Going Down (16 page)

I never mentioned it after that and neither did she. Which was fine with me. The last thing I needed was for it to get around that I was banging the boss’s mistress.

Amy told me to go right in. When I entered the office, I found Al on the phone, doing his usual: playing darts. He signaled for me to come in and sit down. Once he got off the phone, I laid it out for him. Al smiled a satisfied smile. “Landing this account will be quite a feather in your cap.” He looked up at the totals board. “This should put you well out in front of Ben in the competition.”

I smiled my response.

Al told me to have Amy fill out the necessary paperwork for his signature and make reservations. I handed Al the authorization form. “You don’t disappoint, Zack. I knew that I was doing the right thing when I took a chance on a guy with ambition, but no experience, in this crazy game,” Al said as he signed the form. “Good luck out there.”

I left Al’s office and headed back to mine, handing Amy the authorization forms as I passed. “I wish I was going to California. I never get to go anywhere,” Amy whined.

“Maybe one day you will,” I said, and kept on walking. I went to my office closing the door behind me. I sat down at my desk to savor the moment. I was proud of what I had accomplished. I walked through the door eight years ago, a twenty-four-year-old Black man with no sales experience. Al saw something in me and cultivated it. Now I was on the threshold of being Sales Rep of the Year.

On the way home later that night, I decided that I could treat myself to something in celebration of my triumph. I pulled into the parking lot of Insurrection, my favorite place to buy porno flicks.

I had been there for a while, browsing the girl-on-girl selection, when I looked up and saw a very pretty woman come in the store. We made brief eye contact with one another. I mouthed the word “hello” and she smiled in response. She had a very pretty smile. She went straight for the adult toy section like she was on a mission. I moved to the aisle next to the one she was on, and watched her as she picked up and examined the variety of vibrators, rabbits, and bullets that were on the rack.

Now the question is, what do you say to a pretty woman at the adult specialty store? I’d never talked to anybody while I was there shopping. And to be honest, I’d never seen anybody talking to anybody. I mean, it’s not like I was about to walk up to somebody and say, “What did you think of this movie?”

Since I had no idea what to say, I contended myself to just watch and admire her beauty. Once I had gotten my eyes full, I returned to task at hand, which was picking out something new for my collection. I wandered back to the girl-on-girl area and wished that they had a better selection of flicks with Black women.

After I made my choice, Gang O’ Girls 2, mainly because Angel Eyes and Lola Lane were in it—
It was time me and Lola got back together—
and
Sistas
in Love, I went to the counter to check out. I was waiting in line behind this white guy who was buying a stack of movies, and asking a bunch of what I thought were stupid questions, the woman walked up behind me, holding whatever she was buying behind her back. I looked back at her and she smiled, so I decided to speak. “How are you?”

She laughed a little. “I’ll be all right,” she said with a smile. “What about you?”

“I’m good,” I said quickly and turned around.

When the white guy asked where something was in the store, the clerk came from behind the counter to show him where it was. I was more than surprised when the woman asked, “What you got there?” I held up my choice without speaking. “I think you’re gonna like that one.”

I turned around quickly. “You’ve seen it?”

“I’ve seen both of them,” she replied. What happened after that really surprised me, as she went on to tell me about some of her favorites, some of which coincidentally were some of mine. When the clerk came back and checked the man out, we continued our conversation while she checked me out. All the while I’m thinking,
This type of shit never happens
.

We kept talking while she eased the bullet she had selected on the counter. Once she paid for it, we left the store together. On the way to her car, I told her that I was a salesman on the verge of closing a big account, and this was a bit of a treat for myself. “Congratulations,” she said. “I hope it works out for you.”

She told me that she had recently moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles, and had been doing some work as a business consultant. “So if your company is looking for a freelance consultant, let me know.”

“I’ll do that,” I promised and gave her my card.

“Well, it was good talking to you.” She looked at the name on the card. “Zack. I’ll follow up with you in a week or so. Find out how your deal went.” She paused. “And to see how you liked Gang O’ Girls.”

“Do that,” I said and started to walk away, but stopped quickly. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Tyhedra Crawford.”

“That mutha fuckin’ Ivan is starting to get on my nerves, CJ.” I had just gotten though another nerve-racking day at
TMG
. It wasn’t the job, other than the usual little issues, things were running smooth. The problem was Ivan
DeVito
. Anal-retentive doesn’t begin to describe him. If it wasn’t for the money and fact that I didn’t have much else going on, I’d tell Ivan to have a coke and a smile and shove those reports up his ass. But I had to consider that my actions affected more than just me. I’d hired two people and telling them that they were fired wasn’t going to happen.

