“Yep. So Kathy says, ‘What are you doing with Ellie’s work?’ and Belinda barely replies, ‘What? Oh, uh, I’m just returning something she let me borrow.’ And Kathy says, ‘You liar, I just saw you take it out of her desk!’ And Belinda is just standing there, turning red as a tomato. Then Doug joins the scene—apparently back early from his trip because he was there today—and he asks Belinda what the hell she’s doing. Anyways, long story short, the little wench has been going through your work and using it to put together this huge, like, database or something of information. All of your reviews, all of your contacts and little ins and outs of the city…”
“What!?”
“I know! She punked you, honey! That’s why she got the fill-in job! Apparently she’s been showing Doug all this cool stuff—stuff that you’ve put together but haven’t used for the station yet—and he was, like, super impressed by all of the extra work she’s been doing.”
“No way!”
“Yep. So he was pissed. Fired her right there on the spot.”
“Good.”
“I know.” It was quiet for a few seconds and then she added, “I can’t believe she was stealing your work.”
“I know, me neither. I mean I guess I can because she’s always seemed that way to me, but really… Using my research to compile a database? Well actually that’s what I do, too. It’s all on my laptop.”
“Yeah, but she’s been on your desktop, too.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Doug was on your computer—and I’m sure he’ll tell you all of this when he talks to you; this only happened, like, thirty minutes ago—but she’s been all through your Entourage and stuff.”
“How in the world did she do that? It’s all passcode protected!”
“I don’t know. And I don’t even know how she accessed your computer without anyone seeing her. There are people at the station 24/7. But I heard that she might have done it from another computer, so I guess you’ll have to learn more about that.”
My other line was ringing, and when I glanced at the number I knew it was the station.
“I think someone’s calling me right now,” I told Miranda.
“Prepare to be dragged into the office.”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, thanks for the heads up. I really appreciate it.”
“Sure. I’ll see you next week; I’m off to Vegas for New Year’s.”
“Sheesh, that sounds scary. Okay, bye!”
I quickly switched the call, listened to Doug vaguely explain that there were some issues at work and it would be a good idea if I could come in for a bit. I had just arrived at home, so I grabbed my laptop (Doug’s request) and braced myself for whatever I had to face at the office. Beth was the first one to inform me that Amy quit and Belinda got fired. I only said, “Yeah, I just found out,” and then went straight to my desk. It looked pretty much the same as how I’d left it; I really didn’t know what I was looking for.
Kathy was the first one to greet me, but I could tell it was with mixed emotions. She was one of the station managers but I didn’t deal with her as much as I did my other superiors, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But both Kathy and Doug gave me the situation one more time, expressing their apologies and concerns that I’d been treated unfairly. I didn’t quite understand until I realized that Belinda had been chosen over me because she “worked harder.”
“I should have known,” Doug said, shaking his head. “I mean you’re so consistent, and you always have been. Your work is fantastic, and you’re very popular on-air. Belinda just had…so much. I couldn’t believe some of the stuff she showed me, and the ideas she had. I was really impressed. But this is your stuff, right?”
He showed me an assortment of printouts, ranging from some charity ideas I’d had to contests for listeners—also my entire address book of important contacts.
“Yes, those are straight from my computer.”
He nodded. “These aren’t what she’s been presenting me with—she put together her own printouts so it looked like she’d done it herself.”
I only nodded, still a little overwhelmed.
“But Ellie… Is this honestly extra stuff that you work on?”
“Uh, yeah. I spend a lot of time putting various things together, just ideas and stuff, so I have… Well, so I have a database of my own stuff if I’m ever in the position to use it or carry out one of my ideas.”
“You mean for your own show someday?”
“Uh…” I guess I was a little embarrassed about that, but what was wrong with having a career goal and letting your boss know it? “Yes, that’s always been my focus.”
He looked at Kathy and they both smiled at each other.
“Amy quit two days ago,” Kathy said. “We were already considering you to take her spot, but we’d like to officially offer it to you right now. You’d be working with Ken and Jack full time. They’re very excited to have you if you say yes.”
I was speechless. Full time? As a regular?
“They have some really great ideas for what you can add to the show,” she continued. “But…I’m sure you could probably teach them a thing or two yourself,” she winked.
“The only problem is…” Doug began.
“Yes, I can start right away.”
“Perfect,” he smiled. “They’re both here today, so let’s go meet with them.”
So that was how I got my new job, and even though I wished I could have just earned it the normal way without all the drama involved, I was glad to finally be where I wanted to be. The pay raise was nice, and I immediately began adjusting my budget, happy that I could put a lot more into my savings.
Harlan took me out the next night. It was New Year’s Eve and we planned on going out anyways, but before the party we were going to attend, he took me to a celebratory dinner. It was really nice, and because I’d been in the office all day working with Ken and Jack, it felt good to just sit down and enjoy an evening with Harlan.
