A Life That Fits (15 page)

But one day I came home, frustrated by the
dullness of my work, and looked at the shelves and knew it was
time. Alex was gone. He wasn't coming back and even if he tried I
didn't want him. So why was I leaving the shelves in their awkward
and disorganized state? Every time I saw them I hated the way they
looked, so why not reclaim them?

I pulled everything out of the bookcases and
spent the evening arranging my books and CDs and DVDs in a more
attractive layout while also taking the top few shelves to display
my rapidly growing yarn collection where I could admire it but
Harrison couldn't reach it. I felt sad at times, when I saw a movie
Alex and I had enjoyed together or a CD he'd bought for me, but so
satisfied when I'd finished. Other than Harrison himself, the most
visible 'I am single' action I'd taken. It made me feel strong.

Buoyed by that, the next morning I decided to
take on Tina. She hadn't spoken to me since my departure, and I
felt it was high time I spoke
at
her. The old me would have
let it go, been too afraid to talk to her, so now I wanted to let
her know I knew what she'd done.

She didn't answer the email I sent in the
morning asking her to meet me for coffee, so I left work a little
early and camped out on a bench in front of her subway station.
When she approached, I stood up and said, "Hi there."

She jumped. "Hey! I didn't see you. How are
you? I hope the new job is everything you wanted."

Even now, she sounded sincere, and I didn't
want to believe she'd screwed me over intentionally. "It's going
great." I wouldn't admit I was bored with the work and annoyed by
how Loren left at ten to twelve and right at five o'clock as if
being three seconds late leaving were a crime. "I'm really enjoying
it."

"Good." She looked past me at the subway
entrance as if judging whether she could get around me and
escape.

I raised my chin. "And I hear you have a new
job too."

She blinked. "Not really. I'm still doing the
same things."

"Plus the conferences, right? You're in
charge of all of those now."

Her cheeks flushed. "Well, yeah. I guess Anna
and Gary figured I was the logical choice."

"After I was gone, you mean."

She kept a faintly confused look on her face
but her blush deepened and I knew that she
had
sabotaged me.
It hurt to realize it, but I took a deep breath and kept going.
"You know, Anna's not exactly discreet." She took a step back from
me but I pursued her. "She was telling Kathy in the coffee shop
that her employee quit just before she had to fire her. Supposedly,
this employee was pretending to be fine after a breakup but was
actually falling apart and her coworkers knew the difference and
told Anna. Weird, huh?"

She tried to answer but I didn't let her. My
voice grew louder as I went on, fueled by my anger at her betrayal,
and I didn't try to stop it. "It's especially weird because I
didn't talk to anyone but you. What do you think of that?"

She backed away a little more and bumped into
a streetlight post.

"
I
think you deliberately made me look
like a freak and then got me to quit so you could have my job. You
probably thought Anna and Gary would fire me earlier but you didn't
know how lazy they are, so once you found that out you set to work
convincing me to quit."

Tina tossed her hair back and moved toward
me. "You wanted to quit. You wanted a change. I just encouraged
you."

I laughed. "Don't you dare pretend you were
doing it for me. You were having little chats with Gary, weren't
you? Anna seemed doubtful, but she's always been the smart one.
Gary thinks with... well, if you undid a couple buttons like you
did at Cats he'd have fallen for anything you said."

"Leave my boobs out of this."

"Then leave them in your shirt for once.
Look, I know what you did." My anger began to fade and resignation
took its place. "I admit you're right that I wanted a change, but I
didn't want to leave my job. The reversing project was--"

"Oh, shut up about that! The reversing thing
and all that crap, it's about trying to be someone you're not. And
about clinging to Alex. Which is pathetic in itself. And there's no
way you'd have been able to handle those conferences. You'd have
reversed something at the worst possible time and made a mess of
things. I didn't lie to them. You
were
a mess. You still
are. So don't think I'll apologize or anything, because I was
right."

