Will be available on Ebook 2/14/12
PAPERBACK DATE TBA
Chapter one
A million thoughts ran through my head. Trying to get any work done was impossible knowing I was about to have the weekend from hell. I’d thought leaving the office and coming down to my doctor’s appointment early would give me some time to think about what was really going on in my life. Shockingly though, sitting in a gynecologist office doesn’t calm the nerves.
As I waited for my name to be called, I tried to think of the positive things that were happening in my life. I normally like to lie down on the floor and take a few deep breaths while I do this, but I didn’t think that would be appropriate in the middle of the waiting room. Although, I guess there are worse things I’ve done in public, now that I think about it. God, I miss high school and those drunken college nights.
I’m getting off track, now.
What were the good things that were happening in my life? Let’s see. I found a great pizza place and a Starbuck’s right next door to the office. I also had a bakery across the street from my apartment, but I guess that can also be a bad thing. My favorite restaurant, Walker’s, added a new cake to the menu that’s not smothered with nuts. I’m allergic to nuts.
There had to be something else happening in my life that had nothing to do with food. My assistant, Brett, helped me to lose the ten pounds I had been struggling with for the last couple of months. He didn’t knowingly help me, but staring at him all day long was motivation enough to get my ass to the gym. He, too, was a good thing because he was a great assistant.
Brett reminded me of another positive thing in my life: my job. I worked at Slick Productions, an advertising company in Manhattan. On my door, it said ‘Melissa Jones, Associate Director,’ but I’m pretty sure that my boss, Mr. Triani, made the title up to make me feel more important when he bumped me up last year into this position. He had always pushed for me to do well at my job, ever since I did my internship there my junior year of college. Then again, I busted my ass for six years to eventually be given this position once the business started to expand. I’m mainly the “idea girl.” I came up with creative ways to promote a product by writing ads for TV and radio. I also assisted in writing company newsletters and PSA’s: all the boring stuff companies didn’t want to do themselves.
Another positive about Slick Productions was that I worked with my best friend, Lucille Smith. We both applied after we graduated from college. We started out in the lowest positions. I worked as Mr. Triani’s assistant and she worked in the art department as what she would call it, “the coffee bitch.” We both had to bust ass in order to work our way up. Now, she’s right under the head of the sales department. She was sassy, pushy, and sexy: everything that made her a good sales woman. She could sell you a bag full of shit and get you to dab it behind your ears before you realized what you were doing.
Most people would believe that working with your best friend would be a mistake, but it worked for us. I actually believed we worked better when we’re working together. Plus, having her around with her crazy antics and sexual adventures helped my creativity. Her accepting a date with a twin we went to high school with and then finding out the hard way he was not the hot twin she thought he was made for a nice car commercial we made last year. The ad was for a small business so it ran only locally, but it deserved much more.
Luci and I had been friends since we started wearing bras. We were so opposite growing up. She was athletic, and I was classified as a dork. She was filled with confidence, and I was filled with chocolate. She had long, curly, black hair, and I’d been trying to grow my hair since kindergarten. The longest it’s ever gotten was to my shoulders and it was straight. She had dark hazel eyes. Mine were brown. Both tall and both determined. Maybe we weren’t exact opposites, but when I was younger it seemed like it.
The only downside to my fair Luci was that she always picked complete losers or guys who were young enough to still get carded at R-rated movies. Okay, maybe not that young, but I worried that she liked guys who she knew wouldn’t stick around. My guess? Daddy issues, but that’s a whole other story. I would think she had a thing for Brett based on how much they argued, but since he was twenty six, he was way too old for her.
Naming off all those things actually calmed me down. I almost forgot for a second about the terrible weekend that I was about to have. A couple of months ago, I got a Facebook invite from my class president Patricia Beamon for our ten year high school reunion. I decided I would go. What the hell, right? A month later, I got an invite from my ex-boyfriend, Jason Orr, for his wedding. It came with an RSVP for two. I didn’t realize until two weeks prior when I was scanning through my Facebook that the two events would fall on the same weekend. To make matters worse, the guy I planned to take cancelled on me not leaving me enough time to find someone else. So not only did I have to go, but I had to go all by my lonesome.
Great! Now I’m stressed again.
“Melissa!” the nurse shouted.
I looked around the now-empty waiting room and wondered why she had to yell my name so loudly. Maybe she wanted to step outside and let the rest of Manhattan know that the gynecologist was about to examine me.
“If you could follow me?” she asked.
I could hear myself boring other people with my problem. I had the conversation at the gym, my favorite coffee shop, the bakery, and now even at my gynecology appointment. The good thing about talking about it at your gyno’s office is since it’s already an uncomfortable appointment it gives you something else to think about besides the guy’s head between your legs.
Dr. Walters is always really nice to me and, no matter what I said, he always agreed with me. I guess if I were in his position, literally, I would agree with me, too. This time was different though; he didn’t agree with me. He tried to give me advice.
“I have been to high school reunions and college reunions and they are never what you expect them to be,” he said as he started to sit down on his little stool.
He reminded me of an older version of my high school gym teacher. Grey hair, dimples, really tall, and his age finally starting to show. He had a liver spot coming in on his hand that I’m pretty sure he tried to hide with cover up. I’ve actually wondered a few times why he hadn’t retired yet, but I guess when you have two ex-wives digging into your back pocket, you have to work a little bit longer. And yes, going to a gyno who looks like an old teacher is weird, but he is the best in the Manhattan area. Plus, a lot of the other doctors who are male are really young, and it makes me feel weird when someone younger than I am is down there. I don’t even like to date younger guys, let alone let them stick their heads between my legs.
