Chapter Three
I’ve put the guys who work in the sales department into three categories: DAL – divorced and looking, DAG – divorced and gave up, and MAH – Married and hanging on by a thread. International sales (or I-sales to insiders) sounds cool and sexy and from the outside might look cool and sexy, but it’s a lifestyle that is hell on a marriage.
Right now my boss, Bob, is in Dubai. He’s there at least once or twice a month and stays a few days each time. After three days home he’ll be flying to Hong Kong, then Melbourne, then Seoul before coming home for another three days. He’s married, again. Kara is wife number three. He and I are working together to try to hold on to this one.
I have ten different apps that I use to keep track of Bob, his travel schedule, his contacts, his expenses, and his families and almost all are open this morning. He’s on a follow up sales call with a Prince so he had to fly commercial to Dubai. He has enough frequent flyer miles to buy out first class but that doesn’t immunize him from delays and missed connections. I’m on line with him trying to find a work around for storms keeping him stranded in Zurich. Kara definitely wants him home this weekend. She and Bob are both hammer texting me and each other. This is not the first time I’ve felt like I was standing in a room with them, watching them have a very private argument.
I’m refreshing the Swiss weather site on my main computer screen when Ted Kircher leans in, carrying a heaping plate of my roast beef. He holds it up and gives me thumbs up and I smile briefly at him. I set the carved beef out in the conference room with some bread and condiments when I got in this morning and sent a blast email to everyone in I-Sales to come and get it. None of the DALs, like Ted, will touch the bread. Eating out constantly on the road is hell on a diet so all the salesmen still looking for love have sworn off carbs. DAGs will take the bread and make a sandwich with the beef and mayo then add a large slice of the pecan pie. MAHs are rarely in the office. If they aren’t on the road they are at home squeezing in all the family time they can.
Ted may be hitting on me but it’s hard to tell. Salesmen who sell multi-million dollar jets are constantly on—happy, joking, overly upbeat, super friendly. I could take it all as coming on to me, but I chose not to. (Refer to rule number one at work.) If I meet them on their level it all stays completely artificial and friendly from a distance. I walk a fine line between looking accessible and being inaccessible.
I book Bob on the four p.m. train from Zurich to Geneva where he can meet up with Colin, another JetStream sales rep, who is there with one of our planes working on a sale. The storms will have moved east of Switzerland by then and Bob can catch a ride home with Colin and be back in Savannah by tomorrow morning. I text him the details.
Limo driver on way to frequent flyer club now.
First class train tic in email. Dinner rez on train(carb free).
Limo will b waiting in Geneva to get to airport.
Colin will hold flight for you.
And soothe Kara’s ruffled feathers:
Bob in Savannah office at 6:48 a.m.
Should b home by 8 a.m.
Have a gr8 wknd.
Bob replies:
Perfect, as always. Thank you from Kara and me.
Kara doesn’t reply but I’m not surprised. She and Bob have been married for almost a year but she is still getting used to the fact that, for better or worse, I’m part of their marriage. If she wants Bob-time she has to go through me because I control his master schedule. I get her as much as I can, but seriously, he has to work too.
As I spin in my chair to take a much-needed pee break I face Cat, another I-Sales secretary. She’s holding the tray with what’s left of my roast beef and sandwich fixings and the empty pie plate. She drops them in the center of my desk right in front of me. “Your stuff was in the conference room. I need it.”
Why does she always make such a big deal out of everything? This girl feeds on drama which I do not have the time or patience for. “Thank you Cat, now I don’t have to go get these later.” I smile as I stand and push past her, her cue that this conversation is over. Technically, as the secretary to the senior sales rep I am the senior secretary, but it’s not a power I use very often. Being a MAH, Bob is rarely in the office so he doesn’t need the facilities here, which means I don’t have to join in the reindeer games of fighting for conference rooms and supplies.
The latest Bob-crisis has kept my mind occupied all morning but now the remains of my seduction dinner, strewn across my desk, are taking me right back to last night. Before I lose it and go all pity-party at work I gather it up and head to the kitchen area and the big trash bins. Screw being efficient and thrifty, I’m throwing it all out. Screw saving my plastic serving pieces for another day. Screw my stupid need to have a plan B and not waste my perfect passion meal—a lot of good all that planning and preparing did me. I channel my hurt into anger and take it out on the serving platters, slamming them into the wide plastic bin. It felt great and I’m tempted to clean outdated lunches from the fridge for another excuse to throw things. But I stop myself. Ranting at work is unprofessional and beneath me.
As I round the corner near the ladies room, I stop dead in my tracks. There’s a guy at the end of the hall in a maintenance uniform. The odds of it being Danny are one in a thousand, but my heart thuds anyway as I strain to look for his wide-legged, hands-on-hips, Danny-stance. This guy’s too tall and lanky. Not him. I want to write my racing pulse off to anger, but hell, it looks like my heart and hormones didn’t get the memo that my Danny-stalking days are over.
