The Storm (Fairhope) (5 page)

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it landed in his junk mail.

“This is great.” I forced an enthusiastic smile, feeling for the crinkles on the sides of my eyes so I knew it would look real. “This will be helpful.”

“I’m used to servicing my customers when they need something. Figuring out our schedules and case load will be a work in progress. Things were working fine without a second territory manager, when I had an associate.” Scowling, he folded his arms. “But it is what it is.”

Okay, so he pretty much just told me he didn’t want a partner.
Fabulous.

I couldn’t help but think that whatever he was doing clearly was
not
working since we were at risk for losing two major accounts, especially with the new incentives Covington had in place. When it came to negotiating, our company played ball.

I opened my mouth to reply but was interrupted with Brooke’s nasty laugh.

“Jana, you have
not
changed a bit.” Brooke’s humorless smile turned sour before it reached her eyes. “You look the same and everything.”

You, Brooke, are still a nasty slut. You’re right, not much has changed.

“Remind me why you are here, Brooke?” I feigned my best innocent look.

She looked livid, and Jeff rapidly interjected, “Brooke wanted to welcome you to the area.” He smiled at her, his gaze lingering a bit too long for platonic sake. “I was thankful she volunteered to assist Collin as you learned your way around.”

I nodded at all the right moments as they flippantly chatted, slowly sipping my second tea in between deep breaths. I checked my mental files for a solid Zig Ziglar quote, and repeated it to myself, hoping to gain the motivation to be cooperative:
Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.
Yes, that was a good one.

I
hoped
this awkward meeting was not an indicator of what life at work was about to look like.

“You guys will figure out how to split up cases,” Jeff interjected. “First things first. We have to do something about Dr. Tynes. It’s embarrassing. He has plummeted and is clearly using our competitor. ”

Collin groaned, leaning back in his chair and gripping his coarse hands behind his large head. “C’mon, Jeff, he’s been sleeping with the Boston Scientific rep for years. We can’t give him that kind of service. Ridiculous.”

I bet Brooke would give him that kind of service,
I thought. Unless she’d undergone a miraculous moral makeover, she’d slept with more people in college than most had kissed. Back then, she was worse than a frat boy, hooking up with anyone who paid her attention. It was a good thing, too; Grace had dodged a couple of bullets during her highs thanks to Brooke’s big mouth.

Virginal-looking Brooke sat quietly, batting her ridiculously long eyelashes at Jeff every couple of minutes. How tragic that someone so gross was blessed with eyelashes like that. I quickly noticed that she did not offer one intelligent piece of information, or ask one single question throughout the whole meeting … she simply warmed her seat.

As they chatted incessantly, no one paused to fill me in on Dr. Tynes, whom I had never met, aside from his supposed relationship with the local Boston Scientific rep. If he was such an important customer, I needed to understand his story.

I’m invisible,
I thought after trying for the third time to ask a question. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Finally, Jeff and Collin shut up at the same time.

I recalled from my data review that Dr. Tynes was using virtually none of our implant, even though we were the preferred device on the account. “I analyzed his numbers,” I blurted out, making my preparation evident. “What do you think is going on?”

Collin looked at me like I was an idiot, folding his arms tightly. “I just told you. He’s effing the Boston Scientific rep.”

Take a deep breath, Jana.
“I know I’m the new kid here, but I see a negative trend, and it seems like we should get ahold of it before it snowballs into a major loss. What can we do, other than performing special favors?”

Nobody else thought my attempt at humor was funny.

Glaring at me, Collin leaned further back in his chair. I met his glare with a blank stare.

He rolled his eyes. I wanted to scream
,
but my hatred for conflict took over, and I settled for silently seething with frustration. Perhaps I should have taken up acting on the side. If this relationship did not improve, by the end of the quarter I would have enough practice to rival Julia Roberts or Kate Hudson.

Jeff’s reply came after an uncomfortable silence. “You are right, Jana. Whatever the reason for his downslide may be, we need to regain Dr. Tynes’s business. Collin, we do need to evaluate the situation more thoroughly.” He offered me an apologetic smile, but his eyes lingered elsewhere.

Was he staring at Brooke’s cleavage, which I guessed to be saline or plain ol’ false advertising, or was he just buzzed off into space? Goodness, she could nearly be his
daughter.

Brooke looked quite pleased at the obvious tension.

As we closed the meeting, I civilly asked Collin how I should prepare for the next week.

“I have a luncheon that you need to take care of for me. I have another event scheduled that day.” He pointed to a scribble in his planner.

I froze. “I—I can’t do that. I’m closing on my house at eleven that morning, and the movers are coming after that.” My house was at least thirty minutes from the hospital he was referring to.

“Well, you need to go.” He squinted at me with one bushy eyebrow raised. “It’s important. Make it happen.”

Brooke nodded in agreement, lowering her eyes to ignore my stare.

There was absolutely no way that luncheon was happening. I glanced at Jeff, hoping he would offer something in my defense. He ignored the situation and asked our waiter for the bill.

Why would you schedule two appointments at the same time on the same day?
That’s irresponsible.

“Enjoy your new home,” Collin said gruffly as Jeff got up to pay the bill. “Just don’t think about any kids. There’s no way you would make it in this job with kids.”

