Elliot’s alarm was blaring in his room, but the intended user was out cold. The music shut off for exactly eight minutes before playing again, even louder this time.
“Mngf,” Elliot moved a tiny inch.
The music grew louder.
Elliot’s eyes shot open and they shot back closed so tightly that a bulldozer wouldn’t be able to part them. The pounding headache in his head was too strong. Elliot wanted to stay in bed and nothing to do with life, but the music’s volume only increased, so he had to force himself up to shut the alarm off.
He rubbed his groggy eyes and chugged what remained of the glass of water next to his bed. Rubbing his face, he tried to remember what had happened the night before, but the last thing he could think of was the shot he had taken with Wesley and the two sisters.
Yawning and stretching he checked his phone for the time when he saw that he had three missed calls from his favorite client, William Frances. There was no voicemail, though, so Elliot dragged his feet into the bathroom and pulled two aspirins from the medicine cabinet.
The pills took about half an hour to really kick in by which time Elliot had showered and eaten a waffle. He plopped himself onto the sofa and pulled out his phone to see what William had wanted with him.
“Yellow,” the voice answered. “This is William.”
“Hey, this is Eli.” His voice was croaky and deep, so he cleared his throat and began again. “This is Elliot Quentin. I’m just returning a call.”
“Quentin!” William’s voice sounded of pure annoyance bordering on outright anger. “Where the hell were you? I called at least fifteen times!”
“Three,” Elliot thought to himself. “I’m sorry, I was… contacting a server host for something about the website,” he lied to William.
“Well that’s why I’m calling. This website you sent me is unacceptable!”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with it?”
“Well,” William raised his voice to convey his displeasure. “For one, it looks like my three year old nephew could make a better one!”
Elliot sighed. “I highly doubt that William, but tell me something more specific and I can see what I can do.”
“Fine. There’s only two links on the whole site, and it barely has any information about our campaign!”
Elliot closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “William, I know.”
“You know!?” He was shouting so loud now that Elliot had to hold the receiver a few inches from his ear.
Calmly, more due to his desire not to exacerbate his headache than any hope of civility, Elliot tried to explain that they had agreed on a provisional site temporarily until the final version was completed.
“It’s not the site I want!”
Elliot gave up trying to be calm. “I know! You agreed that this would be fine to make sure you had something for the deadline! The full site will be ready in a week!”
“Oh, why didn’t you just say so?” William sang in his usual manner.
Elliot was ready to punch something, but he clenched his teeth to stop himself from doing something he might regret. “I did, but since you want to see the full site I can get you a preview of it.” He rubbed his temples as he had grown accustomed to doing when talking to the executive. “It won’t be visible to anyone but you until it’s done, so don’t be surprised if no one else has this version on their screens.”
“Okay.”
Elliot quickly turned on his computer and sent the temporary link to William.
“Hmm…” the client expressed when he had seen the work in progress. “I hate the idea of clicking so many times on a website to get the info you want. Can you just put everything on one page?”
“I can put the major headlines as one flowing page, but the interviews and testimonials and photos that you said were mandatory to include would make it too cluttered.”
“Are you sure you can’t just put everything there? I think more people would read it if it was there.”
“Actually, people tend to avoid reading or clicking on lengthy and cluttered home pages. Your site traffic would drop because of it. It’s pretty standard for the home page to just act like hub so you can get to everything else in one click.”
“Hmm, okay. Can my site just have two home pages then? That way everything would be on them.”
“Um…” Elliot was in no mood to argue or explain the ridiculousness of the request so he pretended to humor the idea. “Alright, I’ll see what works the best.No promises though.”
“Great. Oh, by the way, I need this done by tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yes, tomorrow night.”
“That’s even before the original deadline you gave me for the provisional site!”
“Well, we moved our schedule ahead. If you can’t do it, we can just get someone else. I won’t be paying you though.”
Elliot pulled some of his hair before taking a deep breath. The contract had clearly stated that Elliot would receive pay if the client was the one that cancelled before the deadline, but he had a feeling the trouble of actually getting the money would drive him crazy. Not wanting to have to chase down the payment again, he said he would do what he could.
“You do your work on a computer right?”
Elliot was confused by the question. “Yeah. Of course.”
“So just push a button. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
Elliot hung up without another word.
* * *
Wesley entered the school grounds for the first time in over a week, but he was not allowed anywhere besides the parking lot. Edward had gone against the wishes of the school board and set up a press conference in the hopes of clearing his name. There were a couple vans from local news networks preparing to record and interview Wesley and get his side of the story. They had already talked to Avery’s mother as well Avery who had barged in on the stage to say his mind. The news crews had not wanted to air the alleged victim of an assault case against a minor, but with the boy’s brazen attitude, it was sure to end up on screen.
Wesley made his way to the stage where Edward was quietly speaking to Bolt. “It’ll be cleared out before the classes let out. Don’t worry, the school board will back me when they realize it was all a misunderstanding.”
“I mean I don’t think the boy did it either, but do you really want to stake your career on that? Edward, you should think about what you’re doing.”
Wesley came up to the two men, who immediately stopped talking. “Wesley, my boy.” Edward said, sticking his hand out to shake before pulling it back and hoping the news reporters had not seen him being too friendly with his employee. He cleared his throat. “They’ll want you at that van for makeup and then we’ll have you on stage for the interview. Don’t worry it won’t take long.”
Wesley looked at the small van where they would prepare him for the stage and walked over. He could sense the stares that the press workers were giving him behind his back, but to his face it was all smiles and cheers.
Once they had applied the light powder and adjusted the lighting on the small podium that passed for a stage, the interview began.
“Mr. Holter, can you tell us what happened in your own words?” one reporter asked.
Wesley stated what he had told everyone at the school many times over being careful not to mention Avery or his mother by name. They had already ascertained who the child was, but Wesley had no intention of being vilified as the one who gave that information away.
“So you deny all allegations?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“What about the well-known fact that the child has had a long-standing crush on you?” a different reporter inquired this time.
Wesley was taken aback. He didn’t know where they had gotten such a wild idea, but then he remembered that the boy’s mother had said something of the sort the night of the incident. “I had no knowledge of this crush, and I am pretty sure it wasn’t a ‘well-known’ fact like you are making it out to be?”
“So are you saying that all the sources that swear it was common knowledge are lying?”
“What? No! I mean, yeah! I had no idea that he liked me in that way.”
“What about the boy’s own admission that he had feelings for you?” a third reporter asked.
Wesley stood scratching his head. He didn’t realize that Avery had had such well-known feeling for him, and he was now beginning to think Edward had made a mistake by bringing the case to the attention of the local media. “I had no idea.”
“So when he would volunteer for every extracurricular activity with you in it, you are saying that you had no chance to find a few moments alone together? No one around or there to make sure nothing was going on?” the original reporter asked.
Wesley knew he couldn’t account for every moment that he had spent with his most active student, but he couldn’t believe they would use such underhanded tactics to try and force their angle. “What? No! I mean, what?” Wesley looked over at Edward and Bolt with a plea to save him from the twisted words.
Edwards bolted onto the stage and took the mic from Wesley. “That will be all the questions we have time for. Please try to keep the noise down as classes are still in session. Thank you!” He covered the mic, and apologized to Wesley for the disrespectful manner they had conducted the interview. “I think you should just head home. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
Wesley nodded and sullenly sped to his car amidst the flashes of the reporters’ cameras before driving back home.