“I remember going back and telling everyone what I did for a living, and no one really wanted to talk to me. They treated me like I could tell who had diseases and who didn’t. I mean really, who can look at a person and tell if they have a STD? Then, you have your other people who make that face like they smelled some rotten cheese, but then compose themselves when they realize that, yes, I am still standing in front of them. Then, you have the people who hadn’t been too careful the week before and now can’t stop itching and want me to ‘take a look.’” He put his head up from what he was doing and gave me a slightly creepy grin, then continued ranting while finishing up my exam. “Do they really think I want to check them out after drinking from the extremely spiked punch bowl? Which by the way, I spiked!” He had a little smirk on his face, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many times someone had shoved his head into the toilet in high school. I guess that would explain why it’s so easy for him to stick his head between girls’ legs.
He continued to rant as he checked me out. “Seriously, do guys not realize that I am a gynecologist? They can’t just whip it out and show me and think I can say, ‘this is what you have’ or ‘that’s who gave it to you.’ The guys I went to school with are such idiots. Man, I’m done.”
I wasn’t paying any attention to him at that point because of his ranting.
How much longer this could possibly take?
“Miss Jones,” he said.
I looked up over my knees and giggled. “Yeah, oh sorry, I was thinking about you checking people out in the middle of a class reunion.”
“I’m all done.” He said and snapped his gloves off.
I was just glad that he didn’t tell me what a beautiful uterus I had, like he had the last couple of times he was down there. I finally got something that hit a button and distracted him. He left the room so I could get dressed and returned as soon as I opened the door.
“Everything looks good. Schedule your next appointment with Linda at the receptionist desk,” he said as he held the door open for me. “Listen, when you go to your reunion, be yourself and have fun. You’ll do great.”
“Thanks,” I said with a slight smile. “I will have the time of my life, which I also imagine will be the song playing every half hour.”
I took a deep breath and walked down the hallway when I heard Dr. Walters mumble, “Nice uterus that one. Nice uterus”. I looked down, took a deep breath, and kept walking. Really, who says that to someone?
I stood in front of the receptionist’s desk as she flipped through a People magazine. “Hi Linda, I would like to make my next appointment for my beautiful uterus.”
“What?” She looked back at me, popping her gum and rolling her eyes.
“Never mind, same time next year is good for me,” I said
“Fine, we’ll call ya,” she said back in her monotonous, ‘I’m really too good to be making appointments for you, but I never finished high school and my attitude is going to be taken out on you’ voice.
“Thanks,” I said as I gave her a half smile, rolled my eyes, and turned away.
Every single time I went in there, that lady gave me shit. I am not the reason she was an assistant and not a doctor or whatever her childhood dream was before she got knocked up. Granted, I feel for her. It had to be hard to be pregnant in high school, but wasn’t my fault. And out of all the jobs, why would she want to work at a gyno’s office? Who the hell wakes up one day and thinks, ‘You know what? I want to treat bacterial infections and other disgusting liquids that come out of the vagina!’
If you were a woman, I could somewhat maybe understand, but as a man why? Why would ya? I had always wanted to pose that question to Dr. Walters, but when someone is poking around down there, you don’t really want to ask them questions like that. I guess I really don’t want to know why he wanted to look at crotches all day long. All I knew was since he did, I didn’t have to.
_____
It was only one when I got out of my appointment, so I decided that I had to go back to work. I sat at my desk, swaying my head back and forth, trying to think of something good that could come out of my horrible weekend. I flipped through my rolodex about fifty times trying to find a last minute date, but no luck.
I decided that in order for me to get any work done, I was going to have to lie down and clear my mind. It might seem unprofessional, but some of my best ideas had come from lying on my back. It doesn’t help, though, that I have a fishbowl office. I kept meaning to put up something so you can’t see into my aquarium, but I couldn’t find anything.
Brett hated it, too, because he couldn’t ever sneak away for long periods of time without my noticing. As I thought about it, I wondered where Mr. Thomas was and what chick invited him out to lunch?
Normally, when he saw me lying down on the ground, he would come in and talk to me. I’m one of those people who thought better with sound than in complete silence. He’ll come in and talk about his latest girlfriend or an episode of Oprah or Dr. Phil he happened to catch. He loved to watch that crap.
I remembered when we first met. He had the misfortune of being my last interview of the day. When I finally got to him—an hour after the time he was supposed to be interviewed—he was in a complete daze in the waiting room. As soon as I said his name, he looked at me and jumped up, spilling his papers all over the floor. It probably wasn’t professional of me, but I couldn’t help but to laugh. When he finally picked up all his papers, he looked up and stared at me. I was taken aback by how good looking he was. We had ourselves a long stare down before I invited him into my office.
In the midst of my interviewing him, we somehow managed to talk about everything except the job. His interview lasted a good forty five minutes longer than anyone else because we were discussing the latest episodes of NCIS, Psych, and of course Oprah and Dr. Phil. At the end, I offered him the job on the spot. I felt bad at first for hiring him just because he barely had an interview and because I was attracted to him, but he turned out to be the perfect fit. I’ve always told myself never to mix business with pleasure, but with Brett I sort of let the exception slide. I couldn’t help it. He was a lot of fun. On top of that, he was a kick ass assistant. And, although I was extremely attracted to him, I never let it show because that would have been unprofessional.
I did, however, come to find out that there was a downside to having a cute assistant. A cute assistant meant cute girls hanging around his desk all day long. I don’t blame them. Brett has pretty brown eyes and thick shoulder-length brown hair; he’s toned in all the right places, and every once in a while, he lets his facial hair get to that slightly scruffy and sexy look. One look at him and you would just assume that he would be a jackass, but he was one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.
