Boardroom Battle

by Kelsie Fann

  They sat there for a few minutes, each soaking in each other’s tragic childhood event. Liz swallowed and looked both ways, feeling awkward about where to take the once easy conversation. Had the tough subjects stopped their banter forever? Liz sighed, realizing the spell of their impromptu conversation was gone, until Hamilton saved it.

  He broke the silence with an upbeat thought. “Oh, I left out something . . . donuts.” He grinned again, and Liz cheered inside, glad the conversation was headed in a lighter direction.

  “Cake or glazed?”

  “Glazed.” Hamilton narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a savage.”

  Liz laughed and looked at the man next to her. She couldn’t believe Hamilton had sat down beside her. He was funny, liked food, and looked like a model. Was she in a dream? “Me too.”

  Liz hadn’t felt an instant connection with anyone in years. She’d spent the last five years going on a few dates with a few guys who were either too boring or completely flakey.

  He grazed her arm—Liz didn’t know if it was on purpose or not—and a shiver went up her spine. “I knew I liked you.”

  “What was that thought?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.” She was about to ask him a question that was not food-related when she felt a small tap on her shoulder.

  “Liz.” She jumped and spun away from Hamilton to see Rose standing at her side.

  “Are you ready?” Rose whispered into her ear. Liz’s stomach sank. She wasn’t ready to leave the man with a love for fast food and a sense of humor.

  But Rose gripped Liz’s shoulder a little too tight. Liz looked closer at Rose, realizing there was something wrong with her friend. “Please,” Rose whispered. “Can we go?”

  Liz sighed and looked at the man sitting next to her, trying to soak up the feeling of being next to him.

  She pushed her half-full glass toward the bartender. “Got to go.”

  “You have to go?” Hamilton cocked his head adorably to the left.

  Liz looked at Rose’s distraught face and nodded. “Nice to meet you, Hammy.”

  He grinned again. “You too, Lizzy.”

  She stood up, took the hand of her leggy blonde friend, and walked out of Theo’s. As soon as the door closed behind them, Rose burst into tears. “Rose, what’s wrong?” Liz asked.

  “He was p-p-perfect,” Rose said in-between sobs.

  Liz froze and squeezed Rose’s hand. “Do you want to stay? Spend some time with that perfect man?” Liz asked. And I’ll spend some time with my perfect man?

  Rose let out a loud, long, tearful cry. The sound made Liz’s frustration disappear, and she hugged her friend close.

  “Rose, what’s wrong?” Liz asked.

  “He’s perfect for someone else. He’s married. Two kids.” She paused for a second and hiccupped. “And a golden re-triev-er.” Rose’s broken word turned the breed into an entire sentence.

  “I Googled him when I went to the bathroom. He wasn’t even smart enough to use a different name,” she cried.

  Liz looked at the door of Theo’s, debating whether to go back in and punch the guy, but as she let Rose’s hand go, Rose blew snot all over Liz’s shoulder and a rain drop hit Liz’s forehead. It was time to go home.

  She put her arm around Rose’s waist and started walking down the street. She didn’t want Hamilton to see her covered in snot and rain, so they kept walking toward the car.

  “Did you just call that guy Hammy?” Rose asked between sobs as they walked toward Liz’s car. “And did you let him call you Lizzy? You hate that.”

  Liz spotted her car, now glistening with scattered rain drops from the short Savannah shower. “I don’t think I could hate anything that man says.”

  7.

  Ready or not, Liz thought as she parked her car twenty-four hours later outside the Chambers’s Media building. It was time for the office party, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to face the man with the perma-scowl who was known as Darcy.

  Liz stepped onto the sidewalk, and the summer wind whipped around her. Her long emerald dress lapped around her ankles. Before leaving her house, she pulled her hair back, twisting it in small sections away from her face and securing it in a low ponytail over her shoulder. The wind pulled tendrils out of place, framing her face.

  She slowly walked up to her vintage office building, her stomach tight with nerves. She counted a row of bricks arched around the double doors to steady herself: one, two, three. She took a deep breath. This was a pivotal moment in her career. She could impress the new buyers and keep her job or lose everything.

