Claire
I may have pushed Rick a bit too far. After I left the restaurant, I was sure that my boss was never going to look at me the same again. Maybe that was the point. It was hard to not notice how he looked at me. It was impossible not to and I liked the attention, especially from a man like him. He was rude, but he had been straightforward with me about how well the first report went. That took a lot for a man with his sized ego.
But maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about his state when we were in the sushi place. He was rock hard and staring at me and I couldn’t help it. I wanted him to know that I saw what he was looking at. I wanted him to know that I noticed and he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it, if that was what he was doing.
The look on Rick’s face was priceless and he had cut short the meeting rather quickly after that. I found it almost intoxicating how turned on he had been. While I wasn’t as experienced as most people my age, I still knew what went on between a man and a woman. I still understood how I could use it to my advantage. I don’t think there was a woman alive that didn’t. That’s why I felt a little guilty about it. Just a bit.
I didn’t see him the rest of the day and I was afraid that I had gone too far. It was my nerves that bothered me, but I tried to push it from my mind. There really was nothing that could be done about it now. What was done. Was done.
I made my way home and called Amber to see what she was up to. She didn’t call me back, so I left a message. There was no telling what she was doing and I knew that I would hear from her soon enough. I had a feeling that was bothering me and it was usually something going on with Amber. We had a kind of bond that was hard to explain.
The eerie feeling didn’t leave me when I got home, it only seemed to intensify. I left another message for Amber to make sure that she was okay. I’m sure she was, but I just wanted to make sure. I had become a bit of a worry-wort since she moved to Atlanta. Now that I was here and even closer to her, that concern hadn’t diminished. It was because of what she did and her being around guys like Tony that I met in the bar.
I heard the doorbell and I immediately hoped it was Amber. She was the one I wanted to see, just to make sure everything was fine with her. When I got to the door, I was stopped in my tracks when I swung the door open. “Jack? What are you doing here?”
“Well that isn’t the greeting that I was hoping for.”
“I haven’t seen you in months and I moved a couple hundred miles away. I think that is the greeting that you should have expected.”
He shook his head, the soft blonde hair still as light as I remember. Those green eyes stared at me, like they had so many times before. What the hell was he doing here?
“Are you going to let me in?”
My first instinct was to close the door and say, “Not today, Satan.” But I knew that it was the wrong way to handle him. He had been a good boyfriend when he was getting his way, but when he didn’t, things could get ugly fast and I was not in the mood for all of that today. I just didn’t have the energy. So I decided that if I just let him in and see what he wanted, maybe he would go on and let me be when he was done.
I should have known better.
So I let him in, something that I was sure I was going to regret and once he started in on why he was there, I already did.
“What are you doing here Jack? I haven’t seen you in a while.’
“Well you left and changed your phone. Your mom wouldn’t tell me where you were.”
“That’s because she doesn’t really know, so how did you find me?” I was perturbed that he would even go to my mother after the way he acted. He was trying to come across as some man that I just up and left. It couldn’t have been any further from the truth.
“I got ahold of Amber. She didn’t want to tell me, but she is easier to talk to than you are. Why couldn’t you be more like your sister?”
I had heard that my whole life and it never seemed to get any better to hear. “What do you want Jack?”
The door was still open because I was hoping this would be a short visit. I should have known better and Jack was already making his way into my place, making himself at home like he had a right to be there.
“I wanted to see you. We were together a long time Claire and I miss you. Is that so hard to believe?”
“I missed you too for a while, but things are better this way.”
“You found someone else?”
His eyes flashed with anger and I forgot how quick his temper was. He really thought that I was with someone. He had thought that when we were together, but it wasn’t true now, any more than it was true then.
“No, I haven’t found someone else. I am not looking.”
“Why haven’t you called me? You made it clear that you didn’t want to answer my phone calls when I called, so I thought that you would reach out when you weren’t mad at me anymore.”
“I am sure I will Jack, but I am not there yet.”
He shook his head and clicked his teeth together. “You are one hard woman Claire.”
