With another hop she falls with her bottom flat on the couch and she mumbles, “No, we only sit with our bottoms flat on the couch. No shoes on the couch either.”
“That’s right, we only sit on the furniture. I don’t say this to be mean to you, I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
She lets out an overly dramatic sigh and says, “I know.”
Dakota looks over at Tinley and whispers, so Luna can’t hear her, “Way to put on your mom voice, Tara.”
Tinley almost laughs because it’s true. She did put on a mom voice and she didn’t even know she had it in her. They used to make fun of her sister so bad when she would use it, but it looks like Tinley gets to be lumped into that category as well. Mom. She never knew it would happen to her, but there’s no turning back now.
Dakota turns back to Luna who has been sitting on her end of the couch perfectly still and quiet. “So, Luna what were you saying about mermaids? It sounded very interesting.”
“Well, I wanted to have a pet mermaid or add one to my zoo. Did I tell you I’m going to have a zoo with all the animals? But then I remembered that mermaids are people too, so I would much rather have one as a best friend.”
“Wow, I think I want one as a best friend too. Can we share?”
Luna nods her head and says, “Oh yes, we can definitely share. It’s like that one show…”
She continues chattering on about some television show she was watching to Dakota, and Tinley can’t help but hope that happiness of hers doesn’t disappear.
Chapter Nine
She shouldn’t be here right now. It feels wrong, but then again, staying locked up in Marek’s house not doing anything doesn’t feel right either. Tinley takes a seat in front of her computer after taking yet another bathroom break. She’s been here for two hours so far, and she’s already gone pee four times. It’s absolutely ridiculous, like the minute a liquid touches her tongue it’s coming right back out again. She’s incredibly thankful for how slow of a day it has been. The only thing on her mind is Marek, and she doesn’t know if she’ll even be able to handle a call if one comes over to her. The low hum from the computers fills the room, and she can faintly hear the voices of the few people on the phones. Without Dakota by her side, it feels very lonely in the small section where they frequently sat together.
This morning when Tinley was getting ready for work and asked Dakota to watch Luna for the few hours she would be gone, she did not expect the complete shock on her face. She even went as far as to beg Tinley to stay home, not because she didn’t trust her own babysitting abilities, but because she didn’t believe Tinley should even be thinking about work, let alone going in. But, she still has a job, and she doesn’t need to lose it on top of everything else.
With a giant swig from her water bottle, the liquid starts sliding down her throat faster than Tinley intended and she starts choking. A few people look over the tops of their computers as she repeatedly hacks her lungs up, but nobody does a single thing to help. She’s not that surprised—most of the people she works with are dickbags anyway. As she coughs a final time, she’s finally able to catch her breath, and this time she takes a small sip of her drink and lets it slide down her sandpaper-raw throat. The feeling almost burns as it brings her relief, and she swallows another small mouthful.
Just as she’s putting her tumbler back on her desk, the familiar indication of a phone call coming in sounds in her ear. She laughs at the idea of the customer having popped in only moments earlier. They would have gotten quite the earful of her coughing her lungs out. Wouldn’t that have made for an interesting call?
Her voice comes out strained, her throat still pretty raw as she says, “Thank you for calling Wanderlust International. This is Tinley speaking, how may I help you?”
She knows she’s completely off script, but she doesn’t even care about that right now. They should be happy she’s even here in the first place and forming coherent sentences. The only thing she cares about is making it through the day and going home unscathed—although in the many years she’s worked in this call center, that has never happened, so she doesn’t anticipate today being any different than usual.
“Tinley, thank you so much for answering the phone. You can absolutely help me out today. I need to book a vacation for myself and a group of my friends.”
Out of instinct, Tinley pulls up the booking screen to start inputting his information. She crosses her fingers that this call can be finished quickly. “Okay sir, I can certainly help you out with that. How many people are going on this trip and where are you wanting to go?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure who is all going. Is it possible for me to book a bunch of rooms and give you the information later with a list of their names?”
Red flags go off in Tinley’s brain and she wonders if this is going to be yet another prank call. Before working here, she never realized how many people randomly make phone calls to call centers. It’s weird and not something that would have ever crossed her mind, but it happens all the time. Since she’s been on thin ice lately with work, she decides to tread carefully.
“Sir, that’s going to depend on the vacation package you book, how many cabins you’re booking, and the destination.”
The other end of the line is silent for a moment, and she glances at her computer screen to see if the call is still connected. Seconds tick by before the guy says, “I’m thinking somewhere exotic—I was hoping you could help me figure that out.”
Not sure what his definition of the word exotic is, she decides to start with their most booked destination and hope that will give her more of an idea of what he’s after. “Of course, we have some great Caribbean—”
She’s not even able to get a full sentence out before he suddenly interrupts her. “No, no, no. The Caribbean is so…common and boring. I want something unique and unforgettable. C’mon, Tinley, I think you can do better than that.”
