by J. A. Huss
Chapter Thirty-One - Ellie
I turn the computer off, toss Mac’s phone in my purse, and head down to the lobby.
George is talking to someone at the front desk when I walk briskly past him to the front doors, but I’m secretly glad I didn’t have to have a conversation. I just hand the valet a tip and get in my car, taking a deep sigh to be back on familiar ground.
What just happened?
I’m not sure. I don’t trust myself to speak. I don’t trust anything right now.
It only takes me a few minutes to wind my way around the elaborately landscaped roads of the Tech Center and get through the gates of the Stonewall campus, and a few more minutes to navigate to the Atrium parking lot, get out of my car, and be standing at the front doors of the building.
I take a deep breath and step forward, triggering the automatic doors. The waterfall sounds remind me of Mac’s apartment and I have a pang in my stomach for the loss of something familiar and soothing.
I force it away because it’s some kind of false memory. A fabrication. That’s not his apartment because his name isn’t McAllister Stonewall.
People point and laugh at me as I enter the lobby. Snickering behind hands cupped over smiles. The newsletter. Ellen sent out that newsletter.
I should feel embarrassed. Ashamed. But I don’t have time for that stupid silliness right now. My feet only have one stop in mind. I wait at the elevator, alone, and step through the glass doors, seeing the people down below as I ascend, but not registering them.
I brace myself for the dirty looks and the contempt for what was said on my behalf in the newsletter. These people were my targets, after all. I’m not sure anyone down below cares too much about what I privately think about the seventh-floor executives.
When the doors open I stare straight at Stephanie, willing myself to be invisible as I make my way to the back corner offices. My luck doesn’t hold. Jennifer slides into step beside me.
“Ellie,” she says cautiously. I picture all the times I called her Jennifer Sluts-around on that Pinterest board. “Are you OK?”
I glance over at her without stopping. “Am I OK?” I have to laugh at that.
“I’m so sorry that Ellen got your phone.”
“My phone?” I say, my steps slowing. “What do you mean?”
“She got into your phone on Friday before I collected it from your office. I’m so sorry. She’s an evil bitch. The video, the phone, the texts—” I almost die hearing that. “The Pinterest board. The newsletter. I’m just sorry.”
Well, my life here is over. I’ve been humiliated on every front. “I thought you’d be mad.”
“Mad?” Jennifer asks. “Why would I be mad?”
“I called you Jennifer Sluts-Around.”
Jennifer laughs, shaking her head. “I know, that was hilarious!”
“Hilarious?” I’m confused.
“Those nicknames were adorable. Oh, my God, we laughed so hard this morning, Mac and Stonewall Senior came out of their meeting to see what the noise was all about. You nailed it, Ellie. Those rants in that newsletter were the perfect cure for Monday morning. I’m sure Ellen did it to make you look bad, but we all thought it was ridiculously funny.”
There’s that word again. Ridiculous.
They do not care that I made a fool of myself in that meeting and got stuck in the slide trying to make my escape, that I was fucking my boss in my office all week long and got caught on video, or that I had made-up nicknames for all the higher-ups in this building.
They don’t care because they see me as ridiculous.
I am the token ditzy blonde. The girl assigned to escorting celebrities around and satisfying their whims. The girl who works out of an airplane hangar and wears second-hand designer clothes. The girl who got hired in college and never moved up. Sure, they gave me raises, they gave me titles… but I’m still doing the very same job I always did. I am still twenty-year-old college intern Eloise Hatcher. A quiet girl who can be trusted with secrets, because she lives a fictional life filled with made-up relationships.
Jesus Christ. I even wrote a book about those relationships and tried to sell it to a publisher, for fuck’s sake. All these celebrities I pretend to know just because I’ve walked them around campus a few times over the years. All the worldly wisdom I’ve gathered by staying put in the same spot I’ve been standing in for seven years. And all the life-changing advice I’ve handed out.
I bet all those agents and publishers are laughing at me too.
