By the time Imogen, dishevelled, roused by the alarm, and properly dissatisfied with the night of restless sleep, was down to the kitchen, the Mayor was already gone. Imogen made breakfast, woke up the children, and the usual morning phantasmagory began.
At the end she only had about ten minutes of peace, when all four little mouths were occupied with eggs and toast. Imogen took a giant sip of her coffee and leaned back in the chair. Her eyes roamed the cork board on the wall, where the fastidious Mrs. Lewis had all sorts of pieces of paper pinned neatly in rows with identical little pins. Among the bills, receipts, and magazine cut outs, Imogen noticed something most fascinating.
"Philip," she addressed the older son of the Headmistress, "that drawing on the wall, the small one, with a fox and a canary - who drew this?"
The boy glanced and answered, after swallowing the mouthful of his brekkie, "Mrs. Roberts, the cleaning lady. She always doodles. She makes cards for holidays, like Christmas. And she used to leave us funny pictures of book characters. And she always draws foxes, loves them I reckon."
The boy went back to the food, and Imogen rose and walked up to the board.
Her eyes ran the lines of the drawing. It was made with a ballpen, whatever the cleaning lady had had under her hand probably. The fox was drawn mid-jump, and a wreath of leaves and branches was weaved around it. The lines were precise, confident, and astonishingly good for a rushed doodle of an amateur.
Imogen tilted her head, and thought very very hard. In seven seconds she was absolutely certain that she had seen exactly this unique manner of mixing hatching and stippling, and exactly this unusual depiction of the fox's muzzle and tail - and in two sets of circumstances. Firstly, she'd walked by a very similar fox, for many years in a row, in a large linocut displayed on the second floor of the Fleckney Woulds Comprehensive, in the Headmistress' wing hall dedicated to the sole exhibition of the 'school's most talented and accomplished graduate' Mrs. Patricia Fitzroy.
And secondly, a smaller version of the same drawing, in China ink and watercolours had been hung on the wall of the aforementioned Mrs. Fitzroy's 'Trophy Room' - and had been probably 'bagged' as an evidence in the investigation of her murder.
"Imogen, I think we're late for school," Kathy said behind Imogen's back, shaking her out of her thoughts.
Imogen looked at the clock on the wall, gasped, and dashed back to the table. They were indeed late.
***
When she arrived to the Town Hall, after leaving Brian and Killian with the sitter, and dropping off the older kids at school, the Mayor's door was closed, and she could hear his lower voice behind it.
"What's happening, Imogen?" Mrs. Harris hissed, her eyes jumping to the mayoral office. "He hasn't come out from there, and I think I've heard him growl. I've never seen him like that..."
Imogen chewed her bottom lip.
"Has he had coffee?" she asked.
Mrs. Harris shook her head, her curled bleached hair thrashing around her head.
"No! He hasn't asked for anything! And he's pacing inside, see?"
Mrs. Harris pointed at the shelf on the wall that had been famous for the folders wobbling on it whenever someone was stomping inside the office too enthusiastically.
Imogen took a measured breath and went to the coffee table. She made an extra large cup, with extra sugar and cream, picked up a plate with a few pastries, and went into the lion's den.
Except, her trip was short and unsuccessful. Once she knocked and stuck her head inside, the Mayor - one hand pressing his mobile to his ear, another stuck deep in his ruffled curls - glared at her, and indeed growled, "Not now, Ms. Fox!"
Imogen backed off, slowly went back to the table, and carefully placed the cup down.
"We have those monthly reports to finish, Mrs. Harris," she said in a dull voice. "I'll start on the draft. Will you please pull up the last month's template?"
"But what is..." Mrs. Harris started, but quickly closed her mouth after a look at Imogen's, no doubt, stone face. "I'll print the template," the woman said quietly and minced to her desk.
Imogen sat down at her table, smoothed her skirt, and turned on her computer. While the dinosaur was warming up, loading with the sounds similar to a donkey's cough, she just breathed. After all, she only had herself to blame. The hurt she was currently feeling, the profound sense of abandonment, and the pain of rejection and being dismissed - she would have considered such sentiments silly and superfluous were she just the Mayor's assistant. Had she not started an affair with the man and hadn't she fallen in love with him like the daftest of them cows - she wouldn't be staring at the jolly picture of hedgehogs on her desktop through the fog of tears welling in her eyes.
