Out Of Love Part 40

She hung up the phone and clicked on her Web browser, checking her e-mail for the hundredth time that morning. Why had she just left Carmen's without making some sort of pact to keep in touch? Surely what they had was worth trying to maintain at least a friends.h.i.+p.

The fact that their romance was over hadn't really sunk in until the plane ride home last night. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed as though Carmen had practically 275 shoved her out the door. Granted, she knew she had given the impression it was all about Victor, but only because Carmen's family and friends seemed to think she was the cause of Carmen's stress problems. When Carmen hadn't resisted at all, it seemed as though she was eager to end things.

And Judith had cried all night.

"Judith? Can I see you in here?"

She didn't have the patience to deal with Todd today, especially after his display last Thursday when she told him she had to leave for an emergency. He was sympathetic to her situation, he had said, but he wasn't under any obligation to treat everyone's boyfriend or girlfriend like a spouse unless they filed domestic partner papers with the agency. She had been ready that day to tell him to shove it, but now she was glad she had held her tongue. Whether she liked it or not, she needed this sucky job.

She drew a deep breath and walked into Todd's office.

"Something I can do for you?"

"I was just thinking you might want to take an early lunch and cool off. You need to deal with whatever's up your b.u.t.t and stop taking it out on our customers."

"Great, so when I really need time off, you give me a hard time. Now you're telling me I need to get out and take a break."

"All I'm saying is I've been listening to you talk on the phone this morning. If that's how you're going to treat our clients, we're better off with you somewhere else. It's up to you whether that's going to be permanent or not."

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from las.h.i.+ng out.

"Fine. I'll be back at one."

"I mean it, Judith. Either fix whatever's bugging you or don't bother coming back."

She returned to her desk and grabbed her purse. As soon as she reached the sidewalk, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed the main number for The Delallo Group. "Cathy Rosen, 276 please."

After a few moments, Cathy came on the line.

"Cathy, it's Judith. Did Carmen make it to work today?" She covered her other ear as a garbage truck rumbled past. "Could you say that again?"

Carmen was in her office with the door closed, Cathy said.

She seemed to be bothered by something, and wasn't in the mood to talk. Cathy had no idea what that was about, but she was concerned.

"I don't know if this is it, but we, uh . . . we decided yesterday that this long-distance thing wasn't working out." She was surprised by the sharpness in Cathy's voice. "No, for either of us . . .

Yes, part of it was my brother." Evidently, Cathy knew all about Victor. "But he wasn't the only reason . . . I don't think this going back and forth is good for Carmen. She needs somebody who can be with her all the time. I can't do that."

She turned the corner down a side street to get away from the traffic, straining to hear Cathy's diatribe about giving up just because things weren't easy. "I know my timing left a lot to be desired, but I didn't want to make things any worse than they already were . . . Look, she didn't exactly throw herself in front of the car when I left. If anything, I'd say she was relieved about it."

Cathy's reaction was odd. It wasn't as if she was showing some great loyalty to Carmen by taking her side. Instead, she seemed angry at both of them, saying they didn't deserve to be happy.

"Cathy, I know this may sound stupid, but I broke up with Carmen because I love her, and because I'm not going to be the one that pushes her too hard and causes her to break. She needs somebody who can be there for her, and I wish that could be me.

But it can't." Her voice was shaking with frustration. "I just need to know she's okay."

The sound of a siren drowned out most of Cathy's response, but Judith distinctly caught the word "idiots" before the line went dead.

277.

"That's right, by Wednesday, or you can forget it. We're done here." Carmen let the phone drop into its cradle, not caring what kind of noise it made in the ear of the person on the other end of the line.

A sharp knock sounded on her door. Before she could answer, Cathy barged in. "I just talked to Judith. She had some rather strange things to say."

"I hope you told her I was fine." Cathy waited near the couch, obviously in the mood for a heart-to-heart talk about her love life, which didn't interest Carmen at all. She busied herself with the stack of papers in her inbox. "I'd appreciate it if this didn't turn into some big drama. It didn't work out and we're both dealing with it."

"Fine." But she made no move to leave the office.

"Would you get out a memo to the whole staff that the office will be closed tomorrow? Everyone is to stay home. Paid holiday."

"A paid holiday on a Tuesday? What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"Just do the memo, Cathy."

"Yes, ma'am," Cathy snapped, spinning on a heel before marching out and slamming the door.

Carmen took a deep breath and checked herself. It was bad enough that outside circ.u.mstances affected her stress level.

Being an a.s.shole to her friends made it worse.

Judith widened her stance and gripped the pole tightly, brac-ing herself for when the train started again. There was no telling what she would find once she got to Wyckoff. Russ said Victor hadn't gone to work today, but he didn't know any more than that. She would have to get the details from Stacey once she got to the group home. At least Victor hadn't run away.

278.

Her stop was next and she squeezed between two young men to get closer to the exit, holding her breath to ward off someone's body odor. As soon as the doors opened, she leapt off, starting immediately up the stairs to the outside. She turned on State Street and slowed her gait.

She loved her brother dearly. But for the first time in her life, she actually had considered turning her back on his needs in order to make a life with Carmen. No sooner had that possibility entered her head than she was faced with its consequences- fear that his life would come apart and his small windows of joy would turn to tortured confusion. How would she have lived with herself if choosing Carmen had meant putting out the only light in Victor's life?

None of this was Victor's fault, and she wasn't going to entertain resentment for what it meant to be there for him. What mattered now was spending time with him to get him back on an even keel and recommitting to his needs.

