Show and Tell

by Jasmine Haynes

  She thought of telling him that Inga had sent the e-mail to make Trinity look bad. First, however, she couldn’t prove it, and second, you didn’t blame your subordinates because the buck stops with you. It was better that she’d refuted his charge without impugning anyone else. She’d take care of Inga herself.

  “I assure you I take this job very seriously.” She went on, “In fact, I have a list of improvements I’d like to implement with Mr. Ackerman’s permission.” Then she gave Wanamaker the nod. “And yours.” She’d worked on the list all morning. It kept her from thinking about Scott, from missing him, from aching inside, but primarily because she wanted to do a good job no matter what anyone else thought of her.

  She turned to Anthony. “May I use your office to make the phone call?”

  Wanamaker made the decision. “You can use my office, Miss Green. Take all the time you need.” On Saturday, she’d been Trinity . Then again, the use of Miss Green seemed deferential, as if he believed she might be able to pacify their vendor, and, in fact, do it well. He crooked his finger. “Ackerman, follow me.”

  Alone, Trinity sat at Mr. W.’s desk and picked up the phone. Her plan was simple. She explained the incident was a practical joke gone awry, one she’d deal with in her own way, assured her vendor no one at Green would refer to him as an asshole, nor even think it, least of all her as they’d worked so well together, and she hoped to continue with the excellent working relationship.

  In the end, she had him apologizing for making an issue.

  She didn’t take blame, didn’t grovel, and the man still came around to her way of thinking. Wow. All her life she’d groveled to make sure people liked her. That’s why keeping Scott a secret had been so important, because for once she didn’t have to grovel. She didn’t get judged. She got to be naughty without being bad. She’d never had to compromise herself with Scott. For him, she’d been real, asked for what she wanted. Loved it.

  The only thing he’d ever asked for was more. She’d assumed more meant giving away pieces of herself to satisfy him.

  Yet Scott hadn’t been the one she’d compromised herself with. That she’d done for Inga, practically begging the woman to like her. The harsh reality was that some people were never going to like you. Inga was one of them. Trinity either had to put up with it. Or quit.

  “I will not let her take this job away from me,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

  She was not going to sit still for being a victim or an idiot one minute longer.

  Stabbing the hook flash with her finger, she then dialed Inga’s number. “Wanamaker’s office. In here. Now,” she said without giving Inga a chance to say more than hello.

  “I’m in the middle of—”

  Trinity cut her off. “I said now.” Then she jabbed the hook flash one more time and put the phone down.

  The door opened. Inga smiled and sauntered over to the chair. Seating herself, she crossed her legs. “What can I do for you, Trinity? ”

  Smarmy little b-i-t-c-h. “You doctored that e-mail and somehow sent it from my address.”

  Inga raised one blonde eyebrow. “I did not.”

  Trinity couldn’t remember what happened that day. They’d e-mailed, she’d gone to Inga’s cube, then . . . to the restroom? Could Inga have hightailed it over to Trinity’s cube? Then again, she could have done the deed on any day in between. How she’d accomplished it didn’t matter. “You realize we’re going to make each other miserable until one of us either quits or dies.”

  Inga smirked. “I’ve got staying power.”

  Trinity plucked a pen from the holder and twirled it on the blotter. “Even if I’m gone, you’re not going to get the job.”

  “I can do it better than you.” Inga glowered.

  Trinity merely smiled in return. “No, you can’t. Because you turn the department into armed camps where people tiptoe around each other depending upon who’s pissed you off that day.”

  “They love me.”

  “They tolerate you.” Christina was afraid of her, Boyd wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole even if she was a tall, blonde goddess with stupendous breasts, and the AP girls were sweet as pie so they didn’t accidentally incur the wrath of Inga.

  Inga’s eye twitched. “Anthony wouldn’t know what to do without me.”

  “You’re right.” Trinity leaned forward. “But Anthony will never make you supervisor because you’re too divisive.” She tipped her chin up. “How long was the job posted?”

  Inga didn’t so much as open her mouth.

  Trinity answered for her. “Three weeks. And you applied right away, didn’t you?” The former, she knew for a fact, the latter she guessed at.

  “I did not.” Inga toyed with the arm of the chair as if she couldn’t sustain the lie and full eye contact at the same time.

  “I got the job,” Trinity whispered, “because I know how to get people to work together.”

  Inga’s jaw tensed.

