Collateral Damage Pt. 01

"You are really a top notch actress."

The vulnerability instantly transformed to a look of puzzlement, her mouth falling open and her eyes opening wide.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'd give you an Oscar for your performance if I could. Let Teri know it's not your fault that I didn't bite. Really, you were very good."

She tried for a moment to recapture a vulnerable look and then gave up, pressing her lips together in frustration and then a faint smile.

"Well, hell. I gave it my best shot. I thought I had you for a minute."

I laughed softly to myself at her admission. "Try community theatre." I said as I walked out, shaking my head slowly. "Really, you're a natural."

----@----

Things seemed to settle down over the next few months and, in the absence of any other real attempts to make trouble, I came to the conclusion that Teri had decided to call off the dogs and live with the situation as it was.

I was wrong.

Roughly 3 months after the day I'd confronted her about the affair with Devin Tinian, Teri Lee asked for a staff meeting that included half a dozen of the other managers. The meeting was fairly successful, efficient and productive without any real conflict.

When it was over, Teri asked me to stay on with her to go over some personnel issues. To my surprise, things went smoothly and for the first time in as long as I could remember we made decisions together easily and without rancor. By the time our meeting was over, I felt the need to say something positive, hoping maybe that this would be a new beginning.

"Listen, Teri, I know we've had our differences and I'm sorry things got a little out of hand in the past, but I think we've been productive lately. I know we don't' see eye to eye on everything, but I'd like to think we're moving in the right direction here."

She looked at me mysteriously. "Well, Grant, that's one of the reasons I wanted this meeting. To move things forward." She paused a moment and I caught a glimpse of an enigmatic smile that gave me pause.

"And, I just wanted to let you know that, in the end, I think you were right."

I was hoping for a thaw in our relations, but something was very wrong here and her casual admission confused me to the point of near speechlessness. I had no idea how to handle what she'd just said and I began to stammer.

"You...uh...you...thought I was right?"

"Oh, yes. I thought about the disagreements we've had and, after looking over all the information available, I think you were definitely right about some things."

"About...some things? What things? About relaxing the rules a bit to boost morale? What?"

"Oh...no. Not that." She eyed me carefully and a look of smug malevolence spread slowly over her face. My confusion was replaced by a sudden surge of suspicion laced with a kind of dread.

"About what, then?"

"Oh...about the idea that women can be just as duplicitous in their relationships as men can."

For a moment I thought she was referring to her own indiscretions, tacitly admitting that her personal failures had played a part in changing her mind. But her increasingly self-satisfied smile put an end to that thought process and I knew that something else had happened, something that I didn't know about. Something bad.

She was waiting for my response patiently, clearly enjoying the increasing discomfort that her mysterious behavior was creating. I didn't want to play along, but I didn't see a way out and, against my better judgment, I asked the question that was hanging in the air.

"So...uh...what exactly was it that made you change your mind then?"

"I thought you'd never ask." She said with a wink and started rummaging through her work satchel until she produced a standard legal sized manila envelope and pushed it purposefully across the table to me. I just looked down at it, not really wanting to see what was inside.

"What's this?"

"Oh...just some information I thought you'd be interested in. Go on. Take a look. I think you'll find it very...illuminating."

With a deliberate casualness I opened the envelope and pulled out half a dozen sheets of paper. They were photographs, printed off a digital camera or cell phone, taken in what appeared to be a massage room in a gym. There, in all his arrogant glory was Devin Tinian, sweaty and smug and smiling into the camera, as he took his latest conquest from behind.

But, it wasn't Devin that caught my attention. It was the woman, situated in front and under him while leaning against a massage table, her elbows holding her up a half foot off the surface. She was naked, wearing only a thin film of sweat, her breasts hanging down freely, partially obscured by her arms and her long brown hair tied in a pony tail falling off to one side of her perfectly recognizable face. Her eyes were closed and she wore an inscrutable expression, a cross between a grimace and a sad smile and the vision of her struck me like a knife to the chest.

It was Rosie.