by Rose Francis
David slammed the door behind him.
Janet didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until it all came out in a large whoosh.
As firm as she had felt in the moment of confrontation, it was mostly fear that had filled her as she opened her door, flipped on the light and saw her ex-fiancé sitting on her couch, staring in her direction. The fear remained as his green eyes came alive looking at her, and sat in her chest until he finally left.
Why would he sit in the dark, and how long had he been waiting for her?
David had never given her a reason to fear him before, but it unnerved her that it seemed he saw nothing wrong with abusing his previous privilege.
She hoped he hadn’t made any additional copies of her key; clearly she couldn’t trust him to have the integrity to turn those in if he had.
Janet’s fear turned to anger again.
Who did he think he was? Why did he think he deserved a chance to explain anything? He and Michelle—or whatever her name was—were free to openly do everything they had done behind her back. Why didn’t he just leave her alone now?
Janet tried to shake off her thoughts and the bitterness beginning to creep into her. She had a company function to attend, and she had to go to it clear-headed, without baggage. She couldn’t let the new Accounting Manager—whoever he or she was—see her like this. She had to look strong, in control. Like she knew what she was doing. Like she had earned her position, instead of having it handed to her by her daddy.
When her cell phone rang minutes later, she panicked.
She hadn’t realized she had drifted into a long daydream, and her glance at the caller ID confirmed it was her best friend calling. No doubt Liz was waiting outside, ready for their carpool to the seven o’clock company reception.
Janet scrambled to get ready.
“Coming,” she said into the cell, quickly connecting, then disconnecting the call.
She quickly threw on a pink dress and changed her earrings and shoes—sexy, but not too sexy—it was still work after all. She grabbed a fashionable jacket to take along in case it got chilly.
Then she let her hair down from its pinned up-do, pleased it fell in acceptable waves instead of bent in weird places like she had expected.
She carefully locked up then went down to meet Liz.
“Lookin’ like pink panther there,” Liz said as she got in the car.
Liz had also vamped up her look for the evening, looking even more beautiful out of her workwear in her classic black attire.
Janet could no longer imagine Liz without her low-cut natural style—it fit her stunning face perfectly.
“You look great, too.”
Liz smiled. “Girl, I hope it’s a sister,” she said after a few moments.
It took Janet a second to figure out what she meant. “Oh! The new manager. Well, to be honest, I don’t really care if it’s a woman or not.”
“Says the girl who will probably have the company willed to her.”
“Don’t, Liz—I’m really not in the mood.”
Janet felt Liz look at her for a moment.
“Okay, tell me what happened.”
Janet let out a heavy breath. “He showed up in my apartment tonight.”
“Wait, in your apartment? What the hell?”
“That’s what I said!”
“I imagine you kindly—or not-so-kindly—told him to sashay out of there.”
“Of course! God, I...I don’t even know what else to say to him.”
“He has some balls after all he did to try to get you back.”
“I don’t blame him honestly, but yeah. I loved him, but after that whole thing, I’m just done. I guess he doesn’t realize that about me, yet—most guys never believe it, and most women unfortunately prove them right.”
“Girl, don’t I know it,” Liz said softly.
Janet decided not to bring up Liz’s own love life despite the easy opening. No doubt Liz would appreciate not being reprimanded yet again about staying with her own loser of a boyfriend.
Janet didn’t understand why someone like Liz couldn’t tear herself from a guy so far beneath her.
Janet had only one boyfriend she stayed with after he cheated on her. She had learned her lesson—it just wasn’t worth it. The moment her guy showed his ass, one way or another, no matter how long they’d been together or how much she had loved them, it was as if some cord got cut somewhere, disconnecting her from them forever.
Once they wander, it is time to go, she had promised herself long ago, and finally had the fortitude to stick to.
David would learn.
“God, these things are so fucking boring. I only go for the food anyway,” Liz said suddenly and Janet giggled, then remembered she needed to touch up her makeup.
She pulled down the passenger side mirror as Liz finally pulled off.
* * *
“Girl, I have to use the bathroom,” Liz said as they entered the familiar building of their nine to five days, when a restroom came into view.
Before Janet could say she’d go with her, Liz said: “Don’t worry about me—I’ll meet you up there.”
Janet suddenly knew what Liz was really up to—no doubt she was going to call and check in with her boyfriend, and was too embarrassed to do it in front of her, knowing she’d be judged.
Janet understood the appeal of signs of possessiveness in a man, but for Liz to have to check in with him like some teenager with a paranoid, overprotective parent was beyond her comprehension.
He made Liz call or text him when she got to work and when she was leaving work. Liz even had to contact him if she had to leave the office building for lunch or any other reason. And whenever the two of them went to lunch together, it was now routine for Janet to have to say “hi” into Liz’s phone to prove to him that Liz was actually with her. Janet fully expected Liz’s boyfriend to soon start requiring photographic proof of Liz’s whereabouts throughout the day.
As Janet reached the elevator and the doors were about to close, she heard a male voice call out: “Wait!”
