Page 17 of Don't Remind Me
I paused with the glass halfway to my mouth, watching her. Waiting.
She eyed the cider, then me, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly as she grabbed the drink and brought it to her lips.
I did the same with mine, not bothering to hide my grin.
Chapter Seven
Dani
I hit saveon the changes to the panel descriptions Talia and I had decided on this morning, then sent them to her for final approval before pulling up the panelists’ bios so I could start cutting them to size. We were a little over two months out from the symposium, and things were going surprisingly well.
Entertainment for the cocktail party and gala had been booked, along with travel and housing accommodations for the out-of-town speakers. The invitations had been designed, the cocktail, breakfast, and lunch menus finalized, and so far, we were on track to stay under budget.
Why that was all surprising, I didn’t know. I’d created a production schedule breaking down each step that needed to be completed and by when, along with detailed checklists for tasks and reminders on my work calendar. I wasmeticulousin the planning of this event, more so than any I’d planned before, but it never quite managed to shake free the worry burrowed deep beneath my ribs that waited for something to explode.
Or collapse.
Or face general destruction of any kind.
I could admit Jase was largely to thank for the budget and menu successes. He’d crafted a vision for the food I hadn’t thought possible for the cost he was sticking to, and he’d been the picture of professionalism since that first tasting, meeting every deadline we agreed to with total preparedness and putting me at ease with his simple confidence that nothing he put forth would be anything less than excellent.
It was nice having that steadying force to brush up against, even if our interactions had stayed strictly polite since our shared drink after the press interviews.
That had been nice too. An interaction I stopped my brain from focusing on for longer than a second, or else that weird fluttering beneath my sternum would start up again. That was…not something I needed to deal with right now.
The wall of my cubicle shook with a smack, and I looked up to see Robin walk past, her finger gun shooting back at me. “Save you a seat?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec.”
She nodded and turned the corner to the large break room, a few other people following on their way to the staff meeting.
I saved what I was working on and grabbed my notepad, then made my way into the room, scanning the mostly full round tables until I spotted Robin’s short red pinup curls and gemstone barrette. I squeezed through and dropped into the empty seat beside her.
“Do we know what this is for?” I asked. We typically had one all-staff meeting a month, and our most recent had been just last week. The calendar pop-up this morning scheduling this meeting had sent intrigue rippling through the office.
“No one I’ve talked to knows,” Robin said.
Kelly lowered the nails she was biting. “What if they’re firing a bunch of us?” she asked, switching to the nails on her other hand.
That had been my first thought too, but it didn’t make sense. As far as I knew, we were on track for donations, and it wasn’t like we had to worry about stocks dropping.
The murmur of others discussing the same possibility grew as the rest of the staff filed in, some taking up spots along the walls as the tables filled, the minutes dragging on as we waited in uncertainty.
Finally, Executive Director Gardner walked through the door, and the room quieted. Talia was with her, along with a tall Black man I’d never seen before. He looked around Talia’s age—mid-forties if I had to guess—and despite his impressive height, it was the gun holstered at his waist that caught my eye.
“Thank you for rearranging your schedules for this meeting,” Director Gardner said from the front of the room lined with cabinets. She was a petite Black woman with shortly cropped gray hair, who appeared almost comically small standing beside the mystery man. He towered over her by a good foot.
“We’ll make it quick,” she continued, then gestured to the man who had what I could now clearly make out as a security badge insignia on the sleeve of his shirt. “This is Geffery Fisher. He’ll be providing security for the building for the next few weeks. There’s no reason to be alarmed.” She raised her hands as whispers erupted. “We’re just putting a few routine precautions in place due to the recent attention we’ve been getting online.”
The article.
My gaze flew to Talia, who met my eye with a quick shake of her head.Don’t worry about it, she was saying, but my breathing had already gone shallow.
Just over a week had passed since my interview with Bill Sewick of theCitizen Dailywas published, along with the two other interviews Jillian had set up at Ardena. The first two had been the nice boost in press we’d wanted for the symposium.
The third one, not so much.
Despite Jase’s congratulatory drink, he’d been livid at theCitizen Dailyreporter, and Jillian had apologized to me profusely for three days after Jase told her what happened. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think he’d been enraged forme, but his restaurant’s reputation made much more sense.
