Company (37 page)

Everybody draws, and Jones ends up with three queens.

“Ho, ho,” Elizabeth says, from the head of the table. “You guys are in for it now. I am loaded up.”

The accountant lays down two pair with a certain hopeful glance in Jones's direction, but Holly creams everyone with a flush. “You wouldn't,” Freddy says, and Holly grins wickedly. Jones finds it startling, then realizes why: he's only ever seen small smiles from Holly. He has never seen her really happy.

Freddy holds up his hands in surrender, makes like he's going to climb onto the boardroom table, then runs for the door. There are howls of outrage as his white underpants flash by. People leap up from the table, scattering cards. Holly is out of her chair in a second and bolts after him like a leopard. Jones doesn't think Freddy is going to get very far.

Suddenly he wants to go home. This has been an amazing day, but for Jones it's not finished. There is a reckoning to be had with Alpha; maybe not tonight, but Jones can't relax until he faces that. Until he severs his link to Alpha, he's not really a part of Zephyr.

It takes him half an hour to get out of the building, because when people see he's leaving, everyone wants to talk to him. But he finally makes it, and he's walking along the stained concrete floor of the level-2 subbasement parking lot, reaching for his car keys, when a voice he immediately recognizes as Eve's floats into earshot. He stops and looks around. Someone replies to Eve, then there's a third voice. They seem to be behind the elevator shaft, so Jones cautiously heads in that direction. He rounds a thick pillar and stops, because there everyone is: the whole of Project Alpha.

Nobody speaks. Jones hesitates, then decides he might as well get it over with. He takes a step and Klausman says, “Don't . . . you . . . dare.” He speaks quietly, but there is rage in his voice, and something else, too: something like grief. Jones stops. He looks from one Alpha agent's face to another and sees a mixture of anger, confusion, and shock. Eve's face is blank, as if he's not even there.

He nods and turns away. At first he feels cowardly, even embarrassed. But with each step, his mood rises. By the time he reaches his car, he has practically forgotten about Daniel Klausman and Alpha. He is thinking about Freddy's white underpants, and how Holly ran after them.

He is almost home when his cell phone rings. He fishes it out of his pocket and glances at the screen. Then he pulls the car over and parks outside a small clothing store.

“Where are you?” she says.

“In my car.” This doesn't seem to answer her question, so he adds, “Alone.”

“Okay. I can't talk for long, but I just wanted to tell you: you are
awesome.
”

Jones thinks:
Crossed line?

“Hello?”

“I'm here.”

“I've been pissed at you all day, you know. But when I saw what you were doing
. . . damn,
Jones! You killed Senior Management. It's unbelievable.”

“I thought you'd be . . . less enthusiastic.”

“Well, it screws Alpha. We'll be digging our way out of this for months. But who cares? You took on the company and kicked its ass. Look, I'll have to distance myself from you in front of Alpha—say I'm appalled at your behavior, you betrayed our trust, blah blah blah—but Jones, I am so attracted to you right now, you have no idea. Hello? You still there?”

“Yeah. My mouth is just hanging open.”

“Yours and everyone else's. My God, when I saw Klausman, I thought he was having a heart attack. None of us are getting a weekend now. You should feel sorry for me; I'm about to have a twenty-hour meeting.”

“You sound excited about it.”

“Well . . . not about
that.
I'm just excited.” There is a falseness in her tone. Jones thinks Eve just lied to him.

“You still there?”

“What's going to happen in the meeting?”

“Well, we figure out what the hell to do.” She laughs in his ear. “Blake's already saying we should shut Zephyr down and start again. Klausman won't hear it. He's not going to let his baby die. Which you already knew, right? You're such a frickin' genius. You actually found a way to change Zephyr. And I don't think there's a thing we can do about it.”

“Is that what you're going to tell them?”

“I'm not sure yet. There's a lot of politics involved. This is an earthquake moment for Alpha. Some people might get shaken right out, others will . . . well, come out better.”

A sick feeling develops in Jones's stomach. “Are you
excited because you think I've done a good thing for Zephyr?”

“Of course.”

“Or because I've done a good thing for
you
?”

There's a pause, then she says, “Why do you say that?”

His body flushes cold.

“Jones? Hello? Jo-o-ones?”

“Yeah,” he croaks.

“Is this a bad line? Hang on. I'll call you back.”

The following Monday, Jones wakes at 6:14
A.M.
He knows this without even opening his eyes, because he's one of those people who always wakes just before his alarm goes off. And Jones's alarm has been set for 6:15
A.M.
every weekday for the last three months.

