by Stella
“Um, what’s this?”
“Sprouts!” CeeCee was far too excited over serving me weeds. “It’s supposed to be super healthy.”
“There’s nothing else?”
“Well, I was trying a new dish…” She paused, as if pondering her next words. “It didn’t work out so well.”
“What was it?”
“Pizza.”
“How do you screw up pizza.”
“Apparently…you’re only supposed to brush the oil over the dough.”
“Yeah? What did you do?”
“I brushed it.”
“With what?”
“A spoon.” When I only stared at her, knowing there was more, she added, “Okay, fine. It was a ladle. But in my defense…”
I waited. And then I waited some more, thinking she would continue her thought.
She did not.
“In your defense, what?”
“I made you something healthy.”
I chose to let that go and picked at the garnish while drinking my beer. Apparently, in order to get full, I had to drink seven of them. Well, I stopped counting at seven. I was probably a lot closer to ten. And for someone who didn’t drink often—and who hadn’t eaten all day—it felt more like twenty.
I was on the couch, staring at the flickering flames of the obnoxious candles CeeCee kept lit on the coffee table, when she came bouncing into the room like that ridiculously happy purple dinosaur. If she started singing, I’d pick her up and put her outside with her luggage and lock the doors.
“I hate candles,” I admitted, not sure why I felt the need to say that.
“No one hates candles.”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was joking. “I do.”
“Why?”
Normally, this was where I’d make something up and let it go. I’d never really spoken to anyone about my relationship with Lexi, other than typical, non-descript things that anyone would’ve known. But with the sprouts not soaking up any of the alcohol I’d consumed, I had no filter.
“My last night before heading to Washington, my girlfriend had my dorm room covered in them. We spent all night talking…and other things, with nothing but the glow of dozens of flames around us.”
“That’s so romantic.”
“Yeah…except that was the last night we were really together. I left the next day, and we eventually broke up. Then we stopped talking. I fucked up, and now every time I see a candle, it makes me think of that night, and I end up hating myself for leaving. I wish I could go back in time and change my mind, stay in Atlanta and be with her like I wanted to do back then.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Today.” I knew she’d ask a hundred questions, so I tried to beat her to the punch. “I found out this morning that she works in my office. She’s in the marketing department a few floors below me.”
“That’s great news!” Her excitement was irritating when I was so…not excited.
“It would be, but she won’t give me the time of day. It seems she’s still pissed about how things ended. She won’t even give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what?”
For reasons I’d never understand, I opened up and told her everything. Starting with the day I met Lexi and ending with our last conversation and how I couldn’t contact her after that. I gave her every single detail. Of course, she acted like I’d just recited her the greatest love story ever told.
Then I showed her a picture of Lexi.
If I would’ve known showing her a photo would make her shut up and leave me alone, I might’ve done that two hours earlier. I had no idea why CeeCee grew so quiet, or why she slipped back into the bedroom, but I was too tired and too intoxicated to find out. Instead, I grabbed the pillow and blanket from the closet and made my bed on the couch—where I’d slept since my uninvited houseguest took up residency in my home.
I’d figure it all out the next day.
Or so I thought.
5
Lexi
“Patrick Morris is Chris Moore? In whose world does that make sense?” Jasmine had popped popcorn when we got home in anticipation of hearing the dirt on what took place at work over the last two days.
I’d managed to avoid this conversation by staying late last night since so much of my time had been monopolized by a problem IT should have dealt with on their own, and Candi the night before. But I couldn’t prolong it beyond the close of business today, and I’d only managed that because it wasn’t a discussion that needed to take place at the office.
“No, Patrick Moore is Patrick ‘Chris’ Moore. What is it with Seneca Marketing that no one can get a person’s last name correctly?”
She shrugged. “You know how water-cooler talk is. It’s the worst game of telephone that ever took place. I just heard a couple girls lamenting the fact that the new guy was hot as sin but off-limits as management—damn fraternization policy. I can’t help that they didn’t get the dude’s name right. How was I supposed to know?” She tossed a handful of her snack into her mouth.
“Could you chew with your mouth closed?”
She rolled her eyes and began to talk, once again exposing the food. Her table manners were atrocious. I wondered how she’d ever made it in polite society, much less had a date—although it might explain why she remained single.
“I need you to start from the beginning. Remember, you still haven’t told me what happened with Martin that led up to the explosive encounter with your long-lost love who is the significant other of Dr. Fellatio’s client.” She stopped long enough to swallow—thank God—and take a breath. “You should sell this shit to a screenwriter.”
“My life is not a soap opera, Jasmine.”
“It could be.” Her eyebrows quirked suggestively.
“Can you focus?” I swear she could be the poster child for ADD.
“Fine, but you’re missing out on a golden opportunity here.”
When she finally shut up, I filled her in on my meeting with Martin and then being sent home that afternoon. She knew I’d met Candi, and I’d told her—before I got called to Chris’s office—about seeing the jacket and the picture in Candi’s house.
