Cancelled (6 page)

By eleven o'clock, Johnathan still hadn't caught up with Alex about the Hedis headache. She was either on the phone or mysteriously out of her office. He figured he'd tell he at lunch, but was surprised to see her office dark and locked at 11:05, a sure sign she was already gone.

Johnathan ordered in and kept plugging away at the Hedis budget, anticipating the call this afternoon to start prototyping. By sliding commissions on a few flexible items in the contract, he made up the cost of ordering the hydraulic cables. He immediately called the manufacturer's sales office and put in a rush order. Finishing that call, he noticed the light on in Alex's office. He nearly ran to catch her, almost wiping Eric out in the process.

“You're here. Are you avoiding me?”

Alexis and Eric turned to look at Johnathan.

“No. I'm not avoiding you, Johnathan. Why on earth would I do that? I met an old friend for lunch and became mesmerized by my paperback on the treadmill.”

Eric glanced from Johnathan to Alexis, then back to Johnathan.

“You didn't tell her did you?” Eric asked Johnathan. He addressed Alexis with his explanation, “See, I didn't know...”

“
I
forgot the hydraulic cables for the Hedis prototype, remember the ones left over from the other job, were allocated for another project.”

Eric's mouth hung open at Johnathan's lie to cover for him.

“What do you mean you forgot? You never forget. How could you promise these cables for free when we don't have them?” Alexis stood up from her desk and walked towards Johnathan, with her back to Eric. “We're expecting approval to start building today. How do we do that without the cables?”

“I took care of it. I bumped the numbers in the discretionary spending on the contract to make up for it. We're still 12.5% under budget, protecting our margin. I called the manufacturer and put in an order. They'll be here Thursday.”

“What purchase order did you use?” she asked.

“10301-1.”

Alex groaned. “I already used 10301-1 and 10301-2 this morning for other projects. POs go through me so our accounting isn't all screwed up. Why didn't you bring me the purchase order?”

“You weren't here all day. You left for lunch without me and didn't say anything. I need the parts as soon as possible.” Johnathan and Alexis were nearly nose to nose.

“Um, is something going on between you two?” Eric interrupted the argument that was uncharacteristic of both of them.

The Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operations Officer stared at the Chief Creative Officer. They had forgotten he was standing there. Johnathan figured it better to be upfront than keep things in the dark, but Alexis beat him to the punch.

“Of course not. No, there's nothing going on. I'm just stressed. That's all.” Alexis reinforced her statement by opening her left top desk drawer and shaking medicine into her hand out of a green, over-the-counter brand bottle for migraines.

All three jumped at the sound of Alex's phone ringing.

“Hello, Alexis Rodriguez. Hold on, I have Johnathan and Eric right here, let me put you on speaker.” Alex pushed a button and hung up her receiver.

“Hey guys! Great news. I'm faxing over final approval right now. Start turning those wrenches!” Bob's voice could be heard out in the cubicles. Eric shared a look with Johnathan. He was never a Bob fan, finding the man stupid and a waste of time. He sidled across Johnathan, forcing him to unblock Alex's door.

“We've been waiting for this Bob, we're all ready to go! Eric just left to start directing our technicians.”

“Fantastic! Keep up the great work, Johnathan. I knew we'd work it all out in the end.”

“Bob? I'll go ahead and send over the first invoice per the contract. Should I send it to you or forward it to Sydney?” Alex's sugar-coated customer voice rejoined the phone conference.

“Send 'em over to me first, alright? Sydney likes her reports in a specific way and I'll take care of all that.”

“Right, I'll send the first one today.” Alex ended the call and started working on her computer. Johnathan sat down and waited an agonizing minute before interrupting her.

“Are we going to talk?”

Alex continued to type away. “You apparently fixed the part problem, what do we need to talk about?”

“I know your MO. Are we going to talk about your lie to Eric?”

“I didn't lie to him. There isn't anything going on between us. Not yet.”

Johnathan leaned back in the mahogany framed chair across from Alex's desk. He pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth and furrowed his brow. “What do you call Saturday night? I thought we were seeing each other.”

