Options
Rosemarie A. D'Amico
©2009
Published by Smashwords, May 2009
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, companies, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Options is available in print at www.rosemarie-damico.com
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Rosemarie A. D'Amico
Cover Art & Design Copyright© by Jordan F.A. D'Amico
Print version ISBN 978-0-9812409-0-9
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewed. Contact the author at rosemarie.damico@gmail.com.
A FEW WORDS, FIRST
Someone once dared me to write this book. So I did. And, what happened next, happens to most authors. I couldn't get it published. I couldn't get an agent. So, I put the book away for thirteen years. Then one day in December 2008 I read an article in the National Post about self-publishing and a company called Smashwords (and Smashwords led me to First Choice Books). And that article got me thinking about resurrecting Options. Now, I'm anxiously awaiting to find out how soon I can say, "And the rest was history".
My mom and dad would be so proud of this published version.
Thanks to Dan Gathof for daring me thirteen years ago. Thanks to Deborah Cathcart and Roxanne D'Amico who helped me by reading the recent drafts. Thank you Kate D'Amico, for you know what! And a very special thanks to my son Jordan, who photographed and designed the cover.
I hope you have as much fun reading this story as I did writing it.
Ottawa, Ontario
April 2009
This book is for my husband, Darryl.
My hero, my best friend, the love of my life. This one's for you Sifu.
CHAPTER
one
The paramedics arrived at the reception about twenty minutes after I did. Evelyn had stopped breathing at this point, and I was sure I was going to throw up.
I had been working late in my office when the party noises from the boardroom down the hall had finally broken my concentration and started to bother me.
The company I worked for, TechniGroup Consulting Inc., or TGC for short, was holding a cocktail party for the latest company it had bought out, Marshton Systems. Marshton was the eighteenth company acquired by TGC in the last twenty-two months and each time an acquisition closed, we held a reception in the main boardroom a few days after the official closing. The acquired employees and select groups of TGC employees would rub shoulders, share war stories and embellish their work experience.
Each of these little get-togethers was a command performance if you received an invitation, but I tried at all costs to avoid them. I worked in the legal department at TGC where most of the legal work was done on the acquisitions, so by the time the party rolled around I had usually had my fill of the owners and executives of the acquired companies.
When the party sounds finally seeped through my closed office door, I reluctantly turned off my computer, made a weak attempt at tidying up the chaos on my desk and headed down the hall.
The boardroom was packed with about sixty people. The bullshit was flying and the smell of cigar smoke and scotch permeated the air. Office buildings in Toronto had been smoke-free for a few years but that didn't deter some of our folks from lighting up. Municipal by-laws didn't apply at TGC after hours. I eased in the door and surveyed the crowd before I tried to make my way through the crowd to the bartender on the far side of the room.
"Kate," I heard in my ear. It sounded like a whisper but could have been a bellow because of the noise level. I turned around and looked at Evelyn, whose cheeks were so red, she looked like she had a sunburn.
"Ev, what’s wrong?" I asked. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the noise.
"I’m fine, it’s just hot in here," she said. She waved her hand back and forth in front of her face and changed the subject. "Another good turnout. Amazing isn’t it, how everyone shows up when there’s free food and booze." We laughed.
"I need a soda water. Wait for me here and I’ll be right back."
"Evelyn," someone to my left called out.
I turned around and watched Tom James dragging an unbelievably handsome man with him. The perfect specimen he was towing behind him was Philip Winston, the Third, Vice-President of Operations of Marshton Systems Corp., the company we had just acquired. Philip "don’t call me Phil" Winston and I had spent a considerable amount of time together over the last couple of weeks and I was less than enamoured with him. I started to push my way through the crowd towards the bar. Ev grabbed the back of my jacket and said, "Don’t leave me Kate."
I turned around to her, smiled and said, "They’re all yours, Ev."
I felt a wee bit sorry for Evelyn, having to put up with those two peas in a pod. Tom James, Thomas O. James on his business cards, was our resident Vice-President of Human Resources. If his life depended on it, he couldn’t make a decision without forming a committee and I had nicknamed him our "Tower of Jell-O" to go with his initials. Tom was my leading candidate to be the poster boy for the Peter Principle.
Philip Winston on the other hand had impressed the powers-that-be in our organization. I was still reserving judgment but was certain no one would ask my opinion. Philip clearly wanted a job with our company so he was still on his best behaviour.
Physically Tom and Philip were very similar. Both were tall, dark and handsome, and they both obviously worked-out. I knew Tom didn’t work out for the pleasure of it or because it was good for his health; Tom worked out because it made him look good. Philip on the other hand was rumoured to have had played college football in the U.S. and that could account for his good physique. Personally, I found it hard to believe that Philip would expose himself to something as physical as football because it might have marred his perfect image. Two peas in a pod. Nice suits, nice hair, great skin, great smell. Big deal. Where was the substance? I sighed as I thought about the possibilities of a guy with the looks and physique of Philip or Tom and the personality of, who? I’d have to keep looking.
I veered to the left to avoid a group of beancounters who were patting themselves on the back for closing the deal. Right, I thought. Those idiots couldn’t close a door without direction.
