Fook (27 page)

Puzzled, Derek just stared.

“Listen, if I thought you were going to kill
me I wouldn’t have let you into the apartment last night. I don’t
take you as the murdering type.”

Derek just continued to stare.

“And if I’m wrong, I still think I’m safe
because, in your unconscious stupor last night, you sought me out
for help which means you probably look at me as more of a friend
than a potential victim.”

“We don’t even know each other. How could we
be friends already?”

“Something also tells me that you’re the
type who makes everyone your friend...especially the ladies.”

“Jesus,” he thought. Did he have player
written across his forehead? “I don’t think your roommate shares
the same opinion.”

“Reyna? Don’t mind her. She’s just a little
paranoid is all. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Derek smirked.

“If she truly thought you were any danger,
she never would have let me bring you inside.”

“Isn’t she worried that you’re out here with
me now?”

“Don’t get me wrong, she’s probably hiding
in one of the bushes as we speak, ready to jump out and gut you at
any moment,” Sarah laughed.

Derek didn’t share Sarah’s dark humor, as
the image of her disemboweled body, sprawled across the coffee
table, returned to mind.

Realizing that her words had had an
obviously negative effect on him, Sarah canned the smile. “So, how
about that closure,” she placed the conversation back on track.

“Huh?”

“Let’s keep it simple by sticking to the
truth,” Sarah’s playful tone faded as it became obvious that she
truly did want and believed she deserved some sort of truthful
explanation.

Contemplating what might come from revealing
the truth about his presence in her time, Derek recalled one of
Jason’s rants about changing the past and jeopardizing the future,
though this time it admittedly didn’t hold much relevance as his
permanent present in this time had already severely compromised the
time that followed. “What harm could there really be in letting one
other person know the truth at this point?” he thought.

Focusing his attention and meeting Sarah’s
serious gaze with one of his own, “The truth?”

“Nothing but,” Sarah leaned slightly closer
in anticipation of his explanation.

“Okay...well...”

Raising her eyebrows, as if telling him to
quit stalling, she waited.

“I’m from the future,” he blurted the
simplest of explanations, awaiting the anticipated laughter.
Instead, she continued to stare at him as if what he’d just said
was completely normal and expected. “Okay,” he responded, puzzled
by the lack of response. “Jason and I invented a time machine
powered by what I thought was some sort of red, chemical concoction
worked up by Jason but it turned out to be nothing more than his
blood, which somehow has the ability to transport whoever’s in
contact with it, through space and time. Well, when a friend and I
discovered that it was blood, Jason flipped out, killed my friend,
tried to frame me for her murder and then stranded me in the year
1991...this year...with no hope of ever returning to my time, which
is the year 2014,” Derek finished his explanation with a much
needed breath as he awaited Sarah’s response.

Wrinkling her forehead, it was clear that
she was trying to process the insanity that she’d just heard.

“I know how it sounds,” Derek defended his
story, realizing himself, for the first time, just how insane the
whole situation sounded.

Slowly, Sarah’s forehead smoothed and new
wrinkles began to form around her mouth as the previously expected
laughter finally arrived.

“There it is,” Derek thought.

“Time travel, huh?” She laughed.

Derek just nodded seriously.

“I knew you were an interesting guy,” Sarah
continued her jovial response. “You seemed so smooth yet so frantic
yesterday outside the restaurant. I wasn’t sure how to respond at
the time but after you left I realized that you’d somehow managed
to make all that stress that I’d been feeling at the time, just
melt away.”

Now Derek wore a look of confusion. What
should have been a story that landed him in the looney bin was
actually turning out to be his best pickup line ever.

“You know, I waited over an hour for you to
return? I don’t know why but I was actually disappointed when you
didn’t.” Jumping to her feet, she stood in front of him. “Tell you
what. You’re going to make it up to me tonight by taking me out to
dinner and telling me who you really are.”

Caught completely off guard by the flood of
unexpected information, the only word he could muster was,
“Okaaay”.

