A very familiar ringtone sounds, and I jerk my smartphone toward me excitedly. Before I press the button to accept, I tell myself to calm down and take a deep breath.
“I was starting to wonder about you,” I state nonchalantly, leaving any emotion out of my voice. It’s kind of dark, and though I can’t fully see his face, I can tell that he’s smiling.
“Were you punishing me by not calling, Mad?” He has a teasing tone, and I wish I could see him a little better. He’s wearing his glasses, and I can picture his gray-green eyes beneath his arching brown eyebrows rather than actually see them. I know Josh’s face—it’s similar to Jessica’s, as far as the slight olive-skin coloring. He has a strong jaw and full lips, not that I’ve noticed or anything. Like I said, it’s a familiar face.
“Don’t be silly. I’ve been very busy…and don’t call me Mad. I’m not six anymore.”
“I know you’re not, Mad. Neither am I.”
For one month of the year, the three of us are the same age—Jessica is six months older than me and Josh is five months younger. People thought they were twins, because they were always in the same grade together.
“I didn’t break your rule, you know.”
“It was a slight overreaction,” he admits. “It’s an odd sensation watching a rather large guy walk uninvited through the door of your house. I’m sorry. How is Vince anyway?”
“His name is Vic, and I have no idea. I cut him loose.”
“Poor schmuck. What was wrong with this one?”
“He…just…had an ear problem.”
“A hearing issue?”
“No, and it doesn’t matter. Can we talk about something else, please?”
“How do you ever manage to talk to me? I’m sure I don’t meet your checklist of perfection.”
As though Josh is a dating possibility. He’s Josh, and I hardly expect him to be perfect. He’s seen me and Jess do so many ridiculous things, I’m surprised he can look at me with a straight face anymore.
“There’s so much wrong with you, I actually find your quirks endearing,” I inform him.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Are you watching baseball?” he asks, clearly grinning. “You only watch baseball with me, Mad.”
“Well, I technically am watching baseball with you, aren’t I?” Glancing at the TV, I can’t help but smirk. “I don’t know, it just made me feel not quite so alone today. And I needed a break from reading my book.”
I actually made it to page six of the Camdyn Taylor book before I put it down. Way better than I expected.
“You’re reading a book? What’s his name?”
“His name? It’s a book by a woman—Camdyn Taylor.”
“No,” he counters with a laugh. “I mean, who’s the guy you’re trying to impress? He likes to read, I take it.”
“I’m not that shallow, really.” I glance away, but I’m aware that I have a hard time hiding my emotions from Josh. The man practically reads my mind sometimes. “Okay, his name is Benjamin. He’s an English teacher.”
“Benjamin,” he states, trying out the name. “I like your hair all piled up like that.”
I self-consciously push a strand away. “I look like a mess. How are things over there?”
“Don’t do that, just let me pretend I’m there with you. I want to live vicariously through you for a few minutes.”
“You sound like Jess when she wants to hear about my dates.”
He chuckles and adjusts the screen closer to his face. “I definitely do not want to hear about your dates.”
“Well, I went to church with your parents today.”
“That’s so awesome. I know how much that means to them, since Jess and I are both gone. You’re perfection, you know that?”
“Finally, someone besides me notices,” I joke. “One of those Gardwin kids kept pulling my hair. Your mom sent me home with a giant plate of barbecued chicken. I made it into a mess of nachos. It looks gloriously disgusting.”
“That sounds fantastic!” He laughs, and I hear his breath hit the phone’s speaker. “Explain everything to me, Mad.”
“Um…” Josh has a habit of asking me to describe things, and it always catches me off guard. “The sun’s filtering through the little window at the top of the door, and hitting the dust particles just right so they’re floating in front of me sort of like fairy dust. I actually feel a little bad right now for not cleaning better. Sorry about that.”
“Shh…” he whispers. “Back to the dust.”
“Okay, it’s filtering into the line of the television, where the Braves are currently up three to two on the Dodgers. The guy who’s up to bat looks like he’s jacked up on steroids. If you were here, you would agree. It’s a gorgeous day—it rained earlier, and now it’s just kind of mild; not too hot, not too cold. I actually have the window open, and I can hear a couple kids playing down the street.”
I can’t help but notice that he has his eyes closed, as though he’s stepping back into Kentucky as I speak.
“And of course I’m here on the couch, wearing an old T-shirt with my hair piled on my head, eating disgusting nachos.”
“Okay, I have to see this mess of nachos.”
Smiling slyly, I lift them close to my face. “Like I said, a disgusting, glorious mess. They taste like salty sweet perfection, and right now I smell barbecue sauce mixed with lilac hand lotion.”
“I miss that,” he mutters.
“Barbecue sauce and lilacs?”
“No,” he protests with a laugh. “Normal. Louisville. Baseball and nachos and greasy burgers and Mad, quite frankly. Talking to people at a decent hour. Mom’s Sunday dinners.”
“Well, we’re all here, just like you left us,” I tell him quietly.
“If only life could stay the way we want it to, huh?”
