Kemp is silent and I want to make sure I’m reading this one hundred percent correctly and not misinterpreting anything so that I don’t go accusing someone of something that is not true.
“Kemp, Hale knew?”
“Yes. And I thought it was good that he had an option waiting for you,” he defends.
“Oh you did, huh?” This is way too much for me to process. Hale fucking knew. He never said a word to me. He honored Kemp’s confidentiality at my expense, while he was fucking me. Bros before Hos. Isn’t that the saying?
“You didn’t think it was inappropriate that a client knew I wasn’t being promoted before the employee herself knew it?”
“Sierra, it just came up organically in a conversation about how competent you are in all facets of the business and Hale’s need for someone like you to round out his organization.”
That’s all I ever was? Someone to round-out his organization? The employee who said, “No” to the almighty tech god, Hale Lundström, making him even more determined to bed me.
“How long ago did this conversation take place?”
“Several weeks ago,” he admits.
“So, both you and Hale have known for several weeks that Susan was going to be offered your position and that Robyn would be my counterpart?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.” I can hear the annoyance in his voice. He’s annoyed with me? He’s testy because he has to have this conversation with me? Seriously?
And that’s it. That is the end of my rope.
“Okay, great. Well you won’t need to say it again. I’m done, Kemp. I’ve worked my ass off and done everything the right way, with integrity. I didn’t stab people in the back or use their shoulders as rungs on my personal ascension ladder, I didn’t blow anyone or spread my legs to secure my next role. I did everything honorably. But clearly this is not an organization that respects dignity. After nearly losing my life last week, for my job, I remind you, I am done giving. I am resigning, effective immediately. I’ll ship my laptop, printer and files to you within the next forty-eight hours.”
“Sierra, no one wants you to leave. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Yeah, Kemp, but you didn’t want me to stay.”
And with that, a very long chapter in my life is closed and a short segue grinds to an unforeseen halt.
She walks into my office wearing my shirt, a tank top and her shorts, purple hospital socks on her feet. In her right hand is a Whole Foods reusable bag, filled with things.
Looking up, “Why didn’t you text me?” I go to rise from my chair and she motions with her hand for me to stop. “Sierra, what’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter is that you’ve been using me. Your board wants you to have a woman exec and I was, what? Auditioning?”
“Baby, that’s not…”
“Don’t you baby me, Hale.” The look on her face is terrifying.
“Sierra, calm down,” the minute it is out of my mouth I know that was a supreme mistake.
Pointing a finger at me, “Say that again and those will be the last two words you ever speak to me.”
And I know she’s not bluffing.
“I have not been using you.” I wonder what Kemp has said to her. They’ve obviously had a conversation.
“Bros before hos? Is that it? Keeping Kemp’s secret was more important than being honest with me?”
“It was not my place to tell you.”
“Wrong answer. You keep telling me that I need to trust you. You really think siding with him is going to build my trust?”
“I didn’t side with him, Sierra.”
“You kept it from me, Hale. Why, you didn’t want me to lose focus and bail before TFV1? You needed me to complete my task so why tell me the truth?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. It was a funky situation and I didn’t want to risk anything for you.”
“Bullshit, Hale. There was nothing left to risk. I didn’t get the job. You knew that.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Change everything in my life, because none of it is working for me.”
“Did you quit?”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t see you working for Susan.”
“It’s insulting to have Robyn as my counterpart.”
“She’s really quite bright.” Again, the minute that is out of my mouth I want to reach in the air and retrieve it.
“Don’t even…” She points at me. “Well I’m glad you enjoy her intellect, she can now spend as much time humping your leg as she’d like.”
“What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You asked me what ‘I love you’ meant to me, well, what does it mean to you, Sierra?”
“I’ll tell you what it doesn’t mean, Hale. It doesn’t mean being lied to, deceived, used. It doesn’t mean putting your needs and other people’s needs in front of mine. Everything about your love for me was calculated and manipulated to fulfill your corporate and personal agenda and have total power over me,” she pauses. “I hate to break it to you, but that’s not love, Hale.”
“Sierra, yes I want you here at SpaceCloud, you are smart and competent and we work very well together. Having you on my team would be a huge asset. But that is not what this is about.”
“You knew what that promotion meant to me. But you kept his confidence. We became lovers and you were keeping secrets and telling me, trust me, trust me. How do I trust you, Hale? Truths are based on your agenda, not my welfare.”
She picks up the Whole Foods bag she’d set on the chair. “Please ship the rest of my stuff to me. Don’t bring it by. Don’t call. Don’t text. Do not do drive-bys of my house. I want you to disappear as if I’d never laid eyes on you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“If you think I don’t mean that, then you don’t know me at all.”
“You’re making a mistake, Sierra. Walking out without a job. Without me.”
“No mistake, Hale. I’m walking out with my dignity.”
And with that, Sierra Stone walked out of my life.
