Page 60 of Echoes

Her assistant pushed the door open a little more, and Mark, her boss, walked into her office.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “She told me you might be coming down with something.”

“I’m okay. Just a little tired, I think. Needed a second,” she lied as Mark walked in after closing the door.

“All right, then. Hey, do you have time on Monday to talk to someone for me? VP of finance candidate. I’d like you to approve the one I’m thinking about getting an offer out to.”

Violet swallowed and asked, “That guy you talked to on Wednesday?”

“No, the woman I just met with. She interviewed foryourrole, actually, before we hired you, but she didn’t have as much experience as you did. She was good, though, and is more experienced in finance than strictly operations, so we called her to see if she was still looking and would be interested. She’s probably getting her parking validated now. Anyway, everyone’s liked her so far, so I’m thinking that if you do, too, since you’ll be working so closely together, we’ll get her an offer.”

“Oh,” she managed out. “Yeah. Whatever you need. I can freeup some time on Monday,” she added, thinking she’d go full-on crazy before then, so it really didn’t matter.

“Great. I’ll get it taken care of. And get some rest this weekend. You look pale, Violet. Do you need me to have someone drive you home?”

“No, I’m okay,” she replied and stood quickly before she grabbed her bag off the floor, trying to prove her point. “Just ready for the weekend. I have a puppy waiting for me to take him for a walk and feed him more food than should be able to fit into his tiny body.”

Mark laughed, opened the door, and let her walk out first before he closed it behind him. When they said their goodbyes, Violet headed to the elevator bank. After pressing the button to go down to the first floor, she stood and took a deep breath, trying not to think about the fact that she’d just seen this woman a week ago, possibly in the future, where they were married and maybe those adult twin girls were her and Rachel’s twin girls, and now,thisRachel was interviewing for a position in her company. Violet turned her head when someone approached to stand next to her.

“Hi,” Rachel said to her, offering a tight smile.

“Hi,” she said because she couldn’t say anything else.

“Heading out?”

“Yes.”

“Me too,” Rachel told her. “I remember you, you know? You might not remember me, though.”

“You–” Violet paused, her thoughts rushing.

Had Rachel gotten a device, too? Had she seen the future where they were married?

“Remember me fromwhat, exactly?” she asked when she was able to gather herself a little bit.

“The day we both interviewed. We were back-to-back because of some scheduling snafu. We waited outside Mark’s office.”

Violet tried to think back to the day of her interviews for this job. It had been a long day. Four hours of straight interviews, and that had been after three remote interviews. She had been in a chair outside of Mark’s office while she’d waited on him to wrap up a meeting, and yes, a woman had been sitting next to her. As she took Rachel in, she could now recall.

“Oh, yeah,” she replied. “Sorry. I remember you now. That day was kind of a blur for me, to be honest. I was really nervous.”

“Well, you didn’t need to be. Seems like you got it,” Rachel said,and there was a bite or something else in her tone that Violet couldn’t identify.

“I did, yes,” she said.

The elevator doors opened, and they both got inside. Rachel stood on one side. Violet stood on the other. But the buttons were on Rachel’s side.

“Can you press L for me, please?” she requested.

“Sure,” Rachel said and pressed L and no other button, meaning they were both heading to the lobby and had at least another forty-five seconds of awkwardness to fill.

“So, you’re interviewing here again?”

“I am,” Rachel replied. “VP of finance.”

“That role has been open for a while. We need someone pretty desperately.”

“I guess that’s why Mark called me and asked me to interview,” Rachel said as she crossed her arms over her chest.