Chapter 8
8
“What?” I finally snap.
It’s Friday afternoon, but the weekend has never felt so far away. I’ve been ignoring the group’s weighted stares and hushed whispers ever since the last department happy hour. It’s ironic that they thought I’d quit because I holed up in my private office for a month, but over the course of two days, they’ve been taking turns knocking on my door to check on me.
They follow me like I’m the Pied Piper of Chester. It can’t be my breasts luring them from their cubicles. I’m wearing a turtleneck paired with frumpy business slacks. No heels.
Wouldn’t want to get reported to HR again after all.
Finley shakes his head and glances away from where I’m standing with the coffee pot in midair.
“We’re just wondering when Mommy and Daddy are going to kiss and make up,” Oscar admits with a nonchalant shrug.
“What?” I shriek.
“It was a joke,” Joel insists, slapping Oscar on the arm.
I point my thumb at myself. “I am not your mother.”
Kevin tips his head to the side. “Okay, but sometimes I call Pete Daddy Carrington when he gets really mad. ”
“To his face?” I ask with more than a little horror.
“Nooooooo.” Kevin shakes his head. “I’m not that stupid.”
I’m starting to understand why Peter feels like he manages a frat house.
“So, listen.” Finley clasps his hands together on the table then leans forward like he’s about to deliver the identity of the R&D mole on a proverbial silver platter. “We’ve all been talking. You won’t admit anything, but we know Peter did something to you at happy hour. You walked back into the bar wearing his jacket, but you also had tears running down your face.”
I mentally kick myself for that illogical display of emotion. I should have either pulled myself together in the ladies’ room or left the bar entirely.
“We figure we can take him.” Finley leans back in his chair. “You give us the word, and we’ll take care of it. He might be bigger than us, but it’s one against nine.”
I blink at him as his offer settles into place. The entirety of the R&D team is willing to take on their boss. This goes against the very fabric of my understanding. Of all my experiences.
“You would do that? For me?” There has to be a catch. I just don’t know it yet.
Oscar shrugs. “The easier option would be to tell your buddy, Goulding, about what an overbearing ass he hired as director. He could take care of the problem for you. Easily.”
Chet already knows about the problem. He’s hired me to take care of it for him. He doesn’t know how personal this is for me. I’m too embarrassed to admit it to him. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing his prediction came true.
I was stupid for someone.
I’d much rather focus on Chet’s other prediction. Even though it hurt—it still hurts—I’m moving on.
I take a seat at the table as I sip my coffee, pondering this. Now that the ghost of Peter’s betrayal is out in the open, I realize I’ve overlooked some very important factors in my present situation.
Chet is the type to leave no stone unturned. Surely, he noticed that my and Peter’s time at MIT overlapped. He has to have realized that we were in the same, small, niche department of bioengineering artificial intelligence. Why would he assume that Peter is a complete stranger to me? That I’m wholly unbiased in this investigation?
“Well?” Joel prompts, jarring me out of my thoughts. “What do you want to do? It’s been a few days of walking on eggshells around here, and I can’t take it much longer.”
Something doesn’t feel right about this whole situation. My gut tells me that Peter isn’t the mole. And the fact that the entire R&D team wants to overthrow their evil overlord also doesn’t sit right with me.
It’s odd that logic is telling me that these unsettled feelings are valid.
“Tell me more about Peter,” I ask my coworkers, determined to unravel at least one of these coiled threads in my chest. “As a boss, I mean.”
“I already told you everything you need to know,” Joel reminds me with a chuckle. “Exacting. Asshole.”
I make a rolling motion with my hand. “Yes, yes. I remember. In what ways, precisely? How is he an exacting asshole?”
Finley frowns. It reminds me of Peter, regrettably. “Our first week at Chester was nothing but a series of expectations seminars.”
That doesn’t sound so bad to me. I prefer knowing expectations at the beginning of any given task.
“What were the outlined expectations?”
Oscar sighs. “He basically showed us PowerPoint presentations about how to act like adults. It was ridiculous. Like going back to kindergarten. ”
I stifle the urge to sigh with frustration. “Can you be more specific?”
