Undead and Underwater (5 page)

But in a week, her dark locks had lightened to reddish blond. Why anyone would dye their hair a slightly lighter shade every single night was a mystery to him, as beautiful women and their secret tribal rituals always were.

“Jeez, Hailey, you even remembered your laptop. We didn’t used to lug entire computers into meetings, y’know. Hell, computers didn’t used to be portable! Desktop computers . . . give me a break.”

Another chorus of groans by unseen listeners, but The Old Coot was practiced in ignoring them.

“Hey, you know what we had before desktops? Actual desk tops. Tops of desks. And blotters. Blotters will make a comeback. I guarantee it. What’s old is new, and all that.”

Linus was wondering if he dared ask Hailey out right there, or if it would be better to try to catch her after the meeting, or maybe meet up with her on her way out the—

“Oh my God!” Another hidden voice, this one coming from the kitchen, which was two doors down from the watercooler. Before he could wonder about it, The Old Coot was saying, “It’s good you can make this meeting.”

“Of course.” She shrugged, took one last look at the Post-it, then crumpled it. “I’m right here; let’s get started.”

“Okay, great. Because with the new rollout next year, marketing’s gonna be all over us, and we’ve got to find a place in the budget—”

“Mighty crap, people! Have you heard?” Audrey the Receptionist bounded out of the break room like a puppy with earbuds. A puppy checking out her iPhone and eating a Hot Pocket. “Some dumbass plowed into a garbage truck, the truck overcorrected and hit a bus, and now the bus is, like, surrounded by toxic waste or something!”

“Jeez,” he said, shocked.

“I
know
. It’s going to utterly screw my commute.” Audrey took another look at the small screen and shook her head, disgusted. “I’ve gotta take the 494 ramp not even a mile from there. Why can’t more parents drive their kids to school? We wouldn’t even need buses if they’d step up.”

Hailey turned back to The Old Coot. “You tell marketing that I loathe them with everything I have, do not care how many ads they want to run for the rollout, and will not set foot in that meeting until that entire department agrees to stop sucking.” Then she whirled and stalked off.

“Whoa,” Linus said.

“Yeah, she really hates the marketing guys.” Coot shrugged. “I dunno; what’s it to her? She’s always picking a fight and then doing her ice cube impersonation.”

“Knock it off.” Linus was startled at how sharply that came out, and consciously softened his tone. “She’s got a tough job.”

“If she was ever on time, it’d be an easier job.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but was still reeling from a) the odd conversation, b) the abruptness of Hailey’s mood shift from friendly and pleasant to pissed and abrupt, and c) the fact that The Old Coot didn’t look a day over thirty.

(“Why is that?” he asked Audrey the Receptionist the night before.

“Because thirty is ancient in twenty-first-century tech years,” she explained. “Thirty is the new ninety.”)

“What just happened?” he asked aloud, and no one answered.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Toldja: If You Don’t Act, We Will.

Hailey limped back to the office. Shoving the bus to safety had ruined her clothes: torn pantyhose, scuffed shoes, torn skirt, torn blouse. Grease all over her hands. The heel of her left shoe wobbling at every staggered step. Left bra strap broken and dangling. Hair looking like she’d combed it with a wire whisk. And
unbelievable
dry mouth.

And so, so hungry. Not to mention late for a budget meeting that likely ended over an hour ago. She hadn’t even finished writing herself up for being late this morning, and now this.

Audrey the Receptionist greeted her with a, “Whoa! And hey—before I forget, Edward was looking for you. Something about his PO request for more internal fans for the server.”

“All right . . . I’ll call him.”

“Did you pick another fight with the Chipotle guy?”

“No.” She limped past.

“The Subway guy?”

“No.” Now she was hurrying as fast as she could without breaking into a jog.

“The KFC guy? The bookstore gal? The Caribou Coffee guy? The Dunn Bros gal? The car wash guy? The bakery gal?” Audrey was on her feet, hollering after her. “The gas station guy? Wait, the car wash guy and the gas guy are the same guy . . .”

She was in such a rush she didn’t realize she’d knocked Linus over until she . . . well . . . knocked him over.

