Safe Harbor?

by Wardell, Heather

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” I began once I’d shaken hands with Nadine, but she shook her head. “Subway, right? I just got here myself.” She shook her head again. “That poor guy.”

  Unlike the people I’d heard saying, “Poor guy,” on the subway, she actually felt only sympathy without any of their disgust at his ruining of their commute, and I warmed to her at once. “I know. I can’t imagine doing something like that.”

  An awful thought struck me: would feeling everyone else’s emotions so clearly eventually push me to silence them permanently?

  “Me either.” She gave me a sad smile, and I smiled back the same way while forcing away the idea that I might want to end my life. I wouldn’t do that today, and hopefully not ever. I didn’t understand what was going on with me, but I did want to live.

  After a brief respectful pause Nadine cleared her throat. “So. We usually have our Monday morning staff meeting right at nine but since a lot of people have been delayed we’ve pushed today’s out by half an hour. Let me get you to your desk and get you logged in, and then you can meet everyone at the meeting.”

  When we arrived at my desk, we discovered it was bare.

  Nadine sighed. “They were supposed to have a computer up here. Never mind, after the meeting I’ll get someone to go down to the basement with you and get one. For now...” She held out the binder she’d been carrying. “Details of our current projects,” she said, turning it so the ‘2012 - Active’ written on its cover faced me. “Spend a few minutes looking through this, okay?”

  Ten minutes spent reading alone at my desk while also doodling pictures of flowers and cats on a piece of scrap paper relaxed me a little, and so did realizing I understood everything in the binder, but my nerves rose again when Nadine came back and led me toward the conference room. Since I’d recognized my empath ability I’d found it nearly impossible to be around more than a few people at once because their emotions were so loud I couldn’t think, so how was I going to handle this meeting?

  I focused on Nadine, who seemed to be feeling only a calm readiness, and told myself that no matter how stressed I got I would make this work. I couldn’t quit yet another job over my emotions. I had to hold myself together.

  When Nadine and I walked in, the half-dozen others looked up, and their joint curiosity hit me at once. I stumbled but managed to keep from falling.

  “Everyone, this is Celia. Celia, this is...” She looked around. “Not everyone. Who’s missing?”

  “Owen,” the others chorused, then a guy laughed and said, “Probably still in bed.”

  The others laughed too, although I felt someone react with a snap of frustration, and Nadine said, “You know he’s not, Troy,” then turned to me and said, “Owen got married on Friday, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Lucky beast. But he’s as reliable as the sun rising in the east so he’ll be here. Probably got stuck in the same mess you did.”

  Troy said, “That subway suicide?” and set off another discussion of how selfish the man was to kill himself like that. While on one level I agreed, I could still feel the echoes of his misery and that seemed to trump a few inconvenienced commuters.

  Nadine cleared her throat and everyone stopped talking. “Let’s get started, and we can catch Owen up when he arrives.”

  We were nearly done, in fact, when the conference room door opened a crack and a low male voice said, “Nadine? Want me to join you or am I too late?”

  She smiled and said, “Come on in, Owen. Got someone for you to meet.”

  The door opened all the way to admit a tall man, maybe a few years older than me, with brown hair in a classic short cut, his skin strangely untanned for someone who’d been in the Caribbean, wearing a well-fitted gray suit and a solemn expression.

  Before he could speak, Troy said, “Welcome back, loverboy. How was the wedding? And the honeymoon?”

  Owen took a chair near the door, across the table from me, and I looked at him and wondered why I suddenly felt so different. Not emotional, not at all. Just... strange. Like I’d been packaged in bubble wrap.

  “It didn’t happen,” he said bluntly. “Can we move on?”

  My heart skipped a beat. How terrible for him to have to come in and make such an announcement. His embarrassment and anger must have been overwhelming.

  His... why wasn’t I feeling any of that?

