Schemes Come to Naught novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Supply Closet

Valeria demands Ines be put out of sight, Dex gives her a supply closet, and Ines brings his coffee and tells him not to sign anything Valeria hands him; that night Valeria hands him a power of attorney.

I told Ines her old office was hers, because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

She nodded and drank her tea.

By nine, forty people on the fourth floor knew she was back.

Three of them brought her muffins.

I watched the muffins go past my glass wall and felt like a guest in my own building.

Valeria came in at ten, wearing the cream blazer, with a folder under her arm.

She stopped in the hallway outside Ines's open door.

Then she came into my office and closed the door behind her.

"Dex," she said gently. "Tell me she isn't staying on this floor."

"I gave her my word yesterday."

"You gave her a job. You didn't say she gets to sit twenty feet from your door."

"It's one office."

"It's your ex-wife, in your hallway, with your staff bringing her baked goods." She sat on the edge of my desk. "People will talk about her, Dex. They won't talk about us."

I wanted to say that was exactly what I would have predicted.

But Valeria had a way of describing a problem so that it sounded like a kindness I was doing someone.

"Put her somewhere she can work in peace," she said. "Somewhere quiet. That's good for her too."

I knew which room she meant.

On the second floor, behind the print shop, was a supply closet with one narrow window.

It held toner, spare chairs, and a folding table.

"That's a closet," I said.

"It has a door, doesn't it? You said a door."

I had said that.

I called Ines in myself.

I told her the fourth floor was being reorganized, and that I was moving her downstairs.

I told her about the badge, which would no longer open the executive wing.

I said it all quickly and looked at the wall behind her head.

Ines listened, and when I finished she asked one question.

"Is there an outlet?"

"There's, uh. Yes."

"Then that's fine."

She picked up her mug, her plant and a stapler, and went down the back stairs.

She didn't carry the box I'd had a facilities guy leave for her.

She asked someone else to do it, and three people offered.

At noon Ben Ostrow came into my office without knocking and shut the door.

Ben and I had built the first version of the software on his mother's dining table.

He was the only person in the building who still talked to me the way he had then.

"The supply closet," he said.

"It has a door."

"It has a mop sink, Dex."

"Ben."

"I'm just saying what the mop sink is saying." He dropped into the chair across from me. "You swore in front of a clerk."

"Who told you that?"

"Ines told me nothing. A clerk's husband works on my floor. It's a small county." He rubbed his beard. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to find out how much of this company she was holding up?"

"She's one person."

"She is one person," Ben agreed, "who knows where everything is."

He left before I could answer.

I worked until six with the door closed and didn't go downstairs once.

At six-fifteen there was a knock.

Ines stood in the doorway holding a paper cup.

"Black, one sugar," she said, and set it on my desk.

I looked at it.

"You didn't have to do that."

"You haven't eaten since the muffins. You get short with people." She stayed where she was. "I'll be on the second floor if anyone needs me. Nobody is going to need me, so don't worry."

"Ines..."

"I'm not angry about the closet," she said. "It's a good closet. The window gets morning light."

She pulled the pen out from behind her ear, looked at it, and tucked it back.

"One thing," she said. "Don't sign anything Valeria hands you before you've read it. Not for me. For you."

I put the cup down harder than I meant to.

"That's a nice thing to say about my fiancee."

"It wasn't about her," Ines said. "It was about reading."

"You never read your own settlement."

"No," she said. "I didn't need to."

She went out.

I stood there with the coffee going cold and my jaw tight, because I had heard the barb in it and I would not give her the satisfaction of arguing.

I told myself she was jealous.

I told myself that was fair, and a little sad.

That night, at the townhouse, Valeria had the dining table cleared and a candle lit.

There was a pen beside a stack of papers, each page marked with a yellow flag where I was supposed to sign.

"Just the last bit of housekeeping," Valeria said, and smiled at me.

I looked at the flags.

I looked at the first heading, which said Durable Power of Attorney.

I thought of Ines's voice in the doorway, and I felt the anger come up before the doubt could.

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