by K. F. Breene
“Please continue,” he said to Krista casually, crossing his arms.
Krista turned back to her department. “Okay, as I was saying. There are some big changes. One of those changes is that I will be stepping up into Phil’s role. Phil was given a fantastic opportunity in his home region, away from all us Californian liberals.” Everyone laughed nervously. It was widely known what Phil thought of California. “I wanted to let you know from the horse’s mouth that Kate Dunlevy will step up into my role. Let’s give her a round of applause for being bullied into the job no one else wanted.”
Everyone clapped and gave Kate catcalls. She was well liked within the department. Where Krista was never one of the crew, Kate fit right in. It was perfect for her to step up into that position.
“I will be heavily training her over the next few weeks, so get friendly while you can. Once she starts my job she’ll be tired and stressed out, having to save you all from me.” More claps and laughter.
With a smile Krista turned back and walked over to Sean. “What’s up?”
“Office.”
“Aye, aye.”
They went in and sat down. Krista had yet to move into the larger office…or pack.
Sean looked drawn and weary. “Krista, a couple things. First, Tory is planning a kind of retreat for all new VPs and upper management. It’s a team building exercise. He likes to promote from within a lot of the time, so we’ll be going up against people that have been working together for years and years. We’re the underdogs, here.”
Sean stopped to get confirmation that she understood. Being that only a person that didn’t speak English wouldn’t, her response was, “Okay.”
“I just…Look, all on the table, I want to win. Yes, it’s about my pride. I have a new job and I want to look good. So, for that, I need your help.”
“Sean, obviously I’m going to do the best I can.”
“I know that. I know that you will. It’s just…Okay, I don’t have any right to ask, but I was hoping for your support.”
“Sean—seriously, have you lost your mind? You’re my boss. Of course you have my support. You know my track record—I’ll help you in any way I can to achieve the common goal. I’m in it for the long haul. No matter what it is. So, yeah, no worries.”
Sean stood up slowly, looked out through the windows, and then closed the office door. He sat, gathered himself while looking at his hands in his lap, took a deep breath, and said, “Did you notice that when you heard our presentation with Dexico that Ray wasn’t in the meeting?”
Krista continued looking at him like he’d lost his sanity. “Uh…yeah. So?”
“Well, I didn’t need him in the meeting.”
Sean looked at Krista expectantly. She looked back, seriously concerned that she’d done irreparable damage when she’d slapped him.
When he continued to stare, Krista lost her patience. “Sean, I really haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
He sighed for probably the hundredth time. “I know. Okay, look, you remember I told you he was my crutch?” Krista nodded. “Well, I still need a crutch. I still need a supportive member of the audience to perform to. One that knows me. I didn’t need him in that meeting…because I had you.”
Krista tensed her muscles to keep from doing jazz-hands with a shocked face and saying, “Whaaaa?” She hadn’t realized she’d rated so high, not even when she was with him a million years ago. She didn’t realize he’d come to depend on her. The information didn’t help, but it was good to know purely for the sake of her ego.
“He couldn’t move to L.A.,” Sean continued, looking at his hands as he fidgeted in his lap. It was obvious Sean was not enjoying admitting any of this. “His life is in the North Bay. He’s got a family. Roots. But…well, whatever the reason—actually you know the reason—I needed to move down here. But I figured it would work out because you were here. And I realize you’ve lost trust in me…” Sean paused as he looked at her, lost his nerve, and looked at her desk instead. He looked lost and vulnerable. “I get why, and, like I’ve said, I don’t really have any right to ask, but I was wondering if you would help me in that respect?”
Sean looked like a puppy that just got hit with a newspaper. Krista chuckled, which had his eyes coming up in disbelief.
“Sorry…” she covered her mouth with her hands and laughed harder. “Sorry, God, sorry! Sorry.” She slowed herself down and stopped laughing. “Sorry, I’m just really hung over, it’s been a long couple of weeks, and now this. It is all a lot to handle in one sitting. I feel like a schizoid or something. Laughing is better than throwing things, so…”
Sean looked back down at his lap.
“Okay…well, you know, I’m not going to sleep with you or anything, but of course I’ll give you my support. We’ve had problems before, but we’ve always had a strong working bond. I hadn’t intended to undermine that. Unless you were sleeping with Ray?”
Sean smiled but left his eyes downcast. “No. I wasn’t sleeping with Ray, no.” His eyes came back up, half relief, and half sadness. “Thanks, Krista. I’m sorry. For everything. It isn’t enough, I know, and you were right. I see that now. But I never claimed to be normal. Or even functional.” His smile dissolved into a puddle of hurt.
“Well, me either Sean. Functional, I mean. Normal, also, I guess. Hell, you got in a fist fight with my demon. But I wouldn’t leave you stranded. And…you know me—I’m going to win regardless of the opposition. So, there.”
Sean let out a breath. “Okay.”
And just like that, unbelievably perhaps, they got back to the place they knew best. They might be crap in personal life, and Krista still planned to take his job away from him, but they were stars in the work world when they were together. Krista was still incredibly hurt by him, and angry beyond belief, but she had to push all that down to reach her goal. First step, best region. Next step, promotion. Eye on the prize.
