Chapter 10
The hallway was colder than the office. The air hit my shoulders the second the double doors closed behind us, and the light changed from the warm lamp glow to the flat white fluorescents in the ceiling. I could still feel the polished floor under my flats, but out here the sound carried. A copier hummed somewhere down the hall. The blonde woman's heels clicked once and stopped.
I didn't get three steps before Ryan's hand went to the doorframe, not to me, to the wood, blocking the path without touching me. He'd left the box inside on the cream chair. My tote was heavy on my shoulder. I adjusted the strap and kept my eyes on the exit sign at the end of the hall.
"Carolyn," he said. Not to me. To her.
The blonde woman in the taupe suit had her arms crossed, her gold belt catching the light. She was watching both of us.
Ryan turned his head toward her. His voice dropped. "Can you give us a minute? Just a minute alone?"
She didn't answer right away. I saw the hesitation in her shoulders, the way she looked at me first to check, then back at him. Her mouth tightened. For a second I thought she'd say no, that we'd stay in the formal setting where everything was witnessed and minuted. Then she gave a short nod.
"One minute," she said. "Hallway only. Doors stay open."
She stepped back toward the water cooler by the wall, not far, close enough to hear if someone raised their voice, far enough to not hear the words. She turned her body slightly away but kept us in her peripheral vision. The observant posture was still there, just with distance.
Ryan waited until she had moved. Then his whole suit persona fell away. The shoulders he'd held back in the office loosened. He ran a hand through his short brown hair and left it there. His pocket square was still perfect, but his face wasn't. The emphatic gestures were gone. He looked tired and smaller.
He stepped closer and lowered his voice so only I could hear it.
"Look," he said. His breath was quick. "They need a reason. The board, the foundation. They need a story that isn't... what happened. If you just say it - that you ruined me - that you left and it derailed everything - they can close the file. It's clean. It's one sentence from you."
He swallowed. "You say you ruined my life, and I get to keep my job. You walk away anyway. Nothing changes for you."
I stared at him. The hallway smelled like lemon cleaner and old paper. The American flag from inside was visible through the narrow window in the white double doors. I could hear the blonde woman shifting her weight behind us.
I understood it then, clear and cold. He wasn't asking for the truth. He was asking me to carry it for him. If I said I'd ruined him, his donors would nod, his board would pity him, the story would become that the woman in the white blouse had been the disaster, not the choices he'd made after I left. My name would be the cover. My reputation - in that town, in those rooms where I'd worked, where I'd have to work again - would take the stain so his suit stayed navy and clean.
It was the same as it had always been. Back then, too. What happened after I left was mine to carry if he said it loud enough.
He was looking at me like he expected me to agree out of habit. Out of the old reflex to keep the peace, to make it easier for him so it would be easier for me.
I tightened my hand on my brown tote strap. The leather creaked.
"No," I said. "I won't lie for you."
May you like
His mouth opened, then closed. He didn't reach for me. He didn't raise his voice. He just stood there in the hallway light, his hand still on the doorframe, and I saw him realize the private negotiation had failed. That I wasn't going to carry his blame out of that building.
I stepped around him. My flats made no sound on the thin carpet runner. I didn't look at the blonde woman as I passed her, but I felt her eyes on my back. I walked straight for the exit sign, for the stairwell door, and I didn't stop when Ryan said my name once more, softer this time, behind me.