I lifted my hand to wave to the Chairman’s secretary across the room. Chris Oakes, the Chairman of the Board was flicking cigar ashes on the boardroom rug and I thought we’d be lucky if he didn’t set the place on fire. As I watched in amazement, he casually put the lit cigar on the boardroom table, as if it was a large ashtray, and turned around to grin at one of the Board members. Idiot.
Christopher Oakes had very large front teeth and when he smiled, which was rarely, he reminded me of a beaver. There was something dark on one of his front teeth and I wondered if it was a leftover from breakfast or lunch. My stomach turned slightly at the thought. Being anywhere near the man usually made me nauseous because if his last meal wasn’t stuck between his teeth, it was stuck to his face. Or his ear. Or his neck. It went without saying that a goodly portion of his meals became accessories to his wardrobe. Breakfast on his tie, lunch on his breast pocket.
Sometimes it wasn’t food on his face or neck. It was toothpaste or shaving cream. I remember as a child watching my father shave and the very last step he took was to wash his face to get the shaving cream off. Dad would fill his hands with water and rub the water all over his face and neck. He did this a couple of times. On the off-chance there were traces of shaving cream left, Dad would get them when he toweled his face dry. This display of male ablutions has stayed with me all these years and I’ve been tempted many times to ask Chris if he’d like a live demonstration in the art of cleaning one’s face after shaving. The man had obviously never had a lesson.
Chris comes to the office every day with more than just traces of shaving cream on his face. Globules hang from his earlobes. Patches remain under his nose. Worse than the shaving cream though is the toothpaste which sits on top of the shaving cream. Chris either does not wash his face or he does everything in reverse order. The man was a slob of the first order. I’ve tried to describe this to people but no one believes me. Ask anyone at our office.
I finally made my way to the bar and shouldered my way through.
"Hey Mark," I said.
"Kate." He smiled. "Soda water with lime, right?"
I smiled back. Mark worked in the mailroom and was one of the few employees entitled to collect overtime pay. He volunteered to tend bar for these occasions because he could always use the extra money. And the tequila shots he snuck on the side were just an added bonus.
I tried my John Wayne imitation and leaned on the bar. It was hard to lean your elbow on anything and look casual about it standing up when you’re only five feet tall. Actually, four feet, eleven inches but I tell everyone five feet. My mother used to tell me my grandmother was a legal midget at four foot ten, so I wasn’t going to push it.
I was reaching inside my jacket to tuck my blouse back in when I heard a commotion on the other side of the room. I craned my neck and stood on tiptoes to see what was going on. The conversation level in the room had completely changed and I could now hear panicked voices.
I turned to Mark. "They’ve probably just realized they bought a dud of a company and Oakes is trying to sell it back to them," I said with a laugh.
Mark cracked up. His laughter was suddenly the only sound in the room and several people turned around and glared. I heard something about an ambulance on its way. Oh god, I thought. As much as I disliked most of our executives, I prayed it wasn’t one of them. We couldn’t afford any more valleys in the stock price. Illness in a senior executive was one of the things that would make the newspapers, and any publicity, good or bad, was something this company didn’t need. Recently, any news, good or bad or indifferent about TechniGroup had put the stock into a nose-dive.
I pushed my way through the crowd to see what was going on and ended up having to hip-check a couple of people on the way. People stood around dumbfounded, probably trying to form a committee to figure out what to do in a crisis.
I reached the front of the room and saw Vanessa Wright, the Chairman’s secretary on her knees beside a body. Jay Harmon stepped in front of her and put his hands on my shoulders to stop me.
"Stay there, Kate," he said softly.
"Who is it?" I choked out.
"Just stay there Kate. It’s going to be okay."
"Jay, what the fuck is going on? Who is it? What happened?"
"Kate, it’s Evelyn. She started to choke and we can’t revive her. Someone’s calling an ambulance and they should be here soon. Just stay calm."
"Nuts," I yelled. "Who gave her nuts?"
"Omigod," said Jay. He turned around and grabbed the nearest person and ordered them to run to Evelyn’s office and get her Epi-pen.
Everyone in the office knew Evelyn had a severe allergy to nuts and for that reason all food brought into the office was nut-free. The caterers had specific orders. They weren’t even allowed to cook with peanut oil. I looked at the credenza on the other side of the boardroom. It was piled with food. I started to feel sick to my stomach.
I knelt down beside Vanessa. "Vee, how is she?" I asked.
Vanessa had a panicked look on her face. "I don’t know. She won’t talk to me. Look at her face. I can’t get her to respond to me," Vanessa whispered.
I turned around to find Jay in the crowd. He was right behind me. "Jay," I said. "Take Vee. Get everyone out of here so the paramedics can get through. Get Mark to go out to reception and unlock the main doors so they can come right through. And get everyone else out of here and give Ev some air."
I looked past Jay at the crowd standing around like a bunch of village idiots. My hand caressed Ev’s forehead and I started to talk softly to her. "Come on Ev. Talk to me. It’s going to be all right. Things are going to be okay."
I looked around in desperation for the employee who was sent to Ev’s office for the Epi-pen. He hadn’t returned so I eyed the person nearest me.
"Come on people, don’t just stand there. Go find her kit. Come on. Come on," I barked out like a drill sergeant. Three people ran out of the room. Two of them were members of the board of directors. Shit, I thought, those two couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag. More than likely, the two chickenshits were probably hitting the road.
