by Laura Domino
The boss stared silently and put his hands on his hips.
Benita swallowed her disappointment and went down the corporate line Casey was expecting. She smiled as if discounting all she’d said about volunteering. “I mean, sure. I can do another hour of work for you. No problem.”
“That’s the reason you’re up for this promotion. I like an employee with a great attitude. If I send you over there for this job, you’ll be representing me. I have to be updated on all that’s going on over there. You have to be on top of it.”
“I can do that.” He knew she could. That’s why she would win the job.
“Keep it up. That can-do attitude will be a big part of what swings the vote in your favor.”
“I’ll do a good job over there.” But so would Robert. That’s why this competition between them was so scary. If she had to admit the truth, he could easily win it. “Is there something specific you wanted me to work on?”
He nodded. “You know the changes Robert is making to the proposal?”
“Of course.”
“I need you to rework that. I need your spin on it. Most of the facts are fine, but the simplicity of your style is necessary in some parts.”
“Which parts?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
“When do you need it finished?” She knew the answer before she asked. Nevertheless, she asked, hoping to be surprised.
“Tonight, of course. Before you leave. I have to review it and present it tomorrow.”
“What? I thought Robert was going to do the presentation.”
“Never mind all that. Just finish tonight. Got it?”
She pointed at him with a smile. “You know it.”
He smiled back. “That’s what I like. A great attitude.”
She waited until no footsteps cluttered up the beauty of the silent hallways. Then she called Robert’s office. “Good. You’re still here.”
“What? Is this Benita?”
“Yes. I need you in my office. Quick.”
He laughed. “Woman! I’m a married man.” He knew she was aware of that fact. It was his way of making himself sound wanted by all women.
“Get over here. Now.” Without letting him in on what the boss had said, she gave him minor details about needing the most recent copy of the proposal.
When he arrived in her office, he looked dumbfounded. His brows almost met in the center of his face. “You don’t need this. Why are you asking for it?”
She took the flash drive from him and put it into her computer. “I was told to help you out. The boss wants both of us on this, I guess.”
“No. That’s not what I was told. This is my baby. I get to present it tomorrow.”
Should she tell him all she had just heard? It might ruffle his feathers. She wanted to just do the job she’d been asked to do. But Robert wanted to know why she was suddenly helping with the presentation. Maybe just give him the facts. “I can’t tell you why there are changes needed, but I was asked to make some changes. And I was told Mr. Casey is giving the presentation tomorrow.”
From his face, he hadn’t been told the same thing. “What are the changes?”
“Just let me do them. I’d be working on something different right now if it was up to me, but it’s not.”
“Okay. I’ll help you.” He leaned forward, pressing his hands on her desk.
“No. Not enough room behind my desk.” She didn’t like having him over her shoulder anyway.
“Turn the screen. Bring the keys & mouse. Sit here. I’ll help. We can both go home on time.”
With his help, she might make it to the restaurant on time. Unless he made it difficult for her. “Okay. It’ll be good to have you handy if I have questions.”
She moved things around and got to work on it. He let her make a few changes, but he spoke up and defended some of his work that she would have changed. Their voices weren’t hushed like they would have been if they were doing this collaborative work when everyone else was here. He fussed at her. She fussed at him. When she looked at her clock, she realized this might have been a mistake. Without his interference, she might have been able to finish the changes and leave for the restaurant by now. He wasn’t really trying to help get the job done, but rather he was desperate to leave his fingerprints all over it.
“What is going on in here?” Mr. Casey’s booming voice made her jump. She thought he was home eating dinner already.
“I’m working on the proposal like you asked me to.” She tried to make her voice as pleasantly confident as she could. But she knew she was in trouble.
“What’s he doing in here?” He scowled, pointing to Robert.
Robert pointed to her. “I was ready to go home, but she called me in here to help her.” He faced the computer screen and put his hands in his pockets. “And it’s a good thing I came to help.”
“I didn’t ask you to bring in Robert. Now, did I?” The full force of his wrath was on her. It was as if Robert didn’t exist. “I could have gone to him if I had wanted his hand on this tonight. But I didn’t ask him to help. I asked you to do this. Why?” He looked at Robert, then pointed at him and looked at her. “Because he messed it up. I need this done with your simplicity because it’s better for this proposal. I don’t have time to teach him what you already know. He gets to be in the room when I present this, but he won’t be presenting. Why?” He turned to Robert again. “Because he messed it up. I can’t trust him to do it right.”
Robert looked like he was about to apologize, but he winced when the boss started shaking his head. “No. Robert, don’t apologize. Just learn to do this. You should be thanking her, not arguing with her. I heard you all the way down the hall. Arguing with the one who knows how to do it. Smart. Really smart.”
He looked back at Benita. “Text me when you’ve put it on my desk.” The hallway creaked a little when he stomped down to the elevators to go home.
Robert waited until he heard the sound of the elevator doors closing before he looked out into the hallway. He finally breathed easier. “Do a good job. My career is about to zoom.” His hand flew up like a rocket taking off from about waist-high.
