by Laila Cole
Chapter 4 – Jennifer
Somewhere around 4:30AM I’d passed out on the couch. My phone woke me at 8:00AM, like it always did, sounding out a serene yet persistent noise that drew me from my slumber. I hurried to our spare bathroom and took a shower, running the water as hot as it would get until the bathroom was filled with steam and the mirrors were fogged. I was afraid to see what Steven had done to my face.
I showered quickly. I didn’t want to be late to work again or Jeff Tompkins, my asshole of a boss, would only find a way to make me feel worse than I already did. And besides, I wanted to leave before Steven woke up, my nerves too frazzled to handle any more drama.
As I stood dripping wet and toweling off I was unable to resist the urge to look at my face. I wiped the steam away from the mirror with my wrist. My heart jumped out of my chest when I saw that the entire right side of my face was bruised and swollen.
I’d be able to cover up some of the bruises with my make up, but the only thing that would fix the swelling was time. People were going to know and I already began to notice the creeping self-consciousness.
My phone buzzed, it was Susan responding to my pleas from the night before. “I am so sorry I missed your messages! Are you ok?”
“We’ll talk at work. There’s a lot to discuss. I’m running late.”
I tip toed into the bedroom passed Steven as he snored incessantly and pulled my favorite gray pantsuit from the closet. I also packed a suitcase for a week, as I had no plans to return home after work. I slipped into my favorite gray pantsuit and black pumps, and made my escape out of the bedroom, tip toeing over shards of broken glass and the other remains left behind from the night before.
I couldn’t stand to be near Steven a moment longer. I needed to be alone, but work was going to have to do. In the event I’d actually leave my husband I’d need money, and in order to get money I needed my thankless job.
I arrived ten minutes late to work and snuck in the back door, hoping that Jeff wouldn’t notice. The moment I sat in my cubicle’s chair and powered up my computer a negative presence emerged at my back. I turned to see Jeff staring down at me with a scorn of disappointment, his shiny bald head glaring off the fluorescent lights of our office. My blood boiled. “Jennifer, I need to see you in my office.”
I sighed. “Ok.”
I rose to follow him but he instead followed me. We walked all the way around our cube farm to his office where I sat in a chair that was smaller than his and forced me to look upward at him and photos of his family, which were strategically placed to make him look more appealing and powerful than he actually was. I shifted in the small seat trying to get comfortable as he sighed. “Late again are you? I’m getting tired of this. I’m writing you up. This is your second one this year, and it’s going to be your last.”
I wasn’t going to beg him to stop because that’s exactly what he wanted. I wasn’t going to apologize either, because I had nothing to apologize for. His facial expressions changed as he noticed the swelling on my face, but yet there wasn’t even an unspoken bond of sympathy, or a kind word tossed in my direction. “Have you anything to say for yourself?” he said.
I sat motionless, and emotionless. “Not to you. You have no idea what I deal with at home. Write me up and get it over with.”
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. “Listen, Jen. The job is the job. You’re either going to make it on time from here on out or you’re fired, final warning. Now get out of here and get back to work.”
I stood up and left without saying a word. The anger I felt toward my husband dueling with that I felt for my boss. Who was the bigger prick? I didn’t immediately have an answer.
The moment I left Jeff’s office Susan approached me with a grin. “Jennifer, you’ve got to come see this.”
I was a bit startled as I ruminated over my conversation with Jeff. I tried to hide the damage to my face but it was unavoidable. We hurried to my high walled cubicle, where she whispered to me. “What in the hell happened to your face?”
I wiped a tear from my eye. “Steven.”
Her excitement was muted by rage. She took a deep breath. “So that explains it then.”
“Explains what?” I said, stopping the flow of tears.
“The flowers.”
“Flowers?” I said surprised.
“Oh yes, in quantities I have never seen before. Roses, carnations, tulips, and daffodils, the bouquets are just beautiful.”
