Jo couldn’t wait to get to work the following morning. Mark had the kids all week, so it would be some time before she could show him what she had bought at the mall after leaving the café the day before, but she knew he would like it. It was tiny, silky, and easily removable.
Jo smiled at the thought. It seemed like lately she couldn’t stop smiling. Her every thought was about Mark. She loved him, she knew it like she knew her own name. It made her heart sing.
As Jo got off the elevator, everyone turned and looked her way. Silence fell on the floor, from the secretaries to the clerks to Becca, standing just to the left of the water cooler. If looks could kill, as they say, Jo thought for sure Becca would have struck her down where she stood. Instead, Jo held her head up high and strode to her office as though she hadn’t noticed a thing.
“Is it true?” Sandy demanded the moment Jo walked into her office.
“Are you moving in?” Jo asked, making her way around her desk and dropping her leather satchel on the floor.
“Jo, I’ve been waiting an hour for you to get here. You wouldn’t believe the rumors that are going around.”
“There are always rumors. This place is a virtual gossip mill,” Jo said, repeating what Kathleen had said to her just two days before.
“But Jo—”
“We have work to do, don’t we?”
Sandy closed the office door and took a seat across from Jo’s desk, clearly determined not to leave. Jo ignored her for a minute as she settled in her chair and booted up her computer. Finally she looked up. “Okay, tell me.”
Sandy leaned forward. “They say that Kathleen wants to start an in-house daycare and that you helped her create the proposal.”
“Well,” Jo said as she navigated through her emails, “at least this time the gossipers have got their facts right.”
“It’s true then?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
Sandy got up and began to pace. “Do you know what a big deal that would be? Most of the women on this floor have kids. Every one of them has had some kind of trouble with their child care in one way or another.”
“I know,” Jo said. “I overhear them talking about it sometimes. And I’ve taken complaints from other floors about it.”
“Did you know that Becca vetoed the idea of an in-house daycare her first day as supervisor?”
Jo looked up, suddenly more interested in what Sandy was saying. “Why would she do that?”
“Because she thinks that it would be too costly and would be vetoed by the powers that be upstairs.”
“It might still.”
“But she wouldn’t even try.”
Jo shook her head. “Becca thinks she’s doing what she has to do to get ahead. She wants to take Kathleen’s job someday.”
Sandy turned, leaned back against the wall. “How did you happen to get in on this?”
Jo turned back to her computer, opened an email from Beth. It was a personal note in which Beth expressed how important an in-house daycare would be to her family and thanking Jo for her part in the proposal. Jo frowned, surprised by the friendly tone of the note.
“Jo?”
“Oh, well, I heard Kathleen was coming up with a proposal of her own. I had suggested it back in November and she shot it down, but I thought that now that she was doing her own we might collaborate.”
“You actually went to Kathleen with your own proposal?”
“Yeah.” Jo glanced at Sandy. “You sound surprised.”
“It’s just,” Sandy turned her head, causing her voice to become somewhat muffled, “you just don’t usually—”
“I don’t what?”
Sandy straightened up and came to stand before Jo’s desk. “You just usually don’t do stuff like that.”
“I did this time,” Jo said as she opened another email just like Beth’s, only it was from Carmen. Miss can’t-believe-she-would-think-he-would-look-twice-at-her-Carmen.
“You did a good thing,” Sandy said.
Jo nodded. She was beginning to think the same as three more emails popped up on her computer screen.
Just before lunch, Kathleen popped her head in Jo’s office.
“We got it,” was all she had to say.
Nothing could have wiped the smile from Jo’s face.
“The guys upstairs want us to work up a report on the number of employees who would be willing to use an in-house daycare,” Kathleen continued. “I have a number of names and statistics already, but I’ll need you to interview the rest.”
“No problem,” Jo said.
Kathleen held up a file folder before dropping it on Jo’s desk. “This is a list of employees who listed dependents on their tax forms. If you could go around and talk to them, I’d appreciate it.”
Jo opened the file and was surprised to see that the first name on the list was Becca. Jo could hardly imagine Becca as a mother. That would be an interesting conversation.
“I’ll get right on it,” Jo said to Kathleen.
“And Jo?”
Jo looked up. “Yes?”
“Good job.”
Putting off the inevitable confrontation with Becca, Jo took advantage of the fact that several of the listed employees she needed to speak to were on the second floor. Mark’s floor. Any excuse to see him seemed like a good one.
She hadn’t been to the second floor in a long time as there was really no reason for her to visit there, so she had forgotten how it resembled something between a computer manufacturer’s warehouse and a geek’s man cave. Offices lined the walls and cubicles filled most of the floor space in the center, just like the other floors of the building. But that’s where the similarities stopped. On every wall space there were posters, some depicting software codes, others had pictures ranging from movie scenes to cute kittens with silly quotes written underneath. On the floor there were stacks of everything from technical magazines and software manuals to hard drives and ancient floppy disk drives. Desks in the crowded cubicles were overflowing with paperwork, memory sticks, and program discs. Computer paraphernalia was everywhere. Making her way to the cubicle the receptionist had pointed out was like making her way through a minefield.