And since he was such a nice guy, the girls never went away. They swarmed around his desk every single day. It wouldn’t be so bad if we had our own office, but there were about fifteen floors of offices, which meant fourteen other floors of opportunity. Usually all I had to do was yell out of my office that he was at lunch and they’d leave. Eventually, I would have to send out a memo to each floor telling the girls to stay away. And, truth be told, I needed to send the memo to a few of the men, too.
The only upside was that the girls who swooned over him also brought him baked goods, which he shared with me. That was pretty much the only reason I let it happen. The things I did for baked goods.
I continued to lie on the floor and took a couple of deep breaths when I heard Brett return. He sat his things down at his desk and walked into my office.
“Hey, Boss!” He greeted me as he plopped down in my chair. “Man, I just ate about ten pounds of salad and another five pounds of bread.”
“What, you dating a vegan chick this week?” I snickered at him.
“That’s funny, Boss. Maybe I should take back the present I bought you while I was out?”
“I love vegans!” I said as I sat up with a smile.
“Fine, you can have it.” He walked over to me and dropped the bag on my legs.
“I can’t believe you dropped that down on me like that. How about next time you find a string and put it around my head like a feed bag?”
He sat down on the floor next to me. “Oh, come on, Boss, I could just use tape. String would be over doing it.”
“I’m glad you’ve been working twenty six years to be a total smart ass,” I said. “Now please, Brett, how many times do I have to tell you?”
“To what, stop letting girls hang around my desk?”
“No.”
“If I see chocolate cake, bring it to you?”
“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I am talking about right now.” He was about to keep going when I interrupted him, “Stop calling me ‘Boss!’”
“Got it!” He jumped up and nonchalantly walked out of my office. “Hey, let me know what you think of that cake. I gotta let Krista know. She baked it special just for me.”
“Krista? Wait, I thought you said you bought this?”
“Oh, did I say that? I really should keep my lies straight…and speaking of being bad at lying, look who’s walking toward us,” Brett said as he stepped to the side to let Luci in. “It’s good to see you, Ms. Smith. Where is your assistant today? Is he still at recess?”
The sales department all used the same guy. So she didn’t really have her “own” assistant, but it was still funny.
Luci stopped in front of him. “Are you staring at me so that you can see your reflection in my sunglasses?”
I let out a groan because I knew they weren’t going to stop.
“It must be hard for you to get dates during the week with your not having a school bus stopping in front of your apartment and all,” Brett snapped as Luci stood with her hands on her hips.
“Do you ever get tired of looking at yourself, pretty boy?” she asked him.
“Well, with you around, I have to have something good to look at!”
I finally interrupted their squabble. “Guys, really? Can’t you two just walk by one another and say ‘hi’ like normal people in an office? Every single day, I have to listen to you two fight!”
“Fine, I’ll be the bigger person and go back to my desk,” Brett said as he walked away.
Luci reached in her purse and tossed Brett a tissue, “Here! Clean your monitor off with this so you can really see that pretty face of yours!” She closed the door before he could say anything. She smiled and walked over to my desk and sat down. “Hey, Melly!”
“You and Brett drive me absolutely insane! You know that, right?” I got up off the floor and opened the door.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? That boy is constantly staring at himself in anything that has a reflection. Plus, I am practically his boss. He should probably show a little more respect,” Luci said as she spun around in my chair.
I’ wasn’t exactly sure why they didn’t like each other, but every day, I had to listen to them go back and forth. He always said that, although she was a good sales woman, she was the worst liar he’d ever met. She always told him that he couldn’t walk by a mirror without staring at himself. Then, he had to mention something about how she likes younger guys, and then she’d usually mention something about how he resembled a woman. It was a constant back and forth. The funny thing was, they were both right. She was a terrible liar who liked younger men and Brett was a pretty boy who stared at himself just a little too much.
“So, you nervous about this weekend?” Luci asked me as she kept spinning.
“Of course I am nervous about this weekend! Why would you even ask me a stupid question like that?”
“Wow, Mel, you’re in a mood.”
“Really, I’m in a mood? Are you kidding me? You know what is happening this weekend. Aren’t you nervous to see all our old classmates?” It was big, so I cut the piece of cake in half so I could share. “I don’t think I want to go home. I just want to stay here. I’m pretty sure there is a lot of work for me to do.”
I finished my half and handed her the rest. She tasted the cake and moaned. “Damn, how can you be upset when you are eating this cake! Holy shit it’s good.” She continued to moan until she finished. “Did one of Brett’s skanks drop it off?”
“What if Shawn is seeing someone, or Derrick walks in and his wife is pregnant?” I continued, ignoring her question as I got up and paced.
“I wonder which one of those girls made this cake for him. It’s great. I would consider dating her if I could get more of this cake.”
I could tell we were about to start in on one of our conversations that, to the outside world, made no sense, but we could keep up forever.
“What if Shawn is engaged or married? What am I supposed to do? I can’t walk in there alone. Damn it, why did my date cancel on me, and why didn’t I have a backup just in case? My mother always taught me to be prepared, and now I have to go to a wedding and our class reunion stag.”
“I wonder if she uses extra butter in her cakes to make it so moist.”
“And the fact that the wedding is Jason’s wedding. I mean, come on, did it have to be Jason’s wedding, whose best man was someone I was madly in love with? I’m already starting to see Shawn’s blonde hair swinging back and forth as it falls in his eyes. His straight, perfectly white teeth. The way his face looks when he tries to hold in his laughter. Cheeks turning all red and his eyes practically popping out of their socket.” I sat back down and groaned loudly. “I know I should care more that it’s my ex’s wedding, but I don’t. I do care that he chose someone I was in love with to be his best man. I really wish I didn’t have to go by myself. Why aren’t you going to the wedding? You two were friends.”
