The Diary Dilemma Read online

  The confidence Eda had felt towards this job shattered that instant. “I was looking forward to us working together.”

  “So was I. But this is such a great opportunity; I can’t possibly miss it.”

  “I understand. I don’t want to sound selfish, but what’s going to happen to me?”

  “Nothing’s changed as far as you’re concerned. They've assigned a new project manager who will need you to do your job as I did. As I still do. I need you to stay and work on this because even though I’m no longer in charge of the project, it is important to me--”

  The door cracked open a young man with glasses sneaking his head. “They’re all waiting for you.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Talia answered. “Can I count on you?” she asked after the door closed.

  Eda wished she could say no and run home at the speed of light. In the end, she owed nothing to Talia.

  But could she give up so easily? Talia and Bud had shown her kindness; it was about time she reciprocated. How childish of her to consider quitting because one thing didn’t go her way.

  “Yes. You can count on me,” she heard herself say.

  ∞∞∞

  The team’s efforts to form a circle resulted in an egg-shaped blob wider along the windows. As soon as Talia approached, they broke ranks, making enough room for her to pass. Eda remained at a safe distance with a few renegades, close enough to see and hear everything.

  Her gaze shifted from one person to another, wishing she could read their characters and backstory on their faces. The cheerful smiles ceased, matching Talia’s more serious pose. Even a few soft frowns appeared as if some of them were experts in sensing danger.

  Anxiety skyrocketed when Eda’s gaze rested on a middle-aged woman with her head tilted backward and looking down on everyone through barely cracked eyes. What if she was the new boss? No, the universe couldn’t be that cruel.

  “Happy New Year, everyone!” Talia said.

  The responses from the team mingled unintelligibly, with the menacing woman the only one not joining in.

  “I know you’re all wondering why we’re having this meeting today instead of our usual Fridays. The truth is there have been some last-minute changes in management that will have a huge impact on you. You all know Frank, right?”

  Various people nodded, others said, “Sure.”

  “Unfortunately, he had an accident on New Year’s. The doctors say his recovery will take at least six months.”

  The crowd muttered, looking at each other.

  “Due to his prolonged absence, I’ve been asked to fill in for him.”

  All noise dissipated as the optimism previously flickering on people’s faces began to fade.

  “I know this is abrupt,” Talia continued. “It was for me, and it surely was for Frank and his family. I have all the confidence that you’ll do the work with excellence in my absence, as you always have. I can say with complete honesty that you’re the best team I’ve been working with, and I’m proud of you all.”

  Two of her new colleagues whispered beside her; as difficult as it was, Eda refrained from glancing their way.

  “Don’t tell me she’s our new lead,” one said.

  “Gosh, I hope not. If she’s in charge, I’m out the door.”

  The voices in the room summed up in a roar. Talia cleared her throat, bringing everyone to silence.

  “I don’t want to keep you too long,” her voice tensed the longer she spoke. “It’s my pleasure to announce my temporary replacement. You all know Matilda Tingey and her work for this company over the years.”

  The roar burst again, narrowing Matilda’s eyes even further. Eda could make out nothing of what everyone said, but, judging by the almost tangible pressure that filled the room, it wasn’t good. Pressure reached Eda’s core, and, for the second time in ten minutes she wanted to run away, so she grabbed the edge of the nearest desk to keep herself in place.

  Talia's words kept coming out. “I know this is unexpected. Try to remember that this change is temporary. We all want Frank to get well soon.”

  That same voice whispered near her. “Like that’s gonna happen! I heard he’s basically dead. Nothing the doctors can do.”

  “I don’t know if you want to address the team,” Talia said, eyeing the new boss.

  Matilda shook her head, inviting Talia to continue.

  “On a happier note, it’s my pleasure to make one more announcement. We’ve finally filled the vacancy. Everyone, please give Eda your warmest welcome!”

  All eyes turned to Eda, and for a moment, the floor seemed to swallow her whole. Various welcoming remarks came from the team, but all she could see was Matilda’s hardened glare. It could be nothing but panic thinking, but Eda could’ve sworn her new boss had reserved a double dose of meanness for her.

  The voices stopped. It was her turn to say something. Eda swallowed to force her throat to come out of numbness. “It’s great to be here, and I can’t wait to meet all of you.” The words seemed to bypass her brain and burst into existence directly on her lips, but the crowd answered with satisfied nods.

  “Welcome to the team, colleague,” said the same whisperer from before, giving Eda the perfect excuse to turn and scrutinize him.

  The same bespectacled young man she’d seen before was now invading her personal space. Eda took an instinctive step back, bumping into a support pillar.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  “I’m Atwater. Everyone calls me At.”

  “Nice to meet you At. I’m Eda.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  People were already dispersing throughout the office.

  “Let me show you to your desk,” At continued.

  Eda smiled with gratitude and followed him, keeping her eyes fixated on the skull that seemed to jump from the back of his t-shirt. One by one, her teammates collapsed on the chairs, letting their heads down.

  With no other available option, Eda stopped at the desk next to At’s.

