33: The Break

Brig­it had re­turned to the of­fice as promised af­ter spend­ing a few more days watch­ing over Mag­gie. To her sur­prise, the of­fice was emp­ty. As she searched the small­er of­fices, she felt her con­fu­sion grow­ing. She had ex­pect­ed to, at the least, find John there with the hope of be­ing giv­en some as­sign­ments right away so that she could get back in­to the swing of things.

Yet, the of­fices were emp­ty…

“I could use a cup of cof­fee any­way,” she said out loud as she turned out of John’s of­fice and be­gan to walk back to the main en­trance of 666 ½ Bleeck­er Street. It was a true thought. She had not had any cof­fee in al­most a month now and the thought of a cup of Giuseppe’s brew had sud­den­ly be­come quite the crav­ing with­in her.

She was sur­prised to see them all there. John, Be­lin­da, Sea­mus and Ma­ma Dee had oc­cu­pied a large ta­ble in the mid­dle of the café. They were con­vers­ing cheer­ful­ly; Brig­it not­ed as she en­tered the café and ex­changed a nod­ded greet­ing with Ed­mund J. Pol­ly. John was the first to see her come in.

“Brig­it! Good, we were just won­der­ing if you would find us,” he greet­ed. “Come, join us.”

“Here, ba­by, sit next to me,” Ma­ma Dee in­struct­ed as she be­gan to scoot her own seat clos­er to Be­lin­da.

Brig­it caught the firm­ness of her friend’s tone and obe­di­ent­ly stepped to take the space Ma­ma Dee had in­di­cat­ed. Sea­mus Flan­nery was sit­ting across the ta­ble. Ma­ma Dee, Brig­it guessed, was just be­ing pro­tec­tive even though Brig­it was sure the old wom­an knew noth­ing of the strained re­la­tion­ship she shared with Sea­mus. If Ma­ma was aware of it, she had not heard it from Brig­it.

“What is ev­ery­one do­ing here?” Brig­it asked as a large hand bear­ing a large mug sud­den­ly glid­ed over her shoul­der. The aro­ma that greet­ed her sens­es made her smile as she looked up in­to the face of Giuseppe Cin­cot­ta.

“Wel­come back,” he greet­ed in his deep bari­tone voice.

“Thank you, Giuseppe,” Brig­it replied.

“We de­cid­ed to take a break,” Be­lin­da piped up in re­sponse to Brig­it’s ques­tion. “John says we’re close to catch­ing up and we de­served a break.”

“Aye,” Sea­mus added as he eyed Brig­it. “We’ve been work­ing like mad to make up for the short­age of staff.” Brig­it paused in mid-​sip of her cof­fee to meet his glare. He had oiled his words care­ful­ly, but she had caught their mean­ing all the same.

“I apol­ogize for the in­con­ve­nience my ab­sence may have caused you, Mr. Flan­nery,” Brig­it said even­ly.

She had hoped for more sar­casm, but in a way, she was glad it came out as it did. It was a blan­ket apol­ogy for ev­ery­thing. There would be no fight to­day. Sea­mus flinched slight­ly with her re­ply. It was bare­ly a move­ment, but Brig­it had seen it and she saw the fires of anger light in the Irish­man’s emer­ald eyes. He knew she had seen it.

“I think I need to get back to work,” Sea­mus sud­den­ly said af­ter a few sec­onds of un­com­fort­able si­lence danced in the space be­tween them.

“What? I thought you said you were caught up for the day?” Be­lin­da protest­ed as Sea­mus rose from his chair. Brig­it looked at the girl as she de­tect­ed notes of dis­ap­point­ed sur­prise in her voice.

“I just re­mem­bered some­thing,” Sea­mus lied. “I’ll see ye back at the of­fice,” he mut­tered be­fore stalk­ing out of the café. Be­lin­da looked down in­to the con­tents of the cup be­fore her. Dis­ap­point­ment shone clear­ly on her face though she re­mained silent.

“At any rate,” John fi­nal­ly spoke, act­ing as though they were re­sum­ing a con­ver­sa­tion that had been rude­ly in­ter­rupt­ed. “How are things with you?”

“Ev­ery­thing is fine,” Brig­it an­swered. “So, we’re re­al­ly close to be­ing caught up? What hap­pened with the Bai­ley?”

