Dead Certain

broken, but the price of error is invariably steep. I asked Jeff if he needed help on anything, and he answered no. It took every ounce of self-discipline I had to take him at his word.
    As I walked past Cheryl’s desk she shot out of her seat and began gesturing wildly.
    “Don’t go in there!” she exclaimed, pointing at my office door, which was closed.
    “Why not?” I demanded.
    “Your mother is in there!”
    “Oh, my god,” I groaned, collapsing dramatically over the top of Cheryl’s cubicle in self-pity. “What’s she doing here? What does she want?”
    “I don’t know. But right now she’s in there interviewing another secretarial candidate.”
    “I don’t believe you,” I said, making a half-hearted attempt to pull out my hair. “You’re making this up just to torment me.”
    “No such luck. Apparently you never told Mrs. Goodlow that you would be unavailable this afternoon, so she went ahead and scheduled you to interview a job candidate.”
    “So what’s this one like?”
    “I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him. But he and your mother seem to have really hit it off.”
    “He?” I demanded, straightening myself up.
    “Three strikes, remember? By the way, have you seen Jeff? I saw him in the elevator, and he looked like he was about to throw up.”
    “What did I look like the first time I coordinated a closing?” I asked.
    “As I recall, you actually did throw up a couple of times,” conceded my secretary.
    “Believe me, you will, too.”
    “Okay, Ms. Tough-Guy, you’d better go in there and talk to your mommy before she comes out here and kills us both.”
    “How do I look?” I asked, giving my hair an ineffectual pat.
    “Approximately the same color as Jeff,” replied my secretary, as I squared my shoulders and prepared to face the music.
     
    I found my mother sitting next to an extremely handsome and well-groomed young man on the leather couch in my office. Their heads were close together, and they were both laughing. Eventually they noticed that I was there, and the man who wanted to be my secretary rose quickly to his feet. He was wearing a charcoal suit tailored to the swooning point, an immaculately pressed white shirt with French cuffs, and a Hermes silk tie. His wing tips had been buffed to a military sheen, as were his fingernails. His teeth were perfect.
    I knew immediately that there had to be something wrong with him. Either that, or Cheryl was wrong about Mrs. Goodlow and her three-strikes rule, and in my experience Cheryl was never wrong.
    “Kate, I’d like you to meet Tim Lovesy,” declared my mother, as I shook hands with Mrs. Goodlow’s latest offering. “He and I have just had the most amusing chat while we were waiting for you to get here.”
    “I’m very pleased to meet you,” he said.
    At least I knew that he spoke English. Maybe the problem was that he was illiterate.
    I murmured something in reply, completely thrown off guard by the highly presentable Mr. Lovesy.
    “I’m sure the two of you will get along famously,” my mother assured him, beaming.
    “You mean, provided she wants to give me the job,” he replied.
    “Oh, nonsense,” declared Mother. “Of course she’s giving you the job. If you can’t trust your mother’s judgment in these things, who else can you possibly trust?”
     
    As Cheryl took Tim back to Mrs. Goodlow’s office to discuss salary and benefits, I told myself that it was all just a bad dream. With any luck, I’d wake up in my own warm bed, ready to start the day all over again. My mother took a seat in the wing chair that visitors sat in, and crossed her ankles gracefully as she launched into a litany of Mr. Lovesy’s charms. I listened in utter amazement, wondering what on earth my mother was up to.
    “So what brings you to the office?” I asked, as soon as she paused for a breath.
    “Well, I’ve been doing some thinking about this whole Prescott Memorial mess,” she replied lightly. “I think perhaps we’ve been overreacting.”
    “Don’t even think about it,” I cut her off, suddenly understanding the motive for her charm.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, somewhat taken aback.
    “Yes, you do. You came here to tell me that you’ve changed your mind, didn’t you? They’ve sued, and now you want to get out of it!”
    “I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that,” she declared. “They’ve raked up all those horrible old stories about