I looked at her confused. “I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”
A moment later a team of deliverymen began to place bouquet after beautiful bouquet of flowers on my workspace. The smell of the arrangements filled the air and my heart with something that had been absent for ages, affection, and the security that someone cared enough about me to show me how they felt.
As the bouquets piled up I melted inside. Though my soul had been hardened from abuse, and from difficult life experiences, it softened just enough to feel like I did when I was a child, when the world was full of hope and purpose instead of darkness and forbearing.
In a state of shock I looked up at the deliveryman. “Who on Earth are these from?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “They were purchased anonymously, but there’s a card in three of the bouquets, I hope that helps.”
Perhaps my husband was making a grand gesture to apologize, but my inner realist figured he was hunched over a toilet bowl with a massive hangover, throwing up what remained of his stomach lining. But one could hope, right? I pulled a small white card from the bouquet of red roses, which contained the sweetest words anyone had said to me. “Good morning, beautiful. I hope these make you smile because when I think about you, that’s all I do. – DH.”
I blushed, and it hurt to blush. My heart melted into a puddle. Susan looked down at me and whispered. “Well? Are they from Steven?”
There was a smile creeping across my face. “No,” I whispered, knowing how quickly gossip spread around the office. I cupped my hand around my mouth and whispered directly into Susan’s ear. “They’re from Damien, you know the guy from the bar last night?”
Her eyes lit up. “Get out! Really? That’s incredible.”
Another one of the assistants walked by and gave me a dirty look, jealous of the burgeoning flower garden spilling from out of my cubicle. “Slut,” she said, disguising it as a cough.
Susan looked at me and rolled her eyes. “What a bitch!” Only Susan didn’t try to conceal her words under a cough, she just straight told it like it was.
I laughed a bit. After all, I was the one given all the flowers. “She’s just jealous!” I said, loud enough so that crotchety old bitch could hear.
I couldn’t stand the women here but they didn’t matter. I pulled the next card out of the bouquet of white carnations and read it. “What if I told you that I missed you?-DH” it said. And then I read the third, hanging inside a bouquet of bright yellow tulips. “I will be in San Diego again on Sunday and I can’t wait to see you. I’ve made reservations at The Masters Steakhouse for Sunday night, a place I just know you’re going to love.-DH.”
The Masters was a super luxurious restaurant near San Diego Bay, and in order to get in you had to be famous, or you had to have money. I’d always wanted to go, but never in my wildest dreams could I have afforded it.
Susan could hardly restrain herself. “You’ve got a smile from ear to ear, now you need to tell me what those cards say.”
I held the last white note up to her and she read it, getting visually excited. “Well? Are you going to meet him?”
I got shy all of a sudden, my inner loyalties to my husband defending against this over-the-top romantic onslaught. “I-I don’t know.”
She corralled my eyes with her own. “You don’t know? What do you mean ‘You don’t know’?”
“I can’t give up on Steven so soon, he promised me he’d change. Giving into Damien is like giving up on Steven.”
She sho
ok her head, frustrated with me. “Jen babe, promise me you’ll go,” she said.
I took a deep breath, my body recoiling at the thought of the night before, my face still aching. I couldn’t just brush off what Steven had done. I wanted to but I couldn’t. “Ok Susan, I’ll go.”
I wanted to call Damien so badly to say thank you, but if Jeff caught me I’d be in even more trouble than I already was so I sent him a text instead. “Thank you for the flowers! They are gorgeous! They made my day and they made me smile!”
Steven hadn’t made me smile in ages. That’s when I began to realize that there wouldn’t just be a life without Steven, there would be an entire, unexplored world, and my heart pounded just thinking about it.
A moment later he responded. “You’re welcome. A woman like you deserves to smile. I’ll see you on Sunday!”
“Thank you, Damien. I’m looking forward to it!” I replied. And I got to work, and somehow the relaxing scent of the flowers made the day so much easier to get through.
