Vital Signs

Part 19

A few blocks from home, I steer my car to the curb. I read Brenna's extremely brief email again. I take a deep breath. This could be bad. Really bad. I call.

Her phone rings. I'm about to end the call when I hear her voice.

"Phil?"

"Uh, yeah. It's me. Hi, Brenna."

No response.

"I wasn't sure if you meant to call you now or to call some other time."

"Now's fine," she says icily.

"Good. Okay."

I take another deep breath hoping she'll take the reins of the conversation. But she doesn't. I guess I should say something. Do I just blurt out the Trollamex Tiger's Teeth situation? She doesn't seem to be in the mood for chit-chat. I'm suffering caller's remorse. I'm grateful when she finally ends the silence, despite her cynical tone of voice.

"So, Phil. What advice do you need from me on a corporate matter? A little vague, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I wasn't sure how..."

"How's Jillian?"

"She's great. Really great."

I'm not expecting Brenna to inquire about her sister and I'm right. She doesn't.

"So about that corporate matter."

"Well, at Dunning and Brannigan, the PR firm where I used to work... I guess that's not really important. Anyway, we had this client that seemed unethical at first..."

"An unethical corporate client? I'm shocked!" Her sarcasm practically oozes through the phone.

"I know, right? But the deeper I got into their background and their business practices, the more disturbing stuff I uncovered."

"Stuff?"

"Information."

This is a mistake. I should have never sent the email and made the subsequent call.

"Well, my advice would be to quit," she says.

"I've already done that. But they know I have damaging information about them and I think, no, I know that they're coming after me to shut me down."

"Are you asking me about how to protect yourself?"

"No. I don't know what to do. Next. I mean with the information."

"You want my advice?"

"Yes."

"Let it go. Drop it. Go get yourself another nice cushy PR job and get on with your idyllic suburban life."

Geez. What part of that wasn't rude?

"I can't do that, Brenna."

"You asked for my advice. That's my advice."

"Listen. This is big. And important. I'm talking about a huge company that manufactured a dangerous product that hurt a lot of people. And even killed people."

No reaction? None. I'm not sure if she's still on the other end of the call.

"Brenna? I don't know what to do."

"Are you serious about doing this?"

"Of course I am."

"I mean are you willing to get down in the mud with these people? Pull hair, bite, gouge eyeballs?"

"Honestly, I'm probably not up for gouging eyeballs."

"Can you take a punch? A kick in the--"

"--Whatever it takes. I can't let Troll--"