“Ow!” He was gasping on the carpet, rubbing his nose. “Jeez, you’re really bony.”

Stupid, stupid,
she inwardly raged
. You haven’t completely drained the batteries; you could have put him through the wall!
Mortified, she bent to give him a hand up; he was back on his feet in less than a blink, which made him stagger against her. Given the state of her clothes, that should have been embarrassing, but wasn’t. More thrilling than embarrassing, truth be told.

“Aagghh! I’ve never gotten motion sickness that bad before. Or that fast . . .”

“Sorry. I’m so sorry . . . Are you hurt?”

“No. ’Course not.”

“Thank God, okay, listen—I’m running late—”

“I know. The meeting’s been over for—”

She groaned. “Don’t tell me.” He was following her to her office, and for once, she didn’t mind someone dogging her steps. “Can’t believe I missed another one.”

“What happened? Did someone—Are you—Did somebody do this to you? Did someone try to . . . ?” He took a breath. “Did you have to fight someone off? Because if you did, we need to call the cops. Right now.”

She was surprised to see him go from concerned to horrified anger, and so quickly. Then she realized what he thought might have happened. “No, no. I did it to myself.”
At least that doesn’t sound exceptionally crazy.
“Flat tire.”

“Oh. I’ve heard you get those a lot.”

“It’s why I no longer buy American.” She got to her office, kicked off her shoes, and sat down at her laptop. At least there wasn’t a new note.

And that meant something. That was important. But she was so tired and hungry she couldn’t put it together, couldn’t put her finger on just why it was important, and resolved to think about it later.

Paperwork. She had to focus on something else.
Had
to. “Linus, I have to write myself up—sorry again about knocking you down.”

“Why?”

Hmmm. I assumed he would be quicker
. “Because it was a rotten, rude thing to do.”

“No, why do you have to write yourself up?”

“I’m in HR,” she replied, confused.

“Yeah, but why?”

“To pay my rent?” Was it a riddle? A game? What?

“But why
here
?”

She shook her head, tried to run her fingers through her hair, and gave up after finding a knot of tangles.
Probably oil in it; wonderful. Had to gulp down the spilled oil and eat all the broken glass before I could move the bus. Broken glass tastes almost as bad as Corn Nuts do.
“Linus, I’m not following you.”

“You’re really interesting, you know that?” He’d taken the chair opposite her desk. She knew she should show him the door but couldn’t make herself say the words, much less move. He seemed so . . . so kind and nice and honestly interested. She had liked the way he looked at her during their interview a few days back, and she liked how he was looking at her now, when she was such a walking disaster, when she likely couldn’t look worse. It was confusing and wonderful.

“I’m not interesting. I’m very, very dull.”

“Dull. Uh-huh. It’s the worst-kept secret here that you hate your job. Except you’re really good at your job and you go out of your way to get everything you can for us. You put in lots of extra effort for a job you say you hate, to help people you pretend you don’t like. And it’s possible—don’t take this the wrong way—but I think the people here pretend not to like you.”

“What?”

“And you hate exercise, but you’re always showing up panting and sweaty from jogging or whatever it is you do when you’re not
not
going to budget meetings.”

“Ouch,” she said, hurt.

“I didn’t mean it in a nasty way,” he quickly assured her. “Just as another point of evidence that puts you in the interesting category. You give off this stiff vibe, but you’re sometimes really friendly and nice. And then there’s the . . .” Too late, he realized where that last point was going.

Unfortunately, Hailey did, too, and gave him a wry smile. “Yes, continue.”

“Uh . . . well, you’ve got all these minions and underlings and Igors, and they pretend those are mean secret nicknames, but not only do you know about them, the impression I get is that you sort of like them.”

I do like them.
She did. Nicknames could be wonderful. Like a secret code only a few people knew. A family thing. A friend thing. And since she no longer had a family, and had never had friends, she loved the nicknames, nasty as they were. But she’d done a poor job of hiding it, which made her worry: What else had she made a poor job of hiding?

He’s known me a week. I knew he was sharp, but this is . . . this is something more than sharp.

And the notes.

Hmmm.

“Anyway, you’re interesting.” He leaned back in his chair, started to put his feet up, checked himself, and slumped back in his seat.

