There stood the redhead from next door, her hair falling around her shoulders in waves the color of the sunset, her black pantsuit with the jacket sleeves rolled up to just below her elbows making her look like she’d just gotten dressed instead of it being long past business hours. The glasses were missing, which only served to amplify the blue of her eyes. In her arms was Leo, looking just as happy as he could possibly be.
“What the hell?” I said, and jumped up from my chair. “How…what…?”
The redhead chuckled from somewhere deep in her throat as she turned her face to my dog and he licked her nose. “I was working and looked down to see I had a visitor,” she said. “Honestly, he scared the crap out of me at first. I thought it was a raccoon or something. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me squeal like a little girl.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, taking him from her arms and trying not to notice his reluctance. The redhead smelled amazing, though, like peaches and cream, so I couldn’t really blame him.
“It’s no trouble at all. I met him earlier when I borrowed your bathroom key, which…” She reached into the pocket of the black blazer and pulled out the key, let it dangle from her long fingers. “I then took off with. My apologies.” She wrinkled her nose and made a face that would make me look silly, but only made her seem fun.
I took the key and tossed it onto my desk, then turned to kiss on my dog, horrified that I hadn’t even noticed he was missing. I was way too tired.
“He’s got some great energy, that little guy. I might need to borrow him in the future for brainstorming sessions.”
I had no idea if she was serious, but before I could say a thing—thank her, introduce myself, speak in tongues because I was too tired to remember my base language—her cell phone rang. She pulled it from the pocket of her blazer and glanced at the screen.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this.” With a wave, she hurried out the door as I heard her call a cheerful greeting into the phone.
I stood there staring after her, for longer than I needed to, stuck in a trance of fatigue. Finally, I stepped to the door and closed it with a click, then set Leo down.
“Dude, seriously?” I said to him as he looked up at me with the sweet brown eyes that won me over when I first saw him at the shelter. “You can’t just leave like that.” Leo cocked his head to the side as if thinking this over. “I’m not kidding. You could get lost. You could get hurt. You could give Mommy a stroke.”
I gathered my things as I scolded him, having decided I was just too exhausted to look at any more numbers. I fastened Leo into his harness, slung my bag over my shoulder, and hung the bathroom key back up. Then I locked up the office. In the hall, I could hear the redhead talking animatedly with whoever was on the other end of the phone, speaking a bit louder than regular volume, as people tended to do on cell phones. It sounded like an early morning business call, her voice fresh and energetic. I tried to tamp down my envy as I fought the temptation to peek in the open door, see who else was in there; I could make out the low hum of another conversation happening as well, but my exhaustion won out.
“Come on, Leo, before Mommy falls asleep right here on the floor.” I’d had enough for one day, and whatever creeping crud I had was going to take over much faster if I didn’t get some rest. Leo and I drove home, I made some tea and downed a handful of cold medicine. I should have eaten, but my stomach eighty-sixed that idea. Instead, I crawled into bed and Leo curled up in the crook of my knees, his usual spot. I glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even ten yet, so I hoped a full eight or nine hours of sleep would head this cold off at the pass.
Wishful thinking.
Chapter Three
When my alarm went off at seven the next morning, I was pretty sure somebody had snuck in during the night and stuffed my head full of cotton. I squeezed my eyes shut, my face in my pillow, and willed the alarm to be a dream sound. Maybe it was really only two in the morning, and I could sleep for several more hours.
Leo’s warm and wet kisses told me it was no dream. It was morning, I had six clients to meet with today, and I was definitely sick. I sat up slowly and Leo cuddled in close, pushed his wet nose against my neck. “Good morning, little guy,” I croaked, wincing, my throat on fire.
This was the worst time of year for me to be sick, and I grumbled in annoyance about it the entire time I got ready. A hot shower helped a little bit, but I wanted to stand in it for hours, not minutes. I had no desire to style my hair or put makeup on, but I did both, not wanting to scare away clients with my Death Warmed Over look. I made tea instead of coffee, chose the strongest English breakfast tea I had, as I needed the caffeine, but also something to soothe my throat. A touch of honey helped, but not enough.
