by Cooper, Jodi
Wow.
This place looks impressive.
Everything seems so new, so slick and modern.
And the foyer to his office is even bigger than my Mom’s apartment.
Another blonde is typing behind a large desk in front of the office doors.
“Hi,” I smile, “I have an…”
“I know who you are,” the girl rudely interrupts. “You’re right to go through.”
She didn’t even look at me either. What is going on with this place?
Hesitantly, I place my hands on the large doors.
Once I get to the large doors, I am stunned by the size of the place. The floor to ceiling windows looking out to the rest of the world is something I have only ever dreamt about.
But it’s the smell of liquor that hits me the most.
Not a subtle smell either.
One that will probably intoxicate you too if you inhaled it long enough.
“Rhett? Hello?” I say as I walk through the door.
I see a figure slumped over a large oak desk and wonder if the lady gave me the right floor number.
He lifts his head off of his desk and his eyes are blood shot red.
He has five o’clock shadow and his hair is a shaggy mess.
He looks nothing like the handsome guy I saw in the article, who was clean-cut, well-dressed and oozing confidence.
But there is still something devilishly handsome about his look. Even at this low point, he is seductive and delicious.
“What!” he yells, angry that someone has interrupted him.
“Hi,” I respond softly.
“Jessica?” the look of recognition washes across his face.
“Um… hi. It’s been a while.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Your mother setup an interview for me to be your personal assistant,” I say as I stop in front of his desk, still a little confused. “I’m here for the interview. She said to be here at nine.”
He rubs his eyes. “Um… yes, I do remember something about that. Well, what’s the time?”
“Five minutes to nine.”
“And what time is the interview supposed to be?”
“Nine.”
“Great, then you have the job. No need to waste time on an interview.”
His remark his so flippant.
“You don’t want to ask me any questions? Learn more about me? See if I’m qualified or anything?” I ask him
“Nope. If you’re here on time, then that’s good enough for me. And if Mom setup the interview for you, I know that you have to be qualified,” he says as he takes a sip from his cup. “And even if you weren’t, the job is easy enough to learn.”
“Uh… okay. When do I start? Tomorrow? Next week?”
“You can start immediately and your first job is to get me another shot of Vodka. I already finished off this bottle and I need to keep my spirits up,” he slurs at me.
“Uh… I think that you’ve had enough. You are already reeking of alcohol,” I say to him. “How are you supposed to run a company as big as this drunk?”
He frowns his face up at me. “I’m the boss and you will do what I say. You just got this job and are already trying to tell me what to do? That’s not a good thing.”
I frown back at him.
Just who did he think that he is?
Sure he might be my new boss, but this bordered on being unethical.
“No,” I reply firmly. “I really think that you’ve had enough.”
“Hey, I’m sure it’s happy hour in Australia,” he says. “And if it’s happy hour somewhere, then I have to drink.”
“That may be, but it’s not happy hour here. I’ll grab you some coffee and be right back,” I say as I walk out of the room.
When I walked into the office, I noticed that the coffee machine was on the far corner of the wall so I walk over and begin to brew him a fresh cup. I don’t know how he takes it but judging from his appearance, he needs three scoops of sugar.
I go back into his office and he’s still sitting up but it looks as if he has gotten hit by a bus.
His eyes seem even redder and he has a long mark down the side of his face from where he was lying on his desk.
“Here you go,” I say as I hand him the cup of coffee.
He takes a sip and makes a face then takes another sip. “Thanks… even though it could use a shot of liquor in it.”
“No problem,” I say as I take a seat in front of his desk. “Why are you on this floor all by yourself?”
Curiosity already has the better of me.
“What did you expect?”
“I thought with a company as big as yours that you would have people swarming around you all of the time. I don’t know. I just expected something different. Not you sitting on this floor acting like Mr. Scrooge.”
“It’s because I don’t want to be around anybody,” he explains.
“Why not?” I ask.
“You ask some pretty hard questions, don’t you?”
“If I’m going to be your assistant, then I need to know why things happen around here.”
“Because they are all a bunch of phonies. Fakes! I’d rather be by myself. That way there’s no one to bother me and I can do my own thing,” he remarks.
“So how do you get any work done?” I ask. “I know that you need people to help you run this company. You can’t do it by yourself.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t, really. All the big people do the work. I just show up whenever I feel like it and pretty much do nothing. I’m just the face of this company. I don’t do anything major anymore and the big partners would prefer it stays that way because of my habits.”
“Rhett, I looked you up online and it said that you were taking this company to the next level,” I say.
I don’t know why I mentioned it to him because after what he just said, it was clear that the article was lying. Although I’m not sure why I’m surprised; the Internet is filled with nothing but lies.
I guess I just hoped that it was different because it was Rhett.