Joel squints like he’s trying to remember said specifics. “All of us were hired at the same time, so it was a group of nine guys. Most of the information was about how to appropriately treat women in the workplace though.”
I raise my eyebrows at this information. I refuse to read anything more into it without details. My emotions have overridden my logic enough for the past few days. For the past few years. “Go on.”
“Things like no commenting on appearance or flirting at the office,” Oscar mumbles with an eyeroll. “One day he actually had Carly come in to the R&D engineering team to give us a presentation on sexual harassment in the workplace.”
Fortunately, Carly chooses this moment to enter the breakroom.
“Is this true?” I ask her.
“Yep.” She nods as she heads toward the coffee pot. “I was so honored. Most men don’t understand that even cute nicknames or terms of endearment are a form of misogyny. Pete seemed to get it though.” She frowns at her mug. “At least, I thought he did.”
I frown, too. None of this data supports my hypothesis of Peter being an asshole. Exacting, yes. Unfortunately, all in good ways. Mostly. Maybe. Kind of.
From my perspective, I appreciate all the ways that he’s exerted his influence. My perspective isn’t the only one that matters.
“I don’t understand. If you all dislike him and his efforts so much, then why do you go out every week with him? Why not exclude him and use that time to vent your frustrations to each other? ”
The other PhD candidates at MIT did exactly that at the weekly two-dollar pitcher nights hosted at the local dive bar.
The guys exchange guilty glances.
It’s Finley who confesses, “Weekly happy hour was actually Pete’s idea.”
I cling to a thread of desperate pettiness as I turn toward Carly, who hasn’t attended the only two happy hours I’ve been to. None of the other departments attend. It’s seemingly only for the engineers. “Did he never invite you?”
“He invited everyone in the building,” she explains. “I don’t go because I have a standing date with my fiancé every Wednesday night.”
“Peter was the only coworker who didn’t attend your engagement party though, right?” I lean heavily on this assumption that hasn’t been explicitly revealed.
She nods.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “He left a gift on my desk the following Monday, but he never gave any reason for his absence.”
This proverbial fishing expedition frustrates me. I’m being left with more questions than answers.
“Speaking of parties,” Finley says with a mouthful of candy bar. “When’s your housewarming party?”
Oh, crap. I forgot all about that.
“Um…”
“You’re having a housewarming party?” Carly squeals even though she’s now sitting next to me at close range. “Fantastic! When? What can I bring?”
An unpacking crew would be most helpful. My apartment contains more full boxes of kitchen supplies than it does pieces of furniture.
“I’ll bring the party games,” Oscar offers .
I cringe, imagining what type of games he might suggest. Hopefully not the frat house staples of beer pong, beer bongs, or keg stands. Why are physically grown men so obsessed with beer? It tastes like all the worst parts of bread, liquified.
“And Pete will bring his sunny attitude,” Finley says with a fake smile.
All eyes turn toward Peter, standing in the doorway to the break room and looking like a guilty eavesdropper who’s been caught red-handed in his sneakiness.
I wince as I empathize with that.
His unsure gaze flickers to me momentarily before he focuses on Finley. “Where am I supposed to take my sunny attitude?”
Oscar smirks. “To Elise’s housewarming party. Although, a nice bottle of wine would be a more appropriate gift.”
Peter snaps out of his frozen trance and strides across the room to the refrigerator to pull out his brown paper bag. “It wouldn’t be appropriate at all to crash a party I wasn’t invited to.”
I find the unbalanced power dynamic in this room immensely distasteful. Perhaps because I know all too well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the short straw.
“You’re invited,” I say. My confidence surprises me.
Those are the last words I ever expected to say to Dr. Peter Carrington.
I rationalize my decision by reminding myself that I can’t afford to drive a stronger, harder, longer wedge between us. Not if I want to beat him at this new game.
He shakes his head, averting his gaze toward the microwave on the counter. “You don’t have to do that. No one wants to hang out with their boss after hours.”
“Why did you institute the weekly happy hour then?” I ask before I can stop myself. I blame my need to get an answer to at least one of the questions spinning through my mind.
He frowns. “We’re a small startup division that Mr. Goulding’s not even sure he wants to continue funding beyond a trial period. I thought it might be a good idea to cultivate a united front to prove we’ve got what it takes to make his company competitive at the next level.”
