by Becky Monson
But today I find myself looking a little longer than just the once-over. Wow, that dusty-rose color really does look good with my pale skin and dark brown hair. Even my green eyes seem to shine a little brighter …
What the … What is that?????
Oh my gosh, please no. Please nooooooooooo!!! There’s a scab. There’s a scab on my upper lip. I totally forgot about the mustache waxing debacle from last night! This is not happening. Please say this is not happening.
It’s not a small scab, either. It’s a long, thin, brownish scab above my upper lip.
I look … like … Hitler.
What am I going to do? I don’t own any makeup. There’s no way in hell I’m going to work today. I can’t show up with this! What would people say? It’s offensive in so many ways.
That’s the answer then. I’ll just call in. It’s Friday, which means I have an entire weekend for this thing to heal.
Okay. It’s going to be okay.
Wait, I just remembered that I can’t call in! I have a budget meeting that I’m required to go to. Of course, I do. Of course, on the day that my upper lip has a scabby-growth, I’d have a mandatory budgeting meeting.
I’m going to murder Brown. How did I let her convince me to do this? Something must have gone wrong … horribly wrong. I’ve never known anyone to get a scab from waxing. Yes, of course, this would happen to me.
What am I going to do? I have to go to work. Okay, I can handle this. I’m a smart person. There’s only one person who can help me right now.
“MOMMY!!!!” I scream as I run upstairs.
“Mom!” I say frantically as I find her at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and drinking coffee with my dad. “Mom! You’ve got to help me!”
“What is it, Julia?” my mom asks, getting up from the table, looking concerned.
“Look at my lip!” I say as I point to my scabby Hitler upper lip. I really want to cry right now.
“Oh my!” she says as she gets close to me and then takes a step back, obviously a little shocked by what she’s just seen. “How did you … what is … what happened?” she stammers out.
“I got my mustache waxed, and apparently it went horribly wrong!” I hear my dad stifle a laugh and my mom shoots him a look telling him to shut it.
“What can I do? I have to go to work! I can’t go like this!” I start to tear up a little.
“Well, sweetie, I’m not sure. I guess I could try to cover it with some makeup or something? I’m not really sure I’ll be able to cover it, though,” she says, reaching out to touch the scab. “Wow, that’s bad. They must have taken some skin when they pulled the wax off.”
“Ya think?” I snap, a little too sarcastically. I reach up and run my finger over my upper lip, feeling the bump of the scab. “Do you think makeup might actually work?”
“Well, I don’t know dear, but we can try,” she says, looking at me in a pitying way.
“Mom, please, just try. I’m desperate. I have to be at a meeting this morning, and I can’t miss it. But I can’t go into work looking like Hitler, for crap’s sake!” I say as I point to my upper lip. My dad is desperately trying not to laugh and actually covers his mouth and pounds his fist once on the table trying to keep himself from letting it out.
“Dad! Just … whatever.” I roll my eyes at him as I follow my mom into the master bathroom, silently praying she’ll be able to cover the scab.
It took about fifteen minutes of working on it. At one point I had to wash all the makeup off so she could start again (which really stung!), but she was able to cover it pretty well. At least from a distance you couldn’t see it.
Why does completely horrible stuff like this always happen to me? Seriously. What did I ever do?
My mother also convinced me to put on some other makeup, as well, you know, to help take the focus off my scabby upper lip and put more focus on my eyes. Somehow she got me to wear blush, eye shadow (a light cream color, which I fought for—she wanted to do something brighter), eyeliner, and mascara. I think I can count on both hands how many times I’ve worn makeup. I’m feeling a bit whoreish. I hope she’s right though. I’ll take anything that might take the focus away from this horrible wax job. I should have just left the hair. That would’ve been one hundred times better than this.
At work, the first thing I do is make Brown come up to my office and bring some makeup with her just in case I need some touchups. In all my stress to get to work on time, and my hopes of no one noticing my scab when I got there, I actually started sweating on my upper lip.
“Oh my gosh!” Brown says as she sees me, a humongous smile spreads across her face.