“You know he was being sarcastic when he called you smart, right?”
“I will be in the presentation. Your name will not be mentioned.” He gave a smug smile and left.
Benita moved things around like they were before the nightmare of changes began. She would take another hour to get the proposal looking like the boss wanted it. When she finished, it would be beautifully simple. Effective communication had an elegance to it. Robert’s style was very different. If he thought the presentation would be something that would skyrocket his career, she had to disagree. She could tell his intention was to interject his opinions during the presentation in order to get attention. But they’d both heard the boss say he was giving the presentation. It wasn’t likely he’d give Robert the floor for even a moment.
Since she’d been asked to do the job, not Robert, this meant the promotion was leaning in her favor, not his. It would be her honor to put her trademark simplicity all over the documents being presented.
XOXO
Adam knew that if he arrived around twenty minutes before Charlie’s shift began, he could spend a few minutes leading the care group at the restaurant. Benita could make it to the restaurant a little before six o’clock once a week. He didn’t want anyone to feel pressured into joining the group, but he wanted to provide a way to get more people involved in helping others.
If the three of them created a steady, long-term group, they would have a good structure to use to multiply the group, creating more groups just like it. They could invite others. They could branch out. It didn’t have to be anything official with written policies and a membership list, just as long as it met the needs of those attending.
Adam sat at the corner table on the back wall. Charlie saw him and waved from the front door. When she sat across from him, Adam checked his phone for m
essages from Benita. No messages.
“So I guess this thing is real.” Charlie put her purse on her lap and leaned forward, smiling. “Thanks for inviting me.”
Adam put his phone on the table. “Benita should get here soon. She said she’d be late, but you know if she says she’ll be here, she’ll be here.”
“What do we do in this group?” She looked interested, but a little anxious.
“It’s no big deal. It’s just a care group. That means we meet together once each week to tell each other what we’re going through.”
“Just in case anyone cares.”
“And we do. That’s why we’re in this group. Now, don’t misunderstand. I know you have friends and coworkers, but not everyone who knows us is willing to do the extra stuff. I can call on my mom if I need someone to help out. Benita can call on me.”
“I’m sure she can.” Charlie giggled.
“And I’ll help her when she needs me. But Charlie, do you have someone to call when you need… the extra stuff?”
“Yeah, I have a girlfriend from church, but she’s just as busy as I am. So she may not be able to help.”
“That’s why you’re invited to join the group. We want to be available to help you.”
“Oh, y'all. Y'all are so nice.”
Adam grinned. “I’ll be the first to traumatize you with my troubles. And to be fair, this isn’t a dumping ground. We’re not here to gossip or just complain. I am guessing, from what I know of you so far, that you’re a sensitive and understanding person.”
“I am. Thanks for that.” Charlie laughed and patted herself on her back.
“So I tell you—and Benita, if she shows up before I’m finished—what’s going on with me so that I have a sensitive and understanding audience to help me through it. You don’t have to be anything but a friend. And you’re here, so I will assume you want to be our friend.”
“You two are so cute, coming in here talking about your good deeds and helping others. I just need to find time to associate myself with people who will stand in the rain with me when my umbrella folds back on itself.”
“Good. Do you mind if I start? My situation is a hospital situation.”
“Oh, no. Your family?”
“This guy has known my mom and dad since before I was born. He’s been to most of our birthday parties and Christmases. So, yeah, he’s family. He’s keeping all of his medical information from me, and he says it’s none of my business. But he tells me he’s dying. He wants me there, but he’s shut me out of his life for the last eight or nine years at least. So now that he’s dying, he wants to give me all this attention.”
Benita, dressed in her usual feminine-cut gray suit and this time adding a bright white shirt, came through the door and sat at the table. “What did I miss?”
Adam pointed to himself. “Winner. I got here first.” He joined in when the ladies laughed. “I’m talking about Dan.” He looked at Charlie. “She’s been to see him with me.”
Benita touched Adam’s arm. “Is he okay? I mean, he’s still with us?”
Adam, distracted by her fingers on his arm, tried to move the discussion along. “Yes. Here’s what I’m having trouble with. I think my mom and I are probably the only family he has. He is going to die. I’m going to have to invite people to his funeral, eventually. Of course, I don’t know when that will be. I can handle the funeral and burial, but there’s this other thing.”
“What other thing?” Charlie checked the time on her phone.
Chapter 22
All Dan could feel was pain and tubes. The oxygen tube was in place, and he’d done his dialysis. He was so tired of being in a hospital. His body ached to be outside. No, it just plain ached.
Death was becoming a welcome end to the torture chamber. Nurses would be glad to see him go.
Dan thought of the boy. Adam would be glad to see him go too. The image of the two boys at their dad’s funeral struck him hard. Snot-faced, crying boys hanging onto their mother’s legs. He barely made out their complaints. “Why did Dad have to save Dan? Why couldn’t Dan go away and give us our dad back?” They’d been shushed and cuddled. She was a good mom, apologizing for their immature responses to their pain. He understood their pain. He felt the same way.