“Good. It’s a date then,” Sarah turned,
heading back toward her apartment building. “Oh,” she turned,
continuing to walk backwards. “Try to lay off the drugs this time,”
she shouted before turning and disappearing from sight.

Sensing another pair of eyes on him, Derek
turned to spot an old lady walking her pug through the park. Both
her and the googly eyed fur ball seemed to issue disapproving
stares.

The only response Derek had, was a baffled
shrug.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“You don’t look so good,” Melody commented on her
partner’s pale complexion as she walked into the conference
room.

“Thanks,” Tabitha replied, knowing what she
meant but still not appreciating it being pointed out.

“No, I mean—”

“—It’s alright,” Tabitha cut her off. “I
know what I look like. I spent half the night on the bathroom
floor,” she explained as she took her seat beside the perky,
healthy girl.

“Why didn’t you stay home?”

“We can’t afford to lose this client,”
Tabitha whispered, wishing to maintain the illusion of success that
her and Melody had recently been forced to invent. In actuality,
their company was hemorrhaging money.

As college friends, they’d spent countless
nights in the dorms, imagining and strategizing how they would one
day open their own firm in Boston and take the marketing world by
storm. They imagined having all of the biggest clients like Nike
and Coke; clients with money to burn on needless marketing
campaigns for products that sold themselves.

After college they’d gone their separate
ways, each taking jobs at large marketing firms around the country.
Melody had spent a few years in Chicago and then San Francisco
before coming back to Boston to work for Hirsh & Walice.
Tabitha had followed a similar path, first in LA and then New York
before also ending up at H&W, that is until it was discovered
that Wilbur Hirsh and Herbert Walice were apparently heavily
involved in insider trading. Within a matter of months the
company’s client pool had dried up and a couple months later,
H&W closed its doors, leaving three-thousand employees high and
dry.

Tabitha had had an offer to return to her
old firm in New York and she was sure that she’d be able to find a
spot for Melody there as well, but they both loved Boston. It was
home and with husbands, and Melody with a two year old son, the
idea of bouncing around the country just didn’t seem fun anymore.
So, each with a bit of savings and a hefty bank loan, they decided
to make their once college fantasy a reality and opened Harmony
Marketing, Inc..

The first six months had been amazing. With
the sea of stranded clients created by the implosion of H&W and
their familiarity with those company’s needs, they were bringing in
contracts left and right. The sudden success had led them on a
hiring boom, bringing in many of the unemployed office staff they’d
worked with previously. The office was filled with familiar faces
and they’d made it a point to make the work environment a fun and
relaxed place, with frequent after hours parties and a relaxed
dress code when client meetings weren’t scheduled. Unfortunately,
the sight of jeans started becoming more and more common as
meetings became fewer and fewer and once thought to be loyal
customers, started migrating toward larger firms with more
resources and proven track records. The excitement of the new guys
in town had quickly worn off and reality began to set in.

As far as the staff was concerned, business
was booming. Both women did everything they could to create phony
work in order to maintain the illusion of success, hoping that the
next big break was just around the corner. Neither of them wanted
to deal with the reality that they just couldn’t afford to maintain
the company at its current size without a steady client base to
support it. Though they’d learned how to run a business in college
and seen it in practice in the real world, it was quickly becoming
apparent that neither of them had the stomach to deal with the
harsh reality that was corporate America. So, out of sheer
desperation, Tabitha had dragged herself into the office for a
meeting with their last hope...Mr. Samuel Branson.

Son of Charles Branson, owner of one of the
country’s largest cleaning supply companies, Samuel Branson was
looking to make a name for himself, separate from his father’s
multi-billion dollar empire and his first attempt was with a fabric
cleaner he called Fabrix. They’d met with Mr. Branson and his
associates a couple of weeks earlier to discuss his needs and
things had initially looked very promising; that is until three
days ago when Mr. Branson’s office had called to inform them that
they’d chosen to utilize another firm’s services. Hearing this,
Melody had instantly gone into crisis mode, dumping the contents of
her desk into whatever empty boxes she could find around the
office.

