Ten Days To Say I Do

Chapter 7

Elena told Dunlap she had a dentist appointment.

She had never lied to him before, not once in four years, and it came out so smooth she nearly checked her own face in the monitor. He didn't even look up. "Don't get a cavity, Brooks," he said, which didn't make sense, and went back to his sandwich.

At 3:55 she was standing alone in the elevator, staring at a button that shouldn't have been there. Eleven numbers in a neat column, and then a twelfth, off to the side, with a little card reader under it like it was too good to touch the others.

She held up her badge. Nothing happened. She held it up again, closer, and felt stupid, and then the button lit.

Somebody upstairs knew she was coming. That was a nice thing to think about on the way up.

Twelve was quiet. The carpet was so thick she couldn't hear her own shoes, and there was a plant by the window that was actually alive, which felt rude after the one on six. At the end of the hall there were double doors, and next to them a pale square on the wall where a nameplate used to be. The screw holes were still there.

"Ms. Brooks?"

A woman had come out of a side office. Sixty, maybe, silver hair cut sharp at the chin, a navy suit, and reading glasses hanging from a chain. She looked like someone's favorite teacher, the kind who never raised her voice and still made you hand in the homework.

"Ruth Calloway. I'm Mr. Sterling's chief of staff. Come in, come in. Do you want tea?"

"No, thank you."

"Sure? It's good tea."

"Okay, yes. Please."

Ruth smiled and poured her a cup, and Elena held onto it with both hands for the next twenty minutes like it was a life jacket.

The first part was easy, almost embarrassingly easy. How long had she been at Halden, what did she actually do all day, what did she like. Elena said four years, accounts, and honestly the coffee on nine. Ruth laughed, a real one, and wrote something down. Elena started to think maybe this was just a nice chat and she'd been scared for nothing.

Then Ruth said, "The third-quarter forecast. Whose work is that?"

Elena's tea went still in her hands.

"Mr. Dunlap's name is on it," Ruth said. "But I've been reading the file, and the formulas underneath don't read like his. Someone built them carefully. Someone who comments on their own spreadsheets, which, frankly, I'd like to hug."

It was a joke. Elena couldn't laugh at it.

She knew exactly what she wanted to say. Three weekends, one funeral, and a page with someone else's name on it. She wanted to say it so badly her jaw hurt. But he was her manager, and this was the new CEO's office, and what if it was a trap? What if it was a test, and the right answer was to keep her head down like everyone else?

"I built it," she said. Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "Dunlap reviewed it. That's his job. I just, next time, I'd like my name on it, that's all."

"Next time," Ruth repeated.

"If there's a next time. I don't know. Sorry. I'm probably not supposed to say that."

"You're supposed to say whatever's true." Ruth wrote it down. She didn't look shocked, and she didn't look pleased either. She looked like someone confirming a fact she'd already guessed.

She flipped a page. "If you saw something at work that wasn't right, who would you tell?"

"Like what?"

"Anything. Someone fudging numbers. Someone being treated badly. Someone lying about who they are."

Elena nearly choked on her tea.

Of all the sentences in English.

"It depends," she said, once she could breathe. "On why."

"Why what?"

"Why they were lying." She put the cup down because her hand had started to shake. "Someone who lies to hurt you is different from someone who's scared. Or stuck. I mean, I'd want to know which one it was first. Before I said anything to anybody."

"And if you couldn't tell?"

"Then I'd probably be the last to find out." She tried to smile. "That's how it usually goes for me."

Ruth didn't answer. She just held Elena's eyes a second longer than was comfortable, and Elena became very aware of her own breathing, and the hum of the air conditioning, and the fact that she hadn't eaten since seven.

Then Ruth reached into a drawer, took out a butterscotch candy, and set it on the desk in front of her without a word.

Elena took it. It seemed rude not to.

"One last thing," Ruth said, and slid a sheet of paper across.

It was a printout of a photo. Aunt Diane's dining room, taken from a bad angle, a pink cushion jammed in the corner. Elena was laughing at something, head thrown back, mouth wide open, which was not her best look. Jay sat next to her with one arm over the back of her chair, and he wasn't looking at the camera at all. He was looking at her.

Under it, in Diane's usual capitals: MY BABY IS GETTING MARRIED!!!

"Is this your fiancé?"

"Yes." The word came out fast. "That's, yes. Jay."

"Jay," Ruth said, like she was trying it on. "And does he know where you work?"

"Of course. I told him the first day."

"What was his reaction?"

"His reaction?" Elena frowned. "I don't know. He said everyone knows Halden. Why? Is that a, is there a rule about that?"

"No rule." Ruth took the page back and put it in the folder. "Thank you, Ms. Brooks. That's everything."

"That's it?"

"That's it. Mr. Sterling will read every word himself." Ruth stood and held the door. "And please don't mention this to your department. Not Mr. Dunlap, especially. You'll understand why on Monday."

"Monday?"

But Ruth only smiled and said, "Enjoy the candy."

In the elevator, Elena leaned her forehead on the cold mirror and let the numbers go down. Eleven. Ten. Nine. She unwrapped the butterscotch and put it in her mouth mainly to give herself something to do. It tasted like her grandmother's purse.

Twelve minutes. She'd been in there twelve minutes, and Ruth had asked her almost nothing about accounting.

She'd asked about lying. About credit. About whether Jay knew where she worked.

Her phone buzzed against her hip. She dug it out.

Jay: Your aunt wants eight hundred peonies. I said yes without thinking. Please advise. I may need a second job.

She smiled at it for exactly two seconds. Then she thought about the folder again, and the smile slid off.

Because Ruth hadn't pulled that photo out halfway through. She'd had it ready. It was the first thing in the folder, sitting right behind the tab with Elena's name on it, like someone had known what to ask before Elena ever walked in.

Six. Five. Four.

The doors opened, and Dunlap was already waving at her from across the floor, shouting something about the printer. She didn't hear a word.

Why did the new CEO's office have a picture of Jay?