“No, I just know that it isn’t going to work and there is no sense in torturing ourselves about it. I have accepted it and you should too. We want different things.”
“I wanted you. That was my crime Claire. I still want you and you will tell me that it is wrong?”
I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what I was supposed to say. This was an argument that we had more times than I wanted to count. He always wanted more than I was willing to give. It was just that simple and I was sick to death of having this conversation.
“What was wrong was how mad you got when I told you no. That is why I left and why I changed my number. I was sick of fighting with you.”
“If you would have given me what I wanted, there wouldn’t have been any fighting.”
It wasn’t the first time that he had said it and I have to say that it didn’t make me feel any better when he said it now.
“Well silly me for not wanting to be pushed into something that I have waited years for. You didn’t get it then and you won’t get it now. If this is what you are here for, you might as well leave Jack. I don’t know why you came all the way down here for nothing.”
His face screwed up in anger just like it had the last time that I saw him. This was why I had left. I didn’t want to have this same conversation again. I asked him to leave and he looked at me like he was going to do no such thing.
“I am tired, I have had a long day at work and I don’t want to do this again Jack. Just go home and move on, I have.”
It was supposed to calm him down, let him see that it was over between us, but he didn’t want to see it that way. It just made him more angry and he asked me again if I was with someone else.
“Why do you keep asking me that Jack? What does it matter?”
“Because we were together for a long time and you never gave it up. I don’t want to hear about you giving it up to someone else when you turned me down so much.”
I just shook my head, not really sure what I was supposed to say. He truly wanted to know if I was still a virgin.
“Nothing has changed Jack. I am still waiting until I am married.”
“Just not to me.”
I closed my eyes because I couldn’t even look at him, I didn’t want to.
“Just go, please.”
He said something about how wrong I was and how he would be back. I ignored him and his looks as he left. I locked the door after he left and sighed to myself. Why would Amber have told him where I was? She knew what it was between me and him and I just couldn’t see her telling him where I lived. It just didn’t make sense and I called my sister for the third time in an hour.
Was Jack the bad feeling that I had?
***
“I can’t believe he just popped up like that. What did you do?”
I gave Amy the rundown of what happened and what was said. She liked Jack, about as much as I liked Justin. They were our exes for a reason and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to stay away from him as much as she needed to stay away from Justin. The differences were that she still loved Justin and I don’t know if I ever loved Jack.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
There really was nothing to say about it. It was a mess. That much was clear and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was lucky he had left. There was no telling what Jack was going to do sometimes. He was highly irregular and the fact that he had just popped up was a good indication of that.
“Excuse me Miss, do I know you?”
The man had walked up to the table Amy and I were at and I met his gaze. “I don’t think so.”
“You work at that place…. I went there with my friends. Oh honey, you were on fire.”
I immediately knew that it was another case of mistaken identity. It wasn’t hard to grasp that and by the way he was looking at me, I had a feeling that he knew my sister well.
“I think you have the wrong person Sir. I work for Future Plans, an efficiency consulting company.”
He shook his head like he didn’t believe me, but after I firmly denied his charges again, he walked away. There was a look back, a wonder if he was seeing things or not. He wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to clarify that to him.
Amy just shook her head. “Amber is famous.”
“Yeah, but for all of the wrong reasons. She doesn’t believe me when I say that I get people walking up to me all of the time.”
“She probably finds it funny that you are you and guys like that walk up to you.”
She probably did. My sister was strange in that way. She was like Jack, saying that I had to loosen up. It wasn’t the fifties she would tell me.
“I don’t find it very funny, whether she does or not. Some of those guys are really aggressive and I worry about her.”
“Amber can take care of herself.”
I knew Amy was right, but that didn’t help the worry. I told myself that I was going to call her again, make sure that she was okay. We were the same age practically, but those four minutes that I came out sooner, seemed to dictate that I was always going to be my sister’s keeper for life.
Rick
“You are ignoring me Rick. What is on your mind?”
