Sherelle Green - A Miami Affair

Josh placed his iPhone on the polished teak table and picked up his iPad while scoffing at his sunny-side up eggs and crisp turkey bacon. A quick glance at the time indicated that the morning was already getting away from him. He needed to leave for LA in the afternoon, so he had to be productive this morning. Unfortunately, Ms. Wright played an important part in that. Last night, he’d emailed a couple contacts to see if they could get ahold of Ms. Wright’s personal cell number, but he hadn’t heard back yet.

He scrolled through the articles about The Aunt Penny Foundation he’d bookmarked yesterday and began reading where he’d left off last night. It was an interview with Becca Wright and the founder of the organization, Haley Adams. Although both women had impressive résumés, it was Becca’s that had caught his eye. Ivy League graduate with years of charity and fundraising experience. Accomplished violinist. A host of academic accolades. Given what he’d briefly read about Becca in two other articles, he wasn’t surprised by those details.

A calendar reminder popped up on his iPad prompting him to call his friend and fellow Prescott George member Daniel Cobb. Josh remembered a time when he’d been building his brand as a corporate raider, hoping for an exclusive invitation to join Prescott George—or the Millionaire Moguls as they were informally known—a prestigious, all-male national organization that was as powerful as it was discreet. However, he’d always assumed it was wishful thinking. Prescott George didn’t invite just anyone to join, especially a man of his caliber, who was considered a nouveau riche tycoon instead of an old-money legend. The latter were handed invitations into the organization based on their last names or historic financial statuses. When he’d finally gotten invited, by another member of the nouveau riche, he’d jumped at the opportunity to join Prescott George.

Staring at the calendar reminder once more, Josh reset the notification to have it ping him in another hour. He scrolled a little further through the article he was reading until he landed on a picture of Becca Wright. She was wearing a white collared shirt buttoned to the neck underneath a black suit jacket that appeared two sizes too big for her. Either that or she just had broad shoulders. He couldn’t tell.

Josh opened another tab on his iPad to Google images of Becca. More pictures appeared, each one more conservative than the next. One photo made him pause. In it Becca was wearing a beige cardigan over a plain white top. Her hair was pulled atop her head in a tight bun and her large black-rimmed glasses were a tad too big for her oval face. She was wearing little makeup and although she was smiling, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Have I seen her somewhere before? There was something vaguely familiar about her photo, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Grabbing his phone, he decided to call the foundation once more and leave another voice mail. Once again, he was greeted by the beep.

“Hello, this is Joshua DeLong from Prescott George calling for Ms. Wright, again. As you know, The Aunt Penny Foundation has been chosen as the charity beneficiary for our annual fundraising gala this summer. As I stated in my previous voice mail, I have to go out of town this afternoon and therefore...” His voice trailed off as he realized why Becca looked so familiar. She looked exactly like Ms. Perkins. His horrible middle school principal. Although according to his research Becca was only twenty-eight years old, Josh had no doubt that his middle school principal—who was much older than Becca—had been dressed in the exact same shirt and cardigan, with the exact same hairdo and glasses, for one of their school pictures decades ago.

“We need to meet this morning,” Josh said, abruptly ending the call. He had definitely planned on leaving his cell phone number and a couple other details in his voice mail, but he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that Becca reminded him of the woman whose office was still etched in his memory, since Josh had always found himself in some type of trouble.

He obviously knew that he hadn’t been leaving a voice mail for Ms. Perkins, but the minute the realization had hit him, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling. Ms. Perkins was probably the meanest woman he’d ever met in his life, and that was saying a lot since Josh had met his fair share of unpleasant people.

“I couldn’t stand that lady,” he said aloud to no one but himself. “She made my childhood hell.” He shivered as he glanced at Becca’s photo once more. He could only hope that he wasn’t dealing with Ms. Perkins’s clone.

* * *

“Ten, nine, eight, seven...” Becca Wright tried her best to calm her rattled nerves as she shuffled through stacks of unruly papers and file folders on her desk. “Six, five, four, three, two, one.” She stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath. She’d been doing intervals of ten while trying to organize her desk for thirty minutes straight, then taking ten-second breaks in between.

Ever since the receptionist for The Aunt Penny Foundation suddenly quit last week, Becca had been under more stress than she’d ever been before. Usually she was great at multitasking and managing several projects simultaneously. However, the temporary receptionist that had arrived yesterday had spent more time chatting on the phone with her friends or stepping outside for cigarette breaks than actually doing the work she’d been hired to do.

“Stacy!” Becca yelled after her short break was over. “Where is the file for the incoming students who arrived yesterday?”

After several minutes, Stacy strolled around the corner, loudly smacking her gum. “Um, what do you expect from me? I just started a few days ago, so why would I know where it is?”

Becca rapidly blinked her eyes. Teenagers today... I’d never talk to my boss like that. “Well, yesterday your only project was to enter the information for the new students who just joined The Aunt Penny Foundation into our intranet. It was a simple job.”

Stacy gave her a blank stare.

Becca waved her hands in frustration. “Never mind. Just tell me where you put my messages. I’m expecting an important call.”

“Don’t you have a cell phone?”

“Yes,” Becca said through gritted teeth. “But not everyone has my cell phone number and it’s your job to answer the phone. I haven’t heard it ring off the hook for a while, so at least you’re doing that.”

“Oh no, I’m not.” Stacy flipped her long black hair over her shoulder. “I took it off the hook because I couldn’t hear my phone call over the loud ringing. A Jonathan Delaney kept calling.”

Becca went through a mental checklist of important calls she was expecting and couldn’t recall that name. Nor did she find it in her Rolodex.

“You know,” Stacy continued, “you should think about getting rid of the landline and only using your cell phone. No one uses landlines anymore. They don’t keep business cards, either. Everything is online now.”

Unbelievable. “I’m surprised you even know what a landline is.” Normally, Becca would have had some more choice words for the young woman, but for now, she just needed to check her calls. Haley was working offsite with a few students, which meant Becca had a lot to accomplish with zero help from the useless temp. She wanted to confirm her appointment tomorrow with the Prescott George representative she was scheduled to meet. What was his name again? She scrunched her forehead and snapped her fingers when it came to her. Joshua DeLong.

“Oh no,” Becca said as she rushed out of her office to the main desk. What are the odds that Jonathan Delaney is actually Joshua DeLong? She hoped her inkling was wrong, but given her week so far, she feared he was the one who’d called before Stacy had taken the phone off the hook.