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“A topic better discussed in person. Let’s meet.”
Of course he wants to meet, and to be all touchy-feely while he’s at it. I glance at my clock. It’s eleven. “How about three o’clock at your office? That gives me time to get up to speed.”
“How about happy hour, at the wine bar up your direction in Cherry Creek? You still live in Cherry Creek, right?”
How does this man know where I live? “Yes,” I say. “I’m still up that direction.”
“Good. These matters are easier to stomach when diluted by wine and you won’t have far to travel after we indulge.”
“I’m not good with wine,” I say. “I need a clear head today and tomorrow. Let’s stick with the coffee.”
He’s silent a few beats and then says, “Then we’ll do coffee at five. I have meetings this afternoon.”
We disconnect and I pull up my email to find an email from Isaac titled “Union” that I skip right on past when I see one from [email protected]. My heart thunders in my chest and I click on the message to read:My new address, just to make my presence official.
My forehead knits at the “B” that most certainly stands for “Bastard” and I type:Did you choose that email address?And then hit send.
His reply is instant: I never let anyone else make my decisions. You shouldn’t either.
I ignore his obvious reference to my reasons for staying with Kingston for six years and type:Did you really make it Eric B, for bastard?
He replies with:There’s another Eric in accounting. I didn’t want anyone to get confused. Here’s my phone number. Use it. Often. 212-415-2333.
I grab my phone and compare the number to the one I got from his business card, and it matches. I send him a text:Now you have my number.
He replies with:I already had it, princess.
I stare at that message, not sure if we’re talking about phone numbers or that conversation downstairs about me fucking him to get him here. I suddenly don’t know if I should be angry or not, thus I have no idea how to reply. Yes, I do. I type:And I already had your number as well, BASTARD. I stare at the message and erase theBASTARD. I replace it withERIC.He doesn’t get to hide behind the bastard persona with me. He gets to own every asshole moment.
I pull up my email and click on the entry from Isaac to read:Make the union happy. The last thing we need in the press right now is a union scandal.
He says nothing more. He doesn’t even sign the damn thing. I grimace and download the union files. The list of issues they want to negotiate stretches well beyond a bathroom and I have a gut feeling this is about keeping me busy. That was his plan before Eric got here. Get me so entrenched in union hell that I didn’t have time to look at him and his handling of the company. He played that card too late. Eric’s here and one thing I’m certain of, he’s not leaving until “this” whatever this is, is over.
I move to my conference table and set-up my MacBook, and settle into reading the union data. Two hours later, I have pages of notes on a legal pad, with nothing in here that our labor relations manager couldn’t handle. There is nothing that would become a problem for the company and yet me blowing it would certainly be a reason to dispose of me from the company. Is that what this is? A set-up to get me out? It’s such a paranoid, insane idea that I toss my pen down and stand up. I need food and out of this office.
I head to the break room for a cup of coffee. That and a power bar will have to be my lunch. I’ve just finished doctoring my cup toperfection when Isaac appears in the doorway, hitching a shoulder on the doorframe. “He’s not family.”
“He’s more family than I am. He’s blood, whether you like it or not.” I march toward him, trying to force him to move. He doesn’t. “I need to get back to work.”
“You brought him here to take what you want. He’s going to take what he wants. Those two things won’t connect.”
“You assume you know what I want,” I say. “Because you assume everyone wants in the same ways you do.”
“You assume you know what Eric wants.”
“No, I don’t,” I say. “I asked him.” I leave out the part where what he wants is to destroy this place.
“And he said what?”
“I’m not going to pretend to have any right to speak for Eric. Ask him yourself. Now. I have a meeting with Jim to prepare for, and for the record, I know you know that man is all hands and this is torture for me. Now you have the satisfaction of confirmation, but if you think I’m going to screw this up because Jim is pawing at me and give you a chance to push me out, you’re wrong.”
He studies me for several beats. “Perhaps you should treat me the way you treat our bastard brother, and ask me what I want, rather than assuming.”
“What do you want, Isaac?”
“Just what’s mine and now you’ve made me have to fight for it, and if it gets bloody, that’s on you. It didn’t have to be that way. It wasn’t that way.”
The words cut and accuse and I don’t know what to do with them or what to feel. He steps out of the break room and pauses a moment, glaring to his right before he turns and disappears left. I know even before I enter the hallway that Eric’s standing there.