After dinner we headed to Big Al’s to go bowling. Harlan had a group of colleagues that were there to celebrate the New Year. He had mentioned the party, and it seemed like it would be a lot of fun, so I was excited to go. We stayed until about eleven, and then headed over to my sister’s house to bring in the New Year. She was a bit annoyed that we hadn’t come earlier, but I didn’t waste the time arguing with her. We did stay later than we’d planned, even helping to clean up. That made her happy, so I was glad to have balanced out her opinions of me—for that night, at least.
I guess I could say that Harlan had become a pretty steady part of my life. Besides his usual kisses on the cheek, the only other time he kissed me on the lips was on New Year’s at midnight. He claimed it was reasonable (joking that some other guy might try to do it) so I let him get away with it.
Since Tyse refused to ever call me back, I had to assume that there was something there that I wasn’t meant to have. I still missed him and thought about him constantly, but I guess I couldn’t be upset with him if he needed to earn some money. The only thing I knew—from talking to Nate one other time—was that Tyse was out on a fishing boat for a few weeks. I didn’t think it would be easy to get a hold of me, so I wasn’t upset about that. But I was still upset that he had canceled the trip to Oregon without even talking to me about it first. I guess I didn’t understand any of that. All Nate said was that it happened so fast; Tyse left with another buddy to land the job, and that was that.
I really longed to have any kind of contact with Tyse, even if all we had was just going back to phone calls and texting. It’s amazing how you take things for granted and don’t even realize it. I guess that’s why phone calls from Harlan were important to me while he was in England. He called me every day he was there, and I felt lucky that we had that.
My first week on the morning show was amazing. It was like a tornado hit me, but I loved it. I got along very well with Jack and Ken, even though they were both ten years older than me, and we had a lot of rowdy, laugh-out-l
oud moments in the studio before and after we were on the air. Okay, and sometimes when we were on-air too, and I quickly found out that I could make them laugh pretty easily. We kind of had a new program format we were following—one that we had come up with as a group—and we got a lot of positive feedback from listeners. So far things were going great, and career-wise I was very pleased with myself.
My personal life? Not so much. I hardly knew what I was doing anymore, from missing Tyse and waiting for the day I could talk to him again to feeling happy that my family loved Harlan to pieces. I felt conflicted because I had two great things: I had Tyse, whom I knew very well, had become best friends with, and had now developed feelings for that I wasn’t sure he returned; and I had Harlan, who was an incredible guy also, was there for me no matter what, and seemed to fit into my life perfectly.
I guess it all kind of hit me one day when I was out with my sister. It was January 13th, my birthday, and we were downtown doing some shopping. We were in the Pearl District, having lunch at Cloud Seven, and my sister had asked what Harlan was doing for me for my birthday.
“He wanted to take me to dinner tonight, but I’m not sure where,” I replied. “But I got three dozen roses delivered to my house this morning.”
“Awww, how sweet. What color?”
“Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s a mix of purples. Different shades. Lights, darks, lavenders, violet…”
“Wow. I’m jealous.”
“I’ll give you a few. I don’t think Harlan would notice. The bouquet is massive.”
“Actually he probably would notice. He’d count them just to make sure the flower shop was honest and lived up to his expectations.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“I mean he’s not fussy about much, he doesn’t like to make a big deal out of things, but he does like things to be just right for you.”
I smiled, nodding my head in agreement. Harlan was like that, pretty laid back, but he did do his best to make me happy. He claimed I was easy to please, so he liked to do things that I wouldn’t expect.
“He’s in love with you Ellie,” Dawn said out of the blue.
I was a little shocked that she’d say that, and I only stared at her with wide eyes.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “Are you really surprised to hear that?”
“Well, uh… I’m surprised to hear you make assumptions about how Harlan feels about me.”
“It’s not an assumption; it’s really obvious.” She shrugged, like I was the idiot for not understanding it.
“Dawn, we have a good thing going right now, so don’t ruin it for me.”
“Ruin it for you?” she chuckled. “Harlan being in love with you is a bad thing?”
I really did believe that it was. I didn’t want him to be in love with me. What if things didn’t work out between us? Why would I want there to be more at stake?
“Ellie, what is wrong with you? Harlan is an amazing guy. Man, he treats you so good! I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for you, little sister. Come on, look at what you have! He’s a doctor. He’s got financial security. He’s so smart and he’s so funny. Everybody loves him…” She looked at me for a few seconds and then added, “Except for you, maybe.” I could tell she was really annoyed with me.
I sighed. “Dawn, it’s not so simple—”
“Bull. It is simple and you just like to make it so it’s not simple.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that I have no idea who you are anymore. For the past three months you’ve been this…different person. But I like you when you’re with Harlan. That’s the Ellie I like to see. You’re happy, and you’re fun, and you seem to have everything together. On your own you really suck. You’re always in your own little world, you always seem to be worried about things…you’re just not the sister I’ve always known.”
“Well, you can thank guys for that. I go crazy because of boyfriends and dating and all that crap.”