It’s the same thing
everyday
. “Chris, can I see you in my office. I’ve got a question about yesterday’s reports. It will only take a minute.” It never does. He would sit behind his desk, smugly and proceeds to dissect every line of every report. And it’s the same questions about the same thing
everyday
. I can see why my predecessor spent practically no time at all in the office. He knew, like I know now. I was fed up and I had to talk to somebody, so I called CJ to vent and to make sure that she was still planning meeting me at a networking event that I’d heard about.

CJ always was a good listener. She always had a positive spin to put on things. “Maybe it’s just me, but you’d think that after all this time he’d stop askin’ the same stupid questions.”

“Maybe he just wants to make sure he understands exactly what’s going on. He has people he has to report to. You don’t know what kind of changes they’re taking him through or how much grief he caught after the last disaster. So maybe you should cut him some slack.”

“Maybe I should get a couple of crack heads to fuck him up.”

“You don’t mean that and you know it.”

“Yeah, but the visual of Ivan, lying on the ground begging them to stop, does have a haunting pull on me. ‘Cause that’s how I feel when he’s beating me down. I sit there screaming to myself, Please, just let it end.” I laughed. It felt good to laugh about it. I had to laugh. The idea of homicide was becoming appealing.

“You need to stop.”

“You don’t know how bad it’s getting.”

“You just gotta find a better way of dealing with him, that’s all.”

“I know what I have to do.”

“No, Chris, hiring somebody to hurt him is not the answer.”

“I know that, CJ. I was only kidding about that.”

“That’s good to know. So what’s your plan?”

“I have the go on the offensive. Start taking the game to him. If he wanted to go over the reports daily, cool, but it would be on my terms. If I had to be there at seven, when Ivan got there, then that’s just the way it would have to be.”

“There you go. Now that sound like the Chris I know.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I needed to train someone to take over that responsibility. But which one, Tina or Kim?”

“I haven’t had that much dealing with either of them to really give you and intelligent answer,” CJ said.

“Actually, CJ, you would be perfect.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Why me?”

“Because whether you know it or not, you have Ivan wrapped around your little finger.”

“As much as I like to, Chris, right now I’m involved in the server conversion. I barely had time to do the work you got me doing. I’ll have more time once it’s over, but who knows when that would be.”

“Tina was getting good at the technical aspects of the job, but Ivan intimidated her too easily. She practically jumps out of her skin every time Ivan says anything to her.”

“I think that eliminates her, don’t you.”

“Yeah. So it was going be Kim, that or I’ll have to hire somebody and that wasn’t about to happen.”

“We can’t really afford to bring somebody in just go over reports with Ivan. And then there’s the time and expense it’s gonna take to get
who ever
you hire trained. I agree. There’s no way we’re going to hire somebody just to talk to Ivan.”

“I’m glad you agree, partner. Only problem is Kim is a real sistah, with a real sistah attitude. Don’t get me wrong, Kim’s cool, as long as you didn’t get on her nerves and I know Ivan will.”

“But maybe that’s what is needed here,” CJ said. “A real sistah, with a real sistah attitude. Somebody to put old Ivan in his place.”

“So it was settled, I’ll start bringing Kim up to speed on the reporting functions and involving her in the meetings.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I know you’re tired of hearing me vent, so what’s up with you? How are you and your boy doing? I hope you two are playing nice together.” I lied. CJ didn’t deserve what he was putting her through.

She paused a moment before she answered me. As if she was considering how honest she was going to be. “We’re alright.” The way she said it told me that there was more to it and she didn’t feel like going into it. I felt that it would be best if I didn’t push it. She would tell me when she was ready.

“So, are you still gonna met me tonight?”

“Sorry, Chris, I can’t make it. I’m gonna be here working on this project for a few more hours at least. I’ll call you when I’m done to see if you still there.”

“I’ll be glad when you can come on board full time.”

“Believe me, so will I. That’s the kind of event that I need to be at so we can bring in new business so I can effort to quit.”

“I’m just glad that I didn’t have to be the one to say it.”

“I know, I know, and as soon as this is over, I promise to get more engaged in the business.”

“I know you will. Call me when you’re done. If nothing else, maybe we get together and I’ll tell you how it went.”

“Sounds good,” CJ said and ended the call.

I hung up the phone and left the building, thinking about blowing off the networking event and calling Ebony. Last
nights
sex was off the chain as usual. But if I was going get business moving in a positive direction, I had to handle business before pleasure. And Ebony was definitely pleasure.

The event was being held at Marriott downtown and was better attended than I thought it would be. For the next hour, I wandered around, handing out my business card a getting a stack of other peoples. Engaging in several interesting conversations as people told me about their business and me telling people what I could do for them. I even had a few strong possibilities that I could follow up on.

I thought about CJ, she should have been there. Not only because of the questions only she would think to ask, and the answers that only she could give, but because I enjoyed her company. This was the type of thing that she and I could share that Manny had no knowledge of therefore he would have no part in. That would only bring her closer to me and drive the wedge deeper between them. I knew I was wrong for thinking that way about a married woman, but I couldn’t help myself.