I want to cry. Not because of the things that happened with Brutus, or the video, or Ellen’s stupid last stand with the newsletter. Not even because I found out Mac was a liar, at the very least, and possibly a rapist/murderer at most.
I want to cry because I’m a joke.
I stop walking.
“Ellie?” Jennifer asks, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Are you OK?”
Mac and Stonewall Senior are visible through the glass walls of the executive conference room. They’re both serious. Hands are waving in the air, mouths making odd shapes that tell me the conversation’s heated. They are standing up at the digital whiteboard at the front of the room going over some chart or another. And it’s not that I think they are talking about me. In fact, I’m sure they are not.
Stonewall senior knew my father and gave me a job back when I needed one. I am just this little party favor left over from some by-gone good time. Like a balloon, or piece of candy, or cheap toy that looks pretty inside the brightly-colored bag of treats but has no actual use once the party is over.
“Ellie?” Jennifer asks again.
“Why aren’t you mad at me, Jennifer?” I turn to face her.
“What?” She laughs, and then tsks her tongue. “About the nickname? Shit, Ellie. I did my fair share of slutting around. It’s not like you made it up. You just called it like it is. Once upon a time I was an office slut. So what? I can appreciate the funny in what you wrote.”
“Don’t you care that I didn’t know you well enough to see you differently? You’ve been married for a while now. It’s been years since you did anything remotely slutty. Don’t you care that I still thought of you that way?”
“You found out quick enough, didn’t you? We got to know each other pretty fast once you were moved up here. How would you know what I was up to? You were stuck down in the hangar for years.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“Look,” Jennifer says, her hand still on my shoulder. “We all know those names were made up years ago. It’s just some harmless fun. Letting off steam. I mean, Mr. Sowards wasn’t too crazy about being called Mr. Sour-puss, but come on!” She’s outright laughing now. “It’s funny in a very stupid way. No one is mad.”
I almost accept that. Almost. If Mac hadn’t stood in his office two weeks ago and talked about cows and rowers on the river then I’d probably be OK with what she just told me.
But he did. He said those things and I heard them and they cannot be unheard.
I am scenery to these people. I am a view.
I am a car on the road, or a boat floating under a bridge, or a light flicking on and off on the side of a building. No one cares about the driver in that car, or the man on that boat, or the couple in that apartment. No one cares because they are nothing but a view.
“Ellie!” Mac calls me from the conference room door.
“He’s not mad either,” Jennifer says, looking over at Mac.
I don’t say anything back, just turn and walk towards the conference room. Mac smiles at me as I approach. “You’ve heard, I take it? Ellie, don’t let Ellen get to you, OK? We are going to press charges. She will pay for this.”
I slip past him and enter the room. Stonewall Senior stands up and holds his hand out. I extend my hand too, but instead of shaking it, he engulfs it into both of his as they cup around and press.
It’s a warm gesture. One that says more than words. And I appreciate it, I really do. But it’s not enough t
o take away this deep, sinking feeling of hurt bubbling up from within me.
“I’m…” I stop, not sure how much I should say, but then press on anyway. “Sad.”
“We’re going to make her pay,” Senior says. “Don’t worry about that.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not sad about her. I’m sad about me. I thought about your offer all weekend, Mr. Stonewall. And I appreciate it, so much. I really appreciate everything you’ve done to help me, so I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m leaving. Today. Right now, in fact. I’m walking out and I’m not coming back.”
“Ellie?” Mac says. “Are you sure?”
“Is it the video?” Senior asks. “I’m so sorry—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off. “No, that’s not it. I just want to be more than a view.” I look Mac in the eyes for that last part. He squints at me, getting it, maybe. Or not getting it. I’m not sure. I don’t care. “That’s all I have to say.”
I fish around in my purse, find Mac’s phone, place it on the glass table, and walk out.