An ironic sense of sick satisfaction sweeps over me as the people at the table display various shades of shame.
They’ve spent the past several minutes bemoaning the exacting asshole who’s been trying his best to provide them with long-term job security.
As quickly as pride blooms in my chest because of Peter’s penchant for thinking of all angles, doubt settles in with its cold clutches.
Either Peter knows this R&D venture won’t last—so he’s hedging his bets and lining his pockets while he can—or my gut has been right all along. Someone who’s putting forth this much effort to sustain this new division couldn’t possibly be sabotaging it by selling out.
I’ll never find out the truth if I don’t keep digging for it.
Mommy offers Daddy an olive branch. It’s a small sapling, easily capable of breaking beneath the weight of the slightest mishandling. “I think that’s very wise. Along with cultivating a sense of equality and a welcoming atmosphere for any potential new hires.”
“That was the idea,” he mumbles.
“Great.” My smile feels awkward and brittle. Hopefully, it doesn’t appear that way to everyone else. Somehow, I doubt it. “So, let’s continue that. My place? Tomorrow night at six?”
“This is going to be so much fun,” Carly insists with a wide, genuine grin. “Ooh! Let’s plan a theme! How do you feel about pink champagne? ”
I feel like I may come to regret this decision.
One of the things that first attracted me to Peter wasn’t his unaverage, glasses-wearing, muscly hotness. Long before any of those physical attributes matured, I sensed a sort of kindred spirit—something that had eluded me for most of my formative years.
At department socials, he wasn’t in the center of the crowd, telling lewd jokes, enjoying the rapt attention of admirers, and drinking himself stupid even though the refreshments were free of charge. A big deal for any impoverished grad student, to be sure.
He stayed on the fringes of social activity, sipping, nibbling, watching like he was studying their interactions as much as he studied his latest x-ray spectroscopy in our shared TA office. He had yet to master the art of socially appropriate awareness of physical presentation. He would arrive in his usual attire of a wrinkled, old t-shirt and his ubiquitous khakis. Our socially savvier counterparts always wore ironed clothes that looked more appropriate for the golf course than an academia mixer.
Unable to stifle my curiosity over the man who seemed to fit in about as well as I did, I approached him one fateful evening.
To test my theory that we were indeed similar, I admitted something to him that I’d never admitted to anyone before. “I don’t understand socially appropriate humor. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what makes people laugh. Do you have any solid jokes that I can borrow?”
He also did not laugh. Perhaps because I wasn’t joking.
He choked on his hors d’oeuvre then disappeared into the crowd like he couldn’t be rid of my company soon enough .
Imagine my surprise when he began to systematically woo me over the course of the next several years.
He tricked me into forgetting how shy and awkward he could be.
He’s still tricking me. As evidenced by the way he’s backed himself into a literal corner in my kitchen. His eyes are wide behind his glasses, his mouth frozen in a half-open oval. He either doesn’t know what to say or isn’t given a chance to speak. His fantastic muscles are bunched with tension, his shoulders rising higher by the second. He’s literally gripping the countertop behind him until his knuckles whiten with the effort.
Maeve stands in front of his unfortunate position, talking rapidly, gesturing with her hands, and staring up at him like she thinks that pink shirt looks flattering on his well-muscled frame.
In truth, the amount of pink at this party looks like someone dumped a vat of Pepto-Bismol all over my apartment. At Carly’s insistence, everyone arrived wearing pink as well.
The food is pink. The drinks are pink. My blunt nails have been painted pink.
I sidle up to the one-sided conversation because Peter appears absolutely desperate for an escape route. “Ironic that the amount of pink bismuth-colored items in here are giving me indigestion, no?”
He huffs out a surprised laugh.
Maeve glares at me.
Curse my awkwardness. I backpedal, “I’m sorry. That was untoward of me. Pink is a perfectly lovely shade. Is it your favorite color, too?”
It’s obviously Carly’s.
“No.” Maeve sighs. “My favorite color is black.”
