So Much for My Happy Ending (24 page)

I hated it when Blakely made herself seem superior to her peers, and I hated it more when the reasons she gave to support that attitude held up.

“But things have changed,” Blakely continued. “Now I think that you may need this promotion more than I need you.”

A little spark of anger ignited inside me and I struggled to keep it concealed. “I do want this promotion, Blakely, but if I don't get it I'm happy to continue to hone my skills while managing Sassy.”

Blakely shook her head, her eyes never leaving mine. “You won't last much longer on the sales floor. You're slipping, April, and it's only a matter of time before Liz decides to pull the rug out from under you.”

“Liz has been very happy with me lately,” I snapped.

“She's happy with your department and she's happy with Gigi, but with you?” Blakely raised an eyebrow. “Ever since you got engaged you've been noticeably distracted. I suppose that's normal, but the problem's gotten worse instead of better. Your heart's not in it. I'm not sure it ever really was, but you always managed to hide it well. Now it's obvious, particularly when your enthusiasm is held in comparison to Gigi's.”

“So this is about Gigi,” I said through gritted teeth. Fucking Napoleonette, someone ought to send the bitch to Corsica.

Blakely gave me another one of her cold smiles. “Gigi is the only reason you've made it this far without being spoken to.” She leaned forward. “You know, April, you're not as perceptive as you think you are.”

The spark had grown into a full-blown wildfire. “Oh, really?” I asked sweetly. “Well, I know why you fired Cherise.”

Now Blakely looked amused. “And why would that be?”

“Because she's black,” I shot back, and then gasped, immediately realizing how much that slip of the tongue was going to cost me. I had just completely screwed up any chance I had of being promoted. I briefly entertained the idea of backpedaling but it was hopeless. And if it was hopeless I might as well lay it all out on the table.

I sat up a little straighter and squared my shoulders. “You and I both know it's true, and please don't bother pointing out that Nina and I are minorities, too, because in your mind we're different. Unlike Nina and me, Cherise acts black. She peppers her speech with what I'm sure you consider ghetto slang,” I said, moving closer to the edge of my chair. “She has braids, and she's the first one to say something whenever she sees Dawson's security team resorting to racial profiling—which you probably think the company would be grateful for, considering that Dawson's has had to settle out of court over that issue God only knows how many times. But the point is she has a little too much flavor to fit into your lily-white view of the world, so you fired her and now you're trying to replace her with a female version of Colin Powell.”

Blakely leaned back in her chair as if considering what I had said. Finally she focused her attention on me again. Nothing in her appearance indicated that I had hit any kind of nerve or even fazed her. “If you're asking if I like Cherise personally, the answer is no.”

I hadn't been asking that or anything else but it was nice of her to confirm my assertions. Maybe Cherise and I could get together and file a nice little class action suit.

“However,” Blakely continued, “my decision to get rid of her had nothing to do with personal feelings. It's the way the people I work for feel about her that bothered me. An assistant's job is to make her immediate supervisor look good. Cherise can't do that because of the way she is. I suppose you would call that institutionalized racism, but it's much simpler than that. It's just politics.”

I felt my heart pick up the pace. I had an inkling that Blakely was on to something and that scared me.

Blakely waved away a small fly with her well-manicured hand. “There's a certain kind of person that the Dawson's powers that be respond to. There's a Dawson's personality-type spectrum. Gigi is on one end—the good end, and Cherise is on the other. In other words, Cherise is not one of us and she never will be.”

“And I am?” I asked. For some reason I didn't find the thought comforting.

“You could be. I've seen you fake it before and that's all that's really necessary. Wave an occasional pom-pom at an Appreciation Meeting and tell Liz that the new merchandise is ‘to die for' and you're in. It was a learned behavior for me but I've mastered it and, when necessary, I can cheer with the best of them. Every company has its own religion, so to speak. You either convert or you need to move on.”

