by Brea Brown
“Now I’m a bit worried,” Jude says.
“You should be,” Lisa warns. “Cats are diabolical. So… have you introduced Libby to your parents yet? It’d probably be best if she met them before her cat does you in. Less awkward at the funeral.”
I rescue him from the hot seat. “We haven’t had time yet for that. I’ll, uh, meet them when I get back.”
The last thing I need is for that topic to be resurrected. I’ve already told Jude I don’t want to spend the two days before I leave in some tense meet-the-parents scene in an unfamiliar house. I want him all to myself before I get on that train Monday morning.
“Anyway, ladies,” Jude cuts in, “sorry we have to cut it short, but I actually have some business to attend to with one more person. Favor for Gary, really. You wouldn’t mind fetching Leslie, would you?”
The two of them push away from the table. “We’d be glad to, as long as you’re firing her,” Lisa says ultra-sweetly. To me, she says, “Don’t be a stranger, sweetie. Kiss an Irishman for me. And stop by the office next time you’re in town. There or here. We wanna see proof that you’re happy and healthy.”
“Yes, Mom,” I tease.
Zoe blows me a kiss. “Send me some postcards so I can hang them in my cubicle and pretend I’m there with you.”
“You got it. See you guys.”
After they leave, I walk to one of the windows, where I look down the two stories to the busy street below. It’s a typical Friday night, groups of friends in their “going out” clothes, walking in clusters down the sidewalk, laughing at each other, sharing cigarettes; couples walking hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm on their way to dinner or to the nearest pub; and everyone generally enjoying the fact that they’re free to do whatever they want until Monday morning.
And while I’m watching them and already missing Lisa and Zoe, it hits me that I can do whatever I want until… whenever. I’m free. No responsibilities, no obligations (unless you count Sandberg, which he doesn’t, so I don’t), no constraints. I suddenly remember how it felt to wake up on the first day of summer vacation. My belly jumps thrillingly.
Jude interrupts my reverie with a subtle clearing of his throat and, “I need to talk to Leslie about something for Gary.”
“Oh!” I shake my head to clear it. “Sorry. I’ll wait for you in your office.”
As I move toward the door, he stops me. “No. I want you to stay.”
I cock my head doubtfully. “I don’t know. I feel weird. I really don’t want to see her.”
“This is part of your leaving present,” he insists. “But you need to sit over there”—he points to a chair in the corner—“where you’re not on screen. I could get in a fair bit of trouble if anyone finds out you were here during this.”
Intrigued, I do as he says, and he zooms the camera further in on himself to make sure there’s no chance of my being seen by anyone on the other end. “Here she comes,” he whispers. He nervously flaps the end of his tie and turns his body further away from me so I’m not in his line of sight.
“Jude,” I hear her say tepidly, uncertainty making her voice wobble a little.
“Lezlie,” he returns even more coldly.
Suddenly, I don’t feel very good. I mean, he looks terrifying and intimidating right now. I have no idea what he’s going to say to her, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be anything good. Is he going to confront her about the emails? My mind is racing, mostly screaming at me to get out of the room. I don’t know if I want to watch this. But it’s too late. There’s no way for me to exit the room without walking in front of the camera.
“You wanted to see me?” she prods.
He stares her down, making her squirm. Finally, he says, “Yes. Right. Gary wanted to be the one to tell you this, but he was unavoidably detained in client meetings this afternoon, so I told him I’d—what do you call it?—‘pinch hit’ for him.”
“Nothing bad, I hope?” She gives him one of her flirty girl giggles, and I change my mind, hoping this is what I think it is. Or even worse.
Fire her, I silently urge him.
“No, no. On the contrary, actually,” he surprises me by saying. His voice remains devoid of any warmth, though. He pulls a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, unfolds it, and glances at what’s written on it. “The company has acquired a small firm in Bismarck, North Dakota.” My eyes widen at this news, but I remain focused on what Jude’s saying. “Jake will be transferring there temporarily to help the staff transition into our corporate culture. And Gary’s chosen you to take the only administrative assistant position at that location.”
“Temporarily, right?” she says after a slight hesitation.
“No, permanently, as it were,” he says cheerfully, as if this is the greatest news he could be giving her. “Jake will be instrumental in helping everyone there get used to our ways of doing things, but everyone knows the secretaries are the ones who really know what’s what.”
I snicker behind my hand.
She laughs. “Well, this is flattering. Really. But, Jude,” she says a little too familiarly for my taste, “come on. Bismarck? I mean, what the hell’s in Bismarck?”
“Our new branch,” he says seriously. “Of which you’d be a vital member.”
