Three Christmas Wishes - Krista Wolf Page 0,44
frantic. He skidded over to where I was, and joined me on the floor.
“Are you hurt?” he shouted. “Did you get any of it on you, or—”
“I’m okay,” I breathed. “I’m fine.”
Mark being at the foundry at this hour was astounding enough. But him being back here, in the pouring area? Where I just happened to be working?
“Sloane,” he said looking around. “What did you… what did you just do?”
My co-workers voice had gone from concerned to accusatory. In all the time it took to blink.
“Where’s your spotter?” he cried.
“My who?”
“Your assistant!” he went on. “The one you promised the old man you’d use every night you came here?”
I felt sick. Like I was going to throw up.
“Sloane?”
I got up, ignoring him completely. Turning in a circle, I took stock of the whole disaster. Broken chain and all.
“SLOANE!”
That chain…
A hand touched my shoulder and my lip curled back. I spun on my co-worker in a whirlwind of rage, my look venomous.
“That’s not the right chain,” I grunted angrily.
Mark looked at the broken length of steel links as if seeing it for the first time. “No,” he shook his head, even as he pretended to agree with me. “That’s not the right chain at all.”
I grabbed the hand that was still on my shoulder. Twisting it backward, I shoved him into the wall so fast, so hard, I actually knocked the wind out of him. He stood there gasping for air, staring back at me with big, bulging eyes.
“You’re not understanding me,” I roared into his face. “It’s not just the ‘wrong’ chain, Mark…”
I held him another few seconds, twisting my hands into fists before I finally let go.
“That’s not the chain I hooked up to the casting ladle,” I snarled.
Thirty-Three
SLOANE
“And they just fired you?” Valerio spat, disbelievingly. “They fired you the day before Christmas?”
I was way past anger, well beyond tears. I’d screamed until my voice was raw, then cried all the way home and through most of the morning. It wasn’t until the first shift came in, and discovered what I’d done, that the chain reaction within the company began.
“Suspended,” I said miserably. “At least for now.”
The phone call from Mr. Drumm came shortly after nine-thirty. He was nothing but pure concern at first, and asked me a hundred times if I was alright. When I finally convinced him I was, his voice grew sadder.
“Sloane, you were supposed to have—”
“An assistant,” I’d sighed. “I know. I realize that.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion,” the old man had said. I could hear him forcing his voice lower to sound more stern. “It was a requirement.”
I went on to tell him what happened, and how it happened, and that I’d done my best to clean things up. I’d managed to clear the workspace entirely, but the broken crucible was something no one could fix.
“You exceeded the maximum load for that chain,” Mr. Drumm had said. The statement made me want to scream again. Instead, I’d gnashed my teeth.
No! I yelled inside my own head. I didn’t.
“If only you’d had a spotter,” he’d sighed. “An assistant who could’ve pointed out such a simple mistake.” He’d paused awkwardly. “Like Mark, for instance.”
“And what exactly was Mark doing there last night?” I’d asked sharply. “Because he sure as hell wasn’t with me.”
My boss had seemed taken aback by the question, but only for a moment.
“He said had some CAD files he needed to retrieve from his computer,” Mr. Drumm had answered.
“Yeah,” I’d grunted under my breath. “Sure he did.”
If the old man had heard me he didn’t let on. Instead he’d lowered his voice and began telling me how Mr. Burgen was insisting I be fired. They’d fought about the subject for over an hour, when Mr. Drumm finally got his business partner to agree to a suspension.
No, not just a suspension.
My heart felt like a brick, but there was no use lying to myself.
An indefinite suspension.
“Sloane?”
Kade touched my cheek, wiping away an errant tear. I guess I wasn’t done crying after all.
“Listen, it’s okay,” he tried telling me. “The timing’s good. A week from now it’ll be the New Year, and this will seem like ancient history. Your bosses will soften. They’ll take you back.”
I was sitting on my bed, exactly where they’d found me. They were off today. Two of them, anyway.
After all, it was Christmas Eve.
“It’s not just that,” I sighed. “I broke the mold for one of my best pieces. I lost the bronze too. All that money… I could barely salvage