Tracy Kelleher - The Company You Keep

“I want to be in classes with my friends,” she’d say with a yawn. “Don’t bug me. I’m not you.”

“No, you’re smarter than me,” he’d reply. Fat lot of good it did him. Only thing she didn’t fight him about was the violin lessons. He even paid for them to make sure she kept at it. Instead, it was his mother who hadn’t seen the point.

“The violin? How’s that going to put food on the table or help her find a husband?” his mother had repeated whenever anyone was in earshot.

“Mom, she’s got a gift. Leave her alone,” he’d responded.

His mother had just shaken her head. “I could understand if it was an instrument that she could play in the band at high school football games.”

Vic would let the matter drop.

When Basia had graduated high school, Vic had taken comfort that she’d enrolled at Rutgers, the state university in New Brunswick. Then she promptly dropped out when she got pregnant, and then got married. Vic had had the decency not to point out to his mother that, see, Basia found a husband anyway—for all the good it did her.

But before Vic could get to his office, his brother accosted him outside his own, one door down from Vic’s. “Vic, some guy from a private equity firm in Manhattan has been trying to get you for the past half hour. He said it was urgent,” Jozef or “Joe” announced, practically treading up the back of Vic’s brown Rockport shoes.

Vic didn’t respond and instead headed through the open glass door to his own modest office. The wall facing the hallway was also glass, but blinds provided partial privacy. He maneuvered past a coat stand with his blue blazer and North Face jacket and headed around to his plain wooden desk. Then he squatted down in the back corner to greet the one member of his family who never failed to live up to expectations. “Hey, beautiful girl, Roxie. How ya doin’? How’s the ear feel, huh?”

Two of the saddest brown eyes in the world looked up at him. A thick white bandage stuck out from one ear. A large white cone circumscribed her head, and in silent protest Roxie lifted her head and banged the hard plastic against his knee. But even that seemed to require too much energy, and she ended up dropping her head to her pillow.

Vic patted the long flank of the eight-year-old white golden retriever. “You’re a good dog, Roxie, and I promise you I’ll get that collar off your neck as soon as the vet gives his okay.”

“Geez, you’re more attached to that dog than any human being,” Joe complained.

Vic looked over his shoulder. “That’s because she’s a better listener and certainly more loyal than just about anybody out there.” He turned back to the dog. “Aren’t ya, sweetheart.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Please, you’re making me ill. Just because you were taken to the cleaners by Shauna in the divorce is no reason to go all gaga over a dumb dog.”

“My ex was welcome to anything she could get her hands on—anything except you, Roxie, right?” He scratched behind the dog’s good ear. “That’s why you’ve got to look after yourself.”

Joe circled the desk to get closer to his big brother. Roxie immediately inched away on her belly. “Geez, you’d think after all these years she’d be used to me.”

Vic went on petting the dog. “She can’t help it. She had a hard life as a puppy, kicking around all those shelters. You’ve got to give her some slack.”

“So what did the vet say?” Joe asked, making an effort to show some concern.

Vic rested his hand on Roxie’s flank. “He said that the kind of tumor she had is ninety percent cancerous and spreads through the bloodstream. That’s why he also took a large part of her ear in case it had already gone beyond the lump. But we won’t know for sure until he gets the results of the biopsy in a couple of days.”

“Well, until then, you could get Mom to pray for her. Light a candle, do the whole bit. You never know.”

“Mom has her ways of dealing with problems, and I’ve got mine. I keep my nose to the grindstone and just do my job. Whatever happens with Roxie, happens. In the meantime, I’ve got the family to think about—and the hundreds of employees who depend on this company running smoothly.”

“And don’t think we’re not all eternally grateful. It certainly saves me from having to be the responsible son.” Joe commandeered Vic’s desk chair and swiveled it around to face his brother. Then he crossed his legs, the tassels on his Gucci loafers jiggling as he lazily rocked his foot.

Vic gave Roxie a final pat and stood. The dog wearily thumped her tail on the ground. “Do you mind?” Vic indicated his chair.

“Be my guest.” Joe rose and crossed the gray carpeting to the small leather sofa opposite the desk. He plopped down at one end and rapped his knuckles on the wooden arm. “But tell me, oh, wise and great brother, if you’re so responsible, why haven’t you answered your phone for the past half hour?”

Vic settled into his desk chair, slipped off his shoes and let his feet rest atop the carpet. “In answer to your question, I was showing a couple a slab of Ubatuba for their kitchen countertops.”

“One slab? Of Ubatuba? What are they doing? Upgrading their galley kitchen in some track house in Levittown? Excuse me, but what are you—the CEO of the company—doing showing small-time customers their order?” Joe glanced dismissively around the office. “You know, I think it’s about time you upgraded your décor, starting with the carpeting. What is it? Indoor-outdoor from some box store?”

“I like the carpeting.” Indeed, Vic would never tell his family, but at times he really could do without padding around barefoot on cold marble floors. “And Roxie likes it, too.”

“That dog of yours sheds all over this stuff.”

Vic was unfazed. “If it bothers you so much, there’s a vacuum cleaner in the janitor’s closet.”

Joe held up his hands. “No, thanks. Besides, Pop banned me from manual labor around the place after that incident with the forklift.”

How could Vic forget? Forty thousand dollars worth of travertine down the drain. Joe wasn’t much better when it came to driving that ridiculous Porsche 911 of his. At least whenever he wrapped that around a pole it was his insurance, not the company’s.

Vic bit back a sigh. Why was he always the responsible sibling? True, as the oldest, he bore the burden of carrying on the family business and keeping his brother and sister out of harm’s way. But deep down, he was afraid that he was just born old.

He continued in his usual mature, patient fashion. “No one else appeared to be free, and I don’t like customers standing around waiting. As I’ve said before, a CEO wears many hats and pitches in wherever needed, even on the floor dealing with first-time customers. And two, more importantly for this company, that couple placed their order through Home Warehouse, whose contract with us—as you undoubtedly know since you’re senior vice president in charge of sales—is up for renegotiation in the spring. And, seeing as they’re the largest home improvement company in America, we need to continue to be their sole supplier of natural stone. So, if we satisfy their customers with top service, word will get back—trust me—and that will place us in a much better bargaining position.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the lecture, Mr. Miyagi, my personal sensei.”

“Anytime. My ‘Wax On, Wax Off’ lecture is scheduled for tomorrow.” Vic rested his elbows on his blotter. “Now, who’s so anxious to talk to me—” he shuffled through the pink paper slips “—that he keeps calling…what…three…no, four times?”

“The head honcho at Pilgrim Investors. I checked around, and they’ve got their own building on Park Avenue, besides offices in London, Tokyo and Shanghai. Rumor has it that they’re planning a new office in Australia—the economy’s booming there what with their large supply of raw materials going directly to China. They’re players, big time—trust me.” He shot back Vic’s own words.