The Gift Read Online Free PDF Page B

me to remind you not to miss any more meetings today.” She seemed to get satisfaction from relaying the message. “It seems Alfred mentioned to Mr. Patterson that you missed the meeting with Alan Fletcher yesterday.”
    “Alfred made that appointment after he learned I’d be out for an hour,” Lou said, shooting up from his chair. “You know that.”
    “Yes, I do.” She smiled sweetly.
    “Did you tell Mr. Patterson that?”
    “No, I—”
    “Well, call him and tell him,” he snapped. “Make sure he knows.”
    Lou’s blood boiled. He spent his life running from one thing to another, missing half of the first in order to make it to the end of the other. He did this all day, every day, always feeling like he was catching up in order to get ahead. It was long and hard and tiring work. He had made huge sacrifices to get where he was. He loved his work, was totally and utterly professional, and was dedicated to every aspect of it. So to be called out on missing one meeting that had not yet been scheduled when he had taken an hour off angered him.
    It also angered him that it was family, his mother, that had caused this. It was she on the morning of the meeting whom he had had to collect from the hospital after a hip replacement. He felt angry at his wife for talking him into doing it when his suggestion to arrange a car had sent her into a rage. He felt angry at his younger sister, Marcia, and his older brother, Quentin, for not doing it instead. He was a busy man, and the one time he was forced to choose family over work, he had to pay the price. He hated the excuses that other colleagues used—funerals, weddings, christenings, illnesses—and swore he’d never bring his personal life into the office. To him, it was a lack of professionalism. Either you did the job or you didn’t.
    He paced by his office window, biting down hard on his lip and feeling such anger he wanted to pick up the phone and call his entire family and tell them, “See? See, this is why I can’t always be there. See? Now look what you’ve done!”
    “Right.” His heart began to slow down, now realizing what was going on. His dear friend Alfred was up to his tricks. Tricks that Lou had assumed, up until now, he was exempt from. Alfred never did things by the book. He looked at everything from an awkward angle, came at every conversation from an unusual perspective, always trying to figure out the best way he could come out of any situation at someone else’s cost.
    Lou’s eyes searched his desk. “Where’s my mail?”
    “It’s on the twelfth floor. The intern got confused by the missing thirteenth floor.”
    “The thirteenth floor isn’t missing! We are on it! What is with everyone today? Tell the intern to take the stairs from now on and count his way up. That way he won’t get confused. Why is an intern handling the mail anyway?”
    “Harry says they’re short-staffed.”
    “Short-staffed? It only takes one person to get in the elevator and bring my bloody mail up.” His voice went up a few octaves. “A monkey could do that job. There are people out there on the streets who’d die to work in a place like…”
    “What?” Alison asked, but she got only the back of Lou’s head because he’d turned around and was lookingout his floor-to-ceiling windows at the pavement below, a peculiar expression on his face reflected in the glass.
    She got up and slowly began to walk away. For the first time in the past few weeks, she felt a light relief that their fling, albeit a fumble in the dark, was going no further, because perhaps she’d misjudged him, perhaps there was something wrong with him. She was new to the company and hadn’t quite sussed him out yet. All she knew of him was that he reminded her of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland , always seeming late, late, late for a very important date, but managing to get to every appointment just in the nick of time. He was cordial to everybody he met and was successful at