by B. B. Hamel
“You did,” she says, and then corrects herself. “Sven did, under your order.”
“What order was that?” I ask.
She doesn’t seem surprised that I don’t remember. “Apparently the two of you went out and, ah, had a few drinks.”
“Oh shit,” I say, grinning. “I remember that.”
“You told him you needed an ethicist on staff. Someone with training in philosophy. He compromised and found Miss May here.”
I bite my lip and look back down at her file. The name sounds so familiar, so incredibly familiar…
And then that night comes back to me. That woman at the conference two years ago. The one that told me we weren’t thinking deeply enough.
Holy shit. I feel like my heart’s going to stop. I’ve been thinking about her for years. I wanted to call her, but we never exchanged numbers. I tried to look her up but it turns out there are a ton of Emma Mays, and she never told me where she’s from. And then the Envoy launched officially, and I got too busy to keep searching for her, and life got in the way.
But shit. Emma May. This has to be her.
“Is she here today?” I ask.
“Yes, she is,” Olivia says with a wry smile. “Started two days ago.”
“Let’s go say hello to our new hire.”
Olivia arches her eyebrow. “Do you really have time to do that? We need to start launching the Mark 2—”
“Yes, I know we do,” I say, coming around the desk. I stop in front of Olivia and put my hands on her shoulders. “But love trumps all other things.”
Her look of utter bewilderment makes me smile as I leave the office. She trails behind me, clearly annoyed, but not arguing anymore. I know where Sven’s people sit, so I head over to his little pen, two floors down and a few feet away from the elevator bank.
Olivia follows me the whole way, probably just to find out what the hell I meant by that weird comment. I can’t blame her, although she should be used to it by now. We’ve been together for years now. She was the first person I hired back in the day, and now she’s my most trusted employee and my closest friend. If she weren’t gay, I probably would have tried to fuck her by now and ruined everything, but fortunately we don’t have that whole sex thing standing in between us.
It’s not like I’m running around sleeping with anything with a pulse, but I have the tendency to fuck women I get close with. I don’t have many female friends at all, mostly because I’ve alienated all of them by sleeping with them at totally inopportune moments. Emma May is no different, and I bet she hates my guts for never calling her, even though it’s not entirely my fault. I really wanted to, and really wanted to bring her onto my team. Fortunately, though, she managed to find her way onto it all on her own, which is even more impressive and proof that I was right about her back then.
Sven intercepts me before I can start to harass his people. “What are you doing here?” he asks me in his inscrutable Russian accent, even though I know he’s not fucking Russian.
“Where’s your new girl?” I ask him.
“Oh, the ethical one, yes?” He rolls his eyes and gestures at the pen. “In there, somewhere.”
“Thanks. You’re so helpful as always.”
He turns to Olivia. “Nice to see you, lovely Olivia.”
She glares at him. “Dress more appropriately.”
“Oh, you don’t like?” He gestures at himself. He’s wearing an absurd red and black track suit with stripes down the sides. “I think very handsome, yes?”
Olivia shakes her head. “Can we make this fast, David?”
I grin at Sven and head off into his little pen of workers. Sven’s team is officially the debugging group, but that’s not really their role. Sven runs more of an experiment hive of programmers, artists, and designers all tasked with working on… something. I’m not sure what. But it’s supposed to be cutting edge and experimental. He never tells me what they’re doing, and I don’t bother asking.
I find Emma sitting in the very last cube. I slow down and stop when I finally see her, and that night comes rushing back. Sure enough, it’s her, almost unchanged. Her hair’s longer, still blonde and full. Her desk is covered in personal things, including a photograph of a cute little girl, a little over one year old. I stare at it for a second, and the girl looks so familiar it’s actually scary, but I don’t have time to think too hard about that, because Emma turns around and gapes at me.
I grin at her. “Hey, Emma,” I say.
“David.” She quickly stands. “I didn’t… I didn’t know you’d be coming here today.”
“I just saw that you were hired,” I say. We shake hands, all very formal. Olivia hovers nearby, trying to pretend like she’s not listening intently. I step a little closer to Emma so that we’re not easily overheard. “You know, I meant to call you.”
She blinks and blushes right away. There’s a flash of something else though, and she drops my hand. “Of course you did.”
“Really, I did. You just never gave me your numbers, and then the Envoy launched, so…”
“It’s okay, really,” she says, waving it away, all smiles again. I’d forgotten how truly attractive she is, cute and bubbly and beautiful. “Seems I found my way back to you anyway.”
“Yes, you did,” I say softly. “I’m glad you did.” I glance back at the picture over her shoulder and back at her face. The girl looks remarkably like Emma…
“What was that?” I ask. I realize that Emma said something.
“I said, are you finally taking my advice?”
“Oh, apparently,” I answer, coming back to the conversation. “We hired you, so we must be going in the right direction.”
She smiles and blushes again, which makes me grin. I love making her blush and apparently it’s easy.
“Well, uh, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Same to you. We’ll have to get together. Maybe remember the old days.”