“Definitely not.” Brooke interjected her first words in over half an hour. “That’s why I’m not having any.”

“It just seems like most of the reps I see are young, cute females who don’t have kids…”
Sadie’s words trailed off in my memory.

I covered my anger with a tight smile over gritted teeth, promising to try to attend the lunch. I lingered a few feet behind as we left, watching Brooke lean into Jeff—almost seductively—with comments in a low voice, slyly glancing back at me as the door slammed behind them. I saw his arm slip around her waist casually as they disappeared from my sight.

MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT my “promotion” left me wallowing in a general sense of unease over the coming weeks. Granted, my new position was much more professionally rewarding. Now I was in charge, instead of basically being someone’s assistant. I felt viewed as a resource to my surgeons’ office and hospital staff, and found myself on a text message basis with key players within weeks. Andrew was there to congratulate me on every new discovery, patiently enduring my outbursts, sometimes sneaking in quiet comments about learning to handle the stress. I found myself snapping at him over the smallest things, nagging irritations that he always had but were all of a sudden intensely aggravating. His tracking mud in the house, accidentally throwing clean clothes in the dirty clothes hamper, and misplacing his keys made my skin crawl.

On a smoldering day in mid-July, my relationship with Collin started to cross the line from uncomfortable to unbearable. I couldn’t wipe the salty sweat off my wind-chapped skin fast enough, and my leather seats were glued to my clammy skin.

Once three o’clock hit, I pulled over and decided to ask Collin if he wanted to schedule a meeting to talk about our progress since I had started. His constant criticism was hard to endure, even for someone as thick-skinned as me. I hoped he would be in a better mood.

“A meeting is not necessary. Go follow-up with Dr. Hatten in his office. He had some issues during our last case.”

Hot-headed Dr. Hatten was a strong advocate for our product. He required appointments outside of cases, and Julianne, a coworker and friend in Biloxi, warned me to never disrespect his rules.

“I have an appointment next week. Shouldn’t I wait?”

“No,” he snapped. “We have to create access and opportunity for growth. Part of that job is taking risks and thinking outside the box.”

I did not consider breaking a customer’s rules—especially one who I had not earned a relationship with yet—to be thinking outside the box.

Explaining my position was useless. Collin refused to compromise.

An hour later, I scurried out of Dr. Hatten’s office in tears, feeling like an idiot for succumbing to peer pressure. I got access, all right. “I told Collin last week not to come by without an appointment.” He glared at me, his heavily wrinkled face curled into a snarl. “What do you think … the rules don’t apply to you?”

Collin
knew
stopping by without an appointment was unacceptable … and he basically forced me to do it anyway.

Reeling from Dr. Hatten’s unsettling words, I collapsed in the sweltering heat of the miserable July sun, the energy sucked out of me mentally and emotionally. Almost to the farthest part of our territory, I listened to Joyce Meyer teach about believing all things worked together for a reason. I prayed, unsure if God was listening, but I hoped so. Lately I’d been listening to a lot more Joyce than Jay-Z.

Are you there?
I could not feel the whisper.

Why did Collin have to be so hard to get along with? I sighed at the thought, knowing he would never find a more agreeable partner.

Chris was right. Collin Olivier was a real piece of work … who clearly wanted to run this show on his own.

I couldn’t forget Collin’s obnoxious comments about women and pregnancy, and Jeff’s blunt question the week before: “Are you planning on having children?” Were companies even allowed to ask that anymore?

Rain splattered on my window, and thunder roared threateningly. My windshield wipers squeaked annoyingly, and even on the fastest speed they still weren’t removing the water enough for me to see clearly. The frantic wipers reflected me, moving as fast as possible and struggling to keep up without a moment to clear the air. I fought back yawn after yawn, my head beginning to pound. Of course, I was out of Aleve, and there was no way in Hades I was getting out of my vehicle in this weather.

Numbly, I watched the rain that refused to calm down, reflecting on how often I unloaded on Andrew—almost every day—about my work-related stress, and even when I wasn’t talking about what was going on at work, I was thinking about it. He was a saint for not having an affair with some sunny blonde after putting up with my poisonous negativity.

This was
not
how I envisioned being a territory manager would be.

I needed the whisper to tell me what to do.

I whimpered like a little kid afraid of punished for her bad behavior. Maybe God was mad at me and Andrew for shacking up before we got married, or for the dozen or so times I let him talk me into smoking pot, or that one time we did ecstasy after my college graduation. That was actually Grace’s fault. Or that time we’d … no, never mind, I can’t even think about
that.

My unhappiness had to be screwing with my head.

Two days later, the shrill ring of my cell phone startled me as I pulled up to the hospital to prep for a case. I glanced at the screen to see the devil’s name flash across it. Wanting a positive, productive day, I debated answering. It was too early for this.

Sighing, I put on my big girl pants and hit the green button. Maybe if I got the beating over with, I could enjoy the remainder of my day. Or at least make it until lunch, at which time Grace would revive me with humorous stories about her dad’s latest girlfriend. “Hey, Collin!” I said brightly. “How are you?”

“Fine. Where are you?”

“I’m about to see Dr. Jackson in the hospital. Prepping for the case at ten.”