Tatiana took a long, cold shower. She felt her mind go blank as the water ran down her face and neck.
As much ash she wanted last night to be a dream she had to face reality. There was no running from it.
She dried herself off and checked her phone.
"Hey, the party's going well. I made a slight-" That was enough. Last night really happened. Tatiana shuddered at the memories. She couldn't purge them from her mind.
She checked her phone calendar. Nope. The dinner party was indeed yesterday.
Suddenly her phone rang.
Tatiana nearly dropped the blasted thing but managed to answer the call.
"Lola?! Are you okay?"
"Tatiana!" Came a jovial voice over the phone.
".....Ah, Mr Bethell. It's rather early in the morning."
"I always make a habit of taking an early morning stroll. Last nights dinner was truly devine Tatiana."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. Superb. After a night like that I just had to call you and ask about this business arrangement you were alluding too?"
Tatiana opened her mouth but a big glob of emotion blocked the words in her throat.
"Tatiana?"
"I'm sorry Desmond. I would love to discuss that with you but I just got some...unpleasant news. I'm going to have to call you later. I'm in no shape to talk business right now."
"Oh no! What happened?"
"It's personal."
A mild chuckle came through the phone. "The queen of Silicon Valley has a personal life? I guess the tabloids made a blunder when they said you were all work-"
"Mr. Bethell! Please...I'm... I'm really in no shape to discuss this right now."
"Oh my. So this is serious. I'm terribly sorry, is there anything I can do?"
"Thank you but no. Just give me your assurance that we will have a meeting very soon."
"Of Course Tatiana. Just say the word. And of course, remember to bring those two bottles of claret with you. I have a brother who owns a vineyard. I have got to let him have a taste of your private stock."
"I'm honoured. And Mr Bethell?"
"Yes?"
"The Aristoligist dinner was truly satisfactory?"
"Oh my dear... We haven't had such a pleasant evening since the dinner of 2004."
"Thank you Mr Bethell. Good morning." Tatiana hung up.
She stared at her phone for a minute. Dreading the truth. Her mind already preparing for the worst possible scenarios.
Then she called the Loud families home number.
ring.
Ring.
ri- "Hello?" Came a female voice. Young. One of the sisters.
"Good morning!" Tatiana deepened her voice and made herself sound peppy and upbeat. "Is this the residence of miss...Lola Loud?"
"....uh, yeah. Who are you?" it was Lynn jr. But there was something off in her voice.
"My name is Gabriella Bernstein. I run a flower business over in Berkley heights. My business is brand new and I'm creating some advertising to get the word out."
"And this means what to me?" Lynn said
"I'm sorry. I thought I said so up front. I'm looking for Lola Loud. I saw some of her commercials on TV and me and my team just fell in love with her. She'd be perfect for the commercial."
"Oh.... Yeah, that not going to happen."
"Oh no? Is there something wrong?"
"Lola's in the hospital. She's not going to be doing any commercials for quite a while."
Tatiana closed her eyes and felt the hope drain from her. "Oh my goodness. Is she alright?"
"Nope."
"Its not life threatening I hope?"
"Not anymore...but it was a close call last night. So yeah. She's going to be out of action for a few days. Your going to have to find someone else."
"I'm so sorry. Give my regards-" The line went dead.
Tatiana put her head into her hands and felt the weight of the world crush down on her.
She was just starting to like that kid. Sure, she tended to make a mess of things. She was bratty and crazy and obnoxious, but she had an intelligent brain and she worked hard. Two qualities that Tatiana respected above all others.
She made the party a complete success without needing to have her hand held. Actually, Lola had done this a few times already. Going to the office, following instructions, the tech expo speech. People noticed Tatiana acting very strangley sure, but at no point did they stop and say, "that's an imposter".
Meanwhile, what had Tatiana done?
Get Lola thrown in the principals office, damage her relationship with her best friend, almost destroy all of her favourite dresses, nearly quit and walk out of one of Lola's beauty pageants....
....nearly murder the girl with alcohol poisoning.
She raised her head and felt the lump in her throat choke her as tears began to run down her cheek.
"This...might be the worst thing I've ever done..."
.............................................
"Who was that Lynn?"
The Loud were gathered around the breakfast table. They all had big bags under their eyes from a lack of sleep and quite a few sisters had red eye from crying.
"was it the hospital?" Lincoln added
"No, just some lady wanted Lola for a commercial."
The Loud sat and tried to make conversation but it was hopeless. There was nothing to talk about while their little sister was in the emergency room.