Her blush grows deeper. “Maybe,” she says. “There’s not much to catch up on, though.”
“Oh, I disagree. I think we have a lot of work to do, you and I.” I put my hand on her arm, and although I know it’s going too far, I can’t help myself. I meet her gaze and she knows exactly what I’m saying.
I want to push her buttons more, but Olivia steps up. “David, call from Karen,” she says. “Something that needs your attention.”
I sigh. “Never ends. Welcome to the team, Emma. See you later.”
“Thanks,” she says, and I turn away. Olivia and I walk away from Sven’s little pen, and I cock my head at Olivia.
“Karen’s on the phone.” I ask her. “I thought she was in Kuwait.”
“Nope. Just wanted to get you out of there before you made more of an ass of yourself.”
I grin at her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. When was the last time you flirted with a guy?”
“Never,” she says. “But I’ve flirted with women plenty, and you’re awful at it.”
She gives me a rare smile and I can’t help but laugh at myself.
We get back to work, but I can’t stop thinking about Emma for the rest of the day. It’s not exactly Emma that I’m drawn to, although she’s gorgeous and I really do want to see her again. No, it’s that picture of that little girl on her desk. It’s bugging the hell out of me, but she looks so damn familiar.
It takes me all day and three more cups of coffee before I finally figure it out. It’s so fucking obvious, and so fucking horrifying, that I don’t even admit the truth until I’m back at home with a whisky in my hand.
I had no clue. Of course I had no clue, she never got in touch with me to tell me. How could I have known? I feel like an asshole, like a piece of shit.
Because that little girl looks just like me.
3
Emma
I know coming to work for Envoy was probably a mistake, but I couldn’t help myself.
Sven Richardson himself reached out to me one night with a job of
fer. I didn’t even know I was on his radar, but apparently I was. I quit my job programming for this awful little pizza sales startup and immediately went to work for my dream job, Envoy, that next week, despite my better judgment screaming out warnings like air raid sirens.
I don’t want David to find out about his daughter. I made that decision a long time ago, back when I first found out that I was pregnant. David’s too famous and too rich. I don’t want to seem like some crazy girl out to make a buck, and besides, I don’t want to achieve anything in life just because I accidentally got pregnant during a one-night stand. I’m sure David would step up and pay child support or whatever, or even be a father to Julie, but I don’t want that. I don’t want him to have anything to do with her.
Maybe it’s anger over him never calling, but I don’t think I’m that petty. I don’t think I’d deprive my daughter of a father just because he never called me back. It’s so much more than that, it’s a whole way of life that I’m afraid of. I want Julie to grow up like I did, having to earn everything she has.
My parents were poor and divorced when I was young. My mom raised me up until she died of cancer during my junior year of college. I don’t really know my dad and I don’t see him ever, which is fine by me. Apparently he was a drunk and an abusive one, so I don’t need that in my life.
I worked hard to graduate from MIT, but all it took was one night with David to completely change my life. After that, I knew I had nine months before the baby came, and so I threw myself into graduate school applications. I was accepted into the University of Chicago’s one-year master’s program in Philosophy, and I got my degree just in time with a focus on ethics. A month after Julie was born, I got my degree in the mail.
That wasn’t the greatest financial decision, though, and so I had to get the first job that came my way. Unfortunately that was a junior developer position at this horrible pizza delivery startup. I just crunched numbers all day long, banging out code, while at night I took care of Julie.
Things are already better though. Envoy has a daycare right in the building, which means I can visit my daughter during the day. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing, since Sven basically refuses to tell me what my job actually entails, but I’m not too worried yet. I spend my first few days researching the company and coming up with a plan for how I can contribute.
I probably shouldn’t have taken this job, especially if I wanted to avoid David, but it’s too late now. That little reunion was… difficult. I know he saw the picture of Julie on my desk, but I can’t tell if he figured it out. Probably not, but it’s hard to tell. I should have stayed at that stupid pizza job, it’s just that Envoy pays about twice as much with twice the freedom, and it’s already making my life better.
Everyone says being a single mother is hard, but I don’t think anybody really understands how hard it is until they actually have a baby. I sure didn’t realize it at least. Now that Julie’s fifteen months, I’m ready to do whatever I can to make our lives better, even if that makes taking a job at the one company I should avoid.
Which is how I end up staring at an email from David. It appears in my inbox around noon on my fifth day with Envoy.
Emma, it was good seeing you again. Listen, I want to get together and celebrate you joining the team. And no, before you ask, I don’t do this for all the new hires. What do you think, dinner tonight? Meet me in the lobby here around six. David.
I bite my lip and read over the text again. I don’t know what I’m going to do, since I can’t just go to dinner like that. I have to think about what I’m going to do with Julie. I don’t have childcare for her at night, and frankly I don’t want to get any. I want to spend time with her and put her down to sleep at seven like I always do.
So I write him back.
David, it was good seeing you too. I know I didn’t get to tell you this, but I have a daughter now named Julie. She’s a little over one year old and a really amazing girl. I don’t have a babysitter, so I can’t accept your generous offer. Maybe some other time? Emma.
