Balloons overwhelmed the office of Deschanel Media Group, hundreds of them. Mostly the run-of-the-mill packs of a hundred, inflated with a rented helium tank, but also some of those metallic Mylar numbers with various messages printed on their faces. Congratulations! You Did It! #1 Guy! You’re a Winner!
Evangeline had been rolling her eyes so hard all morning that she had a headache. The busybody secretaries were responsible, of course. They’d called no less than four meetings in the boardroom about the party, squirreling themselves away with giggles and whispers and signs reading DO NOT ENTER when they were inside.
“Fuck off,” Evangeline whispered whenever she passed by their trite acts of subterfuge planning. The middle-aged women—the DMG Sewing Circle, as Evangeline thought of them—either didn’t understand the head of the company employing them at all or they understood all too well and thought they were being cute.
Some jackass nearly scared her off her feet by blowing a kazoo in her ear as she passed. “Ah, fuck off, John,” she hissed, her new mantra. She’d co-opted the word fuck into her life the way someone with more warmth might embrace a foster child.
Her own desk was covered with confetti, and Evangeline thought to herself that she would commit murder for less.
But, for all of her annoyance… for all of Augustus’ annoyance… it hadn’t been lost to Evangeline that everyone else was having fun. They’d earned this celebration, which wasn’t just for the CEO, but for all of them, because they’d all been part of this journey.
Volume Six of Deschanel Magazine was printing in two weeks, and this time, in forty cities and towns across the state of Louisiana. On top of that, Augustus was gearing up to sign a deal to bring the magazine to three more states by winter: Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia. The office had every reason to celebrate, and celebrating they were.
The only one missing was the guest of honor.
Evangeline meandered through the finance area on her way to check on her brother. She didn’t need a crystal ball to know exactly how she’d find him: shades drawn, head down, working on the next moment instead of experiencing the one he was in.
She grunted as she tripped and took four steps to right herself, catching her hand on the edge of a file cabinet. Looking back, she saw the culprit… a handbag, sitting too close to the aisle, instead of in a drawer, where it belonged. Then came the soft apology.
“I rearrange my desk. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.” Ekatherina enunciated each word slowly and clearly, working to reduce any sign of her strong Russian accent.
“Yeah, okay. It’s fine,” Evangeline said. She rubbed her knee, which had hit the metal cabinet on her way to saving herself. “Everything going okay with all you math geeks?”
Ekatherina’s mouth twitched. Her spine stiffened. “Your brother’s business performs very well. He asks me for advice. Investments. I give him advice, good advice. He appreciates my advice.”
“You’re giving my brother direction on where and how to spend his money?”
“Yes, I know much about this, too. Your brother’s margins earned him back his investment and then some. He will be a very rich man. He needs someone like me so he doesn’t lose it all.”
Even taking into account Ekatherina’s clipped English, Evangeline suspected there was far more at hand than what was being said. She hadn’t really considered that, to do her job, Ekatherina would need access to confidential and provocative information, like her brother’s income. Her interest in it was clear… it was the first thing she said when asked about her job, and Evangeline knew your first answer to a question hit closest to the truth.
Augustus had worked too damn hard for some gold-digging opportunist to slide in and swindle him out of everything. He’d also lost too much to survive another significant disappointment.
She ground her teeth. Telling Augustus her concerns had created a bit of a rift between them, one she didn’t like at all. She could live with it, if he listened and exercised more caution, but he rarely did. He was a man with few blind spots, but Ekatherina Vasilyeva was a big one.
Evangeline would need to find a way to handle this problem on her own.
“Hey, you’ve been here six months now, right?”
Ekatherina nodded. Her cheeks were still aflame from the horror of tripping her boss’ sister, though any other woman in the office would have blown it off already. Evangeline wondered if purse-tripping was a capital crime with a trip to the gulag back home.
A flicker of an idea passed through her mind.
She stole a half-drunk flute of champagne from a nearby table and toasted her. “I guess we’re not done celebrating then.”
“Thank you.” Ekatherina hung her head meekly, but as she did, Evangeline caught the fire in her eyes, and the grin she struggled to hide.
Her disdain for Augustus’ pet burned hotter than ever. This “contrition” was no more than an act, meant to disarm. It had almost worked on Evangeline, until she pressed just a bit at the surface, to find what she’d been looking for.
Augustus believed Evangeline was going to MIT in the fall. Hell, Evangeline believed Evangeline was going to MIT in the fall.
