Wonder Guy (23 page)

“In this climate, we’ll probably have to settle for leeches.” He cracked a grin.

“Have you had supper yet?”

“No supper. I wanted to check in on you before I go back to my apartment.”

She’d tired of telling him he didn’t need to check up on her every night. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a cell phone with her at all times. She’d call for help if she needed it. Still, she could do worse than a son who cared enough to make sure she was okay.

“There’s plenty of leftover soup.” She nodded toward the fridge. “Help yourself.”

“Sure.” He started to turn to the cupboard, but turned back. “Is Gloria okay? It hit her pretty hard, one of her best friends being killed.”

“She’s asleep in the guest room at this very moment,” Aggie assured him. “Totally exhausted, poor thing. So much emotion takes it out of a body.” She turned back to her laptop. An old episode of ‘Frasier’ played on the TV, with the sound turned low.

“She didn’t go home?” Greg pulled a bowl from the cupboard.

“Her home isn’t the best place for her when she’s already hurting.” Aggie glanced toward the back bedroom, hoping Gloria was actually getting the sleep she needed.

As smart as he was, Greg sometimes missed a lot. He seemed to take the people around him for granted, as if they’d always be there. But now, so much would change soon, with Gloria getting married and moving away. It was early to say, but with the way things looked between her and Hank–from the moment they met–there might be some more big changes coming along. No telling how Greg might handle the shifting of the emotional landscape in which he’d lived so long. Time to have a talk with him.

He produced various clacking and sloshing sounds as he ladled some soup for himself and stuck the bowl in the microwave.

“Say son.” She met his eye as he turned back to face her across the counter while the soup heated. “How are you doing these days?”

“What do you mean?” He shrugged. He’d never been good at deception, though, and she could swear he wore his hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar expression–too bland–and his gaze shifted from meeting hers.

“You know what I mean. Things are changing around here.”

He still looked confused. The inquiring look he turned her way stayed in place, his eyebrows only lifting a fraction higher.

“Gloria’s getting married. She’ll move away. I know how you feel about her.”

“What’s with all you women who think you know how I feel better than I know it for myself?” His voice held a growling note, like a frustrated wolf or bear might make.

Aggie fell silent for a moment just as the microwave beeped and Greg turned to retrieve the soup. He’d never spoken to her in such annoyance before. She’d struck a nerve for sure.

“Who else has been telling you how you feel?”

“Never mind that.” He put the bowl of soup on a plate and came around the counter to join her at the table. “Why do you have to talk to me about Gloria?”

Well, that was direct. Greg had never been this confrontational before. She wasn’t sure whether to count it as a good thing. She’d generally count an accommodating, reasonable-minded son as a blessing, so she might not be completely happy about it, but a man needed to stand up for himself.

“It’s obvious how you’ve been sweet on Gloria for years now, and it can’t be easy for you to watch her planning to marry someone else.”

“Mom, I want Gloria to be happy. If she’s happy with someone else, so be it.”

“I want Gloria to be happy too. We’re not talking about Gloria now. We’re talking about you. I’m your mother. I also want you to be happy.”

Greg reached across the table, placed a hand–how large and strong it had become from the little boy’s hand she remembered–on hers.

“I appreciate that, Mom. I’m doing okay. I’m old enough to know things won’t always go my way. I can handle it.”

“Of course you can.” She patted his hand as she drew hers away. “I want you to know I understand. Gloria’s making a big mistake. If Pete would make her happy I’d be happy for her–even if I didn’t like her choice–but my gut tells me she’ll wind up feeling trapped and bored out of her mind with Pete.”

Greg looked up from a spoonful of soup, eyebrows lifting above widened eyes. “You may be right.” He frowned. “It’s still her choice.”

“I suspect Gloria doesn’t believe she’s got a better choice.” Aggie leaned toward Greg. “You’ve heard how her father talks to her. He wants to keep her right where she is. He won’t let her get the idea she deserves anything better.”

“Ike’s attitude’s not stopping her from marrying Pete.” Greg smiled, as if admiring Gloria’s spirit even as his heart suffered over her actions.

“She’s settling for Pete.” Aggie pressed on, noting how brave a son she had. “She could do better.”

“Why do you say she’s settling for Pete?” Greg’s spirit of scientific curiosity shone through.

“She deserves someone who’ll bring stars to her eyes,” Aggie said. “Pete doesn’t do that for her. She seems pleased with having the relationship. She likes the attention, likes being romanced.”

She couldn’t say for sure what was in Gloria’s heart, but she’d known the girl for her whole life. She recognized when Gloria was passionate about something, be it a challenging project or a new dress. Gloria had never had stars in her eyes over Pete. Not the way she had stars in her eyes over every new design she came up with for the Cell Shells, or like the stars she’d had in her eyes while watching the clips of Wonder Guy on the news tonight.

“She’s not even as excited about Pete as she was to see that superhero on the news again tonight.”

“She was excited over him, huh?” Greg wore a cagey, trying-too-hard-to-be-nonchalant look.

“Yes. I’m just saying, I’ve been in love, and Gloria doesn’t show the symptoms where Pete is concerned.”

“I don’t see what we can do about it.” Greg wiped his mouth, holding his spoon poised above the bowl. “It’s still her choice to marry him.”

Aggie sighed. The conversation had gone way off track. She’d just wanted to make sure her son was prepared to handle the changes coming his way. How had it come around to questioning Gloria’s relationship? But she did question it. She wasn’t going to stand–or sit–by and watch Gloria make what might be the biggest mistake of her life.