It was going to be a long day.
Like yesterday, the day was gray, damp, chilly. I longed for spring, especially when I didn’t feel well and wanted nothing more than to burrow under my down comforter and go back to sleep. But it wasn’t quite spring yet, and I had too much work to do to even think about taking a sick day. I turned in to my office parking lot, and as I lamented my sad, sad life, Nascar Kyle cut off the guy in front of me, causing him to slam on his brakes, which made me slam on mine. Leo gave a little yelp as he was thrown forward but stopped short by his seat belt. My front bumper was a scant inch or two from the rear bumper in front of me. I glanced up to see the other driver looking at me in his rearview mirror. He gave a little wave of apology, and I waved back my forgiveness.
“Not your fault, sir,” I said aloud in my empty car. “Welcome to my world.”
Again, the baby blue BMW was in my spot, but I had no energy to muster up any anger. “Stupid Mr. Wright,” I muttered instead, then shrugged. I parked four spots down from my usual, gathered my things and my dog, and headed inside.
Mary was just biting into a delicious-looking cherry cheese Danish when she looked up at me and her face fell. “Wow. You look awful,” she said.
“Gee, thanks.”
“You sick?” She set her pastry on a small paper plate. A glance at our little coffee area told me we had neither those plates nor tasty-looking Danishes.
“Unfortunately, yes.” I gestured at her plate as I removed Leo’s harness and he zipped right over to hop into Mary’s lap. “Where’d you get that?”
Unsurprisingly, she jerked her chin toward the far wall. “They needed the bathroom key again.” She smiled as she looked down at her lap where Leo sat, watching intently as she chewed.
“Don’t give him any of that,” I ordered, pointing at her.
She made a face that said, “Please. Who do you think you’re dealing with?” But I knew her, and I fully expected to find Leo with cream cheese on his face later.
In my office, I dumped everything on the floor next to my desk and fell back into my chair, my body feeling as exhausted as if I’d been there for ten hours already. I allowed myself three minutes to just breathe, but that was it. My first client was due any minute, and I needed to prepare. She was new, a referral from a longtime client, and I wanted to make a good first impression. I hauled my ass up out of my chair and straightened up the office. Then I called up her information on my computer and was ready when Mary buzzed me.
“Lacey? Sharon Antonelli is here for her appointment.”
“Great. Send her back.”
I loved when we did the intercom thing. It was so professional (and so unnecessary, as we were barely twenty feet apart, but whatever. It was fun). I stood up and met Sharon Antonelli at the door of my office, my hand outstretched. She grasped it firmly and we shook.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” I said. “Please. Sit.” I gestured to the two chairs across from my desk.
“Well, Richard Bell speaks very highly of you.” Sharon Antonelli was in her fifties, maybe, well-dressed and very put together. In her simple yet elegant gray pencil skirt and burgundy silk top, she gave off an air of sophistication. Of class. She was an independent contractor for the ad agency she worked for, so she
had expenses and things to itemize. Over the phone, she’d told me she could probably manage to file on her own, but simply didn’t want to deal with it. Her previous CPA had retired last year, so here she was.
“Richard’s great,” I said, as I took my own seat behind my desk. “He was a client of my father’s and then when my dad retired, he trusted me to take over. So, I speak very highly of him as well.” I hit a couple keys on my computer. “Okay, let’s talk about your expen—” My sentence was completely obliterated by an obnoxiously loud whirring sound coming from the other side of the wall behind Sharon Antonelli. She turned to look as I squinted.
What the hell? I thought, but kept it to myself, as I didn’t think swearing around my new client was a smart move. Abruptly, the sound stopped.
Sharon turned to look at me, her perfectly tweezed eyebrows raised up in question.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I apologize.”
We got back down to work. A good five minutes went by before it happened again, catching both of us off guard enough to make us jump in our chairs.