I hesitate to answer, because I don’t want to leave my life the way it is. I want to make something of myself, and to actually have a career instead of a job, and to find a man for a happily ever after. No, leaving things the way they are doesn’t sound good at all.
“You’re homesick,” I surmise.
“Talking to you feels like home. Don’t punish me next time, even if I say something stupid. And don’t forget about me when you’re with Vince, or Swagger, or this new English teacher guy you’re seeing.”
“As though I would let a guy get in the way of my friends. And I don’t know how you know about that stuff, anyway.”
“Jess is a leaky sieve.” He seems to visibly slump a bit, and I take a deep breath.
“Hey, listen, you take care of Josh, okay? I don’t want to hear about you being depressed and homesick over there. When you get home, I want you to take me to a ball field, or a basketball game, or whatever you decide.”
“Is that a promise?”
“As if I can escape you,” I tease. “I am in your house, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” he assures me with a laugh. “It drives me crazy every minute.”
“Relax, I’m not going to tear the place down.”
Rather than acknowledge my comment, he simply smiles. “I better turn in. Tell me goodnight? I know it’s not night there, but just humor me.”
“Goodnight, Josh,” I offer with a smile.
“Goodnight, Mad.”
Chapter Four
It’s a little past 3:00 Monday when I get back to the office from a trip to my physician for an annual physical, and Katie is sitting at my desk, rifling through papers, her brown curly hair bobbing back and forth as she searches furtively.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
She jerks back, startled, and then breathes a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you’re back. Kyle is looking for that spreadsheet he gave you Friday. He said it was urgent. I hope you don’t mind that I was looking through your things.”
“Of course not,” I say, dropping my purse on the floor by my desk. “I think I put that in the top drawer.” I pull it open and fish out a stack of papers. Flipping t
hrough, I find the right one and hand it to her.
“Aha! Thank you, Maddie.” Katie takes the paper and heads to Kyle’s office.
Urgent? Why didn’t he save that spreadsheet on his computer, if it was so urgent? He should have left poor Katie alone. He’s been here long enough to know that she’s not good under pressure. She’s probably seconds away from a nervous breakdown right now.
As if to demonstrate my point, Katie returns very quickly, eyes wide and hands clenched in front of her abdomen.
“What’s so urgent?” I ask.
Katie shakes her head, sitting in her chair and taking a sip of her iced coffee. “I have no idea. Cooper’s been calling him ever since you left.”
“Cooper?” Now that is a big surprise. Cooper is the owner of the company. Since he works on one of the upper floors, I think I’ve only seen him once or twice. I’ve certainly never spoken to him. He doesn’t make time for the “little people.” Why would he be calling Kyle?
“How was the doctor?” Katie wonders.
“The woman at the receptionist desk wasn’t very nice to me.”
Katie has a shocked expression on her face. Wonderful Katie—I can always count on her for some sympathy.
“What did she say to you, Maddie?”
Now that I have to put it into words, it seems rather silly. I shouldn’t have brought it up. “Oh, you know, just emphasizing words like you would with a three-year-old, all because I couldn’t find my driver’s license. She was acting like I was a fraud or something, and kept telling me that she needed to verify my identity.”
Katie’s giggling now, her hand clamped over her mouth to muffle the sound. “That is mean,” she whispers when she catches her breath. “What did you do to set her off?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I retort. “She didn’t like me from the minute I walked in there. How was I not supposed to notice that her bangs were cut crookedly? And perhaps I should have just kept my mouth shut, but giving her a stylist suggestion was simply a common courtesy. Besides, she was very frumpy, and one of the other people in there told me she is hard to get along with.”
“Being frumpy is not a reason someone is mean,” Katie lectures. She adds in an eye roll and shakes her head.
“No, not a reason in itself, but if you’re generally unhappy with your appearance, it probably takes a toll on your attitude.”
She giggles again, like I am a small child who just said the cutest, silliest thing. Oh, little Maddie thinks all people who dress nice are happy. Isn’t that sweet!
Honestly, I think my observation is spot-on this time. Some people find themselves in a bad mood just from having a bad hair day, after all.
“Besides, you didn’t say anything about giving blood when you had your physical,” I interject, interrupting her giggles. “What a nightmare.” I have a notoriously weak stomach. I’ll spare the gory details, but in some circles, I am still widely talked about to this day.
“You’re right. I should have warned you about that.”
Katie thinks I’m a wimp. I’m about to tell her that I can’t control my stomach, but my telephone begins to ring and I turn to see that the caller ID reads D. Hamilton.
Kyle’s boss? Why is he calling me?
“Madeline Heard,” I say into the receiver as I hear a commotion on the other end of the line. “Hello?”
“Heard, Doug Hamilton. I need you to gather your department members and report to my office.”
Click.
I’m gone all of two hours, and the world has flipped on its head. Doug Hamilton has never called me to his office before, let alone the whole department. Poor Katie will hyperventilate. I turn around to look at her, arms still crossed on her desk, waiting to continue our conversation.
