The morning evaporated in a blur of paperwork and phone calls. Macy glanced down at the surface of her desk. From the stack of papers remaining, very little had been accomplished. She wanted to have lunch with Avery about as much as she wanted to have her nails pulled from their beds. But, she’d done much worse things for the sake of her job.
Just because the Bunting contract was out there somewhere dancing in limbo, didn’t mean she could give up. She scrolled through her contacts, looking for the number of the woman she met last month at the Graphic Arts Conference.
When Constance picked up, Macy introduced herself.
“Yes, I remember you. That was quite a display English had,” Constance was pleasant.
“I was hoping I could set up some time to meet with you, so we can discuss your company needs and how I can help you achieve them.”
“That would be great. We’re located just outside D.C., so let me know when you’ll be in the neighborhood.”
Macy pulled up her schedule. “How about next month, on the twelfth. I can be there at nine.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll have my assistant send you some materials to help you get familiar with our offering.”
Macy ended the call, then checked the time. She dialed Gayle next. “How did you make out?”
“No problems. They have it. You could hire me as your courier service. That was easy.”
Macy released the air in her lungs. “Gayle, if you were here right now, I’d kiss you.”
Gayle laughed. “Just remember, you can’t nag me about groceries for six months.”
“It the least I can do. You saved my ass. At least now if Bunting doesn’t like the terms of the contract, it won’t be wholly on my shoulders for not arriving in time.”
She dropped her chin. One hurdle done. She sent Roxy an email, with the good news.
At noon, Avery stepped through her office door. His bright, shiny face said this lunch was something he’d been looking forward to having. She wished she could have shared his enthusiasm, but she had every intention of heeding the words from her horoscope.
“You know, Avery, I’m swamped this morning. Instead of eating lunch I need to drop by the courier. Something is going on over there and I need to know what. When I called them this morning, I didn’t get a satisfactory answer.” She pushed away from the desk to stand. “We can get together later this week.” If she didn’t come up with another excuse before then.
“I think that’s a good idea. I’ll drive. We can pick something up on the way back.”
“That’s okay. I can manage alone.”
“Now you don’t have to.” He stepped aside to allow her to exit the office.
“Are you always this assertive? I’m waiting for you to give me advice on how to breathe.”
“I don’t know if I’d call myself assertive. Efficient does a better job of describing me.” He pushed the elevator button. “If something can be done right the first time, that’s always the option I’m going to take.”
“You didn’t invent that theory. Unless you are bat-shit crazy, that’s the option that ninety percent of the world would naturally take.” She directed her attention to the elevator panel.
The doors parted. She walked into the elevator car ahead of him.
“Have you tried calling the courier? You might be able to save yourself a trip.”
She pushed the lobby button before he could, then pointed her index finger at her head. “You know, I never thought about picking up the phone. I can see why Roxy hired you. Even though this doesn’t concern you, the contract was hand delivered this morning.”
“Good to know.”
“But the one I dropped off at the courier on Friday hasn’t arrived yet. Something is going on over there and I need to find out what it is.
“So why are you mailing another contract?” He pointed to the envelope in her lap.
“It’s a test. If they can’t delivery this contract a second time, then maybe I’ll be able to convince our purchasing department it’s time to switch.”
He nodded twice with a smile that almost took over his face. Who knew he was capable of something so extraordinary? She kept looking, waiting for the smile to fully bloom. In it was the charm that buckled knees.
“I like your sense of humor. At least you’re not as uptight as you appeared that first night in the ballroom.”
How did he go from being gruff one moment and almost easy going the next? She turned her attention on her shoes. Safe territory, seldom did shoes cause her shortness of breath, unless there was a really good sale at Nordstrom’s.
Pipeline Delivery was only a few blocks away. They rode in silence. Leaving her too much time to think about Avery.
He pulled into the lot. Before he could turn off the engine, she opened the car door.
“Wait up. I’m going in with you.”
“I’ve got this.”
He turned off the engine. “I know you’re tough. But, I’m curious.” He climbed out, closed the door, and caught up to her.
“This place is as messy this time as it was on Friday. No wonder they can’t find anything in here.” She managed the disgust in her voice.
“Are you sure we’re in the right location?” Avery straightened his tie while looking around as if he’d stepped in gum. “This explains a lot about what’s been going on.”
A woman, several years younger than Macy, approached the counter. She wore jeans torn at the knees and a t-shirt that stated she was still hung over from last year. “Yeah. Can I help you?” the woman asked without missing a beat on the chewing gum she smacked. Her name tag read Ruth, but she didn’t look like any Ruth Macy had ever met.
“I’d like to get some information on this tracking number. I dropped this package off on Friday morning.” She pushed the piece of paper across the counter.
“Okay.” Ruth slunk away, in no hurry. She wouldn’t move any faster if her butt were on fire.
Macy folded her arms. If this was like the call she made, they’d have a long wait. Why English continued to use such a deficient operation begged investigation.
