Blast From The Past 2 (3 page)

J.R. looked at me as if I’d just done something terrible. He looked mad, sad, and offended in every way possible, and it actually made me regret asking my second question. But I nonetheless wondered,
How many people
has
he hooked up with at rEcore? There’s me, Gretchen… and who else?

“I’ll answer your questions in order,” J.R. said, moving away from the window. “It took a while for Gigi to live things down in the office… but, she did. She remained very serious about her work and started bringing the axe down whenever things went wrong. Everyone eventually got the point not to mess with her, in any way, and talk of that night just faded.”

“Come to think of it though,” J.R. said, shifting focus, “there was a lot of turnover during the last year or so. Like I said, Gigi really brought the axe down, so it wasn’t anything to raise concern… But now, I can’t help but wonder.”

“Maybe she was using the axe to wipe her slate clean,” Julie noted. “Maybe
that’s
how she was able to live her embarrassment down.”

“Maybe,” J.R. said, scratching his head. “And, as far as your second question… I could ask
you
the same thing.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, growing defensive.

“Well, there’s obviously
one
person you’ve slept with at rEcore,” J.R. said with disdain. “Are there any more?”

“You’ve got two on your list, J.R.,” I spat back at him.

“No, I don’t,” he shouted back. “I didn’t sleep with Gigi.”

“But you would have!” I yelled.

“But I didn’t!” he yelled back.

“But you would—”

“Look, guys,” Julie interrupted, shouting louder than either one of us. J.R. and I both stopped yelling and looked at her, as instructed.

“It’s getting late, and I
really
don’t want to be here for this conversation,” she said. “So I’m just gonna duck out of here and let you two have at it.”

With that, Julie collected her things, gave me a hug, and made her way to the door.

“Try not to kill each other,” she said on the way out. “We’ve still got a mystery to solve, Scooby.”

“All right, Velma,” I said, closing the door behind her. “I’ll do my best.”

As I locked up, I heard her say, “Velma? No way… I’m Daphne.” J.R. must have heard her say it too, because he chuckled and smiled—and, in that moment, it was as if the tiny little fight we’d just had never happened.

“I’m sorry to have jumped at you like that,” I said, taking responsibility for my words. “It just shocked me to hear about you and Gigi. I’m still getting over running into you how I did… When I came to work at rEcore, I had no idea that
you
were J.R. Marley. I know that may sound unbelievable to you, but it’s true, and I’m still reeling from the discovery.”

“I believe you,” J.R. said, sitting on the couch. He looked not only approachable, but also endearing. “I never expected to run into you either. That night was so long ago.”

“And what are we supposed to do now?” I asked. Again, I was being more aggressive than usual, and I had no explanation for it. “Are we supposed to move on like you and Gigi did, and just forget about it and pretend it never happened?”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” J.R. said, looking at me, then looking away. “That night was so long ago, and I haven’t been able to forget about it for more than six years—so I doubt I’ll be able to forget about it now, especially not with you here to remind me.”

My heart fluttered a little when J.R. said that, and some previously unawake, unaware part of my spirit was lifted—but, no sooner than it was lifted, it was let down again.

“Forgetting about it and pretending it never happened is not an option,” J.R. went on, smiling a more restrained smile at me. “But we definitely have got to move past it. What happened, happened; it’s in the past. Right now, we have to think about the future—and both of our butts are on the line here. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on at rEcore, not revisit a mistake we made a long time ago.”

Of all the words I would have used to describe what happened with J.R. seven years ago, “mistake” would not have been one of them, and I was upset that he used it. I’d regretted what I’d done—because of the promiscuity aspect of it—but I’d never once called it a “mistake.” I guess I never thought it had been… but J.R. obviously had a different opinion.

“Okay,” I said, deciding to go with the flow rather than disrupt it. “I’m willing to move past it, if you are… Though, at some point, I have some questions I want answered.”