Ashlea was smiling at me, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and I could tell that I had done something to make her unhappy. That wasn’t hard to do and though I should have been worried about what she was mad about, I just wasn’t.
“Nothing, just a lot going on at work.”
She rolled her eyes and I stopped. Ashlea never wanted to hear about such mundane things as work. In fact, the more I thought about it, she was only interested in talking about herself. Which was fine most of the time, the short visits that I would make to her bedroom, but I had taken her out to dinner and there was no way to silence her like I could when we were alone. When we were alone, I chose an approach that left her unable to have these conversations. It was easier that way and I wished now for the check.
“You are always talking about work. Don’t you have enough money yet?”
Her question threw me off. I didn’t really work for money. I mean, I needed it like others did, but I did not work for that reason. I had enough money for the rest of my life. I liked my work and I didn’t think a woman like her was going to understand it. She modeled for a living and I wasn’t sure how much she got out of it as far as giving her satisfaction.
“Not yet. I like to help companies. It was what I was meant to do.”
She didn’t get it and Ashlea didn’t even try to.
“So I was thinking that you should come with me to the shoot in Barbados. We could spend some time on the beach and we could take that hot little jet of yours.”
I just shook my head. It wasn’t in the cards. I had a lot on my plate and running off with her was the last thing on my mind. She wanted me to sit there and smile, look good while she had her shoot, maybe hold stuff for her. That was not a good time to me, at all.
“I don’t think I will be able to swing it Ashlea, sorry.”
“Let me guess, work?”
I nodded my head, unapologetically. I wasn’t going to say I was sorry for what had to be done. I needed to do my job and if she had any inkling of what was on my plate, she wouldn’t have even asked.
I kept asking myself the same damn question. What was I doing here with her?
“Let’s get out of here and go to my place.”
She looked down at her plate and Ashlea made a comment that she wasn’t done. I was already getting the waiter’s attention to bring me the check. It was time for this dinner to be over. I had no more patience for all of this chatting, especially when I was bored to tears with the subject.
“Well finish up while I pay.” I almost made a comment that she wasn’t going to eat it anyways, I knew her too well, but I didn’t say a thing. Instead, I got my card out and was prepared to get up and seek him out myself. I wanted to get the hell out of here.
My phone rang and I was almost happy to hear it ring. It was a helpful distraction for Ashlea who was still chatting to me. I didn’t recognize the number, but I recognized the voice when I answered.
“What’s up?”
“I needed to talk to you about the McClennen account.”
“I gave it to you a few hours ago, what do you want to talk about?” I was just happy to hear her voice and I ignored the dirty looks I got when Ashlea realized that I was talking to another woman.
“It’s okay Claire. I am not doing anything important.”
Ashlea made a scoffing sound and I turned to the side a little, telling Claire that it was fine for her to call me now. I could see Ashlea getting agitated in my peripheral vision, but I wasn’t going to try and stop it.
“So what is it that has you worried?”
“It’s the doubtful accounts. Did you notice how high they are? They should be at 3 percent for this industry and it is well over twice that amount at almost seven percent.”
I had noticed it as well, but as the economy was having troubles, I figured that it was going to see an uptick in customers that got things on credit that they were never going to pay for. It was quite high, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t necessary for the way things were going at the moment. When I mentioned my theory to her, I could tell that Claire was not in agreement with me.
“What do you think we should do?”
“I think we need to investigate the process in which they are giving out credit. Maybe there is a flaw in their approval system that is allowing people to be approved that shouldn’t be. If that isn’t the case, then there is going to be a human error. I take it that there are incentives made to the employees who are in the customer care of this?”
“Yes.” Though I didn’t really know where she was going with this.
“Well then we might have to look into the employees. If they are getting rewarded by bonuses and commission for each sale, there may be less of a push to find sound borrowers.”
I had never thought about it like that and before she looked into anything else, I had a feeling that she was right. I was again amazed at how quickly she was able to make out the problem from all of the numbers. This was a huge company and I wasn’t even going to begin to understand how she was so far ahead already.
