She turns and faces him square on. “I promise you, Arnauld, I did not know we were in his comic.”
His face softens. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry he did this to you…to us.”
She drops her face and closes her eyes again. I notice that her fingers are white as they dig into the upholstery of the chair’s arm.
“Okay, that’s all we needed to talk to you about, Ms. Tobin,” the lawyer announces.
She slowly opens her eyes and for a moment they rest on the document the lawyer pulled out of the folder when this discussion began. Her eyes suddenly fill with fear and I see them shift to Arnauld, before shooting back to the document.
“What are you going to do?” she asks in a tense tone to no one in particular.
I’m trying to not fall to my knees as I realize that there’s a horror lurking I don’t yet understand.
“I’ll explain at dinner, baby. Don’t worry. We have it all under control.”
“I want to know now,” she demands, her voice haunting.
“We must ask you to leave now, Brooke,” Ruiz insists in a tone that says everything. Arnold might think he has her back, but the lawyer’s not an idiot. He knows her loyalty can’t be assured.
“I’m not leaving,” she says loudly, digging in her heels. “I want to know what’s going on here.”
“Brooke, we must insist you leave. Please don’t make us call in security,” the suit says firmly, making it clear he means business.
“That won’t be necessary,” Arnauld says smoothly.
“Brooke, don’t make him bring in security,” the Monkey says gently. “I’ll explain everything later.”
She curls over in her chair with her eyes closed, and we all sit silently waiting. It kills me that she looks so broken. It’s all hitting me that I’m the one who’s put her in this position. I am just as bad for her as the Monkey. I just didn’t see it.
HR lady stands and gestures to Brooke. “Come on, Brooke, there’s another issue we need to discuss over in my office. They’re waiting for us.”
Brooke finally looks up, her expression completely blank. She slowly rises and moves towards her as they head for the door.
I’m overcome, it feels like everything is shattered, as if I’ve fallen into the center of the earth and I’m not coming back out. “Brooke,” I call out right before they reach the door. The devastation in my tone surprises even me. I almost don’t recognize my voice.
She stops suddenly to my cry and pauses. I hold my breath as the seconds pass, praying for her to turn and face me, but instead she never turns. She just keeps moving, out the door, away from me.
Away from us… and that’s when I die inside.
For most of the rest of the interrogation I am Charlie Brown with a bunch of adults surrounding me going, “wa,wa,wa,…wa,wa…wa,wa,wa.” I’m not sure what they’re saying and I really fucking don’t care. But finally something catches my attention, and snaps me out of my stupor.
“To be clear, we own B-Girl, as stated in your employment agreement.”
What in THE FUCK are they talking about? Employment fucking agreement? Own B-Girl?
This must be about the document Brooke noticed before she left. It finally hits me. My mind recalls the standard form I’ve signed for Sketch Republic and other freelance work I’ve done before I start their projects. It maintains their ownership while I work on their properties.
“That’s for stuff I do here at work, not on my own time at home,” I insist. I ball my hands into tight fists.
“I’m afraid you have misinterpreted the agreement if that’s what you think,” Ruiz says calmly.
“B-Girl is mine,” I state clearly.
“Not anymore,” Arnold says smugly.
“Over my dead body,” I assure him. “I will fight this as long as it takes, no matter the cost.”
“Well I hope you’re a very wealthy man, Mr. Evans. Because these cases are extremely expensive, and Arnauld’s prepared to take this all the way.”
I think of dad and my family…my creation and my dignity are what I have to fight for. They wouldn’t let me back down.
“I have the resources,” I insist. “I’ll fight it all the way too.”
“Good, I love a fight when I know I’ll win,” Arnold says casually. “Meanwhile, we’ve contacted Sharper Edge Comics and given them the details. So be aware that your deal is now on indefinite hold until our potentially long case is finished. But I’m sure that they’ll be more than happy to deal with us directly when we’ve won…we’re professionals after all.”
I glare at him, wishing his fur would burst into flames, and he’d die a slow painful death.
“And while we have fun in court, I think I’ll use someone on staff to start redesigning B-Girl to my liking so that we can hit the ground running after we win. Maybe I’ll get your old team involved.”
“Arnauld,” Ruiz warns. He must be able to tell that I’m about to snap.
“Is there anything else?” I ask, trying to neutralize my voice.
“Nope, that’s all. Right, Ruiz?”
“We’re done for now. Have your lawyer contact me directly so we can discuss how we’re going to proceed.”
When I go to stand my knees almost give out on me. I falter for a moment, but somewhere inside I find the strength to stand tall and gather myself. I turn towards the Monkey.
“I know I have what you want, but you’re fooling yourself if you think money and lawyers are going to make what’s mine, yours. You have underestimated me before, and I assure you, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
I don’t wait to see his reaction or hear his response. I’m done. I try to remember to breathe as I head out the door. I need to pass the threshold before it does an Alice in Wonderland and the doorway suddenly shrinks to a tiny size or turns sideways.
I’m so stunned that I just start walking down the hallway…so disoriented that I’m not even sure where the elevators are. I wish someone, any one of my friends, was nearby so that they could help me.