I sighed quietly and held out a placating hand toward her. “Please excuse me for one minute.” Determination in my steps, I walked out of my office, through Mary’s area—both she and Leo looked up at me in surprise—and out in to the hall. The door to Just Wright Marketing & Graphic Design was standing open, because of course it was, and I didn’t bother knocking. Nobody would hear me over what sounded like the sound of a jet taking off. Instead, I marched all the way to the back of the office where the whiteboard hung on the wall shared with my office. The redhead, Brandon, and Pantone Patrick were all standing around a card table they’d apparently set up. On it were bowls of fruit, sliced or chunked or whatever, a pitcher of orange juice, and a large container of yogurt. In the middle of it all stood a blender, one of those high-end ones that could make a steak into a milkshake if you ran it long enough.
“Excuse me,” I said loudly, but not loudly enough, as nobody even looked my way. I tried again, louder, pretty sure the combination of my shouting and the chainsaw-like screaming of the blender was about to make my head explode.
The redhead noticed me then, and her blue eyes widened in surprise. She immediately hit a button that turned the blender off, and the ensuing quiet was bliss. “Hi there,” she said, unassuming. I simply blinked at her as my ears adjusted to the change in sound. Undeterred, she smiled, accentuating the cleft in her chin and the perfection of her cheekbones, which I would’ve taken time to notice if I didn’t feel like I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. She wore a bright lime-green top that was perfect against her creamy skin and sunset hair. “We have to come up with a pitch for marketing this thing,” she indicated the blender with one hand, “so we’re making smoothies. Want one?” She held up a glass filled with what I wanted to admit was a delicious-looking pink concoction—strawberries, maybe?—but I was too frustrated at the cluelessness of the three of them.
“No,” I said. “No, I do not want a smoothie.” I swallowed as I walked toward their whiteboard and put my palm against it. “This wall,” I said, and had to clear the frog out of my throat, “is shared with my office. This one.” I patted it. “Right here.” Another pat. “Shared wall.” I moved my hand to my forehead, massaged it with my fingertips. “Over there, right now, on the other side of this very thin shared wall, sitting in a chair in my office, is a new client who wants me to do her taxes for her. I’m hoping maybe I can talk to her about some investments as well. But thanks to your eardrum-busting blender, I can’t hear a thing she’s saying to me. Not a word. So, what I do want is for you to please, please keep it down.” My head was throbbing, as if a little man was inside my skull and going to town with a sledgehammer, and I just kept talking. “First my parking space. Then the security door. I’ve asked more than once about the music. Now the blender. This is a place of business, and I don’t think I’m asking a lot.” I took a breath and adjusted my voice so that it was less irritated and more of a plea before I added, “Look, I don’t want to have to ask to talk to the guy who owns this company, but I will if I have to.”
Brandon gave a snort, which had my eyes snapping up to glare at him as he smiled and looked away. Pantone Patrick was gazing at his shoes. I couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to be hiding a grin as well. The redhead, however, gave me direct eye contact as she held out her hand.
“We haven’t been properly introduced,” she said, her voice calm, a subtle smile on her face. “Alicia Wright. The guy who owns this company.”
Yeah, I know. I should’ve seen that one coming.
I stared at her outstretched hand, and wrapped a hunk of my hair around my forefinger to twirl, a habit I’d had since I was a kid. As I felt my face heat up, I closed my eyes and slowly shook my pounding head back and forth, then put my right hand in hers. “I’m so sorry,” I croaked. “I…” I shook my head again, no words springing forth to help me dig my way out of this.
Alicia Wright, on the other hand, seemed perfectly comfortable with the situation. Of course, why wouldn’t she be? She hadn’t embarrassed herself. Nope. Just me. Suddenly, the inconsideration of the loud noises didn’t really compare to my automatic assumption that this company would be run by a man. What kind of feminist was I anyway? What kind of lesbian?
A lousy one, the little voice in my head replied.
“I sincerely apologize for the noise…” Alicia Wright let her sentence dangle and was looking at me expectantly, my hand still held warmly in hers. It took me longer than it should have to recognize she was asking my name.
