His Second Chance

  Melissa was right. Everything was ruined.

  He almost invited Cynthia to call him again, or ask permission to call her, but he stopped himself. She obviously had developed some extreme views about food lately, views that, in and of themselves, would make Delico look like a murderous member of the Mafia. But on top of that, now she seemed ready to convict his company for a crime it hadn’t committed, without any evidence in sight.

  If he continued to see her, he would eventually have to tell her the truth about his job. And once he did, they would both end up with a broken heart, because Cynthia would unlikely be able to reconcile her new lifestyle with his career. Especially if she remained convinced his company had a part in Melissa’s illness.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “Well, lunch was delicious.”

  “Thanks.”

  After an awkward pause, he lowered his voice. “Please tell Melissa I’m sorry. That I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.”

  “She’ll be all right.” Cynthia broke eye contact and turned slightly.

  Preston took the hint. “All right then. I – I guess I’d better go. Before the boss gets mad.”

  “Bye,” was all Cynthia said, and that to the floor.

  Preston slowly turned around, swallowing a sigh of disappointment, and let himself out. A snowflake landed on his cheek as he stepped outside the door. The weather was a perfect analogy to his life: cold, gray, and dreary.

  By the time he got home several hours later, he began to wonder if Cynthia might be worth putting in his resignation. The board had chewed him up and spit him out, blaming him for the inspector’s error and the resulting public fiasco. It didn’t matter that he had not been called upon to be present during the inspection. It didn’t matter that he had made it clear to the inspector that the bad batch of soup was off limits. Somehow, the problem was all his fault.

  Monday, the stuff was going to hit the fan, and those radical parents who were protesting the St. Peter schools as well as the school district itself were going to have a hey-day dragging Delico’s name through the mud, possibly even causing the district to look for another food provider.

  And it would all be Preston’s fault.

  He didn’t even get tomorrow, Sunday, to distance himself and recharge, or to plan out any counter-attacks. A conference call was scheduled with the national company leaders at ten o’clock in the morning.

  Preston may not have to resign. He might end up getting fired. To his surprise, the idea didn’t make his pounding head feel any worse. It actually relieved the pain a little. Maybe God was trying to tell him something. His mother would probably agree.

  Regardless, he was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the children’s food-related illnesses. He wasn’t going to sit around and helplessly watch people die, like he had with his father. Never again.

  ***********

  “Excellent work, Munger. I must say, you have a bit more ingenuity in that brain than I gave you credit for.”

  Barry ignored the jab. He shifted on the luxuriously soft red leather recliner, wishing he could afford such furniture even as guilt nipped away at his stomach like ants chewing an earthworm alive. “It was a wild guess. You said you wanted Delico to go down, and I thought if I could encourage a negative inspection result we might save the kids.”

  The man sitting on the couch across from him, dressed impeccably in an Italian suit even though it was Saturday, glowered at him. “The deal is you do what I say, without arguing, and you get paid. If not…” As his voice trailed off, his scowl turned upward into an evil grin. An implied threat.

  “You’re not saying you expect me to – “

  “I expect you to go through with your side of the bargain, completely and thoroughly!” The man rose to his feet and towered menacingly over Barry as he shouted.

  Barry struggled to keep his composure, as fear pushed against his lungs. “I didn’t think anybody would die.”

  “That was your fault, not mine.” The man settled back down, his features relaxing as though they were discussing the latest hockey game instead of the ruination of a national company. Or the death of children.

  Barry swallowed, and looked away. He was right, of course. The poison is in the dose, and that one time Barry had gotten a little too enthusiastic with the dose. Or the child had been particularly sensitive to the chemical.

  The man leaned forward, a condescending smile on his face. “Tell you what, Munger. If this tainted soup episode blows up and wreaks all the havoc you hope it will, three more schools and you’re done.”

  “Done?”

  “As in, I’ll pay you for a complete job, and forget I ever knew you. Or what you did five years ago.”

  Barry puffed out his breath. Three more schools was a lot fewer than what was left in the original plan. “Can I have that in writing?”

  The man’s grin broadened. “Isn’t that what my profession is all about?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Qué mujer tan loca! You are a crazy woman!” Mario shifted to the edge of his chair at the dining room table. He was really angry. He only ever spoke in Spanish to Lucy if he was angry. “You got a secure job at a school, but it ain’t good enough so you quit and get a job at a place that’s probably gonna go belly-up in a few months because it’s putting poison in the food. What were you thinking?”

  Lucy sat up straighter in her chair. “I was thinking about getting a twenty percent better salary.”

  Emma furrowed her eyebrows. “Mama, how could you? That’s like consorting with the enemy! So now money is more important than your principles?”

  Lucy felt her face flush. But she was prepared for this argument. “I’m not planning on being there forever. Think of it as a time of paid research. You know, to see exactly how the enemy does things.” She winked at Emma, but saw Mario glaring out of the corner of her eye.

  “So you got a job you’re planning to leave.” Mario slammed both hands on the table and stood up. “I appreciate you letting me know, querida. I’ll try to line up a second job so you can keep buying them organic limes.”

  Lucy closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands as he stomped away from the table. A moment later she felt a hand rub her back.

