“Okay.”
I put her on hold and then walked around to Jake’s door. I knocked three times and took a deep breath. After a moment, I was met with a brusque, “Yes, what is it?”
I pushed the door open and entered hesitantly. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you—”
“I have a lot of work to do before the dinner tonight, Kristen,” Jake said, sounding extremely annoyed. He wasn’t even looking at me as he spoke. His eyes were fastened on the computer screen in front of me. “This had better be important.”
“It’s about your son, sir.”
Immediately, Jake got to his feet, and I saw panic flash through his eyes. “What—”
“He’s fine,” I said quickly, realizing what that might have sounded like to him. “He’s perfectly alright. It’s just…your babysitter is on the line.”
More annoyance flashed across Jake’s face. “What does she want this time?”
“She says she has a family emergency,” I said, wringing my hands together. “And she needs to leave.”
“When?”
“Now,” I said.
“Now?” he repeated. “As in right this minute.”
“That was the impression I got, sir, yes.”
Jake groaned and walked around his desk. “She can’t do that… I have the dinner tonight.” He glanced towards his phone and spied the line that was lit up. “Is she on hold?” he asked.
“She is.”
Without asking me to leave, Jake pressed the button and put it on speaker. “Janet?”
“Jake, I have to leave now.”
“I’m paying you for the whole night.”
“I understand that, and I’ll gladly return the money,” she said. “But I have to go.”
“I can’t come home tonight, Janet,” Jake insisted. “Isn’t there someone who can…cover for you?”
“My father won’t exactly be happy with a substitute daughter, Jake,” Janet replied, and she sounded just as irritated as he did. “I have to leave in the next half an hour. I expect you to be here in that time, or else I will have to leave Noah with one of the neighbors.”
“We don’t know any of the neighbors,” Jake said.
I took a step back towards the door, wondering if I should just leave quietly. But that seemed kind of rude, too, so I just stayed where I was as Jake battled with his babysitter.
“Noah can make friends.”
“Are you insane?” he demanded. “I don’t know who those people are. They could be sadists or criminals or murderers with bodies in their freezers.”
I could hear the eye roll in Janet’s tone. “See you in half an hour, Jake,” she said. The line went dead.
Jake stared at the machine for a second and then he turned to me as though he realized I was still standing there. “Did she just hang up on me?”
“Uh… I think she might have.”
“God damn it,” he said with frustration. “What the hell am I going to do? We’ve been anticipating this dinner forever. It took months of preparation to get all parties to agree to this meeting in the first place. If I’m not there, we may as well kiss this whole deal
goodbye.”