Who's on Top? (18 page)

J
ANE AIMED A DANGEROUS SMILE
at Arianna's assistant, Delores. “Of course I understand that she's busy and can't work me in today. Why don't we look at her schedule for tomorrow.”

Delores shifted in her chair, blushed and kept her fingers wrapped around Arianna's appointment book.

This told Jane everything she needed to know: the poor girl had been instructed that Jane be denied access to the vice president.

“Well, uh, Ms. DuBose is booked tomorrow and traveling all next week. And then the next week she's…on vacation.”

“Is she?” Jane stared down Delores, who shifted again and began to pick at her cuticles. “Well, then—tell you what. I just need the tiniest moment of her time. I'll wait until her current meeting is over.”

Delores gulped. “It's going to be a long one.”

“That's quite all right. I brought some paperwork with me and I'll just sit here and work on it until she comes out of her office.” Sooner or later, the witch would have to use the ladies' room or leave for lunch.

Outmaneuvered, Delores just blinked at Jane as she made herself comfortable in a chair and dug into her briefcase.

The intercom on the girl's desk beeped, and she picked it up. “Yes, Ms. DuBose? No, ma'am, I haven't had a chance—um, sure. Uh, Ms. DuBose? Jane O'Toole is here to see—yes, ma'am, but she said she only needs a moment of your time and she'd wait….”

Jane got up and strode to the vice president's door.

“Ms. O'Toole! You can't—”

Oh, yes I can.
Jane opened the door and walked through to face an outraged, solitary Arianna. Delores came running, but Jane simply shut the door in her face.

Without preamble Jane said, “Dominic Sayers paid me a visit yesterday.”

Arianna just glared at her.

“I thought I should tell you that I've sent copies of my evaluation to Zantyne's president, your regional H.R. manager and your national H.R. manager.”

“You
what?
”

“I thought I'd spare you the trouble. It's part of Finesse's commitment to customer service to take care of little details like that.”

“I never authorized you to do such a thing!”

Jane walked forward and placed her palms flat on Arianna's desk. “And I never authorized
you
to falsify my report and use it to fire Dominic Sayers.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Yes, you do. My research and analysis indicated that Sayers is perfectly well-adjusted, despite a rocky past with an unstable mother. It's actually surprising
how
well-adjusted he is. Now, I can only surmise the interaction between you two, but he does not display general indications of chauvinism or hostility toward women. Sayers certainly has a healthy temper when provoked, but I reiterate that it's
healthy
. I suggested in my report that he is a valuable asset to this company—highly intelligent, skilled and well-respected. I recommended that the only action Zantyne might consider taking is a transfer, as you and he do not seem to work well together. At
no point
in my analysis did I suggest he be fired.”

“How dare you barge into my office and make these outrageous accusations! Sayers picked a fight with me and quit. I didn't fire him.”

“That's not what he told me.”

“Then he's a damned liar!”

“Or you are.”

“Get out,” Arianna snapped.

“I'll be happy to leave when I'm finished. You never thought he'd show up at my office and confront me, did you? You thought he'd just storm out, and I'd never know the truth. Let me warn you, Arianna, that if you have falsified my report, I will take legal action. I will see you in court. And I will not keep quiet about this, either. Do you understand?”

The vice president looked at her with loathing. “I'll ruin you.”

“More threats, just like the ones you made at Finesse when I refused to rewrite the evaluation. By the way, Arianna—did I mention that I've been taping this conversation?” Jane pulled a minirecorder out of her purse.

“A copy of the tape goes to Sayers. Other copies can be mailed to Zantyne's president and H.R. people.”

Arianna lunged for the recording device, but Jane sidestepped her. “Pull yourself together, Arianna! What are you going to do, mug me in your office, knock me out and throw me in the Connecticut River at midnight?”

Though Arianna looked very much as if she'd love to do all of those things, she dropped into her chair, her mouth working.

“Woman,” Jane said to her, “you are an embarrassment to the female sex. Backstabbing and sleeping your way to the top is
soooo
passé. Women do things right these days. They deserve their promotions. They have self-respect. If anyone around here needs behavioral analysis, it's
you
.”

She exited Arianna's office for the last time and noticed that the intercom-eavesdropping trick seemed to be well-known. Delores was hunched over her desk grinning like a monkey, and she sure wasn't reading a comic book.

