“I suggest if you don’t wish to talk business at these little gatherings you refrain from attending, Mr. O’Rourke.” Barb’s tone was complete business. “When you gather with colleagues from the office, you should expect that the course of discussion will be the business of Building Products.”
“Maybe in your world, but not mine.” Jay lit another cigarette. “I like to shoot the shit with the people I work with, especially the ones I like. But if you want to have those stupid bullshit rules, fine with me. I’ll stop coming. Next time I want to hang with Paul or George, we’ll go elsewhere.”
“Be thankful nobody from HR was here,” Alan said. He drained the rest of his beer. “I know we’re all here on our own time and that, technically, this isn’t a business meeting but more of a social gathering, but you still have to be careful about what you say around those you work with.”
“Like I give a shit? Barb and Mark aren’t part of management. They can say whatever the hell they want to HR if they want to. It’s their word against mine, and what I say in public outside of work, on my own time, is my own business. When I’m at work, that’s a different story. But here? Outside of work on my time? Fuck that!”
Michelle retained her steady, solid front. She drained the rest of her beer. “You know, it’s getting late. I should get back to my room.”
“Yeah, I gotta go too,” Jay said. He rose from his chair. “Hey, this lively discussion was fun while it lasted but as they say, all good things must come to an end. Let’s shoot the shit like this again tomorrow.”
Michelle got up and was relieved when Alan Perkins, her Corporate Financial co-worker, got up, too. “I want to get back to my hotel and put the finishing touches on that spreadsheet,” he said. He pulled on his coat.
The other people at their table rose to their feet as well, and
Michelle quickly gathered her purse and followed Jay out of the restaurant.
Once outside she paused for a moment, waiting for the rest of their party to join them. Alan nodded at her. “See you tomorrow, Michelle.”
“Have a good night,” she said, drawing her coat tight around her.
“See you tomorrow,” Jay said, cigarette jutting out of his mouth. “Nice talking to you.”
“Nice talking to you, too.” They shook hands quickly and Michelle said, “I hope you won’t get into any trouble for what you said in there.”
Jay’s expression was immediate and easy to read: what, me get in trouble? “Nothing’s gonna happen. Most of the people that were here tonight have heard me say much worse. Besides, we’re not at work or on company time. You can’t be fired for talking about basic human psychology and behavior during your off hours, which is what this all boiled down to. Besides, I’ve got a solid work record to back me up and I’ve never had a negative mark in my review.”
“Yeah, well, Barb didn’t look too happy.”
“She never looks happy,” Jay said, casting a casual glance behind them at the restaurant entrance. The front door opened and a couple of patrons exited. Some of their party was among them. “Besides, despite all that bullshit she said in there, she can’t do shit. She’s not a manager, much less a supervisor. She’s just a lowly corporate ant like the rest of us. She just likes to kiss the butts of everybody higher up than her.”
“Is she the type to go squealing to the higher-ups?” Michelle asked.
“Probably.” Jay glanced at the loosely-knit throng of their Building Products colleagues and turned back to her. “Listen, I don’t want you to get in trouble so I’m gonna split. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Jay took off into the parking lot and Michelle headed toward her rental car in the opposite end of the lot. The early Spring night was cool and the wind ruffled her skirt about her legs and she shivered. Right now all she wanted to do was get back to her room, turn the heat up, give Donald a quick call, and crawl into her pajamas and into bed. Maybe watch a little TV. Then she wanted to get through the rest of the week quickly and get the hell home.
The evening’s discussion, especially Jay’s rant, flitted through her mind quickly and out of left field came a thought that hadn’t entered her mind in a long time. That little painful memory that emerged when Jay asked if she had kids. It settled in her as she let the car warm up, and as she drove away she found herself wishing she was home with Donald, where she was safe and secure and comfortable with the feeling that everything was going to be all right.
SHE WOKE UP at three a.m. not even aware she was crying, and when she realized it she could only sob harder. She buried her face in her hands, still lying on her tummy from the position she’d been in when she woke up and, with the painful emotions from that old memory still fresh in her mind, and the aftermath from the dream it had left still tender in her consciousness, she curled up on her left side, drawing herself into a fetal position, and cried herself back to sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
MICHELLE JUMPED RIGHT into her work the following morning at Building Products and was so busy with meetings and strategy sessions with various personnel that she didn’t even think about Jay O’Rourke until that afternoon when Alan took her to the IT department and she saw his empty cubicle.
She was sitting at the cube of an IT tech named Shane Newstead, who was explaining the Network Administration stuff. Michelle had been taking notes in the various meetings all day. Her plan was to begin preliminary work on developing her documentation tomorrow and meet with a few other key people. Jay was one of those people she wanted to meet with, and when the tech she and Alan were talking to finished, she asked, “Is Jay around?”
“He’s not here today,” Shane said.
“He was so tanked up on caffeine last night, he probably didn’t get to sleep till five a.m.,” Alan said and laughed.
Shane nodded. “Yeah, he drinks coffee like a demon, but he can get by with little or no sleep. All I heard was that he wouldn’t be in today. I don’t know what’s up.”
The thought that Jay had become a victim of some HR espionage as a result of last night troubled Michelle, but she quickly put that out of her mind and continued with the rest of her day. That evening she, Alan, and another Financial Consultant employee named Henry Wagner worked out of the conference room with the high level executives of the company as well as the Human Resources Director. They called out for pizza, and dinner was eaten amid the meeting. Michelle didn’t mind, but she was anxious to call it a day and get back to her hotel room.
She got back to her room at nine p.m., showered quickly and called Donald. “How’d your day go?” she asked.
“Okay. Still dicking around with Red Rose on this testicular cancer thing. How’s El Paso, Texas?”
Talking to Donald long distance like this was tough. She wanted to be home; wanted to be safe and snug in the evening chill of Spring. This was the first consulting job she’d ever had that required out of state travel and, while it was fun, she did not like being away from home. They talked for fifteen minutes then parted with goodnights. Michelle spent the rest of the evening watching a movie—Training Day with Denzel Washington—then fell asleep.
Despite lying in bed, waiting for sleep to overcome her, thinking about that painful memory of the past as she drifted to sleep, she did not have the dream, nor did she wake up crying.
Jay O’Rourke wasn’t in the office the following day, and after meeting with the last few staff members she needed to talk to before beginning her preliminary sketches of the product, she asked one of the IT techs she met yesterday, Rob Fegley, where he was.