Undo by Joe Hutsko (best book club books of all time .txt) 📖

the tingling inside her turning to numbness as she cooled, cooled, then felt chilled, as though she were shaking.

Being shaken.

“Greta!” Jean-Pierre whispered.

“Mmm?” she moaned, disoriented.

“Matthew!”

Not Matthew, she thought half-consciously. No, not Matthew. Not for a while. Only Jean-Pierre now.

“Matthew!” Jean-Pierre hissed again, leaping from the bed.

She sat up, wide-eyed. It was dark in the room. She turned on the beside lamp. Jean-Pierre was hastily gathering his strewn clothes. No, he didn’t understand. They were safe. Touching her hand to her head for an instant, she relaxed a little, felt a little laugh begin in her chest at the comedy of his panic. He must have heard Marie, because Matthew wouldn’t be home from his New York trip until tomorrow afternoon.

But then she heard his voice, “Greta?,” faintly, coming from downstairs.

Judging by the echo she guessed that he was in the kitchen - and only one minute away from making his way through the foyer, up the stairs, and into their bedroom. “My God!” she gasped, struggling with her robe. “Hurry! Leave!”

Jean-Pierre had managed to pull on his pants, shirt, jacket. Snatching up his shoes and socks and wristwatch, he stepped outside, onto the terrace. She gathered her robe and tied it closed as she rushed from the room.

“Matthew?” she called from the top of the stairs. “I’m up here,” she said, composing herself as she descended quickly.

“There you are,” Matthew said, his garment bag and briefcase in tow. He set down the briefcase at the bottom of the stairs and flipped through a few pieces of mail. Yes, she thought thankfully, take your time and read your mail, all of it. “I came back tonight instead. My meeting was shorter than I’d expected.” He glanced at her.

As if sensing her scrutiny, he stopped going through the mail. He dropped it next to his briefcase and began climbing the steps. “Why is it so dark in the house? Are you in bed already?”

She stopped and raised her wrist to her head, fumbling with her words. “I’m not feeling very well,” she said. She pulled a tattered tissue from her pocket, dabbed it beneath her dry nose, coughed. “Darling,” she said, blocking his way, “could you please get me a glass of water?”

He stopped, eyed her with subdued curiosity. Then he let out an impatient sign and turned and started back down the steps. Just another minute, she thought, and Jean-Pierre would be safely gone.

But then Matthew stopped, turned around, and climbed toward her again. “There are cups in the bathroom,” he recalled aloud as he passed her. She clutched the hem of her robe and lifted it and chased after him in hopes of getting to the bedroom before he did.

She didn’t.

He flipped on the light switch, which lit up several lamps in the room all at once, and tripled its brightness. Now everything was fully illuminated, exposed.

She tried to see what Matthew was seeing: The bed was a shambles. Sheets, pillows, and the comforter strewn across the mattress and onto the floor. The two empty champagne bottles. One on its side. The bath towel beside the bed. The unlocked terrace door.

He strode past the bed to his walk-in closet and hung up his garment bag, acting as though he did not notice the mess. Pulling his tie from his collar, he caught her earnest reflection in the full-length closet mirror. He turned around to take a closer look at her disheveled appearance, and for a moment his eyes fixed on the empty champagne bottle resting atop the night table. He graced her with a brief, condescending glance, then went back to undressing.

A chilly gust of wind blew open the terrace doors and lifted the curtains. He clucked his tongue as he crossed the room to close the doors.

“Oh” Greta said sharply, coming up quickly behind him. “I was so hot. I think I have a fever.”

Ignoring her, he pulled the doors shut.

She angled her head to see outside. Jean-Pierre seemed to have gotten away safely.

Matthew twisted the lock and grabbed the curtains and started to slide them together. Suddenly he stopped and crouched a little. “What’s that?” he said, squinting outside.

“What’s what, darling?” Greta said, hearing her own voice crack as she rushed to his side.

Matthew stepped out onto the terrace.

“This.” He bent over and picked something up. “It caught my eye in the light,” he said. From his fingers he dangled a fine gold chain, with a sparkling gold object dangling from it. A charm of some sort.

She scrutinized the object for an instant, then broke into a wide smile. “Oh, there it is,” she said, taking the chain in her hand and holding it up with a glad smile on her face. “I’ve been looking for this for days.”

“Hmm. I’ve never seen that one before,” Matthew said indifferently before disappearing into the bathroom.

And neither had she. Her heart was galloping in her chest. She sat on the bed and took a quick peek at the charm necklace in her palm. Then all at once she remembered Jean-Pierre saying, when he’d arrived, that he had brought her something.

The bathroom light went out, and she carefully tucked the object into her robe pocket. Assembling the bedclothes as best she could, she pulled the comforter over her legs, then shut off her night lamp.

Dressed in his pajamas, Matthew stood at the foot of the bed. “Since you’re not feeling well,” he said, glancing at the mascara-streaked pillows, “I’ll sleep in the guest room.” He shut off the remaining lamps as he left the room. When she heard his door close down the hall, she switched her night lamp on again and pulled the necklace from her pocket. She inspected it more closely under the light.

