The Plan (11 page)

Close this deal. Last a week, or a month if I can.

I can play. I can deal.

Perfect. Quiet. Docile. Opinionless. Sterile.

Act as if the COYA file created me in a lab.

Whatever it takes. Whatever he needs.

30 days. At most.

An Emma-ectomy.

That is the new program.

I have a new plan.

9:45 p.m.

*
Location
: Hyatt—Top floor. Room 928. Across from Canon’s.

*
Room
: Could not be more beige.

*
Laptop
: Charging.

*
Suitcase
: Unpacked.

*
Bath
: Drawn. And cold.

W
HY
I
S
M
Y
B
ATH
C
OLD
? Because I, purchaser of sadist shoes, needed to soak after wearing cheese graters on my feet yesterday and then traveling and walking and sitting through meetings and touring facilities and impersonating a pack mule today. ’Twas not meant to be.

Instead I have spent the last two hours typing up messages as Canon rattled them off in rapid succession.

He asked for bar charts. I generated them while he shaved.

He changed his mind to line graphs. I converted them while he took a phone call out in the hall.

He complained that he had left his blue tie at home. I produced the spare one I’d brought from the office.

Ten minutes ago, he’d loosened his tie, wrung his hands, and made an aside that he couldn’t relax. I prepared a cup of chamomile tea and texted Clara that I owed her big time for all the ridiculous stuff she packed. He began drinking it and asked why I was still in his room.

You’re welcome.

“When would you like the day to start tomorrow?”

“Their offices open at eight. We will get there at seven.”

No fashionably late for that guy. I tried to cover my surprise but failed.

He explained, “It’s best to see who arrives when, who’s dedicated. Actions over words.” His fingers twisted and pulled free the already loosened knot in his tie. His upturned chin and neck stretched above the shirt collar. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing smoothly. I swallowed too.

I nodded and gathered my things. “Pleasant dreams, Mr. Canon,” I said, turning to face him from his doorway.

He tilted his head almost like a dog that is pretty sure you have something behind your back. “Good night, Ms. Baker.”

Now I’m draining the tub while I hang the rest of my clothes. The cocktail dresses go in the bathroom in the hope that steam will help with the wrinkles. Suits go to the closest.

While the tub refills, I place our breakfast orders. The hotel supplied coffee is a total loss, as they really don’t have a large selection. I order the cream and sweetener anyway. Because my middle name is Prepared, I brought a bag of his coffee. Muffins and eggs and some type of pig. I have no way of knowing if he is a protein or carb morning person, so I’m covering all the bases. Orange juice for him. Grape, apple, and cranberry for me in case he hates OJ.

They send up the in-room coffee pot, and I consider brewing a practice pot, but I don’t want my whole room to reek of it.

I bring my cell into the bathroom because I just have a feeling.

The psychic network needs to recruit me because about three-point-five minutes into my well-deserved bath, he calls.

“Hello.” I hold still, trying not to slosh water. I have suddenly become conscious about the drawbacks of being in the tub.

Tub means nude.

“Why would you take the second quarter P&L with you?”

“I didn’t, sir. It’s in your case, behind the personnel lists.”

“If I had it, I wouldn’t be calling you.”

“Everything is in alpha order in your case. It’s been in there all evening.”

“I need it.”

“Fine. I will be there in under ten minutes.”

“That is an especially long time to walk across the hall. No matter. It is not here.”

“I will look through my things and call you back, sir.”

“I will wait.”

“Oh, surely you have better things to do than listen to me look for papers. I will call you back in a few minutes.”

“Are you unable to interpret certain social cues, Ms. Baker? It should be obvious to anyone that I am irritated, and yet you persist.”

Sigh. I look at my bubbles.
So long bubbles.

I learned this on the day I took this position, didn’t I? Do what he wants when he wants it even if it doesn’t make sense.

“Of course, Mr. Canon,” I acquiesce…

…and then stand right the fuck up in the bath, water sloshing and splashing and then gurgling loudly when I hold the receiver down near the drain. With a metallic thump, I flip the lever so the water starts to go down.

I pinch the phone between my ear and shoulder while I dry off. The terry is soft, but it still rustles against me. I might’ve made sure it brushed across the phone a couple of times, too.

“Ms. Baker, um, I will check here again. I will call back if I find it.”

“As you wish, sir. I will finish looking here, and then, if need be, come to your room,” I say, and smile what is probably a very wicked smile before adding, “as soon as I get dressed.”

I throw on the first thing I find and get myself into his room almost immediately.

The file is there. Slipped down in his case. It actually is hard to see, and I’m a bit panicked as I first begin to look.

Not sure what he expected me to show up in when I went to his room, but I don’t think it was pajama pants and a tank. He’s still in his slacks and dress shirt. I think he might sleep in them.

Hell, he may not require sleep. The advances of cyborg technology and all that.

Day of Employment:
376

4:45 a.m.

*
Bedspread
: Back on bed.