She held the elevator.
For a moment, she wished she had let it close when the man entered, for she was struck by something she hadn’t felt since she was eighteen when she fell madly and completely in love for the first and only time with a guy who broke her heart irreparably a few years later.
The vision before her was a man like she thought only existed in movies, and only then with the right lighting and camera angles: tall, broad shoulders, smoldering blue eyes, and thick, glossy dark hair.
When he smiled at her, she thought for a moment that she had literally turned into a puddle. Then she felt silly when she realized her eye level hadn’t actually changed and she was still human, so she managed to smile back.
Her embarrassment didn’t help—she knew her cheeks had flushed at being stuck in such a small space with such a specimen, and that it would show even through her brown skin.
She couldn’t think and felt like her brain had shorted and shut down. She could only feel, emotions whirling in side of her for the minute or so it took to get to the seventh floor. At least it felt like a minute as her body screamed at her—desire, longing, and shame coursing through her.
She tried not looking at him, focusing on the elevator buttons, then the floor—everywhere but at the Adonis next to her in a suit. But even his smell mocked her valiant efforts. His cologne, after-shave—whatever it was almost made her dizzy.
She thought she saw him smiling at her discomfort out of the corner of her eye, so she looked directly at him and immediately regretted her mistake.
His devastating grin annihilated her plan to firmly and confidently say hello.
How am I suddenly fourteen? she wondered. Some cute guy, clearly very fit under his suit with a firm jaw and a beautiful smile, standing about six feet four and looking the epitome of an alpha male—and she loses it?
Get it together! she told herself as the elevator door opene
d.
The man indicated for her to exit first and she managed to do that, but she stood there, trying to get her bearings and remember why she was on that floor in the first place.
“708,” he said in a voice that climbed up her spine. “I take it you’re here for the Cooper reception?”
She nodded dumbly, then fell into step with him.
Liz is going to die laughing when she hears about this, she thought as they made their way down the corridor.
* * *
Where does he work? Janet found herself wondering as she waited for Liz to make her entrance while trying not to stare at her elevator companion.
He certainly couldn’t have worked with us for long and me not see or hear about him. He couldn’t be...? No, they had already introduced the new manager—some old guy named George Wilson...
She tuned in to the Human Resources manager’s next words.
“...we brought him in to work on a few projects. One of which, we haven’t told you about yet Janet, but Eric here, well consider him your partner for the next four months.”
Janet had to consciously—and quickly—close her dropped-open mouth.
This can’t be happening...how am I supposed to work with this guy? How can anyone keep to a celibacy plan around him? Why am I even thinking that? Oh god, I’m in trouble...
Janet didn’t know what to say, yet knew she was expected to give some kind of response.
“Oh!” she began, “can’t wait to hear more about it. I’m Janet. Pleased to meet you, Eric.”
“Call me ‘Dick.’”
“Excuse me?”
“I said feel free to call me ‘Rick.’”
Janet looked around, wondering if she was the only one who had apparently misheard, and it appeared she was.
“Oh, I’m Janet.”
A heartbreaking grin spread across his face.
“You said that already.”
“Oh? I wasn’t sure. Well, may we catch more elevators together.”
She smiled.
“And more,” he said, and she looked around again.
Clearly he was flirting with her, messing with her. Did no one else see this?
But the others seemed to be minding their own business, like he hadn’t been suggestive.
Was everyone in on it? she found herself wondering. How could she be the only one hearing beneath his words? And how on earth did anyone expect her to keep her mind on business working with him? Did her father know about this?
All Janet felt was relief when Liz finally showed up. Eric’s male perfection was clearly making her lose her mind. Now she knew how men felt when in the presence of what they felt was the equivalent.
“What took you so long?” Janet almost shouted to Liz as she went over to her. Then she noticed the look in Liz’s eyes.
“Girl...” was all Liz said, dragging out the word, seeming unable to go on.
Her voice and eyes made her look dangerously close to tears.
Janet shuffled them over to a more deserted part of the room, Eric quickly forgotten.
“Oh god, Liz, what now?”
“He thinks I’m cheating on him—I don’t know where he got that from!”
Janet knew it was best in that moment not to share her true thoughts.
As far as she was concerned, Jason kept accusing Liz because he was insecure, and probably guilty of the transgression himself.
“He knows I got ready for this meeting. He knows I was picking you up. What else can I do? Show him the e-vite? But he wouldn’t even believe me then—he just thinks I’m using this as an excuse. Girl, we argued. He threatened to start seeing other women if that’s how I wanted to play him.”
Again, Janet had to suppress her words.
The man was living in Liz’s home dammit, why couldn’t she just kick him out? He didn’t even have a job anymore!
But who was she to talk about what to put up with?
Her ex-fiancé hadn’t been living with her, but she ignored signs of his infidelity for a few months. And before him, she dated a guy who was always borrowing money, never paying back. And before that loser, a guy who refused to say he loved her, even after they’d been together for over a year. And before that, a struggling artist who kept trying to get her to finance his dream, the one who eventually shattered her heart, making it easy for her to drop all those who came after once she’d had enough of their shenanigans.
