“Do you think it’s going to fuck things up at work?” she asked, taking an unusually practical perspective.
“He’s only there a few months every year,” I answered, shaking my head. “So, I just have to try and avoid him whenever he’s around, I guess—at least I definitely have to avoid him this year. By the time he comes back next year, I’m sure I’ll have already made a name for myself at rEcore, and, even if he remembers then, we can probably just laugh it off as one of those ‘wreckage from the past’ kind of deals.”
“I don’t know, Trish,” Julie said, clicking away at my tablet. “Maybe you should confront him.”
“And say what?” I spat back, almost spitting wine from my mouth. “I can picture it now. ‘Hi, Mr. Marley. You might not remember me, but we got drunk and hooked up several years ago. Just wanted to let you know!’… I don’t think that will get me anywhere.”
“You’re probably right,” Julie responded, somewhat distracted. The next thing I heard was a Smashing Pumpkins song playing from my tablet.
“Cool music app,” Julie said as she bopped her head to the music.
“No, no, no!” I shouted, jumping up and running over toward her. “You can’t use that! It’s a new app we’re developing. It’s still a work-in-progress, and is top secret at this point. If the folks at work knew you were looking at it, I wouldn’t have to worry about things with Joe fucking my job up. I’d get fired on the spot for breaching confidentiality and letting an outside source see their shit—especially considering that that outside source is you, and you’re a reporter.”
“Sorry,” Julie said, relinquishing my device. “I didn’t know… And, as far as I’m concerned, don’t worry. I never saw it. Your secret is safe with me.”
“It better be,” I said as I powered down the tablet and went to fetch another bottle of wine from my kitchen cupboard. Now I was the one doing the reprimanding and scolding, and Julie wouldn’t have it.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Patty,” she called out to me as I was in the kitchen. “Remember, I’m your friend, not your enemy—and, if you had something so top secret on your tablet, you should have protected it before letting me use it, or you shouldn’t have let me use it at all.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but Julie was right, and I found myself begging her to forgive me as I filled her wine glass to the top with my most expensive merlot.
“It’s okay,” she said, finally turning her frown upside down when she tasted Napa Valley’s finest. “Just try to keep a clear head about things… Seems like you still have a lot to work out about this ancient one-night stand issue, and, don’t forget, you only just moved back here. Don’t let the stress get the better of you, and don’t let this ‘Joe’ guy get the better of you and screw you… again.”
~ Chapter 16 ~
Despite having downed three pints of beer and more than my fair share of two bottles of wine the night before, I made it to rEcore considerably lucid and coherent the next morning. Like Julie had advised, I was determined not to let the situation with J.R. get the better of me, and I was going to keep a clear had about things—and, for the moment, that meant doing what I was hired to do at rEcore and not worry about the rest until when, or if, it reared its ugly head.
“Hey, rock star,” I heard as I walked up to the building. I turned just in time to see Edgar approaching.
“Heard you did some great work with the music app yesterday,” he went on, nudging me on the shoulder. “I can’t wait to see it.”
“How’d you find out about that?” I asked, a little perplexed at how he was in the know so quickly.
“Word travels fast around here,” he said, opening the door for me. “I saw Gretchen near close of day yesterday, and she let me know what was up.”
“Well, I’ve still got a lot more work to do,” I told Edgar. “But, I should be able to get a few more bugs ironed out by the end of the week.”
“Awesome sauce,” he replied, curling his nose at Stephanie as we walked past her. She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. “I swear,” Edgar said, whispering to me as soon as we made it well into the lobby, “if I wasn’t 110 percent gay, I’d fuck her… I think that’s why I’m so mean to her sometimes. No gay man should be forced into questioning his sexuality by a woman with a can of mace and huge set of knockers!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Edgar’s comments, and I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d made a new, real friend at work as he walked me to my office.
“We have our weekly meetings on Thursday mornings,” he said, as he stood at my nonexistent door while I got situated at my desk. “Do as much as you can on the app, and upload your results into the system on Wednesday at the end of the day—that way we can run it live at the meeting the next morning… And, if you have any questions…”
“I know,” I interrupted, “don’t ask you until I’m ready to talk about my mystery man.”
“No, I was gonna say, ‘Don’t ask me until you’ve found out if Stephanie has a brother for me,’ but I guess what you said works too.” Edgar smiled at me shook his ass in the air before walking away. I had no idea what that last part of his gesture meant, but it made me laugh nonetheless.
Just as Edgar had instructed, I spent the rest of the day—and the day after that—working on killing the bugs in the music app. I worked through my lunch breaks and ate at my desk, and did my best to avoid going outside of my office for anything else other than food, drink, and the occasional trip to the bathroom.