“We need to go to Hamilton’s office,” I say. I can actually see a white pallor spreading across her face. Funny, Katie can handle all that blood-letting at the physical but can’t handle a little office meeting.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but it’s okay. We’re all going together. Where are Justin and Shelly?”
“They’re on break. I can go get them.”
I nod, and she starts off toward the end of the hall while I look up just in time to see Kyle headed down the hall as well.
“Kyle!” I call. He completely ignores me and walks right by without so much as a sideways glance. Maybe Hamilton called him, too, and he’s on his way to his office right now. It was still pretty rude to ignore me. I’ll be sure to mention that to him later, after all the drama subsides.
I make my way to the hallway outside Hamilton’s office, where I plan to wait for the others. The first thing I notice is that Kyle’s not in there, and he seems to have disappeared.
“Come in, Heard,” Hamilton barks. I cast a backward glance into the hallway, wishing that Katie would hurry, and then creep into the office. Hamilton is not an especially big man, but he has a large, deep voice, which makes him seem slightly intimidating. I haven’t had much contact with him over the years – normally he just passes information on through whoever my supervisor happens to be at the time. When he has spoken to me, he hasn’t ever really been impolite, but his attitude makes him seem as though he could be.
I watch silently as he picks up a stack of paper from his desk and drops it with a thud. He rummages through a mess behind his chair as though he’s looking for something in particular, and then tosses a few items onto the floor. Katie, Shelly and Justin appear behind me, all three sporting deer-in-the-headlights looks as they face me with inquisitive expressions, but all I can do is shrug my shoulders.
“Alright, gang, come on in and have a seat,” Hamilton instructs. By this time, it definitely appears as though he’s lost something. His desk is beginning to look like the aftermath of a tornado.
I glance over at Katie, whose fingernails are now digging into the cushion of her chair. Patting her hand for reassurance seems like it would be comforting, but I decide against it. Who knows what Hamilton would think of such a gesture?
“Okay, tough day, but we’re all going to get through it if we work together.” Hamilton stops sifting through the ruins that once resembled a desk and sinks into his oversized leather chair. “The numbers Mr. Porter has been sending to me are not the same numbers he’s been sending up to Mr. Cooper. Apparently there’s been some manipulation to, let’s say, paint a better picture—do some airbrushing, if you will.”
He pauses, takes a breath, and drums his fingers against the desk. I sneak a quick peek at Katie, who is still sitting upright and appears to be breathing. Good signs.
“Needless to say, Mr. Cooper is furious about the whole situation; however, we are both convinced, from our interrogation of Mr. Porter and from your respective histories with the company, that this was a solo operation. That being said, if I discover any information that indicates the opposite, there will definitely be consequences.”
I can hear Katie’s shallow breathing beside me. Where’s a paper bag when you need one?
“At this point, Mr. Porter’s employment has been terminated, and he has been instructed to leave the building immediately. Cooper is going to be keeping a watchful eye on the information coming from the department to be certain this problem corrects itself, so we all need to be very careful to do our jobs in a precise and timely manner. Heard, I want you to assume Mr. Porter’s duties for the present time, until a replacement is named. I’ll be working closely with you to try to rectify the problems and bring everything back in line. The rest of you will report to Heard the same way you reported to Mr. Porter. Any questions?”
Um, yeah. Why is Kyle “Mr. Porter” and I’m just Heard? Ugh.
No one says a word, not that I really expect them to. Hamilton just looks from one of us to the next, silently drilling us down. Surely he doesn’t think that one of us had anything to do with this? He didn’t say anything to implicate anyone, but the look in his eye speaks volumes.
“Okay, that will be all.”
This is certainly not the way I would have envisioned receiving a promotion, and Hamilton absolutely did not bill it as such, but I suddenly feel that this could finally be my chance to prove myself. I’ve paid my dues, after all. I’ve worked for people who knew much less than I did. I’ve been paid half as much as my supervisors to do twice the work. I’ve come in early and stayed late, all so someone else could earn the praise.
Oh, and let’s not forget the agony of working for Bill…ahem, he of whom we no longer speak. I deserve a merit badge for that. A purple heart. A Nobel peace prize. I suppose even a little monetary compensation would suffice.
Speaking of compensation, if I’m going to clean up Kyle’s mess, I really should be entitled to some of his salary. That’s only fair, after all, although it might not be an ideal topic for the present circumstances. Hamilton looks like he’s up to his ears in something. Whatever he’s looking for, it must be terribly important. I’ll just leave the salary conversation for another time.
Probably best to really show him how well I can do the job first. That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve practically been doing all the work ever since Kyle showed up. Well, everything except the extracurricular stuff. I had absolutely no part in that, just so we’re clear.
If Cooper is going to be paying close attention, maybe I can impress him, too. Forget Hamilton—I’ll just go straight to the top dog himself. It won’t take any time at all and he will realize what a valuable asset Madeline Heard is to this company.
Why do we have Ms. Heard in her present position? She could be doing so many great things for us. We have to move her up, increase her salary, give her more benefits.
Simply Mad (Girls of Wonder Lane Book 1) Page 3