It was a tiny horseshoe charm. She squeezed the charm tightly between her palms, feeling him again. Then she clasped the necklace around her neck and turned off the lamp. She pulled the comforter over her body. “Good night, Jean-Pierre,” she whispered. She kissed the charm, then squeezed it tightly in her left fist and held it against her breast.

As her thoughts swirled into pleasant dreams, her grip relaxed, then gently unrolled, and the symbol of Jean-Pierre’s love slipped through her fingers, and she slept like never before.

 

*

 

After William finished reading through the binder Matthew had given him earlier in the day, he got up from his reading chair and stretched.

The strategy was perfect. Matthew had put together a plan that, after they announced the Joey II computer in about a year, would demonstrate that Wallaby had grown up and was venturing into the big-business world by working a strategic deal with ICP. Soon after that, before the stock had too much time to climb, Wallaby would be acquired by ICP and become a subsidiary of the huge computer giant.

William thought for a moment about Matthew and his manner. He seemed high-strung and edgy when they had met earlier in the day. When he had asked about Peter Jones, Matthew had turned defensive. Though William had every intention of following through with his plans to acquire Wallaby, he wondered if maybe his inquiry had caused Matthew to fear that he was losing confidence in him, and in Wallaby.

William was in fact more than mildly curious about what Jones had been up to over the past few months. Even though he was still on the payroll at Wallaby and officially an employee, after what Matthew had told him, William felt certain that there was little hope of Jones ever going back to Wallaby.

An unhappy thought, for, after all, it was Jones who had invented the Joey, and the older Mate, which was the reason he had even started formulating the secret acquisition plan a few years ago in the first place.

He wondered: Could Jones be a threat to ICP and Wallaby if he decided to resign and go it alone, perhaps competing head-on with his “old” company with a newer product, something more compelling than the Joey?

William knew that Jones had substantial financial reserves, and combined with the venture capital he could gather by simply picking up the telephone, he would easily gain the resources necessary to do something big. But in an industry dominated by only a few major players, even Silicon Valley’s wunderkind would face obstacles at this stage of the game. And of course, William reminded himself, suddenly taking down his fear a few notches, the largest obstacle Jones would confront was Jones himself. Wasn’t that why he had originally hired Matthew Locke? He was not an organization man, incapable of managing a large company. And that would hurt him. Thank goodness for small wonders.

With some amusement at the irony of this last thought, William placed the binder beside his Joey, with which tomorrow morning he would compose an e-mail message to Matthew, congratulating him on his work. He was too tired now, and his elation had turned to exhaustion. He needed a good night’s sleep. He glanced at Martha’s picture for a moment, then shut off his desk lamp.

The ring of the telephone startled him. He reached across his desk to answer it before the second ring, noticing the time on his wall clock. Quarter past midnight.

“Hello?”

“Billy, did I wake you?” a croaky voice asked.

“Who’s calling, please?”

“I knew it! Working late as usual. How’s the ol’ boss?”

“Byron! I’m fine. How are you and Grace?”

“A-okay. We’re staying for an extra while here in Maine. Sailing’s been good. Few more weeks left.”

“Great to hear.”

“I’m calling for a favor,” Byron said.

“Shoot.”

“I need some of my old stuff from my office there in New York.”

As the most prominent inventor in ICP’s history, Byron was granted lifelong privileges that included an office that was cleaned every day and kept in a ready state, should he ever decide to drop by and sit in, for whatever reason.

“Sure. What kind of stuff?” William said and smiled to himself. His honorable former partner was experiencing post-retirement pangs. He probably wanted to browse through his old journals, notes, take a trip down memory lane, as it were.

“On my shelf, right behind my desk, there’s a binder called ‘Advanced Network Agent Design.’”

William snapped on the desk lamp and wrote himself a note.

“I’ll have Barbara send it to you. Anything else?”

“No. I mean, no, I don’t want you to send it to me. I want you to send it to this address,” Byron said.

William heard some papers shuffling.

“Here it is: 42 Inlet Drive, Camden, Maine, 04288.”

“You got it, Byron. I’ll have Barbara fetch it tomorrow and express it to you so you get it by Wednesday. Oh, wait a second, who’s the addressee?”

“Peter Jones.”

William’s eyes shot to Martha’s photo. He blinked rapidly and his lips parted. But no words would come out. He shut his mouth, took a deep swallow. Heard himself repeat the addressee’s name, then for a few beats he heard his own blood pounding in his ears.

“Yep, new buddy of mine. You know who he is, right?”

William took a few seconds to answer. “Of course,” he said, staring at his Joey. Then, struggling to sound as matter-of-fact as possible: “Why are you sending him this?”

“We’re kicking around an idea we’ve come up with,” said Byron, all snappy and playful.

“I see,” William managed. “Byron, are the two of you thinking of starting up something new?”

“Hell, I don’t know. It may be nothing. But it may be something, too. Listen, I don’t want to talk your ear off. It’s late, and you’ve got a real job to go to in the morning.”

“It’s okay. I was just reading.”