  Four, five, six. She continued to count the bricks, just like she did on the first day she interviewed to be a receptionist.

  Twenty-year-old Liz barely made it into the office. It took every ounce of courage in her body to reach out to Mr. Chambers in the first place. She was desperate. She was two weeks away from running out of money and having to move home. “Now, Liz, I know you dropped out of college, but jobs here require a degree,” Mr. Chambers said.

  He looked deep into her scared eyes. “But I’m going to put my faith in you.”

  Liz twisted the straps of her purse tightly in her fists and exhaled deeply. She wanted to hug him, but she wasn’t sure if that was appropriate now. She’d hugged him when she was little. This was her best friend Dee’s dad. She’d spent countless nights having sleepovers with Dee at his house in their hometown, Sugar Hill. Before he moved to Savannah and became the king of media. Before he was looking at her as an employee, not just as his daughter’s chubby friend.

  “Um,” she mumbled.

  “Do you have anything to say?”

  She had no idea what to say. She looked down at her hands. She shook her head and knew she was already disappointing him.

  “Look at me,” he said. She quickly followed his order. “Here’s what you promise in return, Elizabeth. You promise to do better than your best. To do whatever is asked of you. And to treat everyone with respect. And if you do those three things, I know you will succeed wildly.”

  She repeated the words back slowly to him, like a knight vowing her service.

  “Go.” He nodded toward a woman sitting at the desk by the door. “Donna will train you.”

  Liz wobblily left the executive office and remained terrified the entire first year she worked for Chambers, scared to do anything to make him regret his decision.

  She worked harder than she ever had while she sat in the brick building. She stayed late, making sure she was a week ahead of every deadline.

  Now, twelve years later, she stood in front of the same brick building, and she still didn’t want to let Mr. Chambers down. She looked at the front door, focusing on a huge swag of draped moss and peonies arched over the double entrance.

  She stood up straight and tucked her clutch under her arm. The doors were breathtaking; they were the perfect mix of romantic and southern. If the inside looked anything like this, Rose had nailed it.

  Liz held her breath as she opened the doors and walked into the dimly-lit office building. The glass wall that separated the executive room from the rest of the office was still there and the glass hallway that led to the bathroom and the conference room was intact, but other than that, the inside was transformed.

  There were no more desks, phones, or even a pencil. All the office supplies were cleared out, replaced with tall tables with ivory tablecloths and long swaths of moss draped over them, pooling on the floor. The corners were filled with couches and candles flickering on every surface available.

  Rose met Liz at the door. She was also breathtaking in a white fitted sheath dress. She paced back and forth in the doorway. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I kept designing decorations. And I hope you’ll take this as an apology for ruining your date.”

  Liz hugged her friend. It was more than she’d ever dreamed was possible. “It looks amazing.”

  “It does,” Mr. Chambers said. “Thank you, ladies.”

  Liz pul
led away from Rose to see Mr. Chambers walking toward them with his arms open wide. Rose and Liz hugged their boss, but Liz pulled away quickly when she saw the petite woman standing behind him. She didn’t have her father’s beard, but she had his bright eyes.

  Liz’s heart jumped at seeing her best childhood friend. “Dee!” Liz wrapped her arms around her friend’s shoulders, which felt noticeably slimmer than the last time Liz saw her. “You should have told me you were coming in town.”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise.” Dee smiled. “Plus, I didn’t know until last minute if I’d be able to make it.”

  Liz grabbed Dee’s hand and pulled her toward a table. “How’s Denver?”

  “It’s no Savannah,” her friend said, the southern drawl still flickering in her voice. “But it’s better for Andy.”

  Andy. Every time Liz thought about him, she pictured Dee taking a pregnancy test on her twenty-first birthday. “How is your sweet boy?”

  “Doing fine.” Dee didn’t elaborate, and Liz knew, looking at the fake smile that crossed her friend’s face, that Andy was struggling, but she changed the subject before Liz could ask any more questions. “This is amazing,” she said, motioning toward the moss, swinging in long vines from the exposed ceiling beams.