As Jane left the ugly brown Zantyne building for the last time, a weight shifted and toppled from her shoulders. She'd done the right thing and she'd seen it through. Not only had she done right by Dom and
gotten her integrity back, she'd also gotten some revenge against the woman who'd jeopardized it. And bottom line, it would mean a lot more to her to see Finesse succeed without a corporate crutch.

 

B
ACK IN HER OWN OFFICE
J
ANE
made several copies of both the taped conversation with Arianna and her report. She sent one set to her attorney. She kept one for the Finesse files. And she packaged a third set for Dominic.

Her hand shook as she wrote his name and address on the mailing envelope.

Did you tell Arianna how you came apart in my arms? Did you tell her that I fell for you, Jane? That I was half in love? Is all of that in your friggin' report?

You used psychobabble on me to justify your exit strategy….

His words came back to haunt her again as she slipped the tape and report into the envelope.

I did. I used my profession to keep my distance and mask my fear. But I never betrayed you—not the way you think. I betrayed myself and my own needs…and I suppose I betrayed the gift of love. I looked it in the mouth and found the teeth too scary.

How do I say I'm sorry now? Is it too late?

Should she write him a note, enclose it with these materials? No! As usual, Jane found it hard to apologize.

I'm the injured party here. He thinks I'm snake enough to sell him out for a consulting contract.

Jane's chin went up, her shoulders went back and she stapled closed the padded envelope.

This is apology enough. Isn't it?

 

S
HE THOUGHT ABOUT IT AS SHE
traveled the aisles of the grocery store with a cart, looking for food to take over to her dad and Gilbey's. For some strange reason, neither of them would be in town on Sunday—their usual family dinner night—so they'd rescheduled it for tonight, Thursday. They'd been very mysterious about it over the phone. Jane smelled news and wondered with a sigh if Gilbey had, amazingly, found another job without her help. She doubted he'd sent out the slides to galleries.

Stop it. You're doing it again. Being superior—and not respecting him. He'll do things in his own time.

Jane tossed two fat yellow onions into the cart, along with enough broccoli to feed three families of four. She'd make her mother's broccoli-cheese casserole and some baked potatoes, and Dad could grill some steak.

From the frozen-food section she added a ready-made apple pie and some nondairy whipped cream. The pie could bake right along with the potatoes.

She arrived at Dad's house to find a strange car in the driveway and two beat-up suitcases of Gilbey's in the front hallway. Even more peculiar, excited conversation and laughter emanated from the kitchen. Gilbey's voice, sounding…animated? And Dad…chuckling? And a woman? What was going on?

“Hi, everyone,” she said, walking in and dumping the groceries on the counter. Her eyes went immediately to the handsome woman in her early fifties near the sink. “You didn't tell me we had company.”

“You must be Jane!” The woman surged forward and took her hands in her warm ones. “I'm Abigail, a friend of your brother's—and now your father's.” She smiled at him.

Jane looked at Dad's face, amazed to find him blushing. “Oh. Nice to meet you, Abigail.” Her eyes took in four champagne glasses—on doilies, no less—and a bottle of bubbly in a silver ice bucket. Things had certainly gone upscale around here. Where was the Miller Light?

“What's the occasion?” she asked, unloading her grocery bag.

“Perhaps we should let Gilbey tell you.”

Her brother cleared his throat. “Abigail is a gallery director in Boston. I sent her slides of my work. My, uh, sculptures.”

“So I came to see them in person. They're spectacular! On the cutting edge…Gilbey is a postmodern, conceptual Joseph-Stella-meets-Charles-Sheeler-in-Fred's-Auto-Garage!”

Jane blinked. Whatever the heck that meant. “He is?” She looked at Gilbey, whose normally dull eyes were bright with pride.

“Yes!” Abigail clapped with enthusiasm. “And we're going to give him his own show. In three
months. And I've arranged for him to be an artist in residence at Boston University for the summer, not to mention that he'll be included in Henry Weston's upcoming book on outsider art! Your brother is a genius.”

Jane stared at the broccoli, because right now it made more sense to her than Abigail's announcement. Then she stared at Gilbey again. He stood straight and tall and his shoulders looked broader somehow.

A smile spread across her face. “All those hours you spent building weird stuff in the barn, and the chaos you caused when you put things together backward on the assembly line—it was all for a good cause, huh?”

He nodded.

She threw her arms around him. “I'm so proud of you. Congratulations.”