“I know! It’s horrible, right?” I say as I cover my mouth and upper lip with my hand.
“No, Julia. You look beautiful! You’re wearing make-up!” She’s practically jumping up and down at this.
“Yeah, because I have a huge scab on my upper lip, thanks to you,” I say, pointing to my lip.
“Seriously, Julia. You look so pretty!” she says, sounding absurdly giddy. I mean, the makeup is not the important part here.
“Brown, you’re missing the point. I had to wear makeup to take the focus off of this growth on my upper lip. It’s not about the makeup. Focus, please!”
“Okay, let me see this lip,” Brown says as she gets up close to my face. “Oh geez, Jules, it’s not that bad,” she says as she inspects it.
“Because my mom covered it up. It’s horrible! I looked like freakin’ Hitler, for hell’s sake!” I squeak out. All she cares about is that I’m wearing makeup, not that I’m a super-freak show.
With that, Brown starts to giggle. And then the giggles turn into laughter until she’s hysterically laughing and can’t catch her breath. She’s so rude. I guess it’s kind of funny, in a horrible why-does-this-crap-always-happen-to-me kind of way. I can’t help myself though, and despite it all, I start giggling and all of a sudden I’m joining her, out of breath with laughter.
“Oh no! My meeting!” I say as I look at the clock bringing us back to reality, tears streaming down our faces. “Fix me!” I point to my face and Brown grabs her makeup bag and gets to work.
I have only a little time to make all the changes to the budget spreadsheet that Mr. Nguyen asked me to make, and then it’s off to the copy room to make enough copies of the report for everyone in the meeting.
On the way to the meeting, I stop by the bathroom for a quick moment to check myself out and look at my upper lip disaster. I’ve got to say, I do look pretty good. I mean, scabby upper lip aside (which has been covered up nicely thanks to my mom and Brown—you can hardly see it), the other makeup my mom put on me actually does look pretty good. Huh. Maybe I could use a little makeup? Just a little, I’m not going to get crazy or anything. But just a little bit wouldn’t hurt. I’ll have to think about that.
Feeling a slight bit of confidence, I guess due to the makeup, I walk into the meeting with a new skip to my step. Well, I don’t actually skip, that would be stupid. That is until I actually look to see who is in the room. Yep, you guessed right—Jared Moody, front and center. Nervous schoolgirl fluttering immediately starts in my stomach mixed with a bit of confusion because I honestly have no idea why he’s here. HR has never been a part of this meeting.
He looks up at me from whatever papers he was reviewing and smiles at me, and just like that I don’t care that he’s not supposed to be at this meeting. His smile is stunning. And then without thinking, I smile back at him. Just like a normal human would. Geez, put makeup on a spinster and watch out! She’ll start acting like a lady. Who knew?
I hear a throat clear behind me and turn around to see all of Mr. Calhoun standing in front of me.
“Hi, Mr. Calhoun!” I say much too cheerfully. What has gotten into me? This makeup stuff must have leaked into my brain or something.
“Well, hello, Julia,” he pauses and weaves his fingers together placing his hands on his large belly. “Will you be bringing your famous cookies
anytime soon?”
“Um, sure. I can do that,” I say and smile at him.
“Let’s get started,” Mr. Nguyen says from behind me, and I awkwardly find a seat. I make sure it’s not next to Jared. Hey, I successfully smiled back at him without tripping or burping or doing something that would be ridiculously embarrassing. No need to rock the boat.
“Before we begin, Ed Calhoun has a few words,” he says with no inflection in his voice. It’s almost as if he’s annoyed, but Mr. Nguyen always seems annoyed.
“Thank you, Henry,” Mr. Calhoun says extra jovially, and his belly moves a little Santa Claus-like as he smiles at everyone. “Sorry to be hijacking your ‘proverbial’ meeting everyone.” Oh geez. “I just want to take a moment and introduce our newest hire, Jared Moody.” He motions to Jared, who’s leaning back in his chair.