Both she and Liz had poor track records.
It was why she had declared a break anyway, why she was on a celibacy kick. Why she had pledged a solid three months to live without sharing her body with some undeserving man and she had sixty-nine more days of it.
But poor Liz had been with her loser since college—two of the four years during it, and the five additional years since their graduation.
“I don’t think I can stay very long,” Liz said.
“Oh god—you mean you’re going to go home and pound it out with him, don’t you? You’re leaving your company dinner—the people who gave you your job—to prove to your jobless man that you are not cheating. Is he gonna sniff you too to make sure?”
Liz’s face pinched in fury and Janet regretted not exercising stronger restraint.
And then Liz did the worst thing she could imagine: she burst into tears.
Janet was suddenly aware of the room again, and hoped no one noticed them.
She couldn’t look around to make sure because it would make her even more nervous and self-conscious.
“Liz, get it together!” she whispered sharply. “You know how these people go—you’ll be the gossip all day tomorrow. Go—do what you have to do. I’ll take a taxi, it’s fine. I’ll tell everyone your...cat died or something. Go!”
Liz hugged her and quickly left the room.
Janet immediately went over to the group of managers to explain.
“I’m so sorry—Liz was too distraught to tell you herself. She just got some bad news about her cousin...cat died.”
“Her cousin cat died?” the Human Resources manager managed to ask with a straight face.
“No, I mean her cousin was watching her cat, there was an accident and anyway—she had to go handle things. I’m still not clear on the details—she was crying through the story. I’ll check in on her later though, don’t worry.”
Janet made a note to let Liz in on the story so she wouldn’t look stupid in case anyone asked.
Then suddenly she felt naked, alone. She was afraid to look around, knowing she’d see him, laughing at her discomfort and uncharacteristic nervousness again.
She hated that he seemed to know the extent of his power with that sly smile of his. Couldn’t he have been humble in some way? How was she supposed to work with such a pompous prick?
Then she decided she was being silly again. She was a big girl—she could handle whatever came her way.
She looked around.
She didn’t see him immediately, her eyes instead locking with the secretary’s, whose name she couldn’t remember at the moment.
Still, she walked over to the group the secretary had just shared a laugh with.
“What did you guys think of the meatballs?” Janet asked.
Silence followed for a few awkward seconds.
Then the group did what she suddenly realized they always did.
“Not too fond of those,” a guy she remembered as Leroy said in a light tone.
“Oh, I’m a vegetarian so I didn’t try those,” the secretary said with a bright smile.
“Yeah, Brenda couldn’t eat most of what was here,” a girl with auburn hair said, and Janet was relieved she had mentioned the secretary’s name.
She felt quite clearly they were all just obliging her, being nice as a result of her strong connections. They said the right things and smiled appropriately, but she felt no genuine warmth from them.
But why would she? She never really had a reason to speak to them so they weren’t all that familiar with each other.
&nbs
p; Liz had always been all she needed. And her mother.
All Janet was there for was to prove to her father she was a worthy heir anyway.
“Hey, Janet, your dad ditched us again tonight?” a voice behind her said, spinning her attention away from the grateful group who locked right back into their circle.
“Oh hey, Carl. My dad’s a busy man. We’ll see him at the Christmas party as usual—that’s all I can promise. He’s probably in China right now, working on a deal.”
“I know that’s right,” Carl said before catching the eye of, then waving at someone else.
He grabbed her arm.
“Girl, I’ll catch you later. I’ve got things to see and people to do,” he said with a longing look at one of the new guys trying to look inconspicuous and failing, sipping his drink alone.
“I didn’t hear that, Carl.”
Janet was never sure what to think of Carl. He seemed to always want to be her friend and treated her like they already were, but she didn’t trust him—didn’t trust most folks who tried to cozy up to her since it was probably an attempt to climb their way up. She had no interest in being used.
Janet walked over to the drink table to pour herself some lemonade.
“So we know we can at least find reception rooms together. This should work out.”
The voice made Janet’s cup freeze on the way to her mouth.
She turned.
“Eric, right? Yes, I’m sure we’ll be able to work well together.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“I trust HR. Generally. I mean, you don’t quite look like a numbers guy but...”
“And what does one look like?”
“I don’t know—black-rimmed glasses, a pot belly...something like that.”
His laugh thrilled her, so warm and genuine.
She was glad she could bring some other kind of humor to their interactions beyond acting like a fool.
“Well, for the record, you don’t look like a typical numbers person either.”
Janet returned his soft smile.
“So is this what you imagined in college or high school? Working in some stuffy building, attending lame receptions?” she asked him, relaxing.
“Sort of. What about you? Fitting right into your father’s shoes?”
Janet didn’t know why, but she immediately got angry. She knew he probably meant nothing by it but couldn’t curb her feeling of offense.