“Me too,” J.R. said. “But now is not the time… And, speaking of time, like Julie said—it’s getting pretty late. I really should be going home now… Some of us have work in the morning, you know.”

“I know,” I replied, not missing J.R.’s attempt at caustic humor. “If it wasn’t for you firing me, I’d still have a job to wake up to… but I guess I’ll sleep in instead. So, thanks for the added nap time.”

“No problem,” J.R. said with a fake grin.

“Keep up the good work,” he added when he got to the door. “I’ll be in contact tomorrow night to see what you’ve found. In the meantime, I’m gonna pull some personnel records at work to see who Gigi’s canned since that company party—maybe that’ll lead to something.”

I walked to the door to see J.R. out and felt a strange sensation wash over my body the moment he was gone. It was as if I’d been blasted by a spray of hot water. I was both invigorated and relaxed, both excited and a little shaky. J.R.’s involvement in this investigation was something I never saw coming, and, now that he was in on it, I had no idea where this would go.

I hoped, of course, that we’d get to the bottom of things at rEcore, and I was pretty sure that we would. But I wasn’t sure where this would go in terms of me and J.R.—was this my chance to finally face the demons of my past and get closure? Or, maybe was there something more there—was this my opportunity to pick up where I left off years ago, my second chance to purse something with my one-night lover?

Maybe it would be neither of those things—or maybe it’d be something else entirely—but the point was, I didn’t know… How could I?

Despite what I’d told J.R. about sleeping in, I still woke at 6 a.m. the next morning, like clockwork. My alarm hadn’t been set, and I arose simply out of habit. When you’re used to working every day, you’re used to working every day, and the fact that you know you no longer have a job doesn’t really alter your circadian rhythms. Your body still wants to get up when it knows it should get up, and one day off the clock doesn’t change that.

Still, it sucked to be up so early without anything regimented to do, and I wished I could roll back over and sleep for a few more hours. But once I heard the birds chirping outside and heard my neighbors’ cars purring, I decided that I was already too much a part of the waking world to ignore it.

I pulled myself up out of bed and elected to wear my sweats as my uniform. I’d changed into them before crawling into bed the night before and saw no reason to put on anything more formal.

I did, however, see reason to put on the coffee—and, as soon as it brewed, I made myself a huge mug and went to my new office… aka, my living room. I hunkered down on the couch and opened up my laptop. J.R. was going to look into recent rEcore fires, and I was going to look into my old flame. I was still very curious about this MUDD connection between him and Gigi, and I didn’t want to dismiss it without first looking into it further.

My first move, of course, was to do what anyone would do when they’re looking for info on someone… I hit the social media sites and looked up his profile. A few hits came up for “Tommy Ferguson,” and related names, but I was able to dismiss some of them immediately. E.g., I knew the Tommy Ferguson I was looking for wasn’t a 54-year-old man from California, and I knew he wasn’t a black man serving in the military.

That left only a couple options—and I had to recheck them both carefully. The one that best matched the Tommy Ferguson I knew was almost as mismatched as the 54-year-old man and the black soldier. All the biographical information seemed correct, but the photo staring back at me didn’t.

The Tommy Ferguson on the screen was this super sleek, super sexy bad boy hipster kinda guy. He had a thick, tight, muscular body and a slew of tattoos, and his head was shaved short atop his baby doll face. I’d seen some major transformations in my life, but
this
one truly amazed me…
Could it really be Tommy?

Julie had gone from an all-American college gal to a voluptuous, pink-haired, old-Hollywood throwback… J.R. had gone from a sexy stranger in a shitty campus apartment to a billionaire industry leader… and I’d gone from Patty to Trish, which involved some new outfits and a haircut.

By far, the biggest transformation was this guy… He’d gone from geek to god, and, as I looked as his online photo albums, I couldn’t believe that
this
was the guy I’d dated throughout most of college.
This
was the guy I’d given my virginity to.
This
was the guy things just kind of fizzled out with.

