before? There was something vaguely familiar about her photo, but he couldn’t quite place it.
Grabbing his phone, he decided to call the foundation once more and leave another voice mail. Once again, he was greeted by the beep.
“Hello, this is Joshua DeLong from Prescott George calling for Ms. Wright, again. As you know, The Aunt Penny Foundation has been chosen as the charity beneficiary for our annual fundraising gala this summer. As I stated in my previous voice mail, I have to go out of town this afternoon and therefore...” His voice trailed off as he realized why Becca looked so familiar. She looked exactly like Ms. Perkins. His horrible middle school principal. Although according to his research Becca was only twenty-eight years old, Josh had no doubt that his middle school principal—who was much older than Becca—had been dressed in the exact same shirt and cardigan, with the exact same hairdo and glasses, for one of their school pictures decades ago.
“We need to meet this morning,” Josh said, abruptly ending the call. He had definitely planned on leaving his cell phone number and a couple other details in his voice mail, but he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that Becca reminded him of the woman whose office was still etched in his memory, since Josh had always found himself in some type of trouble.
He obviously knew that he hadn’t been leaving a voice mail for Ms. Perkins, but the minute the realization had hit him, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling. Ms. Perkins was probably the meanest woman he’d ever met in his life, and that was saying a lot since Josh had met his fair share of unpleasant people.
“I couldn’t stand that lady,” he said aloud to no one but himself. “She made my childhood hell.” He shivered as he glanced at Becca’s photo once more. He could only hope that he wasn’t dealing with Ms. Perkins’s clone.
* * *
“Ten, nine, eight, seven...” Becca Wright tried her best to calm her rattled nerves as she shuffled through stacks of unruly papers and file folders on her desk. “Six, five, four, three, two, one.” She stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath. She’d been doing intervals of ten while trying to organize her desk for thirty minutes straight, then taking ten-second breaks in between.
Ever since the receptionist for The Aunt Penny Foundation suddenly quit last week, Becca had been under more stress than she’d ever been before. Usually she was great at multitasking and managing several projects simultaneously. However, the temporary receptionist that had arrived yesterday had spent more time chatting on the phone with her friends or stepping outside for cigarette breaks than actually doing the work she’d been hired to do.
“Stacy!” Becca yelled after her short break was over. “Where is the file for the incoming students who arrived yesterday?”
After several minutes, Stacy strolled around the corner, loudly smacking her gum. “Um, what do you expect from me? I just started a few days ago, so why would I know where it is?”
Becca rapidly blinked her eyes. Teenagers today... I’d never talk to my boss like that. “Well, yesterday your only project was to enter the information for the new students who just joined The Aunt Penny Foundation into our intranet. It was a simple job.”
Stacy gave her a blank stare.
Becca waved her hands in frustration. “Never mind. Just tell me where you put my messages. I’m expecting an important call.”
“Don’t you have a cell phone?”
“Yes,” Becca said through gritted teeth. “But not everyone has my cell phone number and it’s your job to answer the phone. I haven’t heard it ring off the hook for a while, so at least you’re doing that.”
“Oh no, I’m not.” Stacy flipped her long black hair over her shoulder. “I took it off the hook because I couldn’t hear my phone call over the loud ringing. A Jonathan Delaney kept calling.”
Becca went through a mental checklist of important calls she was expecting and couldn’t recall that name. Nor did she find it in her Rolodex.
“You know,” Stacy continued, “you should think about getting rid of the landline and only using your cell phone. No one uses landlines anymore. They don’t keep business cards, either. Everything is online now.”
Unbelievable. “I’m surprised you even know what a landline is.” Normally, Becca would have had some more choice words for the young woman, but for now, she just needed to check her calls. Haley was working offsite with a few students, which meant Becca had a lot to accomplish with zero help from the useless temp. She wanted to confirm her appointment tomorrow with the Prescott George representative she was scheduled to meet. What was his name again? She scrunched her forehead and snapped her fingers when it came to her. Joshua DeLong.
“Oh no,” Becca said as she rushed out of her office to the main desk. What are the odds that Jonathan Delaney is actually Joshua DeLong? She hoped her inkling was wrong, but given her week so far, she feared he was the one who’d called before Stacy had taken the phone off the hook.
The front desk was even more unorganized than hers was. She moved Stacy’s oversize book bag from the desk. After a little more digging, she finally found the phone and was able to listen to the messages. She skipped a few until she heard the deep, silky voice of a man who introduced himself as Joshua DeLong. He’d called twice and the last abrupt voice mail he’d left was from an hour ago.
“Stacy!” Becca yelled again. And yet again, Stacy took her sweet time strolling to the front desk. “Don’t you remember me mentioning yesterday that I was expecting an important call from Joshua DeLong? Did you even stop to think that maybe you heard his name wrong when he called?”
“Oh, that explains it,” Stacy said, nodding her head. “He sounded even more annoyed during his last voice mail.”
“You listened to his messages and didn’t tell me?”
Instead of responding, Stacy just shrugged and walked away. Becca jotted down the number Joshua left and called him back.
“Hello, this is Joshua DeLong.”
“Mr. DeLong, it’s Becca Wright with The Aunt Penny Foundation. I want to apologize for not receiving your voice mails until now.”
“It’s quite all right. I still have a couple hours before I have to go to the airport. Can you meet today?”
“Sure, just name the place and time.” Meeting Mr. DeLong today as opposed to tomorrow was a bit of an inconvenience, but the foundation needed the assistance of Prescott George so rearranging her schedule was a necessity.
“So I’m meeting you at the Southern Royal Yacht Club in South Beach?” Becca was a little taken aback by the location. One had to be a member to even enter the gate of the high-class boutique marina. Members included the rich, famous and elite.
“Yes. I’ll meet you at the clubhouse gate entrance. And in case you have any apprehensions, rest assured that you’ll be fine. We Royal yachtees get a bad rep since we’re so exclusive, but we’re just regular people.”
Yeah, right. “Okay, not a problem. I can be there in forty minutes.” She ended the call a little less frazzled than she’d been before. She was sure Mr. DeLong was unaware of her upbringing since she rarely discussed her family’s social or financial status in interviews. However, she knew exactly what type of members frequented the Southern Royal Yacht Club and regular
