Georgia on Her Mind(3)

Just business? That’s all the respect I get from her? “I earned the job, Roni. I know this industry, our products and customers. I deserved better.” I sell myself to her all over again, hoping I sound more confident than desperate.

“If you don’t want to come aboard—” Her words trail off, but she looks me square in the eye.

I absorb her subtle threat. The blood drains from my brain straight to my feet and I fear I might grovel involuntarily. I have to be humble here. My newly purchased BMW Z4 convertible emptied my savings account, and my credit card is loaded with Christmas cheer.

I walk around to my desk chair. I’m not in control here at all. Might as well sit. “If Mike is manager, what do I do?”

“What you love,” Roni says, expectant and puffed up, looking as if she just announced a resolution to world hunger. “Hands-on work with the customers, training and traveling. Our team needs your experience.”

I rocket to my feet, crashing my desk chair into the credenza. “Go on the road?”

“Exactly!”

“No, Roni, no. I’ve been there, done that. I own all the T-shirts. I won’t have my life controlled by the schedule. I have a life, a boyfriend.”

Yes, Chris, my boyfriend. A thought flutters through my mind. Was I supposed to call him about lunch?

“Think of the frequent flyer miles.” She stands, smoothing her light wool skirt. “That’s the job we are offering you, Macy.”

Frequent flyer miles. There aren’t enough miles in the entire airline industry to entice me back into being a road warrior. No way.

I need air. I jerk my Hermès Birkin bag from the bottom desk drawer and snatch my London Fog trench coat (both part of the Christmas cheer on my credit card) from the brass hook on the wall.

“Where are you going?” Roni follows me down the hall.

Through a tightly clenched jaw I let her know. “Anywhere but here.”





Chapter Two




I dial Chris’s cell and office phone, but he doesn’t answer. Chances are he’ll show at our place, Pop’s Diner, eventually.

I park close to the door and dash inside, dodging raindrops. Snippets of my conversation with Attila the Hun replay in my head.

Mike Perkins. Go on the road as a trainer. Been there, done that! If you don’t want to come aboard…

I slide into a booth by the door. Elizabeth, the waitress, sees me and comes over, snapping her gum.

“What’ll it be?”

“Double order of fries. Make sure they’re hot.” I’m blowing a day’s worth of Weight Watchers points and I want it to be hot and salty.

“Starting out a little early, aren’t you?” she asks, jotting down my order.

“And a large Diet Coke.” I wrap the edge of my napkin around my finger. I’ve lost my job….

Whoa, wait. If I’m no longer a manager, what happens to my salary? What about raises and bonuses? I’d planned on this quarter’s bonus to replenish my savings account and pay for Christmas.

I drop my forehead to the tabletop and try not to cry.

If Mike is me and I’m, well, still me, but a plain-Jane techie, do I have a plain-Jane salary? Does he have my salary? I’ve heard of that happening before. A person is reorganized to a different job where the pay is conveniently less.

I feel a swoon coming on. Do women still swoon?

I’ve just been shoved off the career path of the upwardly mobile into the proverbial ditch of the down-and-out.

I lift my head when Elizabeth sets down my Coke. “Having a nice day?” she asks.

“No.” I tear the paper off my straw.

My cell phone chirps and I answer hoping it’s Chris. But it’s Lucy, which is just as good.

“I’m at Pop’s,” I say when I answer.

“Macy, oh no. It’s not worth it.”

“Too late. I’ve ordered double fries.”

She sighs. “I’m on my way.”

Lucy O’Brien hasn’t eaten junk food since a 1994 60 Minutes exposé. If I’d said I was standing on the ledge of the Melbourne Causeway about to plunge ninety feet into the Indian River, she couldn’t have responded with any more urgency.

So seeing Lucy, a slender, redheaded Florida Daily News investigative reporter, dash into Pop’s like a superheroine almost makes me laugh. Almost.

“I got here as quickly as I could.” Lucy slides into the seat across from me, stowing her umbrella and pulling a wet wipe from her purse. She towels off the table.

But it’s too late—my cheeks are fat with fries. I wash them down with a slurp of soda.

“That stuff is going to kill you, Macy.” Lucy wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue. “How you and Chris eat this stuff is beyond me.”

“This won’t kill me. Veronica Karpinski will kill me.” I shake a long salty fry under her nose.

She shoves my hand away with a “yuck” expression on her face.

I bite the fry. “You do not know what you are missing, my friend.”

“Veronica Karpinski can only ‘kill’ you if you let her.” Lucy makes air quotes around the word kill. As if either of us thinks this conversation is literal.

“She’s doing a pretty good job of killing my Casper career.”