“Oh. Lacey. Lacey Chamberlain.”
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Chamberlain. We’re not used to sharing office space, so it’s taking us some getting used to. I promise we’ll try to be better.” Reaching around with her other hand, she picked up a clear plastic tumbler full of that pink smoothie. “And if you don’t mind my saying, you look like you could use some extra vitamins today.” Before I realized what she was doing, she’d let go of my hand and her own had drifted up to my face where she gently brushed some of my hair off my forehead. “You look really exhausted,” she said, and her voice was soft, seeming to hold genuine concern as she handed me the cup.
Too mortified to analyze any further—or let her continue to touch me because that was weird and awesome at the same time—I muttered one more apology, turned on my heel, and fled that office as quickly as I could. My heart was pounding and my head felt foggy, but for different reasons than my cold. It wasn’t until I was safely back in my own space, standing in front of Mary’s desk, that I noticed I had the smoothie in my hand.
“Oooh, that looks good,” Mary commented, and I set the cup on her desk without another word. Thank God, Sharon Antonelli was still sitting across from my desk. I literally shook my head to rid it of everything that had just happened—not a great idea, given the head cold from hell—and headed back into my office.
Sharon Antonelli sat where I’d left her, scrolling on her phone. She glanced up at me, her face open and friendly. “Mystery solved?” she asked.
“High-speed blender. They’re a marketing firm, and I guess the blender company is their client.”
Sharon nodded as if this type of thing occurred every day in her office. “I want one of those things. A friend of mine has one and makes a shake using kale and bananas, but it just tastes like bananas. Kale is so good for you, but that’s the only way I’ll eat it.”
“If it tastes like bananas?” I asked with a grin.
“If it tastes like anything that’s not kale.”
We both laughed and then got back to her taxes. The blender remained quiet.
The rest of my day was nonstop, and thankfully, there were no more sounds of rockets launching or dance parties or firecrackers going off next door, so I chalked it up as a win for me, even though a small sliver of shame still held on in the back of my mind. My head continued to stuff throughout the day, and by four o’clock, I was pretty sure it weighed more than the rest of m
y body. Keeping it upright on my neck took massive effort on my part. I downed another dose of cold meds, wanting desperately to go home but knowing there was no way. I had so much to get done and not enough time or energy to do it.
I had two evening appointments still to go and I wasn’t at all sure how I was going to pull that off. A knock sounded on my door, and before I could call for the visitor to enter, the door opened.
“I heard you were under the weather.” Leanne Markham stood in my doorway, a white plastic bowl in one hand. Her dark hair was pulled back in her daily ponytail, her lab coat peeking out from under her jacket.
“And how did you hear that? Are you psychic now?”
“Sadly, no, but I know how to get information out of your secretary.”
Mary’s “ha ha” came from the outer office, and I smiled.
“Come in,” I said, waving to the empty chairs. “I’ve got some time before my next client.”
“I’m going to guess you’ve eaten next to nothing today, so I ran home and grabbed some of this for you.” She set the bowl on the desk in front of me and peeled away the lid. The steamy gloriousness of Leanne’s chicken soup wafted up, and I closed my eyes, trying to sniff but failing miserably. “I made it last night.” She pulled a spoon from her pocket and handed it to me. “Eat.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I dug in, surprised that it was hot, but also not surprised. Leanne was a caretaker.
We’d been together once. It lasted for nearly two years. More than dating, but we never managed to get any further along than simply talking about the future. We never lived together, but we spent time at each other’s places and that worked for a while. As fate would have it, our individual businesses took off at the same time. My dad retired, and I took over his company. Leanne is a doctor, a general practitioner, and she hit the ground running with her practice. We had trouble finding time for each other. Actually, no. That’s not quite the truth. We had trouble making time for each other, Leanne more so than me. When I finally called her on it, she told me that she thought we’d make better friends than partners. When I asked her why, she said it was obvious that I was too routine and set in my ways to make that significant a change. “It takes so much effort to pull you an inch out of your comfort zone, Lace.”
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