LOVING THE HEAD MAN by Katherine Cachitorie

for this, but I need a favor.  A really big favor.”   She said this and then looked intensely at him, to gauge his reaction. 
       A clouded look did come across his face, maybe even a look of disappointment, she thought, but he rallied quickly and maintained eye contact with her.  “A favor?”
       “Yes, sir.”
       “What sort of favor?”
       Bree inhaled, tried her best to control her warring emotions.  “Could you lend me some money?” 
       She asked it with bitterness in her voice, a tone she hadn’t wanted to take, and again she stared at him to gauge his reaction. 
       If there was one, he was adept at hiding it.  “You need money?” he asked her.
       “Yes, sir.”
       He studied her.  “A personal matter I take it?”
       Bree nodded.  “Yes, sir.”
       There was a pause in his manners, what seemed like a kind of momentary correction in his mind.  But then he sat his glasses and the papers in his lap onto the table in front of them, and rose and began walking toward his desk.  “How much?” he asked as he walked.
       Bree exhaled.  This was the crazy part.  “Ten thousand dollars,” she said with great pain in her voice, angry with her mother for forcing her into this kind of position and potentially ruining her future in the process.  And she kept her eyes on Robert’s reaction.
       His walk slowed as soon as she announced the amount, and he glanced back at her, but he kept on walking.  He went behind his desk, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a large checkbook.  There was another hesitation, as if he was wavering, Bree thought, but then he began writing the check. 
       Bree, feeling relieved and awful at the same time, stood and walked toward his desk.  She could hardly believe he didn’t interrogate her, didn’t demand to know why. 
       “You aren’t in court today?” she asked him, leaning against his desk, attempting to normalize an anything-but-normal situation.  The idea that she’d ask for and receive ten thousand dollars from this man, from any man, without him forcing her to tell the full reason and thereby indict her own mother, astonished her.  She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. 
       He tore the check out of the book, walked around his desk, and handed it to her.  She looked at the check, a check written on his personal bank account, not Colgate’s, and looked back up at him.  Love, gratitude, and anguish were mixed up together in her troubled eyes.
       “Thank-you,” she said, heartfelt.
       “You’re welcome.”
       “You don’t know how much this means to me.” 
       This pronouncement of hers seemed to make Robert uncomfortable. He crossed his arms and leaned against the edge of his desk.  “No problem,” he said.
       “I’ll pay you back every single dime.”
       “Sure,” he said almost snappishly, as if she was overdoing it and it was beginning to annoy him.  Bree had at first thought he was taking it very well.  Now she knew better.
       “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t really need it.”
       Robert nodded, as if conceding the point.  “I know you wouldn’t have,” he said tenderly this time and Bree didn’t know what to make of him.  He seemed annoyed with her on the one hand, and powerfully concerned about her on the other.  This was tough. 
       “Don’t you want to know why I need it?” she decided to ask him.  He was entitled to an explanation.  She had fully expected to give one.
       Robert thought about this.  “I’m sure it’s for a good reason or, as you said, you wouldn’t have asked.”
       Bree smiled.  He was still on her side, after all.  “Thank-you, sir.   Thank-you so much.”   As she turned to leave, however, she remembered her additional