Just This Once

by K. G. MacGregor

  Wynne got her answer in late August, when she happened upon the “On the Move”

  column of the Orlando Business Review. It was only a tidbit and she might have missed it, but the bolded name leapt out at her.

  The Orlando Weller Regent is pleased to announce that Paula R.

  McKenzie has been promoted to the position of Manager, Hotel Operations. An 11-year veteran of the Weller Regent Corporation, Ms.

  McKenzie returns to her native Florida from Denver, where she served as Senior Shift Manager in the Weller Regent’s newest hotel property.

  “Okay, it took me a while, but I finally met someone really nice that made me think of you. You interested?” Cheryl Williams stood in her doorway, an expectant look on her face.

  “Huh…?” Her thoughts elsewhere, Wynne was startled by the sudden appearance of her boss. What the hell was this woman talking about?

  “I’m thinking a small dinner party next Saturday. The two of you could have a chance to meet and chat informally. If you hit it off, great! If you don’t…hey, it didn’t cost you anything.”

  “Uh, you mean…a woman?”

  “Uh, yes,” she mocked her assistant VP. “Isn’t that what you ordered?”

  Wynne couldn’t stifle the laugh that erupted at the thought of her boss scrounging for her potential dates. But the thought of making small talk with a stranger under Cheryl’s watchful eye held no appeal at all. “I, uh…I’m sort of seeing somebody,” she lied, glancing back at the Business Review.

  “Oh yeah?” Cheryl was certainly intrigued by this pronouncement. “Anyone I know?”

  “I don’t think so. We haven’t been seeing each other long.”

  “Well I’m glad to hear that, Wynne. You’ll keep me posted, won’t you?”

  “Sure.” She hoped to be seeing someone very soon. Paula McKenzie was back in town!

  ———

  “You wouldn’t believe how good it is to see you back here. Now how do I get bumped to day shift?” Jolene asked her mentor.

  “That should be easy…three to five years on the night desk gets you to catering or the business center; then another two years after that gets you to the daytime desk.”

  The African-American woman groaned. “I don’t think I can stand Belinda for three to five more years.”

  Paula chuckled softly, looking about to see if the woman who had replaced her over a year ago was nearby. “You were just spoiled because I was such a pushover. You know, it takes a while to build a rapport with somebody, and she might be struggling with it as much as you are.”

  “I don’t think so, Paula. She just doesn’t seem to try very hard to get along with people.”

  “Let me give you a little advice here, okay? This is how things work at the WR. If your boss does something that breaks the rules, then you should file a grievance. Everything’s spelled out in the handbook. But if it’s just a personality clash, then you’re more likely to be the one that gets judged on how it all gets resolved. I know that sounds unfair, Jolene, but that’s the way it is. Weller Regent loves it when everyone on the staff gets along, but it isn’t realistic to think it’s going to happen all the time. If Belinda is doing her job, the WR is going to throw her all the support she needs.”

  “I know you’re right. And I know that I can always count on you to tell it just like it is.”

  Paula smiled and chucked the woman’s arm gently. “Like I said, you’re spoiled. And I know it probably makes you feel better to get it off your chest, but I would also suggest that you try not to do that at work, or with any of the others that work here. It just gives it a life of its own, and makes everything worse.”

  Jolene nodded, feeling embarrassed at having shown an unprofessional side of herself to this woman she respected so much.

  “But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t speak up if you think you’re being treated in a way that’s against our employment practices. And if you aren’t sure about it, you can always come to me. Just try to be discreet, okay?”

  Paula was finishing up her first day back on the job in Orlando. What Jolene didn’t know was that Stephanie had already briefed her on what she considered an alarming number of informal complaints regarding the night Shift Manager, and with Rusty’s post now open, the WR needed to follow up on those, as the person just hired to take his place was now Belinda’s immediate supervisor. Without a moment’s thought, Paula offered to fill in a few nights to help smooth the transition and Stephanie immediately took her up on it.

  But right now, it was 4:30, a half hour since her shift ended, and Paula was eager to get home. For the next few days, home was her parents’ house in Cocoa Beach, an hour and 15 minutes from the WR. Her furniture was en route, and while the WR was willing to put her up for free, she had Slayer to consider. The 30-hour drive in the small convertible had traumatized him, and it didn’t feel right just to leave him on his own with her parents.

  Paula had to admit that it was pretty fabulous to walk into a house filled with lively conversation and the aroma of dinner. The last year in Denver had left her feeling lonely and isolated, and she’d finally admitted to herself that she had overreacted to the dismal ending of her short affair with Wynne Connelly. She needed to give her social life a little attention, and now that she was working the day shift, she might even be able to get out and meet people.

  Chapter 15

  “You’re getting to be a fixture here, Wynne. What’s the matter? Didn’t pay your light bill?” Kitty teased.

  “Very funny,” her daughter answered. “Did you ever stop to think that I might just enjoy your company?”

  “I’m not complaining. I like seeing you this much,” Kitty assured her eldest daughter.