We were just beginning so I’d never even thought about what my world would be without her. She had been in my thoughts constantly from the night she walked into the St. Regis bar and ridding my mind of her was not going to be an easy feat. The months we’d spent making memories were the most real thing I’d had in my life since my time overseas. It was lucid, colorful, painful, exhilarating and wonderful. And it was gone.
The things that fulfilled me before Sierra, felt empty now. But I knew the emptiness was just me and in time, the memories wouldn’t be so painful. I needed time. I also knew that Austin was a small city and eventually our paths would cross. Or at least I hoped they would.
She was right. How do you trust a person who doesn’t put you and your needs first? My fuck-up was colossal. And self-serving on so many levels. But what I think hurt the most was that she really believed the whole thing was a scam and that I didn’t love her. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.
Breathing life back into her after the flood jumpstarted my heart in a way she could never fathom. Had she died in my arms that day, I would not have been able to go on. Instead my breath became hers, as I breathed for her. I would have kept going for as long as I needed to had her body not responded. But it did. And in that moment, I exorcised a ghost.
Never, in a million years, would I have thought that within a week I would be so haunted again.
New York City and the SkyTrack at my health club, L9/NYC became my salvation. While running I would replay that last conversation over and over again. I should have pushed Kemp to tell her, not hold off to meet my needs. That was a douchebag move.
“Where’s the picture of your girlfriend?” Annette from accounting has wandered into my office.
“She dumped me back in the fall,” I confess.
“Now why would she do that, you’re so rich and handsom
e?”
I motion for her to take a seat.
“Because I was an asshole. I wasn’t looking out for what was best for her. I did what was best for me.”
“It sounds like you’ve learned your lesson. The holidays are coming up soon. Maybe she’s missing you as much as you are missing her.”
Laughing, “I doubt that.” I smile at Annette who is like a wonderful aunt, “What makes you think I miss her?”
“Not for nothing, Mr. L. but you’ve had a basset hound face for the last month or so whenever I’ve seen you. You get these sad, puppy dog eyes. And they are very sad right now. You’re still handsome,” she adds, “just sad.”
Nodding, it feels good to be having this random conversation with this very unlikely woman. “I am very sad, Annette. I wish I could make this right.”
“Don’t give up hope. If you want to make it right, you will find a way.”
I laugh, “She’ll tell me to go fuck myself.”
“I like her,” Annette laughs. “As long as she’s not married to someone else, all in love is fair. Remember that, Mr. L.”
Later that week at a dinner with Kemp, Susan and Robyn, I feel like I’m cheating on Sierra. I know I’m their client. This is business, but it is difficult to pretend that I’m happy being there. That I’m happy being with them, like nothing’s changed. Because everything has changed. The excitement of those months getting to know her, working side by side, sharing in each other’s worlds with the Universal and Texas events. The time leading up to when we could be together. And those four days I cared for her. Four days in my bed. I’d saved her. And I’d saved myself.
The most painful moment was going back into my apartment that night. I’d walked in there so many nights and never had it feel that empty. I walked the rooms secretly hoping I’d find her curled up in a chair asleep somewhere. My bedroom felt like a portal to Hell with a big black hole at the center sucking the life out of any breathing matter. My heart hurt being in there. Literally it ached to the point where my breathing felt labored.
The pillows and sheets smelled of her. The scent of us remained long after she was gone. But the single most painful thing was glistening on the nightstand on her side of the bed. Puddled in a small mound was the gold chain I had given her for the mermaid. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I let it run through my fingers over and over again, like sand running through an hourglass, marking the inevitable. Sierra taking the necklace off and leaving it was a symbolic gesture. She’d removed my chains, but I was still bound tightly in hers. I wasn’t ready to remove them.
“Where are you tonight, Hale?” Robyn squeezes my hand, bringing me back.
Laughing, “Thinking about things in Austin.”
“I cannot wait to go there. I’m thinking about coming in for that music festival in the spring. What’s it called again? It’s a bunch of initials.”
“South by Southwest.”
“That’s right.” Her hand is now on my forearm. “SXSW.”
Kemp cuts in, dragging it back to business and my comfort zone. “We’re planning our annual sales kick-off meeting agenda. It takes place in January and we rollout all new products and services to the sales team at that time. We also do the annual awards dinner and our President’s Club winners are announced. It’s a fun time and we would really love to have you there to give a speech to the sales force on growing symbiotic relationships. It’s going to be down in New Orleans, so it will be a blast.
“Have Blair check my calendar to see if it’s viable.” I don’t want to commit either way while sitting here.
Moving to the bar after dinner, Kemp pulls me aside. “Have you spoken to Sierra?”
“No. Have you?” It was a question I was dying to ask all night long and obviously so was he.
“No. Not a word. I’m sure Monica and Beverly have been in touch, but I haven’t talked with either of them directly. I didn’t think she’d quit.”
“There was no way it was going to work with Susan trying to micromanage her.”
“I thought she’d end up with you.”
I thought she’d end up with me, too. But I lost her. I can’t tell him that.
Kemp orders a beer and I take a Sazerac. I can’t stomach the thought of a Manhattan.