Time was quickly running out and I knew that every second counted here. Ev had told me (and almost everyone in the office knew this) that speed was of the essence if she ever had one of these attacks. I know it had happened once before but Ev had known what was going on at the time and had quickly injected herself.
The employee who had gone looking for her Epi-pen ran back into the boardroom looking totally panicked. "It’s not there." He looked at me. I knew he was thinking that Kate could fix it. Kate would make everything better. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I thought. Maybe I said it out loud but didn’t care because everyone was used to my language. My brother often said I could make a sailor blush.
I looked back down at Evelyn and she didn’t appear to be breathing. I put my ear to her lips. I’d seen that on TV. Just exactly what that was supposed to do, I didn’t know but I had to do something. Jay quickly kneeled down on the other side of Evelyn and started giving CPR. You’re the chickenshit Kate, I said to myself. I had avoided taking the CPR course for years because I thought if I didn’t know CPR, no-one around me would ever have a heart attack. One of my more stupid superstitions, right up there with jinxing the pitcher. I silently thanked Jay.
Mark came running in the room and announced that the paramedics had arrived. They pushed their way through the door, one pulling a gurney and the other pushing.
"Okay everyone. Back up," the first one said.
The second one, a young woman about 25 got down beside Jay and said, "I’ll take over. Tell us what happened." She started CPR on Ev.
Jay looked at me. For the first time in a long while, I was at a loss for words. Jay turned to the paramedic and said, "She collapsed. She wouldn’t respond and she stopped breathing a minute ago. I started CPR. We think it might be something she ate. We know she has an allergy to nuts."
The other paramedic was the largest male specimen I had every laid eyes on next to William Perry, The Refrigerator. His name tag said MARION O’LEARY. I’d bet the guys back at the stationhouse didn’t tease him about his name. Marion was checking Ev’s vital signs and started barking out questions. "Age?"
"Sixty-five," I responded.
"Any other known medical problems?"
"No," I whispered. I looked at Ev and thought I was going to throw up.
Jay stood up and stepped over Ev’s legs. He took me by the arm and steered me through the boardroom door out into the hallway. I leaned back against the wall and dug in my jacket pocket for a cigarette. My hands shook as I lit up and blew the smoke in Jay’s face. He was in my personal space and he deserved it. He gave a disgusted cough and backed-up. Under normal circumstances he would have started in on me about my smoking.
"Kate, someone has to call Danny," Jay said.
"I know," I sighed. Danny was Evelyn's son and the apple of her eye. He’s 44 years old and still lives with mama at home. I think he’s a wuss.
Evelyn Morris is the longest standing employee at TechniGroup having started with the company as a receptionist seventeen years ago. She’d worked her way up through the ranks and was now in charge of the administration of the employee stock purchase plan, bonuses, executive incentives, and the one thing more powerful than sex in our company, stock options. It’s an inside joke at our company that if you’re married to a guy at TechniGroup who can’t get it up, just start talking about his stock options and the guy could take on Hugh Hefner's harem.
Ev had been in many different positions after spending nearly ten years as the receptionist and most of her jobs had been within the finance department. Before stock options and the employee stock purchase plan, she had supervised the payroll department. Everyone thought her transfer to the new job was a step down but it suited Ev just fine. Theoretically she should be retiring soon, but our company has no mandatory retirement age.
I heard some activity inside the boardroom and eased over to the door. I didn’t want to look.
The paramedics had finished strapping Ev on the gurney and were wheeling her out. The building security guard who had escorted them up from the lobby was leading the way and acting like the lead leprechaun at a St. Patrick’s Day parade. He elbowed me aside. Officious bastard, I thought.
"Is she okay?" I asked. No one answered me. "Hey!" I grabbed the female paramedic’s arm as she went past. She shook me off.
"Look," she said. "We’re taking her to Toronto General. The doctors can fill you in."
We were racing down the hall. The security guard opened the glass doors at the reception and stepped back to let us through. I thought about giving him a forearm shiver across his midsection as I went past.
The elevator was waiting and I tried to push on after the gurney. "Sorry miss," Marion the Refrigerator said. He pushed the ground floor button and the doors closed.
I stood there shaking. Buck up, I told myself, Evelyn’ll be fine.
"Kate."
I turned around and there was my shadow. "Jay. I’ve got to call Danny. Will you come to the hospital with me after I talk to him?" I started back down the hall to my office to make the call.
"Sure," Jay called after me. "I’ll meet you down in the lobby beside the elevators to the parking garage in five minutes. I’ll just get my jacket."
I had no success in trying to reach Danny. The phone just kept ringing off the hook. After three or four tries, I hung up in frustration and headed for the elevator. I went out the back door to avoid the crowd in the boardroom and impatiently pushed the elevator button. I said a silent prayer for Ev in the elevator.
Jay wasn’t downstairs when I got off the elevator. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 8:20. Come on Jay, I thought impatiently. I hung around for another five or six minutes and was about to leave without him when the elevator doors opened and he rushed off.
"Jesus Jay. Where the hell have you been? Ev could be dying."
I realized as soon as I said it, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I felt like I had just jinxed the pitcher.
CHAPTER
two
I was outside the hospital having what seemed like my fifteenth cigarette in two hours when Jay came out to find me.
