Monahan 01 Options Page 2

  She led me into the kitchen off the reception area and started applying dry-cleaning fluid to the back of my pants. While they were on. I was bent over the counter and Ev was wiping away at the back of my slacks when the former owner of the company walked in. Personally, I saw the humour in the situation and Ev certainly did. He quickly got his coffee and made a fast retreat. Ev and I laughed so hard I thought we were going to pee our pants.

  We became fast friends on that first day and she became like a second mother to me. I have been with the company now almost seven years, certainly longer than all of the current executives.

  Five years ago, the original founder of the company died. As founder of the company he had maintained a majority interest in the company and the rest of the shares were held by the public. His majority shares were pledged as security for most the debt of the company, so when he died the consortium of banks that had loaned him the money called in their loans. They ended up owning the majority share of a $600 million, publicly-traded high tech consulting firm that they knew nothing about. One would think they’d know something about high tech consulting if they lent the company that much money, but bankers are just as stupid as the rest of us.

  The bankers’ first order of business as majority shareholder was to hire a new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In their infinite wisdom, they went to the Board of Directors of our company, who formed a search committee to find a new chief executive officer. It took them four months but the committee found us a CEO. CEO, Christopher Earl Oakes. The guy wears monogrammed shirts with his initials CEO on the pocket. His lifelong dream was to be a chief executive officer so he could live up to his initials. What great heights we aspire to.

  Chris had been an executive vice-president of the company that was our major competitor and he was the perfect example of why one should always check references before hiring someone. My sources told me that the senior management of the company that we hired Chris from had “remoted” Chris. Not promoted. Not demoted. Remoted. They had put him aside and were doing their best to ignore him and we saved the day when we recruited him. Chris was an executive vice-president in charge of nothing at the time we hired him. He had no staff reporting to him, no clients, no budget. Word on the street was that Oakes’ former employers had the biggest going away party in the history of their company when Chris left. And Chris wasn’t invited.

  Our Board members who were given the responsibility of finding a new chief executive officer actually believed they were stealing a star performer, just because he worked for the competition.

  His one crowning glory in the four years he has been our peerless leader was to increase the share price to a high of $16 from $6 when he joined the company. That price was very short-lived though, and the shares are now trading at about $11. The company’s current bottom line certainly didn’t justify the price of the shares, but many shareholders out there are betting on Chris Oakes turning the company around.

  Chris’ first order of business when he joined was to fire all of the top management of the company and hire his hand-picked replacements. Our executive payroll tripled. So far, the shareholders haven’t lynched him. I think shareholders are just as stupid as bankers.

  My wandering thoughts were interrupted.

  “Kate,” I heard Jay say behind me. I turned around and knew by the look on his face that the news wasn’t good. He took a step towards me and said softly, “She’s gone.”

  I turned around and threw-up in the stone column ashtray that progressive organizations place outside their places of business for us social pariahs, smokers. Normally, it could hold a cup of sand and ten butts. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Jay placed his arm around my shoulders as I was heaving into the ashtray.

  “Fuck off. Leave me alone,” I spluttered.

  He backed off. Jay knows what’s good for him. I fumbled in my purse for a Kleenex and found one that had been used about three times. Not very effective for wiping off the chin in the circumstances, but it did the trick. I took a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Or was it the other way around?

  I turned back and looked at Jay. He was standing on the other side of the entranceway. When he left me alone, he really left me alone.

  I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. I wanted to scream. No one close to me had ever died. I headed towards the parking lot at a fast clip and Jay came running behind me.

  “Hey.”

  I kept going, digging in my coat pockets for my car keys.

  “Hey. Monahan. Kate. Jesus Christ, Kate, wait up.”

  I stopped.

  I knew I was going to start to cry and that wasn’t allowed in front of other people. The only time I cried was when the heroine of one my favourite novels lost her true love in a ship wreck.

  I sniffed a few times to try and clear the lump in my throat and knew it wasn’t going to work. The tears started streaming down my face and I tried to cry quietly. Like when you’re at a movie with a girlfriend and you don’t want to let on you’re crying and you’re wiping your eyes with salted fingers from the popcorn. You do it quietly. Your girlfriend’s probably crying as much as you, but women of the new millennium have to be tough.

  Jay caught up to me but I ignored him as I continued on to the car. I fumbled with the lock. It was stuck again. Cheap piece of shit. I kicked the car door.

  Jay took the keys from my hand and opened the door.

  “You drive,” I sniffed and headed around the car to the passenger side. When I reached the back of the car it hit me like I had been slammed into the boards by Bobby Orr. Evelyn was dead. I started gasping for air, sobbing. I held on to the back of the car and cried. Fuck the new millennium, I thought.

  Jay stepped to the back of the car and took me by the shoulders. He knew he was invading my personal space but he was a brave sort. He leaned over and put his arms around me and hugged me tight.

  Jay patted my back, patted my hair, patted my shoulder. He just didn’t know what to do. Under normal circumstances he’s the Rock of Gibraltar to most women, but in all the years Jay had known me, he had never seen me cry. When I finally dried up, I asked him if he had a tissue. He dug a clean one out of his pocket and held it up. I blew my nose and hiccupped a few times.

