“It’s fine, I like Chopin. Is this a CD of just him or does it have other composers?”
“This one is just of Chopin, I have two of Mozart and one of Hadyn. The other discs are the twin’s there’s an Eminem and a Tech N9ne CD in there, so be careful if you want to change it.”
“Ah, my nephew is a fan of Eminem and Tech N9ne and we debate often who is the better rapper.”
“Really? You listen to Eminem and Tech N9ne? How old is your nephew?”
“Yes, really and he’s twenty four. We’ve been debating for the last ten years and I’m sure we’ll continue to debate in the future.”
“How old are you? You don’t look old enough to have a twenty four year old nephew.” The question had been driving her crazy.
“I’m thirty seven, my older brother got a girl pregnant when he was only sixteen and I was twelve. My parents weren’t about to let him ruin his life by marrying the girl and they took in the baby. He was very much a little brother, my youngest brother was only eight when he came into the family.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“My older brother died almost ten years ago and I have two younger brothers. I don’t have any sisters, my mother only kept going until she gave up on getting the girl she wanted. To this day I get to hear her moan of the lack of a single daughter-in-law.”
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
His sigh was heavy as he shrugged. “Manuel had too much yet none of it was enough. He was the first born, a boy and my father over-indulged him. There was no need for him to be accountable for anything he did from the time he was very young until the day he overdosed. My grandfather stepped in when I was about eight. Retiring, he left the company in control of my father and uncle but quickly became bored. He noticed my brothers and I were being left to the care of nannies and spoiled. He purchased a home near my parent’s home in Plano and basically moved us in with him. From then on he began to take us to the work sites and had us working on the weekends. He gave us an allowance, taught us how to handle our money and made us save as well as give to charity. Even more importantly to him, he taught us Spanish.”
“Your parents didn’t teach you Spanish?”
“No, my mother was very much the blonde Dallas society young woman, she didn’t speak Spanish and didn’t care to learn. My father didn’t have the time, he was in the office until all hours.”
“So your grandfather started the company?”
“Yes, he founded it in Mexico City until conditions became too corrupt and he applied for and got into the States. He moved the headquarters to Dallas. He had other offices in Mexico and Panama and he shut them down in order to move his money into the location in Dallas.”
“I had no idea, I probably should have looked deeper into your company, I didn’t even think about it.”
“Nothing all that interesting, just a family company that keeps growing with every generation. My grandfather was content to remain in Texas he opened an office in Houston. Then my father expanded into New Orleans, then over-extended the company going into Miami. By the time I was graduating from high school my grandfather had to step in, my father had taken the company to the edge of bankruptcy. I didn’t go onto university, I went straight to work, to help my grandfather. We worked day and night for a solid three years before we were back in the black. There were several times when I didn’t think we’d come out of it. Once the company was back on course my grandfather sent me onto university and during the summers I came back to Dallas and worked.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Stanford, it was a nice school. I had actually wanted to go to A&M, my grandfather didn’t want to hear it. It was important to him for me to make the connections a school like Stanford would bring. He was right, when I opened an office in Los Angeles those connections came into play. They are also helping with our current expansion into Phoenix, so I guess he was right.
Where am I going when I get into Fort Worth?”
She gave him directions and her address. Carrie saw when he recognized the area and wasn’t surprised when he said it. “That’s not the best area in Fort Worth.”
“Yes, I didn’t know when I leased. I went during the day and it seemed decent, it changes at night.”
“Hmm, do you have security at all?”
Unable to meet his eyes, she shrugged, “The locks are good, it’s a duplex and the neighbor has a big dog.” He didn’t say anything, she fought the urge to defend herself again. “Is your mother where you get your eyes from?” The question running through her mind popped out and she blushed.
“Yes, she has green eyes and my youngest brother and I both have hazel eyes. The twins look nothing like you. Do they take after their father or their mother?”
“Their dad, I look a lot like my mom with the blonde hair and blue eyes. Except she was really tall and thin and I’m short and not thin.” Biting her tongue against the fat label her brothers had called her for years. They sometimes called her teapot, now she was down twenty pounds from where she had been at the same time last year. She didn’t feel fat, like she used to, although she was still in the double digits at a size fourteen. For years she had dreamed of getting down to an eight just to say she wasn’t a double digit anymore. After losing weight, she was hoping to get down to a size ten. Her curves embarrassed her and only got more pronounced the lower she went.
“Do they have any interaction with their father at all?”
“No and that’s how they want it. I have to admit I take the easy way out and don’t talk about him or our mom much at all. From some of the things they said, she wasn’t any nicer to the boys than she was to me. It makes me sad to think of, for the boys. While I was growing up she had been sometimes selfish and sometimes a little mean but not as bad as she became. They remember her a little and him barely. Thankfully, they seemed to have repressed the memory of him beating her to death. She had locked them in their room. Apparently, it had happened often before and they waited until she stopped crying. When she wouldn’t wake up, they called 911 the way she had taught them.”
“I guess it is a small mercy for them.”
“Yes, it just makes me so angry with her. She knew he was dangerous, still, again and again she took him back. It’s one of the reasons I don’t talk about her, her death could have been prevented. Instead, she laid down and let it happen.”