“I don’t understand how you could be blamed for the website issue. Shouldn’t the IT director know that juniors don’t have access to that software?”
“One would think, but I had to point that out to Martin and then again to Chris.” I plopped down on the couch with a sigh. “I don’t know how a man I haven’t seen in years managed to rile me so easily. From the moment I realized who he was, I was ready to fight. And, Jasmine, it wasn’t so much about my job as the animosity from him leaving to go to DIT and never coming back.”
“I just feel like I’ve been dating your voicemail, so it’s taking a little adjusting to figuring out how to speak to someone who talks back.” Lying on my back, I stared at the stars wondering how it was possible for the two of us to be so far away yet be able to see the same brilliance in the sky.
“You’re quiet.”
With all that he had going on, I didn’t want to burden him with my exhaustion. Or my mother’s illness. Or that I was so lost without him here that I had reverted back to rooftop excursions to escape the noise of my mother’s government housing, her impending death, and life in general. It was the last place I still found any comfort. As a child, this was where I came to pout, cry, daydream; and as I’d gotten older, I’d come here to decompress. That was one of the last times I’d talked to him. It had also been the last time I’d ever stepped foot on a rooftop. He’d stolen that from me at the same time he destroyed us.
“Instead of teaching other women how to please their man, you should have been pleasing your own for the last five years. I’ve been trying to tell you that since the day he left town.”
I glared at her. She didn’t need to remind me of all the things I should have done; they were painfully evident the moment I’d seen Chris’s arm wrapped around anothe
r woman. He hadn’t waited, but I could have assumed that three years ago when he hadn’t come home. I’d given my heart to a man who had vowed to protect it, who had promised to return, who I had believed was the one. Chris may have been able to walk away from that, but I’d never recovered.
“I’m worried I’m going to get fired. When I spoke to Martin in his office, I maintained my composure. I didn’t say anything that would get me in any more trouble than I was already in. But with Chris, it’s like my brain decided to retaliate. There’s no way in hell I would ever talk to Martin the way I did Chris, and Chris is executive management.”
“They’d never fire you—you’ve been the best damn errand bitch they’ve had for the last five years.” She smiled wide, cheeks so full she resembled a chipmunk.
“I like your lip gloss.” I circled my finger in the direction of her mouth.
With her brow knitted in confusion, she ran the back of her hand across her face. “Oh, that’s not gloss. It’s butter.”
I could’ve said so much, but I chose to let it linger for my own personal amusement, but if she burped, I was done.
“You mean to tell me, he didn’t know you worked there before you walked into his office?” She inserted more popcorn into her mouth and proceeded to lick each finger before sticking them back into the bowl.
“As angry as I was when I came around the desk, I couldn’t stop laughing at him. I don’t know what he was trying to do with the phone, but he ended up with his assistant on speaker, telling her how beautiful she was.”
“Wait, what? Isn’t Martha like eighty years old? And the grandmother of twenty-nine grandbabies?”
“That’s the one. It’s like his brain hadn’t figured out that his every thought leaked out through his mouth. Only he said them all to a woman who sounded petrified. She asked if he was having a stroke and should call an ambulance.” The grin that erupted on my lips did nothing to hide the giggles as I recalled the event.
“How long did it take him to figure out what was going on?” Jasmine was as amused by the story as I had been witnessing it take place.
“A couple minutes maybe.”
“Once he hung up, did he say anything to you?”
“He was so caught off guard that he didn’t know what to do. Chris asked me what I was doing there—as if I hadn’t been with the company for five years. After that, he tripped over his words and backpedaled all while trying to maintain his authority and deal with a problem, and I just let it fly. He seemed incensed that I now went by Alex and even tried to call me Lexi, but I shut it down as fast as he’d brought it up.”
“I miss all the good stuff.” She acted like this was an episode of Big Brother. My life was not a reality TV show. “Well, you didn’t get fired—”
“Yet.”
“The real question is what are you going to do? You’ve signed a contract with Candi agreeing to teach her how to suck off her boyfriend, your ex.”
“You don’t have to be so crass.”
“And you don’t have to be such a prude. It’s what you do, and you do it well. But how are you going to uphold your end of that? There’s no way you’ll ever be able to teach her anything knowing who she’s going to practice on.”
I groaned. I’d thought about that the night I’d seen the photo. Chris working at Seneca added an entirely new dimension to the complications. “Not a clue. He doesn’t know I’ve met her, much less that she’s hired me. I certainly can’t tell her that there’s history there without it being a conflict of interest.”
“It is a conflict of interest.”
“I’m aware of that, Jasmine, but he chose her. It’s not like he came back to Atlanta thinking we could rekindle something if he brought her with him.”
“But he’s your boss…indirectly.”
“In the five years I’ve been with the company, this is the first time I’ve had any personal interaction with a member of executive management. It’s not like I’ll see him every day.”
