Finding Truth by Ripley Proserpina

Author:Ripley Proserpina [Proserpina, Ripley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: After Glows Publishing
Published: 2017-08-09T05:00:00+00:00

21

Matisse

Four Months Later

* * *

“You need to talk to the press.”

Matisse snorted, draping one suit clad arm over the back of the chair where he sat across from his father. “That’s a bad idea.”

“We’ve got it all set. You’ll have a script. You read from it. It’s done.” Dad’s earnest tone only made him roll his eyes and shake his head, but his father interrupted. “We give them something, they leave us alone. The public relations department of the company has a plan. All you have to do is what I tell you.”

Rolling his head back to bang it against the chair, he laughed. “Whatever.”

“This is going to help everyone,” Bentley assured him and smiled conspiratorially at his father.

“So I guess I should just be grateful for the billion hours of community service and being tried as a minor?” he asked.

Four months had passed since the morning Matisse’s family had been besieged by the press. Ole Miss’s orientation had come and gone, and the summer flew by while he hid. A week of being accosted by reporters no matter where he went was enough to teach him to stay at home, inside with the doors locked and curtains drawn.

“So what is the point?” he asked, brushing imaginary lint off his shoulder. “I say, ‘Sorry. I was fooling around.’ And then what? Everything goes back to normal? I put on my blue jumpsuit, pick up some trash and that’s it?”

His father and Bentley exchanged another look, and it irritated Matisse that he couldn’t figure out what it meant. If he’d learned one thing through this debacle, it was he didn’t know shit about people. He thought the years he’d spent learning facial expressions and body language would help him make sense of their behavior, but nope. Right here was a prime example of his inability to decipher the code.

After clearing his throat, Dad began. “We think—the PR department thinks, if you appear before cameras, dress up, smile and generally act the way you usually do, people will forget about the business and focus instead on you.”

“Why the hell do I want them focusing on me?” He spread his arms out. “Because holed up here has been so much fun? No computer, no bike. No college? My life is fucking over, Dad. The last thing I want is the press focused more on me.” He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. Staring at the door, he willed his mother—someone—to appear. “And what do you mean? Act like me?”

Bentley, his father’s constant shadow since the spring, held up a hand, and Dad waved him ahead. “What he means, Matisse, is your attitude—devil-may-care, haughty playboy—will work in your favor. People will see you as a kid with too much money and too much time, who got in trouble, distracting them from anything nefarious.”

“Nefarious,” Matisse muttered. “And what about that guy? The one whose patent I stole? Where’s he? What’s he going to think?”

Bentley’s eyes got wide, and he stood up to exit the room without another word.

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