I had been thinking about Ev and praying that she was going to be all right. Ev and I went back a long way. I remembered my first day on the job at TechniGroup and how Ev had helped me out of one of my most embarrassing moments. I had been working as a temp secretary and got a call from the agency that they needed someone at TechniGroup. I started on the 2nd of January and it was one of those days in Toronto that feels like spring but you know it can’t last. The snow that had been dumped in record amounts in December was turning to slush because of the mild temperatures. I had taken the streetcar to work and when I got off at my stop my feet went out from under me on the second step and I landed on my ass in the slush on the side of the road. I wasn’t hurt but I was soaked through. The black slacks I was wearing started turning white from the salt on the roads. I arrived at the office and explained how embarrassed I was to Evelyn, who was the receptionist at the time.
She led me into the kitchen off the reception area and started applying dry-cleaning fluid to the back of my pants. While they were on. I was bent over the counter and Ev was wiping away at the back of my slacks when the former owner of the company walked in. Personally, I saw the humour in the situation and Ev certainly did. He quickly got his coffee and made a fast retreat. Ev and I laughed so hard I thought we were going to pee our pants.
We became fast friends on that first day and she became like a second mother to me. I had been with the company now almost seven years, certainly longer than all of the current executives.
Five years ago, the original founder of the company had died. As founder of the company he had maintained a majority interest in the company and the rest of the shares were held by the public. His majority shares were pledged as security for most the debt of the company so when he died, the consortium of banks that had loaned him the money called in their loans. They ended up owning the majority share of a $600 million, publicly-traded high tech consulting firm that they knew nothing about. One would think they’d know something about high tech consulting if they lent the company that much money, but bankers are just as stupid as the rest of us.
The bankers’ first order of business as majority shareholder was to hire a new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In their infinite wisdom, they went to the Board of Directors of our company, who formed a search committee to find a new chief executive officer. It took them four months but the committee found us a CEO. CEO, Christopher Earl Oakes. The guy even wears monogrammed shirts with his initials CEO on the pocket. His lifelong dream was to be a chief executive officer so he could live up to his initials. What great heights we aspire to.
Chris had been an executive vice-president of the company that was our major competitor and he was the perfect example of why one should always check references before hiring someone. My sources told me that the partners of the firm that we hired Chris from had "remoted" Chris. Not promoted. Not demoted. Remoted. They had put him aside and were doing their best to ignore him and we saved the day when we recruited him. Chris was an executive vice-president in charge of nothing at the time we hired him. He had no staff reporting to him, no clients, no budget. Word on the street was that Oakes’ former employers had the biggest going away party in the history of their company when Chris left. And Chris wasn’t invited.
Our Board members who were given the responsibility of finding a new chief executive officer actually believed they were stealing a star performer, just because he worked for the competition.
His one crowning glory in the four years he has been our peerless leader was to increase the share price to a high of $16 from $6 when he joined the company. That price was very short-lived though and the shares are now trading at about $11. The company’s current bottom line certainly didn’t justify the price of the shares, but many shareholders out there are betting on Chris Oakes turning the company around.
Chris' first order of business when he joined the company was to fire all of the top management of the company and hire his hand-picked replacements. Our executive payroll tripled. So far, the shareholders haven’t lynched him. I think shareholders are just as stupid as bankers.
My wandering thoughts were interrupted.
"Kate," I heard Jay say behind me. I turned around and knew by the look on his face that the news wasn’t good. He took a step towards me and said softly, "She’s gone."
I turned around and threw-up in the stone column ashtray that progressive organizations place outside their places of business for us social pariahs, smokers. Typically, it could hold a cup of sand and ten butts. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Jay placed his arm around my shoulders as I was heaving into the ashtray.
"Fuck off. Leave me alone," I spluttered.
He backed off. Jay knows what’s good for him. I fumbled in my purse for a Kleenex and found one that had been used about three times. Not very effective for wiping off the chin in the circumstances, but it did the trick. I took a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Or was it the other way around? Who cares.
I turned back and looked at Jay. He was standing on the other side of the entranceway. When he left me alone, he really left me alone.
I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. I wanted to scream. No one close to me had ever died. I headed towards the parking lot at a fast clip and Jay came running behind me.
"Hey."
I kept going, digging in my coat pockets for my car keys.
"Hey. Monahan. Kate. Jesus Christ, Kate, wait up."
I stopped. I knew I was going to start to cry and that wasn’t allowed in front of other people. The only time I cried was when the heroine of one my favourite novels lost her true love in a ship wreck.
I sniffed a few times to try and clear the lump in my throat and knew it wasn’t going to work. The tears were already streaming down my face and I was trying to cry quietly. Like when you’re at a movie with a girlfriend and you don’t want to let on you’re crying and you’re wiping your eyes with salted fingers from the popcorn. You do it quietly. Your girlfriend’s probably crying as much as you, but women of the new millennium have to be tough. I got to my car and fumbled with the lock. It was stuck again. Cheap piece of shit. I kicked the car door.
Jay took the keys from my hand and opened the door.
"You drive," I sniffed and walked around the car to the passenger side. When I reached the back of the car it hit me like I had been slammed into the boards by Bobby Orr. Evelyn was dead. I started gasping for air, sobbing. I held on to the back of the car and cried. Fuck the new millennium, I thought.