Then my traitor brain joins them, seeing the perfect excuse to call Darlene, my dad’s old secretary to find out why one of her maintenance guys is in I-sales this morning. After all, if one of the sales planes is broken I need to know. I mean, this could affect Bob getting home. Of course, she would also know if Danny has switched shifts…
“It’s one of the new guys.” Darlene informs me. “His name’s Mark. Why, you likie?”
“No, I just wondered why he’s hanging out it I-Sales.”
“3-2-B is having landing gear trouble in Morocco. He worked on it last so they called him in to consult with the repair crew there.”
“Oh,” is the most enthusiastic reply I can muster. If it doesn’t affect me or Bob, I let it fall off my radar. I’m also a little occupied trying to figure out clever way to turn the conversation to Danny without being obvious.
Darlene knows me too well. My silence is a giveaway. “He’s here. You want to talk to him or about him?”
“About him,” I answer. I give her the cliff notes version of last night.
“He’s still day shift, sweetie. I have no idea why he would tell you that.” She pauses for my reply but I’m too upset to offer one. “I’ve got about five hundred other single guys down here. You sure you don’t want one of them? Give me your shopping list and I’ll send one your way.”
I chuckle a little at the idea because I know she’s only half kidding. Her desk is the social center of the maintenance hangars. She knows every man and woman who works down there; who’s single, who’s not and wants to be, and who’s about to be. “I want one that’s 5’11, medium brown hair with soulful light brown eyes, full lips, great body, can’t tell a joke to save his life, polite, punctual, kind…”
Darlene lets out a frustrated breath. “Only got one of those and it looks like he’s taken by the ghost of wife past. As far as I know he still hasn’t gone on a date since she left.” This is going nowhere so she changes the subject. “How’s your dad?”
“Fine,” I say, “He and Carla went to the casino last week and he won two grand.”
“Good for him. Now there’s another one who I thought would never date again. I still can’t believe your dad left here to get remarried.”
“I know. I was kind of shocked when he signed up for that dating site, then bam, he meets Carla the first week.”
“He’s one of the good ones. She saw a good thing and grabbed him up.”
I sigh, “He is, I know, he’s just too overprotective and meddlesome when it comes to me.”
“That’s just love, Big Mike style.” I smile and roll my eyes at her too-true statement. My dad is a bit of a legend on the maintenance floor. He was known for helping people out; giving guys their first job out of college or the military, setting them straight when they screwed up at work or at home. He was the mentor of maintenance. He gave Danny his first job when he was fresh out of the Navy and even though my dad is fifteen years older than him they just clicked and became best friends.
“Speaking of love, yours just walked by my window with a pissed off scowl on his face. It seems like he always looks that way since your dad left.”
“I know! I think he’s lonely. He needs me Darlene.”
“Maybe he does, but do you need him? I get the hot part, sweetie. Don’t think I don’t stop and take in the view of him working sometimes, but, I mean, don’t you want someone closer to your age?”
“He’s only seven and a half years older than me and no, I don’t. I feel like I’m babysitting when I date guys my own age.”
“Yeah, I bet you do,” She concedes. “You grew up fast after your mom died.”
My phone buzzes and I reach to shut it off so I can continue my conversation with Darlene but it’s Bob. “Bob’s calling. I need to get this. He’s trapped in Switzerland and Kara wants him home now.”
“And you are the one person who can make that happen.”
“Or die trying. Thanks for the Danny update.” I hang up quickly and pick up Bob’s call. It’s nothing urgent; he’s on the train to Geneva and wants to go over next week’s meeting schedule so he can stay off his phone once he gets home. Kara’s threatened to toss it in their pool more than once. I finish his updates then straighten up my desk to make room for my lunch.
I eat alone a lot and often at my desk. Staying several steps ahead of Bob takes extra effort. It took me six years to work my way from being a receptionist to one of the top secretarial positions in the company. I did it by working my ass off, doing extra work, doing more than anyone could or would ask. I’ve been with Bob for a little over a year and I’m finally getting my stride. I know all his likes and dislikes. I know how to get him in and out of all his most frequent sales stops as quickly as possible while maintaining his maximum comfort. I know his diet, seat preferences, shirt size and favorite tailors.
I watch the other I-sales secretaries leave together to go out to lunch. I can’t say I want to go with them. Office gossip wears me out. But maybe I’ve become too reclusive lately. Maybe I’m the one who is lonely and that’s why I can’t seem to let go of my absurd crush on Danny. I’m resolved to take action now and I text Dom.
What r we going to b for Halloween this year?
Halloween has always been our thing. Ever since we were little, we would coordinate our costumes and trick-or-treat together. We graduated from candy to liquor prizes in high school but we’ve always gone out as a team and entered costume contests. I bailed on her the past two years because of work stuff but I know how to fix that this year. I look up charity Halloween balls in the area while I wait for Dom’s reply. Bingo, there is one at the art museum. I copy the link and send it to Kara along with a few very cool, expensive costume ideas for her and Bob. Calendar cleared.