“I know that HR isn’t usually in your weekly budget meeting, but I’ve asked Jared to sit in so there’s an HR presence. In an attempt to be more efficient, we want to make sure we have a presence with all company departments. Jared has been kind enough to help me out with this,” he says and nods to Jared. “Do you have anything to add, Jared?”
Jared stands up and looks around at everyone. “Nothing to add. I’m just glad to be here. I don’t want anyone to think that HR is hiding under the table or anything,” he says and then sits down, looks at me, and gives me a sly smile and a wink.
Well. I. Never.
Okay, technically, I did, but I can’t believe he just said that. I quickly spin my chair around so I’m facing slightly away from Jared, but still looking somewhat forward. To say I’m blushing would be an understatement.
“If that’s all, then I’ll now turn the time back over to Henry,” Mr. Calhoun says and shoots us all a wave as he walks out of the room.
Mr. Nguyen goes to the front of the room. “We have a lot to cover, so let’s begin.”
He goes into an interesting description of the quarterly budget and where the company is and where we need to be and blah, blah, blah. Okay, it isn’t interesting. But I make it seem as if I’m particularly interested in what he has to say. I nod my head yes when I notice everyone else doing it, and every once in a while I rest my chin on my fist in a pondering way to make it look as if I’m contemplating all that he’s saying. I need to act cool here, like I don’t care that Jared just secretly insulted me in front of everyone. But was it actually an insult if no one else knows what he’s talking about?
I really need to hate him right now, but he looks so incredibly good today. He’s wearing a perfectly pressed light blue shirt that makes his eyes pop. He makes eye contact with me, and I quickly turn my attention back to Mr. Nguyen.
“There has been a downward turn of sales as of this last quarter, and adjustments have been made in the budget to compensate for this as you’ll see on the fifth page of the report …” Mr. Nguyen continues his presentation, which is about as exciting as having teeth pulled.
My mind starts wandering to food because that’s what I do when I’m bored. Right now I’m craving a cream puff I had recently. Last week, I was at the restaurant supply store looking at some new baking tools (they know me by name there, embarrassingly enough), and afterwards I stopped by this little pastry shop and had the most amazing cream puff I’ve ever had. And I mean a.maz.ing. It had just the right amount of cream and puff. I’ll have to try and recreate it.
“Julia?” Jared’s voice pulls me out of my cream puff thoughts.
“Yes?” I say as I look up from the report that I’m not actually reading, and then I see all eyes in the room are on me. I look at Jared, and he points to Mr. Nguyen at the front of the room.
“Julia, could you please hand out the reports?” he says, shooting daggers from his eyes at me.
“Um, yes. Sorry! I was just … um … reading the report. Very interesting stuff! Sorry everyone!” I say as I get up and start handing out the report to everyone in attendance. I hear someone snicker in the back of the room. I wonder how long Mr. Nguyen was trying to get my attention. I must have looked like a total fool.
I was supposed to hand out the report to everyone before the meeting started. I guess Jared and Mr. Calhoun caught me off guard, which is not actually an excuse that is even remotely acceptable. Mr. Nguyen is not going to be happy.
I try desperately to focus for the rest of the meeting to attempt to make up for my indiscretion. Mr. Nguyen is seriously anal (it’s the word that best describes him) and hates it when things don’t go smoothly in his meetings. I can’t believe I was the cause. There’ll be a strongly worded email coming my way very soon.
“Julia,” Mr. Nguyen says my name rather tersely after the meeting ends, and motions for me to come to the front of the room as everyone else starts to leave. “I need to speak with you.”
Oh my gosh, he’s going to yell at me in person. In front of everyone? In front of Jared? Really? But he rarely says anything to my face. He usually just sends emails. I can’t believe this. How will I respond? I don’t even know … I have no speech prepared.
“Yes, Mr. Nguyen?” I say as I get up from my seat and walk to the front of the room. “Great presentation, by the way!” I say and smile cheerfully. I hate how I get overly patronizing when I know I’m in the wrong.
“Yes. Well, I need you to do something for me,” he says as he looks down at his long pinky nail, which is so long it’s starting to curl. So gross. I’ll be telling Brown about that later.
