Eventually, I make my way back to my desk. Sitting down in front of the computer, I slide my hand over the mouse pad, activating the screen. Five years ago, as my screensaver I uploaded a picture of one of my best friends nailing a pipe, the water the most crazy color of blue, arcing over his head as he grinned straight at the camera. At me. I’d been right there with him, sitting in that wave. That I’d even managed to snap off the image was a complete fluke. I got rolled while he rode the thing out. Afterwards we’d gotten blind drunk and fucked some tourists from the mainland to celebrate.
It took me all of four months to change the screensaver to corporate, plain blue. It just depressed the ever-loving shit out of me to look at it, to see the pure joy and adrenalin on my friend’s face, and to not be able to experience it for myself anymore. I shake my head, turning my attention to other things.
Email. I’m meant to be focusing on my email. Clicking on the desktop icon, I scroll from the bottom up, making sure to reply to people in the order in which the messages came through. I’m about to click on the first message when my eyes catch on something closer to the top of the screen. A name. Her name. The girl from my dreams.
“What the fuck?”
Essie Floyd.
I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that’s been waiting for her to email, or call, or to get in touch. Just drop back into my life somehow. It’s been a remote hope, one of those things you keep tucked safely away in the back of your mind that you tell yourself is probably never going to happen, and that it would be for the best if it didn’t.
And yet, here it is, happening. After all this time, she’s reaching out.
I start reading.
Mr. Callahan,
My name is Essie Floyd. I’ve been working at Mendel, Goldstein & Hofstadter for several years now, but I’ve never had the pleasure of directly working for you until now. Mr. Goldstein has been shifting around some of the internal roles at the firm, and he’s got me doing a few bits and pieces for the Callahan Corporation. I found some forms this morning that are dated from February three years ago. They’re annotated for your signature, but it seems that they haven’t been signed yet. I was wondering if I could bring them by your office?
Regards,
Essie Floyd
I read the message again. And then I read it one more time. What on earth is she up to? Essie may not realize it, but I know perfectly well who she is. She’s the sister of Vaughn Floyd, the guy who lost his life when my brother fell asleep at the wheel. Suddenly finding myself the head of Callahan Corporation has afforded me some luxuries that I wouldn’t normally have had. Such as: keeping an eye on Essie all these years. Not me, personally, of course. I’ve got a few people—Arturo used to be one of them—who have kept an eye on her. I’m sure there were much more qualified applicants to the legal secretary job at M, G & H, but when I got word that Essie had applied, I made sure she was hired. Because while I was living thousands of miles away from the family I lost, Essie, as I found out later, was very close to her brother. They’d been living together in some shitty apartment, her waitressing at a little café, him working two jobs, one as a delivery truck driver the other as a bike mechanic. Neither of them were earning much. It wasn’t difficult to surmise that the two of them depended on each other. Had been from a young age. I frequently tried to imagine my own brother and I having a relationship like that and the idea of it seemed laughable.
It probably sounds psychotic that I’ve been keeping an eye on a woman like this, someone I don’t even know, but I couldn’t help myself.
That day, the day of the funerals, I saw her across the cemetery. We made eye contact and that was it. I felt like I was falling face first down a dark, bottomless hole and I was never going to climb the hell back out again. She hated me. I could see it so plainly on her face. She fucking hated me, and that awful expression she wore burned its way into my brain. I haven’t been able to shake it since. I made a decision that I was going to make her life better somehow right there and then. I was going to make sure she didn’t suffer any further if I could prevent it.
Much like staying here and running the business, it’s not something that I necessarily want to be doing, but I feel I have to. Perhaps because I wanted to apologize, even though I wasn’t the one who was driving. Perhaps it was because I could relate—we both lost our entire families that day.
I look back to the computer screen and hit reply.
Essie,
Thank you for your due diligence. I’d be very pleased if you could bring the documents by for me to sign. Three years is a long time to have paperwork incomplete.
I will be free tomorrow afternoon, should this suit you.
Regards,
A. Callahan.
I hit send, and my fingertips feel like they’re sweating. What the hell is wrong with me? I shouldn’t be engaging with this girl. Not really. While my investigators have been keeping an eye on her, they’ve witnessed too many disturbing incidences to count. Binge drinking. Minor drug addiction. The guys that go in and out of her apartment haven’t exactly been stand up members of society. I stopped wanting to know about that part after a while. I had my guys monitor her, make sure she was safe, but I didn’t want to know every time she took a new guy home with her. It made me feel….I don’t know. It made me feel shitty, for some reason. The door knocks, thankfully drawing me away from thoughts of Essie fucking other guys. “Come in.”
It opens, and Bridget’s blonde head appears. “Morning, Mr. Callahan,” she says brightly, stepping into the room.
I minimize the open email on my desktop. “Hey.” I’ve stopped telling her that she can call me Aidan. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I do, she’s still going to refer to me as Mr. Callahan. Makes me feel like my fucking father.
The granddaughter of my father’s good friend and former colleague, Jens Nordahl, Bridget’s a rangy, eager-faced girl of twenty-two. I think Jens and his family are hoping she’ll be the one to make me settle down. I’m not even entirely sure what her official job title here is; if I had to guess I’d say she’s my executive assistant’s assistant. Seeing as I inherited Gloria, my father’s ancient E.A., it’s good to have some younger energy around.
And she does have a killer rack.
“How are you?” she asks. “Do you need any coffee?”
“No, I’m all set. Thank you, though.”
“Okay.” She looks mildly disappointed. “Are you hungry? Is there anything else I could get you?”
“I’m fine, Bridget. Thank you.”