“Tell me, do you give everyone a hard time or just me?” Avery’s eyes wandered over her. She looked down at her silk slacks and ran her hand over the zipper.
“Everyone. But I saved a little extra for you.”
“Why is that?”
She mocked his pose. “Because you’re so smug. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who emitted so much privilege.”
“Is it privilege or confidence?”
“Actually, I was going to say entitlement, but I thought that might be too much.” She pushed off the counter and stepped away from him. “Whatever it is, you have way too much of it.”
The expression on his face didn’t change. He continued to stare at her with the same expression.
“Here you go.” Ruth handed her a sheet of paper. “It will be delivered tomorrow or Wednesday.”
“Why isn’t this package arriving today as requested? I paid for early morning express service. This is unacceptable.” Avery said, no longer looking amused.
Ruth shrugged her shoulders and released a loud smack of her gum.
Macy pulled the duplicate paperwork from her bag. “Can I mail this now with the assurance that it will arrive tomorrow?”
Ruth looked at the clock on the wall before strolling to a nearby desk to glance at a bulletin board. All the while she continued to smack her gum. Her nonchalance was maddening. She returned to the counter. “No. This won’t get there any faster than the other one. If you’d brought it in this morning, before ten, then maybe we could.”
“Can you get your manager out here?” Macy couldn’t control the anger in her voice.
“He’s not in yet.”
Macy closed her eyes and inhaled. She managed to count to five before turning to Avery and saying, “You see what I’m working with here?”
He grabbed her by the elbow. “Let’s get out of here before the top of your head blows off.” He steered her out the door and back to the car. “I think we’ve earned that lunch, along with something stronger than a soda to drink.”
In the car she buckled her seatbelt. “You know that contract isn’t going to arrive either.” Macy said with a sigh.
“It doesn’t matter. Bunting has the contract and you’ve got enough information on this courier operation to suggest a change.” Avery started the engine and backed out of the space. “The Bunting contract’s late arrival is a company failure, not a personal one. It’s a wonder they’re still in business.”
“They’ve had some turnover in personnel. They weren’t always this bad.”
At lunch she sat across the table from Avery. “It’s a good thing you pulled me out of Pipeline before I lost my temper,” she said.
“You mean, that’s not what I already saw?” he chuckled.
“I could have been worse.” She took a bite from her sandwich.
“I’ll have to make a note of that and remember not to get on your bad side. At least not again. But we are a team now.” He lifted his soda as if he was toasting her, before taking a sip.
She nodded. “You’re joking, right? I mean after some of the things you said, don’t you think my reaction to you was justified?”
“I’m not usually so aggressive.” He looked down at his half-eaten sandwich. “My father has coveted the English account for years and I’m the one to get it. So, I guess I feel a need to outdo him. Show him I’m a better lawyer than he was.”
His confession shocked her. Maybe he wasn’t as cocky as she thought. If she wasn’t careful, really careful, she could fall for his charm, his good looks, his warmth, and the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen on a man. “Are you and your father close?”
“I’m not sure I’d use the word close. He’s my father. I used to look up to him. Growing up in his shadow wasn’t easy.” He picked up a French fry but put it back down. “That’s enough about me…”
“We had better get back to the office. It’s getting late.”
“Before we go, tell me why English calls contract renewal Dragon.”
She twisted a curl around her finger. “Roxy likes to give projects special names. That way in a word the whole team knows what she’s referring to. The Dragon negotiations is that time of year when several contracts need to be renewed. Instead of spacing them out, Roxy likes to do them all and get them over with. It’s easy for her, all she has to do is basically sign contracts, it’s the rest of the team that gets stressed.”
“Have you thought of changing it?”
“I’m working on it. But most of our contracts run on calendar years, so whether they’re two or three years, they’ll still come due during this period.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“I need to get back.” She stood and pulled her purse on her shoulder. She wasn’t ready to pour her heart out to him. The less people knew about you, the less they could use against you. She didn’t tell every Tom, Dick and Avery, her father was a total ass-hole and had screwed up her ability to have a decent relationship with the opposite sex.
Back in the safety of her office, she collapsed in her chair. Working with Avery was going to be more of a challenge than she’d calculated.
She shook his image away. A quick scan of her email said nothing had changed since she’d left. Her assistant had left a pile of messages on her desk. One message was from Carl Buntings assistant, confirming the contract arrival. For just a few minutes she needed the world to stop, to give her time to map out the pieces and gain some clarity. From the moment Roxy hired the Malveaux firm, there seemed to be an onslaught of problems, and she wasn’t fast enough to bat them down. Regardless of all the flowery talk over lunch about them being a team, working together and starting over, she wasn’t falling for any of it.
This pace was unsustainable, but this wasn’t a race with rest stops at designated intervals where she could slow down to catch her breath before continuing. Either she was in it all the way, or she could give up and go back home.
She glanced at the time on the right corner of her computer screen. It was only two in the afternoon, and she was already wrung out like wet laundry. She closed her eyes and massaged her lids.
Dread crept up her back. Pouring over the sales numbers this morning produced nothing. Every invoice, every voucher, and every expenditure was accounted for, but the numbers refused to add up.