“Mr. Evans, you need to stop.” I turn to see Cathy, the HR woman that assisted me once with straightening out vacation days, rushing after me, a security guard only a step behind her.
“I need to get out of here,” I say out loud, not specifically to her but more to myself.
“Yes, yes, the guard will walk you out. But do you need to gather any personal items from your cubicle? We can make arrangements another time for you to do it, if that would be better.”
I think of my iPod, books and my figurines. I fear they’ll all disappear by Mojo’s mandate if I don’t take them now.
I turn towards her. “No, I want to get my stuff.” I’m right on the edge of my sanity, but I need to keep it together. Once I get the hell out of this building I can have my breakdown…but not now. I try to shift into autopilot, pushing all my devastation and panic behind a closed door in my mind.
“Okay, I’ll come downstairs with you. The guard will need to be there as well. When you’re done, he’ll escort you out.”
“Is that really necessary? I’m not going to do anything. I swear; I’ll just leave.”
“I’m sorry, Nathan. It’s policy,” she confirms pointing towards the elevators.
During the ride down I wonder where Brooke is and how I’m going to reach her. They said they were going to interrogate her. She’s probably in there right now hearing the horror of it all. I think I’ll go mad if I don’t get to talk to her soon and understand how she’s feeling. I couldn’t get a clear read on her at all in Arnold’s office. Was she upset and angry about B-Girl, or trying to pretend that it didn’t matter to deflect the situation from me? Why didn’t she even look at me after she heard the news?
As we approach the production area I see the team gathered in the hall near Nick’s office. They all turn and gawk at me and my entourage before quickly disbanding.
Andy heads back to his work area several steps behind us.
Once I’m inside my cu
be he peeks over the top of our shared wall. “Whoa dude, what’d you do anyway? Did they catch you doing on-line porn at work or something?”
He looks genuinely concerned, not just for me, but it appears for himself, too.
“No, it wasn’t on-line porn, Andy, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Sure,” he says, seeming to understand that I need my space. “But I’m sorry man, whatever it was. I’m going to miss having you around.”
I look up at him and his face is distressed. Who would have thought that the butterball’s a softy? He’s the last person I expected that from. “I’m sorry too, Andy,” I reply, realizing that I’m really sad to leave my team this way. They’d become like a second family to me.
I look sideways and realize that HR Cathy is standing outside my cube, and she’s pulled out a pad and pen. She sticks her head inside.
“Sorry, Nathan, but before you leave I have to write down what you take.”
“Really?” I say, irritated as all fuck. Now I’m a goddamned criminal. The guard hands me an empty box, and I slam it on my desk.
“Spiderman,” I call out tauntingly, waving it in the air for her before sticking the figurine inside the box. “iPod…Daffy Duck mouse pad…” I rattle off the titles of my reference books, and she gives me a suspicious look. “Hey, I brought them from home.”
“They’re his,” an angry voice responds, supporting me.
I turn to see Joel standing in my doorway.
“Nathan?” he asks, his hands straight out, palms turned upwards. He looks like he’s in pain. “What happened, dude? I need you here. What the hell?”
“I know, Joel. This is so messed up.” I look down and shuffle my feet.
“What can I do? I’ll go upstairs and fight this bullshit, whatever it is.”
“There’s no fighting this,” I say. “I’m sorry. This is really, really bad. Believe me; I never would want to let you down like this.”
“Fuck,” he curses, looking down. “You were my best guy, Nathan. And besides that, I liked working with you.”
“Me too,” I agree, feeling worse by the second.
He turns and looks back at Cathy and steps closer. “Hey, I’ll give you a call later, and we’ll set up a time in the next day or so to go out for drinks. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks man.”
He punches me lightly on the shoulder and then steps back. “Damn.”
“I know.” I nod sadly.
“Okay, later, Nathan.”
I try to refocus, quickly riffling through my drawers and shelves for anything I don’t want to leave behind including my black Darth Vader shaped coffee mug and joke-of-the-day flip calendar. I pull open the bottom drawer, and I feel a huge surge of relief to see it’s completely empty. They never would have let me carry those drawings out of the building now. Nick and Dani came through for me.
I stand back up, and realize that I’m finished here. This part of my life is over.
“I’m done,” I tell Cathy and she looks relieved there hasn’t been more of a scene. But just then Dani and Nick push their way past Cathy and the guard.
Nick gets to me first. He pulls me into a hug and leans into my ear, speaking in a low voice, “We’ve got you covered, Nathan. Where are you headed now?”
“I don’t know…” I answer, because I really don’t.
“We’ll meet you at your house in about an hour.” He quietly states.
As he pulls away, I see Dani looking at my box and crying.
“It’s okay, Dani,” I say, pulling her into a hug. “I’ll be okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she argues. “This is so fucking wrong.”
“Excuse me,” Cathy interrupts. “He was just leaving.”
Dani gets a fierce look on her face and squares her shoulders. “Hey…back off! Do you understand that this is an outrage? He doesn’t deserve this, and you should be ashamed to be a part of it.”