“Ellie?” Mac calls after me. I hear him whisper something to Stonewall Senior, but I don’t catch the actual words. A few seconds later he’s walking next to me with his arm around my shoulder. “Are you OK? What’s going on?”
I grit my teeth and take a deep breath as I look up at him. He’s so perfect. That square jaw, still slightly unshaven. His broad shoulders. Just imagining them without the precisely-tailored short and suit coat makes me wish this was all real. And those cerulean-blue eyes.
They want to claim me.
I want them to claim me.
“Mr. Romantic called this morning.”
Mac takes a step back, his touch gone, the warmth and togetherness it implied gone with it.
“And maybe I would’ve been OK with who you really are if you had told me first. I’m not sure. But I’m not OK with how the truth unfolded.”
“Ellie,” Mac says, his expression softening. “I didn’t lie to you on purpose. I just didn’t want to come here as that guy. You know?”
I do know. I totally know. Not one bit of that is unreasonable. “I also saw your texts to Heath. Yes, I looked. It was wrong and I’m a bitch. But you got to see inside me, Mac. And never once during the past two weeks did I really get to see inside you. So I looked and I didn’t like what I saw.”
“That’s not fair,” he says.
“I know. But it wasn’t what I saw inside you that bothered me. It was the way you saw me. It’s the way everyone here sees me. Ridiculous Ellie Hatcher. That’s who I am here and I that’s not who I am inside. I’m a serious person inside, Mac. I’m smart, and driven, and occasionally funny. I am not a joke to myself.”
“I never thought you were, Ellie.”
“You did. You threw my little fantasy with Heath in my face every time I pulled back. You called it delusional, you called it crazy, and you think it’s silly. But I don’t think it’s silly.”
“Heath—” Mac says.
“I don’t want your brother, Mac. But I like that fantasy. I don’t think it’s crazy to want the perfect life. But you, Mac. You’re not my Mr. Perfect.”
“He doesn’t exist,” Mac says.
“Oh, he does,” I say back as I tap my head. “He exists in here. And maybe that’s as close as I’ll ever get, but who are you to tell me to give up on my dream?”
“I never said that.”
“‘Get help, Ellie,’” I snap. “‘You’re delusional, Ellie.’ Well, OK. Maybe I am. Maybe I do need help. But I’m not going to find it here. All I’m going to get from you are calculated moves, and half-truths, and a guarded heart. And I’d just like to point out that you are the one who has been lying. Not me. You got to see the real Ellie from day one and I never once got to see the real Mac.”
“Ellie,” Mac says, looking around. There are dozens of people watching us have this conversation. No one is smiling. “Let’s go in my office and talk, OK?”
I shake my head and turn away.
“Ellie!” Mac calls after me.
But I’ve already checked out and I’m going out in style. And this time, when I grab the handle of the slide and swing my body in, there is no fancy skirt to slow me down. There is no battle cry of victory, either, but I smile the whole way down. And when my body shoots out of the twisted plastic tube seven stories below, I come to a full stop with my feet planted firmly on the floor.
I stand up and straighten my shirt.
“Ellie!” Mac shouts. “Watch out!” But as soon as I turn, he comes shooting out of the slide and barrels into me.
Chapter Thirty-Two - Mac
I spread my legs, wild grin on my face, as I crash into Ellie. She goes flying backwards, but I wrap my arms around her tightly and we fall together instead, me landing squarely on top of her.
“Are you OK?” I ask, checking to see if she hit her head.
“What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes are flashing mad and her cheeks flush with heat once she realizes everyone is watching us. “Get off me!” She squirms under my body and I shoot her a cock-eyed grin.
“Don’t move around too much, Miss Hatcher. I’m warning you. That weekend of sex we just had is still fresh in my mind.”
She clenches her jaw and her small fists pound on my back, but I just grab her wrists and hike them over her head, pinning her to the floor. “I get to have my say, Ellie. You’re not walking out of here with half the information. It’s not happening. So we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but we’re doing this.”
“The easy way is with you straddling my body, holding my hands over my head?” she yells.
