Cross your fingers, p.1
Cross Your Fingers, page 1
CROSS YOUR FINGERS
K L Finalley
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or to living persons alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publishers except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.
Published by Copper Penny Press
Copyright © 2015 K L Finalley
All rights reserved.
DEDICATION
To my wife, who has to share me with the long days and closed doors that come with trying to fulfill my dreams and who deals with the anxiety that occurs when I feel that I have failed, all my love and thanks for understanding my little projects.
Contents
CONTENTS
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1
It was nearly two-thirty in the morning when Jacqueline Emerson’s eyes blinked open. Staring out upon her dark and fuzzy world, she wasn’t sure what time it was, but she was positive that it wasn’t time to be awake. She rolled onto her back and reached her arm towards her nightstand. Fumbling in the dark, her fingers found the power cord to her cell phone. She tugged at it until the phone slid off the nightstand and crashed onto the floor. With a hard yank, she whipped the phone from the floor onto the bed next to her. Having successfully completed a trial in the cell phone Olympics, she brought it within inches of her face. Without her glasses on, she squinted to read the time. As her mind made sense of the blurred words, she thought, Great. Three hours worth of sleep!
Despite her obscured vision, she noticed that she had a message alert on her locked screen. Recognizing the depth of her visual impairment, Jacqueline reached for her glasses. Placing the cold frames on her warm skin, she shook her head and waited for the world to come into focus. Now, poised to read, she unplugged the phone and swiped it open to reveal her message.
Mallory had sent it after she’d fallen asleep. It read:
I hope that this doesn’t wake you. I was lying here thinking of you. I hope you’re getting some sleep. I’ll go look for you in my dreams. Goodnight, Jax.
Jacqueline read over the message a few times. Analyzing it with Sherlock Holmes’ precision, she reviewed each word, its placement in the sentence, and the juxtaposition of each sentence relative to the other sentences. Despite all of her efforts, she still wasn’t certain what to think.
Jacqueline’s mind recalled its first image of Mallory. Prior to their introduction, she knew of Mallory Cummings by reputation only. She had been a quickly rising star in the central Florida newspaper circuit. She had started her career writing articles regarding regional news, but she had found recent success revamping the Daytona Beach Star’s Arts and Entertainment department. Hence, Jacqueline was excited to hear that she would be joining the Tampa Sun Tribune. Jacqueline thought her presence was certain to draw more talent from around the state; and those changes were the kind that would propel the Sun to national recognition.
Upon their initial meeting, Jacqueline approached her with professionalism. She was eager to make Mallory’s acquaintance. However, when she saw Mallory, Jacqueline found herself taking more notice of her than she’d expected. She was a thin woman with piercing green eyes and long, red waves of curls that cascaded down her back. That first morning, she was wearing dark gray slacks and a gray and pink print blouse. Inside of her blouse laid a gold lariat necklace that captured Jacqueline’s attention. As it dangled below the closed flap of her shirt, Jacqueline wanted to reach for it. She wanted to hold it in her hands and fully inspect it. She wondered if Mallory ever noticed how she had stared at it, or, worse, she feared that Mallory thought that she’d been trying to look down her shirt.
That was five years ago. Since that time, they had forged a close friendship. In recent months, they had been spending a lot of time alone together rather than in the company of their mutual friends, Alex and Paige. The times alone had given them an opportunity to get to know each other better and become closer than Jacqueline had ever experienced with another person. However, the closeness had caused her some uncertainty. The relationship had become more intimate, more flirtatious. Jacqueline had caught herself looking at Mallory in ways that brought caution to her mind. She had been trying very hard to maintain a level head and not to confuse their friendship as anything more.
It was nearly three in the morning when Jacqueline stopped re-reading the text conversation that they had shared from the day before. After work, the two had enjoyed at a Tampa Bay Rays game. They had eaten at the Trop and stayed through the eighth inning. Comfortable that the Rays would secure the victory, Jacqueline drove Mallory home. Sitting in her driveway talking, Jacqueline had thought that she might be invited inside. Now hours later the strangeness of that thought returned to her. She had been inside Mallory’s house on plenty of prior occasions. It was well after ten o’clock on a weeknight. Moreover, she wasn’t certain why she wanted to be invited inside or why she had given the fact that she wasn’t any thought at all. After some time, Jacqueline realized that she was overanalyzing this and opted to discard the entire oddity.
With a heavy sigh, Jacqueline became aware that her chance to fall back to sleep had passed. Rather than belabor on Mallory or her insomnia, she returned her phone to her nightstand and swung her body upright. She stretched her brown arms into the air. Her jerky movements created a symphony of cracking joints and bones. Once her body fell silent, she lunged from her high bed to the floor.
Barefoot, she walked out of her bedroom into the darkness of her home, a penthouse condominium. It was empty. As the only inhabitant, the condo spent most evenings in darkness, coldly awaiting a visitor. In the absence of guest, it sat still as a museum.
