Chapter 3 - The Plan Failed.

By chance, Rebecca met JC in the elevator the next morning.
"Morning." He nodded.
"Morning," she said curtly, staring straight ahead.
He rocked himself on his heels. "You look nice."
"I looked better yesterday."
"I get that, but you know, twins."

A light rain swept over Bloomington during the night, leaving a cold, grey haze over the city: perfect sweater weather. Again, by chance, both Rebecca and JC had chosen black sweaters and grey business slacks. She looked over to him, seeing him balance an art portfolio under his arm.

"How did you fit that thing on your fancy bike?"
"Oh, this old thing?"
"Yeah. I mean, as an officially, state-certified art school kid, I am well aware of the awkwardness of lugging around an art portfolio, but I cannot imagine how a coder person motorcyclist would fit that on his tiny, itty, bitty, little tricycle."
"I will have you know that that tricycle has a four-stroke engine and has two wheels, which surprisingly makes it a bicycle, not a tricycle."
"Yeah, and my car's a four-cylinder feat of German engineering. How did you fit that portfolio onto your bike? Please tell me it involves strapping it to your being with bungee cords?"
"Why am I not surprised that you've seen that before?"
"Yes, indeedy."
"Of course, of course."

They both stepped out of the elevator on the sixth floor, both of them due at a marketing meeting in a conference room. JC softly grabbed Rebecca's sweater.
"Look, I kinda want to talk to you about something."
"What?"
"About yesterday in the car park. Um, I think I might've said some really shitty things."
"Yeah, I think you did."
"Look, if you want to dress cute or sexy or whatever, it's not my place to judge you, nor is it my place to put assumptions onto your character. Whatever you wear doesn't give me the right to call you anything unsavoury. Also, I don't know you, I don't know what you wear to work, nor do I know why you dress the way you dress.
"I'm really sorry for what I said yesterday, and I hope you can forgive me."
Rebecca bit her lip in contemplation. "I...I don't know what to say."
"I'm not pressuring you to do or feel anything you don't want to."
"Look, JC..." She sighed. "I get, and appreciate, where you're coming from, but..." She sighed again. "I kinda thought that maybe we could be friends or something, work buddies and such. Everyone in this office is so old. Only you IT guys are young because information technology is a young field."
"My dad's a computer technician."
"Yeah, but did his main occupation consist of guiding people through their computers freezing, then playing Doom during lunch break."
"I guess not, but still."

With the air between them tense, they continued on to the conference room, Rebecca slipping into the back with JC greeting the marketing team and a bevy of executives. Typical bro-talk ensued, talk of football teams and glory days as fullbacks and wide receivers. Talk had turned to old college fraternities as Mr. Bryant made his appearance.

Simon Bryant was of average height, with short, greying red hair. Despite being in his mid-50s, he still had his boyish good looks. He slipped into the room, clapping his hands.
"OK, everyone." He gestured for JC to sit at his left. "Big news first. The website, the Bryant Department Stores and other Bryant retail stores website and websites. This guy, this man here on my left, is going to help us build the super highway that is going to bring Bryants into the new millennium. Are we excited?"
A spattering of clapping came from around the table.
"Great, great. I don't think he needs an introduction, but here's Joshua Chases!"
JC stood up, straightening his sweater. "Thank you, Mr. Bryant."
"Please, Simon. There's so many Mr. Bryant's around the company, you'd yell out for one of us, and seven more will reply," Simon joked.
"OK. And it's Chasez, not Chases, but y'all can call me JC." JC took a stack of poster boards from his portfolio, resting them on the ledge of the whiteboard at the front of the room. "Bryants retail dot fake. Tell me what you think of when you hear Bryants retail dot fake?" He paused, waiting for a reply. "That's it, you don't think of anything. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Well..." He took down the first piece of black card, revealing one underneath, with "Bryantsretail.fake" written in gold marker. "Now it does. More correctly..." He placed the second piece of black card on the table, revealing a third piece of black card with a screenshot of the Bryant's Retail Holdings website printed out and glued onto the card. "This is the first page of an online empire. This is the homepage of Bryant's Retail Holdings. This will be mainly used for corporate purposes, as a way to hire new employees, contact the company, and contact each other through an update to the company email network-"
"Are we getting new email addresses?" a balding man in the middle of right side of the table asked.
"No. Anyway, this page will also be a launching pad to access the online stores of our stores: Bryant's Department Store and Bea's Baby Boutique." He took down the third piece of card, the fourth piece using the black card as a border to a white piece of card with hand-drawn pictures of jackets and coats. "The Bryant's Department Store site will carry over the traditional black and gold colour scheme of the store itself..." He flipped over to the fifth and final piece of card. "With the site for Bea's continuing with its respective colour scheme."
Simon raised his hand. "When can we expect the sites to be up and running?"
JC paused. "...September..?"
"So, up for Christmas?" Simon asked as he made a note on a paper pad.
"Yes, up for Christmas." JC nodded.

JC slipped the cards from his presentation into the portfolio as the executives filed out of the conference room, only Simon and Rebecca trailing behind.
"That was a pretty good presentation there," Simon commented, shaking JC's hand. "If you wouldn't mind, how would you feel catching a cup of coffee on the terrace with me and Becky?"

Rebecca's eyes widened with shock and she gasped in embarrassment. She tried to find the words to a response, but she only managed to find one: "Dad!"

