She cleared her throat. “Nice top,” she said as she moved her fixed gaze from Daphne’s breasts to her desk, pretending to jot down something on the yellow notepad beside her. “Where’d you get it?”
Apparently, Daphne had not noticed her boss’s lingering glance seconds before and scanned her own eyes over the post-it errand list.
“I can’t remember. I’ve had it for quite a while.” As she stood there reading the scribbled instructions, Angela took it as another chance to look her new upstart assistant over.
Her eyes rolled over the curve of Daphne’s calves, languidly up her backside, all the way up to her messy ponytail and all its soft caramel colored ringlets. She didn’t just admire her new assistant for her slender physique and delicate features, but with an endearing reminiscence of when she was her age. So willing and eager to do what must be done, but also brave enough to do what she wanted no matter what others had to say. She had noted a hint of that tenacious nature in their phone call a week ago, and this morning.
In Angela’s aggravation at starting another routine day, she hadn’t taken the chance to appreciate what or whom she may have standing in front of her. Not just a potentially great employee, but a sexy new friend… and more. Maybe, this was an opportunity to share with someone her most recent frustrations and plans of getting back to her hobbies, her freedoms. Herself.
Chapter Two
It was Thursday, and after four days of working with Angela, Daphne was actually getting the feeling her boss’s confidence in her had risen a little. She was now able to dish out far more extensive lists of things to do, clients to contact, even some data entry tasks. She even started getting the distinct sense that Angela was warming up to her more personally. Business is business, but sometimes it’s nice to have some camaraderie on the job.
The early morning had gone by pretty quickly, and Daphne had Angela’s routine memorized in just three short days. Twelve p.m. on the dot was lunch. Looking at her cell phone’s digital face, it was nearly eleven fifty-two. As Daphne stood up from the chaise lounge across Angela’s office, she surprised to see her employer rise as well. She paused and looked to Angela.
“What are you doing,” as she watched her reach for her black and tan leather Michael Kors tote.
“Well,” Angela began, “I figured for a change why not eat lunch together. Plus, there’s a spot in the Stone Creek Village I’m sure you wouldn’t know how to find, but I’ve been there plenty time, and that’s what I have a craving for today.”
With that said, she tossed her tote onto her shoulder and straightened her suit jacket a bit, giving Daphne an expectant look for her to follow along. Daphne didn’t know if the statement about her not knowing the way was a friendly invitation from Angela to tag along, or a slight insult to her navigation skills around the city.
Right, a day or two back retrieving lunch for her now direct supervisor took a bit longer than expected, but she wasn’t a complete dunce when it came to traversing the busy highways and byways of the city. Her GPS just had a tendency to take her the scenic route to places, and that particular day the spectacular view cost her a verbal warning about time management and reliance the moment she finally stepped in the door. That was on Monday, her first day. Since then, she made it a point to learn how to program and set her GPS device. She didn’t want any more moments of losing Angela’s confidence this early in the game.
Still, today she did, in fact, follow Angela’s lead, and after they both had stepped through the door of the executive back office, Daphne used her spare to key to lock it. The layout of the realty agency was such that Angela’s office was in the back up a short hall that opened into the foyer, were many reserved desks for licensed agents sat. Some of these hopefuls in the real estate business now gazed over at the two of them as they passed by. Angela had the confident gait of a woman who had tested the fires of competition in her career and bested her competitors.
It went without saying that if her high cheekbones and raven black contoured cut did not captivate you, her tall and statuesque profile certain could intimidate. Daphne could only imagine Angela had used all her charms and her avariciousness to get where she was; probably most of her life. At that moment, as they walked toward the main door of the agency, she found her face taking mental notes of how Angela gave instructions to this agent or that one on what to do in her absence ‘til 1 p.m.
A personal assistant or not, it was made clear as it had been before that just because the cat was away Angela’s mice were not allowed to play. Even if she had decided to have lunch in her office, it was an unspoken rule you did not enter that room for anything until after one p.m., and you as the employee had a paid lunch, because “because the housing market doesn’t slow down for your appetite.”
However, in walking behind Angela, this was the first time Daphne had a sense that this wasn’t her supervisor’s special lunch hour to an unusual location, but their lunch break.
Was it not typical for anyone to dine with her? The scowls and glares of some of her once coworkers seemed to answer that question. Rather than feel excited, or privileged, she felt a slight bit like a “sell out,” or worse: a trophy pet. Before she knew it, the front entrance was flying open pouring in the garish sunlight of the outside world, and she nearly bumped right into the back of Angela.
Angela must have heard Daphne’s slight gasp, because she turned, paused, looked at the young woman and raised a curious perfectly contoured brow.
“Did I miss something?” Familiar with her own crew of water cooler gossips under her employment, she made a quick glance and her eyes slowly panned about the small open foyer space. “Did we disturb everybody just now?”
