Poppy
The day had gone surprisingly well.
Went in to absolutely no fanfare, nothing out of the ordinary…talked to a few different couples at various stages of pregnancy, which was lovely. Left for lunch at noon with Stevie, who had clearly not slept a wink and wanted to know everything.
And now things were winding down.
No more meetings.
I could breathe.
…and I was going to spend the whole night with John.
I was just wrapping up emails when I heard a soft knock on my door—Sophie, and I hadn’t even heard her. She’d switched from her work clothes into a pair of fuzzy socks with sweatpants, a gigantic sweater draped over her.
“Hey, Poppy,” she said. “You got a minute?”
I smiled, trying to make it seem like absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. “Sure!”
She stepped inside and came to sit across my desk from me, relaxing into her seat and taking a deep breath. She was always relaxed at work…but something was wrong.
I could already feel it.
“Do you want some tea or something?” I asked. “We could go talk in the kitchen—”
“We’ve worked together a long time, Poppy,” she suddenly said. “Haven’t we?”
My stomach dropped.
“Almost four years.”
“Right,” she said, nodding…looking down at her hands in her lap. “I hired you because you were the most earnest person I’d ever interviewed. You genuinely believed in what we do here. I could feel it.” She paused. “I still feel it, every day.”
I chewed on my lip.
She looked up at me.
“Is there anything you want to tell me, Poppy?”
My voice was a whisper, which made me feel like I seemed even more guilty. “Yes.”
She didn’t take her eyes off me. Kind of terrifying. I swallowed hard, then bit down so hard on my lip that it hurt.
“I broke protocol in the system and I ran my profile against John Lawson’s,” I whispered.
Sophie sighed. “I know.”
“How?”
“I just got a call from a man saying that he was referred by John Lawson,” Sophie said. “Apparently our services were very effective…which is strange, since I put Johnny on a break last week.”
I waited. Listened.
“He told you I emailed him about the data breach, right?”
Now, I nodded.
“I was hoping you’d come clean this morning,” she said. “Poppy…this business is built on trust.”
“I was going to,” I said. “But I didn’t know how.”
She frowned. “For what it’s worth, I’m more hurt than angry.” She paused. “I’m a little angry.”
“You’re allowed to be.”
“I know I am.” She looked at the candle I had lit on the desk, the flame flickering in her eyes.
“You’ve been running the business like a pro for four years and I’ve never once questioned your judgment,” she went on.
“Even when you were straight out of college, untested…I trusted you. That’s not nothing. ”
“I know.”
“I understand why you didn’t come to me.
I do. It’s complicated and it’s awkward and I’m your boss and he’s a client and there’s no clean way to have that conversation.
” She folded her hands in her lap. “But I want you to know that I would have listened. I would have—I don’t know what I would have done, but I would have listened first.”
My throat went tight. I wanted to cry, but I also knew that would be selfish, that I’d known very well I was breaking the rules and could put the whole agency in jeopardy.
“I need a few days,” she said. “I’d like you to take the rest of the week off.”
“Sophie—”
“Paid,” she said. “I’m not—this isn’t a punishment. I just need to think without you here, and you probably need some space too.” She stood, then paused. “Did you really do this on your own, or did Jasper have something to do with it?”
I held her gaze…weighing my options. Lie again and keep him safe? Or share the burden?
“It was my idea,” I said. “I asked him to run it. Everything since then…it’s been me.”
Sophie looked at me a long moment.
I hated lying to her.
“He did it first,” I blurted out. “He…gave me the report. I had to act on it after that.”
Sophie closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Thank you for being honest with me,” she said. “Just one more question.”
“Okay.”
“Are you seeing him tonight?”
I nodded, rasping out a deeply shameful, “Yes.”
She nodded back, gripping the door frame as she left. “Go home, Poppy.”
I gathered my things with shaking hands, said goodnight to the office like it might be the last time, and walked out into the November dark. It felt so stupid…I hadn’t planned any of this, I was giving up everything I’d built my life on in the blink of an eye.
And on some level, maybe I knew that was a mistake. From the outside, anyone would have thought it was a mistake.
But I still pulled my phone out.
Opened my text thread with John.
POPPY
can you come get me?
Almost immediately, three little dots…a response.
JOHNNY
on my way. are you at the office?
POPPY
I’m going home and packing my things. Let’s go to Michigan. I’m ready now.