The BACHELORETTE Project (The Project: LESLEE Series) (7 page)

Mr. Thomas stands in front of me with a stone-cold look on his face. I can feel the
sweat pellets forming on my forehead
. I am so sure that I am in serious trouble now. I gulp.

“You are right, Leslee,
” he says then laughs. “I was wrong and now you know something that can ultimately destroy my life … but I won’t let you. So, I’m willing to compensate you with a free vacation starting now.”

This is what I get? A free vacation? I feel that I should be getting more. I just caught my boss doing dirty things with my co-worker. I feel that I deserve … a car or something. “Can I go now?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies, “just as soon as you clear out all your things from your desk.”

“What?” I ask, confused. “Why?”

“Bec
ause you are terminated, Leslee,
” he says with not an ounce of remorse on his face. “That ‘free vacation’ is actually a
permanent
vacation.”

“But, why?” I plead.

He walks behind his desk and pulls out his checkbook. “I am willing to give you a monetary compensation for your commitment to our firm, but other than that, there is nothing I can do for you.”  He clicks his pen and begins to write a check. “How much do you want?” he asks me.

I panic. I don’t want a monetary compensation! I just want my job! I want to be able to be independent and support my very severe designer habit!

“I don’t want your money, Mr. Thom
as,
” I reply. “I just want to keep my job. I won’t say anything to anyone.”

“Oh, that’s right, you won’t,” he tells me, “because if you do, I will turn it all around on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Blackmail, Leslee. That’s the name of the game. That’s the gamble, right?” He glares at me. “What I will do is set you up. I will say that you were fraudulent in your work, and then I will have proof of that. Then, if you decide to expose my and Ms. Curano’s affair, my defense will be that you were a disgruntled worker looking for any excuse for revenge.” He rises from his seat with his hands on the desk, still glaring me down as if he wants to kill me. I take a step back.

“You can’t do this to me,
” I tell him softly. “You shouldn’t and you know that, Mr. Thomas. Be a better person! We can put this all behind us.”

He smirks. “You know, there’s a reason why my firm is one of the best firms in Manhattan, in New York for that matter. It’s because I know what people want, and I also know how to get what I want.” He walks next to me and starts to touch the edges of my hair. I shiver. “I also know how to get ri
d of those who are in my way,” h
e whispers in my ear and then walks behind his desk. “Give me
a price and I’ll compensate you,
” he says. I shake my head.

“No,
” I tell him. “I’d rather leave with my dignity than with your dirty money. Besides, you could cancel that check as soon as I walk out the door.”

He shrugs.
“Then I guess you’ll never know,
” he says as he rips the check in half. I feel my bank account cry when he does it.
I could’ve had free money out of all of this!
“You have a half hour to clear out your stuff and if you refuse to leave, I will have security escort you out.” He sits back down and rummages through his papers without looking up. “You’re dismissed.”

A tear runs down my cheek as I exit his office. I can’t believe this! How could he?! How could he do this to me? After all the effort that I put in at this office. Five years! I put in five years at this office, and now it’s like I don’t even exist anymore.

“Leslee,” Minnie says as she walks up behind me. I turn around and she looks at me in concern. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asks.

“I was just fired.”

On the way home with my trusty brown office box by my side (
filled with
my pictures, a stapler, my emergency Snickers bar
…
more pictures), I think about … well, life, actually. Usually people say that if your professional life sucks, then more than likely your personal life is great and vice versa. It’s like this crazy balancing act and I don’t think that I’ve met one person that can do it all. Anyway, the obvious is clear. If one falters, the other one exceeds all boundaries victoriously. In other words, life can be complicated, and it sucks.

“I can’t believe it!” I tell Jay over my cell as I’m sitting in the backseat of what seems to be the bumpiest cab ride ever. “He fired me! That middle-aged, certified douchebag just canned me for
his
wrongdoing!”

“Wow!” Jay responds as if she’s as speechless as I am. “Well, can’t you sue him? He can’t just fire you because you caught him getting head from a whore.”