The suddenly raised volume in her voice also raised the hairs on the back of Daphne’s neck. It was the control with which she spoke. It wasn’t a yell. It wasn’t a shrill. It was perfect projection with every bit of intention behind it to get them back to the status quo of business as usual. The half a dozen agents quickly busied themselves (or at least pretended to go back to their various projects and tasks), and Angela’s eyes snapped back to the now wide-eyed assistant standing just inches from her left shoulder.
Her frustration shown on her face as she turned back to the open door and out to the bustling sounds of midday cars and transits. Daphne stepped out, and for the first time wondered if there was more that came with this position than she had anticipated. Did her peers know something she didn’t? She began to develop butterflies in her stomach similar to those of Monday, but far more vigorous. So much so, she couldn’t tell if it was the hunger or her nerves.
What were the real reasons keeping assistants in and out of her mentor’s claws regularly? Had there been a kind of falling out more than once with agents and their overseer that Daphne was unknowingly walking right into? She got into Angela’s Audi A8, and silently prayed this lunch was not the beginning of discovering those answers.
The drive across the city was not all that eventful. A minor accident on the 410 access road, and a slight gridlock at the turn around due to a set of traffic lights not working. As equally unexciting was the conversation inside the car. Angela was quiet and stone-faced. The idea of making small talk to diminish the most recent tension went quickly out the window the moment the automatic door locks engaged. Being in a confined space with Angela was even more unnerving than in her office.
It wasn’t until they reached their destination that it seemed like shoulders lowered and settled, tensions eased, and Angela was more than glad to spark up a bit of chat with the younger woman sitting across from her. Daphne noted quickly that even in this brunch style café, Le Serviette, Angela’s indelible mark had been felt from prior visits.
A middle-aged man in casual but professional wait staff attire approached them soon as they had stepped in, his arms wide open. He had greeted Angela excitedly, stating how it had been too long since she’d grace their fine establishment. They exchanged cheek-to-cheek kisses, and elbow distance hugs whil
e making the kind of schmooze pleasantries you saw amongst business acquaintances that want to feign a more personal relationship for the underprivileged onlooker. This minor exchange with their waiter led to the balcony seating area that was Angela’s “usual” arrangement.
It overlooked the busy street below, as well as the restaurant’s bistro front room that was filled to capacity. It struck the younger of the two women that the other enjoyed such an open and airy table when she seemed so…closed off and private. Daphne figured she would have preferred something indoors, in a private booth style seating. Then again, Daphne had been surprised many other times this week by the confident working woman who now sat comfortably across from her, with still so much more unexpected surprises to come. What else did she not really know about Angela?
Five minutes after they ordered (blackened redfish on the plank for one, and a Mediterranean grilled chicken salad with aioli dressing for the other) a more personal conversation was underway from the usual buy-sell-invest real estate jargon.
“You’ve been working for my agency as an intern for two years and not once have I seen you pissy, aggravated, or show any sense of entitlement to my agents. They can be a sad bunch, and your usual office cattiness can ensue. You, however, don’t seem phased. Hell, some days you come in like you’re walking on the sunshine,” she said with a slight chuckle.
“How?” Daphne looked obviously confused.
“How’s what?” she replied, not quite understanding what Angela was getting at. The middle-aged mentor inhaled her cigarette and exhaled a haze around herself of smoke and resolution.
“I’m going, to be honest with you Daph…” She had started calling her assistant this nickname earlier in the week, and Daphne still couldn’t tell if it was a way for her hard-edged counterpart to make their acquaintance more casual and comfortable going or a way to exact superiority by giving her a pet name and still being horribly impersonal with her.
“Every time I saw you flounce into the front doors, rather than you brighten my day with your gleeful ‘hellos’ and ‘how-are-yous’ and skip-to-ma-loo sunshine smile, you annoyed me. I’m used to either stoic kiss-asses or employees who keep their nose to the grindstone and only speak to me if I speak first.
I’m fully aware I’m a difficult person and run a tight shift, so I’m used to two-week resignations as handed to me by my former assistants. It being either theirs or someone else’s in the building that couldn’t hack it; that finally broke and found something better as far as employment, or nothing at all, and just left. You, on the other hand, insist on being chipper and upbeat no matter the circumstances going on in that open foyer, or even recently in my private office. You just bounce back, and keeping bouncing,” she said with a slight smirk.
“So, how? Or, I guess the better question would be ‘why’?”
Again, a much-unexpected surprise had blindsided Daphne about her boss. She cast her eyes down and to the left for a moment, but her attention was quickly snapped to, as a blonde haired waitress stepped up to their table. She gave them a smile, then sat down their drink orders of two iced teas, one with lemon and the other with lemon on the side in a dish.
Daphne was glad of the distraction. It’d give her time to dig and come up with an answer as to why she makes it a point to remain active in the face of…well, everything.
Why did she often do it? She never considered the reason actually, but she remembered when she started. She added some artificial sweetener to her glass. One packet. Then, another. Angela, on the other hand, squeezed her lemon into her drink, no sugar, no sweetener, stirred the contents, while keeping her eye on her lunch date, patiently waiting for a response.
“Well,” the young woman started, “when I was in community college a few years back, that was my first time away from home, and I didn’t know all the harshness and things you could end up often facing times on your own. But, I learned quick that first semester.”
