Grounded

by A. E. Radley

  Kathryn nodded a greeting to whomever had exited the elevator. Olivia kept her back to them, unwilling to identify any more of her staff who had left her. She pushed down the small internal voice that berated her for not seeing the signs. Signs that must’ve been there. A company couldn’t fall this quickly without visible indicators.

  Kathryn turned back to Olivia and looked at her seriously. “No one was unhappy. It’s just the economic climate at the moment. You were a wonderful leader.” Kathryn leaned forward and quietly whispered, “Despite what he might say.”

  Olivia knew exactly what Marcus had to say about her leadership skills. There had been many a phone call and e-mail regarding the subject when he’d worked for her. She wasn’t normally one for emotional turmoil and doubt, but the last few hours and days had seen her go from crying in despair to throwing things in anger. The kind words helped her keep it together, something she desperately needed until she could escape the lion’s den.

  Never before had she been so caught up in the emotion of a situation, nor felt so down and defeated. There had been many times when everyone around her had thought their position hopeless, but she had refused to give up. Her relentless determination had seen her through so much. Now she was struggling to find that drive.

  “I should go,” Olivia said, not knowing a better response. They said farewell to each other and Olivia stepped into the elevator with her head down to shield her face from the eyes she could feel upon her.

  * * *

  Emily stepped out of the elevator holding the stack of empty archive boxes, hoping they didn’t topple over. She couldn’t see over them, so she walked slowly. She could hear Kathryn saying good-bye to someone and hoped she wouldn’t bump into whoever it was as she inched closer to her desk.

  As she sat down, she saw a piece of paper standing between the keys of her keyboard with an instruction to call Seb Brennan. Emily let out a sigh and picked up the phone, quickly dialled the number she’d already memorised, and waited for the call to be connected.

  “Hello Emily,” Seb answered politely.

  “Hi,” Emily replied, not in the mood for small talk.

  “A friend of mine is on the board of the Children’s Theatre, and we’ve managed to acquire some tickets for a wonderful show tonight. I thought we’d take Henry. If you don’t mind, of course.” His tone was friendly, but it was clear to Emily that the decision had been made in his mind and the call was just for the sake of etiquette.

  “What show is it?” Emily hoped to hear something she could use as a reason to say no.

  “It’s a show for under-fives, about a little girl who goes on safari. There’ll be giraffes, so I know Henry will enjoy it.”

  Emily closed her eyes and let out a small sigh. “Sounds great,” she lied and hoped it was convincing.

  “As it’s across town, it’ll be a little late for him by the time we get back to yours. So we thought he could stay overnight again. Best for everyone.”

  Emily shivered at a sudden chill and licked her dry lips. She felt as if she was losing control of the situation. It had quickly gone from occasional visits to daily calls to arrange outings, trips, and overnight stays. But she was trapped; she still suspected that a word from Seb would cause her job to vanish into thin air. There was no easy way out. “I suppose—”

  “Wonderful. I’ll call Lucy and make the arrangements. I’m sure you’ll be glad to get the night off.”

  Emily continued to hold the phone to her ear despite the fact that Seb had hung up. She silently fumed at the insinuation that he was doing her a favour when he knew full well that she was reluctant to let Henry stay with them.

  CHAPTER 13

  Olivia stood on the edge of the sidewalk with her hand raised in the air. She let out a sigh as another taxi sped by her. It was Friday afternoon, and New York was starting to get busy. Well, busier than the usual. She’d been attempting to flag a taxi down for the last twenty minutes, but they were all occupied.

  She lowered her hand and turned to regard Marcus’ new office building, rolling her eyes at the ostentatiousness of it all. The glass and metal high-rise disappeared up into the sky, and Olivia knew that it was all to satisfy Marcus’ desire to boast. Style over substance. Much like the man.

  Unable to stand being so close to him, or his pretentious building, she walked farther down the avenue to see if she would have more luck of getting a taxi at the crossroads.

