"Oh." She had not planned for that. "Um, how about Kurstin McAlvey then? Is she available?"
"Yes, she is. One moment please."
The connection closed and then opened again and her best friend’s voice said, “This is Kurstin.”
"Hey."
"Hayley? Is that you?"
"Oh, Kurstie. Everything is so screwed up."
"Tell me about it." Kurstin's voice, although dry, contained a hint of bitterness. But it gentled when she asked, "How did it get all screwed up for you, though, sweetie? Aside from the usual, I mean. The press finally manage to stage a successful raid on the last of your closely guarded secrets?"
"I don't think I have any left to guard," Hayley replied glumly. "No, this is worse. Jon-Michael and I had a big fight this morning. So big I am not even sure I'm supposed to be here when he gets back."
"Don't be absurd. Jon-Michael loves you madly."
"He says I'm an emotional coward, Kurst."
"Well, you are."
"Kurstin!"
"Girl, please. As far as committing to Jon-Michael is concerned, you have a yellow streak up your back a yard wide." Call Waiting blipped for Hayley's phone, but Kurstin ignored it. "On the other hand," she continued gently, "you’ve been given more reason to be cautious than any woman should ever have to contend with, not the least of which came from Jon. He’ll remember that as soon as he cools down from whatever set him off this morning." The Call Waiting signal blipped for the third time and Kurstin said impatiently, "You want to get that damn thing? It’s very annoying."
"Yeah, hang on a second." Hayley pressed the flash button to access a second line. "Hello."
"Hayley?"
"Patsy, hi. Can I call you back in a minute? I'm on the other line."
"I just wanted to see if you would like to go out and shoot some arrows with me this afternoon. I don’t have to be to work until six."
"Okay, sure." It was exactly what Hayley needed. Something mindless and physical to take her mind off the continuing soap opera that was her life. "Where do you wanna meet? That clearing above Mavis Point?"
Patsy laughed and her voice was laced with an amusement Hayley didn't understand. "Yeah, sure, why not. Meet you there around two?"
"Okay, see you then.”
Patsy hung up on her.
“Bye,” Hayley murmured and clicked the flash button again. "Kurstie? You still there?"
"Yes. Who was that?"
"Patsy. We're going to meet in a while to do some target practice with her bow and arrow."
"Whooped-dee-do."
"Don’t start. I don't know why you're so hard on her lately." Then she made an erasing gesture. Realizing her friend couldn't see it over the telephone, she rushed on, "But that's not important right now. What am I going to do about Jon-Michael? I need to tell him something before he goes into that meeting, but the receptionist says he's not available."
"Yeah, he’s been locked in with dad since he got here. Man, wouldn’t you just love to be a fly on the wall to catch a snatch of that conversation?"
Hayley wasn’t sure if the choked expulsion of air that caught in her throat was a laugh or a sob. "The mind boggles. Will you give him a message for me?"
"Sure."
"Before the board meeting? It's gotta be before the meeting, Kurstie."
"No problem. I’m going down in about ten minutes. What do you want me to say?"
"Just tell him...good luck, okay? That right is might. And I know he’s going to kick butt."
"God. She's driving me crazy." Jon-Michael hooked a finger in the knot of his tie and yanked it loose. He craned his neck in the opposite direction and looked down at his sister. Shit. He didn’t need this after the frustrating session he’d just had with his father.
He and Kurstin stood in a corner he had commandeered in the boardroom, and after a single glance over her shoulder at the people entering the room he turned the full force of his attention back on her. "One minute I'm sure she loves me, the next she is virtually telling me not to hold my breath. I don't know up from effing down anymore. I wish she would make up her damn mind."
"Yes, don't you simply abhor inconsistent behavior?" Kurstin commiserated. "It is high time she got over herself. Why, the way she acts, you would think every man she’s ever loved turned her life into a circus or something. How immature can one woman be?”
Jon-Michael pulled at his tie again in frustration. “I’ve tried to show her how much I’ve changed. And I have told her until I’m blue in the face how much I love her."
"And I'm sure you are just patience personified when she shies away from believing you."
That pulled a wry smile out of him. Then he sobered. "She told me flat out this morning all she wants from me is sex."
Kurstin gave him a pitying how-stupid-can-one-guy-be look. "Oh, please. And you believed that?"
"Hell, yeah, I believed it. It's the reason she moved in with me in the first place."
"I cannot believe you are that dense, Jon-Michael."
"I prefer to call it realistic."
“Prefer anything you want. It doesn't change the fact you're a bonehead."
"Thanks, Kurstin. One appreciates knowing his family is firmly on his side in his direst hour." Remembering the rest of Hayley's message, however, he felt a corner of his mouth reluctantly tug up. He looked at his sister. "Right is might, huh?"
"That is what she said."
He pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against, reaching up simultaneously to re-tighten the knot of his tie. "Then I suppose it’s time to do what she said, isn't it?" He looked at the stack of papers she held. "Is that my proposal?"
"All twelve copies of it."
"Okay." He looked at the board members who had been slowly filtering in and taking their places at the long rectangular table. Drawing a deep breath, he held it a moment, then blew it out, deliberately pushing all the anger and hurt boiling through him to the back of his mind. "Let's go kick some ass."
The woods were dim and quiet and Hayley found herself dawdling on her way to the rendezvous point with Patsy. Dust motes filled shafts of sunshine filtering through overhead gaps in the trees to mantle her hair and shoulders in warmth. The deep breaths she inhaled were scented by a fecund aroma that soothed on a fundamental level. Tension eased out of her knotted neck muscles even as frazzled nerves began slowly knitting themselves back together.
Listening to the rhythms of the forest: the birds ceasing their songs at her approach only to start up again as soon as she passed, the breeze riffling the treetops, it struck her that many of her life's more perfect moments had happened in these woods. Given how rife with anxiety her current life was she found comfort in the memories.
She beat Patsy to the clearing above Mavis Point and appreciated simply sitting quietly on a fallen log, angling her face to feel the dappled sunshine on her skin. Closing her eyes, she leaned back on her palms and breathed in a measure of peace with every evergreen-scented lungful of air she inhaled.