by Claire Adams
I’d expected the silence. What I hadn’t expected was that she’d actually pull out her cellphone, dial her own store and ask whoever’s on the other line if things are going all right, all the while assuring her employee that she’d “be right back.”
She hangs up, and I can’t stop smiling.
“What?” she asks. “I get that you don’t take your job seriously, but that doesn’t mean everyone else works the same way.”
“That’s hilarious,” I tell her. “I take my job very seriously. I just don’t fetishize it like you do. Do you have any idea how condescending and insulting that phone call was?”
“It wasn’t condescending at all,” she says. “They all know that I like to take a hand-son approach when it comes to Lady Bits.”
“You know, out of context, that would be hilarious,” I smile.
“Oh, ha-ha,” she says as a smile forms.
“And you’re right,” I start. “You just told your employee that you don’t trust her or any of your other workers enough to let them handle the store for ten minutes, all the while assuring her that ‘mommy will be back soon.’ There’s nothing condescending about that at all.”
“You just don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head. “This is the way I work—it’s the way I’ve always worked.”
“I can tell,” he says.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks.
“Well, that’s a gray hair, isn’t it?” I ask. “You’re what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”
“I’m thirty,” she says. “And how exactly did you manage to insult me for being too young and too old in the same breath?”
I grin. She looks like she’s in her early twenties. Not a single wrinkle and I can tell because her face isn’t plastered with makeup. Thank God. This way I know what I’ll be waking up to in the morning once I fuck her.
“I’m not saying you’re either too young or too old,” I tell her. “I think that you’re too stressed out, and it really shows in the way you deal with your employees and your customers.”
“How does it show to my customers?” she asks. “I have a spectacular game face.”
“You really don’t,” I tell her. “Remember last week when that woman came in looking for a new handbag? She made some stupid pun and you terrified pretty much everyone within range of your too-long, too-loud, wide-eyed laughter. You kind of looked like that kid in school who’s extra nice to everyone because she doesn’t know how to relate to people.”
“You know,” she says, “if you just brought me here to insult me, I really don’t see the point in continuing.”
“Before you use what I’m saying as a pretext to go lord over your staff and make everyone, especially customers, nervous, why don’t you just take a minute to have a bit of the onion rings?” I ask. “They’re pretty tasty and you haven’t so much as looked at your food because you’ve been too worried about what may or may not be going on at the store.”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens them again, she hails a passing waiter and orders a double shot of whiskey.
As the waiter’s walking away, Jessica leans forward and says, “Look, I know I come off as overbearing, but I guess I just don’t trust that things would get done if I’m not there to oversee it.”
Oh shit.
Is there any way the woman I’ve been texting could be Jessica? I can’t imagine that would be possible.
That response, as I recall, is almost verbatim to what that woman told me last night during a similar discussion though. I decide to test the theory.
“Your staff seems like they’re all perfectly capable women doing a great job for you. You’re acting like they don’t know Prada from Donna Karan and would just as soon kill and eat your customers as give them good service,” I tell her.
“Do you know Prada from Donna Karan?” she asks.
“Not even remotely. Really, I’m just proud of myself for remembering the names,” I answer.
She tries to hide it, but I can see that brief flicker of a smile come over her lips.
“They’re a good staff—great, really. Without them, I don’t know if I’d even have a store. They just don’t have that—oh, what’s the word?” she asks.
“Inside experience?” I ask.
She cocks her head a little and eyes me.
“That’s what most control freaks use as their justification for their control freakery,” I cover.
It’s her. It’s got to be her.
The wording’s different, but the idea is exactly the same. Add to that the knowing look she gave when I used the phrase “inside experience,” and I’m almost certain that I’m talking to the woman who’s been giving me something to look forward to after work for the last while.
“That’s a good way to put it,” she says.
“Then why don’t you train them so they’re less dependent on your being there to solve every problem? You’re not superwoman.”
“It’s not that easy,” she says, but doesn’t have anything to back up the statement.
“It’s precisely that easy,” I tell her. “When I saw how fast José learned what I taught him, I kept teaching him more. Now, if I were to die today—knock on wood—he could take over the business without even the slightest bit of difficulty. Not everyone has that ambition, but you’ve got a whole staff full of people who want to know the things you won’t let them learn.”
“Yeah, but what happens when I give away that information and they go open a competing shop across the street?” she asks.
“I’m sorry,” our waiter, coming seemingly from nowhere, asks, “is there something wrong with the onion rings?”
“Not at all,” I tell him. “We just got caught up talking.”
“Okay,” he says, “here’s your drink, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” Jessica says and downs it, immediately handing the shot glass back to the waiter.
The expression on his face is hilarious.
“Would you like another?” he asks nervously.
“No,” she says. “That one should do it, thank you.”