The Caribbean is too common and boring? Well she’d like to know what kind of money this dude has to say something like that. Tinley’s never even left the country, let alone traveled to somewhere exotic. She opens up the upcoming itineraries on her computer screen and starts scrolling. She has no idea what kind of destination this guy is even looking for. She hems and haws over each one, not sure if any of them are what he’s interested in.
“While I’m scrolling through our extensive list of vacation packages for you, I’d love to do some multi-tasking and start getting some information. Do you know which port you’d like to leave from, sir?”
The guy chuckles in a husky way that probably melts all the girls’ panties off. Sadly for him, the only laugh that’ll set Tinley’s ablaze comes from Marek. “First off, you can stop referring to me as sir. That just makes me feel old, and I don’t need any more reasons to feel older than I already am.”
“I’m sorry s—” Tinley catches herself as she almost calls him sir another time. It’s just instinct at this point, but she stops herself. “I can certainly stop calling you that. What can I call you?”
His voice chances taking a lower, huskier tone when he says, “You can call me anything you want to, baby, but I’m sure you’re looking for my name. Promise to keep it a secret, Tinley?”
She wants to laugh at his attempt at flirting, but she chooses to take the high road and act professional. But his last question does have her intrigued. She starts to nod her head then realizes he can’t actually see her. “Of course. Here at Wanderlust International, we pride ourselves on our discretion, and our phone conversations are kept strictly confidential.”
“Good, because I’d hate for you to be the one responsible for that blog that has the whole internet going crazy these days.”
“You read that?” She can’t help the words as they slip out of her mouth.
“Who didn’t?”
Her cheeks redden thinking about Dakota’s blog. She wasn’t kidding when she said it went viral and everyone was reading about it. Tinley hasn
’t had a chance to look it up or read the article that was posted, but she never would have imagined something of the magnitude of reaching their potential customers. Tinley can definitely see how that would be bad for business if it ever got out who was behind the blog and which call center she worked for. As much as she hates it for Dakota that she was fired, from a business standpoint, she gets it. Hopefully it only stays to that and there isn’t a potential lawsuit in her future.
Tinley offers up a forced laugh that anybody who knows her would recognize as fake and says, “I’m definitely not a writer, so you have nothing to worry about there. Trust me, I tried it once, and it was a complete disaster.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Tinley. It’s refreshing and not something I encounter a lot in my line of work. Oh, and by the way, you can call me Wren.”
She clicks on a tab on her current screen and pulls up a potential customer form, types in W-R-E-N, and smiles. That’s not a name you see very often, and she files it away as a potential baby name. She kind of likes it. “Okay, Wren, and can I get a last name for you?” Her fingers hover over the keyboard, ready to type out the rest of his name.
“Sure, it’s Danzig. That’s D-A-N-Z-I-G. Danzig.”
Holy shit. Tinley freezes. There’s no way she’s actually speaking to a celebrity right now. Her job isn’t that cool. Stuff like this happens to other people, most certainly not to people like her—at least something like this has never happened to her in her lifetime. She tries to squash down her excitement and slowly focuses on typing every letter of his last name and getting it right.
The silence on her end must go on for a little too long because he says, “Tinley, are you still there? I didn’t cause you to faint or anything like that did I? I seem to have that affect on people.”
This time when she laughs, it sounds disgustingly school-girlish more like a giggle, and even she feels sick to her stomach hearing it. She’s not the kind of girl who fangirls over celebrities, but there’s a first time for everything. “Sorry about that, Wren, I was just typing your name into my form and scrolling through some trips.” She slowly pulls herself together, although she can’t help the giddiness she feels and the butterflies flapping away in her belly. Get it together Tinley. “Now I know you said you wanted something exotic. Are you looking for something a little more exclusive for you and your friends? Or is this going to be something public?”
She has no idea how Hollywood works, but she supposes this could be some sort of publicity stunt. She doesn’t really follow all the gossip magazines or websites, but maybe they need to drum up some attention or something. The idea of that sounds foreign even to her, but what does she know? She just works in a call center.
“You have me intrigued, Tinley. What exactly do you mean by exclusive?”
So, she was on the right track with that one. Nobody in this particular building, not even Marek, has ever booked the Victoria. It’s the most expensive and exclusive ship they offer, and it comes with a hefty price tag. It’s actually a yacht, but it can hold up to fifty people, and the destinations are pretty much endless. It comes fully equipped with a captain, crew, and planned excursions. As long as the money keeps flowing, the ship continues its journey. It’s not something Tinley could ever afford, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility for someone like Wren Danzig, she could imagine.
“Well, Wren, I don’t know if you have your heart set on a cruise ship specifically, but for something with a little more privacy, we also have the Victoria. It’s our own personal yacht. We supply everything for you, and not including the captain or crew, the boat holds a maximum of fifty people—so, you and up to forty-nine of your closest friends and family.”
She almost laughs at that comment because she couldn’t even imagine knowing forty-nine people let alone paying for them to travel with her. But just because that’s how her life is, there’s no way it’s the same for Wren. He probably has hundreds of friends and will have an issue narrowing down the list.
