Free Falling

Chapter One I’ve got five minutes, three blocks, and one chance. As I race up Turner Street, my messenger bag bumps against my thigh in time with my breathing. The swell of Friday evening commuters heading in the opposite direction slows my pace, and by the time I make it to the corner of Elm, I’m down to two minutes. The building, halfway down the block on my left, is just six stories tall, but it juts above the neighboring storefronts like an ugly, glass-encased sore thumb. I skid to a stop in front of the building and look up. Ragged gray clouds float across the mirrored windows, and I feel as if I’m looking into the eye of a brewing storm. I yank open the door and enter the lobby anyway. The lobby’s air conditioning is on full blast, a balm against the stifling hot days of the Georgia summer. The perspiration on my T-shirt cools in an instant, causing the material to cling to my skin. A chill runs through me, and I can’t tell if it’s from the cold air or because I’ve come all this way to confront C. J. Eubanks, and I have no idea what I’m going to say to the bastard when I see him. If I get to see him at all. “Hey there, Freedom,” Sam says, smiling down at me from his security perch. Sam’s the building’s chief security guard and a regular at my family’s restaurant. And besides my mother, he’s one of the only people who calls me by my full name. “Free,” I remind him gently, waving as I try to get by him without engaging in small talk. “Where you headed in such a hurry this late on a Friday afternoon? You know almost everyone’s gone.” Sam smiles, his deep dimples visible even through his salt-and-pepper beard. As I backpedal toward the elevators my mind races to come up with a story for Sam and his truth-serum dimples. “We’ve got a big catering order coming up and I need to finalize a few things with the client.” Technically it’s not a lie. We do have a big order coming up, just not for anyone in this building. And if Sam knew this was an unscheduled visit, he’d try to call upstairs, ruining my plan to catch Eubanks off guard. “You and Agnes are always working so hard. I guess that’s why y’all have the best restaurant in Pointe Hill.” He clears his throat. “How is Agnes by the way?” His smile widens when he asks about my mother. For once I’m grateful for Sam’s interest in her, since it seems to take his mind off me going upstairs. “She’s great,” I say, arriving at the elevators as one of the doors open. “Hard-working woman, that Agnes,” Sam says, mostly to himself, before returning his attention to his security monitor. On the elevator, I press the button for the sixth floor then tuck a loose braid back into my bun. The elevator’s steel panel walls distort my image, but not so much that I can’t see the dusting of flour on the front of my T-shirt. I brush the flour off as best as I can, then tug at the T-shirt to remove some of the wrinkles. Maybe I should have waited. Maybe I should have given it the weekend and tried to make an appointment to see Eubanks on Monday. I contemplate pressing the “L” button to return to the lobby, but then my mom’s words come to me as clearly as the music coming from the elevator’s speakers. “I don’t know if we can keep going like this. I don’t know if we should.” And then, “I’m not signing the lease, Free.” Eleven and a half months. She didn’t even make it a year before giving up. I press the button for the sixth floor over and over, as if pressing it can stop my mother’s voice from repeating in my head. The elevator doors open across from a suite whose door is emblazoned with the CHI logo and the tagline—Chronus Holdings Incorporated: Growing Communities, Shaping Lives. “Shaping lies is more like it,” I mumble as I exit the elevator and step onto carpet so plush, I sink into it as I make my way toward the door. On the wall next to the suite’s entrance is a poster featuring a mock-up of a high-end strip mall. At the center of the image are a couple of Barbie and Ken lookalikes, and judging by the expressions on their faces and the designer shopping bags in their hands, they’ve achieved nirvana simply by shopping. Everything, from the poster to the carpet to the rich wood paneling on the walls, confirms what I’ve thought about CHI since the developer’s real estate signs started popping up all over town. Money, and not community, is what drives their expansion into Pointe Hill. I march toward the doors, hoping that at five o’ clock on a Friday evening the CHI gatekeeper is gone for the day, but that C. J. Eubanks is not. When I open the suite’s door, I’m in luck. The chair behind the receptionist desk is empty. But my luck is short-lived. Down the hall, a group of women dressed in pencil skirts and power suits huddle together speaking softly. I glance down at my black Converses, wipe my sweaty palms on my leggings, and try not to think about how out of place I look. I’m here for a reason, and my fashion sense, or lack of it, isn’t it. Hoping Eubanks’s office is at this end of the hallway, I turn away from the group. “Can I help you?” At the sound of the voice, I stop mid-stride and whip around to see a woman near the reception desk with her head c****d and her hands on her hips. Her hair, up in a bun that puts mine to shame, is so glossy it looks shellacked. Her eyes take me in from head to toe before she offers a tight smile. A smile that quickly fades when I take a step back. She drops her arms and shakes her head like a schoolteacher reprimanding an unruly student. The bun doesn’t budge. I take a few more steps back, pressing my messenger bag tightly against my leg. “Can I help you?” she repeats, louder this time and with none of the clipped politeness of her first inquiry. We stare at each other until I turn and speed-walk down the hallway, checking the nameplates of each door I pass. “Excuse me!” She’s yelling, and now her voice sounds more MMA than MBA. At the last door at the end of the hallway, I finally see his name. I grab the door’s cold metal handle and fling it open, the Bun hot on my heels. “You can’t go in there” is the last thing I hear before I close the door behind me and lean against it to hold her off. I turn to address the man I’ve just broken a few trespassing laws to confront, but instead of the cold, hard eyes of a corporate bigwig, I’m greeted by an unoccupied leather chair behind a wide, glass-topped desk. The desk is pristine, empty except for a laptop, a box of tissues, and a stack of papers held down by a large stone paperweight. The door handle turns behind me, and I move just in time for the Bun to come stumbling in. I’m about to interrogate her about Eubanks when I hear someone clear his throat. He’s standing in the far corner of the large office looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows. He doesn’t even turn to acknowledge us. “Mr. Eubanks, I tried—” the Bun begins. “It’s okay, Melissa,” he says, still facing the window. That voice. My body reacts before my mind has a chance to. Even though I’m still sweating from running, the hairs on my arms rise in goose bumps. I swear my heart stalls before it sputters to life again, pounding in my chest, and in my ears, and in my head. When I hear him say, “Ms. Spalding and I are acquainted,” my mind catches up with my body, and I know. I haven’t heard that voice in seven years, but I know. “Oh my God,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. When I open them, he is behind the desk staring at me. His face looks older, the jaw wider, the green eyes impossibly greener. But it’s still his face. It’s Christopher Bellamy, and seven years ago he broke my heart into a million little pieces.