Knowing her home, Jacqueline often walked from room to room in darkness. Without children, friends who visited often, a spouse, or roommates, everything remained exactly as Jacqueline had left it. She had mentally mapped all its contents and didn’t need light to guide her way.
In darkness, Jacqueline entered the kitchen and turned on the lights. She placed a kettle of water onto the stove, retrieved her tea infuser, and selected a loose-leaf green tea from her pantry. Waiting on the water to boil, she withdrew a mug from the cabinet. As she rotated the mug in her hand, she remembered that it was the mug that Mallory had given her last Christmas.
The two had opened gifts at the condo alone before meeting Paige and Alex. Each had purchased gifts that they had deemed too special to open in front of other people. The gifts were without innuendo, but they were items that reflected the new depth that their relationship had reached. Jacqueline had given Mallory a diamond watch that had a mother of pearl face. Mallory had purchased clothing that she wanted to Jacqueline to wear. They had thanked each other with a long embrace that was both too long and not long enough.
Nearly an hour after their personal exchange, the two met Alex and Paige and opened other gifts. In that second exchange, they swapped candy, books, makeup, alcohol, tea, coffee, DVDs, Rays gear, scarves – all the innocuous gifts that friends share.
This morning, Jacqueline stood in her kitchen drinking from her Rays mug and tried to focus on the day ahead. She walked down the hall into her office, gathered her notes, her laptop, and her iPad. She had worked when she arrived home last night. She had been working many hours from home most nights these last few weeks. Placing all of her work into her messenger bag, Jacqueline carried it to the front door. Making certain not to forget it, she hung it on the doorknob. She returned the mug to the kitchen and decided to get dressed and head into work.
It was four a.m. when Jacqueline arrived at work. Of course, four was not her normal start time for a Tuesday, or any day for that matter. Unlike most companies that were barren in the early hours of the morning, a newspaper office was always buzzing with activity. Newspapers had to be proofread, previewed, prepared, printed, and bound for circulation at night. The creation of the newspaper was a nonstop project. Jacqueline loved that. The news was as active as she was.
Every morning, no matter what the time, she parked her black, 1985 Wrangler Laredo in the parking garage across from the office. Dragging her messenger bag behind her, she slipped out of the Laredo. Jacketless, she tucked her hands tightly into her pockets and strolled across the street in the cool, morning air. On mornings that started this early, she entered the building from its rear. She walked among the delivery trucks as they sat in the loading bays. As she passed them, she ran her outstretched fingers across the Sun Tribune logo. That sun radiating over the metropolitan backdrop always felt warm to her even on the side of a cold delivery truck.
If she entered from the front of the building, she would have had to take an elevator down to where she was now. From the building’s main façade, she was in the basement. But, in reality, it wasn’t underground at all. It wasn’t some place to be hidden away. It was the heartbeat of the paper.
&n
After walking far enough inside the building, she was overcome with its smell. The smell of ink wafted around the floor as if it could be tasted. It engulfed all who came within its reach. The scent lingered in their hair and clothes even when they left this part of the building. Jacqueline loved it. To her, it was the smell of their labor of love.
Walking around amongst the production operators and distribution crew, Jacqueline admired the look of people moving about with purpose but without direct instruction. As Managing Editor, she rarely had a need to come to the production floor. In fact, it was out of her way. It was out of the way of everyone in the building who worked on a floor with a number, but Jacqueline thought of it as the most impressive part of the operation. It was the place that inspired her to proceed up the elevator with purpose and clarity.
At such an ungodly hour, very few people acknowledged her presence. There were no ‘good mornings’ or ‘what’re ya doing here so early.’ She didn’t think of the lack of conversation as cold or impolite. In truth, it was only in the employee’s steady pace of independent work that the Sun had been what it was in the community. The nod a passer-by gave her or the hard shove of a door by the person ahead of her was enough of a ‘good morning.’
After soaking it all in, Jacqueline took the elevator up to the first floor. Most of the other staff wouldn’t be in for four more hours. On mornings, when she arrived closer to eight, Jacqueline would pass through the main aisle of the first floor amid people bustling ahead of and behind her. Slowly sauntering, even on busy mornings, she was never struck by anyone; often, she smiled to herself imagining how she must appear from a bird’s eye view. She could imagine how her slow pace must have appeared in the midst of their frenzy. The idea of which made her snicker.
At the back of the first floor, there was the office of Paige Little, the Production Manager. Paige was a small woman with a sweet sounding voice, but a confidence and knowledge that demanded discipline and expected success. Jacqueline and Paige had known each other for a number of years. Paige was one of Jacqueline’s first work friends. Paige was already working at the Sun when Jacqueline was hired.
On Jacqueline’s third day, she was outside enjoying the sunshine during her lunch break when Paige introduced herself. Paige was naturally engaging. Without qualm or confrontation, she asked Jacqueline about herself and how she was enjoying working at the Sun. The two became friends immediately.