“Hey, handsome,” Jo said as she turned to corner into Mark’s cubicle.
Sitting in Mark’s chair was not the handsome face that had become so familiar to Jo, but a petite, red-headed woman. She was wearing black linen slacks and a white silk blouse, her creamy white shoulders barely covered by a sheer cashmere sweater. Her thick, glossy hair was pulled back with a thick clamshell clip, cascading from the casual ponytail down the length of her back. She wore little jewelry, just tiny diamond studs on her ears and a simple gold wedding band on her left hand. She was a step above class, a woman with such cool sophistication that she would have looked perfectly natural in any setting.
Exactly the kind of woman Jo had always been intimidated by.
“I guess you’re looking for Mark,” the woman said in a silky voice that matched her appearance perfectly.
“I am.”
The woman looked Jo up and down slowly, not even trying to conceal her amusement at Jo’s old-fashioned dress with its wool skirt and ruffled blouse. Jo started to press her hands over her hips, smoothing the fabric, but then stopped herself. Did it really matter what this woman thought of her? For all Jo knew, she was Mark’s cousin, or a babysitter.
Though Jo already knew that wasn’t the case.
“Well,” the woman drawled in a soft Texas accent, “Mark’s not here. I was actually just leaving him a message. I suppose you could do the same.”
“Yes, well, I guess I’ll catch him later.”
“Was it important?” the woman asked, only sparing a glance at Jo as she began to search through Mark’s drawers, presumably looking for a pad of paper and pen.
Jo started to answer, then stopped. Instead, she said, “I don’t think you should do that.”
“What?” the woman asked, her eyebrows rising into her perf
ectly coifed hair. “Search through his drawers? Don’t worry,” she smiled. “I’m his wife. What’s his is mine.”
“Ex-wife,” Jo corrected.
That caught her off guard. Danielle stood, towering over Jo in her three inch heels. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’ve been rather rude. I’m Danielle Rutledge. And you are?”
“Jo Mitchell,” Jo said, ignoring the hand Danielle held out to her.
“Should that name mean something to me?” Danielle asked as she dropped her hand, her expression making it clear that she was not impressed with Jo’s rudeness.
“No, I don’t suppose it would.”
“But you know who I am.” Understanding suddenly blossomed on Danielle’s face, taking with it some of the beauty in her classic aristocratic features as something like anger and jealousy budded in her eyes. “You and Mark?” she asked with disbelief in her voice.
“I should go,” Jo said, turning slightly.
“No,” Danielle grabbed her arm. “I want to know. Are you seeing my husband?”
“He’s not your husband anymore,” Jo said automatically.
Danielle studied Jo’s face for a moment before throwing back her head and laughing. It was a long, hearty laugh, but somehow it was completely void of amusement.
“I should go,” Jo said again, aware of faces beginning to appear above the walls of the nearest cubicles. But Danielle continued to hold her arm, refusing to let go.
“He chose you? He had me and he chose you?” She laughed again, the shrillness of the sound grating on Jo’s nerves. “You are nothing. Look at you, dressed like a schoolmarm from the fifties. How could he even look at you without laughing?”
Danielle’s eyes again surveyed Jo, moving even slower this time as though afraid of missing something important. “Mark has always had taste. Desperation must have really gotten to him.”
Jo pulled away then, anger igniting in her belly. “My relationship is none of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. He’s the father of my children.”
A dozen emotions hit Jo with that simple statement, slamming into her belly like a punch. She stepped back, aware of the look of satisfaction on Danielle’s face and wanting to make it disappear. But how could she argue with that? How could she ignore the past?
“But I’m not too worried,” Danielle continued. “It won’t last long.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you are the rebound girl and rebound girls never last.” Danielle scrapped one long nail along the edge of her nose. “Besides, you aren’t his type.”
“Not all men have a type.”
“Yes, well, I think eighteen years of marriage and four years of dating before that make me more of an authority on Mark than you. And I know my man. You are not his type.” Danielle stepped back slightly and turned to Mark’s desk as though suddenly bored with the entire conversation. “Besides, Mark does this. He’ll seek out some mild-mannered, librarian-type from time to time, but he always gets bored and comes back to me.”
“You mean—” Jo tried to catch her breath, feeling again as though she has been punched in the belly. “Mark—”
“Cheated on me?” Danielle asked with a soft smile. “Didn’t he tell you that, sweetheart? Mark and I had a very…hmm, let’s just say it was a very modern marriage.”
“You’re lying.”
Danielle’s eyebrows rose again in an expression that Jo vaguely wondered if she had practiced it in the mirror, it was executed so perfectly. “Come on, sweetheart, surely you didn’t believe he really loved you. Have you looked in a mirror lately? A man like Mark could never love a thing like you.”
Jo blinked rapidly as tears suddenly welled in her eyes. “You’re wrong,” she whispered as she backed up, nearly tripping on a computer tower sitting on the floor behind her. “You’re wrong,” she said again before she turned and walked quickly toward the elevator, the sound of Danielle’s laughter following her.
