Chapter Thirty
Thirty
I went into the office with a feeling of trepidation. I hadn’t heard from Danuwoa since we parted ways in the parking lot last night. No “good night” text. No “good morning” text. Absolute radio silence.
I wasn’t sure if we were still going to the jewelry fair this weekend or if Danuwoa had dropped me to spare himself the headache. I wouldn’t blame him.
I missed the country and my former life. I didn’t miss being poor, but I missed the simplicity of my life before all this. Before all of my lies. Home was only thirty minutes away, but since that dinner at my aunt’s, I hadn’t been back. I needed to walk around the creek barefoot to ground myself and relax. Could I? No. It was barely nine thirty in the morning and Mr. Stevenson was in a terrible mood.
It started with Mr. Stevenson barking as soon as he walked in, “Get me the Indian now!”
Danuwoa. He meant Danuwoa.
It scared me. I shouldn’t have lied about not being Native, but people like Mr. Stevenson wouldn’t care if I was. He wouldn’t censor his speech. He would still shout about getting the “Indian” to help.
The thing was…we had a few actual Indian people in the company, and I mean those whose families originated from India, and who worked in finance. Danuwoa happened to be the only Native American in IT and the only Native in the company who looked like he would beat the shit out of Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves . But just saying, “Get the Indian,” was confusing. Which was why I emailed Sumit Patel, who was presently sitting on the couch in the waiting area, to come to our office.
I knocked on Mr. Stevenson’s opaque glass door.
“Come in.”
“Sumit is here,” I told him, poking my head through the cracked door.
“Who?”
“Sumit Patel.” The last name clearly didn’t help place him. “From finance? You said to get you the Indian,” I whispered.
Mr. Stevenson’s face went white, and he floundered, opening and closing his mouth to try to find something to say.
“Should I send him in?” I asked with a saccharine smile. I was fucking with my racist boss, but he didn’t know that. Well…he couldn’t prove it.
“Yes, please send him in.”
“Great.” I closed the door and went to grab Sumit.
“Any idea what this meeting is about?” the poor guy asked me, nervously combing his hair with his hand. “I’ve never had a meeting with him.”
“No idea,” I said with a shrug.
Sumit walked in the opaque office, and the walls went clear. Mr. Stevenson mustered a smile and handshake for Sumit, and they talked for a few minutes before he was dismissed.
Sumit left with a huge smile plastered on his face. When the elevator doors closed, Mr. Stevenson walked to my desk and sat on the edge, perched with his hands clasped in his lap.
“We have a problem,” he said solemnly.
“We do?”
“I was in a temper earlier and was not clear with my instructions. I typically always mean Dan Colson from IT. He is Indian from some local tribe, if the braid didn’t give it away to you.”
“Native American, yes. When people say Indian, I assume they mean from India.”
“You put me in a really uncomfortable and awkward position just now. I’m not a racist man. I am what some might call a woke man. I believe women should have all the same rights as men and no one should be treated differently based on their race.”
Believing in basic human decency was not being “woke,” but I bet he thought that. Yelling things like what he did stripped someone of their humanity and replaced it with a stereotype. It was vile, and I felt like I was making dirty money working for this man.
“I’m of the generation where we played cowboys and Indians, and as we live in the South, I figured you understood my meaning. I just had to lie about liking Sumit’s work and give him a raise to avoid an HR headache.”
“That’s so kind of you to give him a raise,” I said, and gave him a sheepish smile.
“This cannot happen again, am I clear?” He waited for my nod of understanding before continuing, “My laptop is frozen on one Excel sheet, and I need Dan from IT here immediately.”
“It’s crystal clear. I’ll see about getting Dan here as soon as possible.”
He knocked his knuckles on my desk three times and went back into his office.
Ember Cardinal: Emergency, needed with boss ASAP.
Dan Colson: What’s wrong?
Ember Cardinal: He said he needed you immediately.
Dan Colson: Any hint for what he needs?
Ember Cardinal: His spreadsheet is frozen.
Dan Colson: Be there in a few.
Ember Cardinal: Brace yourself x
Danuwoa’s face as he pushed the IT cart was impossible to read. He was usually so happy and smiley. I really hated that his cold demeanor was all my fault, and now he was walking into Mr. Stevenson’s sour mood.
He stopped in front of my desk. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I returned. It was so painfully awkward, and I didn’t know how to fix it. Where Danuwoa was concerned, he made me stupid dumb. I really liked him, and I was fighting so hard to protect us. I didn’t know why he couldn’t agree with me.
“Colson!” Mr. Stevenson’s gruff bark made me jump.
