Along for the Ride

by Mimi Grace

But above all else, her reaction to Bailey and Jason’s interaction, made it clear to her that she wasn’t ready for anything romantic yet. She had doubts, not of Jason’s suitability but of her ability to not screw things up. She thought she’d journaled and counseled her way through those insecurities after her divorce, and she assumed they became inconsequential after she landed her job at Able & Quinn. But they reared their ugly heads now, and how could she ask Jason to manage that? It would be the demise of the relationship sooner rather than later.

  Chapter 23

  The Monday after Essential Essence’s successful launch, Jolene had walked around her office with “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees playing in a loop in her head. But now it had been a week, and she struggled to keep the optimism alive. She’d received no feedback from her bosses, and she hadn’t been assigned another account to lead. She hid her impatience by putting her full effort into other tasks and assignments. For instance, this morning she’d sent several emails before she even got her first cup of coffee in.

  “I love the skirt,” a PR assistant said to Jolene when she hopped off the elevator.

  “Thanks, Melanie.”

  The smile she had on her face from the early morning compliment died when she saw Mr. Able leaning against her office door. She hadn’t heard anything from him since the off-boarding process for Essential Essence last week. She stopped short and quickly checked her phone to see if she had missed a notification for a meeting. There was nothing. It was unusual to see him in the office this early, but even more odd that he was on her side of the building. If he’d wanted to speak with her, he would’ve asked one of the receptionists to send a message or he would’ve sent her an email.

  “Mr. Able, good morning.”

  Using his thick shoulder, her boss pushed himself off from where he leaned. “Miss Baxter, follow me please.”

  Shit. Okay. Very unusual, and her brain scrambled for a reason. Was she about to get promoted? That had to be it. Okay, maybe not a promotion but at least some sort of verbal confirmation she inched closer toward her goal.

  When she entered his office, there was a woman in her fifties already seated. Jolene was a bit thrown off by her presence.

  “Take a seat, Miss Baxter. This is one of our company lawyers, Denise Simmons,” Mr. Able said.

  A lawyer?

  Jolene placed her work bag and purse beside her chair, sat on the edge of the seat, and clasped her hands together to force herself not to fidget. Mr. Able looked at something outside of his window, and she wondered how long it would take for him to actually speak.

  “You’re a good employee—”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So, it’s a shame that I have to do this.” He turned away from the window, then, and walked to his desk, taking his seat. “Effective immediately, you no longer work for Able & Quinn.”

  Jolene knew words. She knew how they could be strung together to create sentences, and how those sentences could and oftentimes did have meaning, but for some reason she sat looking at her boss with a blank expression. She did not understand.

  “I’m firing you, Jolene,” he added gently, correctly assessing that she hadn’t fully taken in his previous statement.

  “But—”

  Was the company downsizing? God, had Jessica gone and told him that she’d left the launch party for a few hours? Everything had run smoothly in her absence, and she’d returned well before a big chunk of the guests had left.

  Mr. Able continued to speak, and she knew the answers to her questions could be discovered there, but she couldn’t make out what he said over the noise of her own thoughts. Mr. Able eventually nodded to Denise, and the lawyer handed her a folder.

  “I’d like you to consider signing this release of liability. With it, you’ll receive two weeks’ severance pay,” Mr. Able said.

  Was this happening right now?

  She signed the release, and Mr. Able offered his hand and Jolene limply placed hers in his and he moved it up and down. Denise did the same. She found herself in her office for the first time that day and for the last time ever. She just stared at her bulky furniture, the weight of the company laptop in her bag suddenly felt too heavy to bear. How’d this happen? She hiccupped as she unsuccessfully tried to catch the first tears that fell.

  “Oh great, you’re here. You weren’t replying to my texts and—” Yvonne stopped short as she came into Jolene’s office and saw her in the middle of the room.

  “Girl, what’s wrong?” Yvonne asked. She placed the papers she had walked in with on the desk.

  Jolene looked at her friend. “I just got fired.”

  “What! Why?”

  Jolene handed Yvonne the file, and Yvonne flipped through it.

  “This is bullshit. This makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Can you help me pack my stuff?”

  “Of course. I’ll help you pack, and then I’ll take the day off. We can mope then find a lawyer to fight this shit.”

  Jolene rubbed her face to rid herself of the tears that had fallen. She didn’t care that she smudged her makeup.

  “No, I already signed the release. And you’re not taking a day off. Just help me pack and I’ll call you either tonight or tomorrow.”

  Yvonne threw her arms around Jolene. “I’m here. And you’ll get through this, okay?”

  Jolene numbly nodded and accepted the comfort. Her mind worked in slow motion at the moment. But the upside to that was she was unable to truly internalize the pitying glances she got from her former coworkers as she exited the building with a box of her belongings.

  “I was a total nerd. I went to band camp and everything,” Bailey said.

  Jason sat across from her in a dimly lit restaurant. This was technically their second date, their first happened accidentally when his mother was in the hospital over her sprained ankle. He’d taken his mom to the hospital cafeteria to grab something quick to drink after she’d been discharged, but she ended up abandoning him to chat with a woman she knew from some fitness class or another.