***
She spoke with the Mayor only once through the whole day. He barked at her through the intercom commanding her to cancel all his meetings for that day. She answered 'Yes, sir,' and the line was dead even before she managed to ask him whether he wanted takeaway ordered for his lunch. Imogen stared at the cursed gizmo, breathed in and out couple times, and went back to her typing.
The day ended. Mrs. Harris left, after whispering a goodbye and throwing a terrified look at the Mayor's door. Imogen, sadly, lacked the luxury of doing the same. She was supposed to go to the Headmistress' house. The children were already there, and the sitter needed to be relieved. Mrs. Lewis was probably cooking the dinner. And finally, the Mayor was Imogen's lift there.
She turned off her computer, picked up her handbag, and walked to his office door. She knocked, but no answer followed.
"Mr. Oakby?" Imogen opened the door and peeked. "Mr. Oakby?"
The Mayor was sitting at his desk, typing furiously.
"Please, take a cab," he grumbled, his eyes on the screen of his stylish laptop.
"Pardon?"
"To my sister's house. Take a cab. I have some emails to finish."
He looked poorly. Imogen suddenly remembered that he hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day, with the exception of some water, judging by the empty bottle on the corner of his table.
For the first time in her life Imogen was faced with three contradicting urges, equally strong, pronounced, and uncomfortable to deal with. The first one was to be Mops Fox, the mousy secretary of the town's mayor. Mops Fox would withdraw, go where she was told to go, and see nothing wrong about it.
On the other hand, there was somewhere inside of her the new Imogen Fox, the woman in love and - which she kept reminding herself to stop obsessing about - 'the woman he loved.' The man was clearly in trouble, and distressed, and something awful had happened - and she felt so terribly sorry for him! He was indeed pushing her away, and it didn't even come to his head to share the aggravation, or at least seek some emotional support - but he was just as new in this as she was! Maybe, he just didn't know he could! Ninety percent of Imogen's being wanted to rush to him, and wrap her arms around him, and stroke his hair, and ask what she could do.
And then there was the third notion brewing in her. Imogen felt tentatively... offended. This Imogen, a very small one, was 'the second in command in the town;' and it was just as much her business to know if some calamity had befallen Fleckney Woulds just as it was the Mayor's.
The little bossy Imogen Fox also suspected that the Mayor's current state had to do with the papers his Father had given him, and consequently with the bypass they were now building. And that was a town matter; and the one she had participated in from the start. And the Imogen Fox needed information.
Imogen walked out of the office and picked up the phone. She ordered food, made coffee, assembled a tray, and went back to the Mayor. She didn't knock, doubting he'd notice anyway.
She put the food, the coffee, and two water bottles in front of him. He still didn't look up.
"Mr. Oakby, you need to eat." Her tone was grumpier than she expected, but again, the man wouldn't care. "I'm leaving to the house," she said. "I assume you aren't coming."
She stared at the top of his head, until he finally stirred and shook his head, once again without stopping his pestilential typing.
"Then have a good night," she said. "And tomorrow morning I expect your report on what is happening and what you're doing about it."
The pause hung. And then he finally heard her. The long fingers stopped moving, and he slowly turned and looked at her. She told the emotional, enamoured ninety percent of herself to stop pitying the man and lamenting the purple shadows under his sunken eyes, and the yellowish tinge to the skin. She nonetheless had to fist her hand to stop them from stretching towards him.
"Pardon?" the Mayor rasped out.
"You have one more evening and one night of panicking, and roaring, and being the alpha male. And tomorrow we will look into the issue together."
She expected the Mayor to be shocked, if not suddenly and pleasantly stricken by how confident and capable she was showing herself - but instead of a slacking jaw and loved up eyes she saw the said eyes narrow and the said jaw set.
"Ms. Fox, it's not the time for this," he gritted through his teeth. "I have a crisis to deal with."
And that was when the little bossy Imogen rebelled and took over.
"I'm aware of it, sir, though that seems to be the limit of what I know. And that won't do. So, tomorrow, you either tell me what we are dealing with..." She took a sharp breath in. "... or I quit."
She then turned on her heels and marched out of his office.