A Charitable Scandal

The Silver Lining

The rest of the evening was spent curled up in bed with a big bowl of popcorn, a jug of soda, and a never-ending marathon of Beige's Taxonomy courtesy of Netflix. I'd nearly made it to my second liter of Orange-Fizz when I heard a knock at the door. I paused the show, only to find I'd caught it on a frame zoomed in on the handsome Dr. Hunter's statuesque face. A younger me, with so few cares in the world, would have drooled over the defined curves of his cheekbones and the finely groomed ruggedness of his beard, but the me that day could only think of Alec, who I recalled — once again — was just as unattainable as Dr. Hunter. So after a few choice words growled at the innocent and fictitious cardiologist, I decided to just turn the whole thing off before heading to the door.

"Lex? Lex I know you're in there." Emily's strained voice was chopped up by the frantic beat of her fist against the door. Sensing the panic in my friend's persistence, I picked up my pace and wrenched the door open to find an exhausted Emily.

"Emi, what happened?"

"I've been running around the whole city. You will not believe what I've seen."

Though I was keen to test that assertion, I could tell Emily was about to collapse. I guided her over to my sofa and then took a seat next to her. The hostess in me eventually kicked in and I offered to grab her a drink, but she waved it away. She appeared to be as eager to tell her story as I was to hear it.

"I've just been to the charity office." She took a few breaths to settle herself, while I felt my own breath picking up.

"What? That isn't horribly far from here, why the run around?"

"So impatient," she said with a tired smile. "It's not the same office that we've been to. It's in fact a good distance from here. It's downtown now. I thought Colin told you."

"He..." I tried to think back to the conversation we'd had in the office. "He did say they decided to move the headquarters. I guess I..."

"Forgot about it with other things going on." Emily looked at me with raised eyebrows, but they fell back down when I met her with an unwelcoming glare.

"Anyway," she said, with an apologetic twist of her lips, "he came by the office to tell you the address in case Mariska pounded you tomorrow, but since you were gone, he entrusted me with it. Of course the first thing I did when I found out there'd been a switch was to investigate."

"And?"

"I went to the new office first and it's a pretty location staffed with perky interns and furnished with new desks and chairs. There's even ficuses."

"H-how?"

"Money can do great things."

"Except resurrect the trash heap we saw," I pointed out.

"I went there next, there's not even tape residue to show where the original paper sign on the door was. It looks as vacant and overrun as before."

"No way," I said falling back into my couch cushion, letting the news sink in.

"I take it Colin also gave you the line about how Quinto goofed and they are now going to be better at getting involved in the financial decisions?"

"Yeah, but I still don't trust it. You?" I turned to look at Emily who wore a cynical smile. After a deep sigh lifted and lowered her shoulders, her eyes looked to the floor and a small frown darkened her face.

"Carmen got promoted."

"That's good, isn't it?" I asked, not certain how the two were related.

"She's happy enough with the relocation," she answered with a shrug, "but the transfer to a different department is a bit much for her."