  That’s when Bailey, on her break, had come to his table and they’d talked. He’d apologized for cancelling their date, and they’d laughed about it, but she’d ended up asking him out after what turned out to be a pleasant conversation. His kneejerk reaction had been to decline. In the past this reaction would’ve been the result of his introversion, but now it had more to do with how he felt about Jolene. He had to move on, and Bailey was sweet and amiable.

  “Nothing wrong with being a nerd. I think we make the world a little more fun,” he said.

  Bailey flipped her hair over her shoulder and giggled. “I always say I’m part of the solution not the precipitate.”

  “Ah, nope. I think that corny pun takes you to a nerd level I know nothing about,” he said.

  She laughed, and he did too, and he accepted that he presently enjoyed his time with Bailey. The waiter brought their food, and Jason slid his plate closer to Bailey to give her better access to it. But then it immediately struck him that he did that because he would’ve done that while dining with Jolene. She was the only person he knew who would want to steal bites of his food. Jason drew his plate closer to himself and felt his appetite wane.

  “You don’t like the food?”

  Jason shook himself out of his trance and looked down at his untouched meal and back at Bailey. “No, it looks absolutely delicious.” He dug into the food to confirm it. “Yup, delicious.”

  They ate their food mostly in silence but latched onto random topics when they sprung up. As their waiter cleared their dinner plates, a wave of applause swept through the restaurant. Jason turned to see the reason, and from his angle he could sort of make out that a woman was on her knee proposing to another woman. Jason smiled and offered a few claps in congratulation. He turned to Bailey and she was doing the same.

  “How sweet. Hopefully one day,” she said wistfully.

  He nodded, thinking similarly.

  “I didn’t mean t
hat to be a hint or anything,” Bailey quickly added, her face and neck flushed. “Obviously.”

  Her comment made him pause because ideas of marriage and long-term partnership conjured an entirely different woman. And as pleasant as their dinner had been, it had felt hollow. It was for that reason he knew that this would be the last date he’d have with Bailey.

  Jolene quickened her steps. She didn’t want to be late returning from her lunch break. She was still new and subject to firing. One termination in her lifetime was enough. It was a new experience to actually have a lunch break and not sporadic minutes throughout the day when she could sprint to Starbucks for her daily hit.

  Her first week as a receptionist at a realtor’s office had taken some getting used to. She no longer answered the phone with just her name and title. She now represented the business and the people on the other line didn’t much care who she was. The fact that she found a job a week after she was fired, with the assistance of Yvonne and Yvonne’s cousin, helped Jolene not feel so hopeless and embarrassed about her situation.

  She’d taken the first job available to her, because she didn’t want to feel desperate while searching for a new position in her field. And despite her intentions to eventually find work that would pay for her lifestyle again, she eyed a cheaper apartment. If the job search took longer than she expected, the last thing she wanted to do was dip into her savings (her future business startup fund) to pay rent. She was coping as well as she could, but the cupcake store near her new workplace was the only change Jolene enthusiastically accepted.

  In her hands, she shifted the box of cupcakes that she’d bought for the office and tried not to lose her footing on the uneven sidewalk. She planned to buy her new coworkers’ adoration and respect with confectionaries. Upon rounding the corner to the stretch of offices that included hers, she was met with Mark making his way toward her. He hadn’t noticed her, and for a split second, Jolene debated turning around or ducking behind the cars to her right till he passed.

  She didn’t know if he’d heard about her firing. It didn’t matter, however, because regardless of whether he knew or not, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her defeated or ashamed. She lifted her chin high and planned to pass him without a word.

  Mark eventually looked up from his phone and made eye contact with her. “Jolene,” he said when they finally were close enough.

  She offered him nothing but silence. Her shoulders dropped as soon as she passed him, but from behind her, he continued to talk.

  “I heard you were fired. That had to suck.”

  The smug way he said it was the only reason she stopped in her tracks. Today she had time. Well, she had exactly eight minutes to get back to the office, but she would spend at least thirty seconds of it telling Fuck Face Mark what she thought about him.

  She spun around and looked at the man she would’ve described at one point as handsome, but a horned beast ascending from hell would be more appealing now.

  Her chin rose even higher. “Listen, I don’t know what you gain from gloating, but I hope it keeps you warm at night.”

  He gave her a smile that lacked any warmth. “I just find it funny how your meathead boyfriend tried to throw his weight around and it backfired.”

  Jolene’s heart rattled in her chest. He had to be referring to Jason, but what did Jason have to do with anything? Mark and Jason didn’t even run in the same circles.

  Her confusion must’ve been evident because Mark said, “Oh, he didn’t tell you that he was talking shit and it got back to me.”

  Jolene frowned. Jason wasn’t the type to go out of his way to bad mouth someone. There had to be a mistake.

  Unless.

  If Jason was anything, it was honorable, and Jolene could see him protesting a compliment paid to Mark. The idea made her feel warm, and despite the current confrontation, the tightness in her body eased. “Yeah, bitterness is unbecoming, but good luck with life,” Jolene said and turned away, ready to never see the asshole again.