This Tuesday morning, Paige was already in her office. As Jacqueline approached, she knew that they’d only talk if Paige could spare time, which would be unlikely. She knocked on the glass window of Paige’s office. Paige looked up from her drafting board, smiled, and lowered her head. Jacqueline smiled back and thought that she should just leave her to work. But, for a moment, she stood at the window staring into the well-decorated office. Her office was from the cover of a magazine. Her whitewashed desk was neatly appropriated. The walls were decorated with art pieces, both Paige’s original creations and the art prints of local artists that she liked. When meetings were had in her office, Paige played soothing music and surrounded the visitor with the smell of cinnamon potpourri. Visitors were transported from a newspaper office to a visit to their favorite aunt’s lanai. Jacqueline dallied there for only a short while staring at Paige in her natural habitat. When she became aware of how odd this would be if Paige were to look up, she moved quickly to the elevator.
Back in the elevator, Jacqueline skipped the rectangular L button that was placed in the middle of the panel. There was no reason to exit into the lobby at this hour of morning. By the elevator’s strata, the lobby sat on the second floor. The building’s façade lifted it into the air and held there by four sets of twelve steps. Upon entry into the building, a visitor or employee would hear the clickety clack of shoes on the marble floor. The lobby was home only to security guards, the mailroom, and the switchboard operators. Most of the room on this huge floor was used as a gathering place. Complete with conversation places, the lobby was used as an informal meeting area. It had been refurnished with modern pieces of furniture. There was a collection of black, leather chairs and couches with glass tables of varying sizes strewn about the lobby. At the back of the lobby, there sat the elevators that Jacqueline was riding.
She passed the third floor and headed on to the fourth floor. The third floor was a labyrinth of miscellaneous, albeit important departments. The entire left side was home to sales and advertising associates. Each was committed to how the paper interacted in the community. The right side of the floor was a mix of human resources associates and desk spaces for independent IT professionals who needed office space when servicing the office’s machinery. Jacqueline wouldn’t exit there so early in the morning. The floor would be empty. All of these employees would be in the office later in the morning. She’d wait to make an appearance until after lunch.
The fourth floor was the news floor. It was massive. It housed writers, reporters, fact checkers, and critics set up in sections based upon the area of the newspaper in which they worked. Daily, Jacqueline exited the elevator on the fourth floor to reach her office. As with every floor, she passed through the main aisle. On the fourth floor, more than any other floor, she was most certain to be stopped at least five times every time she was seen. From sycophants to new hires, from department heads to couriers, everyone wanted a chance to talk to her. And, she gave them that chance without trepidation or sarcasm.
At the end of that long aisle, there was a slim elevator that led to the highest floor in the building, the fifth floor. The elevator itself was a beautiful piece of art with gold filigree pictures that lined the inside of the car. In moments of stress, she would stand for her few moments of travel and reflect upon the tales told in those golden pictures.
When the elevator doors opened, the occupant stepped out into a foyer and was greeted by two desks, one on the right, and one on the left. Behind each desk was a door that led into an office. If the visitor turned left, she would face Grant Kincaid, Jacqueline’s assistant. Behind him sat the door to Jacqueline’s office. If the visitor turned right, she would face Mrs. Katherine Pennington, the Editor-in-Chief’s secretary. Behind her, there was a door that led to Jack Boyd’s office, the Editor-in-Chief.
Directly in front of the elevator door was the Conference room. A room filled with a beautiful mahogany table, high back leather chairs, and mahogany woodwork. Natural light flowed into the room from the floor to ceiling glass windows that overlooked Tampa Bay. It was stunning. It was so stunning that in Board meetings Jacqueline often found herself staring into the Bay dreaming of more leisurely activities. Use of the Conference room rather than other conference rooms around the building was an indication of bad tidings to most of the employees. Jacqueline always regarded that as a shame. It was immaculate, but she understood the stigma attached to being called into the Conference room. It was where the Board met; it was where department restructures were announced; it was where layoffs were performed; and, it was where Mr. Boyd, the illusive Editor, announced to the staff just three weeks ago that the paper was planning to focus more on its online presence than on the physical paper’s production in the coming months.
Jacqueline thought that Jack was too flippant when he shared this news. Jack Boyd had inherited his position in the Sun Tribune. He has been less of a journalist and more of a businessman. His father, Big Jack Boyd, had managed the paper with the proper balance between ferocity and decency in the forty-two years that he served as Editor-in-Chief. Big Jack was never formal and riding the elevator up to him was never as foreboding as it had recently become. But, Big Jack was no longer steering the ship. After years of excess, whether it be smoking cigars, drinking whiskey and sodas in mid-morning meetings, or the enjoying of hearty meals full of salt, cream, gravy, and beef before drifting off into a pleasant slumber on the couch in his office, Big Jack had suffered a stroke and a heart attack in the same year. The Board, which consisted of small shareowners, ushered Jack from heading the sales and marketing area to Editor-in-Chief. Jack had a sharp eye for business. He was friendly and engaging in meetings between him and Jacqueline; but in the presence of all the staff, he withdrew and appeared, as Jacqueline had feared that he might, as aloof and hollow.
