by KC Blake
“Soooo… coming along well, I see… “, he began. Whatever was on his mind, I could tell I wouldn’t want to hear it. However, I wasn’t about to make it easy on the slick-haired fucker. I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair, throwing him the look I reserve for people who had better get to the point.
“Look. We’re… oh, how do I say this?” he took one hand out of his pocket and whirled it around, as though he was hoping to blindly hit the words he was looking for.
“We’re a little worried. About the project. You holding up okay?”
I wasn’t expecting that. Even if I’d tried to keep throwing him my sardonic look, I doubt it would’ve made a difference.
“Holding up?”
“Yeah… the board, well, they think you’re going after our competitors out of vengeance. Which, between you and me, isn’t a bad motivation at all. But personally, I think you’re running from something, Luce. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got to deal with it. For your sake, if not for your career’s. Take the rest of the day off, and we’ll re-evaluate the project on Monday.”
Good old Mitchell, caring just enough to let me know there was a problem, but not enough to actually maybe get his hands dirty. It was when I began to wonder if Rabbit’s friends would’ve left her alone in such a state that I knew I had to get out of the office for a while. Reluctantly, I agreed. Mitchell smiled, apparently relieved that he could go back to the board and tell them that he’d accomplished his goal. As much as it pains me to admit it, I was actually glad to walk out of there that day.
Had I known what I was going to see when I actually got outside, however, I might’ve insisted that everything was alright and finagled to stay at the office. After heading out, the siren call of a gin and tonic began to pull me towards my favorite seedy bar. I managed to focus my thoughts on the kind of gin I would request, and where I would sit in the cozy bar, which would undoubtedly be a cool, dark refuge from the harsh afternoon light.
I was all but salivating when I caught myself studying a bike messenger hanging out in a small park. I’d never seen this one before; she was another young woman, a little taller than Rabbit. She had riotous pink streaks in her otherwise long, black hair. Like Rabbit, she wore tight fitting jeans that clung to her lithe figure. She sat cross-legged on a concrete bench, her hands dangling comfortably over her knees as she watched dogs frolic in the grass nearby. Something about the ease with which she smiled at them made me jealous of her. Her full lips framed a wide, bright smile. She seemed to be youth personified. For one unspeakably slimy moment, I imagined that if I were to somehow suddenly find myself nuzzling the crook between her hair and the long, soft line of her neck, I would inhale a sweet musk like I had never experienced. I felt like I was looking at a greek goddess in a moment of repose.
All my longing to send several gin and tonics down my gullet, as well as for the sweet, dark escape of the bar evaporated. I didn’t know anything about these thoughts suddenly tumbling about in my brain, and I needed to keep a clear head. Pretending to be interested in the dogs, I took a seat near the young woman. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, certain that she would catch me looking if I turned toward her even an inch. I felt like I was glowing like a lantern, and was helpless to quell it.
After a few moments of watching other people come and go, I finally felt ready to get up and keep walking. I had no idea if I’d still be heading to the bar, but thankful to finally feel in control again, I stood. Before I could take a single step away from this embarrassing but engrossing moment, a familiar figure zipped by on a bike. Rabbit.
She cruised through the grass like she owned the place, and laughed with delight at the ruckus it caused among the dogs in the park. She slowed down just enough to let them nip at her heels, giving them a sense of accomplishment. She came to a rest next to the young woman who had captivated me. I knew that I would be going nowhere soon.
Effortlessly, Rabbit swung herself off the bike. For her part, the young woman turned her face toward Rabbit like a flower finding the sun, like she’d been waiting all day to see Rabbit. Rabbit said something to the girl, gesturing with that familiar gloved hand.
The girl stood up. I thought she looked nervous; she ran her palms against the legs of her jeans and shuffled her feet. For a moment, she looked like an awkward teenager as she searched Rabbit’s face. It felt like a sin to be watching them like this, but I couldn’t look away. I can’t tell you what I was thinking, because all the thoughts in my head had turned to radio static.
When Rabbit gently put her gloved hands on the girls slender hips, then leaned in to kiss her, my thoughts went from static to nuclear winter. My heart swelled, and not in a way that I recognized. I think I actually drew in a sharp breath, which caught the attention of a little terrier chewing on a tennis ball nearby. He looked at me with that quizzical look that dogs have. I was shaken. All I wanted in that moment was to be that slender hipped girl, held still by Rabbit’s gentle touch. My life had just changed, and the only witness to it was a skinny, wiry-haired dog.
Rabbit finally released the girl and reached into a pouch in her bag, producing a thin cigar. She stuck it in her mouth and lit it like it was something she did every day. She moved in just the right way to be perfectly lit by the light reflecting off the glass-walled buildings. I felt like she was putting on a show just for me. On any other woman, the cigar might have seemed incongruous, but Rabbit owned it just like she owned the office when she walked in. Just like she owned me in that moment.
Chapter Four
If you’re wondering why suddenly realizing that I ached for another woman was so life-altering, let me put it to you this way: I felt like I’d just looked in the mirror and saw a complete stranger staring back at me. As someone whose career had thrived on being able to look at myself each day with nothing but confidence and strength, this was a bit like upending a card table.
