I watched her waltz herself right into my father’s office one day and shut the door. The lock clicked and moments later I heard her giggle. I threw the stack of papers I was filing down and stormed out of the office.
Later that summer I passed her car pulling out of our neighborhood as I was returning from volleyball practice. I rushed inside and confronted my father. Of course he denied everything, but I knew he was lying.
On my way out of our den he reprimanded me. “Mind your own business, Brooke,” he said. Those words flew all over me. It was my business. He was my father.
I felt so guilty for never saying something to Mother. So many times I’d tried to but could never bring myself to go through with it. I didn’t want to be the one to see the initial shock dull her bright blue eyes. I didn’t want to watch her cry because I’d confirmed her suspicions.
Although I’d known that it had been going on for well over half my life, hearing her say that he’d confessed to her made it all too real. They had been so good at pretending. At face value my family had seemed like the perfect American family. A successful doctor, a successful lawyer-turned-housewife and mother. A large house on the bay with hardwood floors and Italian tile… everyone thought our family was just as happy as anyone could be.
Perfect. The Davis family was just fucking perfect! Funny how easy it is to fool people. It’s too easy to make people believe you’re something you’re not.
Due to my experience with Brody, and especially my father’s inability to be faithful, I had sworn off men. Well, I’d at least sworn that I’d never allow myself to fall for an overly attractive man, especially never a doctor. Let me correct that: especially not a surgeon, of any type. I didn’t want anyone that reminded me of my father! I hated to stereotype, but from the experience I’d had growing up, I blamed his infidelity partly on his profession. Careers like that make it all too easy to get away with affairs. Long hours at work, the high stress from making life or death calls, a career that obviously makes bank, and not to mention that profession is littered with women who intimately work with the doctors. It’s just a cocktail asking for a woman to hop in the bed with you, or up on your office desk. I mean, from what I’d heard plenty of women fantasized about seducing, or being seduced by, a doctor. I don’t particularly know why because I’d much rather fantasize about Channing Tatum as Magic Mike seducing me, but to each their own. My father had put a sour taste for physicians in my mouth and I intended to stay away from them, and possibly lawyers as well.
Chapter Two
Brooke
Two weeks later I was on my way to a job interview for a research coordinator position at one of the local hospitals. Holding the phone up to my ear, I tried to navigate my way through the crowded streets of downtown Atlanta.
My mother was ranting, “I’m just livid, Brooke. She looks like a damn porn star.” She sighed. “I found out he paid for her to have implants — and I had to beg him for years to get mine.”
“I know, Mother. I’m sure he’ll be tired of her in no time. He’s an ass.” Jerking the wheel, I dodged orange cones and construction workers, then slammed my brakes on and made a hard right turn.
“I don’t want you to hate him, Brooke…”
“Uh, well. I may not hate him, but he’s certainly not my favorite person right now.” I passed the parking deck and tapped my breaks.
Damn.
I realized I couldn’t back up as a Ford F-150 came barreling down the one-way street. “Mother, I’ve got to go before I kill myself. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay, honey. I love you. Good luck.”
“I love you too, Mother.” I hung my phone up and circled the block.
Pulling into the parking deck, I found a spot to park. I crawled out of my car and the humidity immediately poofed my hair up and made my skin feel slimy. The crosswalk lit up as I approached the curb. Blotting the beads of sweat from my forehead, I crossed the street, being careful not to trip in my black heels.
The cool air was an instant relief when I walked into the building. I reached up to smooth out my hair and took a second to glance around the two story lobby. Everything was sleek and white. Clean. It looked clean, cold, and very boring.
I pushed the button to the elevator, stepping to the side to wait on the doors to open. I continued to glance around the lobby as I stood, tugging at my suit jacket in an effort to make myself feel more comfortable in the ridiculously professional attire. The shirt was itchy, the panty hose were constricting, and it felt unbearably stuffy.
The elevator doors dinged. I took several steps toward it and out walked an unbelievably attractive man. I stopped, unable to keep myself from staring in his direction. His eyes were locked on his phone. His wavy, dark brown hair framed his chiseled face and his olive-colored skin made his bright green eyes almost glow. He looked like he belonged on an advertisement for something having to do with sexual pleasures. His body – good God – it was so well-defined you could make it out through his dress shirt and slacks. I found myself awe-struck with him and blatantly gawking. My eyes drifted up his back, catching the gleam of something silver draped around his neck.
A stethoscope!
That little piece of decoration quickly snapped me out of my fantasy.
After I’d managed to rip my eyes away from him the elevator began to shut. I stuck my hand in the way of the doors and stepped onto the brightly lit, stainless steel elevator. I may have taken one last, lustful glance at the back of that man as the doors closed. Doctor or not – that man was ungodly.
Stepping into the hallway, I looked up at the black and gold plaque on the wall. “Administration,” the sign had the title in large font and then a list of names followed by initials. I walked around to room 511 A and entered.
I approached the counter and before I could ring the bell a man opened the door to the suite.
“Brooke Davis?” he asked. His beady little eyes beamed.
“Yes.” I forced a fake smile.