The silence on the other end starts to worry her, and she thinks maybe she went too high too fast, but then his voice comes through and the dollar signs in her brain go ka-ching with the bonus she’ll receive from this booking. “I like the sound of that. Can you help me book the Victoria?”
Chapter Ten
She still cannot believe she just booked a vacation—and a very expensive one, at that—for Wren Danzig. Hell, it was a whole damn boat for him and his posse. There was a slight bit of jealousy building inside of her when they were picking out ports for the ship to stop. She knew it was a pipe dream, but she started hoping he would invite her on the trip too. Must be all of her pregnancy hormones, but a few times she thought he was actually flirting with her. Which makes zero sense because why would a super-rich and gorgeous celebrity flirt with her? A thirty-year old pregnant call center girl…not that he knows about the pregnant part. It didn’t come up, of course, but she would totally not be pregnant when his trip is happening in a few months.
Ultimately, he decided to go for an Asian cruise, starting in Singapore and ending in Dubai. When he said he wanted something exotic and different, that’s precisely what he got—for him and his “closest” friends, of course. Tinley takes her phone out of the queue so she can finish up some last-minute notes and finalize everything on the package. She also fills out a form to get her bonus on her next paycheck, and while she’s not actually supposed to do that on the clock, she figures she’s earned it. After the amount of money he just handed over on his American Express Black Card, it just tripled what the entire inbound department has brought in for the month.
The giddiness still hasn’t left her system and she can’t wait to get home and tell Marek all about it—but when that thought hits her, it suddenly sobers her up as she remembers she still hasn’t heard anything from him and doesn’t know where he is right now. The happiness instantly leaves her body and she somberly fills out the rest of the bonus form. Just as she hits submit, she puts her phone back into the queue, and then a voice says her name from above her.
“Tinley, can I speak to you for a moment?”
Her back stiffens and her eyes go wide as she lifts her head up to find the director of the call center standing there in front of her. She’s never spoken to him in her entire life, and he normally doesn’t even come out on the sales floor. He’s almost like the Wizard of Oz in that sense. Everyone knows who he is, but unless you have a reason to speak to him, it doesn’t usually happen.
The people around her stop whatever they’re doing and zone right in on her. She can feel at least ten sets of eyes on her, but it feels more like thousands. Whatever interaction is about to happen has her beyond freaked out. And if this is her downfall, the entire call center gets to witness it. It’s bad enough that Marek is MIA due to this company, but now she’s in trouble at work for some reason. What’s next? Is her water going to break in the middle of their conversation to? That’ll be a story everyone will tell for years to come even after she’s no longer working here. “Yeah, a chick got fired on the call center floor in front of everyone and her water broke too. It was disgusting.” They’ll tell everyone pregnant girl whoever works here not to pull a Tinley. O-M-G she’s like freaking Monica. It’s like the fingernail in the lasagna. Monica’s mom’s had food in the freezer, but there’s no coming back from breaking your water on the sales floor. She comes back down from her crazy tangent of a rant and focuses on her boss.
She slowly nods her head and switches her phone to unavailable mode. When she starts to lock her computer screen, he stops her. “Go ahead and log out of your computer and gather up your things. I’ll be waiting for you in my office.”
Tears start to build as he walks away, and she robotically follows his directions. Am I getting fired right now? Sure, she hasn’t had the best track record as far as phone calls go, but there are definitely worse employees that have been here for years. Other than a couple of bad phone calls and an average level of sales, she hasn’t done a
nything that would warrant her losing her job—unless this is about Marek. He’s management, and she’s a lowly bottom feeder, easily replaceable. Maybe their secret has been found out and she’s losing her job as a result. They had a good run of keeping the secret. It’s not like they could have kept the information hidden forever. She is pregnant and showing, after all. It’s actually more surprising that nobody has said anything to her so far.
Once she is logged out completely, she gathers up her things and makes the slow walk of shame toward his office. She pauses for a moment sliding her hand across her belly as it tightens and hardens. Even though her doctor told her otherwise, she pushes herself through the Braxton Hicks and continues on her mission. Her breathing comes out labored and she knows she needs to sit down soon, but a few more steps and she’ll be right back in a chair again. With all the stress she’s been going through lately it has caused her false labor to come on more often, especially now that she’s nearing her due date.
It’s like the entire call center went quiet the moment he started talking to her, and she can feel all the eyes on her back during her trek. She’s so incredibly stressed by the time she sits down in the chair across from his desk that she just opens her mouth and word-vomits everything running through her mind. “I’m sorry for whatever I did. I’m not sure why you’re firing me, but I promise I can do better. I don’t have a whole lot of other options right now and I don’t think anyone else would hire me this far along in my pregnancy. Just tell me what I need to do to prove myself. I just booked the Victoria for a mega celebrity—that has to mean something, right? I’m not against getting down on my knees and begging if that’s what it takes.” Although she really hopes she doesn’t need to because she’s not quite sure if she’ll be able to get back up again without help. And how embarrassing would that be?
Loving in the Light Page 6