by Naomi Niles
“What did he do?”
I faced her, “He cornered me last Friday. He said that if I didn’t take him out on a date, he would let everyone know what I used to do in the past.”
Her mouth hung open. “He said that?”
“Yes! He said that, and I know he is behind all of this! I know without a shadow of a doubt! He is a prick! A fucking prick!”
“I can’t believe this, Bethany! He seems like a spoiled ass little boy.”
I stood up from the table, knocking the chair over in the process. Just then, two more teachers walked into the lounge. Two women smiled at me but didn’t say a word as they walked over to the doughnut box. I was liked by everyone at the school, but it would only take something like this for people to show their true colors. In my mind, they were belittling me because of the rumors that were floating around the school. Before I allowed my anger to explode, I turned to walk out of the room. “Hold on, girl,” Sharon said, trailing behind me, “I don’t need you to do anything stupid!”
I charged down the hallway, headed straight for Derrick’s classroom. I showed up ten minutes before the first bell rang and children had just started to walk into the room and place their bags on the shelves. Sharon caught up to me, “Bethany, now is not the time, okay? The children are coming in. Just wait.”
“Wait?” I said, aggressively. “Wait for what? If it is already floating around the school, then I know Principal Jones has already heard it by now! He is ruining my life! My career!”
“But Bethany, this is not the best time to talk to him. Not when you are like this.”
I rolled my eyes at her, then continued my pace to Derrick’s room. Moments later, he stepped out of the class and looked down the hall in my direction. A smirk appeared on his face. “I told you so,” he lipped towards me.
I bit my tongue as I continued towards him. If it wasn’t for the children standing around, curse words would have bounced off the walls until they bludgeoned him to death. He folded his arms over his chest when I finally approached him. “I need to talk to you. Now.”
Sharon stood beside me as he responded. “Um,” he looked at his watch, “I have a class to teach. It’s funny, though, because if you’d given me a little time this weekend, I’m sure neither one of us would be in this position now. I tried to give you the chance to see how much of a gentleman I am, but since you didn’t afford me the opportunity, well… you got the other side of me.”
“That was weak, Derrick,” Sharon spoke up. “You didn’t have to do that. This is her job. You’re going to ruin her job just because she didn’t give you a date? Really?”
“It is more than that, Sharon. It is about way more than that. It is just the principle, you know? And, speaking of,” he looked beyond us, “good morning, Principal Jones. It is a fine start to the week, yes?”
He didn’t respond to Derrick, and soon, he stood right beside us. The smile that usually covered his face in the mornings was replaced with a solemn glare. “A word please, Ms. Pope?”
I lowered my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Derrick’s smirk. It tormented me because I knew what was coming and his rumor was the prelude to it all. “Yes, sir. Lead the way.”
He started walking towards his office, and before I could follow him, Sharon grabbed my hand, “Just be honest with him, okay? That’s all you can do.”
I wiped a tear from my eye and nodded my head, then followed him down the hallway. I kept a few paces between us as if I was a student trailing its teacher. Some children smiled and waved at me as I walked behind Principal Jones. I forced a smile onto my face and waved back at them on my way in. Once we got inside, he closed the door. “Have a seat, Ms. Pope.”
I smiled as if nothing was wrong. “Sure thing, Principal Jones. What have I done now?” I asked, jokingly. “I promise you that I did not eat all of the bagels.” He sat down in his chair behind his desk and propped one leg over the other. His foot bounced around as he connected his fingertips. I could tell that he didn’t want to make eye-contact with me. His cheekbones gyrated inside his mouth. A few awkward moments passed by before I spoke up again, “Sir? Is something wrong?”
He exhaled. “I um, I just want you to be honest with me right now, okay, Ms. Pope? Honesty is what matters most.”
“Oh. Okay, sure thing.” I knew what was coming. I glanced at his desk. A picture of him and his wife faced me. It was a picture I had admired since the first day I stepped foot into his office. I imagined me and my husband in the same pose if we were fortunate enough to make it to that age.
“What type of career did you have before you moved out here to Roanoke?”
His light blue eyes looked fragile as he zeroed in on me. A wave of shame flooded through my veins like heroin. Hairs stood upright on my arms like they were infused with static. I twiddled my thumbs in silence, wanting to come up with a lie, but knowing that it would only delay the inevitable. He knew the truth. That is why I was in here in the first place. I wiped a tear from my eye before it had a chance to fall. “I um,” I took a deep breath. “This is hard for me to say, sir. It’s a part of my past that I am ashamed of. I made some mistakes. Well,” I wiped another stream of tears, “a lot of mistakes, but it has made me a better person. Sir,” I said, looking directly at him, “I used to be a–”
“Don’t,” he said, cutting me off before I could finish my sentence. “Don’t say it, Ms. Pope. I believe I already know what is going to come from your mouth. I heard the rumor on Friday before I left, and I brushed it off. You are like a daughter to me, Bethany, so I did not want to believe it. However, for the sake of the school and the parents, I had to look into it. So, I checked with the board to see if they could prove the rumor to be false. But, to my dismay, they couldn’t.”