“I’m Dan. I’ll be interviewing you today.” His thin lips widened into a grin and he stuck his hand out to shake mine.
Grabbing onto his clammy hand, I forced another smile. I tried to calm my nerves as I followed him back to an office. We entered the room and Dan pulled out a stiff, navy blue chair for me to have a seat in.
Throughout the interview I had a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was not the place I should work. I couldn’t really explain what it was that was causing my stomach to knot up, but I didn’t like the feeling at all. By the time I had finished the interview I was hoping that maybe Dan wouldn’t think I was a good fit, and that I wouldn’t get that follow-up call he’d mentioned. Who the hell really leaves an interview hoping for rejection?
Unfortunately for me, I got a call that Friday.
“May I speak with Brooke Davis?” an overly eager voice asked.
“This is she.”
“Brooke, this is Dan Stanley. I’m calling to offer you the Research Coordinator position with our office. Are you still interested in the position?”
I hesitated for a minute and then replied, “Yes, I am.”
“Fantastic,” the inflection in his voice raised his octave to that of a soprano. “You would start out at $50,000 a year, salaried. Of course you would also be offered full time benefits. Is this acceptable for you, Ms. Davis?”
That was a lot of money for a twenty-five year old; I got pretty excited thinking about all of the shopping I could do with that kind of money. I plopped down on my purple microsuede couch and drew tiny circles in the fabric with my fingertip.
“Yes, that sounds fine.”
“Would you be able to start in two weeks? The first week will be spent doing some one-on-one training with yours truly,” he snickered a little, which promptly reminded me how gross he was. His laugh was creepy, almost like one of those demon-possessed clowns you’d see in a low budget horror film on the Sci-Fi channel.
/> “Two weeks will be fine.”
“Great! I’ll send you some information in the mail and HR should be contacting you shortly to work out some details. I look forward to working with you.”
I hung up the phone, and although I was excited about the pay, I was more distraught over the thought of having a job that I actually had to work at forty hours a week, and that I couldn’t call my best friend to swap shifts with.
Glancing over at my clock, I realized I should be walking out the door to go to work. Friday nights at the restaurant were hell and I always ended up completely stressed out.
Waiting tables is not a fun job, at all, ever. People are rude and mean. You have to handle utensils that strange people have stuck in their mouth, their thick saliva dripping off of them as you throw them in the soak bucket. You reach for a napkin, thinking “it’s just a napkin” and then you feel some wet, cold, chewed up food someone spit back into it. Your skin has been tainted by the digestive juices of who knows who. By the end of the night your patience is paper thin, your feet are killing you, you’ve been demoralized, your skin is greasy, and somehow you have pieces of spinach dip in your hair. The crap I dealt with was absolutely worth the $2.15 an hour I was paid.
I sat in the parking lot of the restaurant for a good ten minutes before I managed to drag myself out of my car. Immediately upon opening the door to the restaurant the smell of grease slapped me in the face.
“Hey, Brooke,” a bubbly voice chimed out.
I spun around to see my friend Constance skipping over to me, her long blonde pigtails bouncing with each hop. She swore that wearing pigtails made her get better tips.
“I got the job!” I blurted out.
I realized at that moment how done I was with that place. I’d worked there for three years while I was in graduate school, and I’d put up with as much of the general public as I could tolerate.
Constance smiled. “Congrats, I’m so excited for you. We need to go out after work and celebrate,” she cheered. Her eyes narrowed and her lips closed. A hint of bliss fogged her eyes over and her mouth pulled up. “Have you told Bob yet? He’s totally gonna freak out.”
“No, I’m about to go tell him and I highly doubt that he’s gonna freak out. I mean, Heather walked out the other day in the middle of her shift and he didn’t give two shits.”
As much as you would like to think you are an invaluable asset to your workplace, I knew that in that restaurant, nobody was really an invaluable asset. People came and went, walked out because they couldn’t take it anymore, and were fired almost on a daily basis.
I grabbed a handful of straws and shoved them into my apron on my way back to Bob’s office. Constance was following me with a huge smile on her face. She hated Bob, well, we all hated Bob. He was a complete ass most of the time and was on some power trip because he could boss us around. At the beginning of every shift he had stupid meetings and would always try to point out something wrong someone had done.
“You don’t put a pineapple and umbrella on a Mai-Tai…” It would always be something ridiculous like that. I was so tempted to yell out, “We work at a restaurant. We serve people food. Who gives a rainbow-sprinkled shit what we garnish the drinks with?”
Maybe I would do that at the meeting on my last day.
Bob’s office door was already slightly cracked open. I tapped my knuckles on it. “Bob?”
Short, stubby fingers wrapped around the edge of the door and pulled it open. “Yes?” he said. He had a pious look on his freckled face.
“I just wanted to let you know I accepted another job. I’m turning in my two week notice,” I smiled, nervously rubbing my hand back and forth across the top of the straws in my apron.
“Okey dokey.” He turned back to his desk and fiddled with some papers.
I stood there for a minute before realizing he wasn’t going to say anything else. “Alright. Well. Just wanted to let you know,” I said and turned toward the front of the restaurant.