By the time Wednesday afternoon had rolled around, I’d made even more progress on the app and had remedied all but two minor bugs. I looked at my clock and saw that it was around 3:30, which meant I still had some time to kill at work, though it wasn’t enough time to kill the remaining bugs—so I decided to save them for after the meeting and uploaded the app, along with a file of the code I’d repaired.
I hadn’t been out of my office much in almost two full work days—and, in most ways that was a good thing. It meant I didn’t run into J.R., or have to worry about running into him, and it meant that I didn’t have to have an uncomfortable follow-up with Gretchen regarding my strange behavior at Burger Bistro the other evening.
But, still, if cult classic horror films have taught us anything, it’s that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” and even though there was the possibility of having some sort of an unsavory encounter, I needed to get out of my tiny workspace, stretch my legs, and exercise other parts of my mind and body.
I remembered what Gretchen had told me about the billiards room, and I set out to find it, exploring other yet-unseen parts of rEcore headquarters along the way.
After discovering two other rec rooms, three conference rooms, and a childcare area, and exploring for nearly an hour, I finally found the billiards room, and found Gary and Jeff playing a round of darts at one of the three different pro-grade dartboards.
“Can I play the winner?” I asked, walking closer to them. I’d honed my dart-throwing skills over the past few years since my ex, Erik, was in a league back in Ohio.
“If you think you can handle the competition,” Gary replied, steadying himself and aiming for the bullseye.
“I think I can,” I said, confident in my abilities.
A few minutes later, Gary did a victory dance as the board blinked its lights, indicating that Player 1 was the winner.
“You’re up, new girl,” Jeff said. I couldn’t tell if he was being cute, or if he couldn’t remember my name.
I grabbed the darts from his hand and threw one, aimlessly, at the board.
“Looks like this’ll be an easy win,” Gary said, taking his position at the line and throwing a pretty decent shot. “Maybe we should put a wager on this game? How’s about if I win, you give me your phone number?”
I slanted my head at my opponent and took a more powerful stance this time around. “I’d tell you no, but I don’t think it’ll be an issue,” I said, throwing one right in the bullse
ye. “I’m kind of a shark, and I don’t like to mix business with pleasure.”
“That’s a good policy,” another male voice said from some distance away. I didn’t even have to turn around—I already knew who it was.
“Hey, J.R.,” Jeff said, rushing over to our big boss. “You wanna get in on a game?”
“No thanks,” he said. “I’m actually here to talk to the shark. Stephanie told me she was headed this way, and I need to have a quick word with her.”
I looked at J.R. and felt that lump rise in my throat again. This is it, I told myself. He remembered.
I set my darts down on a nearby table, and walked over to J.R. reluctantly. I could smell his cologne, and it definitely wasn’t a cheap drug store brand.
“Let’s go to the conference room,” he said. “We’ll have more privacy in there.” I’d never heard those exact words from him, but the phrases sounded all too familiar.
~ Chapter 17 ~
“We have a problem,” J.R. said, sitting down at one end of the long table in the conference room. He motioned for me to sit down as well, and I took a seat located halfway between him and the other end.
“What’s that?” I asked, waiting for him to go on.
“Why don’t you tell me?” he asked, if not instructed.
I looked at him and shook my head. I wasn’t about to open my mouth and give him the advantage.
“All right,” J.R. said, rising to his feet and walking over to the media console. “We’ll play this the hard way.”
He flicked on a few switches and the large flat screen monitor started to glow. He dragged the mouse to the music app on the screen, and clicked it.
“What the hell is this?” he asked. I looked up and saw the strangest thing.
Instead of the log-in/registration screen appearing on the monitor, a blank screen popped up, followed by a huge yellow smiley face with bulging blue eyes and a floppy pink tongue dangling and wagging from its mouth.
“I have no idea what that is,” I said, being completely honest.
“Then I guess you have no idea what this is either,” J.R. added, killing the smiley face and opening another file on the monitor. The file was a text document that contained nothing but squares, hearts, smiley faces, and other strange, unnecessary, useless characters.
“You’re right,” I said, growing concerned. “I have no idea what that is either.” Suddenly, I got the feeling that I hadn’t been called to the conference room to discuss my past, but, rather, something else—and, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell where this conversation was going.
“Let’s try a third time,” J.R. continued. He collapsed the nonsense document, opened the web browser, and typed in the words “new music apps.” He went on to scroll down the page, revealing scores of taglines that with titles such as “rEcore developing new app with major music moguls,” “Top Secret App revealed,” and “rEcore is about to change music forever.” I also noticed other keywords, like “leak,” “this just in,” and “breaking news.”
I looked at J.R., dumbfounded.
“Still no idea what I’m talking about?” J.R. asked. His steely gray eyes looked all the more steely, and he appeared to be waiting for a response from me, though I surely didn’t have one coming.
“Okay, Patricia Williams,” J.R. said, taking a seat again. “Let me tell you about these things then… That first image—of the ridiculous smiley face—that’s what happens whenever someone tries to open the app file you uploaded into the system an hour earlier. And that garbled up mess of symbols in the document file I opened? That’s the code file you uploaded.”