At that statement, the young woman’s eyes cast down to her glass. She cleared her throat, and without much buildup or hesitation she went on.
“My roommate hung herself in our dorm, and I was the one that found her…in our room”.
The pause after that statement was deafening. The matter of fact way which she shared such a traumatic event was like hearing glass break in an empty house. Silence never seemed so loud, and the rushing cars below suddenly appeared in Surround Sound. Angela looked intently at Daphne and furrowed her brows a bit. She asked with slight precaution, “what was her reason, or do you not know?”
Daphne hadn’t thought about that night in nearly a year. It seems like it was not too long ago. Three years goes by so fast, she thought to herself. “No,” she answered flatly.
“She just…was there. She had some problems I know, mostly with her boyfriend. He was pretty awful at times, but I’m not sure that was the reason. She and I hadn’t become friends in the few months I had gotten to know her, but she was a nice person from what I had come to know of her. I had never seen a body before that, except when my grandfather passed. And even then, that was at his funeral. Not in such a personal space, at such an unexpected time. It seemed like just another night coming back to my room. And there she was.”
Daphne did give any further details on the scene. She didn’t even want to remember the details, so recounting them to anyone else was not something she wanted to do either. However, she did address how it affected her.
A few minutes later, another waiter finally arrived with their orders they had placed. Daphne was grateful for the speedy service. Perhaps, a bite or two would settle the swimming tides in her stomach. A few bites into their meal, Daphne went on explaining how she didn’t have her family there to shield her from her the nightmares after that.
Moving her to another dorm room out of compassion and sensitivity was regulation in those rare instances on campus, but she was too far from home for her father and mother’s arms. She also too new to campus to have made friends talk to about the nights of waking up screaming from seeing her roommate every time she shut her eyes. She had also started having to take anxiety medication to help with the sleep disturbances and manage her panic attacks that later came in the semester.
As Daphne ate hefty bites of her salad and sipped on her tea, she thought back to how grateful she was for the holidays when her father would make the four hours trip to pick her up from the college. Being home made all the difference in whether she was going to be a working person the following Monday, or a blubbering, shaking mess crying in the bottom of her dorm room on-suite shower.
The layout of the dorm room was such that each two rooms had an adjoining bathroom between. She always tried to muffle her cries, never knowing if the other girls in room 3b could hear her. Through therapy, her parents’ love, and just sheer will to beat her anxiety she learned ways to process things; wrap her mind around things and keep living. She started reading a lot of literature on loss, grief, trauma and how to keep going on. Her mind had been made up nearing graduation she didn’t want to shut out the world and its possible horrors.
Every now and then, she would feel the beginnings of a panic attack: nausea, fluttering heartbeat, overwhelming fear, but the coping techniques she had learned made all the difference. Had made the decision to push onward she never would have graduated, applied for the internship with the agency, and definitely not put in for the personal assistant position later on.
By the time Daphne had finished nearly half her meal and disclosed more about herself than she had planned at the beginning of their lunch, she refocused her attention back to the woman in front of her. Angela had been enjoying her plate, taking sips of her tea, taking in Daphne’s tale of overcoming the fear, the anxiety of life’s many unknowns.
But her body language was different. Her face had actually softened, as well as how she sat. Her overall demeanor was more like that of a faithful friend, and not the stoic authoritarian that initially drove them to this bustling dining spot. She had
eaten most of her meal as well and was now lighting her second cigarette. Resting an elbow on the table, she inhaled and exhaled a gray, cloudy sigh. Daphne now wondered did she always do that: breathe in the thoughts, and exhale the feelings. As she began to speak, it was obvious what her assistant had brought a lot to her own mind.
“I remember being in that moment in my life, not knowing what is what, where is up or down, and how to figure it all out. Having things happen, that leave you with more questions than answers happening was going on all around me, but it was much sooner than you. I was in my early teens and not delving too deep into all my “ugly” moments but, let’s just say life had been a bitch almost from the beginning. By the time I was eighteen years old I had worked to get myself into college because that was the one thing I was certain of. I wanted to do more than what was expected of me in this life, which wasn’t much. I kept my grades up to get scholarships but found myself a job when I was 16 and walked myself there every day, ‘til I could afford a car. You see, I had no one to do anything or tell me how to do anything, ever. I had parents, but they were…” she took a pause, an emotional one.
“They were the ‘no one’ in my life. So, I had me. I knew I would have me if I had no one else, or even if I did. Relationships came and went. I remained. Once I went to business school, I was completely self-reliant. I found an affordable apartment, which was more like a slum, but it was mine. Got a job in a retail store to pay the bills and get by, and forged my way through to my degree. But even before I was done with the education I knew I wanted my own business in real estate. I had seen so many ads in the newspaper of some money people were willing to spend in the area for homes in upscale areas, and it seemed sensible to me to get my share. I made it a point to know the pros and cons and all the unspoken rules of the market, and then set out to change them.”
One Little Letter_A Bad Boy, Second Chance Romance Page 42