“Do you think she will give me the recipe?” She licked up the crumbs.
“Lucille, can you please focus on me and forget about the damn cake!”
Brett buzzed in over the intercom, “Hey Bo…Mel, Mr. Triani wants to see you two in his office quick before he heads out.”
We both got up to walk out of the office, “You know, Brett the door was open and I’m pretty sure if you turned your head we would have heard you.”
_____
Once we got to his office, my mind wouldn’t shut off as Derrick’s and Shawn’s faces spun around in my head: Derrick with his curly brown hair and dimples, and Shawn with his shaggy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Their faces just kept spinning and spinning around in circles as the meeting droned on. Derrick with his indecisiveness and Shawn with his awful timing.
I learned a while ago that whenever I was in one of those moods and had to go to the boss’s office, all I had to do was nod my head and agree with him. I knew one of those days it would probably get me in trouble, but I was pretty sure the only reason he called us in his office was to stare at our asses. Granted, it was flattering that he would make up excuses just to stare at my ass, but it wasn’t a good day for that.
He kept droning on and on as I kept fading further and further away. The only thing I heard him say was, “You girls have a good weekend,” and that he was heading out early. As Luci and I got up, I could feel his eyes glued on our asses.
After the meeting, I tried to dive right into my work. That was for a good fifteen minutes. Then I lost focus. I tried to do a couple of the things that were on post-its, but no luck. So I gave up and got ready to leave for the day. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I wasn’t doing anything anyway. It would have been a waste for me to stay, but I did tell a friend of my mom’s that I would start working on an for her restaurant.
“Hey, Boss, I was working on that drawing for your brother. How does it look?”
We’re not supposed to do any outside work for free, so I asked Brett if he would secretly draw up an ad for my brothers’ sewage disposal company. I asked if he could draw a giant Porta potty with a normal sized guy standing next to it with a vacuum trunk, tank, and a hose. The slogan was “There is no mess too big for a company this small.” I figured that was a good time to finally get to it, since I was headed home. Plus, Brett had been itching to do more work in the art department so I figured it would give him some practice. Every time they’re short staffed he volunteered to help out.
“It looks exactly the opposite of how I described it to you!” I snapped back, although it was perfect.
“Wow!” Brett said as he sat in the chair in front of my desk.
“Oh man, that was bitchy, I apologize. I have a lot on my mind, okay? It’s probably best if you stay as far away from me as much as possible until I leave for the weekend.” I wasn’t going to say anymore, but I couldn’t help myself. “I have to go away this weekend to my home town. Okay, you’re thinking that doesn’t sound too bad. Well, yeah, normally it wouldn’t be. I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing my parents; it’s been awhile. Although my mother will probably be drunk the whole entire weekend and I’ll have to deal with her constant insults.” I tried to shrug off the thought. “Anyway, on Friday, I have to go to a wedding, and not just any wedding. It’s my ex’s wedding, and that’s not even the worst part of it! His best man is Shawn Edwards, and I was in love with him for, like, two years. He was the kind of guy that you could take home to your mother, and she’d fall in love with him, too. Not in a Stella Got Her Groove Back kind of way, but in a, ‘Wow, he is amazing,’ kind of way.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he said as he motioned for me to sit.
“Oh, it doesn’t sound bad? You have never seen him. My heart used to skip a beat when he drove by me on his motorcycle. I had never been so excited to go to work before I met him. I would wake up hours early to make sure that I looked perfect. I thought I was truly in love with him.” I stopped him before he interrupted me again. “And you think that is bad? No, no, no. Unfortunately, I get to not only see him, but see him while I’m going alone to the wedding of my ex-boyfriend as well. Yes, I did say alone. Although, I was hopeful and RSVP’d for two, I get to go all by myself. Going by yourself is simply sad, but when you have checked that you are going to bring someone else and don’t, it’s even sadder. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have people coming up to me asking me, ‘What’s a pretty girl like you doing here all by herself?’ Shit!”
I jumped out of my chair to shoo away the nosy girls who were listening at my door, waiting for Brett.
“The worst part is on Saturday, the day after the wedding, I have a freaking class reunion! No, I’m not kidding, I have a freaking class reunion! Normally, I wouldn’t give a damn because, hell, I would say I’m pretty successful for someone my age, but, really, in the same weekend? The universe is conspiring against me and I don’t know why!” I paused for a second to catch my breath. “My high school sweetheart Derrick, who I was ‘with’ from freshman to senior year, and a few times in college, is definitely going with his wife. His wife, whom I don’t care for and whom, I imagine, doesn’t care for me.”
“Still, it seems like you have moved on, so I don’t see the big deal. I could understand it if you were working at a McDonald’s or living at home with your parents, but you are doing damn well for yourself. Don’t let those people get to you.”
“It’s just seeing them. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was on two separate occasions and I got to spread the heartache apart, but it’s not. It’s back to back. It’s heartbreak after heartbreak. I don’t think I will be able to handle it. Both of them at the same time? Okay, I need time alone. I’m gonna need you to vacate my office and not speak to a soul about this.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the door.
“If I can say one more thing?” Brett asked, releasing himself.
“What would that be?” I sighed as I walked back to my desk.
“You’re overthinking this like you overthink your ads. You always do great and you gotta remember that it could be worse!” he said with the half-smile on his face that always made him look so damn adorable.
“How, how could this possibly get any worse?” I snapped.
“Well, you could be going to both their funerals.” He laughed and ducked as I threw my post-it notes at him. “Remember, things can seem bad but there is always something that can be worse.” He winked at me as he walked out of my office.
