Chapter 7 #2
"Mr. Wayne has asked to move the meeting from two days from now to three," Michael explained. "As you’ve been the main correspondent with the Wayne Group, would you mind accepting their offer and choosing the 12 pm meeting time?”
"Of course," Martin agreed, already pulling his keyboard toward him. "Anything else?"
"Yes," Michael said. "We're going to use the next three days properly.
I'd like you and me to walk through the books together this afternoon, every line, so we both have the whole picture in our heads before the meeting.
Then tomorrow I'd like to bring Maggie in to talk through her pavilion proposal in detail.
" He paused as another thought hit him. “What’s happening about the swimming pool renovation?”
"We’ve had another quote,” Martin informed him.
“But this is an out-of-town company, so they are more expensive than the first quote. So I suggest we go with the first quote, as we need to get this project moving. It’s summer.
The hotel has already got a thin booking register for the season.
Having the pool out of action is not a good thing. ”
“Agreed,” Michael said. “Let me have a look at the figures involved, and we’ll go from there.”
“Let me know when you’re ready to get together,” Martin told him. “I’m in the office here at the hotel the entire afternoon today.”
“Thank you, Martin,” Michael said as Martin nodded and left the room.
The office fell quiet with the only sound being Linda’s fingers moving across the keyboard.
"Linda," Michael ventured.
"Yes?" Linda looked up at her brother.
"I need to ask you something, and I'd like an honest answer." He stared at her.
Linda lifted her eyes. "Okay!” She gave him a curious look. “Are you about to tell me you’re seeing someone?”
“No!” Michael said a little too quickly, the first thought flashing through his head was. Oh no, does Linda know? No, dumbo, how could she? He gave himself a mental shake. “Why on earth would you say something like that?”
“You have that…” Linda’s eyes narrowed, and her head tilted side to side as she eyed him out.
“That look you always get when you’re about to drop a bombshell, like the last time.
” She mimicked his voice. “Do you remember Evelyn? The woman I met at college and brought home for Christmas? Well, we’re getting married. ”
“Is that what you think I sound like?” Michael gave her a pained look. “And that’s not what happened.”
“It’s exactly what happened,” Linda assured him. “We can call Tom. He’ll verify it for me.”
“Okay!” Michael surrendered. “But this has now gone off topic.”
“Sorry,” Linda gave him a sheepish look. “What is it?”
"You know how I love working with you," Michael started
“But…” Linda prompted.
"But honestly, between the hotel and Maggie's divorce, I'm going to need to spread out, and I’m going to need quiet as well as privacy.”
“Are you kicking me out of Uncle George’s office?” Linda looked at him aghast.
“No…” Michael denied and then stopped. “I’m just saying we need another office.”
Linda watched him. “So what do you suggest?” She raised an eyebrow. “That I move into the storage room? Or the janitor’s closet.” Her eyes narrowed. “I guess I could work in the break room, as we don’t have many staff members left.”
“Maybe we can do like an office time share,” Michael suggested.
“Mmm,” Linda said, pursing her lips. “You know what. Let me go get us a cup of coffee each, and we can figure it out.”
“I’d love a cup,” Michael told her. “And, I don’t think the office time share would work in the long term, though.”
Linda was standing up, and she froze, turning to look at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
“What does that mean?” She asked.
“Go get the coffee, and we can chat,” Michael told her. “This is definitely a conversation to be had over coffee.”
“Okay,” Linda said and walked out of the office.
Michael watched her close the door before sighing, and his eyes traveled around the office.
The two leather armchairs by the window.
The wall of family photographs. The big oak desk he'd done his homework on.
The row of locked cabinets along the inner wall, which Linda had opened for him this morning, one by one, with the little brass keys from George's legendary ring.
His gaze drifted along that wall, past the cabinets, past the small bookcase, and stopped.
There was a heavy filing cabinet pushed flush against the inner wall, between the bookcase and the corner of the room.
Michael had walked past it a hundred times this week without really seeing it.
It was an old cabinet. Tall and brown, four deep drawers, the kind of thing that had probably been in this office longer than Michael had been alive.
But it was not flush against the wall the way the bookcase was.
It was an inch or two proud.
And the wall behind it, the part Michael could see through that small gap, was a slightly different color from the rest of the office. A few shades lighter, as though the paint behind the cabinet had been protected from years of sun while the rest of the room had faded around it.
Michael went very still.
He stood slowly and crossed the room.
He laid his hand flat against the side of the filing cabinet as his heart started to thud, as he knew what was behind it. It was something that no one had thought of since he was eight and Linda seven.
He braced one shoulder against the side of the cabinet and pushed until it moved with a low scraping sound.
The cabinet slid an inch, then two, then six.
Michael set both hands against it and walked it carefully out from the wall, into the open floor of the office, until it stood a good three feet from where it had lived for as long as he could remember.
Behind it, set into the wall, was a door in the same dark walnut as Uncle George's office door. Only the brass handle was dull with soft tarnish from fifty-two years of nobody touching it.
Michael's chest tightened as he stood staring at it.
He had not seen this door since he was eight years old.
He had not even let himself remember it existed.
The whole back half of this office wall had become, in his memory, simply a wall.
He had walked past it for fifty-two years and never once thought about what was on the other side, because they all knew there was nothing but pain in there.
He stood lost in thought as he stared at the door, not yet daring to reach out and push the door handle, when the door to Uncle George’s office swung open.
"Michael, I brought tea instead of coffee as Molly said you’ve had one too many cups of it already…." Linda's voice trailed off into a small, sharp gasp. "Michael, what are you doing?"
Michael turned slowly.
His sister was standing in the doorway with two steaming mugs in her hands, frozen, her eyes locked on the cabinet that no longer hid the wall, and the door behind it that no longer existed for them.
The color had drained from her face.
“Linda…" Michael said quietly.
"Michael." Linda's voice came out very small. "What on earth are you doing?"
Michael looked at his sister before turning back to the door. "I'm solving our office problem and finally facing old ghosts."