Page 41 of Truth Be Told
“Don’t touch me, Cohen.” I was right.
“What are you doing up here? What’s wrong?” Her look is killing me; something’s wrong, and she’s not telling me what it is.
When at last I find out, I submit to her line of questioning until it becomes unreasonable, until I’m disgusted with the next question, until it becomes something that we shouldn’t have between us, but do – because of whoever it was she saw in that office, and because of Scarlet.
Instead of answering her, I hold out a finger and turn around.
I storm past my office, peering into the next one. Its lights are off. Empty. It takes no time at all for me to reach the next office in line, the sixth one from the end, which is the one Stella described. Without bothering to look inside, I throw my hand down on the handle. The door swings open and thuds against the wall behind it. This office belongs to a recent hire, a man I haven’t yet gotten to know. A man I won’t be getting to know from here on out.
I don’t know who the woman is. She must be new here too, and she must have been hired by someone else.
The woman lets out a scream and lunges off the man’s lap, diving for her clothes. The man says, “What the–” but holds his breath the instant he recognizes me.
I hold my ground near the door. “Get out,” I say calmly.
“Oh man,” he moans as his fingers fly, wrapping his tie around his neck and buttoning up his collar. I remember his prior formality during our conversation when I hired him two weeks ago. Now, he knows that formality is pointless. “Come on, give me a break.” He points to the girl. “She came on tome.”
“What?” the woman screeches, a bundle of clothes in her hands. “Fuck you.”
“Get the hell out of here. Both of you. Before I call security.”
The woman doesn’t object. She fishes through the clothes in her hands, desperately trying to find her shirt while at the same time trying to maintain what little dignity she has left.
“Look, Cohen…” the man says, still working at his collar.
I tense. He speaks as if he has some kind of authority, as if he actually thinks he can pull the wool over my eyes again and talk his way out of this.
And did he really just call me by my first name? After the act I just caught them in, and what I just told him to do? Rage flows through me. It’s the rage that’s been itching to come out since I first saw that Stella was hurt, and that built up to a boiling point when she told me it was someone here who did it to her. Now it’s overflowed.
I walk over to him. When he sees me coming he gives up on his collar, holding his hands out in front of him in defense. I grab him by the shoulder, the loose fabric of his shirt bunching in my fist. I have a good four inches on him in terms of height, so he’s easy to command.
The woman has managed to get herself reasonably dressed. She scoops up the rest of her things and rushes out the door, and as she does so my eyes stop on Stella, who pauses and flattens her body against the door as the woman rushes past her.
“Hey, man. Okay, stop,” he says, still wanting to reason with me. He’s resisting while cowering beneath me at the same time. His voice rises in anger. “Get your hands off me.”
I don’t stop pulling. I’m being pretty gentle with him though; if I wanted to, I could throw him around with ease.
“I said, get your hands off me.” Out of nowhere, his fist flashes across my field of vision, and it only takes an instant for it to connect with my nose.
The blow briefly throws me. I stumble a bit, touching my nose and then pulling back to see if he drew any blood. My hand comes back clean. I restore myself, standing straighter than before, and land my own blow, right in the center of his face.
The room falls silent. He doesn’t know what hit him, but it worked. He doesn’t say another word. Stella places her hands over her mouth.
With one final shove, I lift him up and push him out the door. This time, I don’t hold back – he falls and then scurries to his feet, mumbling and swearing and holding his head as he finally leaves.
I rest against the desk in the center of the room. My eyes want to close. The fact that this happened despite how hard we work here, despite everything we put into this… everything my father put into this… it’s now getting to me. The way people like that man I just had to throw out disrespect you after the respect you go out of your way to show them, that’s getting to me too.
At first, Stella doesn’t react beyond covering her mouth. I’m worried she doesn’t like what she’s seen here – not that she liked any of it, but that the way I reacted might have changed her perception of me. I wouldn’t blame her. Then she drops her hands away.
She rushes to me and wraps her arms around my waist. I hug the back of her shoulders and neck, then bend and kiss the top of her head.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Stella, stay away from here. The people here… they’re not good for us.”
“You want me to stay away from where you work?” she says meekly, obviously not liking the idea.
I shake my head. “No, forget that I said that. I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that everyone I work with knows how much money I make and what I’m worth. Some of them, especially some of the women, want to try to take advantage of that.”
