I survive my first week.
The job itself is demanding, partly because there’s so much responsibility, and I have to juggle several high-level projects with hard deadlines, but also because my new boss is ready with sharp questions and an unquenchable drive for perfection.
No mistake is too small for his notice. I become obsessed with tiny details, checking numbers multiple times, double and triple verifying statements of accounts, reformatting spreadsheets until they’re so streamlined and functional, they could’ve been designed by a team of Scandinavian architects.
If my work is without flaw, my reward is silence.
If he finds a mistake, even if it’s something so small as an extra space between words in a report, he flags it and requests an immediate revision.
It’s exhausting. It’s also exhilarating. It becomes like a game, one I’m obsessed with winning.
We communicate only via email. His arrive at all hours of the day and night, as if he never takes breaks, even to sleep. We’re both short and to the point, with zero hint of impropriety. Or humor, for that matter. The emails are as dry as bone.
If anyone else were to read them, they’d think we’d never met in person and had no desire to. They’d never imagine how loudly I moaned when he was deep inside me. How I called out his name and scratched my nails down his back.
How hard he made me come.
He doesn’t visit my office again. He doesn’t pick up the telephone to discuss issues. He simply shoots off curt emails, which I respond to immediately, always wondering what, if anything, he thinks of me.
I think of him constantly.
I relive our night at the hotel a thousand times in my head. I calculate the odds of meeting again the way we did, as boss and employee. I wonder what strange forces were at work to bring us together, going all the way back to the first time I set foot into Lit Happens, years ago.
At the end of the week, I realize I’m being silly.
If there’s one thing my disastrous relationship with Chet taught me, it’s that obsessing over a man is a waste of time. Especially a man who made his intentions clear by spelling out the company policy against superior-subordinate relationships right into my face.
As I’m getting ready to leave the office late Friday afternoon, I decide to put the obsessing behind me and move on with my life.
That lasts about five minutes, until someone knocks on my closed office door.
“Come in.”
The door opens to reveal a smiling young guy dressed casually in khakis and a navy-blue polo with the company logo on the shoulder. He’s holding a brown kraft envelope in his hands.
“Hi. Shay Sanders?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Scotty from the mailroom. This is for you.”
He crosses to my desk and holds the envelope out. Now I can see that it’s an inter-office memo, with a grid on the outside to indicate who the contents are for and who they’re from.
On the From section, printed in precise block letters in blue pen, are the words OFFICE OF THE CFO.
Surprised, I glance up at Scotty.
“If you need to return it, just call down for a pickup. We’re here from six to six.” He waves and walks out.
I unwind the string from the butterfly clasp holding the envelope’s flap closed and pull out a single sheet of paper from within. On it is a note hand written on corporate letterhead.
Ms. Sanders,
Thank you for your diligence this week. I appreciate your excellent work and hope you’re happy in the position.
If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask me for it.
Yours,
Cole McCord
Flabbergasted, I sink into my desk chair and read the note over and over again, slowly shaking my head in disbelief.
Thank you? Appreciate? Yours?
Everything about the note is extraordinary, but the sign off is a mind fuck of colossal scope. Is it “Yours” as in a shortened version of yours truly, the professional, traditional sign off to a business communication? Or is the omission deliberate, meant to signify something more meaningful, as in…I’m yours?
He could’ve said “Sincerely.” He could’ve said “Regards.” He could’ve said “Fuck off into eternity, you devil-tongued harlot” but instead he said “Yours.”
He started off with thanks, appreciation, and hopes for my happiness, which are astonishing enough. He followed that up with an offer to assist with anything I need, along with a please instead of his typical barked order.
He also said I should ask him for whatever I need.
Not Simone.
Not HR.
Him.
I look up and around, half expecting to see him lurking around a corner, laughing at my shock, having a joke at my expense. But it’s half past five on a Friday, and the office is empty.
I stare at the letter again, but now I’m frowning. Why the hell would he send a hand-written letter in the first place? Is his email down? Is his phone broken? Did he want me to appreciate his penmanship? And I’m still tripping all over that mysterious “Yours.”
What the hell is going on?
Grabbing a blank piece of paper from the printer, I dash off a letter in response.
Mr. McCord,
Thank you for your thoughtful note. I appreciate your concern, your feedback on my performance, and also your offer for assistance.
Please be assured I have everything I need, and the position is to my satisfaction.
Sincerely,
Ms. Sanders
Then I call the mailroom and tell them I have an inter-office communication for the executive suite that needs to be picked up immediately.
Scotty shows up five minutes later. He takes the envelope and tips it to me on the way out.
I sit at my desk, wondering if I should stay or leave. What’s the protocol when you’re waiting to hear back on a mysterious missive sent by the guy you fucked like you were possessed one night at a hotel before you knew he’d be your boss?
What’s the time limit? Ten minutes? Ten years?
I don’t have to wait long, however, because Scotty returns mere moments after he left bearing the brown kraft envelope and whistling. He sets it on the edge of my desk.
“Hi again! Last run of the day. Should I wait?”
“I’m not sure yet. Can you hold on a second?”
“Course. I’ll be right outside. You let me know if you need me to take anything back up.”
“Thanks, Scotty.”
As he ambles out, I remove the sheet of paper from the envelope. This time, the note is much shorter. It’s written on the back of the one I sent.
Ms. Sanders,
I’m gratified to hear you’re happy in the position. Please note, however, that your signature is incorrect.
My signature? What is he talking about?
When I turn the paper over and find out, I gasp in horror.
I didn’t sign my name Ms. Sanders, as I thought I did.
I signed it Ms. McCord.
Because clearly, I’m the world’s biggest idiot with a gold medal for achievement in self-sabotage.
Like a teacher marking a failing grade on a student’s test, Cole circled the error in red pen. My embarrassment is a boiling cauldron filled with flesh-eating piranha that I dive into headfirst.
“Scotty?”
He pops his head around the corner of the door frame. “Yep?”
“I don’t have anything to send back.”
“Okay. Have a great weekend!”
I know my weekend won’t be great, it will be filled with regret, self-criticism, and enough whiskey to drown ten grown men, but I smile anyway. “Thanks. You too.”
The moment he’s gone, I dig my cell phone from my purse and text Chelsea that I need to meet her for a drink somewhere as soon as possible.
Four seconds later, she texts back the name of a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood I haven’t heard of, along with a MapQuest link.
I tell her to order me a drink if she arrives first and run out the door.
