I had a lot on my mind, and that puts it lightly. Maya took off because she was mad when she found out the truth about Veronica. Veronica is one of my biggest regrets. I wish I never dated her.

Even though I broke up with her a while ago, her presence still haunts my life. The latest example was the fact that she spilled the beans on being a former girlfriend. I made it worse by lying to Maya. I didn’t expect Veronica to run into Maya again, so I thought I played it well.

I was wrong. I don’t know why that damned Veronica kept showing up all over the place. I’m suspicious that she’s been stalking me, but I can’t prove it. Even if I could prove it, it probably wouldn’t change very much. I still lied to Maya, and she was still upset at me.

Yet again, it was a matter of damage control. I had to figure out a way to sooth the blow, and redirect the blame. I had to lie to the board. I had no choice.

The tough part about lying is that one lie covers up another, and covers up another. It keeps growing until it is huge in size. It’s a bit like a snowball. The whole matter might start out with a white lie, and then get huge very quickly.

Although, my former relationship with Veronica wasn’t exactly a white lie. It was enormous, and I tried to hide it from Maya. I was starting to care for her, and God help me, I actually wanted to have a relationship with her.

That’s why I tried to deflect my past and hide things from her. If I did that without screwing it up, I would be golden. Then the two of us might have a chance.

I fucked it up and she found out, so she took off. That meant I had to come up with a story for the board. Despite my stress and lack of sleep, I knew that it would look weird if she was suddenly gone. The board would expect to see her with me. What would they think if she wasn’t there?

So, the lying continued. I gave a rousing speech about my company, our goals, and our vision for the future. Basically, there were just a few things on the list we wanted to accomplish. Admittedly, they are big things, but there aren’t that many.

First, we wanted to grow our company and get a larger share of the market. Of course, that would be challenging and would take a number of achievements to complete. We needed to land new contracts, hire quality people, and listen to demand from our clients.

We wanted to make more money, obviously. A sluggish and poor business isn’t focused on making more money. They just drift along and stay satisfied. That’s a bad idea, because someone else is going to be fighting with a goal to make more money. Eventually, that leads to businesses filing bankruptcy.

And finally, we wanted to invest in our future. Today’s recipe for success is not tomorrow’s recipe for success. Ever heard of payphones, movie rental stories, instant film cameras, or telegrams? Most of those are either hurting badly or virtually extinct. Same thing with us – invest in tomorrow for success in the future.

As for Maya, I announced to Herb – who spread the word to others – that Maya had left for the purpose of attending to a family emergency. “Something came up unexpectedly, and she had to leave town. I will have to check on her later on.”

Herb didn’t ask what had happened. I’m sure that he cared, but didn’t want to interfere or look like he was sticking his nose into Maya’s business. That worked well for me. Another bad part about lying is that one has to remember exactly what was told. The less that gets told, the better the chances that it will work.

Psycho bitch, aka Veronica, started walking over to me, and had a grin on her face. She’s hot, but dangerous.

She looked good, though. She had on dark pantyhose, a red dress, and a big, pearl necklace. Her hair was sprayed and was tightly holding itself up. She had her standard light makeup, and pink lipstick. She kept her grin, which made me so mad.

She strolled right up to me, waving her arms in an exaggerated fashion – probably to show me that she won a major battle. She almost made it look like she was having fun with it. She was making me suffer, and I hated her for it.

She acted like a little smartass, too. When she walked up to me – and stood flirtingly close to me – she made a wisecrack. “What’s the matter? Did you run out of room on your credit card?” That was an apparent insinuation that she was an escort.

I didn’t respond.

She rolled her Latina eyes at me. She stood on her tippy toes and then pushed herself back down. She was quiet, and I was anxious to get rid of her. I cut right to the chase. “So, what do you want?”

Her grin returned as she winked at me. Was she really enjoying this? I mean, I knew she was coldhearted, but this went beyond that. She was being sadistic. I pulled her aside because I blew my stack at her and began a whispering dialogue. “Let’s just get to the point, okay? What do you want?”

She reached over and flirted with me by stroking my forearm. Her fingers were soft, and it would have felt good if a normal woman was doing that to me. She is hardly normal, so that’s not how I felt. If she was a man, I probably would have punched her in the face. “I’m giving you a choice about us.”

A choice about us? Did she really think we were still together, or even attracted to each other? “Veronica, our relationship ended a long time ago. I don’t know what you want, but I think it would be completely impossible to have another relationship with you.”

She reached over and tried to hold my hand. I rejected her by pulling it away. Her dark eyes looked lustful and hungry. She wanted something. I could tell. “Well, here’s your choice. You can either get back together with me, or I’ll get the board to vote you out.”

I said virtually impossible, and she might have found the one exception. That’s a pretty rotten choice, in my opinion. I felt like it would be like God telling a human that he or she could choose to die from cancer, or heart disease – and that there would be suffering either way.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t say anything to her, and I just walked away. In the back of my mind, I knew that if I didn’t give her an answer, she would get the board to vote me off. I don’t know if she would succeed in getting them to do that, but I knew she was serious. The board was already uneasy with me, and her efforts might be enough to tip the scales to get me terminated.