Drew Nance Book 2: "The Hidden Staircase" by Bobbie J. Cabot Chapter Three: Carson and Being Co-opted / Alice and Picking Sides

Carson had been thinking about Drew and Hawaii, and everything else - like the current life they had. Truthfully, when they started their current life, it was like it was drastically downsized. But living life as the Nances, he now had a growing circle of friends. Drew had her new friends at school and they were getting to know their neighbors. It wasn’t feeling downsized anymore.

The danger was, sometime soon, this fake life won’t be fake anymore. And if they have to leave again... Carson didn’t know if he could manage that. And what would it do to Drew?

Drew...

Sooner or later, he would have to acknowledge Drew’s personal dilemma. To be in this twilight state – not quite a girl, not quite a boy – could she grow up normally? One way or another, it has to be resolved. For her. So that she could grow up and have a normal life of her own.

The solution was simple – finish the “project” so they can drop their Nance personas and live normal ones somewhere far away from the Tate companies, from New York, from, well, everything!

But then, Drew will have to leave her friends yet again. And have to get another makeover. And would Drew even want to? Seeing her dressed in her very tight and sheer spandex one-piece had started him thinking.

He’d seen how Drew was now. In the beginning, Drew had a bit of a rocky start, play-acting as a girl. But she told him she found a little trick. Once, Drew tried to explain how she was able to do it at all. In times of doubt, Drew would say to herself, “what would Jane do?”

Drew was almost like a carbon copy of Jane now, or at least the outside image of Jane: Jane’s mannerisms, Jane’s style of dress, Jane’s behavior, Jane’s speech. Underneath, though, Drew was still one hundred percent Andy: his mind, his humor, his memories, and most especially his heart.

But, nowadays, Carson had this feeling Drew wasn’t play-acting anymore. In the beginning of their lives as the Nances, Carson found it hard to treat Drew like a girl, and Drew felt the same. But somehow, Carson got past that. The thing was, it wasn’t him – it was Drew. Somehow, Drew had accepted her role. He knew it because Drew’s casual hugs and everything else felt genuine and natural now, not feigned. He could feel it. Especially seeing her in her swimsuit (Carson will have to do some research about what gaffs are).

Drew was now like an amalgam of Jane and Andy. And she did it well. Sure, she acted like Jane – a flirty, little heartbreaker with Jane’s girly sense of fashion and outward open-minded nature. But she still had Andy’s analytical and brilliant mind and kind heart, and used her Jane-powers to help others. Sure, she would deny it, just like Andy would, and would hide her altruistic streak with a lot of fake rationalizations. If asked, she’d say she worked on her “cases” because it was fun or because it was her way to keep her “detective skills” alive (he silently laughed at that term Drew used – an old term Andy used to use all the time), and she asked to give Aunt Arlene a job because they needed help around the house, and consented to be a cheerleader because she wasn’t given a choice by Coach Stoeger.

But Carson knew that, sure, she did the “cases” because they were fun, but they were also her way of helping people. And she arranged the job for Aunt Arlene because it was her way of helping the Shaws out of a tough spot. And she decided to become a cheerleader because she wanted to give her friend Sabrina a shot at being a cheerleader – something Sabrina desperately wanted.

Of course, she wouldn’t admit to any of these but Carson knew the truth.

And there were all of those other things that he’d heard. For example, he had heard from their friend, Lieutenant Frank Hardy, that someone connected to one of the largest drug rings was caught on school premises because he tripped and spilled over half a kilo of crack cocaine on the school steps – a fairly large drug bust.

Frank said, with the little pusher in their custody, they might get some more leads and may be able shut their operation down. And Carson was fairly sure that Drew was behind it all.

She was still more Andy than Jane, at least to his eyes. And he knew no one had twigged to her “essential difference” yet, and he was confident no one ever will, so long as Drew wanted it that way.

Carson felt a little sad that his old Andy had essentially been hidden away, but whatever Drew really was, inside was still his Andy – inside his new, brilliant, sexy daughter Drew.

But would she even want to bring out Andy and become a boy again?

And as for him, Carson had a dilemma of his own as well. As successful as he was as William Fayne, he never was as successful as he was now. And he never could do all the things he could do now. It was a temptation to remain “Carson Nance.”

For example, he had just found out that he now had complete control of the Tate Foundation – one of the country’s largest philanthropic organizations. Currently, the foundation had about six billion dollars available for Foundation use. Carson felt a little giddy at what he could do for people with all that money. So far, all that the Foundation did was to fund other programs or causes, and did not run any of its own - cheaper in the short run. He knew the Foundation was in existence mostly to give the Tate companies a tax break, and for the favorable press, and he knew that he was just expected to continue this policy. But he could do so much more.

As for his real job, he was making progress in catching up. Having such a large staff at his beck and call had been a big help. Whoever had his job before him really didn’t know how to manage things. The staff had to carry the whole department by themselves and take care of things on their own, and things had been falling through the cracks. The Conglomerate’s whole legal group was a mess before he came along, but now, he was doing his best to get things on track and he had his new people chugging along and making headway on that.

It wasn’t too difficult, really. At least not for him. And as the legal snarls that the companies had found themselves in started to get unsnarled, his load had started to become manageable, and pretty soon, the department will be cruising along on its own. Mostly.

The big boss, Simon Thaddeus Tate, Senior, the chairman of the board of the Tate conglomerate, had paid him a visit that morning, to compliment him on his good work. It was also when he told Carson about the Foundation. Apparently, it was a reward of sorts.

But then, Tate started talking about his ex-wife’s grandson, and how it would be “simply terrible” if the little cokehead gets sent to prison.