“That was just my way of getting your attention, Miss Hatcher.” I get up off her and extend my hand. “I’m happy to do it like this instead.”
She looks up, past me. I look around, then up. Hundreds of faces peer over the sides of the Atrium, all the way up to the seventh floor where Alexander Stonewall is one of them. I can’t tell from this distance if he’s raging mad or smiling.
I’m going to go with raging mad, but I don’t care.
“Take my hand, Ellie. Come on, let’s do this.”
She does, and I pull her up to her feet. But she leans in and growls out her words past her gritted teeth. “Do what, Mac? Make a fool of me? Don’t you think Ellen has done enough of that?”
“Raise your hand if you give a shit about Ellen Abraham!” I shout. Ellie and I look around for several seconds. We even look all the way up the Atrium, searching the hundreds of people leaning over the balcony railings as they watch us, but not one hand is raised.
“OK,” I yell again. “Raise your hand if you care about Ellie Hatcher.” Hands start raising before I even finish the sentence. “Give me a big, ‘Hell, yeah,’ if you think she’s adorable.”
They don’t really shout it. It’s kind of unconventional and I’m just getting them warmed up.
But Jennifer shouts down from the seventh floor, “Hell, yeah!”
“Hell, yeah,” someone else says a few feet away. Then another, and another.
“Ellie Hatcher, we don’t think you’re ridiculous, we think you’re adorable.” More people shout out in agreement. “I like the fact that you have days-of-the-week outfits. I like your M&M-sorting skills, and how you keep celebrities on time and on their toes. I especially like the fact that you almost killed a rock star two weeks ago. I like that you nickname people, even if it’s a little insulting, and I’m jealous that I wasn’t on that list. I’m dying to know what you’d call me.”
Ellie is starting to look uncomfortable, like she has no interest in hashing this out in front of the entire population of Atrium employees. So I switch back to me.
“Look, Ellie, I was going to tell you the truth about who I was.” I look around to everyone now. “All of you. I was going to tell all of you. She just distracted me that first day and took over my life.” I shrug. “What can I say? I fell in love with her immediately.” I look back and
Ellie and take both her hands in mine. “But I had every intention of coming clean. So I’m just going to do that now.”
“Mac, look, you don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I do, Ellie. You’re right. I saw inside you without your permission when I read those messages. And I never gave you that opportunity.” I take a deep breath and drop her hands, turning to face everyone else. “I’m not Alexander Stonewall’s son.” People gasp in surprise and then all the whispering begins. “My real name is Maclean Callister. People still call me Mac, so that hasn't changed. And you probably know me better by the moniker the media gave me ten years ago. Mr. Perfect.”
It takes a few seconds, but the whispers begin. The rumors, the accusations, the final outcome. I hear bits and pieces of all of that as I wait.
I turn back to Ellie. “I’m Mr. Perfect but I’m definitely not perfect. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but I didn’t rape that girl and not one of us had anything to do with her death. I’m sorry she died because her lies live on. No matter what, no one will ever hear her admit that she set me up. She set up my friends. She got us kicked out of school, almost put on trial, and made our lives a living hell for two years. No one wants to believe people are capable of such evil, but they are. All we have to do is look at Ellen Abraham here at Stonewall to see this kind of evil play out on a smaller scale.”
I hear more whispers. Agreement? Disagreement? I’m not sure. But I started this so now I have to finish it.
“I left college ten years ago and never went back. None of us did, you know. Mr. Romantic opened some clubs out in San Diego. Mr. Corporate started a high-level headhunting business. Mr. Mysterious… well, disappeared, to be honest. I haven’t heard from him in years. And Mr. Match opened a dating service with one of his sisters. He was only eighteen. Did you know that? Mr. Match’s life was ruined at eighteen. For two years this kid sat around trying to figure out what he ever did to that girl. We all did. Two years.”
I look at Ellie and try to read her face. It’s not very telling. She’s holding her cards close.