by ZJ McBeattie
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Author Notes
Thank you for reading my story. I did my best to fix all the errors at the time of publication, but if you found some, please feel free to send me an email at zjmcbeattie at gmail dot com and I’ll fix them as soon as possible. You can find me on twitter at @zjmcbeattie and on facebook.
If you liked this story you might enjoy another one of my short stories:
Excerpt from
New Chance
By Z. J. McBeattie
Jane Ballard walked down the long, narrow, dimly lit hall towards the door leading to the office of one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, Alex Fox. Even though she’d read about this claustrophobic entrance, she still couldn’t believe the fuzzy dark beige wallpaper that lined the hall and the smell, what was it? Maybe the wax used to keep the dark wooden floors buffed? The uncomfortable approach was designed so that when some entered the great man’s office there would be a sense of relief and rebirth. As the head of InterLena Enterprises, Alex Fox was like a deity, and it was not an exaggeration to say that many worshipped him. But Jane didn’t worship him, did she? Until she’d received a phone call the day before summoning her here, she’d never given Alex Fox much thought of all.
As if sensing her presence, the door at the end of the hallway started to open and light spilled into the hallway. This was it.
“Please come in Ms. Ballard,” a soft voice came from inside the room. As Jane entered, she faced a pair of giant windows that poured in light and gave her the impression she was entering heaven on a bright sunny day. The voice still remained a mystery.
Jane stepped towards the windows and turned to the right where the room extended into a vast space. At one end sat a large desk with three massive screens hiding the person behind them, but only for a moment. As Alex Fox stood up and stepped out to approach her, Jane noted that he looked just as average in person as he had in the media. He had brown hair and his brown eyes were hidden behind his trademark blue tortoise shell glasses. His short-sleeve polo shirt revealed muscle definition she hadn’t noticed in his pictures. How did he find the time? Was that a factor in his success? Jane liked to think so. She believed that everything was connected.
As he approached her, he motioned that she should sit in one of the chairs circling a small round pine table that sat off to the side of the room near the windows. The table was almost as famous as the man. This was where interviews were held. This was where employees made presentations. Make or break moments happened around this little table.
Jane was nervous, though there was really no reason to be. She had no idea what Alex Fox could possibly want with her, so this was just one big all expense paid adventure.
“Take a seat Ms. Ballard,” he said, shaking her out of her thoughts.
“Please call me Jane,” she said as she sat down. She almost bit her tongue. Was it the right thing to say? In the academic world, where she came from, letting someone address you by your first name gave that person a certain amount of power. Still, what did she care? This was Alex Fox. He already had all the power in this room.
“Jane, thank you so much for flying here on such short notice.”
He paused and leaned back in his chair placing the tips of his fingers together as he analyzed her. Jane could just imagine what she looked like to him in her basic brown suit. It was the only suit she owned. It had seen her through college interviews and every event that required professional attire for the past eight years while she had earned her Ph.D. in early childhood development. She had pulled her curly auburn hair back in a low pony tail because it was the only style she could manage that would look neat and professional, but there was a tradeoff, it made her look much younger than her thirty years.
“Jane, what do you know about me?” he asked.
Jane was a little thrown by the question, but she’d managed a small bit of research before boarding the plane. She quoted the short bio that she had read online. “You are Alex Fox. You started this company with a concept that everyone in the world should have the same basic access to information and education. Your company created the first and what is still today the leading virtual computer.” She wondered what he would think of her thesis, which actively argued against people, but especially children, spending time on computers.
“And what about my history before I started InterLena? Do you know anything about that?”
“Well–” Jane tried to think, but could come up with nothing. Her younger brother, the geek, could probably tell her everything she wanted to know about the infamous Alex Fox, but though he was famous worldwide and part of contemporary culture, she could come up with no background of his youth. “I’m sorry, but no.”
“I’m going to tell you a story that not many people know.”
She leaned in, ready.
“When I was eight, I was diagnosed as having ADD.”
This was a promising start and was perhaps the key to why he had asked her here. She knew a little about Attention Deficit Disorder. There were many theories that suggested that ADD and her own area of study, autism, might be caused by the same environmental factors.
“Following my pediatrician’s advice, I started to take medications to help me focus.” He chuckled a little as he said the last word. “For the first time I could sit still in class. I could keep up with the homework. On the outside it was as if I had become the model child. But inside, I was a zombie. I felt like the real me was dying.”
Jane nodded. It was not uncommon to hear stories like this. She was sure that the medications used to treat autism were even worse. Many of those kids didn’t have the power to articulate how they felt.
“I knew it was the meds. I begged my mom to let me stop taking the drugs and I was very lucky.” He let the tips of his fingers fall away from each other and his whole body relaxed. “Even though it meant that her life would be harder, she let me stop. She quit her job and home schooled me, so that I could still learn without being forced to sit through hours and hours of classes that were designed for the average student. And my dad worked like a dog to support us. My parents are the reason that this company exists. If I had been forced to fit into an educational solution that didn’t fit my,” he cleared his throat, “special needs, I would never have been able to achieve what I have today. InterLena is named after my mother, Lena.”
Jane couldn’t help smiling when he used the term special needs, and looked down at the table hoping to hide her reaction.
“Yes, it’s hard not to smile. The great Alex Fox, a special needs child, but yes, that’s what I was. And of course you can’t tell a soul,” he said leaning in. “Anyway, the confidentiality agreements you signed downstairs are iron clad. You talk and your life as you know it is over.”
Jane smiled again, she couldn’t help it. Her life, at least her professional one, was already over, but Alex Fox couldn’t possibly know that…
… you can find the rest of this story online at various ebook outlets.