Danuwoa’s shoulders tensed before nodding to me in farewell and wheeling his cart into the office. Once the walls went opaque, I sent a small prayer to Creator. Poor Danuwoa was in for it.
I had things to busy myself with and take my mind off the doom and gloom of my short relationship with Danuwoa—like submitting Mr. Stevenson’s expense reports from the conference and Kyle’s receipts from last night. I printed the reports and felt a disgusting sense of dread as I submitted and approved the expenses with Mr. Stevenson’s signature stamp.
It felt like with each slam of the stamp on my desk, my heart skipped a beat. Stamp. Stamp. Stamp. I was in some deep shit, and I was out of ideas for how to explain my way out of all this and fix things with Danuwoa. In a few months, maybe I’d have enough experience to apply for jobs somewhere else. Just forget all about this mess with Technix. Natalie would be back, and there was no way in hell I could return to working for Gary. I pissed too many people off here. A clean slate might be what I needed.
I loved numbers, and the pseudo-power the EA to the CEO had was cool and all, but it wasn’t really me. I didn’t know how to schmooze and rub elbows on behalf of the CEO. Managing relationships at this level was exhausting. I stopped feeling like myself the moment I accepted the promotion. I rubbed my temples before I scanned and attached the reports and sent them to accounting.
The ding of a new email hit my inbox, and I groaned at the name that appeared.
Sender: Kyle Matthews
Subject: Update—Call me
Ember,
Give me a call when you have a moment.
Kyle
If I wasn’t in the office, I would have screamed. I had just sent his receipts from last night—what more did he want from me? I replayed what he told me. What he called me. The help. Basically insinuated I was a whore sleeping with Danuwoa on the job. It left such a bad taste in my mouth I wanted to “accidentally” delete the email and wash my hands of everything, pretend like my life was manageable.
I took several calming breaths.
Mr. Stevenson’s office was still opaque, and I had to protect Danuwoa. Which was why I dialed Kyle’s extension.
“ Ember , what up?” He made his voice sound high and sang my name in a weird attempt to be friendly.
“You asked me to call you…”
“Not one for small talk. Okay. Is my uncle here?”
“Yeah, but he’s with someone right now.”
“Don’t bother him. Call me back when he leaves the office.”
The line went dead. I did not like the sound of that but quickly pushed it to the back of my mind when Danuwoa came out of the office, pushing his cart like he had a fire under his butt. I got up to follow him to the elevator.
“Hey, Danuwoa.”
He looked at me expectantly.
“Is everything okay?”
“Just great. Do you have an IT problem?” He crossed his arms while he waited for the elevator.
“Yeah, I’m about to, if that’s the only way you’ll talk to me.”
“I can’t talk about this now. Especially not here, remember? We have to stay a secret.” Danuwoa grabbed the cart handles as the elevator dinged its arrival.
“But you are willing to talk to me…eventually?”
His eyes said, What do you think?
And then the doors closed him in.
That was the problem. I didn’t know what to think. I’d never had a relationship like this before. Were we over? Was this just a minor bump?
I sat back at my desk, head in my hands. I didn’t know how long I sat like that, spiraling, when Mr. Stevenson breezed past me.
“Going to lunch. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Lunch. Danuwoa. My legs itched to get up and run to the break room, but I had to call Kyle back.
He picked up on the first ring. “Is he gone?”
“Yes.”
“Great, I need you to go into his office and check his email for me.”
Sirens rang in my ears.
“You want me to do what?” I had to have misheard him.
“Open his email, and I need you to look in his ‘Sent’ folder and delete the email he sent me at ten o’clock this morning.”
“That’s crossing the line, Kyle. I can’t do that.”
“It’s fine.” His tone was placating, like he was calming down a spooked horse. I was spooked. This was unethical and would most assuredly get me fired. “It’s just a stupid email to me. It’s not even a big deal.”
“If it’s not a big deal, then why do I have to delete it?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I thought the line went dead. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Do you know what happened to the last female assistant we had in finance?”
“No.” I gulped.
“She was caught having an affair with Todd, our vice president of sales from Austin. Yeah, it was really embarrassing for them, since they were both married. Mr. Stevenson had her escorted out of the building.”
The pregnant pause was begging me to ask, so I did. “And what happened to Todd?”
“Todd was in Santa Barbara, at the conference. You see, Ember, when ‘president’ is in your executive title, the company has invested a lot of resources in that person and won’t waste the money or potential legal headache getting rid of them. Now, titles with the word ‘assistant’ or ‘IT technician’ are cheap and easy to replace. No one gives a shit about you. I’m sure you know it’s hard out there trying to find a job, and even harder with no reference.”