  Jay tried to ease himself in the driver’s seat and got stuck with his rear in the seat and only one leg in. I had to lean over and reach the lever under the driver’s seat to push it back. I’m so short they tease me at the garage that they’re going to have to put blocks on the pedals so my feet can reach. Jay finally got the seat pushed back far enough so he could fit in and disgustedly reached behind his back and tossed the two pillows I use for extra height into the back seat.

  “Isn’t there a height restriction for getting a driver’s license?” he teased. I smiled weakly.

  “Where to?” he asked as he started the engine.

  “Ev’s place. I want to see if Danny’s home yet. He hasn’t answered the phone and I’ve left about ten messages. Someone has to let the family know. I told the doctors that I’d look after contacting her kids.”

  Jay put the car into gear and headed out of the parking lot. It had been a long day, a long week, Jesus Christ, it had been a long month. I knew it was going to be a long night.

  chapter three

  There was no answer at the door at Evelyn and Danny’s place. I was surprised. It was almost twelve-thirty and you’d think the video arcades would be closed. Aren’t they normally populated by twelve year old boys who should all be home in bed by now? Danny wasn’t a drinker and he didn’t have a girlfriend so I was surprised by his absence. I had no idea where his twin brother Jonathan or his sister Elaine lived. I had only met the brother and sister a few times at family get-togethers and birthday parties for Ev and didn’t feel comfortable telling them the bad news. I didn’t feel comfortable telling Danny either, but at least he was a known entity.

  Danny was a mommy’s boy. His identical twin Jona
than was the exact opposite. Jonathan had been married three times, no children. Thank God, Ev used to say. Their older sister Elaine was married and had one child, Sarah. Pictures of Sarah and Danny were plastered all over Ev’s office.

  Evelyn’s husband died in 1955 in Korea leaving her with a three year old and two babies. It had been a struggle financially for Ev, but she never complained. Jonathan took his first bride when he was nineteen and was fast on his way to becoming a male Zsa Zsa Gabor. Elaine was a homemaker whose husband sold something, I couldn’t remember. They were the steady ones. Danny on the other hand had never held a job for more than a year, was one credit short of about eight different university degrees, and was totally inept when it came to women, other than his mama. Danny would regularly show up at the office with a homemade lunch for his mother and sit beside her and watch her eat it. He called her about six times a day, and every hour on the hour if she worked late. On nights when Ev was late at the office, she had to call him when she was leaving and he’d meet her at the subway stop. Ev used to throw her hands in the air and ask for medical proof that the umbilical cord had been cut when Danny was born. Danny was very protective of his mama and her death was going to devastate him.

  “I hope she has more life insurance than the company provided,” I said to Jay. “Danny’s going to find it tough enough coping without his mama. When he has to find steady work, that should just about do him in.”

  “Give the kid a break,” Jay said.

  “Kid?” I snorted. “Jay, he’s almost old enough to be your father. He’s no kid. He’s forty-four years old.”

  Jay shut up. He was twenty-eight years old but tried to act forty-eight.

  We were sitting in the car outside Ev’s house. The streetlights cast shadows on the cars parked on the street. Other than the parked cars and Jay and I, the street was deserted. The car was facing in the direction of the Davisville subway station so we could see Danny when he walked down the street. I lit another cigarette and before Jay could snort at me, I rolled the window down.

  “Nuts. Fucking nuts. Why would Ev be so stupid to eat something with nuts in it?” I asked out loud.

  “Kate, do you think she would knowingly eat something with nuts in it?”

  “I was talking to myself,” I snapped back.

  I turned in the seat and looked at Jay. He was looking straight ahead and was running his hand through his hair. It was standing straight up. He did this repeatedly.

  “You’re brushing. Stop it,” I ordered.

  Jay mumbled something.

  “Pardon?” I asked.

  He turned to me and grinned. “I said leave me alone, Kate. I haven’t said a word all night about the two packs of cigarettes you’ve smoked. Stop nagging me about brushing my hair with my hand.”

  It was about the only nervous habit he had. But he did have a point. Brushing his hair with his hand wasn’t going to give him emphysema and his teeth weren’t going to turn that lovely shade of gold that smokers get for no extra charge.

  We sat quietly for a few minutes. “I’m going to have the caterers fired. That’s the last fucking time they get our business. Someone must have screwed-up and cooked something with peanut oil.”

  “You can’t blame the caterers when they didn’t provide the food,” Jay said.

  “Whaddya mean, they didn’t cater? We always get them to cater.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture the credenza in the boardroom. I could recite from memory the items that should have been laid out, because we always get the same food, every time. But when I closed my eyes to conjure up a picture of the food at today’s reception, something was out of whack. I could see mismatched Tupperware containers, paper plates, odd and unmatched cut glass and crystal bowls, pottery platters, and very different looking food. I shook my head. The food today had been yummy stuff like brownies, potato salad, cold cuts, celery with Cheez Whiz, devilled eggs. But where were the chicken livers with bacon, mini quiches, smoked oysters?

