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She leans into my cubicle just enough to make me recoil from that god awful fragrance she dips herself in as well.
“Management got a memo of their own, Avery. Your job is safe… for now, but there’s nothing to stop me from recommending you get the slip if you don’t start pulling your weight around here,” she hisses. Making sure nobody else can hear her.
I look down at my desk, thinking how maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad being fired. At least I wouldn’t have her on my case every day.
But I need this job, and I can’t blow it by saying the wrong thing or scratching her dead plastic eyes out either.
Much as I’d like to.
“Mr. Jack Cole is set to make an appearance here himself any day now, any time. So how ‘bout you haul some of that ass you have so much of and put up that fuckin’ tree, huh? Make the place a little more festive.” She orders me.
“Uh… Ms. Fitzner?” Somebody asks her from behind, and in an instant, her whole demeanor changes, back to the little butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth princess act she uses around everyone.
Everyone except me.
“Which hole do you want that tree put up?” I murmur under my breath, not thinking she caught it.
“What did you say?” she challenges me, spinning around.
“I said, I’ll go and put the tree up, right now, Ms. Fitzner,” I tell her, screwing my face up when she finally turns hers away from me.
Jack Cole, eh?
Now I have a name to the face, at least. The words are a blur in his email.
All I can see is a god-like man come down to earth.
Maybe one I should practice screaming into my pillow for. Never hurts to have some sort of rehearsal for the real thing.
Somehow, I don’t even know how, I think Jack Cole and I are going to get on just swell.
If I ever get to meet him.Chapter TwoJack“Well I don’t care, David. I’ve given my own word and put up my stake in the company that I can turn it around and I will… I’m going down there myself to meet everyone. To meet the people who pay our salaries with their hard work.”
I slam the phone down, wishing it was on his head.
Damned board. Entitled, sniveling little-
“Mr. Cole? Your car’s waiting, Sir.”
“Oh, okay thanks,” I murmur, never remembering his name, but probably because of that look this secretary always gives me. The one I get again as I watch the elevator doors close.
Like I’m wearing nothing but donuts and he hasn’t eaten for a week, what the hell is wrong with people?
I’ve been at the helm twenty years, and we’ve underwritten plenty of insurers then gone on to take over running them.
But I like to do things differently, a little old fashioned. I like to keep everyone on and take it all to the next level. Kids these days wanna slice and dice anything, flip it in six months just to make a billion, and try to snatch a slice for themselves.
Not old Jack Cole, they don’t call me The Wizard for nothing.
“Uh, just here is fine thanks, I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
The driver gives me an uncertain look like he’ll be fired if he doesn’t drop me right out front instead of down a couple of streets.
Yes, I can actually walk a few blocks all by myself, thank you!
“Just be careful of the ice, Sir. That’s all,” he remarks, lowering his window and keeping the car crawling after me until I take a side street.
It is cold, and the ground is frozen but it is Christmas.
Burying my hands in my coat pockets, I pass the crowds and storefronts, almost losing my way until I feel something that makes me look up.
I remember the name of the building and make my way across the street, but there’s something else once I get there.
More of a feeling as I get closer.
The feeling of my new baby? A new company that I can watch bloom, something I can-
Holy-!
The large window of said building that I’m passing has what looks like a tree dancing in it.
I turn to look, moving a step back out of reflex. What the hell would a tree be doing-
Oh. Christmas.
But it’s not the tree, it’s whose under it that catches my eye, giving me an instant report on that feeling I’ve had getting closer.
It’s her.
Whoever she is, she’s fucking perfect.
Her ass is, anyway. It’s the first thing I can see under all that Fir tree as it shifts about amongst it, in time with her own body’s movements as she struggles to keep it upright.
I hear a low groan, feeling my own thickness starting to stiffen like a tree trunk, and realize it’s me.
I feel someone next to me, some woman and her small child, laughing. Pointing.
