Starting Over – Chapter Six

Chapter 6

As Tony walked off with the maintenance guys, I felt totally numb. My inner voice kept yelling at me, “how could you be so foolish, your 45 years old, you should know better.”

I considered myself to be pretty tough. I quickly deflated Ed when he got out of line when we were dating. Didn’t take anything from anybody. Lord knows since Dan died, I’ve had to deal with a lot of jerks.

I had such a good life with Dan, was it too much to expect to find that again? Maybe it was. Tony really fooled me, really hurt me. Since Dan died, Tony was the first man I felt such a strong attraction to. What a great actor! In my home he put on such a show of being vulnerable, sad stories about his childhood, his love for his daughter…Wow Julie, you fell for it hook, line and sinker. Miss Compassion – you wear it all over your sleeve.

Enough! I have to walk into that building in my business mode. I can’t show any emotion. I can imagine what they’re saying about me anyway. I’m new so they really don’t know me. He’s got the reputation of being a womanizer. Great combination for some nasty rumors.

My Mom always taught me to roll with the punches, pick myself up and look the world straight in the eye. Today, I would have to do just that.

As I entered the executive suite I heard Ellen Reilly say sarcastically to Barbara Polchek, “I wonder if she’ll grace this office with her presence today?”

“Well I know she was sick when she left, but can you believe that she’s been shacking up with Tony Raniere all week. I never would have figured Julie for that. She seemed like the PTA Mom type. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover. I wonder how long it will take Tony to dump her and add another notch to his belt. Since his divorce, it’s been one woman after another,” Barbara whispered. “Shh, here she comes.”

“Hi Julie, we missed you. You look great, how do you feel?” Ellen asked with her forced smile.

I guess it was too much to hope for that people didn’t realize that Tony stayed at my house. I could feel my back stiffen as Ellen spoke – my pride was taking a beating.

As I got to my desk, there was a lot of commotion in the executive suite. The CEO, Nick Potter, had just arrived. His driver was bringing in all his bags. His assistant, Miranda Jones made sure his office was ready, his special brew of coffee waiting, and she was scheduling meetings with the line of people that were standing at her desk to see Nick. When Nick and Miranda were in this office, everything came to life. Miranda looked to be about my age. She was a tall, attractive African-American who was charming but tough. She requested things with a smile but you better have them ready. That was a necessity in her job – you don’t keep the CEO waiting. I liked Miranda because she was a no nonsense person – she was direct and not a phony.

Speaking of phonies, I saw Ellen Reilly rounding the corner. This brightened my day – seeing her have to kiss Miranda’s ass.

“Miranda, you look wonderful. I missed you. So glad you’re back in the New Jersey office,” Ellen smiled sweetly.

“Oh hi Ellen,” Miranda said abruptly. “I need you to get the Chromax files for me. Need them in 10 minutes.”

Let the pissing contest begin. After all, in every job there is a hierarchy and we all knew Miranda was at the top. Barbara Polchek, who was a great source of information, told me that Miranda and Ellen hated each other.

“Good,” I thought, “now Ellen will be off my back.” Little did I know.

Being back in the work mode, I couldn’t let my thoughts wander to Tony. His actions came out of left field and took me by surprise. Okay, I was foolish by being honest with him. Hopefully, he wasn’t going to use that to make fun of me with the other guys. If he was, I was tough enough to handle it. I’d been through too much in my life to let anyone make me a victim. Time to email Joannie – I needed my friend now.

Okay, focus. Andrea is traveling back from Europe and you need to change her travel arrangements. Also, you need to change the arrangement of all her direct reports that are with her. Why do they always wait until the last minute to let you know? Good that I’m swamped – I don’t have time to think about anything else.

Lunch time came and went – no time to eat. Not even enough time to get to the bathroom. Typical for this type of job.

“Julie, it’s Andrea. I need you to go to Engineering and get the plans for the new site. Scan them and email them to me as soon as possible. We need to look at them while we’re waiting at the airport.”

