Untouchable: Chapter 16: Keeping with Appearances
The rest of the Friends and family dinner went well, Paul's cake was delicious. Sean wasn't fully engaged, only half heartedly participating in the discussion Fred and dad had on gay couple adoptions, then he mostly listened to Dad talk about addiction counseling and Fred explained how he overcame his own personal battle. Fred's soon to come legal case with the Pack loomed in the back of everyone's mind, but remained unspoken. Later he waved good by to everyone from the public balcony. He plugged in his phone in the hopes that it wasn't really broken, but nothing happened. He got on Muzzlebook from his tablet, noticing Paul was in chat, but Xander and Oliver were still offline. He wanted to talk to someone but no one else would understand. He saw Oliver had accepted his invite to Rays, which calmed him down some, he knew at least tomorrow he'd have someone he could really talk too. Then he went to bed.
When he awoke, his normal morning routine was dashed, when he found his picture next to a Panther in a salmon colored blazer. She said, "with the refusal of services from felines does the city really feel it is right to have this fur shaping the changes we want to create for an open and inclusive community. We have reached out both to the city and Mr. Miller for now we will give him the benefit of the doubt, but the validity of this project will be in question till we have answers. Back to you Tom."
Sean's jaw dropped in shock. He search to see if the video was online yet, it was posted on the channel five's site, probably others by now. His e-mail was just beginning it's inevitable explosion from work and numerous others, he assume other station's reporters.
He opened Mr Franks, his boss's e-mail, it was a request to meet him as soon as he got into the office, Sean dread grew at the CC line, it had his bosses boss, the mayor, and a name he recognized from the governors office. Sean was leading up the governors pet project and Seattle was the pilot city.
Sean wolfed his food down, then debated if he had time to shower. He needed to look his best his job might depend on it. So he washed and brushed his fur as fast as he could.
When he reached his work, he brushed past everyone to get to Mr Franks office. His knees bounced with anxiety while he waited for Jessi, Mr Franks Ermine secretary to let him in.
With a broken phone he had only his disorganized thoughts to distract him. Currently they were telling him a story of jobless societal rejection.
"I need to get a new phone, I was going to take care of that this morning till this happened," Sean thought.
"Mr Miller? Mr Franks will see you now, go right on in," Jessi said.
"She avoided making eye contact with me, shit," Sean thought.
He closed the door behind himself, Mr Franks was generally a happy old bulldog, but today his anxiousness permeated the room.
"Miller I can tell you know of the news story, from your fear," Mr Franks said, and tapped the desk pointedly with a pin, then asked, "what the fuck is this Miller and why haven't you been answering my calls."
Sean fumbled at his pocket for his broken phone and said, "I can't get any calls my phone broke I was going to get it fixed this morning but I saw the tail end of the news report and rushed in."
"I see, so why... no, where, I should say is this report that you are prejudiced against cats coming from," Mr Franks asked.
"I have a severe cat allergy, friday night I had an allergy attack at my Litterday party, and on the way to the hospital cat bystanders, along with that reporter tried to help, and the first nurse at the ER was a cat too." Sean said, "I was kind of panicked and not explaining myself... I yelled at them to get away."
"I see, you know, you won't be able to work on the project till this is all cleared up." Mr Franks said.
"Will you tell everyone, I need to get a phone, then I can call the reporter," Sean said.
"You can deal with your phone later, use one of the work mobiles, but don't break this one," Mr franks said then pulled a lock box with the checkout flip phones and there chargers, "I emailed you the reporters contact info, I don't want to see you back in the office till this is resolved."
Sean setup the flip phone and signed into his e-mail, then got the reporter, Amy Yamamoto's contact information.
He was about to e-mail right there, when Mr franks spoke, "I gave you that phone so you can get this taken care of, go... to... the... news... station." franks had punctuated each of the last words with a rap of his pen on the desk.
"Yes sir," sean said then left the office. Sean thought about going to his computer to look up the nearest parking garage to the station, but he worried about the awkward conversations he might have with his coworkers, so he immediately left for the station.
Getting parked was a pain as the station was in a part of town he was not familiar with and the little phone had a weak GPS map system.
At the reception desk he asked for Amy Yamamoto.
"And you are?" the receptionist asked.
"I'm Sean Miller she did a story piece about me this morning," Sean said.
"Have a seat I'm sure she'll be right down, I'll page her," The receptionist said.
Sean didn't have to wait long till Amy came into the lobby.
She said, "Mister Miller I was surprised to hear you were here as you seemed to have ignored my calls and e-mails."
Sean stood then he said, "Sadly my phone broke yesterday, I picked up a temporary phone from my boss and came in to talk to you."
"Oh would you like a coffee, my desk isn't very private, and will this visit be on or off, the record," She asked.
"It can be on the record as long as you promise to redact anything horribly personal," Sean said.
"I won't redact bigotry," She said.
"That shouldn't be a problem I hope," Sean said, "If I can, I just want to explain my side and why I'm on the Species Equality Project."
"Well right now it doesn't look like you should be, but I'll keep an open mind, this way," She said, and took them through a key card protected door.
The commissary area had a mini Starbucks in it.
"What will you have?" she asked.
"I'll have the chocolate Frappuccino," Sean said.
"Ok, I'd like a grandi chocolate Frappuccino and caramel macchiato," Amy said to the barista.
"I could have got my own drink," Sean said as they sat at a near by empty table.
"Think of it as, your last drink, if you don't convince me you're not a bigot, if you are I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you don't work on an equality project of any kind," Amy said.
Sean fiddled with his medical tag, and said, "So I guess it all looked bad, but its a misunderstanding."
"Yeah and what reason would you have to refuse service from felines?" Amy asked in a condescending way.
Sean flipped the tag and held it up to her, he said, "I am deathly allergic to cats."
"Amy your drinks are ready," the barista called. Sean could smell Amy's embarrassment.
"So you're a bubble pup, then? That kills that story," She asked when she rejoined him.
"I guess, I mean I can be around felines for a little while," Sean said, "I have a cat coworker."
"So then why were you so angry or agressive about it?" Amy asked.
"I had already used my epipen and it wasn't working, so I was kinda freaked out," he said.
"I see well there goes my hopes of a career jump start," Amy said.
"Well it's not like you did me any favors with that story but if you could do an expanded exposé on the issue and do a retraction it would help you and me," sean said, then sipped his coffee.
"I'm not a big name here I can do the retraction but I may not get an exposé," Amy said then rolled her cup back and forth between her paws.
"Well, if not that we can find you something, I don't want this to hurt your career anymore than I want mine to hurt," sean said.
"Why should you care?" She asked.
"Everyone should care about doing good for others, particularly when it cost them nothing, and if I was a bigot I'd want you to investigate me," sean said, "well, me right here and now would, but if I was a bigot bigot I probably wouldn't."
"Prime, aren't you a nice little Cub Scout," Amy said, "where can I get in touch with you?"
"Well this phone is temporary, but I can get you my address if that will work better," sean said.
"If you weren't allergic to me I'd assume that was a proposition," Amy said as she sat back smugly.
Sean was sure she could practically taste his embarrassment, "sorry I didn't mean it that way, maybe just my e-mail then."
"Both or just the e-mail is fine," Amy said.
"Well, I'd be happy to help you understand the project, my boss told me not to comeback till I 'fix this.' Why don't we work on a story for you?" Sean asked then e-mailed her his address and normal contact details.
"If I get my career going here you're going to have a friend at channel five," Amy said.
They moved to her desk to work.