  At the junction, another ten minutes went by before Olivia lowered her hand and wearily looked around. Behind her was the cheesiest faux Mexican bar she’d ever seen. After the day she’d had, she needed a drink. With a sigh, she swivelled on her crutch and walked in.

  Inside was no better. She looked around at the tacky sombreros hanging from the ceiling and raised an eyebrow. But she was beyond caring as she limped her way over to the nearest bench and sat down.

  She fidgeted in the booth, attempting to get comfortable on the worn, leather-clad bench. She shifted her cast-laden foot around under the table searching for a tolerable position but eventually gave up when she realised it was impossible. She’d clearly over-exerted herself, and her leg was paying the price.

  She looked down at the paper placemat that was also a menu, picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, and regarded it with a grimace. When a bored-looking waitress came over, Olivia ordered a couple of small tapas dishes and a glass of wine. She was about to clarify that she wanted a chardonnay when the waitress simply asked for her colour preference. Despondent, she shrugged, and the waitress left to place her order.

  Her phone rang and she answered it, thankful for the distraction.

  “Hello, Simon.”

  “Hey…is that Flamenco music? Where are you?”

  “Madrid.” Olivia plucked a napkin from the metal dispenser on the table and mopped up an unidentifiable pool of liquid.

  “Cool. I prefer Barcelona, but to each their own,” Simon played along. “Just checking everything is okay. You know, seeing if you need bail money or anything?”

  Olivia smiled. Simon could always cheer her up. “No need for bail money. I was unsuccessful.”

  “Unsuccessful in what? Killing him?”

  Olivia paused. “No. Unsuccessful in reasoning with him.”

  “You didn’t actually think that speaking to him would do any good, did you? Like I said before, he’s made his choice, and he won’t go back now.”

  “I hoped I could reason with him,” Olivia explained. She scrunched up the damp napkin and looked around for a convenient place to put it.

  “I don’t think there is any reasoning with him. A very smart person once agreed with me when I called him a dick.”

  Olivia laughed. “Yes, well, he is certainly living up to that moniker.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  Olivia had known that was coming. Of course Simon would assume that his all-seeing boss would have a plan, but sadly, she didn’t. It had been a week. Things were getting worse, and she was running out of options. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going back to London?” Simon asked unexpectedly.

  After a quick check that no one was looking, Olivia hid the napkin in a pot containing a decidedly un-Mexican conifer. She considered Simon’s question and blew out a long breath. The truth was, she didn’t know what the best course of action was, but she knew she certainly didn’t want to fly anymore.

  “No.”

  Simon paused. “No, not this week? No, not this month? No, not ever again?”

  “I…” She cleared her throat and started again. “I don’t wish to fly again. Not for the foreseeable future.”

  “That’s understandable. It really is.”

  “I’m not sure that the London side of the business can be rescued; not as it stands now,” Olivia admitted. “The staffing situation is critical, and we simply don’t have the cash flow.”

  A comfortable silence fell between them until Simon spoke again. “May I make a suggestion?”
/>   “Of course.”

  “Think about cancelling your reservation at the hotel in London.”

  Olivia considered the statement for a moment. “Yes, that makes sense. The cost is hardly one the business can stomach at the moment.”

  He sighed. “Yes, there’s that, but I was thinking more about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” Simon replied. A long pause followed before he continued. “I know you’re busy with work, but I really think that you need to consider looking for a home. If you’re not going to be travelling all the time, then there’s no need to stay in hotels. And, as you say, it’s a cost that the business can’t really sustain at the moment. It’s a good time to think about moving.”

  She panicked at the very notion. “But…I…I—”

  “I know it’s a big step,” Simon soothed. “But I think it’s the right thing to do now. Maybe I should call an estate agent? What do you guys call them? Realtors?”