Carson felt a little like the proverbial mortal being tempted by the devil from the top of the mountain. He knew this was the first step in being co-opted by this corporate juggernaut. But was this just the usual corporate nonsense that he knew existed in the upper echelons of corporate America that he was still new to, or was it the first step for him being absorbed by the same shadowy organization that they were trying to tear down?

But whatever he thought, Carson knew he could only answer one way. “No problem, Mr. Tate,” Carson said. “I’ll find a way to help.”

“Thanks for doing this favor for me, Carson.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, sir. Consider this little difficulty resolved.”

After he left, Carson buzzed for his secretary, Alice.

“Wow,” Alice said, coming in. “The boss came to visit. That’s unusual.”

“You mean he doesn’t do this normally?”

“From time to time, the boss comes down from the fiftieth floor. Especially when he needs something.”

Carson sighed. “You got that right.”

Alice sat down by his desk.

“So what do you need me to do, Mr. Nance?”

Carson sat down. “Mr. Tate was married before, right?”

“Well, he’s married now... But he used to be married to someone else. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. What do you know about her?”

“She was a disaster. She was the worst public relations disaster Mr. Tate had to manage. It was all he could do to get shut of that woman.”

“Well, it seems the Boss isn’t completely shut of her. Can you tell me anything about his children?”

“Oh, he doesn’t have any children. But the ex-wife has several children from other marriages.”

“Well, Mr. Tate wants one of them cleared of drug possession charges.”

“Oh... I think I know which one that is.”

Carson sighed. “Yeah. Anyway, first things first – get me all of the information you can about this kid and the case. After that, we’ll see what we need to do.”

“So, you want to get the kid’s charges dropped?”

“Not necessarily. But we need to see what we can to help this kid. Maybe we can do something to help without necessarily getting the case dismissed.”

“But Mr. Tate...”

“I know, Alice. And you don’t have to tell me that it could be my job on the line.” He sighed again. “Did you know Mr. Tate just made me the chairman and CEO of the Tate Foundation? The largest non-stock, non-profit social development corporation in the world?”

“You were? My God!”

“Imagine the good we can do with the Tate Foundation, Alice! We can change the lives of so many people for the better. But... the fact Mr. Tate sprung it on me at the same time as... it’s basically a kind of...” He trailed away.

“Yes, Boss?”

“I don’t know if I should say...”

Alice didn’t need to have things spelled out for her. She knew what Carson was saying. The position in the foundation was a kind of bribe, for him to play ball. But Carson didn’t know her loyalties – would she tell on him, he probably wondered.

When she was still young and fairly new in American Amalgamated - one of the largest manufacturing and retail giants around - Alice had gotten to a high position by dint of sheer hard work and ability. After five years, she was already working as the executive assistant for the president of Amalgamated, and had power and influence. But she had heard of some shady goings-on at Amalgamated and reported it to her bosses. Plus, since she wasn’t like her contemporaries and refused to sleep around to get ahead, the following day, she had lost her position and was placed in the secretarial pool of the outsourcing division of another Tate group business unit - Tate & Company, one of the larger business consulting companies around.

She didn’t have any proof of discrimination so she couldn’t fight it. And about the rumors she had heard - there was no proof. Sure she could have resigned and found another position in a non-Tate Group company, but her connections seemed to have dried up, and no one really wanted to hire her. She was a bright girl, and she understood that someone in American Amalgamated had her blackballed for what she did.

So, because she had no choice, she stayed in the secretarial pool and did her penance for having been naïve. Her husband had divorced her by that time. Whether his divorcing her was connected with their financial difficulties or not, she never said anything, especially to her daughter.

But she gritted her teeth and, for the sake of her family, stayed on, even as a lowly temp secretary.

Over the years, she had accumulated a reputation as one of the best executive assistants in Tate & Company, and her financial and work situation stabilized as she became the top choice as the Tate Group’s most-sought-after temp secretary. She couldn’t be anything but a temp because of her reputation as a prude (That was one of the better names they used for her. Behind her back, of course.), but in time, when her looks had started to go, that was less and less of a concern. She found herself gravitating towards women executives or executives who were more concerned with work than with tail. Which was fine with her. And she continued to cement her reputation.

A little over a month ago, she found herself assigned as Carson’s temporary executive assistant. Carson appreciated her talents and was grateful for her help. Plus, the young Mr. Nance was a perfect gentleman. Alice could tell. After years of worrying about her job, she was content.

In less than a week, though, Carson had made arrangements to make her his permanent assistant, officially paving her way back into the upper echelons of the Tate Group. But she didn’t have big ambitions of climbing up the corporate ladder anymore. Still, she was pleased. And if Mr. Nance turned out not to be who he appeared to be, then it was just back to the secretarial pool. No big.

But then this had to happen. What should she do now?

After a moment, she concluded there was only one thing she could do after all.

“You don’t need to worry about me, Boss,” Alice said to Carson. “I’m your assistant. So you can trust me. I know that kind of trust doesn’t come automatically. So I leave that to you. In the meantime, you don’t have to tell me anything except what you want done, and I’ll do it.”

Carson looked at her with respect. Though she didn’t confirm her allegiance one way or another (after all, what could she say that would have made him believe her), she left him an opening to deny anything that could be construed as disloyalty to the Big Boss or whatever, yet allow him to do what he needed to do.

“Okay, Alice. Thank you.”

“No worries, Boss. I’ll get you that information you asked for right away.”

“Oh, can you also get me some information about drug rehabilitation centers in the city? Check out the ones that have reputations for discretion and...”

“I understand what you’re saying, Boss. Before the end of the day, I promise.”

Carson grinned, impressed. “Thanks, Alice.”

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