* * *
Zack didn’t notice Liam standing behind him in his cubicle in the finance department until he rapped the desk with his knuckles. Pulling out his earbuds, Zack spun his chair around and stood up. “Liam. I didn’t realize you were there.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Liam said. “Have a minute?”
Zack cast a longing glance at the spreadsheets on his desk. He’d immersed himself in a decade’s worth of bookkeeping, unearthing all kinds of irregularities that Bev had already warned him he’d find, especially in the months between her grandfather’s death and the start of her tenure. “Of course.”
“When we hired you, you said you were a barometer for corporate culture. That you’d be able to tell us about the company from the bottom up in a way a team of auditors couldn’t do.”
Zack had an uneasy feeling about where this was headed. “Yes.”
After looking behind him, Liam sat on the desk, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “I need to find out who made April cry today.”
“Excuse me?”
“She won’t tell me. I need to know. It was one of the designers or their assistants.”
The thought of April crying made Zack angry, but he was surprised to see her brother cared much about it. “What did they do?”
“I don’t know,” Liam said. “That’s what I need you to find out.”
“How—but—how do you know—anything happened?”
“I found her crying in the stairwell,” Liam said. “Look, you’ve got to understand. April’s not like that. She’s tough. She loves to make a scene, but not like that. Not crying.”
“She wouldn’t explain?”
Liam shook his head. “She won’t. I need you to spend some time in the design cubes and let me know if there’s anything Bev and I need to worry about. Corporate culture-wise.”
Zack had hoped he was done working with the design team. They made him nervous. Backing away from Liam, he pointed at the array of spreadsheets arrayed on his desk in paper, and digitally on two monitors above them. “I was just making progress into the finances from last year Ed Roche was alive—”
“Ancient history,” Liam said. “We need to make sure we’ve got a future. We lost two more assistants just last month. Our best patternmaker took early retirement. And Rita’s going out on family leave, no idea when she’ll be able to come back.”
“I just heard about that,” Zack said. “Sick kid?”
Liam nodded. “My sister would’ve been a great resource for keeping me and Bev aware of what’s happening in the trenches, but she’s acting as if I’m the police, sending her in to spy on the mob.”
Zack sympathized with her. “I can give you general feedback, but I’m not going to ask about April in particular. It would be too obvious, given she’s your sister.”
Liam looked as if he was going to argue, then he nodded. “If there’s a problem, you’ll see it. She goes up there multiple times a day. Just make sure you’ve got a seat in the middle of all of them so you can see what’s going on.”
“What should I say? I’ve already talked to all of them. They thought they were done with me.”
“Why say anything?” Liam asked. “You don’t have to explain yourself to them. Just ask for an empty seat. With the way they drive people out the door, there should be plenty to choose from.” He was already walking away.
Zack waited until Liam had been gone for a full five minutes before gripping his skull in both hands.
He’d have to see her again. Hiding out in the finance department had saved both of them from that awkward encounter for a little while, but the reprieve was never going to last forever.
One thing he was pretty sure of now: Liam didn’t know. Doubtful he’d be asking Zack to help now if he knew about the drunken groping after the family dinner. The man went out of his way to protect his baby sister from design assistants. What would he do about the business consultant jumping her at the BART station?
Zack rubbed his face, stifling thoughts of doom. The benefits of getting between Liam and April were few. Whatever—or whoever—had upset her, she didn’t want him to know about it, and she would be unhappy with him interfering. If it were important, she would’ve talked about it with her manager, or even Liam.
Or would she?
What if he could avoid the hassle of moving up to the design floor by just talking to her?
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. They’d bump into each other around the building one of these days anyway. Now was as good a time as any. It would also give him the chance to apologize properly.
He tucked his spreadsheets into a drawer, shut down his computers, and went to look for her. Being a lecherous fool, he’d memorized her schedule and knew she often worked a full day on Fridays.
She wasn’t at her desk, but she’d left a note in large, neat block letters handwritten over the discarded printout of a blue polka dot bike short: RAN OUT FOR COFFEE. BACK ASAP. APRIL.
He strode out the hallway to the lobby. Virginia, the geeky receptionist, had her head bowed over her phone as it beeped the tune of a familiar game, and didn’t look up as he stepped outside.
Filmy mist shrouded the city, typical for early February. Not quite rain but enough to make him pause and zip up his jacket. With the weather, she probably hadn’t walked too far. He was looking up and down the street, trying to decide which way to walk, when she appeared out of the fog with a cup of coffee in one hand and a white paper bag in the other.
Pulse accelerating, he strode in her direction, admiring today’s outfit: hiking pants, floral poncho, ballet flats. Somehow, on her, it was sexy. She was small but rounded, most of it centered around her lower half. The hiking pants hugged every curve as she walked. By the time they were face-to-face, he’d forgotten why he’d come out to find her.
“Hi,” she said, moving to walk past him.