The room went silent. I recognized that Blakely had asked me an unspoken question, but I wasn't sure how to respond. Could I convert? To some degree I already had, but not entirely, and as Blakely pointed out I was quickly losing my ability to fake it. Faking a personality type was a lot harder than faking an orgasm, although in this case the level of enthusiasm expected of me was about the same.

“I meant it when I said you have a good eye, April.” Blakely's voice had taken on a coaxing tone that I hadn't heard from her before. “You could be an asset to this office. You just need to put aside whatever has been distracting you and focus your energy on being the kind of person who succeeds here.”

I
had
been too wrapped up in the chaos going on in my own life. But that wasn't a good excuse, because Dawson's was supposed to be my life and it wasn't. I wasn't sure I wanted it to be.

“Think about it,” Blakely said. “If you can mold yourself to fit the company then I would be thrilled to offer you the job.”

“I'll think about it.” I rose to my feet and walked out of her office and down to the sales floor.

I stood in the middle of my department and tried to come to grips with what had just happened. Blakely basically told me that she was willing to give me what I wanted. But there was a price to pay, and it was terrifyingly high.

“A
re you kidding?” Allie squealed. “Take it! I would put on a pleated skirt and do backflips in a second if I thought it would get me into the buying office.”

She, Caleb and I had gone to our favorite North Beach bar and were currently rehashing the day's events over a round of lemon drops.

Caleb shot Allie a withering look. “You're not April.” He rubbed his finger against the sugar that was rimming his glass. “Allie told me earlier that Tad's income has increased. Is that right?”

I nodded. “That's the word on the street.”

Caleb watched a young Puerto Rican man in a marginally sheer shirt scoot past our table. “Are you sure that it's enough to cover all of Tad's…expenses?”

Allie gave him a funny look and I kicked him under the table. “This last pay hike has taken care of all that.” I still hadn't told Allie about all the financial stuff and I certainly wasn't prepared to get into it now. Besides, things were fine. Tad was still spending money like it grew on trees but apparently his company was a virtual orchard. Each one of his paychecks seemed to be a little bigger than the last and I often witnessed him write the checks to his various credit card companies so we weren't delinquent or anything. We weren't saving a lot but saving seemed to be a concept that was too complicated for most people under the age of thirty-five to grasp. In other words we were normal and that's all I ever asked for.

Caleb raised his glass and saluted the sheer-shirt guy who was now watching him from the bar. “In that case,” he said without taking his eyes off his latest object of desire, “why don't you quit Dawson's and go back to school for your Ph.D.?”

Allie looked at Caleb like he was crazy. “But she doesn't want to do that anymore, do you, April?”

I downed my drink quickly and waved the waiter over again. “It's not practical, Caleb,” I said after ordering my second drink. “Tad's business is really taking off now and if I truly wanted to be a curator of a major museum I'd have to be open to relocation…”

“You always say that,” Caleb said impatiently. “Perhaps you haven't noticed but there are a few museums in San Francisco. There's this little place called the MOMA, and perhaps you've heard of the De Young, and—the Legion of Honor. And those are just the more famous places.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I snapped. “What do you suggest I do? Do you think I should abandon a perfectly decent job at a company where I have a promising future in favor of handing over tens of thousands of dollars to some university? Oh, and the fun doesn't stop there…” I shook my head vehemently. “Getting into a Ph.D. program is one thing, staying in it is a whole different ball game. And if I did graduate, then what? I still could end up a docent at some second-rate museum in the boondocks. Thank you but I think I'll stick with the road well traveled.”

Allie's eyes widened. “Wait a minute, is that why you gave up on the curator thing? Because you don't believe in yourself?”

The waiter came back with my drink, along with another one for Allie and Caleb. Caleb shook his head. “We only ordered one drink.”

“The gentleman at the bar bought you this round,” the waiter said as he placed a glass in front of each of us.

We all turned toward the bar and the sheer-shirt guy waved. His eyes locked with Caleb's. A slow smile spread across Caleb's lips. “Allie, you talk some sense into April. I'm going to thank our new friend.”

Allie leaned forward as Caleb left our table. “Seriously, April, let's review the situation here. Tad's doing well, right?”