As her father opened the champagne behind them, Gilbey rubbed his gym shoe back and forth across the kitchen tiles. “You're proud of me? I always thought…I kinda thought you didn't respect me.”

Jane swallowed. She tightened her arms around him. “Oh, Gil. I guess I didn't understand. I just want you to be happy. I respect you one hundred percent—for following your dream and not letting anyone else dictate how you should live your life. Now
that's
success.”

Gilbey hugged her back and kissed her cheek. She felt closer to him than she'd felt in years.

Abigail handed her a glass of champagne, and
they all toasted Gilbey and his continued success as a sculptor.

Nobody said a word to Gil when he carved his baked potato into a perfect pyramid—they were a bit underdone—and his steak into a parallelogram.

Dad actually told jokes all through the meal and gazed at the gallery director when he thought nobody was looking. He was clearly besotted. He made no mention of the weeds in the front walkway, the moles in the lawn or the Jets.

No matter what the outcome with Abigail, Dad seemed to have either gotten help on his own or worked himself out of his depression.

Jane had to respect that, too. She really did.

O
N HIS THIRD CONSECUTIVE DAY
of unemployment Dominic actually found himself carving little mice out of Vermont cheddar for Rusty. He had already rearranged his sock drawer, vacuumed twice and experienced all the horrors of daytime television.

After an hour of “White-Trash Hermaphrodite Teenagers Who Talk Back to Their Grandparents,” his mind had curdled along with his blood.

He'd visited every Internet employment site three times, fielded four phone calls from headhunters and sent out five résumés.

He knew he was losing it when Rusty took one look at his third cheddar mouse, bit the head off and walked away.

“Ingrate!” Dom called after him. He wondered if he should take up knitting or—God forbid—go visit his mother. But no—the sanatorium staff would have to superglue any movable objects to the floor or various shelves and tables because of her tendency to throw things at him. And he didn't want to invest in a new umpire's mask, anyway.

The most exciting aspect of his day was getting the mail, and his ears perked up as he heard the little white-and-blue truck approach his apartment building and bank of postal boxes.

He really had to get a job. This was pathetic. Dom forced himself to wait until the postman had driven off, and then went for the mail.

Inside his box were the usual coupons, a newsmagazine, some bills. And an unexpected package.

Dom frowned at the return address on the padded mailer; the thing had originated with the evil Jane O'Toole.

Had she sent him a kilo of anthrax? Had he left his boxers at her place? He was without a clue. However, he knew he didn't want to think about her, didn't want to open anything from her and couldn't care less if she were hit by a bus. So why wasn't he tossing her infernal package into the Dumpster right behind the mailboxes?

Because he was going to throw it in his fireplace without opening it and toast s'mores over it, that was why. He'd toss a sprig of sage on top, to smoke her spirit out of his life.
Double-crossing little psych major.

Dom stalked to his fireplace and dropped the package on the hearth. He stomped off to the kitchen for some matches. He marched back to the hearth with destructive intent.

Rusty sprawled shamelessly on his back like a C-list model draped over the hood of a car. The cat squinted at him.

“What?” asked Dom. “I'm not opening that. It's from
her
.”

Rusty shifted positions and began to clean something Dom would rather not watch him clean.

“That's disgusting.”

Rusty stopped and stared telepathically at him.

Dom stared back. “Hey! I do
not
have my head up my ass. That's very rude.” He looked back at the package from Jane.

“Fine. I'll open the thing before I burn it.” He ripped at the end of the mailer and pulled out a report with a blue cover—and an audiotape. Dom frowned. Then he walked to his stereo system and popped the tape into the rectangular mouth of the cassette player.

 

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, D
OM
pumped his fist into the air and then grabbed Rusty and tossed him aloft, to the cat's great disgruntlement. “Yeah! Go, Jane, go!”

He dropped his pet on the sofa, where he bounced—a further affront to feline dignity. “See Jane kick ass!”

The cat glared at him and Dom sobered. “And, uh, see Dick be a Dom. I mean, Dom be a dick. See Dom grovel.” He sighed. “Yep. I see a lot of abasement and apologies to Jane in my future. I wasn't very nice to her, was I? But first things first.”

He sped to the phone and dialed Arianna's direct line. He got her voice mail, but it didn't matter. “Hi, it's the
healthy, well-adjusted
Dominic Sayers here.
You know, your
highly intelligent, skilled and well-respected, valuable asset
to Zantyne? I just wanted to let you know how much I've enjoyed my three days off, but I'll see you in the office tomorrow. We can talk about my transfer then at your—no, make that
my
—convenience. I'll just bet you're prepared to give me a raise and a positively glowing recommendation, and I surely will appreciate that.” Click.

