by J. J. R.
Don’t worry, I made new friends and found a better alliance, but I’ll never forget that. Eerily life is so similar as an adult. Can you trust your friends? What are their motives? Bullies still chasing us, just in a different way and for different reasons, like power and greed. And here I am still trying to sell those mean girls out to an adult.
Dante studies my face with a laugh. “Must have been pretty mean bullies?” He laughs and scoops up a bite of his cheesecake. One thing I love about Dante, it’s always salads and health food, but he’ll always order dessert. Even at happy hours. Yet, he’s still skinny as a rail.
“Yeah, they were little devils,” I say and blink the memory away. “I’m guessing you went through something shitty too?”
He looks at me with the best, seriously bitch? face I’ve ever seen. “I was gay. That’s it. End of story. I don’t need to relive those hellish nightmares. My point is, you’re taking a stand for every bully out there. And if you think they’re done picking on you? You are so wrong I can’t even think straight. Ugh!” He scoops up the last bite of cherry-doused cake and rolls his eyes dramatically behind his thick, black frames. “Thank you, Madonna!”
* * * *
I don’t know what to do. I’m dying. On one hand, I’m still pissed at them, but must admit with each day that passes, I get over it a little more. Maybe it was just growing pains in the beginning. But then I stop and think about it for one little second or picture Isabelle ready to pound my face in and I feel like I have no choice. Is Dante right? Are they still not through with me?
Well, kill me. He is so right, I want to vomit.
For the very next day, is strike number three.
* * * *
I can feel eyes on me as I make my way over to talk with Lucy and Brody. The whole corporate office seems to be watching my step. I check my shoes for toilet paper and wipe my face, wondering if that mid-morning donut is still hanging out. Nope, nothing. Just weird, judgmental stares.
“Hey, guys. Having a good day?” I smile out at the team who are diligently clicking and typing away. I peer over Jen’s shoulder to see a gorgeous first draft of the spring promotion. “Gorgeous, Jen. Some of your best work, really.”
“Thanks, but I’m not sure its equivalent of the big time marketing agency Puppet Master brought around to us today.”
“I beg your pardon...who?” I stop in my tracks.
“Yep, said they were coming on board to do the work we couldn’t manage.”
There’s that freaking feeling again. Rising vomit has become my new best friend.
Lucy pipes in, “Hey, I was going to come down and tell you behind closed doors so you didn’t have to compose yourself in front of all of these peeping Toms. Nothing to see here, guys!” She waves a hand at all the faces poking out from cubicles. I barely hear her. I am numb and yes, about to freak the hell out.
“Lucy, come with me?” My voice comes out in a high pitched squeak.
I see her give Jen a look as she quickly trots after me.
Safe in my office, I turn to her, feeling the fresh set of hives that has now taken over my entire neck. “What the hell is she talking about? What marketing agency?”
“I have Xanax in my purse. Nothing major, just helps me get through the day. It’s super low dose. Want me to get you one?” Lucy reaches for the door.
“Um no. Yes. No, sit down. Walk me through this. What exactly did she say?”
“Okay, so I was standing in Brody’s cube and I saw this large herd of suits coming our way. I saw Puppet Master leading them through the room, stopping to introduce them to key people. I couldn’t quite hear what they said until she said it to us.”
I am literally hanging off the edge of my chair. “What? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Marketing Team, meet Marketing Agency. I know you all are working hard and managing the basics pretty well, but Queen Bee and I have decided to bring in this amazing new agency to do the external marketing piece. Don’t worry, you will be a big help to us in getting them up and running and will now have more time to focus on the basics.’ We all just sat there stunned in stupidity. I honestly have seen some bold moves in a business before, but never anything like this. Are you sure you didn’t know about it or have anything to do with it?”
I leap from my chair and start pacing my office. I want to scream!
“How? I mean, what? No! I had nothing to do with any of this! I need to talk to Queen Bee, excuse me,” I say, leaving Lucy with her jaw on the floor.