“I guess,” I hedged. “I need to figure out exactly how many more dollars a month this new client is going to mean to us.”

“But assuming that it's a decent increase, this would be the ideal time for you to go back to school!”

“It's not that simple.” I held out my fingers to check off my points of objection. “There are a lot of things you have to do before you get accepted into a Ph.D. program. I'd have to take the GRE, and many programs require you to speak another language….”

“But you speak French, right?”

I held up my cocktail. “Only after three martinis. Otherwise my French is completely incomprehensible.”

Allie wrinkled up her nose in wonder and amusement. “Are you serious?”

I finished the remains of my cocktail in one swig.
“Absolument.”

Allie giggled and slapped her hand on the table. “I love it. Well, would you be comfortable going into an interview drunk?”

“Would you be comfortable leaving a bar sober?”

“Point taken. Oh, I know!” She threw up her hands as if to imply that she had just had a major stroke of genius. “I went out with this marine once—he was Intelligence or something. Anyway, he was here for some summer language program that they had through Berkeley, five days a week, five hours a day of full immersion. If it's good enough for ‘the few and the proud' it's got to be good enough for the drunken wannabe bilinguals.”

I shook my head and then abruptly stopped when I realized that the objects in the room were beginning to blur together. “I can't do a five-day-a-week program…Besides, even if I did, three months isn't enough…”

“If you can speak when you're drunk then you can speak sober, too—you just need a little confidence and a refresher course. So quit Dawson's, get yourself some weekend volunteer work at the De Young or something and start preparing for graduate school.”

“I can't ask Tad to support me,” I mumbled. I had drunk those lemon drops way too fast.

“Why not? This is the big benefit of being married. Right now Tad is living his dreams so why shouldn't you get to live yours?”

Good question. I looked over at Caleb, who was now toying with sheer-shirt guy's buttons. I used to really enjoy picking up men. I liked that initial feeling of anticipation and animal attraction. I gave that up for marriage, which was fine, but there was supposed to be a trade-off and maybe this was it. And wasn't it just a month ago that Tad had tentatively suggested that I go back to school?

I felt the flutters of excitement creep inside my stomach. “I'm going to talk to Tad tonight and find out where we are financially.”

“And if finances are good?”

“Then you may have to find another person to complain to during Dawson's Appreciation Meetings.”

 

Tad was true to his word and didn't return home until close to 1:00 a.m. He did a little double take when he came in and found me awake and cross-legged on the couch doodling in my sketchbook.

“Why did you wait up?” he asked. I looked up at him in surprise. He sounded inexplicably defensive. Maybe he thought I had waited up so that I could question his latest success, which wasn't far from the truth. I would have to proceed carefully.

I put my paper and pencil down on the coffee table and stood up to give him a hug. “You smell like wine and pesto,” I commented as I kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah—” he returned my embrace but with little enthusiasm “—I ordered dinner from Calzones and you know how I can never eat Italian without a glass or two of Chianti.”

I pulled back a little. “They delivered a bottle of Chianti?” I asked. “Can they do that?”

“I went down the block and got a bottle at the liquor store.” He pushed me away. “What the hell is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

“No, I was just wondering.” I wasn't going to get in an argument over this. “Tad, I am just so excited about this new deal you landed.”

That seemed to soften him up. “This is just the beginning, too. I'm going to make a fortune, April.” He smiled and pulled his tie off, then wrapped it around his hand only to quickly unwrap it again. “Our future is going to be filled with all the things we ever wanted—new cars, boats, expensive jewelry for my beautiful wife.” He put a hand on the outside of my arms and gave me a gentle shake, no longer able to contain his mounting enthusiasm. “I'm telling you, in a few years the sky will be the limit, so start making your wish list now.”

This was my moment of opportunity. “I wish that I could go back to school.”

Tad's grip loosened as he stared at me in surprise.

