Drama From Square One – Chapter Three

Author's Notes: This is a shorter chapter, but I have the next one ready to go. This was the only logical place I could stop the series of events. The next chapter will be a bit longer and deal with more. Hope you like it!

Every bone in her body ached when Charlotte woke up the next morning. A stabbing pain pounded in all corners of her skull; she'd never had such a terrible headache. As she stepped out of bed, the bottom of her foot landed on an empty bottle of whiskey and she fell back onto the mattress. "Damn it," she muttered, standing up and kicking the bottle under the bed.

The only thing she wanted to do was throw up and die, but she was an hour late for a meeting and her conscience compelled her to get dressed and stare at herself in the mirror for a few minutes as a formality. Then she jumped in the taxi she had just called, practically shouted out the address of her office, and heaved from the lurch of the car when the driver took off.

"All right guys, I'm here," Charlotte announced, stepping into the meeting room and forcing a grin. About a dozen of her employees were sitting around a large table and staring at her. "Sorry I'm late. I slept in. Shall we get started?"

No one said anything. Irene, Charlotte's most-loathed employee and her secretary, smirked behind her hand and threw an eye roll at her best friend Susan. Jeff, who Charlotte loved very much at the moment, piped in with, "Sure!"

After the meeting from hell, Charlotte still felt like hell, so she visited the bathroom and spent the next five minutes throwing up. As she left her stall, she noticed Irene standing against the wall watching her.

"Rough night?" she asked in a surprisingly friendly manner.

"Yeah," Charlotte answered with a laugh, and went to splash her face with cold water. She was about to ask her how the new newspaper ads were coming along when Irene broke in with,

"Oh, I almost forgot, someone called for you this morning. A man."

Charlotte frowned. "A customer?"

Irene shook her head. "I forget what he said his name was. He was a doctor, though. Deep voice."

"Did you write his name down?" Charlotte asked almost frantically, and was met with a head shake from Irene. "What did he want?" She stared Irene in the face.

"Don't know. Said he'd call back. He wanted you, that's all I can remember." She disappeared into a stall and Charlotte let out a silent scream and pretended to pull out her own hair. Oh, she was so fired.

The next day, waltzing into work feeling almost worse than she had the day before, she began to wonder why the hell Frasier would call her. Maybe something terrible had happened with his family, or his health. Or maybe he was in town wanted to meet with her. Even though she knew that would be a bad idea, her heart still jumped at thought of seeing him.

From outside her office she heard Irene (who was still working for Charlotte despite her sheer incompetence) saying, presumably to someone on the phone, "Of course she's in, yup, I'll link you."

Her phone rang. Charlotte picked it up absent-mindedly, still deep in thought, and greeted the person on the other line with, "Charlotte Grey, matchmaking service."

"Hello Charlotte," a voice said, and she did a double take.

"Frasier?" She sat down in the chair behind her and tried not to let her mind race. "Is something wrong?" She was surprised at the level of worry in her voice, but said nothing more, only breathed and waited for him to speak.

"Wrong?" he asked, then quickly said, "Oh, no, no, nothing's wrong," as if he only just then understood what she had asked. "How are you?"

She blinked, not expecting him to ask her that question, then ran her finger along the edge of a book while she told him she was doing fine.

"That's great, I'm glad," he said genuinely. She heard 'room service' being muffled out in the background and immediately her heart jumped.

"Where are you calling from?"

"A hotel..." he said slowly, "in Chicago."

Oh no. "Oh, well, what are you doing here?" She tried her hardest to make her voice sound casual. It was like she knew what he was going to say before he even said it, and she squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

"Would you like to meet for coffee?"