  The elder Connelly had undergone something of a transformation after moving. It wasn’t just the fact that the condo association now took care of many of the things that worried her so back in Baltimore. It was also that she’d left behind the reminders of the pain and sorrow that had shrouded her after losing her beloved husband. Here in Orlando, she had started to make friends again, friends who hadn’t known her only as Dr. Connelly’s wife.

  Wynne felt a little guilty at her mother’s questions, and vowed to come clean eventually;

  but for now, she kept to herself the purpose of her frequent visits. The sight of the moving van as she pulled into the complex today made her spirits soar, but it was the white sedan in the garage instead of the green Miata, and that worried her more than a little. It might mean that Paula hold sold the place or was renting it again, but her familiarity with this new woman in the white car was unmistakable. Was it possible that the two were moving in together? That was certainly disconcerting.

  ———

  “Look at all you’ve done!” Paula was ecstatic to walk in and find her furniture in place, the kitchen and baths set up, and both of her beds dressed in crisp clean sheets. The closet by the entryway held a stack of cardboard boxes, broken down flat for the recycle bin.

  “I didn’t know what you wanted to do with all your books and pictures, so I left them in their boxes on the porch. Oh, and I hate to tell you this, but everything you own needs to be ironed.” Maxine McKenzie was sprawled on the couch, the red-stained plate nearby a telltale sign of the pizza she had ordered.

  “Mom, I can’t believe you did all this. You must have worked all day.”

  “Not all day. The truck didn’t get here until about two o’clock.”

  “What did you do all morning?”

  “I scrubbed the bathrooms and the kitchen…swept out the garage. Oh, and I cleaned all the windows.”

  “You’re kidding! And I thought I had a rough day!” Paula had worked a double shift, filling in as promised in the Senior Shift Manager post while the new hire settled in. “You get to name your reward.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Anything you like. You want a professional massage? A manicure and a pedicure? Name it.”

  “Okay. What I want is for you t
o start living more of your life away from that hotel.”

  Paula looked at her mother perplexed. “You mean not work as much?”

  “Yes, but more than just not being there. Now that you’re working on the day shift — at least as soon as you get through this temporary duty — I’d like to see you start having more fun, start doing things with friends, maybe even meet somebody.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears, Mom,” Paula said sincerely.

  Maxine sat up, surprised at her daughter’s easy agreement. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.” The younger woman kicked off her shoes and sat down in her favorite chair, tucking a foot underneath her. It was almost midnight and both of them were beat, but ever since the talk they’d had when she’d come back for Rusty’s wedding, Paula realized that she really wanted to start sharing more of her personal life with her family. It felt good to be able to connect with her mom this way, and she liked to think that when she did meet somebody special, they’d be happy for her.

  “I’m going to make a real effort to get out and meet people.”

  “Do you have a lot of…women friends?” Maxine meant lesbian friends.

  “No, but I think the most important thing is just to make friends — all kinds of friends. Eventually you start to meet people here and there who you have things in common with, and then you meet their friends, and their friends, and so on. But I’m serious, Mom. I’m not going to live every minute of my life for the Weller Regent. This last year has really taught me the consequences of not having a life outside of work.”

  Her mother smiled. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that, honey. I guess all parents want to see their kids happy, but I’ve been a little selfish about that. I’ve wanted to see you happy with somebody, not just at work. Your dad and I are really proud of what you’ve accomplished at the Weller Regent, but it would pale next to seeing you in love with somebody.”

  For some reason, Paula blushed as she thought about of being in love. Clearly, she had further to go with feeling completely comfortable talking about this stuff with her mom, but it was sort of freeing in a way. That said, she hoped her mother would never ask about her sex life.

  “We should go to bed. Don’t you have to be at work early?”

  “My shift starts at seven,” Paula answered, standing wearily. “I really appreciate everything you did today. You should sleep in tomorrow, okay? I’ll come down and pick up Slayer after work.”

  “I might take you up on the sleeping in part, but don’t worry about Slayer. He can stay with us as long you need.”

  “But I’ll miss him, and besides, he’ll be excited to get back to his old haunts. I bet the lizards line up on the window to see him. They’ll all be fat, though, because they haven’t had any exercise in a year.”

  ———

  The white car was gone today. A green Miata with Colorado tags sat in the open garage, and Wynne caught a glimpse from afar of a petite blonde woman lugging flattened cardboard boxes across the parking area to the recycle bin. After one more trip, she backed out of the garage and was gone.

  “What do you keep watching out there?” Janelle asked.

  “Just…somebody moving in.”

  “Somebody in particular?” Kitty walked into the living room, now interested in her oldest daughter’s answer. Since that day at the pool, she too had noticed that Wynne was keeping a watchful eye on the goings-on at the end unit of the first building.

  Lying to and about Paula McKenzie had already caused her enough problems. Wynne knew she should just come clean. If she were going to try to pull the hotel manager back into her life, everything needed to be in the light of day.

  “Yeah, it’s somebody I know,” she confessed. “You remember when we first looked at this place I told you that I knew someone who used to live here?”

  Kitty nodded.

