Page 55 of A Break in Communications

“Well—” He clasped his hands together on the desk surface, a little red in the face. “I mean, you know the rules. If you’re dating each other, it’s going to be very complicated for me to promote either of you to the office over the other.”

Ugh… time for this conversation. I put a hand up, giving him an awkward smile. “Mister Dobbs, I really want to reassure you there are no problems.”

“Of course, I trust the ethics of both of you, but there are company policies—”

“Not because of that, but because Masters and I were never dating. I tried to tell you this.”

He shifted. “Well…”

“I did not want to get into the details of this, but if we must, we just had a fling. We’ve talked it through like adults and agreed to put it behind us now. I think you’ll have noticed Masters and I haven’t been interacting much directly since the weekend.”

“Oh.” He reddened further, but his shoulders slumped, relaxing into the desk. “Well. Er—I suppose that… clears things up? It’s still not exactly ideal practice, but, well, if we can’t promote somebody because they’ve had a fling with a coworker, we can’t promote anybody.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Is it that pervasive?”

He smiled politely and ruined my life, because he shut me down with a, “You can’t criticize when you’ve contributed to that number.”

“Ah. Well.” I scratched the back of my head. “You know, I guess you win this round, Dobbs. So—you’ll understand why I didn’t want this running all around the office and everybody talking about what a good couple Lucy… Masters and I are.”

“Right, well, I’ll send out an email blast,” he said, sitting upright, and I felt my soul leave my body.

“Please… don’t. We can use the water-cooler dissemination method.”

“Oh. Right, yes.”

This was my chance to salvage this interaction. I pulled my chair closer to his desk. “Say, while we’re here and while I’d like to change the subject—let me run by you what I came up with over the weekend. I’ve been getting in touch with some people and it looks like we have a good shot at being able to pull a press release and invite Gould as an exclusive member. We ask him to contribute for us, and since it’s a good look for him with good publicity, he’s likely to say yes, and then since he’s helping us, he’s less likely to publicly turn face on us. I have the plans on my laptop if you’d like to see.”

He sat up taller, clearly just as relieved as I was that the previous conversation was over, and he nodded quickly. “That sounds fantastic,” he said. “Ah—leave it to you two. Always the quick, efficient duo. Let’s have a look.”

Duomy ass. He’d have a look through the plans and see onlymywork all over everything. I was worried Lucy would beat me to it, but it looked like my head-start had worked.

We went through the plans, and I felt all right starting the day, finally—had been a minute since I went into a day feeling good, and I took the gift, riding that high as best I could, trying to forget about Lucy at her desk and just focusing on the work. Keptin touch with Sean all day, going back and forth on plans, and I was feeling good about it until the moment I clocked out of work and sat down in my car, turning on the engine and falling back in my seat, staring straight ahead.

I was tired. And something was stinging in my eye. Except when I pulled down the vanity mirror and checked, it wasn’t something caught in my eye but that I was crying—a tear escaping from one eye, trailing thinly down my cheek before its twin joined on the other side. I watched the quivering eyes in the mirror like they were somebody else’s.

“Anna, what the hell?” I said, low, my voice shaky, wiping them away. “Promotion’s not that scary. You can handle a press release, woman. No need to start crying in your car. Jesus Christ.”

I kept crying, though—new tears showing up to replace the old ones. I wiped them away, but they kept coming, and I finally gave up, frustrated, throwing the mirror shut and cranking up the music as I put the car in reverse and pulled out. I’d see an eye doctor if it continued. And if it wasn’t an eye problem, I’d see a therapist and find out what buried operant conditioning was making me cry after a good day of work with a promising lead towards my dream promotion.

So the last thing I needed, when I got home, was to find somebody at my door. And least of all the sense of hope shooting up in my chest at a silhouette there, and then the disappointment when I clocked it as Veronica, leaning back against the door, her phone out.

Dammit. I didn’t want to deal with this woman. I’d at least stopped crying by now, but I didn’t know if it would show in my voice. Maybe I could just lean into it and say I’d broken up with Lucy—with Masters—and then the whole family would hear about it in fifteen minutes.

And Veronica would stick around trying to comfort me. Whatever. A price I was willing to pay.

“Hey,” I said, my voice raspy, and Veronica looked up, jumping and nearly dropping her phone.

“Whoa—Jesus, you’re creepy. Where’d you come from?”

“One day a fissure opened in the earth, and from the raging hellfire a single coal of hatred, spite and envy was expelled, and that coal formed into the lifeless heart of a woman named Anna Preston.”

“That’s metal. I’d believe it. A coal of not checking her phone, too,” she said, showing me her phone, where she’d texted GrandmaI’m at your door lemme inand had gotten no response. “Would it kill you to reply?”

“Ah… yeah, it just might. Might keel over dead.”

She stopped, looking at me strangely. “Were you crying?”

“No. But I will be if you try to invite yourself into my apartment for a cappuccino.”

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