“That’s it?” Constance whined. She seemed disappointed that he hadn’t caused a scene. Her shoulders hung down a little and she made a sad pouty face.
“Yeah, what did you expect?”
“Something other than ‘okey dokey’.” She groaned, “I hate him. You have to get me outta here, Brooke, I’m gonna go postal and stab somebody with a freakin’ fork if I stay here much longer.” She yanked at the ends of her pigtails, wrapping them around her throat to mimic a noose.
“Yeah, we need to get you outta here. We’ll work on that,” I promised.
I knew that Bob wouldn’t care that I was leaving but, damn, he could’ve at least asked me where I was going.
The night went on, and grew more stressful by the minute. I guess I’d just been waiting tables for so long that my ability to handle the rudeness of other people had been worn down to one of those tiny strands of thread that’s all frayed and fragile looking. A table of three women came in at the end of the night, and of course I had to wait on them. They were absolutely rude and I couldn’t have been happier to hand them their checks and give them their Diet Cokes in to-go cups. I gathered the plates from the table, cussing Bob under my breath, and as I wiped the table off I noticed the tip they’d left me.
There, on top of the receipt, laid fifty cents. I was enraged. These women had left me fifty freaking cents? I’d smiled at them, complimented their ridiculous, bouffant hair styles, and between the three of them fifty cents was all they could part with. That was it. That thread just snapped!
I stomped over to Constance to bitch about it when I saw the lovely threesome emerge from the restroom. The PMS overtook me and I trotted my happy little ass right up to one of them.
“Excuse me. Hey, lady!” My voice got deeper, it was like I was possessed by a demonic force wanting revenge for all of the shit its host had endured for the past three years of her life. The women twisted their necks around and looked at me.
Sticking out my hand, I held up the two tarnished quarters. “You left this on the table.”
They just stood there with confused expressions on their faces. I grabbed the lady in the middle’s wrist, she looked like the most bitter of the three biddies, and I decided that she must’ve been the ringleader. I shook her arm a little to make her palm open up and dropped the two coins into her sweaty hand.
“You evidently need this more than I do. I don’t think I could sleep at night knowing that this generous tip of yours may cause you some grief tomorrow when you make your visit to the vending machine and reach down into your pockets only to find no change. I would hate to know that my tip caused you to forego your Snickers bar. Please, it was a nice enough gesture, but I cannot accept this from you.” My heart was racing in my chest. I could feel my cheeks flush and the volume of my voice had risen to a soft yell.
People were staring by this point, and Bob was making his way toward me. The lady was pretty angry, and I could see sparks flying from her rusty wheels as they attempted to turn, trying to think of what to say. I knew what I had to do.
“You know what? This is stupid. I am done with this place!” I threw my hands into the air and let out an agitated grunt. “People like you make me hate the general population. You treat other people like crap probably because you’ve been a doormat most of your life!” I untied my apron and flung it on the hostess stand.
Directing my attention toward Bob, I yelled, “I quit! Also, you are an absolute asshole and everyone here hates you. It’s a fucking restaurant, get over yourself!”
His face turned a candied-apple red, his pupils dilated, and his chest expanded. “You’re fired, young lady!”
I turned my back to him and stomped to the door. “Nope. I just quit.”
“You need an attitude adjustment if you want to be successful in life, Brooke.” His voice was shaking. He just had to hear himself talk.
I stopped and quickly spun around with a bitchy smirk on my face. “Well, by leaving here I’
m halfway there.”
With that, I exited the building and took a fresh breath of exhaust- ridden air. Although I knew I was being a complete bitch, that moment felt good. It was so freeing to know that my new life was about to begin. I may have only had $534 to last me until I got my first paycheck, over a month from then, but I figured I had been toying with the idea of fasting and living a few weeks without power anyway.
Chapter Three
Brooke
June 23, 2014
The alarm went off at five-thirty in the morning, which is an ungodly hour for a twenty-five year old to be roused from sleep. There was no light coming in from my small bedroom window and I realized it was still dark outside. I sluggishly drug myself out of my comfy bed and stumbled into my bathroom.
Why do people insist on starting the day so early?
I turned the stereo in my bathroom to a deafening level and slowly twisted the knob on the shower to scalding hot. The reflection in my mirror looked haggard. If having to get up this early meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with the general public any longer, so be it. There was no way that another profession could be as horrendous as waiting tables had been.
The steam quickly filled up the tiny bathroom and I pushed my brightly colored shower curtain to the side to climb in. Still half asleep, I leaned up against the cold tile and let the hot water run over my head and down my face. To occupy my time, I daydreamed about spending my first paycheck. Somehow that daydream snowballed into a full-blown fantasy about crossing paths with Channing Tatum, who never has on a shirt in my daydreams. This fantasy lasted for quite a while and became pretty intricate, because by the time the hot water ran out me and Channing had two beautiful children, a house in Malibu, and a dog named Sampson. I cut my fantasy button off and reached for my towel.
Running the towel through my hair, I glanced down at the time on my clock.
Damn it, Channing Tatum! You are going to make me late on my first day of work.
Bound to the Fallen (Prophecy #2) Page 3