Brig­it lis­tened in­tent­ly as John re­lat­ed the go­ing ons of the of­fice dur­ing her ab­sence. Sea­mus had re­turned to reap­ing the hard­er as­sign­ments that were his de­part­ment. The Bai­ley had been put on strict or­ders to de­liv­er the new files him­self ev­ery evening. Brig­it felt Ma­ma Dee shud­der be­side her and looked at her friend in ques­tion­ing con­fu­sion.

“I don’t like him,” Ma­ma re­spond­ed. Brig­it sup­pressed the urge to laugh out loud be­fore re­turn­ing her at­ten­tion to John.

“I’m hop­ing that if he is de­liv­er­ing our work­load him­self that it will slow him down and give us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to catch up – not to men­tion be­gin­ning to lay the foun­da­tions for new of­fices around the world,” John ex­plained.

“I can see the log­ic in that,” Brig­it agreed. “And what about you, Be­lin­da? How do you like the firm?” Her for­mer pro­tégé looked up from the con­tents of her mug and shrugged in half-​re­ply.

“It’s cool,” she said some­what ap­athet­ical­ly. Brig­it left her at­ten­tion on Be­lin­da as John laud­ed the young wom­an’s ac­com­plish­ments over the last month. Be­lin­da had se­cured the new and per­ma­nent po­si­tion as the of­fi­cial record keep­er of Reaper’s, Inc. The praise, Brig­it not­ed, seemed not to af­fect the Goth girl as she let her bright blue eyes re­turn to the con­tents of her cup.

“What are you drink­ing?” Brig­it asked when John had fin­ished talk­ing.

“Hot co­coa,” Be­lin­da sighed.

“John,” Brig­it formed the ques­tion in her mind and the head Reaper im­me­di­ate­ly nod­ded in agree­ment. With­out an­oth­er word, he scooped Be­lin­da’s cup from the ta­ble and head­ed to the bar to re­fill it for her. Sur­prised, Be­lin­da looked af­ter him and then to the two wom­en that were look­ing back at her in earnest.

“Why did he do that?”

“I asked him to,” Brig­it replied. “What’s go­ing on with you?”

“Noth­ing, why? And how did you ask him to? You didn’t say any­thing I didn’t hear you say any­thing,” Be­lin­da point­ed out.

“Don’t change the sub­ject,” Brig­it in­struct­ed.

“You have been act­ing all melan­choly late­ly. Mr. John, he gives you a pat on the back and you just shrug it off,” Ma­ma Dee point­ed out. “I think you’re dis­tract­ed by some­thing.”

“I’m not dis­tract­ed,” Be­lin­da de­nied.

“Be­lin­da, we’re not jump­ing on your case,” Brig­it said gen­tly. “We’re con­cerned. Some­times, a girl just needs to talk it out.”

“I think she’s in love,” Ma­ma Dee de­clared, be­fore pick­ing up her own cof­fee cup.

“I am not,” Be­lin­da sud­den­ly looked sur­prised at the old wom­an’s ac­cu­sa­tion. The slight blush ris­ing in her pale cheeks be­trayed her.

“At any rate,” Brig­it pushed the de­nial aside as she watched the col­or flood her pro­tégé’s face. “We’re a fam­ily. If you need to talk,”

“I’ll let you know,” Be­lin­da in­ter­rupt­ed with a sigh. The blush, how­ev­er, re­mained.

“I still think she’s in love,” Ma­ma per­sist­ed.

“Is all well?”

The three wom­en at the ta­ble looked up to find John Black­wick be­side them. A fresh cup of co­coa was in his hand. Brig­it ex­changed one last glance with Be­lin­da, seek­ing re­as­sur­ance that the younger wom­an was in­deed all right. She grew more con­cerned when Be­lin­da looked away.

“It’s as well as it can be,” Brig­it sighed.

“Good!” John slid the re­freshed cup of co­coa be­fore the Goth girl and re­sumed his seat. “Brig­it, I think we need to dis­cuss fur­ther plans for the firm and de­vel­op a strat­egy for in­creas­ing pro­duc­tiv­ity.”

“John, I’ve on­ly been back a few min­utes,” Brig­it laughed. “I thought you were tak­ing a break?” John looked at her in sur­prise as her words sank in on him. Fi­nal­ly, he al­lowed a slight smile to emerge across his thin lips.

“You’re right. Busi­ness can wait a bit longer, eh?”