A Place Called Home (8 page)

“I wish you had found someone more like ...”

Thea waited for him to finish the sentence, afraid she’d lost the connection. “Like whom, Joel?” she prompted.

“Well, like you.”

“Rosie
is
like me.”

“You know what I mean.”

Thea did, but she wouldn’t admit it. Rosie wasn’t terribly sophisticated and that was putting it in a very flattering light. She was brash, large, and spoke with such a heavy Pittsburgh accent that to an outsider she would sound like she had a speech impediment. “I think she’s the perfect right one for me, Joel. She makes me laugh.”

“Just so you don’t make her your maid of honor.”

Thea couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. She was afraid he might be. “You’re a snob, Joel Strahern. Did you know that?”

“I don’t mean to be.”

“I have to go. The man tailgating me in his BMW is making a sexual proposition.” She smiled sweetly so the driver would know she had seen him flip her off. “I’m ending this before there’s road rage. I’ll call when I get to work. I want to hear about the symphony.” She disconnected before Joel could reply and turned on NPR.

A seven-story atrium was the centerpiece of the renovated office complex that Foster and Wyndham called home. Formerly a department store, the site was now the Heinz 57 Center, home to the headquarters of Heinz’s U. S. Consumer Products and Foodservice businesses. In addition to Heinz, a variety of other firms—accountants, real estate developers, attorneys, medical practitioners—rented the spacious floors while retailers on the ground level brought in pedestrian traffic.

Thea passed on the elevators and walked up three flights, her heels clicking lightly in the empty stairwell. There were already more than a dozen people working when she walked into the lobby at Foster and Wyndham. An inflatable beach ball sailed out of one of the small conference rooms as she passed. She automatically batted it back and heard someone call, “Way to go! Three points!” Smiling, she walked on. It was a whatever-helps-you-think working environment that was first cultivated by Alvin Foster and suffered by his founding partner William Wyndham. Thea’s own father had been only a little more tolerant than his parent but the Fosters still liked to have a good time on their way to triple bypass surgery and stress-related breakdowns. Thea’s position was more practical: if inflatable beach balls were what it took to make the ideas flow, she didn’t have a problem. She shared her partner’s need to see results at the end of the day.

“Good morning, Hank.” She stuck her head through the open doorway to Hank Foster’s office. The CEO was tipped so far back in his chair that he was practically reclining. His hands were folded behind his head and his feet were propped on one corner of his desk. Thea couldn’t tell if he was sleeping. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses with blue jewel-toned frames and mirrored lenses. “Nice shades. Indisposed or incognito this morning?”

“Indisposed,” he said. “I was with clients at Rosebud last night.”

“Drink too much, did you?”

He shook his head. “No, we ended up at Primanti Brothers at three in the morning. I had a cheese steak with fries and coleslaw.”

Thea knew the fries and coleslaw weren’t served on the side. They were
on
the sandwich. “Yum.” She meant it; it was a terrific sandwich. Primanti Brothers was a Pittsburgh institution and a must-visit for clients who wanted a taste of the city’s blue-collar cuisine. “You need some Pepcid?”

“I need a stomach transplant.” He patted the offending portion of his anatomy which, even in his almost prone position, was distended above his belt line. “How can something I love so much do this to me? It’s not right.” He moved his feet gingerly off the edge of the desk and sat up slowly, pushing the garish sunglasses past the bridge of his nose until they rested against the blunt slope of his forehead. Now he regarded Thea with what looked like four eyes. “You have any luck with the Carver Chemical stuff?”

“No. We were here until almost seven.”

“Go easy, Thea,” he said lightly. “Your vacation will have been worthless if you come on like gangbusters.” When she didn’t respond, he went on. “What’s the word on your friends’ kids?”

“Mitchell is going to keep them.”

“You’re kidding.” Between the pairs of eyes his brows arched in surprise. He studied her for a moment. “You all right with that?”

She nodded. “Sure.” Thea backed out the doorway. “Let me know about the Pepcid.” She was gone before Hank, who knew her just about as well as anybody, could guess that maybe she wasn’t as all right with it as she had been yesterday.