Queen Bee is out, so I march right on into Puppet Master’s office and close the door behind me. She holds a finger up as she finishes her phone call and fake laughs at someone on the phone. She leans back and reaches for a nail file before slowly filling each nail and continuing to laugh.
She is waiting me out. Expecting me to go. I take a seat and stare right at her.
I wait fifteen minutes before she eventually says, “Okay then, uh huh, ciao.”
I want to reach across the desk and ring her long skinny neck.
“Melanie, what do I owe the pleasure?”
I want to scream, choke her out, and say how on earth could you? But, I calmly, coolly remember how much I need her to trust me. For in case it isn’t obvious, the plan is back on with total vengeance and I couldn’t recall a single word Tom said to me if I tried. This isn’t about the greater good anymore, about stopping bullies everywhere. It is about Puppet Master and me. And I don’t lose. I’m going to destroy her.
“Puppet Master.” I smile sweetly. “I just caught wind of the whole marketing agency coming on board to do external marketing in place of my team thing?”
“Sure, sure! I knew you would love it. Anything to take a load of you poor kids, working so hard. Glad to do it.”
Ahhhhh! I am going to punch her!
I breathe. “You are so thoughtful, Puppet Master. I can’t image trying to take that on too. You are too good to us. I only wanted to come down and ask how my team can be of service.” I smile through gritted teeth that are now rubbing down to tiny chiclets from the stress.
She eyes me, studies my jaw clenching. I am fully aware she can hear the sound of my grinding.
“Really? I am so glad. I was hoping you wouldn’t be mad at me. I’m your friend after all, always have your back. Besides, it wasn’t even my idea. Tom saw your little proposal and thought it best to bring in some reinforcement. You are a fairly new manager, after all. Not much experience to write home about. This will be a good learning experience for you. And your team seemed delighted to work for real experts.” With that final blow to my pride, she rises from her chair up onto her seventeen inch heels and clicks over to open the door. “I hate to chat and run, but I’ve got a meeting with Queen Bee and one of our head physicians. Ciao, darling!”
She stands awkwardly in the door, waiting for me to leave. I clear my throat and rise to exit. “Super. You’re always one step ahead of me.”
As I walk away, I hear her call out, “Exactly!
* * * *
I clench my fists and march straight down to Diane’s office to escalate this plan to the next level.
She waves me in with a warm smile and I am within two seconds of bursting into tears.
She sits across me and watches as I try to form the words, my eyes despite my best effort filling with tears.
“Puppet Master hired an outside marketing agency to manage my team,” I finally spit out.
“Oh my. Are you sure? Queen Bee approved this?” She looks as stunned as I did the moment Lucy told me.
“Yep! And she said I was inexperienced and my team needed to learn from real experts.”
“No.”
“Yep. And she said it was all Tom’s idea.”
“No way. This simply can’t be true.”
I become even more pissed as one silent tear drips onto my cheek. “I can’t believe I am crying! Please don’t tell anyone, Diane. This is the worst day of my professional career. Am I really that bad? Mayb
e they hired the wrong person?” I start pulling at my hair in frustration.
“No, Melanie. Listen to me. They are being mean. Mean girls. Like that movie. Adolescent, but accurate. They are the girls that never grew out of it and in fact, have learned to use it for power. I am devastated for you and completely appalled at their behavior.”
“What do I do? God, I’m sorry I am putting this on you. I know I should put my head down, get to work, and stay focused on what really matters.”
“Who told you that was what you needed to do?”
“Tom. He said to not get caught up in the politics during my presentation the other day. Maybe he is right. Obviously I am too focused on all the drama and have let my work slip.”
“I’m sorry, but he is wrong,” she says solemnly. “If it were possible to stay out of it, I know you would. You are being targeted, bullied in fact and it’s starting to anger me.”
