Asking For A Friend

by Parker, Ali

  I laughed, abandoning my plate of fluffy happiness to save my best friend from either frostbite or caffeine withdrawal—or possibly both. “We’re in here. Come sit, I have a surprise for you.”

  Denise squealed when she saw the breakfast laid out on the table. She clapped her hands together and rushed to hug Annie before dropping into the seat beside her. “You’re my hero right now. An absolute angel. How did you know I was starving and ‘jonesing’ for nothing but this?”

  She swept her hand over the spread on the island: pancakes, syrup, French toast, and bacon. We also had fresh fruit, muesli and yogurt, but I had a feeling those would go untouched for today.

  Denise and I both tried to eat in a healthy way and Annie usually ate better than both of us combined—she was the one and only kid on the planet who asked for more broccoli and finished her vegetable every time without complaint—but it was Sunday and I felt like spoiling them.

  I waited for the kettle to boil and made her a cup of coffee before rejoining them to finish my breakfast. “Your spirit guide came and told me,” I teased, hinting at a brief phase Denise had gone through while dating a guy a couple of months ago.

  She rolled her eyes while lifting her hips and pulling something out of her back pocket. “Careful. If you keep teasing me, I might exclude you from my surprise for today.”

  “Your surprise?” I asked, slightly taken aback. “Why do you have a surprise? Today is my turn to spoil the both of you.”

  Winking, she held up three tickets. “Great minds really must think alike, because I thought the same thing.”

  Reaching for the tickets, I smiled. “Great minds might think alike, but fools never differ. What are these for anyway?”

  She opened her fingers for me to take the tickets, sitting back on her seat with a smug grin as warmth flooded through me when I realized what she’d done. “The aeronautics museum? This is incredible. I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “So have I,” Annie cheered, clapping excitedly, her eyes wide and now boring into Denise’s. “Are we really going there today?”

  Denise nodded. “We’re really going there today. Unless you guys have something else planned?”

  “Nothing that can top this,” I sat back, slightly stunned by the thoughtfulness of what she’d done. “I was planning on having an arts and crafts day, but we do that all the time.”

  She laughed. “That’s because we’re awesome at it.”

  “Yeah we are,” Annie yelled, jumping off her stool and racing to her room. “I’m done with breakfast. Thanks, Mommy!”

  I exchanged a look with Denise, both of us cracking up as we listened to Annie singing a made up song at the top of her lungs about visiting a museum. One of the greatest joys about having a child was getting to experience the absolute excitement seemingly simple things brought them. It always reminded me of how much wonder there really was in the world, if only I could see it through my daughter’s eyes.

  Denise often got misty eyed about it too, but at this point Annie was hers as much as she was mine. And there was no one I’d rather—sort of—share her with.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” I told her as we cleared the table, waiting for Annie to finish deciding on her outfit for our outing. Neither of us had any doubt that it was a terrible idea to let her choose totally by herself, but I’d agreed to it anyway.

  Denise smiled at me, giving my hand a soft squeeze. “You’ve been a little down lately. I can’t make everything better, but I know you’ve been confused and I thought bringing you back to your roots as much as I could might bring some clarity.”

  Denise knew I got my first real chance when I was hired by Layton’s father, the genius aeronautics engineer behind ‘Brilliant Aviation.’ He quickly became something of a mentor to me and when I least expected it, Mr. Bridges came through for me one last time after he’d died a few months ago, by somehow getting his son to give me a chance in his own company.

  With everything going on between me and Layton, she knew I missed being able to pick up the phone to call Mr. Bridges and ask for his advice. This was her way of bringing me as close to him as she could get me.

  “Besides,” she cleared her throat. “I thought it would be fun for us to do something different today.”

  “You were right,” I smiled. It was exactly what I needed, whether I’d known it before she showed up with those tickets or not. “Thank you.”

  The aeronautics museum was a sight to behold. It was a massive, sprawling complex filled with high ceilinged hangars and some of the most incredible feats achieved by man. Denise, Annie and I joined hundreds of other visitors in gaping at the displays of man’s attempts to conquer the very skies above.

  What I hadn’t known before we arrived was that there was a memorial exhibit dedicated to Jeffrey Bridges himself open until June. My eyes filled with tears when I spotted the sign pointing in the direction of the exhibit and I blinked at Denise, totally unable to keep from throwing my arms around my friend. “You’re truly incredible, one of a kind.”

  She smirked, returning my hug. “That I am, my dear. But so are you, both of you.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes when we stepped into the exhibit. There was almost an exact replica of his office where you entered, complete with several paintings and framed blueprints that sure looked real hanging exactly where they used to be on his walls.

  “Mommy’s office used to be just a couple of doors down from this one,” I told Annie, who looked awestruck. Some of the machines Mr. Bridges had built were displayed on the walk up to the exhibit, while others that had been permanently retired from the sky were inside the exhibit itself.

  I pointed at a replica of the first airplane he’d designed while I’d been on his staff. “Building that plane kept him up for months. He wouldn’t rest until it was perfect.”

