15. Olly
FIFTEEN
OLLY
After the weekend we’d just had, I didn’t want to do anything but call in sick and read Outlander all day.
I’m sure that the note I had from the ER would suffice, and Jeff would understand.
It was just going on forty-eight hours since I’d had a seizure, and while I was appreciative of Clark’s efforts to keep me comfortable and taken care of since it happened, I really didn’t want to go in today.
I had a headache, a rather bad one, and I wasn’t scared of that or connecting it to the seizure, because I’d been having terrible headaches off and on since I was eight and had sustained a traumatic brain injury when my head hit the pavement after being thrown from the car.
Just when I’d convinced myself that I could justify staying home today, it hit me like a ton of bricks: we were supposed to be meeting with human resources early as all hell this morning. Oh, how I hated Mondays.
I just finished putting on a pair of the highly detested pantyhose and was about to text Clark and ask him if he could drive us in, and then drive me home right after the HR meeting, when I heard a tentative knock on my door.
A quick look through the peephole let me know it was Clark, but honestly, who else would it be this morning, of all mornings?
I let him in, and he agreed with my plans.
Once I packed up my lunch into my laptop bag just in case I had to stay for the full shift, I was ready to jet.
Honestly, I bordered on terrified of having another seizure, which was the main reason I wanted Clark to do the driving.
I knew I’d have to get over such fears, but as I had a willing carpool driver and a convenient bus route, I could face driving as it came up.
For now, Clark grabbed my bag to carry for me, and said, “Let’s rock and roll. ”
As I walked the main floor at Rose with Clark to get to our workspaces, I couldn’t help but pick up some strange loose chatter through the air, and just when I had been doing so well to keep everyone out. ‘She’s going to keep that baby, just you see.”
“I think its father is the new guy, Clark. Why would they be stuck like glue, otherwise?”
“You idiot, she was like, three months along or something when Evans started here. It’s that artist friend of hers, the one who had the feature in The Coast.”
“She has two men on the go? Damn, I’m jealous!”
This was getting so out of control that I was about to mentally scream at everyone to shut their yaps when I finally reached my office and raised the shields around the small space.
I put my bag down under my desk and took some Tylenol, hoping it would take the headache away without making me too sleepy.
With Clark waiting for me in the doorway, there were no more excuses.
It was time to walk down the rest of the hall and talk to human resources.
I felt a tap on my shoulder as Clark and I were walking down the hallway.
Well, more like strutting. If this was our last time walking through these corridors, we were going to look damn cool doing it.
I stopped and turned to see Jeff with an odd smile on his face.
You know that kind of smile when the person was only doing it for your benefit—like they were smiling, but there was nothing in the least to be smiling about?
I felt prickles on my spine, and I knew that something was about to change, something fundamental in scale.
He nodded his head toward his office, and I followed him in, and he asked me to sit.
Thank goddess that creepy smile was gone.
Then, with a click of a remote, the windows went shaded, guaranteeing privacy.
He had two small couches in the corner of his office.
He pointed toward those, and I took up residence on one, he on the other.
I appreciated it not being so formal, but something about all of this was just wrong on so many levels.
I sat up with my back straight against the couch, while he leaned forward, holding his hands in front of him between his knees in that typical ‘bad news is coming’ pose.
It was rather intimidating, actually, and I’d never been intimidated by Jeff, who was the one person at Rose I could always count on to be steady, to be honest, and to be in my corner. I didn’t know what the fuck this was.
"Olly, I'm sorry to say that you've been acting a little more...
eccentric than usual these days. Your work is impeccable as always, but we've had some, well, not exactly complaints, but concerns filed with HR about you.
And those on top of you ignoring their emails about finding a replacement for yourself on the team at the junior level, well, it all has me worried about you personally, and about how you are settling into your new role.
Perhaps we moved a bit prematurely when we promoted you.
" He looked me in the eyes and was projecting concern to me, but that’s not what I read about his general body language.
I felt like I was something he had to deal with, rather than an employee who was also a friend and in need of help.
I stared at him as if he had told me that a bull moose had made its way into the building and trashed the place.
What does he mean, me not replacing myself?
Hadn’t I just been standing right next to Clark, who had proved himself invaluable to the team?
I knew that something large was on the line, and I should go slow and think out every word.
But I was struck dumb by his apparent lack of recognition of Clark, and feeling more than a little bit shocked by it.
“Jeff, I honestly don't know what you mean. Emails from HR? We've already hired the replacement, like six weeks ago.” Jeff tilted his head to the side, looking like a curious owl, and reached out to touch my arm.
"Well, this is an example of what I was talking about.
That strange phone call on Friday is another.
Olly, I've just watched you walk from your office and almost completely pass my office with a huge smile on your face, laughing and chattering away. So please just answer me this one question: who were you talking to?” His hand gestured to the glass, and all I saw was an empty hallway where I swear Clark had been just moments before.
“Clark?” I stood and called, hoping this was an elaborate prank, and he had ducked into a nearby office while Jeff was talking.
But Clark would never participate in a joke so cruel as to make me question my own sanity, not after what I’d been through with my anxiety disorder and after almost eight years of me being a glorified lab rat.
Not to mention the seizure just on Saturday.
He might think I was as crazy as a March hare now, but he’d never abandon his principles or me.
It was almost like he wasn’t even here at Rose...
or worse, that he had never been here at all.
I suddenly felt cold. The cold you feel when you are filled with the deepest kind of dread.
I was dizzy and nauseous, and asked Jeff for some water so I could down an anti-nauseant before needing to barf in his office.
I fished the pill out of a small case in my blazer’s pocket, and downed the paper triangle cup of cold water, which was instantly refreshing.
I needed that, because I was so very tired, like I could sleep for days.
The last thing I recalled was the scent of Jeff’s cologne as I collapsed into his arms, sobs wrenching forth from the depths within me, only made worse when I tried to look around the building with my mind and found only a crushing silence.
I couldn’t hear anyone, and my own thoughts were moving so fast, I couldn’t keep up with them.
I wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone how long I pushed at the shields in my own mind, like that poor bee against the window on the day of my promotion, struggling to get through the glass.
Jeff picked up my bag and hung it on his sturdy coat rack, and helped me lie down on the couch.
How I went from panic to sleep so fast, I had no flipping clue, except one. “What in...drink?”
What felt like an ice age later, I woke up with a sore neck on the couch, which was not designed for comfort. Jeff’s secretary Kate was framed in the doorway, cradling her Birkin bag and wearing her jacket, looking rather cheesed off about all the hubbub I’d caused.
“Oh good, you’re finally awake. I can clock out now,” she said, sounding miffed, as if she’d caught me swiping all the caramels from a box of mixed chocolates. “At least I can, once you’re up and about. Jeff didn’t want me to leave you unattended, and he’s in some meeting with Mr. Barkhouse.”
“So you got stuck on babysitting duty,” I mumbled, sitting up and holding my head in my hands.
I had an awful headache, which was no surprise, but fatigue I couldn’t really account for, and I knew driving home wasn’t really on the table.
Wait, hadn’t we carpooled this morning? I guess I’d let Clark drive, then...
“Clark!” I exclaimed, looking around the office, which was in clear window mode.
I saw row after row of empty desks and no trace of Clark anywhere.
“Kate, has Clark been by to see me? Or has he been seen at all this afternoon? I swear he was here one moment and then just gone the next.”
Kate rolled her eyes and looked at me like I’d lost my marbles. “Well, you blacked out after insisting you find a man named Clark. I pulled up his file, since there was a Clark who I recall applied for your old position a while back. Clark Evans ring a bell?”