“I don’t know what to do. Please tell me what I should do. I’m so angry I could scream.”
“First of all, breathe. You’re in a safe place talking to me and anything you say will never leave this room. I thank you for trusting me with this information and your personal feelings.”
I breathe in and breathe out.
“Good. Second of all, this is something I need you to document. Write a memo to yourself, keep it under lock and key, at home even, and document days and times this behavior is occurring. Be factual and don’t let your feelings leak onto the page. Then sign and date it. Next, I need you to pull out some of your finest work in your portfolio and remind yourself of how amazingly talented you are. We need you, Melanie, and you are already doing great things. In fact, it’s the great work you are doing that’s driving them mad and making them attack you. Take some time and reinstall confidence into your demeanor, because if I have learned anything in this corporate world, it is that confidence is the only thing that matters. And finally, and this is the absolute worst thing I can tell you.”
I am biting my lip off as she speaks. “What?”
“You are going to have to learn to live within this. Document, speak to me, and pray for the best. After all, this group of mean girls will only remain in power as long as Tom lets them. And I am afraid, my dear, that we have a fairly non-confrontational CEO. Until we have a champion in that seat, we’re going to have to learn to work around them.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding.
“I’m sorry,” she finishes. “I know that isn’t exactly what you want to hear. And I agree with you. If I ran this company, I would never let this happen. I wouldn’t be saying things like, just avoid the conflict. I would reprimand or remove them.”
I can’t believe what I am hearing. The HR Director is looking me in the face and telling me to deal with it.
I scratch my head and force a smile of gratitude. “Thank you, Diane.”
“Like I said, I wish I had better advice.”
“No, it is fine, really. I am more than capable of dealing with it. I just needed to vent for a minute, that’s all. Thank you for listening, truly. Your confidence means a lot to me. And I will most certainly take your advice.”
She smiles and frowns with her eyes as I excuse myself.
Powerless. She is powerless. I am powerless.
I am more determined than ever to defeat, conquer and be my own champion.
Liftoff
Bitch Problem:
Do you have a bully who’s nice one day and evil the next? It’s so easy to fall victim to the nice behavior, believe they have changed. It’s yet another game of manipulation.
Dante and Brisa take me out for drinks and I get smashing drunk. I’m two sheets to the wind and don’t give a tiny rats ass if I even show up tomorrow.
I pull my phone out to scroll Facebook as they go grab another round.
Through a blurry haze, I post the selfie of the three of us about an hour earlier when we were much more put together.
Within seconds, Finn comments, “Oh boy. Three hotties around a Christmas tree.”
I am the middle of commenting back when my phone dings with another Facebook notice. I click it and shriek.
Dante and Brisa race over to me, margaritas sloshing in their hands.
“What? What is it, baby cakes?” Dante asks, licking the salt off the rim.
“Puppet Master just liked the selfie I posted of us.”
“Fuck!” Brisa yells out. “Mel! Never drink and Facebook. That’s a rule.”
“No, wait, it is a good thing.” Dante has a mysterious look in his eyes behind his hot pink glasses. “She’s messing with us. Playing the game. We’re getting to her.”
“But she is going to be so mad that we are all together! Aren’t you supposed to be winning her over? Getting her to confess?”
“I fear we may be past that phase. She went low down and dirty today and I’m not sure she can kick it at a happy hour after that,” I say.
“So we need to move to phase four,” Dante says in a low whisper. “We need to win over everyone else for dirt, including Ashley and Jock. If anyone has her secrets it’s them.”
Brisa lets out a low, murderously evil laugh and the margaritas are finally working their magic.
* * * *
Phase four starts out with my toe barely out of the elevator and Dante rushing me.
“We have liftoff!”
“What? What’s happening?”
He is practically bouncing alongside me.
“Ashley. She cornered me first thing and started asking all these questions about our night last night, said Puppet Master showed her the picture you posted.”
“Oh shit.”
