7. There’s One Way into Hope, One Way Back OutFifty Years Ago

There's One Way into Hope, One Way Back Out

I drive.

Sam is too worked up, his words tumbling out on top of one another, coming out too quickly. Like he isn't only trying to explain the situation to me. Like he is also trying to get hold of it himself.

"Cece and Dad go way back," he says. "She started building out her hotel business when Dad was taking over Hayes, so in a weird way they came up together. They were on these parallel tracks. But also totally different. I mean very different, obviously—"

I pick up speed as I merge onto the highway, heading toward Santa Barbara. "How do you mean?"

"I mean we're small in comparison," he says. "She has more than a hundred hotels all over the world. Larger hotels, but really nicely done. Their main competition is Four Seasons, the Ritz. With a nod to local architecture, uniform service. The opposite of how we do things. Of how Dad did things…"

"I'm familiar with the largest hotel chain in the country, Sam."

"Well, you may not be familiar with the fact that I almost went to work for her."

"What? When was that?"

"Hotels are a core business for Cece, but they're also just a piece of the Salinger Group portfolio," he says. "She's across a bunch of sectors. Entertainment, book publishing, sports. Including this sports marketing firm called PNG. After I got injured, someone at PNG reached out to me. Not uncommon to recruit old athletes, so I didn't think much of it. I didn't think about any connection to us, to Dad, until I saw his reaction when I told him I was thinking of taking a job there."

"Which was?"

"Not great. Apparently he and Cece have a long history."

Sam opens the window and motions for me to take the exit for La Cumbre Road. "He told you not to take the job?"

"You know Dad. He wasn't going to tell me not to take the job, but he told me not to take the job."

"What was the deal with them?"

"Cece had tried to break into the luxury boutique market for a long time, exclusive properties, privacy driven. Small footprint," he said. "Apparently, she'd been after Dad for years to sell her Noone Properties. She wanted to go into the boutique market wholesale that way, use his branding, all of it. Because Dad had figured out how to scale it. That's not easy to do. Which is probably why Cece made some pretty generous acquisition offers."

"So?"

"So he always turned her down," he says.

"I'm not following."

"Unfortunately, that makes two of us."

Hope Ranch is a stunning coastal community just west of Santa Barbara proper, just south of the Pacific Ocean. It's hilly and serene. Beautiful homes blending in with the oaks, equestrian trails crisscrossing the roadways.

We wind our way down Las Palmas and up Via Esperanza until we pull up to Joe's house. It's a gorgeous old Spanish hacienda, lined with weeping willows, horse stables, and a circular cobblestone driveway—which is alive with activity. Several trucks are parked there, movers unloading flower arrangements and boxes of dinnerware and furniture rentals.

"What the hell is all this?" Sam asks.

He steps out onto the cobblestones, closing the passenger-side door before I've even put the car in park.

I turn off the ignition, jump out after him. "Sam, just wait a second. Pull it together," I say. "We don't need this to escalate."

He looks at me and nods like he hears me. I can even see him trying to take a breath in. But then our Uncle Joe opens the big oak door. That's all it takes—seeing him in that doorway—and Sam's face turns red again.

"What the fuck, Joe?"

"Or go ahead and escalate it," I say under my breath.

Uncle Joe weaves past the staff and trucks and walks toward us. He is in a wet suit. Even in his late sixties, he looks twenty years younger than he is: his wet hair still thick, his skin tan from several decades in the California sunshine, his frame strong and lean.

My father would often joke that Joe got the looks in the family, but it always felt like my father was trying to give Uncle Joe any leg up that he could. He didn't like that Joe was often unfavorably compared to him while they were growing up. Joe was considered to be more of a troublemaker, less motivated, less brilliant. My father would swat away the comparisons. He was fiercely loyal to Joe in that way. In all ways. From my vantage point, my father and Uncle Joe had that loyalty in common.

He smiles at us. "Sorry for the chaos."

Sam stares him down. "He was going to sell the company to Cece? How long was he keeping this from us?"

"Hello to you too, Sam."

Then Joe turns toward me. "I didn't know I was getting you."

He leans down to give me a hug hello, which is more like a back pat and somewhat awkward. It's also out of character, but I know why he does it. We haven't seen each other since I lost my father. Since we both lost him. So I reach up to offer him a hug back.

"How you holding up, kid?"

"Okay. You?"

He shrugs. "Certainly have had better months."

Sam looks between us, aggravated. "We all have. Where can we talk?"

Joe eyes the movers and staff circling around. "This way," he says.

We follow him into the house, which is lovely—complete with its original oak floors, high vaulted ceilings, and a U-shape courtyard. But it's even more chaotic inside than it was outside. A woman is on a headset directing staff. People are milling through every room.

"What's all this?" I ask.

"Your cousin's engagement party."

Sam looks confused. "That's this weekend?"

He nods. "It sure is. I think you replied that you were going to be in Australia for work. How's your trip going?"