No offense to those women who embrace their attraction to the same sex, but that just wasn’t me. It’s such a cliche, but some of my most respected friends and colleagues were lesbians. I would’ve had a tough time in the upper echelons of my industry if I had anything against lesbians, as the kind of woman who reaches such heights is the kind that makes her own rules and fears nothing.
By my last count, more of my female competitors were lesbians than were not. I’d seen them around and even met many of their wives. They were just like anyone else in the industry, which is to their detriment as much as their credit; I knew exactly how conversations with them would go, exactly what jokes they would tell, exactly how they’d try to mine me for information. So maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising that I’d never had a moment with any of them like the one I had from afar with some women who were young enough to be my daughters.
My first thought as I finally walked away from the park that afternoon, notably with a distinct warmth emanating from my crotch like a tiny sun, was that of utter confusion. What could this mean?, I wondered. Was it written all over my face? Was that was Mitchell was really trying to say, “We’ve noticed that you’ve gone homo, Lucy, why don’t you take the afternoon off to try and sort that out?”
The thoughts that followed, however, were ones of very cautious excitement. For all my nervousness about somehow being found out, there was a sense like I’d just discovered a whole new world that had been under my nose all along. It wasn’t the thought of clubs or bars or any kind of scene I could potentially join, but the feeling that I’d just pulled a lever in a bookcase to reveal a set of dark, mysterious stairs. I’d never been one to turn down a good mystery, or to let something as trifling as fear of the dark keep me from satisfying my curiosity. This, however, was something entirely different, because this time, the mystery was me. I wasn’t exactly sure if I wanted to know what was at the bottom of these stairs.
Somehow or other, I made my way back to the office. Although Mitchell had instructed me to take the rest of the day off, I knew better. It was a kind of test. Maybe a w
eek ago, I would’ve called it a test of my dedication. Now, I wasn’t so sure. It seemed most likely that it was a test of my willingness to keep pushing myself, even when to do so could mean harm.
Although the fresh air had been helpful, I was even more distracted than before. This time around, I didn’t even know what I was thinking. It was like all the power of focus had evaporated from my brain. I thought about doing the logical thing and going home to try again the next day, but I spied Mitchell walking around the floor, trying unsuccessfully to look like he wasn’t spying on me. While it was enjoyable to watch him make ham-fisted attempts at small talk with the assistants and the junior associates whose names he’d never bothered to learn, I knew that he was following up.
So, I did my best. I made an honest effort to start working again, which was no small feat once I realized how little I actually cared if this deal went through or not. After a few minutes, Mitchell walked away from a nervous-looking associate. I assumed he was satisfied. I made a deal with myself that if I could get in just one more filing request for the day, it would be safe to go home.
Despite the wind-whipped feelings in my heart, I got my filing request done. I handed it off to Margaret and hurried back to my office to get ready to go. A small smattering of emails had to be answered, which I was not happy about. As I systematically went through them, Margaret called to me from her desk.
“Lucy, we got a problem… “
The tone of her voice was concerning. It was like she thought we’d just sent out a bomb or something.
“Can it wait?”, I yelled, still hoping to get to leave soon.
She didn’t answer, which was her way of saying no, get your ass out here. I headed out to her desk to find her staring at our filing.
“What’s wrong?”
“You push a rush on these, but you’re sending it to the wrong firm… “
I quickly did the math. It didn’t look good. Any information that fell into the wrong hands could spell disaster for not only my project, but for everyone else’s projects as well. While the mistake was not life-threatening, our industry thrives on exposing the cracks in one another’s armor. The last thing I wanted to be responsible for was a smattering of industry bloggers raising an alarm on us.
I stood there as though frozen, trying to rewind all my activities of the afternoon. What else could I have fucked up? I thought of all the emails that just went out, and struggled to see straight. In the twisted cinema of my mind, I saw awful mistakes that would make us the target of every bloodthirsty competitor.
I didn't even notice it when the messenger came and grabbed the package from Margaret.
“Uh, Luce?” Her voice sounded like it had danced across a taut clothesline between two tin cans. I was vaguely aware that I was looking at her. She gestured at the messenger, who was already halfway through the door, then held up her hands in the international gesture of what now, jerk? I quickly emerged from my fog like a diver coming to the surface too fast. My hands flew out from me like I thought I could throw them to get the messenger's attention. It was only then that I saw who the messenger was.
Rabbit.
If I'd had any breath in me then, it would've been knocked clear out of me. As it was, all I could do was squeak.
“Hey!” I sounded like an aggravated mouse.
Rabbit slowed down and looked over her shoulder, as though she wasn't sure she'd actually heard something. I gulped some air and tried to sound like a normal person.
“Wait! We need those back.” She turned to face me, but stood still.
“What?”, she asked, incredulous.
“We need them back”, I sputtered. “They’re wrong.”
Rabbit's perfectly groomed eyebrows knitted together. She took a few steps backward and pushed the elevator button.
“Lady, once I log in a package, it's as good as delivered.” She held the thick envelope up for emphasis and dropped into her huge bag. I could hear the elevator making its way up. There would be no time.