I looked into her eyes and recognized several
truths at once. She knew she was full of it, knew I'd have been
fine at the conferences. Some very tiny part of her felt guilty for
what she'd done. And she would never admit either of those
things.

I gave a single nod. "Fine. Enjoy the job you
stole from me. And don't talk to me again." I turned and walked
away into the crowd rushing into the subway. If she answered, I
didn't hear.

My personal life rolled along well for the
next week or so, with bellydance and two craft nights a week and
clarinet playing keeping me active and entertained. My job,
unfortunately, was nowhere near as interesting. Loren had kindly
given me as much in-depth analysis as he could, but since I was
still learning my new company's processes and helping him catch up
on the backlog he couldn't do much for me. I struggled on for a few
more days, but after a particularly tedious afternoon of grunt work
I sent an email.

Dear Anna and Gary,

I would like to speak with you about possibly
returning to your department. Could we please meet in the coffee
shop at three o'clock tomorrow?

Thank you,

Andrea

I would miss seeing Wendy all the time in the
office, and while I didn't like the work Loren gave me I liked him.
Maybe too much: I found myself thinking about him a lot, wondering
if he had a girlfriend and whether I might be his type. We got
along great at work, even with his clock-watching, and I felt
comfortable and relaxed with him. He might be a good choice if I
felt ready for a boyfriend. But I didn't. And I simply couldn't
stand the dullness of my job any longer.

I wasn't sure how Anna and Gary would react,
but I did think they'd want to find out what my new company was
like in case the management team decided to get rid of them, and
sure enough I got an answer an hour later that they would meet me
there.

At three the next day, the coffee shop's cash
registers were buzzing but hardly anyone stayed to drink or eat
since they had work to do. I picked a table in the back away from
the lines, and waited as calmly as I could until my former bosses
arrived.

"Hello, and thanks for coming," I said,
trying to sound stable and relaxed.

Anna returned my greeting, while Gary looked
at me as if I might have escaped from the zoo. Not a great sign.
Nonetheless, I went ahead.

"It's been brought to my attention that you
might have been given inaccurate information about me. I wanted to
correct that, and then discuss our current situation and what we
can do about it."

Gary, who'd been the inadvertent source of a
major leak to a newspaper a year ago, flinched, and Anna looked
over at him as if suspecting he'd done it again then said, "Brought
to your attention how?"

The temptation to say "You were overheard
gossiping about me in the coffee shop" and watch her struggle to
defend herself was huge but I restrained myself. "In a variety of
ways." True, since Wendy had overheard Anna and Tina had admitted
to lying about me. "But that's not as important as the information
itself. It was wrong. I
am
fine, and I
am
able to
handle anything I need to. And I'd like to come back."

"But you quit."

I nodded at Gary. "I did. I wasn't pleased
that you took the conference away from me, and that led me to move
on. I regret that, though, and I want to fix it."

Silence fell like a heavy blanket. I knew
from all the business-related reading I'd done over the years that
the first person to break such a silence usually lost, so I kept my
mouth shut though I nearly had to pinch my lips together to do it.
I wanted to justify myself, to blame Tina, to do anything and
everything to get out of the boring work I now had and back to what
I'd loved, but I didn't let the words out.

Anna spoke first, but in this case the old
adage didn't hold up. "So you're admitting you made a rash decision
and ended up regretting it? That's exactly what we were afraid
would happen at the conference."

Gary nodded, and I thought frantically about
how to correct what I'd said. I hadn't meant that. She made it
sound like I'd flounced out on a whim, which wasn't remotely the
case.

But before I could find anything to say, she
said, "No. You left, and we've replaced you with Tina, and that's
the way it's going to stay."

She pushed back her chair and Gary followed
suit as she added, "I'm glad you're feeling better, but I don't
think it's gone far enough. Take care, and good luck in your new
job."