In her own office Thea kicked off her shoes and put her purse and coat in the closet. She twisted the buttons on her black Donna Karan jacket so it opened casually to reveal a white silk shell. Once she was sitting behind her desk, Thea picked up the pink message slips that Mrs. Admundson had placed on her blotter, and swiveled to face the windows while she read them. Most of the employees had voice mail but Thea hated it and preferred callers leave their messages with a real person. Mrs. Admundson almost qualified.

There was one from Joel this morning, before he reached her on the cell phone. He must have guessed that she had spent the night at the office. Thea crumpled it and tossed it over her shoulder onto the desk. There were two from locally based corporations, one an Internet firm, the other a health maintenance organization. She would return those quickly then set them up with Hank if they were looking for consultation. He would bring her back after he had some idea of how serious they were about changing advertisers. In the meantime she would put the creative teams to work developing something interesting for them to consider.

There was a message from the secretary of one of the local family service organizations where she sat on the board of directors, reminding her there was a luncheon meeting on Thursday. Yes, she thought, wouldn’t she feel like a complete hypocrite attending that function? She slipped it in her pocket.

Flipping through the rest of the stack she saw that a colleague at another firm had called. There was a message from a Carolyn Schafer in human resources at Dwight Ennis, Inc. requesting a reference check, which meant that someone at Foster and Wyndham was jumping ship, and either he hadn’t told Hank or Hank had forgotten to tell her. There was a message from Avery Childers and the
Chronicle
called and ...

Thea’s fingers stilled. It wasn’t the paper specifically that had called, but Mitchell Baker. Mrs. Admundson, always playing her cards close, had pretended not to know his connection to Thea and had asked where he worked. Thea saw her assistant also made a note in red that there had been three calls. One of Thea’s brows lifted. All of them were before eight o’clock. She looked at the number and saw it was the local exchange. He was in town, then, not at home.

She stared at the pink slip a long time before she made a tight fist around it. Turning ninety degrees in her chair, Thea sent it sailing toward the wet bar where it fell in the sink. She threw up her hands and made crowd noises. “And the fans go wild!” Finishing the turn so she faced her desk, Thea picked up the phone and called Joel. She listened while he told her about the concert. He passed on his daughter-in-law’s thanks for thinking of her as a replacement and then they broke away, each with their agendas for the day in front of them.

Thea spent the next hour on the phone with the Net firm and the HMO. Then she initiated a few calls which took another hour. The call to Avery took longer than expected. The attorney didn’t want to hear that she was firing him. During all the calls, the earbud let her move around the office. She dallied in front of the window, looking down on Smithfield Street while she talked and watching the pedestrians jostle for position on the sidewalk and dart willy-nilly between the moving cars. She watered her plants, pulled the dead leaves, and straightened the books on her shelves. For a while she walked on the treadmill, stopping short of glowing or labored breathing. It hardly qualified as exercise, but it was better than nothing and she didn’t want to beat Hank Foster to that first bypass.

When she finished with business calls she made one more personal one. She got voice mail.
“Hey there. Unless you’re new to the planet, you know what to do.”
Thea smiled. That was pure Rosie. “Hi. It’s Thea. Just checking in. Thank you for last night. It helped.” Thea almost asked if she wanted to be a bridesmaid but managed to stop herself. “I’ll be in touch.” She ended the call, removed the earbud, and put on her shoes. She left her office to pass out assignments to the Green and Yellow Teams and round up the Blues.

When Thea didn’t call by eleven-thirty, Mitch decided she wasn’t going to return his call at all. He didn’t blame her. He knew he’d been a first-class ass last night when she’d phoned unexpectedly. In her sexy Ferragamo sling-backs, he wouldn’t return his calls either. Clearly some act of contrition was in order.

The
Chronicle
’s building was across town from Foster and Wyndham, but the nice thing about Pittsburgh’s golden triangle was that virtually everything was within walking distance. Mitch finished his meeting with the editor of the Sunday Forum section in record time, grabbed his jacket, and hurried out of the building. He stopped for flowers, bagel sandwiches, and Godiva chocolates, and still managed to make it to the ad agency by twelve-twenty.

Mitch thought the receptionist regarded him and his bribes with something akin to pity when he told her whom he wanted to see, but she lifted the phone and called through to Thea’s office anyway.