She climbed the steps to the stoop, rang the buzzer and announced herself. Stacey opened the door.

"Hi, Judith. Come on in. Victor's back in his room."

"How is he?"

"He's better now. I don't know what it was he ate. Did your mother figure it out?"

Judith wasn't following at all what Stacey was saying. "What are you talking about? He didn't go to work today, right?"

"Right. He threw up a couple of times last night so we kept him in today. I called your mother to tell her and she was going to look around and see what he might have gotten into at home yesterday."

"Victor went home yesterday?"

"Your mother didn't tell you? She called in the morning and asked us to have him ready. We did, and she picked him up and brought him back."

"She came all by herself." Judith was astounded.

279.

"I was surprised, if you want to know the truth."

So her mother had come through for her after all, and for Victor as well. But could she do it again? "I guess I need to talk to her and see how it went."

"I'd say it went fine. She looked a little scared at first, but when she brought him back, she was smiling . . . seemed pretty proud of herself."

"And Victor was okay? He didn't mind going with her?"

"Not that I could tell."

They walked into Victor's room, where he sat coloring at his desk. His face brightened immediately with recognition, and Judith almost cried with joy.

Carmen balanced the large box of doughnuts in one hand as she struggled with the key to the office. When the lock clicked, she pushed the door open and held it with her hip while she worked the key out. Her first stop was the receptionist's desk, where she programmed the outgoing phone message that simply announced the business was closed. Then she walked down the hall to the conference room, dropping her gym bag on the floor outside of her office.

The sweet pastries smelled tempting, but they weren't for her. They were for the audit team coming in at seven thirty a.m., and she didn't care if the sugar gave them a collective migraine.

She dropped the box on the conference table and continued into the kitchen, where she started two pots of coffee, one regular and one decaffeinated.

From her bookkeeper's office, she emptied two file drawers into boxes and carted them into the conference room. They could access everything else over the wireless network.

She had a pretty good idea what the bean counters would find today. She had pored over the numbers last night, along with Lenore's business plan for the syndicated side of the company.

280.

The math was straightforward-six and a half million was the magic number, either what Conover paid her today or what she would earn before that revenue stream went down the tubes.

Walking back toward reception, she gave the gym bag a kick into her office. When those guys cut out for lunch, she would go down to the fitness center on the third floor and log her time on the treadmill. It wouldn't do to skip her workout on only her second day back in the routine.

Carmen was determined to get a handle on her life, not just her health, but the other big pieces too. Selling out to Art Conover, no matter how distasteful, would settle the uncertainty of her company, and free her to focus on the custom work she enjoyed. There also was the matter of her home life, which she wasn't going to spend darting back and forth across the country for snippets of time with someone she loved. From the very beginning, that had disaster written all over it. What she needed in her life was- The elevator deposited three men and two women, all dressed in dark business suits and carrying laptops. Carmen almost laughed aloud at the cliche. They would systematically undervalue her business, but she was prepared to b.u.mp it up with demands she knew Art wouldn't be able to resist.

"Come in. I'm Carmen Delallo."

They rattled off their names and followed her to the conference room, where they methodically spread out and opened their laptops, dividing the contents of the file boxes. She hurriedly located extension cords and power strips, and left them on their own.

Before settling in her office, she checked the front door and found it locked. She was free to work undisturbed.

But when she walked into her office, all thoughts of work evaporated. Cathy sat on her couch, dressed in jeans and a casual sweater, her face buried in a magazine. Without looking up, she handed Carmen a cardboard cup.

281.

"It's a decaffeinated soy latte."

"Sounds nasty . . . I mean tasty." Carmen accepted it and tried a sip. She was pleasantly surprised. "Is that vanilla?"

"It is." Cathy dropped the magazine on the couch beside her.

"I take it they're auditors?"

"From Conover Data Services."

"What sort of timeline are you looking at?"

"For reaching a deal? Tomorrow afternoon."

"And after that?"

"Handover of the syndicated division in three months. I provide consultation for a year after that."

"You'd actually be working for Art?"

"h.e.l.l, no. The company keeps its name till I walk out the door." She walked over to the window and stared out at the western horizon. She hoped the rest of her staff was out enjoying this gorgeous day. "Art's ramping up for a major expansion. He wants the whole research staff in Dallas."

"And if they don't want to go?"

"Six months severance."

"That could be sweet."

"I'm going to encourage everyone to consider a move to Dallas. Salaries go a lot further there than here, and CDS is a growing company. It's a good time to get on board."

"Does this mean I finally get to retire?"

Carmen sighed drearily. "If that's what you want."

"I'm sure as h.e.l.l not going to Dallas."

"But I'm not going out to pasture. This gives me a chance to get back to what I love, which is working directly with clients to solve their problems and answer their questions."

"Isn't that how you started? You're turning the clock back twenty years."

"Yeah, but with one big difference. I'm not so hungry now. I don't have to compete for every dollar out there, and I don't have to sell myself. I can pick and choose which jobs to do . . . I'll sit 282 back and be the grand dame of travel research. And I'm going to ask Lenore to be my partner."

"Maybe you should just retire early. You won't have anyone to manage your projects and keep you on schedule."

"I have an idea about who could handle a job like that. She could handle all of our travel arrangements too."

Cathy arched both eyebrows and smiled, obviously delighted.

"Now there's an idea. What happens to all this office s.p.a.ce?"

"The lease is up in November. Art can pay the rent after the handover."

"And where will your new office be?"

"Wherever I am."

"In Chicago?"