  “You’ll need to go to IT to get a laptop. I’ll show--”

  The woman sitting in front of her slammed the desk with both her fists. Several glasses clinked. “This is perfect! Our new boss is a freakin’ demolition expert. I think we should all be on our way.”

  “Demolition expert?” Eda asked. Nobody bothered to explain.

  “Let’s see how it goes,” At opinionated.

  “You can stay. I’m quitting.”

  “Me too,” a guy that looked as if he’d woken up seconds ago added.

  Eda dared venture a question. “Are you sure it will be that bad? I thought Matilda managed several teams until now.”

  The angry lady looked straight at her with eyes as red as her hair. “The reason she had so many teams is that she’s a demolition expert.”

  “Oh?”

  At explained. “It means she takes over a team and dismantles it soon after.”

  “This doesn’t sound good.”

  “You finally get it.” The woman extracted a cigarette pack off her back and jumped up. “I’m off to smoke.”

  At pulled Eda’s chair and signaled her to sit. “Her name is Lari, and she’s usually not this rude.”

  “Is it me?”

  “No. She hates Matilda more than the rest of us.”

  Eda sat, assessing the decision that had compelled her to stay so far. Nobody could blame her if she left now. Nobody but her. The fact that she was so easily dismayed by hardship made her want to bang her head against the desk.

  Keeping her word was paramount. She understood why Talia insisted she stayed. Her team was falling apart. If Lari and At were right, and the team was about to be dismantled, they'd let her go first, as the new addition. The sooner, the better.

  An Unexpected Change

  Matilda’s grumpy face faded into the background as Eda busied around the modern offices, decorated with enough light and color to energize even the most depressed individual. Between onboarding, two separate visits to IT, a
nd a detailed tour of the entire facility, time flashed away, ending with a forced escapade to lunch when both At and Lari insisted she should take advantage of all the free time she could get.

  So far, she could find one downside to this job, which took over their over-the-table conversation.

  “I can't believe Talia would betray us like that,” Lari said, her purple highlights vibrating. “She knows this awful woman will make our lives a living hell.”

  That sentence surmised everything her colleagues had to say during lunch, Eda wishing she could’ve gotten the cliff note version of the conversation instead of enduring through the whole thing.

  Eda’s decision to ignore Matilda proved unrealistic when they returned to their desks and found her sitting in the middle of the empty aisle, throwing an even meaner glare at the returning trio. Despite smoke coming out of her nostrils, Matilda said nothing until they neared enough for her to speak in a low but heavy tone.

  “Where the hell have you all been? And where are the others?”

  “Relax, we didn’t all quit...yet. We were on our lunch break,” Lari answered. “I’m assuming that’s where the others are.”

  “That’s unacceptable! You can’t all leave at the same time. The client is here, and what does he see? That the team that’s supposed to code his software is AWAL.” Her tone was so high-pitched that the last word turned into a shrill. “We’ll discuss this later,” she continued after a few deep breaths. “In the meantime, do your best to appear you’re doing something productive.”

  Matilda stormed off, her large skirt flying in the wind. Lari jumped up, sticking her tongue out at her back, but returned when laughter burst behind her.

  Matilda slowed down the pace as she approached a conference room, so much that when she opened the glass door, she barely moved. The client had to be there. Eda dared not shift her gaze and miss the opportunity to see who it was, but Matilda blocked the view. When she finally sat, Eda’s heart stopped. A bald man past his middle age was speaking continuously, but he wasn’t the one that got Eda’s attention.

  “Johan...” she muttered.

  “What did you say?” Lari asked.

  “I believe she said Johan,” At answered in her stead.

  The voices were echoes at the back of her mind. Eda wished she had binoculars to bring Johan’s image closer, especially those eyes. Were they as surrounded by dark lines as they had been a few nights before? While the question was doomed to remain unanswered, his constant tapping of the table with his finger as he listened to Matilda said it all.

  “Do you know him?” At asked again.

  Eda had to use all her brainpower to break the connection direct her gaze at her colleague. “Who?”

  “Johan Patton.”

  “Yes. No. Kind of. Do you?”

  “We’ve spoken once or twice,” At answered. “He’s working for one of our oldest clients. He’s some kind of manager.”

  “He’s also hot,” Lari completed. “But so distant. I’d love to melt that ice he surrounds himself with. I bet I could do it too. How do you know him?”

  “We were at the same New Year’s party. But we didn’t talk. I doubt he remembers me.”

  Eda shifted her gaze back to the conference room—more specifically, to a suited man in the conference room. Big mistake. She proved incapable of turning her head back until panic rose from a myriad of questions bouncing in her mind.

  Her reaction was ridiculous; she’d never been overrun because a man worthy of a second glance came her way. No, the magnetism drawing her was related to the mystery surrounding him rather than his appearance. Why had he been angry at the party? Was it a disturbing love triangle between him, Talia, and Bud?

  Eda set her head in her palm for a more comfortable position, ignoring the chatter going on around her and studying every movement Johan made as if it were the best way to figure out his thoughts.