“It’s not even that. Yeah, maybe a little bit with Gage. But Ellie… Harlan has put you back together. Can’t you see that? He’s your other half; he completes you. You have your common interests, but the little differences totally compliment each other. You’re happy with him. I can tell.”
“I’m happy to have someone care about me.”
She gaped at me. “That sounds so cold,” she hissed. “Are you saying that Harlan just fills the emptiness for you?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” I sighed. “I love having him in my life, but you can’t force me to be in love with him, Dawn.”
“I don’t have to. I think that you are and you’re just too stubborn to see it.”
I shook my head at her audacity. “Why does everything have to end up according to your schedule?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why do you have to force things to work out according to when you want them to work out? Sometimes it doesn’t happen that way. You wanted to marry Wyatt a month after you met him. You had this perfect little plan to make him love you. Well guess what? He didn’t at first. It took a while. Does that mean he loves you any less? No. But it was just according to his own schedule, not yours. And with Gage… You so badly wanted us to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. It doesn’t work that way. Just because you want it to work that way doesn’t mean it can. Stop forcing me in a direction I want to take slowly and cautiously.”
“Gage did love you,” she stated. I was surprised that was the only thing she replied with.
“No, Gage thought he loved me. Gage loved being with me. Gage was very fond of me. But I really don’t believe he was in love with me.”
“I think you’re wrong. There are so many different ways to love people.”
“Okay, and I agree with that.”
“But just because Gage decided to change your relationship, that means he didn’t love you?”
I sighed. “I have no idea. Maybe he did. But it wasn’t deep enough to be the love that you seem to think will bind people together for the rest of their lives. I thought Gage and I had something good together. Turns out I was wrong. Those kind of mistakes are hard for me to accept.”
“It wasn’t a mistake, Ellie. He was just a person that was supposed to be in your life at that time. So Gage didn’t have that forever kind of love for you; I understand that. But why are we talking about him and not Harlan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because you don’t want to admit how you really feel about Harlan?”
“I don’t even know how I feel about Harlan.”
“That seems really weird to me. You either care about him or you don’t.”
This particular conversation was really difficult to have. Not only because it was with my stubborn, opinionated sister, but because I couldn’t talk to her about the other half of it. I couldn’t talk to her about Tyse.
“Of course I care about him,” I replied.
“But you don’t love him?”
“Again…different levels of love?”
She shrugged. “Okay. So on what level do you love Harlan?”
I couldn’t even answer that. Could I? “Love” seemed like such a misused word. How could it cover so many different varieties? It was like trees. A tree was a tree, but each kind had its own name to set them apart from the rest.
“Do you actually have ‘levels’ that you can define for me? Let’s see, would there be fondness? Uh… affection? And then would you have first love, and true love… Oh, and if you’re ‘fond’ of someone, does that mean as a friend, or that you just think they’re cute and likeable but—”
“Sheesh, Ellie. You’re a handful.”
“I don’t have to answer for you. And if you ever speak to Harlan about any of this, I will never forgive you.”
She gave me a funny smile.
“I’m serious, Dawn. This is very private. I mean I talk to Harlan about pretty much anything, and w
e’ll talk about this if it comes up, but on my time, okay? Not yours.”
“Okay, okay, but only because it’s your birthday. And all this frustration is only going to give you wrinkles earlier in life. You need to relax.”
“Then don’t ever tell me that a man is in love with me.”
“Fine,” she smiled. “But he is.”
I groaned and she laughed.
“Dawn, let me set this straight. Harlan isn’t even my boyfriend. I mean we don’t even use that status.”
“Which is absolutely ridiculous to me. I don’t even understand that. You spend time together, call each other all the time… Are you guys free to see other people? I mean what’s going on?”
It was one of those times that I had to answer carefully because I didn’t want to get into a conversation about Tyse. So I just went with, “Yes, we’re kind of on those terms. I didn’t want to commit myself to an exclusive relationship so soon, and Harlan understood that. We’ve agreed to see other people.”
“But I know he’s definitely not interested in seeing other people, Ellie. So that just leaves you. It’s just like what Gage did to you. That hurt, so why would you do that to Harlan?”
Why would I do that to Harlan…why would I do that to Harlan…? –Because I was foolishly waiting for another man? I had my entire future dependent on a guy that I barely got to see—didn’t even talk to anymore—and I put everything aside with the hope that he returned my feelings.
“Dawn, I gave those terms to Harlan up front. It’s totally differently than what Gage did to me. But this isn’t a subject that we can talk about, so I’m just choosing to end it, okay? Let’s talk about the baby instead. What did Wyatt say about the names you came up with?”
She looked at me for several seconds, and I could tell I had a 50/50 chance of her actually agreeing with me. She was thinking it over carefully.
“He hated the name Larissa,” she finally said. “He liked Violet, Ashlyn, Courtney…names that are a little trendier I guess. He doesn’t like the ones that are different—Nyah, Lyla, or McKall—but I think we could compromise and throw one of those in as a middle name.”
Summer Swing Page 34
