Thirteen
The first thing that Rose heard about any problem was the call, at six thirty in the morning. It should have been from someone from the press corps. They should have called her to confirm any element of the story whatsoever. And then she would have denied it, found out what the source was, and either silenced the liars, or dealt with the fact that they hadn’t lied.
But to find out from someone who woke her up sleeping in her own bed, as opposed to her husband’s, was just another point of embarrassment on top of the hundred that were already piling up.
“Rosie?”
Duncan sounded surprisingly alert for so early in the morning. Maybe he hadn’t slept at all, or maybe something had changed and he was on a health kick or something. She didn’t want to ask for fear it would send him off of whatever health kick he was apparently on.
“What’s up? Why are you calling me?”
“You’ll be glad I did, trust me.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Unless the Today Show just got into the business of lying about their own programming, I think there’s a big problem.”
Rose shook herself awake and pushed herself out of bed.
“Okay?”
“They’re planning to run a story.”
“They do it a lot.”
“If the Today show is running it, then it’s already talk all over.”
Rose pulled a shirt on and crossed the room to check on Vi and Sarah. They were sleeping fussily. But sleeping was better than not sleeping.
“Stop beating around the bush, will you? Just tell me what you’re trying to tell me, and then we’ll both be able to freak out as much as you want. But first I need to know what the heck is going on.”
“They’re teasing that Michigan Chemical, along with its brand new female CEO, are doing something very scandalous.”
“What, you mean… sleeping with the former owner for control of the company? Scandalous indeed.”
“I don’t think it’s that particular scandal. They used the word dumping, and I think their ‘scandal’ is going to be a little closer to an accusation of a crime. The stock markets open in three hours, and by then you’ll be worthless. They’ll be selling for pennies on the dollar.”
Rose cursed so loud that Sarah woke up and started crying out. She was hungry. The girls seemed to be bottomless pits; Rose’s boobs were apparently not bottomless. But after a night’s rest, as far as it went with two baby girls, she was pretty much topped up.
She grabbed the girl and held her phone to her shoulder by leaning her head hard, tried to fuss her breasts free of the shirt after only having them covered for two minutes.
“Is there anything we can even do?”
Duncan didn’t say anything. “Is this something your husband could help with? I don’t know. It’s not like I’m some big business guy. I work in the art department for Christ’s sake.”
Sarah was helpful, at least. She latched quickly and quieted down at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
“You’re right.
“So?”
“So I’d better get him on the line.”
“Good. Do that. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Rose repeated back. She couldn’t begin to explain why, but the girl feeding at her breast made her feel unspeakably thirsty. So she started by looking in on Bryce.
He was out. He always was, when she woke up. It was hard to pin down precisely when he left the house, except that it was much, much earlier than her, likely before most people who went in for the first shift at the factory, and they went in so early as to hardly be believed.
The next step was to try to dial his cell number, one-handed. It didn’t work, and it wasn’t going to work. She could get to it when Sarah had drank her fill. But not without setting the phone down, she knew. That was a little too optimistic, even for her.
So she poured herself a glass of water from the tap, set the phone on the counter, and tapped out the number. The phone started ringing immediately. And on the second ring, he hung up on her. She silently cursed, went back to the home screen and did a Google search.
What was the rumor? And what was she going to do about it?
The search turned up a mention of her. It was from some rag she’d never heard of. When she clicked the link, it just confirmed what she’d already suspected: it was some internet tabloid that was trying to get famous.
Apparently, it was going to do it off the back of her company. And nobody had reached out for comment, or they would have been told not to run the story. Since they were going to run it, there was no point in the call if they already knew what the answer was going to be.
She scrolled through. There were various photos of her leaving the office, photos of Bryce, photos of the two of them together.
There was a photo of a document on a table. It wasn’t one of her tables; it wasn’t a table she’d ever seen before. But the caption claimed that it was taken by a company insider, of an internal memo. The photo had some parts magnified for easy reading, and those parts claimed that they’d been dumping chemical waste in the Detroit River.
Which by itself was absurd. There was no easy or convenient way to do that. They’d be caught in a New York minute, and everyone with a brain in their head knew it. Everyone with a brain in their head would have refused to even try, because it was so obvious that anyone who tried would immediately get caught. Apparently she didn’t get that level of support, though. Apparently she didn’t have a brain in her head.
And at some point, Bryce was going to have to tell her what to do, because right now she was planning to finish feeding her daughter and then start trying to murder whoever posted the blog.
And then she’d be in jail, but she’d be right, God damn it, and that counted for something.