Beyond the end

Waterthight compartment

Los Angeles
Brandon hung up the phone and began rocking in the chair. He had too many thoughts in his head. A collection of things to do. Barret entered after a few seconds bringing him back to reality.
"Walsh Problems?"
"No," he replied, "no problem"
"We're almost done. In a few days it will be time to say everything at the New York headquarters"
"I know ," he replied.
"It was nice to work with you"
Brandon smiled "same here, but it's not time for greetings, we're not done yet"
"It's true," he replied.
They went again to examine the papers and the hours passed quickly. Brandon was able to fully immerse himself in everything he did and Barret remembered him young and unscrupulous.
"I thought," Brandon said at some point, "that we could put the joint signature on this article"
"Really?"
"The job is for both of us. Without you I could have gotten half the information we have"
"Yes, but the idea is yours. The writing too. Mine is just a sporadic contribution and then you need much more to sign an article like that than I have"
Barret got up and went to the office window.
"What do you mean?"
"I spent a lot of that time here, Brandon, at night, during the day, the last article, the last revision, shaking hands with the new hires.."
"Except me"
Barrett laughed and then turned to look at him "except you, I don't know, the fact is that the years have passed under my nose like this and I'm not sure if that's still what I want."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know, my wife's illness, the children are gone, I think I'm at a point in life where you make budgets"
"And they are made even sooner"
Barrett raised his eyebrow and Brandon felt his interlocutory look.
"I think it was a mistake to go back to Los Angeles," Brandon told him
"Really? Why?"
"Too many memories, too many open wounds, too many things I'm unable to deal with"
"Do you want to go back to Washingon?"
"Yes," he said.
Barret resided in the chair. He would have liked to ask Brandon if he was interested in taking his place but he didn't say anything, it was obvious that he wanted to leave. He also had a proposal for him for CBS. He thought he would be perfect and had great connections to the television network. Helping Brandon was like helping himself do things better or earlier.
There are two types of people, those who don't give you a chance because they never had it, and those who give it to you because they didn't have it.
Brandon had already denied it the first time, certainly without knowing it, he scrutinized it for longer than he could but Walsh was in watertight compartments, nothing appeared. It didn't give the hint of anything. Why was Los Angeles so painful for him?
Brandon noticed his gaze but didn't give him too much attention.
"Let's resume?"
"Yes," he replied.