“What’s the next issue?” Krista asked, noticing people looking into the office as they passed by. “Because I have a really demanding boss and I have a lot of work to do.”
Sean’s face lit into a boyish grin. “Next order of business is a professional favor.”
“Jesus, Sean. Don’t ask for much, do you?”
“No, not much. I want to bring Marcus to the conference. He is the best person I have ever met at making friends and learning gossip. He has no parallel. I want to take him and get him to make friends with the other regions. Get some gossip channels open.”
“He’s gonna be pissed that he has to work directly for you again.”
“Really? Why? I thought he liked working on our team?”
“You make him work too hard.”
“Oh. Yes, I do. Anyway, he will have to go as an administrative assistant. We are allowed two. That means we’ll be down one.”
“I am not going as an assistant, Sean! No way! I am insulted that you—“
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Sean said with a smile. “I was just going to ask if you could type up the notes I know you will be taking anyway and send them to me. That’s all. Just if you would share your work?”
“Oh. Okay,” she said, deflated. She was prepared for war on that one. At the last minute she threw up a finger, “But if I don’t feel like taking notes, I won’t!”
“Deal.”
“Fine. Now get out. You’ve sucked me into the rumor mill and everyone keeps staring into my office.”
“I sucked you in? I think that if you replay that slap, you might come up with a different conclusion.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t intend to get violent.”
Sean got up and shrugged good-naturedly. “I’ve had worse.”
“I’ve already apologized for that,” she said without thinking.
Sean’s body went rigid and he turned to her. They had a silent beat reliving their mutual past with Jim before he let out a breath. “Well, I’ll just have to watch your bad moods—“
; He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes snagging on her desk. Incredulity and surprise warred on his face. When his eyes hit hers again, they were stuffed full to dripping with love.
Confused at the sudden transformation, Krista looked where his eyes had stopped. Her lucky mug grinned back.
“Oh. Yeah.” She shrugged. “What can I say—it was lucky. I didn’t want to part with it.”
Sean looked at her like he knew the subtext—I didn’t want to part with you. His look of tenderness nearly had her tear ducts going active.
“Stop staring,” Krista said to pass the moment, “it’s making me nervous.”
Sean cleared his throat. “Sorry. I thought it would have jumped off your desk by now.” He meant the comment to be light, but his voice was thick with feeling. He obviously knew what her lucky mug meant to her, as she figured. And he knew her keeping it meant her holding onto the memory of him. Of their time together. It was exasperating.
“Nah, no incident. But then, it hasn’t been in your office in years. Who’s to say what’ll happen in our weekly meetings?”
“Well,” Sean said, trying not to stare fixedly at Krista, and failing. “I’ll try to be careful.”
“Okay, go away now. You’re freaking me out.”
He smiled slightly. Then he turned to leave.
It was the Monday before the big convention. Marcus was beside himself excited to have his sole function be his favorite hobby—gossip. He had dragged Krista out shopping and made her spend a month’s salary on clothes. He wanted her looking her best, but didn’t trust her fashion choices. Then he just went wild. It was partly Krista’s fault. Marcus had great style; so after a while, she just said yes to everything but the most slutty of his choices.
Krista was on her way to the fifth floor conference room for a last meeting before the conference. Sean wanted to see where everyone was and give them time to work on his notes before they all took, what was basically, a working holiday. Krista wasn’t worried, of course. In the last month, she had gotten through Sean’s list, taken over Phil’s spot, changed a bunch of procedures, become further entrenched with her reputation as a bitch, was more hated by the other managers if that were possible (she still had no idea why), and got Kate up to speed. She hadn’t had much time for a social life, but realized with dread she didn’t really want one. She didn’t want to think about anything personal. She wasn’t ready to try and get through the pain. When she was working, her mind was elsewhere.
She walked into the spacious conference and took a seat in an older, uncomfortable brown chair. Sean had yet to update the company facilities and it showed. The pictures looked like something someone picked up at a garage sale, the chairs must have been twenty years old, and the table had long since lost its shine. Still, they were conference rooms—they did what they set out to do.
It turned out that Krista was the only young person in the upper management circle in her region. She was the only woman in any of the regions, actually—that had been a shock. There was a woman manager in France, and another in Australia, but that was about it. Theoretically, that was awful, but Krista never really thought or dwelled on it. Or anything, actually. She just worked. She pushed aside everything else, went as numb as possible, and worked. End of story.
She put all her materials out, ignored the other guys sitting there—they were asses for the most part—and waited for the meeting to start. She didn’t bother saying ‘hello,’ since they’d just ignore her anyway, so she stared out the window and thought about what she would wear on the plane on Thursday—the convention was half of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, then back on Sunday. Through the fog, she heard someone say her name.
Three of the other four managers were sitting down at the table, all looking at her.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“We were wondering what you thought of the baseball game?” It was Bob. He was nearly three hundred pounds, balding, sweaty, and liked to let his beady eyes stray to her chest. Krista didn’t care about his existence enough to hate the guy, but she definitely wanted to make him look like a fool.
