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This guy walked by with a nod and added, “Morning.”
I returned the greeting, but he kept on going. I waited until potential Lance was out of sight to reopen my computer and return to the task at hand.
When I pulled up my PayPal summary, I would have collapsed on the floor from the shock if I hadn’t already been sitting. The balance was zero.
Zero?Fucking Zero?
It couldn’t be.
The money had been there yesterday when I checked it at the rest stop in New Jersey. My disappointment soon turned to anger, and my blood boiled when I read the transaction history.
The six thousand had come in from CLP, just like I’d confirmed yesterday. But late in the afternoon, the transaction had been reversed.
Those fuckers.
I’d completed the project. I’d delivered on time. I deserved that money. And I needed it. Later wouldn’t work. I needed it now. I brought the mug to my lips again, but anger twisted my gut into a knot, and I couldn’t drink any more.
Without the contacts from my old phone, I had to look up the phone number for CLP Partners on the internet.
My fingers were so jittery, I misdialed the number on the first try and had to start over. Setting the phone down, I didn’t connect the call. This called for a calm and cool approach, the exact opposite of how I felt.
Anger boiled in my gut. They owed me that money.
If they wanted a battle, they had no idea what they were in for. I’d hack their system and bring them to their knees. It took me only a few seconds to come up with three different ways to bring the fight to them.
Wouldn’t it be a shame if a randomly occurring bug screwed up their customer interface for a while? And wouldn’t it be perfect karma if I just happened to have the expertise they needed to fix it? In the end, they’d be happy to pay me.
Breathe, Angela Breathe. I could resolve this if I avoided confrontation. Logic was on my side, and they’d have to see that. I did work, and they paid. That’s how things worked.
Closing my eyes to concentrate, I listened to my heartbeat in my ears as it slowed.
Once I got my mental state under control, I blinked my eyes open. Maybe this was just some clerical mix-up, rather than being malicious. Accounting departments could be that way.
Another guy walking by on the sidewalk gave me an odd look, but I was used to that. As the nerdiest girl in any setting, I never got the appreciative stares the pretty girls got. Instead I garnered the what’s-up-with-you glances that ended in a brow furrow, an eye roll, a sigh, or a pity smile.
I waited until he was well past before I hit send and the line started ringing.
“CLP Partners. How may I direct your call?”
I ended up getting bounced to several different people before I got anything resembling an answer.
“I was instructed to cancel the payment,” explained a woman whose name I hadn’t heard clearly.
“Why and by who? Excuse me, by whom?” I asked politely. Anger, or even excessive frustration would most likely get my call terminated.
“You’ll have to talk to Mr. Mueller for that.”
“Can you please transfer me then?” He would be my fourth attempt at an answer. “Will he be able to answer the question? Or do I need to talk to someone else?” I regretted my annoyed tone as soon as it slid out.
“He won’t be in until after lunch,” she said without addressing whether Mueller would be the last person I got transferred to.
On the bright side, since she’d referred to him as Mr. Mueller, and he didn’t need to be at his desk first thing, I was moving up the food chain at CLP.
“His direct number is… Let me see…”
I wrote down the number she gave me and read it back before thanking her profusely.
Putting my phone down, all I could do now was wait, and hope that this Mueller guy would be the end of the line.