Cathy starts to respond and then seems to think better of it, taking a step back to talk to the security guard.
“Dani, believe me, I’m better off getting the hell out of here, after what went down. I’ll fill you in later, okay?”
She nods solemnly, wipes the new tears away, and gives me one more hug. “Later,” she whispers.
I grab my box and head out. As the guard and I walk towards the elevators, Genna and Kevin step forward. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. I’m barely holding it together.
“I’m so sorry, Nathan,” Genna says softly. “We’re really going to miss you.”
“Me too,” I offer, giving her a weak smile. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys around.”
Finally in the elevator heading to the lobby, I look at the security guard. He’s new to Sketch Republic. I’ve only noticed him around for a couple of weeks. This must be a really shitty part of the job.
“You seem like a nice guy,” he comments during our descent. “This must suck.”
I realize that he’s too green to understand he shouldn’t be sympathetic to the fallen. “It does suck,” I admit. “I’ve never been fired before.”
He shakes his head. “Wow. And that was a good job I bet.”
I nod. “And you know what else? You’re right…I’m a really nice guy. I guess that didn’t get me far.”
“I guess not,” he agrees. He follows me into the parking garage, watches me load my box into my trunk and drive off.
I’m in a surreal haze coasting down the street when my missed call prompt goes off. I pull over, and look at the phone’s screen: Morgan. I shut off my car and hit send.
“Hey, Morgan, it’s me, Nathan.”
“Damn, are you alright?”
“No, not alright at all,” I say. “Do you know where Brooke is?”
“That’s why I called, to see if you knew what was happening with her. She came running in here a while ago, grabbed me and pulled me into her office. She was crazed.”
“Fuck,” I swear. “What happened?”
“She took this tote bag out of her closet, opened her locked file drawer and stuffed some files and two flash drives in the bag.”
“Did she say why?”
“That’s the thing. She was shaking and rambling about only having a minute before she had to get back. Something about her telling someone she was sick to her stomach and was going to throw up, so she could get away to take care of this.”
“Oh, Brooke,” I sigh.
“So she gives me her car keys and tells me to immediately go lock this bag in the trunk of her car. That I needed to be very casual so that no one notices what I’m up to…then come right back up and just do my job like nothing’s happened.”
“Do you know what was in the folders and on the flash drives?”
“I have no idea. I’d never seen them before. But another thing she did before she left was open up a cupboard and stack up every one of those Starbucks cups you did for her and then put them in the bag. I didn’t know she’d kept them. Did you?”
My heart thunders with hope at this simple, yet significant gesture. “Yeah, I knew.”
“And then this is the last thing she said to me before she tore out of here, ‘Morgan you have no idea what’s in these folders or on the drives…I never showed them to you or talked to you about it. Do you understand me?’ She was so intense that she totally freaked me out. And then just like that, she was gone.”
“Damn,” I groan. “So what did you do?”
“I got the bag in her car and came back up like she asked. And now I’m waiting for her to return from HR. What’s going on Nathan? I’m completely freaked out.”
“Arnold’s trying to destroy me, and he’s trying to use Brooke to make it happen.”
“She won’t stand for that,” Morgan states emphatically.
“I know, but he may not need her to do it. He seems to be doing pretty well on his own.”
“No,” she gasps. “It’s that bad?”
“That
bad,” I confirm.
“Fuck. Fucking Arnauld. Mother fucking Arnauld.”
“Exactly.” I take a deep breath. “So Morgan, please do me a favor. I’m going to leave Brooke a message on her cell phone, but as soon as she comes back from HR have her call me. I desperately need to talk to her and they escorted me off the premises. Will you do that?”
“Of course…whatever I can do to help, Nathan.”
“Thank you.”
“Brooke will figure this out. She’s smart as hell and she loves you.”
“I hope you’re right,” I say softly. On the first and last counts, I think. For as much as I can’t stand it, I have to be realistic. After the bomb that was dropped on Brooke today, I can’t be so sure of her feelings for me anymore.
I sit in my car for a minute trying to calm myself down, before giving up and tapping her name on my screen. Her phone goes straight to voicemail. I clear my throat and begin to stutter.
“Brooke…it’s me…”
I pause, my mind racing to think of how to explain what’s in my heart.
“I’m so sick with worry right now…I’m panicked, and I desperately need to talk to you, hear your voice….I need you.”
My free hand grips the car door handle tight. “By the time you get this you will know about the camera in the conference room. Fuck it all…I don’t even know what to say about that. I’m just sick as hell that all those fuckers saw us like that. They can accuse me of whatever they want, all that matters to me is that you’re okay.”
I feel myself start to break down and my voice cracks with my next words. “I need to know that you still love me…”
I can feel my eyes fucking tearing up. I feel like such a loser.
“Knowing you still love me is the only way I’m gonna get through this.
“You do, don’t you?…you know…love me? Cause the way you acted in his office…well I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.”
I take a deep ragged breath.
“I’m so sorry about B-Girl. I wish I’d told you that the character was you in the very beginning. But I was so afraid you’d think I was a creepy freak for worshiping you from afar so long. Was I wrong about that?”
Animate Me Page 32