by Gina LaManna
“I got shifted off the project in Warehouse 7 on the week it was due to be released to the client.” Joseph shook his head. “That doesn’t happen. Ever. Something went wrong, and everyone’s keeping it all hush-hush.”
“But—”
“Let’s not discuss this anymore. Just ask me your questions, so I can get back to work Miss—?”
“Pink,” I said. “Lola Pink.”
“You’re kidding me.”
I swallowed my retort, picturing the sum of money at stake. I could stomach a rude engineer for six figures, no problem. “Fine,” I said. “Then let’s get started. Why did you file a formal complaint?”
“A formal complaint?”
This time, I rolled my eyes. Trying to be polite was hard when dealing with someone like Joseph. He was probably very, very smart, but along with those smarts came an air of over-confidence that stunk like ego. “If we’re not playing games, then you should know I have access to the files. It’s not a secret you filed a complaint against the Warehouse 7 project in its infancy.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I never filed a formal complaint. Why the hell would I do that? I get paid a boatload of money for the work I do here, Miss Pink. I have no complaints.”
I sat up a little bit straighter in my chair. “It’s in the documentation. If I’ve seen it, so has Mr. Clark.”
“Who processed it?”
I swallowed, backpedaling and trying to understand what was going on. Joseph’s surprise seemed genuine and his anger frighteningly more genuine. “I’m not sure I can say.”
“Flanagan, wasn’t it?” Joseph sat back in his chair, a hollow smile curving his lips upward. “I complained to him over some beers about the project. I told him I didn’t have enough resources or time to get the chip out by the deadline. Is that what the complaint says?”
“I can’t comment on specifics.”
“Look, Miss…Pink.” He struggled to say my last name. “I didn’t file a formal complaint. I wouldn’t do that. I like my job; I respect Mr. Clark.”
I looked down at the paperwork, the complaint staring right back up at me. I scanned the name of the person who submitted it at the bottom of the page. As Joseph had guessed, the person who’d processed the complaint was Nicolas Flanagan.
“However, I do need my autonomy to finish a job, and I was feeling cramped for time and resources,” he continued. “I moaned about it to Flanagan over a pitcher of Blue Moon, but I never once made a formal complaint. If I’d’ve known Flanagan was going to squeal on me, I wouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”
“If you didn’t intend to file a formal complaint, is there any reason you can think of that Mr. Flanagan would do it anyway? Maybe he misunderstood?”
“I’m not sure how he could misunderstand. If I had wanted to file a formal complaint, I would’ve filled out the paperwork to file a formal complaint. It’s not something that happens by accident.”
“Can someone else file a formal complaint on your behalf?”
Joseph shook his head. “Nobody except Nick could’ve done it. He has administrative rights over the computer system, unlike the rest of us. I suppose Mr. Clark could’ve done it himself, but he doesn’t bother himself with things like that.”
“Because that’s Nick’s job.”
“It’s damn well supposed to be, although I have no clue what he’s trying to accomplish with this stunt.” Joseph sat forward, a low burn of anger visible through his steady expression. “Whatever it is, I most certainly don’t appreciate it.”
“Well, if you don’t know anything else about it, I think we are done here,” I said, standing. “Thank you for your help. And please, don’t say anything to Nick yet. Let me take care of it.”
“You?” The look on his face said more than enough. “Miss Pink?”
I tilted my chin a tad higher. “Thank you for your time.”
“Goodbye, Miss Pink. You’ll mention what we talked about to him?”
“Yes.” I smiled sweetly. “I’ll be sure to mention every single detail of our conversation.”
As I stomped toward the door, I caught a glimpse of uncertainty passing over Mr. Anderlin’s face in the reflection off the glass wall, probably replaying the conversation over and over in his head.
Good, I thought as I left.
I did not intend to complain about him to my boss, but it wouldn’t hurt to let him wonder.
Instead of hopping onto the train, I opted for a walk back to the castle. I needed the fresh air.
As I began my walk, I shoved a pair of shiny black sunglasses over my eyes, hoping they’d give me some secret agent superpowers because God knew I needed something to help me out.
Joseph had ruffled my feathers, probably more than he should have. He did have a point, after all. The man was a smart, experienced designer, and he’d been left out of the whole situation while I—a complete outsider—had more access than he did. I’d probably feel a little chapped about the situation, too.
I was running through different variations of what I might tell Dane about my meeting with Joseph when another familiar voice called my name.
Turning, I found Nick striding toward me through the closely cropped grasses. He’d reverted to speaking in low tones into his phone, finishing up a call that I wasn’t meant to hear. I waited for him to catch up; based on his trajectory, he’d come from Warehouse 7 to meet me halfway through the quad.
“I’m headed back to the castle,” he said, slowing his pace as he approached. “I was planning on taking the train, but I saw you walking and thought you might want company.”
I offered a smile. “Sure, thanks.”
“How’d your meeting with Joseph go?” Nick asked. “Did he answer all your questions?”
I stopped walking. “Nick, I need to ask you something.”
He stopped too. “Sure, what can I help with? Did Joseph say something off-color? He can be polarizing at times. Best in the business, though, I hate to say.”
