Monahan 01 Options (10 page)

“You make a joke out of everything,” he started.

I interrupted him before it became a lecture. “Listen Jay, if you’re going to chew me out again for what I said in the office, about you having a fairy godmother, I already apologized.”

Jay sighed. “Kate, this has nothing to do with that. What I’m getting at is that you can’t have a serious conversation without turning it into a joke. Why is that?”

I thought about it and couldn’t come up with an answer so I shrugged my shoulders. This was very reminiscent of getting a lecture from my mother.

This time Jay changed the subject. “I know you’re sad about Ev. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Jay, did you take counselling classes at Western? I heard they have a new one called ‘Death and the Helpless Friend’. No I don’t want to talk about it. What’s there to talk about? One of my best friends has died. Needlessly. Can you explain why?” I didn’t give him time to answer. It was a rhetorical question and I was on a roll. “Why did she die? She wasn’t old. She was healthy. She’s gone and left her three kids and a grandchild. What’s the sense of it all?” I looked at Jay. “She left me.” My throat was tight and I couldn’t swallow. There. I said it. Evelyn left me.

God, how does Danny feel, I thought. I don’t want anyone to leave me again. I want my mommy. I’m 34 years old and I want my mommy. I reached over for my coffee cup and Jay grabbed my hand. He pulled me over to him and wrapped me in his arms.

“And people say you’re tough,” he said softly. I had a million smart retorts to that one but I didn’t bother.

chapter thirteen

I woke up the next morning in my bed and I couldn’t remember how I got there. Jay must have helped me, I thought. A peek under the duvet confirmed that I had my clothes on. The clock radio read seven thirty-six. I got up, took off my clothes and paddled into the bathroom to shower and brush my teeth. My mouth felt like the French Foreign Legion had marched through it, barefoot, after three months in the desert.

I dressed in jeans and a blouse, which I didn’t tuck in. I put on some clean white gym socks and headed for the kitchen. The curtains above the sink were billowing straight out and I remembered that I hadn’t closed any windows the night before. I pushed the step stool over in front of the sink and climbed up. I glanced at the top of the refrigerator and happily noted that the dust bunnies I had cleaned the night before hadn’t reappeared. With my knees braced against the sink I leaned over and wrestled with the window.

I lit a cigarette while I waited for the coffee to drip through and wandered into the living room to retrieve the dirty coffee cups. The curtains in there were billowing too and it was cold. Jay’s huddled body beneath the quilt on the sofa scared the life out of me.

“Christ,” I cursed out loud. I hate being scared. I crossed the room to close the doors to the balcony and noticed something orange floating on the top of the fishbowl. Oh no, I thought. Not another one. I peeked in the fishbowl hoping it wasn’t what I thought. Snapper the Fourth was doing the backstroke. I give up, I thought. I just fucking give up. I can’t keep anything alive. Imagine what I’d do to a poor dog or cat if I had it long enough.

I picked up the fishbowl to head to the bathroom for the ceremonial burial. Jay was stirring on the couch. He must be frozen, I thought. I looked at his sleeping face and felt like I was intruding. There is definitely something very personal about observing someone in their sleep. I hurried out of the living room to do the dirty deed.

This time the ceremony was shorter. I intoned a few sombre words over the toilet bowl before wishing Snapper the Fourth farewell. “Bye, bye, big buddy,” I finished off. I reached for the handle to flush and heard Jay cough behind me. The toilet flushed and I blushed at getting caught. He was leaning on the doorframe with his hands in pockets. The boy leaned a lot.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning to you too.” He grinned. “I hope that was leftovers you were flushing.” I held up the fishbowl. “Ah, Kate. Not another one. What’s the Humane Society going to say?”

“Shut-up. I’ve given up. The goldfish of the world are safe. Kathleen Monahan will never own another one.” I pushed past him into the hallway. “Clean towels are in the closet behind the door,” I said over my shoulder.

I was on my second cup of coffee and third cigarette when Jay joined me. He helped himself to a mug in the cupboard over the coffee maker and sat at the table across from me. He pushed the ashtray to the side. He had the good grace, and good sense, not to comment on the number of butts in the ashtray.

“What time did I go to bed? I don’t even remember going.”

“You didn’t go. I carried you and tucked you in.” His grin this time had a bit of a leer to it.

“Hope you didn’t strain your back,” I said.

“Right, Kate. What are you? All of a hundred pounds, soaking wet? I carried you with one hand.”

“Bless you my son. No, I’m not a hundred pounds. I wish. I’m a hundred and ten. Besides, it’s rude to ask a lady her weight.”

“What lady?” he joked.

“Well, was it good for you too?” I teased.

“Ooh. I almost needed a cigarette afterwards.” We both laughed.

“What are you up to today?” I asked him.

“This and that. You?”

“Absolutely nothing. I cleaned the apartment last night and did the laundry. I only have to buy some groceries but that can wait until tomorrow.”

“I think I’ll do some of the same. I’ve got to go into the office tomorrow to finalize some reports for Cox. I’m going for a run this morning.”

He finished his coffee in one gulp and stood up. He came around to my side of the table and squatted down beside me. I turned sideways in my chair and our eyes were level. It pissed me off that he got down to what he thought was my level because I was short. It was patronizing. I pushed my chair back from the table and stood up. He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself upright. Great. Now he was towering over me. I grabbed the step-stool and jumped up on it but was still about four inches shorter. I wasn’t getting up on the counter.

“Will you cut it out?” Jay demanded. “I just wanted to say good-bye. God, you’re irritating at times.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Well. Good-bye. Have a good run. See you Monday.” He took a step forward and stopped about three inches from me and leaned into my face. I was sure he was going to touch his nose to mine again but he didn’t.