I get a response almost immediately.
Bring her with you when you come to meet me. Trust me, it’ll be fine. David.
I chew my lip but I don’t know what other choice I have. Okay, see you then, I write back, and hit send.
Instantly I regret it. I don’t want to see him again, let alone have dinner with him, let alone bring my daughter to meet him. But he’s the big boss here, and if I want to keep this amazing job with amazing pay and amazing benefits, I have to play ball. I mean, I doubt David would fire me over declining a dinner invite, or at least I don’t think he’s that petty, but still. I’m new here, so I should be careful.
He can meet his daughter, but he doesn’t have to know that it’s his daughter. I don’t think he suspects, but it doesn’t matter. He may be her biological dad, but he’s not involved in her life, and I’m determined to keep it that way.
At five, I go get Julie from daycare like I normally do, but instead of going home we come back up to my cubicle and spend an hour exploring the place. I can tell she’s tired, but she seems to like daycare and playing with the other kids, so I’m not complaining. I’m nervous as hell though when six finally rolls around and I head down into the lobby, heart racing, ready to run away as fast as I can.
This is a bad idea and I know it. If I want to keep Julie away from David, why the hell am I bringing her right to him? This is insane, I need to turn around and run away and pretend like something came up. I can just lie about it, he won’t fire me. I clutch Julie’s hand and I’m about to bolt, but I hear my name from a few feet away.
“Emma,” David says, coming around a corner. “Glad you could make it.”
I stop in my tracks and stare at him. David is so handsome, even more attractive than the last time I saw him. Julie ducks by my side and he smiles at her broadly.
“And this is your daughter?” he asks.
“Julie,” I say. “Say hello to David, he’s my boss.”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at the floor.
He smiles at her. “It’s nice to meet you, Julie.”
She clutches my hand and I can tell she’s being shy. “So, uh, listen, it’s hard to go to dinner with Julie. And her bedtime is in an hour, so maybe—”
“Hold that thought,” David says, turning away. “Miss Maudette?” he calls out.
I stand there and watch as a tiny, rotund, wide-eyed, big-haired, elderly woman comes ambling into view. She has the kindest face I’ve ever seen and her eyes are practically laughing.
“Hi there, honey,” she says, and I can feel Julie perk up next to me.
“Emma, this is Maudette. She runs the daycare here.”
“Oh, hello,” I say. “I think I only met Lacey.”
“Lacey’s a good gal,” Maudette says, “but I’m the one that’s really in charge, ya see.”
“Oh, right.”
“And I know little Julie here. Right, little Julie? You know Miss Maudette?”
Her southern accent is thick although I can’t place it exactly. Julie runs over to her, tottering like she’s about to fall. Maudette catches her in her arms and swoops her up, making Julie laugh.
I stare at David and he just shrugs. “If you’re okay with it, Maudette agreed to take Julie while we go to dinner.”
“Ah,” I stutter, not sure what to say.
“Just give me your key, sweetie, and I’ll take care of little Julie here. Fed and in bed by seven, is that it?”
“Right,” I say, and I give her a quick rundown of the routine. “Are you sure about this?”
“Sure as sure can be.” She winks, and I feel totally bewildered as David grins and gestures at me. I hesitate a second. I know this situation is totally strange and way out of bounds for an employer, but one glance at David makes my whole stomach do flips. I don’t think for a second that he would hire this woman for me if she were in any way irresponsible.
I pull my house ke
y from my bag, slide it off the ring, and hand it over. “Thanks again,” I say to her.
“Any time, honey,” she says, taking Julie from me. “Ready to have some fun, Miss Julie?”
I smile as they walk away. David comes up next to me and we stand there for a second. I glance over at him and he has a strange look on his face.
“Ready?” he asks once Julie and Maudette are gone.
“Sure,” I say. “Where are we going?”
“Oh, just the best restaurant in the whole city.” He grins at me and turns back into the building. “Come right this way.”
I match his step, trying to appear more confident than I feel as we walk deeper into the building and further away from the old life I once knew.
4
David
I punch a series of eight digits into the keypad next to the large steel door and hit the enter button. The lock clicks and the door slides open slowly. I look over my shoulder at Emma and grin.
“High tech,” she comments, looking impressed.
“We had some issues with security a few years back,” I say. “We installed all these on our testing warehouses to deter any leakers.”
“You’re taking me to a warehouse for dinner?” she asks me, cocking her head.
I nod, still grinning. “Come on. You’ll see.”
We step into the cavernous space. The testing facility was a late addition to this building, constructed just a few years ago when we were ramping up the Envoy tests. Now it hosts all of our most experimental tech, the sort of stuff that the public will probably never know about, unless it passes our rigorous standards.
The whole space is white and brightly lit. The door slides shut behind us once we head into the room and Emma glances over her shoulder at it. “Keep up,” I say. “Don’t wander off.”
“I’m right here,” she grumbles, hurrying to fall in step with me. “What is all this stuff, anyway?”