But not today. This morning, Jones's internal clock has been fooled. He rolls over and pulls up the sheet. He smiles without opening his eyes. This morning, Jones can sleep in, because he doesn't have an Alpha meeting.

Elizabeth arrives at Zephyr at 8:55
A.M.,
almost an hour late. She feels guilty for taking advantage of the lack of Senior Management to grab a little extra sleep—until, cruising through the parking lot, she passes empty space after empty space. Apparently she's not late at all. Relatively speaking, she's early.

She catches the elevator to Staff Services and wends her way between empty cubicles. A sudden burst of loud voices prompts her to turn and peer over the dividers: three people are by the coffee machine, sharing a joke. She keeps walking. Just before her cubicle, she finally sees someone at a desk: a young guy with spiky hair. He looks up, surprised, and she smiles at him. He quickly changes the screen on his computer. Belatedly, she realizes he was working on his CV.

The second she bends down to tuck her bag under her desk, her phone rings. She picks up. This is a big mistake. “Elizabeth,” says Roger, his voice deep and utterly commanding. “We need to talk.”

Wait!
some part of her shrieks, but already the blood is rising in her head like a storm. Her fingers sing with pins and needles. Her toes freeze. Her body floods with the insane, unspeakable, insatiable craving:
Roger, Roger, Roger.

Horrified, she watches her feet turn around and clump her blindly along the carpet. When she reaches Roger's door, her hand
(traitor!)
comes up and knocks. When Roger calls her in, her body trills in response.

Roger sits with his hands folded neatly on his desk. His brown hair is neatly parted. His suit jacket sits on him as easily and perfectly as a sculpture, the shoulders dusted in gold from the morning sun. For a second, Elizabeth thinks she is going to vomit.

“So?” To her relief, her voice comes out hard and sardonic. “What's the story?”

“Have a seat.”

She shrugs, as if she doesn't care one way or the other—as if her heart isn't trying to break out of her chest and her brain not drowning in a dull roar of lust. She folds both hands firmly around the armrests, where they are less likely to do anything stupid.

“I'm not sure how to put this.” He hasn't glanced away from her, even for a second, since she entered the room. “Last week, in your cubicle . . . you had some fun at my expense.”

Yes!
Elizabeth will die to defend this fiction. “I suppose so,” she says nonchalantly. Her hands, appalled by this lie, try to get away from her; she squeezes them back down on the armrests.

“Or so I thought.” Roger opens a drawer and holds up a tiny plastic cup, the kind doctors ask you to pee into. Elizabeth can't fathom why Roger would have such a thing, and for a second her stupid, addled brain spins with bizarre possibilities. “Human Resources has a new drug-testing policy. You've been randomly selected from our department.”

Elizabeth may be more hormones than synapses, but she can see through that: Human Resources wants to know if she's pregnant. Outrage flares across her face. Then she realizes Roger is watching her reaction.

He says, “That's what I thought, too.”

Oh God.
“What?”

“It's not about drugs.”

“Then what's it about?”

“In my opinion?” He purses his lips. “I think you're pregnant.”

Kill me now. Please.

“Very pregnant, in fact. Maybe five months.”

Her hands spasm.

“Which would put the conception date around . . . well.”

Roger's eyes grip her. It's not fair; he's reviving the memory of their coupling! Sweat pops out on her hairline. She digs her fingers into the armrests with all her strength.

“Given that, I'm looking on recent events in a new light. Such as what you said to me.”

He stands.

Oh no.

“It makes me wonder . . .”

He comes around the desk and drops onto his haunches in front of her.

No! No!

“. . . if that was in fun . . .”

No no no no no no—

“. . . or not.”

The sun shines behind him, forming a halo. She bites down on a whimper. In this moment, he is the most beautiful, desirable asshole in the world.

“Stop me if I'm off base here,” Roger says softly, “but I'm wondering if that was for real.”

She holds out for a full second. Considering the tidal wave of physical need crashing against her, it's a kind of victory.
I tried!
she thinks. Then she grabs Roger's face with both hands and mashes her lips against his.

Jones is halfway across the lobby when a hand touches his arm. He looks around into the pale gray eyes of a blue-uniformed Human Resources and Asset Protection security guard. “Mr. Jones?”

Jones supposes this is the part where he is forcibly escorted off the premises. “Okay, who told you to do this? HR? Because they don't have the authority to fire anyone.”