“I didn’t mean to upset her,” I said.
There was really no point in trying to play dumb or waiting for Mom to tell me what she was angry about. The only new employee we’d had recently was Merry, and there was no questioning if I’d made her upset the day before when she surprised me in my office.
“But you didn’t mean to welcome her or make her feel like she’s a part of the team, either, did you?” Mom asked.
“She’s not really part of the team,” I pointed out. “She’s only worked here for what, thirty-six hours? I don’t think that really constitutes her being considered one of us.”
“I don’t care how long she’s worked here. She’s an employee, and as the owner of the company, and just a human being I raised to be a decent person, you should have treated her with more respect. I raised my sons to be good men, and that means being polite and respectful, even if you don’t particularly like the person. Which, by the way, I wouldn’t understand because I think she’s delightful.”
I stood there taking the tongue-lashing, knowing it bothered Mom when one of her sons didn’t live up to her vision for what a good man was supposed to be. Not that I always agreed with it, and definitely didn’t always live up to it. I wasn’t the kind to gush and fawn over a woman just because she was there. Especially when it came to my business. I didn’t think I was in any way rude or intolerable toward Merry. I didn’t gather up in a hug and invite her to Thanksgiving dinner, but I also didn’t yell at her and tell her I didn’t want her strolling into my office whenever she wanted to.
I also didn’t share with her any of the less than professional thoughts she made course through my head. That was the most difficult part of it.
“Maybe I wasn’t the most welcoming of new bosses,” I relented, “but even you have to admit it’s a bit annoying she went and pouted to my mother. That’s not exactly professional.”
“She didn’t come pouting to me,” Mom corrected. “I saw her immediately after her meeting with you, and she didn’t look very happy. But she said you were just fine. I didn’t hear anything different until she was talking on the phone over lunch and I overheard how you spoke to her.”
Of course, that did exactly what my mother wanted it to. It made me feel guilty. Indignation would almost be justified if she had gone and whined to my mother about me. Knowing she had tried to be nice about me, but my mother had heard her talking just made me feel worse.
“I will do my best to be nice or at least not too hard,” I promise. “And if I get a chance, I’ll apologize for whatever I may have done that upset her. But you do have to understand I was just trying to protect my company.”
“You don’t need to protect your company from a woman who’s trying to drag you kicking and screaming into the new century,” she said.
“Funny hearing that from my mother,” I pointed out.
“Funny isn’t exactly the word I would use,” she said. “Something for you to contemplate.”
She turned around with a sharp flip of her hair and stalked back to the office building. I couldn’t help but laugh. Even when Mom was angry and tough, she managed to amuse me. She was the definition of feisty, and the fact that her marriage to my father had lasted as long as it had was a testament to the characters of both of them. And to the possibility that real love could exist.
I went back to work, determined to bury myself and all the paperwork and messages I had skipped during my vacation, but my mind was elsewhere. Mom’s lecture had gotten to me. And quite possibly so had Merry’s enormous eyes and sexy smile. For the rest of the day, I ended up spending entirely too much time worrying about how I was going to make it up to the new social media darling.
Those thoughts were still distracting me from getting as much done as I wanted to, and soon nearly everyone else had left the complex. It wasn’t uncommon for me to still be working when everybody else was gone and most of the buildings were dark. But that night I was lost in my thoughts and couldn’t seem to figure out what to do next. I still hadn’t come up with any way to apologize and make my new employee feel better when my brother Vince made the decision about the end of the day for me.
Coming into my office with a giant bag of takeout, he effectively brought my workday to a close.