Jay stepped to the back of the car and took me by the shoulders. He knew he was invading my personal space but he was a brave sort. He leaned over and put his arms around me and hugged me tight.
Jay patted my back, patted my hair, patted my shoulder. He just didn’t know what to do. Under normal circumstances he’s the Rock of Gibraltar to most women, but in all the years Jay had known me, he had never seen me cry. When I finally dried up, I asked him if he had a tissue. He dug a clean one out of his pocket and held it up. I blew my nose and hiccupped a few times.
Jay tried to ease himself in the driver’s seat and got stuck with his rear in the seat and only one leg in. I had to lean over and reach the lever under the driver’s seat to push it back. I’m so short they tease me at the garage that they’re going to have to put blocks on the pedals so my feet can reach. Jay finally got the seat pushed back far enough so he could fit in and disgustedly reached behind his back and tossed the two pillows I use for extra height into the back seat.
"Isn’t there a height restriction for getting a driver’s license?" he teased. I smiled weakly.
"Where to?" he asked as he started the engine. It was our lucky day. The car started on the first try.
"Ev’s place. I want to see if Danny’s home yet. He hasn’t answered the phone and I’ve left about ten messages. Someone has to let the family know. I told the doctors that I’d look after contacting her kids."
Jay put the car into gear and headed out of the parking lot. It had been a long day, a long week, Jesus Christ, it had been a long month. I knew it was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER
three
There was no answer at the door at Evelyn and Danny’s place. I was surprised. It was almost 12:30 and you’d think the video arcades would be closed. Aren’t they normally populated by twelve year old boys who should all be home in bed by now? Danny wasn’t a drinker and he didn’t have a girlfriend so I was surprised by his absence. I had no idea where his twin brother Jonathan or his sister Elaine lived. I had only met the brother and sister a few times at family get-togethers and birthday parties for Ev and didn’t feel comfortable telling them the bad news. I didn’t feel comfortable telling Danny either, but at least he was a known entity.
Danny was a mommy’s boy. His identical twin Jonathan was the exact opposite. Jonathan had been married three times, no children. Thank God, Ev used to say. Their older sister Elaine was married and had one child, Sarah. Pictures of Sarah and Danny were plastered all over Ev’s office.
Evelyn’s husband died in 1955 in Korea leaving her with a three year old and two babies. It had been a struggle financially for Ev, but she never complained. Jonathan took his first bride when he was nineteen and was fast on his way to becoming a male Zsa Zsa Gabor. Elaine was a homemaker whose husband sold something, I couldn’t remember. They were the steady ones. Danny on the other hand had never held a job for more than a year, was one credit short of about eight different university degrees and was totally inept when it came to women, other than his mama. Danny would regularly show up at the office with a homemade lunch for his mother and sit beside her and watch her eat it. He called her about six times a day and every hour on the hour if she worked late. On nights when Ev was late at the office, she had to call him when she was leaving and he’d meet her at the bus stop. Ev used to throw her hands in the air and ask for medical proof that the umbilical cord had been cut when Danny was born. Danny was very protective of his mama and her death was going to devastate him.
"I hope she has more life insurance than the company provided," I said to Jay. "Danny’s going to find it tough enough coping without his mama. When he has to find steady work, that should just about do him in."
"Give the kid a break," Jay said.
"Kid?" I snorted. "Jay, he’s almost old enough to be your father. He’s no kid. He’s 44 years old."
Jay shut up. He was 28 years old but tried to act 48.
We were sitting in the car outside Ev’s house. The streetlights cast shadows on the cars parked on the street. Other than the parked cars and Jay and I, the street was deserted. The car was facing in the direction of the Davisville subway station so we could see Danny when he walked down the street. I lit another cigarette and before Jay could snort at me, I rolled the window down.
"Nuts. Fucking nuts. Why would Ev be so stupid to eat something with nuts in it?" I asked out loud.
"Kate, do you think Ev would knowingly eat something with nuts in it?"
"I was talking to myself," I snapped back.
I turned in the seat and looked at Jay. He was looking straight ahead and was running his hand through his hair. It was standing straight up. He did this repeatedly.
"You’re brushing. Stop it," I ordered.
Jay mumbled something.
"Pardon?" I asked.
He turned to me and grinned. "I said leave me alone, Kate. I haven’t said a word all night about the two packs of cigarettes you’ve smoked. Stop nagging me about brushing my hair with my hand."
It was one of many of his nervous habits. But he did have a point. Brushing his hair with his hand wasn’t going to give him emphysema and his teeth weren’t going to turn that lovely shade of gold that mine have been taking on lately.
We sat quietly for a few minutes. "I’m going to have the caterers fired. That’s the last fucking time they get our business. Someone must have screwed up and cooked something with peanut oil."
"You can’t blame the caterers when they didn’t provide the food," Jay said.
"Whaddya mean, they didn’t cater? We always get them to cater."
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the credenza in the boardroom. I could recite from memory the items that should have been on the credenza, because we always get the same food, every time. But when I closed my eyes to conjure up a picture of the food at today’s reception, something was out of whack. I could see mismatched Tupperware containers, paper plates, odd and unmatched cut glass and crystal bowls, pottery platters and very different looking food. I shook my head. The food today had been yummy stuff like brownies, potato salad, cold cuts, celery with Cheez Whiz, devilled eggs. But where were the chicken livers with bacon, mini quiches, smoked oysters?
