The Brand Ch. 11

"Hello? Yes. Hold on please."

Vance muffled the phone against his chest, and then whispered:

"It's a Coleman Cheevers? Do you-"

"Shit!" Victria hissed; shaking her head, making it appear disembodied from the rest of her wrapped and restrained form, "Yes, yes, yes!"

Vance put the phone to his sister's ear.

"Mr. Cheevers?"

"Victria! How are you feeling?"

"I'm as well as can be expected under the circumstances sir. I-"

"Good, I'm glad to hear it. And on the matter of your budget report, and in consideration of your absence-"

"Absence sir?"

"Well yes of course Victria. We certainly can't expect you to return without being well enough to do so."

"Well the doctor says he wants to observe me over the next three months, but my intention is to be out of here in three weeks. I'll just be; in a wheel chair for a while."

"Really? Three weeks? Well," forgive me Victria, but that doesn't sound; feasible."

"Oh, but it is. It is feasible sir! And I know its three days late now, but I've finished the report and I can send it directly to-"

We have made provisions for your prolonged absence. It was the best we could do, considering."

"Provisions; sir?" I, I don't understand."

"Victria, we, the board; made a decision."

"What decision; sir?"

A silence crossed the line. Victria hoped against hope, gritting her teeth, listening to Cheevers breathing one slow, and labored breath after the other. Presently, the chief executive officer of her firm drew in one final breath, paused, and then said:

"The board has decided not to change our model. We remain a very competitive financial firm and we do not need to benchmark the organization's functions. We are opting to cut the budget where we originally intended. I'm sorry Victria. I'm sure you'll find my letter of reference quite suitable to your future needs. God speed to you Ms. Charpentier. Good-bye."

She listened to the click of Cheevers hanging his office line back onto its cradle, and shut her eyes tight as the dial tone began to drone. God speed, she screamed inside her head, you miserable old shit. Victria began to shake with helpless fury and seething hate. Her eyes pulsed and throbbed. Her jaw ached as she ground her teeth. Sparkles of light swirled behind the darkness of her closed eyes. She decided that they were star dust, that all good and bad people are star dust; floating around each other until they settled into orbit, merging, coalescing, blended and joined.

She and Melody had developed an orbit around each other. More thoughts flashed, sparked and sputtered. If we hadn't, maybe I wouldn't have failed. Unless, I was supposed to; fail, and Melody was supposed to be the catalyst to my failure, and Dobbs, Yazmina and the rest were supposed to be sacrificed for the sake of our convergence. But, to what end? Here we are; broken, shattered and senseless. To what end God; to what end?

Vance stared fearfully at his sister as he slowly took the phone from the side of her head. Averting his gaze, he watched his hand place the phone back in its cradle, and then looked back to see that his sister had suddenly passed out. She was asleep, unconscious; her face wet with tears. Vance shook his head, his expression the picture of remorse as he plucked a few tissues from the box by the phone. Gently, he dried his sister's tears. Then he sat; and waited.

He thought of fire and what he believed was one of its more interesting characteristics; how, after one has already been burned, a new fire warms the wound, heat sit back up in fact, its temperature ten or so degrees higher than the unblemished skin around it, so hot that it starts to hurt all over again, in spite of how much healing its gone through. Vance watched as Victria cried more tears through her sleep, and then, again, wiped them from her cheeks; a few of his own tears beginning to well in the corners of his own eyes.