  Johan picked up his cell from the desk and rushed out the door. Matilda gawked at him. He stopped to speak on his cell outside the conference room, and as he moved, his gaze intersected Eda’s, keeping it steady while his body remained frozen, forcing her to look away.

  ∞∞∞

  “See you tomorrow!”

  The smile froze on Eda’s face as the envy rising inside of her barely gave her time to respond. Twenty minutes before closing time, she was officially the last person to leave. She glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time in the past hour, releasing a sigh.

  If there was a valid reason for her lingering, she couldn’t identify it with certainty. Leaving early on her first day was something she was unable to do. For her peace of mind, she decided to stay until five sharp, not a minute sooner, and definitely not a minute later.

  When time came, she slammed the laptop shut and grabbed her jacket, ready to leave.

  “Why in such a hurry?”

  Matilda’s cold voice brought a shiver down her spine. She circled gradually to face the source of all meanness.

  “Tell me,” Matilda continued, nearing further, “do you want my job?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You rush here without notice, cozying up to Talia and now Johan Patton. You’ve been here a day and want to take charge of everything. It’s not how it works, sweetheart.”

  For a moment, Eda felt she somehow crossed into a different dimension, with words that flew by her without any connection to each other. She searched for any event that would’ve justified the accusations but found none.

  “I don’t understand. I assure you--”

  Matilda raised her palm. “Keep your assurances to yourself.”

  “Fine. I still need to know what you’re talking about.”

  Matilda ran her finger on the edge of the desk, repositioning herself at a cold distance. “Mr. Patton sent me an email with a special request. He wants all the discussions with his company to go through you.”

  Eda realized she'd stopped breathing. “I had no idea he'd ask that. If you tell him it’s not possible--”

  “I can’t tell him that. No, I’ll go along with it for the time being. But keep in mind that my eyes are on you at all times.”

  Johan’s reason for making this irrational demand eluded her. Despite her instinct to ponder it further and try to guess, she had more important things to consider. She was yet to familiarize herself with the software they had to develop and the company’s procedures. Any sane person would’ve concluded that she was the least qualified for the task.

  Matilda continued, a fleeting smirk at the corner of her mouth. “There’s a meeting tomorrow at SIFT, at 10. I was supposed to go, but since they want you...”

  “A meeting? What will it be about?”

  “The details we didn't resolve today.”

  “But I’m not at all familiar with the project! I can’t go there and represent the company since--”

  Matilda punched the desk with her clenched fist. “You should’ve thought of that before you aimed for my job. And about the fact that you’re not familiar with the project, you have...” She paused, checking her watch. “Twelve...sixteen hours to bring yourself up to speed.” She took advantage of Eda’s lack of a quick reply and stormed off, tapping her heels loudly into the marble floor as she moved.

  Eda dragged her feet back to her chair and let herself fall, setting her forehead against the desk. It was hard to imagine the day could get any worse.

  The First Encounter

  The engine released a popping sound, louder each time Eda twisted the key in the ignition.

  “Come on, you stupid thing!”

  She rarely shouted at her car, but this day pushed her to the extreme, and now, at midnight, even a minute delay between her and the satin sheets was more than she could suffer.

  After a deep breath, she tried again. Same result. She tightened her hands around the wheel, screaming. Sliding out of the car with her bag in one hand and the laptop in the other, she kicked the wheels for effect.

  A car drove
by fast, splashing the murky water on her jeans. Every time she told herself she was at the limit, something happened to test her hypotheses, igniting the urge to propel the laptop into the puddle.

  She screened the area for a taxi with no success. Walking was out of the question; it would’ve gotten her two hours to get home. The subway, then. Not without effort, Eda freed one of her hands, browsing the map on her phone. On her way, she passed by a hotel, seriously considering renting a room for one night. It would’ve given her the quiet needed to rest and finish reading the materials Matilda so generously sent.

  The quiet humming of a car approaching increased her heart rate, blaming herself for being so preoccupied with how much time she was losing that she didn’t stop to consider her safety. The car stationed a few feet in front of her.

  She could’ve used a third hand right about now. Deciding to ignore the car and keep her eyes fixed ahead, she set the laptop under her armpit and rummaged inside her bag for the pepper spray she’d bought the day she first arrived in New York—unused except for that time when she needed to push a drunk neighbor away.

  With her heart pounding so loudly that it was all she heard, Eda walked past the car. Useless. The vehicle advanced a few feet ahead.

  What was she to do? Call 911? She squeezed the tiny pepper tube into her hand, winching when the wind blew a beer can right in front of her.

  “Eda!”

  The deep voice came from within the stalking vehicle. How did the driver know her name? Terrified of the possibilities, she turned her head slowly toward the black SUV stationed menacingly in the dark. The driver was merely a shadow at first, but, as he bent to open the side door, a gleam of light passed over his face.

  “That’s your name, right? Eda?” Johan asked.

  She stooped near the open door, allowing herself a sigh of relief. “You scared me!”

  “I’m sorry,” Johan said mechanically. “Are you going to stand there?”

  The leather seat was so tempting that the reason for Eda’s hesitation was a mystery even to herself. She accepted the invitation, holding tightly to the bag and laptop as she got in.