“If I remember correctly, the salespeople are paid fully in commission, so there is a big incentive to sign people up. You may be on to something.”
“Richard?”
It was the third time I had heard my name in the same amount of minutes. I didn’t want to look over to Ashlea, but she was making it clear that she was going to no longer be ignored. I was realizing quickly that a dinner alone would have been preferable.
“Hold on Claire.”
I covered up the phone because I didn’t want Claire to know that I was on a date. I don’t know why that was so important to me, but it was. I had my reasons.
“What?”
“I thought we were leaving?”
I looked at the plate of food that was untouched since she claimed she was still eating. I had known that she wasn’t going to touch her food and I had been right.
“I thought you wanted to finish?”
She looked at me bashfully. “You know that I don’t need all of these carbs. I have a shoot in two days and I don’t want to be bloated for it.”
I could have argued with her, but I had learned long ago that it was going to do me no good to argue with her or to point out the obvious. Ashlea was a hard woman to deal with and the more I talked to Claire, the more I realized that I didn’t want to deal with Ashlea anymore.
“I knew you wouldn’t. I will be finished on the phone in just a minute Ashlea.”
She threatened to throw the phone away if I didn’t get off of it and for some reason I did not find it very funny. Ashlea said it in a joking manner, but I just looked at her. Turning to the side again, I held my hand up to indicate that I needed another minute. I heard her huff, but was used to her dramatics.
“Sorry about that Claire.”
“If I am bothering you and you are busy, just let me know Rick. I shouldn’t have called, I just saw that and you know, warning bells went off in my head. I wanted to see if you had seen that too or was I just looking into the percentage change too much? It is not that high, but for the industry it is.”
She was going on and I found that I didn’t mind hearing her. She was not like Ashlea or rather my feelings weren’t the same towards the two women. I heard some more sounds from across the table, but I didn’t even look up. It would only invite another exchange that wasn’t going to be any help besides making more of a scene. I liked the restaurant and I didn’t want to have an altercation with her here. I just needed another minute.
It was about that time that I was thinking that, I heard the chair legs screeched on the hardwood floor. Everyone was suddenly looking at us and I wanted to melt into the carpet. She had a knack for doing this.
“If you are just going to ignore me Rick, I am leaving!”
She stormed out and since I hadn’t covered the receiver, I was sure that Claire had heard it all. The other side of the phone was quiet and everyone in the restaurant was looking at me. It really was a mess and I just wanted to leave. I waved to the waiter to take my card so I could do just that.
“Um, sorry Rick. I didn’t know you were with someone.”
“I’m not now. No need to worry about it.”
Claire was quiet for a few more seconds before she got back into her rhythm about the new company I had given her to look over. She reminded me of myself. She got so excited about everything that had to do with the job. I looked at each client like a mystery that I had to solve, several mysteries that would weave together and make the big picture. Claire seemed to like the challenge as much as I did and I can’t say that I didn’t like her enthusiasm.
“Have you had dinner yet?”
“No Sir, I am still at the office.”
“Why don’t you come down here?”
“I thought you already got your check and had dinner?”
“It is sitting here cold in front of me. I never got to have a bite.” My plate was empty and had been for a time.
“Now you are making me feel bad.” That was basically the point.
“But I am not going to. You could have said something and you shouldn’t ignore your date. Work is just work. I will talk to you about it in the morning.”
She was rushing me off the phone and while I wanted to stop her, tell her that Ashlea didn’t even matter, it wasn’t in the cards. I didn’t have a choice but to tell her that I would see her the next day.
Hanging up, it was strange to think about how long that night was going to be. I had botched up the night’s plans that I was going to have with Ashlea. Now I needed to figure something else out because the last thing that I was going to do was sit there thinking about my employee in a way that I shouldn’t. It was a rule of mine that I had never even thought of breaking, except in a moment of weakness. But never like this. I contemplated it far more than it was right to do and I had to get Claire off my mind.
I knew just who to call to take care of that.