  “You know my father refers his clients to Able & Quinn sometimes.”

  Jolene continued to walk. She no longer cared.

  “That type of relationship provides leverage for say”—he paused—“when you wish a particular person didn’t work there anymore.”

  Jolene’s steps faltered. She turned around once again to face Mark. She could see the truth in his eyes. He’d gotten her fired.

  Her hands were tingling. What would it be like to wipe that smug look off his face by throwing a cupcake at it? The icing would definitely destroy his fancy suit.

  “Careful there, Jojo, you’re destroying your cupcakes,” he said, gesturing toward where she squeezed the container.

  She wanted to say something biting and cold, but all her mental functions were occupied with maintaining some level of calm. He walked away, as if dismissing her anger, her feelings, and she was left with only three minutes to get to her station before her lunch break was over.

  She spent the remainder of the day in an angry haze. But she grinned through it. A sharp, Cheshire-Cat-like smile that she refused to let dim as she replayed her firing, as she recalled her interactions with Mark throughout the years, and as her new coworker, Tamara, corrected her on the mistakes she made. By the end of the day, Jolene was surprised to find her teeth hadn’t shattered.

  “Have a good evening now,” Tamara said as Jolene walked to her car.

  “Thanks, you too, Tamara.”

  Once Jolene got to her apartment, she let her anger loose. Through steps she hadn’t really planned out but nevertheless felt compelled to do, Jolene dropped her things in the entryway and grabbed the abstract-shaped award that accompanied the bonus she received last year at Able & Quinn. She retrieved the hammer from the tool kit she’d bought on a whim months ago and hacked away at the award with steady blows.

  “Earth to Jojo. Did you hear anything I just said?” her sister asked over Skype. Her face was pressed close to the screen.

  It was later in the evening, during Jolene’s weekly Skype call with her sister. She still needed to fully process her anger, but she was less in the mood to become some empress of destruction.

  “Yes. Baby shower. Mom is going overboard. Worse than when you got married.”

  “Okay, but you’re still clearly distracted. What’s up?”

  Jolene should be indulging her sister in this special moment in her life. Nicole had been sending her videos of her expanding belly and every small update from the way her hair flourished to the new stretch marks that had appeared on her thighs.

  “No, it’s nothing.” Jolene didn’t want to needlessly upset her sister by discussing what Mark had done. Nicky knew she no longer worked at Able & Quinn; that’s all she needed to know for now.

  “All right,” Nicole said, moving her screen back so she wasn’t so pressed up against the frame. “I’m going to run down possible issues. Tell me when I get to the one that’s bothering you.”

  Jolene smiled. It was a technique their parents had used on them when they were stubborn teens who were less likely to divulge that they were sad about the sizes of their bodies and unrequited crushes.

  “We don’t have to do that. It’s just that I’m still upset about getting fired.”

  “I know. It’s going to be difficult. You might not make as much as you were making before, but look on the bright side, you can now search for something you actually like to do.”

  This jerked Jolene out of her stupor. “Wait, what? I loved my job.”

  “You did?” Nicole furrowed her brows. “I always thought it was something you fell into and just stayed there because it was convenient.”

  How could her sister not have seen how much Jolene had loved working in public relations? She’d put in so much time and effort into her career and in rising within Able & Quinn because she enjoyed doing what she did. Not to mention she was damn good at it. She might’ve fallen into the profession, but she discovered she was well suited to the
socializing and relationship-building the job required.

  Jolene shook her head. “It’s definitely work I want to do for a long time.”

  Her sister was silent and studied her. “I had no idea.” She let out a little laugh. “You rarely talk about it. Every time I ask you what you’re doing at work you—” Nicky mimicked the way Jolene would shrug her shoulders and wave her hands dismissively.

  Jolene rolled her eyes at her sister’s exaggerated imitation of her and sunk back into her couch. She’d held back in sharing her actual interest and enjoyment in her job because she’d notoriously been noncommittal throughout her life. Whether it was failing to give gymnastics any serious attention or that time she’d abandoned learning to play the guitar after claiming to want to be the second coming of Jimi Hendrix. And let’s not forget the marriage she’d called quits on. Sure, the divorce had been the right decision, but it had been one of many choices that had revealed a pattern. It made her cautious of vocally expressing interest or passion when it could very well not last. She felt a bit foolish now.

  “So, you’ve been applying to other PR companies?” Nicole asked.

  Jolene hesitated. She was once again about to brush off the interest with a lukewarm response. She’d been applying to other companies but without much enthusiasm. Other ideas consumed her.

  She inhaled deeply. “Yes and no. I’ve been thinking about opening up my own PR business.”

  “Whoa. Okay. That sounds ambitious.”

  “It’s going to happen.”

  There was a sort of a release and calm that settled within Jolene once she had revealed that.

  “Jojo, that’s amazing. I’ll support you in whatever way I can.”

  For the remainder of their conversation, they meandered in and out of less serious topics, and Jolene felt champagne light. And after hanging up, the urge to text Jason invaded her mind. She wanted to let him know she’d finally committed to starting her very own PR business. She dashed the thought away immediately, however. Would he even care?