"Who catered the food today?" I asked Jay.
"Don’t you ever read your e-mail? It was a potluck. All the employees attending the reception were told to bring something homemade. Orders from the CEO. He wanted a more ‘homey’ style reception. Even he brought something. We all joked it was probably some of Baby’s dog food." Baby was Chris Oakes’ dog. "Vanessa reminded everyone in the e-mail about Ev’s allergy and we were told to avoid nuts and peanut oil."
I vaguely remembered the e-mail and was flabbergasted. Potluck? Just who the hell did Chris Oakes think he was fooling?
CHAPTER
four
Telling Danny was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. He blubbered like a baby. He was late getting home because he had gone to a double feature at one of the old movie houses downtown. Jay stayed with him for the night and I went home.
By the time I got to my place it was close to 3:00 a.m. and I realized that no-one at the office had officially been informed of Evelyn’s death. It was too late to call anyone, but not too late for voice mail. E- mail was the communication tool of choice for all of our executives, except our CEO, who only ever used voice mail. The executives each had their Blackberry's and were glued to them all day. They used e-mail rather than talk face-to-face with someone.
Our CEO, Chris Oakes, didn't know how to use a computer, let alone e-mail, and there was no hope we could bring him into the new millennium and get him to use a Blackberry. He was stuck in the early nineties, in love with his voice mail. He didn't use the system just to get messages, he would create his voice messages and send them to someone on our system. He did this all day long. Never once did he think of using the phone to call someone and talk to them live; he and the other executives were the same, never talking to people, just using electronic means to send messages - that way they could be tough guys without ever having to look someone in the eye. Our Chief Executive Officer sits in his office, creates a voice mail message, sends it to Vanessa his secretary, and then sends her another urgent message telling her to check her voice mail. They were all a bunch of gutless wonders.
So needless to say, even though we had e-mail, and most of the executives had their Blackberry's, we were all masters of voice mail because that was the communication tool of choice for Chris Oakes. So I dialled in to the office voice mail system and logged on to my personal mailbox. The nasal computer voice told me "You have ELEVEN new voice messages". Emphasis on the ELEVEN. If it were ten, there wouldn’t be any emphasis. For some reason, the computer voice thinks ELEVEN is a lot of messages. On a good day, Chris Oakes fires off ELEVEN messages in eight seconds. That includes time to dial all the appropriate numbers, clear his throat three or four times on your message, yell some obscenities, threaten to fire you and hang up. Sometimes, Chris Oakes has been known to send ELEVEN messages to ELEVEN different people and all of them consist of the same message. "Uh... Uh... Uh.....". Wow. Can we quote you on that Mr. Oakes?
I decided to skip the ELEVEN messages and listen to them in the morning. I created one voice message to Chris Oakes, Vanessa Wright, Tom James and Harold Didrickson. I let everyone know what had happened. "This is a voice message to Chris, Vee, Tom and Harold. Just to let you know that Ev died tonight. She never recovered consciousness. I’ll see you in the morning." Short and sweet. To the point. Jesus, I hate voice mail. But it’s great for us gutless wonders.
I had dropped my coat on the floor in the front hall as I was talking on the phone. Correction: sending a voice mail. I keep my phone in the front hall and refuse to have more than one in my apartment. I talk on the phone so much at the office that I usually ignore my phone at home when it rings. I don’t have an answering machine, call waiting, three party calling or any of those fancy features at home. Some things are sacred.
I flipped off the hall light and picked up my coat but was too lazy to fight the closet door so I dropped it back on the floor. I stumbled down the hall, blew a kiss to my most recent, and hopefully still alive goldfish, Snapper the Fourth. I had only had him a couple of weeks and made a mental note to check on him in the morning.
I loved pets but the building super wouldn’t let me keep any in the apartment so I snubbed my nose at him and bought a goldfish. That was three years ago. I was on my sixteenth goldfish and I’ve had to change pet stores. They thought I was doing weird scientific experiments on them, I had bought so many. I am determined to discover the secret of keeping a goldfish alive for more than 48 hours but it’s proven to be a daunting task. I have just as much luck with plants.
I filled the coffee maker and set the timer on it to brew at 7:30. I was going to treat myself and not go in to the office until 8:00 in the morning. It’d been a long night.
I stripped off my jacket, blouse and skirt and left them where they fell. My bra, underwear and pantyhose got tossed in a corner. I got out a clean pair of white gym socks, put them on and got in to bed.
I groaned as I sunk into the bed and let the goose-down duvet settle over me. My eyes felt like they were full of sand from all the crying I had done earlier.
I woke up drenched in sweat and my mouth was so dry my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I had been dreaming I was lost in the middle of the desert, looking for Evelyn and calling out her name every couple of steps. My voice was failing me when I woke up.
The clock radio beside the bed read 4:55 so I got up and pulled on my sweats and one of my dad’s old army sweaters that reached below my knees. I by-passed the automatic timer on the coffeemaker and chained smoked two cigarettes while the coffee dripped through. My father would call this a ‘whore’s breakfast’.
