A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain)

REED

On those rare occasions when I’m surly for more than one day in a row, Sheila usually ignores me. She “forgets” to include me in the lunch order, for example, and steers a wide berth around my desk until I remember how to be human again.

This time it’s different. She’s taken the opposite tactic—bringing me coffee without asking and handling me carefully. She is gentle when she reminds me that I have board meetings and conference calls.

I must be more pathetic than usual.

“Here’s that Wired article about Deevers,” she says sweetly, putting a glossy magazine on my desk. “You sent him a bottle of Washington State cider as a congratulatory gift. And here’s a chocolate blackout cookie to get you through your call with Tim Lanstrom at Kappa. It starts in ten minutes.”

I eye the cookie suspiciously, because random treats from Sheila are not that common. It looks tasty, but I don’t reach for it. Instead, I flip over my phone from where I set it face down on the desk. Blank screen. No calls or texts from Ava.

Ow.

Ava is officially avoiding me now. It’s been more than a week since we last spoke. For a couple of days, I assumed she was just too busy. But now it’s official. She’s ghosting me.

I glance up to find Sheila watching me with concern in her eyes.

“Have you heard from her?” I blurt out like a crazy person.

Sheila’s flinch looks guilty. “We’ve spoken. I had to thank her for comping my room those extra nights.”

“How’s, um, her state of mind?”

She smiles. “Should I dash off an email, asking her for a full report?”

“No.” I put my head in my hands. So this is what it feels like to lose your head. It’s been a long time since I felt like this. I miss Ava so bad.

I dread the day when my father signs that contract. It’s all mixed up for me—the fate of our relationship and the fate of the mountain. I feel like I’ve let Ava down. And my father, too, except he’s too much of an asshole to notice.

It’s killing me that there’s nothing I can do.

“Your call with Tim starts in just four minutes.”

“Tim…?”

Her eyes widen. “Lanstrom. At Kappa.”

“Right.” I straighten up and shake my computer mouse. “Logging in now.”

She waits until I actually do it before she dares to leave the room.

By five p.m., I’m feeling like a caged animal inside my office. Still no replies to my texts to Ava.

I can’t stand it anymore, so I decide to go home early. Maybe a run in Byxbee Park will fix me. Rising from my desk, I toss my laptop in its bag and leave my office. I pause behind Sheila. “Hey, I’m going.”

She whirls around almost violently. I’ve startled her. Then she shoves her laptop aside and looks up at me. “You’re going…where?” she asks, confused.

“Home.”

She blinks. “At five? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just done for the day.”

“Okay,” she says. And then her eyes do a guilty flick towards her laptop.

When I glance at her screen, I see apartment listings. “1BR, 1 Bath, just $1200.” My first thought is—wow, that’s really cheap for the Bay Area.

Then I realize it’s not the Bay Area. There’s a map on half the screen, and it’s for Penny Ridge, Colorado. “What the…?”

“Um…” Sheila says, staring at me with wide eyes. “Reed, it’s wrong to read over someone’s shoulder.”

“Sorry, but what the heck? Who’s renting in Penny Ridge? You’re not doing that for me, right?”

Slowly, Sheila closes the laptop. “No.”

“Then who?” It doesn’t make sense. “For Ava?”

“No, Reed.” She shakes her head. “It’s for me.”

“What?”

She stands up suddenly. “Can we talk in your office?”

I turn around and march back in there, sitting heavily back down in my chair. “Explain.”

“Ava said she’d hire me,” Sheila says quietly, sitting down in the visitor’s chair. “And I’m considering it.”

“Hire you? That makes no sense.”

Except it actually does. Sheila is a bright, talented college graduate who’s terrific in a business setting. And Ava is going to manage the property, moving up into my father’s job.

Of course, she’d want Sheila in the number two spot. Who wouldn’t?

“She’s poaching you?” I yelp. “I can’t believe this.”

“Don’t be mad at Ava,” Sheila says.

“I NEVER GET MAD AT AVA.”

She holds up two hands in submission. “Look, you know I’ve been doing some soul searching. I need to try new things.”

“Goddamn it. She hates me that much?”

Sheila groans. “I promise this isn’t about you. And it’s not even a sure thing. Ava wants to wait for the dust to settle on the acquisition before she tries to hire me for real.”

“And when will that be? Since you know so much about it.”

“Well…” Her guilty face returns. “I hear the final contract will be ready sometime in the next three days. After your father signs, it goes to the state review board. The review process could take two to four weeks.”

