Read Online Best Intentions by Emily Listfield - Free Book Online Page B

quickly pass. Still, I promised myself I would start off this year on the right foot.
    â€œI want to see your homework,” I reiterate.
    â€œWhatever. Mom, I’m on the phone.” Claire stares at me, waiting for me to leave.
    I walk into my bedroom and turn on the laptop Sam and I share. All afternoon, once word of the sale to Merdale leaked out, e-mail poured in from friends and business acquaintances. On the whole they assume a cautiously optimistic if reserved tone, unsure if I am on my way out or up. I glance at a few that I haven’t read yet and check a couple of media gossip Web sites but I am really just biding my time, as if my true purpose will be more acceptable if it comes disguised, even from myself, as an act of impetuousness.
    I double-click on Sam’s personal folder to open it.
    But it is, for the first time, password-protected, locked away from me.
    Then again, perhaps it always has been. I’ve never tried to open it before. I never thought I had a reason to.
    Piqued, I type in various likely passwords, his mother’s maiden name, my maiden name, his birthday, Phoebe and Claire’s first and last initials combined, but each time an “error” message pops up. Annoyed, I type in “fuck you.” Needless to say, this gains me access to absolutely nothing.
    I go back to the kitchen. It is seven forty-five and I am about to call the girls to dinner when I hear the keys in the front door. Sam walks in holding a bouquet of yellow roses from the Korean deli tucked under his arm. “Sorry I’m late.” He kisses me on the back of the neck.
    I bend my head, feel his lips on my skin, slightly chapped. “It’s okay.”
    â€œHere.” Sam puts a manila envelope on the counter in front of me.
    â€œWhat’s this?”
    â€œI did some research on Merdale for you. It’s not a deep dive, but at least it will tell you who the main players are.” Sam, like most men, is profoundly uncomfortable meandering around in a world of uncertainty. He craves facts, things he can fix. This is his gift, his offering.
    I thank him and unwrap the flowers, sawing off the thick ends with the serrated bread knife Deirdre brought back from her last buying trip to Paris. “So what happened with your meeting?” I ask, trying to sound disinterested. I put the knife down and break off the last stubborn stems with my hands.
    â€œWhat meeting?”
    I fill the vase with warm water, put the flowers in. “You said you were getting together with a source for the Wells story.”
    â€œI saw her.”
    I stand completely still. Her.
    The tectonic plates of doubt and distrust shift, creak.
    I had it wrong, of course I did.
    I rest my hands on the manila envelope, its edges growing soggy from the splattered chili it is resting on, exhaling fully for the first time all day. “I thought you said your source was a man?”
    â€œI never said that. You must have misheard. Anyway, I don’t know how helpful she’ll be. She claims Wells was granted close to four-point-two million options without the board’s approval but she doesn’t seem to have any hard proof. At least not any she’s offering up at this point. There’s a chance she’s stringing me along but my gut says there’s something there. I just have to find it or get someone else to talk.”
    â€œIs Simon going to give you the time you need?” Sam’s editor is notoriously impatient and the recent slump in advertising is not helping him in that department. Business magazines are always reliable early indicators of how bad the economy will get. After all, not many people want to read about investments when they are worriedabout their monthly mortgage payments. All over town, budgets and head counts are being slashed, victims are piling up, the death watch is on.
    â€œThat remains to be seen.”
    Claire and Phoebe, who heard Sam’s voice, wander