A Trade For Good

by Bria Daly

  Jeff chuckled at that.

  "Oh, and I'm sorry for yelling. It seems that’s all I do these days. That and stopping checks, calling contractors, utility and mortgage companies, and specializing in a lot of creative financing.”

  Hell, Jeff was just about to tell her that she still owed him at least a portion of the money no matter what her personal problems were, and here he was, almost crying from the sob story.

  This part was definitely the downside of the business. He hated collecting money, dealing with people directly, and had a hard time escaping the personal problems they brought forth. He almost wished he was still working for Freddie, but although Freddie took care of his business, he was a con man and that's the only reason why Jeff had gone out on his own. Better a sucker than a user.

  “Listen lady, I’ll have to call you back and come up with a plan. I just can’t eat all of the expenses. In the meantime, worry about the other contractors on your list, and I’ll come up with something. Don't worry. I'll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you Mr. Mason," she was obviously touched, "and by the way, my name is Sera.”

  “Yeah. I’m Jeff. Okay, I’ll keep in touch ... Sera”. As he hung up the phone he wondered. Why don't I just make this a non-profit enterprise and avoid the pain of it all.

  Chapter 2

  Jeff arrived at his office on Monday morning much later than his usual 7:30 show up time. He had been up since five that morning, going over a pile of outstanding bills and skeptically looking over a list of prospective clients. By seven that morning, he had had two pots of strong coffee, a box of stale doughnuts he found in the back of the kitchen cabinet while looking for some sugar, and was ready to call it a day. He reached the conclusion that the business aspect of his job was taking all the fun out of what he loved to do. By the time he dragged himself into work, he was emotionally drained.

  As soon as he walked into his office, he knew something was amiss because it was Monday morning and Todd and Alan were all smiles. As soon as he stepped in, Mitch seemed to come out of nowhere, slapping him on the back and telling him what a glorious Monday morning it was.

  In his seven years working with Todd and Alan, Jeff had never seen them smile; he didn’t even know they could smile. And as for Mitch ... he must have smelled too many of those weeds they were taking out of their clients’ yards.

  Completely dumbfounded, he turned the corner into his office and immediately realized it wasn't weeds or weed. The reason behind the smiles on and the cheery disposition of these clowns on this glorious Monday morning took another shape altogether.

  Stumbling into his office after being caught off guard and slapped on the back, he was immediately greeted by the most gorgeous, ass-thetically pleasing tush in tight jeans he had seen in a long, long time.

  He wondered what the face looked like and quickly decided it didn't really matter as he focused on her assets while she was bent down shuffling through some papers and totally unaware of the eight eyes boring through her. Four pair of eyes who should have been working on something, but couldn't disengage.

  The fact that she was rummaging through his papers didn’t immediately register.

  The woman turned around without looking up and carried a stack of papers to a file cabinet that had come with the building and had never been used. As far as he could recall, the cabinet had never been opened, and so far, had been used as a shelf for a silk plant his mother gave him as a gift when he started the business.

  To his dismay, the plant was now in the trash bin next to the file cabinet. That hurt.

  The woman was oblivious to the attention she was getting and after depositing the stack of papers in a neat pile in the top drawer of the file cabinet, she turned around to see a gaping Jeff standing before her.

  The first thing Jeff thought before hinging his jaw back into place was that the woman's front-side was just as pretty as her backside. She looked to be in her early thirties, and not only wore the jeans very well, but the white t-shirt she had on was filled out in all the right places and looked like an advertisement for trouble.

  She was petite, but disproportionately bigger where it really mattered. Her hair was tied with one of those elastic fabric bands his nieces always wore, and her eyes were as green as the silk plant had once been.

  Jeff gave himself a few seconds before giving in to reason. Regretfully, he decided it was time to put an end to his enjoyment - nice tush or not. After all, this was his office, he was the boss, and he had no idea what the hell was going on.

  “What did you do to my plant?!” was somehow the first thing that came out of his mouth. As if realizing how stupid his remark was, Jeff rather forcefully shoved his amused employees out of the way and out of his office.

  She looked down at the trash bin he was pointing to, suddenly seeming very confused as she looked back up to see his expectant and slightly flushed face.

  “It’s dead. I don't think it can be saved, so I threw it out." Bending down to get it, she added, "I can put it back up he ..."

  Now that really hurt. Not to mention the fact that her bending down again completely disarmed him.

  “How can silk be dead?” he snapped.

  “That was silk?" she replied smiling. "I never met anyone who could kill silk before.”

  Jeff tried to ignore the chuckles coming from the room next door, but just as he was about to snap at them, the intruder approached him with a smile and a hand extended as if welcoming him into her office instead of the other way around.

  Her hand dangled in the air for a few seconds without his acknowledgement, and unperturbed she turned away and sat on his chair behind the big metal desk.

  “You must be Mr. Mason. Nice to meet you. I’m Sera.” She noticed she had yet to get a reaction from him, so she turned around and started going through another new neat pile that was stacked on his desk.

  Jeff was still wondering who Sera was, and then it dawned on him. The lady with the kid who sounded like a fax machine.