“I know you’re right.” Aggie frowned. She flicked the touch pad of her laptop to chase away the screen-saver before it went into sleep mode. She’d left the machine idle too long. “It’s her choice. We have to respect it. But, as her friends, if we think she’s making a mistake we should do or say something. I’m not sure what. She’s never seemed willing to talk about her relationship with Pete. She’ll talk about anything else, but she gets defensive when I bring him up, as if she already knows there’s a problem and doesn’t want to face it.” Aggie fell silent.

“Don’t worry, Mom.” Greg set his empty bowl aside. “Gloria’s got a lot of heart and a lot of sense. Things will work out.”

Aggie grinned at her boy. “You know me,” she said. “I want to make them work out.”

“This time, we have to trust in something besides ourselves to make things work out.” He stood and gathered his dishes. “Some things are bigger than we are.”

“When did you get to be such a grown up?” she teased him. It came as a bit of a shock, her boy genius showing a new maturity and confidence.

“Just this week,” he replied, grinning. “I’m still getting used to it.”

Chapter 14

Gloria’s workstation held too many reminders. Her desk phone reminded her of countless mid-morning calls, staying connected with Jo in the midst of a workday. Her own coffee mug reminded her of the unwashed mug left behind on Jo’s desk. One of her Outlook folders was still full of messages from Jo–forwarded jokes and links. Some of the subject lines still made her smile, but tears came to her eyes as well. She’d never get any work done if she let herself dwell on what had happened. She finally turned to the queue of new messages.

Things were slow in the R&D department, as usual for a Friday. Half the researchers and Mr. Carlson found reasons not to come in at all, giving themselves a long weekend. Even so, talk from the support staff buzzed with yesterday’s events. Word went around that Jo had been killed exiting through the loading bay door. A memo from management forbade anyone–meaning the smokers–from propping any company door open in the future. Security sent out a memo advising employees who worked late to call for an escort to their cars and included a long list of safety tips.

Gloria noted people’s comments, read the memos and focused as best she could on her work. By ten o’clock, she’d caught up with everything on her desk. Mr. Carlson wasn’t there to give her any more work. Maybe Patty and Anne would appreciate help with some of Jo’s remaining workload. Gloria headed to the HR offices, as much to see how Jo’s co-workers were doing as to offer what meager help she was equipped to do.

Mary let her straight through. The receptionist’s usual good cheer seemed barely touched by events except for a sobered note in her voice. “Anne didn’t sound very happy about the extra work when I talked to her this morning.”

Gloria found both women at their desks. Jo’s cubicle looked untouched, but someone had removed the unwashed coffee mug, leaving it to seem much emptier than the absence of a simple ceramic mug should account for.

“How are you doing today?” Gloria asked.

Patty mumbled something unintelligible.

“What?” Gloria leaned into her cubby, sized up the piles of paper. “Got time for a coffee break?”

“No.” Patty’s tone lacked its usual spark of good humor. She sounded a lot like someone who’d just lost a good friend. “Ms. Dexter expects us to do all Jo’s work and our own in the same time it would take us to do just our own work.”

“A realistic woman, Ms. Dexter.” Gloria made a wry face.

Patty and Anne both snorted humorless laughs.

“Well, that’s why I came.” Gloria leaned against the divider between Jo’s cubicle and the fax-printer station. “Things are slow up in R&D and I thought I might be able to help with the extra work here. Is there anything a non-HR-knowing person like me can do for you?”

“Thanks, Gloria,” Anne began, “but I don’t think–”

“Wait. Just hold on there.” Patty tapped the butt end of a pen against her chin, eyeing Jo’s desk like a general considering troop deployments. “I’m sure we can find something.” She turned back to her own desk, found a sheet of paper. “Ms. Dexter gave us a list of Jo’s projects.” She ran her pen down the paper, paused. “Sure. Jo took charge of wrapping up the tax reports for the last quarter. There are some missing documents associated with each report.”

“Sure.” Gloria followed Patty into Jo’s cubicle, standing aside while the petite woman rummaged through a stack of papers until she pulled out a batch of printed spreadsheets.

“Here are the reports she left unfinished. See there.” She pointed to a column heading on one page and to a few rows where the column remained empty. “We don’t have verification that the tax forms were filed for these particular jobs.”

“Right.” Gloria took the spreadsheets from Patty. “Jo asked me about one of these the other day.” Her eyes welled unexpectedly at the memory.

Anne chimed in, “We’d be happy to get them off our slate. Tracking down the stray documents takes way too much time. Ninety percent of the time for the whole report gets eaten up by ten percent of the items on it.”

“The age old story.” Gloria gave a crooked smile. “I’m not sure where to look for the missing documents, but I’ll do my best.”

“It’s mostly a matter of tracking people down,” Patty assured her. “Wherever there’s a form missing, there’s a person responsible for getting us a copy. Just use your departmental directory.”

* * * *

Gloria took Patty’s advice to heart and began by bringing the reports back to her desk and sorting them according to which department would have to be contacted to obtain the missing documentation. Unsurprisingly, Custodial Services hired a large number of outside contractors for building maintenance. Whoever handled the documentation didn’t meet HR’s exacting criteria for recordkeeping. It would take her a while to straighten such a mess out. She’d save it for Monday.

Only one report showed items missing from R&D, some 1099 forms for two outside contractors, Inspired Logic and IntelligentDZine. Kathleen Pederson’s group. Kathleen, who seemed never to sit still, might be hard to track down, but it shouldn’t take long for her to find the few forms needed to close this one report.