I make a growly noise of pure frustration. “You’re willing to work for the Sharpes? If you think I’m a pain in the ass…”

“I’m willing to work for Ava,” she says. “And if everything goes sideways, I can move back here and find another job. Prashant will write me a recommendation. And maybe you will too, once you get over your snit.”

“Snit? I don’t have snits.”

“Right.” She gets up and walks out of the room.

I’m so stunned that I just stare at the doorway for a long beat. Then I stalk over and close it with enough violence that the entire office probably jumps from the bang.

Whoa. I’ve never done that before.

They call me the ice king behind my back. I’ve heard the whispers. But right this second, I’m not icy at all. I’m practically boiling. I don’t even recognize the senseless shout that erupts from my mouth.

Next, I grab my phone off the desk and hit Ava’s number. Because phoning the woman who’s ghosting you when you’re feeling like a loose cannon is a super idea.

“Reed,” she answers in a low, tense voice. “Can I call you back? This isn’t a good time.”

“How convenient,” I spit. “You don’t answer my texts. You don’t take my calls. And you poached my assistant? What the fuck, Ava! Are you trying to get back at me? Is that a mature thing to do?”

“Excuse me a moment,” she says to someone who isn’t me. “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, but I need to take this call for two minutes.”

“Two minutes,” I growl. “So good to know you care.”

“Reed,” she hisses. Then I hear the clunk of a door shutting. “I’m about to interview a new catering manager in the middle of a labor shortage! Pardon me if I’m too busy doing my job to take your irate calls.”

“I’m not irate. But it was shitty of you to go behind my back. Were you even going to tell me you offered Sheila a job? Is this amusing to you—letting me be the last to know?”

“I didn’t make her a formal job offer yet!” she yells. “We’re kicking tires. She’s mulling it over, and she’s smart enough to consider the housing market. I picked up your call because she just texted to say you were upset.”

“I’M NOT UPSET!”

She sighs. “Here we go.”

“What does that mean?”

“Be upset, Reed. Be mad at your dad for shutting you out. Be pissed at me for not jumping on a plane to California so we could be together without you having to change your life. Be mad at Sheila for wanting something different. Be as angry as you want.”

“WHAT GOOD WOULD IT DO?” I scream. My face is hot. My throat burns.

It’s weird.

“A lot of good.” Her voice is suddenly gentle. “Some things just suck, Reed. They’re worth a little rage. I’m sorry your assistant wants to work in a job where she sometimes gets to go outside. It will suck if she leaves you.”

“She goes outside! Starbucks is outside!” I thunder.

“I have to go,” she says. “But Reed?”

“What?” I snap.

“I still love you.”

My head practically explodes. “Wow, Ava. Great timing. So nice to hear that.”

“I know.” Her voice wobbles. “It’s inconvenient, but still true. Like so many things. And now I really have to go.”

“So go already,” I choke out.

She ends the call.

And now I’m standing in my office holding my phone, and it’s shaking. It’s not, like, vibrating with a notification or anything, it’s just shaking.

I think I might be shaking, too.

Strange. I do a lap around my office to see if it stops.

When I look down at my phone again, there’s a new message from my brother.

Weston: Hey. Want to get beers?

My mood immediately improves by about ninety percent, because my brother never wants to meet up.

Reed: Sure! Where? Are you in CA?

Weston: Oops. Sorry. Wrong thread. I’m nowhere near CA.

Fuck.

Reed: Look, I know you don’t care, but I figured out why the sale price on the resort is so high. The buyer is going to expand over the mountain and build a gross development on Block’s piece of land.

Weston: So? Not your problem.

I lean into the floor-to-ceiling window on my office wall and bang my head three times. My family is a goddamn disaster.

Out the window I can see a golf course in the distance. I’m so very far from the mountain peaks of Colorado. I could just walk away from the whole mess. Weston would.

So why am I so unhappy right now?

Reed: I wanted it to be my problem. I told Dad that I wanted in, and he threw me out.

Weston: He’s a dickwad. But why do you want a piece of that? Aren’t you a rich fuck already?

Reed: Because of Ava. She’s still in CO. And Dad is selling any day now to assholes she hates.

Weston: Dude. Busy here. GTG. But if the thing you want is in CO why are you back in CA?

That’s it. That’s all the words he can spare for his brother. The green dot disappears from his text thread.

Weston loves to have the last word. I let out a shout of petty rage. And it feels so good that I let out another one.

But then I realize Weston made one very good point.

Shit. What am I doing in California?

I fling open my office door and bellow, “SHEILAAAAAAAA!” Because I can’t seem to moderate my voice all of a sudden.

Every single employee within shouting distance turns to stare at me, open-mouthed. I can see all their tonsils.

Shit.