Now he'd better dial the number of the nearest florist and order about five dozen roses….

 

“J
ANE, SWEETIE
. W
E NEED TO
talk.” Shannon and Lilia both had their hands on their hips and seemed annoyed.

“Hmm?” Jane looked up from her keyboard.

“Both of us really need to pee, and there are
sixty
red roses drowned to death in the toilet bowl. We counted. How long are you planning to leave them there?”

Jane got up. “Oh, sorry. I'll move them to the wastebasket.”

“Are they from Dominic?”

“Who?”

“Jane! The man gave you multiple orgasms.”

A deep masculine voice joined the chorus. “Yes, he did.” Dominic stood in the doorway behind them. “And surely that counts for something?”

Lilia gasped. Shannon laughed.

Jane paled and then did the only thing she could do under the circumstances: she pulled her hair over her face like Cousin Itt. Then she slid under her desk.

“I've got a class to teach,” Lilia said quickly. “'Bye.”

“And I've got a nerd to make over,” Shannon added. “See ya.”

Her friends—some friends!—scrammed, leaving Jane to face Dominic's Italian lace-ups. Primo leather. A nice nutmeg-brown. Distinctive stitching down the middle, handcrafted sole…

“Jane, come out from under there,” he demanded.

“I don't think so.”

“Did you get my flowers?”

“Yup. I watered them well.”

“Where are they?”

“You really don't want to know.”

“Jane. I need to apologize.”

“That's nice.”

“It's really hard to apologize to someone who's on all fours under a desk like a dog.”

“Yup. Must be pretty rrruff.”

“Damn it, Jane.” He walked around her desk and leaned down. “Come out. So what if your friends know about the multiple—”

“I can't hear you,” Jane sang, her fingers in her ears. “La-la-la-la-la-la-la!”

“That's it.” Dominic grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her out, despite her trying to kick out of his grip. Then he straddled her and pulled her hands away from her ears. “Listen to me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I doubted you and I'm sorry I blew up at you. I'm tempted to say that I'm sorry I ever met you, Jane—”

Her eyes widened.

“—but that's not true. The last time we saw each
other, honey, I admitted that I'd fallen half in love with you. Well, I'm here today to tell you that when I listened to your tape, I fell the rest of the way in love.”

“Huh,” she managed.

“I had a feeling I was going to have to grovel.” He let go of one of her wrists in order to smooth her hair out of her face. “Don't put that finger back in your ear. It's immature—almost more infantile than crawling under your desk.”

Jane stuck her chin out. “You had me with ‘I'm sorry.' Now you're losing your advantage.”

“Honey, I never imagined—though I don't know why not—that Arianna would falsify your report. I was stunned, blindsided, furious. I was hurt. I shouldn't have said the things I said. Can I take them back?”

She gave him a wobbly smile. “Not all of them. You told me a couple of home truths that…well, I needed to hear. Not that I wanted to hear them—but that's different. About respecting the men in my life and not using my profession to avoid my own emotions.” She swallowed. “Dom, I owe you an apology, too. I did use my analytical training to try to walk away from whatever's between us. I was so scared. I like to be in control. By the way, get
off
me.”

Dom looked deep into her eyes and smiled. “Make me.”

She leaned forward and kissed him. His response was a long groan. He got up on his knees, cradled her head in his hands and pushed her down onto her back to deepen the kiss. He didn't seem to notice when
they rolled on her initiative and she ended up on top, spread over his body like a human quilt.

“Dom—” she broke the kiss “—I think I'm in love with you, too. But don't tell anyone. It's bad for my image.”

“Not a word,” he promised, working his way under her sweater. “It'll be our secret.”

Too late Jane remembered the intercom at the reception phone. They wouldn't…would they? But with Dom's hands on her bare skin, she couldn't bring herself to care.

“Hey, Jane?” Dom asked a few steamy moments later.

“Mmm?”

“I'm getting a special delivery next week, to celebrate my transfer at Zantyne.”

“What kind of special delivery?”

“It's rectangular and green and state-of-the-art. We'll be able to play pool all night long—naked.”

“Sounds great,” she said and kissed him without a trace of fear. “I'm certainly game….”