“And what does that mean? Do you even know? How will it impact this company?” Alex finally gave Johnathan her full attention after clicking Send. She sighed when she saw the hurt on his face. “Last night I thought a lot about Saturday night. And Sunday morning. I think until we're sure, we shouldn't tell anyone, least of all Eric. Just in case things don't work out.”

“Who did you have lunch with today?” Johnathan could sense there was something she wasn't being straight about.

“What? I just had lunch with an old-friend.” She began straightening the papers on her desk that were left out from before lunch.

“So who was it?” Johnathan wasn't jealous a moment ago, but now he wanted to know why she was evading the question.

“It was nobody. I had a quick lunch and hit the gym. I've been so distracted about us that I started reading and ended up walking three miles on the treadmill.”

“Kyle?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I thought you were done with him. I wouldn't have started anything with you if I knew you weren't over him.” Johnathan was walking towards the door when her voice stopped him.

“I
am
over him. He just wanted to have lunch and I agreed to it last week. I didn't think I needed to cancel since we're not even sure what we are. It was just lunch. It's not like I had sex with him.” Alex's guilt spilled between her words.

“Sure.” A familiar blond head distracted Johnathan as he noticed it looking into his office door. He checked his watch. 4:00.

“Johnathan, we're okay, right? I enjoyed this weekend, but I think we both need a little time to process everything.”

“Yeah, whatever. I gotta go.” Johnathan's curiosity carried him back to his office. The woman outside of his office was the woman from the bar, nearly two months ago. Maybe she was looking for Eric.

“Can I help you?” Johnathan startled her. She spun around, holding his shirt pressed and folded in her hands.

“Hi. I, um, I have this for you.” Kellie Szachowski thrust his shirt into his hands.

“Thanks.” The shirt appeared to be in relatively good shape. “Are you looking for Eric? Because I can take you to his office.”

“Um, no. I was trying to find you, so I asked the guy out there.” She pointed to Zach's post. “He said the only guy who worked here with these initials was you, Johnathan Michaels.”

“If you didn't remember my name, how did you find where I work?”

“Oh, I asked the bartender. He reminded me about the robots because he's talked to you guys before. I guess that kinda sticks out to people. The robots. Anyway, I started to call robot companies I could find online. You guys were first because of the alphabet thing.”

Johnathan had a hard time following her trail, and it seemed like a lot of trouble just to return a shirt. “You could have kept the shirt.”

He moved to enter his office. Jonathan sat at his desk and looked for the official email to start work on the prototype. Kellie continued to stand just outside.

“Do you think we could, um, go somewhere and talk?”

“This is my office, we can talk here.” Johnathan pointed to the two chairs he had for guests.

“No, I don't think that's a good idea. You might like this better if we were somewhere else. There's a park across from the Metro station, is that OK?”

Johnathan rolled his eyes. If this was her attempt at securing another date, he wasn't biting.

“I have a lot of work to do, Kellie. So unless there's nothing important, I'll have to take a rain check for another–”

“I'm pregnant.”

The heavy words sustained the silence between them. It wasn't until Kellie began to fidget that Johnathan snapped out of his shock.

“I haven't had my workout for the day, a walk in the park sounds fine. The weather still nice?” She nodded. Johnathan hastily closed down his applications and pulled his laptop into his bag. Shutting off the light and closing the door, he locked up for the night and directed Kellie to the back entrance that emptied into the shared parking garage. It would shave half a block off their walk.

Alexis stared at Johnathan's office through the blind slits on her internal window. She watched as he prepared to leave, escorting a young woman. Her speculations were interrupted when Eric popped his head in.

“Want to hit Monster?” Eric named their favorite bar to celebrate their successes and wallow in their troubles.

“Who's that?” Alexis continued to stare at the back of the woman's head.

Eric swiveled his head in the direction of Johnathan's office.

“Hmm, not sure. Johnathan didn't introduce you?” Eric tried to return the favor of Johnathan covering for him earlier. He wasn't stupid. Alex may say nothing was going on, but her concern over Johnathan leaving with Kellie confirmed his suspicions.