He laughs. “Those articles are just placed out there to make me and this company look good. I’m pretty sure if people really knew that I wasn’t running this company like they thought, they wouldn’t invest their money. I’ve tried before but...I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So what happened to you?”
“Who are you to ask me such questions anyway?”
“I’m an old friend Rhett… you used to be so energetic and full of life. I never once in a million years thought that you would turn out like this. It’s looks like you have no fight in you. Like you’ve lost the drive to even attempt to be half of the human you used to be,” I say.
“We were kids! Matter of fact, we were friends but you didn’t bother to keep in touch with me after you knew that my Dad had passed. At least I wrote to you when your Dad got locked up, but you? You just abandoned me at the worst possible time in my life and now here you are five years later with a free job because of me!” he states firmly.
His voice isn’t angry but it is annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“When we were kids, I would’ve done anything for you Jessica. And I did do anything for you. I was only nine but my loyalty to you was something that no one could ever take from me. And then when I realized that you didn’t care about being loyal to me or about our friendship, I just said forget it. I haven’t trusted anyone since then Jessica. You taught me that everyone is not always who they seem to be and I thank you for teaching me that lesson.”
My mouth hangs open.
This was not what I expected today.
I knew not reaching out to him when his father passed was wrong, but honestly I just didn’t know what to say to him.
We had already stopped talking to one another and I thought that if I approached him, he would think that I was being fake, when in all actuality, I really cared about what w
as going on with him. His Dad was his best friend but since my Dad didn’t die and was in jail I didn’t know what would be the right thing to say.
“Well if you don’t want me to do the job, then I can leave. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. If I knew that you felt that way about me, then I never would’ve come here.”
“No, you can keep the job. My Mom wants you here so you’re here. Just don’t expect me to be happy about it and jumping through hoops because my old best friend is back,” he says as he downs the rest of the coffee. “You can start doing some filing stuff and making some calls for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have something figured out for what you can do. Since you’re my personal assistant, you’ll be assisting me. Sometimes I work from home, sometimes from my penthouse, and sometimes I work from here and then sometimes I don’t work at all. But you will always need to be available day or night. It’s a demanding job and not everyone can handle it.”
I nod my head and exit the doors.
After I exit, the other girl smiles at me and says, “Good luck.”
“Thanks. Where are you going?” I ask as she walks towards the elevator.
“I’m going away from here. I’m his old personal assistant. I’ve been asking to be transferred for months. And now that you’re here, I can go to the other job.”
“Aren’t you going to show me what to do?” I ask.
She shakes her head, “I’m not spending a second here longer than I have to.”
My mouth hangs open again as I watch her leave.
What is this place?
I set up my desk and computer, make a few phone calls to be set up on the company profile, and soon, before I know it, it’s five o’clock. Rhett comes out of his office and looks at me with pain in his eyes.
“You can go now,” he says. “Be back tomorrow at nine sharp.”
He disappears back into his office and I just stare at him.
Wow.
The guy is a mess.
An impossibly handsome mess… but still a mess.
I know that he has to be in pain, but at the moment I can’t think of anything to say to him that will make him come out of his funk, so I grab my purse, leave, and travel on the subway—all the while thinking of the shell of the man Rhett has become.
Chapter 3
As soon as I walk into the house I see Mom has a big meal prepared for me with a smile on her face. “So how was your first day at work, sweetie?” she asks excitedly.
I place my purse down and take a seat. “It was something, that’s for sure.”
“What do you mean?” she asks. “Did you not like it? Is Rhett being too hard on you?”
“He’s nothing like what I thought he was going to be. I thought I would be learning from some successful businessperson who was making all of the right moves but Rhett is just an aggressive drunk, Mom. A lazy and miserable drunk. He was even drunk today when I came in for my interview,” I say. “His words were slurring. He’s in a bad way and I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to hold on.”
“Wow… I knew that he was going through some things but I didn’t think that it was that bad,” she says. “His Mom said that he’s been in kind of a funk since his Dad died, but she didn’t say that it was this bad.”
“He’s on a whole floor by himself Mom. He says that he doesn’t want to be around people. Everyone around him runs his company and just makes him look good while he’s drinking himself into nothing. As big as that company is and with as much money it’s worth, I don’t think that they are going to put up with him for much longer. They’re going to start seeing him more as a liability than an asset and he will lose everything. As much as I hate that, I just know that he needs to get his act together before he loses everything.”
“Well, maybe that’s why his Mom wanted you to get the job so bad. She probably thinks that you will be a good influence on him and can help him. I mean, after all, you two were good friends. Maybe you can use what you know about him to help pull him out of the gutter. If he’s as bad off as you say he is, maybe all that he needs is a friend. It can’t be healthy with him being on a floor all alone with no contact with anybody.”