Oh no! I can’t go down there and face him and those other goons. I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I had to do this, it was my job.

I went down to the first floor and saw Tony’s office. I approached his assistant Angela, who looked like she just got out of high school.

“Hi Angela, Andrea needs the floor plans for the new materials site. Would you be kind enough to get them from your boss. I’ll just wait here.”

“Sure, I’ll just be a minute,” Angela said as she walked into Tony’s office. She came out a minute later and said, “Mr. Raniere would like to see you in his office.”

My body stiffened and my face turned red. OK Tony, you want to play games with me – now you’ll see another side of Julie.

As I walked into his office he neither stood up nor looked up. “Please close the door behind you Julie.”

“I think the door is fine opened,” I said coldly.

Tony looked up and said, “this is business and when I ask you to close the door, I expect you to do it.”

I looked at him defiantly and closed the door.

“Tony get this straight. You are nothing to me, and after this morning you are dead to me. So you got your jollies by getting me to react to you, wow, big man. Well let me tell you something, you’ll never know what you lost!”

He handed me the plans and as I was about to leave he said, “Julie, this is for the best. You’ll thank me someday.”

I stared at him coldly and said, “That’s fine with me. I don’t tolerate phonies very well.”

He started to walk towards me, “Julie, I meant what I said…”

I put my hands up and barked, “just don’t say anything Tony. I won’t believe you anyway, and by the way, you report to my boss, so no phony bullsh*t about giving me orders. Be glad if I let you have contact with my boss because I can make your life very difficult.” I slammed the door closed again and stomped away.

I saw Jack Bryant, Tony’s best friend, coming towards me. I knew who he was because the other assistants described him as “Adonis” and the man coming toward me was too handsome to not be him, but today all men looked ugly to me.

“Hi Julie, my name is Jack Bryant. I’m one of your boss’s direct reports. I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself.”

“Hi Jack. Nice to meet you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you at the next staff meeting,” I said as I kept walking. He looked a little puzzled.

Okay, I survived my encounter with Tony. He looked shocked when I told him off. I guess he won’t think I’m Miss Sunshine anymore. For the first time that morning, I chuckled. He really didn’t know how tough I could be but he would soon be finding out.

“Julie, the floor plans.” Andrea wanted to know. “No problem Andrea – they’re on their way to you and all your flight arrangements are taken care of. You’re all set.”

“Thanks Julie, you’re the best. I’m glad we hired you. Talk to you later.”

As I got back to my desk I emailed Joannie and told her everything. Within two minutes my email light was flashing that I had a new message.

Joannie wrote in all caps: WHAT AN A**HOLE. MEN ARE PIGS! TALK TO YOU TONIGHT.

Joannie had no use for men except in the bed. I always wondered why she was so bitter but she never told me. Of course my message to her would only convince her that she was right.

What did she always say? “Dan was a fluke. Don’t expect to ever meet anyone like that again. Forget about love, use them the way I do and after you’re satisfied, just throw them away.”

I already regretted telling this to Joannie because I didn’t feel that way at all and now I would have to listen to her rantings. What I was really looking for was some softness, some sympathy.

The phone rang and I picked up the call, “Hi Mom.”

“Hi honey, what’s going on with this Tony? Your kids told me all about him.”

“It’s nothing Mom. We just both got sick,” I tried to say without showing emotion in my voice.

“Honey, something is wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”

My mother was a truly caring person who was not judgmental. I couldn’t help myself…I told her everything.

“Julie, you’re such a great person with so much love to give. That special man will come into your life again, one that can love you back in a healthy way. Tony sounds like he is damaged and maybe does not want to hurt you intentionally, but he can’t be any different. That being said, stay away from him because someone like that can strip you dry.”

Mom always saw the other side of the coin, and she always put things in the right perspective. She was such a gem.

“Mom, I love you so much. Thanks for always being the voice of reason.”

As I hung up, I thought how will I deal with Joannie tonight!