“As for the webpage,” he added with a look of disdain. “I guess you might not know about that one—but I’m sure your friend Julie Benson does. She’s a reporter, right? And, as soon as this story went live a couple hours ago, we checked up on everyone’s recent device activity. Our records show a Julie Benson using your tablet, and the music app installed on it, on Monday night… I hope she got paid well for leaking the info, ‘cause the cost on your career is gonna be pretty hefty.”
I stared at J.R., unable to speak for a moment—and, when I was able to say something, the first thing I said was something in defense of Julie, rather than of myself.
“Julie wouldn’t do that,” I said. My eyes were beginning to swell, and I could feel tears pooling in them.
“Are you sure about that?” J.R. inquired. “She is outspoken, isn’t she?”
Today was the first day in seven years that this man and I sat and talked about my friend, and, now, he was repeating words to me that we’d both said back then.
“You mean you remember me?” I asked, struggling to believe that fact almost as much as I was struggling to believe everything else that was going on with me.
“Of course I do,” J.R. replied. “I recognized you the second I saw you in Burger Bistro. You may have a different haircut and go by a different name these days, but you’re still Patty, and I’d know you anywhere. After I talked to you that night, I wasn’t sure if you remembered me, though—but, now that all this shit has gone down, I guess that answers my question.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, folding my arms and laying them on the table. I needed something to support me and keep me from losing more ground in this conversation.
“You were the one to walk out on me that morning, Patty,” J.R. shouted, pounding his fist on the table. “You were the one to use me and leave me behind like a piece of garbage… And, now you come back here, seven years later, looking to settle a score with me—and what do you do? You try to fuck up things with my company. You destroy one of my programs and let our secrets leak. How long have you been planning this move? When is it that you started plotting your revenge?”
“Listen, Joe, I know this all looks bad, but, you have to believe me, I had nothing to do with any of it,” I shouted back at him. “You said it yourself—I was the one to leave you. So why would I take revenge on you when I had no reason? Why would I do this to you? I swear, it wasn’t me.”
“Then who the hell was it?” J.R. demanded me to tell him, as if I had the answer. “None of this shit started happening until you got here—and, when I look around at all my employees, you stand out as the one with the most motive and incentive.”
“But think about it, please,” I begged. “Why would I come here and work for you if I thought there was any chance you’d remember me? Why would I try to fuck up your company if I knew that you could figure things out and pin it on me? Doesn’t it all seem a little too easy of an explanation?”
J.R. looked at me and snarled, showing his teeth. “Get out of my conference room, and get out of my building. Your time at rEcore is done, and you should thank your lucky stars that you’re not leaving with a police escort. This is breach of contract and espionage—and a few other things, I’m sure. I could very well have you arrested, but I won’t, because I feel sorry for how pathetic you are. But I guarantee you, if you show up here again, or if any other fuck up or leaks are traced back to you, I won’t hesitate to call the police and have them put you in handcuffs.”
“Joe, wait—” I started, but I wasn’t allowed to go any further.
“That’s enough, Trish,” J.R. said, standing and taking hold of his cell phone. “Get the fuck out of here right now. We’re done.”
With that, J.R. rushed out of the conference room and left the door ajar behind him. Seconds later, Stephanie walked in and shoved my purse into my chest. “Buh-bye,” she said with a grin that actually made her look ugly.
I took my bag, turned, and walked out of the building. I’d done a “walk of shame” only once before in my life, and the same man was involved—but, this time, it was far more disgraceful. Some of my other—former—coworkers were in the lobby as I exited, and, if looks could kill, their critical stares would’ve put me six feet under.
As soon as I stepped out of the building, I tried my best to regain my composure. Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong in
just a matter of two days, and, even though J.R. had closed the book on the matter, it remained open in my mind. Someone at rEcore had sabotaged me, and I didn’t know who, why, or how—but I was determined to find out.
I reached into my bag, which had obviously been rifled through, and pulled out my cell phone. I dialed the only Pittsburgh number I had memorized, and, as soon as Julie picked up the phone, I let the words pour out.
“I just got fired,” I said with newfound strength and resolve in my voice, “and don’t even get me started on the part you played in it… Right now, all I care about is making this right—and, that all begins with one question.”
“What’s that?” Julie asked, sounding somewhat timid.
“I know you mostly cover the music beat,” I said. “But, tell me—do you have any experience with investigative reporting?”
“A little,” my friend responded.
“Good,” I said with a smile, imaging that Julie could see it through the phone lines. “There are a few people I need ‘looked into.’”
“Why?” Julie asked back.
“To clear my name,” I told her. “Trish Williams isn’t the type of girl who puts up with anybody’s bullshit.”
~~~
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Blast From The Past 1 Page 6