“He’s blackmailed me, BLACKMAILED ME!” I exclaim. “He said if I even
try
to sue him that he would turn it all around on me and make it seem like I was a bad worker. In fact, he said ‘fraudulent!’ He would put me in jail!
HE
WOULD PUT
ME
IN JAIL!”

“Calm do
wn. H
e wouldn’t put you in jail,
” she reassures me. “Maybe this is a good thing for you. It’ll be like a vacation or something. Collect your unemployment like the rest of the country, and then you can shop your blues away.”

I shake my head. “Do you not hear me, Jay?” I ask. “I LOST MY JOB! I have nothing now—career-wise! And I wish that people would stop saying it’s a
vacation
!”

“Okay, Leslee,
” she says. “I understand. I’m sorry that you lost your job, but I’m sure that you can find another one. Paralegals are needed everywhere.”

I roll my eyes. “Sure,
” I respond sarcastically. “Because it’s just so easy to find a job during a recession.”

“Alright, Leslee, I get it. Just be lucky that you have a place to live and
that your fiancé still has a job
. You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,
” I say as the cab driver pulls up to the front of my building.
             

“So what are you planning on doing now?” Jay asks me. I can’t help but to observe the Jimmy Choo shoes that are flying from the sky, hitting the sidewalk like a pair of bricks.
What in the world is going on in my building?

“Nothing really,
” I reply as I pay the taxi driver and climb out of the cab. “I plan on running myself a hot bath, then sorting out my overly complicated life.” I try to jiggle the cell phone on my ear as I struggle to carry
my brown box of doom
. A teal Marc Jacobs handbag shoots out of the sky and almost hits me in the leg. I look up and
swerve my body just in time
to
not
get completely plastered in the head with a Christian Louboutin shoe …
my
Christian Louboutin shoe! Is my apartment being robbed?

“Jay,
I’m gonna have to call you back,
” I say quickly and end the call. I take a few steps back into the street and look up to my window. My black Valentino dress is violently tossed out the window and floats itself to the sidewalk. I try to make out who is throwing my wardrobe out the window but I can’t tell from the street. I try to yell. “Hey, asshole! What the hell do you think you’re doing by throwing my stuff on the ground?!” Like a grenade, a small Louis Vuitton purse is thrown out the window and almost hits me in the head. I panic. “OK, I’m calling the cops, you crazy person!” I yell at the person in the window. Another Louis Vuitton purse is violently launched out of the window and hits me on the shoulder. ”That…is…
IT!”
I yell as I storm into the building. People are so crazy in the city. Who would even think of doing such a thing?

Afraid to even enter my own apartment, I clutch onto one of the glass frames of my brown box and slowly open the door. “Bitch!” I hear someone yell as they throw a pair of shoes towards me.
Victor!
“You ungrateful BITCH!”

“
Victor!” I yell, irritated and appalled to see my wardrobe scattered all over the floor of our apartment. “What are you doing?!”

His evil laugh echoes to the outside as he graciously throws my makeup and jewelry out the window. “If you don’t want to talk to me, fine!” he yells.
“Then you don’t have to live he
r
e
either!” I notice the Jack Daniel’s bottle in his hand as he takes a swig. He’s drunk … really, REALLY drunk.

“Victor!” I plead. “Knock it off! You’re being childish!” He tosses my limited edition Louis Vuitton handbag out the window and begins to laugh.
Can’t … be … civil … with … him.
Stay calm,
I think to myself.
Can’t stay calm. I’m about to explode!
“You jackass! That’s Louis Vuitton that you just threw out the window!” I scream, completely losing it at this point. I drop the glass frame on the floor and begin to gather my clothes as he continues to throw my things out the window. “Stop it!” I yell. “This is ridiculous!”

“You always want to act like you can do so much on your own!” he screams at me. “Well, now’s your chance!” he tells me as he throws another handbag at me. I gasp.

“That is a vintage Chanel!” I scream. “How dare you throw vintage Chanel?”

