Page 2 of Phishing for Love
Her eyes light up. “Yeah. And he wasn’t alone.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Anyone you know?”
The phone rings. We both ignore it.
“Never seen him before. Buuuuut—” Her whole body is quivering with her need to tell me. “—he’s wearing a suit and is literally the hottest guy I’ve ever seen.”
I digest that piece of information. Not the hot part, because Mevia’s taste in men is questionable, but the suit part. No one working at Amell Greetings wears a suit. Not even Calvin.
The phone continues to ring. Mevia swears under her breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me. We’re talking here.” She reaches out a rainbow-tipped nail and cuts off the call.
I feel my jaw drop. Not your problem, Tess. If Calvin wants to hire his niece, her receptionist skills—or lack of them—are his problem. Recovering, I ask, “Where’s the suit now?”
“In Calvin’s office. And the door’s closed.”
I probe some more, but this is all she knows. After thanking Mevia, I weave my way through the maze of cubicles to my workstation. Because I am fifteen minutes early, not all my writer and designer colleagues are in, but those who are at their desks spare me only a brief greeting before hunching back over their phones, thumbs flying across their screens, their anxiety suspended over the room like a heat haze.
Sofia is waiting for me at my desk, impatiently tapping her foot. Mevia must have alerted her. I take a moment to admireher outfit. A sleeveless white halter top and black leather pants accentuate her lean, athletic body, and her red heels match her blood-red lipstick. Her smooth dark skin glows. She looks good, and she knows it.
Unlike Mevia, Sofia takes her role in Marketing seriously and dresses the part. I also have a sneaking suspicion she dresses like she does to intimidate Calvin.
“Have you checked your email?” Sofia demands, wasting no time on pleasantries. Fortunately, I am well used to my friend’s bluntness.
“No,” I say, depositing my purse under my desk. I make it a point not to check my work email before coming in each morning.
“Calvin has called an all-staff meeting for later this morning.”
“No.”
“Yep.”
That explains everyone’s wide-eyed and bewildered expressions. Company meetings are always on a Monday. Today is Wednesday.
“This can’t be good.” I collapse into my chair. “Calvin’s a stickler for routine. He doesn’t deviate from his Monday meetings.”
“Except that one time,” Sofia points out, and we both blink in remembered horror of a meeting that neither of us can scrub from our brains.
Three years ago, Calvin had summoned all of us to the conference room. In my five years working as a greeting card writer at Amell Greetings, this was the first time an all-staff meeting had ever been called outside of a Monday.
At the meeting, clutching his hanky and sniffing loudly, Calvin had broken the news that his beloved Fitzroy had died. Everyone knew Fitzroy. Calvin had made it his unfortunate habit to bring his dog to work every day. He explained that Fitzroyhad been electrocuted and then he asked if anyone wanted to say something nice about him. You’d think a room mostly full of writers would have lots to say, but we all sat there mute because we hated that dog.
Fitzroy, a mean-eyed cross between an American bulldog and a zombie straight out ofWalking Dead, dumb as a log, would hunt down whatever lunch we were careless enough to leave lying around, deposit giant rivers of saliva all over our work clothes, and pee mini lakes under our office desks.
I love dogs, I really do, just not that dog. And I never wished him dead, only sleeping peacefully forever in a far-far-away place.
Right after the meeting, I wrote a card about Fitzroy:
He lived,
He died,
No one’s sad he fried.
Sofia had laughed so hard she peed her pants and had to rush home to change, but I’d been full of remorse afterward. I was an awful, terrible person. If there was such a thing as canine purgatory, I’d be consigned to it. Before I could tear the card up, Sofia had taken it to frame for her home office. I’d made her swear, under penalty of dismemberment, to never show it to Calvin.
I startle a little as Kenzie, a senior graphic designer at Amell Greetings, squeezes herself into my cubicle. Along with Sofia, she’s one of my closest friends. “You heard?” she asks. Her fine strawberry-blonde hair is gathered in a claw clip and she’s wearing a pretty floral maxi dress and gladiator sandals, nailing the boho chic look. She’s one of the few women I know who can pull off curtain bangs. “Calvin’s called a meeting in the Fitzroy.”
Yes, Calvin named the company’s main boardroom after his dog.