“Hmm.” Smirking, she says, “Well, as tempting an offer as this is, I’m going to have to turn it down.”
Jude shakes his head and winces. “Yeah, I don’t think that’d be wise.”
She taps her acrylic nails on the polished conference table. “Thanks for the career advice, but I’ll take my chances for advancement here in Chicago.” Standing, she pushes her chair under the table.
“There are no chances left for you in Chicago, Lezlie,” he says firmly but quietly. She becomes so still, it looks as if the picture has frozen. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t quite clear. This isn’t really a request; this is an assignment.”
Her mouth drops open, and her gum almost falls out. I’m so close to laughing that I have to press both hands over my mouth and bite on the fleshy part of the inside of my middle finger.
“Uh… wait. What? I mean, what are you talking about?” she sputters. “Th… this isn’t the military. It’s a privately owned company. I mean… I d…don’t understand.”
Suddenly, Jude pours on the charm. “Now, Lezlie. You’re a clever girl. Surely, you understand what’s happening here.”
She narrows her eyes and sniffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe you should help me understand a little better, Jude.”
He shrugs, tossing the paper he’s holding onto the table in front of him. “Well, obviously we could hire someone local there to do the administrative work, but your transfer would solve two problems at once: your sagging workload in Chicago and our need for an administrative assistant at the new branch, where your workload would increase threefold. Either way, your job in Chicago is about to become—how shall I say this?—redundant. We thought you’d be glad to have a soft place to land.”
“In Bismarck?”
“It’s better than no job at all, wouldn’t you say?”
“No! I wouldn’t!”
Jude frowns and rubs his eyebrow. “Right.” He stands, placing his hands in his pockets. “Very well. I’ll, uh, let Gary know your decision. Wanda’ll have some leaving paperwork for you to sign—”
“How soon are we talking about here?”
“Pardon? Oh, immediately, I’m afraid. But no worries. You’ll qualify for unemployment benefits, I’m sure.” He leans forward and smiles encouragingly, but I can see there’s no smile in his eyes. He looks absolutely ruthless.
“You’re an idiot if you think I don’t know what’s going on,” she spits.
His smile fades, his eyes widening innocently. “I’m certain I have no idea.”
“I’m certain you do,” she says, mocking his accent.
“Reorganization is sometimes not very pretty,” he continues benignly. “We were trying to make it as painles
s as possible, but you’re right; we can’t force you to stay with the company.”
Ignoring him, she persists, “I know this is about you and your crazy little girlfriend. This is your way of getting back at me for reading those stupid emails.”
I stiffen at the word “crazy,” but I resist the urge to defend myself.
Jude’s face hardens. “You really shouldn’t talk about that, Lezlie. Someone—like Gary or Wanda—could hear you. Then you’d be looking for a new job with a black mark on your CV. Let’s try to remain professional, shall we?”
“Professional, my ass. This is all your plan to get rid of me. I’m sure you jumped at the chance, knowing that Gary would go along with anything you said, because he’s pathetic and has some kind of man-crush on you. It’s disgusting.”
“Leslie?”
All three of us flinch at the sound of Gary’s voice. Irrationally, I pull my knees up and rest my forehead against them, closing my eyes.
Nobody says anything for what seems like forever, then Gary asks, “Jude, mind catching me up on what’s going on?”
Jude clears his throat. “Ah. Yes. Right. Well, I’ve, uh, explained the, er, situation regarding the acquisition in Bismarck, and Lezlie there has turned down our transfer offer.”
“I see.”
I chance a peek in time to see Gary move closer to Leslie and mirror her crossed-arm pose. “I’m sorry to hear that, Leslie,” he says sincerely. “I hope there are no hard feelings. When I walked in, it sounded like maybe there were?”
Her bright red lips slice through the air in the middle of her pale face as she shakes her head. Her voice falters when she tries to talk, but she clears her throat and says, “N-not at all. I was just telling Jude that Bismarck’s not really my kind of town. Plus I have family here, and I’d hate to move so far away.”
Gary nods. “Understandable. Yes. Well, we wanted to try to be fair and give you the first swing at the job there. I trust that Jude’s explained to you that we’ll be eliminating your position here as part of the reorganization?”
A pleading note enters her voice. “But Gary, what about Libby’s position? It’s open now, right? Why can’t I just slide into that?”
Gary scratches his head. “Oh. That. Well, we’re not replacing Libby. Her resignation came at a pretty fortuitous time and saved us some tough decisions. We’re only keeping two admins in the Commercial Division. And we went strictly by productivity numbers to come to our decision about who to keep here and who to send to Bismarck. But if you don’t want the position, I’ll let HR know to advertise locally for someone. It’s not ideal, but what can we do?”
