Okay, so I may have had a few drinks after I went home last night, but at least I wasn’t traipsing around downtown Chicago like some kind of drunken idiot. I pick my phone up again at that thought.
One new email from Nick.
To: Ward Brandt
Cc: Beatrice Nightingale Brandt
From: Nick Brandt
Subject: RE: Houston, we have a problem.
Ward,
You need to chill.
You’re exaggerating like always and it isn’t even her first day. Lay off the extra espresso shots and get some fresh air.
Leave the poor girl alone.
Nicholas Brandt
Senior Partner, Brandt Ideas Inc.
For good measure—or to annoy the hell out of me—he’s embedded a link to Taylor Swift’s “You Need To Calm Down.”
I’ll never comprehend why the universe gave me a little brother to piss me off.
Nick thinks everything’s a joke by instinct. He’s a few beams short of a sound structure, that’s for sure.
I think it comes from being the spoiled baby, first by our parents before they lost their minds, and then by our grandparents.
Grandma hasn’t responded yet with the final word.
Even though it’s Saturday, I need to make sure she’s at least seen the email. Far better we cut ties before the new EA ever shows up in person to get a nastygram from HR.
I jump out of bed, and it’s like being beat in the head with a sledgehammer.
Fuck. I didn’t chase the bourbon with enough water last night. I also forgot the joys of encroaching middle age that start to creep up in your thirties.
I glug down a bottle of water and a pinch of pain pills, then get ready for work.
There’s hardly anyone in the office today. Thank God when I’m not in the mood for people.
Let’s be real, I never am, but with this bourbon and Miss One Glass induced headache?
Double hell no.
I pass a couple folks from marketing, but they’re so busy working on a showcase of our recent projects that they don’t even look up.
Nick slumps over his desk as usual, his office door half cracked. The right thing to do is remind him it’s hilariously inappropriate for a partner to show up to work in a Hawaiian shirt and sleep at his desk in full view of our staff, but Nick is the last person I want to talk to before my head stops pounding.
Too bad we don’t have an assistant here today. I’d send her for a coffee run.
Before I’ve got my laptop up and running in my office, Grandma appears at my door like a quicksilver whirlwind.
She’s only a few inches shorter than me, and today she’s wearing platinum heels, regal as ever. She has this lonely deep line in her forehead that she always jokes came from dealing with “her boys.” Her black business suit is custom tailored with a silvery shirt underneath.
She looks just like she did when I was a kid, except the helmet of hair around her face is now mostly quicksilver. She’s gotten thinner and more breakable with age. Still, the grit in her eyes and sharp cheekbones warn the world to tread lightly.
This is a woman who bleeds for her art.
“How are you this lovely morning?” she asks.
“Not as chipper as you.”
She laughs. “Oh, Ward, must you be a cactus every weekend? Wrong side of the bed again?”
“Headache,” I grumble.
“Do you need something?”
I shake my head. “Already popped a few pain pills. They just haven’t kicked in yet.”
She nods. “Well, when you get settled, come straight to my office.”
Huh? That weird look on her face says she’s holding something back.
I’m a senior partner in the company and blood, so I won’t be fired. And I’m far too old to be grounded, so...why do I get the feeling I’m in trouble?
Shit, I’m not dealing with this without more caffeine.
While my computer wakes up, I plod downstairs and fetch a double espresso, then head straight to Grandma’s office to get this over with.
I tap on her door.
She peers through the long window beside it and waves me in.
She’s perched at her desk like an empress waiting for her court. The soaring glass windows and lively vines behind her cast a backdrop that steals my breath even after years of working in this building and being inside her corporate throne room a thousand times.
The Chicago skyline peeks in with a hint of orange early summer sun that makes Grandma glow like a creature that isn’t fully mortal.
Sometimes, I wonder.
“You wanted to talk to me?” I take the leather chair across from her desk.