Page 4 of Jep

“I don’t know, sir, no.”

“Seven years’ worth. Mostly successful. If you’re telling me all you have is conjecture, I will take her conjecture over yours every day of the week.”

“I understand, but I?—”

He walked away without another word.

It took Em a moment before she could breathe again. No part of the day had gone how she’d expected it to. She jammed her thumb into the elevator call button several times, willing the doors to open so they could swallow her up. When she finally climbed inside, she sighed back against the railing, holding back tears all the way to the first floor. Maybe Gardener was right. Maybe you couldn’t have thin skin in this job. But she did. Being an analyst shouldn’t require a hard exterior. Some of the information they assessed had details that weren’t easy to read, but they were always easy to compartmentalize. Havingthose you worked with closely dismiss your concerns was much harder. So too was ignoring the gnawing knot in her stomach.

Before the doors opened, she pressed on her face to massage away the emotion and sniffed back what was left.

She smiled tightly at the guards she passed, then hurried out the large glass double doors and down the broad steps to the sidewalk before pulling out her phone.

Lifting her face to the sky to absorb the warmth, she made a call and counted off the rings until it was answered.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” the woman on the other end said.

“Hi to you too.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Em. I love to hear from you, but when you call me during work hours, it freaks me out a little. I’m always the one calling you. So, tell me there is nothing to worry about.”

“There is nothing to worry about, Aunt Carla. As I’ve said before, being an analyst in the Terrorism Task Force isn’t dangerous.”

“First of all, I have told you a million times to stop calling me ‘aunt’. We’re all adults now. And second, that’s not true. I’ve seen the movies. I know they can bust in there and shoot the place up.”

Em could hear the amusement in her aunt’s voice. “If that happens, then I will use my unrealistically impressive movie skills to take them all out by myself.”

“Good for you.”

“That’s not to say I didn’t just have the single most mortifyingly embarrassing encounter of my life. I’m contemplating running away to join a convent. Or a circus. Whichever I can find first.”

“We’re all idiots now and then. What makes you so special?”

“You don’t understand. This is next-level humiliation.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I walked into the wrong classroom?—?”

“This is different.”

“All right. Tell me what happened. I take it you still have a job?” Carla said with a hint of wariness.

“Barely. You know how you’re always saying I should be braver and stick up for myself? Speak up more?”

“Hang on, you’re pinning this on me?”

“No, I’m creating context.”

“Okay. Continue.”

“You say I should stop making excuses for not acting when I feel a strong conviction, right?”

“Yes.”

“You were wrong.”

Carla laughed. “Oh, really?”

“I did that, and now I’m completely embarrassed and utterly humiliated.”

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