“I taught you that!” I yelled at his back.
It was time to call it a day.
A million thoughts ran through my head. Trying to get any work done was impossible knowing I was about to have the weekend from hell. I’d thought leaving the office and coming down to my doctor’s appointment early would give me some time to think about what was really going on in my life. Shockingly though, sitting in a gynecologist office doesn’t calm the nerves.
As I waited for my name to be called, I tried to think of the positive things that were happening in my life. I normally like to lie down on the floor and take a few deep breaths while I do this, but I didn’t think that would be appropriate in the middle of the waiting room. Although, I guess there are worse things I’ve done in public, now that I think about it. God, I miss high school and those drunken college nights.
I’m getting off track, now.
What were the good things that were happening in my life? Let’s see. I found a great pizza place and a Starbuck’s right next door to the office. I also had a bakery across the street from my apartment, but I guess that can also be a bad thing. My favorite restaurant, Walker’s, added a new cake to the menu that’s not smothered with nuts. I’m allergic to nuts.
There had to be something else happening in my life that had nothing to do with food. My assistant, Brett, helped me to lose the ten pounds I had been struggling with for the last couple of months. He didn’t knowingly help me, but staring at him all day long was motivation enough to get my ass to the gym. He, too, was a good thing because he was a great assistant.
Brett reminded me of another positive thing in my life: my job. I worked at Slick Productions, an advertising company in Manhattan. On my door, it said ‘Melissa Jones, Associate Director,’ but I’m pretty sure that my boss, Mr. Triani, made the title up to make me feel more important when he bumped me up last year into this position. He had always pushed for me to do well at my job, ever since I did my internship there my junior year of college. Then again, I busted my ass for six years to eventually be given this position once the business started to expand. I’m mainly the “idea girl.” I came up with creative ways to promote a product by writing ads for TV and radio. I also assisted in writing company newsletters and PSA’s: all the boring stuff companies didn’t want to do themselves.
Another positive about Slick Productions was that I worked with my best friend, Lucille Smith. We both applied after we graduated from college. We started out in the lowest positions. I worked as Mr. Triani’s assistant and she worked in the art department as what she would call it, “the coffee bitch.” We both had to bust ass in order to work our way up. Now, she’s right under the head of the sales department. She was sassy, pushy, and sexy: everything that made her a good sales woman. She could sell you a bag full of shit and get you to dab it behind your ears before you realized what you were doing.
Most people would believe that working with your best friend would be a mistake, but it worked for us. I actually believed we worked better when we’re working together. Plus, having her around with her crazy antics and sexual adventures helped my creativity. Her accepting a date with a twin we went to high school with and then finding out the hard way he was not the hot twin she thought he was made for a nice car commercial we made last year. The ad was for a small business so it ran only locally, but it deserved much more.
Luci and I had been friends since we started wearing bras. We were so opposite growing up. She was athletic, and I was classified as a dork. She was filled with confidence, and I was filled with chocolate. She had long, curly, black hair, and I’d been trying to grow my hair since kindergarten. The longest it’s ever gotten was to my shoulders and it was straight. She had dark hazel eyes. Mine were brown. Both tall and both determined. Maybe we weren’t exact opposites, but when I was younger it seemed like it.
The only downside to my fair Luci was that she always picked complete losers or guys who were young enough to still get carded at R-rated movies. Okay, maybe not that young, but I worried that she liked guys who she knew wouldn’t stick around. My guess? Daddy issues, but that’s a whole other story. I would think she had a thing for Brett based on how much they argued, but since he was twenty six, he was way too old for her.
Naming off all those things actually calmed me down. I almost forgot for a second about the terrible weekend that I was about to have. A couple of months ago, I got a Facebook invite from my class president Patricia Beamon for our ten year high school reunion. I decided I would go. What the hell, right? A month later, I got an invite from my ex-boyfriend, Jason Orr, for his wedding. It came with an RSVP for two. I didn’t realize until two weeks prior when I was scanning through my Facebook that the two events would fall on the same weekend. To make matters worse, the guy I planned to take cancelled on me not leaving me enough time to find someone else. So not only did I have to go, but I had to go all by my lonesome.
Great! Now I’m stressed again.
“Melissa!” the nurse shouted.
I looked around the now-empty waiting room and wondered why she had to yell my name so loudly. Maybe she wanted to step outside and let the rest of Manhattan know that the gynecologist was about to examine me.
“If you could follow me?” she asked.
I could hear myself boring other people with my problem. I had the conversation at the gym, my favorite coffee shop, the bakery, and now even at my gynecology appointment. The good thing about talking about it at your gyno’s office is since it’s already an uncomfortable appointment it gives you something else to think about besides the guy’s head between your legs.
Dr. Walters is always really nice to me and, no matter what I said, he always agreed with me. I guess if I were in his position, literally, I would agree with me, too. This time was different though; he didn’t agree with me. He tried to give me advice.
“I have been to high school reunions and college reunions and they are never what you expect them to be,” he said as he started to sit down on his little stool.
He reminded me of an older version of my high school gym teacher. Grey hair, dimples, really tall, and his age finally starting to show. He had a liver spot coming in on his hand that I’m pretty sure he tried to hide with cover up. I’ve actually wondered a few times why he hadn’t retired yet, but I guess when you have two ex-wives digging into your back pocket, you have to work a little bit longer. And yes, going to a gyno who looks like an old teacher is weird, but he is the best in the Manhattan area. Plus, a lot of the other doctors who are male are really young, and it makes me feel weird when someone younger than I am is down there. I don’t even like to date younger guys, let alone let them stick their heads between my legs.