  Saying the words, I realized it was a trait that ran in the family. Layton was exactly the same way. Even before we had gotten together, we had often been the last people left in the office. Me because I had no clue what I was doing and it was taking me longer to do my job since I was essentially trying to teach myself how an entirely new industry worked.

  But Layton knew how the industry worked. He wasn’t there late because he didn’t know what he was doing. He stayed because he refused to put anything on paper if it wasn’t perfect.

  Denise looped her arm through mine when she realized where my mind had gone. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, shoving the man out of my mind as hard as I could. “I’m fine, this just brings back a lot of memories.”

  “I thought it might. If it’s too much—”

  “No.” I tugged her arm more firmly into the crook of my own. “It’s not too much, it’s perfect.”

  Annie let out a little yelp beside me and grabbed my free hand, dragging us closer to a wall filled with framed photographs. I didn’t know how she spotted my face among all the others on the wall, but she pointed at a picture near the middle. “That’s you, Mommy.”

  I leaned in closer, smiling when I recognized where the picture had been taken. “So it is.”

  “Why are you shaking his hand?” Annie asked, suddenly looking at me like I was a celebrity. It was adorable.

  “This was taken the night after I finished the first report I ever did for him,” I said, recounting the fond memory in the simplest terms I could. Neither Annie nor Denise wanted to hear all the nitty gritty details of the report in question. “He was so impressed by my work he called a staff meeting before everyone else went home and ordered a cake for us all to celebrate together.”

  “Celebrate what?” She asked, looking puzzled.

  I giggled, shaking my head. “That his hunch had paid off so well.”

  “Not to celebrate your good work?” Denise frowned, but I waved her off.

  “You had to know him to appreciate it.”

  “Apparently,” she muttered under her breath. I understood where she was coming from. Layton was complicated
, but he didn’t hold a candle to how complex his dad had been. I grew to respect Mr. Bridges though, to appreciate how his mind worked even if I didn’t always agree with his way of doing things.

  Denise looked like she wanted to say more on the subject, but Annie spotted a classmate from school and dragged us over to meet the girl’s parents. We spent the next hour talking and completing the tour of the exhibit.

  As we were leaving, Annie was chatting to her friend and Denise linked my arm with hers again. “At the risk of trying to revive dead cows and all that, it’s not a coincidence that you ended up working for that man’s son. He orchestrated it for you and I think you owe it to him and to yourself to fix your relationship with Layton. It just feels like it’s the right thing to do.”

  She shrugged toward the end of the sentence, but I could hear the conviction in her voice. Resting my head on her shoulder as we walked, I allowed myself to draw comfort from my friend as I considered my options. Eventually, I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. It does feel like the right thing to do.”

  Chapter 30

  Layton

  The office was tranquil at this time of the morning. I had a good thirty minutes of peace left before the others started arriving and I intended to use every one of them and even soak up the very last second of that time.

  I was finally making some progress on the blueprints I spent last week struggling with. Getting that video from my dad was the kick in the ass I needed to just get started.

  Nothing like being demeaned and basically told how useless you are for a bit of inspiration when you’re in a slump. I snorted quietly to myself. That exact phrase could have been my dad’s motto and I found that really sad.

  Three and a half hours ago I arrived at the office in the blackest part of the morning, glued my ass to my chair and refused to move until the damn design started coming together. Eventually, my stubbornness paid off and I finally had something of a vision for the tree house.

  I had promised Craig I’d meet him on another site early this morning, but I was tempted to push our meeting back. Having finally found my groove on this design, I wanted to keep going.

  Contemplating whether the structure might benefit from a rooftop terrace to present to the client, I almost missed the movement in my doorway. Almost, but not quite.

  Fuck. One look was all it took to shatter my concentration and rattle me right out of my groove. Marissa walked into my office without knocking, a quirk I’d gotten used to, only to have her visits yanked away from me with absolutely no notice. “You busy?”

  I arched an eyebrow and raised my pencil. “I’m not in the office at seven for the coffee.”

  Marissa being Marissa, she came in anyway. Hoisting two cups of coffee, she smiled. “Well, after you taste this coffee you might rethink that statement. It’s from this place—”

  “I don’t really care where it’s from,” I told her honestly. Seeing her was enough of a shock to my system after weeks of not really having the privilege. The last thing I needed was to be drawn in to her particular brand of bubbly this morning.

  It was only Monday for crying out loud. I had to maintain some kind of focus on something other than her this week. I promised myself I would after watching Dad’s video, even though I would need to have a discussion with her at some point about what part she might be playing in Dad’s grand scheme.

  Her smile faltered at my harsh words. Though I owed her nothing, I felt like an asshole for being responsible for wiping the near perpetual smile from her tempting lips.

  When her tongue darted out between those lips in a nervous swipe, I snapped my eyes back up to hers. I shouldn’t have been looking anywhere near her lips anyway, it only got me in trouble. Releasing a tired sigh, I cocked my head. “What do you need, Marissa? Or were you here this early hoping there was someone to take the spare coffee off your hands, because if that’s it, I’ll gladly have it and get on with my work.”