I was past caring about myself, but I couldn’t let Danuwoa lose his job over this bullshit. “All right.”
“Great. After you delete the email from ten a.m., I need you to go to his inbox and respond to the email from me at nine fifty-three a.m. Just write back ‘Approved.’?”
“Okay.”
“Then delete that email. Got it?”
“Ye-yeah.”
“Amazing.”
He hung up, and I was sweating profusely. I felt like I’d agreed to rob a bank. This was so wrong. I knew it was wrong. Warning bells were going off in my head, but I knew things would be much worse if Danuwoa and I got fired. My car would get repossessed. School would never happen for me. I wouldn’t be able to afford rent, leaving Joanna in the lurch. Danuwoa would go into foreclosure on his house. We would all end up homeless. Joanna and I had been in pretty bad straits, so we would figure it out, but Danuwoa needed that stability for Walela. And what kind of relationship would survive this level of destruction?
It was all too much, and the only way I could save us all was to help Kyle. Just this one email, and I’d never have to think about it again. Our jobs, our homes, our relationship would be safe. I was feeling dizzy.
This was all so fucked up and not what I signed up for. Why couldn’t I have gotten an accounting job like you see on TV, with a cute little old lady coworker who wears cat sweaters?
I tiptoed into Mr. Stevenson’s office. It was unnecessary since I was the only one on the floor, but I did it anyway. His laptop was open on his desk. He hated when his computer timed out and shut down to save power, so he had Danuwoa set it up to never go to sleep. I didn’t need a password or to click around. It was open on his Outlook.
I quickly found the email to delete. Kyle had asked for a raise, and Mr. Stevenson told him no. Literally it only said No .
I deleted it and sent the approval and wanted to shrivel up and die, because my integrity was compromised in a way I feared would never recover. I helped some spoiled brat get more money and was ensnared even more under Kyle’s thumb. This whole situation was fucked.
—
I got home to an empty apartment. I hadn’t seen Danuwoa again at work, so I sent him a text asking if he would like to come over for dinner tonight. He said yes, so here I was hiding my brother’s boxers and clothes under a blanket in the corner of the tiny living room and double-checking to make sure Sage had flushed the toilet before he left.
The minutes passed by too fast and too slow at the same time. My stomach was in knots from conjuring every possible scenario when Danuwoa knocked on my door.
He had one hand in his jean pocket, while the other scratched behind his head. He looked nervous and gave me a sheepish grin, then winked. The butterflies in my stomach woke up and stretched their wings.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he returned.
I opened my door wider, inviting him inside. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“What’s on the menu? You need any help?”
“Ramen, and no, I have everything ready.”
I put the steaming hot bowls on the tiny table and pointed to the chair for Danuwoa to join me. He sat down, and his frame dwarfed my tiny, cheap furniture.
It was comical. Choking on a laugh, I gave all my attention to my ramen.
“I like that you added fresh veggies and an egg to this,” he said with a slurp.
“It’s nothing like your homemade corn chowder.” I still couldn’t meet his eyes.
His hand covered mine, stilling my fork. “Look at me,” he said softly.
I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of his hand on mine and the way his voice caressed me. Once I had fully braced myself for his rejection, I looked up into his warm eyes.
“What’s really going on, Ember?”
“Nothing, I just made a few dumb mistakes, but I promise I’m through with all that. I won’t ever make up a fake boyfriend again.”
“So you want to come clean and tell people we’re dating?”
“Everyone important to me knows we’re a thing. I don’t want to tell people at work that we are dating until Natalie comes back from maternity leave. Then I’ll figure out my next move. I think maybe applying somewhere else, where we never have to hide our relationship.” That thought made me smile.
“And what if Natalie doesn’t come back?”
I hadn’t even considered that possibility. My hope deflated.
“Have you heard anything to suggest she won’t?”
“No, but a lot of people want to stay home longer with their newborns. It’s something to consider.”
“She’s supposed to return in a couple weeks. We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Can you live with keeping our relationship under wraps at work until she’s back?”
“Being discreet isn’t the problem, Ember. It’s the lying and weird behavior that is a red flag for me.”
“That’s fair. I won’t lie anymore, and I’ll stop acting weird and treating you like a dirty secret. I really like you, Danuwoa.”
“I really, really like you too.”
We sat at my silly little table, our bowls of ramen getting cold, holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. It was starting to feel a whole lot more than just “like” for me too. I didn’t hate it.
“Do you still want to meet me at the jewelry fair this weekend?” I asked.
“I do. I’m bringing Walela.”
I smiled. “It’s a date.”