“Why did you file a formal complaint from him?” I shrugged my shoulders. “There’s a complaint in the files submitted by you from Mr. Anderlin. It says he was opposed to the project ever getting off the ground.”
“He was opposed.”
“But he didn’t file a formal complaint.”
“Well, he complained, and I made it formal.”
“Why? From what he said, formal complaints can’t be made by anyone except an individual employee... with the exception of you. Because you have administrative override privileges on the system.”
“I thought it needed to be written down.”
“He complained to you over fries and Bud Lights. I don’t think that qualifies as formal,” I said. “If everyone’s tipsy bar conversations were recorded as formal complaints, this world would be a frightening place.”
“Blue Moon,” he said. “And we weren’t tipsy. These were serious complaints.”
“Whose idea was it to go to happy hour?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yours or his?”
“I suppose it was mine,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
“Do you often go out to happy hour with him?”
“Maybe once, twice a year. I don’t know; what is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“The Pink Inquisition,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out why you’d file a formal complaint when that clearly wasn’t Mr. Anderlin’s intention. From what it sounds like, he confided in you as a co-worker and a friend, and you put it in writing. Why?”
“I was protecting his job!” Nick resumed walking, his pace quickening. “I know this place better than you. Better than you can ever dream of, and I understand the inner and outer workings of it.”
“I don’t doubt it. That’s why I’m coming to you for help.”
“Mr. Clark is brilliant. Smart. A good and loyal man. But he can also be ruthless.”
“And cold-hearted and disinterested,” I said. “Yes, I’ve heard. He tol
d me himself.”
“Mr. Anderlin had serious concerns about getting this chip delivered to the client on time. If the chip didn’t release as planned, inside of a very tight window of a deadline, the Clark Company would be out a lot of money. Heads would roll.”
“You think Mr. Clark would’ve fired Joseph if the Warehouse 7 project failed to meet its due date?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“I thought he didn’t fire people.”
“This is the largest project we’ve worked on in years; there’s a first time for everything.”
“Why did you take charge of it? Why didn’t you let Mr. Anderlin file the complaint for himself?”
“He wouldn’t have done it!” Nick’s voice rose louder and louder. “He’s too proud.”
“Would he have completed the project in time?”
Nick hesitated. “The designs were stolen.”
“But the chip is still being created. If the designs weren’t stolen, this project would have gone off without a hitch.”
Another hesitation, this one longer, followed. “Almost certainly.”
“Did you ever think that Mr. Clark knew Mr. Anderlin could get the project done in time?”
“We’re at the castle,” Nick said, turning to face me with a layer of stone over his features. “And I have a meeting. Is there anything I can assist you with?”
“Do you know where Mr. Clark is at the moment?”
“He won’t like his schedule disrupted.”
“Sometimes disruptions are necessary.”
“You’re a tornado, you know that?” Nick shook his head, flipping open a notebook to a page with today’s date scrawled across the top. “Everything was running smoothly until you got here, and now you’re ripping up the castle from the inside out.”
“Thank you?”
“He’s swimming.” Nick didn’t raise his eyes from the notebook. “Mr. Clark won’t want to be disturbed during his exercise regimen.”
I leaned in and winked. “Well, that’s just too bad. Not even Mr. Clark can stop a tornado.”
Pushing through the castle doors, I kept my shoulders high, Nick’s eyes following my every step. Only once I was in the privacy of my own room did I let the facade drop, collapsing onto my bed. I just barely managed to remove my sunglasses before letting my face fall onto the pillow and stay there, the weight of the morning crumbling into a mattress soft as clouds.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop my mind from whirring, thinking, the possibilities playing out behind my closed eyelids. My interactions with Nick, Mr. Anderlin, and earlier this morning, Gary—the potential buyer. Too many possibilities, too little information.
A nap was out of the question, so instead I pulled out Dotty’s journal, curious to see if she had something to say on the subject. It couldn’t hurt, that’s for sure.
“Show me the way, Dotty,” I murmured, opening the notebook’s pages. “What surprises do you have for me today?”
My grandmother’s curly handwriting bounced across the page, swooping with the same whimsy as the woman herself. I read the words several times, digested them, and still, I wasn’t particularly pleased.
When in doubt, take a leap.
A leap? I wondered, considering my options and not liking many of them. A leap of faith? A leap of joy? A leap…into the pool?
Climbing from bed, I fished a swimsuit out of the closet and held it up for size. Perfect, as expected. Since I’d already started on my path of destruction, I might as well go out with a whirl.
This afternoon, I would join Mr. Clark for a swim.
The pool sparkled under the sunlight—the water crystal clear and stunning in its stillness. White columns surrounded the Romanesque pool, several of them emerging from the very center of the water. White lounge chairs sat on the deck, each supplied with a fluffy yellow towel.
I took a seat in one of the chairs, planning to wait until Dane noticed me on his break. Nick had probably been right in one area; Mr. Clark didn’t like his schedule disrupted, and I’d already disrupted it plenty.