  She moved deeper into my office, lifting the cup out of its cardboard holder and placing it carefully on my desk. To my surprise, she even used the cup to slide the black coaster I used closer to me before setting the coffee on top of it. It was a very uncharacteristic thing for her to do.

  In the admittedly brief time I’d known her, I didn’t think I’d even seen her use a coaster. Marissa was the chaos to my perfect order. She was the girl who walked into a perfectly tidy room and left it looking like a bomb had gone off. She lived in the moment and while she was happy to help clean up her mess later, she had never been one to let a bit of disorder disrupt said moment.

  It was something I’d come to find endearing after a while, but it was also a reminder of a time I promised her I would forget what happened. So was her sudden attentiveness to something as simple as using a coaster.

  She shifted her weight on her black leather boots and wrapped her fingers around her own cup, lifting it to her lips to take a sip, but pausing before she did. “I needed to talk to you. I hoped you’d see the coffee as something of a peace offering.”

  “A peace offering?” I didn’t need a peace offering from her, or any other kind of offering. I just needed her out of my space before my office smelled like her for the rest of the damn day. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to talk right now. Lots to do.”

  She dropped her ocean blue eyes to the blueprint I was working on, looking like she might come in for a closer look before thinking better of it. Good girl.

  “I can see that, but I won’t take up much of your time. I promise.” She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, hope radiating from her.

  I shook my head. I wasn’t getting sucked in again. I couldn’t be. “I’m working, Marissa. I really don’t have time. As it is, I have to meet Craig on site soon and I really wanted to get somewhere on this before I had to leave.”

  “When do you have to leave?”

  “Marissa,” I said her name gently, too gently. I wrote it off as old habits dying hard and tightened my jaw. “It doesn’t matter when I have to leave, I don’t have time to talk.”

  Her shoulders slumped before she squared them again. Uh-oh. Oh no. I know that look.

  Before I could stop her from saying her piece despite my saying I didn’t have time, she locked her eyes to mine and said confidently, “If I have to wait for you to have time to talk, it’s never going to happen. I want to fix this, Layton.”

  Fuck. And so she said it anyway. Standing up from my chair, I grabbed my coat hanging from its backrest.

  If she’d said those words to me weeks ago, I would’ve stayed to hear her out. I would have called Craig and pushed the meeting back to next week if that was what it took. I was humiliated now to think how badly I’d wanted an explanation from her. Back then. Not now.

  If she came to me a day, two or three, or even four days after pretty much telling me to go fuck myself, I would’ve tried to fix it. As things stood now though, she’d made herself plenty clear that day and every day that followed. “There’s nothing to fix, Marissa.”

  “But,” she started, as I walked to my door, tugging my coat over my shoulders as I did.

  I brushed past her, realizing I was already late to meet Craig when I glanced down at my watch while fixing the cuff of my coat. Relieved to be able to say it, I paused in the door. “But nothing. There’s nothing to fix and no time to keep talking about it.”

  Without another backward glance, I walked out of my office. When I got to the site, it was drizzling. I found Craig in the temporary office, heating his hands over a radiator. He looked up when I walked in. “Should I even ask?”

  I shook my head. “Just give me an update please. And make it a good one.”

  Craig laughed, the deep belly rumble that told me he found my discomfort about the Marissa situation amusing. “Fine, but you know I’m just going to ask again later. There’s always something up your ass these days and it’s mostly about a certain—”

  I held up my hand to stop him. “Please just give me an update on work. I’m
here to work.”

  “You’re here to work,” he looked at the plastic clock on the cluttered desk. “Fifteen minutes late. Which with you means something juicy happened to keep you away. I’m like a bloodhound when it comes to lady trouble man, been through enough of it myself.”

  “Is the project on track?” I asked impatiently. Why was everyone insisting on getting all touchy feely with me today?

  Craig released a long suffering sigh, then nodded. “Yeah. The materials have been ordered and will be arriving the day before we’re due to start. I’ll have the first team here next week to start laying out the groundwork.”

  “How’s the museum coming?” It had only been a couple days since I visited it last, but I liked to be on top of things. And to keep Craig busy so he wouldn’t revert to his former line of questioning.

  The look he gave me told me knew exactly what I was up to, but I ignored it. “Still on track. The glass panels are arriving tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets, narrowing his eyes. “Now, will you please just tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “It’s nothing,” I shrugged. I was getting tired of that word, but it kept coming up today. Walking back to the office door, I gave Craig a backward wave as I opened it. “Let me know if you need me for anything.”

  The door slammed shut behind me, stopping Craig’s reply in its tracks. I kept walking, not in the mood to go back to hear what it might have been.

  People were too interested in talking shit to me today. With my dad’s video still fresh in my mind, I needed to focus on work and nothing else. I was numb to anything else, too keyed up to what might come in his next video.

  As I got in my car, it occurred to me that I could have told Craig about the video. He hadn’t known my father well, but he was always a decent sounding board. He was surprisingly astute sometimes. But I let the thought go. I needed to process the video on my own before I could bring it up to anyone, even Craig.