“I remember going back and telling everyone what I did for a living, and no one really wanted to talk to me. They treated me like I could tell who had diseases and who didn’t. I mean really, who can look at a person and tell if they have a STD? Then, you have your other people who make that face like they smelled some rotten cheese, but then compose themselves when they realize that, yes, I am still standing in front of them. Then, you have the people who hadn’t been too careful the week before and now can’t stop itching and want me to ‘take a look.’” He put his head up from what he was doing and gave me a slightly creepy grin, then continued ranting while finishing up my exam. “Do they really think I want to check them out after drinking from the extremely spiked punch bowl? Which by the way, I spiked!” He had a little smirk on his face, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many times someone had shoved his head into the toilet in high school. I guess that would explain why it’s so easy for him to stick his head between girls’ legs.
He continued to rant as he checked me out. “Seriously, do guys not realize that I am a gynecologist? They can’t just whip it out and show me and think I can say, ‘this is what you have’ or ‘that’s who gave it to you.’ The guys I went to school with are such idiots. Man, I’m done.”
I wasn’t paying any attention to him at that point because of his ranting.
How much longer this could possibly take?
“Miss Jones,” he said.
I looked up over my knees and giggled. “Yeah, oh sorry, I was thinking about you checking people out in the middle of a class reunion.”
“I’m all done.” He said and snapped his gloves off.
I was just glad that he didn’t tell me what a beautiful uterus I had, like he had the last couple of times he was down there. I finally got something that hit a button and distracted him. He left the room so I could get dressed and returned as soon as I opened the door.
“Everything looks good. Schedule your next appointment with Linda at the receptionist desk,” he said as he held the door open for me. “Listen, when you go to your reunion, be yourself and have fun. You’ll do great.”
“Thanks,” I said with a slight smile. “I will have the time of my life, which I also imagine will be the song playing every half hour.”
I took a deep breath and walked down the hallway when I heard Dr. Walters mumble, “Nice uterus that one. Nice uterus”. I looked down, took a deep breath, and kept walking. Really, who says that to someone?
I stood in front of the receptionist’s desk as she flipped through a People magazine. “Hi Linda, I would like to make my next appointment for my beautiful uterus.”
“What?” She looked back at me, popping her gum and rolling her eyes.
“Never mind, same time next year is good for me,” I said
“Fine, we’ll call ya,” she said back in her monotonous, ‘I’m really too good to be making appointments for you, but I never finished high school and my attitude is going to be taken out on you’ voice.
“Thanks,” I said as I gave her a half smile, rolled my eyes, and turned away.
Every single time I went in there, that lady gave me shit. I am not the reason she was an assistant and not a doctor or whatever her childhood dream was before she got knocked up. Granted, I feel for her. It had to be hard to be pregnant in high school, but wasn’t my fault. And out of all the jobs, why would she want to work at a gyno’s office? Who the hell wakes up one day and thinks, ‘You know what? I want to treat bacterial infections and other disgusting liquids that come out of the vagina!’
If you were a woman, I could somewhat maybe understand, but as a man why? Why would ya? I had always wanted to pose that question to Dr. Walters, but when someone is poking around down there, you don’t really want to ask them questions like that. I guess I really don’t want to know why he wanted to look at crotches all day long. All I knew was since he did, I didn’t have to.
_____
It was only one when I got out of my appointment, so I decided that I had to go back to work. I sat at my desk, swaying my head back and forth, trying to think of something good that could come out of my horrible weekend. I flipped through my rolodex about fifty times trying to find a last minute date, but no luck.
I decided that in order for me to get any work done, I was going to have to lie down and clear my mind. It might seem unprofessional, but some of my best ideas had come from lying on my back. It doesn’t help, though, that I have a fishbowl office. I kept meaning to put up something so you can’t see into my aquarium, but I couldn’t find anything.
Brett hated it, too, because he couldn’t ever sneak away for long periods of time without my noticing. As I thought about it, I wondered where Mr. Thomas was and what chick invited him out to lunch?
Normally, when he saw me lying down on the ground, he would come in and talk to me. I’m one of those people who thought better with sound than in complete silence. He’ll come in and talk about his latest girlfriend or an episode of Oprah or Dr. Phil he happened to catch. He loved to watch that crap.
I remembered when we first met. He had the misfortune of being my last interview of the day. When I finally got to him—an hour after the time he was supposed to be interviewed—he was in a complete daze in the waiting room. As soon as I said his name, he looked at me and jumped up, spilling his papers all over the floor. It probably wasn’t professional of me, but I couldn’t help but to laugh. When he finally picked up all his papers, he looked up and stared at me. I was taken aback by how good looking he was. We had ourselves a long stare down before I invited him into my office.
In the midst of my interviewing him, we somehow managed to talk about everything except the job. His interview lasted a good forty five minutes longer than anyone else because we were discussing the latest episodes of NCIS, Psych, and of course Oprah and Dr. Phil. At the end, I offered him the job on the spot. I felt bad at first for hiring him just because he barely had an interview and because I was attracted to him, but he turned out to be the perfect fit. I’ve always told myself never to mix business with pleasure, but with Brett I sort of let the exception slide. I couldn’t help it. He was a lot of fun. On top of that, he was a kick ass assistant. And, although I was extremely attracted to him, I never let it show because that would have been unprofessional.
I did, however, come to find out that there was a downside to having a cute assistant. A cute assistant meant cute girls hanging around his desk all day long. I don’t blame them. Brett has pretty brown eyes and thick shoulder-length brown hair; he’s toned in all the right places, and every once in a while, he lets his facial hair get to that slightly scruffy and sexy look. One look at him and you would just assume that he would be a jackass, but he was one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.