  “This is my office,” he announced ominously only to hear the chuckles from behind him grow louder.

  “Don’t any of you have any work to do?!” The quick shuffle of feet and the roar of laughter that exploded as a door slammed behind him meant the men had retreated outside the building.

  Good, three problems down, and one to go.

  He turned to find the woman still waiting for some recognition from him.

  “I came to discuss my bill.” Sera said as she put some paper clips into a little container in the drawer.

  She was still sitting behind his desk on his chair and Jeff decided he would lose even more ground if he brought in another chair to sit across from her. Had she been the one standing, he wouldn’t have hesitated to get another chair. After all, his mother and his two older sisters had raised him well, but he was at a loss right now on how to proceed.

  Jeff stood at the doorway, suddenly feeling very out of place in his own office and decided to walk over to the desk and search for the contract.

  “Sinclair, right?” He looked up. Her eyes were really green. “Sinclair, yes, let me see ..."

  “It’s filed under ‘S’ over there." She said pointing to the file cabinet next to the trash bin where his silk plant was still resting.

  Jeff moved toward the file cabinet, pretending he had some control, and opened the drawer to find folders filed alphabetically and labeled with bold printed letters in Sharpie black. “Yes, of course. Here it is, Sinclair. Hmm, let me see…”

  Sera was leaning over him and had her finger on the bottom of the sheet, pointing to something she had obviously already looked at.

  Jeff’s vision was blurred and he was consumed by another sense; how good she smelled. She moved away and tucked in a wisp of hair threatening to come loose from the pink scrunchy she was wearing.

  That about made him melt, and then she surprised him by asking if he wanted her chair.

  "No, I'm fine standing.
Go ahead, sit down."

  “Thank you,” she said taking her seat behind the desk again. “I came to discuss the cost of the materials for the job I cancelled last night. As I mentioned before," she had picked up one of the paper clips and was tying it in knots and staring down at it. When she looked up, her face had turned a slight pink, and embarrassed she added quickly, "I don’t know where my husband is and I don’t have any money to spare until I can find out what we're going to do. Now," she looked up to him proudly, "if you would just look at the notes I made over here on the bottom of the contract ..."

  “You made notes on the contract?” he blurted out. There had to be something illegal about that. “How long have you been going through my desk? Do you always waltz into an office, go through a desk, mess with the filing system, and tamper with contracts?” he paused to catch his breath. “Or is this a new thing?"

  Jeff went around the desk and pointed to his chair. "I think I will sit down now. On my chair. Lady, you've got more problems than you know."

  “I – I, I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry. You’re absolutely right. I, I always do this and I don't know why. Not,” she stopped and furrowed her brow. “What did you say? Waltzing? No, not waltzing into offices, but ... I ...”

  Head hanging low, Sera bent down to get her purse, and all Jeff could think of this time was not her tush, but that these were the biggest tear-filled, and most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen.

  He felt like an ass.

  She was still mumbling something he couldn't hear because she kept her head down, and was talking into her white t-shirt. Then she looked up, and with quivering lips said, “I’m sorry, I just meant to help.

  "I’m constantly trying to fix things, help out, and make things better. Not that there was a problem here,” she added quickly pointing to the desk and the cabinet, "but I thought I could do it a little better,” she blushed. “Snap. I did it again, didn't I?"

  Jeff stood staring at her. Snap? Who said snap these days?

  Before he knew it, she was running out of the office and into the street outside of the building, where her car was parked. And, before Jeff realized what he was doing, he was chasing after her to tell her she could snoop in his office any time she wanted.

  “Wait Sera, wait a minute. Mrs. Sinclair, come back here!” He yelled out and saw that his voice had attracted the attention of his three co-workers, and they were all fixing a dirty look on him. He shook his head in frustration and gave them the bird.

  Here he was trying to make amends with someone who ransacked his office, stuck him with over $6,000.00 worth of materials, and tampered with the document that was his only hope to use if he took the case to a small claims court, and he was the bad guy. Just because he made a woman run off in tears? Didn’t it at least matter that it was his silk plant that was now being given an improper burial in a trashcan? Life was definitely not fair.

  Chapter 3

  Sera pushed her way past Jeff and ran off to the street where her car was parked. The tears she had held back for so long suddenly started pouring out like a floodgate had just opened.

  She had messed up. She came to right a wrong, and she had screwed up. Jeff seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Last night after she hung up with him she had felt really, really bad. Peter had messed everything up for her and the kids. In fact, he left not only family and friends hanging, but business partners and others he owed a lot of money to as well. But Jeff Mason hadn't married Peter, she had.

  I'm a nuisance.

  She wondered what ever possessed her to go and organize Jeff Mason’s desk and start filing his papers. She came to his office to explain how things were and thank him for his patience, but made him lose his patience instead. Eventually she'd pay him back. That was what she had come here to tell him. But instead…

  The guy was absolutely right. Jeff had basically called her a lunatic, and he was absolutely right. Peter had told her she was crazy, her family constantly told her she was insane for trying to fix everything all the time, and now Jeff Mason, a total stranger, had her pegged for a loony almost at first sight.