  She knew why Simon was pushing the point. He’d been doing so for years. They’d once discussed how he thought living in hotels was holding her back, stopping her from putting down roots and living her life. She supposed he was right. But she didn’t know if she was ready for such a big step. Change wasn’t something that Olivia ever approached willingly, especially when it came to her personal surroundings. She felt comfortable and safe in the hotel.

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Okay. But, seriously, why can I hear a Mariachi band?”

  “I’m in a Mexican…” Olivia struggled to bring herself to use the word restaurant, “…place.”

  “Right. Can I ask why?” Simon asked, laughter in his tone.

  “I couldn’t hail a taxi.”

  “That really doesn’t explain anything.”

  “I’m just going to have some food and wait until it’s a little easier to get a taxi. Really, Simon, I’m fine.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Simon stepped out of the taxi and looked at the run-down bar with a tilt of his head. To say it was dilapidated would be kind. To say he was surprised that Olivia had even stepped foot in the place was an understatement.

  He shouldered his mobile phone as he paid the driver.

  “Well, I’m at the address she gave me.”

  “You don’t sound too sure?” Sophie replied.

  “It’s a dump.”

  She chuckled. “It can’t be that bad, Olivia doesn’t sound like the kind of person who—”

  “It’s a dump,” Simon reiterated. “The sign is a cartoon cactus winking and wearing a sombrero.” He checked the street and the bar name to be absolutely sure he was in the right place.

  “Maybe it’s ironic?”

  “We’ll see.” He walked into the bar and peered around the dimly lit room. “Thanks for joining me on the ‘find my boss adventure’. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  “Never.” Sophie laughed. “You’re saving me from tedious studies. I’m intrigued.”

  Knowing she couldn’t see his face, he indulged in a sad smile. He missed her terribly but didn’t want to say so and make the pull to go home even greater. His eyes continued to scan the room until he finally found Olivia. At first he didn’t recognise her. He blinked a few times in shock.

  “Oh shit,” he mumbled.

  “What’s up?”

  “Simon! Come and meet my new friends!” Olivia waved excitedly to him.

  “Everything’s fine,” Simon whispered into the phone through a clenched smile. “I’ll call you back later.”

  He hung up and looked at the two Hells Angels bikers who sat opposite Olivia in a corner booth. Both men were in their forties, muscular, tattooed, and covered in leather. Simon licked his dry lips nervously as he approached the table, the smile still firmly fixed on his face. He had nothing against bikers—not that he’d met any. His entire knowledge of them was drawn from works of fiction, but he was sure that they were perfectly nice people. His concern was for Olivia, who had a tendency to speak her mind and not consider the potential outcome of her words.

  “This is Crazy Weasel.” Olivia pointed to one of the men, then the other. “And Butcher. Boys, this is Simon.”

  “Hello,” Simon greeted, wondering how he was going to safely extract Olivia.

  “Your friend’s pretty drunk,” Butcher told him.

  “We thought we’d stay with her until you turned up,” Crazy Weasel explained. “Pretty lady in a place like this. Bad leg as well.”

  “They signed my cast,” Olivia told him excitedly. “Look!”

  She edged her way to the end of the booth and swung her cast out for him to see. He’d seen Olivia drink before, but he’d never seen her drunk. He made a show of looking at her cast with interest.

  “Oh, yes, that’s lovely,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to go home now, though.”

  “She’s been downing margaritas like there’s a shortage,” Butcher explained with a gesture towards the empty glasses on the table.

  Simon looked at the glasses and hoped that some of them belonged to the two men, but he somehow doubted it by the way Olivia was swaying. “Have you eaten anything?” he asked her seriously.

  “Who can say?” Olivia shrugged.

  Crazy Weasel unfolded a slip of paper and handed it to Simon, who picked it up and frowned towards Olivia and then Crazy Weasel. “What’s this?”

  “She said that’s the name of the man who upset her. Is it right? She’s drunk and all, and we don’t wanna get the wrong—”

  “Whoa, whoa, no!” Simon pocketed the paper. He turned to Olivia. “You’re setting bikers on him? Are you out of your mind?” Of course he knew that the situation was hard on Olivia, but he never thought she would resort to violence.

