Page 40 of The Checklist
Without missing a beat, Charlie answered, “Ten-four. Be prepared. He looks rough.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Good luck.”
The click on the line gave Dylan a jolt. She didn’t have a plan or even the semblance of a plan. Despite having spent an impromptu Saturday with Mike, she wasn’t ready to call herself a fan of improvisation just yet. She walked to the elevator doors, silently thanking her maker that Tim was in early enough that other people weren’t around to see her trepidation.
Whatever comfort the silence of an empty office provided dissipated the moment the elevator doors opened. To say Tim looked destroyed would be an understatement. If that hoodie had less than a week’s worth of dirt on it, she would be shocked. After a moment’s hesitation, Dylan stepped into the elevator.
“Hi, Tim,” she ventured. The weight of the elevator bearing them upward was almost as heavy as the silence, and Dylan stifled the impulse to check on her chignon, look at her phone, or do anything other than count the seconds until she could get out of the metal box of misery she was riding in.
Finally, Tim grunted something that could not be construed as a word in any language. She decided to take it as an opening. “Let’s talk about Friday.”
Tim took a deep breath, shaking his head and jamming his hands into his filthy pockets. “I don’t get it. What do people want from me? Based on everyone’s reaction, you would think I shot someone. I swearpeople were nicer to that soccer dude who ran over someone with his Porsche.”
Dylan bit her lip instead of pointing out that it was actually a baseball player who’d tried to crush fans at the supermarket with his Lotus. Tim was looking to vent about someone who drove a more obnoxious car than him, and she could understand that. Sort of.
“Tim, why the diet pop?” It was all she could manage as the elevator doors chugged open.
“Your document said people missed the coffee cart. Coffee equals caffeine. Give the people caffeine.” Tim’s voice had gone up about six octaves as he unlocked his office and stopped short. “Fuck.”
Dylan peeked over Tim’s shoulder into his office and cringed. In a decade of studying terrible corporate leaders, she had never seen anything like this.
Dixie Cups everywhere. Full of diet soda. The cups were lined end to end on the carpet, bookshelves, and all the chairs. They’d even managed to balance them on his computer monitor. Whoever had pulled this off must have spent all weekend carefully filling tiny cups and placing them on every possible surface. They’d avoided the space where the door opened, but that was it. She almost laughed until she caught sight of Tim, who was misting up.
“I’ll go get a garbage can.”
“Can’t we call maintenance?” Tim sniffled at his sneakers.
Dylan paused. She wanted to be delicate, but he’d earned this one.
“No, Tim. We need to clean this up ourselves. The cups and the reason for them.” Tim’s shoulders sagged as he rubbed his eyes, while Dylan retrieved a small wastebasket. “Before we start, take a picture. This is a practical joke, and we need to make sure you laugh at it.”
Tim stopped rubbing his eyes long enough to look at her like she might be possessed. “This is not funny.”
“Well, it’s going to be when we get you on track. Think of this as future laughing.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Take the picture, damn it.” Dylan was pretty sure she had never cursed at anyone she worked with, let alone a client. She took it one step further and shook the trash can at him. “Now, get to gettin’.”
To her surprise, Tim pulled out his phone and took the photo. Glancing at the screen, he changed angles a few times and snapped more pictures.
“Okay, it’s not a photoshoot.”
“If I’m gonna laugh, I want it to look good,” Tim said, taking the can from her and walking as far into his office as he could before crouching down and looking up at her expectantly.
Dylan looked down at her dress and realized that the pencil cut was going to be problematic as long as she was wearing her heels.
Slowly, she stepped out of one shoe and then the other and stooped to hide them as close to his office wall as possible in the hope that no one else would see her crawling around on the floor without shoes. Jared could never say she didn’t go the extra mile for the client. Sitting next to Tim, she picked up a sticky cup of flat pop and dumped it into the trash can before stacking it into another empty cup.
“This sort of feels like a waste,” Tim sighed. “Do you think we could put the cups in the staff kitchen for water or something?”
Dylan stopped dumping flat pop out to look at Tim, waiting for the punch line.
“What?”
“Tim, that is the kind of thing that gets your office filled with cups in the first place. Ask yourself,Would I want to use a stale, soaked-through, diet-soda-covered cup?If the answer is no, then don’t do it to your staff. Even if it saves money.”