“Yeah Mom, we were friends… when we were kids. But we are adults now. The only way that he’s going to get help is if he wants it and right now he just seems pretty contempt with how he’s living his life. And if no one is standing up to him about it, then I see why he wouldn’t want to change. I know that he’s depressed and even if he does need a friend I’m not sure that I’m the friend that he needs. He needs to see a psychiatrist to get those demons out because it seems to be quite a lot that he’s holding onto.”
“So what exactly did you do today? Just watch him be drunk?” she asks. “I know you better than that Jessica and I really hope that you weren’t helping him get even more liquor in his system because that’s not what he needs.”
“No, I filed some things and made a couple of phone calls. Nothing to yell about but it’s a job and I’m happy that I at least have one. Even if it’s not what I thought it would be,” I say. “And no, I didn’t give him any more liquor but I did give him a really strong cup of coffee that seemed to help him a little bit. But I’m sure that he probably has a liquor stash in his office somewhere so it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it will get better. You never know; this could have just been a once off,” she says.
I sigh. “I doubt it Mom. He’s on a downward spiral and I think that he’s going to end up crashing and crashing hard. And when he does crash, I just hope that he’s able to put the pieces back together or has a strong support system because if not, there is a lot of pain in his future.”
“That’s not nice sweetheart,” she says. “You shouldn’t say things like that. You need to think more positively.”
“It may not be nice, but its true Mom. He’s a wreck. He’s really distraught over his father and blames me for not being a good friend during that time and, well, I guess he’s right. I didn’t reach out to him but I didn’t think that he would want to hear from me either. And now I can see that it was a big mistake. I knew that he was in need and I still chose to ignore him and go on with my life. I don’t think I even called him once after his father died considering he was there for me on the phone and through letters when Dad went to jail. He said that I taught him to see people for who they really are and I think that he has a point.”
“Maybe you can both work through this. I think that you will be a good influence on him. You can use this as a chance to make it up to him for not being there with his Dad. Just don’t give up on him when it seems like he’s going through a really tough situation right now.”
“I don’t know mom, but I will stick it out. Maybe you’re right and it will get better. And I guess I could try to be a friend to him but only if he lets me. If he doesn’t then I’ll just be his assistant. Do my job and get paid for doing it.”
“See that’s looking on the bright side,” she says with a smile.
I roll my eyes and bite into a piece of chicken.
She has no idea what I am dealing with.
It is one thing to talk about it and give an opinion but a whole new situation to have to actually deal with it.
But I will keep my word and stick it out.
Hopefully I won’t kill Rhett in the process.
Chapter 4
I’ve been at Rhett’s family firm for a month and it has been the same thing day after day.
A month of pain.
He doesn’t do any work and I have found him asleep on his desk numerous times in a drunken stupor.
The only time anyone comes to the floor is to get him to sign papers and then he has to make this big scene before he signs them.
The staff just look at me and shake their heads, and I understand why.
He’s a mess!
Luckily, though, with the first paycheck, I was able to move out of my Mom’s house and get an apartment closer to the job but it was still kind of
unbearable.
I can’t even recognize him sometimes.
It’s like the sweet kid I once knew turned into this drunken monster. It is a hard thing to watch.
“Jessica! Where are the Jones’s files?” he asks as he comes out of his office.
He’s stumbling a little and I can tell that he has been sipping while doing whatever it is that he does while in his office.
I roll my eyes. “In the file drawer under J, and why do you need it? It’s not like you actually do any work around here.”
I almost regret my words as soon as they come out of my mouth but it was true.
He really didn’t do any work around the office. Unless you could call drinking work, and since you couldn’t, then he was just a lazy ass.
“Because I need the damn file! Don’t question me! I am the one who you get your paycheck from! Don’t you forget that. You work for me - not the other way around! I am your boss!”
I whisper, “Whatever.”
“I beg your pardon? What did you say?”
His aggressive stance at my desk sends me into a spin.
“You’re such a jerk Rhett! I mean sure I’ve been a crummy friend to you over the years but you’ve an asshole of a boss who’s ruining your life. Look at what you’ve become!” I stand. “You’ve become a shell of who you used to be and it’s not attractive. I won’t be surprised if the board members go behind your back and decide to vote you out of your own company! You really are that worthless! I mean, you come in here drunk. You leave here drunk, so you really expect me to take you serious when you start to seem remotely close in wok? Because if you do, then clearly you’re more out of it than I thought you were.”
“If I’m so worthless then why are you still here? Everyone here needs me! I’m the reason everyone in here still has a job!” he yells at me.
“You are a mess!” I shout back.
“I am the power in this building and if the people here don’t like the way that I run things, then you know what? They are more than welcome to leave! Same with you! I don’t have to stand here and take this from you! Who are you anyway to be the judge on my life when it’s obvious that things aren’t so perfect in yours since your Mom had to call in the favor? So stop being so judgmental because while you’re pointing one finger at me, three more are pointing back at you!” he yells as he walks away and slams his office door.