47- Hazel silence

“Where’s your secretary?” Allen, my Chief Financial Officer and best friend for as long as I can remember, asks from my door.
I lift my head from the training development report I’m reviewing and look at him as he nonchalantly takes his seat at my table and with furrowed brows I move my gaze to the door. “Has she not arrived yet?”
“Nope.”
Irritation begins to simmer in the pit of my stomach.
“Wow,” he says. “You look murderous. Have you ever given her this look before?”
I release a heavy sigh. My annoyance at my secretary’s absence is beginning to boil over into anger. I put the report aside. My concentration is already shot to hell. “I need a new secretary.”
“We’ll get to that, but what I need you to do right now is to express your excitement at the Inc 500 ranking. We’re at number twenty-three. Twenty fucking three! Can you believe it? Just a few years ago we were at zero and pitching our business to anyone who would listen.”
“The list’s not officially out yet,” I say. “How did you find out?”
“Got a call from Scott, Inc’s Editor in Chief.” He seems mighty pleased with himself. “He told me he was going to give you a call too.”
My gaze darkens once again as it returns to the door to my office. “He probably tried to, but she
wasn’t at her desk.”
“Yikes,” Allen replies. “You really do need a new secretary, but you can’t fire her. She was my dad’s secretary.”

“You know the only secretary I want is her…” I said those words with the shape of her face into my mind.
“She is disappear Mr Lee Rang… since her mom passed away and She confess was pregnant of…” Allen stoped before finisg the sentence
“Pregnant of me, I know what you mean Allen”
“Mr Lee Rang” wasn´t my intention…”
“If that’s the only fucking reason she’s still here, I’m screwed.”

“All right, fire her then,” he says. “There must be lots more qualified candidates in the company. My dad will understand. We’ve just received our billion dollar evaluation. It’s almost laughable that one of your problems is finding a proper secretary.”
“She’s not completely incompetente Lee Rang”
“I knowtent,” I reply, thinking of the stern man who had been my greatest mentor. It felt wrong to criticize any of his decisions.
He flashes a blinding grin at me and holds his arms apart. “You’ll actually be doing her a favor.” I frown. “How so?”
“The only thing that’ll make her happy is finally getting a good acting role somewhere. She’s dying to do it, but she doesn’t have the guts. Pushing her off the ledge would be a blessing.”
“Hmmm…”
Just then, there’s a knock at the door. It is pushed open without the courtesy of waiting for my permission to come in, and that clearly indicates who it is.
Mariam Stean walks in, my actress in waiting secretary.
I have to do a double take at her appearance. On her cheeks are patches of red with bold whiskers painted over them.
“I apologize, Sir,” she says with a smile. “My acting class had a production last night, and the paint has refused to come off. Most of it will be gone by the end of the day. Also, I apologize for coming in late. That IT security lady just dropped this off for you. She says you are expecting it?”
“You’re having wild nights, Mariam,” Allen teases. She flashes a coy smile at him.
I, on the other hand, have no words for her. Thank God, I have no business meetings or clients coming in today. I accept the folder she hands to me and immediately pull it open and start looking down the row of sales figures. “Have you scheduled the meeting with the Bloom executives for tomorrow?” I ask.
“I’ll get right on it, Sir,” she replies. My head shoots upwards.
Before I can chastise her once again for dragging her feet on such an incredibly important task, she turns around and hurries away.
“She sure knows how to escape, I’ll give her that.” Allen says.

I rub the back of my neck. “How’s it going with the baby?”
“Don’t ask,” he laments. “My entire last week was spent literally hands deep in shit, changing Hazel’s diapers, and trying my best to survive with the stack of disgusting almond flour waffles my wife left for us before she went on her trip.”
I smile as I resume my perusal of the training development report.
“I mean I’m not complaining,” he continues quickly. “I love my wife and daughter very much, but good Lord that kid can shit for England—”
“What does England have to do with it?” I ask, amused. “Well, her maternal grandmother is English.”
“You need to get out more, man.”
He looks dreamily out of the window. “Yeah, somewhere there’s alcohol.” “Do you want to come along to the meeting with Bloom?”
“Nah,” he says mournfully. “Hazel’s still recovering from her illness stunt last week so I’m on toddler duty while Meredith goes to Tampa for another business trip over the weekend.”
“You can’t call her illness a stunt.”
“That was exactly what it was. She threw tantrums no less than a dozen times, and during one of those she fell to the floor in tears. I just left her there. I got a beer, and turned the volume up on the TV to catch up on my game.”
My mouth falls open. “You’re joking.’
“I swear it. I’m not bringing up an entitled snowflake.”
I grin. “Yeah, right. How long did your nonchalance last?”
“Three minutes. Meredith called to find out how we were doing and I couldn't let her hear Hazel wailing over the phone. Plus, my conscience was beginning to eat at me. So I calmed her down and called her back. After lying to her that we were doing great, she asked for another kid.”
I drop the report and burst out laughing. “So more dirty diapers then?” He laughs heartily too and ends our little detour with his domestic tales. “Will you go on your own to the meeting?” he asks.

“Yup.”
“I see why my dad was never worried about the company for even a second. We’re already this big and you’re still in the trenches. You love that grind, don’t you? As the CEO you’re meant to manage and leave all the grunt work to the lower guys, but here you are, still recruiting clients on your own.”
“The chase is thrilling.”
With a tap on my desk, he rises to his feet. “Maybe, but I can tell you of a much more thrilling pursuit.”
I don’t even bother asking. I return my attention to my report.
Of course, he speaks anyway, “A woman. That’s the greatest pursuit that man has been called to.” “You’re an ass,” I say, just as my phone begins to ring.
“I mean it,” he says.