“Do you think she’ll stay in Austin?” I ask, leaning on the bar’s polished brass rail.
“Oh yeah, she loves it there. I can’t imagine she’d leave. There’s currently so much growth there and a lot of opportunity. I’m surprised you haven’t run into her.”
Laughing, “It’s not that small a town, dude.”
Taking a sip of his beer, “I really miss talking to her. Things just seem so out of balance without her.”
You can say that again. “Do you think you made the right decision?”
“Time will tell. But I do wonder,” Kemp admits.
Clicking through my inbox, I open the email for my Austin Business Journal and there he is, front and center. And he’s not smiling. But he’s staring at me. Intense. Serious. And so fucking hot I don’t know whether I’m going to cry or melt.
Miserable doesn’t even begin to describe my state of mind since my phone call with Kemp. Devastated that I trusted Hale and he had a freaking agenda the whole time. I was just something to be checked off a list.
I really fell hard for him. He was a man, not a boy. A man who stimulated me intellectually and emotionally. I wanted to know everything about him. Yet, in reality, I knew nothing except the expertly crafted image.
Forwarding the email to Monica and Beverly, I write, “As if Monday’s didn’t already suck.”
“Too bad he’s a dick,” is Monica’s response.
It’s another forty minutes before I erase the email, just not ready to stop staring at those deep blue eyes.
“Do you guys want to go somewhere for New Year’s?” I email later. It’s kind of a rigged question because these two would prefer to be in a casino than anywhere else.
“If my darling husband doesn’t throw a fit,” is Beverly’s response.
“Vegas?” I toss out the bait.
“I’m in.”
“I’m in.”
Two emails arrive in rapid suggestion.
Laughing, I feel the clouds part for the first time in forever, exposing a thin sliver of blue sky. A beautiful azure stripe reminding me that better days lie ahead.
Consulting for one of the incubators in town has turned into an amazing gig. I’m helping four start-up companies to get off the ground. One non-profit, two small tech companies and a farm-to-table distributor specializing in meat, dairy and produce from local, family-owned organic farms.
Being able to help them in all facets of company set-up and launch is pure fun. While I’ve developed and introduced many new products and services in my career, I’ve always had a big corporate budget behind me and never had to do it in the traditional way of start-ups, by bootstrapping.
Calling on creativity, moxie and contacts, bootstrappers will launch a company seemingly with sheer will and a good, viable idea. There is something so pure about it, versus big business, it becomes a mission, and failure is not an option.
It was scary giving up my golden handcuffs to experience entrepreneurism at its purest. No big salary, no stock options, no first class seats and upgraded hotel rooms, gone is the big expense account and the corporate card. Losing my golden handcuffs has been wildly liberating and I know now, I never, ever want to be bound by a pair of them again.
Working at the incubator has saved my soul, if not my heart. My daylight hours are spent building and growing and creating. It’s just the night time that has become interminably long. I miss him. I miss him so much. He permeates my every thought and I want to be sharing everything I’m doing with him. I want his input. I want him to be proud of me. I want him to be excited about my successes. But I can’t trust him. And I spend my nights waiting for the dawn when my soul is saved by the salve that daylight brings.
It’s dark when I
pull my car into the driveway and I can smell the wood burning in neighbors’ fireplaces. It’s one of those cold December nights that makes me forget I’m living in Texas and I look forward to my flannel pajama bottoms and UGG slippers. Sitting outside my front steps is a box. I scoop it up and unlock the door.
The house feels so toasty and I can smell the pine from my little four foot live tree. Tonight is a soup night, I decide. Opening the box, I realize there is no label on the outside, nothing saying Harry & David’s, which would immediately clue me in that it was a package from my mother.
There’s an inner box, which I slip out. The paper is adorable and I smile as I read it. Covering the box are recipes: Hot Apple Cider, Fruit Cake, Pumpkin Bread, Hot Mulled Wine. Carefully, I remove the paper, so that I can save the recipes. Gasping at the lid of the Kraft colored box emblazoned in white script Christian Louboutin Paris, my hands begin to shake.
Opening the box, any slight doubt I may have had as to the sender, dissipates. The box contains the same style black pumps I lost in the flood. Clearly not a coincidence. Searching the box, there is no note, anywhere.
I really don’t want to contact him. If I reach out it could be misinterpreted that I want a dialogue. And I don’t. I want to heal, rid myself of the unceasing thoughts I have trouble controlling. And they are OCD-like obsessive. I can’t extricate him from my heart and he remains, steadfast, an unwanted criminal, who has stolen from me more than I ever thought I possibly possessed.
Do I send them back? Wear them around the house naked as a big fuck you? Throw them out (no, that’s a stupid thought).
There was a box outside my front door when I got home. I text Monica.
What was in it?
Black Louboutins. Same ones I lost in the flood.
Hale?
It’s got to be.
Have you called him?
No.
Are you going to call him?
No.
Are you going to thank him?
I don’t know.
Are you going to keep them?
I don’t know.
What size are your feet?
Slave to Love Page 18