He glares at me then says, “Fuck your Chanel!” I lose it. I completely lose it. I lose my breath a
ll together and
the air in my lungs. How can he say something so cruel? It’s Chanel …
vintage
Chanel!

He picks up what seems like the rest of my clothing and worldly possessions and dumps them outside of the apartment door. “What the hell is your problem, Victor?!” I yell as I run out into the hallway to gather my things. “Have you gone
completely
crazy?!” 

“We are over!” he says and he shuts the door in aggression.

I begin to bang on the door in hope that he would open it and talk to me…like a normal person. “Victor, please open the door!” I yell. Silence. What just happened? I mean, really, what just happened? My wardrobe just scattered all over Park Avenue, my fiancé (well now
ex
-fiancé) yells at me for absolutely no good reason, and I’m left in the hallway to be embarrassed. I hadn’t noticed exactly how many of my neighbors literally opened their doors to watch this whole fiasco, but now I see that I have an audience, a diverse audience of Park Avenue mothers and their children, elderly people, a scary-looking group of
spoiled,
gothic teenagers … the list goes on and on, all watching my humiliation.

I quickly gather my things from the hallway, place them in my brown box and exit the building.  I collect all my scattered things on the sidewalk: my now-scratched Jimmy Choos, my dirty Valentino dress, my Louis Vuitton handbag that happened to land in a pile of dog poop on the sidewalk. This is an ultimate low.

I can’t just stand here on the sidewalk with my stuff,
I think to myself. Victor obviously wouldn’t let me in. He thinks I’m the devil for whatever reason. There’s only one person I want to call that will truly understand where I’m coming from and won’t judge me or make me feel bad considering I’ve lost my job and my fiancé in one day.

I begin to dial numbers
on my cell phone. “Hey, it’s me,
” I say. “Do you think that you can pick me up right now? I’m on the sidewalk with my stuff and I almost want to shoot myself.” Dramatic? Yes. A genuine feeling? Hell yes. I don’t think things can get any worse. In fact, I’m almost positive that things cannot get any worse … can they?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So he dumped you?” Jay asks and I just nod my head, attempting not to cry. It doesn’t work. My eyes are like waterfalls … pathetic, nonstop waterfalls. I shouldn’t be crying like this. Aren’t I supposed to be this overly strong, independent woman?
Stop crying, stop crying!

“I’m so confused because I don’t
remember
doing anything wrong,
” I sob as I pick up a chicken wing from my plate and take a depressing little nibble off of it. Jay is my savior today. She picked my wardrobe and me up from the curb of my street (well, my old street since I don’t live there anymore,
sniffle, sniffle
), equipped with trash bags to put all my stuff in, then took me to Mustang Sally’s. Apparently, the best source of heartbreak therapy includes a pint of Guinness, hot wings, and a New York Knicks game on a flat-screen television.

Jay takes a huge gulp of her beer and leans on the bar, eyes still glued to the TV. “You know, statistics show that men
suck,
” she says as she picks up a hot wing and smothers it in blue cheese. “Thank God I was born the lovely, sophisticated lesbian that I am. Men are way too complicated, plus they’re whiny, disgusting …” She puts the whole piece of chicken into her mouth and completely sucks the meat and blue cheese off the bone. “Childish, immature. Men, just … they just suck, OK? If they’re not wearing a Knicks jersey and running defensive on a basketball court then I’m really not that interested.” Jay downs the rest of her beer and begins to bang on the bar counter in an attempt to get the bartender’s attention. “Hey, Nick!” she yells to him. “Another pint for me, please?” One thing about Jay is that she’s loud, a bit crude, sometimes obnoxious, but she can wear designer clothes more fiercely than any supermodel. What I envy about Jay is that she’s so comfortable in her own skin that it’s almost sickening. Granted, she has no flaws, but if she did, she wouldn’t care. She’s never concerned about the opinions of others. A lot of women aren’t like her. She’s just so … individual. I sometimes wish I could be like her.