“Wait.” He held out a hand but didn’t touch her. Had he ever seen her in the daylight before? Even under the clouds, the filtered sun lit up her brown hair, brought out strands of red and gold. Freckles dusted the bridge of her nose. Her eyes…
Her eyes seemed to say he was crazy. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I need to talk to you. Got a minute?”
“Not really,” she said. “Rita’s out and I’m swamped.”
“Please. We’ll just walk around the block. It’s good for us. You’ll be back at your desk in five minutes.”
“No. Can’t. I’ve got to finish this thing before the weekend.” She started to move away.
“Your brother just came to talk to me about you,” he said.
She stopped.
“Walk?” he asked.
She glanced at the sky, opened the paper bag. “Sounds like I’m going to need this ASAP.” Out from the depths of white paper came a sugar-dusted, cinnamon-colored cookie as big as her face. After a huge bite, she turned an inquiring gaze on him.
“He’s worried about you,” Zack said, starting to walk. “Did something upset you today?”
“Jeez Louise.” Crumbs flew out of her mouth. “He sent you to spy?”
“Afraid so.”
“That overbearing turd. I love him, really I do, but he’s got to let me handle this on my own.”
“He’s concerned about company morale.”
“Just an excuse. He’s forgotten I’m not eleven anymore.”
“Was it Teegan?”
She took another bite. “I’m not squealing, copper.”
“He told me to find an empty cubicle on the design floor and find out if there’s anything wrong, corporate culture-wise.”
“Of course there’s something wrong. There’s too much work and not enough time. Same as it is everywhere.” She sipped her coffee and winced. “Ouch. Hot. I’m never good at waiting.”
“Was somebody angry at you for being late with a project?”
“No, it was just”—she took another bite—“one of those things. I got a l
ittle stressed out. Liam found me and overreacted.”
He knew that wasn’t going to be enough of an explanation to save him from sitting in the design area. “If you tell me more about it, maybe I can get him off your back without sharing the whole story.”
“It was nothing. Nothing. I’m not a child. I’m not his child.”
“He’s concerned about the high turnover. Assistants have quit. Freelancers don’t like to come back.”
“Well, I’d like to,” she said. “I’m very happy. I’d like to stay at Fite for as long as they’ll have me. Put that in your report. April Johnson is a happy camper. Like a girl scout on smack.”
“This won’t be on any report,” he said. “Just a casual conversation.”
“That goes to my brother the CEO and PITA.” She lifted the coffee to her mouth. “April Johnson. Happy camper.”
“Girl scout,” he muttered.
She shoved the last, palm-sized piece of cookie into her mouth. “Exactly.”
When they reached the corner, he stopped and looked back at the Fite building at the end of the street. “He said you never cry.”
“I cry all the time,” April said. “I’m crying right now.”
He wished she would talk to her brother so he didn’t have to interrupt his nice, logical financial analysis just when he was getting started. But Liam was right. He wasn’t an auditor, he was a big-picture guy. He was supposed to unearth the subtle problems. “Funny, you don’t look like you’re crying,” he said.
“On the inside,” she said.
He scrubbed his face with both hands. He was going to the design floor. “Yeah. Me too.”
Chapter 13
THAT EVENING AT FIVE, APRIL snatched the last of her designs off the printer in the hallway and ran up the stairs two at a time to the design floor.
Stripes, lightning bolts, polka dots, checks. Green, black, blue, silver, gray. The stack of designs in her hand was as thick as her wrist. She’d arranged them by shape and color so Teegan could flip through them without getting overwhelmed.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as she was opening the door at the top of the stairs.
It was a text from Bev. Will you be back before 6?
April swore. The journey home, though only fifteen miles, took over an hour via public transit.
Sorry! More like 6:30, she wrote. She’d promised to babysit Merry tonight so Bev could go out with Rose. Some wedding planning thing. The wedding was two months away, which seemed like a long time to April, but apparently was soon enough to make Rose panicked about the final preparations. Bev planned on taking her out for Thai and a movie, followed by gourmet ice cream on College Avenue—which sounded pretty good to April, too.
Bev had been working from home this week, eager to get back to Fite, but Merry wasn’t making it easy. Liam was going to stay home for a few mornings next week so Bev could come in, but with Merry fussing about the bottle, it was hard for Mom to get away. Tonight was supposed to be a much-needed break for Bev as well as Rose.
April shoved her phone in her pocket, unable to wait for Bev’s response. Teegan was expecting her, and stopping now would only make her later getting home.
Teegan was at her desk, thank God, eating another salad. A dinner salad, apparently. Teegan made a point of working longer hours than anyone else.
April took a second at the entrance to her cubicle to catch her breath. Then she said, “Hi. Here are a few more design options for you.”
Mouth full of lettuce, Teegan eyed her without moving.
“For the running pant,” April added.
“You did that already.”
April placed the stack of printouts on her desk. “You asked for more options.”
“What is that? That’s like a whole ream of paper.”
“I wanted to give you plenty of choices,” April said.
Teegan frowned at the stack. “It would take me all night to go over all that.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s arranged by design, with several colorways of each.” April grabbed the stack and separated it out into categories. “Stripes are here, but I also tried out a few other—”
“You’re obviously paid by the hour,” Teegan said. She still wasn’t moving away from her salad to take a closer look.