Then he turns to me.

"Don't look at me," I say. "I didn't even get an invitation."

"And if you had?"

It's a fair point. My cousin Diana is Joe's only daughter and ten years younger than I am. I didn't even realize that Diana was getting married, let alone that they were celebrating her engagement this weekend. I haven't spent much time with her. Not long after Uncle Joe went to work with my father, he came out to California to manage Noone Properties' West Coast expansion. Joe met Diana's mother, who was born and raised in Santa Barbara. They bought this house and made a life here. A world away from my life in Croton.

Diana's mother took off when Diana was really young, which left Joe to raise her on his own. He has done so lovingly. A bachelor since, but a completely devoted father. I know from my own father that Joe has been something of a serial monogamist over the years, but that too hasn't been a part of his life I've seen firsthand.

Joe leads us out to the courtyard, which is a quiet respite. Beautiful succulent plants line the perimeter, a firepit lit up in the center.

He motions to the chairs surrounding the firepit. We all take a seat, Sam tossing the manila envelope onto the table.

"What's happening with the Salinger Group, Joe?" Sam asks. "Why did I find deal terms for a sale of Noone Properties?"

"Cece was after Noone for years. That can't be news to you."

"What's news to me is that Dad would even consider it, let alone get lawyers involved in drafting possible acquisition plans. These are signed and dated earlier this year."

"It didn't get as far as you'd think."

Sam points at the manila envelope, like a certain kind of proof. "Really? 'Cause this seems pretty fucking far."

"Okay. Let's calm down."

"How did no one tell me?"

"Because there was nothing to tell. Your father and I discussed it and he wanted me to run out whether a sale was worth pursuing, so that's what I did."

"And?" Sam says.

"And he ultimately decided it wasn't what he wanted to do," Joe says. "He changed his mind—"

"No. This went further than that."

"Until it didn't, Sam," Uncle Joe says. His tone sharp.

Then, as if hearing himself, Joe takes a deep breath and stands up, heads to the serving cart. He reaches for a pitcher of lemonade, pours three glasses.

Joe turns, hands me a glass. "How did he get you involved in this little mission anyway?"

"That's not exactly what I'm here about."

"No?"

"Sam actually came to me with some concerns about Dad…"

I feel Sam's eyes drilling into me, and I look over at him. He shakes his head no, quickly. I don't know how to challenge him on why we can't talk to Joe about our father's last night, at least not in front of Joe, so I drop the point, change tack.

I clear my throat. "Did Dad seem off to you? The last few months?"

"What do you mean by ‘off'?"

"Distracted," Sam says. "Distant."

Uncle Joe shakes his head. "I didn't get that," he says.

"Oh, come on," Sam says. "Something was going on with him."

Joe sits back down. He looks down, as though he is actually considering what Sam is suggesting, like he is trying to remember anything he may have missed about what my father was struggling with, what maybe he hadn't wanted to see.

But I can see it, beneath his neutral stare. His Adam's apple, the vein in his neck, pulsing. Like he is having trouble staying calm himself. Like he is stalling until he can figure out what he's willing to say.

"I've got to say, Sam," Joe says. "I think you are seeing something in hindsight that wasn't there."

"Really?" Sam says.

"Really."

"Then you're not telling the truth."

Joe puts his drink down, leans forward toward Sam, toward both of us.

"Guys, can we just let this lie, please? Whatever you've convinced yourself was going on with him, why does it matter now? The company's yours and Tommy's now, Sammy. All's well that ends well. And your father loved you…" He looks over at me. "He loved you all very much. I love you too. It was never about punishing you."

"What the hell does that mean?" Sam asks.

"It means stop making something out of nothing. I know you're in pain. I'm in pain too. And I'm not going to pretend that I always understood your father's choices. But the priority for your father was that you guys were going to be taken care of."

"What choices, Joe?" Sam says.

"I'm talking generally."

"Can you be less general?" I ask. "What choices didn't you understand?"

Joe shakes his head. "I'm not going to excavate the past with you. It has nothing to do with anything."

"So Dad's history with Cece didn't play into this somehow?"

Something flashes in Joe's face, his jaw tensing, before he pushes back against it. "That wasn't what this was about."

"You sure about that?" Sam says.

Joe stands up, done with this conversation. "The engagement party is tomorrow night. Come if you like. You're both welcome."

He starts to walk away, but I'm going over it in my head, his choice of words, his careful phrasing: he just said that the sale wasn't about our father's history with Cece. And I hear what he refused to flat out say in the silence. He didn't say that Cece and my father didn't have a relationship. He didn't say there wasn't a history there to factor in.

"So what was this about?" I call out after him.

He turns back. "What's that?"

"For Dad. What was it about?"

Joe shakes his head. But I see it in his face, the sadness there. It's gone as quick as it came, but it's there all the same. That tiny part of him seems to want to just say it, whatever it is that he knows.

"Something else," he says.