“All right,” he says. “Your entrees should be out momentarily.”
He walks away.
“Do you really think that your employees are going to open a store just to drive you out of business if you give them the super-secret handshake?” I ask.
“You never know,” she says.
“Do you have—well, of course you must know how much money it takes to open up a shop, even a small one, in New York. Do you pay any of your employees that well?” I continue.
“I pay my employees very well,” she says. “And I don’t think it’s really any of your business anyway.”
“Maybe not,” I tell her. “I just hate seeing someone run themselves into the ground when they don’t have to, but if you’re dead set on losing your store—”
“I’m not going to lose my store. What are you talking about?” she asks.
“Well, most employees are loyal to bosses who treat them with enough respect to let them move up in the world,” I tell her. “It’s the ones who think their bosses are trying to stifle their growth that end up putting a knife in your back.”
She laughs. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Okay, let’s say it doesn’t,” I start. “Let’s say that all of your employees are just thrilled to pieces that you don’t give them any more responsibility than you think they can handle which, from the look of things, isn’t that much. Now, you’ve killed whatever ambition they do have and you’ll end up with a situation where they actually can’t take care of things when you’re not there, so sick or healthy, injured or able, no matter what, you’re going to have to be there all day every day for the rest of your life,” I tell her. “Or, at very least, until you decide that it’s just not worth the stress and you end up having to sell the company, but I really see you as being the type that would hang onto this sort of thing until your dying breath. Maybe afterward
if you catch a break with rigor mortis.”
“Here are your entrees!” our waiter, who must be the sneakiest tray jockey in the business, announces.
We both say thanks and he goes on his way.
“All right,” she says, finally picking up a utensil, “let’s say that I would like to have more free time, and that I do realize that means I’m either going to have to give my people the keys to the store—”
“Seriously, what is that?” I ask. “I’ve been around a lot of controlling people—worked for a lot of them, too—but I have never known someone who was so insecure about their business that they wouldn’t let at least one manager have the keys to the store.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she says. “What am I supposed to do, though? This is the only way I know how to do it.”
“It’ll take a bit of time to work that out of your system, and you’re such a—let’s call it a ‘special case’ that your need to control will likely just take form in some other area of your life, but what I would suggest is that you start out by taking your most talented employee aside and make them assistant store manager,” I tell her.
“That’s quite a promotion,” she scoffs. “I don’t even have…” she starts, but stops talking and nervously forks her food.
“You don’t even have what?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. So, where are you from?”
“Here,” I tell her. “I think you were about to tell me that you don’t have any managers. That can’t be true, can it?”
“Well, I’m always there when the place is open, so—”
“Good lord!” I exclaim. “Jessica, you’ve got to let your employees move up and take some more responsibility, or are you really so conceited that you don’t think anyone might know one thing a little better than you do?”
“What about you?” she asks. “I don’t see you with any—well, I guess you wouldn’t call them managers, but you know what I mean.”
“José’s my number two,” I tell her. “It’s reflected in his responsibility and his pay. Under him, I’ve got Alec, though I think I might have pulled the trigger on that one a little early. Yeah, I like the guy, but he’s pretty damn lazy a lot of the time. I can’t be everywhere, and the guys on my team each have different strengths, different areas of expertise. When I come across a situation that I’m not quite sure how to tackle, I’m comfortable asking the advice of one of my employees who has more experience with that given thing, or may have some insight that I’m lacking.”
“Well, it sounds like you lucked out,” she says. “I wish I had people in my store that would be willing to—”
“Ivanna knows shoes a lot better than you do. She’d be perfect as manager of that section,” I tell her. “Linda is probably half the reason you’ve got as many customers as you do have, because she has a way about her that people really respond to. Cheryl seems like she knows everything there is to know about dresses, skirts, pants and blouses. She might be a great choice for assistant manager, or at least a floor manager. The rest of your staff, I haven’t really gotten to know so well, but they’ve all got their strengths, but the wine is dying on the vine. You’ve got to trust your people or they’ll never trust you.”
“You don’t think they trust me?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I think most of them like you because you’re a pretty likeable person, you know, when you’re not being all neurotic and controlling.”
She’s still forking her food, but I have yet to see her eat anything.
“How do you know so much about my staff?” she asks.
“I’ve spent almost two months around them,” I answer. “I don’t have as much face time with them as I’m sure you do, but when you’re even casually around people, you can come to know their strengths pretty quickly.”
A smirk crosses her face. “I think you just don’t like the idea of an ambitious woman,” she says. “I think you’re so used to your world of testosterone and power tools that the thought of a woman who not only owns her own business, but runs it, is a threat to you.”
“That’s because you don’t know me,” I tell her, shoveling a forkful of food in my mouth. “I actually find your ambition to be one of your most attractive qualities.”
It’s super fucking attractive. I somehow always end up with chicks that don’t have much ambition at all though.
