I stopped myself from chiming in that I would, and then repeating it a few times for emphasis. I only nodded sedately and put a “slightly interested and not overeager” expression on my face.
“She’s busy,” Lyra announced, but Silas shook his head.
“That’s not true. She’s never too busy to help you,” he told her. “Who stayed up late on Wednesday to make cupcakes for your class?”
“I bet I know the recipe she used,” my mom said. “We made those together and it was so fun.”
“It’s more fun to bake with someone,” I agreed. “I love making things with Lyra.”
She had been frowning but I watched her sneak a glance at me. “You do?”
I nodded, trying again not to be overly enthusiastic. “I really do.”
“Lyra, how long has it been since you got a haircut?” my mother asked her.
“Never,” she said firmly.
“It seems like now is a good time, doesn’t it? Cammie, get my kit, please.” My mom turned to Silas and smiled. “Then it will be your turn.”
His hand went to his ponytail, but then he looked at his sister. “That’s a great idea,” he managed to choke out.
“It is?” Lyra asked, and her brother forced his head to bob up and down.
“Let’s do it,” he answered, and I fetched the scissors.
Chapter 9
Beckett Forsman, the general counsel of Whitaker Enterprises, looked at us across the large table. He wasn’t yelling or cussing like other people I’d known in the past and he also wasn’t a physically intimidating person like others I knew now. Our boss didn’t need any of that to scare us out of our wits. Rashelle had been pulling up her collar to wipe away a few tears and Munir was visibly sweating—and those two weren’t even to blame for this situation.
I wasn’t either, and I felt that I’d managed to maintain the “focused and concerned” expression that was always my go-to here at the office. I really was concerned, but I didn’t believe that I was going to get fired. The truth had come out as Beckett had questioned us during the meeting about why the Four-Squared project had gone totally off track. He had determined that Munir, Rashelle, and I were not at fault.
Octavia had reacted in a different way from the three of us. She’d first gotten defensive, and then she got mad. It had beenthe wrong tack to take. Beckett had let her bluster and try to bully him, and then, in a voice like ice, he’d asked, “Are you finished?”
In the same tone, he’d gone through a point-by-point objurgation of the legal work on the Four-Squared development in West Michigan, the project that she had been helming. He had already reviewed everything and had discovered it had gone sideways and that someone had been trying to hide that fact. Octavia often liked to tell us about cabals and secret consortiums that might have been working against us all, but in this case? There was only one person to blame: herself.
Now Beckett asked the rest of us to leave the conference room and Munir, Rashelle, and I silently filed out. For once, we couldn’t hear our coworker’s voice through the glass but we could catch the low tones of our boss, and I was sure that he wasn’t saying anything good.
Rashelle passed two shaking hands over her cheeks, wiping away the moisture that she’d missed with her collar. “I’ve never been so glad to get out of a room,” she told us fervently, “even more than when there was a fire in the science lab at my high school and we all had to run. I wish I was still on my honeymoon and I had missed this.”
“I would have gotten married just to avoid it,” Munir said. “I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I still felt like I was sitting in the principal’s office. Or like I was going before a firing squad.”
“You both did great,” I told them, and Rashelle looked at me.
“I don’t know how you stayed so calm. You just kept answering Beckett’s questions and you were right about everything you said, too, I know that you were. You’re—oh, shit. Let’s go, Munir,” she muttered, because Octavia was just leaving the conference room.
“Does Beckett want to talk to me?” I asked, and she shook her head. Without a word, she returned to her office and she swiveled her chair so that I couldn’t see her face through the glass wall.
But this wasn’t over, because someone had to rescue the Four-Squared project. I did talk to my boss again and I stayed late at my desk, up until I realized that I had to hurry so that Lyra wouldn’t be at home by herself. “Everything ok?” Silas asked me when I arrived. He was holding on to his shorter ponytail, a habit he’d developed since we’d left Kentucky. My mom had given him a trim but she hadn’t cut off everything. He looked much the same, just a little neater, but he felt the difference and he also seemed to feel the need to check on what was left. “My head feels light,” he’d mentioned several times on the long drive back to Michigan.
“Your hair looks good and I’m all right,” I answered now. “There are some problems at work.” But we didn’t have time to talk anymore than that, because his ride came to pick him up for his own job so we had to say goodbye.
Lyra looked different, too. My mom had trimmed and styled her hair, and it was nothing at all like the thick mat that she’d had when I’d first met her. More importantly, she seemed to love it and she liked to check on her new cut in my compact mirror.“Did you get in trouble today?” she asked as I took out the plate that he had wrapped and left in the fridge for me. She wrinkled her nose at it. “Silas thought it was a good idea to put peanuts in there,” she said.
“Peanuts with chicken and dumplings?” My nose wrinkled too. “Did you pick them out?” She nodded, and after I’d reheated my dinner, I did as well. “I didn’t get in trouble,” I explained as I started to eat. “Someone at my office messed up, though, so we have to fix it. I have to work a little more after I eat so I won’t be able to make bracelets tonight.” We’d been knotting friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss and she planned to give them out in her class, something I’d been very excited about but had successfully hidden.
“That’s ok,” she told me. “What did that person in your office do wrong? I bet it’s the girl that you always get mad at.”
“I get mad at someone?” I asked. I had missed a peanut when I’d searched for them in my dinner and as I chewed it now, I decided that it didn’t taste too bad in this dish. I kind of appreciated the unexpected crunch.