  “I had our little vendor eating out of my hand by the time I hung up,” Trinity continued. “I will be here long after you’re a faded memory. And until you go, I will be your worst nightmare. You’ll hate getting up in the mornings because you’ll have to see me”— she tapped her chest—“every day.”

  Inga licked her lips, and Trinity noticed a smear of lipstick on her teeth.

  “Or,” Trinity beamed, “we can start working together. The choice is yours. War”—she flipped out one palm, then the other— “or a cease-fire. Which do you prefer?”

  Inga dragged in a big breath through flared nostrils. “I’m not ever going to like you.”

  “I don’t need you to like me.” Trinity was proud she actually meant that from the pit of her stomach. “I just need you to start working with me instead of against me.”

  Inga tipped her head and regarded Trinity for a long pause. “Why don’t you just fire me instead?”

  “Because you know your stuff, you’re a good worker, and the company needs you.” Inga would have been supervisor if she had a better temperament. “Why don’t we give it six months? If the cease-fire works, we can make it a permanent truce.”

  “Life,” Inga muttered, “could be easier than it is right now, I suppose.”

  “We could both like coming to work every day.”

  “Maybe.” Inga rose. They didn’t shake on the deal. Trinity wasn’t sure if they’d ever make it to a total cessation of hostilities.

  Then Inga turned with her hand on the doorknob. “Why didn’t you tell them I’d sent the e-mail? They would have had to believe the boss’s daughter.”

  Trinity popped the pen she’d been playing with back in Mr. Wanamaker’s pencil holder. “Because it’s our battle, not theirs.”

  Lips pressed together, Inga considered that a brief moment. “You’re right.” She threw open the door, her usual heavy footing rattling the dividers as she returned to her cubicle.

  Trinity felt good, powerful. With a shock, she realized that she felt powerful without Scott feeding it to her. She’d taken charge. Inga didn’t like her. Inga would never like her, and that was okay. In the past, her actions were based on what other people would think. The real Trinity Green had been just a reflection of what everyone else believed about her. For the first time, she’d done what needed to be done rather than what she hoped would make someone like her.

  She’d wanted to be just like her mother, a lady everyone adored. The problem was, in trying to emulate her mother, she’d never learned to be her own person. Just as she’d let Inga dictate her actions, she’d also let fear of her father’s harsh judgment direct her. Until Harper, she’d never dated a man her daddy hadn’t approved. She’d put on a face so that men would think she was perfect, adorable, wonderful. She’d actually married Harper not merely because of Faith, but as a first step in trusting her own judgment. Of course, when her marriage turned into a disaster, she’d fallen back on old habits, trying to please Daddy. She’d kept Scott a secret so that no one, not her fath
er, nor Faith, not Josie, not Verna, could tell her what she was doing was wrong.

  Needing other people’s approval had to end now. She’d made a great start with Inga, but it had to continue with her father.

  Upstairs in his outer office, Verna’s hand hovered over the phone just as she caught sight of Trinity.

  “Is he alone?” Trinity asked.

  “He’s alone,” Verna confirmed, “but I’m not sure he’s in a good mood.”

  Trinity put up her hand. “His mood doesn’t matter. I can handle it.” She couldn’t be Daddy’s little girl forever. She had to grow up. And her father had to listen to some things he simply didn’t want to hear.

  In the inner sanctum, cigar smoke choked the room. “Daddy, you’re not supposed to smoke in here. It’s illegal.”

  He rose and opened the window, then held the cigar just outside. “There, now I’m legal.” He saluted her, blowing out a stream of smoke. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Yet he didn’t sound terribly pleased. He obviously hadn’t gotten over his annoyance that she’d left the party early.

  Trinity plunged ahead anyway. She was done trying to find the right time to tell Daddy something so that he wouldn’t get mad at her. “I haven’t been completely honest about Scott.”

  Her father cocked his head, and a glimmer of disappointment grew in his eyes. “If it’s something I don’t want to hear, don’t tell me.”

  “I knew him before he came to the plant that day.”

  “Knew him?” He blew out a stream of smoke and stared at her through it.

  “We’ve been dating for a few weeks.” She didn’t say what they’d really been doing. That wasn’t her father’s business.

  “While you were married?” His voice rose a note.

  “While I was proceeding with the divorce.”

  He grumbled something she couldn’t make out.

  “I didn’t hear that, Daddy.”

  He grumbled once more, then raised his voice. “Why all these secrets? I don’t understand.” He snorted. “It reminds me of your brother and all his secrets.”