I poured myself a coffee and wandered into my living room and stood at the French doors which led on to my two square foot balcony and looked out over the street. Things were pretty quiet at this time of the morning. I reached under the lampshade of the vintage tiffany lamp on my desk and pulled the chain and the light softly lit the top of the desk and the surrounding floor. I sat at my desk and rummaged around through the drawers to find the pictures taken last summer when Ev and I rented a cottage.
What a time we had. We laughed all day and cried a little every evening. We’d put on our bathing suits and go down to the lake and tease each other about looking like beached whales. I’m about ten pounds overweight and being the lady I am, I never asked Ev her weight, but I’d guess she was at least fifty pounds too heavy. We’d barbecue every night, hot dogs for me and skinless breast of chicken for Ev. At least she tried to lose weight. After the dishes had been done, we’d fire up a couple of Coleman lamps and sit out on the screened-in porch and listen to the mosquitoes slam up against the screens. With our feet up and a fresh pot of coffee, we’d both eagerly dive into the latest Harlequin romance we were reading.
I discovered Ev was a closet romance reader just like me one day when I got a call to take over the reception while Ev ran an errand for the Chairman. The phones were quiet and I was rummaging around for something to read when I eyed a novel tucked in beside the telephone console. The book was covered with a handmade crocheted jacket which completely hid the cover. I opened it to the first page and starting reading. "Her green eyes sparkled and the sun shone on her auburn hair." I sighed and settled down for a good read. Romance stories have always been one of my passions and one of my most guarded secrets. I made Ev promise she’d never tell anyone I read Harlequin romances. She laughed. "So the tough broad really does have a tender streak in her." By the end of each evening at the cottage one of us would be snivelling over the heroine’s loss of her true love.
We had talked about renting a cottage for years and only got around to doing it once. We had promised each other last year on the drive back to the city, "same place next summer". My eyes filled with tears as I remembered.
I couldn’t find the pictures and was only succeeding in making the desk a bigger mess than what it was when I started. Every drawer was jammed-packed with god knows what. My desk at work was just as disastrous but there at least I have a secretary who does all the filing and tries to keep it in order.
I was bilious now from all the coffee and cigarettes and butted another one in the overflowing ashtray. I stood and lifted one arm over my head, slowly and repeated the move with the other arm. My aerobic workout for the day. Sunlight was filtering through the windows but it was only 6:30. So much for the late start I had promised myself. I headed for the bathroom and turned on the shower.
CHAPTER
five
I shoved my parking pass into the card reader in the underground parking garage at the office and made a quick right turn. At this time of the day the parking lot was virtually empty so I had my pick of the unreserved spots. My parking pass was the one and only perk associated with my job and I treasured it dearly. At our company only professionals were entitled to parking passes and the fact that Kate Monahan, lowly support person had one, really pissed off the masses. It wasn’t something I went around bragging about but one of the airheads in office management who had to give me the pass let everyone know.
When Harold Didrickson joined the company four years ago as General Counsel, he approached me to work with him and help him set up a new legal department. Until then I had been biding my time working for Shirley Benton as her legal secretary. Shirley was the only lawyer on staff at the company at that time and the legal department had consisted of two of us.
I agreed to work directly with Harold which set off a nasty chain of in-house political cat fighting. Shirley thought she was entitled to the job of General Counsel and to this day still speaks to Didrickson through clenched teeth. She also fought tooth and nail to keep me as her secretary. Shirley is one of the best at what she does - contract and computer law and dealing with all the tech weenies. But she had no experience with public company law so when Chris Oakes was setting up his empire he brought in Didrickson. Didrickson had performed some legal work for the company in his private practice. In four years the legal department has grown to four lawyers, three paralegals and two secretaries. Didrickson hired the other two lawyers and I hand-picked and groomed the paralegals and secretaries.
Didrickson didn’t budge much when I asked for a salary increase to take on the new job but he did agree to give me a parking pass. At the time, I thought it was a big deal. With the hours I had put in over the last four years, it was a good goddamn thing I had the parking pass because many nights by the time I left the office the streetcars and subway had stopped running.
TGC had accomplished a lot over four years. We had successfully closed the acquisition of eighteen companies in twenty-two months, we had raised hundreds of millions of dollars in equity on the public market, we successfully launched a multi-million dollar debt issue and we had survived five internal corporate reorganizations. Harold Didrickson got great joy every time one of the deals would close. Each time a new transaction was proposed he would lock himself in his office and work out how he could make it as complicated as possible. By making the transactions complicated, Didrickson had everyone by the short and curlies because he was the only one who truly understood the whole deal. He would then drive the whole transaction from his desk by directing the outside law firms. He would expect everyone to grasp and understand his ideas immediately and when they had to ask for clarification on a certain aspect of the transaction, the dark side of his personality would shine. He had a terrible reputation on the street for being a mean son-of-a-bitch. Personally, I had no trouble with him. I put it all down to his short-man attitude.
I think the reason Didrickson was so keen to hire me was because he could tower over me. At four foot eleven, officially five feet, my nine year old cousin towered over me. He also towered over Didrickson who was only five foot four.
Didrickson was fair with me. He taught me as much as I wanted to know and over the past four years I had gained incredible knowledge about the workings of a public company. He set high standards for himself and expected the same of his co-workers. I’m the lead paralegal in the department specializing in corporate securities work and I now know my way around the record books of companies. He taught me how to organize the logistics of closing an $85 million bank loan. I can do public offerings in my sleep. Didrickson has never had a legitimate complaint about my work.
