

So I head into Brian’s study and find the other Kinney man sorting his files and shit into order. I’m about to ask him if he wants some coffee when Stephane arrives.

So I make coffee for all three of us and we settle down to discuss how everything is progressing and what needs to happen next.

That discussion starts with making sure Stephane knows that we expect the work on the kitchen to be finished by the end of next week and that we need all the other shit done by Memorial Day weekend.

More importantly, it’s what Brian expects, so if Stephane’s anywhere near as smart as he thinks he is …

But he seems to think that both those deadlines are doable. In fact, he indicates that the other work – which includes replacing the side walls around the pool with more glass bricks (including using the same heating for them that they used in the ones at the end of the hallway) can be done in a couple of weeks.

So maybe I can start talking to Emmett about planning a party for Memorial Day weekend.

I’m thinking about that and nearly miss the next bit of the conversation, but my attention crashes back when I hear Brian ask him about sound proofing the bedroom. I mean, I kind of know we talked about it. But I thought it was a joke. Kind of. I mean, seriously, how embarrassing is that, that you have to sound proof your bedroom so you won’t wake up your kid by fucking too loudly? I can feel myself starting to blush, mainly because of the knowing little smirk that Stephane gives me.

Anyway, he just shakes his head at us, like we’ve just asked the most stupid question in the world.

“Did you not read the house specification diagrams?” he asks. (Like any normal person could make any sense out of those things!) “All of the rooms already have acoustic insulation batts installed in both interior and exterior wall and ceiling cavities.”

He sees from our blank looks that we don’t know what he’s talking about.

“They are already sound-proofed,” he shrugs.

I daren’t look at Brian.

I guess this explains why we didn’t wake Gus those first couple of nights, before I got so paranoid that I wouldn’t let Brian fuck me anywhere near Gus’s room – including our bed and even the shower.

I have a feeling that my ass will be paying for that. But Mr. I Control the World didn’t see it on the plans either. It’s probably written in those fucking hieroglyphics architects and builders use so no one knows what they’re really planning to do and then they can say later when it’s something totally ridiculous “Oh, but it was on the plans you agreed to”.

Anyway, I don’t give a shit about all that stuff. At least we’ll be able to fuck in peace in our own bed from now on.

I’m just about to ask if they want more coffee when Brian says, “Now, about the work we need done on the loft.”

So I don’t. Because I need to be part of these discussions. If the loft is really going to be my studio, then right from the start I have to make it clear that the decisions about it are mine. I have some money still left from the Rage movie fiasco, and from selling a couple of things in New York – enough to get the basics done anyway.

But of course before I can open my mouth, Brian is off … taking control, as always, and just making all these decisions about my workspace.

Well, to be fair … he’s just making suggestions … and most of them are good ones … but they’re not things I can afford right now, so he’s just going to have to back off.

Now, if I can just find a way to tell him that without triggering the Kinney defense systems and sending them into Code Red.

 

*****
 

Brian

I can tell by the look on the little twat’s face that he’s about to play the boring "I have to stand on my own two feet money-wise" card and that’s just fucked. If we’re going to do this, we should do it right. It’s more cost effective in the long run, anyway.

Think, Kinney.

I’m trying to work out how to spin this so that his nose won’t get out of joint and we won’t have to have some lesbianic fucking discussion over finances … again. (We went through that after our trip to Chicago, before he got the New York offer.)

Of course, this is the time that my brain goes into slow motion and in the silence, there is a completely fucking surreal moment where all I can think is: What would Theodore do?

As it turns out, it’s a pretty damned good thought, because I start thinking about what deals we could make with Stephane around spreading the word about the work he has done here and will be doing at the loft – both famous … or infamous … landmarks in certain sections of the Pittsburgh community.

Like maybe organizing a feature article in some up-market magazine … Arts and Architecture or some shit … who knows? I’m not sure what can be worked out, but then I’m not the genius at this stuff. Ted is.

So I just dangle the bait in front of our ambitious building contractor that maybe it would be in both our interests for him to consider giving us a deal on the construction costs for the loft in exchange for some high end publicity and he starts salivating.

I insinuate that I’ve been considering this for a while and have a plan nearly worked out that I’d like to offer him (which I will have … or Ted will … by the end of the week) and he agrees to meet with us at Kinnetik next Friday to go over it and see what sort of a deal we can hammer out.

Then he goes off to do whatever he does when he’s here and I’m left to face the wrath of a righteous Sunshine.

But after one moment when he looks like he might slug me, he starts to laugh.

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” he chokes out.

I grab him and kiss him and reach behind me to shut the office door.

Daphne is still upstairs with Gus.

The builders and Stephane are in the other half of the house.

Thanks to our all over the house fuckfest during the week, we have condoms and lube stashed in every room.

And the walls are sound-proofed.

He can be as loud as he fucking likes while I’m pounding his ass.

I’ve fucking earned this one.
 

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