“Oh! Me, too!” I’m pleased to have stumbled upon more common ground with this similarly frosty female. “For New Year’s, we should plan an all-black party. ”
She ignores my suggestion, returning her lusty gaze to Peter’s confused face. “I’m free for New Year’s.”
The next New Year is nearly a year away. Peter cuts a panicked glance to me. He clearly doesn’t know his schedule so far in advance.
“Or, an all-black Valentine’s party,” I amend, thinking quickly. “You know, to mourn society’s misogynistic ideas of romance.”
Maeve tears her eyes from Peter to scrunch her nose at me. “What’s wrong with a little romance?”
“The fact that humans can’t possibly be expected to ignore their biological drives to spread their DNA as widely as possible in favor of increased years of religiously imposed monogamy, courtesy of an extended life span due to modern medicine and hygiene?” I guess.
Rather than contribute to the scintillating conversation starter, she pivots toward the makeshift bar on my kitchen island.
Peter blows out a breath that mixes with an undercurrent of laughter. “It still baffles me that you’re worse at making small talk than I am.”
There’s a perfectly rational explanation for that.
I point to my head then give a thumbs up. “High IQ.” I point at my heart before making a slicing motion across my chest. “Low EQ.”
He chuckles again before taking a sip of his mostly full, mostly pink cocktail. “Thanks for the save. I thought I was going to have to chew my own arm off.”
“Please do not bleed all over my apartment,” I say. “The security deposit was quite expensive.”
“Are you planning to move soon?” Peter asks with a heavy sigh .
“Not until I have to. I only unpacked all the moving boxes this morning.”
“Why didn’t you say something? I would have helped you,” he insists.
I stare at him with my most displeased expression.
He frowns. “Right. Forget I said that.”
I wish I could, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to forget many things he’s said in the past two months. Namely, that he might have had a valid reason for participating in that disgusting bet.
“I would like to hear your explanation.”
“Really?” He appears as shocked as I feel. He does not question what I’m referencing.
“Yes.”
I tell myself this is in the best interests of my mission, but it’s a lie. I want to know for my own selfish reasons. Not that I assume he’ll tell the truth. Still. It will be more clarity with which to overanalyze the situation when I’m lying in bed at night, unable to sleep for any number of reasons.
“Okay.” He nods then glances into the living room where our coworkers are setting up the game that Oscar brought as promised. Cards Against Humanity. Yay. Another game I’m not good at.
“Not…now though, right?” Peter checks, his expression unsure.
“No,” I agree. “Not now.”
This may be a foolish, illogical choice. He’s already had a year to think of a lie that will sound like a plausible excuse, so he doesn’t need more time to formulate a solid defense.
Although, I’m assuming that he’s spent the past year thinking of me at all.
Although-although, I genuinely did not consider his reaction to seeing me again. Peter made a valid, undeniable point at the bar. If he’d really done the horrible thing that he admitted to doing, then he should have acted negatively toward me.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, jostling me out of my warring self-arguments. “For giving me a chance.”
I glance up at him in surprise. In all my years of studying human social interactions, I’ve never come across a situation in which it’s appropriate to thank someone for giving them the opportunity to lie.
“Can I, maybe…” He licks his lips, his hazel gaze laser focused on me. “Take you out to dinner? To explain,” he clarifies.
I nod. That’s likely the best-case scenario. In a public setting, nothing too inappropriate can happen.
Maintaining appropriateness is of the utmost importance because I’m currently having some very inappropriate thoughts about my boss’s lips. The boss who will be fired and blacklisted from the academic community if he’s guilty.
Can I really do that to him? Can I be responsible for the end of his life as he knows it? Can I do to him what he did to me, only worse?
As he gazes down at me with so much obvious hope in his expression, I’m not sure that I can. Even at my lowest, most heartbroken point, I honestly never considered revenge until this opportunity was presented to me.
In the end, my involvement is irrelevant. If Peter has in fact done this illegal and highly unethical thing, then he must face the consequences. Chet may uncover proof of the traitor’s identity before I do anyway.
“Let’s go,” Oscar shouts, startling me out of my decidedly different sort of staring match with Peter. “It’s game time!”
It absolutely is.
I have a bad feeling that in this round, there will be no winners. Only losers.