  “Mama,” Emma said in a softened voice, “don’t you think you should’ve talked this over with Papa before making such a big change?”

  Lucy sighed and lifted her head. “Yes. But then he wouldn’t have let me do it.”

  “It does seem a little hypocritical, though, doesn’t it? For you to work at a food processing plant? I mean, you’re always telling me to be true to myself.”

  Lucy looked her daughter in the eye for a long moment. Then she decided to go ahead and tell her. She didn’t want any more secrets. “I really am there to do research. I think as a receptionist, I might be able to find some of the answers about the school food making kids sick.”

  “It would be really cool if you could, Mama,” Emma said, picking up her and Mario’s breakfast plates, “but please be careful. You could get into big trouble.”

  The thought had occurred to Lucy. Her hands shook as she put the key into the ignition of her Kia. She tried to pray for help, but the words got all jumbled up in her mind. On top of that, she was beginning to doubt that God could bless anything she was doing, because she had instigated it behind her husband’s back.

  Nevertheless, after fighting rush-hour traffic – thank heavens there was no snow to fight this morning, for once – she made it to the Delico Foods plant with ten minutes to spare. The man who had hired her, Mr. Jackson, greeted her warmly and introduced her to the current receptionist, Marge, who would spend the next three days working with and training her before she went on maternity leave.

  Before he left her at the desk, however, he led her into his office and gave her a pointed look. “I can’t assume anything, Mrs. Perez, so I have to assume you know nothing about the current scandal surrounding Delico Foods.”

 
Lucy met his gaze, even as her palms grew sweaty. “The soup a recent inspection discovered to be poisoned?”

  Kelly shook his head, his ever-present smile turning sad. “You have put your own spin on the information. Like too many other people. The article never mentioned the word ‘poison’.”

  Lucy’s face grew warm, and she shifted her eyes down. Was she trying to get fired before she even started her first day?

  She made herself look up at him again. “I’m sorry, sir, you’re right. I didn’t mean to offend.”

  Kelly nodded. “No offense taken. But all our other employees have been briefed about the truth of the incident, so you need to know it, too.”

  The truth? Lucy knew the truth. The truth was that the foods produced here were full of toxic chemicals of all kinds, not to mention trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and plenty of ingredients from genetically modified plants. The truth was somebody had put too much of some artificial flavor or preservative in the soup, and that if the inspector hadn’t shown up that day –

  “The truth is, the machinery got stuck when it was adding flavor to the soup, and ended up putting about a thousand times more than it was supposed to.” Kelly leaned back in his chair, his tone firm yet still friendly. “That batch of soup had been set aside for disposal, and both I and the regional vice president showed up to explain that to the inspector.” Now he leaned forward, still smiling, but eyes flashing anger. “For some reason the authorities are in the process of determining, the inspector took some of that soup for analysis, anyway, resulting in the newspaper article and subsequent bru-ha-ha surrounding it.”

  Lucy swallowed, feeling her face flame, as embarrassed as she would have been had she spoken her thoughts from a few moments ago out loud. She had jumped to a conclusion that was not only completely wrong, but that had prompted her to upset another person. Cynthia was probably going on the warpath right now, telling parents left and right about the soup incident and how they needed to rise up in mutiny and take both the school district and Delico Foods to task.

  “I appreciate you straightening me out on that,” she finally managed to stammer. “It’s awful that somebody would do that, and I’m sorry.”

  Kelly grinned. “I’m just glad you showed up today in spite of it. I b’lieve we’re gonna get along just fine.” He stood up and moved toward the door, gesturing her to go ahead of him.

  At the door, she turned, her pulse quickening. “Mr. Jackson, do I have time to make a two-minute phone call? I have a friend I think would feel a lot better if I told her what you just told me.”

  “By all means.”

  **********

  Cynthia watched with disinterest the four children who had arrived at the daycare so far. She had had a hard time feeling interested in anything since Preston left on Saturday afternoon. Melissa spent the rest of the day sulking, ostensibly as upset as Cynthia that Preston had left, but expressing a sour grapes attitude by telling her that she didn’t care, she didn’t want a new daddy anyway. They both lost interest in the movie, and on Sunday neither one spoke or smiled much.

  It didn’t help that Preston had not hinted at wanting to see her again, or even talk to her, for that matter. He just said good-bye and left.

  She should have been okay with that. She kept replaying in her mind all the reasons she had given herself a week ago for not getting involved with a man – especially a man who seemed eager to defend an entity which, in her mind, had become an enemy.

  But she wasn’t okay. His abrupt departure that seemed to close the door on a relationship that had barely begun had left her feeling empty. It was enough to make Cynthia wonder if she was already falling in love with the guy.

  A half an hour into her ten-hour shift, her cell phone rang. The children continued to play happily, so Cynthia answered.

  “Hi, Lucy.” Lucy had told her that she had purposely taken a new job at Delico Foods in hopes of helping Cynthia and the other parents of SPISD by ferreting out information about ingredients, financial undertakings, and potentially shady characters at the plant. While Cynthia appreciated that, she thought Lucy was taking things a little too far.

  “Cynthia. Boy, did I drop the ball.”