And since he was such a nice guy, the girls never went away. They swarmed around his desk every single day. It wouldn’t be so bad if we had our own office, but there were about fifteen floors of offices, which meant fourteen other floors of opportunity. Usually all I had to do was yell out of my office that he was at lunch and they’d leave. Eventually, I would have to send out a memo to each floor telling the girls to stay away. And, truth be told, I needed to send the memo to a few of the men, too.
The only upside was that the girls who swooned over him also brought him baked goods, which he shared with me. That was pretty much the only reason I let it happen. The things I did for baked goods.
I continued to lie on the floor and took a couple of deep breaths when I heard Brett return. He sat his things down at his desk and walked into my office.
“Hey, Boss!” He greeted me as he plopped down in my chair. “Man, I just ate about ten pounds of salad and another five pounds of bread.”
“What, you dating a vegan chick this week?” I snickered at him.
“That’s funny, Boss. Maybe I should take back the present I bought you while I was out?”
“I love vegans!” I said as I sat up with a smile.
“Fine, you can have it.” He walked over to me and dropped the bag on my legs.
“I can’t believe you dropped that down on me like that. How about next time you find a string and put it around my head like a feed bag?”
He sat down on the floor next to me. “Oh, come on, Boss, I could just use tape. String would be over doing it.”
“I’m glad you’ve been working twenty six years to be a total smart ass,” I said. “Now please, Brett, how many times do I have to tell you?”
“To what, stop letting girls hang around my desk?”
“No.”
“If I see chocolate cake, bring it to you?”
“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I am talking about right now.” He was about to keep going when I interrupted him, “Stop calling me ‘Boss!’”
“Got it!” He jumped up and nonchalantly walked out of my office. “Hey, let me know what you think of that cake. I gotta let Krista know. She baked it special just for me.”
“Krista? Wait, I thought you said you bought this?”
“Oh, did I say that? I really should keep my lies straight…and speaking of being bad at lying, look who’s walking toward us,” Brett said as he stepped to the side to let Luci in. “It’s good to see you, Ms. Smith. Where is your assistant today? Is he still at recess?”
The sales department all used the same guy. So she didn’t really have her “own” assistant, but it was still funny.
Luci stopped in front of him. “Are you staring at me so that you can see your reflection in my sunglasses?”
I let out a groan because I knew they weren’t going to stop.
“It must be hard for you to get dates during the week with your not having a school bus stopping in front of your apartment and all,” Brett snapped as Luci stood with her hands on her hips.
“Do you ever get tired of looking at yourself, pretty boy?” she asked him.
“Well, with you around, I have to have something good to look at!”
I finally interrupted their squabble. “Guys, really? Can’t you two just walk by one another and say ‘hi’ like normal people in an office? Every single day, I have to listen to you two fight!”
“Fine, I’ll be the bigger person and go back to my desk,” Brett said as he walked away.
Luci reached in her purse and tossed Brett a tissue, “Here! Clean your monitor off with this so you can really see that pretty face of yours!” She closed the door before he could say anything. She smiled and walked over to my desk and sat down. “Hey, Melly!”
“You and Brett drive me absolutely insane! You know that, right?” I got up off the floor and opened the door.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? That boy is constantly staring at himself in anything that has a reflection. Plus, I am practically his boss. He should probably show a little more respect,” Luci said as she spun around in my chair.
I’ wasn’t exactly sure why they didn’t like each other, but every day, I had to listen to them go back and forth. He always said that, although she was a good sales woman, she was the worst liar he’d ever met. She always told him that he couldn’t walk by a mirror without staring at himself. Then, he had to mention something about how she likes younger guys, and then she’d usually mention something about how he resembled a woman. It was a constant back and forth. The funny thing was, they were both right. She was a terrible liar who liked younger men and Brett was a pretty boy who stared at himself just a little too much.
“So, you nervous about this weekend?” Luci asked me as she kept spinning.
“Of course I am nervous about this weekend! Why would you even ask me a stupid question like that?”
“Wow, Mel, you’re in a mood.”
“Really, I’m in a mood? Are you kidding me? You know what is happening this weekend. Aren’t you nervous to see all our old classmates?” It was big, so I cut the piece of cake in half so I could share. “I don’t think I want to go home. I just want to stay here. I’m pretty sure there is a lot of work for me to do.”
I finished my half and handed her the rest. She tasted the cake and moaned. “Damn, how can you be upset when you are eating this cake! Holy shit it’s good.” She continued to moan until she finished. “Did one of Brett’s skanks drop it off?”
“What if Shawn is seeing someone, or Derrick walks in and his wife is pregnant?” I continued, ignoring her question as I got up and paced.
“I wonder which one of those girls made this cake for him. It’s great. I would consider dating her if I could get more of this cake.”
I could tell we were about to start in on one of our conversations that, to the outside world, made no sense, but we could keep up forever.
“What if Shawn is engaged or married? What am I supposed to do? I can’t walk in there alone. Damn it, why did my date cancel on me, and why didn’t I have a backup just in case? My mother always taught me to be prepared, and now I have to go to a wedding and our class reunion stag.”
“I wonder if she uses extra butter in her cakes to make it so moist.”
“And the fact that the wedding is Jason’s wedding. I mean, come on, did it have to be Jason’s wedding, whose best man was someone I was madly in love with? I’m already starting to see Shawn’s blonde hair swinging back and forth as it falls in his eyes. His straight, perfectly white teeth. The way his face looks when he tries to hold in his laughter. Cheeks turning all red and his eyes practically popping out of their socket.” I sat back down and groaned loudly. “I know I should care more that it’s my ex’s wedding, but I don’t. I do care that he chose someone I was in love with to be his best man. I really wish I didn’t have to go by myself. Why aren’t you going to the wedding? You two were friends.”