Now no longer a boy, but a man. No longer the little tyke who looked up to him with wide eyes, enjoying his stories and laughing at all his jokes. No, he’d ruined that. He destroyed their relationship with a bit of truth. And a bit of absence before that.
The fake hero had to give credit to the real hero. He didn’t deserve their respect. He couldn’t take that adulation with him. Not where he was going. No adulterers allowed in Heaven.
The crisp tapping of shoes let him know to sit up. Doc was back.
“Hi, Dan. Are you awake?”
“As I’ll ever be. Why? You going to poke me, stab me, or shoot me?”
He grinned at Dan. “None of that. I’m just checking to see how you feel. We’ve given you enough meds that you should be sleeping okay.”
“I’m not sleeping at all, Doc.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Ask the night nurses. They come in here to wake me up and check on me. They talk out there so loud it’s a miracle if anyone around here gets any sleep.”
“They talk too loudly? Ask them to shut your door for you.”
“Do they talk loudly? Oh, boy.” Dan shifted his feet and grimaced just a little more than he really had to. “And do you know what they talk about? Me.”
“They’re nurses. It’s their job to talk about the patients.” Doc chuckled. “At least they’re not calling you names.”
“I’ve been called a lot of names. Things like Dan the Man. Partying Dan. Now it’s Dying Dan. Soon it’ll be, not Dan the Man, but Dan the Dead Man. I’m sure the nurses have a name all their own to call me. A new one, I’ll bet.”
More footsteps in the room, but it didn’t sound like nurses’ shoes.
“How’s he doing?” The sweet voice of Pam reached him before her face peeked around the privacy drape between him and the doorway.
“Come on in. The doc is ready to leave anyway. He just came in to tell me I’m still sick. I think they’re trying to keep me sick because they love torturing people.”
“Oh, now, Dan. That isn’t nice. They’re just doing their job.” She smiled at Doc.
That smile didn’t sit well with Dan. She obviously came in to see him and not the doc. “Where’s my smile? You have done nothing but worry and cry when you come to see me. But you smiled at him. Where’s mine?”
Doc laughed. “I’d better get out of here before you start swinging fists. That jealousy of yours makes you energetic.”
Pam came closer and sat on his bed. Still no smile. Her eyebrows furrowed. She looked like the boy when she did that. Same expression he had.
He waited until he couldn’t hear Doc’s footsteps anymore. “Idiot. He probably flunked med school and had to get his doctoring degree off the dang Internet.”
“I’m sure he’s smart enough. He’s smarter than me.” She touched his sheet without pulling her hand back from the roughness as she straightened a corner out flat. These sheets weren’t as smooth and soft as hotel sheets. Hospital sheets weren’t worth the little amount of energy she was giving them.
“What are you doing here?” He asked her not if she were at his bed to visit, but what kind of visit it was.
Her hair, lit up by the sunset coming in from the window, looked like she’d been to Heaven and back, and she kept the glow. She moved her hand off his sheet and looked at him. “What are you doing here?”
He’d told everyone what they needed to know. “Dying.”
“You can do that at my house. I can take care of you. I can feed you and give you clean sheets. Are you here to get better? Because I can’t do that for you.” The frustration from seeing him like this had gotten to her. She closed her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Dan liked looking a
t her. Her closed eyes opened. Perfect shape, perfect color. Her eyes were the dense, rich brown of a fur coat. Why she didn’t try to marry a millionaire, he’ll never know. She could’ve caught anyone she threw her net on. Pam was, and always had been, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It was too bad she hadn’t had a girl. The boys were fine, but she needed a daughter. Someone who would look just like her.
But that was asking too much. He’d already been given everything. Life had been good. Who needed a bucket list?
“Dan, what are you doing here?”
“Thinking about starting a bucket list. I’ve traveled to so many places, but I haven’t been to Alaska.”
“Not that again. You still want to go to Alaska?” Finally, she smiled.
“Yes.” The warmth of that smile spread through him, down to his toes.
“I don’t know if they’ll let you do that.”
How many days had they spent talking about going to the frosty wilds of Alaska together? “You’ll come with me, right? We can fly up there, spend a couple of days on a glacier or looking at wildlife, and come home.”
She shook her head. “I’ll never figure you out. Why Alaska? What’s the draw?”
“I haven’t been.”
“And that’s the only thing on your list?”
“So far.”
XOXO
Adam said, “There’s this other thing.” He took a breath, not really wanting to tell the ladies everything. “It’s about my…” He stopped himself. What would he say?
“What?” Benita’s frown said it all. She was probably thinking she knew enough to tell his story for him. She probably wondered what else there could be?
He had to chicken out. He couldn’t talk about his mom or the confusion surrounding whether to think of Dan as his dad or why the whole mess happened to begin with. Too much information at this stage was a bad idea. But he had to come up with something to talk about. Something small. Something he already knew the answer to.