They couldn't believe their eyes when she came stumbling onto the dance floor with a whisky bottle.
After she passed out their mother FREAKED and dragged Lola outside while Lori called an ambulance. Their father closed down the restaurant and sent everyone home, before getting the kids in vanzilla and driving to emergency.
When they got there, Their mother explained that Lola had been vomiting in the ambulance and that her blood alcohol level was dangerously high and the doctor had to take her in to get treated immediately.
Then their mother became hysterical.
And their father started to get hysterical too.
And they all sat in the waiting room for two hours until the doctor came back and said that Lola was out of danger but that she was severely dehydrated from all of this and would need to be kept overnight.
With nothing else to do the loud family went home and had five hours of insomnia before mr and mrs loud got up early to go back to the hospital.
The loud children weren't going to school today. They'd never be able to concentrate. So instead they sat around the table waiting for any news.
"I should have followed her to the bathroom dude." Luna shook her head.
"You said that like, eight times already." Lynn replied testily
Luna said nothing.
"Don't blame yourself Luna. It was no one's fault." Leni said
"Really Leni? Lola was going back and forth to the bathroom all night and NO ONE thought this was suspicious?" Luan said
"Well why didn't YOU go check on her if you thought something was wrong?!" Lynn retaliated, "You actually spoke to her. You, Leni, Luna, Lana, Lori, you all went up and asked if she was okay. I had no idea what was going on till she came stumbling out-"
"I DID!" Luan yelled, "I told Lana something was wrong!"
"No you didn't! You said I should follow Lola into the bathroom! You didn't say there was something wrong!" Lana replied
"WHY WOULD I TELL YOU TO FOLLOW LOLA INTO THE BATHROOM IF NOTHING WAS WRONG!!"
"I DIDN"T DO ANYTHING!"
Soon the table erupting into yelling and finger pointing. Baby Lily started to cry.
Lincoln grabbed a pot and pan and began banging on it as loud as he could until the voices died down.
"That's enough." He said with finality, "Anyone could have checked on Lola but no one thought anything was seriously wrong. So either we're all to blame or none of us is. Either way, fighting about it is pointless."
"Lincolns right." Lori stated taking charge, "We're all tired and scared. We just need to hold it together until we get word form-"
The sound of the front door being unlocked could be heard. "We're home!" came the voice of Lynn Sr
Lana beat everyone to the front door. "Is Lola home?"
"No sweetie. Lola needs to stay at the hospital for at least one more night." Rita Loud crouched down and held her daughter. "But Lola's going to be fine. The scary parts over."
Lana hugged her mother and they both cried.
"You guys just stay home and try to get some rest." Lynn Sr opened the door to leave.
"Where are you going dad?"
"Kataro says the police found out where the whisky bottle came from. Two teenage boys brought it in with them last night and they're waiting at the station."
"Are they going to jail?" Lincoln asked
"No, they're going to get hit with a fine if anything at all. It's looking more and more that Lola swiped the bottle herself so they can't be blamed for that. but they're minors too and I don't let people bring outside booze into my place. So no jail time, but I am going to go down to that station to yell at those kids. I've got steam to let off." Mr Loud closed the door behind him.
"Lola swiped the bottle herself?" Lori looked at her other siblings.
No one had any explanation for this. Getting tricked into drinking is something that might happen.
Drinking from a random bottle lying around was something Lana would do, not Lola.
But swiping a bottle of booze from two teenagers? Thats....very un-lola like.
.........................................
"Tatiana?" Sally knocked on the front door. "Tatiana are you here? I called you twice but you didn't pick up?"
Sally pulled the handle and the door opened. It was unlocked.
"Tatiana? Hello?" Sally called out.
She walked through the living room and heard a noise in the kitchen. Upon entering she saw something she had never seen before and her chest tightened in alarm.
Tatiana was standing over the sink in her jeans and T-shirt, pouring out what appeared to be her entire beer supply down the drain.
"Sally. I'm glad your here." Tatiana said without turning around. "I have a hundred cases of vintage liquor in the wine cellar. I'm going to need a full list of all that I have so that I can put two thirds of it up for sale at the earliest convenience."
Tatiana put the beer bottle down and opened another. Pouring its liquid into the sink. "Naturally I'll need to keep a small reserve for guests. I can't have business meetings in my home if I have no refreshments to offer, but its going to be tricky. We'll need to arrange the remaining stash in such a way that I can't get at it."
Sally sat down at the kitchen table. "Where you can't get at it?" She repeated calmly.