She laughed. “Go ahead. I don’t have the moral high ground today when it comes to inappropriate employee behavior. Besides, I’m not your boss—just the person who hired you for your boss.”

“Right. Thanks.” He stretched out long legs and crossed his feet at the ankles, inches away from paperwork. “You’re not my boss, but there’s something . . . Okay, one thing at a time. So like I said, if you hate it but not really, why are you even writing yourself up? Why do any of this”—he gestured to the room—“if you hate it?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t. It was one thing to know that she could do a half-assed job, could come into the office no more than eight or ten hours a week, and Ann Denison would never fire her. In fact, Ann lived in fear of Hailey quitting.

Knowing that was one thing; taking rude advantage of it was something else. If she didn’t write herself up for her frequent tardiness, no one would. No one would even say anything . . . not officially, and even if they would, Ann wouldn’t care. And that made her think of the notes again. “I guess . . . how can I hold everyone to standards I won’t maintain myself? It’s not fair, which I agree is a juvenile concept, but I don’t have the stomach for it. I guess I’m a terrible rebel.”

“Terrible,” he murmured, “is not the first word I think of when your name comes up. And it comes up. A lot.”

“Yes, I imagine so.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Something else, you mean?” She was pulling paperwork out of desk drawers and hunting pens. She could at least sign off on payroll today, even if nothing else got done.

“Yeah. Uh . . . we’re close to the same age, right?”

She blinked even as she found a hidden Snickers and wolfed it down in three unlovely bites. “Mmm gsss sssoo.” She was twenty-six. He was twenty-four.

“It’s just, you seem older.”

“Ffffnnnkks fffrrr nnnthnng.”

“In a good way, in a good way! You just . . . you know how they say some people are old souls? I never met one before. You’re one of those; you have an old soul tucked behind a young face.”

You would, too, if you spent your days shoving school buses and foiling robberies and getting stabbed trying to break up a rape and then having to eat the damned knife to have the strength to pummel the rapists.

“Which is also interesting,” he finished.

She swallowed the rest of the candy and held on to the wrapper. She would eat it as soon as he was gone. Also the four empty file folders she’d found. And possibly the pencil shavings out of the electric sharpener. A pity there had been no time to replenish her work stash. But her work stash might be what led to those unlovely notes.

The whole thing made her tired. And, to be honest, a little angry. She’d stopped asking herself
why me, why me, why am I the one stuck with this, woe, woe
years ago, but sometimes it snuck back into her brain. “Well, thank you, I suppose. And now I have to kick you out. Work, work, work. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Prob’ly not; tomorrow’s a holiday, remember?”

“It is?” Her heart sank. Literally: it actually felt like it swelled from adrenaline and then dropped down to her belly button. “I won’t?”

“Greenery Day.”

“How could I have forgotten?”

“Can you believe it’s that time of year again?” he asked with exaggerated surprise. “Japanese nature holidays just sneak right up, don’t they? To think I’ve left my Greenery Day shopping ’til the last minute.”

She cracked up; she couldn’t help it. Which got him started, so in seconds they were both yowling like hyenas behind her closed office door.

“Well,” he said at last, wiping his eyes, “happy Greenery Day Eve.” Ignoring her snort, he added, “Uh, maybe you’d want to get together tomorrow for a—”

“Of course!”

“—movie or someth—What? Oh. Great.” He smiled again, that wonderful smile. His obvious pleasure in her acceptance almost negated her embarrassment that she’d hurried to say yes before he had a chance to finish the question.

Which was insane. Knowing what she knew and, worse, what she didn’t know.

I don’t know him: bad. He’s a nice boy, but exactly that: a boy. Worse. Or not. And that’s the worst of all.

They worked out the details—lunch, tomorrow, Big Bowl in the Galleria, 11:30, maybe a movie after. Then he bid her a courteous good-bye and shut the door behind him with a firm click.

She instantly stuffed the wrapper in her mouth, followed by several pens she kept for emergencies, the ones out of ink.

Funny
, she mused, chewing.
I feel loads better, though nothing has changed. I’m still a mess. I still work here. Evil has still not been vanquished. I’m still getting those annoying notes.