Heartbreak pumped through the room like poison gas, and I could do nothing but inhale. I knew my time here at the school was over, and after a long meeting, he confirmed what I already knew would happen. He allowed me to keep the things in my office until the evening so I could avoid the embarrassment of moving everything out during the day. He embraced me, and with that, I left the school with tears blurring my vision on the way out. As soon as I got into my car, I cried out loud. I couldn’t believe that everything was over. My past almost destroyed my relationship with Gavin and nearly killed me, and it had even taken my only source of income. I had no idea what to do, and finally, I found the strength to start my engine and head to the only place I knew I could go for comfort.
April opened the door to a sea of tears as I stood on the other side. I couldn’t get a word out. I fell into her arms and cried on her shoulder. “Sweetheart, what is it? Did Gavin do something to you? I will skin him alive if he hurt you!” I shook my head no as she pushed the door closed, then led me to the couch. She handed me a Kleenex and said, “Here, sweetie, dry your eyes. Now, I’m going to need you to calm down,” she said, rubbing her stomach, “You know I am pregnant, and I am already emotionally unstable, so you have to calm down because I will either start crying myself or I will want to hurt someone. I am going to get another box of Kleenex though because it looks like we will both need it.”
She pushed herself up from the couch, then waddled down the hallway as I tried to calm myself. After she came back, only silent tears fell from my eyes. I was ready to talk. I told her what happened to get me fired. “That bastard! Can’t he get sued for that? Defamation of character? Slander? Something, shit!”
“No,” I said, “well, I don’t know. Even if he could, I don’t have the money for a lawyer or anything like that. I have enough money to help me float for the next two months, but after that, I am shit out of luck.”
“Damn it. I didn’t think guys would be so petty that far along in their lives. Like, grow up. You know?”
“Yeah. On top of that, my ex showed up this weekend.”
“What?”
“Yeah. He showed up at my house, pulled a gun on me, and everything. Luckily, I found a way to call Gavin with
out him knowing and before anything could happen, the police showed up. They shot him in the leg because he refused to put his gun down.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah.”
She scooted to the edge of the couch, “Wow. You had one fucked-up weekend. Then you get fired?”
“I know. It seems like when things start to get better, they then get ten times worse. I should be used to it by now though.” I dabbed my eyes with Kleenex. “Gavin decided to work things out with me, and then a day later, I get fired.” I laughed at the backwardness of my life.
I didn’t know how Gavin would take the news of me getting fired, but I had to be honest with him. I didn’t want him to find this out on his own like he did with my past. I was hoping for the best between us, but as always, I prepared for the worst.
Chapter Thirty-Three
GAVIN
I walked into my office and found Sarah’s desk cleaned out. I looked around, thinking that maybe she moved her things to another desk in the office, but when I didn’t see her anywhere, I headed straight to HR. They told me that she had to go back to school earlier than expected because of some club she was involved in, so for the time being, we had to make due without one until she was replaced. That was going to make my job harder, especially since Sarah was such an excellent replacement. I made it to my office and tossed my suit coat on the rack. I had no idea what was on tap for the day, but Sarah always saved my meetings weeks in advance and emailed them to me. I searched for her name and pulled up the IT. I didn’t have a meeting until later that day at 2 pm, so for now, it was just down time.
I called Bethany, but she didn’t answer, so I left her a voicemail. “Hey babe, just calling to see how you were doing. I don’t have anything going on until 2 pm, so maybe, if you have time, I can swing by there and we can go to lunch with Vinny. Let me know. Talk to you soon.”
A few hours passed, and she still didn’t respond. I didn’t notice it until I got an email from The Right Click. It was a message asking if I wanted to come back and give the website another try. I laughed at the thought. I was good with who I had. If they wanted more money from me, they probably shouldn’t have allowed me to meet the woman of my dreams within the first five minutes of me signing up. Just then, I got a call from the security desk. “Hello?”
“Mr. Wallace, there is someone here to see you.”
I looked at my watch. It was only 12 pm, and my meeting wasn’t for another two hours. I looked at my schedule to double check, but everything was clear. “Who is it?”
“She says her name is Bethany Pope.”
“Bethany? Oh, yeah, let her up.”
“Alright, sir.”
I stood up and propped the door open, waiting for her to walk through. It was a pleasant surprise, but at the same time, I wondered why she had driven all the way down here from Morris Elementary. It was something that she had never done before today, so I figured it was serious. “Hey, sweetheart. What a pleasant–” I stopped mid-sentence as she walked into my office. Her face hung low, as if it were weighted down. She hesitated to make eye-contact with me like she was ashamed to show her face. As she walked by, I quietly closed the door behind her as she took a seat on my couch. I propped myself on the arm, “Babe? Is everything alright?” I thought her ex-boyfriend somehow wiggled his way out of jail and found a way to harass her again. I didn’t know what I would do if that was the case, but I was prepared to do something.
Slowly, she fixed her gaze on me. “This is a nice office you have here. Nice view outside,” she said, glancing towards my window.