  “I’d like to say I helped, but it was Rose.”

  Dee twisted her head toward Rose, who was laughing with a group of pimply web designers. “It’s ridiculous. Why does she have to be so beautiful and good at everything?”

  Liz laughed. “I don’t know. It’s a sick joke.”

  “What’s new? I need to talk about something other than doctor’s appointments and medicine schedules,” Dee said.

  Liz rubbed her hands across the smooth table cloth. “Are you sure? I feel so stupid talking about myself when you and Andy have actual problems.”

  Dee grabbed Liz’s hands and leaned toward her. “Please, tell me everything. Make me feel like a normal thirty-two-year-old,” she said.

  Liz laughed and told her old friend everything that had been happening, which was mostly just work stuff.

  “No men?” Dee asked.

  Liz grinned, thinking about the man she met the night before at Theo’s. “Well,” Liz said, “I met someone last night. No numbers were exchanged though.” Liz filled her friend in on the bronze man’s details, including his nickname.

  “Hammy?” Dee asked when Liz told her his nickname.

  “He used to be a fat kid, too. I told him about Lizzy the Piggy.” Liz nudged Dee, whose face immediately fell.

  Dee groaned. “I still feel so bad for that. Just strangle me with this moss.” She grabbed fistfuls of the centerpiece and tried to put it in front of her throat.

  “I’m still going to get you back!” Liz vividly remembered the day they were doing rhyming words in third grade and Dee said “pig” rhymed with “Liz.” Then Coney and Shoney, two boys in their class, quickly caught on and turned it into the chant that haunted her elementary and middle school days.

  Dee grimaced and shook her head. “I’m an idiot. Liz and pig don’t even really rhyme!”

  Liz took the moss out of Dee’s hands and smoothed it back onto the tabletop. “You were eight years old. Anyway, who knows? The nickname might pay off now.”

  “Yes, what if Hammy and Lizzy the Piggy end up together?” Dee said.

  Liz scrunched up her nose. It was too much to hope for; she didn’t even have his phone number. “Unlikely, but I wouldn’t turn down a date . . . or two.”

  Dee’s small eyes sparkled. “Pork will definitely be on the menu at your wedding.”

  Liz laughed so loud she almost shook the table. “You’re officially getting ahead of yourself.”

  A pause settled into the conversation. Liz looked down at the moss and brushed her index finger across the rough surface. “It’s just so nice to meet someone in real life, not online. Just feels serendipitous. Or something . . . ”

  Liz looked around the office that had filled with people while they talked. She could barely see the beautiful tables for all people laughing and mingling. Most were Chambers’s Media employees, but Liz recognized the rest of the crowd as clients or vendors. Mr. Chambers was basically king of Savannah, and she knew he wouldn’t leave anyone out of the first—and probably last—party he ever threw.

  As she looked around the room, Liz watched the office doors slowly open into the dark night. It was a bizarrely slow entrance; the doors parted only a few inches every couple of seconds, making Liz extremely curious about who was joining the party.

  A trio of people stepped into the lit building and stood in the door frame, underneath the archway of moss and bright peonies, and they couldn’t have looked any more out of place in head-to-toe black.

  Liz couldn’t take her eyes off Darcy, the man in the middle. His fists were clenched tight, but the rest of him looked completely composed. if possible, his suit was even more perfectly fitted this time. Even more annoying, the short beard on his face made him look the just the right amount of rugged.

  “Are those the Chicago buyers?” Dee whispered.

  Liz nodded slowly.

  “James! Darcy!” Mr. Chambers exclaimed loudly for everyone to hear he as walked toward the group standing under the door frame.

  Darcy reached out his hand to shake hands with Mr. Chambers, but Chambers swatted Darcy’s open palm away and opened his arms wide. He wrapped Darcy in a bear-hug, and Darcy flinched and scowled at the contact. Then Chambers hugged the other two standing beside Darcy. The woman’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head as Chambers squeezed, but the other man returned Chambers’s embrace with one of his own.

