"You're in one piece. That’s good to see."
"So was Cameron," I said, cutting right to the chase. He nodded, choosing to stand instead of taking a seat on the other side of my desk.
"It's good to have you back," he said.
"It's good to be back. I know I missed a lot."
"Mm. I hope the weather didn't get in the way of all of your plans," he said. Only the ones that it had been the most important for me to carry out, I thought.
"It wasn't the weather that did," I admitted.
"So you couldn't speak to him about it? Anything?"
"I never got that chance to say anything about the company. I couldn’t. When we talked, he wanted to talk to me about his parents. About how he grew up, the relationship he had had with them. He was still so broken about it."
"You didn't want to make it worse," he said. We had talked about his parents a few times when I had been up there with them, but that hadn’t been everything we had covered. Things like my past and family, other things we found ourselves discussing when it had been too cold to go outside; I didn’t think it was important mentioning them. What I had said to Brett was true in any case. I hadn’t wanted to talk about the business because I had thought it would have been the last thing he wanted to talk about.
"It was like he had been waiting to open up about it, and I had ended up in the right place to hear it all."
Brett smiled sadly and looked down. "He's not very talkative usually. I'm surprised he was with you."
"He just wanted to know his words were being heard by somebody," I said, shrugging. "I don't think he had really been looking for my opinion on anything."
"How's the cabin?"
"Surprisingly nice," I said. "He's very comfortable. You don't need to worry about him."
"I'm going to do that no matter where he is," he said. "That brings us to today." He paused, looking down briefly. He's about to ask for something, I thought. By then I had basically come to expect it. "You missed quite a lot when you were gone." I knew that but the way he had said it, I knew it was more and worse than what I was thinking.
"Bad news?"
"There hasn't been time or a reason to call a second meeting of the stockholders, but they have been contacting me personally. Mr. Granger and Mr. Giordano lack the patience Cameron seems to need from us at this point."
"Okay, so there's less time than we originally thought."
"Much less," he said. "Up to this point, they have had to be satisfied with what I have had to say to them. They have not heard personally from Cameron. For all they know, he could have skipped the country, changed his name, totally have no intention of ever coming back and doing his job. That’s a problem, and they’re getting restless. They want something definite, Natalie. I know as well as you that Cameron isn't going to come down here to talk to a group of irate men in suits."
"So what happens now? What are you going to tell them?"
"Since we can't count on Cameron to grace us with his presence, we need a message. He needs to come back to the present and deal with this. It's his responsibility. You and I can only do so much. He has to hear about it, learn exactly what's going on here without him and what he has to do."
"And you want me to tell him," I said, so he wouldn't have to. He had the decency to at least look apologetic about, but that didn't really make it any better.
"You did say it was a nice cabin," he quipped.
"Wait, like now? I just got back."
"Time isn't on our side, Natalie. I can understand that, but the people with the money and power to influence this company's next moves don't care. We need something from Cameron. At this point, we have to take what we can get."
"How soon?" I asked.
"Yesterday would have been ideal," he said wryly. I sighed, not bothering to hide what I felt about his little announcement. Back to the mountains, again? I had just started getting my bearings back home. I had my own mountain of work to try to get through. It didn't matter though, did it? This was partly, no, completely my own fault. I had had a week, a week, to say something, and I hadn't.
This was just what I got for trying to preserve his feelings. His and mine. Our feelings didn't matter right now though; the only things that did was the company, and the way we were going, Cameron and I were on a fast-track to ruining it.
"Later today is the best I can do. I'll need a couple days," I said, grasping for time that we didn't have.
"I'll need something by tomorrow, Natalie. If you have to call me to tell me, then do it, but it has to be something. A yes, a no, a move, any move, whatever it is he decided. We don't have a couple days." I bit my lip, wondering how the hell I was supposed to pull this off. It was already close to noon. Getting there and coming back alone under good weather conditions would take at least six hours. Stay the night then, I thought, and then come back tomorrow, and this entire mess will finally be over.