“I know what I said last month,” I said quickly, “and I know it's a long shot. Berkeley has a good Ph.D. program but they require that candidates be fluent in one of the romance languages, which I'm not. They're offering a language course this summer, and if I just found a weekend sales job somewhere, or something that allowed me to start my shift late in the day, then I could take it.” I stopped long enough to catch my breath and continued, “Of course, even if I got my Ph.D. I might never land a curator job in the Bay Area. But I want you to know I wouldn't take a job in which we would have to relocate. Your business is here and that comes first—”

“Do it.”

I blinked. “I'm sorry, did you say—”

“Quit your job at Dawson's and go back to school. You can make it happen, April. You're the smartest, most talented woman I've ever met in my life and we don't need the money from Dawson's anymore.” Now he was grinning like the Cheshire cat. He walked over to the fireplace and then back to me. “Everything's going to be great. Better than great. All those people who've tried to hold us back, or didn't believe in us…we're going to show them, April. We're going to be on top and nothing can stop us.”

That sounded suspiciously like the line the villains in the Batman movies always used, but I pushed aside the thought and focused on the issue at hand. “This is a really big decision, Tad. If I tell Liz I'm quitting, then that's it. I might be able to get rehired as a salesperson but it will be years before they let me manage again.”

“April, listen to me!” He grabbed me by the shoulders. “You don't need to work there anymore!”

“Well, I wouldn't quit until I found a part-time job. I should be bringing in some kind of income just in case…”

I saw a dangerous cloud cross over Tad's face and I immediately amended my half-spoken sentence. “Just in case I got bored. I've been working since I was fifteen—longer if you count babysitting—and I wouldn't feel right if I wasn't making something.”

The cloud dissipated and he laughed gently. “Far be it from me to stand between you and your need for financial independence. Hey, I have an idea. My admin, Cathy, is going to China next week to adopt a little girl. She's been looking for someone to share her job responsibilities so that she can leave early two or three days a week. Why don't you take the job?”

“You want me to work for you?” I asked doubtfully.

“It wouldn't be more than fifteen hours a week,” he pointed out. “It's a fairly basic job, not exactly stimulating, but you'll be paid over twenty an hour and you'll have weekends off. That beats any retail-sales job you could line up.”

Weekends off! My God, those had to be the most exciting words any man had ever said to me. But I had to think about this clearly. “There's one possible problem.” I put my hand on his chest and pushed away from him so I was in a better position to meet his eyes. “If I took that job there's a very good chance that I would end up sleeping with the boss.”

Tad flashed me a wolfish grin. “I would hope so.”

“How would Eric and Sean feel about me working for you?”

“Eric's wife comes in every month to help us with filing and other stuff, so that won't be a problem.” He placed a lock of hair behind my ear. “Tomorrow I'll tell them that in a few weeks you'll be coming in to assist. Cathy will be thrilled. Just remember that, for you, work is a choice, not a necessity. This last deal that I cut guarantees we'll be making upward of one hundred and eighty thousand this year.”

I gasped. “Seriously?”

Tad nodded vigorously and gave me a loud kiss on the forehead. “Just wait, it will end up being more then ten times that, I promise. I'm telling you, I'm on top of my game.”

I felt a little faint. Was I really doing this? Could I chuck everything I had worked for at Dawson's in order to chase the impossible dream just because Tad said we could afford it? What if he was wrong? What if we didn't make anywhere near that much? Of course he had used the word
guarantee
. He wouldn't have said that if he didn't mean it, right? I needed to stay calm; I had to make sure that Tad understood what he was agreeing to. “Tad, this is going to require a lot of sacrifices on both our parts. I'm going to have even less free time than I do now, and even if you're making a lot of money we're going to have to budget more. We should be cutting down on the expensive nights out, and—”

Tad's lips had moved to my mouth. He kissed me and then gently bit my lower lip. “You worry too much. We'll do whatever we need to in order to make this happen. Everything will be great.” He worked his way to my shoulder. “You know, I was disappointed that I didn't have time to celebrate with you earlier,” he murmured between kisses. “Maybe I can make it up to you now?”