  “Oh, Simon.” Olivia reached up, cupped his face in her hands, and squeezed his cheeks. “Of course not.” She let him go and flopped back into her seat. “Butcher was just asking about double-taxation laws because his wife is from China and they want to sell their second apartment. And I happened to mention that Marcus has an apartment in China. That’s all.”

  Butcher looked at Simon seriously. “You have to plan ahead and make sure you have an effective tax wrapper when investing overseas.”

  “Y-yes, you do,” Simon agreed. “So…you’re…not going to, like, kill Marcus?”

  The men looked at each other and roared with laughter.

  Olivia snickered. “No, I wanted to make sure they didn’t get financial advice from him.” She swigged from her glass. “Because he’s a poopie head.”

  Simon reached forward, grabbed the glass, and put it out of Olivia’s reach. He was worried for her state of mind, not to mention her liver. But on the other hand, he was happy to see her finally let her hair down—even if that did entail getting drunk in a bar and making friends with bikers. Still, it was time to leave.

  “Okay, right, let’s go.” He looked around, saw Olivia’s crutch speared through a piñata hanging from the ceiling, and turned back to face her. “Don’t move and don’t drink anything else.”

  Olivia attempted to smother a giggle and gave him a half-hearted mock salute.

  He walked over and started to remove the crutch from the paper donkey when a member of staff appeared next to him.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for any damage she’s caused,” Simon told the man before he had a chance to say anything.

  “No damage.” He handed Simon a card. “Just wanted to make sure she gets her loyalty card. She’s a premium member now, just like she asked, and she’s got enough stamps for a second nacho hat.”

  “Second nacho hat?” Simon asked as he finally freed the crutch from the piñata.

  The man pointed towards the table, where Olivia was clapping her hands with glee at a nacho hat with a rim filled with guacamole that was being placed on her head.

  * * *

  Emily walked along the street towards the subway station, her mind distracted as she thought about Henry sleeping at Seb and Irene’s for
another night. He was already withdrawn and even talking through Tiny was starting to wane. It was obvious that he was depressed, or whatever the term was when five-year-olds suffered from it.

  She was so caught up in her thoughts that she barely noticed two people standing in front of her until one was falling to the ground. She instinctively reached out and grabbed the woman by the arm, catching a glimpse of a crutch falling to the ground. Luckily, the man who was with her caught the other arm and, between them, they stopped the woman from hitting the sidewalk.

  She looked up and her breath caught. “Simon?”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked weary, and as if his day couldn’t get worse. “Hello again,” he said with an attempt at a smile.

  Emily looked down at the woman she was holding; as she feared, it was Olivia Lewis—with a cut on her forehead, her leg in a cast, and a nacho hat with guacamole falling out of the rim on her head.

  “Simon…I’m dreaming that Emily is here. Lovely Emily,” Olivia declared as she looked up at Emily reverently. “She’s just as beautif—”

  “Okay, let’s try standing on your own legs again now,” Simon cut in. He put his arm around Olivia’s waist and heaved her to her feet.

  Emily reached down, picked up the crutch, and handed it to Olivia, who leant all of her weight onto Simon and held the crutch out, spinning it like a baton. “Thank you, Fairy Lady.”

  “Is everything okay out here?”

  Emily turned around and found herself facing a leather-clad chest. She looked up, and then up some more into the face of a well-built man with a shaved head, a long grey beard, and a tattoo of dashed lines across his neck with the words ‘cut here’.

  “Crazy Weasel!” Olivia shouted.

  “Olivia!” Emily admonished.

  “That’s his name,” Simon informed her.

  “This is Emily. She’s a fairy, and I’m dreaming her.”

  “We’re fine. Just a little slip,” Simon assured the man.

  Crazy Weasel looked them up and down for a moment before shaking his head and heading back into the bar.