She pushed away from the desk and stood, stretching her arms overhead. Maybe she was trying to apply logic where none existed. Balancing the accounts wasn’t like her checking account where she was the only one making the deposits and withdrawals. The whole sales team charged expenses to her codes. But she had to approve everything, which meant she should have been able to track each item.
The phone startled her. She yanked the receiver off the cradle. “Macy speaking.”
“This is Debra in accounting. I’m calling to set up a meeting with you and the auditors. Are you available on Friday, the nineteenth?” Debra’s clipped tone was all business. Any other time talking to her would have been enjoyable, but not today. Not when she needed more time.
“I’m leaving for a business trip and won’t be back on Monday.” She reached for her calendar. “How about the following Tuesday, the twenty-third?”
Debra paused for a moment. “We want to get this completed as soon as possible, but if you’re away, I guess we have no choice. We’ll review your accounts in advance. If we have any questions, I’ll reach you by email. If all goes well on the twenty-second, you can just sign-off.”
Macy opened her mouth. The review wouldn’t go well. But those words wouldn’t move beyond her tongue. They sat in her throat like a boulder. “Yeah, sure. See you then.” She hung up the phone and flopped back into her seat.
“Are you okay? You look like you saw a zombie.” Avery stood in her doorway.
She needed to have a little talk with her heart tonight as soon as she got home. A couple nice conversations were no reason to take him out of co-worker category and place him in friend category. She knew better. Just because they’d found common ground on which to work didn’t mean he was any more trustworthy than the corned beef sandwich they’d shared at lunch. He might corral his rough critiques, but that didn’t mean he was her ally.
“Are you going to stop in my office to talk to me every time you walk by?” she asked.
“That’s my goal.”
“You’re not going to get much done. And we have new legal counsel who frowns on that. You had better watch out.”
“Ouch, girl. Your words pack a punch. I thought you would have forgiven me by now.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
He came in and took the seat in front of her desk. “Between the audit and the Dragon negotiations, I don’t know how you guys can juggle so much. Does English always schedule things this close? The staff is stretched too thin.”
“Listen, about the audit…” Macy started.
“What about the audit?” He perched on the edge of the chair.
“It’s nothing.” She waved her hand, dismissing her comment. “We have a good team here at English. They’re used to this manic pace. You’ll get used to it, too.”
“I hear that audit group on the fifth floor is brutal this year.”
Macy’s stomach constricted. “They’re brutal every year. But we…the staff…manage.”
Long after Avery was gone, she continued to stare at the chair he left empty. When she was growing up, she couldn’t wait to be in control. No more taking orders from anyone else and no more worrying about what others thought. But life couldn’t have turned out more unlike what she’d hoped. Control still eluded her. The only thing that seemed to matter is what others thought of her. She released the breath she was holding.
“Hey, Michelle, can you come in here?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” There was no urgency in Michelle’s voice.
Macy clicked several icons on her computer, dividing the screen in half. With the mouse, she examined the numbers on the spreadsheet against the accounting entries. She scribbled down the record numbers on the legal pad before studying the transactions.
“Michelle, are you coming?”
Several moments later, Michelle stuck her head in the door. “What’s up?”
“Have you had any luck in tracking the money?”
“I haven’t had any time to look. But I’ll get on it.”
Macy bit back her disappointment. “Diving into the numbers is your priority.” With her elbow planted on the desk, she pointed at Michelle. “I need answers today.”
“Can’t today, Macy.” She sunk her teeth into a chocolate bar. “I’m leaving early today. I’ve got something to take care of this afternoon.”
“We’ve talked about this before, Michelle. You need to clear time out of the office with me. I need your attention on this right now.”
“Yeah, I know, but this just came up. I’ll get to it in the morning. Promise.”
“Are you sure I’ve seen all the vouchers that needed approval?”
Michelle looked over her shoulder, back at her desk before returning her attention. “Yeah. I’m sure.” She looked over her shoulder, again.
“Is everyone available for the call this afternoon?”
“Yes. The conference call is all set up.”
“Okay, Michelle. Go ahead, but you need to come in early tomorrow and get working on this.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Michelle said, already halfway out the door.
Macy rubbed her forehead. Right now wasn’t the time to fire Michelle and start interviewing for a new assistant. The world needed to stop spinning for just a few moments. Her job depended on finding that money. She picked up the phone and dialed accounting.
“Connie, I need your help,” she said. “Can you run the monthly balance on my accounts, starting with January?”
“You want everything? That’s a lot.”
“Yeah. How soon can you get it to me?”
“Give me a day or two.”
“Connie, one more thing. I’m seeing a lot of new accounts. Several that I don’t recognize. I know we’re going after market share, but I didn’t expect this many. If I send you a list of the names, what information can you provide on them?”
“Well, I can tell you when the account was set up, by who, and purchasing activity. What else would you need?”
“That’s a good start. Thanks.”
Macy ended the call, but the nagging didn’t subside.