Chapter 24
Jo was still struggling to get her emotions under control as the elevator opened on her floor. She wanted nothing more than to take refuge in her office. She had fought the tears as Danielle’s words rolled around and around in her mind, a battle that had left her throat raw with the unshed emotion. She couldn’t let go of the hurt, however, because deep down she had always thought the same thing. How could someone like Mark love someone like her? How could he want someone who was admittedly dowdy, someone who had never had a successful, long-term relationship, someone who couldn’t even keep her sister from stealing her lovers? Jo couldn’t even stick up for herself in the face of someone else’s past. How could she ever be a fitting companion for a single father fighting for custody of his children?
These thoughts, her self-doubts and fears, kept running through her mind over and over even as she stepped off the elevator and made for the relative safety of her office. It wasn’t to be, however. She could see the confrontation coming before she had taken two steps.
“I need to speak to you, Jo,” Becca said as she strode toward her.
“Now is not a good time.”
Becca scowled. “I think now is the perfect time. If you will come to my office, please.”
“Why don’t you just say it,” Jo said quietly. “Why don’t you just tell everyone here how I embarrassed you by helping Kathleen make happen something you’ve been fighting since your first day as deputy supervisor?”
“Excuse me?” Becca asked sharply as she glanced quickly around the room to see who might have heard what Jo said.
Suddenly emotionally overwrought, Jo let the anger that had been building in her chest from the moment she saw Danielle sitting in Mark’s cubicle have a voice.
“I don’t know what your problem is,” she said in a quiet, controlled voice, “I don’t know if you feel threatened by me for some reason or if you simply don’t like me. But this is a work place, not a playground. You can’t keep treating me like the nerd the cheerleaders only talk to when they need help with their homework.”
“How dare you—”
“How dare I what, Becca?” Jo took a step forward, forcing Becca to move backwards a few stumbling steps. “I am a good employee here. I produce twice the work you have ever done in the five years we have both been here. If anyone deserved that promotion, it was me. The only reason you got it is because you are better at brown nosing.”
Becca paled. “You can’t talk to me like that. I am your supervisor! I could fire you for that kind of insubordination!”
“Don’t bother,” Jo said. The anger had finally dissipated and she was suddenly so tired she just wanted to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. With a sad shake of her head, aware that what she was doing would have consequences, she said, “I quit.”
Jo brushed past Becca and strode to the stairs, aware of the stares following her as she went.
There was nothing new about that.
Chapter 25
Jo tossed a handful of paper into the trashcan and turned her attention on the shelf of books behind her desk. She had come in early this morning to avoid running into Becca and anyone else with an opinion about Jo’s abrupt resignation. Unfortunately, she hadn’t avoided Sandy who was at that moment sitting on the couch trying to come up with some new reason why Jo shouldn’t leave BerCo.
“You can’t leave me at Becca’s mercy, Jo. You know she’ll transfer me back to the secretarial pool. I spent six years down there, I don’t want to go back.”
“I’m sorry, Sandy,” Jo said, for what had to be the hundredth time. “But I can’t take back that scene yesterday.”
“Sure you can. You just apologize to Becca.”
Jo turned and looked hard at Sandy. Sandy’s eyes immediately fell.
“Okay, maybe you can’t,” Sandy said. “But maybe if you went to Kathleen—”
“And everyone will know that I backed down and Becca still comes out smelling like a rose. I can’t do that, either.” Jo dropped a couple o
f books into a box on her desk with a thud. “I made my bed, Sandy.”
“What about your mom and your rent?”
“I don’t know.” Jo sighed. She’d spent last night thinking about just that. “I’ll figure something out,” she said even though she had no clue what.
Jo had gone home yesterday afternoon on a cloud that quickly burst as soon as reality began to seep in. Standing up to Becca, not once but twice, felt really good. But it was a small victory that had left Jo without a source of income. And, without any savings, it left her in a bad situation. If she tightened her belt, she’d be okay for a month or so. Unfortunately, the last time she had looked for work it had taken her five months to find a job. And there hadn’t been a recession then.
But to be honest, it wasn’t quitting her job that had haunted Jo as she spent the night tossing and turning restlessly in bed. It was that her phone had rung a dozen times after she got home, but none of the calls were from Mark. Then this morning, when she called his cell, he didn’t answer. Instead, Jo left a message asking him to come by her office as soon as he arrived.
Jo glanced at her watch. He should be there within the hour.
Maybe then she could find out what happened yesterday. Jo had thought that Mark would call when he found her office empty at lunch. When that didn’t happen, she began to worry that he had heard about the confrontation with Danielle and was angry with Jo. Jo tried to imagine what about the things she had said to Danielle he might not have liked, but no matter how many times she ran it over in her mind, she couldn’t imagine how it would upset him. Unless Danielle had twisted Jo’s words, made it seem that Jo had been the aggressor. Jo didn’t know Danielle well enough to assume she would do such a thing. But she didn’t know she wouldn’t, either.
“Jo,” Sandy said, drawing Jo’s attention back to the present. “Why don’t you at least let me help you finish up in here?”
“It’s fine,” Jo said, tossing another short stack of books into a box. “I’m almost done anyway.”
“Are you sure you won’t reconsider staying?”
“I was wondering the same thing.”
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