  Chambers ushered the group into the room, but they only moved a few feet from the door. Darcy’s nostrils flared as he looked toward the door like he wanted to run.

  Liz checked out the other two people flanking Darcy. They both had strawberry-blond hair and the exact same big forehead. They looked related, like siblings. The man was smiling and nodding, looking almost too friendly next to Icy Darcy. Meanwhile, the woman, who was a stick, with six-inch heels, looked almost as beautiful as Rose, but instead of a friendly smile, her lips were pressed into a tight line.

  “That’s them,” Liz whispered to Dee.

  Liz watched the blood drain from Dee’s already pale face. “Everything okay?”

  Dee placed the tips of her fingers together, like she was praying. “Yeah, just nervous, I guess. I’m worried I put too much pressure on Dad to move to Denver with us.”

  “He’s doing what he wants to do. He wants to be able to help you and Andy,” Liz said. “Plus, he hasn’t been the same since your mom passed. He needs to be around family.”

  Dee smiled and looked up at Liz. “We would love for you to come around, too.”

  Liz felt guilty she hadn’t visited Dee since she moved. “I’m coming to see you. As soon as this situation is over.” Liz waved her hand toward the trio in black across the room.

  Bang! The doors to the building slammed open, barely missing the trio of potential buyers. The solid wood planks hit the interior walls with so much force that it sounded like a bomb exploded. Several people jumped at the noise. Heather, the new receptionist, let out a high-pitched squeal from the corner.

  Everyone turned their heads to see who was creating the clamor. Maybe the caterer? A rogue busboy? Surely, no one who worked at Chambers’s Media would come in making a scene.

  Liz was wrong. Very wrong. It was someone from Chambers’s Media. Liz’s two newest members of her team, Stella and Elise, strutted into the room. The girls pushed Darcy and his two sidekicks out of the way, and Liz wanted to could crawl underneath the table.

  The explosive entrance would have been bad, but it wasn’t the worst part. Stella and Elise had bright orange hair, just like the photo filter. But it wasn’t a filter. It was real. On top of that, because the florescent hair wasn’t enough, they were dressed, head to toe, in a matching shade of florescent orange. They were like traf
fic cones.

  “Liz!” The pair ran to her and presented themselves like proud toddlers. “You like?” They turned around, blinding the crowd, who had just gone back to talking after at least thirty seconds of silence.

  Liz tried to stop her stomach from flipping as she glanced toward the buyers just in time to see the strawberry-blonde woman whisper something and tip her head back in laughter.

  “It’s . . . something,” Liz said.

  “You said it was bold! And Rose said we were throwing a party to stand out to the new buyers. So . . . what better way?” Elise exclaimed, waving her hands up to her florescent hair.

  Elise’s hands came back down and hit the high-top table hard on the side. Liz and Dee grabbed their drinks to keep them from tipping over after the impact. Stella and Elise commenced letting out various squeaks, shrill, and giggles as they recounted how much the bleach burned their scalps, trying to get the color “just punchy enough.”

  “Ladies, shh.” Liz tried to quiet them down. They looked at her, each pouting from the reprimand. “This Mr. Chambers’s daughter, Dee.” Liz hoped her introduction would settle them down.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t work. “So nice to meet you!” Stella said, rounding the table to hug Dee, twisting Dee’s small body back and forth in a rhythmic hug that looked like she was standing on a boat.

  “Okay,” Liz peeled Stella off of Dee and spread her hands out across the table. She shot a quick look at Darcy, who was still staring. She needed to get Stella and Elise out of there as fast as possible. Maybe she could take them all to the bathroom, then sneak them out the front door when the buyers weren’t looking.

  Before Liz could corral her team, Stella threw a giant orange purse on the table. “I gotta take a load off.” Then Elise followed suit. Everything hit the table: two purses and two phones. It rocked back and forth from impact.

  As the florescent accessories were flying, Mr. Chambers and the buyers walked toward their table.

  No, no, no, no, no, Liz prayed.

  She looked at Chambers, shifting her eyes frantically in the other direction, trying to steer him away with her glare. Then she looked back at her team.