“Sure! No problem! What can I do?” Really, I’m being so pathetically butt-kissy right now. I can’t help myself though. It’s a very annoying trait of mine.
“This is Jared Moody,” he says, motioning to Jared.
“Um, yes, we’ve met,” I say, turning around to see Jared leaning back in his seat, the little smirk spreading across his face.
“Mr. Moody is new here, and he needs to have the quarterly report explained to him,” he says as he grabs all of the paperwork he used for the meeting and stuffs it into a manila file folder. “I don’t have time to do it, so I need you to.”
What? Is he crazy? I can barely get out a sentence in front of Jared. How am I supposed to explain this report?
“But, I honestly can’t. I have so much to …”
“Yes, well, you’ll have to do all that later. I’m unable to do this, so I need your help.” He looks at me sternly, and my heart sinks.
“Sure, no problem,” I say to Mr. Nguyen as he leaves the room, clearly done talking. Well, this is… awkward.
I’m honestly confused by all of this. I heard Mr. Calhoun’s explanation, but the job Jared got—the one I wanted—is supposed to be more of a support role under Mr. Calhoun. It should have nothing to do with accounting, or any other department for that matter. I don’t know why I even have to explain this report to him when it should have nothing to do with his job. I guess I didn’t truly understand the job description when I read it on the interoffice posting board. In a way, I’m now glad I didn’t get the HR job. I was trying to get away from accounting, so it wasn’t the perfect position for me after all. Hopefully there’ll be another opening soon, far away from accounting. Far, far away.
“Julia, the cupcake girl,” Jared says as I turn around nervously and see him smiling at me.
It’s just him and me in the conference room now; everyone else has left. I’m about to have an actual conversation with him, and I have yet to be able to do that. And in order to give him the full rundown of this report, I’ll have to use more than one-word sentences. This is not good.
I sit at the opposite end of the table from him and look down at the report. I don’t even know where to start. Stay tuned for yet another embarrassing moment in the life of Julia Warner Dorning. I’ve had so many lately, I think I’ve lost count.
“So what’s the story?” he asks and smiles at me, and my stomach does a couple of flips.
I smile at him nervously and wonder what in the heck I’m going to teach him about this report. I don’t even know wh
ere to begin.
“Well, this is the … um . . . budget report,” I say to him, holding the report up by the corner like this is show-and-tell or something. So. Stupid.
“Yes, I know,” he says, and smiles. He stands up from his seat and walks to my end of the table and sits right next to me. “Do you mind? I figure it would be easier if I sat closer to you. I don’t bite, promise,” he says, and holds up his hands in an “I’m innocent” way.
“Sure,” I say and smile slightly at him. He smells really good. Dang, he smells really, really good. The fluttering in my stomach gets stronger.
“So, what can you tell me about this report?” he says as he sits back in his chair, looking at me.
There’s no time like the present to start acting like a human with a brain and show him I do have a personality and can say words, and that I’m not actually slow like I’m sure he’s been wondering.
I breathe deeply.
“Okay, as Mr. Nguyen talked about in the meeting, this report is done quarterly. So, this report is from the last quarter’s earnings.” Holy crap, I just got out a sentence. A miracle has just happened. Well, it’s a miracle for me, at least.
Jared nods his head like he understands, and feeling a little more confident that I can actually speak around him, I continue. “This first part of the report is the overall sales from last quarter. As you can see, they’re down substantially.”
“Is that the number, right here?” His hand brushes mine as he points to the report and instantly my entire arm has a warming sensation that goes directly to my cheeks. Please don’t blush, please don’t blush … too late.
“Um …” Breathe Julia, breathe. “That’s right.” I keep my face focused on the report and hope he isn’t looking at me.
I glance just slightly in his direction and see him sit back in his seat. It looks as if he’s pondering the numbers I just showed him.
“I’m starving,” he says all of a sudden.
“Oh, okay … um … we could do this later?” I say, feeling slightly relieved yet disappointed at the same time.
“Actually, I was thinking I might order some lunch, and we can eat it here while we go over this. You hungry?” he asks, and smiles slightly at me.