“I think she’s still in a meeting with the Blues,” she said. “You can have a seat and wait if you’d like. I’ll let her know you’re here as soon as she comes out. I can’t interrupt her, though.”

“Couldn’t I wait in her office?”

She hesitated. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She looked from the flowers to the chocolates and then to him again. “I know I look young and impressionable right now, but I’m grooming for the office-dragon position.”

Both of Mitch’s brows lifted. “They have one here, too?”

“Yes, and she’s Ms. Wyndham’s admin assistant. So, even if you got by me with this sorry Hail Mary pass you’re attempting, she wouldn’t let you into the inner sanctum.” She pointed a bloodred acrylic-tipped nail at the chairs against the wall. “I promise I’ll tell—”

“Hey, Tamika. Who’s this?”

The beadwork in Tamika’s hair clicked softly as she swiveled in her chair and looked up. “Nice shades, Mr. Foster.”

“Thanks.” He pushed them up a notch so they went from his forehead to the forefront of his receding hairline. “Your boyfriend?” he asked. “You need a long lunch?”

“No, but that’s a nice offer. This is Mr. Baker. He’s asking to see Ms. Wyndham.”

Mitch thrust the bagel bag into his left hand and held out his right. The flowers and chocolates were squeezed in the crook of his arm. “Mitch Baker,” he said. “I’m a ...” He hesitated, not certain how to describe himself in relation to Thea Wyndham. His eyes darted to the gold Godiva box and then back to Hank Foster. “I’m a penitent.”

Foster laughed. “Then I hope you have shoes in that bag because flowers and chocolates aren’t going to cut it.” He put his hand in Mitch’s and gave it a firm shake. “Come on back. It’s all right, Tamika. I know who Mr. Baker is. I’ll show him to Thea’s office.”

Mitch started to follow, paused, and planning for a future of needing favors from the dragon-in-training, he placed the flowers in her arms. Her smile was beatific.

Watching the exchange, Hank Foster shook his head. As he led the way to Thea’s office, he confided, “You’ve done it now. Upset the delicate balance of power around here.” He pointed to the aging Valkyrie at the copier. “See her? That’s Mrs. Admundson. She’s been here longer than I have. This is her desk.” He tapped it as they passed.

Without missing a beat, Mitch placed the gold Godiva box at the center of it.

“Good. Détente is achieved. What do you have in the bag?”

“Bagel sandwiches.”

“Better give those to me. They’re pretty unimpressive without the flowers and the chocolates.”

Mitch’s eyes darted to the wrinkled brown bag he was still clutching. It was hanging from his left hand like a game pheasant he’d shot down in the wild. He held it out to Foster who snatched it up before he could change his mind.

“Thanks.” The CEO peeked in the bag. “I’m sure these will be great.”

“No problem.” He stepped into Thea’s office empty-handed. “You think shoes would have been better?” They seemed too personal ... worse, cliché.

Foster didn’t hesitate. “Six and a half, narrow. They have the added advantage that no one else around here can use them.” Grinning, he pushed the sunglasses back to the bridge of his nose. “Make yourself at home. She won’t be long.” He stepped out, shutting the door behind him.

Rocking slightly on the balls of his feet, Mitch glanced around Thea’s office, eyeing the forest green leather sofa and chairs for comfort versus style. The top of her desk was clear of the detritus of the workday. There were no Post-it notes sticking to the blotter. No message slips impaled on a spindle. No uneven stack of reading to get through. It was also devoid of personal items. No picture frames. No business cards. No crystalline paperweights or executive toys. For Mitch, who hadn’t seen the wood grain of his desktop for several years, this barren landscape was a little frightening.

Clearly, Thea Wyndham, the neat freak, had a seriously disordered mind. In the event she dusted for fingerprints, Mitch thrust his hands in his jeans when he began his tour. He looked over her bookcase but found most of the material was work related: designer and graphics magazines that he, in some cases, also subscribed to. There were large volumes of photography by Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Mark, and Richard Avedon and collections that included Alfred Stieglitz and Pittsburgher Charles “Teenie” Harris. He marveled that her plants were all healthy and well tended. He wondered what she could do with the crinkly brown thing in the corner of his office that he kept watering out of a sense of duty.