Sugar Daddy(89)

When Gage thought to glance at me with a quizzical smile, I couldn't smile back. I turned away on the pretext of cleaning up the kitchen, picking up bits of wire with fingers that clenched until they whitened at the tips.



CHAPTER 19



Churchill told me about strategic inflection points while we wrote the "Why Paranoia Is Good," chapter of his book. A strategic inflection point, he explained, is a huge turning point in the life of a company, a technological advancement or opportunity that changes the way everything is done. Like the breakup of Bell in 1984, or when Apple came out with the iPod. It can boost a business into the stratosphere or sink it beyond any hope of recovery'. But no matter what the results are, the rules of the game are changed forever.

The strategic inflection point in my relationship with Gage happened the weekend after Carrington had turned in the lightning bug project. It was late Sunday morning, and Carrington had gone outside to play while I took a long shower. It was a cold day with hard stinging gusts. The flatlands near Houston offered no obstructions, not even a few lonely mesquite trees to hook the hem of the sky. and the long open fetch gave the wind plenty of room to collect momentum.

I dressed in a long-sleeved tee and jeans, and a heavy wool cardigan with a hood. Although I usually flat-ironed my hair to make it shiny and straight. I didn't bother that day. letting it curl crazily over my shoulders and back.

I crossed through the visiting room with its towering ceilings, where Gretchen was busy directing a team of professional Christmas decorators. Angels was the theme she had picked that year, obliging the decorators to perch on high ladders to hang cherubs and seraphim and swags of gold cloth. Christmas music played in the background, Dean Martin singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with finger-snapping panache.

My feet bounced to the music as I went outside to the back. I heard Churchill's scuffly laugh, and Carrington squealing in glee. Pulling my hood up, I wandered toward the sounds.

Churchill's wheelchair was at the corner of the patio, facing an incline at the north side of the garden. I stopped short as I saw my sister standing at the end of a zip line, a cable that had been mounted on the incline and hung with a pulley that slid from the higher end to the lower one.

Gage, dressed in jeans and an ancient blue sweatshirt, was tightening the end of the line while Carrington urged him to hurry. "Hold your horses," he told her, grinning at her impatience. "Let me make sure the line will hold you."

"I'm doing it now," she said in determination, grasping the pulley handle.

"Wait," Gage cautioned, giving the cable an experimental yank.

"I can't wait!"

He started laughing. "All right, then. Don't blame me if you fall."

The line was too high, I saw with a jolt of terror. If the line broke, if Carrington couldn't hold on, she would break her neck. "No," I cried out, starting forward. "Carrington, don't!"

She looked toward me with a grin. "Hey, Liberty, watch me! I'm going to fly."

"Wait!"

But she ignored me, the obstinate little mule, grasping the pulley and pushing off the incline. Her slight body sped above the ground, too high, too fast, the legs of her jeans flapping. She let out a shriek of enjoyment. My vision blurred for a moment, my teeth clenching on a pained sound. I half staggered, half ran. reaching Gage almost at the same time she did.

He caught her easily, plucking her from the pulley and swinging her to the ground. The two of them laughed, whooped, neither noticing my approach.

I heard Churchill calling my name from the patio, but I didn't answer him.

"I told you to wait," I shouted at Carrington, dizzy with relief and rage, the remnants of fear still rattling in my throat. She fell silent and blanched, staring at me with round blue eyes.

"I didn't hear you." she said. It was a lie, and we both knew it. I was infuriated as I saw the way she sidled up next to Gage as if seeking his protection. From me.

"Yes you did! And don't think you're going to get off easy, Carrington. I'm ready to

ground you for life." I turned on Gage. 'That...that stupid thing is too damn high off the ground! And you have no right to let her try something dangerous without asking me first."

"It's not dangerous," Gage said calmly, his gaze steady on mine. "We had a zip line exactly like this when we were kids."

"I bet you fell off it," I shot back. "I bet you got banged up plenty."

"Sure we did. And we lived to tell about it."

My outrage, salt-flavored and primal, thickened with each second that passed. "You arrogant jerk, you don't know anything about eight-year-old girls! She's fragile, she could break her neck—"