Jackson
ROUNDING THE CORNER from the workout room, I run into the one person that can make a decent day turn sour. Brad. I put my head down, because I can’t afford another encounter with him, at least not this week. But oh, how I’d love to just put his head through these cinderblock walls.
Is that another linen suit? Shit is he never not fucking pretentious?
It isn’t as if I can avoid the man, I can try, but he is a member of the organization, no matter how much I detest him. With a curt nod, I continue down the hall, and realize that he was smirking just a little too much, enjoying his day a little more than the rest of us.
What are you up to, you sonofabitch? I think to myself as I walk further down the hall.
When I reach Claire’s office I realize what the bastard was smiling about. Claire is sitting at her desk with her head in her hands and shoulders slumped.
With a quick rasp of my knuckles on the door Claire’s head shoots up and she straightens her spine. No weakness is her philosophy.
“Jackson, I didn’t realize it was that late? The day got away from me. Sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it. Do you want me to come back?”
“No, no it’s fine. Come in!” I can tell that she doesn’t want to have this talk but her pride won’t let her give in.
Walking in, I make sure to leave the door to her office open, Claire doesn’t like to be in confined spaces. If I hadn’t broken into her therapist’s files I would have figured it out while walking through her home. Sitting down, I look over at the woman I have admired for years. With a nod her way, I say, “You wanted to talk to me?”
“I, ummm, yes, I did.” She’s looking around her office, her comfort zone, gathering her strength and composure. With a huff of breath, she pushes on, “I’ve just kind of been thrown for a loop just now, so I’m not quite sure where to begin.” She looks down at her hands.
“Would you prefer to do this another time?”
Claire squares her shoulders and looks at me, and in that look I know the inner strength that helped her raise Sasha alone is still there. “Oh hell, Jackson, I’m not going to lie and pretend that my last visitor didn’t affect me. He did. And I am not going to insult your intelligence by saying nothing happened. You know me too well, see too much.”
“You bet your ass I see too much, Legs. What did he want?”
“To let me know that Sasha is an amazing kid. That he doesn’t have to fuck with me directly to fuck with me.”
If I hadn’t learned years ago to rein my emotions in, this office would be destroyed. Al Pacino’s speech when defending Charlie in Scent of a Woman enters my mind. It’s one of my favorite movies and speeches. I’m too old, I’m too tired, I’m too fucking blind. If I were the man that I was five years ago, I’d take a flamethrower to this place! I inwardly chuckle at my own poor imitation of Pacino, and realize how my own temper has calmed over the years.
Thankfully Claire is oblivious to my inner wreckage and continues on as though what she just said didn’t flip the table along with the fucking apple cart. I’ve missed something, I know that I have because when I snap out of my inner musings Claire is on a roll. She is magnificent in her anger.
“Well I told him now, didn’t I. Bastard thought that he could intimidate me. Me!! ‘The McEvoy name isn’t what it once was. Who would believe you?’ Well fuck him!” Pushing away from her desk, Claire starts to pace the small space. “I mean really, Jackson, who does he think he is? And did you see the fucking linen suit? What man under fifty wears a linen suit?”
Laughing at her last statement, I garner her attention. “What’s so freaking funny?”
“I thought the exact same thing when I first saw him is all. I found it funny how our minds work similarly.”
Claire looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind and walks back over to her desk, leaning one of those amazing legs onto it. She looks at me and shakes her head, then says, almost sheepishly, “We usually were on the same page weren’t we, Jackson.”
Rubbing a hand over my head, because I need a haircut and the action soothes me, I say “Yeah, Legs, we are,” making it present tense instead of past. “As much as I want to know what you wanted to talk to me about, Claire, I think that we need to figure out what Brad’s next step is so that we are on the offense instead of always the defense.”
“Jesus, Jackson, I don’t want to talk about Brad. He took too much from me and I’ll be damned if he takes one more thing from me,” she says in a rush and as though it has left a nasty taste in her mouth. “Let’s talk about why I asked you to stop by instead.”
That’s my girl, right on cue, she’s sweeping all of the unpleasantness that is Brad right under the rug. Although this is an amazing oriental rug, it still doesn’t help fix the messed up situation that we have found ourselves in, yet again. Knowing better then to poke the beast, because once that animal is awoken there will be no stopping it, I decide to let it go, for now, for the better good.
“Okay, Legs, why did you want to see me?”
Taking the reprieve that I have given her, Claire says, “I was…I was kind of hoping that we could have dinner together…just you and me. A date.” She stands to her full height and walks back around her desk and sits down. In those short seconds that it has taken her to get back into her seat, she has regained some of the composure that she is known for. “I’ll even cook!” is her final plea.
I sit up straighter in a chair I dwarf and attempt to get over the shock of Claire asking me out on a date. “When, Legs? You tell me when and I’ll be there.”