But how could anything ever fizzle out with
this
guy?

I went on to read Tommy’s profile and check out his presence on a few other sites. Apparently, he was doing pretty well for himself. He was still in Pittsburgh, and worked at another local tech firm—InLander.

Like rEcore, InLander was at the top of the tech game, though its area of expertise was slightly different that rEcore’s—but, still, that doesn’t mean much. At the bottom line, they’re still competitors.

And, from what I could tell, Tommy had been working there for four years, and had risen pretty high in the ranks. I also saw that his profiles listed him as “single,” and each time I read that word it made my spine tingle a little.

I guess, at some point, my research turned into a bit of stalking, or ogling. Instead of trying to find out more about Tommy and his connection to Gigi, I found myself staring at his photos. There was one in particular that I really liked… He had his shirt off and was standing outside in the sun. The way the light shone on his blue eyes and light hair made him look so sweet, and the shadows on his muscles and against the contours of his body art made my mouth water.

Enough was enough, and I decided to take a break from my “research.” It was around 10 a.m., and I’d had my fill of Tommy for the time being. I wanted a snack now instead—so I headed off to the kitchen and made myself a cheese and tomato sandwich.

I thought about taking a nap—or maybe taking a shower. I wasn’t used to being home at this time, and, not having a ton of things laid out for me to do, I simply didn’t know what to do with myself.

Just as I decided that maybe I’d flick on the television and catch a soap opera or game show, I heard a noise coming from my computer. I set the remote down and went back to my laptop, where I found a notification that I’d been pinged on one of my social media websites.

I clicked on the bubble, and there it was… a message.

From Tommy Ferguson.

Howdy Stranger
, it read.
Long time no see. What’s up with “Trish”? And what’s up with you checking up on me online?

I felt my heart sink to my stomach. We’ve all gotten those goof emails and messages on social sites—those ones that tell you “click here to find out who’s been looking at your profile.” All those links and messages are scams from miners looking to collect your personal info.

But, believe it or not, the technology does exist to track who is looking at your profile—and I was a fool not to expect that someone like Tommy Ferguson would be using it. Even if I didn’t find out what he looked like now or what he was up to, I still knew what a computer geek he was back in the day, and I still should’ve known that there’d be a high likelihood of him tracking any online movement around him. He was always more immersed in the web presence aspect of the tech world than I was, and so much of that comes with an added degree of watchfulness and/or paranoia.

Hi Tommy
, I wrote back.
Yeah, it’s Trish now. A lot has changed. For you too, I see. Just feeling nostalgic and looked you up.

I lied to Tommy, of course. There was no reason to tell him the truth—in fact, there was every reason to lie.

No shit
, Tommy replied almost instantly.
I’ve been thinking about you recently too. You back in Pittsburgh? Working at rEcore?

At first, I wondered how Tommy knew so much about me—but then I realized that I’d updated my profiles when I came back to Pittsburgh and started at rEcore, and I hadn’t updated them since I got fired.

Yeah, I’m back in the ‘burgh
, I answered.
You still around too, huh?
I was trying to avoid Tommy’s second question by asking my own—but, alas, it set me up for another.

Yep
, he replied.
Still in Pittsburgh, working at InLand. Want to get together sometime and catch up?

I bit my lip and stared at the tiny thumbnail of Tommy looking back at me. Certain parts of me—I don’t have to say which ones—wanted nothing more than to get together and catch up with Tommy. But other, more rational, parts of me were telling me it wasn’t such a good idea… Though, for the sake of the investigation, it might not be a
horrible
idea. If I played my cards right, I could get information from Tommy about Gretchen that I might not be able to find out on my own, right?

Okay,
I typed back.
That sounds like a fun idea.

Really?
Tommy replied immediately.
I wasn’t expecting you to say “yes” so quickly. I thought I’d have to convince you.

Like I said,
I answered, just as quickly,
a lot has changed.