“Mr. Preston?” she called as she opened the door and stepped in. There was a huge stain on the rug on which the coffee table was placed and shattered glass was littered all around. She noticed that the cup Paige was carrying out earlier was not the only thing to have broken, all that was left of the coffee table was the wooden stand, the glass top was also broken, pieces of it laying around the wooden stand.
She wondered what might have pissed him off to cause him to carry out his frustration on the table and innocent Paige who had been caught in the crossfire. But then it hit her, she had brought coffee to him, Keith never took coffee, maybe that was a trigger. She should have warned Paige about that.
She straightened up and her mind cleared of all thoughts when he turned to her. She swallowed and tried not to show fear but the death look in his eyes was undeniable.
Keith spun to face her, the anger in his facial expression caused her heart to beat irregularly for a moment but she was quick to regain her composure. She knew to keep a straight face and not smile when he was in a fit, it was like a survival tip.
“You’re late Donna. Again.” he turned away from her. “I only set a few rules for you and one of them is that you don’t come to work late, how difficult is that to maintain?!”
She shook at the sudden rise in his voice. “I apologize but my car broke down last night so I had to hitch a ride coming to work this morning.”
He faced her now, the anger in his expression died down a bit and his eyebrows furrowed in question. “Broke down? How? It gets serviced every month, doesn’t it? And the month had barely gone half, so how did it break down?”
“I don’t… it…” she didn’t know how to reply to him as she also could not find a reason why it would break down, she knew nothing about cars except how to drive them. “It just parked up on my way home by the side of the road last night.”
“Where is the car now?” he asked.
“Still parked by the side of the road, I called in a tow but they haven’t gotten back to me yet.”
He hummed and turned away from her. She stood rooted to the spot, she knew he was upset and wanted to ask why but she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth. The events of what had happened last night with the lady came to her memory and she wanted to let him know, she wondered if it was a safe idea to tell him, in his current state he might do something worse to the woman and if she was not put away, Donna was sure she would come back for her.
She shook her head, she should just keep this to herself.
“You haven’t seen the morning news yet, have you?” he asked her, she shook her head and voiced out a “no”. he sighed and took a seat on the couch, he seemed to have calmed down and Donna was glad that he had at least no one would be getting fired now.
“The issue…” he began but went quiet when his phone rang. He groaned and fished it out from his suit pocket, one look at the caller ID and he sat up straight like a hot needle had gone into his back. He slid on the answer button.
“Go for Keith.” he tensed up. “No, that’s alright… all of them?… oh, I see, any problem doc?… I know, you have said that numerous times, is there really nothing else you can try?… whatever it would take, whatever the cost… but people get out of that, don’t they?… then find me that miracle!…” he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, bringing his hand to rest at the back of his neck.
“…are the boys there with you?… in the same room right now… no, let them stay… what did you say…?”
he sprang up from the couch. A smile came to his face but only lasted briefly. “…that has to mean something, right?… I’m on my way… thanks.” he ended the call.
“Mr. Preston?” Donna called as she watched him walk over the broken shards of glass on the rug to get to his desk, the pieces crunching underneath his shoes, he snatched up his other phone and turned to make for the door, brushing past Donna like she was not there. He had somewhere to get to in a hurry.
Donna followed after him. “Mr. Preston!”
He paused in his tracks when he was out of his office and in hers then turned to her, pointing at her with the phone in his hand. “I’m leaving now and won’t be coming back today, reschedule all my appointments for today to some other convenient time but not tomorrow.”
She nodded in understanding and watched him run out of her office, she was curious to know what the call was about that would make him rush out of the office as he did not seem like one to rush in all her years of working for him. She was curious but she knew that was where it ended, she had no right to ask him and he had no obligation to her to tell her.
She sighed and went to her seat behind the desk, picked up the phone to call cleaning so they could clean up the glass in his office, and then replace the rug and the coffee table. She turned to her computer after the call, since Keith was not going to be in today, she really didn’t have any need to stay, she would reschedule his appointments for today and tomorrow to another convenient day as he had ordered, wait until the cleaning was done and then call up the tow company to move her car to the repair shop.
She would go home much earlier today to spend some time with her family, it was a good thing Alix was not going to school today, she had missed out on spending some quality time with her daughter.