Page 76 of Sunset Beach
“I’m good,” Ben said.
“Just the check, please,” Drue told her. She looked over at her friend. “I guess the rats need to get back to their cubes, right?”
Ben hesitated, then touched her hand. “Are you mad at me?”
“No. Disappointed, that’s all. I had to talk to somebody about this thing. And I was hoping that you’d see what I see. And care about it as much as I do.”
She opened her purse, took out two twenties and laid them on top of the check the waitress placed discreetly at the edge of the table. “Anyway, thanks for listening.”
“Any time,” Ben said earnestly.
They stood to go, and saw that the restaurant, which had been half empty when they arrived, was now crowded with the downtown lunch crowd, a line of customers impatiently jostling behind the hostess stand, blocking their way to the door.
Ben lightly placed his hand at the small of Drue’s back, guiding her through the crowd. When they emerged from the dim coolness of the restaurant back onto the sidewalk, they both blinked in the bright sunlight and blast-furnace afternoon heat.
“Hey, Drue?” he said, as they set out on the five-block walk back to the office.
“Yeah?” She turned to look at him.
“I’m really glad you trusted me enough to talk about this stuff today. But I have to warn you, if you’re gonna keep working at CCK, you’re going to have to understand that bad shit happens to good people. Not just sometimes, but all the time. You have to stop taking this stuff so personally. Okay?”
“Okay.” She smiled. “I’ll try.”
32
As soon as Drue sat back down at her desk, but before she could don what she thought of as her “office sweater,” her phone chirped with an incoming text. It was from Brice.
Drue: See me in Wendy’s office. ASAP! Urgent!
“What now?” she mumbled.
“Huh?” Ben rolled his chair backward and poked his head around the corner of the cubicle.
“I’ve been summoned. To meet with Dad.”
“He probably wants to congratulate you on locking down the 7-Eleven thing,” Ben said. “Just go.”
She trudged toward the office, her curiosity growing with every step.
“Come in,” Wendy called, after Drue tapped lightly on her closed office door.
She was surprised to see Wendy and Brice sitting close together on the leather sofa in Wendy’s office, Brice’s arm flung casually over his wife’s shoulder. His face was flushed; Wendy’s was, as usual, inscrutable, at least to Drue.
“Sit down,” Brice said, gesturing to the chair near the desk.
Drue did as she was told, crossing her ankles and waiting for the inevitable.
“Go ahead and tell her,” Brice said, nudging Wendy, who was dressed in what was, for her, a casual outfit: black linen slacks and an olive green sleeveless silk blouse.
“No, I think this should come from you,” Wendy said, a frown creasing her forehead.
“For God’s sake, one of you just tell me,” Drue said. “If you’re going to fire me, let’s go ahead and get it over with.”
“Fire you?” Brice laughed. “Why would I do that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because double secret probation isn’t working out?”
“It’s working out fine,” Brice assured her. “Don’t be so paranoid. Zee tells me you were great interviewing that witness yesterday. But that’s not really why we wanted to see you.”
