I shook my head. “It doesn’t appear so.”
“And are you sure you didn’t talk about this with anyone else?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. I picked at my sandwich, tearing off a small piece of the croissant.
“Not even Matt?” he asked. I felt nauseated, hearing Daniel say Matt’s name, and dropped the piece of croissant without eating it.
“No one. Or not that I can remember.”
“Which is why I asked.” Daniel cleared his throat. “You said before your memory has been a bit unreliable?” The implication in his words was obvious.
I sighed with frustration. “Trust me, you’re not suggesting anything I haven’t already considered. But let’s assume this is what it looks like, which is Brooke trying to steal my job,” I said, and Daniel nodded. “I need to know how much trouble I’m in and what I can do about it. About her.”
He wiped his hands on a napkin. “Look, this is sort of out of my wheelhouse. Employment law was not my area,” he said, his tone measured. “But you’re positive you didn’t send that email, right? From your work account, maybe?”
“It wasn’t in any of my work inboxes. Just my drafts folder, in my personal email.”
Daniel frowned and leaned forward on his elbows. “So you have this whole list of things Brooke had been falling behind on. Things that would have given you cause for firing her.” I nodded. “But you wrote that list preaccident and never shared it with anyone.”
“And?” I had a feeling I knew where this was going and I wasn’t going to like it.
“And so it’s going to look like you wrote that emailaftershe started messing with your work.”
“But...but I have everything written down! Can’t I use it to prove she’s the one who’s incompetent, and is clearly trying to set me up for a fall?”
He watched me for a moment. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I promise you it’s coming from a good place, but...are youwell enough to be back at work?” At my exasperated groan he held up his hands. “I know. You seem fine. I trust you when you say it hasn’t affected your work. But an unsent email in your drafts folder—in your personal account—isn’t much better than you writing all that stuff down on a sticky note. It’s not officially date stamped until you send it.”
“But it is date stamped, sort of. From when I created the draft. Which was a weekbeforemy accident.”
“True, it will show you started an email on that date, but the contents could have been rewritten at any time,” he said. “She could easily argue you wrote that list of grievances yesterday, not the week before your accident.”
Of course.I felt like an idiot for not realizing that draft was of no use because I could never prove I hadn’t written my complaintsafterBrooke went to Greg and Susan. Naturally Brooke knew the truth, but it would be her word against mine, and based on these past couple of months, she would undoubtedly come out ahead.
I felt sick. The one thing I’d been clinging to—my job, my career—might not be as secure as I’d believed. Maybe they wouldn’t fire me, but they could force me on long-term disability. Which would leave me with nothing but time to contemplate how unrecognizable my life had become.
Daniel’s voice was gentle as he dipped his head to look into my eyes. “With my lawyer hat on I would tell you to document everything that’s happened, and without question don’t let Brooke near your computer or files again.” I nodded, swallowed hard. “With my friend hat on? It’s time for a pep talk. Don’t let her get to you, because you’re giving her way too much control here. And that’s not the Lucy I remember.”
Alex’s warning from when I was thirteen rushed back, that I would one day regret giving Nancy McPherson so much power over me. The situations were obviously not the same, but the feeling inside my gut certainly felt familiar.
“Hey, come on, Luce. You can do this. You’re stronger than you think.”
“Am I?” I sighed. “Maybe I used to be, but I don’t feel strong these days. I’m barely keeping my head above water.”
“Want to get out of here?” Daniel asked, and I nodded. I still hadn’t taken a bite of my sandwich, but my appetite was long gone.
“So what can I do to distract you?” Daniel took my hand and pulled me along the sidewalk once we got outside Aroma. My insides jolted at his touch, which was too intimate for who we were to each other.Friends.But I didn’t let my hand drop from his and, instead, squeezed a little tighter.
“I don’t know if you can,” I said. “I’m fairly committed to this bad-attitude-Betty thing right now.”
He smiled, then picked up the pace. “I know just the thing.”
Our hands separated out of necessity as we moved through the throngs of people shopping along Bloor Street. It was probably for the best, as I was starting to worry about how long was too long for Daniel to be holding my hand. A short walk later we stood on a residential street near the university, everything starting to green up with buds and blossoms now that spring had arrived. It was relatively quiet here this time of day, everyone out and about doing what you do on errand-filled Saturdays, and the students who lived in the area were probably still sleeping after being out late the night before. I looked at the big house we’d stopped in front of, the green awning and red sign so familiar after many nights here while I was at U of T, and grinned. “What’s this? A pint and a cheerful trip down memory lane?”
“Don’t you think you could use both?” he asked, and I laughed.
“That’s fair,” I said as we walked up the front steps and into the Madison Avenue Pub—the “Maddy” as it was fondly known by the locals—and settled into a red velvet banquet booth on the second floor.
“I know we just ate—well, at least I did—but I should have suggested this instead. A lot of happy memories, right?”