  “That’s who it is. She moved to Denver right after I got the job here, but I guess she held on to her place. Then I read that she’d been promoted and was coming back.”

  “Is she a friend of yours?” her mother asked.

  Wynne sighed. “She used to be. But I…screwed things up.”

  If Kitty was surprised at this, she didn’t show it. “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

  Pulling a chair up to the window, she waited for the details. She didn’t want the glossedover version.

  “Okay, her name is Paula McKenzie and she works downtown at the Weller Regent. That’s where I used to stay when I was coming back and forth. We got to be friends and we…went out a few times.” Hopefully, her mother wouldn’t press for more than that.

  “So what happened?”

  What exactly did happen? “We just…. What happened was that I didn’t really expect to have the feelings that I had, or for her to feel the way she did about me. It started as something casual and it took off.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted to happen?” she asked, not yet getting the picture.

  “Well, there was Heather…,” as if that explained it.

  “Oh,” Kitty said simply, as she started to comprehend. “So this was going on while you and Heather were still…together.” Her tone was one of understanding, not judgment.

  “Yeah,” the dark-haired woman confessed, not quite believing that she was having this kind of conversation with her mom. “But then when I found out about the VP job, I realized that I’d screwed up by not being more upfront about my situation. It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d kept things on just a friendship level, but we didn’t.”

  “Why was that was a problem? You split up with Heather before you moved down here.”

  Wynne shifted uncomfortably. “That’s right, but the things between Paula and me happened when I was coming down here, when I was still living with Heather. They didn’t know about each other. Before I got the job offer, I never figured we really had any possibility of making anything out of it, so I just didn’t see the point. But then she called the house one night and Heather answered the phone….”

  “And that ruined everything,” Kitty finished.

  “Well, it was certainly the last nail in the coffin. I’d already made up my mind that I had to tell her, sort of no matter what happened, but I was hoping that we could find a way to maybe step back and start over. But when she found out on her own, things just sort of fell apart, and the next thing I knew, she’d moved to Denver.”

  The two women sat quietly in the living room, both reveling somewhat at the unusual closeness they felt. The last time they’d had a heartfelt conversation like this was when Kitty had asked her daughter if she’d done something to cause such a problem for Heather. Wynne had tried to explain away her lover’s rudeness as a product of her upbringing, but in the end, she’d conceded that there was no legitimate reason for Heather to treat her family that way. But she’d assured her mother that Heather would never come between them.

  “So does the fact that you’re watching her again mean that you’re still interested?”

  Wynne nodded solemnly. “It’s been a year and I haven’t really been able to get her out of my mind…or to stop kicking myself.”

  ———

  “I can’t believe how out of shape I am,” Val wheezed as they rounded the final turn and headed back toward Paula’s condo.

  “You and me both. This air seems so heavy,” the blonde woman complained, out of practice with running in the heat and humidity. She’d gotten used to Denver’s mile-high climate, even though that meant running indoors on a treadmill for much of the winter.

  “You sure you don’t want to go back to the night shift? It would be better for my health and body image.”

  “Not a chance. This is what I’ve been working toward for 11 years.”

  “Yeah, I envy you. But I guess as long as I stay in the sports bar business, I’m never going to get to have a normal life.”

  “Then switch jobs,” Paula advised, puffing as her tired feet continue
d to pound the paved jogging trail.

  “Easy to say, but what would I do?”

  “Are you kidding? You could manage a restaurant anywhere in town. You might not make as much to start as you do at Flanagan’s but you’d get to have friends, and go out at night. What’s the point of making all that money if you can’t ever do the things you want to do?”

  “I really like Flanagan’s, though.”

  “Yeah, I know, and I like the Weller Regent. But I’m not going to let it take center stage any more. I want more out of life than just a good job.”

  “Yeah, me too, I guess. Turning 30 really made me start thinking about it more.”

  “You could always wait like I did until you start pushing 35, but then you’d have lost another five years with nothing to show for it.” The women reached the end of the path, where they both gratefully stopped, bending over with their hands on their knees. “You want to come up for a drink?”

  “No, I have to go. Some of us still have to work Saturdays,” Val groused.

  “You really ought to think about finding something new. Did I tell you that I joined a women’s volleyball league?” That was in fact Paula’s first step at creating a social life.

  “Yeah, that’s cool.” Val held her car door open a moment before getting in to allow cooler air to circulate inside. “So when do we get to do this again?”

  “I’m off tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday. Then I work 10 days in a row. It’s going to be hard to get on a schedule to work out together, unless you can come over on the nights you’re off.”

  “We’ll see. I’ve really missed seeing your red face nearly every day.”

  “I’ve missed you too, Val. I’d give you a mushy hug, but you’re all sweaty,” she laughed, making a face.

  “Call me.”

  “You got it. Maybe I’ll stop by Flanagan’s some night.”

  “Do that. Your drinks are on the house.”

  Paula wearily climbed the stairs and entered her condo. A shower would feel great, but first she needed something cold to drink. Had she not stopped in the kitchen, she’d have missed the small knock on the door.