“Babe, I know you didn’t come all the way downtown just to admire the view from my office window. Come on, spit it out. I’m here for you.”
She played around with her purse strap until she found enough courage to let her words out. “I just want to be honest with you. Especially since I wasn’t in the beginning.” A glimmer formed near the bottom of her eyes. I took a deep breath, not knowing what to expect. “Word got out at my job that I used to be a stripper. There was a guy that worked at Morris. He um,” she wiped her cheek, “he wanted to take me out for the longest time, but I wasn’t interested in him at all, so I kept rejecting him. Well, I don’t know how he found out, but he knew what I did in the past, and since I didn’t go out with him, he blabbed it all over the school.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. It started out as a rumor, but eventually, all kinds of things were added to it in the process. I know people were looking at me like I was some type of whore or something.” I eased myself next to her on the couch as she continued. “So, the principal called me into the office earlier today before school started. He said that he checked my background and when he found out what I did in the past, he let me go.”
“Wow.”
“He said that I was like a daughter to him and it hurt for him to do it, but it was out of his hands. He said that once the parents got wind of it, they wouldn’t be okay with the fact that a former stripper was around their children.”
It sounded horrible as the words left her mouth, but then I realized that I thought the same way about her when I found out. I judged her based on her past and because of that, I was inclined to discontinue my relationship with her. It wasn’t a surprise to me that others would feel the same way. I put my arm around her, “That is tough, Bethany. I am sorry to hear that you went through that today. Now I understand why you didn’t return my call. You were too busy dealing with bullshit at work.”
She wiped her eyes. “Yeah. I saw that I missed your call, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to talk. I didn’t want to tell you anything, but I knew that I couldn’t keep it from you. Not after all we had just gone through.” She looked directly at me. “I am sorry, and I hope that you don’t think I am some unemployed loser.”
I chuckled, “Babe, come on. You’ve been unemployed for all of four hours right now. Don’t be so hard on yourself. I don’t think any less of you than I did when you walked through that door. You are still an amazing woman. Smart, intelligent, and willing to work your ass off to learn new things. You didn’t know how to be an assistant before then, but somehow, you got that job, and you overwhelmed everyone by exceeding expectations. They will miss you before you miss them, and that is the truth.” As I spoke, I listened to my own words, and before long, a lightbulb went on in my mind. “What do you think about working here with me?”
Her eyebrows wrinkled together. “Um, I don’t know anything about this business. I mean, what will I do? I have no experience, no–”
“Babe, you have to stop focusing on what you don’t have and instead focus on what you do have. You have the drive, you have the intelligence, and most importantly, you have the will to overcome anything in front of you. It is one of the things I admire about you the most. I know that you have had a rough past, but I’ve learned that you are willing to do what it takes to survive. Anything that comes your way, a fastball, a curveball, a change-up; no matter what it is, you find a way to knock it out of the park.” She smiled bashfully. I took her by the hand, “Come with me.”
I led her outside to Sarah’s old desk. “We had an intern here as an office assistant. She handled my schedule and made sure that I knew about everything that was going to come my way. Here, have a seat.”
“I don’t know if I should–”
“Babe, just have a seat. Please?” She reluctantly sat down in the large leather chair behind the front desk. I kneeled beside her, “Now, I don’t have one doubt in my mind that you can come in here and do this job. I will not say that you were made for something like this because your potential exceeds what is required to perform this job. However, I know that you can perform flawlessly. And,” I leaned closer to her ear, speaking in a soft whisper, “just think of what we could do together when nobody else is in this office.” I put my hand on her thigh. “Me… you… alone in a big room… doing forbidden things like… spreading your legs while you lay on top of my desk… or making love w
hile the moonlight shines through my window.”
My hand slid higher between her legs until she smacked it away. “Gavin, stop. You are turning me on, and I don’t need to get all hot and bothered if you are not going to put the flames out right now.”
I chuckled. “Okay, I’ll stop. But, that is just something to think about. I mean, I could use the help, and I am the man here, so if you want the job, it won’t take anything for me to give it to you. You just have to say the word.”
She leaned forward in the chair, then opened the drawers and closed them like she had to examine things for herself. I waited patiently, hoping that she would agree. It wasn’t just because I knew she needed a job, but I knew that she could help out a lot until she found a new job. Finally, she spoke up, “Under one condition, Gavin.”
“Anything.”
“I only want to help out until I finish school. After I got fired, I made up in my mind that I will not drag my feet about that anymore.”
“Done.”
“Wait, but I’m not.”
I laughed. “Okay, a list of demands. I’m all ears.”
“I need to make enough to at least pay my bills each month.”
“Done.”
“And I need to have sex with the CEO in his office at least once a week.”
“That was already included in the deal. I have sex with every new assistant anyway. It’s part of the initiation process.”
She narrowed her eyes at me as I sat on the edge of the desk with my arms folded. Suddenly, I sprang out in laughter, “Babe, I am joking! It was just a joke, okay?” I put my arms around her as she shook her head. “Babe. A joke?”