The F-Word

I tell myself to calm down.

Then I read the note again.

I must have misunderstood it the first time. I see what my PA wrote, but is it true? Maybe she left because she can’t face me after what happened between us this weekend. She’s naïve. She doesn’t know how to handle the aftermath of a simple sexual encounter.

Of a what? a little voice inside me says, but I ignore it.

She doesn’t know how to deal with what happened and now she’s worried that we won’t be able to continue our relationship in a businesslike manner, which is patently ridiculous. Yes, I was upset yesterday. Yes, I couldn’t get the images out of my mind. Bailey in my arms. Bailey opening her thighs to me. Bailey writhing in ecstasy as I suck her nipples and, dammit, Bailey sitting in that big bed with me, eating pizza and laughing and talking about everything and anything…

Now I’m more than angry. I’m totally pissed.

And it’s all her fault. She was too embarrassed to see me again. Okay. I understand that. But to walk away and leave me in the lurch…

To walk away and leave me a note that never even hints at what we did this weekend, what we shared…

I kick the chair again, never mind the sharp pain that radiates through my foot.

“Who gives a crap about that?” I yell.

I guess I yell pretty loud because I hear a clearing of the throat in the silence that follows and when I turn around, I see a woman standing in the doorway to my office. I’ve never seen her before and from the look on her face, she’s about to scurry away and make sure I never see her again. She’s wearing a black suit and carrying a black briefcase and I know instantly she is the temp Bailey hired. Hey, I am nothing if not a brilliant observer.

“Sorry,” she says. “I, ah, I should have waited…”

“No.” I flash what I hope like hell is a smile. “Please. Come in.” I hold out my hand. “I’m Matt O’Malley. And you’re…” Her name escapes me. “The temp. With the B.A. and the M.A.”

She nods. And shakes my hand. She even smiles. “Eleanor Griffith. Did I, um, did I show up too early? I can come by later, if you prefer.”

I glance at my watch. It’s five minutes before nine.

“No, this is fine. I’m just—I’m a little pressured this morning, that’s all. Your predecessor’s departure was kind of sudden.”

“I know. She told me about that job offer, how her new employer insisted she show up in Minneapolis tomorrow at the latest or—”

“Minneapolis?”

“Right.” Eleanor Griffith looks around her. “I assume that desk just outside your door is mine.”

“Right. Yes.” I stare at her. “Are you sure she said Minneapolis?”

“Positive, sir.” She pauses. “I’d like to get straight to work, Mr. O’Malley, if that’s all right with—”

“That’s impossible. She can’t move out of the city.”

My temp raises her eyebrows. “Well,” she says cautiously, “I don’t really know if she can or if she can’t. I mean—”

“Leaving New York is not acceptable.”

Eleanor Griffith takes a step back. “Is she—is she on probation? Because I once worked for a gentleman who, it turned out, was on—”

“I forbid it! I forbid her to move! And, Jesus H. Christ, to Minneapolis? Have you ever been there? Hot summers. Endless winters. Glassed-in walkways between buildings so you don’t melt in the summer or turn into Frosty the Snowman in the winter as you go from one place to another.”

The temp takes a couple more steps back. “I believe they’re called skyways, sir.”

“Who cares what they’re called? She won’t have the good sense to use them. She’ll take the streets and she’ll freeze to death. Or she’ll turn into a puddle of sweat because she’ll wear those hideous suits rather than let anyone see how beautiful she really is.”

Eleanor Griffith spins on her heel and hurries away. “Cancel all my appointments,” I yell after her, but she’s turned the corner and she’s gone.

The rest of my staff, however, is all here, standing at the end of the hall when I reach it, and they’re staring at me.