"Yes. I'm going sober Sally. It's going to be difficult but it needs to be done. Sadly, I am going to need your assistance with this. I can't trust myself anymore."
Sally nodded her head. "What did you do? and does the anyone know about it yet? The press for instance?"
"I got drunk and injured a small child." Tatiana replied calmly, still not meeting sally's gaze. "This was....after the party last night. I won't go into details so don't ask me. Yes, someone knows. The child in question knows. But no one else. And they probably never will."
"How bad of an injury?"
"She's alive but in the hospital."
"Did you run her over?"
"I said no details."
"Well you need to give me something. I can't supply an alibi if I don't know where or when this happened." Sally waited a moment but got no reply. "Do we need to call Stocker?"
Stocker was Tatiana's personal lawyer. "No. There is no way to connect the incident to me. You have my word of honour on that." Tatiana planted the empty bottle down.
"But you know." Sally said sadly
"Yes. I know. I have no one to answer to but myself. And thats what makes the situation intolerable. It's one thing to have people call you a drunk, but to know you are one is degrading. And to know your a drunk yet have no intention of doing anything about it is revolting."
Tatiana finally turned to her assistant. "I can live with an addiction but I can't live with having the addicton in control of me. My self esteem won't allow it. Help me carry these bottles to the curb will you?"
Tatiana began piling the empty bottles into bags one by one.
Sally took a deep breath and calmly stood up. "Okay. You've messed up. I get that. But could we just, for the sake of argument, count to twenty very slowly and ask ourselves if this is the right decision? The board of directors, is planning to sell their stock to Garris industry's, which would make Guildford Garris co-owner of Tichy Tech industries. As your flunky, I must tell you that this is a very VERY bad time to check into rehab."
Tatiana merely shrugged her shoulders. "Fortune is like the tide. It flows and it ebbs. If the tide goes out and your boat gets stranded in the reef, you can either waste time yelling at the sea or you can go fishing another day."
Sally's eyes bulged. "My god, you really are sober. Thats the dumbest analogy I've ever heard in my life."
Tatiana shoved a garbage bag into Sally's hands but Sally continued as the two women headed for the door.
"We're not talking about a little bad luck here Tanya we're talking about YOUR company getting stolen out from under you. You understand? By next week you may not have a job anymore."
"But you will." Tatiana replied, "As my personal assistant I'll still be paying you."
"The hell you will. You go down like this and I quit. Effective immediately."
"For the fifty sixth time?"
"Fifty eighth, but I might mean it this time. You never know."
"No. Theres no way of knowing what you'll do when you get like this." Tatiana sighed
The two women dumped the ocean of bottles into the recycling bin. Tatiana then slumped forward and put her hands on the blue bin and closed her eyes. To the common person it looked like she was about to pass out, but Sally knew better. Tatiana was trying to restart her brain after the terrible shock it had received.
Tatiana Tiche stood there perfectly still. Only the faintest movements of her lips could tell you she was still awake. Sally waited almost a full two minutes before Tatiana said, "What are the top three projects nearing completion?"
"Aside from the self driving car, you have the new speed car you tested last week, the wheelless motorcycle and the SP31 Model."
Tatiana's eyes opened. She stood up straight and tall and pursed her lips. Sally could tell something brilliant had formed.
"Sally?"
"Yes?"
"I can't win like this. Not with this alcohol addiction holding me back. And since admitting the addiction will bring about my downfall, I have no choice. I have to let my company go."
Sally's mouth dropped.
"This is goodbye Sally."
...................................................
Rita Loud turned on the afternoon news to try and get her mind off of her daughters condition.
"....big news development in the business world as Tatiana Tiche, head of Tichytech industries has just resigned her position as CEO after an emotional press conference a few hours ago."
The camera flashed to a blonde woman in an expensive suit standing on a podium while cameras flashed. "My name is Tatiana Tiche and I am an alchaholic. I have been for many years, but it was only in these last few weeks that I realized just how much my addiction was affecting me. I went on a drunken shopping spree. I endangered the lives of many people. I fell behind in my work. It has now reached the point were I need to get help, and I cannot run a billion dollar company and attend rehab at the same time. So it is with a heavy heart that I leave my company in the care of my dear friend Edgar Macgruber. I trust him to run and manage this company in my absence. I will now field any questions."
A million hands shot up from the crowd. Rita changed the channel. She wasn't interested in some corporate bigwigs drinking problems.
........................................................
To be continued.
Another short chapter. I hope to move onto the next plot soon. Now that Tatiana's no longer in control of her company, what will she do now?