April’s face heated. She tried to dredge up the calm of her last yoga class, where the instructor had encouraged them to embrace the opposite of whatever negative force was driving them down. But the only thing she felt like embracing right now was a pair of pinking shears, with which she would cheerfully slice Teegan’s glossy, glassy hair into ribbons.
“You said you wanted options,” April said.
“Not that many. Besides, Jennifer decided to use the first one.”
“The first—”
“From yesterday,” Teegan said. “It sold well last year, so they’re just going to run it in the new color. I don’t suppose it’s in that pile of yours? We need the Sunset Pink over River Rock.”
April crossed her arms over her chest to restrain herself. An entire day’s work, wasted. “You told me to come up with something new.”
“That was before I saw what you could—and couldn’t—do. We’re using last year’s design. We had a great freelancer last year.”
The pinking shears weren’t strong enough for what she wanted to do to Teegan now. Not pointy enough. She’d need some of the forearm-length stainless steel blades the cutters used on the production floor.
Teeth clenched, April scooped up the pile of designs Teegan had never looked at. “Last year’s stripe?”
“The first one.”
“Which colors?” April found a pen and flicked off the cap. She focused on the ballpoint, remembering a movie where the guy had killed somebody with a pen. Or was it a mechanical pencil? She scanned the desk for other writing options.
“Sunset Pink and River Rock,” Teegan said, dripping with impatience.
April wrote it down in a shaky script. “I’ll do it right now.”
“Don’t bother.” Teegan closed the plastic lid of her salad. “Jennifer’s gone for a week. Just make sure it’s on my desk before next Friday.”
Next Friday. Seven days. To print out the original design, which consisted of two parallel lines of identical width.
A masterpiece. Only a real artist could’ve made that sucker.
Paid by the hour, my big round ass. For once in her life, she hadn’t been squeezing out the minutes for a few bucks—she’d actually cared.
What a mistake.
Clutching the stack of paper that represented hours of wasted life she’d never get back, April walked out of the cubicle without a word and down the stairs to her own floor, feeling disconnected and weightless, like a body floating in a swimming pool.
Her cellphone vibrated again. Now what? She dumped the stack into the recycling bin and glanced at the screen.
Never mind about babysitting, Bev said. Liam’s home early. Enjoy ur freedom!
April stared at the phone. She was tired, but she’d been looking forward to a few hours with Merry. Even considering her niece’s explosive digestion.
She packed up her things with a sigh. Maybe it was just as well. Aunt April was in an explosively shitty mood of her own. Better to keep all that bad energy away from an infant. Better to be alone.
She kicked the door as she walked past.
Being alone was overrated.
* * *
Zack had heard every word.
He’d done as Liam instructed and had moved himself that afternoon to the empty cubicle between the assistants for Women’s and Men’s. When April had come up and had her illuminating conversation with Teegan, he’d been on the other side of the flimsy wall, trying to concentrate on the data he was juggling into colorful graphs and failing.
He believed that the consulting work he did was good for everyone, especially the folks at the bottom of the corporate ladder. But right then he felt sleazy. He preferred to do his
observing openly, obviously, not hidden like a weasel.
Not that furtive surveillance couldn’t produce results. With him, Teegan had been agreeable and pleasant, even funny. In their short interview, she’d told him that her boss, Jennifer, wasn’t always easy to work for, but that the designer was talented and creative, and Teegan was grateful to learn from her.
To his credit, he hadn’t completely believed her. But he hadn’t expected the enthusiasm for petty cruelty she’d just showed with April. Because he could hardly jump up and take April’s side, he’d banged the phone handset into the receiver, typed as loudly as he could on his sleek laptop, and rustled papers—just to remind Teegan she wasn’t alone. It had made no difference.
April departed, and mere seconds later, Teegan grabbed her jacket and bag and walked past him, chatting on her phone with a friend about which bar to meet at.
Zack gathered his things and walked to the elevator, caught up in his thoughts. He wouldn’t tell Liam about the incident. If he did, April would hate his guts, and he wouldn’t blame her. She wanted to handle this on her own, and he thought she should. Having her big brother come in and fix it personally wouldn’t do April any favors in the long term. Teegan was probably testing her to see if she was going to appeal to her family, or if she was one of her own tribe. Needing to see if April could be trusted.
Besides, Zack had his own reputation to consider, and running to the boss about overheard conversations wouldn’t help him any. Big-picture issues, yes. Individual incidents, no. It would ruin his rapport with the staff, at all levels, going forward.
He reached the lobby, wishing he felt more at peace with his decision.
Then he saw April walking toward him, and all possibility of peaceful thought went out the window.
“Hey,” he said. His usual charming self.
Had her cheeks already been that bright shade of pink, or was it his doing? “Oh,” she said. “Hi.”
He didn’t want her to think he’d been lying in wait for her, so he turned and opened the door to the street. “Have any plans for the weekend?”
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