  “Who catered the food today?” I asked Jay.

  “Don’t you ever read your e-mail? It was a potluck. All the employees attending the reception were told to bring something homemade. Orders from the CEO. He wanted a more ‘homey’ style reception. Even he brought something. We all joked it was probably some of Baby’s dog food.” Baby was Chris Oakes’ dog. “Vanessa reminded everyone in the e-mail about Ev’s allergy and we were told to avoid nuts and peanut oil.”

  I vaguely remembered the e-mail and was flabbergasted. Potluck? Just who the hell did Chris Oakes think he was fooling?

  chapter four

  Telling Danny was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. He blubbered like a baby. He was late getting home because he had gone to a double feature at one of the old movie houses downtown. Jay stayed with him for the night and I went home.

  By the time I got to my place it was close to three a.m. and I realized that no-one at the office had officially been informed of Evelyn’s death. It was too late to call anyone, but not too late for voice mail. E-mail was the communication tool of choice for all of our executives, except our CEO, who only ever used voice mail. The executives each had their new-fangled Blackberry’s and were glued to them all day. They preferred e-mail rather than talking face-to-face.

  Our CEO, Chris Oakes, didn’t know how to use a computer, let alone e-mail, and there was no hope we could bring him into the new millennium and get him to use a Blackberry. He was stuck in the early nineties, in love with his voice mail. He didn’t use the system just to get messages, he would create his voice messages and send them to someone on our system. He did this all day long. Never once did he think of using the phone to call someone and talk to them live; he and the other executives were the same, never talking to people, just using electronic means to send messages - that way they could be tough guys without ever having to look someone in the eye. Our Chief Executive Officer sits in his office, creates a voice mail message, sends it to Vanessa his secretary, and then sends her another urgent message telling her to check her voice mail. They were all a bunch of gutless wonders.

  So needless to say, even though we had e-mail, and most of the executives had their Blackberry’s, we were all masters of voice mail because that was the communication tool of choice for Chris Oakes. So I dialled-in to the office voice mail system and logged on to my personal mailbox. The nasal computer voice told me, “You have ELEVEN new voice messages”. Emphasis on the ELEVEN. If it were ten, there wouldn’t be any emphasis. For some reason, the computer voice thinks ELEVEN is a lot of messages. On a good day, Chris Oakes fires off ELEVEN messages in eight seconds. That includes time to dial all the appropriate numbers, clear his throat three or four times on the message, yell some obscenities, threaten to fire you, and hang up. Sometimes, Chris Oakes has been known to send ELEVEN messages to ELEVEN different people, and all of them consist of the same message. “Uh… Uh… Uh…” Wow. Can we quote you on that Mr. Oakes?

  I decided to skip the ELEVEN messages and listen to them in the morning. I created one voice message to Chris Oakes, Vanessa Wright, Tom James and Harold Didrickson. I let everyone know what had happened. “This is a voice message for Chris, Vee, Tom and Harold. Just to let you know that Ev died tonight. She never recovered consciousness. I’ll see you in the morning.” Short and sweet. To the point. Jesus, I hate voice mail. But it’s great for us gutless wonders.

  I had dropped my coat on the floor in the front hall as I was talking on the phone. Correction: sending a voice mail. I keep my phone in the front hall and refuse to have more than one in my apartment. I talk on the phone so much at the office that I usually ignore my phone at home when it rings. I don’t have an answering machine, call waiting, call display, three party calling, or any of those fancy features at home. Some things are sacred.

  I flipped off the hall light and picked up my coat but was too lazy to fight the closet door so I dropped it back on the floor. I stumbled down the hall, blew a kiss to my most recent, and hopefully
still alive, goldfish - Snapper the Fourth. I had only had him a couple of weeks and made a mental note to check on him in the morning.

  I loved pets but the building super wouldn’t let me keep any in the apartment so I snubbed my nose at him and bought a goldfish. That was three years ago. I was on my sixteenth goldfish and I’ve had to change pet stores. They thought I was doing weird scientific experiments on them, I had bought so many. I am determined to discover the secret of keeping a goldfish alive for more than forty-eight hours, but it’s proven to be a daunting task. I have just as much luck with plants.

  I filled the coffee maker and set the timer on it to brew at seven-thirty. I was going to treat myself and not go in to the office until eight in the morning. It’d been a long night.

  I stripped off my jacket, blouse and skirt and left them where they fell. My bra, underwear and pantyhose got tossed in a corner. I got out a clean pair of white gym socks, put them on and got in to bed.

  I groaned as I sank into the bed and let the goose-down duvet settle over me. My eyes felt like they were full of sand from all the crying I had done earlier.

  I woke up drenched in sweat and my mouth was so dry my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I had been dreaming I was lost in the middle of the desert, looking for Evelyn and calling out her name every couple of steps. My voice was failing me when I woke up.

  The clock radio beside the bed read four fifty-five so I got up and pulled on my sweats and one of my dad’s old army sweaters that reached below my knees. I by-passed the automatic timer on the coffeemaker and chained-smoked two cigarettes while the coffee dripped through. My father would call this a ‘whore’s breakfast’.