“You find me attractive?” she asks. “Just like a man: the only compliment you people can give is when it has something to do with the idea of screwing the woman you’re giving it to.”
Duh. She must know she’s a goddamned bombshell.
“Now, there’s an unfortunate assortment of words,” I laugh. “No, what I’m saying is that I love people who are driven. It doesn’t matter, man or woman, I think the quality itself is attractive. Trust me, if I was hitting on you, you’d know it.”
“Oh would I?” she asks. “You’re that smooth, are you?”
“Quite the opposite,” I tell her. “I have a particular clumsy charm, but it’s hardly something that I’d call smooth. It’s more like how that kid with the thick glasses and the lisp endears himself to you when he gets his tongue stuck on the flagpole in winter.”
She smiles and, as she realizes that I not only explained, but demonstrated my point, her face goes a little red.
“Well, you do seem like the clumsy type to me,” she says.
“Not with everything,” I tell her and look her in the eyes until her face reddens even more and she looks away.
“Now you’re hitting on me,” she says.
“Yep,” I answer quickly and sit back in my chair. “I told you that you’d know it when it happened.” I take another bite of my omelette and add, “I think it’s great that you’re so driven, so focused. I just think it’s a shame that you don’t trust yourself or your staff enough to have a life outside of work. You should take up a hobby,” I tell her.
“Yeah?” she chortles. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” I start, then, just to see how far I can push this without letting her know that I’m the guy in her inbox, I add, “maybe you should take up painting.”
Her eyes narrow a bit and I know what she’s thinking, but I know that I’m safe. The reason I know that is because, based on our interactions, she can’t begin to conceive of me as the guy writing those texts to her. She sees me as the aggravating contractor who screwed one of her biggest contracts.
She’s not wrong, but that’s not the whole story, either.
“Why painting?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I shrug. “If painting’s not your thing, why not try music or antiquing? I hear philately’s pretty fun, though I can’t imagine why. Hell, start smoking pot. From what I hear, homemade bong crafting is quite the art.”
She laughs her first sincere laugh, I think, since I met her and it’s disarming to see even this small a glimpse of a softer side to her.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says and finally relaxes enough take a bite of something.
“I usually am,” I smile.
“You’re kind of arrogant, you know that?” she asks, but at least she’s smiling at me.
Chapter Nine
Learning to Breathe
Jessica
“Mom, it’s not that simple,” I groan.
“I’d say it’s simple enough,” she says over her blueberry pie. “You’ve managed to make some money, and I bet if you sold that store and the merchandise that came with it, you’d have a nice little nest egg.”
“I’m not selling the store,” I tell her.
“Why not, dear?” she asks. “Are you having money trouble? Harold, grab my pocketbook, will you?”
“I’m fine on money,” I tell her. “But I’m not just doing what I’m doing to get enough money to get me by until I die. I actually believe in what I’m doing.”
“Oh,” she says, “I didn’t know you viewed selling clothes as some sort of personal cr
usade.”
I rub my temples. “Women’s clothing stores usually fit into two categories,” I start, “either they’re geared toward bigger women or they’re geared toward smaller women. My store is a place where any woman can come in, find something that not only looks good, but makes her feel good, and—”
“Target has clothes for big and small women,” my mom says.
“That’s different,” I tell her. “They’re not just a clothing store. They can afford to expand their clientele a little bit. There are more crossovers like mine than there used to be, but we’re still in the distant minority. A lot of the places that do offer more sizes tend to stop with single or double XL or the plus sizes they do have are just terrible. I’m not just selling clothes. What I’m trying to do is to tell women, big or small, tall or short, rich or poor, that they’re already beautiful, that they’re already good enough to feel good about themselves.”
“Oh, surely you can’t think that every woman is already good enough,” my mom says, and I’m starting to wish that I didn’t bother coming over to visit tonight.
“What did the doctor say?” I ask in order to avoid yelling at my mother all the things I’ve wanted to yell at her since I was a teenager.
“Oh, doctors don’t know anything,” she says.
“He said that they’re going to go in and remove the tumor,” my dad says. “There shouldn’t be any need for amputation.”
“That’s good,” I say. “When are they going to do that?”
My mom shrugs, but my dad answers, “They’ve scheduled surgery for next Tuesday.”
“They said it’s not progressed to the point where they need to get right in there and take care of it right this minute, can you believe that?” my mom asks.
“That’s good, though,” I tell her. “It sounds like they’re confident.”
“Oh, all doctors are confident,” my mom says. “So, when are you moving back home?”
“About that,” I start. “I really don’t think it’s going to be in anyone’s best interest for me to just move home. I’d have a huge commute every day, and I wouldn’t want you and Dad to think that this isn’t your house anymore. Why don’t you just let me pay the—”