"Not this morning, dear, I've got a headache," I said in a flat voice. Sloan narrowed her eyes, gathered herself, walked back around the desk, and picked up her purse before crossing the room.
"I would not fuck with me if I were you," she said quietly.
"Oh, I have zero plans to do that," I said without a smile. "But then I think that's been clear from the start."
She shot me a look that was so filled with hatred I felt it run down my spine. Then she turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard that two of my father's awards came crashing down off the wall.
"Jack! Are you okay, darlin’?" Norma called from the front office. She came bustling through the door looking around as she declared, "What did you do, Jack? That woman left here madder than a wet hen!"
"It's okay, Norma," I said. "Sloan and I are old friends, and we were having a disagreement about the business. It'll all be fine by tomorrow."
"I sure hope so," Norma said. "No good comes from having a woman like that mad at you! Oh, and you need to get down to the warehouse. The construction crew showed up, and Leah is wondering what on Earth she's going to do while they work on the renovation!"
"I'll go down and see her right now," I said as I gathered up the plans.
What I hadn't told Sloan, or maybe hadn't even admitted to myself was that, after kissing Leah, something had shifted. I had no idea what it meant, but I intended to find out.
*
"Who are you?" the thin girl asked as I walked into Leah's office.
"I'm Jack," I replied. "You don't look like Leah."
"Probably because I'm not," she said as she looked up from the papers spread out on the desk. She studied me. "What's your job around here?"
"I'm the guy in charge of stuff," I said. She did, in fact, look like Leah, in a family resemblance sort of way. She had short, brown hair that took off in different directions and looked like it would require some coaxing and lots of gel to lay flat. Her eyes were big and blue, and she had the same smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose as Leah. She didn't smile at me, but she did consider me carefully before nodding and returning to the work in front of her. I watched for a moment, and then asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm Riley," she said as she carefully wrote something on the paper. "I'm Leah's niece."
"I see," I said, suddenly wondering where Leah was. "And what exactly are you doing here?"
"I got suspended," she said solemnly as she looked up at me. "I got in a fight with some girls who were bullying me, and I punched the biggest one. We all got suspended, so Leah said that if I'm not in school, then I need to be at work."
"I see," I nodded. "Do you regret what you did?"
"No, why would I?" she said shaking her head. "I didn't bully anyone, they did. I was just standing up for myself."
"But you punched a girl," I said, wondering why I was having this conversation with a young girl I'd never met before. "Don't you feel bad about that?"
"Look, I know
you adults get all high and mighty about antiviolence stuff," she said in an exasperated tone. "But do you really have any idea what goes on in schools? I don't think so. Do I wish those girls would have left me alone? Yep. Would I take the punch back if I could? Nope. They got what they asked for, and now other kids will leave me alone, too."
"It sounds like school is pretty brutal," I said, marveling at the oddly mature way Riley had explained the problem.
"You have no idea," she sighed as she rolled her eyes. "It's murder of the soul."
"Is that right?" I said, biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud at her dramatic assessment of the situation. "Well, you should be reassured by the fact that it won't last forever, and that someday these girls will all be parents who will be trying to save their own kids from the schoolyard bully."
"You'd think it would work that way, wouldn't you?" she said looking at me intently. "But that's just bullshit, and adults know it."
"Riley!" Leah exclaimed as she walked into the office and overheard Riley's assessment of my lack of understanding. "You cannot talk to people that way, young lady!"
"I'm sorry, Leah," she said hanging her head before mumbling. "Sorry, Jack."
"It's cool," I shrugged, trying not to make a big deal of it.
"No, it's definitely not cool," Leah said, giving me a warning look. "You cannot talk to adults that way. I will not tolerate it."