*****

Orchestra rehearsal was a good distraction
that night, but once I got home I curled up on the couch with
Harrison and cried for the first time in ages. I didn't try to stop
myself, instead letting the tears out from deep down inside, and
when I finally settled I felt like I'd released a lot more than
just stress about my job.

With my emotions at a more even keel, I could
see more clearly. True, the new work wasn't what I'd wanted. But my
coworkers were wonderful. Wendy and I were steadily becoming closer
friends, I got along great with the others even though I didn't
work much with them, and Dana now teased me as much as she did
everyone else, which I took as a compliment and a sign I fit in.
And Loren was sweet and funny and made a frequent point of telling
Dana how well I worked.

Things could be a lot worse.

If I didn't fix my attitude, they'd
become
a lot worse. I'd mostly hid my grouchiness at work
but I knew I hadn't exactly put on the best face all the time, and
if I kept it up I'd offend my new coworkers and my insane but
surprisingly-easy-to-work-for boss. No more. Time to reverse the
situation, despite what Tina had said about that, and get myself in
gear to enjoy my job.

I started by making a list of ten things I
liked about working there. The first seven were easy, but after
naming Dana and all my coworkers I was stuck. I persevered, though,
and eventually managed to add 'Nicer office' to the list. Pleased,
I kept thinking about my days, and though it took me nearly half an
hour I discovered that I also liked how Dana encouraged us to spend
at least an hour a day learning about anything that interested us
that was even tangentially related to our jobs and that I
appreciated the overall camaraderie of the staff. DataSource had
never been as friendly a place to work, and from a distance I could
now see how much jockeying for position and back-stabbing there'd
been.

So I liked the people I was with and the
freedom to learn. I could build on that.

I went out for groceries then spent the
evening making my mother's amazing double-chocolate cookies. While
they baked, I hunted around on the Internet for web sites and books
that would help the others, and me, learn more, and even found
several great management books for Dana.

Armed with food and recommendations, I went
into the next morning's weekly staff meeting feeling better than I
had in a long time. The delighted reactions of my coworkers, and
Dana's appreciative response to the books I'd suggested, made me
feel great, and I set to work with more energy than since I'd
joined the company. I got tons done, and Loren was impressed with
my work and raved over my cookies until I laughingly told him to
stuff the rest in his mouth to shut him up, and when near the end
of the day Jay stuck his head into my cubicle and said, "We're
going out for a drink after work. Want to come?" I felt even
happier. My attitude had made all the difference.

When we all met at the elevator at the end of
the day, I was surprised that Loren wasn't in the group. He'd left
just a few minutes before, and when I thought about it I realized I
hadn't heard Jay ask him to come along.

Loren seemed so nice, and he definitely
worked hard so the others couldn't have disliked him for being a
slacker. Why hadn't he been invited?

The Monday after our drinks outing, which was
great fun, Wendy sent an email to the entire staff suggesting we
all go to Canada's Wonderland. I hadn't been to the amusement park
for years, so I wrote back immediately to say I'd go. To my
surprise Loren was the second to say yes. From the comments of the
next few responders, they were surprised too, but I was touched by
how happy they were that he'd be there and pleased they didn't
dislike him after all.

Dana wasn't able to make it, but insisted we
not reschedule since she wasn't much for amusement parks. Our other
coworker Tosca wasn't into them either, so in the end everyone else
in the department went a week later: me, Wendy, Loren, Jay, and two
women I'd barely seen other than at staff meetings, Lisa and
Debbie.

"That works," Wendy said as we waited on the
appointed day for the others to show up at the amusement park.
"With six of us, we can pair up on the rides. Nobody will have to
sit alone."

"Sounds good," I said, then felt annoyed with
myself when my heart sped up at the sight of Loren walking toward
us. Hours of working with him had obviously made his face, and
those stunning eyes, familiar to me, but seeing him out of context
made him look different. Had he always been that cute?

"Hey," he said when he reached us.