  The group sat in silence for a moment, their feelings of surprise and sympathy with hints of delight at new gossip no doubt drowning out Owen’s emotions, then as Nadine cleared her throat to do as Owen asked Troy said, “What, did she find someone else on the cruise?”

  Owen turned his head so sharply toward Troy that I heard his neck crack. “Yes, actually,” he said, with a ‘let’s get this over with’ tone. “My half-brother. They dated in the past and now they’re getting married in October. I’ve got nothing else to say.”

  “No need to say more, of course,” Nadine said quickly, over the others’ gasped breaths of shock at this additional layer of awfulness for him. “I’m so sorry, Owen. You must be devastated.” She winced. “And that’s not helpful so yes, let’s move on. Now, Owen, this is Celia. Today’s her first day, and she’ll be doing data analysis in your division. Celia, Owen’s one of our local managers on the fast track to becoming an international one.”

  Someone in the room felt a rush of fury, but I didn’t know who it was because I was standing and leaning across the table to shake Owen’s hand. I didn’t want to, because touching him would only make his emotions, which had to be wildly chaotic after what had happened to him, pour into me, but he was reaching for me so I had no choice.

  His large warm hand engulfed my tiny one.

  I braced myself for his emotions.

  I felt nothing.

  No anger at his half-brother or his ex-fiancée, no pain at being deserted, no embarrassment at having to tell us, not even resignation. No emotion from him. None from anyone else.

  Nothing.

  Quiet.

  Blessed quiet.

  I’d never known quiet like this before, a true calm peaceful silence, and it stunned me.

  We shook hands, while I somehow mumbled a “Nice to meet you” in response to his, and when he let me go the emotional noise filled me again.

  I sat through the rest of the meeting, pretending to listen and wondering how I could manage to touch Owen again.

  Nadine was right, he should have been devastated.

  But instead he was the safe harbor I’d been searching for, all unknowing, my whole life.

  Chapter Three

  Once the meeting was over, Owen nodded to all of us and walked out without speaking, probably well aware that everyone wanted to discuss his failed wedding.

  Everyone but me, anyhow.

  My new coworkers burst into comments at once, but I barely noticed. All I could think of was seeing Owen again.

  Seeing him, and touching him.

  The peace! The amazing peace I’d felt when our hands met. I had to have that again.

  Before I could get roped into a conversation I got up and left as casually as I could, and when I saw Owen about to disappear around the corner I called his name.

  He turned back, and I felt myself blushing but said, “Sorry for screaming at you. Could you possibly help me get a computer? Nadine said you would.”

  Not quite the truth, but she’d said somebody would, and I wanted it to be him.

  He shrugged one shoulder and returned to me, and as I thanked him we stepped into the elevator to the basement. When the doors slid shut, I felt like we’d entered a sound-proof room.

  No, not sound-proof.

  Emotion-proof.

  I still couldn’t feel anything coming off Owen, and since nobody else was nearby I couldn’t feel any other emotions either. The quiet inside me was stunning, and wonderful.

  We got the computer loaded onto a cart without incident, although when the facilities guy realized we wanted one right then his aggravation made me feel
sick, and once Owen and I were again alone in the elevator I took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. About... you know.”

  I was sorry for more than he knew, because I was also sorry for bringing it up. But I had to know how real his non-emotional state was.

  “Yeah,” Owen said, his voice flat. “Thanks.”

  Not a flicker of emotion. He might have been thanking me for giving him a piece of gum.

  My heart racing, I said, “I just wanted you to know, that’s all. I won’t mention it again. And look, could I buy you a coffee this afternoon so you can help me get up to speed?” I’d never been this pushy before, but I had to arrange this before Nadine thought of pairing me up with someone else.

  Without looking at me he said, “I can’t do today. I’ve been off work for two weeks and I need to get myself caught up.”

  He hadn’t said no. Excitement filling me, I said, “Tomorrow, maybe?” trying not to sound like I was begging, as the elevator doors opened. “Would tomorrow work?”

