25. Carter
CHAPTER 25
CARTER
I had to get my suit dry-cleaned after working so hard in Megyn’s apartment the evening before. Dust and sweat had rendered it unprofessional to wear. I dropped it off before heading to work, stepping into the lobby of the building.
The receptionist looked up from her desk and stared at me, her mouth slightly open.
I looked at her, head tilted, frowning. “Is something wrong?”
She jerked and went upright, shaking her head with a vehemence that meant absolutely, something was amiss. “No, no,” she said, trying to deny it even while her actions gave her away. “Good morning, Carter.”
“Good morning,” I echoed. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
Rather than give a real answer, she ducked her head down and picked up her phone, though it hadn’t been ringing.
Well, it looks like the morning is off to an interesting start.
I went to the elevator and pressed the button to go up, not that I ever had a reason to go down. Only maintenance workers visited the basement and I pitied them. The cobwebs were awful and we’d had a snake problem in the past. An escaped pet ball python had its slithering children down there; while the problem had long since been taken care of, the stigma remained.
The elevator doors opened and one of my managers stepped forward. He looked at me and stopped in his tracks, and then started moving again, too late for the automatic doors to sense his approach on time. The door rammed hard against his shoulder and then popped open.
“Rich!” I exclaimed. I grabbed his other shoulder and pulled him out of the elevator. “You’re going to have a bruise there. Are you okay?”
Rich shook himself like a dog getting something annoying out of his fur. “I’m fine, sir.”
Rich moved off. I glanced over my shoulder at him and saw him doing the same to me, gaping at me like I was some sort of roadside attraction, maybe a giant ketchup bottle or a statue of a sasquatch wearing sunglasses. He jumped and whirled around and kept going, marching faster than before.
I passed my hand in front of the elevator door to let it know I was coming and stepped inside. I pressed the button for the top floor and stepped back, leaning against the wall. I folded my arms, frowned at my reflection.
Two people in very quick succession who seemed startled by me. Am I… not supposed to be here today?
I couldn’t have forgotten an appointment, could I? But that didn’t account for the way the receptionist jarred at the sight of me. Rich, yes, as he would be privy to my movements, but not the receptionist.
I looked over at the reflective side wall of the elevator and plucked at the sleeve of my suit. It wasn’t the one I nearly always wore, navy pinstripe rather than black, but there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I hadn’t committed any sort of fashion faux paus as far as I knew.
I leaned in real close until my reflected silver face filled my whole vision and bared my teeth. No alarming green specks or bits of other food that would make someone startled.
The elevator stopped humming as I came to my floor. The doors popped open. I pulled away from the wall and stepped out. Two maintenance workers, pushing a yellow cart of cleaning supplies ahead of them, came trundling around the corner. Their banter cut out and they both gawked at me as if they had seen a ghost.
I gawked back at them, my stomach starting to twist with unease. If this was any other company except mine, I would accept that the so-called lesser workers might become alarmed at the sight of the Big Boss. However, I had always disliked that stigma, thought it to be terribly old-fashioned. I went out of my way to have personal conversations with every worker when I could, from the top all the way to the bottom. If sometimes I had to refer to notes about a particular person before inquiring about their mother’s health or their daughter’s first year of school, well, it was a whole lot more than other CEOs did. I wanted my every worker to be comfortable and know they were valued.
Those two workers had been around awhile, both of them. This shouldn’t have happened.
Whatever was going on, it was bigger than just me.
I moved past them and went to my office, which smelled very, very strongly of coffee. I stepped inside and saw Brian making a pot, while standing next to a wet floor sign. Streaks of wetness dried slowly on the polished floor.
“Well, now I know why Tim and Fred were back here,” I said, naming the cleaners.
Brian looked at me and set the coffee pot down, a too-deliberate movement that I didn’t like. “I dropped the whole pot on the floor. I needed someone to sweep up the glass, mostly. I think they got it all but if your foot suddenly hurts at some point today, it’s probably not just a cramp.”
I shut the office door behind me and folded my arms, staring hard at Brian. He was joking, but he didn’t sound like it. His words were forced.
I approached and lifted up the top of the coffee pot, taking out the used filter and tossing it. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Carter…” Brian’s shoulders slumped.
Oh, it’s bad.
I turned to him and grabbed his shoulder. He picked up the pot, set it down again. “I just got here and already, it’s as if I have the plague. What’s going on?”
Brian stared at the coffee pot like maybe it would tell me instead of him. I wondered where he’d gotten the second carafe, if he’d dropped the first. What coffee maker in my building had been rendered defunct by his thievery? “I really wish you’d seen it for yourself so I wouldn’t have to tell you.”
“Seen what?”
“The local news ran a segment about you this morning.”
I flashed back to the blue van parked a short ways from Megyn’s house and my blood ran cold. “No,” I breathed.
“Yes,” he said grimly. “I’ve already done some investigating. Apparently, the media teams have been sitting and waiting around for this to happen ever since you first planned your Halloween party. The advertisements. They’ve been watching, waiting, seeing if anything came of it.”
I already knew where this was going. I staggered to my desk and sat down, burying my head in my hands.
Brian went about the business of making more coffee, his shoes squeaking around I the drying puddle of his last attempt. “So they learned you had found someone by watching your movements. They found out about Megyn. They reported the whole thig, framing it as being exactly like the Cinderella fairytale. Including,” he took a deep breath, “your differences in social status.”
“No,” I moaned. “No, no!”
Brian left the coffee pot hissing and gurgling and came over to sit down beside me. “They did a damn good job. I hate that I have to give them that. They had pictures of Megyn in her dress at the party.”
“What the fuck?” I shouted.
“I would guess they took pictures from others who attended, combed for Megyn, cropped everything else out, and enhanced what was left.” Brian slapped his palm on the desk. “They had pictures of all four of us leaving the Lonely Whale together, and photos of you leaving her house. Looking all dirty and satisfied.”
I couldn’t believe it. I had been tricked. The media people knew I, and everyone else, would focus on their big van, distracting us, preventing us from seeing the real reporter or photographer. I might even have looked right at the person taking pictures of me, maybe smiled or waved, never knowing they were on the verge of ruining me.
“Carter, why were you so dirty?”
“I was helping her clean,” I choked out. “It was only yesterday.”
Brian got up and started pacing, his face creased with concentration. “If Megyn sees this, I don’t know if you’ll be able to come back from it, buddy. This is exactly what she didn’t want. This was her biggest fear.”
“Brian, I know,” I snapped. My heart was pounding, spasming, feeling like it was about to give out.
“I’m sorry, Carter.” He stopped pacing and thumped his hand on the wall. “I’m just scared for you. We need to come up with a plan and we need to do it fast.”
“What kind of plan?” I moaned.
“We need to address the media. Megyn needs to be on-board with it. This thing is only going to worsen unless you guys nip it in the bud.”
“Good luck getting Megyn to agree with this,” I said, mostly speaking to myself.
This was an absolute disaster.