But her work here wasn’t quite done, and days like this put this into finer emphasis.
“Hey, Ekatherina, question.”
The young woman looked up. She regarded Evangeline with her wide doe eyes.
“Your work VISA that we’re sponsoring. When’s it up?”
“December.”
Evangeline nodded. Smiled. “Right. So you only have six more months.”
She pivoted and left the little tart’s reaction to her imagination.
Augustus should have joined them for the celebration. They were all here because of him and his vision, and their hard work and belief in that vision had put his magazine on the map. A good leader would be clinking glasses and shaking hands. Delivering individual anecdotes to each of them, to show he’d paid attention and what they’d done mattered to him.
He was ashamed to admit himself incapable of these social graces. He’d hoped that would change with age, as he grew into the businessman he’d worked to be, but the opposite had happened and he feared he was heading down the path of a recluse. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been home to see his mother. Worse, he’d blown her off this week when she was in town looking for homes. He was supposed to help. He told her he had to work.
It wasn’t a lie. Nor was it the truth simply because of all the work to do. The best thing Augustus had done for his business was hire the right people, and because of them, he could have gone home every night on time, had he wanted. But he needed to work, because it was the only way he knew how to feel alive.
Augustus didn’t know what was wrong with himself. He didn’t have the energy to dig deep enough to find out.
The party had died hours ago, and then the revelers had all retreated to their homes, their families. There was a world beyond these doors, but Augustus preferred the comfort of night, both stepping in and out of the office when darkness was still king.
He packed up his briefcase and turned to leave when a figure in the door startled him.
Augustus stared at her. He presumed she was like him, always preferring things just so, and he couldn’t think of a single night when she’d come to see him first. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. He would grab his things, lock his door, then pass by her desk to escort her out.
“Sorry if I scared you, Mr. Deschanel,” she said. She held her bag in both hands, and it was half as big as she was. She practically drowned in her too-big blazer with the shoulder pads that made her resemble a linebacker.
“No, you’re fine, Ekatherina,” he said quickly. “Do you need anything?”
“Usually we leave at eleven and it is almost eleven thirty. Is everything okay?”
“Of course it is.” Yet she was right. He was thirty minutes behind his usual schedule, and that was unlike him. He chalked it up to the chaos of the day. Tomorrow would be back to normal.
Augustus approached the door and she didn’t move. He didn’t want to be rude, but she blocked his exit. When she realized, she stepped back several steps with a guilty look.
He locked the office and they moved through the office, toward the stairs, as they did every night, except this night was different. She’d come to him. He was late.
His heart raced. He felt sick at how such a small wrinkle in his routine had set his anxiety on fire.
Once outside, Ekatherina did one more thing that was atypical. Instead of her perfunctory good night, she attempted conversation.
“I do not think your sister likes me.”
“Evangeline?” Of course it was Evangeline, but how else could he wrap his mind around how unusual her words were? She never asked him anything and never offered what wasn’t asked. Everything between them was scripted, like all things in his life.
“Da,” she said, then shook her head. “I mean yes. She thinks I cheat you of money.”
“She said that?”
“I try to explain I only want to help you, but I do not think I say it right.”
Augustus sighed into the cool spring night. “Don’t worry about Evangeline. She’s protective and lacks delicacy. I wouldn’t ask for your help if I didn’t value your experience.”
“Really?”
The innocence in her eyes as the question hit her lips brought a smile to his face. “Yes, really.”
“That is a relief.” She breathed out a furl of white air.
He touched her arm. “If there is a concern with your ethics, or performance, I won’t send my sister to tell you. I’ll tell you myself.”
“I know I am silly sometimes,” Ekatherina said. “But I do not want to be. I take pride in my work. I take it very seriously. I only want to make you happy.”
“You do,” Augustus said. Then and only then did he realize the tone of the conversation had shifted. “Well, I best be off.”
“Da. Yes, me as well.”
He started to wish her a good night and then decided to ask the question brewing in his mind for months. “Ekatherina… your family. Have you seen them since you came to the United States?”
Her eyes shifted away. She wasn’t prepared for the question. “No, Mr. Deschanel. I cannot afford to bring them here. But I save money and I will do as I promised and bring them all here.”
Augustus wanted to ask her more, but he’d seen how painful even the cursory question of her family had been.
Whatever he wanted to know, he’d need to discover on his own.
“Good night, Ekatherina.”
“And you, Mr. Deschanel.”