“Good-bye,” he breathed into my face. And he kissed me. Very lightly. Very friendly. Almost brotherly. I was kidding myself. I blushed about four shades of red and purple and stepped down off the stool.

“Good-bye.”

I was enjoying my Saturday afternoon, under the old quilt on my sofa racing through the novel I had started the night before. I was at a particularly hot and steamy part of the story when the phone rang. It was Didrickson telling me I was needed at the office to help the internal auditor on an urgent audit.

“What’s an urgent audit? Did someone lose a bean?” When he didn’t laugh, I realized he didn’t even have a sense of humour on the weekends.

“She’s auditing the stock option lists and needs your help pulling out back-up documentation.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.” I hung up the phone and finished the chapter I was reading while I leaned up against the wall beside the phone. I carefully marked my spot in the book and pulled on my windbreaker, grabbed my purse and headed downstairs to my car. The shit’s hit the fan over the stock option lists, I thought. This should be interesting.

It proved to be a very long Saturday and ended up being a very long week. I didn’t open my book for the next ten days.

chapter fourteen

The parking lot was surprisingly full when I arrived at the office. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who actually
work
on a Saturday. Ninety percent of them were probably executives from our company who flee their homes to avoid their family duties. I’ve never seen them actually
working
on the few Saturdays I’ve been in the office. They seem to hang out and schmooze. And tell war stories.

I smiled at the security guard who stared back at me. He was wearing glasses that were so thick I think the bottoms were made from old Coke bottles. He looked old enough to have been a drummer boy in the civil war.

“How’s it going?” I asked as I signed the security register. As he worked his lips into an answer I ran my finger down the sign-in ledger and noticed that Grace O’Grady had signed in at seven fifty-five a.m. I looked further down the list and saw that Didrickson had come and gone - in at eight-ten and out by nine fifty-five.

I held out my security pass with my picture on it so the old-timer could get a good look. It was turned upside down - I wanted to see if he was really on the ball.

“Fine, fine,” he mumbled. The drool on the left side of his mouth was particularly attractive. I wondered if he had been taking personal grooming tips from Chris Oakes.

“13th floor please,” I said. He stared back and I realized he must be deaf too. I tried to figure out how to hold up 13 fingers and gave up.

“13th floor,” I shouted. He nodded and pushed a button on the console. He was asleep before I turned around.

The corridor had an eerie silence about it when I got off the elevator. Creepy. The reception area was dark and locked up tight so I turned down the hall to go in the back entrance. The smell of cigar smoke hit me as soon as I opened the door. Lovely, just lovely. Chris Oakes was on the premises. Well, at least I’ll be able to smoke with my door open. I made a mental note to check that there was a fire extinguisher handy. Chris had a habit of leaving burning cigars wherever he felt like it. He had once fallen asleep and started a fire in his bed in one of the poshest hotels in San Francisco. The cause, of course, was his cigar. He blamed the hotel. His ranting and raving in the lobby of the hotel almost made the front page of the newspaper. The hotel was very nice when they let us know that they didn’t want him back. Ever.

I took a shortcut to my office so I could avoid executive row because the last person I wanted to see on my day off was Chris Oakes. I stripped off my windbreaker and tossed it on the guest chair and sat down in my chair. I swivelled around to turn on my computer and swivelled back to check my voice messages. I was getting dizzy. There were no notes on my desk from Didrickson with instructions or information so I figured he’d left me a voice message. The voice mail system told me I had two messages, both of which were hang ups. Love it, love it. Two less phone calls I had to return.

The only other place Harold would have left me anything was in his out-basket on his desk so I rummaged around in my desk for the keys to his office. The man was so paranoid about confidentiality he kept his office locked whenever he wasn’t in. The cleaning staff were not allowed to clean his office in the evenings and the furniture in his office was always dusty. Every couple of days or so he would put his wastebasket out in the hall for the cleaners and every couple of months we’d have them in during the day to dust and vacuum.

One of my favourite jobs was shredding all his waste paper. I’d have to schlep the paper in boxes down to the photocopier room and stand in front of the shredder feeding it paper. The dust from the machine was incredible and typically, I would be wearing a black suit. I was waiting for the day that he asked me to eat the paper, rather than shred it to make sure it was properly disposed of. He caught me one day getting one of the secretaries to do the shredding and I almost lost my job. For his next birthday, I was going to buy him a personal Ollie North desktop shredder to save my lungs.

There was nothing of any importance in his out-basket so I locked his office and thought about where I might find Grace.

Grace O’Grady was our internal auditor and she was my hero. Capital H. When I grew up, I wanted to be just like Grace. She was one of the smartest, toughest and funniest women I had ever met. Grace told it like it was and didn’t care who she was telling it to. She had been hired out of retirement by the Chairman of our company’s Audit Committee of the Board of Directors and she reported directly to him, and no-one else. Grace knew the dirt on everyone in the company and knew what closet every skeleton was in.

Her job was to make sure financial controls were followed, procedures were implemented, the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed. As a public company we had legal and financial obligations to our shareholders and Grace made sure we followed the rules. Her only disappointment was that the Chairman of the Audit Committee rarely acted on her recommendations. But she kept at it and took her job very seriously.

Grace was rarely seen around the head office because she was on the road most of the time visiting our regional offices and auditing their books and contracts. When she did make an appearance at our place, tongues started wagging and speculation on her presence was the main topic of discussion. She appeared for every board of directors meeting to make her reports but her presence today signalled to me that Didrickson needed her forensic abilities.

In the past Harold has asked for her assistance on some particularly sticky matters. Something sticky had obviously come up and that’s why she was here. I couldn’t wait to find out.

I stuck my head in a few of the offices to see where she had parked herself and was surprised to find her working at Ev’s desk.