“No, all good things. She asked me if you would maybe talk to her, help her try to get Brisa to forgive her.”
“Wow! Really? That’s huge. I knew she was a good person all along.”
“Yep, I’m starting to think so too. But no matter what, we win her over to our side, get her to spill their secrets and bingo.”
“Bingo,” I repeat, just as Ashley rounds the corner with the look of a lost puppy.
“Hey,” she says quietly. “Got a minute?”
“For you?” I smile widely. “All the time in the world.” I close my office door behind her and wink confidently at Dante who is presently jumping up in down in the hallway.
“So what’s up? You okay?” I take a seat opposite her.
“Yeah. I’ve just been thinking a lot lately about what we talked about at happy hour. And I think you may be right.”
“Oh?”
“I shouldn’t be hanging onto the past and just because Puppet Master is still not able to forgive her, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to.”
“Would that upset her though? Like you said, she was pretty upset at me for shopping.”
“Yeah, probably. But she’s been really intense lately. I haven’t seen much of her, but when I do, she is glued to Queen Bee or Jock’s hips. They’re always whispering and I am starting to wonder if I’m their next victim.”
There it is. The reason for betrayal. It has nothing to do with Brisa, or maybe it does. Maybe she’s so frustrated with them it’s making her realize how shallow and power hungry they are.
“Victim? You don’t mean to say they’re doing anything wrong.”
She chews on her cuticles and looks everywhere but my eyes. “Let’s just say, they aren’t always sweet as pie as they seem. Regardless, this isn’t about them.”
Sure it isn’t.
“I think I am in the wrong and I want to fix it. Will you help me? Brisa really seems to trust you.” She looks up at me, bright-eyed and innocent.
And then my skepticism hits and suddenly I am terrified. What if Puppet Master has asked her to do this? What if it’s all a part of some big plan to gain insider secrets? How do I know I can trust her?
* * * *
“She’s harmless,” Brisa says later. We’ve met up once again in the kitchen on the second level for refuge and plan discussions.
“You think? I mean, look what they did to you. How are you so confident it isn’t a way to oust you for good?”
“Because it was never really her idea. She just went along with it,” Dante says and hops up onto the counter.
“Exactly. She isn’t really known for her own ideas and may just be going along with it. You’re not nervous at all?”
They look at each other and shrug. “Not really,” says Brisa. “If I haven’t been fired yet, I don’t think it’s going to happen now.”
We decide to accept her offer on one condition. We relinquish nothing of our plan to her, ever, no matter how many martinis. We will meet at the bar and never speak of this on office property again. Our goal, until we establish complete and total trust is simply to gain information from her. She trusts us, she spills. Simple as that.
I agree to arrange a happy hour for the four of us, completely off radar. We will go on a Thursday when Puppet Master is at an offsite meeting with vendors. We will stick to a two drink maximum on our end and encourage her to drink more. We will not drunkenly post on Facebook, no matter how delightful it seems to gain likes by unknown people from our past.
Ashely whole-heartedly agrees and is so excited, I almost feel a tinge of guilt.
* * * *
Brisa is the last to arrive and Dante and I have already managed to get Ashley started on her second drink. She is giggling up a storm at Dante and I have a good feeling about this.
Brisa sits down opposite her and says, “Hey, Ashley. I didn’t think you would be here.” She is so convincingly scripted I almost pee myself.
“Well done,” I mouth as Ashley instantly starts in.
“I asked them to invite you. Please don’t be mad. You see, I have just been doing a lot of thinking and I feel terrible. I never told you how much I liked Sleaze. I just expected you to know. And when I got my feelings hurt, I confided in Puppet Master and well, she took it to a whole new level. I never stopped her, I suppose, because I was so sad. Pathetic really. You are such a good person.” I watch as her eyes fill up with tears.
Dante eyes me and I know we are both wondering how genuine this all is. But there are real tears! It has to be from the heart.
