Page 50 of The Catcher

So when a UPS driver came up to the cubicle with a big box I was so distracted that I signed for it without thinking.

And without noticing that there were holes in the box.

I was scrolling through my email, thinking that the popular Inconceivable brand veggie burgers were probably going to be the big winners in getting Tanner’s celebrity face when I heard a rustling from the box at my feet. With trepidation, I grabbed scissors and carefully opened the box.

Inside was a small, perfectly shaped tortoise with a beautiful tan and brown shell, blinking up at me with sleepy eyes, and a huge terrarium.

For a moment I stared in incomprehension, and then I heard Tanner beside me.

“There you go, Em,” he said.

“There I go, what?” I cried.

“You like them. Now you can’t be pissed.”

I liked. . . tortoises?

I wracked my mind for what thefuckhe had been thinking and remembered the first time we had met, the turtle I had saved. His hard, taut coldness leaning against the building, watching me, wanting to take everything that was soft about me and submit it to him.

“I am still pissed!” I said. “You can’t think buying me a tortoise means I’m not pissed. You tookmy jobaway.”

I heard the sides of my cubicle start to crack as he gripped them in his hands. “You can’t be atthatjob. Your job is being here with me.”

I clenched my fists together. “Not that you give a shit, but I loved doing that job and I can’t bear that everybody is going to hate me there.”

There was a few seconds of silence, and I expected him to railroad over me like he always did.

“You can’t have that job,” he said. “I’m never letting you leave me again. But if you care about that other shit, I’ll fix it.”

I looked up, startled, and while the tortoise ate a leftover leaf from my lunch salad, Tanner called Principal Wagner in front of me.

When I heard the other man’s voice on the phone, Tanner said, “This is Tanner Courtenay. I came and took Emrys Finnegan from your school last week. Yeah. I paid someone to lie to you that she had cheated on a test. She didn’t. Don’t try to take her license or do any other shit or I will come up there personally to fix it.”

Principal Wagner’s loud and outraged squawks were audible even to me, but Tanner only said, “I’ll send you the proof. But she won’t be coming back.”

I was torn between crying and laughing.

“There you go, Em,” he said sternly. “Now be at the game early today. I need someone to make sure my swing isn’t dipping and I don’t trust anyone else.”

He turned to go. And that was how Tanner Courtenay operated. No requests, no negotiations, no give-and-take. He told me what to do and expected I would do it.

As he left, he turned halfway back, his silvery eyes pinning me in place as they always did.

“I’m moving you out of that cubicle,” he said. “You’re the best PR agent they have and my wife is getting her own office.”

The next day there was another tortoise.

And the day after that there were two more.

And as the Phoenixes went into the league championship, Tanner Courtenay was hitting .345, slugging percentage .619, and I had five tortoises and a new office.

Of course, I traveled with the team. There was no other option. But the tortoises came too.

The Phoenixes lost the first game, and I waited for Tanner in the luxurious hotel room the team was in for the next three days.

I was feeding cut-up carrots to the tortoises when I heard adingand I looked down to see Sibyl’s name.

I’m sorry

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