*
Coffee
: Set to brew in one hour.

*
Clothes
: Yoga pants and Mr. Bubbles T-shirt.

*
Location
: Hotel fitness center.

I
’M
W
ONDERING
W
HAT
cosmic missteps I’ve taken to now find myself perpetually awake before God.

I have committed myself to making personal progress. Hitting the gym early enough to be done and leave it before the sun cracks over the horizon tests my resolve.

Further, the object of my resolution, the point of it, was to get Canon to notice me. That boost of confidence that puts a spring in one’s step. The positive aura that translates as sex appeal. That is what I was going for.

It’s all for naught now. Reminding myself that I was merely trying to garner his attention for motivational purposes—that it would be really sick to otherwise hitch my star to such a dysfunctional wagon—is getting harder to reconcile when the alarm goes off.

How did it come to this? To this point of a desperate, pitiful, embarrassing type of thing you would only admit to yourself and the last amber drops echoing in a bottle of what used to be Jack?

Memory blocks rearrange and stack as I recall my initial time at the company, time when I was centered and the existence of one Alaric Canon was comfortably part of the vast unknown. Surely I was not so transfixed immediately. Surely not…

Day of Employment: 1
7:55 a.m.

*
Bag
: Wallet, picture of best friend and self, makeup, notepad, lunch, hairclip.

*
Clothes
: Red wrap dress, red pumps.

*
Hair
: I don’t even want to talk about it.

I L
EFT
T
WENTY
M
INUTES
early today. That should’ve been plenty of time for normal traffic and most emergency circumstances.

But no.

The lot was scraped down to glaring ice. The windshield would not defrost. Time out in the wind has taken a toll on my hair; it is now inexplicable. Everyone drove too fast or too slow. Hit every light. Encountered a school bus route that I didn’t know about during my route test run yesterday.

I should learn not to even bother with being prepared.

The best laid plans oft go awry. Oft? What the fuck is
oft
all about? Too much going on to finish the entire word?

That’s all just a nice way of saying one is screwed regardless.

Life’s a bitch, and she has several sisters.

Now I’m riding the elevator while it stops on nearly every floor. People file in and out.

One person gets on and rides it up one whole level. I suppress a scream.

Some guy behind me huffs irritably. I keep my eyes trained on the numbers. Climb. Stop.

We’re over capacity at one point, I’m certain of it. I feel my backside get pressed into the person behind me.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

“Not your fault.” A deep voice. A soft reply. The flesh behind my ear tingles. Instinct, for reasons I don’t want to examine, tells me to fold into the man behind me.

Then I realize that this man is probably getting a face full of my frizzy hair. Mortifying.

The doors open for my floor and I bolt, never looking back.

10:11 a.m.

“T
HIS
I
S
T
HE
B
REAK
R
OOM
,” Madeline states the obvious. I don’t mind. It’s comforting.

“The coffee is on the honor system. There’s usually a fundraiser for someone’s school children if you want snacks, otherwise the vending machines are here to price gouge you.” Madeline goes on explaining and tosses a handful of change in the collection jar next to the coffee pot.

“The refrigerators are cleaned out every Monday,” she says and begins to pour a coffee from one of the pots. “You can get some really nice st—”

A blond woman with a severe look barrels through the room toward where we stand. The crowd parts like the Red Sea, clearing a path for her, but conversation continues without pause. Madeline stands to the side, holding her coffee pot aloft and smiling cryptically at me. I’m sure I look confused.

The blonde reaches for a pot with a masking tape ring on the handle, pours a cup swiftly with one hand while adding what looks to be specially reserved creamer and sweetener. She turns, lips pursing tightly, and heads out of the room.

“Damn it!” The blond woman switches the cup to her other hand and sucks her now free—and probably scalded—hand into her mouth, then shakes it off, all the while walking swiftly away.

My hands float out, a silent request for explanation.

Madeline, smiling, resumes pouring her coffee. “That is Mr. Canon’s assistant.” She pours in enough sugar to trigger early onset diabetes and leans back on the counter. “Well, for the moment.”

“Oh, has she been having trouble?” That explains why she seemed so nervous, why everyone got out of her way.

“Heck, no. She’s doing exceptionally well. She’s lasted for almost a month. May even set a record.”

I decide I need to stay far, far away from this Canon person.

2:58 p.m.

“P
AY
U
P
.” A thin young man leans over Madeline’s cubicle wall with his palm up.

“Hold your horses there.” Madeline is chewing on a marker and looking over a colorful chart. “Yep, it is you.” She looks up at the guy and then hands him an envelope from her desk.

I do my best to acclimate myself to this new computer program, but their exchange has definitely piqued my interest.

“Sweet!” He fist pumps and then looks back at me rather shamefacedly. “Oh, you must be Emma. I’m Bert Stiles.” He extends his hand, and I shake it. “You also must think I’m terribly morbid, benefitting from the misfortune of others.”