Alex grabbed her pocketbook and shut her desktop down.

“Let's go.” She smiled at Eric and the two of them walked out of the front entrance, towards their bar that was two blocks down.

The park in Mount Vernon square provided perfect privacy in plain sight. Johnathan's sweat glands worked in overdrive mode. He tugged off his tie, stuffed it into his bag and opened the top two buttons on his shirt. Kellie appeared cool and breezy in a pale yellow sun dress with pockets over a pair of lemon-yellow tights that ended at her mid-calf.

Squirrels darted from trees to the benches and traschans in a hunt for lunch leftovers. Johnathan guided Kellie to a bench near the middle of the park.

“How are you feeling?” He turned his upper body towards her, but decided against putting his arm along the back of the bench behind her. He settled for resting a crooked elbow on top of the bench.

Kellie put her hands in her dress pockets, and shrugged her shoulders. “Pretty okay. I can't handle greasy foods. I'm tired all the time, but my parents haven't really noticed since I slept all the time before.”

“You live with your parents?” How old was this girl? He never bothered to check the morning after. He knew nothing about her.

“Yeah. I skipped the college thing. I work in cosmetics at a CVS in Fairfax, but I'm studying to be a pharmacy tech. Supposed to finish certification in September.” Kellie sighed.

“Are you from Fairfax?” Johnathan asked.

“I graduated from Fairfax. We moved here when I was in middle school from Louisiana.”

“Hurricane Katrina?”

Kellie laughed. “Nah, we lived upstate. I get asked that all the time. I was a sophomore here when it happened.”

Johnathan performed quick math in his head. Sophomore in 2005, graduated in what? 2008? She's twenty or twenty-one.

“How old are you?” Kellie asked.

Slightly taken aback by her forwardness, he decided to be a little sly.

“Annandale High School, Class of 2001.”

“You're thirty?” Her eyes widened.

“No, twenty-seven.” Johnathan laughed at her failed mental math skills.

“I don't know why I added nine to 2001,” Kellie laughed with him, “that doesn't even make sense.”

Clatter made talking impossible for a moment, as the traffic noise and a large truck passing revved up the decibel level. An opportunistic entrepreneur pushed a silver ice cream cooler, the kind that litter the Mall in summer, to the far corner of the park in anticipation of rush hour.

“Can you eat ice cream?” Johnathan asked as he stood and motioned towards the new interloper in the park. Kellie beamed at him and jumped up from the bench.

Neither felt like sitting once they each held a chocolate crunch bar in their hands and instead walked the long lap of the park. Kellie licked the length of her popsicle's melting left side.

“Thanks for the snack.”

“You're welcome.” Johnathan use a tiny white napkin to wipe his mouth. He swirled possible questions in his mind, but didn't know how to approach confirming that the baby was his. She seemed to like direct approaches, so he opted for the easiest way.

“Are you sure the baby is mine? I mean–is there a chance that someone else is the father?”

“I don't run around having one-night stands if that's what you're asking. I broke up with my boyfriend at Thanksgiving. You're the only one who could be the father.” Kellie's eyes looked swimmy, but she lifted her chin up and studied the rustling new leaves above them.

“I just had to be sure. You understand?”

“This baby doesn't fit into my plans either. I didn't come her to beg you to play Daddy. But I'm keeping it. And I...I have to tell my parents.” Kellie stopped walking and gave Johnathan's face her full attention. Her face held an expression full of fear and resolve. “They're going to ask me how I'm going to support this baby. That's where I need you. That's what I'm asking for.”

Bile retched up into Johnathan's esophagus and burned the tender lining. How did he get mixed up with a young woman and her baby? And she didn't think he was good enough to be a dad?

He tossed the last of his ice cream into the trash can in between the benches. As he walked back, he pulled a pen and business card from his bag. He scrawled his personal cell phone number on the back and thrust it out to her.

“I will be a Dad before I will ever just be a check. Pick a doctor and make an appointment. I'll be there and take care of the costs until we can confirm I am the father.” Johnathan stormed off, back towards the parking garage and his car. The crosswalk's “Don't Walk” sign halted his brisk escape.