“Do you think she will give me the recipe?” She licked up the crumbs.
“Lucille, can you please focus on me and forget about the damn cake!”
Brett buzzed in over the intercom, “Hey Bo…Mel, Mr. Triani wants to see you two in his office quick before he heads out.”
We both got up to walk out of the office, “You know, Brett the door was open and I’m pretty sure if you turned your head we would have heard you.”
_____
Once we got to his office, my mind wouldn’t shut off as Derrick’s and Shawn’s faces spun around in my head: Derrick with his curly brown hair and dimples, and Shawn with his shaggy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Their faces just kept spinning and spinning around in circles as the meeting droned on. Derrick with his indecisiveness and Shawn with his awful timing.
I learned a while ago that whenever I was in one of those moods and had to go to the boss’s office, all I had to do was nod my head and agree with him. I knew one of those days it would probably get me in trouble, but I was pretty sure the only reason he called us in his office was to stare at our asses. Granted, it was flattering that he would make up excuses just to stare at my ass, but it wasn’t a good day for that.
He kept droning on and on as I kept fading further and further away. The only thing I heard him say was, “You girls have a good weekend,” and that he was heading out early. As Luci and I got up, I could feel his eyes glued on our asses.
After the meeting, I tried to dive right into my work. That was for a good fifteen minutes. Then I lost focus. I tried to do a couple of the things that were on post-its, but no luck. So I gave up and got ready to leave for the day. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I wasn’t doing anything anyway. It would have been a waste for me to stay, but I did tell a friend of my mom’s that I would start working on an for her restaurant.
“Hey, Boss, I was working on that drawing for your brother. How does it look?”
We’re not supposed to do any outside work for free, so I asked Brett if he would secretly draw up an ad for my brothers’ sewage disposal company. I asked if he could draw a giant Porta potty with a normal sized guy standing next to it with a vacuum trunk, tank, and a hose. The slogan was “There is no mess too big for a company this small.” I figured that was a good time to finally get to it, since I was headed home. Plus, Brett had been itching to do more work in the art department so I figured it would give him some practice. Every time they’re short staffed he volunteered to help out.
“It looks exactly the opposite of how I described it to you!” I snapped back, although it was perfect.
“Wow!” Brett said as he sat in the chair in front of my desk.
“Oh man, that was bitchy, I apologize. I have a lot on my mind, okay? It’s probably best if you stay as far away from me as much as possible until I leave for the weekend.” I wasn’t going to say anymore, but I couldn’t help myself. “I have to go away this weekend to my home town. Okay, you’re thinking that doesn’t sound too bad. Well, yeah, normally it wouldn’t be. I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing my parents; it’s been awhile. Although my mother will probably be drunk the whole entire weekend and I’ll have to deal with her constant insults.” I tried to shrug off the thought. “Anyway, on Friday, I have to go to a wedding, and not just any wedding. It’s my ex’s wedding, and that’s not even the worst part of it! His best man is Shawn Edwards, and I was in love with him for, like, two years. He was the kind of guy that you could take home to your mother, and she’d fall in love with him, too. Not in a Stella Got Her Groove Back kind of way, but in a, ‘Wow, he is amazing,’ kind of way.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he said as he motioned for me to sit.
“Oh, it doesn’t sound bad? You have never seen him. My heart used to skip a beat when he drove by me on his motorcycle. I had never been so excited to go to work before I met him. I would wake up hours early to make sure that I looked perfect. I thought I was truly in love with him.” I stopped him before he interrupted me again. “And you think that is bad? No, no, no. Unfortunately, I get to not only see him, but see him while I’m going alone to the wedding of my ex-boyfriend as well. Yes, I did say alone. Although, I was hopeful and RSVP’d for two, I get to go all by myself. Going by yourself is simply sad, but when you have checked that you are going to bring someone else and don’t, it’s even sadder. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have people coming up to me asking me, ‘What’s a pretty girl like you doing here all by herself?’ Shit!”
I jumped out of my chair to shoo away the nosy girls who were listening at my door, waiting for Brett.
“The worst part is on Saturday, the day after the wedding, I have a freaking class reunion! No, I’m not kidding, I have a freaking class reunion! Normally, I wouldn’t give a damn because, hell, I would say I’m pretty successful for someone my age, but, really, in the same weekend? The universe is conspiring against me and I don’t know why!” I paused for a second to catch my breath. “My high school sweetheart Derrick, who I was ‘with’ from freshman to senior year, and a few times in college, is definitely going with his wife. His wife, whom I don’t care for and whom, I imagine, doesn’t care for me.”
“Still, it seems like you have moved on, so I don’t see the big deal. I could understand it if you were working at a McDonald’s or living at home with your parents, but you are doing damn well for yourself. Don’t let those people get to you.”
“It’s just seeing them. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was on two separate occasions and I got to spread the heartache apart, but it’s not. It’s back to back. It’s heartbreak after heartbreak. I don’t think I will be able to handle it. Both of them at the same time? Okay, I need time alone. I’m gonna need you to vacate my office and not speak to a soul about this.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the door.
“If I can say one more thing?” Brett asked, releasing himself.
“What would that be?” I sighed as I walked back to my desk.
“You’re overthinking this like you overthink your ads. You always do great and you gotta remember that it could be worse!” he said with the half-smile on his face that always made him look so damn adorable.
“How, how could this possibly get any worse?” I snapped.
“Well, you could be going to both their funerals.” He laughed and ducked as I threw my post-it notes at him. “Remember, things can seem bad but there is always something that can be worse.” He winked at me as he walked out of my office.
“I taught you that!” I yelled at his back.
It was time to call it a day.