“And if you’ll just sign right there, I’ll let you be on your way.”
Topaz pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and waited for the driver to sign next to the X marked on the sheet. Her gaze glided across the warehouse that was gradually clearing. Movers had been arriving in a steady stream since well before dawn. Topaz had managed to sell off what remained of her inventory. Thankfully much of her stock was kept in a warehouse across town and had not been damaged in the fire that destroyed her shop. As movers shipped off the products to their new owners, Topaz ordered herself to stifle the urge to cry.
“Topaz! Hey, Topaz!”
“Thanks,” Topaz whispered to the driver as he returned her clipboard. Turning in the direction of the yelling, she looked toward the office level located several floors above.
“You got a visitor!” the warehouse manager announced.
“Thanks, Reggie!” she yelled back, already climbing the creaky staircase.
“Clifton?” Topaz was saying when she arrived from the ground floor. Surprise registered in her eyes.
“Hey, Topaz,” Clif greeted warmly as he took both her hands in a firm shake. “Looks like things are clearing out.”
“Yeah,” Topaz sighed, looking over the ledge toward the lower level, “it was almost too easy sellin’ off all that inventory.”
Clifton nodded as he watched forklifts and cranes doing their jobs. “You deserve some easiness after everything you been through.”
Topaz watched the busy scene a while longer, then took a long breath. “So what’s on your mind? I know this isn’t a social visit?”
“It’s Xan,” Clif replied, his eyes still riveted below.
“Is he all right?” Topaz asked without hesitation. She took a seat in the nearest chair she could find and waited for him to continue.
Clif ’s hand tightened over the edge of the railing as he continued to look down. “He’s all right physically—mentally is what I’m worried about.”
“What’s happened?”
“He’s on some kind of power trip, Topaz. I don’t know,” Clif sighed, turning to lean against the rail and fold his arms across his chest. “Everyone at the paper’s scared to walk within two feet of him. He’s snapping at everyone, for everything. He fired half the advertising team over nothing. Some have even said they’d rather be unemployed than work for him.”
Topaz’s light eyes widened as she listened—part of her stunned, part of her not believing a word. “This is Alex we’re talking about?” she softly inquired.
Clif responded with a smirk, “It’s all true. I swear.”
“Why’d you come to see me, Clif?”
“I figured you’d know.”
“I do,” she admitted, her eyes lowering to the oil-stained concrete floor, “but I think it’s best to leave things the way they are between Alex and me.”
“How can you say that after what I just told you? You know the man’s history and how damaging this behavior can be for him.”
Topaz sat nodding. “Clif, believe me, seeing Alex would do more harm than good.”
Clif shook his head.
“Besides, this could very well be something that’ll pass.” Topaz tried to convince Clif—and herself. “I’ve never known Alex to be harsh with friends and especially not with people who work for him. He’ll come to his senses soon enough.”
Clif could see that Topaz had her mind set and he deflated a little. “I pray you’re right,” he sighed and moved away from the railing. “I pray you’re right, ’cause I can only go off what I see, Topaz, and the way Alex is goin’ ...” He took a deep breath and headed for the exit doors. “I need to go, but I hope you’ll change your mind,” he said as he stepped past her.
“All right, everybody, be serious now. I have something to say,” Topaz called, trying to keep her voice somewhat light as she tried to get the group’s attention.
“You not our boss anymore, does that mean we have to listen?”
“Yes,” Topaz pointedly replied, fixing Stacy Merchants with a firm look before she burst into laughter.
Former proprietor and personnel of Top E Towing and Mechanical met at a local seafood house that Friday for lunch. The meal was Topaz’s treat and the guys couldn’t have been more pleased to attend.
“Okay, y’all,” Topaz sighed, while reclining in her cushioned ladder-back chair. “This is a celebration meal, but it’s also a good-bye,” she said, watching the men nod, their expressions growing solemn. “The inventory’s been sold and shipped out and all the papers have been signed,” she continued.
“That’s all good news, isn’t it, Paz?”
She smiled. “It’s very good news, Claude,” she told one of her brakemen. “But I still want to know what you all think about this,” she urged, her gaze growing a tad apprehensive. “My decision to sell kind of came out of the blue. And with the fire and everything ... it’s like you guys had a job one day and then the next ...”
“Topaz, I think I can speak for everybody here when I say none of that shit was your fault,” Darryl Groves was saying as he leaned closer to the table. “Yeah, things did happen in a messed-up way, but I for one am five figures richer and I ain’t ’bout to complain,” he said, earning a round of nods and voiced agreements from his former coworkers.
The lunch orders arrived and the food was as enjoyable as the conversation. Everyone spoke on their plans for the future, and Topaz was teased when she shared her thoughts on beginning a farm. The guys warned her of the risk involved, but Topaz wasn’t easy to sway. She told them about Salamine Sentron, who’d owned the restaurant on Briarcliff. Salamine was thinking of returning to the business and thought it would be quite a selling point to boast that all the restaurant’s ingredients were exclusive products of its own local farm.
“... prime example of what I’m talking about is right on page one-A. This is clearly a story that belongs on page five-A—as a sidebar.”
Alex sat only a few tables away from where Topaz enjoyed lunch with her crew. The QC Happening meeting, however, was far less lively. This time, the editorial department had fallen victim to what had become known as the “publisher’s hot seat.”