Currently he was trying to show everyone what an outcast she was—as if they needed the reminder; she was the only person under thirty and the only female. Outcast status was a given—it didn’t need to be pointed out. Still, he thought it his duty to reinforce the boys’ club.
“Those who can play sports, play sports. Those who can’t, or don’t, are cheerleaders.” Krista waited a second to let that sink into his thick head before she continued with a trite, “What color are your pom-poms?”
In answer, he sneered. He wasn’t all that witty.
“In answer to your question,” Krista continued, “I’m glad the Giants mopped the floor with those Dodger hacks.”
To the collective intake of breath she smiled.
The San Francisco Giants and the L.A. Dodgers were rivals. The Giants were currently on a winning streak. Soon all their good players would be traded elsewhere for more money, then the winning streak would go to another team, but they were having a good year. Krista didn’t care at all about baseball, but she liked to rub it in to the faces of Dodger fans that she was from Giant’s country. Especially to these particular Dodger fans.
A scowl spread across Bob’s face. Before he could retort, because he always did, Sean walked in. He glanced around the table, noticed Krista segregated from the rest of the managers, and mimicked Bob’s scowl. Instead of commenting on it, he said, “Where’s Dean?”
Krista shrugged, unconcerned. It was no business of hers. The boys all thought she got her job laying on her back. She’d told Emily that once, thinking it would elicit a laugh—it was Emily’s husband that hired Krista, after all—but instead Emily went on a tirade of how disgusting the L.A. branch was. It was the last time Krista mentioned something like that to Emily.
Chapter Ten
Sean picked up the phone, got no answer, and then slapped it back down. He had five managers: one that did great work, one that did good work, one that did decent work, and two that were completely useless. He’d hoped the guys would gel with Krista and take an example, like his team in San Francisco had, but no such luck. She was exiled and ridiculed, and time was ticking. If he didn’t whip them into shape soon, he would never hope to get his region producing.
“Geegee, go sit with the others,” He said to Krista.
Sean had always thought he was a good leader. It took this team, trying to bring them together on his own, for him to realize he was a great judge of talent and excellent at big picture plans, but not a leader. Krista was the one that got stubborn workers to deliver—whether by insightful suggestions, example, or pure bullying. She put his business plan into action. That realization had been a hard pill to swallow.
And now she was an outsider, she wasn’t invested, and therefore not motivational. It left him in a bind.
What’s worse, he couldn’t bridge that gap. Sean hadn’t realized the extent of the hurt he’d caused—not until that Friday night when Krista slapped him, in fact. For a woman that thought slapping a guy would get her slapped back—her abusive ex-boyfriend could be thanked for that—her violence was testament to how hurt and upset she was.
And if he was really honest with himself, what she said was correct. He hadn’t wanted the long-term commitment so soon. He hadn’t wanted to leave everything behind with nothing but the hope that it would work out.
He hadn’t been ready.
Again with the hindsight.
He did not look forward to the mass quantities of crow he would have to eat to sort all this out. Krista would rake him across the coals until she was satisfied she could trust him again.
Shaking those thoughts out of his head, waiting for Krista to grudgingly go sit next to men that were not her peers, or her equals, Dean walked in, a note pad and pen in one hand, his cup of coffee in another. He was a short man, pudgy, with big, wire rimmed glasses, and a comb over. He lazily strolled toward the end of the table into the midd
le of the male managers. He was tap-dancing on Sean’s last nerve.
“Dean, I expect you to be on time when I call a meeting. If you can’t make it on time, call my assistant. Is that understood?” Sean pinned Dean to his chair with his stare.
Dean’s eyebrows dipped.
Moving on immediately, Sean looked down at his notes. “Okay, I need to see where everyone is with their assignments. Bob, why don’t you go first?” Sean sat down and gave Bob his attention.
Sean watched in fascination as Bob crinkled his papers, dripped some sweat off his brow, and then reported his half-assed attempt at meeting the goals. Sean could tell Bob put minimal effort into his work. If Krista looked through it, with the expertly trained eye she acquired from Tory, he was sure she’d find all sorts of factual faults.
George went next. Oh wait, Sean was supposed to call him Georgie. He tried not to laugh every time Krista called him Georgina and got a red faced stare. Georgie was a plodder. He didn’t do great work, and he didn’t move all that fast, but he wasn’t lazy either. He might be a bit late, but he made his goals eventually. Sean was only slightly frustrated with him.
“Great. Dean…?” Sean said, sitting back in his chair.
Easily the biggest offender in trying to flout authority, Dean said he had his list done. When asked about it, it turned out he missed a couple bullets, didn’t finish what he had information on, and didn’t put anything together. Basically, at present, he was useless in every way, and thought it was funny. Sean didn’t share the joke.
Next was Donald. Not Don, or Donny. Donald. He was actually not bad, as far as this group of upper-management went. He was particular and precise with perfectly gelled hair in a 1950’s fashion. He always had a closely shaved face and pristine suits without any wrinkles or lint.
Donald had most of his list done, information well organized and probably correct, and was apologetic for not getting to the rest. Sean was satisfied with the answers to his questions, and asked Donald to keep working on it.
