Page 33 of I Need You to Read This
“Oh, is it, Jonathan?” Regina responds, her tone terrifyingly cold.
“What can I help you with?” he asks primly. His eyes fall on Alex now. For the first time he doesn’t look disappointed to see her there. He looks almost relieved.
“I’m here to see my husband,” she says, taking her jacket off. MoreChanel from the look of it, Alex thinks. Jonathan looks confused. Why is Regina at the office asking after her own husband?
“He hasn’t been in yet today. I can let him know you stopped by—”
Regina ignores him. Alex watches as she steps past the desk toward the newsroom.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll just go wait in his office for him to return,” she says. Her voice remains light, but there is an underlying threat that is impossible to ignore.
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable waiting out here, or maybe in the café across the street?” Jonathan asks hopefully.
Regina continues her march around the front desk toward the newsroom. “Oh, and I’ll have a coffee,” she calls over her shoulder. “A latte, with oat milk.”
Jonathan turns to Alex panicked. “I have no idea where Howard is,” he hisses at her. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” His eyes focus on Alex, and she sees it is all about to become her problem too.
“I’ll make her a coffee,” Alex offers, seizing this serendipitous opportunity to get on Jonathan’s good side.
“You’d really do that?” he says. He looks like he might start to cry. “I need to go look for him. He’ll hate that I’ve let her go back to his office while he isn’t there.”
“Of course I’ll do it. Whatever you need,” Alex says. Ingratiating herself with Jonathan in his time of need could have its perks, she realizes. Who else has access to Howard Demetri’s planner? Who else could tell her where he goes and when? And, most importantly,with whom.
“Thank you, Alex. I owe you.”
Yes, you do,Alex thinks, giving him a smile and turning toward the office kitchen.
THIRTY
Alex can’t find any oat milk, but she does stumble on a box of something far back inside one of the kitchen cabinets that claims to be flavored like a French vanilla cappuccino. Regina will hate it, Alex is sure, but it will have to do. She puts a coffee pod in the machine and presses the button.
While she waits for it to brew, Alex walks back and forth across the tiny kitchen already overwhelmed by the morning she’s had. On the bulletin board behind the coffeepot, Francis Keen looks out from her front-page obituary photo, a wry smile on her face.
Alex unpins the obit from the bulletin board. The newsprint is already fragile after less than a year. It’s interesting about newspaper, how brittle it becomes. She flips the paper over, to look below the fold where Francis’s obituary is written.
Alex hasn’t read the obituary since it came out last year. Her chest is tight as she rereads the details of Francis’s life: her devotion to the column, her love of gardening and animals and long walks. Alex feels a kinship with Francis all over again. She wishes that Francis were here now to help her through this. Of course, if Franciswerehere, Alex would be sitting at the Bluebird right now ready to drag herself back to her apartment to write copy for the drug company.
As she keeps reading, something makes her breath catch. She goesback to the beginning of a quote from Howard Demetri and rereads it: “Francis could be impatient at times. She suffered no fools, as my mom always says. But she also had this innate sense of wisdom. She really listened. It was never about placating. If someone was struggling, there was no pity; she always said pity was a waste. There was only empathy with Francis. You really felt like she was living your struggles with you.”
She turns the words over inside her head. Didn’t she just hear them somewhere? They are there, just over the horizon of her memory. If only she could see who was saying them.
“Alex,” Jonathan hisses from the doorway, his eyes wide and panicked. “She’s waiting.”
“No luck finding Howard?” Alex says, hoping he doesn’t notice as she quickly pins the obit back on the board. He shakes his head.
“I am one hundred percent fucked,” he says, his eyelashes fluttering like he might pass out.
“Howard will understand,” Alex assures him. “Besides, it’s not like it’s your fault he’s missing. What are you supposed to do?”
“It’s not Howard I’m worried about,” he says, his eyes darting over his shoulder. “You know Regina’s dad owns this whole company? This whole building! She could have me fired quicker than it takes for her to pick up that black pebble-leather Birkin.”
Alex did not know this. She scrambles to fix the coffee now, for herself as much as for Jonathan, pouring it into a nicer cup and putting it on a saucer.
“Alex, can you just keep her company for a minute? While I go look for him, again?” He looks desperate.
“I don’t think she’ll really want to hang out with me, but I can try.”
“Thank you, Alex. I don’t want her digging around in his office and getting me into trouble.” A sheen has started on his forehead. What is in Howard’s office that could possibly get Jonathan in trouble? She gives him a quick nod. He looks like he might actually hug her for a second, but changes his mind and runs out into the newsroom to search for Howard.