  We stepped out, Owen pulling the computer cart though I tried to take it from him, and he shot me a sideways glance as if wondering why I was so persistent but said, “Three o’clock?”

  I’d do three in the morning if it meant I got to spend time with him. Never, never, had I felt this good with another person. “Works for me.”

  *****

  At three-thirty the next day I sat in the building’s café with Owen, sipping the iced latte he’d refused to let me pay for, while we discussed our work and I silently wondered what on earth his brother had that Owen didn’t. My coworker was clearly smart, and though he wasn’t exactly radiating happiness he still had a dry sense of humor I loved, and tall dark-haired guys with hazel eyes had always been my type. Sitting with him I felt like we were in a bubble, a quiet calming bubble, and I loved it.

  Then Troy, who I’d already decided was my least favorite coworker, arrived at our bubble and popped it.

  “Hey, Owen,” he said, drawing the blonde woman beside him a little closer. “You remember my wife Hayley, right? Hayley, this is... Cecilia, was it?”

  “Celia,” I said, wondering why he seemed so smug. I could almost see smugness radiating off him, like a bad odor in a cartoon.

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said, not sounding it. “I’m terrible with names. How nice you two are hanging out.” Before I could find a response to this, since he’d somehow made it sound disgusting instead of nice and I didn’t understand why, he raised his head and called, “Lawrence, should I get a table here?”

  “No,” a voice called back, and I turned in my seat to see a tall white-haired man, his arm around a much younger woman who looked about as warm as the ice in my drink, who added, “I’ve got one over here. Nice quiet corner.”

  The whole place had been nice and quiet before their arrival, actually.

  “Oh, Owen,” Lawrence said, releasing the frosty woman and walking over to us. “Nice to see you, son. I’m sorry about the wedding falling through. These things happen though, I guess.”

  “I guess so, sir,” Owen said, his voice quiet and neutral.

  Lawrence glanced at me, his eyebrows raised, and I realized he thought Owen was auditioning his fiancée’s replacement. Not sure who he was, but not wanting him to think that, I said, “I started here yesterday, working with Owen and Troy.”

  “Data analysis,” Troy said quickly. “But in our department.”

  “Lawrence Frost.” The man held out his hand to me. “Executive VP of the business-to-business division.”

  So, Nadine’s boss’s boss’s boss. At least. I smiled and shook his hand. “Celia Abrams.”

  “Welcome aboard, Celia,” he said. “Take good care of Owen, okay? He’s one of our brightest stars.” I felt his sudden sadness. “I hope he’ll rise even higher soon.”

  “Me too,” I said uncertainly, not sure what the sadness signified, and Owen said, “Thank you, sir.”

  “So where’s this table, Lawrence?” Troy said. “My wife and I are dying of thirst.”

  “Well, we can’t have that,” Lawrence said as Troy and his Hayley chuckled. “Come on.”

  They left, Troy giving us a nod of the type a king might give to his lowliest subject, and when they were well out of earshot I said, “The head honcho bothers to have coffee with Troy?”

  Owen grimaced and nodded. “Because he’s married.”

  I stared at him, not following.

  He sighed while glancing toward the others to make sure they weren’t paying attention, then said, “Lawrence, when he was young, was apparently a total player. Traveling salesman with a different girlfriend on every block. When he married Winter, she told him that--”

  “Wait, did she take his name? Are you telling me she’s Winter Frost?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “She is, and I’ve seen Lawrence fire people for finding that funny.”

  I bit my lip, trying not to grin. “It’s not funny. Who said it was?”

  The other corner of his mouth twitched too. “Nobody. Nobody at all.”

  We burst out laughing at the same time, and I loved that I’d amused him at least a little. He still wasn’t radiating any emotions but the hint of happiness in his face made me happy too. He deserved some joy after what his former fiancée and his brother had done to him.