“So you think you can take Candi’s money, teach her how to please your Chris, and continue to work with him—three floors above you—without it causing a problem?” The skeptical look she gave me illustrated her doubt in my thinking.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes, you do. Give Candi her money back and tell her you don’t think it’s going to work out. Then pray she doesn’t mention you to Chris and that she never attends a company Christmas party.”
If she shoved one more handful of popcorn into her mouth, I might throw the bowl across the room. “You have crumbs all over your shirt.” My irritation went right over Jasmine’s head.
She peered down at her chest and wiped them off with a butter-laced hand. I cringed seeing the grease stains on her white shirt—I really ought to question how the two of us had been friends for so long.
“If I lose my job, I need the income. Candi never has to know that I work with Chris. Technically, I don’t work with him; we just work at the same company.”
She stared at me unconvinced.
“I could go careening down a path of moral ineptitude.”
“Meaning?”
The dial on my ethical compass spun wildly. “I could lead her astray. It would make me a horrible person but give me a way to quietly exact my displeasure with Chris while ensuring he never touch Candi. She’s just caught in the crosshairs, but for the good of the whole—I’d let her make that sacrifice.”
“First of all, you don’t have that level of cruelty in you, and I’m shocked it even came to mind. It’s amazing what jealousy can do to a girl.”
She was right. Regardless of how much I hurt, I couldn’t impart pain to someone else hoping to ease my own discomfort. I groaned before conceding. “I wouldn’t do it. It’s just nice to think I have that power since I’ve lost any shred of dignity I once possessed.”
“So you’re going to back out?”
“No…I’m going to do my job.”
“I give it one session.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you successfully make it through one lesson, you’ll bail by the time she comes back for the second. I know you, Alex. You won’t be able to see her without thinking about him. And the second you start thinking about her with Chris, your claws will come out. You can say all day long that he chose her, but you chose him. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that you haven’t thought about Chris Moore.”
I shook my head and sat straight up in defense. “That’s not true.”
“Seriously, Alex? You want to try to lie to me? Just because you don’t mention him anymore doesn’t mean you let him go. There’s still a picture of the two of you on your dresser.”
“And? There’s a picture of you there, too. And one of my mom.”
Her eyebrows raised, waiting for me to come to the conclusion that I’d just made her point. The only people I loved sat immortalized in film where I saw them every morning and night. I probably should be a good friend and concede that she might be right.
But I won’t.
“Fine. You don’t want to give on that. How about the ratty boxers you wear to bed? Or that disgusting hat you swear still smells like him? Or maybe that pinky ring he gave you that now adorns your toe so no one sees it? There’s a box under your bed with every picture, card, letter, movie stub, college football game ticket, and any other piece of trash or wilted flower you connect to him nestled inside. The list goes on, but I won’t bore you with the details.” A satisfied smirk crossed her lips, she waggled her brows, and then threw more popcorn into her mouth.
“Nope, not giving on any of those, either.”
“Whatever. So, tell me, what does Chris Moore look like these days?”
I threw a pillow at her, knocking that stupid bowl of popcorn over in her lap.
“That good, huh?”
I couldn’t stifle the groan that passed my lips.
“You’re going to crash and burn.”
“Don’t go through with this
, Alex. You can still back out and save face,” Jasmine pleaded one final time before I left to meet Candi for our first real session.
Other than my career and my battered heart, she’d yet to show me anything I cared about salvaging. I’d been in the same dead-end job for five years, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a date, and my only real friend would be around regardless of where I worked or who I was sleeping with.
“It’s going to be fine, Jasmine. You worry too much.”
“You don’t worry enough. This could be catastrophic. Promise me—no psycho moments I might have to bail you out of jail for.”
“Stop being melodramatic. I have a routine. I teach the same things to different women. Whether it’s Candi or some other girl, it doesn’t change.”
“So you plan to give her the same service you give every other woman?”
“Precisely.”
“I really wish you didn’t have these confidentiality agreements in place. I’d love to watch this unfold and be there to witness the demise of Dr. Fellatio.”
I stopped at our front door and turned back to scowl at my friend. “Thanks for the moral support.”
“Just keeping it real.” She popped a grape into her mouth while standing in the kitchen. It was her way of dismissing me without actually doing so.
I waved over my shoulder and left our apartment. The details of the ride to Candi’s house escaped me. When I arrived, I couldn’t remember navigating the streets to get there. I’d been too busy psyching myself up for the performance of a lifetime.
All week, I’d done my best to avoid Chris. Anytime he came to the second floor, I found a reason to leave. My cubie likely thought I had a bladder infection or diarrhea based on the number of times I’d escaped to the bathroom in a rush. He didn’t know my motivation behind it. Carl simply saw the grimace on my face and my darting out of the cubicle. When the whispers started, and quiet anxiety fell over the floor as a whole, it didn’t take long for the sounds of our internal messenger to start ringing all over the office. The warnings came out to all the junior reps anytime someone from one of the upper floors stepped off the elevator. I’d now made an art—or maybe a spectacle—out of finding a place to hide until the white noise of phones and voices resumed its normal level, indicating it was safe to reemerge.
