Recruiting Océane
Raphael Mirabaud
I think I startled her.
Raphael stood in the doorway to Océane Mirabaud’s office at Geneva Trust, watching her while she talked on the phone and scowled at her computer. Only one small window on the side wall allowed sunlight into the room, but so many lamps glared artificial light that Raphael squinted a little. Blue light fromthe computer screen reflected on Océane’s light skin, turning her flesh almost silvery.
Océane was speaking to someone rapidly—something about a history assignment that hadn’t been turned in but the assignment had been completed and was available on the due date on the school’s cloudnet so how could it have been marked late—when he caught her eye. She held up one red-tipped finger while she gesturedwith her other hand at the computer, insisting that the project had been uploaded on the due date that was clearly displayed next to it and so it should not be counted as late. A high school student could not have hacked the school’s cloudnet to change the date, she insisted. If that was the case, they needed better cybersecurity.
Raphael leaned against the doorframe, his arms and ankles crossedwhile he waited. A smile grew on his face. Yes, this was Océane, who had stood up for him to school officials at the merest whiff of injustice. He was surprised that she had joined Geneva Trust at all. She was more the type to run off and work for UNICEF or the government as a diplomat.
Océane slammed the cell phone face-down on the desk so hard that Raphael listened for the snap of crackingglass.
She asked, “Yes? What can I do for you? Security didn’t inform me that someone was coming up.”
“Océane—” he said.
“How did you get up here without an escort and a badge?” she demanded, her fingers wandering to the underside of her desk.
He said, “Océane, it’s me, Raphael.”
“No, you’re not.”
Her gray eyes widened.
“You’renot,”she said.
She stood.
“Raphael isdead,”she insisted.
She sucked in a ragged breath and leaped, scrambling over her wide desk despite her close-fitting skirt suit. Her high heel caught on the edge of the desk, and she launched herself at Raphael.
He caught her under her arms and kicked the office door shut.
Océane grabbed him with her arms clutching his neck, sobbing into his chest,“You can’t be.Raphael isdead.He’s been dead foryears.Youcan’tbe my baby Raphe.” She held his face between her palms, peering at him, searching. “Raphael,Raphael.Tell me it’s you.”
“It’s me. I promise,” he said, kind of gratified by her reaction and kind of guilty for upsetting her for all those years, but it was nice to be missed.
She buried her face in his shoulder and wept.
Raphael stroked her dark hair, shot through with silver now, and heguided her to the chairs in the corner of her office. Her arms wrapped his neck so tightly that he pulled one of her elbows away from his windpipe. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
“Youdisappeared.The Ilyins said they didn’t have anything to do with it, but no one believed them.Mamanwas a wreck.”
Guilt swamped him, a familiar feeling. The first few years after he’d left, he’d been hard-pressedsome nights not to call his mother or Océane. Sitting alone on the rough blanket of his army barracks’ cot, staring at his phone, loneliness for them had overwhelmed him, and he had known they hadn’t merely shrugged and gone on without him.
Most of them,he corrected himself. He had known thatmost of themhadn’t shrugged and gone on without him.
He’d known that Océane would have missed him,too.
Raphael said, “I wish I could have contacted you. I thought about everything, email or phone or text, but I couldn’t.” He dropped his voice and whispered into her hair, “People told me I couldn’t, that they couldn’t guarantee my safety or yours.”
She sat back, her eyes and nose red from crying. “It was for a reason, then.”
He nodded.
She wrapped her arms around him and practically crawledinto his lap. “I’m just so glad you’re all right. I can’t believe you’re all right.”