  As Cynthia listened to Lucy explain the truth about the soup incident, her heart sank into her toes. She thanked her, hung up, and spent the next several seconds blinking back tears.

  She wanted to kick herself. She didn’t know why her anger at Delico Foods should have affected Preston as it did, but now it turns out her anger had been completely misdirected. If Lucy hadn’t called her on Saturday, Cynthia wouldn’t have thrown a mini-fit, and Preston wouldn’t have tried to argue with her, and they would have watched the movie in bliss.

  And when Preston left, she was sure there would have been promises made to get together again soon. Promises that would have been kept.

  “Cynthia, are you okay?” the daycare director, Barbara, whispered into her ear as she came in with a three-year-old boy.

  She nodded. “I had a rough weekend, that’s all.”

  Barbara’s forehead creased with concern. “Is Melissa all right?”

  “Oh, yes. Stuart, honey, why don’t you go play trucks with Sammy?” She looked back at Barbara as the antsy boy ran to where Sammy sat, running a large dump truck across the floor. “It’s not Melissa. It’s just the we encountered some disappointment.”

  But Cynthia intended to rectify the situation, if at all possible. During her lunch break, she called the number Preston had given her on Friday night. She didn’t expect him to answer – he was a busy man, and likely didn’t share the same lunch schedule – so when he did, she nearly choked on her heart as it thudded in her throat.

  When she could finally speak, she found her mouth was dry. “Preston, I have to apologize for my behavior on Saturday.”

  “Apology accepted.” But his voice sounded flat. Weary.

  “I mean, I don’t know why you should care why I might get mad at some food processing company, but it turns out I jumped to a wrong conclusion.”

  Once again, the pause on the other end went on for so long Cynthia was afraid he’d hung up. “Preston?”

  “I’m here. How – why do you think you drew a wrong conclusion?”

  Then she realized that what she’d been about to say was inside information. The public at large knew nothing of what Lucy had told her that morning, that the plant inspector had purposely taken a sample of something earmarked for the sewer in order to badmouth the company. So she decided to change what she’d been about to say.

  “I – I talked to the manager of the plant where the discretion took place. He told me what happened.” At the lie, she felt a twinge in her gut and wondered why she couldn’t tell him that she had a friend who’d just been hired on at Delico and found out the whole story from her employer.

  Then she wondered why she should believe Delico’s version of the story. How could she know they weren’t just making it up to save their skin? No, she knew why she believed it; Lucy did. If anyone was going to be skeptical, it was Lucy, but for some reason, she took her manager at his word.

  All Cynthia could do was hope that Lucy was a good judge of character.

  Another pause. Then, “Well, I’m sorry I fed fuel to the flame, so to speak.” Preston’s baritone voice actually held a tinge of sorrow. “I guess I was behaving like a typical man, trying to help my woman logically think something out before getting emotional about it.”

  My woman. The words struck Cynthia’s brain so hard she barely registered the rest of what he said.

  He must have realized what he’d said, because he instantly added, “I mean, not that I have any claim on you. Generally speaking, I mean.”

  The little Cynthia knew of him, he wasn’t a man who tended to repeat himself or get tongue-tied. He must have been nervous. How cute. She smiled to herself.

  “I know what you mean,” she reassured him. But his Freudian slip might have indicated that he had alrea
dy developed feelings for her, too. She was very glad she had called.

  “Cynthia.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think Melissa could forgive me, too? I – I’d like to see you guys again some time. If you can put up with my manly logic,” Preston added in a teasing tone.

  Cynthia thought she might be willing to put up with more than that, if she could only see him again. “If you apologize to her in person, I’m sure she would forgive you.”

  “Would Wednesday evening work?”

  Cynthia would work double time on the website projects tonight and tomorrow in order to make it work. “Yes, Preston. That would be fine.”

  **********

  Strange that she would have taken the initiative to call Kelly, but he couldn’t be more relieved that she had. Perhaps she would take it upon herself to comment on somebody’s blog or Facebook page or food forum about her discovery today.

  Perhaps the Delico Powers That Be would call him in for another special meeting…to dismiss their blame against him.

  That was about as likely as the temperature hitting ninety degrees tomorrow. He chuckled to himself as he turned back to the e-mails he’d been reading when Cynthia called. At least he had two things going his way this week. First, he hadn’t been fired yesterday, simply told to be present at every single subsequent inspection and to document every move and every conversation related to it. And now, Cynthia had called him. Agreed to see him again. She might eventually become “his woman” after all.

  Before he could revel too much in that thought, his eyes scanned a subject line that made him start, then re-read it: You are about to get fired.

  He looked at the sender. John Smith.

  “A likely story,” he mumbled to himself. He hovered his hand over the mouse, contemplating whether or not to open the e-mail. Usually, a virus wasn’t spread until you clicked a link inside the e-mail. And usually, a hacker trying to spread a virus didn’t have specific information on his many potential victims, such as whether their jobs were in jeopardy.

  He narrowed his eyes. Was this some kind of joke from one of his underlings? Of all the things he didn’t need today, it would be to fire an employee. But if this e-mail came from one, he would send them packing in the next five minutes.