Twenty minutes later, I checked my watch for the tenth time from underneath the same pink sunglasses I’d worn on my first day here. It had nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Clark had told me he’d liked them best, even if he thought fuchsia looked the same as salmon.
Surely even Mr. Clark needed breaks from swimming. Once or twice per lap, he took a breath, barely parting the water with his arms. He made swimming look effortless, almost beautiful. When I swam, it looked like someone had thrown a puppy in the water for the first time—lots of splashes and gulps of air, and probably a yelp or two.
Not him. He also didn’t seem to breathe much, or take breaks. Finally, when thirty minutes had passed and I’d gotten a good start on a tan—or, more realistically, a sunburn—I stood up and meandered toward the edge of the pool. A barrel of tools—kickboards, floating noodles, things that looked like over-sized Q-tips—sat untouched. From there, I grabbed a noodle and stuck it into the water to signal my presence.
He flew toward me, the water rippling off his body. From this close, I could see how he’d gotten those long, lean muscles, and also where he’d developed a gorgeous tan. If I swam like this I’d look like a supermodel, too. Too bad I hated getting in the water. I preferred baby oil and a margarita on a towel to the exercise bit.
Mr. Clark hurtled toward me, moved slightly to the side to avoid the noodle, and did a flip turn. He barely paused, shooting toward the other end of the pool.
“Hey!” I yelled after him. “I have a question for you!”
Another two laps and a lot of noodle waggling didn’t get me very far. I started giving up the polite act. “I need to talk to you about something important!” I shouted, but he was gone again. Finally, I just started shouting his name over and over again until finally, he poked his head up out of the pool.
“What on earth is so important you need to interrupt my workout?” Mr. Clark rose from the pool looking like Batman. He was all dripping dark hair and blue eyes that matched the piercing Mediterranean shade of the water. The very same water running down his shoulders, over a hard chest, toned arms, down to where the water distorted my view of his stomach.
“Lola,” he said sharply. “Can I help you?”
I tore my gaze from his body. “What?”
“You have been trying to poke me with that noodle for the past thirty minutes,” he said. “What do you need?”
“I haven’t been trying to poke you! Just get your attention.” I put my hands on my hips. “It’s very important.”
“Well, speak quickly.” His chest rose and fell, his words accompanied by a slightly breathless quality. Glancing at his watch, he shook his head. “I’m already two minutes behind on my workout. Be ready to talk next time around.”
Before I could argue, he took off again. “Hey!” I shouted after him. “I need five minutes!”
This time, my temper got the best of me. Maybe I was disrupting his hour-long swim workout, but he’d disrupted my life. All of it. Yes, he was paying me, but in order for me to do my job, I needed to get his attention. Drastic times called for drastic measures, so I pulled out a trick I’d learned during summer camp.
I dunked the noodle, filled the hole down the center with pool water, and then raised it to my mouth like an elephant’s trunk. I lined up Mr. Clark in my sights and watched, waited, counted the breaths. When he was two feet away from me, I inhaled deeply, bided my time, and then blasted the water at him like a super soaker.
I nailed him smack in the ear. It was a great shot. I froze, hoping I hadn’t given him brain damage. Apparently, my years as a camp counselor hadn’t been for naught, however, because it worked, and finally, he popped his head out of the water a second later, shaking it to the side.
“What the hell was that for, Miss Pink?”
“I was trying to get your attention!” I let the noodle fall from my fingers. “An
d you weren’t listening. I talked to Joseph and Nick this morning, and I reviewed the files. I have a few questions.”
“And I have more swimming to do. This can wait.”
“No, it can’t wait!” I cried, but he was already halfway to the other side of the pool again. I continued arguing with the surface of the clear blue water. “I need some insights!”
Several laps later, he showed no signs of slowing. I had a sneaking suspicion that now, he was just doing it to mess with me. Nobody swam for over an hour per day. That was hardly healthy. It probably gave people a heart attack.
So, I did what any retired lifeguard would do: I pulled off my towel and prepared for takeoff. Again I watched him approach, and when Dane reached the wall, I took a running start, leaping off the edge of the pool and landing with a thunk inches before his nose.
Mr. Clark pulled back at the last second, which prevented me from landing on his head. A very good thing.
“Jesus, you are going to kill me,” he said, breaking the surface. “What are you thinking?”
“Cannonball?”
He didn’t look amused.
“Look, Mr. Clark. I saved your life.”
This got his attention. “What?”
“If you keep swimming like that you’ll have a heart attack. And anyway, I have some questions for you.”
“Then come with me. I’m not done.”
“Come with you... where?”
He took off, three paces ahead before I could even stick my face in the water.
“Oh, hell no,” I said to his splashing feet. “We are not having our business conferences while swimming.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like I had a choice in the matter. I dodged and weaved behind him and made it as hard for him to pass by my writhing, splashing form as possible.
The first lap, he went underneath me. I hadn’t expected that one, so the next time, I put my feet on the bottom.
Then, he went around me.
The next time, I spread my arms and legs wide, and he ducked into the next lane.
Another strike.
Finally, I gave up and floated on a noodle until his annoyance levels reached breaking point.