“Please.” I'm pretty sure I whimpered.
Although my memory of this moment is clouded by all the things that have transpired between then and now, I swear that I saw Rabbit's eyes soften. She seemed to think for a minute. The elevator dinged. I thought for a second that she would walk away. With a gaze that told me she was already regretting it, she walked toward me and squeezed the two-way radio clipped to the strap of her bag.
“Saul, this is Rabbit. I'm in the towers up on Grand with a hot potato. The suit's changed her mind. Requesting a void, over.”
Suit? It shouldn't have, but Rabbit calling me a suit stung me in a place I didn't know existed. She looked me right in the eye as she waited for a response. I couldn't read her. This girl was as mysterious as a shadow. After a moment, her radio crackled to life and confirmed the cancellation of the pick-up. With a smirk reminiscent of the one she gave the girl on the concrete bench, which careened my stomach into somersaults, she reached into her bag and presented me with the envelope. I took it and thanked her, fighting the temptation to touch her hand. Suddenly I became aware that I was blushing. Rabbit, for her part, looked intrigued. She raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Well. You have a good day or whatever”, she muttered. She turned and sauntered out, all her sense of urgency gone now that her mission had been cancelled. I wondered what she would do that all that energy. Margaret cleared her throat, as though she knew that she had just witnessed something. This woman missed nothing. She pursed her lips and sat down. I couldn't tell how much she was reading into it, and it would be a while until I found out. Standing behind me in the doorway to my office like some kind of office monster, was Mitchell.
Chapter Five
Mitchell held his hands clasped to his belly, like a soccer player defending against a penalty shot. All his earlier posturing of docility and concern had been just an act. He smirked at me for an uncomfortable moment before stepping aside and letting me back into my own office. He closed the door behind himself. This wasn’t going to be good.
“I’m not spying on you or anything”, he said, as he pulled out a chair and sat. “But, I happened to be walking across the floor when I overheard your mishap with the file.”
Although I tried to hold it back, I felt a long sigh escape me. Mitchell was the last person I’d wanted to witness my embarrassing little moment. There’d be no way I could spin this, so I took my seat and waited for him to get on with it, feeling suddenly like the office wasn’t my own territory anymore.
He looked at me expectantly.
“Well? Anything you’d like to say?”
I felt like I’d been caught stealing or something; the sense of panic and failure that flashed through my mind was eerily reminiscent of the long-past days when my only job at this firm was to deliver the mail. I just shook my head.
“Murphy, we can’t have sensitive information falling into the wrong hands, you know that.”
His condescending tone snapped me back to reality. I remembered that I wasn’t a lowly mail girl, and hadn’t been for many years. His attempt at bullying me wouldn’t go very far.
“Really. I thought that we’d built this empire by distributing potentially career-ending information to anyone who bothered to ask.”
“Sarcasm. Wonderful.”
Admittedly, he was right. I was just in no state of mind to behave appropriately. Rabbit’s gaze had bore a hole into me, and I hadn’t fully recovered.
“Alright, alright. It was just a mistake. Never happened before, never will again. And, we caught it. Just in time, but we caught it.”
He nodded slowly, as though that wouldn’t be good enough.
“See, that’s not all I’m concerned about. I’m a big picture guy, Lucy, you know that. When I see a mistake like this, I can’t help but wonder about all the mistakes that had to happen before all that.”
Shit. It was like he’d picked up my thoughts via transmitter.
“To put it another way, I’m thinki
ng we need to pull the project.”
“Really. Is this coming from the board?”
At the mention of the board, he seemed to stiffen. My spider senses began to tingle.
“No, not the board. In fact, no one knows about this little blunder. Yet.”
“Yet?” It sounded like a threat.
“Yes, yet. I came to check on you of my own volition, as a friend. It was just… serendipitous that I happened to be in the right place at the right time to keep this from reaching the board.”
He smiled then. It was like being grinned at by a reptile. Mitchell and I had worked side by side for the better part of twenty years, and I’d never seen him like this. As though waiting for the right moment to strike, he held his gaze for a long, uncomfortable beat before continuing.
“And as your friend, I’d like to offer to keep this between us, if you’ll do something for me.”
So there it was. I was almost afraid to ask, but there was a glaring problem in his attempted proposal.
“How would the board have found out?”
He winced and looked down at his hands.
“That’s the sticky part about all this, Luce. I might feel obligated to tell them, out of interest for the company.”
“Are you blackmailing me?” My skin began to crawl.
“Such a dirty word. I am most definitely not blackmailing you. I’m just offering you something you need, in exchange for something that I want.”
“Fine. What is it?”
“There’s a meeting tomorrow that I want you to take. It’s in the evening, at the bar in the Regency hotel. It’s the Viperion Group. You’re going to tell them that we can’t deliver the acquisition.”
“Wait… isn’t that your project?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course. When he’d started working with this hot, new media company, he crowed about it for weeks. He had so many plans to take this company to the top, and made grandiose predictions that he was going to make them bigger than Apple. I vividly recalled how he strode through the hallways giving unsolicited updates on his work with them. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken the chance to brag.