After a good cry in the ladies room, Tabitha
had taken another approach. Crying and giving up wasn’t going to do
any good, and in a surprising moment of sheer will, she’d picked up
the phone, insisted on speaking to Mr. Branson himself and somehow
had convinced him to at least come in and listen to the ideas
they’d been working on for him. Now they just hoped that the slides
in the projector and proposals in the packets placed in front of
each chair around the table were good enough to change his
mind.

“Mrs. Tillmore,” Tabitha’s assistant
appeared in the conference room doorway.

Lifting her head out of her hands, Tabitha
responded with a sickly gaze.

“Mr. Branson is here. He’s on his way up
now.”

“Thanks, Joan,” Melody answered for her
partner. “You stay here,” she addressed Tabitha, rubbing her back
as she stood. “I’ll go meet them.”

“No, I convinced him to come. He’s expecting
to see me,” Tabitha insisted as she got to her feet, suddenly aware
of the floor’s unsteady nature beneath her.

“No. You need to sit,” Melody urged, seeing
her partner’s shakiness.

Tabitha just swatted at Melody’s hand as she
focused and steadied the moving building. “See. Everything’s fine,”
she insisted before making her way out into the hall where she
spotted Mr. Branson and his three associates stepping out of the
elevator. “Mr. Branson, Sir.,” she mustered all the strength she
had to quickly make her way to the arriving entourage, and put on
the most upbeat, healthy face she could manage.

“Mrs. Tillmore,” Mr. Branson nodded,
extending his hand to offer a firm shake.

She took a firm handshake as a good sign. It
meant that he viewed her as a peer in the business world and not
just a silly little girl trying to play CEO, like many of the men
she often dealt with thought of her.

“I was surprised to receive your call. I
know I told you that we were going with another firm, but I want
you to know that it took real balls to get me on the phone and say
what you had to say.”

“Okay, maybe he views me too much like one
of the guys,” she thought to herself, also trying to recall what
exactly she’d said on the phone. In reality she’d been so terrified
that the entire phone call had been one big blur. The only
information she remembered was the hello in the beginning and the
date and time they’d agreed on for the meeting.

“Well, my partner and I are very confident
that you and your associates will be more than impressed by what we
have to show you.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Nerves doing battle with her stomach’s
already acrobatic flips, Tabitha fought back the returning urge to
vomit and directed the men toward the conference room. Entering the
room, Melody looked as sick as Tabitha felt, as she circled the
table to greet each of the men as they entered the room.

“Good afternoon gentlemen,” Melody greeted
the men, realizing instantly that it was only nine o’clock in the
morning. “Mr. Branson, It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Mr. Branson just offered a half grin.

“Please, take a seat gentlemen,” Tabitha
took over, aware of Melody’s increasing nerves.

As instructed, the men each took a seat
around the table with Mr. Branson at the center.

“So, as each of you know,” Melody nervously
began her pitch before the room had even settled from the noises of
shifting chairs and rustling papers. “Harmony Marketing is a
different type of marketing firm. We believe that in order to—”

“—Listen sweetheart,” Mr. Branson
interjected, the sexist remark seeming more suited for a crotchety
old business man in his sixties rather than the thirty something
who’d actually used it. “Miss Tillmore got us here, so no offense,
but I’d like to hear the pitch from her.”

Stunned by the rude and forward request,
Melody just stood starring at the primped and polished business
man.

“Of course,” Tabitha jumped in, assuring
Melody that she had it and waving for her to take her seat, which
she did. “Well, as my associate was saying, Harmony Market—”

“—Let’s just cut through the bullshit and
get to the point. I know who you are and you know who I am. What do
you have for me?”

Tabitha could feel the sweat pooling on her
forehead, thankfully concealed by her overgrown bangs. “Thank God I
didn’t get my haircut like I’d planned,” her mind took a momentary
detour as her nerves grew.