  “Anyhow,” he said, sobering, “when they got married she made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate him cheating. He’d fallen so hard for her that he shut all that down, and so in his mind the only safe guys to have traveling are married ones. Happily married ones. Ideally guys with kids, because he thinks they’re more stable. So he takes men out with their wives, and if he isn’t convinced they’re really committed they don’t get promoted.”

  “Isn’t that kind of illegal? Plus, what about gay guys, or women?”

  “Women shouldn’t be traveling, and we don’t employ any gay guys.”

  I stared at him.

  He raised his hands in a ‘surrender’ gesture. “I am quoting, not saying what I think. Lawrence is smart enough to come up with less lawsuit-worthy reasons for holding people back, but that’s really what he believes. Only married guys are fit to be promoted into roles that require travel. Like the role I’ve been after for two years. And then Melissa ditched me so now...” He shook his head and picked up his coffee.

  I frowned, then it cleared as I realized what he meant. His called-off wedding had robbed Owen of more than just a wife, a woman he’d presumably loved. It had robbed him of the career he wanted. “Yeah. That stinks.”

  Owen shrugged and said, “Yep. But anyhow, back to our work,” and as he talked about it I listened and again thought about how smart and articulate and interesting he was and how Melissa must have been crazy because I was sure he’d make someone a good husband.

  Then it hit me, as hard as the baseball bat had hit that poor woman’s hands.

  He would make me a good husband. A great one. A perfect one. Tying myself to my safe harbor for life would be wonderful. I’d be able to handle being out in the world’s emotional turmoil a lot better if I had a quiet place to rest at home.

  I tried to push the idea away, because considering marrying someone I hadn’t even known for forty-eight hours was insane, but it kept coming back, and when we were finished and heading back to the elevator he smiled as he held the café door for me and I smiled back and wondered if it really was that insane.

  He needed a wife to get the career he wanted. I’d never found someone who made me feel like he did, calm and settled and gently happy.

  He was hardly going to want to fall in love again any time soon, and watching my parents fight and make up and fight again had taught me that love was nothing but another word for drama.

  Maybe... maybe Owen and I were perfect for each other.

  But could I convince him to marry me?

  Chapter Four

  In the elevator after our coffee date I suggested having another one on Wednesday. He agreed, and on Wednesday he agreed to T
hursday too when I suggested that. He let me buy his Thursday coffee, as I’d been trying to do every time, then gave me a smile and said, “Why don’t I buy you dinner tomorrow to make up for it?”

  I protested, of course, that he’d be ruining my gesture by buying me dinner, but I was so excited he wanted to see me outside the office I could hardly keep up my fake scowl. True, Friday was the one-week anniversary of what should have been his wedding so he probably just didn’t want to be by himself, but he’d picked me to keep him from being alone and I was more than happy to help.

  He didn’t have any idea of my plans for him, of course, but he did seem to like talking to me.

  I liked talking to him too. The peacefulness was wonderful, but so was spending time with him and getting to know him.

  By the time we were halfway through our dinner on Friday, I knew quite a bit. He was thirty-five, so I’d been right he was only a few years older than me, and also he’d never been married, he wanted kids, and he had a complicated relationship with his mother.

  “She meets this guy at the start of the cruise,” he said, shaking his head, “and by the end of it she’s married him! Granted, Raul seems like a nice enough guy, although him standing up to her is going to be like a baby penguin standing up to a furious polar bear, but still. They’d only known each other two weeks. And now he’s her fourth husband. It’s insane.”

  I nodded, although my heart sank at his understandable but disappointing attitude toward fast marriages, and ventured, “For how long had you known Melissa?”

  He grimaced. “We met New Year’s Eve and I proposed Valentine’s Day. So I guess I’m as big an idiot as my mother.”

  “No, that’s six weeks, so three times longer than she knew Raul,” I said, reaching out to pat his arm. “So if she’s an idiot, you’re only a third of one.”

  He smiled. “Well, thanks. That makes me feel ever so much better.”

  I smiled back, both at his mock-annoyed tone and at the fact he hadn’t pulled away when I touched him. “Any time.”