Tess looked at me as though I had started spouting German. “What?” she gasped as though I had suggested something horrible like Botox or implants.
I let her prattle on about perfect eyebrow curvature and for once I didn’t mind. I was in a mood.
A surly, crappy mood.
And I wanted to put off going back to my office for as long as possible.
It was unusual to not want to rush into my job. Work was my life. It was all I really had. I compressed my entire existence between the hours of nine and five. Those were minutes I’d smile and have actual conversation with real life people. I would deal with people’s problems and find them solutions.
It was the best part. Theonlypart worth living.
Now anyway.
At one time, I thought things could be different.
I used to be a wife. Not anymore.
I thought I would be a mother. My body had other ideas.
I was one of those women that had had notions about where my life would take me. Once I was in a position to make plans, I made them. Lots of them. I had made a promise to figure my life out and I had made it my mission to do just that. When I was younger, I was headstrong and overly complicated. A bit on the emotional side with a flair for the dramatic.
Years had dulled me. They had left me a shell of the girl I had been. I thought I was happy to see her go. I couldn’t afford to be the Imogen Conner I used to be. She had been all too easy to destroy.
Most lives can be narrowed down to significant moments. Mine was no different.
I knew the event that had changed me.
“Uh-oh, there’s Jason. I’m going to try to make a break for it before he sees me,” Tess whispered, shoving the reports I had given her earlier in my hand.
“I think you’re safe. He has theI’m-hunting-Imogenlook on his face,” I assured her with a smile.
Tess patted my arm. “If you need me, bang against the wall three times. I’ll start a fire or something,” she said, slipping into her office.
“Why three times?”
“In case I don’t hear the first two, of course!” Tess said quickly as she darted into her office.
Of course.
“Imogen, there you are. I’ve been waiting here for over ten minutes,” my boss, Jason Valerio called out. He was wearing a new hairpiece and I didn’t have the heart to tell him it still didn’t hide his receding hairline. The fifty-five-year-old man was going through a very obvious mid-life crisis. Between the toupee and the new shiny sports car in the parking garage, all he needed was a girlfriend named Bambie and he’d have every stereotype covered.
I knew he was the focus of a lot of behind the hand snickering around the hospital. I had heard the hateful comments about his pectoral implants and Tinder account, but I felt nothing but sympathy for my try-too-hard director.
His wife had left him over a year ago for his best friend’s twenty-something son. His pride, his ego, and his heart had taken a hammering. I understood his need to reinvent himself, even if I would never follow in his overly flamboyant footsteps.
“Sorry, Jason, the coffee machine on our floor is broken again. I had to hike up to ICU if I wanted to be semi-human,” I told him, ushering him into my office.
He discreetly rearranged the chunky strands of fake hair on his forehead and I pretended not to notice. He handed me a thin folder. I took it and watched as his thumb ran over the thin, gold band that he still wore. I wondered when he’d finally remove his wedding ring.
I absently rubbed the naked skin of my finger where my own metal brand used to sit, thankful that the weight was gone.
“I heard you were asking about these.” I passed him the reports and he barely glanced at them, tucking them under his arm.
“Thanks. That’s great. So, got a new one for you. And it’s a bit of a doozy.”
I sat down behind my desk and opened the folder, sipping on my now cold coffee. “Is this the homeless guy the police brought in?” I asked.
Jason blinked in surprise. “You know about him already?”