  Sera got to her car and opened the door she had apparently left unlocked. She sat in the driver's seat, with shoulders shaking. She was due for a good cry and this was as good a time as any.

  The tears wouldn't stop pouring down her cheeks, but it didn't matter, it was raining outside anyway.

  Sera hugged the steering wheel and put her head down. She knew she had to get a job because she had no idea how long she could last with the little money she had in the bank, or if Peter would ever deposit money in their account again. If not for her, he should at least do it for the kids. He had deposited two checks in the past four months and not even the bank had been able to trace where the deposit had come from. In fact, Sera had wondered if it was Peter who had sent that money to her in the first place. It was possible it had been someone from his work, but she really doubted it. He had a lot of people fooled, but…

  Peter was a jewel. Like a diamond that looks beautiful and can slice you open.

  She met him in high school. The first day she saw him, she was a goner. He had a way about him; he was charming. He was an actor and a manipulator, but she didn’t pick up on that until much later. Too late.

  After high school, they went off to college together. Sera would have followed him to the end of the earth, but she was lucky, college was only a few hundred miles away.

  Of course, he was a jock at school, and Sera wasn't one of the popular girls. She was pretty, but she was nerdy. And it took a while for her to grow in places that made the popular girls, more popular. And speaking of popularity, that’s exactly what she gained when Greg, her ex, had started spreading rumors about her and ruining her reputation. Greg had done it out of spite when he got tired of hearing her say no.

  Interestingly, Greg broke up with her, and the previously not-so-popular girl started getting asked out a lot more. Just as quickly, she was dumped and decided she’d had it with guys, but that was when Peter showed up, and also about the same time her boobs made their appearance.

  Peter was different. She never thought she was in his league and never tried to edge her way into the more popular groups, but Peter had noticed her, and that was something.

  At the end of their junior year in high school, they started dating. Peter immediately took it upon himself to explain the ways of the world to her; somehow, at seventeen, he already knew.

  He pointed out that she had apparently lived in a very protected and artificial world, and he was set on educating her as much as he could.

  There was a lot of education taking place during their senior year in high school and in their freshman year in college. And before her year-end finals, she was educated enough to recognize the fact that she was three months pregnant.

  Peter had done the right thing and had married the poor girl, as word would have it. Of course, having a dad in the military didn't hurt matters and kind of kept things moving, at least in the beginning. Sera’s dad could be intimidating.

  “Pops,” damn she missed her dad. He died a few months after P.D. was born. Then came Michelle – Melle – because Peter had a thing for Michelle Pfeifer at the time, Charlie, named after Pops, and now Emma, who was seven months strong.

  Sera didn't regret marrying Peter, if only because of the great kids he had given her. Had she been smarter, she would have figured out that Peter didn't care if they had one or ten kids, because he had never planned to be a part of their lives. No, she had no regrets. Peter made cute babies, and she wouldn’t change them for the world. Well, she would install a temporary mute button on Em if she could, but that was about it.

  Ironically, rumor had it that Peter had at least one more kid with someone else. You'd think the guy would learn. And despite taking pride in already fathering four kids (what century was he from?) he never fessed up.

  Sera was still sitting in the driver's seat with her head down on
the steering wheel. She heaved when she took in air and mixed it with the heavy flow of her tears.

  Enough. She said to no one.

  She took one big breath and lifted her head off the wheel to see if the storm outside had subsided.

  That’s when she saw Jeff Mason looking into her car window.

  He was soaked on the outside, and she was soaked on the inside. She looked down in search of her keys to get as far away and as quickly as possible and heard him tapping on the glass. He was pointing to the window, and making a hand motion for her to roll it down – something only people over the age of thirty do. He looked exasperated when she mouthed no, but the truth is she couldn’t, and she didn’t want him to know why.

  Sera saw him try to open the door she had locked. He looked like he could have easily busted it open. Instead, he paced a few steps in the cold rain, before he came back to the window and tapped again. He was a nice guy.

  She sat there for a good two, very frustrating minutes, shaking her head, wanting to cry some more and wanting to make herself completely invisible. However, more than anything she wanted to drive off as fast as she could and go home!

  If only she had the car keys she left on Jeff's desk.

  Jeff Mason didn't enjoy making women cry or putting up with their stupid tantrums. He felt bad about upsetting her the way he apparently had, and he was trying to do his part to make amends.

  He tapped on the window again and motioned for her to roll it down. His nephew would have laughed at that; you don't roll windows down anymore.

  What the hell was she doing? This is ridiculous. Either roll down your window or drive off, but don’t just sit there. He looked again and could tell she was still breathing. That was good, but she just sat there without even acknowledging him. She was actually pouting.

  Jeff threw his arms up into the air and turned around to leave, wondering if the three stooges in his office would ever forgive him for getting rid of their only source of enjoyment on this murky Monday. There was nothing else he could do. He’d run out of options. He didn’t want to leave her there, but she gave him no choice. His only option was to go back and face the clowns he worked with; he didn’t like that option either.