I grabbed a prime parking spot on the first level and got out of the car. I ground out my cigarette under the toe of my shoe and slammed the car door, making sure I didn’t lock it. One of these days I’m going to strike it rich and I’ll be able to afford a car with locks that work.
I stepped off the elevator from the parking garage and turned right to sign in at the security desk. It was 7:20 and everyone was required to sign in the building before 8:00. I made nice with the security guard whose body odour knocked me back a few feet. It’s hard talking and breathing through your mouth at the same time but regardless of his repulsive smell, I gave him a smile. I make it a point to be friendly with the guys on their way up. He didn’t check my signature against the company master log because he sees me here most mornings.
"Which floor Kate? Twelve or thirteen," he asked.
"Twelve," I replied. He pushed a button on his console and released the elevator to the 12th floor.
"Later," I said with a wave. I scrambled out of there and headed for the main elevator bank on the left hand side of the lobby, breathing deeply. God, somebody has to talk to that man about his choice of aftershave, I thought.
TGC had two floors in the building, 12 and 13. The corporate offices were on the 13th floor but most mornings I headed to the 12th to pick up a coffee in the main kitchen. The two floors were connected by an internal staircase through the reception areas so I would get my daily dose of exercise by walking up the staircase, usually only once. Every other time I had to go down to the 12th floor, I’d take the elevator. No use taxing this great body.
I got on the elevator and the button for twelve was already lit. Before and after business hours the security guards control the elevators for security purposes. As the elevator was going up I thought about pushing all the buttons for the other floors to see if they would light up. It’s a game I play to see if I can catch the security guard. I’m quite juvenile when no one is looking but my heart wasn’t in it this morning.
I got off at twelve and turned right to the back doors. The main reception doors were straight ahead off the elevators but the doors were still locked and the reception area was dark. Access to the premises was gained by flashing my security card in front of a black box on the wall beside the door. After making coffee in the main kitchen I threaded my way down the hall to the reception area to go up to the 13th floor. I huffed my way up the circular staircase and congratulated myself on only spilling a quarter of the cup of coffee. I was careful to let it spill on the carpet, not on my shoes. Everything was dark but I could have been blind, I knew my way around this place so well.
When I reached my office the first thing I did was punch a series of numbers into the phone to turn on the overhead lights in our quadrant of the building. I hung my coat on the back of the door and settled into my chair. I lit my first illegal cigarette of the day and opened my bottom drawer to reveal my ashtray stash. Smoking is not allowed in the building and I was sick and tired of having to go outside every time I needed a cigarette. Building management overlooked the no smoking policy when we had receptions in the boardroom but their goodwill was being sorely tried because the other tenants were complaining about the smoke which wafted through the building’s air circulation system.
Everyone knew I smoked in my office, but I kept the door closed. No one had the balls to tell me to stop and besides, my ace in the hole was Chris Oakes, who openly smoked foul cigars in his office every day.
I reached over and switched on my computer to give it time to fire up while I checked my voice mail messages. The red light on my phone was flashing, indicating messages waiting but I already knew I had at least ELEVEN new messages waiting. I grabbed my notebook and a pen and logged on to voice mail. The computer-generated voice intoned, "You have THIRTEEN new messages."
Two new messages had been received since three in the morning. Do these people never sleep?
The first three messages were hang-ups. Those type of messages I love. The computer voice told me the fourth message was from an internal number and was received on Thursday (the day before) at 5:30 p.m. I hit the number on my phone to listen to the message. It was Ev.
"Kate, it’s Ev. Can’t wait to have a drink with you at the reception. Later."
I slammed down the phone. It was eerie hearing her voice. My breath was coming in short gasps. Holy shit, I thought. Like talking to the dead. I turned around to log in to my computer because whenever I’m stressed I tend to do mundane things. Things that don’t require thinking. The computer was flashing a message: "System error. Contact system administrator."
"Fuck." I slapped the monitor. "Piece of crap."
This was typical. We have the technology. Right. A high tech company whose internal computer systems were so shitty it was embarrassing. Like the shoemaker’s children who went barefoot. Our system would be down at least once a week and it was especially frustrating first thing in the morning because the system administrator, an overpaid computer junkie, typically didn’t arrived in the office until nine most days. He was normally so spaced out, probably from surfing the net all night, that it would take him a couple of hours to bring the system back on line.
I pulled out our internal phone directory and found his home number. His phone rang at least a dozen times before he answered.
"Yeah," a voice mumbled.
"Ray, it’s Kate. Get your ass out of bed and get this system up. Today is not a good day and I haven’t kicked ass all week. You could be my candidate of choice."
There was no response. The asshole had probably fallen back to sleep.
"RAY," I bellowed into the phone.
"Yeah," he mumbled again.
I sweetly and quietly said, because my mother always told me you attract more flies with honey, "Ray, get your lazy ass out of bed." I haven’t figured out yet why I need to attract flies.
He responded immediately. He recognized my sweet and quiet voice and exactly what it meant. "I’ll log on the system from home and see what’s the problem."
"Are your feet on the floor?" I demanded.