When Simon placed a copper tray with three cappuccinos onto the little metal table on the sixth floor's terrace, Rebecca wasn't finished.
"I'm serious, can you please, PLEASE, not call me Becky at work? It was a cute nickname when I was a child, but no one is going to take me seriously if you keep calling me that!"
"Lots of women go by Becky," Simon commented.
"OK, sure. But if I'm going to be called that, I might as well dye my hair blond and start wearing pastels."
"It's only because I love you," Simon said almost offhandedly, but still with the intent to gain a reaction.
Rebecca sputtered. "OK, fine, but please not at work."

Simon stirred a teaspoon of sugar into his coffee. "Tell me, how has your work week been?"
She made a disgruntled sigh. "On the work side, fine. I'm expecting what I've done for the pre-summer sale will be submitted to you for approval either today or Monday. I've also started on what I might need to do for the Fall catalogue, both for Bryant's but also Bea's. Other than that, it's hasn't been the greatest."
"What happened?"
"I think you called into IT yesterday about a problem with your computer screen," JC interjected.
"That was Wednesday."
"I'm guessing it was fixed?"
"It was...just a misunderstanding."
"Her brightness was turned down."

"It's not good enough."
Rebecca sat at Gene's desk. A folder full of design submissions for an array of advertising materials for the pre-summer sale was laid out on the desk as Gene stood behind his chair. "Um...OK..." she replied, meekly.
"They're not good enough," Gene repeated himself, flipping through the folder again. He closed it and placed the folder in front of her. "I know for a fact that this isn't your best work, and I can't accept it."
"But I tried."
"I know you did, but I also think your head wasn't in it this week."
"But that new website guy gives a presentation where the only thing he presents is a stack of poster boards with printouts and marker doodles on them, and it's the greatest thing ever."
"Yes, but graphic design isn't his job; it's yours. Also, that was for something that has to be finished by September, not this afternoon." Gene sat down at his desk. "Look, just because you're the boss's kid, don't think you can just fuck around all week and collect a paycheck. This is a job; you need to work."
"But I really did-"
He leaned back in his chair, fiddling with a black pen. "You spent most of yesterday morning crying in the stairwell."
Rebecca tried to find an excuse. "A coworker called me a slut."
Gene sighed. "Well, based on what you were wearing..."
"I don't think that should matter."
"I know it shouldn't matter, but..." He tried to find the right words. "Boys will be boys. If you dress a certain way, people are going to come to conclusions."
Rebecca clammed up, not moving in any way.
"Again, just because you're the boss's kid, that doesn't give you the constant privilege to fuck around. If you're not suited for this job, or are not a good fit for Bryant's, we will let you go. Whatever happened this week, you need to get over it. You need to dress appropriately for the office, and you need to dress in a manner that will not distract you, or others, from your work. I'll give you the weekend to fix your submissions and bring them up to your usual standard or work. And I'm only giving you until Monday; these still need to be ready to go to print that evening."
Rebecca started to stand up, taking the folder.
"And whatever bullshit is happening between you and Joshua Chasez needs to stop, at least within office hours."
"I'll take that into consideration, Mr. Lawson."
"Please do, Miss Bryant."

Rebecca started to feel a knot in her throat as she collected her things from her desk. By the time she was at the elevator, she had started hyperventilating. She tried to swallow, biting her lip as she tried to calm down. The light for the basement level came on.
"Shit, no." She started jamming the parking garage level's button. "No," she said, as the elevator went straight down to the basement.

JC was standing at the elevator doors as they opened. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I think I'm having a panic attack."
He stepped into the elevator with her. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"
"I'm fine. I just need to go home."
"Are you OK to drive?"
She shook her head. "I don't know."
He walked her to her car. "Is it OK if I drive you home?"
She reached into her work bag, taking out her keys. "The parking garage closes at 9."
He helped her get into the passenger seat. "That's OK. I'll just get someone to pick me up from your place."
"But your bike?"
"No helmet. Justin's mom drove us this morning." He started the car. "Where's home?"
She gave him the directions, tightly grasping the handbrake and the handle above the door.
"What happened?"
"Gene reprimanded me about handing in shitty print ads and shit."
"Did you?"
"I thought they were OK. That's not the point."
"So, what is the point, then?"
"He said that if I dress like a slut, people are going to call me a slut and if I don't get my shit together, he's going to fire me."
"OK."
"So you agree with him?"
JC grunted. "I see his point."
"Then I want to get out of the car."
JC put the child lock on. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
"So, you just come to work every Thursday in cocktail dresses?"
"NO!"
"Then why did you?"
"Because I wanted to impress you! I think we're meant to be together and I thought that if I dressed nice it would impress you and then you'd fall in love with me."
JC took a startled, deep breath. "Dressing nice is only going to tell me that you can dress nice; it's not going to make me fall in love with you."
"Then how do I make you think I'm attractive?"
"I already think you're attractive. The moment I saw you, I thought you were incredibly sexy. That moment on Monday when you let your hair down to brush through it, then tied it up again, just...wow."
"And now I've just turned you off..."
"No. But there's a difference between thinking someone is attractive and being in love with that person. What I said yesterday, that I just didn't want to fuck around? That wasn't about you, that was about me. I don't fall in love like that, and I know that I'm not going to have a fulfilling relationship based on just sex or good looks."
"Then what do we do?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "We just hang out...then we go from there."

They sat in silence. "Is there anything you want to do?" he asked.
"No, just take me home."