  That stung. She wasn’t like Lance. “I didn’t feel that I needed to tell you. We met after I found out about Harper.” And suddenly she felt like she was overexplaining, begging for approval. “My relationship with Scott is my own, Daddy.”

  He rubbed out the butt on the sill and shut the window. “You could have told me.” He patted his chest. “I’m your father. I care about you.”

  “And you think I need someone older and wiser to take care of me. I don’t. I have a job, I’m taking care of myself. I want to be independent, not waiting around for my daddy to approve of the men I date.” She held up her finger when her father opened his mouth. “Yes, I made a mistake with Harper, but I’ve learned from that mistake. I’m not going to do the same thing with Scott.” But then Scott wasn’t the same kind of man at all. “And speaking of mistakes, that brings me to Lance.”

  He blew out the last vestige of smoke through his nostrils. “I don’t want to talk about Lance.”

  “Well, we’re going to talk about Lance.”

  He reached for another cigar. “Don’t dictate to me in my own office, young lady.”

  Last Saturday, earlier this morning, even an hour ago, his tone would have made her tremble. But she was a new woman with a new attitude. “Lance made a mistake. I’ve made mistakes. But you can’t throw us away because we messed up. I wouldn’t throw you away.”

  “I never make mistakes.” He punctuated by clipping the tip off his cigar.

  “Yes, you do make mistakes, but I love you anyway. I’ll love you no matter what.” She took a deep inhale and exhale. “And I want the same from you. Forgive me for screwing up with Harper, for being less than truthful about Scott, and love me anyway.”

  He stared at her for the longest time without a word. Then finally he tossed the cigar down unlit and leaned both fists on his desk. Moisture shimmered in his eyes. “I do love you, sweetie,” he whispered. “How could you think otherwise?”

  Because she’d always had to be Daddy’s perfect little girl. In her own eyes as much as in his. She knew it was a battle she would have to fight with herself, and him, for a long time to come. In the scheme of things, this was a tiny step, but it was a step between them, and that’s what counted.

  He would, however, like the rest of what she had to say even less. “Now you need to do the same thing for Lance.”

  He was so still, so silent.

  But she had to push this issue with him, not for Lance, but for her father. “If something happens to him or to you”—God forbid— “you’ll lament all these wasted months. Don’t let them become years.”

  “You know what he did. How can you ask me to forgive him?”

  “I’m only asking you to talk to him. Say whatever needs to be said, and then see if you can forgive him. Give him a chance.”

  Her father wagged his head and plopped down in his chair. “It won’t make any difference. He’s never going to change.”

  “He might not.” She perched on the edge of the desk and reached for his hand. “But you need to make a change so you don’t regret it. That’s what I worry about.”

  Turning his hand palm up, he held onto her. “He severely disappointed me.”

  What he meant was that Lance had hurt him deeply. Trinity empathized. “Maybe somewhere along the way, you disappointed him, too. Maybe I did. Who knows? But he’s your son and my brother, and cutting him out completely hurts us, not just him.”

  He closed his fingers around hers. “I’ll do it for you.”

  She pulled back. “No. Not for me. For yourself.”

  Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temples until finally he looked at her again. “You’re right. It’s been wearing on me. But things can never be the same.”

  “We don’t want them to be the same.” She sat in the chair opposite. “We want them to be better.”

  He wagged his head. “I think your hopes are too high.”

  “All I care about is that you try. The rest is up to Lance. I love you.” She was ever hopeful Lance would see the light.

  Just as she needed to see the light—about Scott. He’d never asked her to be anyone other than she was. He’d simply asked her to give more of herself to him. Was that such a bad thing? Did it compromise her ability to be her own person?

  Only if she let it. Scott had never been the problem. Her need to please other people had been.

  Will the real Trinity Green stand up? Trinity stood. “And now, Daddy, I have to see a man about an apology.”

  That man would be Scott. Running out on him Saturday night had been the biggest mistake of her life.

  THE envelope arrived at the office by courier, hand delivered near four o’clock Monday afternoon. Scott signed for it. No sender was listed, yet turning it over, his sixth sense screamed it was from her. Closing his office door, he leaned back, pulling the tab. As he shook the envelope, a train ticket slid out, his name blazing on it.

  A ridiculous, giddy smile rose to his lips. He thought he’d fucked up too badly to be forgiven, yet she was giving him his train fantasy. Then the meaning of it dawned on him.

  Trinity wanted their relationship to return to its original footing. Fantasy sex. Games. Emotional distance. He had to laugh even as he ached inside. The man traditionally wanted the hot sex and emotional distance. They’d reversed roles.