The resolution on the picture makes it difficult to read exact expressions, but I can see in her face that she’s about to reverse her decision. She bites her lower lip and glances from Jude to Gary. But then the opportunity passes when Jude says hurriedly, “Right, then. Well. It’s getting rather late here, so if we’re finished…”
Gary turns completely away from Leslie. “Oh, yeah. Sorry about that, Jude. Thanks for staying late on a Friday to help me out with this.”
“Not at all,” Jude replies graciously. “Have a good weekend.” He reaches for the remote.
“Got any big plans this weekend?” Gary asks genially. He never was one for taking a hint.
Jude sighs and smiles. “Nah. Pipe and slippers, I suppose. You?”
Leslie stalks out of the conference room. Gary glances over his shoulder at her retreating form, then returns his attention to Jude. “God, I thought she’d never leave,” he mutters. “Coupla buddies and me, we’re going to hit the links tomorrow. But we’ll probably spend more time at the nineteenth hole, if you get my drift.”
Jude grins. “Absolutely. Well, have fun. I have a patient girlfriend waiting for me, so…”
“Oh!” Gary startles, making me fear for a second that he can see me. “I’m sorry! Geez, Jude, you shoulda said something. Here I am, just talking your ear off, like an idiotic old coot. I’ll talk to you Monday.”
They finally disconnect, and I almost sag off the chair and onto the floor when I’m finally able to relax my muscles. “Holy shit,” I breathe.
Jude turns around. “Sorry. I couldn’t get rid of the bloke.”
“No, not that!” I put my hand up against the side of my face. “Leslie! And you…You were a bad ass!”
He chuckles self-consciously and looks down at his feet. “Right. Well, uh, that. She never should have fucked with me. Maybe.”
I walk over to him and grab his arm. “Important lesson learned. Wow. You were, like, ‘This isn’t a request, Lezzlie,’ and she was like, ‘Huh? What?’ and then when she accused you of getting rid of her, you were so calm!”
Shyly looking at me through his lashes, he admits, “I was bricking myself on the inside.”
“Well, you looked cool as a cucumber. It was a total turn-on!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! But can we leave now?” I tug on his hand, pulling him toward the door. “I really wasn’t expecting my last day to be nearly thirteen hours long.”
Again he apologizes, but I put a finger to his lips as he hands me my jacket and purse. “Save it. The last thirty minutes made the other twelve and a half hours well worth it.”
He snickers. “I thought you’d like that.”
As he locks the office door, I whisper next to his ear, “You were right. Know what else I’d like?” He raises an eyebrow at me and turns his head to kiss me, but before our lips meet, I say, “How about showing the new girl in town the best place to get something to eat?”
The look he shoots me is priceless. But he laughs with me as we step onto the sidewalk, joining the throng of other people just like us.
The End
Also by Brea Brown
Find all of Brea Brown’s books, with links to different retailers, on her author page at Wayzgoose Press.
The Underdog series (chick lit/sports romance):
Out of My League (Book 1)
Rookie of the Year (Book 2)
Opportunity Knox (Book 3)
Ready or Knox (Book 4: spring 2020)
The Secret Keeper series (chick lit/Christian romance):
The Secret Keeper (Book 1)
The Secret Keeper Confined (Book 2)
The Secret Keeper Up All Night (Book 3)
The Secret Keeper Holds On (Book 4)
The Secret Keeper Lets Go (Book 5)
The Secret Keeper Fulfilled (Book 6)
The Nurse Nate series (chick lit/romantic comedy):
Let’s Be Frank (Book 1)
Let’s Be Real (Book 2)
Let’s Be Friends (Book 3)
Stand-alone novels:
Daydreamer (2019)
The Family Plot (2020)
Plain Jayne (2020)
Quiet, Please! (2020)
Find all of Brea Brown’s books, with links to different retailers, on her author page at Wayzgoose Press.
About the Author
Brea Brown lives in Springfield, Missouri, where she’s a wife, a mother, a chauffeur, a housekeeper, a chef, a personal assistant, a cheerleader, and an amateur comedian. (She thinks she’s funny; her kids would disagree most of the time.)
Her passions include writing, daydreaming, laughing, binge-watching shows, and political activism.
When she’s not doing those things, she hangs out on Facebook as Brea Brown, Author and Twitter as @BreaBrown3. Please take a minute to send her messages there because she loves to hear from readers.
About the Publisher
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THE END
